The pavement was so warm, even now. The dust that layered it was as fine as dust could ever be, ground down by the daily milling of a million peoples and cows, dogs, gods and double-decker buses. The dust that covered all the streets and roads and lanes, the dust that she had kissed an hour ago, sandwiched in non-animal tested, artificial peach flavouring. The dust that silted the bays post-monsoon, the dust that washed away yet still remained in the cracks of the road, like relatives you barely know. The dust was her shoe, the palanquin-bearers of her Temple. Later, at home, she would almost regret washing it away.
~~Icewalla~~
Part 01
“I’m ready,” Chaitanya said, and knelt down beside the bathtub. “Here we go.”
Oh.
home down now 85 bus maybe 83 didn’t see and all the lights so yellow they don’t look it when the crowds are there Doordarshan tower is so tall I want to fly from there and oh my stop my stop I hate heels stick in the grooves of the bus bus lurches at corners sends me reeling head spins am I drunk no no didn’t drink Gautam had funny smelling cigarette though and maybe of my stop my stop stop bus stop and don’t move until I get down.
Ah.
Down the street and to the right, in the narrow gaze of the streetlights, Meera walked home. The lane was deserted; indeed, even the main road where she alighted from the bus was empty save for the usual sandwich vendor with his sun-like kerosene lamp, the sleeping rag-forms of vagrants, the litter of cats come out to hunt and quarrel. The last buses had free reign of the roads that were usually choked with cars and people, and little hatchbacks packed with adrenaline crazed college students used the emptiness to scream their high-pitched anthems of remixed Hindi songs, whoops, hoots; all under the whine of a Maruti 800 that, for a moment, imagined it was a Porsche. This was the Prabhadevi neighbourhood that greeted Meera each night for the past three weeks.
She was used to the late hours by now. Fashion Week was coming to a close, thank goodness, and after that there would be the three to four week lull as designers and columnists and society folk took stock, compared bills (rarely dresses), complained about others stealing their work, their ideas, their models, their dreams. Simultaneously, they would trumpet the arrival of Indian Fashion at the Global Gates while also declaring it dead without heir. It happened every year, and Meera was sick of it every year, but it was a good job, being a model. The parties were fun, the pay was just about as much as a desk job for a 22 year old B.Sc Microbiology grad, and she was halfway famous.
Yes, famous. A man asked her for her autograph today, after the show, backstage. Not a very attractive man, but he asked — and did so politely — so she gave him one and sealed it with a peach-lipstick kiss on the paper. The man walked away still trying to discern the scribble on the paper. He bumped into a supermodel — someone really famous — and, realising his luck, dropped Meera’s autograph without a thought and hunted in his pocket for blank paper.
After the two parted Meera retrieved her autograph, marked now with the cigarette-grey of four boot-prints. Meera kissed her own peach impression, tasting the spent end of an Adidas and the sweat-perfume of herself, the noxious blue of ballpoint ink. She pocketed the paper and went home alone, again.
Halfway Famous Meera staggered sideways as one of her shoe heels snapped; she caught hold of a lamp-post and propped herself up next to it. In the jaundiced light of the lamp she looked down at the offending footwear. It was lost in the shadow of her hair, all moussed up to a mushroom-shaped cone and highlighted with streaks of yellow, red and silver. Meera was glad the bus wasn’t too crowded; fashion show audiences she could handle — ordinary people on a bus staring at her, she could not. She dangled her left foot out into the gaze of the lamplight; the heel still hung to the rest of the gaudy plastic and gold stilletto by a single glob of snot-coloured adhesive.
“‘Oh Meera,’” she muttered as she reached down for it, “‘do take the shoes with you, darling. They’re yours! My gift, pretty-poo…’”
“Really Gautam? You mean it?” Meera bent down for the other shoe and yanked the strap off with one angry tug. “But your shoes are so expensive! I’ve been to your boutique…”
“‘No, doll, I insist. Keep it. Now you take it or I’ll have it delivered to your house! Now go, darling!’” Meera held both shoes up.
“Delivered,” said Meera, and flung the shoes straight up at the sky, barely missing the streetlight. “Right. Very good, Gautam.” She waited for the shoes to fall back down to earth. She waited a full minute. Tip-toeing barefoot out of the circle of light, she looked around, and saw nothing. “Stuck in a tree,” Meera mused, and walked on, smiling about the possibility of some bird coming across it and shitting repeatedly in it — finally a good use for one of Gautam’s creations.
The pavement was so warm, even now. The dust that layered it was as fine as dust could ever be, ground down by the daily milling of a million peoples and cows, dogs, gods and double-decker buses. The dust that covered all the streets and roads and lanes, the dust that she had kissed an hour ago, sandwiched in non-animal tested, artificial peach flavouring. The dust that silted the bays post-monsoon, the dust that washed away yet still remained in the cracks of the road, like relatives you barely know. The dust was her shoe, the palanquin-bearers of her Temple. Later, at home, she would almost regret washing it away.
The first of the dust dislodged itself on the coir welcome mat of her tiny, single bedroom apartment; Meera trudged wearily in to the house that was her home, but surely a home was more than a place you never felt welcome, which she often did. Her Abode, then, for the word seemed to have a legal finality and chicness that afforded it the luxury of being used for something dry and unemotional.
Meera headed straight for the bathroom after flinging her bag on the sofa. Much of the dust mixed with a little water that often collected near the bathroom door, and perfect print of Meera’s left foot formed there, right down to the delicate striations. This print would be there even the next day, and after that too; there were no prints leading out.
She bent down to plug up the bathtub, the one thing in the apartment she truly enjoyed. A month ago she had invested in a small heater, and so thankfully even at this hour she could indulge herself in a hot, relaxing bath. Meera usually dozed off in there. The prospect of warm, liquid dreams crept on her; she opened the taps fully and let the steam rise in the tiny bathroom.
By now her daily allowance for civil conduct had exhausted, so with a quick ‘Fuck it’ she literally tore open her navy-blue shirt, little white buttons scattering everywhere, and savagely tossed it in the corner, quickly followed by the rest of her clothes. Arms stretched wide in the steam-soaked bathroom she stood, tired and triumphant, aching from head to toe and in the lower back of her soul, Venus come home from the war to sex the private treasures of her bath house.
She washed her feet with unconscious reluctance in the bidet, and the moussed-hair woman carefully lowered herself into the sultry embrace of the water.
Too hot, or not hot enough? By now she didn’t care, but only knew that her bones were aching for the water’s numbing touch, and soon they were answered. Meera sighed and sighed, and before long was asleep.
It was the cold that woke her.
Cold water. Not just lukewarm, but fridge cold. Ice cold. And getting colder? The thought drifted on the corner of her mind, and when she realised she wasn’t dreaming, Meera sat up in the bath with a start.
“C-Cold,” she chattered. This never happend before. The air around her was warm, and yet the bath was icy. She was so shocked she didn’t move. When she did try to move a glassy, cracking sound broke the silence of the room. The surface of the bath was icing over!
Before she could say another word, before she get out of the bath, before she could even gasp, the water itself pulled her in and pinned her down. Meera’s head dipped under the stinging cold water; her legs flailed wildly and struck against the tiled bathroom walls. Her left foot fractured on impact. The pain shot through her body and she was screaming even before her face broke the water’s surface.
And then she saw it. At the end of the bath, between her legs, someone — some thing — was rising out of the water–no! The water was rising, crystallizing into lazuline blue facets, the facets into a spiked dome, the dome when risen crowning a–my god! A head. A hideous, spindly head made entirely of ice. Water still tricked down its masculine features; the eyes, like beady mint candies, its teeth like rows of diamonds — both were visible through its clear ice-skin. The ice-man had by now manifested himself fully, squatting at the end of the tub, towering over Meera who just stared.
“My darling,” the ice-thing said. “I have come at last.” It lunged forward, smothering her, its icy, coarse hands cupping her face, its slush-like tongue licking her cheek. Meera screamed and struggled, but the creature just held her down in the tub. “So happy to see me,” it breathed in its glassy voice, “I am so touched. I wrote a poem for you, you know. I sent it to Algernon, in Liverpool — I sent it as soon as I wrote it. He’s going to publish it, my poem… Do you know what it was about? It was about you, my darkie love. Come, my queen, my raani — let us make love like the good days.”
Meera could barely feel the frigid penetration. Her mind had gone into shock, and it was detaching itself from all conscious thought.
Halfway Famous Meera, nude, warm, triumphant, peach in her lips and dust bearing her Temple, skipped away down a warm road that led to a place not far, not close.
Chaitanya watched her go, but though she passed right by him she didn’t notice him. The young man looked down at the tub, where the ice demon thrust away at the lifeless, pale body, her head lolling from side to side, her eyes fixed on nothingness. Chaitanya looked, and felt the shoe heel snap, the dust on his feet, the itch of where the bra had dug in and how it felt to throw it in the corner, and he shuddered as he felt the ice phallus tear away at him. The demon came with an inhuman yell, and every inch of it shattered. The rain of ice fell on Meera’s dead, violated corpse like earth on a tomb.
But earth is warm.
Chaitanya knelt down beside the bathtub. This time all he heard was silence. The vision faded, and he was back there the next afternoon, his companions standing nervously beside him.
Exhausted, he rolled back and lay against the lavatory, gasping for breath. These invasive trips took a lot out of him usually, but this time was the worst. Chandrika quickly knelt bedise him and helped him stay straight; without her support Chaitanya had neither the energy nor the balance to stay upright.
“Bhuza…smm…aah…” he said, shivering.
“It’s not usually this bad,” Chandrika said to Chanakya, who was standing at the door to the bathroom. “Help me,” she scolded him.
The man raced to her side, propping Chaitanya up. “What do you think is wrong with him, Auntie?” Chanakya asked innocently.
“Don’t call me Auntie,” Chandrika said, “you’re older than me, you know. In body, at least. And I don’t know what’s happened to him.”
“Sorry,” Chanakya whispered.
“Chaitanya!” the young woman shouted at him, and then slapped him.
“Wha…?”
Chandrika slapped him again. No effect.
“Let me try,” said Chanakya, and with all too much enthusiasm he socked Chaitanya square on the jaw, which sent him to the floor in a heap.
“What the hell did you do that for?!” The two of them stood and looked at Chaitanya, sprawled awkwardly on the bathroom floor.
“Well, at least he stopped shivering,” Chanakya said. Chandrika didn’t answer.
To Be Continued
© Copyright 2003, Vishal K. Bharadwaj, All Rights Reserved
