Kissing Through a Pane of Glass by Peter Michael Rosenberg Page B

wake her roughly and blame her for my ills.
     
    But I did not wake her. Instead, drawing on whatever internal resources were still left to me, I got out of bed - carefully - and staggered to the bathroom. A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, according to some know-it-all Chinaman. What he didn’t say is that sometimes a journey of just five yards can start with tripping up over your own foot, and finish a few moments later, the intended destination still a lifetime away.
     
    I had neglected to take into account just how numb my legs were, and their refusal to pay attention to instructions from the central nervous system was a crushing blow to me so early in the morning. I did not dare risk another fall; I was feeling so fragile by this stage that I figured one more dive and I would shatter into a million pieces. I crawled the rest of the way to the bathroom, co- ordinating hand and knee with great effort. Had I been able to appreciate it more, I’d have realised what a fascinating experiment this was in regression; I was being given the opportunity to experience, with the consciousness of an adult, just what it felt like as a baby to become independently mobile for the first time.
     
    Unfortunately, such appreciation was sadly absent that morning so by way of compensation I had to settle for the sense of achievement that accompanied my having reached the bathroom without further mishap.
     
    Although we had hot water, I opted for a cold shower in the hope of reviving my aching head and suffering body. The Chinese (there they are again) believe that a shower not only cleanses the body but invigorates the spirit. As a general rule this may hold, most of the time, but it is not, alas, a universal law, as anyone observing me that morning would have seen for themselves. I left the bathroom feeling even more battered than when I had entered. Whereas before I had been merely in agony and wanting to die, now I was cold, wet, in agony, and wanted to die an especially quick death.
     
    It took further extraordinary efforts to dress myself, as every limb felt like it was encased in a plaster cast. My vision was none too clear either, so I have no idea whether or not I left the room in a decent state.
     
    The sun was neither warm nor beautiful that morning, just mean and angry. I made my way, delicately, to the hotel lawn, sat down on a comfortable cane chair beside a small marble table and ordered some breakfast. I was immediately thankful that Pushkar was a holy city and therefore strictly vegetarian, so I could not order fried eggs which in India are certain to be served burnt on the bottom, uncooked on the top, swimming in a glutinous amalgam of fat and albumen, and guaranteed to make you feel sick, even if you were in perfect health when you started the day.
     
    I settled instead for tea and toast. The toast was unusual; I think the cooks in the kitchen had waved the slice of bread somewhere in the vicinity of the flames for a moment, and then soaked the lukewarm bread in something resembling animal fat. The tea was good, if you like that sort of thing. They have a unique way of making tea in India; one would be hard pressed to devise a method better suited to totally ruining one of the finest drinks in the world. Take a large kettle, fill it with cold water, tea leaves, milk and sugar, put it on the flames and wait for the whole lot to boil, then strain through an oily rag, and voilà, chai! It’s an acquired taste; one with which, thankfully, I had already become very familiar.
     
    I drank tea, relaxed as best I could, and slowly but surely the aches and pains subsided. I regained full feeling in my arms and legs, my back felt less sore, and the percussion section of the Hangover Ensemble downed instruments. It had always amazed me just how resilient the human body was, how well it recovered after a damn good thrashing. It also occurred to me that morning that, at the grand age of twenty-one, I was getting