The Cripple and His Talismans (5 page)

Even lettuce leaves think more clearly than I do.

He pushes the basket through the door and leaves it at my feet. He thanks me as one would thank a mad person for giving directions. He has hustled chickens successfully, but does not know how he did it.

It is noon now and the chickens have tormented me all morning. As I rock back and forth on my wooden easy chair, they peep at me through the holes in the basket. Each time I nod off, they laugh loudly as if they have never seen a cripple nap before. Perhaps I should tear off one of their legs and see if they find it funny. I have been unable to leave their side. They need to be kept under constant surveillance. The chicken-seller was right. The chickens
are
doing black magic.

Black cockroaches emerge, one by one, from inside the basket. Brown cockroaches are good. Black ones are bad. Black ones sometimes pretend they cannot fly. So they crawl like tiny old men, begging and coughing, in the hope that you will feel sorry for them. As you bend down to support them, they fly straight into your eyes and rest in your cornea. They change the colour of your eyes. From then on, everything appears dark. If you go to a circus, the clowns wear black smiles; if you attend a wedding, the bride wears a dark cloak; even freshly squeezed orange juice turns black right before your eyes. But they are not
your
eyes. The black cockroaches are seeing for you.

I shut my eyes tight so they have nothing to fly to. I think only of white things. The heart of a child, the cloth that covers a dead body before it is burnt, an old woman’s steel hair, a star following its white reflection in a river. Before I open my eyes, I tell myself the black cockroaches are gone.

And they are.

I will wait for the brown ones I like.

I must put an end to the chickens or they will use their evil charms on the entire city. Soon millions of people will gather around chicken baskets and be laughed at by poultry. We have butchered them through the centuries, and now it is their turn to put us in tiny cells. They will feed us seeds, and watch us eat and shit. They will transport us in trucks and we will be scared to death. Then they will feast on us.

I lift the lid of the basket very slightly and take a peek. I do not know how many chickens are in there. Maybe five or six. I am outnumbered, but then battles are never even. I must find and slay their leader. The rest will lose heart and lie on the battlefield with their weapons by their sides.

It is a king’s stare that separates him from his subjects. The chicken-seller spoke of an eye that was an evil cave. The one with that eye is their king.

As I peek in, the chickens all burst into flight. Feathers are lost, positions are exchanged and a wall is built. I peer into six pairs of eyes, still as beads on a rosary.

The first pair is too bright; these eyes have not been dimmed by life. They cannot be the king’s eyes. The second pair is covered by curtains that have been lowered slowly with each passing year. These eyes choose to overlook the perils of a kingdom. The next are too greedy, full of rich sweets and false praise. They must be the food taster’s. It is the fourth chicken that I must destroy. A king always has his food taster by his side.

I can see into the evil cave.

I place my hand into the basket and catch his neck. I can feel the fire in his throat rise like a flame fed by gasoline. I squeeze hard and the other chickens tear at my hand. I pull him closer to me and place a leg on the basket so that the others cannot escape.

I squeeze hard and bend his neck. In my palm I feel the last burst of life, a shot in the dark, a bullet travelling that extra inch. I break his neck; it snaps. I let go and pull my arm out. My hand is bloody and tired. The king is dead.

I pull the dead king out of his basket. He does not look the sorcerer now, just a dead bird. His eyes are still open. I must shut the entrance into the evil cave forever. As I glide my hands over the chicken’s eyes to close the lids, I realize what I am doing. It is what the lady of the rainbow spoke of. I have found a way to close the evil eye that was cast upon me. There is not a sound from the basket. The storm has been lifted.

Now that the chickens have been destroyed, I am able to venture outside. It is strange what one night without sleep can do to you. Your hearing improves. I can hear my heartbeat. It skips. This means my heart is happy. But it does not mean
I
am happy. The pursuit of happiness is dangerous. Look at my heart. It is happy and so it skips. If by chance it falls down while skipping, it will hurt itself. It will be in pain. To its surprise, the pain will not die down. If the pain lasts for a prolonged period of time, the heart suffers an attack. So please understand that you can die from too much happiness.

I go back to Jalebee Road. The narrow lane that leads to the In-charge’s beedi shop looks like any other. Vegetable vendors sell onions, tomatoes, cauliflower and lettuce from brown baskets. At least their products are on display, not banished under lids for being evil. The road is sticky. Dead vegetables are mashed into the ground. Rust-coloured cycles rush past, the tring-tring of their bells reminding you of when you got your first ride, double seat on your servant’s cycle. A scooter chokes on its owner again. The owner will try and kickstart it to no avail. Once a scooter chokes, it is dead for the day. Little children dressed in stolen clothes wait for instructions from beggar masters. There is soot in the air, but I see no chimneys. Only the factories have them. I have always wanted a chimney at home.

The In-charge cleans the counter with a white cloth. On seeing me, he turns his back and wipes the mirror that serves as a backdrop to his little cigarette shop. A flying chariot is embossed on the glass. In the mirror I see my empty sleeve. It hangs like a hollow pipe.

“What are you doing here?” he asks me.

“I have closed the evil eye. What must I do now?”

“With what?”

“The finger. I have brought it with me.”

I show him the brown paper bag in my hand. He cleans the wheels of the chariot. The cloth makes a squeaking sound against the glass. A short man wearing tight white trousers and a ribbed red vest approaches. He places a black videocassette, without its cover, on the counter and taps his fingers on the wood.

“Gold Flake ka pack,” he says. He looks in the mirror and combs his hair with his hands.

“Is it any good?” the In-charge asks him, using his chin to indicate the cassette.

“Love in Bombay,”
he replies. “I know the director.”

“I would not own to knowing the director of such a third-grade picture,” says the In-charge. “I need a decent movie. To watch at home with the in-laws.”

“You know I don’t keep family pictures.”

“I’m saying it in the hope that you will.”

“But I have to make a living.”

I look at the flower shop next to me. Four buckets containing red and white roses are placed on the floor. The water is dark as though night has been squeezed into the buckets. The In-charge hands the man a pack of Gold Flake.

“Put it on my account,” the man says. “What’s the total?”

“More than you are worth.”

“I think today you are after me. Did I say something to upset you?”

“It’s enough that the movies you rent out are humiliating.”

“What are you saying?
Love in Bombay
is a masterful picture. The Thok-Thak Brothers are pioneers in Indian vulgarity. It’s a crime not to see their pictures.”

“Third-class movie makers!”

“Boss, what you saying? Their movies are complete classics! Have you not seen
Life of a Dark Blue Filmmaker?
It will excite your blood to boiling point and beyond!”

“I saw
Bombay Buttocks
. The woman takes fifteen minutes to remove her pallu. She’s so afraid to show her face.”

“It begins slowly but then she is completely full-to. She just needed encouragement.”

“Go rent your movies to your filthy customers,” says the Incharge as he extends his hand to receive payment.

“So you want
Love in Bombay
for tonight or no?” The man smiles as he takes out a cigarette and taps it on the pack.

“I warn you, if it is as bad as
Bombay Buttocks
I will stop selling you cigarettes.”

“Don’t worry. In this one, the woman is not wearing a pallu. She is full-to from the beginning.”

“That’s better,” says the In-charge as he withdraws his hand.

“Take this tape with you and put another name on it so that my wife does not suspect. I will collect it in ten minutes from your house.”

“What name to put?”

“Documentary of Rare Birds.”

The man performs a slight salaam to the In-charge, picks up the cassette and leaves.

“Who was that?” I ask.

“The local saint.”

I deserve that answer. So I get to the point: “Are you going to help me or not?”

“With what?”

“I don’t know what to do with the finger. You were the one who told me to take it since it was a mark of respect.”

“You must leave now.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay,” he says. He leans toward me. I look into his eyes. They are large and brown, like a woman’s. “Give me the finger.”

I remove it from the brown paper bag. I am about to place the finger on the wooden counter.

“You will defile it if you place it there,” he says sternly. He reaches below the counter. His cupped hand reveals an earthen bowl. “Put the finger in this bowl.”

I place it in the bowl. He looks at it, deliberates. “There’s something missing. Can you tell me what that is?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Water.”

“Water?”

“Yes. But I don’t have any.”

I point to the Bisleri bottle neatly tucked in a corner, right next to the hundred-page notebooks. This shop has everything. If I want to buy a midget, there will be one under the counter.

“It’s unopened,” he says. “I don’t want to break the seal.”

“I will buy it from you. But is the water really necessary?”

“It’s crucial. It is very negligent of you not to have thought of this on your own.”

I pay the In-charge ten rupees. He strips the blue seal off the bottle and pours water into the bottle cap until it overflows.

“The right amount must be administered,” he tells me. He pours a few drops onto the finger.

“What are you doing?”

“Watering the finger.”

“Why?”

“So it can grow into an arm.”

I notice that he is not smiling. He leans close to me and whispers. “Plant this finger in your garden. Each time you water it, ask it to forgive you. When you have truly repented, it will grow into an arm.”

“Is such a thing possible?”

“Of course not!” he roars with laughter. “What a sample!”

“You will never understand what it’s like to lose an arm.”

“Now go back,” he says.

“Not until you give me my next clue.”

“I just did.”

“What do you mean?”

“Go back. Far back.”

The finger could grow into an arm. I have to fight hard not to believe this. Loss of any kind is horrible. Not because it takes away, but because it makes you believe — in newspapers, in tomatoes, in empty whiskey bottles.

I am back at home now. The long walk from the In-charge’s shop has tired me. The afternoon sun shines through my window as the barbers opposite my building smoke with the taxi drivers. They share cigarettes and stories. They are all short and thin. Each time they blow out smoke, they shrink in size. Each time they tell a story, they become thinner. When they sleep at night, they return to their normal size.

It is sad that people who have money do not live in these parts. They will never know the truth about barbers and taxi drivers. Until two months ago, I had never entered a barbershop. It is my mother’s fault. She frequented
salons
and took me with her when I was little (it was her way of bonding with me). Although I despised spending time with her, I loved it when women with fluffy breasts would shampoo my hair, and massage my scalp with a stream of hot water. I had visions of biting into their flesh, of letting them pull out my hair, strand by strand, instead of cutting it. Such was my desire for those fluffy-breasted hair cutters. After the haircut, they would smile and ask if I wanted anything else. When I told them what I wanted, they would chide me with a slap on the wrist. You naughty boy, they would say. You’ll grow up and be a terror.

But the barbers opposite my building cut off only those strands that have split out of guilt, or gone white out of fear. These strands fall to the ground until they are swept away by a cheap broom. That is why you always feel better after a haircut. But only if you have the right barber. When your hair grows back, so does the guilt and fear. I now have haircuts every week.

I am too tired to take a nap. So I have lined forty empty whiskey bottles in a row on the floor. When I lost my arm, I stopped drinking. But I carried these whiskey bottles from my old flat to the new one. Even though they contain nothing, I cannot throw them away. They were drunk in the past, over nights, days, funerals, weddings, and card sessions. They are not empty — they hold my past.