South Kensington, London
April, 2000
This is how long it takes a taxi to travel from Heathrow to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: aleph-null. It takes an infinite amount of time and during rush hour it can even take longer. Longer than infinity. George Cantor was right. I knew it, but I’ve never experienced it directly. And so, lost in this London koan, I arrive after an infinite amount of time at the lobby of the flats where my new project manager awaits within. With a gaggle of suitcases by my side I engage in this delightful banter with the desk clerk of Queensgate who eventually produces my room key and the flat number of Bernard C., the independent consultant I am destined to be cyber-chained to over the next month or so.
After throwing my stuff in my own room, I walk down the hall to Bernie’s flat and lift the knocker tentatively a few times. A delightful female voice from within says, “Just a minute please.” She practically sings the words. I can hear soft footsteps approaching; a moment later the door swings opens with the greeting, “Hi, I’m Martha.” She extends a hand. I reach out, but instead of a polite shake she pulls me inside and hugs me warmly, the same kind of hug you might give an ex- at a high school reunion. She barefoot and tiny—no more than five foot—and has to stand on her tip-toes. Her short, curly locks, done up Betty Boop style, hint of vanilla and pine. “And you must be Don,” she says releasing me.
I nod rather stupidly.
“Bernie’s been expecting you. Come on in.”
She takes me by the hand and leads me down a long, dark hallway to a large room where a man sits with his back towards me, cross-legged on the floor, a glowing Buddha meditating over a pile of technical documentation to the twisting melodies of an Indian rag. The room is awash in waves of patchouli incense. Martha lets go of my hand. “Bernie, company,” she announces. She skips out of the room through a pair of swinging, double doors.
“Have a seat.,” Bernie says without turning around. “You’re probably starved after that long flight.”
I look around for a chair but before I can sit down he jumps up and shakes my hand. Bernie has a large, round face framed by oversized glasses and decorated by random tufts of beard as if he had shaved in the dark wearing mittens.
“I am. Seems like it took forever to get here. Sorry I’m late.”
“No problem, no problem at all. Indian okay?”
“Indian’s fine. Any good restaurants nearby?”
He laughs. “They’re all good. But to do it proper, we have to get pissed first.”
“Pissed?”
“British for drunk. The routine is, first hit the pub, down a few pints of bitter, and then head out to your favorite curry house.”
“Where to?”
“I know a place where we can do both, kind of a Middle-Eastern Indian Barbeque coffee-house. I know the owners—doing a little work on the side for them, if you catch my drift.”
I don’t, but what the hell. “Well then, lead on.”
Bernie shouts in the direction of the double doors, “Martha, coming?”
A cut face framed in a mass of short curls peeps out. “Gee, I don’t know. Where to?”
Bernie scratches his chin. “I was thinking the Infiniti.” His tone sounds apologetic.
Martha rolls her eyes, but in a sweet voice says, “I’ll pass. You boys have a good time.” She disappears back behind the door. As we turn to leave she calls after us, “And be careful!”
Tandoori chicken, palak paneer, garlic nan, baby-back ribs, murg phall, Turkish coffee, live bitter on tap, a swimming evening rag and it’s all here at the Infiniti Club And Tandoori Restaurant.
Bernie nurses a Kingfisher lager. I sip a pint of Boddington’s while scanning the menu, amused by the uncommon juxtaposition of tandoories, vindaloos, kebabs, and Texas road-house fare. A lazy eight, the symbol for infinity, graces the menu’s elaborate art. I ask him about his other business and he seems anxious to talk about it, unfortunately it’s all in riddles and metaphor.
“Well it’s like this,” he begins thoughtfully. “Let’s just say I’m involved in a little investigation. You know what I mean? A little investigation, well a big investigation really. Guess you could say I’m the European branch. Know what I mean?”
I have no idea, but nod enthusiastically anyway.
“So I’m keeping an eye on things over here.” He changes the subject back to software development. A waiter bring us our meal. We strategically arrange the collection of stainless steel serving dishes so that nothing is more than a stab away and chat about the job. Bernie makes copious notes in a hard-bound diary. The dinner winds down and we cap it off with a desert round of more beer. The lights dim and the manager or owner comes out onto the stage. He nods at Bernie and then introduces the musicians. There’s a round of polite applause; someone in the audience shouts out, “Bring on Sevi.”
The manager fairly gloats. “Yes, yes. And now, reading a selection of poems from her new book, from Bangalore, India and Chelsea, the Infiniti is proud to welcome, Sevi Krishnamurthy.
A young Indian poet cleaves her way through a wall of smoke to a small wooden stool sitting atop the stage. She nods to the musicians who begins playing a delicate rag. Her voice is high, but strong—the kind that penetrates your head and stomps around leaving voice-footprints. She says, “This is called, Countdown…”
eleven,
dead soldiers mix sex and fruit,
jism eyeball cocktails, hyena’s head
ten,
mother praying, mother slaying, sister sobbing
praying in burning fields, mad with shame
nine,
my lover; my killer, my sister.
I bear lost children that flee into the sun
Her amazing voice mingles with the sounds, words, and smoke that gently nudges us towards the brink of a spiritual cliff. Four musicians, a sitarist, two tabla players and a flutist, sit cross-legged at the side and just in front of the stage under a haze of stale, crimson incense; sympathetic strings on a stereo sitar weave a translucent curtain of sound. The sitarist is lovely, her features dark, haunting; a small crimson gem pierces her nose, reflects what little ambient light there is a tiny red star. She looks vaguely familiar so I study her a little closer. I have to strain my eyes in the dim light, but there it is, a thin streak of silver running through the length of her hair.
“No, it can’t be,” I say.
Bernie looks up from his notebook and whispers, “What can’t be?”
“That woman, the sitar player. I know her.” I notice Bernie scribbling furiously. “What are you doing?”
“Making notes,” he says. “Listen to the poem. Does anything sound familiar?”
eight,
endless varieties, raw and cooked,
tossed, red, hot, bleeding to be heard
a place of nothing and nowhere.
seven,
hands at my window,
leaves a message, smelling of paint
reeks of Victorian brotherhood
six,
poets all, savor shallow graves
foot stands still in the corner,
someone cries: “I’m a god damned liar”
five,
hide and seek, homunculus nightmare!
bitter coffee strains singing, all rotten in a row
for a horse finishing last
four,
brave hero’s huge erection
covers me in waves, pigeon shit,
watching him eat dead squirrels that bite back.
Bernie looks at me, puzzled. “I’m not stupid, but I just don’t get it.” I refuse to admit that I don’t get it either, yet judging by the audience’s rapt attention, there is something either very deep or very silly going on.
“She’s giving us clues,” he says vacantly. “Either that, or we’re being deliberately misled.”
“Clues to what?” I wonder aloud. “Misled how?” I toss this over in my mind as my fork tosses the murg phall, a suicidally hot Bangalore-style chicken curry designed for masochistic European taste, slowly oxidizing in my plate. “Plenty left,” I tell Bernie. “Have some?”
He notices the my fork is eaten away. “Maybe next time.”
three,
elementary home on bank holiday,
my savior reaches out, his wounds fresh,
my lover sighs and dies in my arms
two,
prince consort nuclear heart,
blow fireworks for a fool’s honor,
and a long shot winner
one,
my master waits on wounded knees,
playing bingo with Sodom’s slaves
in the street of dogs.
zero…
As the poet utters the syllable “zero” the sitar player suddenly jumps to her feet. Wielding her instrument like an axe, she brings it down on the nearest tabla player, splitting his skull open and sending his drum careening across the floor. Patrons scream as she twists the neck of the instrument, releasing a gleaming, barbed foot-long blade and thrusts it through the body of the flute player leaving a small jetsam of flesh dangling off the end like a severed worm. The second tabla player jumps up, but before he can escape the sitar player swings her blade over head and brings it down on the terrified musician, cutting him in half lengthwise. On the back swing, she lops off both feet as the halves of his body fall in opposite directions onto the floor in a pool of gore. Throughout this mayhem, the poet has stood frozen in place. The sitar player turns to her and screams, “Run!”
A minor riot ensues as the poet and customers flock to the door in a panic, fleeing the mad sitarist. Meanwhile, the disembodied feet have miraculously taken on a life of their own. They escape out the front entrance, running past and in some cases on top of stunned customers. The sitar player watches this bizarre sight with apparent glee. Then her demeanor changes as she wheels around and flashes a look of contempt at Bernie and I, sitting there dumfounded at our table. With a high-pitched scream that sounds more animal than human, she lunges at us. The sword crashes down in the center of the table splitting it as if it was balsa. With another shriek she swipes the sword over our heads, missing us by inches. Bernie throws a bottle at her, distracting her momentarily. With a well-placed kick she sends me reeling backwards onto the floor. Bernie yells again and throws another bottle, but with no apparent affect. She circles over me with her sword poised high, ready to strike. I look around feverishly for something, anything to throw, but am unlucky enough to have landed in a spot clear of rubble.
“You’re that woman I met in San Ramon, Diane K.” She waves her sword one last time and then lowers it, pointing directly at my heart. “What do you want?” I scream, crawling backwards until reaching a wall.
She places the tip of the sword on my chest and hisses, “Go now!”
Her face darkens. She lowers her sword slowly and looks down. There, erupting from the center of her torso, protrudes the sharp end of a stool leg that has snapped off. Twisting it at the other end is Bernie. He gives a sharp pull, extracting it part way through her body, followed by another violent push. It reappears glistening with blood. She looks over her shoulder and snarls at Bernie, sounding more annoyed than hurt. With little effort she grabs the bloodied spear with one hand, pulls it the rest of the way through her body and tosses it aside. She turns on Bernie who is standing behind her waving a broken beer bottle.
“Get out of here,” he says to me as she circles him. I struggle to my feet. The woman whips around back at me. “Now,” Bernie yells. “Move.” But before she can strike a pack of police burst in, weapons drawn. She does a quick double take of Bernie and I, and then leaps through the throng of police and disappears down the dumb waiter behind the bar.
. On the street, milling about with the other pissed off restaurant patrons as the police take names and numbers, Bernie reads his notes on the poet’s bizarre verse.
“Goddamn it Bernie, that was messed up. I know that woman. What the hell was she doing here?”
Bernie slips his thick glasses down past his nose, “I don’t know, but I think six refers to Poets Corner.”
“Six? What are you talking about?”
He waves the notebook in my face. “The poem, what do you think?”
“Who gives a flying fuck about the poem?”
Bernie stares are me with narrowing eyes. “You think it’s a coincidence that the sitar player is someone you know?”
“Okay, so where’s Poet’s Corner?”
“Westminster Abbey. Four is Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. Five is obviously Rotten Row in Hyde Park.”
“Obviously.”
“Two is the Albert Hall. And One is Houndsditch.”
“Houndsditch?”
“Street in central London,” he says vaguely. “Each number in the poem references a London location.”
“Does it matter?”
He closes the notebook and tucks it under his arm. “It might.”
Copyright © 2010 Donald W. Bacon
revised 09-May-2010
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