STUART MITCHNER
227
finger-stubs freshly spiced with blood under fluttering tatters of black
tape-leprosy-closely followed by the other, uninfected hand
opening and closing in mockery of speech-money , alms-the face
rising with it , the mouth prissy , distorted with nagging ,
"Baksheesh ,
sahib, ahsahib .
.. ,"
one eye gone , the crater! sidestep only to slip in
the mouth , open around a dagger tongue bloody with betel juice,
broken teeth jumbled like the back alley shambles of Indian cities , the
body floating below , ultraviolet debris, nothing complete , no lines
without lesions, the X-ray contortionist
Mr.
Bones jigging out of focus
as focus snaps back to the red glaze filming the other eye , the pupil
drowning like a demon in the bloodtide , not really drowning but
faking it, tuned to the cues of the master strategist grinning behind the
retina as his beams pull me out of my frame ; sucked in , fascinated,
infected ; what a striptease , what finesse, stopping time , diddling the
G-string trigger of a gun that never goes off; feed the hand or sink in
the eye.
Around noon , I was on another train, the right one this time ,
booming over the Ganges, trying to unstick the pikes and turrets of
Benaresfrom the clotted webbing of the bridge, my vision, for the first
time in hours, returning to normal. The wad of Indian money I had
was gone, and my left leg was so sore I wondered if the dying man had
bitten me. A bear still roared in my ears , but I felt clear enough to
know I'd invented the bear to describe a cry from the leper hanging
with his one good hand from the bars of the window as the train
shuddered into motion , pulling free of the bloody eye ,
Mr.
Bones
following under the window, mewing brokenheartedly until I threw
him the purple rupee notes, each with a shiver of remorse, bribing
him, choking him with currency, the man ofgleams running after, one
quick hand catching notes out.of the rising wind, crooning like a lover
primed with a feast of sweet purple kisses.
I was in focus, but not Benares. The towers were crooked, the
angles confused. No amount of staring could straighten it out. Flames
from the riverfront pyres licked at the threadbare outlines of a
Medieval city in a tapestry: witch-hat towers of gingerbread, hidden
windows, visored helmets , owls staring from every nook , fires burning
low on steep terraces, the smoke rising over the river like an image of
heavenly ascension as the mills of the holy city purify the morning's
dead. If it was a tapestry , then moths had eaten it full of holes that
