Excerpt: Sketches by Kharys Ateh Laue

iii.

gokarna

A Brahmin comes out of the dark and looks at us. Are you going or are you staying? he says. He wants to know, Where are we from? He passes his hand over his face. Not black? he says. No, I say. There are white people in South Africa, too. He nods. But not many, he says. We are given a small bare room with a mosquito net. We sleep on our camping mats and in the morning wake with coin-shaped bruises on our hips. House music. The deep silence of ocean. Firecrackers and chanting. A young retired art buyer tells us he was lucky. When we ask whose work he invested in, he says an artist called Banksy. He speaks as if it is unlikely we know the name.

***

A shopowner sits eating biscuits out of a packet in his hand. From the rooftop a monkey lowers herself to the ground and squats beside him. The man passes her a biscuit. They sit together, chewing slowly.

***

An architect from Delhi confides that Israelis have a bad reputation in India. They get lost here, he says. After their military service they come to India and party like crazy and disappear. Sometimes their parents have to come looking for them — that’s how much Israelis don’t want to go back. I watch his hands. Their movements are deft, resolute. They describe whole buildings as he speaks.

***

On the beach women in blue and yellow saris stand with their feet in the sea. Later, daylight draws away from the stone buildings like water and we see it happen. We are the witnesses to it.

***

Raph and I have our first disagreement. The disagreement is about the photo I took of the man and the monkey. You should have asked first, she says. We walk an hour in silence before she tells me this. The moment would have been lost, I say.

***

We pack six apples, a cabbage, two pomegranates, a tomato, tahini, and bread. We pack one stainless-steel bowl and a knife and two forks. We pack a change of clothes and our camping equipment. We leave the remainder of our luggage with the retired art buyer. We hike the blue and white Gokarna coastline: from Kudle to Om to Half-moon to Friends. We scale Hell Cliff and pass through Hell Beach. At Paradise we set up our tent. A group of men ask, Where are we from? and Where are we going? They ask if it’s just the two of us. Yes, I say. Raph glances at me. We’re meeting friends, she says. They’re coming tonight. I check my backpack for the pepper spray. Forget about the truth, says Raph.

***

At sunset I drift in the swollen water and imagine my skin pierced by hundreds of tiny sea creatures. Back on the beach I examine myself. My arms and legs are stippled with pinpoints of red. There’s something in there that stings, I tell Raph. I wake in the night and Raph is not there. I kneel, lift the tent’s flap. She is out near the cliff, smoking. I lie down on my bruised hip and fall asleep again. I dream of translucent organisms with flawless glass probiscuses.

***

In the morning a woman climbs down the grey rocks. She holds her hips and surveys the beach, her enormous chest heaving. This place has changed a lot in ten years, she says. We half rise, opening to her. So you’ve been here before? I say. She turns and looks at us. Oh yes, she says. I lived here a good fifteen years before going back to that dump we call England. Now I’ve come back to see what’s become of it. I raised my daughter here, you know. Not that it did her any good. I thought I was doing her a favour by bringing her up on an Indian beach, but she turned out to be a cokehead and man-shagger and rock climber. The three things I can’t stand. Can you fucking believe it? I gave up men and coke years ago, and I’ve always hated heights. So I said, Well, sweetie, you do your thing and I’ll do mine. I did my best by you. I did my best and now you’re on your own.

***

We get up in the 4am dark and pack the tent in silence. Our torchlight skips and scatters over the ground. We find a silver spoon, a wet pair of panties. For the next twenty-four hours we travel. We hike from Paradise Beach to Kudle Beach. We tuk-tuk to the Gokarna train station. We take a train to Goa, a bus to Goa Airport. We fly from Goa to Bangalore to Jaipur. We taxi to our hostel. By the time we set down our bags, we are slow with exhaustion. Raph sleeps. I go out into the streets.

***

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