Indian Nocturne (7 page)

‘What?’ he demanded. ‘His memory? Your memory? These books?’

He took a step toward me and I was swept by a great sense of horror, because I already knew what he was about to do, I don’t know how, but I already knew. With his boot he kicked a little
bundle that lay at his feet, and I saw it was a dead mouse. He shifted the creature across the floor and grunted with derision: ‘Or this mouse?’ He laughed again and his laughter froze
my blood. ‘I am the Pied Piper of Hamelin!’ he cried. Then his voice became friendly, called me professor and said: ‘I’m sorry if I woke you.’

‘I’m sorry if I woke you,’ said Father Pimentel.

He was a man of about fifty with a solid build and a frank manner. He held out his hand and I got up, confused.

‘Oh, thank you,’ I said, ‘I was having a bad dream.’

He sat on the small armchair near mine and made a reassuring gesture. ‘I got your letter,’ he said. ‘The archives are at your disposal, you can stay as long as you like. I
imagine you’ll be sleeping here this evening, I’ve prepared a room for you.’ Theotónio came in with a tray of tea and a cake that looked like
pão de
ló.

‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘your hospitality is most kind. But I won’t be stopping this evening, I’m going on to Calangute, I’ve hired a car. I want to try and find
out something about somebody. I’ll be back in a few days’ time.’

Another thing that can happen to one in the course of a lifetime is to spend a night in the Hotel Zuari. At the time it may not seem a particularly happy adventure; but in the
memory, as always with memories, refined of immediate physical sensations, of smells, colour, and the sight of a certain little beasty beneath the washbasin, the experience takes on a vagueness
which improves the overall image. Past reality never seems quite as bad as it really was: the memory is a formidable falsifier. Distortions creep in, even when you don’t want them to. Hotels
like this already populate our fantasy: we have already come across them in the books of Conrad or Somerset Maugham, in the occasional American film based on the novels of Kipling or Bromfield:
they seem almost familiar.

I arrived at the Hotel Zuari late in the evening and I had no choice but to stay there, as is often the way in India. Vasco da Gama is a small town in the State of Goa, an exceptionally ugly,
dark town with cows wandering about the streets and poor people wearing Western clothes, an inheritance of the Portuguese period; it thus has all the misery without the mystery. Beggars abound, but
there are no temples or sacred places here, and the beggars don’t beg in the name of Vishnù, nor lavish benedictions and religious formulas on you: they are taciturn and dazed, as if
dead.

In the lobby of the Hotel Zuari there is a semi-circular reception desk behind which stands a fat male receptionist who is forever talking on the telephone. He books you in, talking on the
telephone; still talking on the telephone he gives you the keys; and at dawn, when the first light tells you you can finally dispense with the hospitality of your room, you will find him talking on
the telephone in a monotonous, low, indecipherable voice. Who is the receptionist of the Hotel Zuari talking to?

There is also a vast dining room on the first floor of the Hotel Zuari, so as not to contradict the sign on the door; but that evening it was dark and there were no tables and I ate on the
patio, a little courtyard with bougainvillaea and heavily scented flowers and low little tables with small wooden benches, all dimly lit. I ate scampi as big as lobsters and a mango dessert, I
drank tea and a kind of wine that tasted of cinnamon; all for a price equivalent to three thousand lira, which cheered me up. Along one side of the patio ran the veranda onto which the rooms looked
out; a white rabbit was hopping over the stones of the courtyard. An Indian family was eating at a table at the far end. At the table next to mine was a blonde woman of indefinable age and faded
beauty. She ate with three fingers, the way the Indians do, making perfect little balls of rice and dipping them in the sauce. She looked English to me, and so, as it turned out, she was. She had a
mad glint in her eyes, but only every now and then. Later she told me a story that I don’t really think I should put down here. It may well have been an anxiety dream. But then the Hotel
Zuari is not a place for happy dreams.

‘I worked as a mailman in Philadelphia, at eighteen already walking the streets with my bag over my shoulder, without fail, every morning, in summer when the tar turns to
molasses and in winter when you slip on the icy snow. For ten years, carrying letters. You don’t know how many letters I’ve carried, thousands and thousands. They were all upper class,
rich, the people on the envelopes. Letters from all over the world: Miami, Paris, London, Caracas. Good morning, sir. Good morning, madam. I’m your mailman.’

He raised an arm and pointed to the group of young people on the beach. The sun was going down and the water sparkled. Near us some fishermen were preparing a boat. They were half naked, wearing
loincloths. ‘Here we’re all equal,’ he said, ‘there’s no upper class, no ladies and gentlemen.’ He looked at me and a sly expression crossed his face. ‘Are
you a gentleman?’

‘What do you think?’

He looked at me doubtfully. ‘I’ll answer that later.’ Then he pointed to the huts made of palm leaves on our left that leant against the dunes. ‘We live there, it’s
our village, it’s called Sun Village.’ He pulled out a little wooden box with papers and a mixture and rolled himself a cigarette. ‘Smoke?’

‘Not as a rule,’ I said, ‘but I’ll have one now if you’re offering.’

He rolled another for me and said: ‘It’s good this mixture, it makes you feel happy. Are you happy?’

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I was enjoying your story, go on with it.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘one day I was walking down a street in Philadelphia, it was very cold, I was delivering the mail, it was morning, the city was covered in snow, Philadelphia
is so ugly. I was walking down these huge roads, then I turned into a smaller street, long and dark, with just a blade of sunlight that had managed to break through the smog lighting the end of the
street. I knew that street, I delivered there every day, it was a street that ended in the wall of a car repair place. Well, you know what I saw that day? Try and guess.’

‘I’ve no idea,’ I said.

‘Try and guess.’

‘I give up, it’s too difficult.’

‘The sea,’ he said. ‘I saw the sea. At the end of the street there was a beautiful blue sea with the waves crested with foam and a sandy beach and palm trees. How about that,
eh?’

‘Strange,’ I said.

‘I’d only seen the sea at the cinema before, or on postcards from Miami or Havana. And this was exactly like those, an ocean, but with nobody there, the beach deserted. I thought,
they’ve brought the sea to Philadelphia. And then I thought, I’m seeing a mirage, like you read about in books. What would you have thought?’

‘The same,’ I said.

‘Right. But the sea can’t get to Philadelphia. And mirages happen in the desert when the sun is burning down and you’re desperately thirsty. And that day it was freezing cold
with the city full of dirty snow. So I crept up, very slowly, drawn on by that sea and feeling like I’d like to dive right in, even if it was cold, because the blue was so inviting and the
waves were gleaming, lit by the sun.’ He paused a moment and took a drag on his cigarette. He smiled with an absent, distant expression, reliving that day. ‘It was a picture.
They’d painted the sea, those bastards. They do it sometimes in Philadelphia, it’s an idea the architects had, they paint on the concrete, landscapes, valleys, woods and the rest, so
that you don’t feel so much like you’re living in a shithole of a city. I was about a foot away from that sea on the wall, with my bag on my shoulder; at the end of the street the wind
made a little eddy and beneath the golden sand there was litter and dry leaves whirling around, and a plastic bag. Dirty beach, in Philadelphia. I looked at it a moment and thought, if the sea
won’t go to Tommy, Tommy will go to the sea. How about that?’

‘I was familiar with another version,’ I said, ‘but the concept is the same.’

He laughed. ‘You’ve got it,’ he said. ‘And so you know what I did? Try and guess.’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Try and guess.’

‘I give up,’ I said, ‘it’s too difficult.’

‘I took the lid off a trashcan and dumped in my mailbag. You wait there, letters. Then I made a dash back to the head office and asked to speak to the boss. I need three months’
salary in advance, I said, my father has a serious illness, he’s in hospital, look at these doctor’s certificates. He said: first sign this statement. I signed it and took the
money.’

‘But was your father really ill?’

‘Sure he was, he had cancer. But he was going to die just the same, even if I did go on carrying the mail to the ladies and gents of Philadelphia.’

‘That’s logical,’ I said.

‘I brought just one thing away with me,’ he said. ‘Try and guess what.’

‘Really, it’s too difficult, it’s no good, I give up.’

‘The telephone directory,’ he said with satisfaction.

‘The telephone directory?’

‘Right, the Philadelphia telephone directory. That was my only luggage, it’s all that’s left me of America.’

‘Why?’ I asked. I was getting interested.

‘I write postcards. It’s me who writes the ladies and gents of Philadelphia now. Postcards with a nice sea and the deserted Calangute beach, and on the back I write: Best wishes from
mailman Tommy. I’ve got up to letter C. Obviously I skip the areas I’m not interested in and send them without a stamp, the person who gets it pays.’

‘How long have you been here?’ I asked him.

‘Four years,’ he said.

‘The Philadelphia phone directory must be long.’

‘Yep,’ he said, ‘it’s enormous. But then, I’m not in any hurry, I’ve got my whole life.’

The group on the beach had lit a large fire, someone began to sing. Four people left the group and came towards us, they had flowers in their hair and smiled at us. A young woman was holding a
girl of about ten by the hand.

‘The party’s about to begin,’ said Tommy. ‘It’ll be a big party, it’s the equinox.’

‘Equinox nothing,’ I said, ‘the equinox is the twenty-third of September, it’s December now.’

‘Well, something like that anyway,’ answered Tommy. The girl kissed him on the forehead and then went off again to the others.

‘They’re not that young any more though, are they?’ I said. ‘They look like middle-aged parents.’

‘They’re the ones who came here first,’ Tommy said, ‘the Pilgrims.’ Then he looked at me and said: ‘Why, what are you like?’

‘Like them,’ I said.

‘You see,’ he said. He rolled himself another cigarette, split it in two and gave me half. ‘What are you doing round here?’ he asked.

‘I’m looking for someone called Xavier, he may have passed through here from time to time.’

Tommy shook his head. ‘But is he happy for you to be looking for him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘So don’t look for him then.’

I tried to give him a detailed description of Xavier. ‘When he smiles he looks sad,’ I finished.

A girl left the group and called to us. Tommy called back to her and she came towards us. ‘My girlfriend,’ Tommy explained. She was a pale blonde girl with vacant eyes and two
childish pigtails gathered up on her head. She swayed as she walked, a little hesitant. Tommy asked her if she knew a guy who looked like this and this, repeating my description. She smiled
incongruously and didn’t answer. Then she sweetly stretched out her hands to us and whispered: ‘Hotel Mandovi.’

‘The party’s beginning,’ said Tommy. ‘Come along.’

We were sitting on the edge of a very primitive boat with a crude float like a catamaran’s. ‘Maybe I’ll come over later,’ I said. ‘I’m going to lie down a
while in the boat and take a nap.’ As they were going away I couldn’t resist it and shouted after him that he had forgotten to tell me if I was a gentleman like the rest. Tommy stopped,
raised his arms and said: ‘Try and guess.’

‘I give up,’ I shouted, ‘it’s too difficult.’ I got out my guidebook and lit matches. I found it almost at once. They described it as a ‘popular, top range
hotel’, with a respectable restaurant. In Panaji, once Nova Goa, inland. I stretched out on the bottom of the boat and looked at the sky. The night was truly magnificent. I followed the
constellations and thought about the stars and the time when we used to study them and the afternoons spent at the planetarium. All at once I remembered how I had learnt them, classifying them by
the intensity of their light: Sirius, Canopus, Centaurus, Vega, Capella, Arcturus, Orion . . . And then I thought of the variable stars and the book of a person dear to me. And then of the dead
stars, whose light still reaches us, and of the neutron stars in the last stage of evolution, and the feeble ray they emit. In a low voice I said: pulsar. And almost as if reawakened by my whisper,
or as if I had started a tape recorder, I heard the nasal phlegmatic voice of Professor Stini saying: When the mass of a dying star is greater than double the solar mass, the matter is no longer in
a state such as to arrest the process of concentration which then proceeds ad infinitum; no radiation will ever leave that star again and it is thus transformed into a black hole.

How odd life is. The Hotel Mandovi takes its name from the river it stands beside. The Mandovi is a wide, calm river with a long estuary lined with beaches, almost like sea
beaches. On the left there is the port of Panaji, a river port for small steamers pulling barges laden with merchandise. There are two dilapidated gangways and a rusty jetty. And when I arrived,
right by the edge of the jetty, as if it were coming out of the river, the moon rose. It had a yellow halo and was full and blood-coloured. I thought, red moon, and instinctively I started
whistling an old song. The idea came like a short circuit. I thought of a name, Roux, and then immediately of those words of Xavier’s: ‘I have become a night bird’; and then
everything seemed so obvious, stupid even, and I thought: Why didn’t I think of it before?