The God of Small Things (14 page)

Up two. Down two. Up one. Jump, jump.

“Rahel,” Ammu said, “you haven’t Learned your Lesson yet. Have you?”

Rahel had:
Excitement Always Leads to Tears.
Dum dum.

  They arrived at the Princess Circle lobby. They walked past the Refreshments Counter where the orangedrinks were waiting. And the lemondrinks were waiting. The orange too orange. The lemon too lemon. The chocolates too melty.

The Torch Man opened the heavy Princess Circle door into the fan-whirring, peanut-crunching darkness. It smelled of breathing people and hairoil. And old carpets. A magical,
Sound of Music
smell that Rahel remembered and treasured. Smells, like music, hold memories. She breathed deep, and bottled it up for posterity.

Estha had the tickets. Little Man. He lived in a cara-van. Dum dum.

The Torch Man shone his light on the pink tickets. Row J. Numbers 17, 18, 19, 20. Estha, Ammu, Rahel, Baby Kochamma. They squeezed past irritated people who moved their legs this way and that to make space. The seats of the chairs had to be pulled down. Baby Kochamma held Rahel’s seat down while she climbed on. She
wasn’t heavy enough, so the chair folded her into itself like sandwich stuffing, and she watched from between her knees. Two knees and a fountain. Estha, with more dignity than that, sat on the edge of his chair.

The shadows of the fans were on the sides of the screen where the picture wasn’t.

Off with the torch. On with the World Hit.

The camera soared up in the skyblue (car-colored) Austrian sky with the clear, sad sound of church bells.

Far below, on the ground, in the courtyard of the abbey, the cobblestones were shining. Nuns walked across it. Like slow cigars. Quiet nuns clustered quietly around their Reverend Mother, who never read their letters. They gathered like ants around a crumb of toast. Cigars around a Queen Cigar. No hair on their knees. No melons in their blouses. And their breath like peppermint. They had complaints to make to their Reverend Mother. Sweetsinging complaints. About Julie Andrews, who was still up in the hills, singing
The hills are alive with the sound of music
, and was, once again, late for Mass.

The nuns sneaked musically.

People in the audience were turning around.

“Shhh!” they said.

Shh! Shh! Shh!

There was a voice from outside the picture. It was clear and true, cutting through the fan-whirring, peanut-crunching darkness.
There was a nun in the audience. Heads twisted around like bottle caps. Black-haired backs of heads became faces with mouths and mustaches. Hissing mouths with teeth like sharks. Many of them. Like stickers on a card.

“Shhhh!” they said together. It was Estha who was singing. A nun with a puff. An Elvis Pelvis Nun. He couldn’t help it.

“Get him out of here!” The Audience said, when they found him.

Shutup or Getout Getout or Shutup.

The Audience was a Big Man. Estha was a Little Man, with the tickets.

“Estha for heaven’s sake, shut UP!!” Ammu’s fierce whisper said.

So Estha shut UP. The mouths and mustaches turned away But then, without warning, the song came back, and Estha couldn’t stop it.

“Ammu, can I go and sing it outside?” Estha said (before Ammu smacked him). “I’ll come back after the song.”

“But don’t ever expect me to bring you out again,” Ammu said. “You’re embarrassing
all
of us.”

But Estha couldn’t help it. He got up to go. Past angry Ammu. Past Rahel concentrating through her knees. Past Baby Kochamma. Past the Audience that had to move its legs again. Thiswayandthat. The red sign over the door said EXIT in a red light. Estha
EXIT
ed.

  In the lobby, the orangedrinks were waiting. The lemondrinks were waiting. The melty chocolates were waiting. The electric blue foamleather car-sofas were waiting. The
Coming Soon!
posters were waiting.

Estha Alone sat on the electric blue foamleather car-sofa, in the Abhilash Talkies Princess Circle lobby, and sang. In a nun’s voice, as clear as clean water.

The man behind the Refreshments Counter, who’d been asleep on a row of stools, waiting for the interval, woke up. He saw, with
gummy eyes, Estha Alone in his beige and pointy shoes. And his spoiled puff. The Man wiped his marble counter with a dirtcolored rag. And he waited. And waiting he wiped. And wiping he waited. And watched Estha sing.

“Ay!
Eda cherukka!”
The Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said, in a gravelly voice thick with sleep. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?”

Estha sang.

“Ay!” the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said. “Look, this is my Resting Time. Soon I’ll have to wake up and work. So I can’t have you singing English songs here. Stop it.” His gold wristwatch was almost hidden by his curly forearm hair. His gold chain was almost hidden by his chest hair. His white Terylene shirt was unbuttoned to where the swell of his belly began. He looked like an unfriendly jeweled bear. Behind him there were mirrors for people to look at themselves in while they bought cold drinks and refreshments. To reorganize their puffs and settle their buns. The mirrors watched Estha.

“I could file a Written Complaint against you,” the Man said to Estha. “How would you like that? A Written Complaint?”

Estha stopped singing and got up to go back in.

“Now that I’m up,” the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said, “now that you’ve woken me up from my Resting Time, now that you’ve
disturbed
me, at least come and have a drink. It’s the least you can do.”

He had an unshaven, jowly face. His teeth, like yellow piano keys, watched little Elvis the Pelvis.

“No thank you,” Elvis said politely. “My family will be expecting me. And I’ve finished my pocket money.”

“Porketmunny?”
The Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said with his
teeth still watching. “First English songs, and now
Porketmunny!
Where d’you live? On the moon?”

Estha turned to go.

  “Wait a minute!” the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said sharply. “Just a minute!” he said again, more gently, “I thought I asked you a question.”

His yellow teeth were magnets. They saw, they smiled, they sang, they smelled, they moved. They mesmerized.

“I asked you where you lived,” he said, spinning his nasty web.

“Ayemenem,” Estha said. “I live in Ayemenem. My grandmother owns Paradise Pickles & Preserves. She’s the Sleeping Partner.”

“Is she, now?” the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said. “And who does she sleep with?”

He laughed a nasty laugh that Estha couldn’t understand. “Never mind. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Come and have a drink,” he said. “A Free Cold Drink. Come. Come here and tell me all about your grandmother.”

Estha went. Drawn by yellow teeth.

“Here. Behind the counter,” the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “It has to be a secret because drinks are not allowed before the interval. It’s a Theater Offense. Cognizable,” he added after a pause.

Estha went behind the Refreshments Counter for his Free Cold Drink. He saw the three high stools arranged in a row for the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man to sleep on. The wood shiny from his sitting.

“Now if you’ll kindly hold this for me,” the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said, handing Estha his penis through his soft white muslin dhoti, “I’ll get you your drink. Orange? Lemon?”

Estha held it because he had to.

“Orange? Lemon?” the Man said. “Lemonorange?”

“Lemon, please,” Estha said politely.

He got a cold bottle and a straw. So he held a bottle in one hand and a penis in the other. Hard, hot, veiny. Not a moonbeam.

The Orangedrink Lemondrink Man’s hand closed over Estha’s. His thumbnail was long like a woman’s. He moved Estha’s hand up and down. First slowly. Then fastly.

The lemondrink was cold and sweet. The penis hot and hard.

The piano keys were watching.

  “So your grandmother runs a factory?” the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said. “What kind of factory?”

“Many products,” Estha said, not looking, with the straw in his mouth. “Squashes, pickles, jams, curry powders. Pineapple slices.”

“Good,” the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said. “Excellent.”

His hand closed tighter over Estha’s. Tight and sweaty. And faster still.

Through the soggy paper straw (almost flattened with spit and fear), the liquid lemon sweetness rose. Blowing through the straw (while his other hand moved), Estha blew bubbles into the bottle. Stickysweet lemon bubbles of the drink he couldn’t drink. In his head he listed his grandmother’s produce.

Then the gristly-bristly face contorted, and Estha’s hand was wet and hot and sticky. It had egg white on it White egg white. Quarter-boiled.

The lemondrink was cold and sweet. The penis was soft and shriveled like an empty leather change purse. With his dirtcolored rag, the man wiped Estha’s other hand.

“Now finish your drink,” he said, and affectionately squished a cheek of Estha’s bottom. Tight plums in drainpipes. And beige and pointy shoes. “You mustn’t waste it,” he said. “Think of all the poor people who have nothing to eat or drink. You’re a lucky rich boy, with porketmunny and a grandmother’s factory to inherit. You should Thank God that you have no worries. Now finish your drink.”

And so, behind the Refreshments Counter, in the Abhilash Talkies Princess Circle lobby, in the hall with Kerala’s first 70mm CinemaScope screen, Esthappen Yako finished his free bottle of fizzed, lemon-flavored fear. His lemontoolemon, too cold. Too sweet. The fizz came up his nose. He would be given another bottle soon (free, fizzed fear). But he didn’t know that yet. He held his sticky Other Hand away from his body.

It wasn’t supposed to touch anything.

When Estha finished his drink, the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said, “Finished? Goodboy.”

He took the empty bottle and the flattened straw, and sent Estha back into
The Sound of Music.

Back inside the hairoil darkness, Estha held his Other Hand carefully (upwards, as though he was holding an imagined orange). He slid past the Audience (their legs moving thiswayandthat), past Baby Kochamma, past Rahel (still tilted back), past Ammu (still annoyed). Estha sat down, still holding his sticky orange.

And there was Baron von Clapp-Trapp. Christopher Plummer. Arrogant. Hardhearted. With a mouth like a slit And a steelshrill police whistle. A captain with seven children. Clean children, like a packet of peppermints. He pretended not to love them, but he did. He loved them. He loved her (Julie Andrews), she loved him, they loved the children, the children loved them. They all loved each other. They were clean, white children, and their beds were soft with Ei. Der. Downs.

The house they lived in had a lake and gardens, a wide staircase, white doors and windows, and curtains with flowers.

The clean white children, even the big ones, were scared of the
thunder. To comfort them, Julie Andrews put them all into her clean bed, and sang them a clean song about a few of her favorite things. These were a few of her favorite things:

• (1)
  Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes.
  

• (2)
  Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings.
  

• (3)
  Bright copper kettles.
  

• (4)
  Doorbells and sleighbells and schnitzel with noodles.
  

• (5)
  Etc.
  

And then, in the minds of certain two-egg twin members of the audience in Abhilash Talkies, some questions arose that needed answers:

• (a)
  Did Baron von Clapp-Trapp shiver his leg?
  

  He did not.
  

• (b)
  Did Baron von Clapp-Trapp blow spit bubbles? Did he?
  

  He did most certainly not.
  

• (c)
  Did he gobble?
  

  He did not.
  

Oh Baron von Trapp, Baron von Trapp, could you love the little fellow with the orange in the smelly auditorium?

He’s just held the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man’s soo-soo in his hand, but could you love him still?

And his twin sister? Tilting upwards with her fountain in a Love-in-Tokyo? Could you love her too?

Baron von Trapp had some questions of his own.

• (a)
  Are they clean white children?
  No.
  (But Sophie Mol is.)
  

• (b)
  Do they blow spit bubbles?
  Yes.
  (But Sophie Mol doesn’t.)
  

• (c)
  Do they shiver their legs? Like clerks?
  Yes.
  (But Sophie Mol doesn’t.)
  

• (d)
  Have they, either or both, ever held strangers’ soo-soos?
  N … Nyes.
  (But Sophie Mol hasn’t.)
  

“Then I’m sorry,” Baron von Clapp-Trapp said. “It’s out of the question. I cannot love them. I cannot be their Baba. Oh no.”