Cityscape. Photograph Phil Hall
by Amal Chatterjee
When I was a child, I dreamed of aeroplanes, great silver birds crossing continents and oceans, I watched their thin vapour trails draw and spread as they made their way from distant cities to others yet more distant. But now the novelty has worn off, I know them too well, the plastic cheerfulness of their livery, their stale air and ersatz bonhomie, the crushing compactness of their seating.
That flight then was long enough, of optimum dreariness, neither short enough to be over quickly, nor long enough to be agony, yet discomforting all the same. I disembarked with a crick in my neck, stiff joints, not feeling particularly presentable. I didn’t look it either, I knew that as I faced, separated from her by toughened glass, a cheerful young woman. Yes, cheerful here, there was no stern and suspicious adult, no male representative of the state to scrutinise my papers, instead there was a young woman, a girl almost. One who looked barely out of adolescence, one who smiled as she checked my travel-crumpled visage against the image in my passport.
“Your sponsor?” Even her tone wasn’t unfriendly.
I named the organisation that had invited me. It had the name of the city in its title, an official looking header on its letters, stamps that suggested not just authenticity, but prominence.
“Never heard of it.” It didn’t seem to worry her though, her smile didn’t even flicker. She handed back my passport. “Welcome.”
For a fraction of a second, I felt a prick of anxiety at her unrecognition of my official-sounding hosts, but then her unconcern reassured me. Would she let me pass if there were any doubt?
Airport. Photograph Phil Hall
An air of imminent but as yet unachieved efficiency hung over the baggage hall, efficiency disrupted by those who rushed around, shouted across the belts laden with lumbering luggage wrapped in plastic and tape, and reiterated by more seasoned, more worldly others, who held back tolerantly, moved in with practiced ease when they spied their belongings.
A young woman with a heavy case caught my eye, I stepped forward to help her, was rewarded with a smile of friendliness matching that of the girl behind the glass.
I could get used to this, I thought, to these smiles.
My bag arrived, sans lock but otherwise intact. I hauled it off the belt, towed it across the marble floor, through Customs where a woman stood forlornly at a table, her bag open while a man in uniform counted a mountain of cigarette cartons. Neither he nor she looked particularly hurried or perturbed, they could have been playing parts, acting out a scene for the benefit of others. “Beware, this could be you”.
Outside, a man with a board, my name on it, misspelt but recognisably mine, confirmed by the logo of my hosts. I pushed through the throng, reached his side. He, a stout man of middling age and flat slicked hair, lowered the placard and set off at a brisk pace. I hurried after, riding the wake opened by his girth, my suitcase and shoulder bag unwieldy about my person.
He halted at a bank of metal portals, we rode a vast lift up, stepped out into a giant car park. I stumbled behind as he marched inexorably on, stopped when he did, suddenly, at a vehicle of indeterminate age, neither of this era nor of the past, certainly not of the future, manhandled my own bag in when he threw open the boot. Accepted when, briefly courteous, he held the car door open for me, started when he slammed it after me, rocking the vehicle. Smiled tired incomprehension when, after slipping into the driving seat, he twisted half round, shot a volley of words at me.
He put the car into gear and we jerked out of the rank. For an hour and half he drove, I dozed, was occasionally jolted awake when he took abrupt evasive action against others on the road. Noticing that he neither smiled nor acknowledged anyone when he did, I remembered my relocation adviser, remembered him explaining such behaviour as Confucian, Taoist or – bizarrely to my ears – Buddhist. It didn’t look philosophical to me though, more attitudinal. Of the city, perhaps, as a faith unto itself.
After miles of tall blocks of housing and shinier, taller blocks surmounted by symbols of corporations both familiar and unfamiliar, we took a broad six-lane highway into the heart of the city. All the way traffic flowed as if it had always done so, even though I knew that it couldn’t be more than three, maybe six, years old.
…explaining such behaviour as Confucian, Taoist or – bizarrely to my ears – Buddhist. Photograph Phil Hall
We took a sudden left, almost clipping a bus but not quite, slowed down a street lined with – as I, even in the short space of time I’d been there, had come to expect – monstrous tall buildings, pulled up at the foot of one. After (surprising me again) helping me with my bag, before I could even reach for my wallet, the driver was back in the car, its indicators barely begun blinking before he was in lane and gone.
I manoeuvred my bag to the escalator, rode it up to the second floor platform, where an entrance, a curved glass-and-metal presence that neither welcomed nor forbade, waited. Neutral, like the competitive driving, no winner, loser. As it was, as it might always have been.
Through swing doors into a lobby of painted gold, lined with what appeared to be dark marble. Behind the reception counter, also marble, two young people, with the air about them that only the young can have, bright, shiny, friendly. She as radiant as an airline poster, he an inoffensive bespectacled companion, a complement.
“Good afternoon, Sir.” Welcoming. It could have, perhaps it should have, sounded forced but it didn’t. I was checked in, my passport pages copied, returned, a bellboy (“Ni hao!” he said, only I didn’t understand him yet) strode off with my case. I fell in behind as he tapped a card to a reader to open plate glass doors.
“Sixteen floor,” he said, jabbing the button. We rode up in silence. Stepping out, he led me round a curved corridor, tapped the card on a door and, when it beeped and the light on it flashed green, opened it with a flourish.
The room was spacious, large enough for a double bed (king size, I believe it’s called) a smattering of upholstered chairs, an oversized television, a desk, three chairs and a lopsided footstool. In the hallway on one side was a bathroom, on the other a compact kitchenette, two burners, a sink, a fridge with a microwave oven and a kettle perched on top. Dropping my bags beside the bed, the bellboy handed me the keycard.
“Water no good,” he said, turned to the door.
“Wait.” I reached for my wallet, withdrew ten, then added another ten, pressed the folded notes into his hand.
He looked at them, puzzled, then shrugged. “Bye, bye,” he said, or words like.
I looked out of the window. Directly below, commuters milled like frenzied beetles, model sized trains rode an elevated track. Behind the track, under it, was an open space with a colonial looking shell, facade only, hollowed out, frames and workers filling it in, new inside old. Surrounding it all were roads and tower blocks faced with billboard and screens several storeys high.
My view for the next three months. At least I would be getting daylight, plenty of it, the curtains were diaphanous. But I like light, darkness disorients me. As a child, I was afraid, now I am lost, confused. A fine line, panic can surface any time, I prefer light.
But I like light, darkness disorients me. Photo by Tobi on Pexels.com
Kicking off my shoes, I lay down on the bed, still dressed. When I awoke, the sun was gone, the sky was lit up, transformed from steel blue-grey to sodium vapour red and neon. From the window I saw a river of red tail lights, saw trains pull in, out, speed away, saw skyscrapers and cranes with lights winking red warning. Mega-city, megapolis, city ready for, of, the future.
After showering and clean clothes, light for the tropical September, I descended in the elevator. A fresh pair of friendly girls in the lobby smiled serviceable English and drew me a map.
“Supermarket right, across the road. Left at hotel.”
Baked yams and meat on a charcoal grill greeted me at street level, reminding me that I was hungry. I wasn’t ready for the pavement yet though, many years of traveller’s caution had made me wary. Instead I hurried across a dense, heaving throng of traffic and people, along a crowded pavement.
And arrived, as promised, all but buried in the basement of a gleaming mall, at two floors of bountiful consumption, meat and fish, an entire market of vegetables, mushrooms and chillies, cabbage and greens, serried ranks of noodles, dumplings, water, beverages I’d never imagined. Down in the deepest, lowest, level a bored older assistant pointed me towards the washing up liquid I mimed, shrugged when I tried to engage her in my choice. She did not understand me, nor I her.
an entire market of vegetables, mushrooms and chillies, cabbage and greens, serried ranks of noodles, dumplings, water, beverages I’d never imagined. Photo by Matheus Cenali on Pexels.com
A five litre plastic flagon of water weighed me down most, the rest, a motley collection of vegetables, noodles, dumplings were feather-light by comparison. Past the checkout, at the top of the escalator, I remembered something but couldn’t face returning, I’d survive a day without.
Back at the hotel, three girls in the lift compared shiny brand name bags. Slender, figures child-like almost to my eyes, clear skin and happy eyes.
I could get used to so much girlhood.
The door beeped. I stepped in, spied a card on the floor. From it, a girl, younger even than the three in the lift, smiled shyly up at me. The characters on the card were opaque to me but the meaning of the waif-like beauty in almost chaste underwear needed no explanation. Business is business everywhere, I am not naïve.
I didn’t put it in the bin.
A couple of solitary hours later, dumplings and mushrooms and spring onions lining my stomach, as I sprawled on the bed, watching talent shows for the stupendously untalented, I heard a rustle at the door, and the sound of footsteps receding down the hall. Rolling over, I looked. In the middle of the floor, almost precisely where the previous one had lain, was a new card. Stretching out, I could just reach it. Another girl, this one’s hair blonded but clothes as demure, as if in a family shopping catalogue, her smile shy too. On the reverse, the girl repeated, kneeling coquettishly on a pink bed by a lacey curtained window.
I placed it on the bedside table, by the first card.
I looked at the clock. Midnight nearly, the night stretched interminably ahead. I surfed the television channels, news, game shows, costume dramas, more game shows, game shows, game shows, everyone wants to be a millionaire.
The neon on the buildings outside glowed bright, Swiss watches and French perfume enticed me and the drivers circumnavigating my stranded hotel. Was anyone else awake? I looked, the windows I could see were dark.
I dozed again. When I opened my eyes, the game show had been replaced by reality music, three girls singing their hearts out on a glittering stage, anxious friends and parents in the wings.Thirsty, parched, needing a drink, I tumbled off the bed- and there it was again, another card, slipping under the door even as I watched, the face of yet another girl, as doe-eyed as the previous two. It scudded across the floor in front of my eyes, its trajectory interrupted by the beginning of the carpet.
Whoever was bringing them had to be outside.
I tip-toed across the room, pressed my eye to the peephole. Nothing but blank wall. I pressed my ear to the door, but heard no footsteps, nothing, not even breathing. Then, the ping of the elevator. Was he – I felt it had to be a man – waiting? Going up or down? I reached for the door handle, hesitated. What was I doing? This man dealt in women, human beings!
Or did he? He could just be the messenger, couldn’t he? He must be, the man running things wouldn’t … Heartened, I gripped the handle, turned it.
Beep, beep! I froze. “He’s coming out, here he comes!” I thought, my heart in my mouth.
In that instant, the room lit up in gaudy, violent, brilliant colour. I fell back from the door. There was a moment’s silence, then a chatter of explosions. Firecrackers! A shower of light, purple, red, blue cascaded past my window, ending as suddenly as it had begun, leaving the cityscape again lit only by promises of luxury on billboards on dark, silent towers.
In that instant, the room lit up in gaudy, violent, brilliant colour. Photo by photoGraph on Pexels.com
I stepped back to the door. Through the spyhole, I saw only the featureless wall, the corner of a picture the only break in endless cream. I pressed my ear to the wood again, felt it cool against my ear. Using the card now, forestalling the beep, I opened the door.
Bright walls rose from the tan floor, the corridor curved away into a vertical horizon. A rank of dark brown doors punctuated the wall on my right, a framed print between every fourth and fifth.
Gingerly, conscious of the sound of my shoes on the floor, I passed one, two, three, ten doors. The lift lobby yawned on my left. As brightly lit as the corridor, four portals awaited, closed. I tapped the button. Down, because up was further in, down was out, and out was preferable. The indicator light flashed and died. I tried again. This time it worked, lit, lasted till the sharp ding of the doors opening.
Inside a girl.
My fourth ride in four hours. Up twice, down twice. And the night is still young, barely midnight, four hours on, and I’ve already seen more men than I did yesterday in eight. A good night, I can hear him say, smiling his smile, the one that captivated my mother. “I’ll take good care of her, there’s work for everyone in the city above the sea.” Of there is, everyone knows that. With his winning smile, he charms our parents and brings us here, young and willing. We obey once we’re here, we can’t go back, can we? It’s a one way ticket out. I miss the sound of crickets, the trickle of water in the gully behind the house, frogs in waterlogged fields. Birds overhead. There’s sky and grass in the parks but not here. Here it’s neon and cars that wake me, keep me awake. Sunset interrupts my sleep if I’m lucky, work is at night. Upside down, that’s the way we live, night is day, day night, day in, day out. This will never end.
Did I say girl? A second look – mirrors in lifts have their uses – changed my mind. Her figure I read as a girl’s, the proportions petite, but her demeanour and her face were anything but. Our eyes met and I must have coloured, I saw the hint of a smile touch her lips.
I squeezed memory of words. “Ni hoa?” The tone, even I could tell, was wrong. I uncertain, it rose unsteadily, sounded interrogative. She frowned, then her brow cleared. “Ni hao,” adding, “Hullo.” Turned away, too quickly for me even to catch her reflection, she might have been smiling, I couldn’t tell.
The red ticked down, 14, 12, 10, 9, and halt. A heavy set man in a sleeveless T-shirt, basketball shorts and shapeless rubber slippers, the reek of cigarettes and alcohol a micro-climate around him. The girl-woman stabbed the button vigorously, he leaned across even as the doors obeyed, repeated her action. Then, straightening up, he looked at me, his eyes the red of one who has has little sleep.
“Yin du?”
I recognised the words, reference to my ancestry. “Yes, ha, hai.”
He nodded. “Eye tee.” He spoke with satisfaction. IT. Having no reason to disabuse him, I nodded too. He grunted.
“Good.”
Good what? For an instant, I was tempted to ask but just then it struck me that I had no idea what I was doing, why I was there. Chasing, following – or escaping? What next? I had no destination, no idea even whether I should go out, into the region of neon, glass, concrete and soft focus visiting cards. Should I turn heel, go back, to a blizzard of cards and girls …
What if they were generated, figments of adult fantasy? What was out there? Anything, everything, the adviser had said, anything, everything for a price.
You can tell the novices, they try to look calm, worldly-wise but the way they stand, the way they look gives them away. They see us getting in, see what we wear, imagine who we are. I was like that too once, when I first came. When the city was new, when everything and everybody didn’t see me but I did them. Now I am one of them, I should not seeing. But I do, I see when they are new, fresh from the farms and broken roads and far-off foreign places, before they become part of the landscape as I have.
The new one in here with me, dark like he’s spent two lifetimes in the sun but with skin as soft as a little emperor, no, he’s never been out in the sun, not to work, he is looking at me. He thinks I do not see, but I do, I see as much as he does, as he watches. The man who has joined us is making him nervous, I see it in the way he looks at him.
I feel sorry for him, alone and tongue-tied here. What was it he tried to say? Ni hao. Hullo, you good? It didn’t sound like it, he doesn’t look it either.
We arrive in the lobby. The doors slide open, the girl-woman is ahead of me, do I imagine it or does she look back at me? What can it be like, dressed like that, doing … what is it that she does? Perhaps it’s innocent, perhaps those cards have led me astray?
She smiles at me, I am not convincing. Photo by frank minjarez on Pexels.com
I follow my nose, no, I’m follow the track the others beat. How old would this place have to be for the floor to wear down, like in a field, have a dust path curving through green? A cable is tied across the handles of the next set of glass doors ahead, an arrow points to another. All I pass are awake but not, not really, I see sleep hovering everywhere, in the eyes of the pair at the desk, on the face of the guard. The clocks tell me it is past 2 am. Out on the second floor platform that could be street level but isn’t, it is warm, balmy even.
A taxi scuds past, another couple cruise slowly, watching expectantly.
I see life, the shop below is open. I hurry onto the escalator, stumble. It is lifeless, blank, immobile this late at night. I do as I must, I walk, the first steps shallow, then deepening till they are normal and I can step like I ought, then shallow again and I am on the street. There’s another store, I see now, on the other side of the road, as bright at the first, as bland. I hesitate. How to choose?
A voice at my side. “Good evening, sir. You good?”
A language I understand. “Yes.”
A smile expands toothily. “A drink, sir?” I could murder one but with someone I’ve just met? “Nice girls,” he says, sees my face fall. “Not girls, sir? Something else? Tell me…”
I could tell him so many things but not what he thinks I want. “Water,” I stammer, ” I want water!”
I feel his gaze on my back as I flee across the road to the first of the stores.
Inside it is almost familiar, low racks of plastic packets, biscuits and shampoo, faces and brands I recognise. Chiller cabinets, ranks of cans, boxes. But for the lettering, I could be anywhere, I could be home. The boy behind the counter wears a baseball cap, there is a till. I am safe.
There he is, again. I saw him, across the road, talking. There’s a bar round the corner, under the sign that says Foot Massage. You can’t see it from the outside, unless you know where to look. People know though, it’s the way things are. I know some of my customers do. He has been, to keep an eye on things. The neighbourhood is his.
Him. No, not the one here, the soft skinned foreigner, the man up there. The one who convinced my mother I’d be all right here. It depends on what you mean by all right. Square meals, a roof over my head, company of sorts, yes, then I’m all right. And a few kwai to call my own, to spend. I’m not spending my own right now, not here. Well it is my own but not once I’ve spent it, it comes out of my earnings. So it’s as good as not mine, with me just for a while, then gone.
He’s looking at the liquor. Baijiu. No, that’s not for him, he’ll want foreign jiu.
He looks lost.
Damn. She’s here, that girl-woman from the lift, I’d like a drink but what will it look like, a man alone, buying a bottle? I could have friends visiting, of course, but do I look it?
What is happening here? I do not know her! Why should I care what she thinks?
I have what I need, he’s walking round again. He looks nervous.
“Can I help you?”
“You speak English?”
“Little.”
“I … I was looking for …” She smiles at me, I am not convincing “No.” I feel relief at not having to lie. “No, I wasn’t.”
She is still smiling. She points. “Hotel. You also?”
“Yes.”
We travel together in silence, across the road, up the escalator, across the lobby, up in the lift.
When we get to my room, there’s another card on the floor of the room. I kick it away.
She pours measures into two glasses.
I raise my glass. “A toast?” I suggest.
She smiles. “Welcome to the city.”
An author and creative writing tutor based in Amsterdam and Oxford, Amal Chatterjee’s writing includes novels, short stories, theatre plays, and non-fiction articles. He is currently working on a book, The Legacy of Empire: Why Countries Fail to be published by Hurst Publishers in 2026. Amal Chatterjee is a Senior Course Tutor for the University of Oxford’s MSt (Master’s Programme) in Creative Writing, and teaches on, and helps coordinate, the Paris Institute of Critical Thinking’s Creative Writing programme. He also created and teaches academic and creative writing courses for, amongst others, the VU Taalcentrum, the Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research at the University of Amsterdam, and the NIAS (the Netherlands Institute for Arts and Sciences). His novel, Across the Lakes, was shortlisted for the Crossword India Best Novel Award in 1998, while his short fiction has been published in numerous countries including the Netherlands, India, and the UK. His non-fiction has appeared in publications such as Prospect, the Huffington Post, The Independent, and the Hindustan Times, and includes the book Representations of India, 1740-1840 (1998). He also edited and contributed to Writers on Writing (2013), featuring writing from the US, the UK, India, Pakistan, Ireland, and Australia. In 2017 and 2018, two of his short plays, Dreams of England and Finding José, were staged by the Tamasha Theatre Company and Pokfulam Road Productions at London venues including the Arcola and Theatre.
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