Seahorse (10 page)

Until hands grasped me under my shoulders, driving me up and back, pulling me across to the edge, propping me against the side. The infinite safety of solidity. The bar, the blue tiles. The gritty, firm cement.

“It's okay… you're standing…”

“I can't…” I gasped. The water was a living, breathing thing. “I'm sorry…”

“We'll do this slowly…” His voice was low and soothing, close to my ear. His breath warm as life. “See, you're fine…”

He was right. The water only reached up to my chest now. It had retreated.

Nicholas moved closer, his skin studded with drops. “The first thing we need to do is teach you how not to drown.”

He didn't. For on all occasions after, I pleaded not to return. I made excuses. I was busy. I wasn't well. I had a pressing assignment to complete. Myra accompanied him joyfully when she visited Delhi; they went to the pool almost everyday despite the winter cold. I never did learn how to swim.

Time is tricky. You organize it into days. You break it down to a second, and build it up to a century. A millennium. You shift, and stack, hoarding time into holidays and long weekends. You peel away the calendar pages. Carry it around in smartphones and computers. It has a shape. A design. Hands and digits. Glowing figures. And yet, it can't be tamed. Constantly in our grasp. Constantly out of reach. All it takes is a tremor to bring it down, the carefully staged arrangement. Precarious as a falling leaf. Time is riddled with fault lines. Slim as paper. Delicate as swirls of ink.

In the bookshop that evening, after I read Nicholas' note, I tried to drag myself back into the present. But there's a reason why time is likened to water. It is viscous. It resists. I drank more wine. Suddenly
exhilarated. I think I conversed with strangers, my voice louder than usual, my laughter more urgent. Everything seemed heightened. It lasted even when I was in the tube with Santanu, when we were making our way to the south-west of the city, to Eva's place. Above the carriage door, we spotted a
Shaadi.com
advert—
The smart way to find your life partner.
Neha, 25, Model, Loves modern art and boxing. Sanjay, 29, Businessman, Loves Stallone and wildlife.

“Santanu, 34, Recalcitrant Academic, Detests everything,” I offered.

“Nehemiah, 32, Wastrel.”

After we'd run out of colorful insults, he told me, “By the way, when we get to Eva's flat, look at what's on the dining table…”

“What?”

“You'll see.”

That evening, I'd have preferred to settle for fewer surprises. “Tell me…”

“I will. Later.”

And I couldn't get any more out of him as we jostled along. At the next stop, a man stepped in and stood in front of me, sporting a military-style haircut and a shiny black leather jacket. On his neck, below his jawline, a shaky tattoo of a pair of dice.

Eva lived in Wimbledon, close to the Buddhapadipa Temple, in a compact yet quietly expensive flat. Filled with neat, contemporary furniture, stylish industrial lampshades, and edgy urban photo art—a series of images of a woman in a glass box placed at bridges, cliffs, at the edges of skyscrapers. Santanu told me her father was a wealthy entrepreneur in Tokyo—“There's no way anyone can afford
this
on a normal salary.”

There were fewer than a dozen people in her drawing room—friends from Tokyo studying in London, a colleague or two from the institute including Tamsin, a few writers and artists from the event at Wilhelmein, and a Palestinian woman with a solemn face and dark shiny
hair that spilled over her shoulders in coiled ringlets. Eva opened the door to us; she was on the phone, and gestured she'd only be a minute.

“Sorry about that,” she said, coming over to us after. “Stefan called… sorting out some dates.” Her eyes, I noticed, were bright, unusually shiny. Stefan was her boyfriend or, as was the customary title in this country, her partner, currently in Paris, or Geneva. Posted there as… she'd mentioned, but I'd forgotten. “Foreign correspondent” came to mind. I asked Santanu.

“He's a journalist, I think….”

“By the way,” I said, lowering my voice, “there's nothing unusual on the dining table.” I gestured across the room.

“Do you see the flowers?” he asked.

Standing in the centre was a vase of long-stemmed white lilies.

“No matter where he is, he sends her a fresh bouquet every week.”

The room was filled with their fragrance, strong as the scent of longing, rising above the murmur of conversation, Ani Difranco on the stereo, the tinkle of glasses.

Later, Eva introduced us to her Palestinian acquaintance.

“Santanu, Nem, this is Yara… she's warned me not to introduce her as a poet.”

The girl standing beside her smiled.

We asked her why.

She had the face of a Modigliani painting. Perfectly polished and oval, with a sharp, pointed chin, and long, prominent nose; only her hair and eyes were more feisty than anything he ever captured on canvas.

“Because people look at me with pity. Like poor child… it will be a tough life.” Her voice was pleasantly gravelly, and her words rounded and deepened over the vowels.

“What do you usually tell them?” asked Santanu. I'd never seen him look that… delighted by anyone.

She laughed. “That I teach… but it usually elicits the same reaction.”

Yara worked as an Arabic tutor at a language centre in the city, where, she said, most of her students were diplomats. Weeks later, she gifted us copies of her chapbook—
How to Survive Breathing
—bound in neat bilingual order, her lines dropping on the pages, visceral, exquisite.

“Is Yara an Arabic name?” asked Santanu.

“Yes, it means small butterfly… but my name seems to belong to everyone… in Brazil yara is a water goddess… for aborigines, a seagull… for the Incas a song of love and death… in Sanskrit, a bright light… I think in Hindi, it means…”

“A friend…” completed Santanu.

“That's right… but my favorite, and I don't know if this is true, is the one from a Native American community…”

What was that, we asked.

“The line of the horizon that separates the stars from the ocean.”

That's because you're a poet,” teased Eva. “I prefer water goddess… although that also makes you sound like a swimwear model.”

Yara said if all else failed, which considering her calling was entirely possible, she'd give it a thought. She turned to Santanu, her eyes charcoal-black, tainted with silver light. “And your name?”

“Hardly as poetic, or as multifarious, I'm afraid… Wholesome…”

“Like porridge?”

Santanu had the grace to laugh with the rest of us.

“And you?” she asked. Her lips were stained with wine.

“Me? It's a Biblical name…”

“I know.” Her stare was disconcerting.

I hesitated. “It means builder of new worlds.”

Through the evening, we mingled, weaving our way around the room. We settled into informal clusters. Then broke away, refilled our drinks, picked at plates of canapés. Some rolled their Golden Virginia, and stepped out into a tiny balcony that barely fit more than a person
at a time. Tamsin smoked too, neat little menthol cigarettes, and I could see Eva keeping her company outside, dark heads bent close together. Laughing, looking at each other in delight. At some point, I found myself next to the writer from Hong Kong—a slight girl named Xia, who reminded me of a sparrow. She was working on a PhD in creative writing at the University of London, and had recently published a collection of short stories. “They span over a hundred years,” she explained, “from the 1830s to the handover in 1997.”

And what were they about?

As you know, she replied, that's the most difficult question to answer.

We laughed in artistic camaraderie.

“And you?” Her eyes were very dark and very shiny, like polished beads. “I mean, do you also write fiction?”

“No, not really.”

“Why?”

I told her I didn't write fiction because I couldn't find the words.

She was quiet—expecting me to elaborate.

That at some point in my life they were taken away from me. By Lenny. By Nicholas.

Just then, we were joined by the Nepalese artist, a shaven-haired youth wearing a paisley-pattern shirt and vintage lunette glasses.

He introduced himself as Nayan, his British accent clear and crisp.

“Have you lived here all your life?” asked Xia.

The artist was drinking whisky, and something about the way he sipped from his glass made me want to touch his lips.

His grandfather, he explained, had served with the Gurkhas; his parents migrated to the UK before he was born.

“When I visit Nepal,” he said, “I tell them about autumn. They don't have autumn there… do you like it? What it does to the trees.”

I said I too loved the lost season. Was that one of his inspirations? For the artwork on the journal's cover.

He laughed. “Yes. As well as everything else.” Mandalas, the cosmos, cells, lace, brocade. The long tradition of geometric and floral patterns of the Far East, the Middle East, the Byzantine and the Baroque.

“How,” he slung back the remaining whisky, casually, “is it possible to separate?”

Later, I was alone with Eva in the kitchen. Helping her uncork more wine. It was neat and superciliously clean—white tiles and counters that looked like they'd never seen a grease stain, or spillage of crumbs. In short, a kitchen in which nothing much was cooked. When Eva opened the fridge, I could see why—shelf upon shelf of ready meals from Waitrose, delectable tubs of prepared food.
Tea smoked salmon. Tagliata with rocket and Parmesan. Sea bass filets with samphire and vanilla butter.

She plucked out a bottle of white wine. A clean, elegant Calvet Pouilly Fumé.

“Who was that man earlier?”

“Which one?” I fumbled with the opener, sending it spinning across the counter.

“Earlier… at the bookstore.”

“I don't know.” And that, at least, was the truth.

“He gave you something…”

“That—well, I'm not sure really.”

“A secret admirer! What did he give you?”

The envelope lay folded in my pocket. I couldn't feel it, but it was there, heavy as stone.

“A note.”

“A note?”

“Just an old friend. Nothing important.” I hoped I conveyed a nonchalance I didn't feel.

Eva laughed, her hair catching the light. “Alright… I won't pry. Now, will you come with me this Saturday? To see a show by this British-Indian artist…”

I was thankful she hadn't persisted. I wouldn't have liked to be rude, not to her, especially since she seemed to have taken me under her wing, concerned I might feel lost, out of place. Although, now that I'd heard about Stefan, I wondered whether there was something more, that I was filling a gap in the shape of a figure who was always elsewhere.

Later that night, I went home with the Nepalese artist.

To his studio flat in Hammersmith. On one side, a hurricane of paper, brushes and paints, on the other a neatly arranged cupboard and double bed. Without his glasses he kept his eyes closed, his lips parted, as I touched him. His fingers dug into my arm, a faint moan, pulling me closer, lifting himself so I could reach easier, quicker, to the softness underneath. While my mouth stayed on him, a silky grip, he laughed at the quick nip of my teeth. I remember his slim shoulders, his burnished seashell-skin, the light from a lamp smoothly slanting off his chest. Above me, he was weightless as a leaf, shaped as one by his ribs, rising and falling. Then we scissored ourselves together, slick and moist. Urgent, clumsy hands. Entangled limbs. A deep-shallow breathing that ended in long, uneven gasps.

He fell asleep, with his hand between my thighs, as though to feel me even in his dreams. Somewhere in the darkness along the edge of the room, a boiler wept and gurgled.