Zakir and Fleks liked to wander the streets, free, observing.
That morning, Fleks had seen that a classical music concert was to take place, and he told Zakir:
“Some very famous musicians from your country are playing. I’ve already bought two tickets.”
Zakir looked at him, silent for a long moment, then said:
“Thik hai.”
They made their way through the crowd to leave the most congested part of the bazaar. They passed the temple dedicated to Brahma, around which countless beggars sent up their endless litanies of supplication and blessing. On both sides of the street, merchants had set up stalls where one could find every kind of sacred object, kitchen utensils, tools, harnesses, beauty products, sweets, and costume jewelry.
In the middle of the street, accosting whoever they could, young boys and children sold flowers, boxes of games — chess and others —, postage stamps, four-pronged tweezers, and all manner of objects whose usefulness was not always obvious. Every few steps, someone tried to sell Fleks something.
“Postcards, sahib.”
“Flowers, sahib.”
“Very good price, sahib.”
“Hotel, sahib.”
“Hashish, sahib.”
“Very good hashish, sahib.”
Sometimes the vendor did not even wait for an answer before vanishing and reappearing a few steps further on, transformed into a seller of something else.
On the front of a house, a large canvas had been stretched, on which one could read: “NON-STOP FULL VIDEO DOLBY STEREO LATEST MOVIES.”
In front of the entrance, a crowd of villagers clustered, trying to guess, peering through the cracks in the wooden shutters, which film was playing. From inside came the crackling shouts of a fight, the shrill bursts of a song, or the distorted words of a love scene.
Fleks stopped.
“Shall we go in?”
Zakir looked at the front of the house, then at the crowd, and finally at the sun, which was beginning to sink.
“Another time.”
They walked on.
They arrived near where the concert was to be held. It was not yet dark. They went down to the lake. The sun cast its last rays and, lighting the outlines of the temples and the houses by the water, seemed to lend even greater clarity to the sounds rising from the bazaar.
They settled in, crouching. Zakir took a bidi from the small bag he carried slung over his shoulder and placed it between his lips. Fleks admired that gesture, so supple and so unremarkable, so simple and so natural; he himself would have had to contort in some thoroughly ungraceful way, only to end up falling backward. Before Zakir could rise to look for a light, Fleks handed him a lit match.
They stayed a while without speaking. The lake was slowly changing color. The last golden gleams were yielding their place to the gray hues of dusk. Neither of them would remember what they had talked about. Had they talked? The next two or three hours passed as gently as the colors of the setting sun, dissolving into the dust.
Before arriving in front of the great house where the concert was to be held, Zakir put on his shawl. He had sewn it, long ago, in three strategic places so that it would fall over his shoulders the way shawls fell over the shoulders of most people with two arms. He was grateful that Fleks made no move to help him, and he applied himself to redoubling his natural skill.
Before entering, he explained:
“Without this shawl, they would never let me in.”
The courtyard was fairly large and already full. To protect the audience from an unlikely rain, long white tarpaulins had been stretched three or four meters above the ground. On the ground, over other white tarpaulins, rugs and cushions formed winding rows. A few electric bulbs, torches, and incense lent the whole an intimate, steam-room warmth, without being oppressive. On a platform some forty centimeters high, at one end of the courtyard, other cushions had been arranged, apparently more comfortable than those on the ground, along with several musical instruments.
Fleks and Zakir settled in. An easy good humor reigned: people spoke loudly, called out to one another, greeted each other, laughed. Young boys handed out cups of tea.
The musicians’ entrance went almost unnoticed. They tuned their instruments for a few moments and, without anyone quite catching the instant it happened, began to play.
Zakir did not quite know why, but his eyes kept returning to the young man on the left. When, after some ten minutes of near-total stillness, the man began to play the tabla, Zakir’s eyes filled with tears. Fleks noticed and put a hand on his shoulder.
When he had mastered his emotion, Zakir leaned toward Fleks:
“It’s because of him that I’m called Zakir.”
“Really?”
“Yes. His hands.”
Hands that flitted from one tabla to the other and seemed to number ten.
The music went on. Now and then, one of the spectators would call out a “shabash” of acclaim, followed by murmurs of approval from the rest of the audience. The people seemed possessed by the music, their bodies seduced, subjugated. They moved their heads slowly in a gentle sway. Now and then, with a discreet gesture, they seemed to take hold of a note in one hand, carrying it for two or three seconds with a downward motion, then releasing it with a lift of the hand, following the intricate rhythm of that raga, sinking further into the night…
In the morning, Zakir and Fleks went back to the lakeshore, to the same spot where they had settled before the concert. They bought tea and pakoras and watched the quiet break of day. They listened to the voices of the village, the chants beginning to rise from the temples, the vendors already crying their wares.
Zakir had heard these sounds all his life. And yet, that morning, they seemed different to him; he was listening to them from another vantage point.
Tomorrow, he would leave.
Fleks did not know it yet.
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