Anuradha Roy - Sleeping On Jupiter

She was fiddling with the jewellery in her ears. Several silver rings. Two tiny ruby studs at the top of the left ear. One gold ring at each lobe.

He had not realised he was staring until she said, “Weird, no? So many? I didn’t plan it that way. I just collected them over the years.”

Badal swallowed this information with a smile and a nod. She did not seem to expect more.

For a long time after their cigarettes finished they sat looking out to the horizon. She was humming a song — one of Johnny Toppo’s songs. Badal could not remember which. How did she know the song? Johnny Toppo’s songs had no melodies stolen from any movies he had seen, neither were the words those of a poet. It came to him that Raghu never hummed Johnny Toppo’s songs even though he listened to them all the time; he didn’t hum any songs at all. But he would not think of Raghu. He would not think.

Then, as the wind dropped, something in the air changed, as if the storm were drawing breath before it broke loose. The trawler’s lights had faded.

The girl fished around in her bag and brought out a box of mints. She held it out to him. “You’d better have one of these,” she said. “Then nobody will know you smoked.”

She looked hesitant; she was going to ask a favour. He knew what it would be.

“Give me a ride?” she said. “Till somewhere?”

“I will drop you near the market in Jarmuli. You can take a rickshaw from there to your hotel,” he said to her. “And then I leave. I won’t go back there ever again.”

He put the mint into his mouth, felt its icy charge wipe every other taste away.

*

It was when they were looking for a gift for their driver who was not a driver that Latika had her brainwave. They were in a badly-lit alleyway lined by a series of shops that looked like rusted cupboards on stilts. Crowds of evening shoppers were jammed against each other looking at displays of cheap clothing, bags, shells, and statues. Here, set somewhat behind the other shops, as if it needed to be hidden, was a grilled window in a wall flaky with torn posters from the recent elections. A few men who had been glued to the window slunk away from it, tucking half bottles of liquor into their waistbands, then pulling their shirts over the bottles as camouflage.

“Let’s get a bottle of vodka.” Latika’s eyes were shining.

“Have you lost your mind?” Vidya had not paused to count to fifteen this time and her question came out as a furious bark.

“She has. What is wrong with you, Latika? Let’s go back and have some hot cups of tea. From that man on the beach.” Why she needed that tea so badly Gouri could not explain. But she did.

“Tea, tea, tea! I’m sick of tea. Haven’t had one cup of real coffee for five days. I’m going to buy some vodka. Wait here, Vidya.”

“Wait here? What will those. . those loafers at the shop think? Respectable old women queuing up with that riff-raff to buy. . liquor!”

“I’ve never drunk alcohol in my life,” Gouri said, pursing her lips and looking away.

“Neither have I.” Vidya’s words came rapidly, as if the very thought rattled her. “What an absurd idea. Look how those men are staring. What if they follow us? Let’s just go from here.” She pulled at Latika’s thin arm.

“They’ll never see us again. Come on! We’ll never be out together after this, away from children, away from family.”

“What’s happening to you in your old age, Latika? Since when have you been drinking?” Gouri wanted to sound sarcastic, but she never managed irony and this time too it came out sounding like a real question. It infuriated Latika. “Oh, old age! Old age! I’m tired of this.” She stalked off towards the grilled window.

“What’s got into her, really. . Latika? Oh, this is all so exhausting, and after such a long drive and the hot sun all day. .” Vidya followed her, calling, “Latika! Slow down.”

Gouri stood where they had left her, in the middle of the market, with its piles of garlands, fruits, rotted vegetables underfoot, the chaos of vendors shouting under gas lamps that seemed to create more shadows than light. She wondered if she too should try and stop Latika. She stole a look at the dingy shop as if a glance, however quick, might be enough to contaminate her. “INDIAN MADE FOREIGN LIQUOR” a sign said in blotchy red paint on the walls around the window. That decided her. She stayed where she was.

Out of the mess of rickshaws and people with shopping bags and laden carts that were being pushed through the crowd, Gouri saw a young woman approach her. The face looked familiar, but she could not place it. The woman — a girl, really — was looking at her. Gouri turned away. She wanted to avoid their eyes meeting.

The girl came towards her, as if she knew Gouri. “Do you remember me? This really is a small place, no? I’m so glad you’re here! My friend abandoned me at the Sun Temple, then I took a bus and then I got a lift on a scooter, but now someone is following me. A monk. . see? Behind that shop with the saris? That one, with the long hair. Haven’t you seen him standing in the sea with his beads? He’s been after me from the first day I came here.”

“Child, a monk will never do you any harm. He is a man of god. Why should he follow you?” The girl looked deranged, what with her matted hair and and her strange clothes.

“Please.” The girl looked at a group of people some distance away, then turned to Gouri again. “I mustn’t look that way, he’ll see me. Just. . if we could leave together from here? Then I’ll be fine. Please?” She put a hand out and Gouri shrank back. “If you’re going in a rickshaw, I’ll share it? Where are you going?”

Her voice was shaking. Gouri could see she was terrified — but for what reason? A monk? Monks were good. They would never touch a hair on a girl’s head. There were any number of monks at the temple: pious, holy, revered.

“I am waiting,” Gouri explained. “I can’t leave.”

“For what? For how long?”

Gouri had to think — for what? For some moments she could not recall what exactly she was waiting for. Then — of course, she remembered — she was waiting for the guide to the Vishnu temple. Vidya and Latika had gone on ahead in a rickshaw. The guide had told her he would take her on his scooter. He had asked her to wait till he brought his scooter from the parking lot, but then he had not come back. She had been waiting quite a while, her tired legs told her that. They felt as if they had been walking all day when all she had done was to rest in the hotel, praying and preparing for this evening’s trip to the temple.

She might as well take a rickshaw with this child, do her a good turn while she was at it. Perhaps the guide couldn’t find her in the crowds. What was the point of worrying about it? Whatever would be would be. They only needed to reach the temple, and then she knew her way about. They would get there right in time for the evening’s prayers and change of flags. That was such a spectacle. Young people loved that kind of thing. She would tell the girl what it all meant.

She waved towards the line of waiting rickshaws with a magisterial finger. A rickshaw broke away from its rank by the road and creaked to a halt next to them. Holding the seat for support, she heaved herself in and beckoned to the girl, who clambered in as well. “To the temple,” Gouri said.

*

At the Indian Made Foreign Liquor shop, the men by the window made way for Latika without being asked, too astonished to catcall or whistle. Latika leaned in at the window, unzipped her handbag, fished out some money and said in an authoritative tone, as if this were an everyday thing and she was buying onions or potatoes: “One small bottle vodka.”