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A woman wonders whether her man is truly Italian |
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I based this long short story on a personal experience. It's absolutely amazing how stories shape themselves. If I hadn't gone to the Italian ice cream parlour, I would have not written this story at all! TRULY ITALIAN When I was sixteen, my idea of romance was fuelled by the novels of Georgette Heyer. In those pages, dashing masked, cloaked and green-eyed highwaymen abducted beautiful women who fell in love with them. I even dreamed of a such a highwayman flying in through the ventilator of my room. He could have taken the window. It was larger. We then flew out through the ventilator together, out into the starry night, the highwayman’s cloak fluttering like the wings of a bat against the orb of the full moon. Ever since, I’d had many white lovers with green eyes, and if I couldn’t find green, I settled for blue, and sometimes even brown. One Italian had lilac eyes he masked with brown contact lenses, saying he did not wish to stand out. I’m forty nine now and men fall off their chairs when I tell them I’m forty four. And I’m still looking for my white Mr. Right. I work in the heart of Bangalore. Swanky shopping malls, pubs, clots of people elbowing each other on the busy streets, making it quite impossible to saunter sexily without bumping into someone and teetering on your high heels. I often think – why can’t I bump into someone white, and gorgeous? Someone spiritually inclined like I am? After all, India’s ‘Silicon Valley’ has been drawing hordes of whites from across the world. The time seems right. Trouble is I am very choosy about my men. I wish to return – for spiritual reasons – to that virgin state when I had boyfriends who did not insist on sexual intercourse. Ideally I should be celibate – which means, I stop indulging in anything even remotely connected to sex, but I am not yet ready to be weaned off the joys of kissing. But are men today ready for that sort of relationship? Of course, anything goes if I marry someone, but I doubt I’d want to make that mistake a third time. The higher I climb the stairway to heaven, the more alone I find myself. However, I’m not coming down for anyone. Not even for the green-eyed guy who followed me down the street the other day when I was on my way to pick up my new reading glasses. I was wearing tight jeans that make the best of my sleek, muscled thighs, and a peach shirt that makes the best of my delicately sculpted shoulders, perky breasts, and toned torso. I know it’s incredible for a fortynine year old woman to possess perky breasts and a derriere that has not fallen with the passage of time, but the consequences of thirty years of yoga can be gravity defying. He was slender with rather thin thighs. Green eyes lurked behind his square dark rimmed spectacles. I liked his sharp featured face, the black hair slicked back, his wide shoulders and narrow waist. He stared at me. I stared back, and sauntered past him. I looked back at him, pretending to look at something else. He looked back at me without hiding the fact. He smiled. I smiled, and then, turning my back to him, I walked on, knowing he would follow. Suddenly, he was beside me. “Excuse me, where are you from?” he asked in a soft, thin voice and a strange accent that sounded like it originated from the villages of India. Yet he looked like a foreigner. “I’m Indian,” I said proudly. Yeah, we can look cosmopolitan, you know. We can be as stylish as the most stylish anywhere in the world. We can get married twice, live alone, dress sexily to work, and care a damn about what anyone thinks of us. India is not just cows and potholed roads, dust and debris, and men pissing on the roadsides, and women in saris flaunting layers of fat. “And you?” I queried. “Venice.” “Oh!” my heart beat faster. What could be more romantic than a ride in a gondola? Italians were the ultimate romantics. They knew how to treat women. I’d had a green-eyed Italian lover once - Mimmo, so gorgeous, people thought him a movie star. He was romantic, and a skilled lover who serenaded me in Italian on his guitar before he made love to me. We’d gone out in the rain so he could buy me a diamond and sapphire ring. Alas, it had been a long-distance relationship, and I had tired of waiting for his return. “I thought you are a foreigner,” he said. “Everyone thinks so,” I laughed. “Seriously,” said he. Then he asked me where I was going. “Ummmm….” I said, thinking that reading glasses are far from glamourous, but then I might as well tell him the truth, for I knew he was going to follow me all the way. Besides he wore glasses, didn’t he? So I told him. “Can I walk with you?” “Sure!” As he answered a call on his cell phone , having muttered an apology to me, I pondered over what could be. I’d take him home, and there’d be lots of passion and romance, and then I’d take him to the Temple of the Laughing Buddha and get his third eye opened in the 5000 year old ceremony. That was far more important than anything that could happen between us. They say that introducing just one person to the Ceremony is equal to the great virtue amassed through building seven temples. I have by now, introduced over 7000 to the Ceremony. My temples must be mushrooming all over the place. Yet that’s still not enough virtue to rid me of my desire for romance. Maybe another seven temples were all I needed. “Sorry,” he said, shoving the cell phone back into the pockets of his black trousers. “Office.” “That’s all right. You have to get back to work?” “I’ve finished for the day.” “Where do you work?” This was a most important question. The answer would determine whether he was trying to hide something or not. “Standard Chartered Bank.” That sounded impressive enough. Here was a good looking Italian who actually lived in the city. No long distance heartaches. My last love affair with a green eyed German Mathematics student, had lasted four years, but when I had visited him in Germany after an agonising separation of two years, it had fallen apart like a house of cards. I shivered with the intense cold of a December in Bochum and the iceberg our relationship had become. My German had stood on the stairway to heaven with me. How could another affair be as great or greater? It was rare that one came across such a blend of brilliant logic and spirituality. And green eyes too. I yearned for a new love with a diluted sort of yearning. “Nice, “ I said. “So, like me you work part time. How long are you here?” “I’ve been in India three months, traveling. I’ll be here another six months.” He reached for my hand with trembling fingers. I laughed at his desire for me, and allowed him to hold my hand for a moment before withdrawing it. Why couldn’t I find someone gorgeous who was here to stay? Maybe he would fall in love with me and decide to stay. I had made up my mind long ago not to leave my temple behind. I was the sexy saint. I had practiced on this unique path – the very source of Buddhism, for eight years, and as priestess, had been blessed to conduct the sacred ceremonies. I had turned vegetarian, given up smoking, and was well on my way to spiritual realisation. My carefree life reflected my inner world. And so I picked up my reading glasses, while he waited, his eyes burning into my toned behind. I felt oddly comfortable with him; not self conscious at all, not uneasy. As we walked back down M.G. road, I said to him, “I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t fuck. Still sure you want to hang around with me?” He looked a bit taken aback, but recovered speedily, and smiled. “Sure!” We decided to have a drink in Pecos – one of the city’s oldest pubs, popular for its classic rock music. He ordered a beer; I asked for orange juice. I don’t drink alcohol. Never did. We sat close in a gloomy corner, and the music thrummed into me. Doors. The Rolling Stones. Joe Cocker. Led Zeppelin. People at the tables rocked to the music. A bearded young man, sitting alone opposite us, stared at me as though he was there looking for a date, and at a nearby table, three girls in jeans and skimpy shirts discussed a relationship problem with a dishonest classmate. But the Italian had eyes only for me. I liked that. He pressed his thighs against mine. Smiling at me tenderly, he reached for my hand. “How pretty you are,” he said, kissing my cheek. Why did he not say that in Italian? Bellasima? Mimmo had always called me that. In fact, how was it that he spoke not a word of Italian? And that horrible village accent! “Thank you,” I said. “You’re nice too. Those glasses suit you. How old are you?” “Thirty three.” He looked younger, but that was fine. My German had been twenty four when I’d met him, and I, forty four. I’d had several younger lovers. I’d almost married one nine years younger. Men in their forties are either bald, paunchy, married or have kidney stones. “You?” he asked. I took a deep breath. I would shock him. Hit him on the head with the truth. I enjoyed watching people react to the truth. I told him. He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re joking.” “Nope. It’s the truth. Always tell the truth.” “You are amazing. Seriously. I am so impressed. How you do it?” “Yoga, vegetarianism, attitude.” “Ah yoga, I like yoga. You have a boyfriend?” “No.” “Come on, why not?” “I’m too choosy.” His hand, moist in mine rested on my thigh. He brought his lips close to mine. They were like pink petals, the upper lip, rather thin. “This is India, not Italy,” I laughed softly, turning away. I had to wriggle out of his embrace a couple of times. He certainly behaved like an Italian, the way he was all over me. A vacant-eyed Italian. Maybe he was just a stupid foreigner faking an Italian identity, or a very dumb Italian with limited English skills. I doubted he understood me completely. I decided to ask him about Venice. That would surely give him away. “Beautiful,” he answered. My house is in the water. I have two houses, but I like the one in the water better.” “How is it? I mean, the basement must be under water. Do you live on the first floor? Is it sinking?” “On the bottom…water,” he said, waving his hands about. “Plumber.” “Plumber?” I asked, puzzled, but I let it go. He was very good looking and kissable, and I knew he would come to the temple. That was most important – the temple. Then he told me his name was Sam, and I told him mine. “That’s not an Italian name, “ I said, frowning. He smiled. His eyes said, “How can you doubt me?” “How do you spell it?” “S-a-m-u-e-i.” “Eh? I’ve heard of Samuel, but not this!” I said. “What’s the surname?” “G-e-o-g-e.” “Eh? Without the ‘r’?” “Yes.” He smiled. I smiled. This was getting stranger by the moment. Then he excused himself, and disappeared into the toilet. He emerged almost instantly, wiping his hands and face with a red handkerchief. I found that strange too, for it was past summer. Was he that hot? “You live alone?” he asked, settling down beside me. “Yes.” He definitely wanted to roll me about. “Parents?” I thought he would probably fail to understand my complicated history. A beloved father dead at forty-seven from lung cancer, a vanished mother, last seen when I was fifteen. So I simplified it. “Both dead and gone. Sister killed herself.” He closed his eyes tight as though in pain. “Seriously,” he said, opening them. “I live alone too. We need to support each other.” Alarm bells rang in my head. I did not want to promise him anything. “I’m very happy,” I said. I have a spiritual path I’m dedicated to, and true friends. I love being alone. Will you come to my temple? I’m a sort of priestess there.” “Why not?” he said with a smile, but the blank look on his face remained. “What are you doing later?” “Well, I have my novel to work on,” I said. “I could take you home, but on one condition.” “What?” he perked up a bit. “That you don’t bully me into sex.” “I promise I won’t. I feel so comfortable with you. Like I’ve met you before. Seriously, I like you so much. I don’t know why.” “Don’t you have friends here?” He wrinkled up his beautifully straight nose. “I don’t like my colleagues.” I took Sam home on my scooter. I didn’t care what he thought of my shabby black helmet with its lining smeared with lipstick. He was beneath my spell. Nothing could shake him out of it. At home, my two dogs, the blonde long-haired Bismarcki, half Lhasa Apso, half Cocker Spaniel, and her uncle, the blind Jigsaw, greeted us with fits of excited shivering. Neon orange bead curtains embellished shelves laden with books. A little gold angel from a Christmas tree in Holland dangled from the curtain rod. A forest scene unfolded upon the staircase. Tall trees sheltering a snake, a butterfly, a flamingo, a macaw, a lady bug and a tiger. Green, gold and magenta sequins made brilliant collages across the walls. And within their picture frames, Van Gogh’s solitary peasant walked beneath a cypress, and Monet’s couple dined beside a river. Blank walls are boring. Someone prone to depression, had told me it would be impossible to feel depressed in a place like this. Jigsaw banged into Sam’s legs. Jigsaw would make a great Valentine’s gift with those perfect black hearts on his white flanks. Sam recoiled like he’d touched something dirty. “You like dogs?” I asked him. “Yes.” He threw himself onto the couch and I sat down beside him. Maybe he’d show me some proof of his liking for dogs later. Love me, love my dog. Bismarcki sniffed at his thighs. Sam squirmed. Disappointed with his reaction, I shooed the dog away. Suddenly Sam lunged for me. I got up hurriedly. “Have to feed the doggies,” I said, and went into the kitchen to muck my fingers with the dog food. It wasn’t a good idea to have hands smelling of rice and beef, but Sam would have to compromise. I wasn’t going upstairs to squirt perfume on my hands. I didn’t think he was worth all that. I didn’t even care if he walked in and saw this unglamourous side of me. I wouldn’t have wanted Mimmo to see that. When I returned to him, he put his head in my lap. I didn’t much care for the view he would have of my nostrils, but once again, it didn’t matter. Not even if he heard my tummy make strange noises. He pulled my head down and would have kissed my lips if I hadn’t turned away. “Come, I’ll show you your room,” I said. “You can stay tonight.” His eyes lit up at that. “Sleep by myself?” He smiled like a little boy. “Yes,” I smiled. “I told you.” I got up, laughing at the way his head hit the couch as my lap left it. He sat up, and removed his shoes. I froze. Were his feet going to stink? I thought I had discerned a whiff of something unpleasant. I doubted he’d last past the ceremony. I would simply drop him after that. He rose, and smiling, padded after me in his black socks as I led him up the stairs, past the forest, and a naked self portrait, my body orange, eyes green, mouth screaming, gold hair streaming against an aquamarine background. I hoped he would not recognize me. He didn’t. “How you did that?” he looked at the forest that grew to the ceiling. “Up a ladder.” “Seriously, you are amazing.” I offered him a peek into my bedroom; on one wall an alien landscape in shades of blue and mauve, starry skies. On the opposite wall, a tree with yellow flowers; beneath it a pink flamingo growing out of a plant, and a huge red leaf-bird soaring across a sunset sky. “How long did it take you to do this?” he asked. “Oh, a day.” He looked surprised. “I work very fast.” He trailed after me into the massive bathroom, its windows painted with leaves and flowers. Who needed curtains? “Beautiful!” he said. I showed him the study where naked women graced the walls, and then a few steps down into the guestroom with orange curtains over French windows. Gold and green sequins on pale green walls to mask signs of heavy rain, and outside, the trees. The tallest tree in the colony grows in my backyard. It’s scented yellow flowers attract snakes, and adorn the oiled tresses of the women of south India. “Beautiful!” He put his arms around me suddenly, and with a great sigh, held me tight. It was a nice hug, his lean hard muscled torso against mine. I have a weakness for lean, hard bodies. Then he kissed me. Ah, that first kiss! It always goes to my head, makes me dizzy with anticipation. A kiss is the prelude to what can follow, and his kiss was unsatisfactory. A tight-lipped, close mouthed kiss, like he had no tongue, no insides of the mouth, no teeth. Oh yes, his teeth were not the most attractive part of him. They had tiny gaps in between. I did not like his grin. I thought maybe his kisses would warm up, open up, and in a way, I was glad that they weren’t fantastic. For wouldn’t it be difficult to resist him if they were? I realized I was not as sexually aroused as I could have been. My heart did not beat faster. I was turning into an ice maiden. My constant prayers, my no onion, no garlic vegetarian diet was turning me into a rather tranquil being. It’s what I aim to be. This was indeed, a good sign. Had Sam been Mimmo, it would have been different. The Divine Mother was compassionate. She was making enlightenment easier for me. I disentangled myself, saying I was hungry. Was he hungry? What would he eat? “Nothing spicy,” he said. “Pasta? Sure you like pasta!” All Italians love pasta. I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. “You can make pasta?” His smile was bright. “Sure. One of my good dishes. And oh, I have music. Satellite radio. What sort of music do you like?” “Jazz.” “Oh!” At least he had sophisticated tastes in music, I thought. I switched on the jazz. Jazz is sensuous, languorous, great to make love to. He threw himself on my big luxurious bed with its headboard painted with the Eye of Horus. The jackal-headed Anubis, and the cat-headed goddess, Bast, stand against the backdrop of the desert and the pyramids. “Someone looks very comfortable,” I said, half wishing that he had chosen the guestroom. “I will shower and change, then make your pasta.” In the shower I pampered my skin with rich moistuiriser – for even if he only got to feel my shoulder, he had to think my skin is the softest. I dabbed on some more of my Ultraviolet from Paco Rabanne. Among other things, woman is born to add beauty to the world. I changed into a silky long grass-green dress. He hummed happily, and followed me downstairs to flop onto the couch, and embrace a cushion. While the pasta boiled, I sat beside him and let him kiss me. It was good he did not have bad breath. I switched on my desire but he cooled it with his awkward caresses. Casanova hailed from Venice, but this was no Casanova. “You’re not very experienced,” I told him. “How many women have you had?” “Not many. I lived with one – Sarina in Venice for three months before I came here.” “She’s still waiting for you?” I did not want to encourage his advances if that was the case. “No. We broke up. How many have you had?” “Oh, many, including some one-night stands…say about fifty.” He chuckled and held me close. “You sure you’re Italian? You have such an Indian accent.” Although he smiled, he seemed a trifle indignant. As though I ought not to doubt him. “Ah, it must have boiled,” I said, and jumping up from the couch, rushed to the kitchen. I glimpsed Sam going up to the bathroom, and thought he must be washing up again. At the table, a colourful three- tiered affair in red, blue and yellow, with sharp corners that dig into your groin if you’re not careful, he ate the pasta sloppily and noisily, his mouth open. I was shocked and disgusted and turned off. I was another step closer to the realization that he was not Italian at all. The Italians I had met had impeccable table manners. Maybe he was an Iranian peasant. I was wondering what I’d do with him for the rest of the evening, when my old friend, Digs called up. His film director friend, Kaushik, was in town and my script writing job was finally coming through. The story was Kaushik’s idea – about a traditional Indian housewife who gains glamour and chutzpah through a life of crime. Something dramatically wonderful always happens towards the end of my hundred-day prayer. I was to get quite a hefty advance even before putting pen to paper. My very first screenplay! It was a challenge. I had never written anything to do with crime. I had to find some way to identify with the heroine. I took Sam along to Digs’ apartment nearby. We walked, arms linked, rushing across a road jammed with traffic, and then down a street lined with tall trees through which shone the pale waning moon. I admired Sam’s courage. He wasn’t people-shy despite his dumbness. Digs answered the door, limping on a sprained ankle. Introductions over, we followed him into the sparsely furnished living room. Kaushik sat on the cane couch, his laptop on the glass-topped table before him. We shook hands. So it was happening at last, I told him. He said the project had been delayed because of his shoot in South Africa. “South Africa is where your story is set,” he said, writing me a cheque for the advance, while Sam sat silent on a chair opposite, squinting without his glasses, glancing once in a while at Digs who was getting drunker by the minute. “Wow! Thanks!” I cried when Kaushik handed me the cheque. “Yes. You want to see a bit of that film I shot in Africa? It’s not complete yet, and you might find it boring. I’ve directed it. It’s someone else’s story.” “Let’s see it!” said Digs. “He’s fantastic,” he said to me. “You must see his work.” “It’s not fantastic,” said Kaushik. “I’d like to see it for the setting,” I said. “What’s it about?” “The story?” said Kaushik, paying no heed to Sam at all. “It’s actually about Henry Ford’s son who became a Hare Krishna freak.” “Oh! That must be interesting!” I laughed. “It is!” drawled Digs. “Henry Ford’s son, man!” “You don’t have to watch it all.” Kaushik fiddled with the laptop and the screen was filled with Hare Krishna devotees dressed in orange, singing and playing cymbals on the streets of Johannesburg. Sam squinted at the screen, hands resting on his thin thighs. “You can wear your glasses,” I laughed. “You look good in them.” He smiled. I could tell he’d left his glasses at my place. Kaushik poured out vodka in mugs. Sam didn’t want any. Good boy, I thought. He didn’t smoke or drink hard alcohol. Kaushik, who never remembers that I don’t drink offered me a mug which I declined. As usual, he asked, with a surprised expression on his face, “You don’t drink?” What’s so surprising about that? People think if you’re glamourous and liberated, you must drink. You just can’t categorise me like that. No one ever could. Especially today when I’m the sexy saint. I watched ten minutes of the film. Tropical landscapes, modern architecture, much like India. Henry Ford’s son went back home and fought with his family when they failed to understand just what his spiritual ambitions were. I doubt he understood them himself. “What’s your name?” Digs asked Sam. Sam told him and I waited for Digs’ reaction. He is blunt like I am. “What kind of name is that for an Italian?” he asked. Sam only smiled mysteriously. That night at Kaushik’s invitation, the four of us went to a pub in a nearby multiplex. Kaushik reluctantly drove us in Digs’ red Maruti, cursing the traffic all the way. Digs was too drunk to drive. The name of the pub – ‘Firangipani’ – which means ‘foreign water’, made me laugh. I was sure to foreigners in there. It was the most exclusive pub in the area. “Do lots of ‘firangis’ come here?” I asked Digs. “Sure. In the afternoons. ” “Really?” So why hadn’t I bumped into any near home? I glanced at Sam. He did not seem interested in the conversation at all. It was most likely that he did not understand. Dumb, dumb, dumb. In fact, he never spoke a word to anyone, or anything, except to congratulate me when I told him how excited I was about the advance on the script. The place was filled with young people. There was just one pale solitary ‘firangi’ in glasses, standing at a table. I had to come here in the afternoon, but wouldn’t that be too obvious? A woman alone in a pub could only be looking for one thing. Pop songs from the 70’s and 80’s vibrated into me. I used to dance to them in my fashion model days. Kaushik laughed, slapped Sam on the shoulder and said the music must be too old for him. Sam smiled, hovering about me as I perched on a tall stool and admired myself in the mirrors. Bartenders flung bottles and glasses about expertly, without dropping any, and Kaushik ordered me a mocktail. A tall glass of delicious green coconut water laced with something non alcoholic. “It matches your dress,” Kaushik yelled above the music. Sam once again declined anything but beer, and soon vanished for a few minutes. I thought he must have found the toilet so he could wash his face and hands. It seemed like he had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Another mocktail, and a couple of beer rounds for the guys, it was 11:30 p.m. shut down time. “It’s crazy,” said Kaushik. “Everything in India closes up before midnight. No night life. Boring.” “It wasn’t like this before,” I said. “Just since a couple of years. Guys brawling and shooting each other in pubs.” “It’s terrible,” said Digs. But I was content. I was a writer after all, a solitary being, a priestess, a lover of inner journeys who had had her fill of parties. That night with Sam was exhausting. I waged bed battles with him, flinging him off me every time he tried to enter me. My muscles hurt with the effort. I felt something vibrate against my thigh. I thought it was his dick, but how could it vibrate like that? I laughed when he took his cell phone from his trouser pocket, squinted at it and put it away. It was to ring unanswered all through the night. I thought it must be a woman, or many women. Why would a male friend call him all night? When I told him what I thought, he frowned and said he didn’t know who it was, and didn’t care. He turned out to be stranger than I’d thought. When I seductively began to unbutton his shirt, I discovered a black T-shirt with the word ‘Nirvana’ on it. When he took it off (the tie he wore had come off on the couch downstairs), I felt rash on his upper back. Heat rash, no doubt. Yucky. It was too warm to wear two shirts. He took his pants off in the adjoining room and came back to me wearing another pair. Maybe he was trying to pad up those skinny thighs, which I found during our bed battles, to be concave. His upper arms were skinny, his waist tiny. His armpits smelled of sweet sweat. It would be rude to ask him to wash, so I didn’t. I’ve smelled worse. Oh I had my orgasms, all right. They’ve always come easy to me. I believe I could have taught him how to kiss, for he was showing signs of improvement, but I still hadn’t found his tongue. I was triumphant. My love muscles were strong enough to shut him out. I’d made an important discovery: only women with weak muscles get raped! “Where is it?” he kept asking. “I knew you were different when I saw you.” I laughed and assured him it was there, but he couldn’t get in. I’d told him, he couldn’t, hadn’t I? As he rubbed himself against me, moaning, he spoke not one word in Italian. It was absurd. Men in throes of passion are supposed to lose their inhibitions, but all I heard him whisper was “sweet!” and “You’re like a sixteen year old!” After he’d spilled his seed all over me as well as his trousers and jocks, he asked if I had some shorts he could sleep in. “Nothing that will fit you,” I said. He harassed me about it till I offered him a gold mini skirt in which he looked ridiculous. I laughed at him. “I love you,” he said. “Seriously, I want to be with you.” “I don’t think there’s any future here…. You mean you’ll stay back for me in India?” “You can come to Italy.” He caressed my face. “No way. My temple needs me and I need my temple.” “I’ll do anything. Seriously. I don’t know why I like you so much.” “You mean you’ll marry me and follow my spiritual path?” “Yes, seriously.” I smiled. I had no intentions of marrying him. I just wanted to know how far he was willing to go for me. And yet, if he was lying about his identity and his age, as I suspected he was, could I believe anything else he told me? “You don’t believe me. How to tell you?” “You can’t fall in love with me so fast,” I said. “Why not?” “I hardly know you.” “Your lips know me. Your tongue knows me.” That must have been the most romantic thing he’d told me. It was lyrical, but I am no fool. “You can get other girls here. I’m not for you. You’re not my type.” “Oh come on. I will come here tomorrow.” “No. Come on Saturday night, and Sunday morning I can take you to the temple.” “That’s too far away,” he said, and resumed his wrestling with me. I was ice maiden. I was hot babe, but eventually the ice maiden won. He wet the gold mini skirt too. I refused to give him another. Aching all over from trying to keep him from entering me, I slapped him hard, and told him to sleep in the other room, but he wouldn’t budge from my bed. Finally, he slept naked beneath the sheets. I was glad he did not snore, and I hoped I didn’t, for occasionally, I do. Early the following morning, I heard the maid come in, and rushed to the other room. She had never seen a man in my bed before. There hasn’t been a man in my bed for almost a year now. I heard Sam calling my name the moment the maid left after mopping the floors. I didn’t get up to go to him. He came to me instead, a reproachful look in his eyes. I got out of bed. He held me. “You have to go early,” I said. “Yes, I’m going. I’ll leave my clothes here.” “Okay.” He could take them on Sunday. It would be the last time I would see him. But he lingered a while, following me to my bedroom, staring at me balefully as he sprawled across the foot of the bed. I could barely keep my eyes open. Finally, he announced he was leaving. I tore myself out of bed and walked him to the door. It was impolite not to, and his visit to the temple was not far. I didn’t want to spoil his chance at enlightenment. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. I gave him a goodbye peck, and went back to bed. He called me every day for the rest of the week, begging that I see him before Sunday. I said I had to write the script. I hoped he wouldn’t be able to find his way to my place. He didn’t. On Sunday morning I picked him up from the multiplex. He was wearing white trousers – very Italian, and a striped red T-shirt. It began to rain as we got into an autorickshaw. He held me, smiling and humming, telling me he missed me. “Why didn’t you call me even once?” he asked. “Because you call anyway,” I answered. “Seriously, you don’t believe me. I like you so, so much.” It was quite a long way to the temple. When we emerged on the outskirts of the city, I smelled the wet earth and pointed out to him a large lake choked with weed and huge white lotus blooms. Over pot-holed roads, we went, and then, bumping and yelping, across slushy mud roads rutted by the great tyres of trucks carrying instant concrete. The temple is a two kilometer walk from the mud road. New houses are scattered across the windswept landscape where sunsets are unmarred by towering buildings. Here the air is fresh and many species of birds nest in the trees of the small eucalyptus plantation that flanks the area. At last the temple loomed before us – a huge brown building with a small banner on its façade, adorned by a picture of the fat Laughing Buddha. Beneath the buddha were the words – ‘The Great Joy of All.’ Sam was surprised. He’d expected the temple to look like one. “I told you this is not a religion,” I said. “It’s the source of religion. The Buddha had his third eye opened and attained enlightenment. When he spoke of what he had learned on this path, it became Buddhism.” “Oh?” he stared at me blankly. Inside, in the main hall, where stands the heavy wooden altar, Sam sat on the rug and leaned against the wall, as though he wanted to get as far from the altar as he could. Around the Laughing Buddha, on the altar, stood three polished brass lamps to be lit during the ceremony. On a smaller altar stood an urn filled with sacred ash into which Sensei would place the incense sticks. I introduced Sam to Sensei. She bowed her usual Japanese greeting, her face radiant. She wore a pale blue ‘salwar’ suit, the traditional Punjabi costume. Clairvoyants claim that her aura fills the hall. After all, only she has the power to open the third eye, the eye of Truth. My two nun friends, the Japanese Sae and the Indian Radhika greeted us with big grins. Also attending were a blonde American, and male twin babies accompanied by their parents and grandparents. The ceremony began and Sam stood there against the wall, his hands behind him. He looked uncomfortable. I gestured to him to put his arms at his sides, as was the custom. He complied once, and then returned to his previous stance. I had seen people faint because of the rarefied energy of the ritual. The karma they carried was too heavy. I hoped Sam did not have too much bad karma. When his turn came and he was summoned to kneel upon the red cushion before the altar, he fumbled with the incense as he placed it in the urn. His face dripped with sweat. His lips moved not in the sacred mantra he was asked to chant, but in some alien language. It alarmed me. Even Sensei seemed uneasy Was he really an Iranian peasant, a Moslem? I had watched a few Moslems undergo the ceremony, and could not help noticing their nervousness. A few even refused to bow before the altar. “Sae san, his face is dripping,” I told my friend as she stood beside me, aghast. I wanted desperately to know what she thought of him. She could sense the vibrations of people, and her impressions were always proved right. I tell my nun friends all about my life. I trust them completely. “That is not good, is it?” I probed. “No. It’s all new to him,” she answered. “And his vibes, how are his vibes?” “So so.” “He’s pretty dumb,” I said. “That’s why I say he’s so so. Ignore him.” “He’s coming back home with me after this. I had a battle keeping him off me the other night.” “We’ll help,” she smiled. “Radhika and I will come home and you can tell him nuns don’t enter a house where men are, or something like that. Just give us a call.” I breathed a sigh of relief when Sensei’s holy touch opened Sam’s third eye. Maybe he was so dumb, he couldn’t get the mantra right. I had fulfilled my purpose with him. I had led him to a priceless gift – a chance enlightenment, and freedom from rebirth. Nothing else mattered. The ceremony over, Sam immediately rushed to the toilet. When he emerged, I told him to go back to the hall for the explanation of the ceremony. “Hah! I don’t believe this!” he snarled. I was stunned. “I don’t care. You’re in the temple, and you will show respect. And whether you believe it or not, your third eye is open. You may not realize it now, but when you die, you’ll know, and then it will be too late.” “Hah!” “It’s the reason you came to India,” I said. “You are blessed to get it.” He returned to the hall, sullen. Afterwards, when we were looking for an autorickshaw to take us back to my home, Sam stopped for a wash at a tea shop by the road. There was certainly something seriously wrong with him. I wanted to get rid of him as fast as possible. At home I told him he could take his clothes and leave, but he insisted on spending the night with me. The bed battle that night was brief. “I don’t want to see you again,” I told him. “Why not? Tell me why not?” “I’ve told you before. We don’t click. You can never understand my spiritual path.” “I can.” “You didn’t seem to in the temple. Look, just go find yourself a girlfriend!” “But I want only you, seriously!” He climbed on top of me again and began to grind into me. “I said get off me! You’ve got brains in your dick or what?” I slapped him hard. All he said was “Oh!” and put a hand to his, I hoped, smarting cheek. He was heavy and had pinned me down, but I managed to topple him over. “See, that’s one of the reasons I don’t want you around. You think no from a woman is yes.” “Are you serious you don’t want me?” He looked hurt. “Very serious.” “I’ll come back on the weekend and wash my clothes,” he said. “Then say goodbye to your clothes, Sam, and goodbye to me. And don’t come here. I won’t open the door.” At the stroke of midnight I managed to persuade Sam to sleep in the guest room. He was so thick-skinned that even as he left next morning without a kiss or farewell, he left his clothes behind. When Radhika told me that day on the telephone that she suspected Sam was Moslem for he’d been chanting a Moslem mantra, I realised he must have given a false name in an attempt to hide his identity. For some reason, he may have felt stigmatized because of his faith. She told me Sam’s soul would wander round the temple for eternity, hoping and yearning for its third eye to be opened. His false name had rendered the ceremony useless. His name could not be registered in heaven. He had created much bad karma for himself by deceiving the temple. I called him and begged him to give me his real name, for it was most important for the ceremony. He swore he hadn’t lied. You’ll have lots of bad luck,” I warned. “ You lied to me. Were you chanting a Moslem mantra in the temple?” “I told you I don’t believe in all that. I went there just for you!” “But you said you’d practise my spiritual path. You’d become vegetarian! You’re not Italian. You’re Moslem.” “Moslems live all over the world,” he said angrily. “Even in Italy!” “Please don’t come here.” I was anxious now. What if he stalked me? Worse still, what if he was a terrorist? “Okay.” I hung up on him. A couple of weeks later, I got the fright of my life when Sam turned up at my door. I shut the door in his face with a yell of surprise. He rang the bell many times. I didn't open up. "Go away!" I said. “Go away!” He didn't. He hung around for half an hour in my garden by the window, fighting mosquitoes and mating frogs, trying to get a glimpse of me in my little pink skirt. My heart was thundering. I checked the door. Was it securely locked? I called up my friends - Digs said he was on my ex-hubby's farm. Handle it yourself he said. I thought that callous. I called Gangs whom I'd invited home that night to spend his birthday. He does not like birthdays. He says he has nothing to do with his birthday, that maybe his parents mistakenly had something to do with it. When I had told him about Sam, he’d laughed very hard and joked that Sam was no Italian, but the illegitimate child of Sonia Gandhi, and knew nothing about gondolas. Instead, he lived on a shabby houseboat in the backwaters of Kerala. “Oh, the illegitimate child of Sonia Gandhi?” he said. “I'm coming as soon as I can. Or why not call the cops?” I wasn't going to do that unless Sam did something drastic. Sam persuaded me to listen. He was sorry, sorry, sorry. He'd lied to me. I said he had told me many lies. “What's your real name?” I asked in the tone a cop might employ. “Sameer.” “Surname?” “Khan.” So, he WAS Moslem! “How do you spell Sameer?” He spelled it with double ‘e’. “You better be sure of the spelling, because you lied in the temple about your name. Terrible things will happen to you if they haven't already happened. If you’re lucky, which I doubt you are, they will rewrite your name.” Sam only looked blank. Like he was a duck, and my words, water on his back. “Are you sure that's your name?” “Seriously, it is my name.” “Where are you from?” “Delhi.” “Eh? But you have green eyes.” “My mother is from Iran.” “Hmmm - that's why you have such a terrrible Indian village accent. But I'm not opening the door. Go away.” He sighed. “It's my birthday today. Please. Come have dinner with me. I don't want anything from you. I just want to apologise.” “Shut up! You said you’re a Cancerian. It's September now.” “I lied.” “About your birthday too?” I was aghast. Maybe he had something worse than OCD. “It's my friend's birthday tonight,” I said. “I'm waiting for him.” Sam didn't believe me. I don't blame him. How could it be his birthday AND the birthday of my friend? He finally persuaded me to get out of the house. Would I please have dinner with him? Gangs had called again to say he'd take an hour to get to my place. Sam drove me to a sleazy restaurant on his rattling scooter. I discovered it wasn't Khan's birthday at all. “You lied to me again!” I cried. “I didn't know how to get you out of the house.” I refused to let him hold my hand. He was wearing clothes I'd seen before and smelled a bit of sweat. Yuck. I knew too that he had another pair of trousers underneath and a second shirt. I asked him why he wore so many clothes. He said because it's cold in Delhi. “But it's hot in Bangalore,” I said. I told him I had a boyfriend. It's the classic way to put a man off. It didn't work. “What? You have a boyfriend?” He paused for a long moment. “Yeah - well, sort of.” He held his head in his hands. "Oh how did I lose you?" I told him he would have lost me anyway. For he revealed to me that he was not thirty three, but twenty six. And he ate noisily. And he was a lousy kisser. And he was dumb. Very dumb. He said he' d gone by the ad agency where I work at least fifty times but did not have the guts to come up and see me. “Don't get mushy on me, boy,” I said. “Don't fall in love with me. It'll be bad for everyone.” He proceeded to tell me how his heart beat with fear that night we'd gone out with my friends to the pub. He couldn't open his mouth because they'd find out he wasn't Italian. He told me how he had no interest in the girls he came across. They were all foreigners said he. French, English. “You go up to them on the street like you came up to me?” I asked. “They smile at me. But seriously I don't like them.” He picked up his beer bottle and said, “I don't like to hold them.” “But you should like them. Go get yourself a girl. Leave me alone.” “There's something about you,” he said. “No one has that.” “Too bad,” I said. And so it was I went home in time to see Gangs arrive. I was afraid I'd miss him. Gangs emerged from the autorickshaw. “Hi,” he said to Khan. But Khan was staring at me. “He doesn't speak,” I told Gangs who looked like he was making a great effort to suppress laughter. Khan swivelled around to stare at him. They shook hands, and I shook hands with Khan and sent him off. Next day, out shopping for clothes, I noticed a new ice cream parlour with a sign that said – ‘Crepes . Salads. Ice cream. Da Vinci Gelati. Truly Italian.’ I laughed at the irony of it all and ventured in for a taste of heavenly peach ice cream. “Fresh fruit, no milk.” Said the man at the counter proudly. “Truly Italian.” . |
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