“Phoning parents is discouraged by Swami.”
Alice said, “Why am I a little sorry we had this conversation?”
And it occurred to her that had Priyanka known whom and why she was planning to call, she would have been even more scolding and unhelpful.
She put on her walking shoes and sunglasses and went to the main gate—the gatekeeper saluted—and she walked along the busy road on the broken sidewalk, stepping past the fruit vendors, who were crouched on low stools, selling oranges and mangoes. She had not gone thirty yards when she saw three or four storefronts advertising telephone services, International Calls—Best Rates—Fax and Internet Connectivity, with lists of countries and prices per minute.
After the solitude and order of the ashram, the street—and this was right outside, just over the wall—was startling in its dirt and disorder, the hawkers crowded against the wall of the ashram, people seated at small tables selling picture frames and pens and cheap watches and hair ornaments. It was a relief to see someone selling fresh flowers, a pile of marigold blossoms, but the rest of it was a bazaar of cheap merchandise. The shops that lined the road sold rubber tires and shoes and clocks and sacks of beans and rice and spices. At one storefront a man was mending shoes, at another a boy was on his knees, his forearms streaked with grease, laboring to fix a bike. The large number of pedestrians made it hard for Alice to walk, and when she dodged them to buy a bag of roasted chickpeas, cars honked at her. She thought of turning back, yet she had to make the call.
“What country, madam?” the clerk said, showing her an assortment of phone cards.
“India.” Alice handed over the business card. “Right here. Bangalore.”
“Is mobile number, madam. Better you purchase card.”
She bought a three-hundred-rupee card, feeling that she was being cheated—the man claimed he had nothing smaller. Could that be true?
Feeling helpless—Indians fussing around her created that illusion—she waited while the clerk dialed the number.
“Ringing, madam.” He handed Alice the phone. Once, long ago, a phone like this had sat on a small table in Alice’s house: black, solid, heavy, but always a small voice issuing from it.
“This is Shan.”
That’s what it sounded like, an Asiatic name but with the twanging palate of a forced American accent.
Alice was so surprised by the voice she could not respond.
“How can I help you? Is there anyone there? Hullo?”
The voice was extraordinary—nasal, the mouth wide open, the suggestion of a smile in the tone, and though it had an American sound, something unnatural subverted it, so that it was hardly human, a cartoon voice. Alice was reminded of a parrot—a mimicky voice, as if the speaker had no idea what he was saying, just uttering words in a tortured way, swallowing and gargling.
“I think I have the wrong number.”
“Who are you wishing to speak to at this time?”
The singsong was odd too, the whole effect so weirdly comic that Alice did not put the phone down.
“I’m calling Amitabh.”
“This is Amitabh”—still, in an American accent, the name was approximate.
“I thought you were Shan.”
“I’m at work. I’m Shan at work. Who am I speaking to, please?”
“This is Alice—from the train. I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“I’m on late shift till three A.M. Can we maybe meet tomorrow?”
The voice was still bizarre. Was it really him? “I guess so. Can you come to Whitefield?”
“Sure thing. Whitefield! Now I remember. You’re the Sai Baba woman from the first AC compartment.”
“That’s me,” but she thought, Sure thing? Then she saw a sign, Vishnu Hotel and Lunch House, and read Amitabh the address. He took it down expertly, then read it back to her.
After she hung up she kept walking, away from the ashram. It was too late to line up for the darshan—she’d be at the end of the line, at the back of the hall, Swami barely visible. She had a better idea. She felt a need to make a superstitious gesture, and so she waved down an auto-rickshaw and gave the driver the address of the elephant’s stable.
She liked the side street, the quiet gloom from overhanging trees, the archway to the courtyard stable, the sight of the elephant’s hindquarters. He was snatching at hay with his trunk and stuffing it into his mouth, but when Alice approached the elephant lurched, his chain clanking, and he swung around and nodded at her.
Now she saw the mahout with a hayfork, piling the fodder near the elephant.
“Namaste,” Alice said, clasping her hands.
The mahout held the hayfork with his knees and returned the greeting. He then beckoned her closer.
Alice said, “I know you have no idea what I’m saying, but thank you. I need a job, I need some money. I am here because I love this elephant.”
The mahout smiled, the elephant smiled, the odor of manure was sweetish, the stable was shadowy, cool with the aromas of drying hay.
Alice held out some roasted chickpeas for the mahout, and he took some, but instead of eating them he poked his hand toward the elephant’s trunk and allowed them to be seized from his hand. The elephant swung his trunk backward and blew the chickpeas into his mouth and then reached for more—not toward the mahout but, in a show of cleverness, lifting his trunk toward Alice and seeming to gesture with his twitching nose holes, wrinkling the pink flesh around them. A faint stink reached her from the holes at the tip of his trunk, a gust of sour breath.
“Here you go, darling.” She held the chickpeas in the flat of her hand and let the elephant scoop them up.
The mahout nodded and went back to forking hay, the elephant to eating it. But she could see that the elephant was looking directly at her with his great round eye.
“Thank you, thank you. Namaste.”
The mahout waved the hayfork and Alice thought, He looks like Gandhi. She returned to the ashram refreshed, at peace, as though she’d visited a holy place.
And the next day she slipped out to meet Amitabh. He was waiting at Vishnu Hotel and Lunch House, seated at a table, holding a cup of tea and studying his cell phone, perhaps reading a number and wondering if he should answer. There was no doubt that it was Amitabh—smiling, fat-bellied, fleshy arms and big brown cheeks and beautiful eyes.
“Hi,” he said. “Take a chair. This is real positive, seeing you.”
The tone of voice belonged to someone else—the words, too. Yet he was smiling as he spoke—this was a novelty. His mouth was set in a grin, and he was open-mouthed as he twanged at her.
“How long has it been? Like six weeks or more?” He was sipping tea, sucking it through his open mouth.
“I don’t even know how long,” Alice said. “I wanted to ask you a few things. Looks like you got the job.”
“The job, yeah”—he said jahb. “I was working when you called. That’s why I gave you my work name.”
“Which is?”
“Shan.”
She said, “Would that be anything like Shawn?”—seeing it as Sean.
“You got it. Shan Harris.”
“You have two names?”
“Don’t you? You sure do! It’s kind of strange. My mother calls me Bapu. It means Dad!”
She said, “Amitabh, why are you talking like this?”
“American accent? That’s my job just now, at the call center. I’m a consultant—working toward being an associate.”
“For a company?”
“We service Home Depot.”
Alice had heard of such jobs, but this was the first time she was seeing an employee at close quarters. She said, “Good news. That’s great.”