Gandhi's Goat, Barry Rachin [summer books .txt] 📗

A line ad appeared in the classified section of the San Francisco Gazette: Night clerk wanted for small motel. Mission District. Inquire in person. A half dozen applicants interviewed for the position. I was the third choice and only got the job by default when the others decided not to accept. “What sort of a night are we having?” asked Mr. Chowdhary, the manager and owner of the Bay View Motel. A stocky man, his coffee-colored skin was pock marked below bushy eyebrows.

“Three-quarters full with two reservations pending.” I had been there a month already, checking in the late arrivals and showing the guests to their rooms. When a lodger needed extra towels or a light bulb changed, I doubled as room service. If the motel filled up - which hardly ever happened - I turned on the 'no vacancy' sign and usually had little else to do but answer phones.


“Good! Very good, indeed!” The more guests, the friendlier and more expansive Mr. Chowdhary’s mood.


Behind the front desk of the Bay View Motel was a large, rectangular box sectioned off into twenty four smaller slots for spare keys and mail. A water cooler stood near the door along with a display rack stuffed with brochures describing tourist attractions in the Bay Area. A bronze statue of an Indian goddess rested on an end table in the far corner of the room. Three feet tall, the statue depicted a well-endowed, Indian woman perched in a lotus position; the goddess had three separate sets of arms and a coil of venomous snakes writhing on her forehead. The faint smell of incense - patchouli or sandalwood - emanated from the spot where the statue stood.

“After college, what will you do?” Mr. Chowdhary asked.

I had mentioned that I was taking courses at the local community college. “Haven't decided yet.”
“Not to worry. In time, everything will become clear.” Mr. Chowdhary raised his voice several decibels and waved a finger in the air. “My son, Subir - for years, he drifted about aimlessly from one job to the next. A regular job gypsy!” Mr. Chowdhary grinned at his clever choice of words. “Now he works for the Bay Commission. Decent pay, good benefits. Such a lucky man! “He rubbed his pock-marked chin. “And my oldest daughter, Bidyut, is married. Her husband’s in textiles.” Mr. Chowdhary smiled even more broadly showing his straight, white teeth. Thinking about his successful children made him very happy. “And, of course, you’ve met my other daughter, Terry.”

“The girl who works here,” I replied.

Mr. Chowdhary’s smile faded rather abruptly. “I love all my children equally, but that one - she will send both her parents to an early grave.”

One of the guests, a late arrival, came into the lobby. He checked in and went off in search of his room, dragging a medium-size Pullman down the corridor. “My wife’s people,” he continued, “came from Cochin. The city is slightly inland from the Malabar Coast. There has always been a large, Christian community in south-western India since as far back as the first century. My dear wife is a devout Catholic. After giving the two other children traditional names, she decided to name our youngest daughter after Saint Theresa, the Little Flower of Jesus.”

Mr. Chowdhary made a disagreeable face. “Even as a child, Terry had more in common with Attila the Hun than her 19th century namesake.” “And how she eats!” Mr. Chowdhary lowered his voice as though what he had to say was a mortal embarrassment. “My voracious daughter - that's what I call her. Not to humiliate the girl or hurt her feelings. God forbid! I do it only to remind her that there is a problem.”

“But your daughter isn't fat.”

“Not yet.” Mr. Chowdhary shook his head and the corners of his lips puckered in a bittersweet smile. “No matter. Despite her faults, Terry is a good girl. Her life will fall into place and everything will work out for the best.” He looked up at me with an affectionate grin. “Just as it will for you, my friend.”


Mr. Chowdhary’s youngest daughter wasn't fat, certainly not by conventional standards. Fat was two hundred pounds on a 5-foot frame. Fat was when a woman walked across a solid oak floor wearing high heels and left a dimpled trail from one side of the room to the other. In her early twenties, Terry Chowdhary was a plumpish woman with a modestly good figure. I had first noticed her working in the main office alongside her father. Or sometimes she tended the bed of flowers - mostly marigolds, petunias and pansies - that her mother had planted near the motel entrance. A prominent, hooked nose did nothing for her aesthetically but was not overly large, certainly not out of proportion with the rest of her features. And she had inherited her father's dark skin tones.

Granted, her face had begun to flesh out, to lose definition and her body was beginning to go slack in certain critical areas - the valleys rising up to meet the peaks, so-to-speak. She hardly ever came by the lobby at night and, on those few occasions, had nothing to say. Most often, she wore a sullen, disinterested expression as though she found the universe too crass for her high-minded sensibilities and was living her life under protest.

One night after I had worked at the motel for several months, Terry wandered into the lobby. “Quiet?” she asked in a flat voice. The hooked nose set against the high cheeks lent her a haughty, almost arrogant expression. A thin, silver cross hung from her neck. She lifted her head but did not actually look at me. Rather, her eyes seemed to slide obliquely over my features without touching my face.

“Yes, very quiet. Only three guests. A couple of businessmen and a family touring from New England.” A bunch of large bananas lay in a basket on the counter. Terry took one and placed the peel on a napkin. She stuffed the banana in her mouth and the fruit went down her throat like a garbage disposal. It didn't appear that she even bothered to chew.

“Would you like one?” she asked. “They're quite fresh.”

“No, thank you. I just ate.” She shrugged and began peeling another.

“The guest in room twenty four thought he saw a cockroach, but it was just a dead water bug from the pool. He was still upset so I switched him over to twenty-six.”

“Any prostitutes?” Terry asked. “Sometimes businessmen bring women back to their rooms.”
Mr. Chowdhary never mentioned prostitutes. Was this an oversight, I wondered, or did he and his daughter have differing views on the subject? “If that ever happens,” Terry continued without waiting for my response, “give them their money back and tell them to go elsewhere. Prostitutes bring trouble. Trouble brings police.”

“How do I know,” I asked watching her nibble away the top of the second banana, “that the woman in question is a prostitute and not some bimbo with a trashy taste in clothes?”

“The first time she comes to the Bay View Motel with a man, she's his wife. No matter she's wearing stiletto heels and tassels on her breasts.” Terry deposited the peel of the second banana on the napkin. “If she shows up the next night with someone else, she's a prostitute.”

“I'll try to remember that.”

“When they try to check in, I usually say, 'We don't rent to prostitutes. Go away.'”

“Very succinct.”

“No reason to waste words.” Terry slid her hand across the counter and began toying distractedly with the third banana, picking at the topmost portion of the peel with a thumbnail.

“Are you going to eat that one too?”

“Did you want it?”

“No, It's just that I've never seen anyone eat three bananas.”

“I wasn't going to eat it,” Terry said self-consciously and pushed the fruit away. “You've been here a while now,” she said speaking in a harsh, almost accusatory tone. “What are your plans?”

It was the same question her father had posed, though slightly more diplomatically. “I don't know. I haven't decided what I want to do.”

“Well, for what it’s worth,” Terry said with a faint tinge of sarcasm. “I don't know what I want to do with my life either.”

Not that she wasn't attractive in an exotic, fleshy way, but her gruff stoicism was too much! At one point during our conversation, I caught a glimpse of the bronze, multi-limbed snake goddess over Terry's left shoulder and, for a fraction of a second, it seemed as though the motel owner's daughter and her metaphysical counterpart merged into one, all-powerful superwoman. “But you have your work here at the motel.”

“That's not the same thing,” she replied less caustically and went back out into the warm night.

After the New Year, Mr. Chowdhary's older daughter, Bidyut, had a baby. A month later, he came to me and said, “The christening is next Saturday. If you could work the day shift, I'll pay you time and a half.”

“That's not necessary.”

“It's the weekend,” he said with soft-spoken firmness, “and you would be doing me a favor.”
I had an ulterior reason for taking the work: In addition to earning a few extra dollars, Terry might drop by. I had begun to look forward to those rare visits when she sauntered into the lobby unannounced - like some visiting, foreign dignitary - sampling the complimentary fruit and stare at me with her chocolaty brown eyes. She reminded me of a nut - not the psychiatric variety, but the edible seed. A walnut or, more specifically, a Brazil nut - hard as hell on the outside, yet deliciously meaty within. Not that I had any desire to make a play for her. Our present relationship - transparent and uncomplicated -suited me just fine. “Yes, I'll work the day shift.”

The following Saturday, Mr. Chowdhary, dressed in a gray, sharkskin suit, a misplaced relic from the late fifties, escorted his wife and his family off to church. An hour later, they returned with a crowd of several dozen relatives. The women, many dressed in traditional Indian clothes, set up a buffet on aluminum tables around the concrete patio. It was off-season and the few guests registered at the motel had little use for the frigid pool.

An hour passed. A coarse-looking man - extremely fat and drunk - wandered into the lobby and came directly to the front desk. Placing his drink on the counter, he smiled piggishly. “Do you know who I am?” He said with exaggerated self-importance.

“One of the guests at the christening,” I said stupidly.

The man howled as though it was the funniest thing imaginable. “Yes, one of the guests!” He looked at his glass and, seeing that it was empty, rushed off. A minute later, he was back with a fresh drink in either hand. “Where were we?”

“We weren't anywhere,” I said making no effort to mask my discomfort.

The fat man shook his double chin and managed an inhospitable grin. Smelling of body odor and sloe gin, he leaned over the counter an inch from my face. “Tell me, how much profit does this shit-hole produce in a year?” His eyes were suddenly clear, limpid.

“Are you planning to buy the