Sleeping On Jupiter (18 page)

She wondered what her foster mother would have made of this temple. Unbidden, a pang of remorse stabbed her. Two mothers. One she had lost and been tormented by a lifelong need to find; the other a woman she had found but never allowed close.

Just before the trip to India, she had gone from her own studio flat to her foster mother’s house to pick up some things. She had found her sitting alone in the living room with the T.V. soundlessly on. Her foster mother did not move from her chair. She sat watching Nomi go up the stairs, listening to the sounds of cupboard doors opening and shutting, yet she asked no questions and Nomi knew that her foster mother could not speak for the dread that she was going to India because she had found some trail she would not reveal. To her biological family? The air between them was taut with unasked questions.

Nomi was overwhelmed then by an unexpected rush of compassion for the woman in the armchair, and with a terrible weariness at the burden of all that she could never speak of. She went to the drinks cabinet and poured shots of Aquavit and glasses of beer as her foster mother looked on in astonishment. They never had a drink together except dutifully, at Christmas. She kept topping up their glasses until the old woman started to smile, said they should eat something too, and warmed up meatballs that she heaped onto the white and blue plates from years ago. Afterwards Nomi made coffee and even washed up. When she left they didn’t hug, but she had reached out and squeezed her foster mother’s arm and said a gruff “see you soon” before hefting her backpack and walking out at the dark rain.

It was all so far away: that cold rain, the darkness at noon, her foster mother. Here the sun was burning her head up and there were many shrines to get through. She decided to find Suraj, time she turned professional again. There he was, still dozing. When she called, he struggled awake. There was a gap between his decision to open his eyes and the act of it.

“Hey, why are you sleeping? Get up! Make some notes. Come with me.”

Understanding the meaning of her words, that too happened with a moment’s lapse, like talking on a bad international line. He said, “Been here, seen this, binned it.” An infinite slowness came over him. He watched a bird sail over them. A very white cloud inched sideways in the blue sky.

“Up.” She held out a hand. He looked at it. “Come on.” He put his hand into hers and she yanked him up, let his hand go, strolled ahead, then bent down to squint at a sculpture at knee-level. “Can you tell what this is?”

“Some kind of animal,” Suraj yawned. “With a football for a belly and moustaches. No animal that I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s a lion, can’t you tell? I saw one like this . . . not exactly, but very like it. At the sculptor’s yesterday. He was telling the truth after all!”

He was surprised by her excitement. He heard her out when she explained how the lion on the wall was evidence of some unknown man’s claim that he was descended from the same temple sculptors. She would go back to him, she declared, buy something to prove she believed him. Suraj did not think it worth pointing out that local craftsmen everywhere made copies of temple art. Was she really so gullible, to believe everything she was told?

They climbed down the stairs and crossed the courtyard to go towards the tallest tower. The people already at its top looked to his smoke-filled eyes as if they were regiments of mice scurrying over a mountainous pile of stone. His head swam. He groaned, “Oh . . . forget it. I’ve seen it before. It’s not such a big deal.”

A guide with a few Japanese tourists glowered at him and raised his voice. “It is one of the great wonders of the world, this renowned temple to the sun.” He went ahead with his group and Nomi said, “Come on, Suraj, it’s a temple to you. Let’s try and see it. You have the sun in your name.”

“I’ve been here with my parents. I can truthfully say that I’ve already seen it.”

Parts of the tower had high stone stairs etched into the sides of walls without railings or handholds in any form. Nomi stepped carefully, eyes on her feet.“That must have been years ago,” she said. “You don’t remember a thing. Not enough to write a report on it for a film company.” Suraj lost sight of the words he was about to say in reply, feeling a perilous, airy sense of vertigo, a feeling he had to fight, of letting his body fall, as he had in the sea that morning – to let go, to float and fall from a great height. He stopped and shaded his eyes against the sun. If he looked at Nomi now, following him up the steps, he saw the earth far below, the sky immeasurably remote. The steps were steep, she was struggling up, her camera equipment was heavy. He should give her a hand. Then he saw that her kurta was sliding off a shoulder again. He noticed a black mole on the bare shoulder. Tiny. Perhaps raised – you couldn’t be sure unless you touched it.

He leaned forward, a finger stretched out.

Even as he leaned forward, and Nomi put her hand out to him thinking he was trying to help her over the steep bit, he saw his mother’s friend, Latika, climbing the stairs further away. When she faltered, a tall man, much younger than her, held her hand as if they had known each other for years. Suraj shut his eyes, opened them again. They were still there. He was truly stoned. High as a kite. Seeing things. Had he popped pills too that morning?

Then he remembered, as if from a great distance, that his mother had been going on for some time about a holiday with her friends. He never listened with much attention when she was on the phone, her patter registered dimly if at all. Mostly he browsed the web as her voice went on playing in the background, like music he wasn’t really listening to. Once he had put the phone down in the middle of a call for a full minute to find his cigarettes and light one. He had been proven right: she had not noticed him being gone.

Hurriedly, he withdrew his hand and Nomi said, “What are you? Straight off the Sistine Chapel ceiling?” She took another step up.

Suraj was clambering down the stairs. He stumbled, almost fell, but then righted himself and ran down.

“Hey, you’ll fall, careful!” She watched him bewildered. “Where are you going? What happened?”

“I’ve got to go. Right now. Something’s come up,” Suraj shouted to her over his shoulder. “I’ll wait for you in the car, O.K.? Come to the car when you’re done.” No trace of his drowsiness remained, he moved down the stairs and across the courtyards so swiftly that he was gone before she could ask another question. She looked around, confused – what was he running from? There was nobody she could see following him.

Nomi stood watching him weave into the crowds far below. Two thin-waisted, broad-belted men in flashy sunglasses and tight trousers were looking at him as well. Once Suraj was out of sight, they trained their eyes on her. One of them breathed out a soft whistle and the other said, “Sexy, sexy.” She moved away from them, up the stairs to the next level, and her eyes met those of another man staring at her. He arrived instantly at her elbow and in a whining voice began, “Madam, guide services! Authorised guide. Hundred Percent. Madam, this Sun Temple was built in . . .”

She ignored him and started on the next flight of stairs, but it felt pointless all at once and the carvings of men and women cavorting on the panels looked obscene. She could not bear to be among these stone people copulating, fondling, standing on their heads to have sex. It was so hot, her head was splitting open with the heat. Why was the sky that ghastly blue? Why was everyone wearing bilious orange saris? Were there no colours in this country that were muted? She felt her head swim, saw blue and purple and pink stars when she shut her eyes. She was on a sandy beach. A dog was inching closer. The shadow of the boat was receding and the sun was on fire. She was hungry and thirsty and alone and when she cried out, nobody came.

*

Late in the afternoon, Badal parked his scooter and walked to Johnny Toppo’s stall, his hand in his pocket, caressing his mobile. The last two days had been hell, not knowing if Raghu was ever going to return. Badal had gone to the beach to find him two, even three times a day, to explain that he did not care who he drank beer with – and each time he had found Johnny Toppo cursing because Raghu had not turned up for work. But early that morning he had glimpsed the familiar red T-shirt and broken into a run. He had given Raghu the phone at last; he could call him any time. From now on, there would be no uncertainty.

A thrill of happiness shot through Badal. The next instant he remembered he had not taken down the new mobile’s number. He felt unhappier still thinking back to the clumsiness with which he had pressed it into Raghu’s sweaty palm, interrupting his push-ups. He had wanted that moment to convey everything he needed to tell Raghu and could never find the words for. Instead?

“What’s that?” Raghu had said, sounding suspicious.

Badal struggled for coherence, but right then, before he could say anything that meant something, Johnny Toppo yelled for the boy and yelled for him again, more impatiently. Badal wanted to shove the man’s tongue down his wrinkled old throat just so he would shut up for a few minutes.

He told himself it was an expensive gift that needed no words of explanation. Raghu knew what it meant and had accepted it because he knew.

But he would take anything he could get from anyone.

Badal sighted a bit of red and grey that seemed to be Raghu and again his steps turned into an involuntary run. The boy was crouched over the iron bucket filled with clay cups. The cups let out soft bubbles as they absorbed the water in the bucket. If you didn’t soak earthen cups for hours before they were used, their porous bodies grew fatter on the tea poured into them, Johnny Toppo had once explained. Raghu was lifting them from the bucket and making a neat stack on a table next to him. When Badal put his mouth close to his ear and said, “You’re back! Where were you?” Raghu fumbled in alarm and the four cups he was holding dropped to the ground and broke. He looked up to see if Johnny Toppo had noticed and growled, “What the hell are you hissing like that for?”

He got up, set the washed cups on the barrow, and began taking an order from a couple who wanted tea, one with sugar, one without and yes, maybe two of those biscuits . . . no, three. Johnny Toppo was at the other end, dealing with children whose parents were saying, “Horlicks, Horlicks, chocolate flavour. Don’t you keep any?”

“There’s something . . .” Badal whispered to Raghu. “Come away for just a minute, Johnny Toppo can manage.”

“
Johnny Toppo can manage
,” Raghu mimicked. But he moved away from the stall.

“I just wanted to ask you . . .” Badal began. But he had never been good at saying things and even now, when he had come especially to talk, he did not know how to say it. He was distracted by Raghu scratching something on his arm – another drying scab – where did he get all these wounds from? It was as if he cut himself on purpose just to be able to worry a scab. But he was so beautiful – impossibly beautiful in his ragged old red and grey clothes and those blue rubber slippers. He wanted to ask him, did you like the phone? Did you notice I fed my own number into it? Do you know what that means? Do you understand the full force of what that means?

Yet he found himself saying, “That afternoon . . . by the boat . . . you ran off . . . did you take my scooter away and then put it back near my house? Did you take the scooter keys from my pocket?”

Inevitably, it came out wrong. Still, he tried to look as if he was amused by the keys and missing scooter. He attempted a smile.

“You think I’m a thief as well? First they say I stole a phone, then . . . What’s got into all these old buggers? What’s there to grin about anyway with all your thirty-two teeth? You couldn’t pay me to steal that pile of junk.”

“Don’t shout,” Badal begged. “That’s not what I meant, not what I meant. I thought you were playing a prank . . . just fooling around.” He had not intended asking the question in that way. All he wanted was to remind Raghu of that afternoon, of what had happened before the scooter was lost. Maybe he had actually wanted to ask about the monk in sunglasses and the night when he had seen Raghu with those foreigners.

No, he had not wanted to ask about that, there was no need to.

Raghu went back to the stall and crouched over his pail again. Badal sat on his haunches next to him. Raghu turned his face away and started with single-minded zeal on the pile of clay cups in the water. He picked up another four and swilled them out. “Get lost,” he said, “I’ve no time for this now.” Hunched over the cups, his hair a dry, sun-bleached nest, he looked so childish and vulnerable that Badal wanted to put his arms around those thin shoulders and tell him, you never have to work again, I’ll look after you.

“I thought you were just fooling around with the scooter,” Badal said in an urgent whisper. “What else would I think? Why else would I buy you a gift? I got you that phone to . . .”

“That phone got me a beating, that’s what it did.”

“Can’t you see . . .?” Badal begged.

“What? What can’t I see?” Raghu spoke slowly, biting off each syllable. His voice had a belligerent edge. It was raised – too much. Badal looked around hoping nobody was listening.

“Can’t you see how things are between us?” he whispered. “You can see as well as I can what has happened between us. That’s why I bought you that phone. So that, any time . . .”

Even as he spoke, he felt his voice drying up, his hands go clammy. A suffocating darkness rose from inside him, yet he could see everything now with agonising clarity.

The crowds shielded them. They were in the eye of their own private storm. Around them was the roar of other people. This was not how he had meant it to be, but this was how it was. This was always how it was with important things, the things that made or shattered your life.

Johnny Toppo shouted, “Arre Raghu, hurry up with the cups. I’ve got people here waiting.”

Raghu gave Badal a twisted smile and said, “So
that’s
how things are, is it? You don’t say!”

Johnny Toppo hobbled towards them. “I’ve had enough of you, you punk. I told you I was sacking you,” he said. “You begged to stay. Either you work or I get someone else. I haven’t signed a bond to feed you for free.”