Shadow Play (10 page)

It had taken me two days to locate Ana on that trip, and even that was purely by chance. I had gone to visit the ruin with its empty centre and hulking, collapsed walls. She was in a car with three men, gazing at the same scene. When I went over, I could discern from a distance the familiarity with which the driver had his arm around her.

‘How many of those men have you slept with?' was the very first thing I threw at her when we were alone in her flat.

Uncharacteristically for Ana, she'd snapped. ‘Two, if you must know. What's your problem?'

Even after a year and a half apart, my heart beat faster at such a declaration. ‘Nothing. It's just the body language that gave it away.'

‘Why do you ask such things, Raj? Is it to make me feel bad, or yourself?'

‘I don't know. You know how I always have to pick at scabs, open them up even if they have healed perfectly. I have to say and do the things other people don't, open the doors that frighten me. Otherwise I would think less of myself. I wouldn't be me otherwise.'

Ana didn't even turn while she readied our coffee. But I knew she was smiling. She expected me to say such things; she could probably complete them for me by now.

‘Me, me, me. It always comes back to that, doesn't it? You decide everything, but even then you can't let go. No, because you have to continue to be at the centre. You have to continue to be adored. You make a decision almost as a game, you say things and string them into speeches just because it flows so easily for you. You wake up feeling one way, and decide to play the part the rest of the day. You toy with people's lives, but it's supposed to have no reality for them. They should only be waiting, frozen under your spell, for the next time you have a change of heart. People should be ready to play when you want to play, love when you need love, be serious when you need them to be serious. And let you leave when you are tired of them, always at a moment's notice. Nothing should have any consequences, any reactions.'

‘I never blamed you. I just asked a question.'

‘Yes, but what was the expectation behind that question? What was the accusation behind the question? Raj, only you have a god-given right to be magnetic, only you have the right to be attractive. To be multiple, as you love to say, to be “elastic”. The papers might be full of pictures of you with different women,
but even two years after our split, I'm supposed to be frozen and miserable. Because once every six months, your heart spills over with love and you remember me. You write me a letter saying there'll be never be anyone to replace me, that I'm your missing half, and how the months of absence have only confirmed for you that we are soul-mates. In the same breath you announce you're arriving tomorrow. But of course I should just have been waiting by the phone all this time, hoping for this moment. Just like the next woman should be waiting, and the one after that. Everyone's life on hold, waiting for the spotlight to turn on them. And god forbid they should dare to get themselves a life in the meantime, that Raj should ever be put aside even in his absence.'

‘If you ever thought there was anyone to replace you… You are the one who never returned, no matter how often I asked.'

‘Because I know you, apparently better than you know yourself. You arrive like an absentee landlord to confirm and count his cattle. He might know next to nothing about them; he might be bored by them; he might not even want them. But god forbid if anyone else should eye them, or if they should ever prove to have a will of their own. Plus, you've always loved the drama of these big moments, these scenes. You love taking people on these highs, you love watching yourself swoop down and lift them. After months of total silence, suddenly you're pining for us. So you spend a week adoring your son and courting me all over again. You love the chance to use your favourite words – error and loss and waste; then you rant about loyalty and continuity. Finally the big closing speech about how we'll overcome every upheaval, by which time everyone's doubts should have melted away and their lives ceased to have
any other meaning because they would have realized that you, and only you, are indispensable to them. What, am I starting to remind you of someone?'

‘I had a child with you, with no one else but you. And I've never stopped believing that one day we will resume a life together, because it simply has to be.'

She got up, shaking her head, and rinsed her cup at the sink. Then she turned around while putting away some of the dishes. ‘You amuse me. I can't believe that you still believe yourself. You know what, you should try those exact words on someone new. Then you can riff about how your life has always lacked any stability, and how you've lost each of your homes, and all you ever wanted was to make a home in someone else's heart.'

But even this wasn't enough to sober me up. ‘I still dream of the holidays we talked about, with you and me in the front seat of a Fusca, on a road somewhere in India or Brazil, our kids screaming and laughing in the back, our suitcases strapped to the top. Every time I envision this, it's always your face next to mine. Every time I imagine more children, it's still you they resemble.'

Not a trace of a crack appeared. ‘No, you wanted to be a father because you wanted to “play the part”. You wanted to watch the great Raj play the part of father. You couldn't let such an important role escape you. That's why you had a child, as an opportunity to put more of yourself on display.'

‘I can't imagine you are so hardened, so cynical, that you think so poorly of me. How can you be so certain? I spend time with people just as you do. But you're the one who's turned away so absolutely. People who have far less than us get a second chance, give themselves a second chance, but I can never get
a hearing from you. You wall me off with every word. How can I prove anything when you've closed your mind to me so completely?

‘You know Ana, you represent the greatest enigma of my life. You're the only person I've ever craved. I met you at the worst time of my life, and from there you raised me higher than I'd imagined possible. You enhanced me; you extended me in so many directions. Then I lost you, and I never denied it was my fault. But now it seems there's nothing I can do to win you back. The whole world opens its heart to me, barring the one person who used to love me. Everything turns to ashes when I think that I don't have you. Do you know how much it hurts me that you make movies with all those morons, but you will never agree to direct one with me? Even though you know we'd be perfect together, we wouldn't even need to voice to each other what we want.'

And so it continued. After that visit we didn't meet for seven years, except in public at the odd ceremony or social occasion. As Seb grew older, I preferred to have him flown over to join me, so that I wouldn't cause any more upheavals in Ana's life. Because she was right: I had showed up without notice in Lombardy just as I had announced, after months of silence, that I was accepting her birthday invitation to Ilha Grande. Yes, those visits were decided unilaterally; I was intruding, and there was no one else to blame if I kept stubbing my toe upon unpleasant facts. But I always tried again with hope. I returned hoping for a miracle, some immense leap of trust and imagination over the years of waste and error (there, you see, she was right: those
are
my favourite words). I returned praying to see love in her eyes, and because I felt it was up to me to try over and over again – I
had to earn my last chance after squandering so many. I had to bend my knees, dissolve all pride and posturing, and open myself as unconditionally as possible.

I have another favourite word that Ana left out mentioning – exile. Whenever the opportunity arose, I would point out to different audiences how it was such a prominent theme that the Greek and Indian epics had in common – Ram, the Pandavas, Odysseus – the experience of irreversible, long-lasting exile, where our heroes are diverted (often unjustly) from the real business of their lives. Those expecting to inherit kingdoms are banished into destitution and ignominy. Odysseus voraciously fights a war he was once reluctant to enter, but then because of an enigmatic mix of accident and character, it takes him twenty years to find his way back home. And though these lives resume their expected courses, they are all past their prime, haunted by losses and scars, and their best years have been spent either wandering further away from their destinies, or merely struggling to survive until they can come home. The lesson seems to be that such is the nature of life itself, composed solely of twists and derangements, and yet it is the only thing we have, to make the most of and call our own. If we refuse to accept it because it hasn't run according to plan, because it has got spoilt, that would be the true exile, as we would then be homeless in our own lives.

But mine should have been an exile easy to accept: its terms were extremely favourable, especially for someone as restless and curious as I. After all, Ana left me free to enter the rest of the world; the only territory denied me was the comparatively tiny space of her own heart. And how busy, how full and varied a life I have made out of this wandering. Yet secretly, I have always
thought of it as banishment, a homelessness, as if I was shut out from my real destiny – an imprisonment in freedom.

Now, on the way to Abraão, cycling in total darkness, I remembered my mother admitting to me one day that our living situation in that single room within ‘
that
family' was the reason I was an only child. Every time Baba raised the matter she had refused him, saying he would have to first agree to leave the family. Ironically, when she found a place of her own, it was because she wasn't with my father any longer.

I had once imagined myself as the father of four children, including three daughters. And though, unlike my mother I was blessed with houses large enough and a life free from interference, they were never born, because I hadn't been lying to Ana: there was no one else I would ever have children with. There were sleepovers often, but no one else ever shared my home.

Seb surprised me with his decision to study archaeology, even though I was delighted that he planned to return to India, armed with his expertise. We were in his childhood pizzeria not far from his grandmother's house, and it was amusing to contrast his present solemnity with my memories of the strands of cheese or bits of topping that stuck somehow to the most unlikely places – his hair, his nostrils, even his earlobes in one memorable photograph. Ever the individual, from his first (upright) visit he insisted on creating his own pizza, never settling for slices from ours. The manager was a friend, and always indulged him with any combination of toppings he demanded.

‘Why archaeology rather than history or anthropology?' I wondered aloud, without intending offence.

Perhaps his mother had prepared him to be defensive. He strode out lunging.

‘It's what I want,' he replied, almost surly. ‘No one here has any objections. It's a cool subject.'

‘Sure it is. I meant nothing by asking. I'm thrilled India figures in your plans. Your other grandmother will be delighted.'

‘Well, don't promise her anything. There's university first, and there's no guarantee I won't change my mind.'

‘Do you know I once wrote an article on subjects like archaeology?'

‘Meaning what? What are “subjects like archaeology”?'

‘Well, my theory for this particular piece was that most professions fall into one of three captive relationships to power, but a subject like archaeology or say, butterfly research, is not in the service of power.'

‘I don't get it.'

‘I don't blame you. Let's change the subject. Why weren't you at your mother's forty-fifth?'

‘You love saying forty-fifth, don't you? You think I'd pass up such an opportunity to drive? I was so honoured when Vó suggested the trip herself. She trusted her life to someone with a five-month-old licence! But tell me what you meant about archaeology?'

‘It was bollocks, ok? I was young, and the classifying mania was upon me. I claimed that almost all professions legitimize, consolidate or conceal the dominant ideologies and power operations of their age. So, for instance, you have the brokers, bankers and corporate lawyers: I called their project one of active consolidation of existing capitalism. Then there are sections of the media and academia, who consolidate not directly but through legitimizing; laundering, you might say. Next you
have the massive and equally essential concealment industry: advertisers are the most obvious instance, their task is to keep us distracted and addicted. Our distraction allows the powerful the tranquillity they require to function undisturbed and, of course, the economy just happens to rest upon our pointless consumption. For a kid graduating from college, I argued, it's pretty hard to resist being incorporated into one of these three streams.'

‘I still don't get how archaeology fits in. Are you calling it a distraction?'

‘No, archaeologists were among my saving graces. I placed them in the ranks of the “non-relevant”, along with butterfly-and fern- and rock-loving people, all of whose occupations for the purposes of my article were neutral to the configurations of contemporary power. They neither enhanced nor challenged it. And, to round things off nicely for my thesis, finally there was the fifth column, people from all fields of life who choose actively to position themselves in big and small ways within movements of resistance or alternative thinking.'

‘I don't think it's as easy as that. People wear different hats. Guy works in a bank by day or at Nike, he can be a decent person on his own time. He might care about the melting icecaps or the hungry.'

‘True. It was a stupid piece, written out of the smugness and envy that arise from living in high-minded penury. I wouldn't build such boxes again.'