I dried my face, and leaned on the basin to look into the mirror. The injuries weren’t bad. A black eye was forming. My nose was swollen, but not broken. Both lips were cut and thickened, and there were some sweeping grazes on my cheeks and jaw, where kicks had scraped away the skin. It could’ve been a lot worse, and I knew it. I’d grown up in a tough neighbourhood, where working-class gangs preyed on one another and were merciless to loners, like me, who refused to join any of them. And then there was the prison. No beatings I’d ever suffered were as savage as those inflicted by the uniformed men who were paid to keep the peace, the prison guards. That was what the voice, my own voice, had recalled…
I looked into my own eyes in the mirror, and thought about Prabaker’s suggestion. It was impossible to contact the New Zealand embassy-or any embassy. I couldn’t contact family or friends because the police would be watching them, and waiting for a connection to be made. There was no-one. No help. No money. The thieves had taken every cent I had in the world. The irony of it wasn’t lost on me: the escaped armed robber, robbed of everything he owned. What was it Karla had said, before I’d left for the village?
‘There’s no money in New Zealand, Prabu,’ I told him as we walked back to our hotel room. ‘There’s no family who can help, no friends, and no help at the embassy.’
‘No money?’
‘None.’
‘And you can’t get any more? Not from any place?’
‘No,’ I answered, packing my few belongings into my backpack.
‘This is a very serious trouble, Lin, if you don’t mind I’m telling your bruise and scratchy face.’
‘I know. Do you think we can sell my watch to the hotel manager?’
‘Yes, Lin, I think so sure. It is a very nice watches. But I don’t think so he will give us a big fair price. In such matters, the Indian businessman is putting his religion in his back pocket only, and he is driving very hard bargains on you.’
‘Never mind,’ I replied, clipping shut the catches on my backpack. ‘So long as it’s enough to pay the bill, and catch that night train you were talking about, back to Bombay. Come on, pack your things, and let’s go.’
‘It is a very, very, very serious trouble,’ he said as we closed the door to the room for the last time, and walked down the corridor. ‘No money is no funny in India, Lin, I’m telling you.’
The frown that compressed his lips and consumed his features remained with us all the way back to Bombay. The sale of my watch covered the hotel bill in Aurangabad, with enough left for two or three days at the India Guest House in Bombay. With my gear stowed in my favourite room, I walked Prabaker back to the small entrance foyer of the hotel, trying in vain to revive the little miracle of his wondrous smile.
‘You will leave all those unhappy things in my caring,’ he said, earnest and solemn. ‘You will see, Lin. I will make a happy result on you.’
I watched him walk down the stairs, and then heard the manager, Anand, address me in friendly Marathi.
I turned with a smile, and we began to talk in Marathi. Six months in the village had given me the simple, everyday conversational phrases, questions, and sentences. It was a modest achievement, but Anand was obviously very pleased and surprised. After a few minutes of conversation, he called all the co-managers and room boys to hear me speak in their language. They all reacted with similarly delighted astonishment. They’d known foreigners who spoke a little Hindi, or even spoke it well, but none of them had ever met a foreigner who could converse with them in their own beloved Marathi language.
They asked me about the village of Sunder-they’d never heard of it-and we talked about the daily life that they all knew well from their own villages, and tended to idyllise in recollection. When the conversation ended, I returned to my room, and had barely shut the door when a tentative knock sounded at it.
