Rohinton Mistry - Such A Long Journey

‘Give me one bottle,’ snapped Gustad, taking out his wallet.

‘What kind? Chocolate, mango, pista, plain?’

Gustad beckoned to the little girl. ‘Come, baby. What milk you like?’ She made a shy movement with her head and shoulders. He insisted she choose.

‘Plain white,’ she said timidly. The attendant grudgingly placed a bottle before her and inserted the straw. After a few sips she called the boys, holding out the bottle towards them.

‘Wait wait, what is this?’ said Gustad. ‘Milk is for you.’

‘My brothers. They also like milk,’ she said shyly, looking down and tracing a design in the dust with her toe.

‘Oh,’ considered Gustad. ‘What kind they like?’

‘Chocolate!’

‘Chocolate!’

‘Chocolate!’ came the replies in quick succession, and then, in unison, ‘But any kind is OK.’

‘Three chocolate,’ he told the attendant. He waited while they drank, not willing to trust the fellow alone with them. When the straws gurgled emptily, he left. They tagged behind for a little distance, skipping along, pushing one another, bursting into film songs now and again, not quite certain how to show their gratitude. Eventually, they disappeared in the rush of movie-goers.

Past the cinema junction, the crowds thinned. The Wheeler-Dealer Tyre Mart was taking in its display from the pavement. The car mechanics (All Makes-Local & Foren) collected their tools and spare parts from the curb and locked the cars. Near the House of Cages were the usual loiterers, come to gaze at the exotic birds in their skimpy, colourful plumage. The genuine customers entered and emerged without dilly-dallying.

‘Hallo, gentleman!’ said Peerbhoy. ‘Leg is fine today?’

‘Yes, yes, very fine,’ he replied, pre-empting offers of another paan. ‘Is Ghulam Mohammed coming today?’

‘Already he is inside.’

‘And I can go in? They won’t mind?’

‘The women? Arré, they like it if a man comes. Ghulambhai is on top floor, exactly opposite the staircase.’

A radio or record-player somewhere was playing an old film song: ‘ Dil deke dekho, dil deke dekho, dil deke dekhoji …’ Try giving your heart away, give your heart away and see, exhorted the singer. Gustad entered the place hesitantly. Down the passage, into the cheap perfume smells and nauseating attar mingled with body odours. The women waiting for customers. Bosoms thrusting. One dropped a hand to the hem of her skirt and raised it so the thigh was exposed. Gustad glanced quickly: hairy. He climbed the stairs. At the next landing, the exhibition repeated. Cleavages and navels framed in doorways. One in shorts (Hot Pants, said the print on the back), turned sideways, showing squeezed-out half-moons. He looked without staring, hoping his face showed a blank disinterest. Have to be desperate to…that one needing a good shave. Elongated baatli mangoes. Wheeler-Dealer tyres. This place looking better from outside than in. But they say at Colaba, beautiful high-class whores. Colaba call-girls, making lots of money with Middle East tourists, Arbaas, fond of AC-DC, both ways…

The rooms he could peek into were sordid. Bed, thin lumpy mattress, no sheet, ceiling fan, chair, table. In one corner, a basin and small mirror. Where were the scented silk sheets, the air-conditioned rooms, drinks, refreshments? The luxuries that they talked of in their stories of this place? Where were the dancing-girls, the skilled practitioners of the art said to possess secrets that could drive a man insane with pleasure? The way these women moved and displayed themselves, there was as much chance of going insane with pleasure as recovering from heart surgery performed by a beef-carving Crawford Market goaswalla. He climbed the third and final floor. It’s always the same. Always, things look wonderful from afar. When the moment arrives, only disappointment.

The music ended, then the same song started again. ‘ Dil deke dekho, dil deke dekho, dil deke dekhoji ’…must be someone’s favourite record. He knocked on the door opposite the stairs. It opened a crack. He did not recognize the man with a full beard who peered out. Then the man spoke and let the door open wide: ‘Mr. Noble. Please come in.’ The voice was familiar. In the months since Chor Bazaar, Ghulam Mohammed had lost his bandage and gained a beard.

Gustad entered cautiously. The room was like the others he had glimpsed, down to the wash-basin, but instead of a bed there was a desk. Framed pictures of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru hung on the wall behind the desk.

‘Please have a seat. I was expecting you. Thanks for coming so promptly.’ Polite and courteous as ever, thought Gustad. As though nothing had happened. ‘You read it in the newspaper?’

‘Yesterday,’ said Gustad.

‘You must be wondering what’s going on.’ He swivelled from side to side in his chair, then became very still. ‘It’s true. Our dear friend is really in jail. But the rest is lies. Dirty lies. You know everything that appears in newspapers is not the truth.’

Salt and pepper, ginger and garlic, came to Gustad’s mind, what he used to tell Sohrab about propaganda and falsehoods. ‘I know how to read a newspaper,’ he said. ‘But you tell me the truth. Why Jimmy sent ten lakh to me for deposit. You say what the truth is.’ He felt his anger rising, though he knew this man had to be dealt with cautiously. ‘And tell me also about the cat and the huge rat thrown in my bush. With the heads chopped off.’

He watched him closely, but Ghulam betrayed no trace of emotion. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about, Mr. Noble. In RAW, we have no time for playing with cats and rats. But I can tell you this. Bili Boy has enemies. This whole story was cooked up by people at the very top to cover their wrongdoings.’ He leaned closer. ‘I’m glad you asked about the money. Sadly, I am not in a position to answer your questions. Bili Boy will tell you himself, at the proper time. You have to trust him.’

‘I think I have trusted him too much already.’

‘Now, Mr. Noble. No sense being upset with your friend when he needs you most.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘His life is in danger,’ said Ghulam Mohammed. ‘He is—’

Screams and shouts drowned the Dil deke dekho record. Ghulam jumped up from his chair and checked the back alley outside his window, then opened the door to listen. The women were yelling abuse at someone — a male, judging by the derision and taunts concerning his manhood which flew thick and fast. The two men went to the landing. The attar-clouded air of the brothel filled with the women’s colourfully obscene speech.

Then, through all of that, penetrated an unmistakable high-speed utterance: ‘Pleasepleaseonceonly. Onceonlyonce. Fastfastrubbingpleaseonceonly. Pleasetakemoneypleaseplease. Letmetouchletmepressonceonly.’

‘I can’t believe it!’ said Gustad.

‘What?’

‘That voice! It’s Tehmul-Lungraa, lives in my building. Poor lame fellow with a half-cracked head.’

‘You are sure?’

He seems relieved, thought Gustad. ‘Completely sure. What is he doing here, but?’

‘Same thing that other men do, I think.’

‘Cannot be, he’s like a child. Sounds like he’s in trouble.’

The row was proceeding on the ground floor. Hydraulic Hema, favourite of the mechanics, with lips like blood and eyes black as coal, was savagely shaking Tehmul by the ear. Women surrounded him, taking turns to clip him on the head, pinch, pull his hair. They were enjoying the sport, staying out of his reach as he continued to make a grab at a breast or tried to reach inside a skirt. ‘Pleaseletmetouch. Pleasepleaseonceonlyletmetouchplease. Takemoneyplease.’ He held out a round cigarette tin that jingle-jangled, but there were no takers.