Cleo Odzer - Goa Freaks - My Hippie Years in India

"Uh, I'm . . . happy to hear that . . . Do you know Eve?"

"He's watching you all the time. He's looking out for you."

"Eve has a little girl about four years old?"

"I LOVE JESUS!" he suddenly sang, and a voice somewhere nearby joined in with a "HAIL, MARY!" I stepped around his robed knee, which blocked the way, and proceeded up the stairs. "God bless you," he said to my departing form.

On the porch I found a Westerner sweeping the floor. A Westerner doing housework! What an unheard-of thing in that land of cheap labour. His "Welcome, sister," discouraged me from further inquiry. I entered the house and succeeded in searching three rooms before being confronted head-on by another person in white with a smooth senile.

"Welcome, sister," she said, clasping her hands together. "Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for someone named Eve. She has a daughter Mahara. About this high."

"Oh, yes. She came to us a week ago."

The woman led me out the back door, and I found Eve outside putting dishes on a table.

"Eve!" I kissed her and turned to Ha. Neal's little girl sat stiffly on the wooden table. She looked at me but didn't move or smile or change her serious expression. "Hi, Ha!" I said. She didn't answer.

"Look, Ha, It's Keo. Say hi to Keo," Eve whispered in that soft voice of hers. Ha stared. After her first glance at me. Eve didn't look my way again. When she finished laying plates, she began moving them around. Ha just stared.

"Um . . . I wanted to see how you were," I said to Eve. "Took forever to trace your path."

"You co me here for us? Nobody else even says hello."

I didn't know what to say. Eve didn't say anything more.

"Um . . . I met the guy from that big hut you lived in . . ."

"He threw us out. Said we couldn't stay there anymore. Before that we slept in the hut next to it, but they threw us out too. We were in Baga a while, but that didn't last long. They've been nice to us here, so far."

"Isn't it hard living with these people, though? I've been blessed nine times, and I've only been here a few minutes."

She shrugged. "You should see mealtimes."

Silence.

"What about dope?" I asked.

"I have opium."

Eve still avoided looking up. So far she'd moved one plate to three different locations, and she seemed about to pick it up again. Ha sat there unmoving.

"Hey, Ha, how're you doing?" I said. "What's that in your hand? Can I see? Will you show it to me?" She moved away as I stepped closer to her. "Please?"

"NO!" she yelled angrily and swiveled to present me with her back. Silence.

Eve poked at another plate and said, "Thank you for coming."

I grasped at what seemed like a good moment to get away. "Well, stop by the house sometime and visit. Don't forget, okay?" Ha ignored my goodbye wave; Eve half-smiled at a spot midway between her and me. I backed out of the yard and took a side route so I wouldn't have to pass the well-wishers.

"GOD BLESS YOU," shouted the man on the front steps. "AND DON’T FORGET THE GOOD NEWS. TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT IT."

Now I had to prepare for Eve's visit. For sure she'd come; she knew I was still dealing drugs. I didn't have much left for her to steal since I'd peddled my jewellery and returned Kadir's. I made a quick run to collect stash bottles and emergency caches of opium. I hid them upstairs under a mattress. I'd have to remember to keep valuables on my body when she arrived and prevent her from going to the second floor. I'd also have to watch her behaviour toward the one or two customers I had left. I didn't want her driving them away.

Within hours of my finding her, Eve appeared at the door. "Hi. We're here," she whispered.

From that day on she came regularly and stayed for hours, sitting quietly and smoking bhongs. She never looked anyone in the face when she spoke. Instead she'd fidget with her belt, her hair, or whatever lay in front of her. She made people nervous. When she was out of earshot they'd take me aside.

"That's a strange one you've got there," they'd tell me.

"Oh, Eve's okay."

"Her kid's even worse," they'd comment next.

Ha had become a nasty beast. She'd yell and throw things and stamp her foot and do everything you told her not to. She never smiled, never laughed. She'd grow crankiest at night. Eve let Ha carry on by herself, no matter what she was doing—a fit of rage, even a destructive rampage. Not only did I have to watch Eve, I had to watch Ha too.

"No, Ha, please don't touch that," I would say, spying her molesting a souvenir I'd bought in Moscow. "It comes from Russia." Ha loved it when you told her not to do something; it gave her a sense of direction. "NO, Ha. I said do NOT touch that. You'll ruin the fur." Just what she wanted to hear. "STOP! Don't pull the fur OUT!"

Eve paid no heed. Only if it was late at night and Ha was particularly bratty would Eve finally call her over.

"Come here, Ha," she'd whisper. Then Eve would blow hash smoke in the face of Neal's daughter. "It helps put her to sleep," she explained. Yes, it was time for me to leave Goa.

Occasionally Eve managed to get her dexterous hands on something or other, but since I kept money and drugs tied around my waist, she only stole candles and rolls of toilet paper. The house was bereft of items worth stealing.

Empty spaces left by sold objects surrounded me. They matched the empty spaces inside me left by missing people. I sold the four-foot Kashmiri lamp that had hung over it. Now the dining room was a vast desert I hated to walk through. Gone from the bedroom were the Laotian mobiles that had hung between the bags of glucose at the glucose party. The fancy brass doorknobs and light switches in the shape of Hindu gods were gone too.

One day I found myself with no dope in the house. Not a granule. I'd already snorted off the carpet whatever vaguely resembled smack, along with a lot of dust and sand. I possessed only Opium and the package of morphine that had been sitting in my blowtorched safe for years. Yuck. Morphine was disgusting. You couldn't smoke it or snort it because of its horrible taste. Maybe I could fix it? I'd never tried fixing myself before.

Well, why not? I'd give it a try.

The only vein I could see was a tiny one in the middle of my right arm. I hit it first try. But I felt nothing. Maybe I hadn't used enough powder. I wanted to do it again, but now a bump covered the vein and I could no longer see it. Veins were visible on my hand, though. I decided to try one of those. Couldn't get it. I tried again. It moved. I tried a different vein. Damned thing wouldn't hold still! I tried over and over and over. No good. After a half hour holes speckled my hand, but not one of them had reached a vein. Hmmm. Interesting. Was this how Maria had felt when she couldn't get a hit? By the time I finally gave up, the back of my hand sported dozens of red dots.

"What happened to your hand?" Eve whispered later when she came by.

"Couldn't get a vein."

"Rands are impossible. The veins roll. You need someone to hold one in place."

Yes, it was past time for me to leave Goa.

I needed a departure date. Any date. It didn't matter. How about March sixth? Okay. March sixth it is. On March sixth I'd leave Goa forever.

"Come here. Bach," I called, having made the decision. His ears were my favourite place to wipe tears.

I owned one special item—a three-foot Balinese wooden sculpture I'd shipped from Denpasar. A myriad of carved figures peeped from its core. Painted in pinks, purples, and gold, its flat top made it usable as a table. I couldn't bear the thought of selling it. How could I condemn such a wondrous piece of art to the smoky back room of the Sikh chai shop?

I decided to give it to Canadian Jacques. A bulky chunk of heavy wood, it should probably not have been lugged across the shadeless sand in the hot mid afternoon.