The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [169]
Packing up took a minute and a half. He threw his extra T-shirt and shorts into his duffel bag, along with his toiletry case, his pocket New Testament, and his journal. While he was doing this, Rüdiger came into the lodge, carrying a roll of something under one arm.
“Today,” he announced with satisfaction, “I find the leather ghetto. There is a ghetto for everything in this city. I am walking and I find this ghetto and I have the idea to make myself a super leather pouch to carry my passport.”
“A pouch for your passport,” Mitchell said.
“Yes, you need a passport to prove to the world that you exist. The people at passport control, they cannot look at you and see you are a person. No! They have to look at a little photograph of you. Then they believe you exist.” He showed Mitchell the roll of tanned leather. “Maybe I make you one too.”
“Too late. I’m leaving,” Mitchell said.
“So, you are feeling frisky, eh? Where are you going?”
“Benares.”
“You should stay at the Yogi Lodge there. Best place.”
“O.K. I will.”
With a sense of formality, Rüdiger extended his hand.
“When I first see you,” he said, “I think to myself, ‘I don’t know about this one. But he is open.’”
He looked into Mitchell’s eyes as if validating him and wishing him well. Mitchell turned and left.
He was crossing the courtyard when he ran into Mike.
“You checking out?” Mike said, noticing the duffel bag.
“Decided to do some traveling,” Mitchell said. “But hey, before I go, do you remember that lassi shop you told me about? With the bhang lassi? Can you show me where it is?”
Mike was happy to oblige. They went out the front gate and across Sudder Street, past the chai stand on the other side, and into the warren of narrower streets beyond. As they were walking, a beggar came up, holding his hand out and crying, “Baksheesh! Baksheesh!”
Mike kept on going but Mitchell stopped. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out twenty paise and placed it in the beggar’s dirty hand.
Mike said, “I used to give to beggars when I first came here. But then I realized, it’s hopeless. It never stops.”
“Jesus said you should give to whoever asks you,” Mitchell said.
“Yeah, well,” Mike said, “obviously Jesus was never in Calcutta.”
The lassi shop turned out not to be a shop at all but a cart parked against a pockmarked wall. Three pitchers sat on its top, towels over the mouths to keep out flies.
The vendor explained what was in each, pointing. “Salt lassi. Sweet lassi. Bhang lassi.”
“We’re here for the bhang lassi,” Mike said.
This provoked merriment from the two men loafing against the wall, the vendor’s friends, presumably.
“Bhang lassi!” they cried out. “Bhang!”
The vendor poured two tall glasses. The bhang lassi was a greenish brown. There were visible chunks in it.
“This stuff will get you fucked up,” Mike said, lifting the glass to his mouth.
Mitchell took a sip. It tasted like pond scum. “Speaking of fucked up,” he said. “Can I see that picture of that girl you met in Thailand?”
Mike grinned lecherously, fishing it out of his wallet. He handed it to Mitchell. Without looking at it, Mitchell promptly tore it in half and threw it on the ground.
“Hey!”
“All gone,” Mitchell said.
“You ripped my photo! Why did you do that?”
“I’m helping you out. It’s pathetic.”
“Screw you!” Mike said, his teeth bared, rat-like. “Fucking Jesus freak!”
“Let’s see, what’s worse? Being a Jesus freak or buying underage prostitutes?”
“Ooooh, here comes a beggar,” Mike said derisively. “I think I’ll give him some money. I’m so holy! I’m going to save the world!”
“Ooooh, here comes a Thai bar girl. I think she likes me! I’m going to marry her! I’m going to take her home to cook and clean for me. I can’t get a woman in my own country because I’m a fat, unemployed slob. So I’ll get a Thai girl.”
“You know what? Fuck you and Mother Teresa! So long, asshole. Have fun with your nuns. I hope they jerk you off, because you need it.