Show Business (11 page)

Cyrus is bespectacled and overweight, but he knows his stuff, and he's got good ideas like the one that contracted his Parsi profession-derived surname from Sodawaterbottleopenerwallah to its current incarnation. Imagine converting a liability like that into an exclusive, distinctive, slightly exotic sounding name that fits on visiting cards, is easy to pronounce, and is a surefire conversation starter. “Icebreaker,” Cyrus corrects me. “The ice is what you need the soda-water-bottle-opener-wallah for, party-wise.” But Cyrus Sponerwalla is not here to hold my hand, nor the Cheetah's, for that matter. In making love or war, surrogates just aren't good enough.

“This is most generous of you,” says Radha Sabnis, the questioning curve of her ridiculous eyebrows suggesting that she doesn't think it's anything of the sort. “Pol Roger Rosé, 1968. A wonderful champagne.”

“Orly airport, duty-free,” I lie. I have in fact picked it up from my friendly neighborhood smuggler, the real-life equivalent of the Godambos I crush on celluloid. Ah, the wretched dualities of Indian life: the cinemagoer's traitorous villain is the Bombayite's helpful purveyor of necessities unreasonably banned by our protectionist government. “On my way back from shooting
Love in Paris.
It was the best champagne in the shop.”

“But how sweet of you,” she purrs. “And the Customs must have allowed you only one bottle.”

“Just the one.” I nod. “But then I had only one person in mind to give it to.” I apply slight pressure on her bony hand, resting on the coffee table.

“And what's the occasion, if I may ask?”

“Occasion? Do we need an occasion?” I laugh disarmingly, but she nods, unamused. “Well, let's just say it's our fifth anniversary.”

“I don't understand.” She seems to be about to move her hand from under mine. The seventy-five-proof gratitude is apparently, like its owner's soul, wearing thin.

“The fifth anniversary of my first mention in your column,” I say as lightly as I can. It still rankles, but I've gone too fast: Cyrus had warned me against raising substance too soon.

“Oh, that,” she says, unperturbed, but noticeably wary. Damn.

“I thought it was time to bury the hatchet,” I plunge in recklessly.

“But there isn't any hatchet to bury.” She withdraws her hand and pulls out a cigarette.

I am quick to convert defeat into victory. My newly freed fingers reach for the gold-plated lighter on her coffee table just before she can get to it. Our hands meet briefly over metal and butane. It takes me two attempts to light her cancerous weed, but at last I succeed. As she inhales, I pour more champagne.

“You're right,” I respond (Cyrus would be proud of me). “All the more reason to celebrate. Cheers.”

We both raise glasses. I gulp; she sips. She still looks wary, but one of her hands has dropped idly back into her lap while the other transfers the cigarette in and out of the red gash that passes for her mouth.

“You can't bribe me, you know,” she says archly. “Not even with Pol Roger.”

“Bribe you?” I laugh insincerely. “The thought wouldn't cross my mind. No one bribes the dre—, er, the famous Radha Sabnis.” Watch it, Banjara, watch it. One more slip like that and you're a garage mechanic for life.

She looks at me speculatively. As so often with those of the female persuasion, I find myself obliged to say something.

“Look,” I venture shamelessly, “I've always admired you greatly. …”

“Really?” Her eyebrows are most disconcerting, but she is not displeased.

“Really.” I am determined now. “Best writer in
Showbiz”
— I quickly see this would not be enough and hastily add an expansive suffix — “-ness. In show business,” I repeat for good measure. “Really perceptive, insightful. Everyone thinks so. And I've always said to myself, Ashok, I've said, what a shame it is that you don't know Radhaji better. Why should you condemn yourself perpetually to being on her wrong side?”

“A-ha.” That's all she says. Inscrutably, she knocks some ash into a brass bowl.

“So I thought, why not come and see you? Show there are no hard feelings, you know, from my side at least. And really, answer any questions you might have or anything. Just to show you I'm not such a bad chap after all.”

“But I have no questions.” This sounds tough, but with that extraordinary face it is impossible to be sure she means it to be. The body language is more promising. She has crossed her legs again, and her knees are pointing toward me. Mustn't give up hope.

“Well, maybe I do. You know, perhaps you can tell me what you think I'm doing wrong. Give me some advice.”

“Advice?” She uncrosses and crosses her legs again and leans back on the sofa. “What advice could I possibly give you?”

“Tell me” — here I place my hand once more on hers — “how I can become a good enough actor to win the praise of Radha Sabnis.”

She gives me a twisted smile, but doesn't move her hand. “Now that would be something, wouldn't it?” she asks, and the lines on her face fall into an indecipherable disarray.

I decipher them my way. I get up from my chair, walk around the coffee table, seat myself next to her on the sofa, and take her hand firmly in mine. “I need your advice, Radhaji,” I implore, looking earnestly into her eyes as if emoting for a close-up.

She doesn't flinch. “Are you sure that's all you need?” she asks, stubbing out her cigarette with deliberate care.

Christ, I was afraid of this. I had warned Cyrus: I'll turn on all the charm you want, Sponerwalla, but don't expect me to so much as kiss the witch. To which he'd said, “Look at it this way, man.” (Cyrus's American PR slang was always a decade out of date.) “No one knows whether she's thirty-eight or eighty-three. Approach her in the spirit of scientific inquiry, Ashok. Market research, man. Like, we do it all the time. If it comes to that, you might be the first real human being to find out, truth-wise.”

Radha's loaded question hangs in the air: “Are you sure that's all you need?” She seems to expect a reply. Despite myself I murmur, “Perhaps not.” Let's play along, flatter the hag.

“Hmmm.” She puts down the champagne glass. “If you insist.” And before I even realize what is happening, she has put an arm around my neck and brought her mouth down on mine.

Kissing is one thing they don't practice in the Hindi cinema: our censors don't like it. But no amount of practice would have prepared me for kissing Radha Sabnis. I am buffeted by a mistral of cigarette fumes, then swept away into alternate waves of asphyxiation and resuscitation. Holding my own in the exchange is like trying to out-blow a vacuum cleaner. I am still orally imprisoned, eyes shut in breathless disbelief, when I feel her fingers explore my T-shirt like a skeleton searching for a burial ground. My eyes rounding in horror, I attempt to pull myself away. But I'm obviously not trying hard enough. My lips remain locked on hers and I am aware of the pressure of her teeth: there seem to be about two thousand of them, each as large and strong as a key on Gopi Master's harmonium. She must chew
neem
twigs before breakfast, and unfortunate actors after. As I try to move she half rises, mouth still glued to mine, and pushes me down with a firm hand. Boy, she's strong. The other hand is pulling my T-shirt out of my waistband. Christ, this is
serious!
Eyes closed, I put out a hand to stop her and discover something softer and fuller than I expected upon her anatomy. The appendage seems vaguely familiar, like an old friend encountered in a strange country. Reacting instinctively, I squeeze. Without moving her mouth, Radha Sabnis moans into my throat. I open my eyes in amazement to see what the hell I am up to and close them just as quickly. I must move my hand, the woman might get the wrong idea. But I can't — my arm is pinioned to her chest by the way she has positioned her body.

For a brief moment I contemplate surrender. Isn't that what inevitably happens in our filmi “rape scenes”? But wait a minute, not to me! I'm a hero!

I still have the use of one hand, the one that was holding hers. I release my grip and find she has not released hers. In fact she is squeezing my palm so tightly that I no longer feel any sensation in my fingers — can't do a damned thing with this hand. The improbable contents of my other one are meanwhile pressing and squirming insistently in my palm. I refuse to oblige: nothing will induce me to invite another moan down my esophagus. The female breast, a pedantic biology teacher had once told me, is only a muscle. This one has obviously been flexed so often it could lift weights.

At this moment my own weight is more than I can lift. I am crushed into the sofa: for a woman as thin as she is, Radha Sabnis packs a lot of power. And what's more, she now has one hand free, thanks to my failed sortie. Her fingers are ruthlessly determined, discarding every obstacle in their way like panzers rolling into Poland. One by one, each of my pathetic defenses is dealt with, flung aside: T-shirt, belt, buttons. Unless I fight back, this will be an abject surrender. Air raid sirens wail in my mind: her fingers are tugging at my zip! With a superhuman effort — God, I could have done with a stunt man here — I try to wrench myself away. The result is a pelvic jerk that rolls us both off the sofa, sends us crashing into the coffee table, and deposits us on the floor with Radha still on top, mouth glued to mine and hand safely ensconced where I hadn't wished it to be. A trickle of Pol Roger Rose, 1968, from the ruins of the coffee table drips stickily into my eyes.

Radha Sabnis lifts her head briefly and smiles at me. “Such passion, Ashok,” she says with a winsome shake of the head. “You really must learn to control yourself.” Before I can catch enough breath to reply, her teeth have padlocked my tongue again.

I give up. I close my eyes and think of Cyrus.

“Was she amenable, mood-wise?” he asks me later.

I pick lint from her carpet off the sticky champagne on my cheek. “You could say that,” I confirm shortly.

“What did she want, man?” he asks insensitively. “A donation to her favorite charity?”

I nod. “You could say that too.”

“I hope,” says Cyrus solemnly, “that you were in a charitable mood.”

Suddenly I find myself laughing. Laughing uncontrollably, in huge, whooping bursts that startle my public relations agent, who looks for all the world like a bewildered owl woken unexpectedly at daytime. I wipe tears and champagne from my eyes. “Cyrus,” I announce, “if your bloody idea doesn't get me a better press in Cheetah's column next week — you're fired.” I am still laughing as I leave him, but Cyrus Sponerwalla is a very worried PR man indeed.

But I have another associate on my mind: my wife, who is waiting for me. I am supposed to pick up Maya from the beauty salon. She spends more time being beautified these days than when she used to act.

“You're late,” she says as soon as she gets into the car. Maya can never resist an opportunity to restate the obvious.

“I'm sorry,” I concede. “I had to stop and see Cyrus on the way, and then all this hassle of coming by the back road, to avoid being mobbed … you know how it is.”

“I don't, actually,” she replies tartly. “I don't know how it is anymore. It's a surprise when anyone recognizes me these days. What on earth have you got on your face?”

“My face?” I reach up to my cheek in alarm. My face is, after all, my fortune. “Where?”

“Near your eye.” She reaches across and pulls off a tiny yellow feather. The stuff Radha Sabnis has in her living room! Doesn't a yellow feather symbolize something? “There's all sorts of muck near your temple,” she says, handing it to me. I run a finger over the offending spot, which I find coated with cigarette ash in a wine base. “Where have you been?”

“Plying Radha Sabnis with champagne,” I reply truthfully. This is difficult, because in the last couple of years I have got used to lying to Maya about my extracurricular activities. But she has seen Radha Sabnis, at least at parties, so the truth is less likely to arouse suspicion than any version of the unconvincing tales she is clearly beginning to see through.

“But how could you get it onto your face?”

“Clumsiness,” I sigh. “Opened it badly — it sort of sprayed all over. Didn't have time to clean up properly afterward.” Truth again.

Her little face settles into that tight look of disapproval I am becoming accustomed to. “You smell like a brothel,” she says. “And it's not only the champagne.”

“What are you trying to say, Maya?” I keep my voice low. The chauffeur has heard this kind of conversation before, but there is no reason to make it easier for him. “You can ask the bloody driver where I've been. You're not suggesting I've been having some sort of orgy with Radha Sabnis of all people, are you?”

She is silent. It is not the kind of question you can easily answer.

“Well, go on, are you?”

“No, I'm sorry, Ashok.” She doesn't look at me, but at the back of the chauffeurs head. “I guess I'm getting a little irritable these days. You've got your own life, and I hardly see you. I've got nothing to
do,
Ashok. I'm bored.”

“I thought, with the house to run, and all the magazines you read, and the visits to the beauty parlor, and all the film functions, you had more than enough to keep you occupied. What more do you want?”

“I don't know.” When she is in this mood I can scarcely believe she is the girl I fell in love with, the even-tempered, ever-smiling
beti
of the nation. “I miss my acting.”

“Now don't start that again.” I am weary of this topic. We have discussed it more times than I have fought screen brawls. “You know we agreed you couldn't go on after marriage. No one does: Babita, Jaya, you know them all. It was difficult enough to get my parents to agree to my marrying an actress. How do you think I'd feel to see my wife being chased around trees? It's just not” — I am about to say “decent,” but think better of it — “worth discussing.”