The Book

Nothing much happens in Gazebo now, after Gonzie left. Gazebo and Gonzie were one really and people talked about them in the same breath, as if they were Siamese twins joined at the hip. So one could not survive without the other. Mter Gonzie left, something happened to the spirit of Gazebo. It was all there, the teak bar, the bandstand, the dance floor, the fern pots, the Marilyn Monroe, Jean Harlow posters on the walls, the salad bar cunningly designed from a vintage Ford. But that intangible something, that magic, that stardust went out with Gonzie. And most of the tables are empty, even on weekends. It hurts.

It hurts and you keep feeling it the way your tongue moves to the gap where your tooth was before the dentist took it out. Now its the Christmas season and I know it will be the saddest Christmas, even though its the last in the century. Outside though, the mood is upbeat. Santas and Christmas trees, holly and bells have appeared on shopfronts all along Park Street. Kathleen and Flury's are taking last minute orders. Families are out shopping for gifts, the frisky young ones getting between their mother's legs. They are playing Jim Reeves at the record shop. Brings a lump in your throat, it does. You can never be indifferent to Christmas.

Last week, a couple walked in through the swing doors. They were in their late twenties, blonde and freckle-faced, rucksacks on their backs, dressed in scruffy jeans and cheap windcheaters. They had a couple of drinks and we got talking. They were from Minnesota and had been allover the country. A friend who had come the previous year told them not to

miss Gonzie at Gazebo, Park Street, Calcutta. He had said Gonzie's version of "Hotel California" was better than the original. So here they were. Would. Gonzie sing in the evening?

"He's not with us", I said, polishing the glasses. "He's left.. Sorry folks."

Their faces fell. The young man shrugged, paid up and they left.

I was so proud of my pal Gonzie. His fame had spread so far. But he was beyond caring now. Nothing mattered in the twilight zone where the lived now, mumbling to himself. I wished I could tell the young couple why Gonzie left. But I dare say I wouldn't have wanted them to pity him. You don't pity a legend.

It is said Gonzie first began singing at Gazebo in the forties, when communal riots broke out in the streets of Calcutta and the air was filled with the stench of rotting corpses. Inside, the sahibs and the memsahibs sipped scotch as Gonzie cronned their favourite numbers. My, what a voice! It was velvet and honey, sunshine and champagne. It could make you his slave for life. Many of the memsahibs were in love with him and there were murmurs of torrid affairs. One enraged Englishman was said to have even challenged him to a duel but Gonzie's fans pleaded on his behalf.

Without that golden voice, Gonzie was the ugliest man you ever saw ... a fat bald man with a doublechin, small, belligerent blood-shot eyes, cauliflower ears and a waddling walk. But my, was he vain about his appearance! He would always be dressed in tuxedos, with a frilly white shirt, a rose in the button hole, and high heeled shoes with gold buckles crafted specially by Win Woo, the best Chinese shoemaker in town. He was so vain that he bathed only with Evian water and employed a burly masseur for his comfort. He had a suite of rooms at the Fairlawns Hotel and a car always at his disposal.

No one knew about Princess in the beginning. They thought she was his niece, or some homeless waif he had picked up in the streets. But Princess was Gonzie's daughter. Early in his singing career, he had been married to a young

English woman named Jane Symons. Jane was govemess to the children of Kishore Charan Ghosh, the famous barrister. When she married Gonzie, she moved in with him at Fairlawns. They had violent fights. She couldn't stand his philandering and drinking and cussing. When their daughter Anne was born, he refused to get her christened. That was the last straw. Jane just upped and left. Gonzie was left literally holding the baby. kd Anne wasjust six months old. No governess could be employed, considering Gonzie's reputation. He took to bringing her to Gazebo in a wicker­basket, carefully covered with a checked table cloth. Everybody assumed it was his lunch.

Being Gonzie's pal, I took charge of the basket. As Gonzie crooned on stage, I was in the backroom, giving Anne the bottle, burping her, changing nappies, cleaning the mess, singing to her. Soon she came to recognise my voice and would blink at me with those blue eyes of hers and gurgle with laughter. She grew up strong and sturdy and was soon running between the tablets as Gonzie entert.ained the guests. By the time she was twelve, it was apparent that Anne was going to be an enchantingly beautiful lady. With her olive skin, blue eyes and coltish figure, she sure made heads turn wherever she went. Gonzie doted on her. He called her "Princess" and was ready to die for her. And Princess took full advantage of that. She skipped school, were anything she liked, threw tantrums, wasted a hell lot of money, swore like a trooper, and even smoked in his presence. And Gonzie just chortled with laughter. Chip of the old block, he would chuckle.

I don't know whose idea it was that Princess too should sing at Gazebo. But one Christmas eve, there was an announcement. Princess would sing. Gonzie was nervous as hell. His daughter was making her debut and he hadn't even trained her. She arrived backstage in a dowdy black gown with full sleeves and a buttoned up front.

"Jesus Christ!" Gonzie groaned.

"You joining the covent or something?"

"Wait and see Pops" she winked. "They'll be having their tongues hanging out in a moment. Watch me!"

And was she right! As the red velvet curtains parted, she stood in the centre of the stage, a lone spot light focused

on her. Slowly, she began to sing. It was Tony Bennet's famous number Because of you.

"There's a song in my hearf'. Her voice was full-throated, husky, passionate. And ever so slowly, as if in a trance, she began to undo the buttons of her sleeves. There was pindrop silence, necks craned forward, eyes turned glassy. After the sleeves, she worked at the bottons in her throat, slowly, teasingly, as if unaware of the impact she was creating. Then, with a single fluid movement, she flung off her dress and stood in the skimpy, spangled costume that left nothing to the imagination. You could hear the roars of approval, the table-thumping, the applause, the lusty cries for "Encore". Smiling coquettishly, Princess ran down the stage, kicked off her heels, and climbed on to each and every of the twenty tables, swinging her hips and blowing kisses. It brougl;1t the house down, it did.·Then Gonzie waddled on stage, beaming. He began to speak. "That's my Princess, folks, and the night she was born, I saw a star streak down from the sky ...

"You were drunk, Pops" she called out cheekily and again there were gales of laughter.

So now there were two stars at Gazebo and tables were booked weeks in advance. Princess, for all her ingenuous looks, was a shrewd negotiator. She qemanded a fat salary, a car of her own, and a private suite at Fairlawns. She was to have extra allowance for costumes and make-up.

Then began the golden era at Gazebo. Father and daughter would sing every night and Princess danced too. No one could decide whether she danced or sang better. But like her father she had stage presence, a perfect sense of timing, and a feel for the mood. Year by year she grew breathtakingly beautiful and she broke more hearts than she cared to count. But things were too good to last and the beginning of the end had to come. And it did, much too soon, and in a way we never imagined and I would have done everything in my power to prevent.

Something was troubling Princess and I was the first to sense it. She began looking wan and listless, there were blue shadows under her eyes and she jumped out of her skin when I once called her from behind. "What's eating you baby?" I asked gently. "Boyfriend trouble, eh?"

"No Uncle", she said, turning away. "I'm not well".

But the secret became too big for her to handle and she finally confided to me. Someone was following her. Someone was sending her wreaths with "For your funeral" tags attached. Someone called her up every midnight and whispered obscenities. Someone slashed her clothes when they came back from the laundry. She couldn't sleep, she couldn't eat. And worst of all, Gonzie laughed off her fears. Some lover of yours, he chuckled. I wanted to inform the police. She said that would be worse. Lets wait and see.

She began to wear sober clothes and cut down on her ribald jokes. She took to wearing the small gold crucifix her mother left her, to Gonzie's disgust. The management at Gazebo were dismayed. They wanted the old raunchy, no­holds barred Princess. This new Princess was bad for business. But Princess was adamant. She even began attending St. Thomas Church. And she told Gonzie that she would stop singing and take up some respectable job, be a steno or typist.

Gonzie was furious. "You'll get a goddamn stoop and a squint and become an old maid before you're thirty," he yelled. "No daughter of mine is gonna become some tightarsed secretary. You're born to sing, girl!"

On Christmas night Princess sang at Gazebo for what was to be the last time. She sang love songs, she sang a hymn. "Take my hand, precious Lorel'.But I guess the Lord had other more important things to dothan taking her hand. After the show, she slipped away. Gonzie sang Frank Sinatra numbers and got really sozzled. We had to carry him to the car. Later on I pieced the story together from his garbled account. They were driving back to Fairlawns hotel when on one of the side streets he saw a small knot of people. He stopped the car, waddled out and took a cursory look. He was too drunk for the scene to register. He went to the hotel, unlocked his suite and called out.

"Hey Princess, there was this woman lying there. She had been raped and was dead and I swear she had on a fur coat just like you .... "

There was no reply. The room was empty. And her suite was empty too. "Sweet Jesus Christ!" He blubbered. "Where

are you girl, its two O'clock in the morning ... " He drove back to Gazebo. I was there, having the place cleaned up. He couldn't remember where where he'd seen the body. We went around Calcutta all night and when dawn broke we had the good sense to look up the morgues. She was at the Nilratan Sarkar hospital morgue. Someone had broken that delicate jaw. Someone had punctured that olive skin with a burning cigarette tip, someone had bruised that slender throat, someone had violated her again and again so that those blue cornflower eyes were dilated with terror and the lips drawn back in a silent scream .....

It was over for Gonzie. He had to be sedated and couldn't attend her funeral. I paid for the marble tombstone with "Princess" inscribed on it.

Gonzie never came back. And Gazebo has never been the same again. I think her spirit roams on the dance floor, floats among the tables, between the velvet curtains. This was her only home and somewhere in my room, I still have that wicker basket where she rested when Gonzie sang. Sweet dreams, Princess. This world was too much for you, and may you sing with the angels.