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- Herausgeber: ONE
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
'A stunning novel, gorgeously written' Kamila Shamsie, author of Best of Friends 'Intelligent, keenly observed' Tash Aw, TLS 'A poignant study of loneliness, and a perceptive examination of the struggle for acceptance and understanding' Telegraph 'A tender yet piercing exploration of what it means to live in the shadows' Service95 High in the mountains of Darjeeling, a landslide traps the guests and staff of a crumbling hotel. Cooped up inside, two men exchange lingering glances. For Neville, this is one of many thrilling encounters - urgent kisses in stairwells and parked cars. But for hotel employee Pavan, their connection threatens to unravel everything he has kept hidden. Years later, their paths collide once more, surrounded by the towering skyscrapers and ghostly smog of Mumbai. Neville is now a restless graduate, adrift in the city, while Pavan has started a new life, away from the hills. When Neville strides into his workplace demanding a meeting, their flirtation turns fraught, and long-buried secrets threaten to tumble into the light. Set on the cusp of India's landmark ruling to decriminalise homosexuality, this is a tender, richly atmospheric and elegantly wry story of outlawed desire - and the fragile hope for a life beyond concealment. Praise for Half Light: 'A thoughtful, moving novel that takes its time to explore its characters' inner lives and invites the reader into the dual heritage of a country in an unusual and rewarding way' Irish Times 'Thoughtful, tender storytelling at its finest' Marie Claire 'A quietly lovely exploration of desire and self loathing in India in the years leading up to the decriminalization of homosexuality' Daily Mail'Highly enjoyable. . . offer[s] a glimmer of hope for a new world that could come into being' Guardian 'Half Light is a novel steeped to a sublime perfection, and an astonishing literary achievement' Rabih Alameddine, author of The Wrong End of the Telescope 'A searing tour de force of shame, sex, love and identity. I was enchanted' Thomas Stewart, author of Real Boys 'Tender and timeless. A quiet story of hope and survival that took my breath away' Soula Emmanuel, author of Wild Geese 'More than meets the expectations aroused by his debut' Patrick Gale, author of Mother's Boy
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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1
‘A stunning novel, gorgeously written. Rao deeply understands the human heart in all its frailty, cruelty and abundant promise’
Kamila Shamsie, author of Best of Friends
‘More than meets the expectations aroused by his debut… an unpredictable story of two Indian men from utterly different backgrounds’
Patrick Gale, author of Mother’s Boy
‘An incredible dual coming of age story, set during a (not so distant) time when homosexuality was illegal in India. HalfLight is a searing tour de force of shame, sex, love and identity. I was enchanted’
Thomas Stewart, author of Real Boys
‘In this remarkable novel, Mahesh Rao gives voice to the forgotten and the ignored, and my lord, what a voice it is. HalfLight is steeped to a sublime perfection, an astonishing literary achievement’
Rabih Alameddine, author of TheWrongEndof theTelescope
‘Tender and timeless. A quiet story of hope and survival with an ending that took my breath away’
Soula Emmanuel, author of Wild Geese2
34
7For Somak8
Contents
PART ONE
Darjeeling, 201410
I
PAVAN
He came to see what exactly had been destroyed. The woman who raised the alarm had made it sound as though half the hill had come down: a huge blitz of trees, rocks and mud. When Pavan reached the bend in the track, he saw that it was a more modest landslide. But it was bad enough. A chunk had been gouged out of the hillside, boulders and scree piled across the road below. A tangle of roots pointed skywards. All around him, the soil was red and oozy. As he looked at the men scrabbling to try and shift the rocks with their bare hands, a fresh drizzle gusted into his face. He lowered his head and turned back towards the hotel, fists balled in the pockets of his jeans.
Sometimes the cold up here felt clean, a purity that came from the mountains, with each glassy intake of breath. Today it seemed dirty, dark clouds closing in on the hillside, acrid smoke drifting across from someone’s bonfire, slush seeping into his shoes. His teeth chattered so hard he felt they would come loose and fill his mouth. He had never known cold like this where he had grown up, a hard-baked village almost on the other end of the subcontinent, where people put cotton wool in their ears to protect themselves from even a slight early-morning breeze.
Over the course of the three years that he had lived in these hills, he had heard about landslides. One had crashed through a 12neighbouring town, flattening part of a nursing home. He had been told that passers-by on the road could see old ladies in nighties on the first floor motioning to them in terror from the open maw of the building. Several people had perished, a couple of the bodies found only days later. As rescuers dug through the rubble, the stench of dead cows filled their nostrils. A freakish tumult had meant that a little hairy hog had ended up in the branches of a tree, shrieking in panic. There had been astonishment that, in spite of the mass of tin and timber churned into the mud, all that debris and chaos, a potted geranium had managed to remain secure on a gatepost.
Pavan could not see the full extent of the damage below but for now it looked like they had merely been cut off. He had already discovered that the power lines had come down. The water tanker would not be able to make it up the road, so that would soon be a problem too. But at least no word had been received of any deaths or injuries.
When he was halfway up the track, he saw the boy again up ahead. This time the hood of his windcheater was up but the same eyes glanced at him, filled with enquiry. The boy had made himself conspicuous, dawdling in Pavan’s field of vision, ever since he had arrived with his family three days ago. While Pavan swept the entryway that first evening, the boy had stood on the parapet, taking in the forested slopes or pretending to be interested in the view: it was hard to tell. On the second day he had watched Pavan haul his bucket of cleaning supplies into different rooms, meeting his eyes every time he emerged from behind a closed door, all the while playing cards on the terrace with two women. That afternoon the boy had almost collided with Pavan when he came rushing down the back corridor, his arms weighed down with bags of flour. The boy had apologised, with much more sincerity than Pavan had 13expected, and so, wrong-footed, he had simply shrugged and rushed on through the courtyard to the kitchen.
At first, Pavan had been irritated. Along with the mountain peaks and the tea gardens, apparently his daily grind was also a tourist attraction to be enjoyed in the winter sun. But the gaze had been too persistent and pointed. He guessed that the boy was twenty-one or thereabouts. He had a face that spoke of softness, from the tangle of curls over his forehead down past his long lashes to the contours of his nose and the deep dip of his Cupid’s bow. Pavan had tried not to look at that face. But even in the first few instances he realised that he had rarely seen a smile achieve such a transformation. In a moment the boy’s features turned from tentative, thoughtful, almost anxious, to a great beam of mischief and vivacity.
Pavan forced himself to think about what he had unwittingly revealed to this boy. All his life, he had tried to maintain a protective equilibrium between aloofness and involvement. He knew bodies gave the game away so he had policed his limbs and his expressions ever since he could remember. At school the other children had needled him but for other reasons: the threadbare hand-me-downs he wore, his father’s brawls, the ramblings of his grandmother as she wound her way through the village slowly losing her mind. His most private fears had gone undetected and he experienced this concealment like a miracle.
But the boy had seen something. Even though Pavan had been fully occupied, hurrying from one task to another in his baggy trousers and old grey sweater, certain that there was nothing about his gait, his gaze, his demeanour that betrayed him, the boy had persevered. He had sought him out, in the courtyard, on the stairs, even down by the wild patch where the chayote squash vines had almost overcome the chain-link fence. He was a constant apparition, like a god who intended to remind him of his weakness. It felt like 14a huge intrusion and filled Pavan with an acute sense of jeopardy. And now the boy was planted outside the hotel gates.
Pavan stood level with him and then turned around, so that they were both looking down at the mutilated hillside. He could have walked straight back to the hotel but he was curious about the rescue efforts. And in that odd moment he felt an unusual need to assert his presence and not be cowed by this youngster.
In the distance, a trio of figures scrambled up the hillside. He could hear a few anxious shouts and a small clang of metal, some tool being used at short intervals, a ridiculously puny sound in the face of the task at hand. The sweetness of mulch filled his nostrils but it held a trace of a darker rot, sharp and sulphurous, as though he would find something terrible if he dug around in the shadows under the pines.
A few weeks ago Pavan had spotted a word scrawled in red marker on the inside of a cupboard door in the supply shed. It was in Bengali and he could not read it. But the angry shade of red, the unstable lines, its sudden appearance, all unsettled him. He opened the cupboard once or twice a month to get a light bulb or a washer and was sure the word had not been there before. Who else came to the cupboard? He had no idea. Possibly everyone, apart from the hotel owner, Bumba Das. Pavan had taken a photo of the word, wondering who could read it to him, tell him why it was there and whether there was any menace in it. Anyone at the hotel was out of the question. Days later he mustered up the courage to ask an elderly market trader who was kindly but brisk, a busy woman who would not linger over his question. Their conversations, held in broken Hindi, only ever covered the strict practicalities of the weather, her stock and the whereabouts of any roadblocks. She glanced at his phone as she sorted through plastic buckets and basins.
‘Homo,’ she said. 15
‘What?’ he asked.
‘That’s what it says,’ she said. ‘Homo.’
A pulse boomed at his temples; blood seemed to fill his head. He searched her face for any sign of disgust or even comprehension.
She handed back his phone, unruffled and uninterested, and began to stack the basins.
‘Take some for the hotel? I’ll give you a good discount,’ she said.
He mumbled his thanks for her help and hurried away.
Like ‘selfie’ and ‘toilet’, some English words travelled into almost every Indian language. He could guess that this was one of them.
Reading that word was like being stripped bare in a crowded street but with no clue as to the identity of the attackers. None of the other staff at the hotel had changed in their attitudes towards him and no one seemed to bear him any ill will. Bumba Das continued to alternate between his usual calculated benevolence and irrational impatience, all the time speaking to him as though the expanse of a field lay between them. Pavan had barely interacted with any of the guests and, in any case, none of them would have been able to get into the locked shed. He had tried to put it out of his mind but occasionally he would return to the photo, unable to delete it.
In one sense, it was just as well that he was overworked. The endless stream of tasks kept his mind off these matters. During the low season when few rooms were occupied, Bumba Das made sure he employed only three men to keep the hotel running. One cooked and everything else was left to the other two. Now with the hotel cut off until the road reopened, there would be even more to do, anxious guests to pacify, supplies to locate urgently. They would have to manage with the generator for as long as it took. He would need to make sure that nothing had tripped in the main fuse box and then he would have to check the stock of diesel. There would be continued demands on his initiative and resourcefulness. And 16accompanying each of these thoughts was that same unease, a fierce awareness that something had changed since he had first spotted the word on the cupboard door.
The boy was still standing level with him. Pavan could sense his gaze. Feeling he had remained there long enough, he turned and walked through the gates, the crunch of the gravel seeming louder with each step. Do not look back at that boy, he said to himself. Keep walking. He would do the opposite of looking back, shoulders square, neck stiff, head upright in the rain. A few steps, half a dozen more, all the while ignoring the tug that came from the figure near the gates. The wind flew into his face. He tried to empty his head of all thoughts. The gravel crunched for a few more steps and then, at that precise moment, as if it had been preordained, he turned to look back. The boy was still in the same place, staring in his direction.
NEVILLE
‘I knew this was a mistake. We should have gone home or just stayed in Kolkata,’ said Audrey.
‘But you said you hated it there. It was too noisy and crowded. And the fumes. And the hotel,’ said Neville.
‘It would be better than being stuck in this godforsaken place. Did you find out how long before the road opens?’
‘No one knows yet.’
‘Go and ask again. And also tell them about the hot water.’
He knew his mother would continue to badger him if he stayed in the room so he let himself out. The latch was fiddly and a draught came in under the closed door. There had not been much choice when it came to their accommodation; this was one of the few places they could afford. The hotel was inexpensive because of its inconvenient and lonely location – and also because nearly all the services it provided were appalling. But that they had only realised once their stay had begun. The hotel in Kolkata had not been much better: the sheets had a zebra-skin print on them, the ceiling fan was furry with dust, and film music blared in from somewhere until late into the night. But again, it had been inexpensive. And at least they had not feared freezing to death or being buried alive in a landslide.
He pulled up the hood of his windcheater and emerged onto the verandah outside the room, a mosaic of chipped paint on the 18handrail, wooden steps that creaked as though they would give way at any moment. The wind caught him by the throat. He had spotted a couple of the other guests over the last couple of days but he guessed that they would now be confined to their rooms, ruing the day they had decided to book a stay at the Golden Peaks Hotel. He dashed into the drizzle and across the courtyard to the reception area. There was no sign of the man who seemed to be charged with almost every responsibility in the hotel.
He had noticed him as soon as they arrived. Every feature on his face was proudly defined, a face that ought to be on a coin. His hair was so dark that it seemed to glisten. A small crescent-shaped scar cut into the line of his jaw. The only incongruity was his full moustache. The man was too young and slight to wear it with any dash or style. It gave him the impression of someone trying out a role, a disguise for the day. Neville had watched him pick up their cases and hoist them onto his shoulders the day they arrived, even though it would have been easier to pull them along. The hems of his trousers flapped above his bony ankles as he walked. His back was as straight as a plank. It was this man who had filled Neville’s vision and it was only after he had disappeared around the corner that Neville took in the penguin-shaped dustbin a few feet away (‘Use Me!’), the tattered prayer flags that hung across some of the verandahs, and beyond them, the smudge of blue hills wreathed in fog.
He knew that the man was aware of their presence. His mother had made sure of that, with her prompt complaints at reception about the damp in the bathroom and the blankets which smelled of mothballs. Neville had slipped away, not wanting to be part of that conversation. But when he saw the man raking leaves in the courtyard later that afternoon, he had opened his door as though he was looking for something, a friendly boy in a shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his biceps. He had in fact taken 19his sweater off for this performance. Pressed into action by fervid fitness videos on his feed, he had begun a free-weights regime in the space between his bedroom desk and wardrobe. It was only in recent months that an alluring definition had begun to present itself along his upper arms, clearer still when he tensed them. It was this strong line that he wished to display to the man clearing the fallen leaves. Neville stepped off the verandah as though uncertain, walked across the courtyard and then, seeming to change his mind, made his way back. He lingered on the verandah steps in contemplation. And then rejoined the women in their room, where Lorna told him off for not being properly dressed and almost guaranteeing a chest cold.
He knew that the man had seen him. As he walked past, there had been a flicker in his downward gaze, a narrowing of the sweep with which the leaves were gathered up. But he had not looked up. Back inside, Neville put on his sweater again and made three cups of tea with the tea bags they had brought from home.
‘Angel boy,’ said Lorna.
Since taking early retirement from Air India, Lorna had accompanied him and his mother on all their trips. She contributed more than her fair share of the cost and continued to indulge Audrey in every way she could. Neville had never understood the nature of the friendship between the two women. Lorna was ten years older than Audrey, a steadfast motor-racing fan who dressed in enormous, drab T-shirts she had owned for decades. Her voice was surprisingly low, rich and filled with expression: in an animated film she would probably play a melodramatic badger or bear. She was a profoundly practical woman, having spent years organising airport arrangements for visiting dignitaries.
An aroma of those years wafted about most of her anecdotes. They had heard many times about the time when a half-naked 20man had crept into the first-class lounge trying to garland a cricket star; or how she had arranged a replacement hearing aid for a cabinet minister while he was still mid-air. It was difficult to grasp why such a resourceful woman would put up with Audrey’s whims and receive next to nothing in return. In the years since the death of Neville’s father, Lorna had spent some portion of almost every evening at their home, rustling up a meal, watering the plants on the balcony, helping Audrey with her finances. Lorna arranged for plumbers and electricians, sent over bags of rice and dal she had obtained at wholesale prices, and even organised a special trip so that Audrey could attend Mass on her fortieth birthday at Our Lady of Grace, the church of her childhood in faraway Puttur. Once or twice he had given himself up to the mad suspicion that the women enjoyed a different kind of bond, that his mother too harboured her own shocking secret. But almost immediately he had returned to his senses: it was impossible that this was anything romantic or sexual. There had never been a hint of anything other than pure companionship, albeit strange and unbalanced, a dependence founded on some other mystery. He still had no inkling of what it could be and he sometimes wondered whether he would ever find out.
As Lorna and Audrey sipped their tea, he glanced out into the courtyard. The man had disappeared. There was plenty of time to seek him out later. Neville entertained even greater risks when they were away from home. A recklessness possessed him, all the more intense since he knew its occurrence was infrequent and curtailed. He would open the app and quickly become bored with the bloom of muscular torsos, one-word greetings and banana emojis on his screen. Instead he preferred to wander down corridors and loiter in foyers, adept at snatching opportunities. He would brazenly put himself in the path of men, their physical attributes less important 21than the charge ignited by risk and secrecy. A man thirty years older, bags under his eyes, dandruff dusting his shoulders, tailed up some unfamiliar stairs, might be as enticing an opportunity as someone his own age, suddenly glimpsed through a doorway. Audrey was an anxious and fastidious traveller, her mind too consumed by timings and schedules to devote much attention to her son’s furtiveness. Lorna would be too occupied with Audrey. Neville was free to map out his little adventures.
In Kolkata, while Lorna and Audrey napped, he had stationed himself in the dim hotel lobby, pretending to be occupied with his phone or looking at the brochures fanned out on a small desk. He cast his eye over any man who occupied the solitary sofa. Most ignored him. He watched for open-faced idlers who would spot him instantly. A foreigner emerged from the stairway holding a complicated camera in his meaty hands. After a short exchange at reception, the man was handed his passport: Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Neville gave him a half smile and continued to examine a leaflet for boat trips in the Sunderbans. The man grinned back and paused before returning upstairs. Neville wondered whether he should follow him but lost his nerve. The next day he spotted the man at breakfast, seated opposite a woman, a distinctly conjugal air over the table. The man grinned again at Neville and looked a little crestfallen by the chilly response.
That afternoon Neville was stopped on his way back into the hotel by a man in a crisp white shirt. His heart began to race. He knew that Audrey and Lorna were only a few minutes behind him.
‘Where are you from?’ the man asked in English.
‘Bombay,’ said Neville.
‘First time to Kolkata?’
‘Yes.’
The man handed him a card. 22
‘Please take this. I’m a very experienced guide and I can offer you best sights that not many people know about. Anyone can show you Kali Temple, Victoria Memorial. But do you know about Kolkata’s wells?’
‘Wells?’
‘So many beautiful, secret wells. Did you know that in bygone times men would go around to houses and their specific job was diving into the well and finding anything that had dropped there? Lotas, nose-rings, bangles, silver spoons. All kinds of belongings could have fallen inside and they would go right to the bottom and retrieve them. I can arrange a nice tour of the beautiful wells for you.’
Audrey and Lorna caught up.
‘Mummy, do you want to see some wells?’ asked Neville.
‘Wells? What are you talking about? Who is this man? Come inside now,’ said Audrey.
Now he ran through the cold rain, almost excited about the disruption occasioned by the landslide. A return to normality had been held at bay. Even an enforced spell on this soggy hillside was better than returning to the deathly routines of their flat in Mumbai, where his eyes opened every morning a few minutes before the milkman jabbed the buzzer twice, and closed every night with the smell of his mother’s eucalyptus oil drifting under the door. Even though one of the twin beds in his hotel room had a bare mattress, even though the cistern was cracked, even though there was a mysterious clicking sound that seemed to come from one of the walls, there were thrills to be had. At some point the man would stop working and look straight back at him. Maybe he would light a cigarette. They would be in each other’s vicinity. There would be an understanding. They might exchange a few words, decide on an approximate time when they would appear outside again. They would sidle towards a 23safe place, maybe the man’s quarters, sneaking in once all the guests were safely out of the common areas.
A woman emerged on one of the adjacent verandahs as Neville approached the reception area.
‘Hello,’ she called out to him.
He turned to face her, taking cover under the eaves.
‘Oh sorry, I thought you were one of the people who work here,’ she said.
‘That’s OK,’ he said.
‘Have you heard anything?’ she asked. ‘About when the road will open? They have told us nothing.’
‘No, I’m just on my way to try and find out,’ he said.
‘Please let me know if you discover anything. My husband spoke to a travel agent in the town and she said it was impossible to say. These things keep happening here and it takes time to open everything again. Especially when it doesn’t stop raining.’
He noticed the mehndi on her hands and the span of red bangles on her arms. He wondered why newly-weds would choose to spend their time somewhere as bleak as the Golden Peaks Hotel in midwinter. Her sindoor was slightly smeared. It made him suspect that they had been mid-frolic when they received news of the landslide. He shifted his weight on his legs. He did not like to dwell on heterosexual couplings.
Her husband emerged onto the verandah.
‘Who is he?’ he asked the woman.
He was wrapped in one of the hotel blankets, large red roses on a green background. His face had the complacent, self-indulgent expression of the married men who sent him messages online, pushy and always in a great rush. They wanted to meet now, demanded responses to their questions, said this was the last chance, they would not message again. But they did. 24
‘He’s going to find out about the road,’ the woman said to her husband. ‘Go back inside, you’ll get the blanket wet and it’ll never dry in this weather.’
Neville left the couple conferring on the verandah and headed into the reception area. A small suitcase stood near the counter, perhaps someone unsuccessfully attempting to leave. There was no one about. A cold wind charged through the open front door, moisture spreading on the pitted floor. His hood was oversized, falling over his eyes. From the top of the front steps, he could see only a blurred mizzle, cut by the slash of blue nylon as he walked. Water pooled in the ruts on the driveway. An emaciated cat glared at him from under a battered Maruti van.
He headed through the open gates and walked a little distance to look out at the gash in the hillside. Tiny figures moved on the lower reaches of the slope below him. He was struck by a sweetness in his nostrils, dank vegetation overpowering itself with its own odours. And then the man emerged on the track leading up to the gates, recognisable by that quick, stiff gait, the back held so straight. Neville pushed his hood off his face. The man reached the gates and without acknowledging him, turned around so that they were both facing the valley. Some kind of tinny banging sounded below them. Neville continued to look at the man’s profile, his hair soaked, his hands balled in his pockets. After a while the man walked through the gates and back up towards the hotel. Neville felt his first stab of doubt, the possibility that he had been foolishly contemplating impossible scenarios. The man kept walking, showing no sign of interest. Soon he would be out of sight. The hours ahead, the days ahead, suddenly felt dismal and interminable, their entire focus lost. Neville pictured himself in the dim light of a room, playing round after round of cards with Audrey and Lorna. Then the man turned around. It was only a short, sharp flick of his neck. But it was enough to revive everything.
II
PAVAN
It was silent in the kitchen. The dishcloths were still in the straight row where Pavan had hung them the previous night, the clean bin upturned in the corner where he had left it. He headed for the adjacent storeroom as he knew Bumba Das would soon want to know what stocks were running low. As he prised the lids off aluminium dabbas, he heard the loud creak of the back door, followed by Jeevan on the phone, switching on lights, running the tap.
‘I knew this about him. The others would not believe me but I knew from the start,’ said Jeevan.
Pavan felt a sudden flash of dread. He switched off the light. He dared not push the door further open so he turned to face the chink of brightness and strained to listen.
‘You just have to look at him to know,’ Jeevan said, his shadow sweeping across the floor as he moved to the other end.
Pavan realised he was holding his breath.
‘You can’t trust anyone. How many times have I told you this. Tell me now, what are you going to do?’
Jeevan’s shadow moved back.
‘We’ll make a plan. Don’t worry, we’ll make a plan,’ he said, his voice beginning to fade.
On the shelf in front of him, Pavan could just about make out the label on a drum of kerosene, a bright-orange flame. A few 26seconds later, the kitchen light went out and he was standing in total darkness.
The back door creaked and banged as Jeevan left the room.
The conversation had been vague enough to unsettle Pavan but also to make him wonder whether Jeevan had been talking about someone else. A dangerous word had been painted in red on the cupboard door but he still found it difficult to imagine that Jeevan had been responsible. He was a gruff and moody man, who swatted in irritation at people in the kitchen with a bamboo stick, knowing they were just out of reach. He snapped at laggards and twisted the ears of boys he suspected had disrespected him. But he had never been unkind to Pavan, who simply did as he was told.
There had been one occasion when Jeevan had described the exorcism that his family performed when his daughter-in-law was possessed by a demon. He and other male relatives had dragged her by her arms all the way around a shrine, her body trailing on the ground, head thrashing from side to side. They had then tied her to a peepal tree and left her without food or water for twenty-four hours to force the demon to flee elsewhere for sustenance. Cruelty could rear up anywhere. And Jeevan could have become aware of something about Pavan that he found too repugnant to tolerate.
Pavan opened the door to the kitchen and saw that Jeevan was nowhere in sight. None of the guests were about and a strange silence had descended on the hotel. It would soon be time to prepare the dining room for breakfast. As he crossed over to the main building, he saw that Bumba Das had obviously driven down the hill as far as he could go and returned. His van was now parked on the other side of the driveway. He had bought the van from a pest-control company but had been too mean to have it repainted. Images of a cockroach, a mouse and a termite still graced the side together 27with the phone number for Top-Klean Pest Services. Strangers in town would approach Bumba Das about an infestation as he sat in the driver’s seat and he would snap at them as though their enquiry was preposterous.
The reception area was deserted. Bumba Das had returned the key to room 2, which he had taken the day before. Someone had moved the vase of plastic flowers to the other end of the counter. Pavan hated the sight of them. They looked nothing like any flowers he had seen in real life. If it had been up to him, he would have thrown them onto the dump. The registration book lay on a shelf under the counter. The previous evening, after first hearing of the landslide from Bumba Das, Pavan had run a finger down its latest entries. There were still nine guests in residence and he had to make sure they were all still in the hotel compound and aware of the landslide.
The newly-weds were on their verandah and took the news in their stride, disappearing into their room with a giggle. The elderly couple had stared at him from their pale, gaunt faces, as though this news had laid waste to all their plans for the future. The woman had sunk heavily onto the bed, the man had glared. He looked as though in a moment he would stamp his foot. There was a tense pause as there was nothing for Pavan left to say. He had given them an apologetic half smile and made his way next door but there was no answer from the foreigners. He ran into them later in the courtyard, relieved that they had not been clambering up a dangerous hillside. They seemed to understand that they would be stuck in the hotel until the road was cleared. The man made the thumbs-up sign as he left, which Pavan took as a sign of benign optimism. Worst of all had been the woman in the furthest room. She had opened the door and grilled him about every aspect of the landslide. As he tried to explain what little he had learned, her eyes had darted around 28behind him, as though each of the mountain peaks was threatening to disintegrate and roll down on top of them.
‘Let him go, Audrey, poor fellow, how much can he possibly know? They are probably all still waiting for help,’ said the other woman, appearing at the door too.
‘He can find out from that owner chap or they can phone someone, I don’t know. This is just a total disaster,’ said Audrey.
‘Neville is finding out if there is any information online,’ said the other woman.
‘What if we miss our flights back?’
‘Let us just take it step by step, sweetie.’
Pavan had slowly backed away from them as they spoke, and he returned to the reception area.
Neville was the boy who seemed to hover wherever he looked. He had probably been there with them but for once had not appeared, that intense look fixed upon his face. One of the women was probably his mother: Pavan was amazed at the boy’s audacity and recklessness in the presence of his family. Once again, unease had risen through his belly and hardened in his chest.
It was now more than fifteen hours since he had spread the word about the landslide. The reception phone rang every few minutes and he had stopped answering it.
His own phone buzzed.
‘Sir,’ Pavan said to Bumba Das.
‘They are saying there’s no bulldozer available until tomorrow at the earliest, maybe the next day,’ said Bumba Das.
‘What shall I tell the guests? They keep phoning. Especially the two ladies in number 7.’
‘Tell them you don’t know anything and we are trying to find out what the situation is. Also, there’s a problem now with the water. We need to save it for drinking. No bathing, and also no more toilet 29flushing every ten minutes, we don’t have that luxury, hoosh-hoosh every time they do even a small number one. But don’t say anything about the water till tomorrow morning. We’ll close the supply and then tell them slowly. Let us try and get at least one good night’s sleep before they start causing a commotion tomorrow.’
Pavan returned to the courtyard and looked up at the vast, empty sky, the colour of wet clay. He had no idea where the hills’ hundreds of birds sheltered on a day like this, the rain falling like needles, the wind lashing out in every direction. He felt sure they would be flung about even in the densest part of the canopy. Spring was still months away, although he felt little desire for its arrival, even on such a desolate day. True, the warmth would return. There would be a sweetness in the air and colour rippling down the hillsides. Buses full of tourists would veer around the hairpin bends; ice-cream sellers would do brisk business; every viewpoint would echo with yells and laughter. But the thought of all this renewal also caused a contraction in his heart. Young men would pause to give their hair a quick once-over in motorbike mirrors; couples would get into their cars clutching hot roasted corn wrapped in newspaper. In amongst the crowds at the bazaar and the melee of touts yelling out destinations at the bus stand, he would remain a figure only half in the light. He was not normally an envious man. He felt he had done well to make a new start at the other end of the country, far away from the hardships of his former life when no work could be found. There might even be people who envied him. But as spring began to prise open the world, he knew he would be constantly reminded of everything that still eluded him.
It took him about half an hour to prepare the dining room for breakfast. A short while later, the guests began to arrive, trailing in wet footprints, brushing raindrops off their sleeves. Their new circumstances had broken down their reserve and they formed 30huddles in front of the buffet, shaking their heads at the situation. The smell of new damp combined with the smell of old damp. There were loud lamentations and repeated questions addressed not only to Bumba Das but also to Pavan and Sanju, the other member of staff working in the dining room. Bumba Das had tried to reassure and pacify them, but it was not a mode of engagement with which he was familiar. His eyes focused on the back wall, he interrupted them constantly, and each of his attempts to comfort sounded like they were disguising his own ignorance and annoyance. This too was a false appearance as in fact Bumba Das was cheered by the knowledge that he would be able to squeeze a couple of extra nights out of all the guests.
‘There must be some other way out of here, there must be,’ said the elderly man.
‘There is a path through the forest, which will take you further down the main road, where it’s clear. But it’s very narrow and steep. You can only walk, no vehicles can go there. So with luggage, it’s impossible,’ said Bumba Das.
Pavan brought out rapidly cooling omelettes from the kitchen, avoiding eye contact wherever possible. He refilled the flask with hot water and laid out an unopened jar of cherry jam, past its best-before date. The two women sat at a table by the window, opposite them the boy, watching, always watching. At one point, the taller woman asked if there was any fruit apart from the bananas. He knew that the apples were being reserved for the following day so he said that there were only the bananas, making sure all the while not to look at the boy.
After breakfast, it stopped raining for a short while. A couple of the guests stood a little way down the driveway and stared out into the fog as though they would be able to divine the state of the land. The sky was clotted with dark clouds. All the hills and the 31trees lost their form as the grey closed in. The guests had probably never experienced this kind of silence. Pavan gave them a wide berth, knowing these tourists could often barely find their way into the town centre and acted as though a lukewarm cup of tea was a personal disaster.
He heard footsteps approaching on the gravel, gaining on him. He turned and found himself facing the boy. It should have been a shock but it felt like he had known this moment was imminent. The boy suddenly looked bashful and glanced around to see if there was anyone watching them.
It was the first time that Pavan was able to have a long look at the boy’s face. He appeared younger than he had at a distance. But his deep-set eyes gave him the likeness of a callow sage, still growing into his newfound wisdom. His Adam’s apple was speckled with a little stubble, where he had failed to shave properly. Pavan knew the boy’s bathroom was dim and dank, its gloom ensured by the tiny frosted window and a feeble light bulb.
‘Hello, can I speak to you for a second, just one second? I wanted to ask you whether there was any more news about the road opening,’ he said.
They both knew that the matter had been discussed by all the guests over breakfast and there was nothing more to be said.
The boy smiled. Pavan returned his smile and played along, not knowing what else to do.
‘The hotel owner has found out what he can. Before they get to our road, they have to clear another road. But they have not even sent the bulldozer yet. It’s still raining and the soil is very loose,’ said Pavan.
The boy nodded as though he wanted him to continue.
‘They want to make sure nothing will come down the hill again while they are working,’ said Pavan. 32
‘Did you go down to where the roadblock is? Did you see what’s happening there?’ asked the boy.
‘No. But our boss went there. He said a truck full of soda bottles also turned over on the main road. There’s a sea of glass.’
‘We just have to wait, what else can we do?’ said the boy with a shrug.
Pavan shrugged too.
The boy waved goodbye in a half-hearted kind of way. As he walked past, their arms touched. It was more than a graze, less than a push. The pressure had lasted for a mere second too long. Pavan looked down at his sleeve, the weathered weave of the grey wool. He felt as though, if he were to take off his sweater, there would still be a gentle imprint on his skin.
NEVILLE
The days before the trip had been so promising. They had originally planned to go away for Neville’s eighteenth birthday but the flights had been too expensive that week. They booked their tickets for the following week and Audrey threw a small party at home instead, resolutely cheerful, the furniture pushed back so that there could be dancing. The trip was part of his present, along with a watch that he did not care for, but pretended to love.
Audrey seemed buoyed by the idea of treks in the hills, high tea on the terraces, and all the watercolours she would produce, a pastime from her youth that she had resolved to take up again. She was an anxious traveller but adored the rituals of packing: it gave her a sense of firm control. She would root out long-unseen items – a rain poncho, a portable backgammon set, some disposable aircraft tray-table covers – and lay them on the floor in a pleasing formation as she mulled over their utility.
Neville had made his habitual interjections.
‘If you bring the bathroom scales, we could make a little extra cash. Maybe charge guests at the hotel twenty rupees a time to use them,’ he said.
‘Your assistance is definitely not required at this stage,’ said Audrey. ‘Also, you’re sitting on my blouse.’ 34
She gave him a kittenish smack on the shoulder.
‘You’ve really emptied the whole wardrobe,’ he said, standing up. ‘And what are Daddy’s ties doing here? Are you thinking of bringing them?’
‘Oh shut up, I just took them out to get to the back of the shelf.’
Along with the silver-framed photos, the records in the sitting room and the signet ring on Audrey’s dressing table, Wilfred’s ties were part of the mosaic that served Neville as a memory of his father. Neville was two years old when Wilfred died and he had to rely on these fragments to somehow construct what he could of the complete man.
He knew that Wilfred had a favourite tree in the city, towering above a bench in Priyadarshini Park, a tree which looked like a child’s idea of a tree: a straight, wide trunk crowned with an enormous circle of tightly packed leaves. It was called a sea poison tree – its toxic seeds were apparently used to kill fish – a fact grimly at odds with its benign majesty, which had always fascinated Wilfred. He knew that his father had once been stuck in a lift with a group of people for hours in a Nariman Point building, and to entertain them and stave off panic, he had read out almost the entire copy of that day’s TimesofIndiain his sumptuous baritone. He knew that, night after night, Wilfred had secretly smoked on the building terrace, in contravention of his doctor’s advice.
Audrey held up Wilfred’s maroon paisley tie.
‘Look how new it still looks. And so elegant. I wish you’d wear it sometimes,’ she said.
‘Where am I going to wear a tie to, Mummy? The fish market when I go to buy tambusa?’ he asked.
‘You could have worn it to Adeline’s party next week. There’s no harm in dressing up now and then. But anyway, it’s been postponed.’
‘Why?’ 35
‘She’s gone off to Mangalore. She was very upset because of what happened at Judith Rebello’s funeral. We all thought it better that she rest for a few days. She can get so agitated otherwise.’
‘What happened?’
‘Lorna didn’t tell you? It was truly awful. The coffin fell out of the hearse.’
Audrey shook her head sadly and began to wind the tie into a neat roll.
‘How did it just fall out of the hearse?’ Neville asked, his voice tightly controlled against any signs of laughter.
‘The stupid driver braked suddenly. I suppose the doors weren’t properly shut and the coffin just came sliding out and hit the road. Completely terrible. Can you imagine, just like that in front of everyone. And then it bounced,’ she said.
‘The coffin bounced?’ he asked, his voice cracking.
Neville’s shoulders began to shake.
‘Will you stop laughing and show some respect?’ Audrey scolded.
But a smile was breaking through at the corners of her mouth. She threw one of her scarves at Neville.
‘Now I need to make some careful decisions, so stop distracting me please,’ she said.
The belongings that Audrey had so carefully packed were now strewn all over the hotel beds, as she looked for a receipt from the travel agency, which in any case would not help her. She laboriously returned the items to the cases, looking at a skirt and then a pair of sandals, as though she had no idea who had packed them.
‘This is completely unacceptable. What if there is an emergency? I mean anything can happen. What if Lorna has a heart attack?’ she said.
‘Why would I have a heart attack?’ asked Lorna. ‘There is nothing wrong with my heart.’ 36
‘I’m just saying, theoretically,’ said Audrey.
‘I am fit as a fiddle,’ said Lorna.
‘Neville, go and tell them one of us is not feeling well and we absolutely have to leave. These people don’t understand until you force them to understand,’ said Audrey.
‘That owner guy is nowhere around. And I couldn’t see anyone else earlier,’ said Neville. He thought it better not to mention the man he had been shadowing. ‘Maybe there’s someone at reception now. Can’t you try phoning them?’ he continued.
‘From where? There’s no phone in the room,’ said Audrey.
‘I’ll try calling the main hotel number again,’ said Lorna.
