Mumbai
Gabriella Natal
Down on my elbows on the floor. I strip open the white pack of instant soup. It has red letters on the outside. Ingredients. The carpet scrapes them. My elbows. Should the lamp be on or off? Why does CNN have so much damn advertising. Should I turn it off? The drapes are closed but bullets don’t care one way or the other, do they?
The 21st century version of a mother's adage about clean underwear. Always pack decent pyjamas and a bevy of instant soup. Hotel fires aren’t unheard of. Neither are coups d’état. Why don’t you put a gun to my head and shoot me right here, I told my boss when he wouldn’t cancel my trip to San Salvador during a rebel siege of the Sheraton. One young guy, just joined the foreign service, guerrillas in his upstairs bedroom. Great lookout point, they said. Put him in the closet downstairs, just in case, they said. Why do I always travel alone? The boy quit. Hadn’t even finished a year. Reports from the CIA? Read like someone had written them from inside a letter box, peeping out the slot.
On TV, we saw dust scatter from the twin towers. We saw tourists homeless in Phuket, the ones Tsunami didn't sweep up. Never know when your flight number will come up in the Jihad lotto. My daughter fourteen says don’t go. Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of life insurance, I say. I like my work. I meet people. She rolls her eyes. Grins a downward sloping squinty grin.
Trouble with decent hotels. The people. Over trained. Obsequious. Definitely surplus labour in Mumbai. A room cleaner, a bed turner-downer, a mini-bar refiller boy, too friendly, room service boy, curious. Why are they always boys? I’d rather girls did the comings and goings. It’s more seemly when you’re a woman in a hotel room, alone. Oh, and watchmen on each floor. Not to mention bellhops, desk clerks, concierges to fetch aspirin for you, of course. Where are they now? CNN doesn't say. It only shows dark forms running. People scattering. Dark forms with automatic rifles. Machine guns, too, I think. Grenades? Never bothered to figure these things out. We were anti-war in my day. My male friends might know the makes. Or say they did.
The soup's open. Where’s the water. Still some bottled water in the bathroom. One bottle. How long does soup stick in the belly? No sense in going for the whiskey in the mini-bar. What if I need to do something? What? Where did I put the hot pot? Drank the tea already. There were four bags Darjeeling and English Breakfast in the little white ceramic box for sugar packets and whatnot. The hot pot’s under the desk. What did I do that for? Right, the plug over there is low on the wall. Don’t have to walk by the window. Crawl over to the hot pot and dump the soup powder in over the heating element. Carpet’s rough. Put the envelope in the dust bin under the desk. No cause to be messy. How long will I be here?
Life’s funny. Australian guy just arrived in Boston – sabbatical leave. Looked the wrong way and stepped out. Smashed like a bug. Well I’ll be darned my dad said coming home from campus. The driver moaned. Clutched his ribs.
Am I nauseous?
Night time’s worse. Voices, explosions. Gunshots. Where is everyone? Let me get that water. Soup’s no good without water. Why do I always travel alone? CNN says people are being killed. Which floor? Office security manual said don’t take a room on the first floor. Might get robbed. Kidnapped, at worst. Said never take a room above the sixth floor. Fire ladders can't reach. Who the heck ever heard someone tell the front desk, I’d like a room between the second and sixth floors please. Idiot, I think. How about terrorists? Which floors can they reach? I know where the fire escape is. It’s on the back of the door. Studied the diagram for ten minutes.
Put a wet towel on the crack under the door. Smoke in the halls, but no fire alarm so don't go. A different kind of smoke. We did that in college. Wet towels to keep the dope smoke in, not the bombs out. Bombs in Yemen, the week after I left. A hotel. Airport closed in Bangkok. Day after I left. Demonstrators. Inching closer to fate. The Beatles thought we’d have a revolution. Thought it would be fun. This is sort of not fun. Not real. Let me get that water. The bottle’s in the bathroom. Last bottle.
I crawl to the bathroom. What am I doing? Smoke rises; always crawl, they say. Yes, but do bullets rise? Don’t know anything about these things. The manual says don’t tell a boy soldier he looks darling and snap a photo. These are not boys. The dark forms on CNN look like more than men. Like trained assassins. Like Rambos. Good Rambo wasn’t real, was he? Sylvester Stallone, yes. Where are these guys when you need them? No, they are not real.
I think it’s daylight now. Or nearly so. If I part the curtain I can see who’s in the square. On CNN, they look worried. Scared, actually. Someone was killed.
Carpet’s thick. Why are these decent hotels so luxurious. Slept on the floor. Sheets are a mess. Room cleaner’s gone. Gone home, I hope. Now for the cup. Cup-o-soup. Imagine! Cup-o-soup at the Taj Mahal Hotel. Got one granola bar at the bottom of my suitcase, I think. Saving the chocolate in the mini-bar for tomorrow. Burst of energy to get me outta here. Sugar boost, tomorrow. Well, thinking positive. Good. Why don’t I panic? Later. I’m hungry. Where is everyone? If I traveled with dozens of colleagues, would we all be under my desk together? Could pass the cup around for sips of soup. Maybe one of them would panic. Cry. Moan about his kids. Better I travel alone. What’s CNN saying? I've got jeans on. I could bolt. Let’s get the tourist map from the caddy on the desk and try to connect the dots with CNN visuals. Why does the hotel on CNN look like it’s in another country? Antarctica. But with people. Why does it look black-and-white, and dark green? Night cameras, maybe.
Why do I like to get room service. I might not even have been here. The room service cart’s in the corner, chicken bones dried. Tandoori smell. Have to go out to dinner more often, next trip.
Footsteps in the hallway. Bumping sounds. Good bumps or bad bumps? Maybe under the bed is best. Theory. Bed’s too low. Behind. Behind the bed. Toward the window with the bullets. Well, potential bullets. None yet. Not this window. What floor were people killed on?
Knock on the door. Soft knock. CNN says the evil Rambos are knocking on doors. Rounding people up. Rambos knock hard, don’t they? Hell, Rambos blast down doors. Don’t answer. Clicking noises. Static. Who has radios? Good guys or bad guys? A French guy, an ambassador. Got scared during the invasion of Panama. Took a radio from the soldiers. The good guys. Bad guys. Let him have it to feel better. Wouldn’t give it back. They called headquarters. Why don’t normal people have radios. They had radios in Jamaica. After the hurricane. Everyone had radios instead of phones. Never saw ones that worked before. The ones that came in wrapping under Christmas trees never worked. How do you hide behind a bed? Is it like a kid hiding behind a skinny tree?
Phone’s ringing. Can’t shoot through a phone. Bomb either. Answer it. Yes, answer it.
Phone’s ringing.
Okay. Hello? Yes, this is Mrs. Johnston. My door? Yes, my door. There’s someone. It’s okay. It’s you? It’s hotel people. Police? I hang up.
Jeans. Yes, I'm dressed.
Passport. Wallet. Where are my shoes?
The towel. Pull it. The latch. It’s noisy. Why are hotel doors so heavy.
The hall’s dark. Light from my bathroom by the door glows their faces. An armed man. A uniform. Torchlight. Lots of ammunition in a belt. The mini-bar boy, pointing at me. No, beckoning me with a hand. Nodding to the man with the ammunition. Finger on his lips. Yes, I'm quiet. Following. Too friendly. He didn’t go home. He was downstairs, somewhere. With the others. How do you thank someone for rescuing you? Maybe I can panic now that he's here. The hall’s dark. Stairwell, too. Debris. A body. I have one granola bar in my left hand. Got to go out to eat more often on my next business trip.
About the Author
Gabriella Natal lives in Switzerland but considers the Baltimore-Washington area her home. She has also lived in New York, Paris, Nairobi and Lusaka. Her fiction has appeared in such publications as The Foliate Oak, Long Story Short, and The Shine Journal. Work in progress includes a short story collection called “Liquid Crystals.”
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