Chapter Thirteen
When I stepped into the laughing broil of Leopold’s, I scanned the tables for Lisa and Vikram. I couldn’t see them, but my eyes met those of my friend Didier. He was sitting with Kavita Singh and Naveen Adair.
‘A jealous husband!’ Didier cried, admiring my battered face. ‘Lin! I’m so proud of you!’
‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ I shrugged, reaching out to shake hands with him and Naveen. ‘Slipped in the shower.’
‘Looks like the shower fought back,’ Naveen said.
‘What are you, a plumbing detective now?’
‘Whatever the cause, I am delighted to see sin on your face, Lin!’ Didier declared, waving to the waiter. ‘This calls for a celebration.’
‘I hereby call this meeting of Sinners Anonymous to order!’ Kavita announced.
‘Hi, my name’s Naveen,’ the young detective said, buying in, ‘and I’m a sinner.’
‘Hi, Naveen,’ we all replied.
‘Where to begin . . . ’ Naveen laughed.
‘Any sin will do,’ Didier prompted.
Naveen decided to think about it for a while.
‘It suits you, this new look,’ Kavita Singh said to me as we sat down.
‘I’ll bet you say that to all the bruises.’
‘Only the ones I put there myself.’
Kavita, a beautiful, intelligent journalist, had a preference for other girls, and was one of the few women in the city who was unafraid to declare it.
‘Kavita, Naveen will not reveal his sins!’ Didier pouted. ‘At least tell me some of yours.’
She laughed, and began reciting a list of her sins.
‘Those rocks in your shower,’ Naveen remarked quietly, leaning close to me, ‘did a professional job.’
I glanced at him quickly. I was ready to like him. I already did like him. But he was still a stranger, and I wasn’t sure that I could trust him. How did he know that I’d received a professional beating?
Reading my expression, he smiled.
‘All the hits, on both sides of your face, are bunched up in a tight pattern, left and right,’ he said quietly. ‘Your eyes are blacked, but they’re still open, and you can see okay. That’s not easy to do. Your wrists are marked, too. It’s not hard to figure that somebody who knew what he was doing smacked you around pretty good.’
‘I’m guessing there’s a point in there, somewhere.’
‘The point is, I’m hurt.’
‘You’re hurt?’
‘You didn’t invite me.’
‘I wasn’t the one sending out cards.’
‘Likely to be any more parties?’ he smiled.
‘I don’t know. You feeling lonely?’
‘Count me in, if you need a date, next time.’
‘I’m good,’ I said. ‘But thanks for the offer.’
‘Please!’ Didier insisted as a glowering waiter slammed the drinks down on the table. ‘Stop whispering, you two. If it’s not an illicit lover or jealous husband to boast about, you’ll have to offer another sin to discuss.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Kavita encouraged.
‘Do you know why sin is banned?’ Didier asked her, his blue eyes glittering.
‘Because it’s fun?’ Kavita offered.
‘Because it makes fun of people who ban sin,’ Didier said, raising his glass.
‘I’ll make the toast!’ Kavita announced, raising her glass to Didier’s. ‘To tying people up and giving them a good smack!’
‘Excellent!’ Didier cried.
‘I’m in,’ Naveen said, raising his glass.
‘No,’ I said.
It wasn’t the day to toast people being tied up; not for me.
‘Okay, Lin,’ Kavita snapped. ‘Why don’t you make the toast?’
‘To freedom, in all its forms,’ I said.
‘I’m in again,’ Naveen said.
‘Didier is always for freedom,’ Didier agreed, raising his glass.
‘Alright,’ Kavita said, banging her glass against ours. ‘To freedom, in all her forms.’
We’d just put our glasses back on the table when Concannon and Stuart Vinson joined us.
‘Hey, man,’ Vinson said, offering a handshake like a good-natured smile. ‘What the hell happened to you?’
‘Someone kicked his fuckin’ arse,’ Concannon laughed, his Northern Irish drawl prowling. ‘And it looks like they threw in his head, n’all. What ya been up to, boyo?’
‘He has shower issues,’ Kavita said.
‘Shower issues, does he, indeed?’ Concannon grinned, leaning close to Kavita. ‘And what issues do you have?’
‘You first,’ Kavita replied.
He grinned again, as if he’d won.
‘Me? I take issue with everything that isn’t already mine. And since I’ve let that cat out of the bag, I repeat, what issues do you have?’
‘I have loveliness issues. But I’m in treatment.’
‘Aversion therapy is said to be very effective,’ Naveen said, staring at Concannon.
Concannon looked from one to the other, laughed hard, seized two chairs from a neighbouring table without asking, dragged them to our table and pushed Vinson down into one of them.
He turned his own chair around backwards, and rested his solid forearms on the back of it.
‘What are we drinkin’?’ he asked.
I realised that Didier hadn’t called for drinks, his habit whenever anyone joined him in Leopold’s. I turned my head and saw him staring at Concannon. The last time I’d seen Didier look at someone that hard, he’d had a gun in his hand. Thirty seconds later he’d used it.
I raised my hand to call the waiter. When the drinks were ordered I moved the subject across Didier’s eye line.
‘You look good, Vinson.’
‘I’m damn happy,’ the young American replied. ‘We just made a killing. Fell right into my lap. Well, into our laps, Concannon’s and mine. So, hey, the drinks are on us.’
The drinks arrived. Vinson paid and we raised our glasses.
‘To sweet deals!’ Vinson said.
‘And to the suckers who sweeten them,’ Concannon added quickly.
Our glasses clashed, but Concannon had soured the toast.
‘Ten thousand American dollars each!’ Concannon said, slamming his glass down hard on the table. ‘No better feelin’! Just like comin’ in a rich girl’s mouth!’
‘Hey, Concannon!’ I said.
‘There’s no call for talk like that,’ Vinson added.
‘What?’ Concannon asked, his arms wide with wonder. ‘What?’
He turned his head and leaned the side of his chair toward Kavita.
‘Come on, darlin’,’ he said, his smile as wide as if he was asking her to dance, ‘you can’t be tellin’ me you’re a stranger to the experience. Not with a face and a figure like yours.’
‘Why don’t you talk to me about it?’ Naveen Adair muttered through clenched teeth.
‘Unless you’re a fuckin’ lesbian!’ Concannon continued, laughing so hard that his chair tilted sideways and almost fell.
Naveen began to stand. Kavita put a hand against his chest, holding him back.
‘For Chrissakes, Concannon!’ Vinson spluttered, surprised and confused. ‘Like, what the hell’s the matter with you? You brought me a solid-gold customer, we made a bundle of cash, and we’re supposed to be, like, happy and celebrating. Stop antagonising everybody already!’
‘It’s alright,’ Kavita said, staring evenly at Concannon. ‘I believe in free speech. If you put a hand on me, I’ll cut it off. But if you just sit there, talking like an idiot, hey, you can do that all night long for all I care.’
‘Oh, so, you are a fuckin’ cunt-licker,’ Concannon grinned back at her.
‘As a matter of fact –’ she began.
‘As a matter of fact,’ Didier interrupted her, ‘it’s none of your business.’
Concannon’s grin hardened at the edges. His eyes glittered, sunlight on the back of a cobra’s hood. He turned to face Didier. The menace in his expression was clear. The rudeness to Kavita had been a ruse to provoke Didier.
It worked. Didier’s eyes were indigo flames.
‘You should powder your nose and put on your dress, sweetheart,’ Concannon growled. ‘All you fuckin’ homos should wear dresses. As a warning, like, for the rest of us. If you get fucked like a woman, you should dress like one.’
‘You should have the courage, if not the honour,’ Didier replied evenly, ‘to discuss this privately. Outside.’
‘You’re a fuckin’ unnatural thing,’ Concannon hissed, through barely parted lips.
We were all on our feet. Naveen reached out to grab Concannon’s shirt. Vinson and I separated the two men, as waiters rushed at us from all corners of the bar.
The waiters at Leopold’s had a unique internship in those years: if they put on boxing gloves and lasted two minutes in the back lane with the very big, very tough Sikh head waiter, they got the job. Six of those waiters, directed by the very big, very tough Sikh head waiter, surrounded our table.
Concannon looked around quickly, his hard smile widening to show an uneven set of yellowing teeth. For a few seconds he listened to the voice within, urging him to fight and die. In some men, that’s the sweetest voice that ever speaks to them. Then the viciousness softened into cunning, and he began to back away through the circle of waiters.
‘You know what?’ he said, stepping backwards. ‘Fuck yez! Fuck yez all!’
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Vinson gasped as Concannon stomped out into the street, pushing shoppers aside.
‘It is obvious, Stuart,’ Didier said as we slowly sat down again.
He was the only one of us who hadn’t stood, and the only one who seemed calm.
‘Not to me, man.’
‘I have seen this phenomenon many times, Stuart, in many countries. The man is almost uncontrollably attracted to me.’
Vinson spluttered beer foam across the table. Kavita howled with laughter.
‘Are you saying he’s gay?’ Naveen asked.
‘Does a man have to be gay,’ Didier asked, giving him a look to tan leather, ‘to be attracted to Didier?’
‘Okay, okay,’ Naveen grinned.
‘I don’t think he’s gay,’ Vinson said. ‘He goes to prostitutes. I think he’s just crazy.’
‘You got that right,’ Kavita said, waving her glass in front of his bewildered frown.
Sweetie, who’d been standing well away from the confrontation, slapped a filthy rag on our table as a sign that he was ready to take our order. He picked his crooked nose with his middle finger, wiped it on his jacket, and let out a sigh.
‘Aur kuch?’ he menaced. Anything else?
Didier was about to make an order, but I stopped him.
‘Not for me,’ I said, standing and collecting my keys.
‘But, no!’ Didier protested. ‘One more, surely?’
‘I didn’t finish the last one. I’m riding.’
‘I’m with you, cowboy,’ Kavita said, joining me. ‘I told Lisa I’d call around tonight. I’ll come home with you, if you don’t mind?’
‘Happy to have you along.’
‘But . . . can a gay man go to prostitutes, like, a lot?’ Vinson asked, leaning toward Didier.
Didier lit a cigarette, examined the glow for a moment, and then addressed Vinson, his eyes narrowing.
‘Have you not heard them say, Stuart, that a gay man can do everything that a man wants?’
‘What?’ Vinson asked, adrift as an iceberg.
‘They also say that ignorance is bliss,’ I said, exchanging a smile with Didier. ‘And I’m gonna follow my bliss home.’
We left the bar and made our way through the crush of shoppers to the parking area, where I’d left my bike.
As I put the key into the ignition, a very strong hand reached out and seized my forearm. It was Concannon.
‘Fuck him, eh?’ he said, smiling widely.
‘What?’
‘Fuck him. The French mincer.’
‘You’re crazier than you know, Concannon.’
‘I can’t argue with that. And I don’t want to argue. I’ve got that money. Ten grand. Let’s go and get drunk.’
‘I’m going home,’ I said, pulling my arm free to put the key in the ignition.
‘Come on, it’ll be fun! Let’s go out, you and me. Let’s go pick a fight. Let’s find some really tough bastards, and hurt them. Let’s have fun, man!’
‘Attractive and all as that –’
‘I’ve got this new Irish music,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s fuckin’ grand. The thing about Irish music, you know, is that it’s so good to fight to.’
‘No.’
‘Ah, come on! At least listen to it, and get drunk with me.’
‘No.’
‘That Frenchman’s a fuckin’ faggot!’
‘Concannon –’
‘You and me,’ he said, softening his voice and forcing a smile almost exactly like a scowl of pain. ‘We’re the same, you and me. I know you. I fuckin’ know you.’
‘You don’t know me.’
He snarled, whirling his head around, and spitting on the ground.
‘I mean, that faggot, think about it. If the whole world was like him, the human race would die out.’
‘And if the whole world was like you, Concannon, we’d deserve to.’
It was hard; too hard. Who was I to throw stones? But I loved Didier, and I’d had all of Concannon I could take for one long day.
His eyes flashed with sudden murderous fury, and I stared back at him, thinking that I’d been tied up and beat up that day, and he could stare all he wanted.
I started the bike, kicked away the side-stand, and helped Kavita to climb up behind me. We rode away without looking back.
‘That guy,’ she shouted, leaning over my shoulder, her lips touching my ear, ‘is out of his bloody mind, yaar.’
‘I only met the guy once before,’ I shouted back. ‘He seemed kind of okay.’
‘Well, somebody emptied his okay basket,’ Kavita said.
‘You could say that about most of us,’ I replied.
‘Speak for yourself,’ Kavita laughed. ‘My basket is a horn of plenty, baby.’
I wasn’t laughing. The look in Concannon’s eyes stayed with me. Even as I brushed aside Lisa’s pain and concern, apologised to her, kissed her, and sat on a wobbly stool in the bathroom while she cleaned and dressed the cuts on my face, I saw Concannon’s eyes: omens in a cave.
‘It suits Lin, this look,’ Kavita said to Lisa, claiming a comfortable place on the couch after I’d been patched up. ‘I think he should pay someone to do it at least once every month. I’ve got a couple of girlfriends who’d do it for free.’
‘You’re not helping, Kavita. I mean, look at him. That’s what a car accident would look like, if cars were made out of people.’
‘Okay,’ Kavita said, ‘I’m really not wanting to get that image in my mind.’
Lisa frowned, and turned back to face me, her hand cradling the back of my head.
‘You’re not going to tell me what the hell happened, are you?’
‘Happened?’
‘You’re a sick man,’ she declared, pushing me away. ‘Did you at least eat something today?’
‘Well . . . I got kinda busy.’
‘Kavita, will you cook for us? I’m just too emotional to cook right now.’
Kavita cooked one of my favourites, yellow dhal and aloo ghobi, spiced cauliflower-potato mix. It was pretty good, too, and I didn’t know how much I needed it until I ate it. After we cleaned up quickly, we sat together to watch a movie.
It was Konchalovsky’s film of Kurosawa’s Runaway Train, with John Voight riding fearless into the white sky that every outlaw finds, sooner or later, on the horizon of violent desire.
Kavita, who condemned it as testosterone terrorism, insisted that we watch it a second time, but with the sound turned to zero, and with each of us speaking the parts of the characters. We ran the movie again, and laughed our way through the second viewing.
I played the game, making up lines for the characters Kavita gave me, desecrating the beloved movie, but as the light from that runaway train poured onto our laughing faces in the darkened room, other images and other faces from another dark place, earlier that long day, rained into me.
When Lisa put a new film in the player I stood, gathered my keys, and put my two knives into the scabbards.
‘Where are you going?’ Lisa asked from the couch, where she was snuggled in beside Kavita.
‘I’ve got something I have to do,’ I replied, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek.
‘You’re gonna what?’ she demanded. ‘We’re gonna watch another movie here! My choice, this time. It’s not fair that I have to see your testosterone terrorism, and you don’t have to see my oestrogen ecstasy.’
‘Let him go,’ Kavita said, cuddling close. ‘We’ll have a girls’ night in.’
At the door to the living room I turned to look at them again.
‘If I don’t come back tonight,’ I said, ‘don’t give my stuff away, because I always come back.’
‘Very funny,’ Lisa said. ‘Tell me, did you have a stamp collection, when you were a kid?’
‘Please, Lin,’ Kavita laughed. ‘Don’t answer that question.’
‘I tried,’ I said. ‘My father stamped it out. By the way, do you think I’m grouchy?’
‘What?’ they both asked.
‘Someone, a kid I know, he said I’m grouchy. I don’t get it. Do you think I’m grouchy?’
Lisa and Kavita laughed so hard they fell off the couch. When they saw the expression on my face they laughed harder and rolled together, their legs in the air.
‘Come on, it’s not that funny.’
They screamed for me to stop.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Thanks a lot.’
They were still laughing when I started my bike, pulled out of the driveway, and headed along Marine Drive toward Tardeo.
It was late, and the streets were almost deserted. A scent of iron and salt, the blood of the sea, rose from the crests of waves, exhausting themselves on the walls of the wide bay. That scent rode the midnight breeze into every open window on the boulevard.
Massive black clouds boiled and swarmed overhead, so close that it seemed I could reach up and touch them as I rode. Lightning, silent but sky-wide, ripped the veil of night, shredding the darkness with theatres of cloud in every silver strike.
After eight dry months, the soul of the Island City was begging for rain. Every heart, sleeping or awake, stirred to the roil and rumble of the gathering storm. Every pulse, young or old, was drumming to the rhythm of the coming rain, every sighing breath a part of the waxing wind and the flooding clouds.
I parked the bike in the entrance to a deserted alley. The footpaths nearby were empty, and the few sleepers I saw were stretched out near a line of handcarts, three hundred metres away.
I smoked a cigarette, waiting and watching the quiet street. When I was sure that no-one was awake on the block, I put my cotton handkerchief under the downpipe of the petrol tank on my bike, pulled the feeder tube free, flooded the handkerchief with petrol, and then reconnected the tube.
At the door of the warehouse where they’d slapped me around that afternoon, I broke the padlock on the chain across the door, and slipped inside.
I used my cigarette lighter to find my way to the piece of pool furniture: that banana lounge in acid-green and yellow vinyl. There was an empty drum nearby. I dragged it toward the banana lounge, and sat down.
In a few minutes, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I made out certain objects and pieces of furniture quite clearly. Among them was a large coil of coconut-fibre rope. The rope they’d used to tie me to the pool chair had been cut from that roll.
I stood up and uncoiled the rope until it tumbled into a large, loose pile. Packing the pile of rope under the banana lounge, I stuffed the petrol-soaked scarf within the fibre strands.
There were empty cardboard cartons, old telephone books, oily rags and other inflammables in the warehouse. I dragged them into a line leading from the pool chair to a row of cabinets and benches where the power tools were displayed, and doused them with everything I could find.
When I lit the scarf it flared up quickly. The flames fluttered and then rushed into a fierce fire that began to consume the pile of rope.
Thick, musty smoke quickly filled the open space. The vinyl banana lounge was putting up a fight. I waited until the fire had prowled along the line of combustible refuse, and then left the warehouse, dragging a heavy oxy-acetylene kit with me.
I let the gas bottles rest in the gutter, out of reach of the fire, and walked slowly to my bike.
The firelight in the windows of the warehouse rippled and throbbed for a time, as if a silent party was underway inside. Then there was a small explosion.
I guessed that a container of glue or paint thinner had exploded. Whatever it was, it brought the fire into the rafters of the warehouse, and sent the first flames and pieces of orange ash into the heavy, humid air.
People began emerging from surrounding shops and houses. They ran toward the fire, but there was nothing they could do. There was little water to spare. The warehouse was a stand-alone building. It was lost to the fire, and everyone knew it, but other buildings wouldn’t burn with it.
As the crowd swelled, the first chai and paan sellers arrived on bicycles to profit from the pool of spectators. Not long behind them were the firemen and the police.
The firemen trained hoses on the sides of the burning building, but the hoses only produced a thin stream of water. The police lashed out with bamboo canes at a few of the spectators, established a command post opposite the fire, and commandeered a chai seller for themselves.
I was getting worried. I wanted to burn down the torture shed. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Vishnu wanted me to leave a message there, and I was sure that he’d get my message clearly. But I didn’t want the fire to spread.
The firemen in their brass Athenian helmets were helpless. It seemed, for a handful of heartbeats, that the fire might jump the open space to the next building.
Thunder boomed the drum of sky. Every window in the street shuddered. Every heart trembled. Thunder smashed the sky again and again, so fearsome that lovers, neighbours and even strangers reached out to one another instinctively.
Lightning lit lanterns of cloud everywhere at once, directly overhead. Dogs cowered and scampered. A cold wind gusted through the humid night, the blade of it piercing my thin shirt. The freezing wind fled, and a warm, plunging wave of air as damp as sea spray moved through the street like a hand rustling a silk curtain.
It rained. Liquid night, heavy as a cashmere cloak: it rained. And it rained.
The crowd shivered and shouted with delight. Forgetting the fire they jumped and whooped and danced together, laughing madly as their feet splashed on the sodden street.
The fire sizzled, defeated in the flood. Firemen joined the dancers. Someone turned on music somewhere. Cops swayed in a line beside their jeeps. The dancers laughed, soaked through, satin-skin clothes reflecting colours in the puddles at their feet.
I danced on a river of wet light. Storms rolled, while the sea came to the earth. Winds leapt at us like a pack of happy dogs. Lakes of lightning splashed the street. Heat sighed from every stone. Faith in life painted our faces. Hands were laughter. Shadows danced, drunk on rain, and I danced with them, the happy fool I was, as that first flood drowned the sins of the sun.