When She Was Queen (17 page)

In the living room the singing’s stopped, someone is suggesting a game of personal fantasies.

“Here, here, I’ll start—listen—my fantasy has in it a female garbage-truck driver, a blond Scandinavian type, not masculine-looking but with a little looseness of limb and a casual style—”

Diamond and Vina exchange a smile, but at this moment Rusty comes and sits down beside his wife, who pats him on the hand. “Feeling tired?”

“Just a little, but I don’t want to spoil the fun” They look at each other tenderly, and he asks, “What were you two going on about?”

“I was telling Diamond how we met, dear.”

“Ah, yes. What would I have done if you hadn’t come along?”

“Probably married that girl at the supermarket you had a crush on,” she smiles.

He looks severely at her, takes her hand and says, “I don’t think so, my darling.”

They turn to stare at Diamond, and he smiles sheepishly. “Now there’s a happy couple,” he says.

But Vina draws out a long look of pity for him. “Rusty told me,” she says. “About your wife—”

“Susan,” Diamond says. “Rusty had met her, in fact.
Do you remember, Rusty? Mendelsohn’s Rare Books?”

Rusty pauses a moment, then replies, “Oh yes, I recall… the one with the curly black hair. So you married that girl?”

“Yes I did. My first girlfriend.”

“She had cancer?” Vina asks.

Diamond nods. “It’s hard to believe when it’s all over, but when it does happen, it’s quick and sudden.”

“I’m so sorry. And you’re going to Las Vegas, of all places?”

Diamond gives a laugh. “Yes, of all places. Viva Las Vegas,” he says and draws from Rusty a look of appreciation at this Elvis reference. “A family reunion. My brother’s set himself up there, and the others are arriving all the way from Calgary and Vancouver, not to mention Toronto.”

It’s going to be emotional, this reunion, he hasn’t seen Amir, his elder brother, for more years than he can remember. He never felt inclined to go to Las Vegas, and for Amir Toronto was beyond the beyond.

“Do you have any children?” she asks, and to his head shake, says wistfully, “We have only our Shireen. I couldn’t have more.”

Is it worth producing more children for the world? They used to ask each other, and answer firmly: No—there’s enough misery in the world as it is. Instead of having children they would give to charities, adopt Third World children from a distance, help to make a better world. Actually they were both afraid of having children, and Sue was terrified because she had lost a younger sister in childhood. Twice to his knowledge she had woken up from a nightmare involving Marian.

Looking back now, would it have been worth having a child or two to call his own? He’s been a good uncle, writing regularly to nieces and nephews, some of whom he’s never met. In their discussions with one another, he’s been told, they all think him odd but nice. One of them even described him as cool. “Give me a grandchild,” Alfred Mendelsohn would tell his daughter, arguing, “producing heirs is a sacred duty, to God! To Humanity! Life is a gift, give it to someone” And Sue would reply with something like, “Dad, I’m not a factory for producing children;” or, “Dad, there are enough children in the world.” Sue had a sister, Diane, who was also childless. There were no other siblings. Now Diamond wishes he and Sue had had children, and he’d have something that was both of theirs. Mendelsohn would have his grandchildren and heirs.

In the living room they are passing around joints. There is an embarrassed silence among the three of them on the step. Rusty refuses a joint with a shake of the head; snatches of “Love Me Tender” intrude, from a CD or tape. A table lamp, its ceramic middle shaped as Elvis, glows on an end table, the King’s lips red and his slicked hair a dark purple.

People begin to take leave.

“Why don’t you spend a day or two here?” Vina says to Diamond. “We would like that very much.”

“That’s what I’ve already asked him to do,” says her husband. “We are like your family,” he reiterates to Diamond. “Spend a couple of days with us. We can even go to the city and get a few Indian movies. And Vina’s biryani is something you cannot pass over.”

“Please do,” she pleads, with those large black eyes that seem to see through his soul.

He says quickly, “Yes, I will, thank you. That’s very nice of you. I’ll go back tonight, and return tomorrow. How’s that?”

And so it is agreed.

The Mehtas’ daughter Shireen
opens the door, giving a warm smile. She is tall, thin, and pale, her oval face framed by jet-black hair tied behind in a loose ponytail. She has on an oversized yellow T-shirt over denims and has a cookie in her hand. An American child.

“Come in, Uncle,” she says. “They’re all in the den.”

He puts his carryall down and she picks it up.

“Quality time, is it,” he murmurs, and she giggles.

“Yes, as a matter of fact they’re having tea.”

And so into this Elvis haunt, with the fervid Rustam Mehta and his bewitching wife Vina. She would make a good fairy-tale sorceress, a Circe waylaying lost voyagers, turning them into captive swine, or whatever. That is unfair, but the thought occurs only because she had been so mesmerizing last night; it is at her bidding, conveyed by the plea in those soft liquid black eyes, that he is back again the next morning. He sights her and her husband sitting on a long sofa at the far end of the living room, in the designated rec area. The table-lamp Elvis stands leering beside her on her other side. Her face lights up
immediately she sees him and she hastens forward to greet him.

“So nice you’ve come,” she says, and beckons, “come inside to where we’re sitting. It’s our lazy hour.”

She is in blue jeans and a black sweatshirt, and her hair has apparently recently been washed, falling behind glistening and loose in frizzy waves over her shoulders.

Rusty, wearing a bright red cardigan, fusses with the black-framed bifocals on his nose; they look recent on him and make him look very much the Indian schoolmaster, or the movie version of one. Speaking of which, an Indian movie is playing on the VCR, the scene a police Jeep chasing a suspect into a wheat field. Rusty gets up and shakes hands, says, “Welcome, have a seat.” He beckons toward the other person in the room, a silver-haired woman with a very pink face and dressed in Indian shirt and pyjamas, who cannot shift her eyes from the movie. “My mother-in-law,” Rusty says. The old lady folds hands in a namasté and Diamond does likewise. She goes back to watching the movie.

“Have some mithai,” Vina says, pointing to the tray of sweets on the coffee table, “and I’ll bring you some tea—or would you like food—are you hungry—”

“Of course he’s hungry, dear, give him lunch.”

“It’s quite all right,” Diamond says, “the mithai will do—”

But that answer is acknowledgement that he’s not had lunch, and the matter is settled. Vina disappears to prepare his food.

“Come,” Rusty says, putting a hand on Diamond’s back, leading him past the kitchen to the dining room. “Ma—” he
says to the old lady, “you finish the movie and tell us what happened.”

She smiles gratefully at him.

“Doesn’t talk much,” Rusty says.

“Does she understand English?”

“Yes, but she’s embarrassed to speak it in front of strangers.”

A delicious spicy aroma wafts in from the kitchen, where Vina is heard clattering her equipment. Soon she appears, cheerfully humming, and lays her offering upon the dining table. Mumbling customary gratitude and apologies, Diamond sets upon the chappati and okra, rice and daal. Rusty goes and puts on an Elvis number before returning to sit at the table with Diamond.

“You’re going to get an overdose of Elvis here,” Rusty smiles. “I’m sure you don’t mind—”

“He’s too polite to say if he minds,” Vina calls out from the kitchen. “You make sure you don’t take advantage of him.”

“This house is actually an Elvis shrine—” Rusty continues.

“And should be declared as one,” his wife adds, still in the kitchen.

“We have people stopping over from all sorts of places just to see my Elvis memorabilia.”

“I’d like to see what you’ve got,” Diamond says politely. There are no Elvis exhibits to look at, except for the Elvis lamp, which is quite grotesque, especially when lighted, as he recalls from last night. But there has to be a sanctum somewhere where Rusty keeps them. Now that must be a sight.

The house, a modest bungalow with its three bedrooms at the back, is in fact adorned with Indian artifacts, brass and marble on flat tops, and wood and cloth hangings, including a red embroidered Krishna playing a flute. The formal, front portion of the living room is set off by a blue and green oriental carpet gracing the white broadloom and three bright Indian miniature paintings on the outer sidewall. In the dining room a couple of ancestors in black and white stare gloomily down at the table from their perch up on a wall.

Rusty watches his guest indulgently for a while, then catching Diamond’s eye and unable to hold himself any longer he unleashes a spiel on his favourite subject.

“I’ve been to conferences in Poland, Croatia, Denmark, even Israel—all devoted to Elvis and his influence. He’s taken far more seriously in those countries than here—the c-word is not out of context here … as I was telling you yesterday.”

It takes Diamond a moment to recall: c for conspiracy.

“From the very beginning—I’m not sure how familiar you are with Elvis’s history—” Rusty pauses, goes on, “from the very beginning they tried to neuter him—that’s the only word, I’m afraid, because Elvis was pure, unfettered sexual energy—do you know, after his live appearances he would receive threatening phone calls from men? After he appeared on the Steve Allen show—as a dumb cowboy, no less—he said he’d never been so humiliated in his life; Ed Sullivan showed him only from the waist up. But the youngsters loved him, went berserk over his music and his performances. Finally Uncle Sam said ‘I want you,’ and spirited him away to Germany for
two crucial years of his life. All because he was singing and dancing like the blacks and showing white folks how cool that was. ‘The coloured folks been singing and playing it just like I’m doin’ now … for more years than I know.’ Those are his words.”

Rusty nods to himself, becomes silent for a couple of minutes, then gets up. “Here—come—let me show you something—” They go back to the rec room, sit down beside the cabinet that houses the TV and the stereo system. The Indian movie is over, and old Ma sits brooding, staring at the blank screen. “Go take a rest, Ma,” Rusty says gently to her, “there’s cooking to be done later, and you shouldn’t be tired for that.” After a moment’s hesitation she wafts away. Rusty unlocks the bottom level of the cabinet and opens both its doors with a flourish: there is a long row of LPs and singles slanting edgewise on a wire rack. He smiles. “Go on, take a look. There are people who’d kill for even a fraction of this treasure.”

He begins handing Diamond selected singles to look at, and Diamond takes them gingerly from him, examines them, puts them on the floor beside him. They are old—ancient—some in their thin white inner sleeves only, others with the glossy outer covers intact. Before these 45s, there were the brittle 78 rpms, Diamond recalls.

Bing Crosby, Bill Haley and the Comets, Fats Domino, Ella Fitzgerald, and Elvis, of course. “Wooden Heart,” “King Creole,” “Don’t Be Cruel” …

“Can you guess where I got these—most of these—from?”

“Where?”

“Bombay. Some are from my own boyhood collection. Some I bought from junk stores, even street vendors—so much had been simply thrown away. I scoured the streets of Bombay looking for Elvis. I could write a book just on Elvis in Bombay….”

“That’d make a fascinating book,” Diamond says.

“You think so?”

“You should write it before someone else does.”

Rusty appreciates that, seems touched by it.

“Look at this baby—” he says in a trembling, low voice, eyes shining.

Diamond takes the record. “Hound Dog” by Big Mama Thornton, the first ever recording of the song.

“Elvis did not steal credit for it—from Big Mama—as some people claim,” Rusty explains. “On the contrary—everybody else who sang the song, including Bill Haley, simply mushed it up for white audiences. Elvis came along and sang it closest to Big Mama’s style—I’ll let you hear both and you’ll see what I mean. That’s tribute, if you ask me. And the same goes for Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup’s ‘That’s Alright Mama’—you know that one?”

“Only Elvis’s version.”

Bespectacled, scholarly Rusty—Diamond stares at him, crouched on his knees, handling his collection with the greatest devotion and care. Purely on looks, you might take him for a mathematical whiz, a chess player, a mad scientist. But he is an Elvis expert, knows everything there is to know about Elvis. Others can recite
Macbeth
or
Hamlet
, Keats or Shelley by heart; Alfred Mendelsohn, Diamond’s father-in-law, can trace extant first editions like living family relations; Rusty Mehta of Bombay can
recite every Elvis song from memory and give you the history of all its performances and recordings.

Rusty has put a hand on Diamond, saying, “I say—sorry, old chap—for going on.” The unexpected Briticism is startling: a mannerism from the past, making a sudden, brief reappearance from banishment.

They go back to the dining table for tea. A large variety of mithai—sweetmeats—has been spread out on a tray.

“From my sister in Chicago,” Vina says, beaming.

“Tell me,” Vina asks a little later, when just the two of them are at the table, “how long are you staying with us?”

“Oh. I’m leaving tomorrow. I hope I’ve not inconvenienced you—” Had he taken last night’s invitation too literally? He is soon disabused of that thought.

“Oh no, it’s not that I want you to leave! In fact I wish—I hope—you’ll stay longer—” There’s a childlike plea in her voice.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

Why indeed, because I’d like to be moving along, I can hardly stay in the home of complete strangers more than a night, and even then…. But he doesn’t know quite how to put that to her.