Issue 6 - April 2008 - Prose
The Incense Seller by C M R Beck
The only chance I had to see Chloe again was to catch the 11:45 express train to Delhi, and for thirty minutes I’d watched that chance dissolve in the wake of a funeral procession on a one lane bridge across Cochin Harbour. Up ahead, a dead body sailed on a sea of hands, pink petals strewn under the mourners’ feet, the sound of grief carrying loud and clear over the idling engines. It was an appropriate backdrop for what I was feeling.
‘Sorry,’ said the taxi driver, after a final glance at his watch.
I lifted my head from my hands. ‘It’s not your fault. I should have gone earlier, on the ferry.’
‘Sorry,’ said the driver, as if to apologise for not driving a ferry. On either side, sloppy brown water married into the polluted haze. The procession inched forward, and the old Ambassador taxi lurched after it. The driver said, ‘Next train to Delhi leaves tomorrow.’
‘That’s no good,’ I said, frustration hijacking my voice. Chloe had mentioned she was meeting a friend on the 23rd at Delhi’s central station. ‘I have to be there Tuesday, or not at all.’
He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyelids with forefinger and thumb. He stopped suddenly, raised a finger. ‘Only one thing to do.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Get on at the next stop, Calicut.’
‘How am I going to do that?’
‘I will drive you.’
‘How far?’
‘Seven hours.’
‘Seven hours?’ And forty more to Delhi. Sounded like a long shot. ‘Think we’ll make it?’
‘Yes sir, but must go now.’
I looked at him hard, because you could never know who was trying it on. Hadn’t caught his name, if he even gave it. There were the coke bottle glasses, you couldn’t miss those, the obligatory South Indian moustache, flecked with grey and bristling under a generous nose, and the faded green initials tattooed on the inside of his forearm. But if the Christian paraphernalia – Kerala had the Portuguese missionaries to thank for that – was anything to go by, he ought to have been the kind of guy I could trust.
So I asked how much.
‘Two thousand rupees.’
About thirty pounds, a bargain, I’d have paid ten times that. ‘Alright, deal.’
Traffic moved, freeing up. The procession had come to the end of the bridge and was turning off to the right. The driver slipped the Ambassador into gear and we took off, the diesel motor thrumming under the broad white hood, its classic contours like the out-sized pectorals of a cartoon hero.
By the time we got to Cochin station, we were thirty-five minutes behind. I left my pack in the taxi and dashed in, wanting to be sure the train had left on time (‘late, five minute’) and to check that Calicut really was the next stop (a moment of panic – ‘Calicut, Kozhikode, same’). I sprinted back through the saris, the porters with sacks of rice on their heads, and the businessmen perspiring in shirt sleeves, their odour a mere drop in the reservoir of that place. I slowed when I got to the curb, looking left, right – the driver was there, engine running, passenger door open.
He drove as fast as the choked roads would allow, the car spending much of the time creeping along the verge, competing for space with street vendors, barefoot pedestrians, sacred cows, bedraggled goats, mangy dogs, the crippled and hungry and begging, autorickshaws, motorbikes, and bicycles. He proved adept at navigating the complexity, and after three hours of hot, horn-assisted driving, we came to a level crossing where the barrier had just dropped.
I drummed my fingers on the dashboard, craning forward to see from which direction the train was coming, the rhythm matched by the clatter of wheels on track, and then the train rumbled by. I scanned its flanks for a sign – the Cochin-Delhi Express – carriages swaying through a tunnel of palm trees, fronds waving as if trying to get its attention, plastic and paper swirling in the back draft like confetti.
I patted the driver on the back, convinced now I would make it.
‘What’s your name again?’
‘Harry.’
As the barrier lifted and the car shuddered over the tracks, one kind of anxiety was swapped for another: I was thinking about seeing Chloe again. What would I say to her? Would she even be there? Until now, I’d been too consumed by the chase to talk.
‘I’m going to Delhi to meet a girl.’
‘Delhi.’
‘We met in Varkala. On the beach. She was there for yoga, I was surfing.’
‘Delhi.’
‘Dropped my board on her foot by accident. Said I was sorry and we didn’t stop talking for days, about anything and everything, I’ve never talked like that with anybody.’ A comparison came from memory. ‘Well, there was a girl in college, but the spark ran out after a year. And I know it won’t be like that with Chloe.’ I glanced at Harry. He said nothing, no expression, just the corners of his eyes smiling. ‘Anyway, I’ll spare you the details. She had to go and meet this friend but we agreed to stay in touch, maybe travel together. Neither of us wanted to leave, but you start to doubt yourself, you think, what if I’m being too forward, too desperate? So I got her email, kept it casual, said I’d drop her a message.’ I gave a small laugh, a little huh, that was lost in engine noise and the rush of gritty air outside. I realised I’d been talking non-stop, so I turned to Harry and said, ‘Anything like this happen to you?’
Harry overtook a bullock cart then pulled back into line. ‘One time.’
‘So you’re married, got children?’
‘I am married twenty-two years. Now my children have children.’ He paused. ‘Maria, Anna, and Alice.’ Their names made him smile.
‘Good Christian names,’ I said. ‘You must be very happy.’
He nodded, touching the plastic Mary fixed to the dashboard.
For the next few hours we drove in silence, could’ve been in different worlds when all that separated us was a handbrake and a few crumpled receipts. By the time we made it to the station in Calicut, according to my calculations, I had twenty minutes to spare. I paid Harry, adding a fifty percent tip, and I thanked him heartily, told him he was a good man. He inclined his head – this struck me as a very noble gesture – and then insisted on waiting.
‘Just in case.’
Thank goodness he did.
Owing to a religious festival, a pilgrimage, the train was fully booked, not even standing room. I tried three different ticket counters, and three times I was told the same thing. Six hours later in Mangalore, heady with the trade of cashew and coffee, it was a similar story. And in Gokarna, echoing with the chants of Lord Shiva’s devotees. And in Mumbai, where Bollywood billboards smiled upon slums.
We’d been driving for twenty-two hours, all through the night and into the next day, without food or anything to drink, when I finally asked Harry to stop. There was a roadside eatery, no more than a dark, concrete cave, a few plastic chairs at tables freckled with rice, all of it alive with flies. I waited for our drinks to arrive before I said what was on my mind.
‘Harry, I haven’t been completely straight with you.’ He didn’t look up. ‘Truth is, we’re on a bit of a goose chase.’ No response. ‘See, after I left Varkala, I sent her an email. Gave it to her straight, no messing about. Never met anyone like you. You make me feel so alive. Can’t think about anything but when I will next see you. When will I next see you? I didn’t even blink before I hit send, not a scrap of doubt. Next second it pops back up in my inbox. User not found. I couldn’t believe it, checked I’d typed it out right – you know the keyboards here? Nevermind. I must have written it down wrong in the first place. She doesn’t have my email, and I’ve got no other way to contact her – no phone number, no address, nothing. All I’ve got to go on is Delhi station, Tuesday.’ I bit my thumbnail, his silence wasn’t helping. ‘So what do you think, Harry? Time to give up?’
He was sucking lemonade through a straw, and on hearing this question he put the bottle down. ‘I knew a young lady in Delhi once.’
I was getting used to the spaces between his sentences.
‘She sold incense outside the temple. I never went to the temple but I bought lots of incense. I spent all my money with her and all I said was hello, thank you, goodbye.’ Plates heaped with biryani arrived. He didn’t touch his, and I didn’t touch mine. ‘Then I left Delhi to live with relatives in Cochin. There was work with the tourists, I needed a job, and I never saw that young lady again.’
I put two and two together and realised that the ‘one time’ he’d referred to was not his wife. We ate in silence, the food cold and flavourless, and I paid the bill, adding a bottle of water each. ‘So we’ll keep going, if that’s okay with you?’
‘Of course,’ said Harry, inclining his head as he did.
A thought struck me as we were climbing back into the car and I let it out of my mouth without consideration. ‘I know. You could go and see if she’s still there. The incense seller. Maybe you could – ’ Harry’s frown stopped me short. I could see I’d offended him. He had a wife and children. What I’d said was disrespectful. ‘I’m sorry.’
He cranked the motor and roared into traffic.
Later, much later – it was dark again – at some station in another sprawling, sweltering Indian city on a baked on, beaten up, desert plain in Gujarat or Rajasthan or someplace in between, there were no stations left to go to – I would not be getting on this train. It was full all the way to Delhi.
Harry and I didn’t discuss it, we didn’t agree on a price, he just kept on driving, stopping only for fuel and food. Occasionally, the train’s tracks converged with our road, running in parallel until an obstacle – a mountain, river, or town – got in our way. Sometimes we crossed bridges side by side, struts shaking under the burden. The Ambassador fell behind and caught up, so it was never clear whether I’d make it or not. I hadn’t slept a wink, my eyes were rust-rimmed from the dust that swirled outside, and my t-shirt clung like shrink-wrap. An edge of paranoia entered my thoughts and I started to berate myself for paying a man to drive me the length of India to maybe meet a girl I hardly even knew.
At this moment, Harry spoke.
He said, ‘Incense cost just three paise then.’
Once I figured out what he was on about, I was wary – I had offended him once, and I didn’t want to do it again. I talked round it. ‘How long ago was that?’
‘Thirty years.’ The journey had affected him too; he had a far away look, like he’d been travelling back a year with every hour he’d driven.
‘That temple still there, you think?’
‘Temples do not move.’
‘What about her, the incense seller?’
His Adam’s apple bobbed. He wiped a hand over his face and put it back on the wheel. He must have been exhausted, headlights raking through his brain. ‘It is possible,’ he conceded. ‘Here a job is for life. If not that temple, maybe another. But she will be married, as I am married. She will have children, as I have children.’
What I felt for Chloe made me righteous. He had a chance to share this feeling, and I thought he should take it. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ I waved a hand, ‘just go and see if she’s there. Stop by, say hello, ask what she’s been up to all these years.’
He shook his head. ‘When you get older, different things are important.’
‘What could be more important than this?’
The edge came back to his voice. ‘You cannot chase a feeling forever.’
I dropped it.
The last time I saw the train was in the desert, in the middle of the night. My face was pressed up against the glass. The train, silvery-grey in the moonlight, was passing underneath the road, bearing away across the sands. As it went round the bend, the joints between carriages creaked arthritically, and after that a monotonous clack of wheels on track fading into black. Still I followed. I’d come so far. There was no question of turning back.
We got to Delhi at ten a.m. on Tuesday morning. As I recalled it, Chloe said her friend’s train, coming from Islamabad, arrived midday. We’d made good time across the desert where the roads were clear and straight. Not so Delhi, where the going grew heavy, inching along freeways inappropriately named, before diving into the city itself. I noticed how Harry’s eyes flicked sideways at every temple. Instead of saying anything, I just felt sorry for him.
He pulled the Ambassador into the taxi rank with half an hour to spare. I paid him what I owed – however much it was, it didn’t seem enough – and pushed open the door. It was hotter here than Cochin – the middle of the frying pan always is – and beggars holding wilted babies crowded in. I shrugged them off, tired and irritated, dying a little when Harry doled out notes from the stack of bills I’d just given him. Then he opened the boot and supported the pack as I threaded my arms through the straps.
Perhaps it was the weight on my back, or the heat, or the intensity of the city, but I had the sensation of something pressing down on me. I was apprehensive about meeting Chloe, not elated, what could happen between us as uncertain as the outcome of the journey I’d just undertaken.
The boot slammed shut. Harry extended a hand. Humidity had fogged his glasses. I needed to express myself, but I couldn’t find words to fit. His mouth opened and shut, too. In the end, we shook hands – for a very long time – letting go at exactly the same moment. I inclined my head, in imitation of his gesture, and he smiled. Then he got back into the Ambassador, and I watched the tail fins disappear in traffic.
Clean Slate by Frank Roger
Sammy smiled as he saw a group of tourists appear. They came back from Lake Panddhra, where they undoubtedly had admired the beautiful landscape and the ruins, reflected in the tranquil surface of the water, and would now wait at the bus stop to be picked up. A few other souvenir vendors were also waiting for a new batch of “customers”, as this was an ideal occasion. The tourists would just hang around here until the bus came, and they were an easy prey. He studied the group of newcomers, picked his target and went straight for him, a fat fortyish man, sweating profusely in his drenched T-shirt.
“Beautiful drawings,” he said, holding up his ‘works of art’. “Not expensive at all, a real bargain. Three for five dollars. Please take a look.”
The man smiled, and glanced at the drawings. “This is very nice black-and-white stuff indeed,” he said. “Did you make these?”
Sammy nodded. “High quality artwork, wouldn’t you say? Very reasonably priced. A perfect souvenir.”
The man looked at the drawings, all showing details of the Lake Panddhra landscape he had just visited. He nodded approvingly and said: “Well, all right. Twenty dollars. For the whole set. Is that okay with you?” Sammy was taken aback. Now this was unusual. Normally people had to be convinced, and then they haggled, and finally bought maybe a few drawings for a couple of dollars at most. No one had ever bought his whole stock, and no one had offered him twenty dollars like that. Was this guy stinking rich or just stupid? But what the hell, this was his chance to earn twenty bucks.
“Fine,” Sammy said. “Twenty dollars.” He handed over his whole stack of drawings, and got a twenty dollar bill in return. He thanked the man and walked off. There was nothing more to do for him here, as he had no more merchandise. He’d have to make some more.
Back home he prided himself on another victory on the tourists – and this time a highly profitable one. He tried to imagine his victim’s face when he would pick up his set of drawings later today, and discover the ink had faded, leaving him with a stack of blank pages. Blank pages for which he had paid twenty dollars. It was Sammy’s way to get even with the tourists for what they had done to his village and his way of life. They had disrupted everything, so he felt he was entitled to seek revenge. This was his method to take out his frustrations on them that did not affect his souvenir selling business. It was a system that worked perfectly and that he was rightfully proud of. He still remembered the days when life in the village was simple. It used to be a quiet fishermen’s village, where people lived and worked in a traditional way. Now the fishermen earned more money by posing for pictures than for fishing. The local economy had been turned upside down, outsiders had moved in and controlled everything, many people had lost their jobs and now had trouble supporting their families. The good old days were over.
So every small victory like this one made him feel good. He reached inside his pocket, took the twenty dollar bill and held it up like a trophy. Hey, what the hell was that? He looked at the banknote, turned it around and around again. He rummaged through his pockets, but there was nothing left, so this scrap of paper had to be the twenty dollar bill. Only now it was blank. It was just a worthless piece of paper. It had been a forged dollar bill, printed with fading ink. Just like his drawings.
Sammy rolled the paper into a ball and threw it away. Hell! He collapsed onto his bed and shook his fist at the damned tourist. The guy must have known him and his practice. Maybe a friend or a relative had been here recently and had bought some of these fading drawings, and had told him that story. So he had been waiting for good old Sammy to show up and offer his ‘art’ for sale. And that explained why he hadn’t haggled and bought his whole stock for a lot of money. A lot of fake money. Furious, Sammy realised his game was over. The news had spread. He would have to revise his strategy, come up with something new. He would have to start again with a clean slate.
Yes, he thought, thinking of the blank dollar bill and the drawings that must by now also have started to fade away. A clean slate indeed.