Lawrence of Arabia
Vineetha Mokkil
 


The camel showed up at my doorstep at dawn. The sky, a sea of grey, was lathered with clouds. Fine veins of light flickered at the edges of the horizon. Night had drained away, but the day hadn’t broken, not yet. My visitor arrived at an in-between hour.

To say he landed on my doorstep gives the wrong impression. Let me not confuse you. He didn’t march up to the door, press the buzzer, and demand to be let in. Knock, knock, look who’s here – no, that’s not what happened. I heard noises in the garden: the gate’s familiar squeak, the clatter of a watering can, the crunch of gravel, the thud of footsteps on the paved path bordering the flowerbeds. I sat up in bed, fully alert. A panicked insomniac is a dangerous thing. My imagination lit up like a flare.    

The news, papers and tv channels and magazines, was full of stories about shootouts and bloody riots and break-ins. Anger ran amuck on city streets. Protests and demonstrations against the President erupted every day. Protesters gunned down, pedestrians caught in the crossfire, cops, corrupt and bumbling, letting the carnage rage on – the daily headlines screamed. The city was burning. Why should the suburbs be any different?

Our pretty gardens and picket fences and tree-lined lanes were not fireproof. Blood would stain these streets as easily as the city’s broad, traffic-clogged avenues. Rage would erupt just as quick from under the veneer of calm. 

I took a deep breath, bent down, and grabbed a cricket bat from under the bed. The bat was the one thing I hadn’t given away to charity after Hari, my brother, professor of physics and champion biker, died in a freak accident during a biking trip. He was in perfect shape. Every morning, he walked to the university from his apartment instead of driving there. On the weekends, he went biking with his friends, a chirpy band racing down the streets like excited schoolboys, intent on clocking their rounds. Hari was captain of the faculty cricket team. His batting saved the team from all sorts of disasters. Pulled off impossible victories, piled up record scores. A thing of beauty, the captain’s knock. A miracle working in mysterious ways. A physics professor who aced at sport had to top the popularity charts. Hari’s colleagues, even the dead-serious, non-sporty ones, were friends with him. His students adored him.
Gripping Hari’s bat tight, I opened the front door. What good is a bat when fighting off a rapist or a robber, you ask? Not the best weapon, I agree. But it was all I had. Roy had warned me this day would come. “Get a gun, A,” he’d say, darting in and out of my studio like a nervous sparrow. “Get a gun or get killed”

Roy’s paranoia was the reason we broke up. That, and his compulsive need to whittle down my name to a single letter. From Angarika to A. From glorious multi-syllabic complexity to a hopeless, deadening simplicity. We parted friends despite our battles. Once lovers, now friends, without benefits.

I stepped out of the house. And there he was, inches away from me, the camel, brown all over, tall and sturdy, with liquid eyes and an air of infinite patience. No intruder, this hump-backed visitor. No maniac on the loose.

I let go of Hari’s bat. I felt like a fool for brandishing it in the gentle creature’s face.
My guest lowered his head and bowed before me. Polite, but not servile. Pleased to meet you, he meant.

“Hello,” I said.

He lowered himself on to the ground with a sigh. Head angled to the side, he knelt, perfectly at ease.   

“What’s your name?” I asked, not expecting an answer of course.

“Hm…” A deep, throaty hum. “Hm...”       

 “What do I call you?”

The sun slid out from behind the clouds and flooded the garden with light. The family of finches nesting on the neem tree chirped loudly. The morning chorus kicked in, full-throated and cheery.

After weeks and weeks of insipid grey weather, a sunny day dawned.

****

Two good things happened after Lawrence’s arrival.

Insomnia loosened its grip on me. Sleep, which had stubbornly stayed out of my reach after Hari’s funeral, came calling once more.  

I started making art again, finding inspiration in the objects I collected.

I went for long walks, savouring the joy of loitering, drifting without a destination, stopping in between to gather oddly shaped stones and pebbles, dried leaves and delicate petals, shiny tin and copper wires and candy wrappers. Lawrence went with me. A wonderful walking companion: no fuss, picture of patience, poster boy of elegance.

Did other walkers find us an odd pair? Did my neighbours wonder why I was out there with a camel in tow? No, and no. We weren’t bombarded with questions or waylaid by curious cats. People hurried past us. If someone made eye contact, they said a quick hello and moved on. If there were questions, none were aired in the open. Life was hard enough without having to worry about Lawrence. Things were spiralling out of control in the city. The President declared an indefinite curfew. Soldiers patrolled the streets day and night. Platoon gunned down protesters, tear-gassed them, threw thousands of innocents in jail.   
 
The opposition leader, the only man who dared to raise his voice, was rotting in a windowless cell, sentenced to solitary confinement. No charges filed, no trial needed. The law was a technicality, a hiccup the President easily ignored.

Even as the city burnt, Lawrence and I basked in the calm of our home. The sound of gunfire was only a distant echo in the suburbs. Chaos, though imminent, stayed at arm’s length from us.

****

Lawrence of Arabia was Hari’s favourite film. He had watched every frame – the gorgeous desert vistas, the shifting dunes , the horses galloping across the sands, the riders rushing to battle, the grand spectacle of victory and defeat – all of it imprinted on his mind. Peter O’Toole’s chiselled profile and aquamarine eyes, his stride, his voice, every line tripping off his tongue – Hari lapped them up like a starving man at a feast. In his fantasies, Peter O’Toole and Lawrence melded into one: a glorious vision; mercurial, charismatic, burning brighter than the desert sun.
No one could cure Hari of his obsession. No matter how damning the criticism of Lawrence (British stooge, spy, smooth operator, slimy fixer), Hari refused to let go of his fantasy.

“Love is blind, you know,” he’d say, drooling over the screen.

“Till death do us part,” he’d joke, flopping down on the couch like a lovesick seal.

****

When Roy came to visit me on a warm Sunday afternoon, Lawrence was snoozing under the giant neem in the garden. Roy walked past him, did a double take, and screamed for help as if he was about to be eaten alive by poor Lawrence.

“A…,” he yelled. “A….”

I tried to calm him down and herded him indoors. Even when we were seated in the cool comfort of the living room, he refused to listen to reason. Every five minutes, he would spring up from his seat, rush to the window and scowl at Lawrence (still asleep, still at peace).

“Send him back.” Roy’s face was contorted with suspicion. He raised an accusing finger at Lawrence.

“Back where?” I asked, lighting a cigarette.

“Wherever he came from”

“His home? I’ve no idea where that is”

“You can’t keep him here” 

“He’s doing fine”

“Maybe… But there are laws. Camels can’t walk around as they please. If you want a pet, get a dog or a cat. Or goldfish. They’re cute”

“I hate fishes. They look dead even when they’re alive. Can’t stand their cold, glassy stares”
Roy went quiet for a minute. He scowled at me like I was a puzzle to be solved.

“Forget it,” I said, sharing my cigarette with him. “Let’s talk about your trip. Did you have any fun?”

Roy had just got back from a work trip – London, Berlin, Paris – a whirlwind hop across Europe. Roy’s clients were scattered around the globe. The world was falling apart, everybody was in crisis, and desperate for a financial consultant’s advice.    

“The usual,” he shrugged. “Meetings and more meetings”

“Look, A,” he said, switching to a sugary tone. “Come clean. Hand over the camel to the cops”

“I’m not calling the cops on poor Lawrence”

“Call the director of the zoo. He’ll send a crew over. They’ll take care of it”

I ground the cigarette butt into the ashtray. The tip still glowed like a firefly.  

“I’m not blaming you,” Roy faked a smile. “The camel barged in here. His fault, not yours”

 “He’s staying, Roy. Also, he has a name – Lawrence”

“You’re breaking the fucking law!” Roy exploded. All the blood in his wiry frame rushed to his face. The blue-green nerve on his forehead pulsed like a third eye.  

“If anyone’s breaking the law in this town,” I said. “It’s the President. Go lecture him. Tell him to stop shooting at protesters. Tell him to stop the madness.”

Roy glared; a searing flash of disapproval, a silent rebuke. “I should leave now,” he muttered.
​
“I think you should.”

He marched out of the living room into the garden, taking care to keep a safe distance from Lawrence on his way out.

****

I made some of my best art when Lawrence was around. My mind’s eye, dulled by the fog of grief, dulled by the tears I wept for Hari, began to see beauty in unexpected places. I’d bring home an assortment of objects, things I stumbled on when I went for my walks  – wires, electrical components, feathers, pebbles, stones, leaves, petals, twigs, shards of glass, strips of coloured paper. Using these, I built installations and artworks. The birds and trees I crafted started to fill up my studio. A pair of mermaids I sculpted, twin beauties studded with shards of glass, greeted visitors when they stepped into my garden. Lawrence was an admirer. He circled around the mermaids, respectfully, an awed devotee at a shrine.

The garden was Lawrence’s favourite place. He grazed there, slept there, spent hours lazing around staring at the sky. He understood my magpie-like need to collect objects. When I stopped to gather them on our walks, he lingered, showing no sign of impatience, not once. Lawrence was a gift. A blessing from a quirky god. A boon granted without any grovelling on my part. 

Even though the news from the city lapped against our shores like a bloody tide, even though the city was falling apart and the President grew more brazen in flouting the law, Lawrence and I basked in the glow of a fragile peace. My nightmares, haunted by Hari’s absence, faded away. I slept well. Worked for hours at a stretch in the day, taking pleasure in the things my hands built. Installations and artworks, sculptures, paintings, block-prints – my imagination burst into flower like a tree in spring.  

****

Roy called me before leaving for Venice – another business trip, another round of wining and dining and deal-making.  

“Have a good trip,” I mumbled, knowing he would miss seeing the things worth seeing in Venice.

“Thanks…” He paused, then cleared his throat. “How is … the camel…Lawrence?”

“Couldn’t be better?”

“Just checking.”

“Forget about Lawrence. We have real problems in this country.”

“You know the President’s giving a press conference tomorrow?”

“Why? To drone on? To throw more reporters in jail?”

“He’ll be making an announcement. A big one.”

“Tell me what it is?”

“How would I know?” Roy laughed like a man with something to hide.

I let it go. Whatever news the President had to share, whatever rule he wanted to unleash on us next could wait for a day.

That evening, when the heat simmered down and the shadows lengthened, I stepped out for a walk. Lawrence wasn’t in the mood to join me. Sprawled under the neem’s cool green canopy, he hummed a contented hum.

“See you,” I turned around and waved at him from the gate. “Be good,” I shouted out even if he didn’t need reminding.

The sunset was spectacular. The light swept across the sky like a fine brush. Soft peach and gold clouds shimmered. Colours seeped into my heart and soul. The sun’s dramatic exit made me dizzy; drunk on beauty, I kept walking till the last drop of light leached away and the sky turned bruised black.

Lawrence was silent when I got back to the house. No “welcome home grunt” when I unlocked the gate. Not a whimper at my return. I swung open the gate, walked up the paved path, and switched on the porch light. Amber pools of light eddied in the garden and revealed Lawrence’s absence to me. I froze, shocked by the sight of the empty spot under the neem. The wind whistled in the trees. A russet moon hung in the sky. I called out his name, chanted it like a prayer. I swore I’d never let him out of my sight again.   

The night dragged on. I sat on the porch, eyes glued to the gate in the hope that he would show up as suddenly as he had vanished. When I dozed off after midnight, I dreamt Hari and I were racing down a hill on our bikes, the wind crisp and cold, the wind whipping through our hair. “Flying,” Hari yelled, flapping his lanky arms. “We’re flying,” he laughed, looking up at the blue.
At first light, I knocked on my neighbours’ doors, going door to door to ask them if they had seen or heard anything while I was out last evening, anything to give me a clue about Lawrence’s disappearance. “Sorry he’s gone,” people mumbled, holding their front doors open.

Would I like to come in? Have some coffee? A cup of tea –something soothing – chamomile or jasmine, maybe? 

Mrs D’Souza, the grumpy old soul who lived all the way down the street was the only one with information to share. We were practically strangers. She never said hello to me when we bumped into each other on the street or at the grocery store.  

“I saw a van at your gate,” she said, running her fingers through her snow white hair. Her skin was parchment. Every inch of her face was wrinkled, her forehead furrowed with worry lines.

“Parked in front of your gate, last evening, it was,” she said, speaking so softly I had to lean in to hear her. “Black van. Tinted windows. Bold yellow letters on the side”

I clutched her spindly arm. “What did the letters say?”

“The Zoo,” she said. “The van belonged to the Zoo”

I fished out my phone from my pocket, dialled the number listed on the Zoo’s website. After a dozen rings, a man with a hoarse voice said hello to me.

I skipped the pleasantries. Were they holding a camel who belonged to me? Was Lawrence at the Zoo? Could I come and get him?

“You are the owner of this animal, madam?” he asked, answering my questions with questions.
 “Do you have a license?”

“A stamped document to prove ownership?” 

“You are aware the law forbids people to keep camels as pets?”

“It’s against the law to break into people’s homes,” I snapped. “You sneaked in. You people kidnapped Lawrence. The Zoo broke the law. I’ll sue”

“Take it to court and you’ll lose,” he said in an even tone. “Hire a lawyer, waste your money on him. Say what you want but the camel is not yours. You have no case”

A weight crushed my chest like a sack of stones. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t go another round with this robot.

Mrs D’Souza leaned against her door and watched me cry. Her eyes were grey pebbles. No flicker of light there. No flicker of life.
  
 
 
      
 
                
 
 
                                                   
 









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About the Author: 
Vineetha Mokkil is the author of the collection, A Happy Place and other stories (HarperCollins). She was shortlisted for the Bath Flash Award June 2018 and is a nominee for "Best Small Fictions 2019."

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