Jeet Thayil - Narcopolis

Mr Lee? she said.

*

And she woke beside Xavier, who was still asleep. She bathed, changed, ate breakfast and was at Rashid’s by noon. When Xavier came in around two, her station was busy and he went to Pagal Kutta’s. He acted like he didn’t know her. He smoked a pyali and ate lunch in the khana and then he went out for a haircut and a beard trim. The barber pointed out a hamam, a couple of cubicles set up by the side of the road, where they gave him a sliver of soap, a bucket of lukewarm water and a thin cotton towel. The bath cost him forty paisa and he emerged feeling clean despite the dirty clothes he was wearing. He felt good enough to take a little stroll. He thought of picking up a T-shirt and a pair of slacks in one of the shops on Grant Road and he turned right at the end of Shuklaji Street. Then, walking past Delhi Darbar, he smelled food and forgot about buying clothes: he wanted a drink. In a shop window he saw the reflection of a raggedy man in a dirty kurta and he stumbled lightly. He saw biryani cookpots and flies and piles of horse dung. A man approached with a double cross on which plastic sunglasses and hair-clips were arranged in the vague shape of a crucifix. He saw a man driving fast with his windows up and in the back of the car a little girl leaned her forehead against the glass. He saw men walking towards him with their hands around each other’s shoulders, and a man had collapsed on the street, his pockets turned inside out, and a group of boys panted in unison with a radio song in which the singer imitated a dog. A woman in a yellow blouse and petticoat made up her face in a splinter of glass. She held the jagged splinter like a knife. When he walked past her cage their eyes met in the mirror. She nodded to him and he went to the cage. She reached through the bars and grabbed his dick. Her hand was small, the grip very firm, and the bottle green bangles on her wrist chimed like small bells when she massaged him. He asked her where he might find a wine shop and she let go of him. ‘No wine. This is a Muslim locality, babuji, what do you expect?’ When he walked away she made a fist and grabbed herself by the elbow, gesturing to his dick with her lips. A man standing near her cage laughed. Xavier passed a movie theatre, its front wall streaked with piss. He bought a ticket and went in just as a song sequence began. A man in a matador’s costume gyrated in a giant birdcage. It was the tune he’d heard minutes earlier, in which a man panted like a dog. The matador took off his jacket and shouted: Monica! Xavier thought of saints and felt a powerful emotion, elation or fear, he wasn’t sure. A woman slid down a ramp to a dance floor. There was an artful shot of her figure framed between two bottles. She held the bottles up to her face and Xavier got up and went out into the sunlight and took a cab to Chowpatty. He found a permit room where a waitress served him whisky and poured him a beer. There were many tables and all the drinkers were men. On a tiny stage a woman in a chiffon sari danced to muddy music. He couldn’t tell if it was jazz or Hindustani classical. The woman moved her hips but not her feet. She held up her hands and gazed at the floor as if she was being robbed. Her expression said she was trying to remember something very important, something that could save her life. The drinkers gave her money but it wasn’t enough because she was still unable to remember the important thing. When the song ended she dropped her hands and walked offstage. Somebody clapped.

Late in the evening Xavier went back to 007, getting there before Dimple. He told the tai to send him the same girl dressed the same way and then he took a beer with him into the cubicle in which he’d spent the previous night. When Dimple came in, changed and washed, he fucked her standing up with her arms propped on the cot and her clothes pushed up around her waist. Later, he fucked her again and yelled something in a language no one could identify, French maybe, or Italian, some European language other than English, shouting the same two words again and again, Sa Crenaam . The cubicles next to theirs were occupied, the tai on one side and Lakshmi on the other. Lakshmi clapped her hands in the chakka salute when Xavier came, because it took him so long. She shouted her congratulations, to Dimple for her stamina and to Xavier for his technique.

*

She woke instantly, with the sensation that she’d forgotten something. She knew it was late because the nightlight had been turned on in the main room. She was alone on the cot. Then she became aware of a figure sitting motionless on the floor. She put the lamp on and saw Xavier, fully dressed, with his back against the door. The nightlight made red slashes in his face when he spoke. She thought: He looks like a lunatic. Find yourself a patron saint, he told her in a dog’s hoarse voice. Everybody needs at least one and some of us need two or more. I’m not saying the saint will protect you, he might, but there’s the question of companionship, not to mention peace of mind, which you need. I need protection too, Dimple said. Then listen carefully. I suggest that you think seriously about the patron saints of amputees, Anthony of Padua and Anthony the Abbot, who are also the patron saints of animals. The Anthonys of animals and amputees, now there’s a pairing that goes beyond the merely alphabetical and alliterative, wouldn’t you say? I suggest too the services of Agnes of Rome and Thomas Aquinas, who, among lesser or greater achievements, depending on your point of view, are the patron saints of chastity. Which isn’t of much concern to you though perhaps it should be, if you see what I mean. Between the two your best bet is Agnes, who is also the patron saint of orphans and virgins. It might interest you to know that the patron saints against sexual temptation are all women, the Marys of Edessa and Egypt, Mary Magdalen and Mary Magdalen of Pazzi, Angela of Foligno, Margaret of Cortona, Catherine of Siena and Pelagia of Antioch, who martyred herself at fifteen with the help of a ladder, a house and a small battalion of Roman soldiers. Then there’s Maximilian Kolbe, the patron saint of drug addicts and journalists, which, if you ask me, is an inevitable pairing. Most important of them all, in your case, is Dismas, who will be of particular service to you and those around you: he is the patron saint of criminals and whores. And of course the twins, Damian and Cosmas, Arab physicians who practised together and were martyred together and became the patron saints of medicine and pharmacy, a useful bit of information for drug fiends. My own preference is Martin of Tours and Monica, two of the patron saints against alcoholism, and between the two I choose Monica every time. Of course Martin is also the patron saint of recovering alcoholics, which facet of his personality I am willing to overlook on some days. Teresa of Avila is praised for her poetry, though it’s slightly too florid for my taste. But she is also the patron saint of aches, head and body, and someone you would do well to petition. I recommend too my namesake, Francis Xavier, the patron saint of Goa and Japan and of navigators and aimless travellers. There are twenty-five patron saints of unhappy marriages, including Hedwig of Andechs, Margaret the Barefooted and Thomas More, but only one patron saint of happy marriages, Valentine. Memorize the patron saints of the poor, for they are plentiful yet in short supply, Philomena, Giles, Martin de Porres, Nicholas of Myra, Lawrence, Anthony of Padua, Ferdinand of Castile and Zoticus of Constantinople. And eventually you will need the services of Ezekiel Moreno, the patron saint of the ailment smokers are susceptible to, and of course Ulric, the patron saint of a happy death, which is the least I wish for you.