Amitav Ghosh - The Shadow Lines

He turned on his heel and ran as fast as he could, without looking back again. He didn’t stop till he had crossed another big road and found a narrow deserted lane to hide in. He wasn’t sure where he was, but he guessed he had run past Brondesbury Station. He had come a long way from West End Lane anyway, he was safe from the man in the Morris.

Leaning against the wall, he looked for a place to rest. There was a row of small shops running down the other side of the lane. They were all shut now. On his side there was a high wall — no, not quite a wall, it was actually the side of a large building. It was a long, blank stretch of red brick — nowhere to sit, not even a doorway. He was about to go back the way he’d come when something caught his eye — a black patch in the wall, near the end of the lane. It looked like an opening of some kind, but it wasn’t a door, he could tell; it looked more like a hole.

He couldn’t tell exactly what it was, so he decided to take a look.

It was exactly as he had thought — a section of the wall had been knocked out, leaving a jagged, triangular breach. There was something intriguing about the darkness and the smell of dust inside. He took a quick look up and down the lane, and when he was sure no one was looking he climbed in. There was no reason why he should not be seen climbing in, but somehow it was that kind of place.

He was inside a high, warehouse-like building. Puzzled, he looked around, trying to decide what it was. Then he saw long, curved rows of seats, all looking in the same direction, and he knew at once that it was a cinema. But now the empty seats were looking towards a hole in the wall, for a large part of the front of the building, where the screen had once hung, had been blown out — he could see two roofs through the hole. The bomb had probably exploded somewhere there, near the screen — perhaps it had looked like a part of the film. There was a deep pit in the floor there and a couple of seats were poised on its edge, crazily tilted, as though they had just tipped their occupants in.

Turning around, he saw that the gallery, projecting out over the back rows on the ground floor, was still intact. It looked as though it hadn’t been damaged at all. He found himself making his way instinctively towards it; he loved to sit in the gallery when he went to see films. He was glad this hall had one; sometimes they didn’t. He jumped easily over the few twisted seats that barred the aisle. There wasn’t any rubble; it had been swept neatly into the corners.

The aisle led him to a door at the back of the hall. He put his ear to the door, and when he didn’t hear anything on the other side, he pushed it open, gingerly. It opened into the foyer. The ticket booth was untouched — it looked as though its lights might come on any minute. He let the door go and it swung back into place, shutting out the reflected twilight. It was suddenly very dark in there. He had to feel his way along the wall towards the spot where he thought the stairs to the gallery might be. It seemed much further away than he had expected, but just when he thought he was lost, he stubbed his foot against the stairs. Going down on his hands and knees, he crawled up feeling cautiously ahead of him — he didn’t relish the thought of falling through a hole in the staircase. He felt his way around a bend in the staircase and up another flight of stairs, and then he was there, right at the entrance to the gallery, and he could see again, because the twilight was shining in gently, through the hole near the screen. The gallery was undamaged, untouched; it sloped gently away from him, the blue upholstery of the seats shimmering, like velvet, in the twilight. He fell into one of the seats, and tried to fold himself up in it — it was fun doing that in cinemas; sometimes he could even touch his nose with his knees. But today he didn’t try; instead he leant back and looked up. It was oddly exhilarating to sit back in a plush seat in a cinema and find a twilit sky looking down on you.

He got up, went down to the bottom of the gallery, lay on his stomach, and peered through the gaps in the wrought-iron balustrade. The twisted seats below looked odd from up there — like plants curling up towards the sunlight. He turned his head and found that he could see the pavement through the breach in the wall that had let him in.

As he lay there, looking out at the road, whistling through his teeth, a shadow crossed the breach in the outer wall. Startled, he stopped whistling and watched warily, ready to run. A woman in a blue skirt went by and then, a moment later, came back again and stood still, framed by the jagged arch in the wall. She glanced down at her feet in irritation, and following the direction of her gaze he saw that she was holding a small white and tan spaniel on a lead. It had stopped to shit on the pavement. The woman made a face, reached into her handbag, took out a cigarette, and lit it. She drew on it hard, sucking in her cheeks, and then, throwing her head back, she let the smoke curl gently out of her nostrils.

And then, while she was drawing on her cigarette again, another pair of feet appeared, a man’s this time, on the pavement on the other side of the lane — though from his vantage point they seemed to be hanging at the top of the arch-like breach, like a cloud in a painting. The feet came to a halt, seemed to hesitate and then turned and crossed the lane. Now he could see the man: he was wearing a blue uniform and a cap, obviously an airman of some kind, maybe even a pilot. He had a thin moustache and there was an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

The woman turned away quickly when she saw the man walking towards her. She tugged at the dog’s leash but it would not move; it ground its heels into the pavement and began to whine. The man paid no notice. He went up to it, bent down to give it a pat on its head, and then straightened up again, smiling, and said something to the woman, gesturing at his unlit cigarette. The woman nodded, and reaching into her handbag she took out her lighter and handed it to him. The man lit his cigarette, cupping his hands around the flame, and gave it back to her. Then he took the cigarette out of his mouth, grinned, and said something into her ear, nodding in the direction of the breach in the cinema’s wall. At first the woman’s head snapped back and she opened her mouth in outraged surprise. But then she looked at him again, properly, and her face softened. She tossed her head, still looking at him, and giggled. The man in the uniform laughed and slipped his arm through hers. She picked up the dog, and with a quick glance up the lane they stepped through the breach.

Once they were in they looked around for a moment, blinded, their eyes searching the darkness. The boy got a good look at their faces now. Her face was very white, her lips a brilliant red; he was much taller than her and heavily built, but she looked much older than him.

The man put an arm around her waist and pointed, down the aisle, to a spot almost directly below the boy. She giggled again, and shook her head, but she let him take her elbow and lead her forward. She was wearing high heels and she kept stumbling on the tattered carpet and twisted chairs in the aisle, but the man seemed to know his way around the hall, and he managed to keep her from falling.

By the time they reached the clean patch in the carpeted aisle, below the boy, they were both breathing heavily. The man let go of her arm suddenly, spun her around and gave her a kiss on the middle of her forehead. He took the dog out of her hands, put it down on a seat, and twisted its lead around the armrest.

Then he spun around, and at once the woman caught hold of his collar and pulled his head down towards hers and pushed her mouth up against his. She was clasping his head so hard her knuckles were white with the effort. But the man managed to jerk his head away, and then, smiling, he worked one of his hands free, holding her pinned to his chest with the other, and reached down and tugged at her skirt. Parting her legs the woman rose on tiptoe, pushing her lips against his ears. He laughed and raised her a few inches off the ground with a great heave of his shoulders, and pushed his hand gently up her thighs and into her skirt. The woman pecked at his ear, and in response he pushed his hand all the way up her skirt and held it there. She gave a tiny scream, clenching her teeth, and the small of her back began to twitch. The man let her down then, pulled his hand out of her skirt and lifted it to his nose, rubbing his fingers together. He sniffed the tips of his fingers, smiling, and then held them against her nose. She turned her head away with a grimace, so he kissed his fingertips and laughed. She began to laugh with him too, and he pulled her towards him and thrust his mouth down on hers, and she, squeezing a hand between their bodies, contrived to push it under his belt and into his trousers. His shoulders snapped back, and he took hold of her arm for a moment and held it where it was, inside his trousers. Then he stepped back, loosened his belt, put an arm around her shoulders and lowered her to the floor.