The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe (3 page)

“We no longer have that model in stock,” explained the Elton John of self-assembly furniture in very good English. “It sold out.”

Seeing the distress on the Indian’s face at this news, he hastened to add: “But you can always order one.”

“How long would that take?” asked Ajatashatru, deeply concerned at the idea that he had come all this way for nothing.

“You could have it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow morning?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“In that case, I’ll take it.”

Pleased to have satisfied his customer, the employee sent his fingers scurrying over the keyboard.

“Your name please?”

“Mr. Rathod (pronounced
Rat-head
). Ajatashatru … you spell it the way it sounds.”

“Oh gosh!” the employee exclaimed, stumped.

Then, more out of laziness than convenience, he wrote an X in the box while the Indian wondered how this European had known that his second name was Oghash.

“So, that’s a Hertsyörbåk fakir special in real
Swedish pine, with stainless-steel nails of adjustable length. What color?”

“What are the options?”

“Puma red, tortoise blue or dolphin green.”

“I don’t really see how the colors relate to the animals,” admitted Ajatashatru, who did not really see how the colors related to the animals in question.

“It’s marketing.” The Frenchman shrugged. “It’s beyond the likes of us.”

“Oh. All right then, puma red.”

The sales assistant’s fingers spidered frantically over the keyboard again.

“All done. You may come to fetch it tomorrow, any time after 10 a.m. Can I help you with anything else?”

“Yes, just a quick question, out of curiosity. How come the model with fifteen thousand nails is three times cheaper than the two-hundred-nail model, which is much more dangerous?”

The man peered at Ajatashatru over the frames of his glasses, as though he did not understand.

“I have the feeling you don’t understand my question,” said the fakir. “What I mean is: what kind of idiot would buy a bed that is more expensive, far less comfortable and much more dangerous?”

“When you have spent a whole week hammering the fifteen thousand nails into the fifteen thousand holes in the wood, sir, you will no longer be asking that question. Indeed, you will regret not having bought the two-hundred-nail model, even if it is more expensive, less comfortable and more dangerous. Believe me!”

Ajatashatru nodded and took the €100 note from his wallet, being careful not to show the assistant its blank side. He had removed the invisible thread, as he would be handing the note over for good this time. The mission was about to be accomplished. Right here and right now.

“This is not where you pay, sir. You have to go downstairs, to the cash registers. And you will pay tomorrow. That will be €115.89.”

Ajatashatru would have fallen over backward had he not, at that moment, been gripping tightly to the piece of paper that the Frenchman, smiling, had handed to him.

“One hundred and fifteen euros and eighty-nine centimes?” he repeated in an offended tone.

“Ninety-nine euros and ninety-nine centimes was the promotional price. It expired last week. Look, it’s written here.”

With these words, the sales assistant pointed with one pudgy finger to a line of text at the
bottom of the page so small that the letters might have been ant footprints.

“Ah.”

The Indian’s world collapsed around him.

“I hope you are satisfied with our service. If so, please tell everyone you know. If not, there is no need to bother. Thank you and goodbye, sir.”

At this, the young Sir Elton, considering the conversation to be over, turned his large head and his dolphin-green glasses toward the woman who was standing behind Ajatashatru.

“Hello, madame, what can I do for you?”

The fakir moved out of the way to let the lady past. Then he stared worriedly at his €100 note, wondering how on earth he could get hold of the extra €15.89 by ten o’clock tomorrow morning.

On a large sign displayed close to the cash registers, Ajatashatru read that the store closed at 8 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So, at around 7:45 p.m.—he read the time on a plastic Swatch worn by a voluptuous blond woman—he thought it a good idea to gravitate once more to the bedroom section.

After glancing around discreetly, he slid underneath a luridly colored bed. Just then, a woman’s robotic voice boomed from the loudspeakers. Despite the fact that he was lying down, the Indian jumped, smashing his head against the wooden slats that supported the mattress. He would never have believed it possible to jump from a horizontal position.

All his senses alert, the fakir imagined the store security guards, already in position on top of the wardrobes, pointing their sniper rifles at the Birkeland under which he was hiding, while a Franco-Swedish commando team moved stealthily and quickly to surround the
bed. Inside his chest, his heart was beating to the rhythm of a Bollywood sound track. He undid the safety pin that held his tie in place and unbuttoned his shirt in order to breathe more easily. He feared the end of his adventure was drawing near.

After a few minutes spent holding his breath, however, no one had come to remove him from under the bed, and he deduced that the voice on the loudspeaker had merely been announcing that the store was closing.

He breathed out and waited.

A few hours earlier, just after his conversation with the sales assistant, Ajatashatru had felt hungry and headed toward the restaurant.

He did not know what time it was. And, indoors, it was impossible to calculate it from the sun’s position in the sky. His cousin Pakmaan (pronounced
Pacman
) had once told him that there were no clocks in Las Vegas casinos. That way, the customers did not notice time passing and spent much more money than they had intended to spend. Ikea must have copied this technique because, although there were clocks on the walls for sale, none of them had batteries. However, whether he knew the time or not, spending more money was a luxury that Ajatashatru could not permit himself.

The Indian looked at other customers’ wrists, and finally saw the time on a sporty black watch that apparently belonged to someone called Patek Philippe.

It was 2:35 p.m.

With no other money in his pocket than the €100 note that his cousin Parthasarathy had printed for him, on one side only, and which, when added to €15.89 in change, would enable him to buy his new bed of nails, Ajatashatru walked into the restaurant. His nostrils were teased by the scents of cooked meat and fish with lemon.

He went to the back of the line, behind a woman in her forties, slim and tanned with long blond hair, dressed in a rather bourgeois style. The perfect victim, thought Ajatashatru, as he moved closer to her. She smelled of expensive perfume. Her hands, with their burgundy-painted fingernails, picked up a plate and some cutlery.

This was the moment chosen by the Indian to take a pair of fake Police sunglasses from his pocket and put them on. He moved a little closer to the woman, and took his turn picking up a plate, a knife that did not seem likely to cut anything, and a fork with blunt prongs just like those that he used to stick in his tongue. He leaned into the woman’s back and counted in his head. Three, two, one. At that very moment, feeling discomfited by the closeness of the person behind her, the Frenchwoman turned around, banging her shoulder into Ajatashatru’s
sunglasses and sending them flying through the air to the ground, where they smashed into several pieces. Bingo!

“MY GOSH!” the fakir cried out, staring distraught at the sunglasses before putting his plate down and kneeling to retrieve the broken pieces.

He did not wish to overdo the melodrama.

“Oh,
je suis
embarrassed!” the lady said, bending down to help him.

Ajatashatru looked sadly at the six pieces of smoky blue glass that he held in the palm of his hand as the woman handed him the gold-colored frames.

“I am sorry. I’m so clumsy.”

Wincing, the con man shrugged, as if to say it was not important. “Never mind. It’s OK.”

“Oh, but
oui
, it minds. It minds
beaucoup
! I am going to compensate you.”

Ajatashatru clumsily attempted to put the bits of glass back in their frame. But as soon as he managed to secure one, another would immediately fall out into his hand.

As this was happening, the woman was rummaging through her handbag in search of her wallet. She took out a €20 note and apologized for not being able to give him more.

The Indian politely refused. But the bourgeois lady insisted, so finally he took the note and shoved it in his pocket.

“Thank you. It is very kind of you.”

“It is normal, it is normal. And also, the meal is on me.”

Ajatashatru put the broken sunglasses in his trouser pocket and picked up his plate.

How easy life was for thieves. In a few seconds, he had just earned the €15.89 he needed to buy the Hertsyörbåk bed, plus €4.11 in pocket money. He also got a free meal (tomatoes with paprika, a salmon wrap with fries, a banana and a glass of flat Coca-Cola) and some charming company for his lunch that day. As she too was on her own, Marie Rivière (that was her name) had suggested that they eat their meal together, as well as insisting she pay for his food in return for breaking his sunglasses.

So there they were: the victim and the con man, the antelope and the lion, sitting at the same table, she shrieking with laughter at the stories told by this unusual person in a suit and turban. If someone from Kishanyogoor were to witness this scene, they would probably not believe their eyes. Ajatashatru, who had sworn a vow of chastity and chosen a balanced diet of
organic nails and bolts, sitting at a table with a charming European lady while stuffing himself with smoked salmon and fries! In his village, a photograph of such an event would mean the immediate loss of his fakir’s license, perhaps even the shaving of his mustache. Probably a quick death sentence too, while they were at it.

“For some things, to be unfortunate is good,” the lady said, blushing. “If I do not break your glasses, we do not meet. And then, I never see your beautiful eyes.”
*

Perhaps it was not a woman’s place to say that, Marie thought. Perhaps it was not for her to make the first move. But she really did think that the Indian had beautiful, Coca-Cola–colored eyes, with sparkles in the irises reminiscent of the bubbles in the famous American soda—the very bubbles cruelly absent from the glass of Coke that Ajatashatru was currently drinking. Beautiful bubbles … or perhaps they were stars? Anyway, she was now at an age where, if she wanted something, she reached out and took it. Life was passing so quickly these days. Here was the proof that a minor accident in a line at Ikea
could sometimes provide better results than a three-year subscription to Match.com.

The man smiled, embarrassed. His mustache pointed up at the ends like Hercule Poirot’s, dragging with it all the rings that hung from his pierced lips. Marie thought those rings made him seem wild, virile, naughty … basically, everything she found attractive in a man. And yet his shirt was quite sophisticated. It was an appealing mix. He looked exactly like the kind of man she often fantasized about.

“Are you staying in Paris at the moment?” she asked, trying to restrain her urges.

“You could put it like that,” replied the Rajasthani, not making it clear that he was going to spend the night in Ikea. “But I’m leaving tomorrow. I just came here to buy something.”

“Something worth a round trip of four thousand miles …” she observed sagely.

So the fakir explained that he had come to France with the intention of buying the latest bed of nails to come on the market. A nail mattress was a bit like a spring mattress: after a certain time, it became worn out. The tips of the nails grew blunt, and they had to be changed.

Of course, he did not mention that he was flat broke and that his journey here (he had chosen Paris as it was the cheapest destination he had
found on an Internet search engine) had been funded by the inhabitants of his native village, who, believing him to have magic powers, had hoped to help cure the poor fakir of his rheumatism by buying him a new bed. This was, in fact, a sort of pilgrimage. Ikea was his version of the grotto in Lourdes.

While he was telling her all this, Ajatashatru felt embarrassed, for the first time in his life, by his own lies. For him, not telling the truth had become second nature. But there was something about Marie that made the act more difficult. He found this Frenchwoman so pure, so gentle and friendly. He felt as if he were dishonoring her somehow. And dishonoring himself at the same time. It was rather disconcerting for him, this new feeling, this shadow of guilt. Marie had a beautiful face that shone with innocence and kindness. The face of a porcelain doll filled with that humanity which he himself had lost during his battle to survive in the hostile jungle of his childhood.

It was also the first time that he had been asked questions about his life, that someone had shown any interest in him for something unconnected with curing chronic constipation or erectile dysfunction. He even came to regret having conned Marie in such a despicable manner.

And the way she looked at him, the way she smiled at him … He could be wrong, but it seemed to him that she was chatting him up. This was a strange situation because in his country it was always men who chatted up women, but it made him feel good anyway.

Inside his pocket, Ajatashatru caressed the frames of his fake sunglasses. A secret mechanism enabled the six pieces of glass to interlock and be held in tension. Bang them even slightly and the pieces burst out of the frames, giving the illusion that the glasses had smashed.

Ever since he had started using this trick, he had noticed that most people felt so guilty that they gave him money as compensation for their clumsiness.

In fact Ajatashatru, who did not have an original bone in his body, had merely tweaked the famous broken vase illusion, which he had found in an old book on tricks and hoaxes.