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  ‘My Dad wore glasses,’ she said.

  ‘Then it’s more than likely to do with the particularities of your Deoxyribonucleic Acid,’ I said. Another thing Dev had impressed upon me was the use of long words that meant nothing to the patient but nevertheless made their condition sound important. ‘It is nothing to worry about,’ I said. ‘We all have some Deoxyribonucleic Acid in us. Though too much of it can sometimes lead to an upset stomach.’

  ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘It’s an upset stomach.’

  I leaned back in my chair and smiled. ‘You see,’ I said. ‘Meticulous analysis leads invariably to the correct diagnosis.’

  ‘So what can you give me?’ she said.

  ‘How bad is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I can’t keep anything down, diarrhoea, the usual. Probably ate something, or drank something. I don’t know. I think Cindy’s getting it, she was looking a bit off this morning.’

  ‘Cindy?’

  ‘Oh, sorry, one of the other dancers.’

  ‘Pol’s wife?’ I said.

  ‘No. She’s not married.’

  ‘Not yet,’ I chuckled, ‘but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What I suggest you do is eat lots of Chapatis which are excellent for binding.’

  ‘You mean, like roughage?’ she said.

  ‘That’s exactly the word,’ I said, feeling that we had, by now, developed something of a rapport.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘but don’t you have tablets or anything like that?’

  ‘Tablets?’ I smiled, waving my arm at the pill store. ‘We have many tablets for all sorts of things. But we can’t just give them out willy nilly for no reason.’

  ‘My stomach?’

  ‘Um, yes,’ I said. ‘That might qualify as a reason.’

  I got up and walked to the shelves. Pharmacy is largely a science but also, to some extent, an art. Sometimes I arranged the medicines alphabetically and sometimes according to the anatomical regions with which they were concerned. Thus headache remedies were kept with dandruff ointments, verruca pads with corn plasters and so on. I had, quite recently, sorted them according to colour, which was visually harmonious if clinically a bit confusing. But if it is both a science and an art, then it is also, in some unquantifiable way, a matter of luck. There, among the white boxes with green lettering, was a small carton the text of which promised to ‘Stop Diarrhoea Fast!’.

  ‘It seems,’ I said, ‘that we have just the thing.’

  I popped the package into a little bag and handed it to her.

  ‘So, what’s the dosage?’ she said.

  ‘In the box you will find a neatly folded piece of paper with extremely tiny writing. This will tell you what you need to know in as many languages as you need to know it in.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘For the moment,’ I said. ‘I’m sure we’ll have a lot more than roughage and diarrhoea to talk about over the coming years.’

  ‘I remember from school,’ she said, standing up.

  ‘Remember what?’ I said.

  ‘Roughage and all that. We had to draw a picture of a meal and write about vitamins.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ I said, ‘vitamins are very important.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what they said.’

  I pushed my chair back and stood up. She looked at me for a moment then rustled the bag.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘thanks.’

  ‘Making people better,’ I said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘The clinic motto,’ I explained. ‘Or it would have been if the elders hadn’t decided that it overstated our importance.’ I shrugged, beginning to get the feeling that we were both, as they say, skirting around the subject.

  ‘Right.’ She rustled the bag again and moved to go.

  ‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘that you have not told me your name?’

  ‘Oh, yes’ she said. ‘Of course. Sorry. It’s Martina. Martina Marvellous.’

  ‘That is a marvellous name,’ I quipped but the words had already sunk into the core of my soul, their warm vowels and lilting alliteration like a joyous gasp, a sunny morning waking up together.

  ‘It used to be Norma Stopley,’ she said, moving towards the door. ‘But hey.’

  ‘I think we ought to acknowledge,’ I said, ‘that because of your father’s affliction there is a high probability that our children may have to wear glasses.’

  She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t fathom and was gone.

  3

  My little office had never felt so empty, nor so still. Even the hands of time had stopped, though the ‘Twelve Things You Need To Know About Flatulence’ wall clock had a tendency to do that anyway. I’d once asked a holy man about the feeling you get when a ceremonial elephant passes you on the High Street. ‘It is not the parade,’ he had answered, ‘but the silence it leaves behind.’ Which I didn’t appreciate at the time, poking my tongue out thinking him too saintly either to throw his shoe or report me to my Father, in both of which I had been wrong. Lazy particles of light tumbled across the window. A cackle of crows rose and fell over the rubbish outside. A crunch of scooters gave way to the sound of raised voices. And yet nothing changed. As if all the movements of the world couldn’t ruffle the silence beneath.

  I wondered if my inaugural meeting with Martina had gone as well as it might have. Perhaps I’d been too anxious to show off my clinical expertise, like those young men strutting the market place, shirts unbuttoned to the first chest hairs. I thought of all the little spaces in which I should have flung myself across the desk to smother her in kisses. I recalled her look of quizzical bewilderment that seemed to say, ‘My love, why are we talking about rectal inflammation when you know what brings me here?’ But then again, what did I know of these things? My only romantic encounter thus far had been with an ephemeral woman who turned into a goat when I attempted to fondle her breasts. It wasn’t a happy experience and I had woken up considerably embarrassed.

  The waiting room was vacant again, everyone having melted to wherever people melt when the object of their fascination has elbowed its way out the door with a few choice words not listed in the Pushkara Lexicon of English Usage. A little thrill coursed through me, quite suddenly, as I wondered how long before I too would melt into the hot bliss of a thousand whispered endearments. Not long, I thought. But then, how long is not long? Today? Tomorrow? What if not long, in Pol’s Grand Scheme of Things, is forever to a little fellow wanting only to be with his beloved? In so far as it was in my power to determine how long not long might be in this instance, I decided that I had to move fast.

  As usual, however, Pol was impossible to find. His mother pointed to a pillow on the floor.

  ‘That!’ she screamed.

  ‘I am sorry to trouble you, Mrs Bister,’ I said, ‘but I’ve looked everywhere and nobody seems to know where he is.’

  ‘Oh, he’s too clever for that,’ she snickered, ‘he’ll be far away by now, gloating in the luxury of his crimes. That!’ she said again pointing at the pillow.

  ‘A pillow?’ I said, getting drawn into one of her conversations, something I always vowed never to do again.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s exactly what it is. You’re quite observant for someone a little bit dim if you don’t mind me saying. To be precise, the pillow he tried to smother me with. My jewels!’ She clutched her hair. ‘They were all I had to remind me of my great grandfather, the Maharaja, whose lands and titles I would have inherited had it not been for the wickedness of my evil step-brother, may he rot in hell with his fast cars and swimming pools, the scheming bastard.’

  ‘When did this happen?’ I asked.

  ‘When I was but a child,’ she whispered. ‘Innocent as the new-born day.’

  ‘I mean Pol trying to smother you, not the evil step-brother
business.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She fingered her throat. ‘I think I may have passed out. Was it a moment ago? I can still feel his murderous hands, and those wicked eyes, devoid of remorse or compassion…’ She leaned forward, lank hair flopping across her face. ‘He is not my son. This is the truth. Listen to me…’

  Sensing a tale epic even by Mrs Bister’s standards, I began to edge towards the door.

  ‘You see, I found him,’ she glanced nervously towards the window. ‘On the night of my lover’s untimely demise at the hands of blood-hungry robbers.’

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ I said, ‘but if he turns up, could you tell him I’ve been looking for him?’

  ‘A bundle of rags, mewling and wriggling by the side of the road. For a moment I thought it was a bundle of rags mewling and wriggling, but then I thought, rags on their own don’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Bister,’ I said, easing myself into the hall, ‘perhaps another time.’

  ‘It was dark. Obviously. I know it gets dark at night, I’m not an idiot, but this was… a darkness beyond darkness.’

  ‘It was nice to see you,’ I said, carefully opening the front door.

  ‘And from somewhere distantly a dog howled.’

  I heard nothing more except the sound of a tea cup striking the door through which I had just left.

  Mr Chatterjee was hurrying down the street with a box of lever-arch files.

  ‘Mr Chatterjee,’ I called in a genial but urgent way.

  ‘Young Mr Sharma,’ he said, stopping. ‘You have correctly identified me on this beautiful morning. And with the early mist cleared by a soothing breeze, are the mountains not revealed in all their majesty? I have often wondered why the mornings are so misty, especially in the bathroom after a shower, unless one wakes up with a fuzzy face!’

  I laughed politely.

  ‘Of course,’ he continued, ‘it might get cloudy later. Or not. Who’s to know? That is the thing about the weather. In the end, it will be exactly as it is and there’s really nothing we can do about it, whether we want to or not. No pun intended.’

  I chuckled again. ‘Do you happen to know where Pol is?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, that is a worry,’ said Mr Chatterjee, shaking his head. ‘I mean, he’s a fine young man, don’t misunderstand me, but he lacks a certain… I’m not sure what the word is…’

  ‘Being easy to find?’ I suggested.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Mr Chatterjee. ‘Although that’s a phrase, I’m afraid. The word itself like its subject proves elusive. You know how it is,’ he continued, into his stride now, ‘that exact sense you can’t quite put your finger on, or at least not its verbal locution, so you go poking about under dusty piles of old clauses…’

  I let him carry on as I turned to the mango-seller, Mr Premar, who was passing by with his empty cart.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘have you…?’

  ‘If you’re hoping to buy some mangos,’ he interjected, ‘you’re out of luck.’

  ‘Then why do you push that cart?’ asked Mr Chatterjee.

  ‘Why do you carry that box?’ said Mr Premar, mysteriously, moving on.

  ‘You see, a proper businessman is predictable,’ said Mr Chatterjee. ‘Take Mr Bister. One always knows where to find him. Sometimes, having found him, one wishes one hadn’t but that is beside the point. I’m not saying he’s perfect, of course. Who is? And though some people like to think unkindly of him, I have to say that he has always been fair to me. Firm but fair. And if I fall short in my duties from time to time, is it unfair of him to call me a fat-headed hoity toity?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ I said, wearily.

  ‘And to administer a curt flick across the top of the aforesaid?’

  ‘He does that?’ I said.

  ‘Sometimes with the application of his foot to my rear quarters as I am hurrying out to put a damp cloth over the smarting consequences of the heretofore.’

  I stared at him.

  ‘Hope is with the son,’ sighed Mr Chatterjee. ‘At least I hope so. For can one truly prosper in matters of commerce without kicking people in the bottom? I don’t know. Perhaps he is too soft. For instance when I saw him at the Hotel Nirvana a few minutes ago, having gone to ask if I should sort the stock-inventories by traditional means or according to my new index system in spite of the chaos it caused last time, not to mention a sore head and rear end, he said, “Mr Chatterjee, whatever makes you happy”. “Do you mean that, young sir?” I replied. “Please,” he laughed, “You may call me Pol. It is too ridiculous for someone of an elevated birth to act deferentially towards one who has not only failed thus far to achieve a respectable embodiment but after last night is most unlikely to.”’

  ‘The Hotel Nirvana?’ I said.

  ‘Indeed. But what a young man of aspirational intent could possibly find there to occupy his attentions…’

  The rest of which was lost to me as I hurried down the hill.

  The Hotel Nirvana was a place which good people were said to avoid. According to Father, its many windows were darker than even the morning sun could pierce. Elders would sometimes mutter about a drinking den though nobody could ever quite say who organised it or how. It was merely observed that some of the men, disappearing from time to time to ‘discuss matters’, would come back disoriented. One night a small but angry delegation of wives had descended on the hotel to ‘catch them at it’. After an hour or so of running up and down the baffling labyrinth of staircases, many of which led to precipitous drops or simply nowhere, they eventually found the men sitting around with cups of tea discussing the difference between moral certainty and phenomenal chance. Some of the wives swore they’d searched that very room when they’d first arrived but the men just shrugged, pointed to their tea and carried on with the discussion. It was rumoured that one of the staircases led to a roof but nobody bar its initiates ever knew which.

  Today, however, the two roads outside its main entrance were packed with villagers, mostly tradespeople. Even Mr Premar had arrived shouting, ‘Mangos, mangos, tasty fresh mangos!’ in spite of his empty cart.

  ‘It’s an outrage,’ snorted Mrs Ghosh clutching a chicken under her arm. ‘Bister’s got the foreigners locked up with him so he can sell them his own produce.’

  ‘But Mr Bister doesn’t sell chickens,’ I said.

  ‘No, but he will,’ she retorted, chasing the chicken as it broke free and flapped up the road.

  I managed to squeeze between Mr Jalpur who was waving one of his saucepans on the end of a stick and Mrs Knapp who was shaking an aubergine.

  ‘I’ll bet even now he’s trying to buy moth-eaten, over-ripe aubergines from down the hill,’ said Mrs Knapp thrusting one of hers under my nose. ‘The Queen of vegetables,’ she said. ‘Peerless among foods for its fragrance and texture.’

  ‘Personally,’ I said, ‘I have always found them somewhat inedible.’

  ‘And if they want a saucepan?’ said Mr Jalpur. ‘You know he’s gone into kitchenware now? “Kitchenware”!’ he spat. ‘Hammered-out bits of tin that don’t last five meals. Look at this.’ He lowered the stick. ‘What do you see?’

  ‘A saucepan?’ I offered.

  ‘No, no, you are not looking.’

  ‘A most excellent saucepan?’

  ‘Your face, you idiot! You can see your face in it. And after twenty meals you can still see your face. After twenty hundred meals, properly cared for, notwithstanding the terms of the warranty, please refer to the notice behind me, you will still see your face!’

  ‘But why should our visitors wish to buy a saucepan?’ I said.

  He stared at it for a moment seeing his face, presumably, but no answer.

  I pushed past the two chocolatiers who were ramming their wagons into each other while denouncing the quality of each other’s nut bars. Closer to the steps, people we
re pushing forward while those at the top tumbled back, saris and chapatis flying over their heads. In front of the door stood the Buddhist Cook, his bald pate catching the sunlight, bare feet planted lightly, ready for the next assault.

  ‘Salutations, holy one,’ I said with a bow. ‘I am looking for Pol Bister who is, I believe, presently therein.’

  His hooded eyes gazed somewhere above my shoulder.

  ‘It’s no use,’ said Mrs Peerival who had dropped her tomatoes making everyone slip about. ‘He’s under instruction not to let anyone in.’

  ‘But I am a friend of Pol,’ I said opening my hands in the universal gesture of peace and harmony.

  He tilted forward on his toes.

  ‘Besides which,’ added Mrs Peerival, ‘you can’t argue with followers of Zen since they don’t accept that you exist.’

  I crept round the back, clambering over the rubble to the rear windows, all of which seemed to be firmly shut.

  ‘Pol!’ I shouted. ‘It’s me, Rabindra!’

  ‘Rabindra? Is that you?’ said Pol appearing at one of the windows and pushing it open.

  ‘Well, who else,’ I said, dodging a shard of glass, ‘would be shouting, “Pol, Pol, it’s me, Rabindra”?’

  He leaned out and offered his hand. After a little puffing from both of us, I finally hauled myself into the room.

  ‘How many times have I dreamed of a lover?’ said Pol, pacing anxiously about as I got my breath back. ‘And how many times have I beaten myself up for it afterwards?’

  I thought about mentioning the goat incident but decided not to.

  ‘It was not my choice,’ he continued. ‘My father sent me to assist with preparations for the dance recital. Naturally I declined and naturally he insisted. Naturally I declined again and naturally he became irate.’ Pol stopped for a moment, then stared at me helplessly. ‘The fact is,’ he said, ‘my soul is on the precipice. The very perfection for which I have striven is in my hands, these hands. But they are failing. They have grown weak, Rabindra, with desire. All the books I’ve read, the verses chanted, the pujas, japas and austerities practised, the long hours spent in rapt contemplation of matters spiritually uplifting are wasted. Wasted. Oh, Rabindra! Do you recall the time my father ordered too many fig delicacies and told me to eat as many of them as I could before they went off?’