The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [171]
Don’t marry that guy.
Don’t do it, Mad. Just don’t.
By the time he got downstairs, evening had fallen. Crowds of people were walking down the center of the street, the yellow bulbs strung over their heads like lights at a carnival. Music vendors were tooting their wooden flutes and plastic trombones, trying to entice customers, and the restaurants were open.
Mitchell walked beneath the vast trees, his mind humming. The air felt soft against his face. In a sense, the bhang was superfluous. The amount of sensations bombarding Mitchell as he reached the corner—the incessant honking of the taxis, the chugging of the truck engines, the shouts of the ant-like men pushing carts piled with turnips or scrap metal—would have made Mitchell dizzy even if he were completely straight in the middle of the day. This was like a contact buzz on top of a buzz. Mitchell was so absorbed that he forgot where he was going. He might have stayed on the corner all night, watching the traffic move another three feet forward. But suddenly, swooping in from his peripheral vision, a rickshaw stopped beside him. The rickshaw wallah, a gaunt dark man with a green towel wrapped around his head, beckoned to Mitchell, gesturing toward the empty seat. Mitchell looked back at the impenetrable wall of traffic. He looked at the seat. And the next thing he knew he was climbing up into it.
The rickshaw wallah bent down to pick up the long wooden handles of the rickshaw. As quickly as a runner at the starting gun, he darted into traffic.
For a long time they moved sideways through the jam. The rickshaw wallah snaked his way between the vehicles. Whenever he found a seam alongside a bus or a truck he plunged forward until he was forced to cut back again against the grain. The rickshaw stopped and started, swerved, sped up, and abruptly halted, like a bumper-car ride.
The rickshaw seat was throne-like, upholstered in bright red vinyl and decorated with a portrait of Ganesh. The awning was down, so that Mitchell could see the big wooden wheels on either side. Every now and then they came abreast of another rickshaw, and Mitchell looked across at his fellow exploiters. A Brahmin woman, her sari exposing the roll of fat on her stomach. Three schoolgirls doing their homework.
The honking and shouting seemed to be happening in Mitchell’s mind. He clutched his duffel bag, putting his trust in the rickshaw wallah to get him where he was going. The driver’s dark-skinned back gleamed with perspiration, the muscles and sinews working beneath it as taut as piano strings. After fifteen minutes of zigzagging, they left the main thoroughfare and picked up speed, passing through a neighborhood largely without lights.
The red vinyl seat squeaked like a diner booth. Elephant-headed Ganesh had the sooty eyelashes of a Bollywood idol. Suddenly the sky brightened and Mitchell gazed up to see the steel supports of a bridge. It rose into the air like a Ferris wheel, ringed with colored bulbs. Down below was the Hooghly River, pitch black, reflecting the red neon sign of the train station on the far bank. Mitchell leaned out of his seat to look down at the water. If he fell out of the rickshaw now, he would plunge straight down hundreds of feet. No one would ever know.
But he didn’t fall. Mitchell remained upright in the rickshaw, carried along like a sahib. He planned to give the rickshaw wallah an enormous tip when they reached the station. A week’s salary at least. Meanwhile, he enjoyed the ride. He felt ecstatic. He was being carried away, a vessel in a vessel. He understood the Jesus Prayer now. Understood mercy. Understood sinner, for sure. As he passed over the bridge Mitchell’s lips weren’t moving. He wasn’t thinking a thing. It was as if, just as Franny had promised, the prayer had taken over and was saying itself in his heart.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ,