Waiting for the Monsoon (43 page)

“I have a solution,” says Subhash.

Madan gives him a look that is both woeful and relieved.

“Tonight, after work.”

HE RECOGNIZES THE
place right away. During the period that he and Abbas lived on the street, they sometimes came here. The women stayed up all night, and some of them had beautiful voices.

Subhash is just as nervous as his companion, and from under his eyelids he peers at the various houses. A man with a huge moustache stands in front of a door, and after they've walked past three times, he opens the door and lets them in, without uttering a word. The boys enter the house, panting slightly with excitement and anticipation. They hear the sound of music and don't dare look at each other. Then Subhash opens the lone door at the end of a poorly lit hallway. Madan feels the music flowing toward him, together with the acrid smell of tobacco smoke. When his eyes have adjusted, he sees a large room where men are sitting on benches along all four sides. They're laughing, singing, and drinking beer. In the huge space, which is boarded by a low wall, girls in brightly coloured saris are dancing.

Subhash pulls Madan inside and gestures to him to sit down. Madan chooses a spot close to the door. Next to him there's a man with a fistful of bills. He calls to one of the girls. She turns and walks in his direction, wiggling her hips provocatively.

Madan gasps. The girl is stunning, even more beautiful than the princess in his dreams. She dances in the direction of the man, still moving her hips sinuously. When she's standing in front of him, she gives him a seductive smile. Her teeth gleam and her eyelashes quiver. Suddenly the man throws his entire pile of bills over the girl. They come wafting down, swirling over her shoulders and her breasts. They fall to the floor, where her bare feet with their brightly coloured nails go on dancing, without treading on the bills.

A little man in dark clothes dashes onto the dance floor and, quick as a flash,collects all the bills and stuffs them into the dancer's hands. Now Madan notices that she already has a thick wad in her hand. Rotating her hips, she moves on to the next man who calls out to her. The man sitting next to Madan drains his glass at one draught, gives him a knowing wink, and leaves.

Madan watches the gorgeous creature, who is now dancing for another man. After a while he, too, showers her with bills. Again the little man appears out of nowhere and gathers the bills from the floor, while the dancer moves on to the next benefactor. Madan is conscious of his sole bill, which is burning a hole in his pocket.

Madan notices that Subhash also has his hand in his pocket, but for a different reason. He himself doesn't have an erection, for the first time in weeks. He is intimidated by the abundance displayed by the men, and feels himself shrinking.

A girl in a flowered sari is dancing in the middle of the room. Until now he has seen her only from behind. Compared to the other girls, she is scarcely dancing at all. Her hips do their best, but it's mainly her shoulders that sway and gyrate. She has no money in her hands and she's looking at the floor.

Madan hears Subhash's voice. At first he thinks his friend is calling him, but then he sees that his attention is focused on the beautiful dancer. She doesn't respond but continues to dance in front of a fat man with a large wad of bills in his hand.

~~~

THE BOYS ARE
again standing in front of the dance hall. The doorman with the huge moustache has disappeared. Subhash, who has lost all his money, groans at the thought that it's at least an hour's walk back to the weaving mill. “Or do you still have some money?”

Madan, who has just one bill in his pocket, isn't looking at his friend.

“Do you still have some money?” he repeats.

Then the door opens and the shy girl in the flowered sari darts past them. She's thrown a large shawl over her shoulders and her eyes are fixed on the ground. She hasn't earned anything the whole evening. Madan turns to follow her, but Subhash stops him. There's an inquiring look in his eyes. Madan pulls the bill out of his pocket and gestures that he wants to give the money to the girl. Subhash grins, nods, and then whispers that he'd better make sure he gets back to the weaving mill on time: Mister Chandran doesn't like latecomers.

Madan, who only intended to give the girl his bill and then go back home with his friend, suddenly looks with new interest at the girl's back.

Subhash doesn't understand what his friend is waiting for. “Go on, then,” he says encouragingly.

The titillation in his belly, which has been absent the entire evening, suddenly returns. Anxiously, he glances back at Subhash, and then runs after the girl.

She's afraid to look up at the boy who had sat quietly by the door the whole evening. The paving bricks seem to change at every step she takes: everything looks different. The house where she lives is at the end of the street. Again, she is the first to leave. Yesterday, too, she was the only one who came home without earning a penny. The owner of the room she's renting with the other girls has already threatened to throw her out if she doesn't pay up.

HE FOLLOWS HER
up the stairs. The tension of a moment ago has disappeared. He hesitates when she opens the door. The room is dark.

She takes his hand. Her hand is clammy, just like his. The tension in his belly returns. She closes the door. He can no longer see her. She leads him to a mat on the floor. She lies down and he lies down next to her. He feels the tingling in his penis. He hears that she is breathing faster. He hears his heart booming in his chest. The skin of her arms is like an amaryllis flower. He bends toward her. She smells like honeysuckle. The tips of her fingers glide over his back. He purses his lips and searches for her face. He gives her a cautious kiss. He feels his member throbbing, in an effort to escape. Her mouth finds his. She tastes like young lathyrus. Her hands glide over his body. She finds his pants, unbuttons them, and pushes them down. He closes his eyes tight and sees how she walks in front of him, how her fingers move as she caresses the rosewood, the way she smiles at him with her poppy-red lips, her ebony hair, her butterfly nose, her eyes as clear as crystal. The urgency he feels is unbearable. Her soft body is beneath his. Her black and white checked sari has disappeared. Her fingers help his search. He moans. She lies still. He is panting. She lets him in. He opens his mouth and lets out a single self-indulgent cry.

The girl freezes when she hears the horrific shriek. In a fraction of a second, all her pores close. She pushes the boy off her with a hard shove. “Who
are
you?” she cries. “
What
are you? A beast, a monster!” In a panic, she starts hitting and kicking him. “Go away! Go away!”

Madan doesn't understand what is happening to him. With his pants still around his ankles, he stumbles outside as she continues to shriek “Go away, go away!”

~~~

HE IS STANDING
under the stairs, and Chandan Chandran is seated at his old loom, like the first time he walked in. It was as if nothing had changed, except for Madan himself and the length of his boss's ponytail. The few possessions he has collected over the years are wrapped in a piece of cloth, which he wove himself. The man who had for so long been his mentor does not ask him why he is leaving. Madan holds up a hand in a farewell gesture. Chandan Chandran nods.

Madan goes down the low, narrow corridor, which still smells of oil and rusty iron. He has almost reached the street when he hears the voice of Mister Chandran. He turns around.

The man is walking in his direction with a piece of paper in his hand. “This is where you should go,” he says in a soft, low voice. “I've written down the address. He'll take you on, I'm sure of it.”

Madan accepts the piece of paper. He has no idea what is written on it.

“It's a long way away. In Madras,” says Chandan Chandran. “You'll have to go by train.” He takes some money from his pocket and wants to give it to Madan.

Madan shakes his head, pulls out the single bill that's still in his pocket, and shows it to his boss, as if to let him know that he's perfectly capable of looking after himself.

Chandan Chandran smiles. And for the first time he hears Chandan Chandran laugh. He waves again and leaves.

HE HAD NO
idea that his country was so huge. For twenty hours Madan has been on a train that stops everywhere and he has watched people fight their way into and out of the compartments along with their household belongings and livestock. He is happy that at long last he has a seat, and he notices that there is a kind of haze hanging over the landscape as they glide past.

He spent the first ten hours standing in the narrow gangway. It was not until a man with a bleating goat and two baskets full of chickens got off that he managed to secure a seat on a wooden bench in the third-class carriage. He tries to take catnaps, since he did not sleep all night. But as soon as the sun shows itself, everyone starts talking and eating. Tempting aromas tickle his nose. Bowls and pans are unpacked, laps serve as dining tables, and someone begins to sing, with the accompaniment of a small drum.

Madan, who for eight years lived in the weaving mill where everyone knew that he couldn't speak, is no longer accustomed to communicating with strangers. When the man directly opposite him asks where he's going, he becomes rattled and doesn't know how to explain that he doesn't know himself, except that he has to get to Madras. Until he remembers the piece of paper. He pulls it out of his pocket and shows it to the man.

The man glances at the piece of paper and announces loud and clear that he can't read.

Before Madan realizes what's happening, his fellow passengers have descended upon him and the paper. Not that the majority of the travellers can read, but they are all curious. Madan watches as the piece of paper is torn in two by a man wearing a turban and a man with a red beard. Their neighbours are also curious, and before long there are four pieces. Madan jumps up and tries to retrieve the pieces of paper, but they go from hand to hand at breakneck speed. He wants to shout that the paper belongs to him, that they have to give the pieces back because that's the only address he has and he has nowhere else to go. But the hands of his fellow passengers are too fast for him, and Madan doesn't dare to use his voice.

At that point, a slightly built, elderly man in a corner of the coupé, who spent the whole night with a cloth over his head, snoring loudly, manages to get hold of one of the pieces. He reads what it says, glances in surprise at Madan, kicks off his shoes, climbs onto the wooden seat, and begins banging his umbrella as hard as he can against the metal luggage rack. The noise is so overwhelming that everyone looks up to see what's happening. The former teacher still knows how to exert his authority, and he demands that all the pieces of paper be turned in.

Some grumpily, others reluctantly, the passengers surrender their snippets of paper, which the old man deposits in a small plastic box. When Madan makes his way over to the man to collect the torn remains of what he thought was his future, the man raises his hand, indicating that he is still busy working out a solution.

Having lost his seat when he got up from the wooden bench, Madan stands somewhat forlornly amidst the legs of the seated passengers and watches as the old man puts the paper back together, one piece at a time and with great precision. To make sure that the draft from the open windows doesn't destroy his work, he licks each snippet of paper and sticks it onto the bottom of the box. Everyone gazes intently at the old man and his puzzle.

Enjoying his unexpected authority and the attention from the other passengers, he straightens his back, polishes his glasses, looks at his audience, and coughs once. “Here before me . . . on this card,” he says in a solemn voice, “is a name and an address.”

“Whose name and address?” someone calls out.

Again the old man coughs, in order to reinforce his words. And then, very slowly and clearly, as if he's repeating a dictation exercise, he says, “Dr. Krishna Kumar,
45
Angappan Street, Mannady, Madras.”

A respectful sigh goes through the audience.

Madan's heart misses a beat. He's going to a doctor in Madras! That's why Chandan Chandran sent him there. At long last, something will be done to solve his one great problem. Before long he'll be able to speak! He no longer cares that someone has taken his seat, or that he's hungry and thirsty, that he couldn't take a bath this morning, that he has no idea how long the journey will take, that he's afraid of catching lice from his fellow passengers. Soon he'll be able to talk, just like everyone else.

The drummer comes up with a drum roll. The singer breaks into a new melody and Madan begins to move his hips, just like the girls at the club. People are clapping and whooping. The drummer steps up the tempo, the singer sings the melody above the instruments. And Madan dances, in the middle of a crowded train between Bombay and Madras.

BY THE LIGHT
of the candle in her hand, Charlotte locked the door of the nursery and hung the key back on its nail. Feeding her father did not awaken in her any maternal feelings, but rather something akin to disappointment. Although he had moments of great clarity, she'd noticed that his intellectual powers were declining. That's why she no longer followed his orders. Today she found it worrying that he had suddenly remembered the war. Often this triggered horrible nightmares, and sometimes his screams were so loud that the people living at the bottom of the hill could hear him.

At the top of the stairs she saw the crate where Hema had deposited all the candle stumps he had removed from the gigantic chandelier. Hema was the only person who faithfully carried out all her father's orders.

Downstairs the sewing machine was humming. Should she go to him? Should she tell him that she has discovered piles of fabric in her father's room? The stair creaked under her foot. Could he hear that she was coming downstairs? Did he hope that she would come into the music room? Did he ever do anything but work? He was so serious.