What Will The Poet Do Now? Part-II

"Yes?"

"I couldn't collect the money."

"What?"

"The money for the output," the poet said, "I couldn't get it."

"So why did you come here?"

"Well..."

"Are you a poet? Or a bloody beggar?"

The poet was taken aback.

"If you don't have the money, why did you commission the art work?" the artist asked.

"Well, if later one...I'll get you the money after I sell my books."

"You're going to give me the money after you sell your books? You can't raise eight hundred takas, why do you bring out a book?"

"That's my personal business"--had the situation been different perhaps the poet would have said that. He didn't say it now. Instead, he muttered, "Well, I'm definitely going..."

"I can't give you the output without the payment."

"I'll pay you. Once the book comes out I'm going to pay you."

The artist's eyes seemed to get redder. He said, "I told you, I can't do it. You think I own this place? Why should these people give it to you on credit? Who are you, Shamsur Rahman?"

"If you're going to talk like this, then..."

"How else do you expect me to talk? How? Go away, I'm not giving you the cover art. No money, a poseur! Get up! Get out!"

"What kind of behaviour is this?"

The poet felt deeply hurt.

The artist said, "Just go." Then turned to the boy, "Peepul, look in the Current folder. Open Tara Shaukat's cover. Secret Heaven. Look under S...right, that one." Then looked at the poet, "Now what? Why aren't you going?"

The poet had never felt more humiliated. He looked pale and disconsolate. He got up and said, "I'm leaving."

"Lots of Cocaine--put that song on."

A bizarre English song started to play on the computer.

She don't like
She don't like
She don't like
Co-caine!

The poet again addressed the artist, "I'm leaving."

"Go"--screeched the artist.

The angry poet did not say anything else. He looked pleadingly for some time at this "great" artist. The "great" artist did not bother to look back at him. He had become engrossed with the inner flap of Shaukat's Secret Heaven.

The wounded poet got out of Red Dots. Downstairs he thought, now what? Well, for now, a cigarette...the poet stood and lit a cigarette. While smoking he mulled over a lot of things. Had the artist deliberately humiliated him? Or was it because his mood had been off? Must be his mood was off. Otherwise how could an artist behave like that with a poet?

The poet saw a blue car.

Sky-blue.

The car parked and two men came out of it. One was a very well-known individual, a popular novelist and television drama writer. The other one was probably his publisher. The poet had seen them a few times at Shahbagh. The novelist-cum-television playwright had also once been easily accessible. At Shahbagh. When he too would sit on the curb outside PG Hospital and take tokes of canai. Nowadays he went to bars, drank foreign whiskey. Et cetera, et cetera. One heard a lot of talk about him.

Whose was the sky-blue car?

The novelist-cum-playwright's? Or the publisher's?

What the hell was it his business whose it was anyway?

Both the writer and publisher walked away from the car with a busy air. Went up the stairs and disappeared. Were they going to Red Dots Graphics? To the artist?

The poet lit another cigarette. For a while he stood there and looked at the passers by and the buildings. Purana Paltan was an old neighbourhood; this road, how old was it?...A frighteningly fat lady walked past...The girl in the rickshaw, a young prostitute?...How many floors was this building? One, two, three, four...No, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight--eight floors. The inhabitants of the eighth floor lived close to the sky. Did anybody live up there? Or was it an office--stray thoughts. And lit another cigarette, and another one after that. Even after a lot of thought the poet could not resolve his doubt: Should he approach the artist again? Or should he not?

The writer and the publisher hadn't yet left.

The poet again climbed up the stairs to the third floor. To Red Dots Graphics.

The artist's mood had lightened. He was talking with the novelist and his publisher. All three of them were laughing about something. Then the writer and publisher got up and left.

On the computer screen was a solemn-looking book cover. A translation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Evil Hour. Something abstract. The poet couldn't make head or tails of it.

The artist saw the bewildered poet. Said, "You?"

The poet said, "Yes..."

"Again? What is it now?"

"Please don't be angry with me. If I don't have the money, what can I do? Maybe I won't be able to take the art work..."

"I told you that."

The poet, crestfallen, said, "I wanted to ask you about something else."

"What?"

"Would you do a few drawings for my book? On tracing paper?"

"No. I don't do drawings on tracing paper."

"You used to do it before."

"I used to. I don't anymore."

"I'll pay you."

"You'll pay me? How much?"

"Whatever you want."

"Is that so?" the artist laughed. "No. You can't get hold of eight hundred takas, how can you pay me?"

"I'll give you the money."

"Please leave. Don't bother me anymore--Peepul, change this colour. Get rid of the cyan. Put in black thirty percent."

"So you won't do my work?" the poet asked.

"No! Now will you leave?"

Peepul turned in his chair to look at the poet.

"Please leave," the artist said. "I have work to do."

The poet felt very disheartened.

He turned to leave. He didn't say I'm leaving. He came out of Red Dots Graphics.

Then came the muezzin's call for maghrib prayers.

A lot of time passed.

The poet was seen standing in front of the Red Dots Graphics building. Standing and smoking cigarettes. Artist! Hah! An artist who did book covers. The airs! Sitting there thinking he was Max Ernst! Bloody commercial artist! Anything was possible in this country!

Ah, if only there was some canai now!

But the poet was not going anywhere else.

Not even in one of the possible eight directions.

Now the poet was going to wait.

He was going to wait for the 'great' artist.

Wasn't the son of a bitch going to go home tonight?

In the poet's shoulder bag lay a green-plastic-enclosed box cutter.

What stories were going to be in the newspapers tomorrow?

'Artist stabbed!'

Should it be 'stabbed' or 'cut up'? A box cutter was not the same thing as a knife!

The poet composed a news headline--"Artist so-and-so cut up before commencement of book fair!"

Would they publish a photo of the cut-up artist?

Let them!

The bloody airs he put on!

The poet lit another cigarette.

Dhrubo Esh is a well-known Bangladeshi artist. Farhad Ahmed is a free-lance writer/translator.