by Amitav Ghosh
Till then Jeevanbhai had had a few dealings with the Malik. The Malik spoke to him in Urdu, which he had learnt in India, and they dealt well together, but not as well as Jeevanbhai would have wished. On the Fry-day, Jeevanbhai saw his chance. He raced to the Fort on Nury’s donkey and set about persuading the Malik that to escape would be to admit guilt. No, he argued, the only wise thing to do was to counter Goat’s Arse’s moves before he made them.
At once Jeevanbhai drew up a message for the British Viceroy in India, Goat’s Arse’s boss, a man famous for his enthusiasm for local customs and suchlike (so Jeevanbhai said). Goat’s Arse, the message said, had broken into and disrupted the most ancient of Ghaziri ceremonies, one that took place only once every seven years, on the reigning Malik’s birthday. This was the ceremony of the Ant-Frying, when the Ants under the Fort’s south gate, a most ancient line of ants, were cooked in a shower of boiling oil. The desecration of the Ant-Frying had placed the timeless traditions of the Ghaziri monarchy, and thus the prestige of the whole British Empire, in, yes, in jeopardy. If Goat’s Arse were taxed with this, the message warned, he would probably deny everything. In all likelihood he didn’t even know of the ceremony; such was his contempt for the customs of al-Ghazira, he had not made even the smallest effort to acquaint himself with them … And so on and so on.
It worked. They sent the message on the Malik’s new radio set; two warships stopped on the horizon and turned back; and within a week Goat’s Arse was recalled.
Two warships, or a good eye and a quick mind?
But still the Malik had to pay a price. Back in his own country Goat’s Arse made a tremendous noise and wrote a book about how close he had come to being a deep-fried fritter in his king’s service. Eventually they sent out a new resident known for his toughness; a thin-lipped fish of a man who arrived with a whole regiment of Indian soldiers. He left the Malik in the Fort, but posted a guard outside and exiled his Bedouin tribesmen. After a few months the Malik was forced to sign the oil treaty. Even at that stage, he tried to keep a hold on things by insisting that only Ghaziris would work in the Oiltown. But Thin Lips wouldn’t hear of it; he wanted only his own men, men he could control. Finally, the Malik signed when warships appeared again, but on one condition: that the Oilmen never leave the Oiltown and never enter al-Ghazira.
For many years things went on, uneasily but peacefully: the Oilmen stayed inside the Oiltown with their hirelings; the Malik was more or less a prisoner in the Old Fort, allowed out only on state occasions; Thin Lips virtually ran the town; and every seven years the Ant-Frying was ritually performed. One man did well out of it all, and that was Jeevanbhai Patel. He posed as the Malik’s accountant, and Thin Lips could think of no reason to keep a harmless old man like him out of the Fort, so he became one of the Malik’s few contacts with the outside world. Jeevanbhai went in and out of the Fort running the Malik’s errands, and the Malik used the influence he still had to get Jeevanbhai the contract for the customs. So Jeevanbhai turned his links with the Fort to good use and made money. The Malik had use for him, too: he was making his own plans for the future, and Jeevanbhai’s dhows, which at that time were sailing all over the Indian Ocean, often came back lying deep in the water. They were weighed down, people said, with guns and ammunition which somehow found their way into the Old Fort.
So things went on.
The Oiltown prospered and grew, and the time came when they wanted more space. They took permission and went around al-Ghazira looking for some more land, and eventually they decided on a few acres at the far end of al-Ghazira, almost on the border with the next kingdom. It was a marshy, sandy bit of land by the sea. To them it looked unused, and they assumed that they would have no trouble buying it – for more than it was worth, if need be.
But actually that was a very special piece of land. It was special for the Mawali because old Sheikh Musa was said to be buried there; it was special for the shopkeepers of the Souq because they held fairs there on all the great feast-days, and in those times, before borders had guards, thousands of people flocked to them from all the neighbouring kingdoms and the shopkeepers grew richer every year; the Malik loved that bit of land, too, for twice every year thousands of birds flew over it, and on those days the Malik was allowed out of the Fort, for there was no better place in the world for falconry.
So, when the Oilmen went blithely up to the Fort to buy that piece of land, the blood almost burst from the Malik’s face. Something terrible might have happened again if Nury the Damanhouri hadn’t seen them going in and told Patel. Patel ran to the Fort and calmed the Malik down. Of course, he had a plan. He went around the Souq, got the shopkeepers together, and they met Thin Lips and told him that if that bit of land were sold they would all shut down the Souq and emigrate to Zanzibar.
The Oilmen had one last try. They went to the Malik with a new treaty, and offered to double his share of the oil money if he sold them that land.
Later, people said that the Malik spat on the treaty and drove them out of the Fort with a whip.
No more was heard of buying land for a while: the Oilmen went back to the Oiltown; the Malik stayed in his fort; and Jeevanbhai continued to prosper. But that was when the world first heard rumours about the Mad Malik of al-Ghazira, and soon after Thin Lips took the Malik’s half-brother, the Amir, whom the Malik hated more than anyone else in the world, even more than his father, out of the Fort and sent him to England or America or somewhere, to study. By then Thin Lips had his own friends in the town, none of them very fond of the Malik, and he sent their sons with the Amir as well. The families who were loyal to the Malik – and there were many – complained, but there was nothing anyone could do, and soon things were quiet again.
Years passed: the Malik stayed in his fort, the Amir and his friends stayed abroad, and all was quiet in al-Ghazira. We heard of wars, then the British left, and Thin Lips with them. The Malik was free again, but by that time he had lost his old fire, and already a new embassy with a new Thin Lips was on the ascendant, so all was still quiet in al-Ghazira.
Then one day the oil company changed, and at once the whole of al-Ghazira was agog. New men arrived. They looked over the Oiltown, and it was as clear as daylight they weren’t happy with it. They surveyed al-Ghazira for a few weeks and eventually they found a new, better site for an Oiltown. You don’t have to wonder where that site was.
Soon after the Oilmen were seen going into the Old Fort, with a carload of money to buy the land, people said – but after barely ten minutes shots were heard in the Fort and the cars came hurtling out. No one was hurt, but the Malik had made a mistake. These men weren’t lightly to be shot at. For them life was a war. Nothing was going to stop them getting what they wanted; certainly not the Mad Malik of al-Ghazira. The battle for the site was no longer a game. It had become a feud, like the old desert feuds: a battle of honour.
The first move came soon after. One night a helicopter landed in the desert, far outside the city, and Nury the Damanhouri, who happened to be chasing a chicken, saw the Amir, the Malik’s almost-forgotten half-brother, and his friends step out. The Oilmen’s cars were waiting for them, and they were whisked away to a huge glittering new palace which had sprung up overnight on the far side of the city.
Who can describe the excitement, the near-frenzy of curiosity which gripped al-Ghazira then? People crowded into mosques and cafés, talking feverishly through the night; rumours blew like hurricanes through the Souq and you had to pay to stand under the Bab al-Asli. We heard stories of strings of pearls being given away for one little driblet of news. But there was no news to be had. The ornate silver doors of the New Palace stayed firmly shut, the Malik stayed in the Old Fort and the Oilmen in the Oiltown.
That was when Nury made his fortune. Inevitably, he was the only man in al-Ghazira to go freely in and out of the New Palace – it turned out that in his years away our Amir had developed a terrible weakness for boiled eggs.
In a matter of days Nury was a celebra
ted man: the café he went to had to build an extension over the road; the mosque he prayed at was always full to bursting; and soon we saw a new floor rising on Nury’s little house. Nury’s name became a byword, for he was always truthful and always right. When he said the Amir had been appointed Oil Minister, people laughed at him, for no one had heard of an Oil Minister before. But in a week there was a proclamation and Nury was proved right. It was Nury who first said that one of the Amir’s friends was going to become Defence Minister, and he was right. He was right about the Education Minister, the Culture Minister and the Foreign Minister as well. But, still, when Nury said the Amir would soon become Public Works Minister, doubt was born again. Why would the Amir want to be Public Works Minister as well as Oil Minister? It seemed meaningless, so we assumed it to be untrue, and suddenly Nury found himself alone in his café again.
Meanings are never apparent.
Late one night, when the whole town was asleep, Nury galloped out of the road to the New Palace on his donkey, hoofs flying, eggs scattering, dogs barking, through the harbour, straight towards the Maidan al-Jami‘i, past the Souq, heading directly for Jeevanbhai’s house. There, without so much as tethering his donkey, he flung himself on the door and hammered with all his feeble strength.
But no one can reckon for chance. Unusually for a man so quick and alert Jeevanbhai sleeps like a dead man, and it so happened that just a few days earlier his wife had gone to India on a visit. She was a rather suspicious woman, so before leaving she had gone around al-Ghazira looking for a woman of suitable age and decrepitude to work in the house while she was away. She found Saneyya, grandmother of Ali the taxi-driver and Nasser of the blue café, then a woman of seventy-five, famed in all the kingdoms for her astonishing ugliness, much loved of the pearl divers and boatmen because she could scare sharks into tearing out their own entrails simply by grinning into the water; widowed at sixteen, on the dawn after her wedding, when, after the darkness of a night in which she conceived her son, her bridegroom rose eagerly to lift the veils from her face and died at once, of shock (blinded, some say). For Jeevanbhai’s wife, Saneyya seemed God’s gift. Poor woman: little did she know what fires smouldered in Saneyya.
On that night when Nury hammered on the door, with fate hanging in the balance, the only person in the house apart from Jeevanbhai was Saneyya, and it was she who awoke and came to the door, creaking and complaining, it was she who whispered, hoarse and suspicious: Who’s there?
It’s me, Saneyya, Nury answered, I have something terribly important to say, can’t wait another moment. Open the door a crack, ya Saneyya, and as God is Great let me in.
There was something in those words, some hint of a memory, which played havoc in Saneyya’s heart. Trembling with disbelief, her voice shaking with eagerness, Saneyya whispered: At last, at last, Nury, you dilatory Damanhouri. At last after all these years. Say it again, ya Nury, let me hear you again.
And Nury, as though he were reciting a poem, whispered: Quick, Saneyya, quick, I can’t wait any longer. Open up, open, let me in.
At that Saneyya could not keep herself from giggling, and giggling she said: Wait, ya Nury, there’s no hurry. We have the whole night.
Outside, Nury was beside himself: Saneyya, there’s no time to waste. Open up. I tell you, you’ll be well rewarded.
Talk of rewards already, ya Nury? Do you think I need a reward? Your heart’s enough, no less than the other things. Hold tight and wait a little. What can I do with my petticoats all tied up?
Nury was desperate; his eyes had gone wild and sweat was streaming from his face. He started to explain what he had overheard at the New Palace, but then he stopped himself, for there was no telling who might overhear him. Instead he spoke in riddles: Listen carefully, Saneyya, and use your mind. What happens when you have a pot of rice about to boil over and somebody calls you to the door? Do you stand there chattering? No, you run back because you have to stir your pot. It’s like that, Saneyya. Now, stop talking, open this door and let me in.
Like a whip Saneyya’s hand flashed through the door, slapped him and shut the door again. For shame, Nury, she cackled. Why all this dirt? Boiling or not, you’ll have to wait.
Then Nury understood, and he understood, too, that if Saneyya were denied she would drive him from the house and make sure he didn’t meet Jeevanbhai for as long as she could. There was no escape for Nury. When Saneyya opened the door at last, he screwed his courage together and resigned himself to his fate.
What had to happen happened: Nury the Cross-Eyed Damanhouri and Saneyya, Terror of the Deep, coupled. It was no ordinary coupling: after a little awkwardness in the beginning, during which Saneyya learnt not to look into his eyes, and he got used to the gaps in her teeth, they so lost themselves in ecstasy that people say they shook the whole of the Souq, and Nury almost forgot his errand.
Some things happen for the best even though it doesn’t seem so at the time. Even if things had taken a different turn later, Nury was a ruined man, a beggar, egg-less for life, because Saneyya was not the woman to be silent about a conquest so long in the coming.
When Nury recovered from his raptures he woke Patel and told him what he had overheard at the New Palace. Years after, people often spent whole days talking about what he said that night, but still nobody knows exactly what it was; most of it is just guesses and conjecture. Some say it was this: that night the Oilmen were planning to fly in two aeroplanes full of specially grown date palms; unique palms, which could thrive on any soil, however inhospitable. The Amir’s part was to rush the palms to that empty bit of land by the sea and plant them there, all in one night. Then in the morning he was to make proclamations in all the squares of the city inviting the townspeople to witness the near-miracle; to have a glimpse of the things the world could do for the forgotten land of al-Ghazira. Then, as the Public Works Minister, he was to lay claim to that empty bit of land and fence it off. The Malik was bound to resist, they calculated, perhaps by force. But by then the townspeople, so long loyal to the Malik, would hesitate, dazzled by their glimpse of the Amir’s power to turn the desert green, and in the end would rally to his side. And then together, with a little help from the Amir’s bodyguards and the Oilmen, they would storm the Old Fort, banish the Malik and the past, and install the Amir and the future.
That was the plan, some say, but nobody knows for sure. What is sure is that, within minutes of hearing what Nury had to say, Jeevanbhai was on his donkey flying towards the Old Fort. What happened there nobody knows. Some say that Jeevanbhai had to lock the Malik into a room to keep him from attacking the New Palace at that very moment with all his hidden arms. What is sure is that Jeevanbhai found some way to stop him, for of course he had his own plan. Within an hour he was back in the town, with Jabal the Eunuch and a wad of letters from the Malik.
Feverishly Jeevanbhai, Jabal and Nury raced around the old city, waking up certain shopkeepers known for their loyalty to the Malik and showing them the Malik’s letters. They worked like madmen, for they knew, each one of them, that they were fighting for their survival (though already, unknown to the others, in one of those heads, ripples of doubt about the future were spreading).
Then a large group of shopkeepers led by Jeevanbhai, Jabal and Nury vanished into the Souq. When they came out again they were carrying and pushing barrels and tins of oil – mainly kerosene, but all kinds of other oils as well, mustard oil, cottonseed oil, linseed oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, even ghee. The oil was taken down to the harbour in carts and loaded on to a flat-bottomed boat. When that was done Patel, Jabal, Nury and a couple of boatmen climbed into the boat and rowed down the inlet towards the sea until they disappeared into the blackness of the night.
The next anyone saw of them, Jeevanbhai, naked except for his long white shirt, and Nury were clinging to an enormous horse, white-eyed with fear, galloping crazily up the dirt track which later became the Corniche, towards the harbour. A whole platoon of the Amir’s guards, huge bandoliered Pathans fr
om the Khyber, were chasing them on foot, almost as fast as the horse could run, whooping and pot-shotting.
As it was reconstructed in the cafés, Jeevanbhai’s plan was to row silently along the coast to the site. The Amir’s men, he reasoned, would probably guard the dirt tracks along the road, and turn their backs to the sea. Once there, he planned to soak the whole place in oil, step back into the boat and toss a lighted rag behind him, sending the Amir’s dreams up in flames.
Jeevanbhai was too subtle a man to think of acts as important in themselves; that was why he stopped the Malik from attacking the New Palace, even though, with the townspeople behind him, he may well have won the day. But for Jeevanbhai it is not acts, but warnings, meanings, those delicate shades which remove an act from mere adventure and place it in history, which are important. Jeevanbhai didn’t simply want to burn the date palms. What would be the use of that? For him the date palms were to be words, to tell the Amir that dreams collapse from the inside, of themselves.
That was the irony of it.
The first part of Jeevanbhai’s plan went off perfectly: the palms had already been planted, and the Amir’s guards, posted to guard the track to the city, were snoring behind a sand-dune, a long way from the site, while their horses were tethered under the palms. The three of them soaked the place in oil without so much as a sound. In less than an hour they were ready, and not one of the guards had noticed.
Already smiling in triumph, Jeevanbhai reached out for the rag which he had handed to Jabal beside him, but his hands clutched empty air. Jabal was gone.
It was not the Amir’s dreams which collapsed from within.
Spinning around, Jeevanbhai saw a mountainous shadow creeping towards the guards, already too far away to stop. Next moment Nury caught his arm and pointed to the beach – the boatmen, never slow to smell defeat, were far out to sea.
But even then the old fox had a trick or two left. He tore off his dhoti, tied one end of it to a kerosene-sodden date palm, and took the other in his hand. Just as Jabal was shaking the guards awake, Jeevanbhai handed the reins of one of the guards’ horses to Nury, cut the rest loose and drove them off. With shot spraying into the sand around them, he leapt on to the horse, pulled Nury up behind him, and lit his dhoti. They were lying flat on the galloping horse, holding on for their lives, when the palms burst into flames.