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The day before they were scheduled to leave Montreal, Papu and Eponine took a taxi to the summit of Mount Royal Park, which is right in the center of the city and overlooks the downtown from several hundred meters above. The effect of seeing the city with its glittering modernistic architecture, with the mighty, wide St. Lawrence River in the background was like seeing a miniature scale model of a city in a museum — it had an unreal quality of artificiality about it.
The intimacy of marriage between Eponine and Papu had made them more equal, though she still perceived him as a person of overwhelming personal authority and he still perceived her as an ethereal presence who might escape his grasp at any time.
Looking out over the city, Papu said, dreamily, "If you look far enough into the horizon, you can see the mountains of Vermont in your country. See? Over there."
He pointed. "Whenever I come to Montreal, I come uphere to see America.
"From here I can sometimes feel as though I know how William the Conqueror felt looking across the English Channel in the eleventh century, dreaming of conquest."
"You want to conquer America, Papu?"
"Only in the cinematic sense, of course. It's not as simple as you might suppose, to discern the taste of your people. The Japanese have tried, the French. None have succeeded.
"In any other country you go in, you take a partner and you make business. With Hollywood - it's a snakepit more incomprehensible than the Forbidden City of China. Everybody smiles and confides in you how well you are going to do. They seduce you with big parties and beautiful women, and the whole time they are picking your pocket. Finally you are so desperateto stem your losses you sell out at any price — to the same people who have been stealing from you all along.
"But there's no alternative. I can't make movies in Bombay to sell to Americans. If you want to sell there, you have to work there."
Eponine said, "Maybe you should just be happy to be the king of Asia."
Papu turned to Eponine. "What is a king without a successor? I need a prince to inherit my dynasty. Eponine, we have had a long honeymoon, but now is the time to consider the prospect of creating an heir."
Tears welled up in Eponine's eyes. "Are you sure you want to try? I warned you when you proposed to me that an attempt to create a child could have tragic consequences."
Papu said, "I feel confident that if we proceed deliberately, we can succeed."
They flew to Geneva and consulted the geneticists at the Clinique Leclerc de la Reproduction et de la Fecundation. Papu gave a sperm sample and Eponine underwent a procedure to extract eggs. These elements were merged to create embryos which were incubated and monitored through the primary stages of development. Many were rejected out-of-hand. The more promising embryos were enhanced with nutrients, injected with colored tracking dies, and their genetic maps were analyzed with microscopic precision until the doctors were able to assure Papu and Eponine a ninety-nine percent probability that she could bring to term a normal, well-formed male child.
The embryo was implanted into Eponine's womb and she was flown back to Bombay by corporate jet. Papu had constructed for them a grand yellow palace in the exclusive Malabar district, and Eponine's pregnancy was achieved with the most exquisite care in the most elegant luxury.
The baby arrived on a stormy night. The Sea of Oman roiled turbulently, breaking against the concrete wharves of the harbor, seeming to express the displeasure of the gods, as sheets of rain battered the city, bringing all activity in the normally bustling megalopolis to a halt. A spider web of lightning erupted repeatedly and with increasing ferocity low overhead, accompanied by deafening shock waves of booms and clashes, like a tremendously amplified symphony orchestra gone insane.
Papu and Raj Bhopal waited nervously in the maternity waiting room of the Mahavishnu Clinic, Papu sipping Courvoisier from a gold flask. At length, the surgeon appeared in a pale green scrub suit and removed his surgical mask, revealing a wizened face ash-white with apprehension. "Doctor," blurted Papu, "what is your prognosis?"
"Both mother and son are doing well. But I must advise you to prepare yourself for a shock."
"In what sense?"
"The baby is also born with three eyes."
Papu fell back in his chair. Raj leaned over, grabbed Papu's hand and squeezed it tight.
The doctor said, "This is an occurrence that we were not able to detect with the ultrasound. Surely, you must have been able to deduce that this result might be an eventuality!"
"The doctors in Geneva assured me that the baby would be normal!"
"Mr. Bhopal, nothing in this world is a hundred percent guaranteed. A man of your wisdom and experience is able to appreciate that better than most."
"I must see them!" Papu exclaimed. He was led to Eponine's room with Raj at his heel. Eponine lay slightly elevated in her bed, her face drawn with concern. She clutched to her bosom a tiny brown baby bundled in a pink blanket. The baby was awake, but not crying. In the center of its tiny forehead was a brown, perfectly formed third eye. Papu recoiled in horror. He shielded his eyes with his hand, unable to look at mother or child. Eponine broke out in unrestrained sobbing. "Papu, I'm sorry! I tried to warn you!"
Papu said, "I have made a terrible mistake. I have sinned against the gods, against you, Eponine, against my ancestors. I have brought an abomination into the world..."
"No, Papu!"
"Papu, try to calm yourself," admonished Raj.
"Calm myself! Are you mad? I have ruined everything." He turned to Eponine. "You have bewitched me with your evil. Now that I am doomed, I can see it all clearly. This is the price I have paid for my success.
"When we stood on the mountain in Montreal, you showed me the world as Satan showed it to Jesus, but instead of refusing, I accepted. And now I have lost the world as well as my immortal soul."
"Oh, Papu!" Eponine's tears came out in torrents, the same as the sheets of rain that pounded on the window of her room. Raj clutched Papu's arm. Again he tried to calm him. Papu broke free and ran from the room. Raj turned to Eponine. "Don't worry. He's drunk. We'll call the baby Shiva. He'll grow into a great man and the Indian people will revere him." Raj turned to the doctor who, transfixed, had witnessed the entire scene. Calmly, he addressed him. Doctor Krishnamenon, do you think a sedative might be in order?"
Papu ran from the building into the wild storm. His yellow Lamborghini was parked in the adjacent parking lot and he got in, soaked with rain, behind the wheel. He took out his gold flask and hungrily swallowed the cognac. His life was in ruins.
Everything was a shambles. How could he have allowed himself to be bewitched by that whore? She was the personification of evil. And that baby, if you could dignify that creature with such a name! He resolved to murder it immediately, and damn the consequences. Nobody would indict him for such an act. It was clear that such a monster could not be permitted to live and grow. He ignited the engine and put the car into gear, all the time taking swallows from the flask. First he must flee. He must flee into hiding so that he could plot the murder of that bitch and her bastard child. The car swerved wildly through the flooded, deserted streets, higher and higher into the hills, faster and faster as he pressed the accelerator to the floor to escape the banshees and screaming demons that pursued closely behind him. He caught the attention of a police patrol which gave chase, its blaring siren adding to the cacophony of thunder and lighting exploding in Papu's head. He attempted a hairpin turn at 200 kilometers an hour. The auto skidded off the road into a ravine and exploded in an infernal ball of fire.
In the end, Papu Bhopal achieved his wish of becoming immortal in Indian culture, though not as he had imagined. The story of the rich, powerful king of cinema who married the three-eyed beauty and threw himself over the cliff after she gave birth to the three-eyed baby became the stuff of fabled legend, and was the subject of endless film remakes the world over.
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Posted on 1/14/2006
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