Tania James - Aerogrammes - and Other Stories

Imam springs to his feet, embarrassed. He knows better than to offer his brother a hand. Somehow he wants Gama to strike out at him, to rear up in anger or indignation.

Gama sits for a moment, catching his breath, before he hoists himself up and shifts his jaw right and left, back into place.

“Again,” Gama says, tugging at his langot . “Again.”

July arrives and, on a damp evening, the John Bull Tournament. Gama and Imam enter a music hall with cut-out cartoons of clowns between the windows, and a painted lady in a twirling skirt, her knees exposed. Imam does his best to ignore these ivory knees. White lights reading HOLBORN EMPIRE silver the cobbled street below, the stones shining like fish scales.

Inside, the arena smells unpleasantly of wet wool. Mr. Benjamin keeps twisting around in his seat to take in the hundreds of spectators. “Sold out,” he enunciates to Imam, turning his hands upward. “No more tickets. None!”

Imam says, “Yes, splendid,” unable to remove his gaze from Zbyszko. He stands in the opposite corner of the ring, twisting his torso from side to side. He seems larger than in his pictures, his head so prominent and bald that his ears are reduced to small, pink cups. In the ring, Gama does one bethak after another, taking no notice of his opponent.

Finished with bethaks , Gama turns his back on Zbyszko and jogs in place, opening and closing his hands. Imam realizes that he is warming up more than usual, as if to keep his mind occupied. The day before, Gama looked up from his chicken broth and said, “I heard he once squeezed a man unconscious.”

Imam dismissed this as nonsense, but they said nothing else for several minutes, picturing Zbyszko and his victim, limp as a pelt at his feet.

The bell clangs. Gama lunges, felling Zbyszko with a neat foot hook. He clamps Zbyszko with a half nelson, flings him over, and pins his shoulder to the mat. Zbyszko keeps his other shoulder raised as long as he can, quivering. Imam leans forward, wills the other shoulder to kiss the mat.

But now, a shock: Zbyszko wriggles out of Gama’s clutch.

Zbyszko then deploys a move so bizarre that Imam thinks it a practical joke. Without warning, Zbyszko falls to the mat on all fours. Like a farm animal.

Gama tries to push him over or pull him up by the waist, but Zbyszko bears down, muttering as if to brace himself against the hurled curses of the spectators. He will not move. Gama tries the wrist lock, the quarter nelson — every hold he can imagine — but Zbyszko will not be thrown; nor will he attempt a throw.

A tiresome hour passes, for the most part, in deadlock. People bark, pitch insults and peanut hulls, cursing Zybszko more than Gama, though neither is spared. Imam sits with his hand propped against his mouth, speechless. Even if he could be heard over the din, he wouldn’t know what to say.

At one point Gama’s hands fall to his sides. He looks helplessly at Imam, who shakes his head.

A crumpled wad of newspaper bounces off Zbyszko’s rounded back. Spectators thunder to the exits. The match is eventually stopped, and it is decided that both parties will wrestle again the following Saturday.

•

Imam opens the door to Gama’s bedroom. In all the weeks they have been staying in this house, he has never seen his brother’s room until now, the day before they are leaving. He enters to find a vast bed, Gama’s suitcase lying open upon it. On the nightstand is a glass of water, a few yellow wildflowers wilting over the rim. Imam stares at the sullen blooms, unable to imagine his brother bending to pick them.

Gama gets up suddenly from the window seat, as if caught in a private moment. He asks if Imam has packed.

“I was helping Ahmed,” Imam says. “His is the heaviest trunk.” The cook brought an endless supply of ghee and almonds, not knowing when they would return.

Imam runs a hand over the oak footboard and peers into the suitcase. Among the clothing, Gama has nested a trio of paper-wrapped soaps for their mother and a tin of Crawford’s biscuits in the shape of a barrel organ, with finely painted green wheels and a tiny monkey extending its hat. Mr. Benjamin procured the gifts for them. He has promised to send along their earnings once their bills are settled up, a promise that Gama doesn’t care enough about to question.

Wedged in between the gifts is the John Bull belt. Imam holds it up to his face. The leather is soft and pliant, the center plate broad and bordered in gold scrollwork. On the plate is a painting of a heavyset man wearing britches tucked into his boots and a black top hat. This, presumably, is John Bull, and peering from behind his ankles is a bulldog who shares his build. Englishmen and their dogs — Imam will never understand the attraction. There are a great many things he will never understand.

Gama was awarded the belt two days before, after showing up for the rematch only to learn that Zbyszko had fled the country. Gama won by forfeit. Only a handful of people clapped as Gama received the belt from the referee and raised it limply over his head. He never even removed his turban and robe.

The next day, a journalist called the house, wanting a comment on Percy Woodmore’s recent opinion in Health & Strength , which stated that Gama “showed a surprising ignorance of strategy” in the match against Zbyszko. The journalist also referred to rumors, hinted at in Woodmore’s piece, that Zbyszko had secretly agreed to flee the country if Gama paid him a percentage of his winnings. The journalist said, “Hello?” several times before Imam set the phone back on its hook.

Imam replaces the belt and peers around it. “You forgot the newspapers,” he says. “Everyone will want to see them.”

Gama shakes his head. “There’s no room.” He shuts and buckles the suitcase. Imam moves to help him, but Gama has already hefted the box in both hands, and eases it onto the floor, next to his battered leather valise.

He smooths down the bedspread and, with his back to Imam, casually asks if the newspapers have said anything about the John Bull Tournament.

“Just the usual nonsense,” Imam says.

“But someone called yesterday. You looked upset.”

“Oh, what does it matter.” Imam squints through the window, as if the sky has claimed all his attention. He can feel his brother’s eyes on him. “We are going home.”

“You aren’t telling me something.” When Imam doesn’t answer, Gama raises his voice. “I am not a child, Imam.”

Imam turns to face his brother, who stands rigid with irritation. “Some are saying that you paid Zbyszko to run away. They say that’s how you got the belt.”

Gama blinks as this news crashes over him. He takes a step back, his hand fumbling for the edge of the bed before he sits. He has never looked more like a child, Imam thinks, even when he was a child.

“But who …,” Gama begins, then drops his gaze to the floor and does not speak for a long time.

“It’s just a rumor,” Imam says quickly. “A stupid rumor. Back home, you are a hero.” He tells of the telegram that just arrived from Mishra, reporting the top headline from The Times of India: GAMA THE GREATEST — INDIA WINS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP.

Gama gives a weak smile. “Is that what they’ve decided.”

“You have the belt to prove it,” Imam says. For a long moment, Gama looks over his shoulder at the suitcase but does not go near it. “It’s true—”

“No, chotu . I am just a pawn.”

He says this so softly he could be talking to himself, if not for that one tender word, which Imam has not heard from him in years. It is as if they are eight and twelve again, and Gama has set him apart from everyone else —chotu . Imam feels himself rising to the word. Inglorious as it is, this is something that for once only he can be. Only he knows to say nothing, to rest his hand at the back of his brother’s neck, to let his grip say everything, or simply: Not to me .