He was standing in the entrance to a narrow gap formed between the blank walls of two buildings. Feeble light gleamed in the teeth and eyes of his smile, but beyond him was only blackness. He turned his back to me, spread his feet out until they touched the walls, braced himself with his hands, and then shuffled off, sliding his feet along the walls in small, dragging steps. He expected me to follow. I hesitated, but when the awkward star of his shuffling form melted in the darkness and vanished, I too put my feet out against the walls and shambled after him.
I could hear Prabaker ahead of me, but it was so dark that I couldn’t see him. One foot strayed from the edge of the wall, and my boot squelched into a muddy slime that rested in the centre of the path. A foul smell rose up from that viscous ooze, and I kept my feet hard against the walls, sliding them along in short steps. Something squat and heavy slithered past me, rasping its thick body against my boot. Seconds later, another and then a third creature waddled past me in the darkness, rolling heavy flesh over the toes of my boots.
‘Prabu!’ I bellowed, not knowing how far ahead of me he was. ‘There are things in here with us!’
‘Things, baba?’
‘On the ground! Something’s crawling on my feet! Something heavy!’
‘Only rats are crawling here, Lin. There are no
‘Rats? Are you kidding? These things are as big as bull terriers. Jesus, this is some tour, my friend!’
‘No problem big rats, Lin,’ Prabaker answered quietly from the darkness in front of me. ‘Big rats are friendly fellows, not making mischief for the people. If you don’t attack them. Only one thing is making them bite and scratch and such things.’
‘What’s that, for God’s sake?’
‘Shouting, baba,’ he replied softly. ‘They don’t like the loud voices.’
‘Oh, great! Now you tell me,’ I croaked. ‘Is it much further? This is starting to give me the creeps and -’
He’d stopped, and I bumped into him, pressing him against the panelled surface of a wooden door.
‘We are here,’ he whispered, reaching out to knock with a complex series of taps and pauses. There was a scrape and clunk as a heavy bolt slid free, and then the door swung open, dazzling us with sudden bright light. Prabaker grasped my sleeve and dragged me with him. ‘Quickly, Lin. No big rats allowed inside!’
We stepped inside a small chamber, hemmed in by blank walls and lit from high above by a raw silk rectangle of sky. I could hear voices from deeper within the cul-de-sac. A huge man slammed the gate shut. He put his back to it and faced us with a scowl, teeth bared. Prabaker began to talk at once, placating him with soft words and fawning gestures. The man shook his head repeatedly, interjecting regularly to say
He towered over me. I was standing so close to him that I could feel the breath from his wide nostrils, the sound of it like wind whistling through caves on a rocky shore. His hair was very short, exposing ears as large and nubbled as a boxer’s practice mitts. His square face seemed to be animated by more strong muscle tissue than the average man has in his back. His chest, as wide as I was from shoulder to shoulder, rose and fell with each breath, and rested upon an immense belly. The fine dagger-line of his moustache accentuated his scowl, and he looked at me with such undiluted loathing that a little prayer unfurled itself in my mind.
He raised the palms of his hands to stop Prabaker’s wheedling cajolery. They were huge hands, gnarled and calloused enough to scrape the barnacles off the side of a dry-docked oil tanker.
‘He says we are not allowed inside,’ Prabaker explained.
‘Well,’ I replied, reaching past the man and attempting with unforced enthusiasm to open the door, ‘you can’t say we didn’t try.’
‘No, no, Lin!’ Prabaker stopped me. ‘We must argue with him about this matter.’
The big man folded his arms, stretching the seams of his khaki shirt with little ripples of sound.
‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea,’ I mumbled, under a tight smile.
‘Certainly it is!’ Prabaker insisted. ‘Tourists are not allowed here, or to any of the other people-markets, but I have told him that you are not one of these tourist fellows. I have told him that you have learned the Marathi language. He does not believe me. That is our problem only. He doesn’t believe any foreigner will speak Marathi. You must for that reason speak it a little Marathi for him. You will see. He will allow us inside.’
‘I only know about twenty words of Marathi, Prabu.’
‘No problem twenty words, baba. Just make a begin. You will see. Tell him your name.’
‘My name?’
‘Yes, like I taught it to you. Not in Hindi, but in Marathi. Okay, just begin…’
‘Ah, ah,
‘
