Temporary People

by Deepak Unnikrishnan

  In the desert?

  In the desert.

  I don’t believe you, I told Uncle Salman.

  I don’t really care, Sabeen. Moosa didn’t either. He made mistakes, your father. Producing and training leaders without authorization was his first. Lobbying for increased lifespans was his second. So—

  SO? I challenged.

  So, Moosa’s nonsense produced The Commander. Became the catalyst for war. By then—

  INJUSTICE produced The Commander! I yelled, Father assisted!

  Sabeen, Uncle Salman countered, Moosa was bored. Certainly no activist. He was tinkering. EVERYTHING since, the wars, the abductions, products of tinkering. Know what he did when we found out?

  I made a face.

  He begged, Sabeen, promised to exterminate them all. Make the laborers more pliant. Set an example, he said.

  You ratted him out?

  I had to. Couldn’t let the ministry think I was involved. Moosa and me were too close.

  Opportunist!

  His end was near, Sabeen. I made sure it was quick.

  Was it? I asked.

  Quick? Yes.

  Did he scream?

  Sabeen.

  Did he?!

  Yes.

  He asked for me?

  No, Sabeen.

  Last words for Amma? Anyone?

  No, Sabeen, he wept. Only wept.

  I stood up, walked towards the man. Spat in his face. Slapped him until my palm stung. What are you? I remember screaming. You enter your sister-in-law, murder your friend!

  Sabeen, he said, almost kneeling my spittle dripping off his chin. The boy Majid, please help find the boy.

  Why?

  THE ENDING! Sabeen, tell me you haven’t forgotten the story’s: in Le Musée, nothing survives.

  I remembered the ending, but Uncle Salman surprised me by reciting it. Word for word. As though he had survived his ordeal to remind the world what was bound to happen, begged me to see him to remind me what Amma had destined for his son, how his son would quietly disappear from the annals of history, unnoticed.

  My son’s real, Sabeen. He exists! Majid exists! Le Musée exists! I need you to tell people he exists, that his father exists—

  But I stood up, as Uncle Salman continued speaking, pleading. Sobbing.

  I left, walked out the door, as he desperately clawed at my ankles, even threw fruit at me. It didn’t matter. I was uninterested. Indifferent. And, for the first time in years, content. Praying desperately that this despicable man would never see his wretched son, and that he would never know if he were dead or alive. But hope he was, and then hope he wasn’t. Dying exactly like that—ignorant.

  And it is here, dear reader, that I will leave you, with Amma having the last word, recited verbatim by her husband’s murderer, watched by her daughter Sabeen, in the city where I was conceived, where once upon a time Father grew people:

  On the cot was an old woman breathing with extreme effort, the last surviving member of the Le Musée community. Everyone else, gone. Victims of disease, in-fighting, accidents. She had survived, chronicling her memories on sheaves of tree bark. The volumes, bound by twine, arranged by dates, recorded the community’s history, its memories.

  If anyone leafed through the journals’ pages, stories would emerge. As would names.

  The soldiers presented the volumes to Ba’s great, great, great grandson after her passing. “What must be done, Lord?”

  Ba’s descendant had been groomed by the elders to expect this moment. He first ordered the woman to be reburied in an unmarked grave. Then he ordered his soldiers to remove Le Musée tombstones. “Raze the homes,” he said, “but first gather up their possessions, everything you can find. Don’t forget the animals. Move them all to the main square. Then once the wise men confirm the presence of the next full moon, invite the village to feast.”

  It wasn’t long. On a night when the moon shone so big and bright moonlight turned the waters white, the villagers gathered in the main square.

  A bonfire was lit using Le Musée possessions as kindling. The animals were butchered, and then eaten. There was much dancing and rejoicing.

  When the party was over, the fire left no trace; even the old woman’s journals weren’t spared. As though nothing existed, nothing mattered. And where Le Musée once stood lay emptiness on flattened land. Waiting for something new.

  It had taken time, but the war was finally over.

  —”LE MUSÉE” EXCERPT, FIRDOSE MOOSA (TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH).

  RECITED BY UNCLE SALMAN.

  CHABTER NINE

  AKBAAR: EXODUS

  41,282 BROWN MEN AND WOMEN in their sixties, pravasis, every single one of them, will leave the United Arab Emirates in the middle of June. 65 percent of them have lived in the Emirates for over two decades. 18,964 of them will board planes from Abu Dhabi International Airport. All of them were informed of mandatory retirement from their respective companies at the same time.

  May 13, a Thursday, will be their last working day. Within weeks, they will be expected by the labor ministry to pack up their lives and leave the country for good.

  Among the retirees is Vasudevan and his wife, Devi. They heard a rumor from a trusted source, Devi’s cousin, assistant to the big guns at the ministry of labor, who pushes them to cash in, but they make the mistake of sharing the news with friends. Within days, others know, and there is a scramble—in some households, a desperation—to book a ticket for June 15, a Tuesday. Baffled ticket agents make frantic calls, the date’s significance a mystery, checking with sister airlines to see if additional flights can be arranged to accommodate this request. Initially, airlines believe someone or a group of pranksters are playing a practical joke, but the phones continue to ring. When it becomes clear that so many people are indeed preparing to return home, upper management gets to work. It will be the largest exodus of brown folk leaving the Emirates since August 1990, when thousands fled after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, assuming the advent of darker times.

  By nightfall, the airlines offer a compromise, begrudgingly accepted. The coveted June 15 departure date is no longer available, even though flights were added, but everyone is assured a flight home by June 22. By then rumors of the exodus hover like foul smog and the alarmed government steps in, as the international press speculates. “The Emirates, especially Abu Dhabi, isn’t crumbling,” a government spokesman laughs. “Many former residents have decided it is time to retire, that’s all; the young get old.”

  A reporter from the BBC puts the spokesman on the spot, “Our understanding is that many of these men came here in the seventies. Will the government acknowledge their contributions before they leave?”

  “A delegate will be there to see them off, yes. Many, I imagine, are as old as my parents. In our home, we see to it that every guest is walked to the door.”

  The Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Nepali, and Bangladeshi ambassadors are summoned by their respective consulates and told to be at Abu Dhabi International Airport on June 15. News channels decide to cover the event live. The English dailies, The National, Khaleej Times, Gulf News, and Gulf Today assign their reporters related feature pieces.

  Vasudevan’s last day at work involves tying up loose ends, cleaning out his office cabin , saying his goodbyes to old and recent colleagues. That morning, he asks his superiors whether it might be possible to be granted a six-month extension on his work visa. No, it isn’t. His UAE work and residence visas will be canceled in a few weeks, his director tells him gently; his passport must stay with the company until his flight home. The company doesn’t wish to be held liable in case Vasudevan absconds and gets caught, his director explains. Vasudevan understands, but he asks for more time, three months; his house in India is still under construction, he must find temporary accommodation for his family, maybe fly to India to sort things out and come back, is it possible to hold on to his passport? The director grants him two months to get his affairs in order, Vasudevan’s passp
ort is returned. If Vasudevan had been allowed to continue, in November, he would have completed his thirty-eighth year with the company. It was not to be. His colleagues throw him a surprise lunch party, offer him a watch with the engraving “Best of Luck In Future Endeavors!” and, drinking Pepsi, toast to a long and prosperous life, Insha’Allah. When Vasudevan leaves work for the last time, he reminds Salim, the beefy security guard from Kabul, to watch over the two feral cats who expect tuna for breakfast. Vasudevan hands Salim a bag of tinned food. “They mew at seven,” Vasudevan says, “always at seven.” The two shake hands, clasp palms.

  Two weeks before the expected exodus, furniture and electronic stores can barely keep up with the clamor for ornate Arab furniture prized in Khaleej and high-tech toys. The Iranian merchants near Mina have their hands full, too—orders for Persian carpets skyrocket. Rumors circulate that high-end stores like Jashanmal and Grand Stores have run out of expensive frankincense and crockery. Many retirees negotiate with shipyards for bargain deals on cargo containers to transport their Emirati possessions. Those who cannot afford steel containers buy cardboard boxes and rope. This Gulf loot will live as reminders in new homes. Merchants talk of a Sikh man looking to smuggle a gazelle, five endangered Houbara bustards, and four tons of red sand to outfit his Jaipur farmhouse.

  JUNE 15: ABU DHABI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’s departure lounge plays the Emirati, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, and Nepali national anthems. Reporters and camera crews loiter like animals near a watering hole. The Emirati delegate and the ambassadors are there; speeches are made. Representatives from the government and the consulates have been sent to the airports in Dubai and Sharjah. The mood is somber. Every passenger shakes hands with the assembled delegates. There is a lottery, and one hundred winners walk away with hand-stitched Emirati ethnic wear. A young man attempts to throw ink at the Emirati delegate and creates a momentary distraction. He is unsuccessful, and furious policemen drag him away as he struggles.

  Vasudevan is there, and so is Devi. They look on quietly. They smell like their apartment. Their empty apartment smells like them. Old. In July, their building, one of the oldest on Hamdan Street, decrepit like a smoker’s lungs, will be razed. The landowner sent his tenants a notice six months ago; they took him to court and lost.

  The dignitaries stay to watch the first plane take off, a PIA flight to Islamabad. People applaud. After acknowledging the waiting passengers, they leave, flanked by vigilant security.

  Vasudevan sits by Devi, their shoulders touching. Airport chairs bite their backs.

  “I heard,” an airport staff member tells an Emirati officer as passengers file through, “governments in the region will be surprising expatriates returning home on June 15 by waiving the customs duty on taxable merchandise. You could have a house in your suitcase. Duty free!”

  BOOK

  TONGUE. FLESH.

  In the dream, they pulled an Arabee word out of his high-school textbook and asked him to read the word out loud. He did. With perfect diction, they insisted. He obliged. They asked him, “So what does it mean? What you read, what does it mean?” He couldn’t say. He stared at the word hoping it would tell him, make friends with him, whisper its meaning, offer some insight, but of course stuff like that only happens in the movies, and such movies don’t get made anymore. So he just repeated the word, over and over again, because he was afraid and he was mad and he didn’t know what else to do. They pulled another word from this textbook, from a different page this time, and they asked him to read that, too. So he did, and once again he didn’t know what he was saying.

  —BOY

  CHABTER ONE

  MUSHTIBUSHI

  TO BEGIN:

  I am a long-serving responsible adult; a twenty-year veteran in the ministry’s employment. I check all the right boxes: I think carefully; I am a family man with a wife and two young daughters; I have a job that bores me, but the work, it gets done.

  I am stating the obvious because of a peculiar case I am dealing with right now. I know you are aware of my new off-duty responsibilities, but sometimes reiteration is useful. For the past three years, our street, Hamdan, the city center, has been subject to a series of sexual assaults targeting children. The first year, media coverage was robust, the Malayala Manorama scathing in its criticism of the investigation, an op-ed even speculating if the pace would have picked up if an Emirati kid fell victim. Then the writer got his wish, and it was Al-Itihad’s turn to scrutinize the non-arrests. Pretty soon, every paper and TV station had a profile of the attacker, sketched by an expert. A member of CNN’s crew, in Dubai for some R&R between Iraq–Kuwait action, stumbled upon the story, and ran with it as a filler. The story got play. Regardless, the attacks continued. Gradually, as more children fell victim, these incidents acquired a kind of normality, like high-fructose corn syrup or pubic lice at conferences. The sensationalism waned. Soon after, Stormin Normin bid adieu, Rodney King got kicked, the cameras slunk away. Helpless parents, myself included, had no choice but to accept these attacks as a child’s rite of passage. We hoped for the best. When children are the focus in the hue and cry, sanity is hard. I fill the need for a slap-dash solution. I am not sure how many ministry-certified responsible adults reside in our vicinity. Not many, I wager. Anyway, all I am required to do is show up, sit with the child, ask questions, take notes, file a report with the shurtha, who are never on time, and then move on to the next case, when (or if) it comes. Because of the profligacy of the attacks, several building’s tenants—one plucky parent’s idea—formed vigilante groups, a neighborhood-watch system interested in addressing suspicious activity. It was a futile endeavor; kids continued to fall prey, not one person caught. Perhaps, because of their poor success rate, most vigilante groups disbanded. But in moments of crisis, after an attack, most buildings turned to a responsible adult nominated by the tenants. I was chosen.

  My notes, I am told by the shurtha and parents alike, are useful. I am good at what I do. I listen well, and I believe children trust me. I am honest. I remember what it was like to have been not just young, but little—a child. I don’t patronize.

  In this particular case, I was called because the mother came home and discovered the victim reeking of urine, which wouldn’t be unusual given her age, except in this case, pee dripped off the child’s face. The girl’s mother informed the shurtha first, then after reaching her husband at work, she called me. The details are, well, fuzzy. Normally, the victim, returning from kindergarten, would wait for her mother at the bottom of the stairs so they could take the elevator together. I think the man at large asked the victim to stroke his penis, and he may have pulled it out, no one’s certain, but the victim—she’s six, born in May— isn’t talking yet. I wasn’t sure how to proceed with the interview, since it was going nowhere, until a tenant in the building, a friend of the family, mentioned he had seen a girl called Maya and her brother leaving the building around the time the victim was reportedly whisked into the elevator by the assailant. I normally don’t interview witnesses, leaving that to the shurtha, but I decided to make an exception in Maya’s case. No harm in indulging the family. Besides, for a little girl—well, little-looking—Maya was, I would discover, blessed with intellect, and a big bosom. I am writing you to share Maya’s story since I will not be sharing it with the authorities. I do not want to be labeled a fool. There is something else, a sensitive detail that you will certainly notice; my final report addresses it, as it must, because Maya references the incident in her digressions.

  Maya, you will read, basically told me she was responsible for the state the victim was in because she brokered a deal with a machine, a building elevator she identities as Mushtibushi. He must be Japanese, I joked (the building I live in has three Mitsubishi elevators). I did not ask, she replied curtly. I mulled, glancing at her chest. In Maya’s story, the building’s children regularly supplied this machine, the elevator in the middle, with kids. If a child didn’t volunteer to satisfy Mushtibushi�
��s sexual kink, they would draw lots and choose one, who would go no more than once a week. Or, a child in the building might forget, sauntering in alone when the elevator needed to address his fix.

  Maya suggests the current victim was sacrificed to assist Maya’s father, who was imbecilic with finances. She and her brother had to go find money, she said. They had decided to mug someone, a loan shark their father was involved with. I know the man, their father. Straddled with debt, he will undoubtedly be in prison before the year’s up. If he ends up in one of those places in the desert we keep hearing about, the ones the ministry insists do not exist, it will be hard to predict when he might get out.

  She spoke in complete sentences, Maya, but in a rhythm I have never heard before—though it’s possible I really don’t pay attention to the sound of my own children, or how they talk, except when we have our lessons. What you will read isn’t babbling. It isn’t conversation either. What it is is a communiqué and the transcript (the text follows my note) is her soliloquy.

  I am not allowed to film or record the interviews. Parents have reputations to protect, rumors to expunge, so by rule rarely allow it. This I understand. I would do the same. However, I can take notes in shorthand, and these notes are always excellent— almost verbatim. I normally ask a question, wait for an answer, write it down. I may also write how the child is behaving. In Maya’s case, I wrote two words, punctuated by periods: Calm. Hmm. But as soon as we became acquainted, she began talking. I barely got a word in—a few interjections, sure. But there are a few things to pay attention to in the report. After that, I tried to interrupt now and again, not having understood a particular detail clearly, but usually I failed; perhaps you will understand. When you spot an emboldened O it means I jotted down any little tics when she spoke, or thoughts that came to mind as I reread, editing my notes.

  The girl understands I cannot submit her unadulterated account to the authorities. What do I say? It is my recommendation that the building decommission one of its Mitsubishi elevators, more specifically, the middle one, because the machine stands accused of sexual impropriety. In fact, after hearing her statement, it is my recommendation that all three Mitsubishi elevators be decommissioned in case the infection the accused machine has is contagious—but how does one word that without feeling stupid?