She Will Build Him a City (29 page)

She walks away from this house, too, her feet leading her to a thin house which is empty, where there are things old and broken. It’s here that she meets a man called Holstius. She says, I have seen you somewhere at a railway station or in a hotel.

Possibly, he says.

He seems to give voice to her thoughts, she can touch him if she wishes.

She begins to live here and what happens later is something I will get you to read. To find out what happens to Theodora Goodman, who is all alone.

Until:

They will come for you soon, with every sign of the greatest kindness, they will give you warm drinks, simple, nourishing food, and encourage you to relax in a white room and tell your life.

MAN

Freeze Frame

He will take care of Taxi Driver.

That’s what Balloon Girl says he should do, that’s why Balloon Girl helps, she makes the entire world stop so that he is the only one who can move, so that the crowds don’t slow him down.

~

That’s why when he stands on the steps of The Leela and waits for the parking attendant to get his car, he realises everything is still and he’s walked into a painting whose canvas is limitless, stretches from sky to sky, glass to glass. Behind him and in front, above and below.

All movement has stopped.

The giant revolving door is an unmoving blur wrapped around three women, one in a sari, one in a black dress, another in something blue. And one man in plain trousers and shirt.All four, lit by yellow lamplight. Like insects caught in amber.

Two guards crouch holding metal detectors like boys at play hold paddles. In front, two guests stand, their arms outstretched, following orders in a drill. In a corner, on the pavement, someone cups a frozen flame to light a cigarette. The fountain in the lobby has stopped in mid-air, its water now shards of glass undecided, unsure if – and when – will they fall.

All hotel staff wear smiling masks.

A baby, in her nanny’s lap, sitting on a Queen Anne chair, wears a weeping mask.

A red leather suitcase falls, is held up by air.

Two young women stare into each other’s phones, their peach faces lit by screen blue, their four shoulders bare. One wears heels, her left shoe inches above the ground.

There is a wedding reception in the hotel. One wall is decked with flowers, three petals have fallen off, they dot the air in points of an invisible triangle over the heads of an overweight, almost obese, couple, their fingers sparkling with jewelled rings.

Gift boxes scatter in flecks of coloured paint. Little boys in suits lean against the escalator like dolls propped up after they have fallen. Little girls show their small midriffs in small adult clothes.

He closes his eyes.

He wants to undress the little girls, pluck the sequins from their hair, wash away the make-up and polish from their faces, lick them clean, restore them to childhood.

At the bakery at one end of the lobby, a child’s face is pressed against its glass display, a cone in one hand, an ice-cream drop on his lower lip. Far away, beyond the steps, across the driveway into the hotel, over the heads of people, he can see the row of cars waiting to enter. Bumper to bumper, each one waits for Security. The first has its trunk open, on which streetlight slashes a yellow line. A hulking, black Mitsubishi Pajero sits in the hotel driveway, its doors open, three men out, three men in, all frozen in mid-step.

Lobby clocks stop measuring time in New York, London, Paris, Dubai, Delhi, Singapore, Beijing, Hong Kong and Sydney.

He raises his hand, just an inch or so, to check if he can move.

Yes, he can. So how does that affect everything else?

No, it doesn’t, because thanks to Balloon Girl, he isn’t part of this painting.

~

So he lets his fingers rise, drop, rise again, he draws lines in the air.

He takes a step forward, he takes a step back. Nothing moves except him.

No one’s looking at him, no one looks at him as he jumps, like a child on a trampoline. He falls, he jumps again, flails his arms, he shouts, the painting goes on. No one listens, no one sees.

The next time he jumps, he sees his car. It’s the fourth one.

He begins to walk towards it. On the way, he passes the Mitsubishi Pajero, the driver has a frightened look on his face.

~

There is no one in his car. His keys are in the ignition. The parking attendant must have stepped out before all this happened. He gets in, he smells the freshness from his clothes, the shampoo in his hair, the bath gel he used. He and his car are the only things moving through this painting. He turns the wipers on, even they move, he sprays his windshield with water and soap, the dirt clears, he can see the evening sky through the glass now, in vivid black and blue paint. In strokes and brushes.

Oil, watercolour on canvas, on paper, charcoal sketch, line drawing, everything mixed, still.

Taxi Driver will be at the stand, Balloon Girl says, he is waiting for his night shift to begin.

~

He is on the highway now, Balloon Girl loves him so much she has ensured he keeps moving in his lane. Uninterrupted, no one behind him, no one in front, the rest of the traffic stationary, like it was this morning, the painting goes on. The highway itself is pencil-black, he can see each individual line in the shade, cross-hatches, lanes marked as white broken lines. The trees on the divider are still, green paint of their leaves drips down the wire mesh put to prevent people from walking across the highway.

He steps on the gas, he is driving at 80 km per hour, standard speed, he goes up to 85, the lane is clear, it has opened up only for him, he is at 90 now, moving towards 100, 110, 120, that’s the speed on the autobahn, he can see the exit sign coming up, ‘Airport, Dwarka, Dhaula Kuan, Vasant Vihar’, the letters clearly written by hand, the arrow a white smudge on the green.

He will take the Dhaula Kuan exit, turn on Ring Road, go all the way to AIIMS, no crowd, no nothing, he should be there in less than twenty minutes. Balloon Girl will be there to help him, he wants to listen to some music, turn the dashboard TV on, but just when he leans to his left to reach the switch, there it is.

Right in front, a huge, hulking shadow in the sky, black on black.

He slows down to 75, 65, 60, down to 40 now, no, it’s not black, it’s white, he needs to stop, there is no one in his lane.

He gets out of the car and looks up, looks in front to see a giant Boeing 747, Lufthansa, coming in to land, from Munich, maybe Frankfurt, the plane stationary in the air. It spans both sides of the highway, its nose pointed towards the runway less than a kilometre above. He can see the aircraft’s windows lit by warm yellow cabin light, faces looking down on him, each one painted with so much care and beauty. The plane is so close he wants to climb up onto his car and touch its undercarriage, feel its wheels, the air sliced by the turbine blades.

But he decides against it.

No, there should be no disturbing this stillness.

He cannot digress, he needs to see Taxi Driver. So he continues to drive straight ahead.

Unhindered, undisturbed, the world standing still, he is guided by Balloon Girl, his only compass.

CHILD

Blood River

Kalyani is in the centre of the room, she coughs blood. It stains her dress, drips down her legs to the floor where it fans into a red-brown delta, runs into the cement cracks before it begins, right in front of her eyes, to collect, like rain water rising, lapping against the edge where the floor meets the walls. She covers her mouth with her palm to dam the flow but her blood breaches the embankment her fingers make to gush through, gurgling, sputtering, so thick so fast that all she can do is to give herself up to this raging torrent from within. She stands, her arms flopped by her side, her chest hurting so hard she is afraid it will split her open. She wants to close her eyes but she finds she cannot because it seems someone has removed her eyelids and when she tries to blink, she does not feel the familiar touch of eyelash against eyelash, the lid gently shutting down, like a curtain, over the eye. Instead, it’s as if someone wants her to keep looking. At her blood as it now covers the entire floor, begins to creep up the walls. It slips through the crack under the tarpaulin sheet onto the verandah outside, spills over, begins to flow into the street.

~

‘May I speak to Mrs Usha Chopra?’

‘Mrs Chopra speaking.’

‘This is Kalyani, Kalyani Das.’

‘Kalyani, how have you been? Such a long time, I thought you had forgotten all of us, how’s your new job?’

‘I am not well, Mrs Chopra.’

‘What happened?’

‘I am ill, Mrs Chopra, I have TB.’ She doesn’t know any other way to say this.

She hears silence in which she can hear Mrs Chopra breathe.

She doesn’t know what to tell her next. She doesn’t know why she dialled the number. She wants to hang up.

‘Have you seen a doctor, Kalyani?’

‘Yes, I am under treatment, I called to ask you, have they found Orphan?’

‘We haven’t heard anything, the police are still looking for him, I think. How do you know?’

‘Doctor Chatterjee told me that he is missing.’

‘You need some help, Kalyani? I can send you some money.’

‘No, no, Mrs Chopra, I will tell you when I need something.’

‘Who’s with you now?’

‘I am with everyone, with my family. Ma, Baba, Bhai and Pinki.’

‘Don’t be alone.’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘When did you find out?’

‘A few days ago.’

‘TB is very normal, follow the course of the medicine. Do not slip up.’

‘Yes, Mrs Chopra.’

‘Call me when you need something. Call me any time.’

‘Yes, Mrs Chopra.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No, nothing.’

The phone booth, its table with its Formica top, its glass door, spins around her in circles of colour. Hot and cold, fast and faster. The street begins to move, too, under her feet. She reaches out to hold on to something, she slips, her fingers claw at the air. She stands still, a bench floats towards her which she holds, she lowers herself onto it. The man who runs the phone booth offers her water to drink. You are not well, rest here for a few minutes, she hears him as if he’s speaking into a long hollow tube, the length of a Metro train, and her right ear is pressed at one end. Her fingers wrap around the plastic cup, this helps her steady her hand.

Call me any time
, Mrs Chopra says.

And Kalyani wants to keep those four words, wrap each one of them in cotton wool, soft, clean, warm and white, and hold them close, not let even one slip away.

~

Her blood is now on the street. In swirling puddles first, small, underneath cars, parked and moving. As she looks, it thickens, clots, coming into touch with air and water. It spreads, a limitless stain, covering the entire yard in the middle of the slum, forcing children to stop playing and start shouting. Neighbours appear at doors and watch the red flow by, smooth at first, then congealing into clumps. Pieces of trash ride its current, plastic bottles and newspaper wrap, vegetable peels, fish bones. It’s now beginning to smell. First, a bit like iron in a scrapyard, and then the stench grows to include other smells. Her smell, the odours of her insides, sick and wasting. Then, that of the garbage heap outside Little House on hot days. She hopes for a wind that will blow this smell away but the leaves are still, the sky a sheet of metal, hammered straight by the sun, staining in one corner, near the horizon where it touches the highway. Her blood has now begun to climb to the heavens.

~

‘You have reached Neel’s phone, please leave a message and I will get back to you.’

‘Doctor Sir, this is Kalyani. I have been trying to call you but no one picks up. This is my third call.’

She heads back home.

~

She can see Baba swim in the stream of blood, his rickshaw a hundred pieces of rubber, twisted metal and plastic. She can see Orphan, in a boat, being steered on its own, in the river of her blood. He is as small as she remembers him to be and he is looking at her now, his eyes glint in the dark, his hands reach out to touch her. In one hand, he holds the black pen she and Dr Chatterjee gave him to mark the city’s map. With crumpled pieces of cloth, with her hands, and with the end of her sari, Ma tries to plug breaches in the wall to keep the blood out. Pinki screams, the blood rises up to her waist. Bhai is nowhere to be seen.

~

Evening falls like a sudden stone, cracks her nightmare open, wakes her up.

The house is empty, a wisp of smoke enters from a coal oven outside. Pinki will be the first one to come home, followed by Bhai, Ma and then Baba. That’s how it is every evening and Kalyani clears the room, switches on the light but today she is so weak she cannot get up.

Sweat has drenched her when she was sleeping, her clothes stick to her. She wants to take a bath but this isn’t the time she can go to the community tap. She wants to stand under water, cold and hot, the kind of shower she once saw in a hospital room where her nursing teacher had taken her to show her around. She turns to face the wall, her back hurts lying pressed against the floor so long.