He resumed his eating, with a lingering feeling of having been unfairly treated. The food was not tasty. It reminded him of excrement, or perhaps it was the other way around. That which he was able to excrete into the hotel toilet retained its original form; a brown, sometimes yellow, stinking mass that dribbled out of him and left a burning sensation. At least it smelt better beforehand, he thought, and swirled his spoon in the bowl of lentils. The consistency was that of a thin porridge.
Could it be Persson? And what was his first name? It was a hyphenated name, something a little nerdy. Sven-Arne, that was it!
Jan Svensk had read about doppelgangers; from time to time one saw published pictures of people who closely resembled each other. Often it was someone from Tierp or Alingsås who looked ridiculously like a film star or other celebrity. Could someone really look that much like Persson? Jan Svensk shook his head.
‘No,’ he murmured, deciding the matter, and looked around for the waiter, who very likely harboured more information, he was sure of it.
The maître d’, impeccably dressed in a suit and tie, glided over to his side.
‘Is everything to your satisfaction?’
Or at least this was what Jan Svensk thought he said, and he nodded.
‘I was wondering, that gentleman who came in here… Is he someone you know?’
The maître d’ made a dismissive hand gesture.
‘He has dined here a few times, but we do not know him.’
They are protecting him, Jan thought.
‘He is… an old friend from my homeland.’
‘Really?’ said the maître d’.
He wants money, Jan thought.
‘A friend of the family,’ he went on.
‘I am sorry you did not have a chance to talk to each other.’
You old bastard! You know who he is. The maître d’ disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared. Svensk turned his head and saw him exchange a few words with the waiter.
Svensk waved his arm and the waiter approached.
‘The bill, please.’
The waiter returned with it after ten minutes. Jan Svensk gave him around 500 rupees.
The waiter looked at the bills.
‘It is too much,’ he said, and opened the brown leather folder that held the bill.
The total came to 420 rupees.
‘The rest is for you,’ Jan Svensk said.
The waiter put one bill back on the table.
‘It is enough, thank you.’
Then he smiled. Jan Svensk became bright red in the face.
‘I thought…’
‘I understand, sir,’ the waiter said slowly, ‘but like our guests, we have our dignity. I do hope the food was to your liking.’
THREE
The rickshaw took him away from Koshy’s. He had given the driver his address, but after a couple of minutes he changed his mind and gave him another: South End Circle. To Jayanagar, just south of Lal Bagh, the botanical garden, where Lester lived. He could spend the night there. He had done that before; the first was when his work at Lal Bagh had taken longer than expected. Lester had invited him for a late supper and thereafter offered to let him spend the night on a camp bed in the inner room.
This, like his visit to Koshy’s, had become a tradition. Lester invited him over several times a year. Sven-Arne always knew he would be treated to something special.
Now he would arrive uninvited, but was convinced his colleague would find nothing extraordinary in this. And if he did, he would not show a trace of it to Sven-Arne.
Lester was hardly the kind of man to be taken by surprise. He faced every new development, whether unexpected or not, with the same equanimity. He was also the only one who knew enough about his past that Sven-Arne would be able to tell him about what happened at the restaurant. Lester would listen, send one of his sons out for some beer, maybe a small bottle of rum, then dispense some sound advice and an invitation to stay overnight.
Lester’s father was British and sometimes Sven-Arne had the impression that Lester had designated him to be a stand-in for his biological father, a man who had come to Bangalore in the mid-fifties and settled in a decent house in the otherwise so rundown streets around Russell Market. No one knew what he lived on, perhaps a pension. He had been injured in the war, in the battles just outside of Rangoon, Burma, and he was missing the lower half of one arm, but had also been psychologically damaged. Lester had told him that as a child he would sometimes be awakened by his father’s screams when the nightmares set in.
Lester’s father not only hated all Japanese, but all Asians. It was therefore a bit of a puzzle why he had decided to stay in Bangalore and marry a woman from Madras, who had given birth to three children in rapid succession. In the early 1970s, when Lester was eight years old, the one-armed Englishman disappeared for good. Six years later the family was notified that he had died in a hospital in Mombasa. He left the house in Noah Street, and five thousand pounds in an account in a Hong Kong bank.
The money made it possible for Lester and his two brothers to get an education. Lester did a three-year horticultural degree in northern India and returned to Bangalore on his twenty-third birthday. He received a post at Lal Bagh and had stayed. Now he was responsible for the arboretum, care and replanting.
Lester opened the door, quickly scrutinised Sven-Arne’s face, but did not reveal by the slightest gesture what may have crossed his mind. He stepped aside and called to his wife that they had a visitor, while he observed Sven-Arne.
‘Is everything all right?’
Sven-Arne nodded, took off his sandals, and placed them by the door where they had to fight for a spot next to half a dozen others.
‘I come unexpectedly, I know, but something has happened.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope,’ Lester said, and led his guest into one of the three rooms of the flat. The caterwauling of a television could be heard from the adjoining room.
His wife stuck her head out of the kitchen.
‘A little tea,’ Lester said.
Sonia disappeared.
‘Are you hungry, perhaps?’
‘No, thank you,’ Sven-Arne said. ‘Tea is good.’
Any trace of appetite was gone. He was still shaken and it was an effort to keep his voice steady.
‘Is everything well with your family?’
‘Everything is fine,’ Lester said. ‘John took his test the other day. I think it went well. Lilian is full of life. She is with a friend. A school assignment. Joseph bought a moped yesterday.’
Lester had a habit of speaking in abbreviated sentences – he sort of thrust out the information, drawing in air through his thin lips and then forcing out another sentence. Sven-Arne had always thought it must be difficult, but was no longer bothered by his friend’s strange way of speaking.
‘I am sure the exam went very well,’ he said. ‘John is a very gifted young man. He is sure to go far.’
Lester waggled his head modestly. John was his favourite, even if he treated the other two with equal love.
Sonia came back with tea, black for Lester and with milk and a lot of sugar for Sven-Arne. Thereafter she withdrew to the kitchen. Normally she might have stayed for a few minutes in order to listen to the men talk, but Sven-Arne could not help noticing Lester’s discreet hand gesture.
They drank tea in silence. On the television, a local news program came on.
Lester listened to the listing of the main stories before he repeated his question, whether anything in particular had happened. He knew that the twentieth of November was an important day for Sven-Arne, the day that he went to Koshy’s.
‘A man from my former life was at Koshy’s.’
Sven-Arne was not sure how to proceed. How much should he tell? Lester knew that he had more or less run away from his homeland, that he now lived stateless and without any identifying documents, basically free-floating, but he did not know all the details. Sven-Arne had told him very little, and Lester had never pushed to know more.