Page 34 - The Gluckman Occasional 7

and drove out through the gates. We are going, she told him, to a
certain doctor in town. He doesn’t speak English and he doesn’t
like foreigners. He will tell me if you are diseased. Either way, it
will not go well for you.

He pretended to be indifferent, but inside he was shouting for
joy. At last! He was out of his prison, heading for civilization! So
the Mercedes pulled up in an alley somewhere, and the goon
strong-armed him up a flight of stairs and into the back door of a
dark dingy doctor’s office. He couldn’t understand what was
being said, but he made note of all the exits. Then the doctor
motioned him to drop his trousers. Instead he pulled down a
cabinet to block the eunuch and ran out the front door, past a
waiting room full of men wrapped in rags, down another flight of
stairs, and out into the street. Freedom!

But he had nowhere to go. He spotted the hotel—it’s the tallest
building in Malkuna—and ran through side streets, dodging and
hiding in doorways, until he got there. He went into the lobby,
but didn’t see any white faces. So he came into the bar, and there
I was. And that was his story.

Now, like I told you, it was my last day there, and I didn’t feel like
going out in the heat, but I reckoned I’d never get rid of the guy
unless I could dump him on somebody else. The American
embassy was just down the street, so I told him to calm down
while I finished my beer. I paid my tab, and we went outside. He
could have seen the embassy from the front of the hotel, but I
guess he was too panicked. As soon as we hit the street, the heat
hit us like a blowtorch. I was pointing to the American flag,
saying, “Look, that’s where you should have gone,” when all of a
sudden a black Mercedes roars up next to us, brakes squealing
like a stuck pig. The doors open wide, a woman jumps out of one
side and a man out of the other. The man throws a cloth over the
blond kid and hits him hard on the head with his knuckles. The
surfer keels over and they bundle him into the back seat of the
car. The woman looks at me and says, “Do not be alarmed—it is
all part of a movie we are making.” And they race off, burning
rubber.