Jeet Thayil - Narcopolis

‘No?’

‘And this is not a pipe.’

‘Enough. You’re dreaming with your eyes open.’

*

Dimple may have picked up the idea from the tai, or from one of the randis at the brothel, but Dimple, being Dimple, developed it into a kind of classroom lesson, a mini lecture. She told me she had something to say, something I shouldn’t take personally. She said she was telling me these things because of the questions I asked, and because her own thoughts were only now taking shape in her mind. She said that men, whatever their sexual preferences, had more in common with other men than with women. It was possible they had more in common with males of other species, with chimpanzees, goats and dogs, particularly dogs, as she’d explained to me before, than with women. This was not a harsh thing to say, she continued, and especially not to a man. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it true that men aren’t interested in tenderness as much as orgasm? Isn’t it true that the main goal of the sexual act, for a man, is the discharging of semen into a suitable receptacle, or even an unsuitable one if nothing else is available? I don’t mean to be cynical, but the truth is that the gap between men and women is unbridgeable and it extends to everything, from the taking of pleasure to the meaning of marriage. Genuine union is impossible; all we can hope for is cohabitation. I said nothing in reply. What surprised me about the speech was not its content. She spoke in English, unbroken English, and I wondered how she’d gotten so good at it.

*

Later, when the nod took me, I dreamed I was walking through the corridors of a house from which the electricity had long been disconnected. I followed the sound of water along unlit corridors to a dead end, and beyond that to a room. It took a moment to recognize the shape waiting on the bed. Old friend, I said, tell me the story of your death, and please, you have to make an effort, it’s the only way we can speak to each other. Dimple smiled politely. She said, What? I can’t understand you. I said: I said, make an effort, an effort. As you wish, she said, this is your house, but why don’t you open the windows? You shouldn’t use electric light on a full moon. Light a candle, instead, and open the windows. Outside on the street, only one street lamp was working. A dog with a broken leg limped into the light. The street seemed to be moving and I realized it was under water. I heard the water lap against the building and I smelled the chemicals that floated on its surface. Dimple said, Be grateful, so many people don’t have even this. Then she said, I died in December at three o’clock in the afternoon. People were walking on the promenade. A child asked, Is this the sea or the ocean? and her mother replied, Just drink your coco water, shut up for one second. The memorial benches were empty except for the crows. A couple stood gazing out to sea and I noticed that the woman was pregnant and it seemed to me that they were dead, like everybody on the promenade, but of all the dead people who were out walking, I was deadest and I was covered in blood, my own or some other’s, I couldn’t tell. The sea lay among the dirty mangroves and I imagined I was the tide that pooled among the rocks near Bandstand, a dirty blood-ringed tide that ebbed and was gone. Do you want to know what happened next? I died and my spirit hung upside down in a cave of creatures yearning to be born, hung upside down for many years or hours. A sign had been painted on the wall long ago, Pit Loka it said, and though the letters were faded, a group of us hovered near it, as if the proximity of the words would ensure our return to the land of the living. But I can’t return, except like this, partially.

‘I’m glad you’re back,’ I said.

‘I’ve been here all this time. What have I been doing? I don’t know. People tell me things, secret things. They’re kind to me because they like me and they tell me what to expect.’

‘What do they tell you?’

‘The same thing I will tell you, that we’re here, close to you, invisible, of course, but we are here.’

‘Where?’

‘I’ve never met anyone who asks so many questions,’ said Dimple, and she looked up at the window and smiled. ‘On the other side of the mirror, our hands are resting against the glass, trying to touch your face. Only a veil separates us from you, a transparent veil as flimsy as the one that separates you from your dreams. If you want to talk to us you only have to dip your hand beneath the surface of the water. We’re waiting for a glance or a word, some acknowledgement that we are here. If you dip your hand you’ll hear us. You should listen. Even if you can’t bear it, you should listen.’

I overheard a conversation, or more than that, an altercation, between a pimp and a tall man with a caste mark on his forehead. The tall man was wearing cowboy boots that he refused to leave at the door. I didn’t hear what the pimp said but the other man’s voice was difficult to ignore. He told the pimp that the laws of supply and demand applied everywhere, including the cesspools of the fucking Third World. You’re being childish, he said. You shouldn’t take it personally if your whores are unpopular. Ask yourself how you can remedy the situation. Could be all you need is a USP. Regular medical check-ups, that’s the answer, friend. Test result posted on the wall for all to see, but only if it’s negative. The pimp was a pockmarked giant with teeth that were too big for his lips. His mouth was open, as if he was panting, but he kept his voice even. He said, Did you call me childish? He used the same high-Hindi word the other man had used, ‘bachpana’. He could have reached over and broken his opponent in two without raising a sweat. The thing that stopped him was the expression on the other man’s face, which was serene, as if he had a gun under his shirt or at the very least a knife.

‘Just stoned talk,’ the man said when the dog-faced pimp had left. He was wearing a pair of headphones around his neck and I could hear strange music pumping into the air. ‘I said something, he got upset and then he calmed the fuck down. You want to know something?’

He dropped his voice slightly, which only served as a signal to the men around us. He said: The thing to remember is one small but supremely important fact: pimps are cowards. Pimps are worthless. Pimps make their money from the weak and the diseased, from men and women whose will has deserted them, who will never fight or put up any kind of resistance, who want to die. Once you know this, that a pimp is a cowardly little fuck, there’s no problem; you can stand up to them like a man. You’ve got to face facts and the fact is life is a joke, a fucking bad joke, or, no, a bad fucking joke. There’s no point taking it seriously because whatever happens, and I mean whatever the fuck, the punch line is the same: you go out horizontally. You see the point? No fucking point.

I thought: He’s trying to impress me. I thought: Chandulis are slaves to the pipe, which diminishes us in the world, and we make up the difference with boasts and lies.

Then the tall man sat up and yelled across the room at Bengali. He said, ‘Can I get a pyali, boss, today sometime? I’ve been here half an hour and I’m tired of waiting.’ Someone coughed and the room became still. Bengali, very reluctantly, it seemed to me, put a pyali on Dimple’s tray.

‘I don’t think they like you very much here,’ I said.

‘Ah, fuck that, I wouldn’t come to a place like this without protection.’ He looked meaningfully at his briefcase. ‘So, where you from originally?’

‘Kerala, South India.’

‘Undu Gundu Land, I know where it is. You get any trouble?’