In the dim light, human limbs slowly appear on the wall. I see all kinds: dark ones, long ones, stunted ones. They are neatly packed in plastic sheets as they hang shamelessly, suits and shirts waiting to be picked.
“Welcome to my khopcha,” says Baba Rakhu. “My pet dungeon that will save the world. How many men are without arms? How many women are without legs? It is shameful when the eunuch-dogs of this city roam freely.”
The organization of the arms and legs is meticulous — they are labelled with names in alphabetical order; they shine a little, coated with a substance to preserve them.
Baba Rakhu clasps his matted hair above his head with both hands. “What are you thinking, brother? There is no shame in buying arms. It is like buying anything else.”
A hairy arm dangles above me like the leather support strap in a bus. I want to take the black shawl that Baba has draped over his shoulders and cover the arm with it.
“You are what … five feet seven? Short one you are. So you will need short arm.”
What I need is to beat my conscience to a thin paste. I try not to imagine how Baba must acquire these limbs. He selects a short, pale arm, slightly hairy, with a white scar on the wrist. He strokes it lovingly as if he is a vendor displaying quality silk. Without removing its plastic wrapping, he holds it in place of my missing arm. I quiver as the arm touches my skin. Even my stump is repulsed by something that should seem familiar. I move away.
“What are you doing?” he shouts. “Stay still. Trial fitting.”
“So you do sell arms and legs …”
“You act as though I am selling guns.”
“There must be at least …” I try counting the limbs in front of me.
He uses the arm in his hand as a pointer and instructs, “Twenty right legs, twenty left legs, both male and female. Seven pairs of arms. And seven single ones for gentlemen like you.”
I imagine my body if I buy an arm. I will stand naked in front of the mirror and dance, count my fingers repeatedly as though I am the first to discover that humans have ten fingers. I will use my new arm to scratch an itch on my neck, to turn the pages of a newspaper. I might even learn sign language and never speak again.
“So brother, only twenty thousand rupees for this arm, including surgery.” He looks at me with eyes of charcoal, his long beard a tangle of snakes that will come to life any minute, bite me for being greedy.
He places the arm once more against my stump. He shakes his head. “This one does not suit you. Not to worry. I will get one to match your size and skin tone. It will only take a day or two.”
He places the arm back on its rack. “Twenty thousand rupees. Cash only. And I don’t give receipt.”
“The price is fine with me,” I reply. I am sure this is my lost arm talking. Or the unbought arm — maybe it is lonely. “I’m worried about something else.”
“The surgery? That is only a term I use. There will be no knives and blood, or any bogus rituals. Once I get an arm, I simply attach it to your body. It is a gift I have. If you believe in God, call it God-given.”
“The surgery is not a concern,” I answer.
“Then what, brother? If money and health do not bother you, what lunatic flesh are you made of?”
“Where you do get these arms?”
“Do you check where the vegetable vendor gets his stock? Do you know every detail about the fish that are sold at your doorstep?”
“This is different.”
“Only if you let it be.”
“But I need to know if …”
“Need to know what? I offer you a commodity that is unattainable and what do I get in return? I will forgive your insolence only because you have proved your worth by preserving the finger. Otherwise, step outside. The scenery will be breathtaking there, once I put your face in the gutter.”
At any moment, his beard will spurt poison in my face, blind me for not seeing in the first place. As he shouts, the arms on the wall move — a twitch, a flick of their wrists, fingers rise to point at me. In the corner opposite us there is a pair of female legs. They tremble as though their flesh has been beaten, smacked as sorely as a disobedient child’s. Baba breathes into my face. With each exhalation, a germ of fear is born within me.
“You young people complain too much,” he says. “You lose an arm, you complain. Someone offers you one, you complain. If you have the money, buy it. Think of it as an orange. It might grow in someone else’s garden, but if you are hungry you will eat it.”
“An organ transplant, then. No incompetent doctor will meddle with the fitting. It is Baba Rakhu’s guarantee, brother. To date, I have fixed two hundred cripples.”
“In the case of a transplant there is a donor. I doubt these arms are donated.”
“A minor technicality,” he continues. “I want to help you. You seem like a good person, although. your skin is a little pale. I will do what I have not done for any customer before. You will learn how I obtain my stock.”
He is convinced that he is selling oranges.
“If you choose not to use my services after that, so be it. If you go to the police, there’s a special place reserved for your other arm right there in the corner.”
If I retreat now, I am dead anyway. I have met Baba Rakhu and seen his pet dungeon. Are some of these limbs customers’ limbs? It is so dark here. Hell must be like this. Only less organized.
I ask, “Who do you take from? Do you target the poor and hardworking as well, or is it only the eunuch-dogs you despise?”
“Before you behave like a third-class journalist, did you understand the condition I just set you?”
“Yes,” I tell him. “If I’m convinced, I buy an arm. If I’m not convinced, I walk away. If I run to the police, I lose the other.”
“It is settled, then. You shall witness the buying. Before we go arm shopping, we must eat. Please serve yourself,” he says.
But there is not a morsel of rice around, or, for that matter, a morsel of anything I recognize as human morality.
Baba motions to the arms and legs. “All you can eat, brother. America style.”
Legs swim before my eyes and I picture chili powder being sprinkled on them for flavour. Because Baba Rakhu speaks of America I see salt and pepper shakers. I imagine the legs being chopped into edible pieces and placed on banana leaves, because that is an Indian custom. Nausea overtakes me and the snakes in Baba’s beard bicker amongst themselves over who gets me first. I throw up — it is the only act that seems dignified in this depraved brothel.
I hear Baba’s voice and the snakes are gone. “Brother, you are a weakling. It is unwise to be so delicate in the present day.”
“Perhaps we could talk a little more.”
“Talk is for politicians. We simple folk must simply exchange arms.”
“But I was hoping …”
“Hope is the poor man’s burden. Why are you carrying it?”
Mockery. We all hate being subjected to it, and yet it is our favourite subject.
“Do you have a shopping bag?” he asks me.
“What for?”
“To put the arm in.”
I see the flying cockroaches again. I am confused because there are both brown and black ones. They act as if they are friends. Good and evil holding hands, dancing like children. They are celebrating that I have come to this place. They sing a song, the type bandits sing on horses, and it is lovely. Then they stop flying. They lie flat on their backs, wings spread out, looking at the ceiling. In a minute, they are dead.