Narcopolis (16 page)

At first she continued to smoke opium, using garad only
occasionally
, but very soon – she was surprised how soon – she was smoking only garad. She made the pipe for customers and she lost interest in smoking it herself. Suddenly it seemed as if everybody had switched to powder, the customers, the pipemen, even Rashid, who hated it but smoked all the same. Then Salim brought her maal from a new source. It had a new name, Chemical. The first time she tried it, she felt something shut down, her nervous system, maybe, or her brain, some motor somewhere. She felt herself slipping through the mat into the floor. Below was a thick layer of cotton wool and below that were the blue pools of her nightmares. She was awake but removed from her body and she could no more have lifted her hand than fly. The deeper she sank into the water, the easier it was to sink; it was very easy, it took no effort at all. She settled heavily to the bottom of the pool, where she lay inert and comfortable, like the creatures that stirred around her. The nearest had an old man’s head, Mr Lee’s head, which turned or swivelled to her and said, I’ve been waiting for you. Do you know why I’m at the bottom of this pool? She knew, of course she did, but she couldn’t speak. Because you broke your promise, Mr Lee said. Because you lied to me. You said you were my daughter but you didn’t act as a daughter should. You abandoned me. You know that, don’t you? Dimple nodded her head. You said you would take my ashes to China but you didn’t. Do you even know where they are? No, Father Lee, I don’t, she said at last. She noticed that his face was not wet exactly but covered in tiny bubbles and she noticed that the water was getting colder. Do you know why I’m here? To remind me, she said. To make sure I never forget. You’re right about that. Oh yes, this time you’ve got it. Which was when she realized that he was speaking perfect English and she wondered if he had always had the ability to do so and had simply chosen not to. I’m here because my spirit has not been able to travel to its rightful place, he said. I’ve left my body or my body has left me, which is the first death. The second death occurs when those who love us and are loved by us also die, or forget, and our names are no longer spoken. Spirits such as mine must wait – it could be we have unfinished business, or we died violently, or were not given a proper burial, or our clothes were not burned with us – for whatever reason, we must wait, and the only way we can exist is in water. Otherwise we would disappear. I don’t like it. I smoke Chinese opium, the best opium in the world: of course I hate water. But I must live here if I am to live. Can you imagine what a trial it is? Can you imagine how infuriating? Of course you can’t, you’re one of the living, said Mr Lee with such contempt that Dimple flinched. Okay, enough for now, I’ll stop talking.Good, said Dimple, because you’ve said a lot, you really have. She noticed that the water was icy and she could no longer feel her limbs. But Mr Lee hadn’t finished. One last thing: you have to carry me, take me on your back because my leg’s still broken. Nothing changes when you die, except you can’t do half the things you used to and the other half you no longer have any interest in. Oh, and you have to live in this cold, cold water. She put him on her back, he weighed nothing, and they floated to the surface, where he bobbed and breathed but refused to let her go. He grabbed her face and whispered into her ear. Come back to see me and I’ll give you a chance to unbreak your promise. And then he swam agilely away. It was at this moment, as she felt herself sinking again, that her lungs began to fill with water and she knew she must wake up or die.

It was difficult to buy fruits and vegetables, but garad was available in plenty. Someone told her not to go out. A mob had set fire to the police station and there were armed gangs hunting for people to burn and rape. The man told her how the riots started, because of a rumour that a Hindu family of six had been burned alive, and the killers were Muslim, and the children’s screams could be heard far away. It was only a rumour but now there were real fires all over the city, though Shuklaji Street was so far untouched. When Dimple went out, she noticed that the only people walking around in numbers were the garadulis, as if they’d been touched by the hands of a god more powerful than the gods who were on fire, and because they’d been touched by a great god they were untouchable by the hands of men. At Salim’s she smoked Chemical, very little, because she knew how to use it now, she knew to respect it. She asked Salim, Why is it so strong? They put rat poison in it, he told her, and the strychnine gives the maal its kick. He said, Don’t worry, it won’t kill us, we’re not rats. But looking at him, she was not sure this was true. He had lost weight. His teeth protruded and his whiskers were short and bristly, like fresh stitches on his face. She thought: How quickly he’s aged. And: I have too. The window was open and she caught the smell of petrol and burning rubber. Who are they killing, she asked him, Muslims or Hindus?

He said, ‘They’re killing themselves, the fuckers, let’s hope they do it right this time.’

She put the vials in her purse and left the shop. It was a short walk to the khana, but today the route seemed unfamiliar. Nothing moved on the street except for a man pushing a long cart. He was far away and at that distance all she could see was his dirty white kurta and bare feet. In the cart were long objects, sticks or swords, she couldn’t tell. She took a detour through Kamathipura IIIrd Lane. The lane was usually difficult to walk in: people put their cots on the road and spent all day lounging in the narrow shade. But the cots were gone, the randi’s cages shuttered, the shops closed. Nothing was open except a raddiwallah’s, where an old man sat behind a pair of scales and small mountains of used books and magazines. She reached out and took the first thing that came to hand, because she was reading now and had not gotten over the habit of reading at random.

SOME USES OF REINCARNATION

By S. T. Pande

Head of Department, Theology & Symmetry, Haryana University.

She recognized the author’s name and took another look at the book. It was slim and in good condition, a school textbook with illustrations. The raddiwallah gave it to her for one rupee. She walked quickly to the khana and banged on the door a few times and shouted Bengali’s name. She banged some more. She said, Come on, open, I know you’re there, the door’s locked from the inside. Go home, Bengali told her. Go home and don’t come out. She went up. As she dug in her purse for the key she had the sudden feeling that she was being watched, but when she turned around there was no one there.

It wasn’t vanity as much as its opposite. Why show her face if she didn’t want to be seen? She was grateful for the refuge of the burkha. It simplified things, made her day-to-day life manageable, which, she knew, was no easy thing. She put kaajal on her eyes and painted her nails and put on a pair of sandals and she was ready to go. Under the veil she could have been anyone. She took the veil off at the khana, but she worked in the burkha and Rashid made no objection. At home she spot smoked: a little powder on the foil, a match under it, a quick drag at the straw and she was done. Because they were tiny drags, she took a hit as often as she could.

One afternoon Rashid came by with a bag of fresh vegetables and a dabba of mutton masala and rotis still warm from his kitchen. There was no food in the markets. Don’t go out, the mobs have taken over, he told her. They’ve appointed themselves our executioners. Then he saw her spot smoking Chemical and he wanted to try it too. Dimple told him what had happened the first time she smoked. She told him the entire sequence of her nightmares, starting with the house of blue pools and ending with her last conversation with Mr Lee. She had a fear of water now, she said, even a puddle made her fearful. This is strong maal, it does something to your head. But the warning only made Rashid impatient. He said, If it’s as strong as you say I’ll have to pace myself. First sex, then smoke. Dimple bent over her foil and he got on his knees behind her. He saw how bony her ass had become. He used spit to wet her and he thought about the beggar woman with the haircut whose body had been found on the street, the Pathar Maar’s latest victim, according to the newspapers. Or was she a victim of the Hindu–Muslim wars? What community had she belonged to? Did she know? No one did, he thought, not even the man who killed her for sport; and he fucked Dimple as the Chemical pulled her into a nod. Rashid saw her head go down and he closed his own eyes to concentrate on his orgasm but a disembodied head floated past him on a tide of ink. When the old Chinaman swivelled around to smile, Rashid cried out a name. He pulled out of Dimple and sat on the floor, taking big gulps of air. What was the name he cried? He didn’t know. What he did remember, what he’d never forget, was the revelation that followed immediately afterwards: dreams leak.

They do, thought Rashid, sitting on the floor of Dimple’s living room, as the crows went quiet and the street turned red from the glow of a timber warehouse that was burning nearby. Dreams leak from head to head; they travel between those who face in the same direction, that is to say lovers, and those who share the bonds of intoxication and death. That’s why the old Chini’s head is in mine. I’m dreaming Dimple’s dream and I want to stop but I don’t know how. The beggar woman is dead and Dimple too is dead and I deserve to die for fucking the dead. He smelled the smoke from the burning warehouse as the sweat broke on his face and the room turned red. I deserve to be here in hell, he thought, as he reached down and squeezed his dick with his hand, squeezed as hard as he could, squeezed until he was shouting and he saw a vision of himself in the future, sitting in a room while the evening gathered, still dreaming her dream, except the dream was not of Mr Lee but of himself, years after Dimple’s death, when he was old and pious and waiting for her ghost, and he heard her future words, the lovely words with which she would greet him: dreams leak and the dead return, but only if you love us. Of the dozen words she would speak in the future, he’d be struck by the word love, because it had never before been uttered between them, not in all their time together. By then, Rashid would know the truth of the words, though he’d be glad to hear them from her; and by then he’d be grateful, bewildered but grateful that she’d come back to pay him this compliment.

She had thought about what to say, she’d prepared herself. When Mr Lee thanked her for coming back, she said, It’s nothing. How could I not come? I owe you this much. Now tell me what you were going to say the last time. He blinked at her, his impassive face flickering in the blue. She noticed tiny bubbles in the corners of his mouth. In his newly acquired accentless English he said, When my father died our lives changed for ever. My mother was sent away and I had to start working. My father lost interest in being a man. The only thing he was interested in was opium. Then he died, in that way he let us down, but I always honoured him. I attended to his rites as long as I was able. I fulfilled my duties as a son. When I became a father I was always afraid I would become like him, become a slave to opium and forget how to be a man. So I took care, I took the utmost care to fulfil my responsibilities. When I died, what did you do? Were you not my daughter? Wasn’t I a better father to you than your real father? I left you only when I had no choice. Until then I gave you my protection and shared my life and all my possessions with you. In return I asked for one thing. When you said you would do it, did you know you would not? This is the question I wanted to ask you. This is why I asked you to come back. Her reply was so soft even she could barely hear it. No, Father Lee, when I said I would do it, I meant it. You didn’t: you lied then and you’re lying now. You made a fool of a sick man. Dimple’s tears were of a slightly different colour than the water, less transparent, of a lighter blue. Old Father Lee, she said, forgive me. Please, I’m so sorry. What must I do to earn your forgiveness? And it was when she heard Mr Lee’s reply that she knew she would never be able to appease him, that he ill-wished her, that he would never forgive her and she would never forgive herself, and that grievances did not
disappear
with death, if anything they became more pronounced.

Mr Lee said: Smoke more Chemical

It was 1992, which meant that she’d been living in the apartment on the half landing between Rashid’s khana and his home for almost ten years, and though she’d come across his family on the stairs or in the neighbourhood – a cause of apparent distress to his wives, who lowered their eyes and walked on without a word – she had never been to his home and knew nothing about his family life. He rarely mentioned his wives, and if he did, it was to complain about some trivial domestic matter, as if they were employees and he was disappointed with the quality of their service. She wondered if he spoke about her in the same way, and if he spoke about her at all. His wives kept his home running, laundered his white shirts and made his food the way he wanted. She on the other hand had no official standing. She could not bear children or cook; all she could provide was sex and conversation. The sex at least he couldn’t complain about, she knew, because that had once been her job and she’d been good at it. He didn’t have complaints, but she did, though she had no one to tell them to. He had an aversion to touch, to any kind of friendly touching, and cuddling was out of the question. He didn’t like to be seen with her in public. He took too long to come. Sometimes, when they were fucking, she thought of a story she’d read in which the plague
arrived
to a town in Europe. You sneezed for a few days and died, just like that. As soon as people were identified as sick, they were bundled into carts and taken to the cemetery, where they were dumped, alive, to await burial. In the carts, the men and women fell on each other like animals, not stopping even when they were seized by the handlers and flung onto the cemetery grounds. It seemed to her that they, Rashid and she, fucked in the same way that the plague-stricken couples did, in a frenzy, to the death.

She said, Tell me about your life upstairs, what is it like to have a family and never be lonely? But Rashid only shook his head. He was smoking a joint loaded with Chemical. He was happy, he said, why complicate things? Besides, talking about something is a way of jinxing it. She said, In fact talking about something is a way of not jinxing it, because if you say it, it won’t happen. He didn’t know this basic fact because he was still an amateur when it came to superstitions and she on the other hand was a master of the science, and that was were they left it. She went to the door to see him out and it seemed to her then, as she watched him climb the stairs, that he was her only contact with the living. She had seen no one else that day. The khana was closed and there was a curfew in the city and if she looked out at the empty streets she felt as if she was the only survivor of a terrible planetary mishap. She stood on the landing after Rashid’s footsteps had faded. There was a film of perspiration on her face and she let the air cool her. She sniffed herself and thought: I smell of sex. And then she became aware of someone crouched in the dark of the stairwell leading to the street below. She took a few steps forward but saw nothing. The Chemical, she thought, it’s rotting my mind. I have conversations with a dead man and I think I’m being spied on.

She sat on the floor and opened the book she’d found at the raddiwallah’s. She was sure it was the author she’d read a long time ago, S. T. Pande, but previously he’d described himself as a professor of history, not theology and symmetry, and he’d been affiliated to some other university. How could there be two professors with identical names writing textbooks for school children? It had to be the same man, and yet, how was he an expert in so many disciplines? Was symmetry a discipline at all? She opened a page at random, which was the way she liked to read, and started from the first line:

She flipped back to the beginning of the book and it struck her that
Some Uses of Reincarnation
was not part of the school examination syllabus. The title page, page iii, had only the name of the book and the author’s name: it said nothing about being a textbook. Facing it, on page ii, were printing details,
This edition published 1987 by STP Enterprises. New Delhi * Madras * Bhubaneshwar
. Page iv gave a Haryana address for STP Enterprises and at the bottom of the page India Educational Services was listed as the publisher. On the facing page were the title and author’s name, this time in an old-fashioned woodcut design, and overleaf, the Contents. Pande had divided the book into two sections, ‘An Introduction to Aggressive Reincarnation’ and ‘The Algebra of Being’. The first section listed ‘active reincarnation practices’ in the case of those who died strange, violent or painful deaths and it began with a prologue, which had a précis of each of the sections to follow:

She started at the beginning and read slowly all the way through.

IMMORTALITY. In which the author posits the idea that reincarnation, as a way of prolonging indefinitely an entity’s earthly existence, is nothing short of a curse. The author contends that only intoxicated entities, forgetful of God, wish for unlimited lifetimes in which to prolong their pleasures. The author suggests that such entities should actively take their afterlife into their own hands and seek out the shape in which they wish to return. If they want to eat and drink to their hearts’ content, they should ask to be given the body of a pig; if they wish to lie in the sun and move very little, they should ask for the body of a lizard; and if they wish to copulate all day and all night, they should ask for the body of a monkey. The author is by no means contending that these three body types are the limits of the intoxicated entity’s available choices, certainly not, as there are manifold conditions, for example: inward envy, sleepiness, prideful urination, aversion to heights, devotion to heights, aversion to water, devotion to water, & etc. (See Fig. 8).

 

GUILT & CONSEQUENCE. In which the author posits the idea that there are no innocents and no bystanders, because all living things play an active role in their incarnations, reincarnations and subsequent existences; that each entity is born
carrying
sins and memories from its previous existence, and the stronger the memories, the more dynamic the play of hope and power in its early life; that these memories fade as we grow into adolescence, a loss that occurs despite our own best efforts, because we are encouraged to do so by our families and the society we find ourselves struggling to fit into; that those who die painfully, through no apparent fault of their own, are in fact paying for past errors; that the question therefore of God’s cruelty is moot, for God has no hand in the way we conduct our births on our upward or downward trajectories, as is our course and our curse; and that there is no action without its immediate or delayed consequence.

PREMONITION: In which the author provides an example from his own life. Days before her death, his dear wife was engaged in a strenuous discussion with the author, the details of which he is unable to recall at the present moment. It had something to do with the author’s work habits, which his wife termed obsessive and isolating. She said she felt lonely and cut off both from her husband and the world. The author, irate at the intrusion and the time he was wasting, time that could profitably have been spent at his desk, was about to tell his wife in the strongest language that she had to find her own obsession and could not look to him for happiness, harsh words he had flung at her before, when he became aware of a figure standing immediately behind her. The figure, dressed in stereotypical loose white cotton, told the author, or he didn’t speak exactly, but managed somehow to communicate very clearly that the author should not say the words that were already positioned in his mouth, aimed and ready for launching. The figure said his wife was not long for the world, and that he, the author, should be as kind to her as possible or he would be guilty for the rest of his life. At this moment, his wife moved to the window, where she lit a cigarette, and her invisible companion moved too, so he was always immediately behind and above her, like some kind of broken shadow. As the reader has correctly anticipated, the author did not follow the white-robed figure’s advice. The author uses this anecdote to consider the question of premonition in reincarnative episodes.

REVENGE: In which the author provides a procedural for thwarted entities who wish to exact satisfaction from those who tormented them during their most recent lifetimes. The author makes special mention of brides set on fire by their husbands’ families as a punishment for bringing inadequate dowries. The author enumerates the steps by which such women can be reincarnated within the very families that destroyed them, so as to decimate said family from within its own bosom. First, the author recommends that reincarnation is delayed until such time as the husband’s new wife is pregnant, usually a period of around nine or ten months, because the husband’s remarriage most often occurs immediately after the death of his previous wife; second, the reincarnating entity enters the womb in question and assumes the foetal shape, a process that requires deft manoeuvring and practice; third, she must focus on her task throughout her subsequent childhood, as there will be many forces working to undermine her resolve; and last, she must take pains to disguise any physical signs, for example scorched birthmarks on the skin and a marked aversion to fire, that may signal to an astute enemy that she is the prodigal wife returned. The author contends that will is the paramount faculty to ensure successful reincarnation, particularly when the purpose is revenge. The techniques described in this section can be applied by any entity, i.e. it is not the sole prerogative of murdered housewives.

TONGUELESSNESS: In which the author explains the phenomenon known as partial reincarnation, and contends that partially reincarnated entities, also referred to as ghosts and spirits, are an example not of reincarnation but of delayed departure. The delay is usually caused by an abnormality in the transition of an entity from the world of the living to other worlds. The author posits the possibility of engineering the delay, so as to ensure that there is a chance to say goodbye to the departing entity. Again, the author provides an example from his own experience. When his wife died, suddenly and tragically, he carried out a ritual experiment in an attempt to communicate with her. The author removed his tongue by means of a minor surgical procedure. He is not at liberty to divulge the details of said procedure, because its legality may be open to interpretation; but he will go on record as saying, so to speak, that he was extremely pleased by its efficacy. As a result of his mutilation, the author was vouchsafed several conversations with his wife, who appeared not the least bit daunted by his tonguelessness. Indeed, the author suggests that far from hampering their ensuing interactions, the lack of a tongue may in fact have enhanced them. While he does not recommend such a course to his readers, he offers it as one possible answer to the question: why do you write? And also: why do you never answer your phone? He suggests too that headlessness be considered, but only by advanced entities skilled in self-decapitation. (See Fig. 9).

Dimple flipped to the back of the book hoping to find a picture of Pande, but where the author photo should have been there was a line drawing, a self-portrait. The book was very slim and in the middle was a glossy insert section with more line drawings that corresponded very loosely to the passages they were supposed to illustrate. Fig. 8, for example, which was meant to be an illustration of the section on immortality, had nothing to do with anything in the book, as far as she could see, other than the fact that the words ‘devotion to water’ appeared as a sort of caption. She realized at that moment that Pande was a fraud, that he had printed the book himself (STP was his company, named with his initials), and she knew too that the only part of the book that was not fraudulent was the cross around the author’s neck in the self-portrait at the back. He believed in the Christian God, that much was plain to see, and as she looked at the drawing she realized she did too and she wanted, for the first time in her life, to go to church.