The Blue Notebook (19 page)

This is the philosophy of the prostitute. I am who I am only at this moment in time; my past does not hang from my shoulders and my future is indefinable and so cannot be a concern. I am nothing else and there is nothing else. As I look at myself in the mirror, it dawns on me again that the tree was correct—all is created for me alone. I close my eyes tight and hear the tree laughing.

Up to now, the pace of my new existence in the Tiger Suite has had an unmetered quality; time has simply been prancing by from event to event. Things were occurring but not in a paced
fashion, and Hippopotamus was not keeping record. This was different for me, as hitherto my life was by the clock. When I first started in my nest several years ago, I would become anxious if the clock ticked too many times without my producing sweet-cake. Over time, on the Common Street, I developed an inner rhythm that I tuned my body to, and life followed this beat. In the Tiger Suite, things are different; the clock has stopped. I inwardly watch the second hand and know that soon it will tick, but do not know when. Many times I have prayed for time to stop, but beware of such dreams because should it do so, events will then move along another plane. Without the tick of the clock we are confused and get lost. In order to wait for a bus that never comes, I must sink my roots into the earth to sustain me, but still enter the upper air to see.

Time was inching forward in the Tiger Suite like the stooped old man creeping up the Common Street with his walking stick. I lay on the bed staring out of the window, knowing that the next event would follow the last, though when I did not know. As the sky darkened and the sun set behind the building, I got out of bed and walked over to the window. The electric lights on the promenade were coming on and the long lines of light illuminated the streams of tourists, the wealthy, and the beggars. I am not sure how long I watched, but it was quite a long time.

Hita had been in the main room all this time and came into the bedroom. She asked me how I felt (“Fine, thank you, miss”)
and instructed me to put on my new clothes, which she unwrapped from the brown paper parcel. These were clothes I had only seen on advertising billboards and in the old magazines that Mamaki would occasionally bring us. Hita zipped me into a long red dress that dipped into the breast line and fell away at the back. The trim was gold; it defined where the dress stopped and my skin began. I did not wear an undershirt or brassiere. The fabric of the dress was astonishingly soft. I ran my hand up and down my body loving the feel of it under my hand and the tightness of it against my skin. My breasts created gentle rises in the fabric. The tail of the dress was split, so that my left leg became uncovered if my leg moved. The shoes were made from black leather, shaped like a fish’s body and heeled so high that I could barely walk; in them I became a handbreadth taller. To top it all off, Hita hung white pearls around my neck. I was bouncing with excitement and at the same time toppling over as I attempted to accommodate her. “No panties, no lines,” Hita said. The makeup, besides hiding the doctor’s bruise, made my face look older; I bet Puneet would not have recognized me. Tiger was at a loss for words.

Night fell and the stars sparkled outside my window. Hita ordered dahl and bread for me. It was brought to me by a food man who was different from the one who had brought me the paper earlier. I was hungry. Hita wrapped a towel around me before I ate so that my dress would not get stained, and touched up my makeup afterward. She was pleased with the product of her efforts—as was I. I sensed that the reason for the move from my nest to the Tiger Suite was approaching. Hita paced while we waited in the main room, and I chatted with Tiger.

The first indication that the pace of this adventure was about to change was a commotion outside the main door. Then, almost as if by a volcanic eruption, the paired doors of the suite were thrown open. Three men marched into the room, led by the largest. Second in line was the man in the light blue suit (still in the same suit—or did he have many suits exactly the same?). Third in line was the youngest, shortest, and trimmest of the bunch.

It was obvious that the man who led the entrance parade was in charge. He was beaming. Bubba was a one-man force of nature. He stood a head shorter than the man in the blue suit and a foot wider. He wore a gray Western suit; the material was soft and flowed and had delicate vertical white lines sewn into it. His tie was gold and his shirt was ultrawhite. On his left wrist he wore a bejeweled watch plus at least four gold bracelets. On his right hand was a gigantic gold ring with diamonds embedded in it. His right wrist bore a thick gold charm bracelet with what appeared to be teeth hanging from it, along with a host of gold shapes and trinkets. The enormity of his jewelry contrasted (pleasingly) with the delicacy of the white lines in his suit.

His musical movement reminded me of the traditional dancing my cousin used to do for us. She would wear bells on her wrists and ankles so that each limb’s twitch carried its own tune and each dance’s whirl made its own song. When Bubba moved there was music; he was a song of dangling, clanking, and puffing to the beat of the
whooshing
of thigh against thigh.
I loved him from the second I saw him. He was one of those people who could bolt a smile onto your face even if you felt glum. “Bubba,” he said to me, his hand outstretched. I smiled and tried to skip over to shake his hand, but my left ankle buckled over the shoe and I almost fell. He burst out laughing. Once I reached him, he dropped his outstretched hand and pulled me to him in a tight hug. He wore rich cologne and kissed my cheek. He let me go and turned to the blue suit and said, “She’s perfect.” Raising his voice even louder he called out, “Iftikhar, Iftikhar, where are you? Look at her. She’s here.” Out of the shadow of Bubba, Iftikhar’s head popped out. If, at that moment, someone had told me that Iftikhar was Bubba’s son (albeit illegitimate), I would have jumped on the table and pretended to be a donkey.

The young man who stepped forth was the total opposite of the patriarch. Where Bubba was generous in physique, Iftikhar was miserly. Where Bubba wore an expansive gray Western suit, Iftikhar wore a traditional (collarless) white narrow suit. Gold necktie for one, no tie for the other. Bangly and clangy one—soft, silent, and smooth, the other. Effervescent, one—reticent, the other. A clumping elephant, one—a purring gentle household cat, the other. What a pair! The only possible similarity they appeared to have was that they both wore shoes.

The old doorman, his face hidden, gray head ever downcast, gently pulled the doors shut. Despite there being five bodies in the room, there were only three relevant people: Bubba, his son, and I. The man in the blue suit, having been the master mover, was now invisible, as was Hita. Father looked at son and nodded. “You like her, boy?” His son forced a smile and responded, “Father, yes, I like her.”

There was a second of silence as if to let the air soften. Unexpectedly, Iftikhar broke the stillness by moving toward the table. He was light and nimble and had a higher-stepping gait than his slim physique necessitated. His movement reminded me of a gazelle. His body was so thin that it merely served as a coat for his skeleton, rather than his skeleton providing a scaffold for his body. Because of his meager physical presence, he looked younger than I suspected he was. I estimated him to be about eighteen. Also, probably for the same reason, his head looked large on his body. It was triangular—wide at the brow, long to the jaw, with thin cheeks. There was an impotent attempt at a mustache below his dead straight and narrow nose.

Sometimes, when I was a child, I would catch lizards with my bare hands; it required enormous inner stillness and explosive release. The lizard’s lips reminded me of Iftikhar’s. They were thin and pale and rolled over his teeth like cigarette paper over tobacco. Looking closely, I could see that the little muscles of his mouth were taut, which drew his pencil-thin lips inward, as if tightened by elastic. This was a mouth that would hold words in rather than divulge inner thoughts. His hair was a haphazard blob of black. His eyes were his most perplexing feature. They were blacker than they were brown and were framed dramatically by the harsh lines of his face. His eyes held an unwavering stare and I sensed he was somewhere that was “not quite here.” On first guess, this son of an effervescent, wealthy man might be expected to be the meek recipient of plentitude. Iftikhar was not this at all. His eyes portrayed steel. He was an engine quietly turning over, unconvinced by the exuberance that had seeded him. His eyes were those of a quiet
will in waiting, in contrast to his body, which exhibited a jitteriness of immediacy. This was a person you would be foolish to discount or turn your back on.

Iftikhar’s voice matched his body. There was tremulousness to his diction and his tone was set high. For a man he sounded shy, hesitant, and effeminate. He said, “Why is there a pile of paper on the table?” It was a deflecting question that came from a nervous mind. Everyone else looked at my pile of paper too. Hita spoke, “It is for the girl.” “For the girl?” Iftikhar said, as much with his dark eyebrows as with his mouth. Hita answered, glancing at me and throwing a wave in my direction, “She likes to write stories.” “She does?” Iftikhar said, and cocked his head. He looked at me and was about to say something when Bubba interjected, “You’ve got a bright one here, Ifti … Anyway, you lovebirds, have a wonderful time. I have business to take care of.” As he said this, he glanced at the blue suit, who silently nodded in agreement, and the two of them turned for the door. As they exited, I heard Bubba say to the blue suit, “As always, Mr. Vas, you excel.”

The door closed behind them. There was a long silence and both Iftikhar and I looked to Hita as if she knew the next step in the dance. Momentarily thrown, she gathered her wits and said to me, “Come to the bathroom, Batuk, and I will check your makeup.” I knew my makeup was perfect and followed her to the bathroom. “Sit!” Hita said to me, pointing to the closed toilet seat. “I will speak plainly,” she continued. “You
are here to make Iftikhar happy.” She cleared her throat and looked down at the stone floor. “You will teach him how to … how to … be a husband.” She cleared her throat again. “With a woman. You understand?” She held me by the shoulders, her fingers pressing into me. “You understand?” Never had I truly doubted why I had been taken from my nest to this palace. I understood the impact of time on events and now my current purpose was upon me. I looked at Hita and nodded.