Anuradha Roy - Sleeping On Jupiter

He shuffled through his head for an explanation he could give her. Stepping closer to attempt an apology he saw that she was staring outward, mumuring to herself. She was glassy-eyed, and as he watched, a tremor shook her.

He spoke in a voice soft enough to be a whisper. “Hey? What’s up?” Was she on coke? Did she have some on her? That would be interesting.

He heard her gasp of surprise and saw her eyes come back into focus. It took a few seconds before she said, “Nothing, just listening to the sea.” And then, “Did you hear that strange sound? Such a hollow, scary, groaning sound.”

Although their hotel faced the sea, it was at a distance from the water. A stretch of grassy wasteland that was now a mass of shadows stood between them and the pale sky over the sea. The sound came from that direction.

“Probably a buffalo.” Suraj gestured at the expanse of the wasteland. “Someone must have left it tied there. I heard it too, there’s nothing scary about it.” He had already settled on a pretext for seeking her out. “Look, I’m sorry I was a bit. . you know, rude this morning when you left the temple. Didn’t want to. . Anyway, I’ve a peace offering here. You want to get a glass from your room?”

Nomi went in and fetched a glass, then tucked herself into one of the two garden chairs. She drew her sheet closer, like a shawl, and nestled in it. Her head popped out about above the cloth, making her look like an anxious child at the barber’s. Suraj said nothing. If she wanted to wear a bed sheet, who was he to ask her why. He set his bottle and glass on the table, and his mobile. Then a lighter and a packet of cigarettes. He poured whisky into the glass she had brought for herself and pushed it towards her. A tea light in the centre of the table cast a golden pool between them.

Nomi finished her first drink in two gulps. Suraj was surprised because he thought he had poured her a stiff one, but he filled her glass again without comment. Her eyes were on the candle’s light as she spoke. “I should say sorry too — but I don’t know what got into me. . Can you believe it, I spent ages convincing them Jarmuli was the place to film — because of that temple? I plotted and planned. . The fact is I’ve been wanting to come here for years, never had the money.” She took a long sip. “I think I might have been born here. I’m adopted. And you know how it is, adopted kids have this well-known need to go back to their roots!” She shrugged, waggled her head as if she was not entirely serious.

She had a high voice and bright, very black eyes. She still wore her big beads around her neck — she was a jingling mass of beads, bangles, braids, and threads. He thought of the tattoo at her navel, felt a surprisingly violent need to examine all the others.

“Where did you grow up?” He looked only at his glass. “When did you leave here?”

“Oh, years ago. Years and years ago. And growing up — all over the place — mostly Oslo, I guess, but zillions of countries and trillions of airports. This is the first time I’ve come back. And guess what? On the train, I got down at one station and it left without me! Just slid off. Didn’t whistle, nothing. One minute it was standing and the next minute it was moving off. I travel all the time and I’ve never done this kind of thing: I ran like hell after it and managed to climb back on. Thought my heart would explode.”

Suraj looked up from his glass towards the shadowed trees. “Yeah, that happened to me once, and you know what, I didn’t run or anything. I just let the train go. I saw it leaving and I thought, What the hell, let it go, I don’t give a damn. I spent the night on a bench on the platform.”

The hardness of that bench, the black gloom just beyond the dim-lit platform, the dark huddles nearby of postal bundles and sleeping tramps: he remembered it well. He was expected home that evening from a work trip. Ayesha was waiting up for him. Later she told him she had been sleepless all night trying to reach him and failing, phoning friends to ask if they had news of him, dreading the thought of the calls she might need to make next: police stations, hospitals. Morgues. “Such a simple thing to call! Why the fuck didn’t you call ?” She was so angry she had asked the question again and again, each time punching him in the ribs. “Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you?” But he hadn’t. He couldn’t. He had kept his phone switched off. He had dropped off the map for the night. The next day, back home, he sat out the raging storms of her anxiety and anger without a word. He would not tell her what had happened, nor explain why he had not called. He had no explanation for it himself.

To Nomi he said, “I hadn’t a clue what station it was until I woke up. All my luggage was gone. Camera too. I didn’t care.”

“Didn’t it feel good? Didn’t it feel great?” Nomi was half out of chair with delight, sheet falling off, revealing the thinnest of noodle straps underneath, over a bare shoulder. It appeared and disappeared under her mass of hair. The shoulder was smooth and shiny, the brown of dark honey. If you dipped in a finger for a taste it would be sweet. The brown shrimp. She did not look such a shrimp in candlelight.

She gathered the sheet around her again and said, “Like stepping out of your life. Like leaving your own story. Like disappearing. Don’t you feel like disappearing from your life sometimes?”

She took a sip of her whisky and said, “There were these women on the train, three ancients, coming on a holiday here. They were like schoolgirls, so thrilled. At first I thought, I’ve never felt this — this kind of straightforward happiness — they were full of it. They thought I wasn’t listening to anything because I had my headphones on, but I’d kept the volume really low, because I love eavesdropping — don’t you? Turned out they were sad old things, complaining about their children and their aches and pains. Like this was their last chance of fun.”

Suraj shrugged. “They might go on twenty more trips and live longer than either of us.”

“Sure.” Nomi shook her head, impatient. “We’ll both be hit by a bus tomorrow.”

“Haven’t seen too many buses in Jarmuli.” He clicked his lighter on and his face turned into hills and dark hollows. He took his piece of wood from his pocket, began to work on it with his knife, and a woody perfume drifted across the table. A faint scraping from him, the whisky going down their throats, and then the lowing again, a deep sound of anguish that filled the night. Beyond the stone wall that enclosed their garden and beyond the darkness of the waste lot was a line of coconut palms that told them where the beach was. A new, cool breeze came from that direction, ruffling the air.

“I think it’ll rain.” Suraj looked up at the sky.

“What are you doing with that wood?” she said. “I saw you at it on the beach too. It’s sandalwood, isn’t it? I can smell it. Despite your smoke.”

“Just helps to kill the time. Stops me smoking more.” The lit cigarette dangled from his lips.

“Can I see the knife?” She put her hand out.

“Careful. It’s sharp enough to kill.” He handed it over. It looked much too big in her palm and that made him feel good somehow. It was a man-tool. Its dark wooden handle was silky with use. The handle was sheathed with brass at its tip and brass rivets and bands fixed the steel blade to it. His father had used it for years, it was a knife he had bought in Berlin. Suraj tapped his cigarette into the bowl on the table and told her that. He should have stopped — there was no need to say more — but he found himself telling her about his father, how he used to be good with his hands, especially making things with wood. He could make shelves and chairs and all of that, but what he really liked making were miniatures — model houses, minuscule windmills, boats. Everything he made actually worked: the doors and windows of the houses would open, the windmill would turn in the breeze, the boat would float. It was their yearly ritual to make one perfect boat, then go off together somewhere, to a river or a sea and float it away.