Seahorse Page 11
“It’s a behaviourist experiment,” he said. “Within a classical myth… you know, what was his name… Tantalus, who stood in a pool of water, which receded when he bent to drink it, and under a fruit tree, which raised its branches every time he reached for food.”
“But Tantalus was punished for a reason,” said Yara. “Didn’t he steal the elixir of the gods, or something? Here, it’s not certain the person is being punished for a crime… other than that of existing in the first place.”
We’d almost reached London Bridge—from where I’d walk home, and they’d continue elsewhere, together. I thought it more appropriate to make an excuse not to join them.
“And what did you think?” she asked, turning to me.
I shrugged. “It could be a parable.”
“Of?”
“Of resignation. One disappointment after another, but yet never learning to stop. Or… it could be, at the end, a small victory… a conscious decision to disobey. Ironically… the protagonist is most active when inert. That’s when life acquires meaning.”
And that, I decided, was the best way to deal with Nicholas. To do nothing.
Instead, I allowed myself to be courted by the city.
I was here for less than a year; it would serve me well to make the most of it. No one, I was adamant, not even Nicholas, could pilfer that from me. This would not be a repetition of Delhi, of that final year at university, when even a sighting of the Ridge from across the college lawn engendered despair. A loss made munificent, more wretched, by being in a place that reminded me, almost constantly, of him. They had once held his presence—the café and senior common room, the shade of the peepal tree, the corridors and forest pathways—and then they didn’t. I’d venture often, all resolutions forsaken, past the bungalow on Rajpur Road but it stayed empty; Malini’s parents, at least while I was there, did not return. How the pith of those months was a famished longing.
With a fervor, I stomped around, as Eva prefixed it, the “recently fashionable” East End. Not so much for the restaurants and bars in the area—transformed in the last few years from poverty-stricken to gritty, grimy chic—but its liveliness. What Yara said was true; the edges of the city didn’t contain the sweet, despairing benignity of places like Bloomsbury and Hampstead, the ostentatious luxury of Kensington and Mayfair, the bourgeois smugness of Richmond. I’d walk from Bethnal Green to Aldgate, and pass seedy balti houses and Sylheti sweet shops, a crumbling mosque, and Huguenot silk stores. I sensed, in the air, the raggedness of Delhi. In the city I’d left behind, waves of history remained as fissures, between buildings and street names, foodstuff and clusters of communities. Here too were invisible fractures, somehow miraculously woven into a human lattice, what a poet called his “giant tempered cloth.” People who moved as the birds, across seas and continents. Like the artist who created the fiberglass tree.
There was also adventure close to home.
Once, as I was leaving my front door, I heard the sound of bells.
On an impulse, I crossed the road, and turned into the yellow-stone gateway to the church, topped with a trio of grisly stone-carved skulls. It opened into a small, paved garden with a magnolia tree, drooping with blossoms, and tilting grey tombstones. At the back rested a three-tiered chapel, joined to a square stone and brick tower—“damaged by bombs during the Great War in 1941 and restored in the 1950s.”
The church was open but empty, its medieval wooden ceiling rising in an intricate pattern of beams and cross-beams. Pews scattered with hymn books and liturgy, waited in silent, expectant rows. Ceramic saints perched on tall stands with pools of wax at their feet. Behind the altar, a large, ornate window carried a portrait of Christ, oddly similar to the picture hanging above the fireplace in my parents’ drawing room—haloed head, pierced palms, and burning sacred heart. I walked around the edges, deciphering the stories on stained-glass windows—the Annunciation and Last Supper, Jesus at various stages of condemnation and resurrection. On my way out, I almost missed it, hunkering heavily in the shadows, a confession booth of dark wood, elaborately carved around the top and across the plinth. More ornate than the one I was lead to as a child.
Thinking of it now, it was the stuff of nightmares.
I recall my fear in surprising clarity: the cavernous space of our town cathedral, incense-laced, sprinkled with the knuckled fury of praying faithful. That disembodied voice, a hidden priest, floating through the wooden panel. Through the ministry of the Church, I grant you pardon and absolution for your sin. And worst, as I grew older, the fact that I wasn’t sure which “sins” I should confess. Often, I made them up—a fight, a rude reply, a lie to my History teacher—and embellished them with detail. The same sins, reshuffled and reimagined. Clutching secretly to the ones I didn’t mention. My thoughts, my encounters. The things we did, my classmate and I, in nooks and crannies around school. The boy in math tuition. A girl, my sister’s friend, who teased and tempted.
So when I was made to repent, to say prayers in succession, muttered quickly back at the pews, I’d always add an extra Hail Mary or Lord’s Prayer. Just in case.
My pietical visits grew less frequent, stopping entirely when I moved to Delhi. Nicholas said he found my Catholic upbringing charming—I was destined to live a life joyfully burdened by guilt. Unless…
“Unless what?”
I could be converted to a new faith entirely.
And he’d add something ridiculous: “Come here… let me baptise you.”
I smile still when I remember that.
Around me the church lay quiet and empty. No one there to see me creep inside the booth. It was smaller than I remembered, the dark and cloistered interior separated from the world by an intricate filigreed screen. And smelled of damp and faded incense, the sweet, bitter scent of reproach. Forgive me father, for I have sinned.
Sometimes, even if there was a listener, there could be no catharsis.
When I stepped outside the church, the bells had stopped ringing and the evening restored to stillness. At the foot of the tower, near the door, stood a young girl, with a sheet of golden hair, wearing a floral skirt and green cardigan.
“Hello.” She smiled. She was pretty, younger than twenty, bringing with her all the freshness of the English countryside.
“Are you here for the bell ringers class?”
I shook my head. “I’m not, sorry.”
“Alright then.” With a wave she disappeared up the stairs, curving steep and narrow.
Often, late at night, instead of heading straight back to my flat, I’d walk across Goodman’s Yard and along Mansell Street. Here, the roads were narrower, suddenly bustling, less scrubbed and polished. I’d stop at a late-night kebab shop, run by two Lebanese brothers—one as silent as the other vociferous—and sit at a plastic-topped table that wobbled with every touch. The light was white, falling unabashedly on snotty plastic ketchup bottles, grimy tiled walls, and finger-printed glass counters. But the kebabs were soft and warm, oozing creamy mayo with every bite. Several customers would walk in, pick up their orders at the counter, and stay on for a chat. The quiet brother worked at the back, slicing the meat off gently rolling skewers. He was taller and slighter than his sibling, who usually held court behind a line of wraps laid out in a row like phases of the moon.
Once, they lay forgotten as he told everyone about a whale.
“I’d just arrived in London… thinking, no reason for me to stay, eh? Grey skies, cold feet, no money… what they call the dark days. Ask my brother here?”
I thought I saw his brother nod, slightly, in acknowledgement.
“I was walking along the river… thinking, no reason for me to stay… and then what do I see?”
“What?” murmured his customers.
“Swimming along in the water… And I think, what is that? I’m seeing things. And do you know what it was?”
He placed his hands on the counter—“A whale.”
There was a clamor of disbelief.
The tiny shop rippled with laughter. He waved his hand at them, and began doling out the fillings, quick and expert at his job. A dab of tomato and onion, a generous sprinkle of ribboned lettuce.
“What happened to the whale?” I asked. “Is it still there?”
He threw his hands up in the air, “The thing went and died. But… Al-h amdu lillāh … I’m still here…”
I finished the sugary soft drink, the fizz dying in my throat.
“Ma’assalama,” the owner called as I left.
Ma’assalama.
I held this close because it hinted at prophecy.
He, a modern-day Cassandra, and I, the only one in the world to believe him.
Isn’t that what we all search for? A sign, a purported signal of things to come, a pointer, a marker of how life would unfurl before us.
Prophecies are the most scientific of supernatural phenomena, for they, like science, invest in a single outcome. The one truth.
And yet. And yet the universe is forever shifting, swelling with infinite possibilities and infinite outcomes. The power of prophecies lie in their self-fulfilment. They are the intentional narrowing of time, when the future, though wide and ever-altering, tapers into a door through which you walk, each moment constantly congealing into the present, forming a corridor, a line on a map, an indication of the hereafter. Prophecies can be snatched at will, and systematically contained by our own decisions, by our own beliefs that something will definitely, maybe come true.
The oddest encounter I might have had in London was when I once went seeking a pint.
“Drink?” I texted Santanu.
But he was with Yara. “Tomorrow?” he messaged back.
“Sure,” I replied, but I was keen for something now.
I walked past the entrance to King’s Cross underground station, the lime green shop front of Whistlestop, and decided to turn off the busy main road just before a crowded McDonalds. I was on York Way, running along the side of the bricked station building, its line of archways hidden behind scaffolding. London was a city of constant “improvements”, a frenetic, relentless cycle of debilitation and renewal.
Everything within it, in turn, constantly updated. Everything apart from the light.
London was filled with old light.
Soon, I realized, that perhaps I hadn’t wandered down the most suitable of directions.
It was a quiet road; I passed a Nando’s and a Premier Inn, and to my left, a parked line of empty red double decker buses. A sudden, virulent intrusion of color. After a small B&B, I took a right, since the road straight ahead only threatened to turn wide and industrial. Running along the sidewalk, a fenced patch of land held the remains of a recently demolished building, while on the other side more airy scaffolding restricted the road. Even if there were any bars under all that tarpaulin, they couldn’t be seen. Just where the scaffolding ended, though, at the edge of the row of buildings, stood what looked like a neighborhood pub—a signboard announced “Central Station.” A line of miniature, faded Union Jacks fluttered over two round-arch windows, while above an unused door—“Entrance on the Other Side”—perched the back of an ancient air conditioner, the type I had seen only in India.
I rounded the corner; a set of wrought iron steps led to the entrance. A trio of men stood outside, smoking, holding pints. It was a pub, after all, one like so many others, with sticky tables, tatty printed carpet, cheap chandelier, and, most characteristically, the pervasive lingering smell of stale beer. I ordered a pale ale (nothing new or exciting for Santanu to add to his list), and sat on a high stool, prepared to finish it quietly and leave. The bartender, I noted, could easily double as a bouncer, with his gym-toned arms, heavily tattooed in Celtic patterns, and a chest designed for tight tee-shirts. He sported a clipped salt-and-pepper beard and neatly slicked Mohawk. Not someone, I thought, with whom I would pick a fight.
“Hello darling…” she called to the bartender. Her voice was deeper than a woman’s, but not entirely unfeminine. He pushed a bunch of key across, which she picked up and jiggled in the air.
“Laters.”
She headed back out, her heels clicking sharply against the floor. I nursed my pint, looking around surreptitiously, observing only now that among the people there, mostly middle-aged men, sat a few trans ladies, some more casually dressed than others.
I also noticed—and this I thought odd—the dull thud of techno, its musical beat muted yet filtering dully into the room.
“Is there a nightclub around here?” I asked the bartender, who was wiping the counter clean.
“Yeah mate, Sweet Saturdays’ downstairs.”
“It’s open… now?” In my limited experience, most nightclubs were shut during the day.
“Yup… one to nine pm. Really rolling today.” He winked, giving me a friendly smile.
The music beat steadily, a faraway, muffled heart. Outside, the street lay quiet and unobtrusive, bathed in tepid afternoon light; somehow an incongruous place for a club. Unless, and this would be understandable, they were intentionally seeking discretion.
When I finished my pint, I asked the bartender for directions.
“Out the front, door to your right.”
It was a massive, sturdy door with the letters UNDERGROUND painted vertically on the side. I stood there wondering how to get in, when it sprung open, allowing a group of men out, music flooding over them in a wave. The stairs were steely silver, and rung curiously under my feet. At the end, the narrow foyer was painted electric blue, and a silky scarlet cloth dangled from the ceiling with “Sweet Saturdays’ speled out in sparkly gold. One side led to the toilets, the other to a small cloak room, and a more spacious lounge area—velvet cushioned sofas littered with lounging figures, and a dimly-lit bar. The lady who’d picked up the keys upstairs was behind the counter.
Most people were in the space beyond a curtained doorway.
I stepped through into darkness.
The only light came from a large screen on a wall, showing a man sucking off another on a bed draped with white gauzy muslin.
Small bulbs along the ceiling seams cast a reddish-purple haze, more for concealment than illumination. Low tables were arranged in a line, and opposite, a row of black-clothed cubicles. Around me rose shouts and laughter, figures bumping against me as they stumbled past.
Someone whispered, “Pretty boy.”
I looked around, at the cross dressers in lingerie and the trans women with their immaculate hair and make-up, boisterous, playful. The atmosphere was carnivalesque.
What struck me most, though, were the men.
Spilling through the rooms, standing against the walls like silent door guardians, holding their drinks and watching, a few sitting at the tables with the ladies. How they looked so ordinary, as though you could pass them on the street, or in a supermarket, share elevators or neighboring tables at a pub. In their Marks & Spencer suits and NEXT blazers, their Clarks shoes and Topshop t-shirts, the utter workaday, nondescriptness of things. Yet, as they avoided each other in this dark, airless dungeon, it felt as though most of them had things to hide. That embracing this place was something men did when hidden from others, outside of the track of acceptable conversation.
And the air was rich with it, a soup of sweat and stale beer, and strains of other things, embarrassment, excitement, fear, and a deep, sickly sweet odor of spent desire.
I’d read a news story once, about a man who built a secret network of passages under his house, discovered by his family only after his death. An unexplained intricate labyrinth, like “the workings of his mind” his daughter was quoted as saying, and this dungeon reminded me of that. It was carved into smaller sections—some with screens showing movies, or video cameras that clients could use to film themselves. In corners, people fondled and touched, othe
rs moved to a line of black-clothed cubicles whose curtains could be drawn shut, although many left them open, expecting, desiring to be watched.
A tall, black trans lady who seemed to be in charge, in a white chiffon top and skinny leather trousers, sashayed around, calling out to regulars, stopping to flirt, refilling people’s drinks,.
From where I was standing, I could see into several open-curtain cubicles—a trans lady in a corset and lace stockings gave somebody a lap dance, while an audience gathered and gazed. Next door, a man in his mid-twenties, probably the youngest there, wearing a sweatshirt and a yellow coppola, was being handled by an older trans woman in a flamboyant red dress. In a cubicle in the corner, the curtains were tantalizingly not completely drawn; I wasn’t sure whether it was an invitation to spy, or whether, the occupants hadn’t noticed the gap. I could see the profile of a man, probably in his sixties, looking down, watching, then lifting his head in rapture. He seemed engrossed, oblivious to the clamor around him. The other curtains were closely drawn.
“Can I get you anything, darling’?” It was the hostess, her perfume strong and musky. Silver bracelets tinkled on her wrist.
“I’m alright, thank you.”
She winked, “Okay, my beautiful.”
“It’s a convenient place,” I told Santanu a week later, “if you fancy a spot of cross dressing.”
He shrugged. “Plenty of those around London. There’s one for feet fetishes, furry creature costumes… forniphilia clubs–”
“What’s that?”
“The act of positioning a person as a piece of furniture… so you can combine sex with your love of interior design.”
“I heard I didn’t miss much at the art show.” He was referring to the one in Whitechapel.
“Didn’t Eva tell you what we saw?”
He nodded. “That’s what I mean.”
“You’re a Bengali,” I said. “For you, modern Indian art began and ended with Rabindranath Tagore.”
“Yes.”
In 1961, Italian artist Piero Manzoni sealed ninety cans containing his feces, thirty grams each, and calculated their value in accordance with the daily exchange rates for gold. Helpfully labeled “Conservata al naturale”. Freshly preserved.