Paul Theroux - The Elephanta Suite - Three Novellas

That was another thing: one minute it was budget projections and stock analysis, the next minute it was horoscopes and ar ranged marriages and the wonder of drinking your own whiz.

“I tell you, India is booming,” the man said when Audie did not react. “There is no stopping it. Bangalore is next Silicon Val ley. Innovation!”

“So I heard,” Audie said, “but all I see in India”—and he smiled at the couple—“all I see in India is people reinventing the flat tire.”

Soon after that the couple smiled, and said they’d enjoyed meeting them, and excused themselves; and only then did Audie take notice of them, because he was unable to tell from their manner whether they were offended and abruptly ducking out or else actually meant what they said. It was a kind of inscrutability he had not associated with Indians. He was impressed.

“He seemed nice,” Beth said.

“Nice doesn’t seem like the right word for Indians,” Audie said. “It’s a little too bland. Lavish, outlandish, pious, talkative, overbearing, in your face, slippery, insincere, holy—I’m thinking they are Indian words. That talk about drinking number one—did you ever hear anything like it?”

“I wasn’t listening. I thought he was handsome. That’s the trouble with you—you expect them to make sense.”

“What do you do?”

“I look at them talking. I don’t listen. Didn’t you notice he had lovely eyes?”

They had gotten up and were leaving the table when they heard a sharp “Hello.” An Indian man was bowing, another one who’d materialized next to them. He was carrying a clipboard.

“Doctor,” Beth said—she had forgotten his name, but he too wore an Agni nameplate, lettered Nagaraj. “Doctor Nagaraj.”

He had said that he would see them at dinner, and they had forgotten they’d promised they’d see him. But he was unfussed, saying “Not to worry” as they apologized, and again Audie smiled at his inability to read the man’s mood—whether or not he minded their having forgotten him.

“We’ve already eaten,” Audie said, seeing the waitress approach, and he noticed it was the girl who had seated them, Anna. She held three menus and stood next to the table, looking serene, patient, attentive. She had a pale, round, Asiatic face, like a doll, her hair in a bun, drawn back tight, giving her prominent ears. She was small, quick to smile when she was smiled at.

“Is that short for something—maybe Annapurna?”

“No, sir. Mother of Mary. I am Christian, sir.”

“Imagine that.”

Anna Hunphunwoshi, sir. From Nagaland, sir. Kohima, sir. Very far, sir.”

“I’ve seen you in the spa.”

“I also do treatments in daytime, sir.”

Are you eating, doctor?” Audie said.

“Thank you, no. I don’t take food after six P.M.” He spoke to Anna. “I will take some salted lassi.”

“We should follow your example,” Beth said.

“As you wish.”

“Three of those, Anna, please.”

“Thank you, sir.” She stepped silently away, clutching the menus.

“Where did you say you went to medical school?” Audie asked the doctor.

“Ayurvedic Institute in Mangalore.”

“That makes you a doctor?”

“Ayurvedic doctor, yes.”

“Can you practice outside India?”

“Where Ayurvedic medicine is licensed, indeed, I can practice Ayurvedic without hindrance,” Dr. Nagaraj said. “May I see your right hand, sir?” And when Audie placed his big hand in the doctor’s warm slender hand, the doctor said, “Just relax,” and scrutinized it, and made some notes on his clipboard.

“That Indian script looks like laundry hanging on a clothesline,” Audie said.

The doctor, intent on Audie’s palm, said nothing. And even when the waitress returned with the three tumblers of lassi, he went on studying the big splayed hand. He made more notes and, what was disconcerting to Audie, he wrote down a set of numbers, added more numbers to them, subtracted, multiplied, got a total, then divided it and underlined the result. Still holding Audie’s palm, the doctor raised his eyes and did not smile.

“You had a hard life until age thirty-five,” Dr. Nagaraj said. “You prepared the ground, so to say. Then you reaped rewards. You can be helpful to a politician presently, but avoid it. Next ten years very good for name and fame. Madam?”

He offered his hand to Beth, and she placed hers, palm upward, on top of his.

“Those numbers,” Beth said.

“Good dates, bad dates, risky times.”

“How long will I live?” Audie said.

“Until eighty-five, if all is observed,” the doctor said without hesitating. He went back to examining Beth’s palm and scribbling notes.

“I don’t want to know how long I’m going to live,” Beth said. “Just give me some good news.”

“Happy childhood, but you have no children yourself,” the doctor said. “Next ten years, excellent health. Never trust any person blindly, especially those who praise you. Follow intuition. Invest in real estate. Avoid crowds, smoke, dust.” The doctor strained, as if translating from a difficult language he was reading on Beth’s palm. “Avoid perfume. No litigation.”

As the doctor tensed, showing his teeth, Beth said, “That’s enough,” and lifted her hand and clasped it. Audie glanced at her and guessed that she was also wondering if Dr. Nagaraj was a quack. But that thought was not in her mind.

Dr. Nagaraj perhaps sensed this querying, though he seemed calm again. He sipped his lassi, he nodded, he tapped his clipboard.

“I took my friend Sanjeev to Rajaji National Park to see the wild elephants. They are my passion. Did you not see my collection of Ganeshes in my office?”

“I remember,” Beth said. “The elephant figurines on the shelves.”

“Quite so.” The doctor drank again. “We encountered a great herd of elephants in Rajaji. They are not the same as the working domesticated elephants but a separate species. They saw us. We were near the banks of the river. Do you know the expression ‘Never get between an elephant and water’?”

“No,” said Beth.

“I guess I do now,” said Audie.

“The elephants became enraged. I saw the bull elephant trumpeting and I ran and hid in the trees. Sanjeev was behind me, rooted to the spot, too frightened to move.”

As he spoke the waitress came back, paused at their table, then asked whether there was anything more she could get them.

“We’re fine,” Audie said.

When she had gone, Dr. Nagaraj said, “I watched with horror as the huge elephant bore down on Sanjeev, followed by the herd of smaller elephants, raising so much dust. Seeing them, Sanjeev bowed his head and knelt, knowing he was about to die. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t swim. But he did yoga— bidalasana , cat position, instinctive somehow.”

Flexing his fingers, making a business of it, Dr. Nagaraj straightened the mat in front of him, tidied the coaster under his glass, then dipped his head and sucked at the lassi.

“And what happened?” Audie asked.

Dr. Nagaraj went vague, his face slackening, then, “Oh, yes,” as he pretended to remember. “The great bull elephant lowered his head as though to charge. But instead of impaling Sanjeev on his tusks as I had expected, the elephant knelt, trapping Sanjeev between the two great tusks. Not to kill him, oh no. I could see it was to protect him from the other elephants trampling him.”

He seemed on the point of saying more when Beth said that she was exhausted, that she would be a basket case if she didn’t get some sleep.

“I call that another miracle,” Beth Blunden said as they strolled under the starry sky to their suite.