Stolen Pleasures (2 page)

L
IKE A NIGHT sentry on the border between India and dream country, Singh, the restaurateur, watched her from the little lamplit bar, his post. Over six feet tall, he was made even taller by his emerald green turban, and his Nehru jacket was as white as Himalayan snow. Alma was the last waitress to arrive, and even though she was on time the near-miss must seem to him a portent of ruin. The most famous of roving gourmets was to be his guest this night, a man who would either place the restaurant on the map of the world or obliterate it with a few cruelly chosen words or no words at all.

The tiled cubicle restroom was still fragrant with the colognes of the other waitresses who, by arriving early and lighting the candles on all the tables, were like angels promising a celestial ending to this night. She slipped her costume on, drawing up the long cotton underskirt, smoothing the snug silk vest over her breasts, draping the red silk sari around her waist and over one shoulder, her hands weak with fear over her own night apart from
the restaurant's night. While she was at work this night, her lover would take away his possessions—a simple task, there were so few. They had agreed that the most bearable time for both was when she was not there. All afternoon she had raged against the woman he was going to, and now she could not even clear her ravaged throat to see if she still had a voice. And he had held her, he had caressed her, his face confounded. He was like someone dispatched to the ends of the earth, with no idea of what was to happen to him there.

The sitar music began its nightlong spiraling from the stereo in the alcove next to the restroom. She folded her clothes into her canvas bag, carried her coat and bag to the employees' closet, and emerged into the opulent dark of the dining area.

Early diners waited at the bar, and over their heads he signaled her to escort them to their tables. His wife, Lila, the hostess, was in the kitchen, overseeing the preparation of the dishes to be set before the honored guest. A feast was in the making, created by the three silent Indian cooks, women of the same birdlike smallness, the same dark skin, their dark gray hair drawn back into a knot at the nape of their thin necks, their heads always bowed over their tasks.

The restaurant this night was more than ever like a stage, and, to Alma's eyes, unforgivably deceptive. Light from the candles within the faceted glass globes on the tables glided up and down the waitresses' saris and shimmered along their necklaces, turned ivory the waiters' white turbans, and glinted off the engraved brass trays, large as giants' shields, hanging on the walls. The candles set aglow the faces of the women at the tables, and she saw—more sharply than ever—how, tables apart, a room apart, women glanced at one
another as if by mistake, as if indifferently, to see who was most beautiful of all.

At the bar, Singh appeared more Indian than ever, drawn up to his full height by the advent of the famous gourmet. But only Singh and the two waiters and just one of the three waitresses were authentic. None of the patrons—she was sure—suspected that he was born on a dirt farm in the San Joaquin Valley and had never set foot in India, nor that both waiters, flawless as a maharaja's servants, were students enrolled in business administration classes, nor that the one Indian waitress—Kamala, aloof, remote—spoke street language in the kitchen, ridiculing the diners, and was a fervent belly dancer. The rest were impostors. She was one herself, her parents Chilean. Lila was from the Detroit ghetto, but Indian ancestry could easily be imagined for her large eyes, her prematurely white hair and dark skin, her thin little hands. Marlie was ghetto-born, too, but her silky, gold-flecked, flitting presence so mesmerized the patrons that two or three or four men dining together would loudly declare, for all to hear, that Indian women were the most beautiful in the world.

When Alma came to the bar with her little brass tray to order drinks, Singh was gazing out over the tables, losing his way by candlelight, his soft, dark face plump with desire.

“That woman at the corner table,” he said. “What a face! Right out of those old movies where they come down those long, curving stairs to breakfast. Who is she? She looks familiar.”

Every beautiful woman is always someone waited for and always recognized as someone seen before. Alma had never told him this notion of hers. For one reason, he wouldn't know what she
was talking about, and, for another reason, she'd be confessing a bewilderment of her own.

“Remind me,” he said, pouring drinks. “Remind me to tell you about a woman I knew in Texas. She looked like that. She almost died when I left. Why I ran out on her I don't know. I was just a dumb kid, knocking around. I thought I had my destiny to look after. She would've left her husband for me. A filthy rich oilman, but she would've left him. In my life nothing synchronizes.”

On quiet nights, when his wife wasn't there, and when all the diners had left, then how many intimate things he told her about the women of his past, about what pleased them in bed, what subtle artistry of his. On busy nights when his wife was there, and after the restaurant doors were closed, then the departing waiters and waitresses would pretend not to see what was going on at the bar. Lila, on a stool, was bent low over the counter, fiercely accusing him of present affairs, past ones, and those to come, while he ranged within his small space like a tiger tormented by its keeper.

At the top of the stairs, Lila was welcoming the celebrated columnist, her face endowed by that guest with a brief flare of tender, pleading beauty. Alma, waiting at the bar for a glass to be filled, saw closely how affected Singh was by the famous gourmet—a man unexpectedly brisk, trim and gray, like an executive with no time or talent for savoring—and by his companion, another familiar beauty. Their presence stole away Singh's natural suavity, his air of reserve. He stepped out from behind the bar and, towering over the couple, shook hands with the man and bowed his head quickly to the woman, then gave them back to his wife, who led them to their table, her head high, her silk garments floating.

“What's her name?” he asked Alma. “She's an actress. I've seen her, but I can't remember which movie.” With unusually hasty hands he concocted the third Pimm's Cup for her tray, fumbling the long slice of cucumber.

It was in those moments of their arrival that he first appeared to have lost his wits. Alma blamed the loss on the woman of shocking beauty and on the man who could either make or break the restaurant, but, as the evening wore on, the reason for his odd behavior began to seem not so simple. On other evenings he would wander among the diners, shaking hands with steadfast patrons and with celebrities he recognized—a violinist, a comedian, an opera singer—his eyes darkening to a degree in accord with the patron's significance out in the world, and he would chat for only the graceful length of time, longer for the lesser ones, shorter for the greater ones. But this night he remained behind the bar, gazing out to the couple at their table apart.

Hovering over the couple, Lila confided to them the ingredients of each dish as it was set down by their waiter, and the number of seconds, the number of minutes required for two and more ingredients to fuse perfectly.

“He won't talk to them,” she complained to Alma in the kitchen, appealingly, as though Alma could persuade him, and resignedly, because the pain of this frustration was hers alone, and out she went through the swinging doors, followed by the waiter, bearing on his tray the evening's most elaborate offering, roast pheasant glazed with gold leaf, a bird of molten gold.

This hours-long homage to the famous guest recalled to Alma the Shah of Iran's great feast for select hundreds of the world's
celebrities and dignitaries. The magazine had shown luxurious tents where they slept, and the banquet like no other, and the long parade of waiters bearing peacocks on trays, their fantastic plumage adorning again their roasted bodies. She felt scorn for this guest who was mesmerized by the food set before him and who seemed unaware of time and how it steals away every morsel, like a cunning beggar.

Eventually, Singh gave in. It was at the very end of the meal, which had become a celebration of the lives of the two guests, with gifts from the sea, from earth's black loam, from vine, from tree, from the perfumed air. He stood above them, gazing at the face of the gourmet, a face soothed by the many gifts but tantalizingly withholding gratitude, patches of lacy capillaries like a clown's rouge on cheeks and nose; and gazing, in turn, at the woman's lifted face and at her throat, that lovely channel down which all the bites had slipped, and at her body, languidly sloping under the weight of so much adoration. To Alma, glancing by, all the gifts seemed given to the woman in exchange for just the sight of her. Singh leaned toward them to catch their words of praise, but his face was mournful, as though he had come to confess the failure of his own attempts at a plenteous life.

At his nod, Alma brought out the woman's fur coat from the employees' closet where diners' priceless coats were hung. The woman had come prepared for San Francisco's cold, whipping fogs that often swept in on summer nights. It was customary, when diners were leaving, for Singh or Lila, or both, to signal Alma, if she were free, and she would come to help them put on their coats. The departing guests would stand with their backs to her, and if they
were unfamiliar with the courtesy, their shoulders would stiffen; others would slip into their coats with affected ease as if their wraps were held up for them by someone invisible or by the world's esteem. But this extravagant night roused her resistance to this act that humbled her, and her arms refused to hold up the woman's coat. When Singh saw that she was in trouble, he took the coat from her and lifted it to the woman's bare shoulders. The woman turned her head toward him, knowing—Alma was sure—how pristine a profile of beauty appears, like a very brief and partial view granted to mortals. So close was that profile, he seemed to tire instantly.

They were the last to leave. Alma watched them go as she went among her tables, blowing out the candles. On his way out, the gourmet was introduced to the three Indian gentlemen, the restaurant's financial backers, all in dark suits. They stood up at their table, and, unsmiling, shook his hand, afraid perhaps that if they were to smile he might deceive them later. At the bar he was introduced to the restaurant's publicist, Patricia, who had induced him to come, but when she stood up from her stool she began to sway. She had drunk too much, celebrating his presence, and from a distance she appeared to be swaying with religious awe. Then they were gone.

A jostling wave of relief rose up in their wake, doing away with everyone's roles and with all glittering. The only light left was from the brass carriage lamps at the bar and the candles on the table where the three backers sat over their vegetarian delicacies. In this intimate dimness they gathered together for a little party.

Lila poured drinks and carried them to whoever wanted one, while Singh wandered among them, empty-handed, uncritical,
uncommending, voiceless. Kamala unwound her green sari, pushed the elastic band of the long underskirt down below her belly, and began her dance. From the stereo rose her delirious music. She danced barefoot, her hands, her arms gliding desirously, her belly moving with many little leaps and undulations. Her husband, who often accompanied her home, came up the stairs and paused at the top, watching her, pleased and uncomfortable. The two waiters, now in their leather jackets, heads bare, feigned indifference. Marlie, a faux fur jacket over her sari, sat at the low cocktail table, restlessly peeling her nail polish, lifting her eyes only to see if her lover had arrived—a young doctor who would take her to his apartment. Alma, her costume again in the canvas bag, stood close to the stairs. When the dance was over she would leave, and no one would know that she had left and that she had left alone.

“Where is your friend tonight?”

There was so much that was intimidating about Kamala's husband, a high school mathematics teacher—his precise words, his eyes demanding correct answers. He and Alma's lover had often sat together at the bar, waiting to escort their women home. If he were able to understand the garbled language of loss, she might be able to say to him,
I don't know where he is, he's with someone else but I don't know who she is and I don't know who he is anymore and I don't know who I am anymore, either, if I ever knew.

“A sculpture class at the art school. They stay late,” she said.

The three thin women from the kitchen slipped by, passing close to her, their work done, cheap sweaters, old coats over their faded saris. They said good night to no one and were noticed by no one as they went down the stairs and into the night.

Then Singh, among the few who were gazing at the dancer, toppled to the floor, striking against his wife, who fell with him. At once the waiters lifted her, and Marlie ran to the alcove to turn off the music. The three financial backers bent over the man on the floor, and one, still clutching his large white napkin, shouted Singh's name warningly, hoping to alarm him back to life and his responsibilities. When they stepped away, the waiters then knelt by him, softly calling to him, and one laid an ear to his chest and felt for a pulse at his wrist. Nothing. A napkin wet with ice water was passed from hand to hand and spread over his brow, a jigger of brandy was touched to his lips, and when it was seen that he was far, far beyond these clumsy persuasions, they stepped away from him.