The Cripple and His Talismans (20 page)

“It’s me, Horasi,” he says.

“Horasi?” I ask.

“Don’t you remember me?”

“No.” I truly do not.

“I am your favourite eunuch.”

He takes my hand, kisses it and leaves a neat deposit of spittle. “Dear Emperor, you will be pleased to hear that I can sing again,” he says.

“Who is this Emperor?” I speak with the voice of a scared wind.

He launches into song. His head turns upward, toward the hoarding of Marie biscuits. His song has no words. It is an exhibition of tenor, tremor and terror more than anything else. He is awful with a capital rhinoceros. I am sure his voice will never reach the hoarding. Ugly things cannot fly. I can feel his voice hovering near my ankles like dirt and rainwater.

“Shut up, eunuch!” says the owner of the silver.

“Stop singing,” I say. “You will be beaten.”

“My king, you who have wiped out armies with one utterance, you who …”

The owner rises from his maroon carpet. His name must be Haroon. (It rhymes with maroon.) Now his face is also red, trying to contain his anger, trying to keep his blood at a flowable temperature.

“You must pardon me, my king. But I have to kiss you,” says Horasi to me.

“What?”

“On the other hand, as well. It is the custom, my king.”

“I don’t have another hand,” I say.

Horasi puts his hand to his chest. “Hai ray,” he says. “You lost your hand?”

The mosque-goers come closer toward the silverware stall. It is not to buy spoons. The owner senses fighter-cock feathers in the air and decides to become as spotless as his silver.

“Eunuch, this area does not like your kind,” he says. “If you come here again, we will cut your balls.”

“But I don’t have them,” says Horasi.

“Chal nikal,” says the owner to Horasi.

“Leave,” I echo.

I can hear the mosque-goers ask each other: Who is the cripple? Why is a eunuch calling him Akbar?

“I’m not Akbar,” I proclaim.

“My king, I can recognize you anywhere,” says Horasi.

“This cripple is causing trouble,” says the owner to the mosque-goers. “I did not trust him the moment I saw him.”

Life decisions are often made in split seconds. The bottle lid remains open for very little time. Some djins make their escape; others live inside glass forever.

So I start running.

Away from the mosque-goers, over the maroon carpet and its silver barricade, past the scooters lined against the fireworks shop. Let them eat Horasi the eunuch for breakfast. Let them feed him to pie dogs as pie. I do not care.

As I run, I breathe in and out like they do on
TV
, those strong black men striding toward a white line. (They must make the ticker tape black, for it is rarely a white man who crosses it first.) I shoot around the bend, where the road opens up into the animal market. I stop and look back. I hear shouts, loud ya’s, and I start running again. The mosque-goers are chasing me.

Of all the things they teach you in school, very few help you. Even fewer can be used in real life. And most often, these are the things you have been taught incorrectly.

Never look down and run, they say. The ground is not running away from you; you are running
on
it. Take my hanging brinjal, I say to that! When in this city, look up at the skies for vegetable peels and fresh phlegm from building flats; look straight ahead for cows and other holy objects; look to the sides for places of escape; look behind for justified killers; look down for uneven sidewalks and mango peels.

I missed the mango peel.

I was taught only to look ahead. But in life or otherwise, do not look ahead. Look back. If you want, even look down in shame. Train yourself not to expect godly horizons and sunlit balconies. A positive outlook is a torn pocket. Whatever you put in it is lost when you enter the streets.

A half-eaten mango will lead to my death. It is not the bravest way to go, being beaten to death shortly after a eunuch.

Flat on my back, eye-levelled with a rotten mango, I do not get up.

“Quick, get in here!” Horasi’s face looms over me. He could have been a dusky woman.

“You escaped?” I ask.

“I am a lowly eunuch. They are after you, my king.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Teahouse.”

He helps me up and I smile at a woman who carries a cot on her head. She is probably taking it for repairs. I limp and run past the group of wholesale cardboard merchants who have found my fall amusing.

We enter Café Gulab, a kabab place. Yellow Formica, white Sunmica, unwashed glasses and tasty food. Horasi still holds my hand — luckily the café is empty. There are no gulabs here, no roses red in the face with anger. I jerk my hand away from him.

“Follow me,” he says. “You will be safe, my king.”

“Will you stop calling me that?”

“Yes, huzur.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Teahouse.”

“Aren’t we in it already?”

“This is a café. The teahouse is more inside.”

Just then a man comes out from farther in. He is not old, but weary. His face wants to touch the ground and never get up.

“Just in time,” the man says. “Your hookah is ready.”

I look at Horasi, who looks behind us to see if any mosque-goers are near the café. If it is time for the prayer, they will ignore us. Allah has saved us. Prayers do save lives, even lives that are worthless such as mine.

“The coal was beginning to get cold,” says the man.

“What coal?” I ask.

“Did you not order sixteenth-century coal an hour ago by telephone?”

“That was me,” says Horasi. “For us both.”

The man leads us into a green room with a small black table against one of its walls. There is a couch as well, also black. There are embroidered paintings on the wall: a beautiful maiden walking in air with the clouds below her feet; a lanky man with a diamond beard leading his sheep into a mountain. There are orange sweets in transparent showcases lit with tube lights to keep them warm.

“We must sit here,” says Horasi.

“Look, who are you?” I ask.

“I told you. I am your favourite eunuch.”

“What do you want?”

“You will enjoy the hookah.”

“I don’t want the hookah. I’m worried about those people outside.”

“Those outside people will look at the empty Café Gulab and leave. They do not know of this teahouse. That is why we must stay here.”

The weary man places a hookah on the black table. A long rope, green-yellow as a snake, coils toward us with a silver nozzle attached to its end. The transparent glass cylinder that holds water is slightly yellow from age. Bubbles rise as the man inhales a mixture of the coal and tobacco that burns atop a tiny funnel. The piece of coal is small; it will burn fast.

“We must go back, my great ruler,” says Horasi.

“Out there? You must be mad.”

“Not out there. Back.”

I look behind me. There is only a wall.

“Into the past,” he says. “The very distant past.”

“Who are you? Has Baba Rakhu sent you?”

“Take one dum. All will be clear.”

Horasi hands me the coiled snake with the silver nozzle.

“Take it fast,” he says. “Keep taking till it goes to the head.”

I greedily suck on the nozzle. There is the sweet taste of apple in my mouth. I am about to take my lips off the nozzle to exhale, but Horasi urges me to carry on. The taste of apple is now so strong it must have been the apple plucked for the first woman from that first tree. The coiled snake I am holding in my hand confirms this. The lights illuminating the sweets become brighter and the orange sweets acquire a golden hue. Horasi’s hair stretches out the entire width of the teahouse. It touches the clouds at the feet of the beautiful maiden walking in thin air. I take my lips off the nozzle and everything is watery. My eyes, Horasi’s, the sweets, the clouds have become liquid, too. My head goes back and faces the ceiling with its chandelier full of rubies and diamonds.

The rubies are so pink, pink itself will stare in disbelief. The diamonds are very bright, but do not hurt the eyes. As the sun comes in, they reflect light that sweeps the whole room. I look outside through the arched window and see all sorts of parrots in the tree. Green parrots, blue parrots, red and violet wings fly through the leaves. It is a view fit for a king. The bed I rest on lets me sink into it until I am enveloped in white silk. I pick up a mug of red stone and drink. It is last night’s sherbet. There are easily more parrots than leaves in that tree.

“At last you’re up,” says a woman.

She walks in with a tray and picks up the mug and a few peanut shells from the table. She is superb and has more wings than the parrots. She must be a queen. Only royalty can cast away mountains with charm. But why waste her delicate touch on trays and old sherbet?

“So how does it feel to spend the night in these chambers?” she asks.

“No different than most nights,” I say.

I use my arms to rise from the bed and brace myself for her beauty. She smiles at my answer. Maybe we did something special last night and I cannot remember. This sherbet must stop. It is mad-dog flavour.

“My queen,” I say. “I must eat. My head hurts.”

“Juka, wake up.”

“Juka?”

“You only had one night here.”

“I’m hungry. Get me sweet nightingale.”

“Cook it yourself. It’s what you do best.”

The king cooks? But I should be out in the world destroying tigers and elephants. “One more large feast seven days from now,” she says. “If you cook like you did last night, Emperor Akbar will make this guest chamber yours.”

“Emperor Akbar?”

She shakes her head and starts pulling the silk sheets from under me.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Changing sheets. The Emperor has guests coming from the land of strong rivers.”

“I
am your strong river.”

I pull her toward me and she lands on top of me. No parrot can match this beauty, even if it speaks twenty languages and follows all religions.

“Juka!” she shouts. “To your own sister?”

“Sister?”

“Don’t say I’m not your sister. Every time this sherbet enters your mouth, your brain leaves.”

“I am not the king?”

“Of fools,” she says. “Now get up!”

The silk leaves me and I feel the harshness of the woven cloth below. I must act in the proper way and find out what is going on. Why did I think I was king? That sherbet maker has played a joke on me. I will have him flogged. As a cook, I must surely have power over the sherbet maker.

“You have to be in the king’s court very soon,” she says. “Or have you forgotten that also?”

“I know,” I say. “But for what?”

“Go and wash up. You look like a thief.”

I leave the guest chamber and walk through the corridor. On the floor there are chests of dark wood with metal carvings on their lids, and in the walls there are heart-shaped holes to let the light in. The floor is white marble; it is cold as the rivers of the north. I look back at the woman who is my sister, whose hands are fairer than the silk she holds.

“This sherbet has taken your name away from my lips,” I shout at her.

“Good. You’ll stop calling me, then.”

“Where must I go now? Left or right?”

She slaps her palm to her forehead once more and points to my left. I take the next left into a larger corridor with more wooden chests. The holes in these walls are crescent moons. Sunlight passes through them and onto the marble floor. Even when the moon is not real, it is a thief.

I walk fast and as I let the cold marble wake me up, I run my hands through my hair and comb it back. I lick my tongue all round my mouth and swallow the stickiness of the night’s sherbet. My white robe is clean. I have no doubt I can cook. I am sure of that even though I do not know why. I am also sure of something else. I have an enemy. My heart is a jealous stone that wants to hurl itself upon him.

We all stand and wait for the Emperor. I know most of the faces here: the jester, the wise man, the chief of army. Only men are gathered; no women. Everyone seems to know me and treats me as an important part of this court. Two strong men, bare of chest and long of hair, fan the empty golden throne. The usual conch is blown to announce the king’s arrival and all our eyes fall to the floor. The bowing of heads is as organized as an army’s slamming of spears to the earth. Even though we cannot see him, we know he has entered. The air stops breathing in the presence of our king.

“I will speak,” says the Emperor.

The silence becomes even heavier; its legs are crumbling under the weight of the king.

“I must leave for the desert today. There is talk of a cowardly attack on our kingdom. Talk I can ignore. Cowards bother me,” he says.

As he speaks, I feel my heart burn again. The stone is ready to be flung, but not upon our king. My enemy is here and my heart will lead me to him.

“I shall leave three thousand men here to protect my people. My army shall go with me. May God spit on us through our travels.”

There is an audible gasp after his last words. The court is shocked by the inauspicious words of the Emperor. But I know he is wise and respectful. He is a shrewd king who likes to tease his subjects.

“I ask you all to join me in my humble request to God.”

“But janab,” says the wise man. “Do you think it is wise to bring down a curse from God?”

He is the only person allowed to speak in court without permission. I do not think he is wise. I pity him. He cannot be my enemy.

“Where am I going?” asks the king.

“To battle. It is why you need God even more.”

“Who can tell me why I have asked God for this curse?”

I step out of line, as I always do, and bow before my king. I do not lift my head until I am given permission.

“Juka,” he calls my name.

“My Emperor, may God spit on you a thousand times,” I say.

Even though they are not supposed to, the courtiers shuffle their feet. They fear mine will soon be cut off.

“Tell us why you wish this upon your king.”