The Schoolmaster and the Hippies, los Curas, and the Boys, or The Schoolmaster and los Curas, the Hippies and the Boys, that is, The Schoolmaster, los Curas and the Hippies, the Boys.

 

                                               

 

                                       

     - Why can't you leave the system alone? What do you want to change? - said the Padre's brother in an English he had learnt from his elder brother; the latter had himself learnt it from other Fathers who kept learning it from English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Fathers in cloistered seminaries. To cap it all, he got a Master's degree from an Ivy-League university, probably Harvard itself. He didn't say in what, but he was then doing a doctorado at the Complutense in English. His English was correct, his accent without strain or affectation. Only his attire betrayed him: dark corduroy trousers, checquered shirt, matching old-boy flannel tie, black leather shoes and the shaded-green sun-glasses that all the curas sported whether short-or-long-sighted. He had no qualms about admitting that his brother obtained the grant for him to spend the two years in the States, the same grant his brother's teachers obtained for his brother. His brother, the supervisor of English  at the school was averse to sporting the long heel-length thick black soutane with the well-sewn slate-brown buttons running conveniently down to the groins in front. At forty-five looking the picture of an overgrown choir boy, he wore his taut velvety dark trousers of a dark blue or dark brown hue with his white shirt, black tie, shiny black clickety leather shoes and blazer with the shiny metal buttons and the alma mater crest carefully sewn into the front left pocket: all the gold and red and white threads culminated in a cross running down the emblem. Most of all, when he had to interview prospective teachers of English for the school, he affected a broad genial disposition and a capaciously loud familiar drawl with the language, as if to announce that he was only Spanish as a priest, but by profession an American - big, broad, open and gay with plenty to give away.

       The schoolmaster held his silence and took a sip at his blanco y negro and dug his worn brown thick-soled canvass right shoe into the base of the bar and eyed the tapas for something to nibble and gobble. There were a couple of flies that had beaten him to the draw over the soggy basted sardines in their trough. Besides, the barman - his hands wet from washing - sneezed, and his gesture in an attempt to cover his nose and mouth up thrashed some very fine sputter right from his mouth to the sardines, sort of a blessed sprinkling of the dead to ease the digestion.

     - Look at me. Am I not doing well? - He looked at the dusky, frustrated-looking foreigner crouched over his tiny black porcelain cup with a golden stripe right round the rim and felt nothing but pity for him. - See what you are earning - six thousand, six thousand five pesetas? Not even enough to pay your rent I'm sure, not certainly after the deductions. And then, when do you start teaching? Eight sharp and practically non-stop until about one-thirty, two? You call that teaching? And shouting all through the teaching till your voice fails to come through, just in order to keep the boys quiet. Then again, you do a full year, not like where you come from - where is that anyway: England? India? (The schoolmaster nodded.) - from early September to end of June, and then they ask you to take over the vacation classes for a paltry sum and you agree, all grateful for half the salary. Eh? Where does all this get you? Look at me, I'm bound to get my doctorado title - if I take some trouble over it and read up what others have done in the same field, you know, the thirties' poets and merely re-say in Spanish what everybody knows in the first place anyway about Auden, Spender, Thomas and the rest whom nobody reads nowadays anyway. (He looked at the schoolmaster who kept looking at his watch.) - Don't worry, my brother saw you walking out with me. I know you're not allowed to leave the school during recess, but don't worry. If you're late getting back to class, no one is going to miss you or the English they are learning. Just think things over carefully, as the French say, à tête reposée. Let's hope you'll learn that the system is the system. Here, we have Franco now, but we've had the Church longer than any one would care to remember. That's Spain: Church, Franco; Franco, Church. That's the system. You get it. You can't change the way things are. Those who tried - and they were not alone,  I'm sure you know all about the Civil War, you must have read Orwell, Thomas, Caudwell, and the rest before coming out here - are well and truly underground. And you know how they got there. You, well, you, what do you hope to accomplish all alone, even if you think you can change this world for the better. Play it by ear, my friend. There's no use shadow-boxing: it can get you only tougher biceps and little else. You'll still be schoolmastering, if you are lucky given five, ten or twenty years from now. Don't expect to get a pension then. You still haven't got your papers. You're on the payroll but you have no health and social coverage. You get a salary and they deduct your income tax and the rest, and yet you enjoy no benefits whatsoever. See what I mean? So get wise, my friend, before it's too late. Unless...unless you think of getting out of here sooner than it's good for you.

      He looked at the schoolmaster who was chained to the task of having to teach some three hundred boys English everyday, boys between the ages of about ten to seventeen. Vasanthan kept looking at his watch but felt it would have been impolite of him to break away since his interlocutor's elder brother was his superviser at the Colegio Santa Maria. Father Mauritio managed to shove half his classes on to Vasanthan and spent his time walking around supervising the other teachers. Father Mauritio kept the senior classes for himself where discipline prevailed to a high degree, boys preoccupied with the idea of getting through school to a career or higher education.

     Vasanthan wanted to protest but thought it useless in the circumstances. He had better be polite or the elder brother would be waiting for him at the entrance, ready to shout at him in the presence of staff and students alike, a very humiliating experience judging from the relatively unprovocative earlier occasions which elicited his superior's wrath. He remembered how Father Mauritio was all smiles, confabulating with him as he took him from class to class, introducing him formally, both, to teachers and boys, on the first day, and how he came round to show encouragement during the first week. It was too late now; he couldn't react without putting his financial situation in a mess. The school year was in progress. He had turned down the British Council post and tore up his contract in a gesture of spite at everything he had had to undergo at the hands of the British in London. He had taken the new flat in the hope of paying the rent with the salary. He had signed the contract for a year. Now, there was no way out. He had to play the game or go begging on the private tuition circuit, a remunerative but precarious line of activity not recommendable for a family man. So he waited for the young man to finish.

     - Before I went to the Complutense, I, too, taught there. (He pointed out across the street to the three-storey red-brick building whose walls were all cut away with huge wide windows which were perpetually left half-open on account of the still lingering heat of late summer.) - Now, I'm being proposed for a cathedra in a provincial university. Maybe Salamanca. Perhaps Valladolid or Oviedo. I don't know yet. I have to wait for my viva and then I'm through. See how easy it is. Just think things over a bit. You too could be doing the same. Once you see things clearly through, no trouble at all, I'll explain how to go about it all. The rest will be taken cared of. (He gave Vasanthan a pitying look, picked up his thumb-size green glass full of red wine, gulped it down in one go, threw a few coins on the bar counter and waved to the chattering and munching crowd that had now gathered along the bar.)

      Vasanthan was a full ten minutes late when he entered his after-recess class. Even before he neared the third floor, he knew there was something wrong: no noise came from the floor. Half-heartedly he opened the door. Father Mauritio was seated with his legs apart on the dais scrutinising exercise books. A small queue of boys formed to the right of him, on the floor below the dais. He approached the teacher's table and stood silently, all the time half-expecting Father Mauritio to yell something or other at him or the boys. That he did.

     - What are you waiting for? Get on with the class. You're late again. This can't go on indefinitely.

     The boys looked bemusedly at their teacher. One of them whispered something to another, and when the remark or joke went the rounds, giggles spread like ripples all over the class. Some just looked sternly at their teacher. He was after all a foreigner. Above all, he was not even an Englishman. And to make things worse, he wasn't even white. Add to that the fact that he wasn't even married and had a child already, what was his saving grace in their eyes? None, to be sure. If only he were catholic, things would certainly be different. He would be one amongst them. He would belong in that establishment. Why, he could even qualify as a Spanish-convert with time. After all, there were loads and loads of them with skin complexions far more Moreno-looking than his. Just take a look at Andalusians. You wouldn't think they were even white or European, nor even north African. But then Vasanthan didn't simply have that saving grace. He didn't have the sense to join forces with them and become a full-fledged Spanish person. Yet, there were others who didn't mind. There were doctors, lawyers, economists, bankers; he taught them all technical English. They liked talking to him; they liked listening to his views. Yes, they were different, but they didn't hurt, not where he felt it most. He was well and safely teamed up with one of their own women. His child was partly Spanish, and when he grows up, if he gave him a Spanish sounding name, no one would think the worse of his roots. They were a gentle people, courteous and generous, wilful and helpful, often joyously accepting him into their fold without so much as a breaking-in period. He gave his classes in their homes, in their offices, in their work places, whether it was next to pathological post-mortem slabs, X-ray departments, in paediatric clinics, in bank board-rooms, or in private consultation rooms. He was always welcome however late it was in the evening or even on Sundays and public holidays. He was introduced to their wives and children, and even to their mothers-in-law.

     When Father Mauritio closed the door behind him, and the students heard the lift going down, hell broke loose again in Vasanthan's class. He had to yell to be heard, and when even that failed to calm the boys down, he pulled out his trump card. Test. There the boys were caught. If they didn't keep quiet and answer the questions he was going to put to them, they were necessarily going to have less marks to make up their final total for the year. But that didn't prevent those who had answered the questions put to them to break out laughing at the stuttering answers of others or simply to clown around in order to get some steam off. The chorizo soaked crimson dried baguette sandwiches had to work themselves out before lunch which was around three, three-thirty. The days - even if they portended extra work and less leisure at home during weekends and public holidays - when exam-time arrived at the end of every one of the three terms were for Vasanthan the only moments he could contemplate his class, look every one of them over and take account of them. He simply liked the idea of teaching and being with younger persons. They were a curious lot. All their aggression and clowning throughout the time preceding the exams suddenly disappeared within a week or so at the approach of the exams. They were serious, competitive, solicitous - even towards their teacher - willing to repeat in unison every phrase and sentence he read out, capable of imposing discipline on the few who did not much care for the tongue because they had other intentions when school ended, or even at showing interest in the language by asking pertinent questions about the grammar and the pronunciation of certain tongue-twisters. If Vasanthan could have had his way, he would have imposed exams every fortnight, but that was not to be realised in a varied school curricula which took matters of religion, for instance, seriously. A couple of boys - though they were generally silent and seated at the back to get a full view of the class - simply didn't give a damn for anything, neither for their marks nor for their teacher. Vasanthan was soon to learn the mistake of taking on one of them. Extremely recalcitrant boys were punished by making them kneel on the cement floor in the middle of the corridor. He had had recourse to this form of punishment a couple of times in order to maintain control, but soon regretted it since the punished boys were unjustly deprived of the lesson as well. So, he made them kneel in front of the class.

     In any case, they did since they knew the boys at the back would fetch the Father. Vasanthan had no clue of the rôle these boys played in the class, nor of their easily affronted feelings if ever they were challenged. It was not until after some two months had passed that he discovered their rôle. One day when he insisted that one such silent boy also answer the questions put to him for the test, all the others shouted out in unison: cura. All Vasanthan's capacity for persuasion and authority simply melted in front of the placid face of the young lad with a smug introversive smile, his blue eyes and blond hair separating him from the rest. He ordered the boy to kneel before the class. There was such a moment of apprehension, Vasanthan felt that there was indeed a test of strength at stake. The boy refused at first; then Vasanthan's insistence grew menacing and urgent. The boy finally put all his books into his desk, dropped the table flap, stood up without looking at anyone and marched forward, and before Vasanthan knew what was happening, he turned at the door and slipped out and away down the corridor. All the boys let off heavy sighs. Vasanthan himself was so perplexed and enervated, he didn't even have enough time to call the boy back, so great was his surprise. But he couldn't help feeling there was something wrong and the repercussions were bound to be felt sooner or later. In effect, a few voices rose from the class in confusion.

    - He's going to be a cura.

    - He's going direct to the head's office.

    - Ah! You've had it, you've picked on the head's favourite.

    - You better apologise to him.

    - He doesn't have to do any exams, he's already promised to Christ! 

     This sudden turn of events made Vasanthan take a fresh view of his position in the Catholic establishment. He was also from then on somewhat plunged in confusion about his rôle in the school. Was he the schoolmaster or just a temporary stand-in to keep the class from boiling over? Was he just there to fill some Padre's sabbatical year? Perhaps the man who was to return to the post was at Harvard or Columbia putting the finishing touches to his Master's thesis on T.S.Eliot's Anglicanism? Yet he felt a rather compelling need to continue trying to teach. He liked the boys. They were so full of verve and cheekiness that he felt they could - if they wanted to - make the most of anything. The only thing perhaps that restrained them was the system, the orientation of their courses pointed towards the maiming of their spirits and the buckling under to needless rules. Fear and hate, docility and disrespect were written on their faces every time a Padre walked past the class. The walls of the corridor on both sides of which ran the class-rooms had glass panes right down their middle.

     That one-sided conversation in particular he had with his supervisor's brother bothered him in no little way during the lessons he had to give after recess. There was a hidden warning somewhere in that talk of changing the system. He was quite obviously transmitting what his brother wanted him to say to Vasanthan, and it seemed more than likely that the local diocesan chief had wished that it be done. The source of the warning of course must have been the Franquist/Franco-ist family of the woman he was living with. How not to heed the warning? was his dilemma. He could pretend he didn't get the message; he could even pretend he didn't understand the full import of the words. But, where was that going to get him. He was all alone in a country where no one nor no power could come to his aid in any way whatsoever. Play the game? But, how? Perhaps it was just as well not worth thinking about? Better to let things lie as they were and see how they might turn out all on their own.

     He didn't quite know himself well enough. His own rebellious, care-may-the-Devil-be nature got the better of him. So, they want me to convert myself and have myself a Church wedding, eh? Well, we'll see about that...

     Well, he did see about that. He looked up some Sanskrit texts, and other ethical Hindu literature and in no time at all drew up a document - a Hindu Marriage Document. The only trouble was that there was no such thing in existence. Hindus got married according to their religio-customary rights by the performance of certain traditional symbolic acts, such as, the rite of panigrahana - the melting of butter or ghee on an open fire invoking Agni, the Vedic Sun-God - and the rite of saptapadi - the taking of seven steps or seven circles round the sacred fire in front of which officiated the Brahmin priest who chanted appropriate Vedic texts in Sanskrit, and that was that. Nobody ever thought of drawing up a document. Vasanthan did and managed to get it signed by the parties to the marriage, the witnesses and the Brahmin who was not only not of the preisthood class but didn't know any sanskrit and couldn't for the life of him even to save his face read the devanagari script. And since he had no idea how a Hindu marriage ceremony was to be conducted, he managed to get a copy - in lieu of payment - from Vasanthan and from then on set up shop as an expert on Hindu marriages. A small-time conman masquerading as a holy mystic seer in a land where the people were preoccupied with the europeanisation of their peninsula.

     So much for the system, he felt. Instead of procuring for himself some inner consolation in the least, all he managed to achieve was to fall deeper into the trap, not that even this made much of a difference.

     The diocesan chief of the church wrote to his "wife" saying how now they were closer to one another. The Vatican encyclical had seen the same spirit informing the uniting of human bonds running through the Hindu religious ceremonial as well. At heart they were one: two different religions but one spirit. It didn't take Vasanthan long to realise that he had - in their eyes - taken the first step towards becoming a catholic, or even a fascist, as opposed to becoming, say, a communist.

 

 

     When school was over, he hurried home, walking the kilometre or so up and down winding backlanes in the pallid heat, his cotton coat and tie making breathing an uneasy task. Good thing he didn't drink anything much all morning, he told himself. Now, he needn't change again. A quick shower, that he needed badly, not so much out of a need to clean himself as for a desire to wash powdery chalk from his hair and nails, and in a way ritually to get rid of the morning's pain of being shut in within strict walls and rules while being an integral part of the disciplining hierarchy. If anything, he was one of the schoolboys at heart and as a matter of fact as far as the other teachers were concerned - practically all in long-flowing gowns - he was one of the recalcitrant boys who needed to be set on the right track. His only safety valve in such a constricting situation was to have recourse to some easy, carefree moments with his hippie group. He stopped to call from a public booth.

     - Hi, Nick.

     - Hi, Buddy. D'you wanna talk t' ya gal. She's been hangin' aroun' all mornin' wondering if you a comin', man.

     - Climb out of it, you joker. She's not my gal. I've got a wife and child, if you remember.

     - Hi, ma chocolate-flavoured baby.

     - Hi, my sugar-coated tangerine-flavoured honey-toned Hiawatha Babe!

     - Oh! Tha ya go, ya make me come aall over, ma baby.

     - Cut the clowning. Is it on for this evening?

     - Sure thing, Ma Baby, a'll be here waitin' from six on.

     - Wait till I get my hands on you.

     - That's what a'm waitin' for, Ba-by!

     - Who're you calling Babe?

     - Yaa! My big brown baby bear!

     - I'm a full-grown babe, Baby.

     - Oh! Thaat Aa sure know, Ma Ba-by Boy.

     - See you soon.

     - Hasta luego, amigo!

     - Chiao!

     - Chiao!

 

     The afternoon classes at the La Paz Hospital took an hour and a half and for good measure Vasanthan spoke on for another half. To get there and back took him a little more than an hour. He had to get the spices together and go looking for the produce in some market. By the time he got to Salvador's flat, off Gran Via, it was past seven.

     - Hey, you big fat Hindu, we've been starved of shit. Have been waitin' for this crap since yesterday.

     - Hi! Hi! Need an assistant. I'll take you, you and you.

     - How's abou' me, Ba-by Boy?

     - No, I'm afraid you won't do. You haven't got enough clothes on.

     - Aa'll just stand there laak a good gal.

     - He'd need that kind of inspiration for his curries - said Nicky.

     - By the beard of my forefathers I surely need that! - he said and patted the rump. She whined, turned her eyebrows up and down three times, crossed her hands around the wrist and spread her fingers in all directions while her hips jutted to a side.

 

     A little after the self-service dinner - each straggly member of this hippie clan serving himself or herself right from the cooking pots and then perching on some furniture or squatting on the floor to wipe their plates clean  - composed of chicken curry, a Chinese pork stew scrambled with cabbage and a dhal sambar, plus a few munchies for side dishes, their mouths salivating from the rasping chillies, the bearded and moustachioed gang of Vietnam veterans sat around to discuss their main problem: how to square off with a Spanish buyer-pusher who didn't pay up and was in actual fact evading them. Hiawatha managed to corner Vasanthan into having a tête-à-tête with her in another room while the Spanish in-laws of the flat made themselves scarce.

     - No doubt about it. He's stalling.

     - Did ya see 'im?

     - ' course, I did. Saw him three times in two weeks.

     - What's his problem?

     - Says, his mother's ill or something. Will pay up sure thing come Monday.

     - Which Monday? Next or...

     - No, last.

     - What do ya think?

     - Caint say, one way or another. Maybe he's tellin' the truth.

     - Naaaah! Shit! He's tryin' to wheedle out of it.

     - Has he coughed any ol' peseta yet?

     - Shit! From the last deal he's still owing one grand.

     - What d' ya say Matt?

     Matt shook his head in silence.

     - No use waitin', he's got to cough up or we'll be held up for the trip East.

     Well, what d'ya say, we give 'im a week?

     They all weighed the proposition in earnest.

     - If he ain't payin' up by then, we'll move in on the guy. What d'ya say?

     Some nodded. Others held their silence. Just as they were breaking up, José, the Spanish contact-man of theirs, said:

     - Very dangaress, man. Here, the police tuff, tuff. Dangaress!

     They looked at him.

     - No one's askin' ya to do it. You jus' keep your mouth tightly shut. Comprendido? amigo?  - He brought his forefinger and thumb together a couple of times in front of his lips.

     Their Spanish contact-man looked subdued. He was rolling a reefer and spilt the stuff.

     - Hey, what the hell y' think ya doin'? That stuff's hard to come by these days. We've stuck our necks out for it. Now go easy, man, with that precious stuff. There's not enough to go round till our next trip down. And we need that deal-money before we go.

     - Si, Senor, he said, beads of perspiration breaking out on his forehead.

     - The guy's shitting in his pants, said Dave.

     - Naaah! That's Vas's curry, man.

     - By Gad, aa'm goin' to take a shoot-out crap right this minute. The curry's already gotten down to my ass.

 

     As usual Hiawatha was conning Vasanthan in an unused room. They were a long time conning for Vasanthan listened out of politeness, or rather out of a necessity to get rid of his hemmed-in feelings. The signs of his Spanish "wife" taking him for a ride were getting plentiful. This way - subconsciously - at least he wouldn't have to catch her in the act, the result of which would have inevitably ended in a fiasco for his child, and probably, what he feared most, a withdrawal into her all-powerful Franquist/Franco-ist family and the strict, no quarter-given Catholic upbringing for his child. He knew again intuitively how to act, and what came in the way of staying away from a violent confrontation was to him, at all costs, not to be eschewed.

     When they emerged from the room, Nicky, while washing up in the kitchen, had a word with him.

     - Hey, buddy, this here Hiawatha gal, she's gotta yen for you. Why don'tya take her to a ho-tel and square with her there? Hm, uh, hey, buddy.

     - What do you take me for? A stud-farm mustang?

     - Freakout! That's a right-on thought, man!

     - Why don't you take her...

     - I did, man, but no go. I laid her three, four times… even lost count… right there on the floor next to Jimmy ...

     - You're kidding. You mean Jimmy let you have her and watched you having her.

     - Naaah! It wasn't like that, man. You know the night we all got tight. When was that, last Saturday or Sunday. Anyway, last weekend. About three in the morning, I woke up and found her paps hanging down my mouth. My moustache tickled. An' just as I was about to sneeze, those two flapping tight paps smothered my face. The next thing I knew I was laying her man, right beside Jimmy snorting like a wild hog.

     - You're telling me. You want me to ask her about it?

     - Hey, don't do anything like that. She's a good kid, a damn good shag, but she only got eyes for ya, man. Cain't you see that, you big fat Hindu lout!

     - I can't do that. She's Jim's girl.

     - Damn him, man. He cain't fuck. He just eats her.

     - Come off it, Nicky boy. She's a regular girl for a regular guy. You are the guy for her.

     - I wish I were, man, but she ain't thinkin' that way. She's only got eyes for ya. Take her, man. Not here. All the boys are a bit starved for some ass an' your doin' her here would want to make us throw up. See?

     - I see alright, Nicky boy. I'll see to that, but no go about having her, if that's what you want.

     - Jeepers, Creepers! You'a sur' a  finicky fucker, man!

     It was already time to knock off for his private tuition class at a doctor's. The doctor finished late, ten-thirty, eleven. The doc still had enough wind to want to improve his knowledge of English. A whole day's stint at the hospital, then his private consultation where he made ten times as much and then the English classes which were really conversation classes, supplemented with a pinch of grammar.

     When Vasanthan got back home, it was near one. He had merely time to slip into bed before it seemed morning had secretly inserted itself, substituting itself for the night even before he had closed his eyes. The English books he had to take with him every morning, including Saturday morning, were torn and tattered. In lieu of beating the boys to maintain discipline, which is what the Fathers did under cover and on the quiet, he took to banging the desks with the books. That way he could save on his voice. He would keep reading aloud until he arrived at the table of a group in hot discussion, and there bring the book down with such force - at first it was a light tap to draw attention to his presence - that the mere impact of open compressed paper on wood gave off a sound like the slapping of bare flesh, a tell-tale sound that must have curiously turned something on inside them and made them want to listen, though the sort of interminably silly conversation found in English language course books made him wonder why they would listen at all.

     In one class, there was a boy who couldn't sit still, for some biological reason or other. Nobody made that evident to him. His condition infected others around him, and when Vasanthan shouted at the group of boys around him, they would invariably point to Nacho, for he was visible: he would strain to hold still when Vasanthan looked in his direction and then within a few seconds he was at it again - pushing and nudging, touching or needling the guy next to him. Vasanthan must have thumped his desk a million times at least but that had no effect on the boy.

     One fine day, he was posted to watch over the boys during recess in the patio. It was great fun. Instead of playing and fighting, gambolling and shouting with one another, they huddled around him, shooting all sorts of questions about England and using the little English they knew to pull his leg, or, as with a couple of boys, mimic his own particular gestures and mannerisms to general laughter. Behind the panes on some floor, he was being watched. This familiarity between teacher and pupil was far too much for the establishment's code of behaviour. Within minutes a Father was down in the patio, and he didn't even have to open his mouth. His very appearance  dispersed the boys automatically, and then the boy promised to the Church came up to him to tell him that he was being relieved.

     Things wouldn't have gone further than that, but for the fact that at the same time he was being watched by the Father, he was also being watched by certain eyes in the surrounding buildings opening into the school patio.

     It must have been a couple of days after Vasanthan's patio appearance. Nacho brought a note to him. It was in a casual scrawl. Would he be so kind as to come up to see her during recess or during a free moment in the morning. It was his mother, he said. They lived right opposite the school. Third floor. Vasanthan didn't know what to do. Maybe it was a complaint against him. Perhaps because of the constant banging of the books on Nacho's desk. He couldn't say. But he thought it wise to respond to the request. Who knows, he thought, she might take it into her head to pay the Father-Director a visit!

     Nacho was all smiles. His usual fidgetiness even seemed under control. One morning, he said he could accompany Vasanthan to his place during the five minutes they had during change of class. It would be best to choose a free-period moment which Vasanthan reserved for correcting the boys' homework. He allowed himself to be led to the shaky block of modern middle-class flats right across the road from the school entrance. Nacho looked about himself with circumspection.

      At the portero's glass lodge in the entrance, they didn't pause. The portero, a squat moustachioed middle-aged man in a grey uniform rose as if to question them and then sat down just as immediately. Nacho said he was going up with his teacher to the flat. They went straight into the lift. At the door of the flat, they waited. Nacho rang and rang and then started to shout. A woman's voice called out from within. A rather handsome face showed round the slightly open door. She looked somewhat reproachingly a her son.

     - Why didn't you tell me you were coming?

     - My teacher - Nacho said, pointing to Vasanthan who felt a bit out-of-place standing there in front of her door during school-time.

     She gave a broad penetrating smile and a nod. Vasanthan could feel the sensuality of the hidden body in the juicy, smirk-y smile she gave him.

     - Give me five minutes, Senor. Please come in and be seated.

     She disappeared after giving Vasanthan the once-over look, it seemed, in approbation.. The boy took his time going in. He could hear her whispering something to her son. Vasanthan also took his time entering. The narrow entrance corridor opened into a sitting room with lush but cheap-looking sofas. The decor was flowery. Birds in cages: a canary and a couple of parrots. Ferns drooping from pots hung high. An almeirah full of china that never seemed to be used. The drawers, he thought, must contain the silver cutlery that were too unwieldy to be used even on festive occasions, the kind he saw in most Spanish houses with their heirloom furniture from the previous century. In one corner the usual polished fragile ensemble of television and hifi mounted on equally fragile-looking dark Burgundy-coloured and gold edged cabinet stands.

     - Serve your teacher a drink, Nacho.

     Vasanthan refused politely.

     - I'm late, I have to be back in class - the boy yelled back.

     She shot through, from bathroom to bedroom, in a partially transparent dressing gown with frills. Vasanthan couldn't help noting the svelte thighs and the turgid pointed busts. She was still a desirable woman, just turning the corner of the mid-thirties, he thought. Suddenly, he felt uncomfortable. There he was seated in a strange place, without the husband around and getting eyefuls of a woman, just because her son brought a note to him. He was about to leave when she appeared, still sweeping her hair up behind her and keeping them in place with a large gold-tinted broach.

     - Thank you very much for coming - she cooed in a lascivious voice. - I have so wanted to talk to you. My son...

     - Mama, I have to go.

     - Basta! Go then. I'll talk to your teacher. Go. (Nacho left, looking rather proud. His teacher in his place. He was only twelve. As soon as he closed the door behind him, she said, just as Vasanthan too rose from his sofa seat): He can't keep still. He must always want to do something. He is hyperactive.

     - Yes, I noticed that.

     - Don't go. Por favor. Don't go yet. (Then she got nervous herself. She came closer to him and put her hand on his forearm in an attempt to restrain him and just as quickly withdrew it.) Right now is not the right time. I'm expecting a visitor. (She turned and quickly scribbled a number on a pad beside the telephone on a sidetable, tore it off in a flourish and pressed the piece of paper into Vasanthan's hand.) Take it, por favor. Call me anytime in the morning or afternoon. Don't say who you are. If I don't answer, say it's a wrong number. (She looked at him as though she would have wished to devour him then and there.) But, now, lo siento mucho, you have to go. (She walked with him to the door, and Vasanthan inadvertently brushed against her before leaving. Her smells mixed with some toilet smells invaded his nostrils and tended to rouse him.)

     The lift was taking some time to arrive. He turned to look in the direction of the flat. She was looking at him with the door slightly ajar. She sprinkled her fingers in the air at him and gave him another familiar look. Vasanthan got the message and was toying with unmanageable things in his mind. He was still in a daze when he was suddenly taken aback while getting out of the lift on the ground floor. The Father-Director of the school - an angry scowl gripping his face - crossed him without even a word. Vasanthan hurried past the portero who looked pleased for some reason. The portero stood in the entrance, hands akimbo, watching Vasanthan gain the school entrance. Back in the teachers' room, which he rarely visited - in fact, an unused classroom - other eyes scrutinised him severely: he would have to strain to believe that there was a connection with his visit to Nacho's mother.

     The next day, he was called to the director's office on the ground floor. A huge, well-carpeted room with heavy curtains to keep the sunlight out. On the walls, paintings of bespectacled priests in stark cloaks and pallia. The director had his green-tinted sun-glasses on, the kind which permitted him to scrutinise you but you couldn't see his eyes nor make out his mood. 

     - What was the purpose of your visit to Senora Izquierdo yesterday?

     - The purpose was simple: she asked to see me.

     - What for?

     - About her son, Nacho.

     That seemed to put an end to the conversation. Someone came in with a piece of paper. He looked at it and signed it.

     - The school's regulations do not permit the leaving of the school premises during school hours. I must ask you to refrain from seeing the Senora at her place. If she wants to see you, she can do it here, in my presence.

     Vasanthan did not know what to say. He looked at the wiry man, the two dark holes in his face, and there was absolutely no way by which they could commune, he thought. Just as he got up to leave, the director added:

     - I have to ask you to keep greater control of your classes. The other teachers have complained that there is simply too much noise coming from your classes.

     - That's because I teach and I have often to shout to be heard.

     They looked at each other, a deep cavernous gulf separating them.

 

     How the news got about in a world of confessions and eavesdropping is anybody's guess, but it was more than likely Nacho himself boasted of his teacher going to see his mother. From then on, everywhere he appeared in the school, eyes screwed up in his direction and the boys began to sing little ditties to themselves. Vasanthan once caught a few lines:

    

     Habia un profesor       (There was once a teacher

         Tenia una novia            He had a girlfriend

    Madre de un alumno     Mother of a schoolboy 

         Mujer de un cura         Wife of a priest)

 

    or again:

                       

              Un ser indio                       (A being from India

                   No tenia novia                   Had no girl-friend

              Un alumno suyo                 One of his students

                   Le invitaba a casa             Invited him home

              O! Padre mio!                    Oh ! My Father!*

              O! Madre mia!                   Oh ! My Mother!

                   Peleaba con un cura           Had a fight with a priest

                          Pobrecito!                             Poor little laddie!

                                  Pobrecita!                           Poor little lady!)

                                                             [ * meaning also “priest”]

 

     Nacho was as much a target of these ditties as Vasanthan himself. At first, Nacho appeared quite amused and thrilled by all the attention he was getting, but the director must have got wind of the disclosures. He reacted badly. He had some of the boys who sang loudest on their knees for hours in the corridor, till tears streamed down their faces, and they weren't able to make it to school for a couple of days after that. Of course, none of the parents complained. It was not in their makeup to complain to, or even about, their priesthood class. Their Fathers gave their lives to bring their children up in the sturdy way of the Church. They were to be recompensed by obedience and admiration. Besides, it was certainly some fun-loving parent himself who composed these ditties with, perhaps, some far more biting and juicy lyrics. There was no way one could come by the truth. Exactly like in the case of the piropos, the authors more often than not were the common folk themselves, the gift of ingenuity which flourishes best in anonymity.

     Vasanthan, himself, didn't know what to make of the fun-making. Were they simply having fun at his expense, or had he - as it seemed obvious - inadvertently stepped into a triangular promiscuous situation? And that, too, with his all-powerful “Father”-Director?

     Again, one bright day, while he was on duty in the patio, Nacho confided to Vasanthan a note from his mother. - Call me - it said, with the number written out clearly this time, as though she feared a mistake had slipped into her hastily scribbled first note. Wasn't she taking a chance? He could, if he wanted to, show the note to the Director. Perhaps, she didn't care; it was he who ate out of her hands. Yes, indeed, how clear it was! She could ditch her lover, but the Father could ditch him. It was obvious, she didn't care either, nor did her husband. The boy he liked and could only feel a sort of betrayed sympathy for him. What sort of life would he have? He was too young to see how the game was developing. He perhaps saw little of his own father. He was probably a man who worked faraway from town. Couldn't get back on time for anything. In the weekends and public holidays he most probably slept late to recuperate. Besides he was probably - ever since he could realise it - a mere tenant in the flat, with the right to sleep in his mother's room. He saw no one at school. He saw no doctors on Nacho's behalf. He probably didn't even get the chance to drive his son to his mother-in-law's. He was very probably a very quiet man - at least in the presence of his mother. He was probably not even educated, at least not like his mother and didn't have rich in-laws to visit with his son and wife. Then again, he might have had a mistress, for he was probably fed-up with Nacho's mother. But that didn't change anything for the boy. The boy, whether he liked it or not, was probably proud of his mother. She was a lasciviously attractive woman, even electric to the touch. In his eyes, everybody was always trying to be nice to her. She always got the better of any argument with any stranger or official. He felt she was all-powerful, and what she wanted must not only be right for her and for himself, but must be the right thing to do in the circumstances. He seemed most content she was his mother. And now she turned her attentions to his teacher. So, the teacher had to be elevated to his mother's status, a little higher even than his father's position in the family. And he must facilitate the task of bringing them together. His action in slipping the new note to his teacher was carried out with circumspection: his sandwich in a roll of paper was half-opened. The note was stuck in between. In one hand dangled an half a litre bottle of orange juice. He cast one eye up to the vast windows of the school, then the other at the apartment building in which he lived. His mother was surely watching, and he wanted to do it right, as if to say he approved of his mother's intentions. He offered his sandwich to Vasanthan, the way most of the boys did, out of a sheer sense of courtesy. Then, he shoved the sandwich package closer to the teacher.

      - Take it - he said. - The note is for you. Yes, that's right, but don't read it here. Thank you, Sir. -

     Vasanthan was well and truly embarrassed. He thought things over quietly that night when he returned late. He hadn't seen either his "wife" or child sleeping in another room. He locked the door with care without making a sound. He was up and gone before anyone woke up in his place. The door wasn't locked when he opened it to leave. He thought about it all the way to school. As if hit by a gong, the ludicrousness of the situation grabbed him. His legs merely carried him further and closer to the school. He had to find the means to leave the country for good, and for that, he had need of cash. Work was the answer. So, he worked without thinking of the consequences, of  the after-effects that could be brought on by fatigue. The notes kept coming. The Father-Director got wind of it. He had questioned the boy. Vasanthan had called only once to say that he could not see her. But she was adamant. She thought he could and should. From then on things began to take a turn for the worse for Vasanthan. He was arraigned several times before the Father-Director and Father Mauritio. They complained about his classes, his teaching-method and, above all, of his lack of control over the boys. If things didn't change, he would have to go. That would be disastrous for Vasanthan. He had given up other more lucrative and promising posts. So, he held on, feeling more than abashed, at the school. He knew however that sooner or later his schoolmastering days were to come to an end. He avoided as far as he could the rest of the staff. He made it a point of arriving just on time and keeping himself totally occupied with the boys right up to the moment the school-bell rang for the last time in the day, and then he dashed off at great speed, before others could corner him. His only consolation was that there was Nicky, Hiawatha, Joe, Moe, Matt, Dave, and the rest of the gang which kept changing with the holidays.

 

 

     The preparations the hippies made for their exodus to the East were numerous and painstaking. They had to find a worthy station wagon which they could sell for a profit somewhere in the mid-East. Their G.I.Bills were coming to a close with the end of their Spanish courses at the faculty. They would need money, once the van was paid for. They pooled their savings, together with the loot from the last descent into Morocco. It wasn't enough. Unless they could make it first across the Gibraltar Straits and back. For that they needed the van. So, they were trapped. Hiawatha could have pulled the chestnuts out for them, just in time, if she had wanted, by just sending a telegram back home to Frisco, but she wouldn't; she was not going to go with them. She had her eyes fixed on Vasanthan, and the life she was leading - free, even carefree, keeping customers company in a nightclub - suited her fine then. She was not particularly, at twenty-six, in a hurry to arrange her life for good.

     But she didn't quite count on chance. All her plans or non-plans came tumbling down one night. Jimmy, the silent, flea market expert, suddenly lost control. Hiawatha brought back two stray lads from the States who were trying to make it across the Continent on fresh air and calf-muscles. She cooked for them as usual in her birthday suit, entertained them with her mystic yen for ethereal and eternal verities, and, finally, laid her svelt contours in between theirs. They were only chatting, as she tried to recollect. There was nothing bizarre about her behaviour. Only Jimmy didn't quite think so. He put up with it when he came home late for a couple of hours, with his usual outward calm, and then when the sounds of flapping limbs and torsos carried through the armour of his sullen silence, he very nearly ran amok. He picked up a chopper to chop some meat quite obviously, but two swarthy healthy lads were more than he could handle, even with a chopper, the size of a butcher's. The lads left in a hurry after overpowering him. Hiawatha tried arguing with him first; then, she tried reasoning with him. It didn't work. So, she, too, ran after the boys who were badly shaken up. They wouldn't have anything to do with her, for fear of a repeat performance. Her only recourse then was Nicky and the boys, for she wanted Vasanthan badly at her side. No one was in sight. She slept the night with a customer who was grateful for the way she clung on to him, even when he had had enough. But the day had to dawn. And there she was at seven banging on the hippies' door, her pent-up fear bursting with the urgent knocking. Nicky and the gang listened to her story, half-asleep and while dozing off from time to time, but then Jimmy had already passed through. They didn't know what to advise her. They couldn't possibly tell her to go back to Jimmy, for fear that he might have taken it into his head to have minced meat for dinner until the stock runs out. Hippies generally had only porridge for lunch. They never got up in time for breakfast though. She wanted Vasanthan around her then. He was at work, they said.

     - He's a family man. - Dave Dave tried to reason with her. She fretted.

     - Wait here the day. Vasu is bound to call. - She said she couldn't.

     - What if Jimmy comes looking for me here?

     - What if he comes? We're here, ain't we? - She left in a huff. - Got to get my things out, first, she said to herself. The boys slept through to the afternoon, and when they woke, they thought they had all had the same dream, about Hiawatha being sacrificed to a Viking! A sort of folie à deux ( ou trois ou quatre)!

     During the day, she had called home. Her Mom was more than glad to hear of the existence - in one whole piece - of her daughter.

     - Come home, baby! Dad cries for you. He'll never stand in your way again! - she said and nearly had a heart-wrecking shock herself when she heard her daughter answer right out:

     - Ma, send me the cash, Aa'll come!

     Like a veritable - inter-continental missile-shot the dollars - plenty of them - arrived by telegram. She saw the portero at her place who let her sneak into Jimmy's apartment when he slipped out for a while - obviously in search of her - and then, she waited in the portero's lodge for the postman. Then she called Nicky several times for news of Vasu. And then, just as she began to despair for good, Vasanthan came dashing into the place. She came up to him with such tenderness, he could have choked her then and there with kisses, but he thought his meat could yet after all be of use to some others, elsewhere. Vasanthan said he had heard of what transpired the previous day - the garbled version, of course. She said she would recount the whole thing as it happened - minute by minute.

     - But first, lemme go upstairs an' take the rest of my things an' say goodbye.

     - Are you crazy, girl? He might...

     - Noaaah! He wouldn' dare! If Aa'm not down in five minutes, you can come up and sweep up the pieces. Don' fail to mail th'm to my Pa and Ma once you've gone through th'm yourself! -

     He looked at her go. His heart went out to her. She was made for him. He was made for her. Only it was a few years too late when they met. The five minutes were up. His heart began to thump. He edged up the hallway to the lift. He called for it. When the doors opened, he thought she might step out, half expecting her to stagger out with a dagger in her liver and her throat slit up to the ears; he stood there looking into the empty lift. Then he jumped in, just as it was closing. On the floor of her flat, he tip-toed up to the door. There was absolutely no sound of voices nor of blood seeping through the threshold. If he was chopping her up, the thudding sound of the chopper biting and thudding into juicy flesh could be heard, he thought. He was in a frenzy. He knocked lightly. No answer. He knocked harder. Jimmy opened the door, took a look at Vasanthan and shook his head in assent and left the door ajar. Hiawatha came round the bathroom door, her toilet things in her hands and dropped them onto a florid frilly poncho on the floor and tied them up. He had never seen her so serious. So, after all, she had character. She was fearless, tactful, capable and decisive. And above all single-minded about what she wanted for herself. Again he wanted to take her into his arms and feel her close to him. As in all such occasions, he restrained himself, never in the least letting her suspect his true feelings. He watched her gather her things up and gave her a hand with the heavier bundles. They were like a pair of gypsies off to the Rastro flea market.

     Hiawatha was at last in her element - with no where in a hurry to go to, money in the bag and the man she wanted to be with badly, at her command. Only the man had other things to do, other commitments to keep him from going her way.

     - What you going to do, Baby?

     - Donno yet. What ya doin’ for the next sexty years?

     - Me, you know. Have got me a wife and child.

     - Me, Aa've got ya.

     - Stop kidding. Really, what are you going to do?

     - First of all, take me as long as ya caan. Take me any way ya want. Aa'm yaars for the takin’.

     Vasanthan's brow knitted and then knotted. How was he going to get her to understand his situation without himself falling for her? It was difficult enough keeping her at bay all that time, but what were his defences like now that she was free to roam all over him. And that's precisely what she was doing even while he was thinking things over in the car. There was little room left over in the seiscientos.

     - What about what happened?

     - Oooh! Tha' caan wait, Baby, wait till Aa get ya into my pants.

     - Hold on, girl. I've got to know. What are your plans?

     - Aa donno, wha' are yaars?

     - Me. Me...er...er. Hey, Hiawatha, I don't want you here. I don't want you to stay in this place one minute more than necessary.

     He was more than surprised by what followed. He didn't quite expect that reaction and didn't desire it either. He wanted her as much as she wanted him; at least, for the night, and the night after and so on and so forth. She grew silent. She withdrew her hands from his thighs and torso. For a while she sat looking through the windshield straight ahead.

     - Is that wha' ya wan'? Tell me, is tha' really wha' ya wan'?

     Vasanthan took some time replying. He didn't quite seem to know how to handle the situation.

     - Drive me to the Melia hotel. There's an agency there.

     He drove in silence. She got out at the entrance, held the door open in her hand and said:

     - Don'tya wanna shag me tonight? - Hand on door, head with curls streaming down her face and thrust inside the cabin, butt and shapely legs jutting out in jeans cut to the groin, she was giving him an ultimatum. - Aa caan book in here for the week, if ya wan' to, Babe?

     Vasanthan stretched a hand out towards her and then let it drop, indecisively. She took the hint.

     - Ya missin' wha' ya missin', Babe - she said and disappeared behind the great big glass doors of the hotel. Oddly enough, there wasn't much traffic on the Gran Via. He waited, half-expecting not to see her ever again. When she finally came out, she looked composed and at ease. Her eyes were moist as she got into the car. Vasanthan cast a longing look at her softly inviting thighs, the flesh just concealing the frail, dainty-looking bones and breathed a sigh. She looked at him sideways, her frameless glasses perched precariously on her palpitating nostrils.

     - Got to send a telegram to ma Mom an' Dad. The post at Cibeles should be open. D'ya mind.

     - Of course not. I'm totally at your disposal.

     She looked at him askance. - Huh! - she said and wiped her nose and eyes with her wet hanky. - Got a flight for seven in the morn. Straight. Stop over at Kennedy Airport.

     Every word was uttered with a jab. Each jab finding its mark in Vasanthan's groin and balls.

     They drove around all evening, looking into and having a sip at various old haunts. They were like a visiting pair of newfound relatives despite their closeness. Vasanthan feared the moment when she might want to bed down for the night.

     - What time do you have to be at the airport?

     - Abou' five, five-thirty.

     - That settles it. No point finding a hotel for the night.

     - You said it. No point stainin' some clean sheets. - She looked at him, distraught. There was the man she wanted, and she couldn't have him. They may never be able to see each other again, and there they were already separated, almost for good. - Aa have to sort my things out, though. Haven't got place for all tha' lace an' toilet things. Got to weigh the stuff, too.

      - Let's go to the airport right away then. - She nodded.

      It was around eleven and the traffic was thinning out on the highway to the Barreiros Airport. The new glass-plated air terminal remained fully illuminated, but there weren't many people around. The usual sleeping or slouching figures, beards under woollen bonnets tightly drawn over their eyes. Uniformed police patrols leisurely taking in the view in the pas perdu. Some still keeping vigil in the central arrivals-indicator board. Hiawatha found a suitable place near an empty counter and quickly ransacked her booty, that is, whatever she was able to gather in a hurry from her place. The ponchos took up too much room. Three of them, she discarded in a bundle. Then she set aside tunics and African-style embroidered T-shirts. Then, some files and books. Then, practically all her toilet things.

     - These are for ya, if ya caan use th'm.

     - You want me to put on makeup.

     - No, ya dope, give it all to some dame. Y'a pretty just as ya are - she said, a growing, spreading smile finding its way into her gloomy face. Before he knew it, she had his hand in hers and within an instant she had buried her face on his chest. She sobbed quietly. He felt her arms take hold of him with firmness, without lust, without haste, as though she belonged in there for good. Vasanthan couldn't help feeling like a cad. He couldn't quite turn the tables on all the arrangements. He simply let the events carry him towards an end of sorts that was to come within a matter of hours.

     - You know, My Hiawatha Baby, there's no other solution. This place is not good for you. This place isn't good enough for you. You need to find yourself among your own kind, in a place of equal opportunity, in your...in your home surroundings. - She unclasped herself.

     - Cut it out, Babe. Don' give me all that preachin’ for nothin'. Ya no feelin' for me. Say so and let's leave it at that.

     - Who's talking of feelings? I'm just simply saying I'm no good for you. You deserve better. Some one who could look after you and give you a better life. I haven't even got my life started and I've got a family already. See? - He put a hand out to her and stroked her flurry of auburn curls cascading down her nearly bare shoulders and back. He didn't have to exert any pressure. She was back in his arms. Two policemen were watching them closely from some fifty yards away.

     - Let's get out of here - he said.

     - Ya damn righ' , let's get the hell out of here.

     They drove around for a couple of hours in the dark seemingly lifeless countryside. It was still stiflingly hot, but now and then a breeze would lift and soothe their cheeks. They parked on a promontory, looking down the white-washed stony walls of a huddle of buildings in the valley. The greenery appeared pitch dark, the brown open worked spaces red and the central building - most probably an ancient church with Roman arches - pallid. A deep silence wrapped them all in sleep. The only two creatures in the bowl of this crater were seated in the seiscientos. They got out and walked some way down a dirt track, and they stopped as soon as the sound of water trickling down some rocks reached their ears. And just at that moment, they were besieged by a nebulae of insects from tous les azimuts. They couldn't think any more. Their hands flayed about them but to no purpose. They were two beings apart, set apart in a world that didn't want them, didn’t have any place or a slot for them, not even in the dead quiet of anonymity. They drove back onto the road, stopped the car in the middle of the road and just sat around in the whirring silence of the insect world feasting on the dung and waste of the farmland they left behind.

     Hiawatha sat with her legs on the road, pulling at her filterless Celtas with relish. Vasanthan stood some three yards away looking down the ravine. He thought he heard something move down there.

     - D-ya know, Babe, ya blew ma mind. Remember that evenin' on the terrace. - Vasanthan turned round to look at her. - At ma place. That evenin' when I had the boys up for dinner? - Vasanthan shook his head in assent. - Ma Babe, ya blew it all in one go while Aa was looking straight into ya eyes. - She straightened up and pulled at her tunic straps for air. - Nothin' like that has ever happened to me before. Aa know tha' was it. Ya know tha answer, Babe. There's somethin' about ya, the boys, Nick, Dave and the lot were saying the same. There's somethin' about ya. Ya got into me, deep down. An' ya part of me, forever, or rather, Aa'm a part of ya forever. Aall Aa did was to ask ya, wha' this all meant. this universe, this life, aall this we see. Where's it all goin'? An'ya just looked into ma eyes, an' Aa sure knu wha' it aall meant. A way-out experience. Ya a freak, Babe.

      There were tears in her eyes. She came up to him and passed her arms under his from the back and buried her head on his shoulders. Vasanthan knew that he wouldn't be seeing her anymore, and so he let her do what she wanted. He felt he had to listen to her. She needed to talk. He listened, knowing he was letting go of a girl with whom he could make it for good - with some ups and downs no doubt. What he had come out there to Madrid to do had already, whether he had wished it or not, taken a turn for the worse without his knowledge. He was from then on a mere sightseer, watching his life turn sour and dwindle.

     Their parting at the passport control gate was, to say the least, grave. She had already changed into a long flowery frock for the benefit of her homefolk. Gone were already the days when she slouched around in torn and tattered jeans and armless transparent T-shirts. As they traversed the hall together - after a light breakfast at the bar - eyes followed them closely. At the gate, she turned around. She appeared officious. Then, tears gathered quickly in that honey-coloured gaze of hers.

     - Go - she said - before Aa hug and kiss ya for keeps. Aa'm yours, Babe, forever.

     Vasanthan turned and walked briskly. He had no wish to break down and take her back. In the rush, he didn't first notice Jimmy hurrying past him. Then, at the top of the flight of stairs, he turned and saw them say goodbye gravely, and she was gone.

     Vasanthan felt tired emotionally. His feelings had reached a measure of optimum endurance. He felt dry and even mentally weak. He was drained out. He had to get back to class in a hurry. Oddly enough, sleep didn't overtake him during the morning. In the afternoon, after making some phone calls to his classes at the hospital, he fell into a swoon that lasted right up to one in the morning. He woke in one go and was wide awake. The place he was in was not his place, nor was he, he himself. He was elsewhere, in a strange place, without furniture nor image of himself about the room. It was as though he wasn't even alive. The feeling stayed with him right up to the morning, until his own baby came waddling up to him, and he picked it up and caressed it with his lips.

 

 

     The year was ending at the school. Exam time was both exhilarating and easy-going. No problem with class-control. Now, what would the Fathers have to say? They said it alright. Vasanthan was once again arraigned before the Father-Director and Father Mauritio. No, he cannot expect to have his contract renewed. Perhaps a summer vacation class to look after, for the children of parents who weren't able to go off on vacation. He accepted. He needed a certificate of sorts to look for another teaching job. They agreed. He got it when he had finished all his work at the school. It was a mere third of a page, no school crest, no stamp of any kind - in a country which attached great value to pomp, ceremony and all kinds of visible signs of authority. It was typed on an old typewriter whose ribbon had, it would seem, never been changed. There were letters which were erased and re-typed upon. The Father-Director's signature, without mention of his name in typed form, traversed the bottom of the page in a broad scrawl, or was it his signature? It said: - Senor Vasanthan has taught English as a replacement teacher for the current year at our school, and we found his work to be satisfactory. Nevertheless, he was beset by disciplinary problems. - It was a worthless certificate. Yet, Vasanthan felt he could use it. It didn't say he was a bad teacher. His first thought was to make photocopies. The copy turned out to be illegible. He tried again and again at various machines, and in anger he tore the original up, rolled it into a ball and threw it as far as he could with his elastic cricketing bowler's arm.

 

     Balancing his budget now became a problem. He had to find more work. Now that he was freer, the doctors wanted more classes. He went from one hospital to another: from the Puerta del Hierro and La Paz to La Concepcion and the Hospital Municipal. Things began to pick up again after a few months. Only the traversing of the town on buses, underground and on foot unnerved him. Whatever he did, he was constantly plagued by the common cold. On buses and in the underground, there was no getting away from freely sneezing and nose-blowing sufferers. If there was enough room, the sufferer would first extract from a trouser or coat pocket a carefully folded, wholly wet, greenish-yellow handkerchief, which was very probably white in colour some years earlier on. He would then proceed to unfold it with great care and meditation, all the time looking at the handkerchief as though it was a chicken whose feathers he was about to pluck. Then, holding two ends of it with the indexes and thumbs of both hands, he would give it a thorough airing by flapping it in front of him. None of the passengers would think it strange or untoward even to budge or duck away from the line of fire. They were resigned to it. It was probably because they knew there was no escaping the germs whatever the sufferer did. This hanky-habit of the Madrileno drove terror into Vasanthan, and he often got off the vehicle even before arriving at his destination.

     More and more he gravitated towards the last reserve embodiment of his pent-up frustrations: the hippies. The boys at school would soon have another teacher. The two or three boys he saw occasionally in the streets made him feel good. They would traverse the street to talk to him in an air of great familiarity, their eyes tinkling and warm smiles stretching their grateful faces, and they would enthusiastically point to their parents and siblings across the street who would wave back at him. He cherished those moments, though the encounters never had a follow-up. They ended then and there. Vasanthan had often wished they would meet up again, but that was never to be.

     The hippies were delayed in their exodus for the East by their missing Spanish pusher. He had promised to pay up, and on the day they were supposed to meet him at the Rastro park, around the artificial lake, he disappeared. He was no more to be found in his Benigno Soto flat which he shared with a middle-aged widow. Someone once said that he was seen accosting prospective customers at the entrance to the Bernanos Stadium, not far from where he padded down with the widow. So, they decided to wait for him on the next football match day, and sure enough, he was there. They didn't approach him directly, for there were far too many people around and the silently watching police might think they were themselves tapping him for a connection. So, they shadowed him. He climbed on to the back of a tram for some of the way down the Generalissimo Avenida and then swung on the steps for a while, always watching out of the corner of his eyes, furtively. Suddenly, he jumped off and eased his way into a bunch of people squeezing into a bus. He got off at Cibeles, had a couple of glasses of roja and some tapas at a bodega opposite the National Library and quickly retraced his steps past the main post office. He crossed and re-crossed the boulevard, until he was on the side of the Cortes, right opposite the Prado. Then, he waited around the fountain in the middle as though he had had an appointment there and, seeing that his date was late or not coming at all, he dashed into the museum, bought a ticket, turned quickly left, scanned the Goya drawings and sketches in the two rooms and corridors set aside for them, and just as quickly scurried out, knocking into a well-dressed lady in black with a laced mantilla in white over her head and shoulders. She cracked down on him in a voice that sounded so gruff and familiar he turned to look at her in surprise. She may have been one of his clients; he wasn't sure, so, he didn't say his usual bit. He simply said: Coño! and left, leaving the lady in a  huff, swearing, while a double row of uniformed girls chaperoned by nuns tried to get past her, oblivious of her language and ruffled feathers. The pusher turned into the Calle de Atocha and disappeared into a block of shops and apartments before they could get close enough. They waited in turns all evening and the night and finally came to the conclusion, he must be putting up somewhere in there. The next morning they worked out their plan. They had to get him. That was their law. Their code of paying back in kind.

     - You don't know what you're doing? You can't get away with it - warned Vasanthan. They were hardly moved by his words. Nicky said:

     - Back where we come from, tha's only one way how we deal with guys who don'  pay up.

     - But that's New York, man. Madrid's not New York.

     - Madrid or New York, that's the law with us.

     They looked at Vasanthan in silence, their expressions grave and unfamiliar. He had thought he had known them well enough. Now, they were no more the relaxed, fun-loving though sorrowful lads he had grown to love. Something in the leather straps and scissored-off fatigues and black boots reminded him of their past, of their Vietnam past, of anger and  madness mixed with blinding rage, terror and fear. Their youthful arms and sleek torsos could hardly conceal the horror they had seen. They had seen and felt the cheapness of lives, their lives, and the lives of others they had not felt the need to spare. They lived and worked under different laws, and those laws still, now and then, moved their limbs and coloured their vision. There was no way one could interpose between them and their own lived-through code of justice. They were not so young after all, he thought, and they knew what to expect if their punitive expedition didn't work out. If only he could get Nicky alone, he thought and left, fearful of the outcome. They told him to stay away, lest he get involved as well. Three days later, Nicky was waiting for him in a milk bar he used to frequent with Hiawatha. He judged right. Vasanthan was already missing the girl. They were glad to see each other.

     Nicky felt uncomfortable at first, knowing that Vasanthan didn't approve of their mission. Where were they going? To what purpose had everything come to a head? Here they were, a year spent on G.I.Bills, on the excuse of getting credits for their Spanish courses back in the States, lazing around after morning classes and sweating the nights on their Vietnam memories, all the time yearning for the soft silky limbs of Thai, Cambodian or Vietnamese girls and the drugs that kept them going through all the thunder of bombs, blasts, spices, chillies, and easy sex and the waking dreamy sense of time standing still in the shade of palmyra fronds, bleached beaches and coaxing clear waves. Madrid was only a stopping station between New York and Bangkok. Madrid was also the closest cosy replenishing station to Morocco. So, they were here. They had made no attachments, no real ties to bring them back, if they were coming back at all. Whatever lay in store for them out there was better off as far as they were concerned than the stable lives they had been groomed to enter as soon as they were demobbed. But there was Vasanthan, and he was from out there where they were heading. He was one of them, doomed to die in a kind of pact one makes with the unseen and unknowable face of hidden lives, the kind of lives they had lived and been salvaged from. Every one of them had died in Vietnam; they were at a loss to know why they survived, to what purpose they were put together, piece by mental piece, by the army doctors. Patched up as they were, they were not going to lock civil battle with their safer betters. They were going back to die. They were going back to a place which burnt their minds. The people - women, the aged and children, the sick and the maimed - they saw surviving in the hell they brought with them singed their every thought. What right had they to continue living after they had seen their houses, their names, their old and young, their rabidly thrushy countryside, their jungle-steeped temples and monuments, their living streets and rivers dashed to splintering cinders before their eyes. They, too, were ripped apart. But there was always consolation for their dead and dying. All they saw in the eyes of the indigene as their fire ripped into their concave chests was that incommunicable will to die, and they were frightened out of their wits. What had they done? What had their people wanted them to do out there? Now, their minds were made up. They were going back there - maybe to confront themselves, maybe to get themselves an easy slice of cake for themselves. But, until they got out there, they were still themselves, product of the machine that had spouted them. They had to settle a final account. Then, they would be ready for anything. 

     - Hey, Vasi-boy, why don't you drop everythin' an' come with us? Hey, brother, it's you I'm talkin' to.

     Vasanthan just looked at the walnuts on his cup of vanilla and strawberry icecream and smiled. Then, when his smile disappeared, he looked grave again.

     - Still thinkin' of that Indian princess, eh? You know what, I'll give tha' gal a call an' tell 'er you're comin' with us. She'd come runnin', man, all the way fr'm Texas with a couple of oil-wells in 'er trouser pockets. You can keep 'er wells and we'll take the oil, if tha's alright with you.       

     That brought the smile back. They chatted about who the boys could see and what they could do out there and how to get by in times of need.

     - Are you still going to go through with it?

     - What, the trip? Yeah, sure. - He stopped a moment to think and looked into Vasanthan's eyes. - I know what you're thinkin', man. Sure, we gonna go through with it. Tha's no turnin' back. This pusher has eluded us for a whole year. Tha's a record. Tha's a mighty big record. We've got to stop it before it becomes an all-time world record.

     When they said goodbye in the car, they both left behind them part of themselves. Vasanthan couldn't help thinking of the hell Nicky had come out of, out there in the lush jungle river bank. It looked too inviting. The mountain water gurgled all the way down the rocks and pebbles. Their platoon leader was too tired to think. They had been on the move through rain and the green damp, through mud and leeches and sweat for three full days then. The water sounded like gurgling, giggling girls frolicking. Without a word all his platoon threw their burdens down, tore at their sticky fatigues while automatically a couple of sentries took positions on trees and rises. On the other side of the stream was a rise of bare ground and some rocks sat on it like in a Japanese Zen garden. They gamboled in relative silence, their sense of camaraderie coming back to them with the care with which they extracted the leeches from one another's backs. Then, they climbed on to the rise on all fours to sun themselves. Nicky saw their sergeant, a heavy robust reveller, about to set himself down on some freshly-dug earth. In that fraction of a second he knew. His mouth opened. No cry came from it. And then there was that thundering blast and all became black. When he woke, he was the only one to be all in one piece. He couldn't believe his eyes, he couldn't believe they were gone - his buddies, they who shared his boyish fun and intimate fears in that green leafy loneliness. His mind then refused to function. He roamed the jungle paths, not knowing where he was heading or why. Until he stumbled into a GI patrol. The weeks he spent in the makeshift hospital in semi-jungle territory may as well have been on another planet. The juice had dried up in him for good.

     Now he was going back to confront his dead past, or was he taking his past back where it belonged, where he belonged, in some blown-up patch of rock and hardened mud by a mountain stream that tinkled invitingly in the filtering sunlight, an anonymous resting place for his mind, away from prying eyes and sentiments, to rejoin his buddies, to keep a long-due date with his destiny.

 

 

     Three weeks later, all the papers carried the story with a photo showing the gun wounds. It was an execution, they said. It was a Mafia-type feud-settling vendetta. The police had no clues about who could have done it.

     Then, one fine day, they came and took Vasanthan away. He was confronted with letters. A card from Kabul, another from Bhopal, and yet another from Penang. Then, a long air-letter from Bali. He was questioned on every word, every hint of a reference to the crime. Why did they want to know what happened to the deceased after he was dead? He was released. He went back to a lackluster life.

     Then, one day when he was, himself, toying with the idea of boarding a train going north - he had taken to the habit of visiting railway stations - they put him in handcuffs and took him away.

     They said they had a long letter which was proof enough.  It was a letter, written from Morocco by Nick, and signed by all the boys, which for some reason or other did not get to Madrid before the others. Nick had entrusted it to a Moroccan boy who had forgotten to post it on time. The pusher was shot while the letter was being written.

 

© T.Wignesan, July 23, 1993

[from the collection : mere deaths and the mostly dead (1993), Paris, France]