by Indra Sinha
The orphanage was run by les réligieuses françaises, it was in Jyotinagar near the factory and on that night it was badly hit. Many of the children died, nuns too. Those who survived were sick. Afterwards Indian nuns came and the French nuns one by one were taken back home. Ma refused to leave. She said Khaufpur had felt the fist of god, the Apokalis had begun, her place was with its suffering people. So she stayed and in a loud voice prayed day and night.
None of the remaining sisters spoke français, there was no one left whose speech Ma Franci could understand, or who had any idea what she was saying. The Indian sisters did take the trouble to learn a few things such as o, water, dézhoné, meal, and twalet, toilet, komoñ sava, how’s it going, etc., but this only made the old woman crazier. If they knew what proper language was, why did they keep on with their beastly gibbering?
This all was still going on when I was very small. By the time I was old enough to know who she was, my own troubles had begun and Ma Franci had already spent years with a head full of angels and a tongue sourer than a lick of tamarind.
When I’ve finished Ma’s story Nisha asks with wet eyes, “That poor woman, is she still here in Khaufpur?”
“She is. She lives in the convent.”
“You’ll have to go back.”
“Back where?”
“Convent,” says she, snivelling into a handkerchief. “Like you say, you will learn français no problem, you can look after that poor old lady.”
“No!”
“No? You ungrateful little wretch, what is this no?”
“It’s my no, the meaning of which is no.”
“Change it to a yes.”
Eyes, I don’t know how many times I told Nisha I would not go back. Ma was old. Very old. Eighty years, maybe. Perhaps a hundred. I liked her but she’d need a lot of care, plus I liked the freedom of my life, roaming with Jara, and the mind games with public and police. I was just turned seventeen, I’d been on the streets for years and was as hard-hearted a little cunt as you’ll find anywhere.
“No means no.”
But Nisha too could be stubborn. She said I must learn responsibility.
“What? I’m a four-foot animal.”
“You’re spoilt. It’s time to grow up.” She turned her back on me. “From now on looking after Ma Franci is part of your job, Zafar will confirm it.”
Couple of days later I arrive for work, Zafar presses a fat packet into my hand, tells me to deliver it to a family in Blue Moon Colony.
“Careful with this, it’s for a family who need a new roof on their place.”
Never had I seen so much money.
“How much is here?”
“It’s eleven and a half thousand rupees.”
I was amazed that Zafar, knowing I’d been a scam artist, would put so much money in my hand.
“You trust me? I could run away.”
“It’s you who must learn to trust,” said he.
I replied nothing, just took the money and gave it. I despised Zafar for trusting me, and all the more because Nisha worshipped him, who was twice her age. Okay, that was none of my business but it irritated me. I denied to myself that I was beginning to have feelings for Nisha. How stupid would that be? Eyes, imagine, if a person has a rival in love, he will want that rival to be an ugly, bow-legged coward with hairs gushing from ears and nostrils, a mouth that smells like drains and skin rising up in rebellion against itself. Believe me, he will not want Zafar, who is tall, handsome, whose beard curls like a raja’s and who’s robed in the sweet odour of sainthood.
Not easy it’s learning a language when the person who is supposed to be teaching you can’t understand a dumb fucking thing you say. “Animal, why do they make these noises?” Ma Franci would ask in her singsong voice. She asked in français, but somehow the meaning leaked into my brain.
When Ma shouted, sallo purqwatu na parlpa lalang yumain? I had no idea what the sounds meant, but I knew what she meant. It took a while, maybe two to three weeks, to get the hang of français, it helped that although Ma didn’t realise it there’s still quite a bit of Hindi in what she said.
“Ça va, Ma?”
“Achchha Jaanvar. Et toi?”
“Sirez quelq’chose?”
“Animal, if you can learn to speak properly, why do these fools talk rubbish all the time?”
“It is not rubbish Ma Franci, it is another language.”
“Go on with you,” she says. “I know many languages. These people are just drivelling. Why do they do it? Why won’t they treat me like a human being?”
Je ne sais pas, Ma, je suis un animal.
Ma was very old and more crotchety than ever. When I had mastered français, the other nuns learned for the first time that Ma thought they were gibbering nonsense. It went down badly. Gone in the head, they said, she’ll be better off in France, in a house for old nuns where everyone speaks français.
Stupidly, I told Ma about this idea of her going back to France. She grew upset. “Non, Animal, mon travail c’est dans le royaume des pauvres.” My work’s in the kingdom of the poor, it’s what she called the slums of Khaufpur.
Next morning, Ma goes off to her work, which is moving from house to house attending to small sicknesses and injuries. How she manages without language no one knows except me who shares that gift, there’s more said in a smile. By evening when I show up at the convent, Ma has not returned. This is unusual and the nuns are worried so I’ve gone out searching. Many bidonvilles has Khaufpur, where to begin? In Qazi Camp Ma had much work, but no one there has seen her. I spend an hour in this one place.
Next I’ve headed to Phuta Maqbara. Behind the ruined tomb that stands among the shacks of the poor, the moon’s rising, and with it rises my fear. Fear plus guilt, it’s me who’s stirred up this trouble. In the disquiet moonlight I search alley after alley, find only shadows. It’s seriously late. A loony old nun out alone, who might she meet? Where might she have fallen?
I go back to the convent, hoping she might have returned. All the lights are on, they’re saying prayers for her safety. I go out again right away. Towards midnight I come to the Nutcracker. Of all Khaufpur’s slums this is the biggest and most desperate, but for that reason also the most interesting, I could spend all day there flying kites of gossip. Now I’m asking everyone I meet if they have seen Ma. No one has. Right in the heart of the Nutcracker, at the crossing of Paradise Alley and Seven Tailors’ Gulli is Chunaram’s chai shop, where it’s my habit to drop in each afternoon to taunt its owner and blag cups of tea. When I reach it the place is shutting down for the night, one kerosene lamp there’s with the wick turned down, couple of guys playing cards in the gloom, but here finally I get word. Someone had seen an old woman of Ma’s description leaving the house of Huriya Bi. Eyes, do you remember that I mentioned hearing Aliya’s voice calling me to play? Her granny said I behaved like a kid? Well, Aliya’s granny is Huriya Bi. The moon’s lost behind clouds, in full darkness I’ve groped my way up Seven Tailors’ towards the northern edge of the Nutcracker. By now most people are sleeping, here and there are a few flickering lights behind the sack doors of the houses and from within, soft voices and coughing. No light there’s in the tiny house of Huriya Bi, it’s a shack with no door just a black opening. I’ve gone in and shaken the sleeping forms. Huriya waking with a start, says “Goodness, is it Friday?”
“Granny, it’s me Animal.” I’ve whispered, so as not to wake Aliya and Hanif, her granddad. “I’m looking for Ma. She’s not returned to the convent. Everyone is worried something bad has happened.”
“What’s happened?” she asks, mishearing me. “Is it the factory?” Like all the folk living round here, she’s terrified that one night the factory will rise from the dead and come striding like a blood-dripping demon to snatch them off.
“Ma’s missing. I’ve been searching for hours.”
“Your Ma? Ma Franci?”
“Yes, yes.” I can just make out her shape, leaning up on an elbow.
“Are you hungry, son? Have you had anything to eat today?”
“Never mind about that,” says I, cursing the frail wits of the old. “Have you seen Ma Franci?”
There’s silence while the old lady sweeps her head clear of dreams. Then she says, “Ma Franci was here earlier, chatting away like always about who knows what. She was laughing a lot. I do not know where she went.”
“I do,” says a little voice out of the darkness. It’s my naughty friend Aliya. “Want me to show you?” I swear she’d have jumped up and come, but by this time her grandfather Hanif Ali’s also awake, even his parakeets have started squawking. The old people keep Aliya wrapped tight in her sheet with talk of school in the morning and slaps if she doesn’t obey.
“But I know where she is. Suppose Animal can’t find her?”
“I’ll look after Aliya,” I say, but absolutely they refuse to let her go.
She’s their only grandchild, they say, all they have in the world after their daughter, her mother, died after how many years of lung-rotting illness, she’s their joy, their school-going pride, the night air is full of fever, they dare not risk the child’s health, all of which the child hears with heavy hearted sighs.
“Where the Nutcracker ends,” she tells me. “Cross the tracks.”
Well at least the moon’s out again. In hardly two hundred paces I’ve come to the gleaming rails beyond which is the factory wall enclosing its enchanted forest. Halfway across I have to stop for a train to pass, it goes by close, big wheels pumping right by my head, sparks flying, lump of coal’s dropped, rolls to my feet, lies there like the fire in a dog’s eye till the moonlight puts it out. When the last echoes are gone I hear the sound of old woman’s quavering
Quand j’étais chez mon père,
Petite à la ti ti, la ri ti, tonton lariton
A little way off, across the tracks and near the factory wall, is a falling down tower of stone with grass growing out of its walls. Some bigwig built it hundreds of years ago, in those days the factory lands were orchards. It was maybe a tomb, no one knows its purpose, when the poison factory came and threw its wall around the orchards, this ruin was left outside. Out of this place is coming the singing, a faint light flickers inside.
That’s where I find her, sitting on the floor, with a simple bundle of her possessions opened and strewn around her.
“Ah, there you are, home at last,” she says. “Be a dear and put the kettle on.”
TAPE FOUR
For long I refused to admit I had feelings for Nisha. Man, how I would argue with myself. She’s not even pretty. Not my type. The voices in my head grew all excited. Oh yeah? growls a shnaggerfucker voice, sounds like it comes from a mouth full of blood with pigs’ teeth curling from the corners.
Could you be loved? demands another.
Listen, I like those film girls with made up faces, they make an effort to look pretty.
All know what he wants! hisses a sly she hovering near my left ear.
I reply that of course I fucking want. Who doesn’t? But nearest I’ve ever got’s looking at pictures that Farouq showed me, torn from a magazine. Farouq goes to see dirty flicks in the dive underneath Laxmi Talkies, made-in-USA movies screened by the Happiness Association. He tried to take me once, but they wouldn’t let me in because I wasn’t a member.
Pussy pussy pussy, says a voice full of dark horrifying laughter.
Fuck off, says I, refusing to be scared. Not all of the voices are mocking or hostile. Some are friendly, they tell me not to worry, I should listen to them, they will tell me the best way to proceed. You too can fuck off, I tell them. You are all pathetic. Voices without bodies, what the fuck is the use of you? Without me you’re nothing.
We’ve minds, blinds, lemon rinds
But no bodies. It’s why you get so excited, having no bodies of your own you can only feel sexy when I do. This is why you’re always putting these thoughts in my head.
we are voices loud and clear
in all the world there’s none like we’re
as for you one thing is sure
dirty little fucker you’re
I don’t know about where you live, Eyes, but here in Khaufpur you can see everything on the internest. Guys with money can go to this shop, they have booths with computers that show sex. The guys can see as much as they like, the owners even leave rags in the booths. Farouq, Zafar’s 2iC, told me this, he claims you can even get in touch with girls, like in Dil Hi Dil Mein didn’t Sonali Bendre meet Kunal that way? Stupid movie, with a crap song, dub you dub you dub you love dot com? Farouq is always singing it.
Fancy Sonali do you? sniggers blood tusks.
Could you be loved?
Definitely, I like filmi girls like Sonali who take the trouble to look good.
What’s Sonali? Big nose she has.
Long as your dong. Thick as your dick. Gock as your cock.
Doesn’t even make sense. Shut up, please.
Thing you want takes two. What girl’ll do it with you?
Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off!
I wanted it so badly, every night the wishing would make my monster hard. In my living rough days I’d often pass through Khaufpur’s street of brothels, it was close to the cafes where I liked to beg, sometimes the mamas would take girls in for their meals as they never had time to cook, one or two of the girls I got to know, they’d wave at me and smile. I thought if I could get some money together plus take a good bath, have some clean thing to wear, I could maybe visit one of those places. One girl particularly I liked, young she was, her name was Anjali, she’d smuggle me bits of paratha from the restaurant and joke about what a handsome, tough fellow I was. I’d say to her, “Don’t mock, it’s not kind.” “Who’s mocking?” she’d reply. She’d give a laugh, go off wiggling her backside, over her shoulder blowing me a kiss.
Maybe she was not mocking. Four parts of me that are strong and good, my face is handsome, I have powerful arms, solid muscled chest. As for the last…“My god what a lund. Fucker is made like a donkey.” This was the joke of Farouq and his chums when they caught me once, splashing in the factory lake. “Jaanvar you are hung like…a jaanvar.” Yes, and what joy I have found in that strong, lovely tower that oozes milk like a frangipani.
Love is different and more difficult. It has nothing to do with sex. This is what I tried to make my voices understand. Quietly does love happen. You’re not even thinking about romance, then she smiles and you notice for the first time that she’s not all that plain, her face is really quite sweet. You watch for her smile and notice that it pushes her cheeks up into two mango shapes, why should this shape be so pleasing, I don’t know. Then one evening she puts kajal round her eyes and brushes her hair, looks quite transformed, and suddenly Sonali Bendre is not so desirable as this one who’s been under your nose for so long, who’s all dolled up to go somewhere you’re not going, can never go.
I liked it when she smiled at me, this is how it started. So I’d do things to make her smile. Next I started noticing every time she smiled at Zafar. This is how the poison of love enters the blood. If ever their hands touched I’d feel a jab. I began making snidy remarks and did not like it when sometimes they would take themselves off to her room and I was not invited.
“So what’s the big secret?” I asked the second or third time this happened, I was trying to make a joke of it. Zafar danced his eyebrows in a wouldn’t-you-like-to-know style, but Nisha told me not to be foolish, they simply wanted to leave her dad to listen to his music in peace. In truth who knew what the fuck they were doing?
Of course I had no chance with Nisha. She was besotted with Zafar and my back was bent as a scorpion’s tail. Over and over I’d tell myself, if only I could stand up straight, it might be a different matter, that old guy wouldn’t have a chance. This made me feel better, but changed nothing. What hope was there that my back would ever unbend? I complained to Nisha that everyone else would one day get married, but no girl would ever look at
me. She said, “It’s not what’s outside that matters, inside you is a beautiful man.”
“I’m not a man,” I said. Even notions like these she got from Zafar. When I talked of my situation she chewed her cheek and fell into long thoughtful silences. Her hair would drift over her eyes, she’d brush it off as if it were some annoying insect. I would have liked to stroke her hair, but I didn’t dare. Once, I tried in a subtle way to show her my feelings, I said, “Nish, if you’re ever unhappy, just remember, for your sake I’ll do anything.”
She laughed and told me I was sweet and she was not unhappy. This did not satisfy me, I wasn’t sure she had got the point. In Khaufpur we have an expression, kya main Hindi mein samjhaun? Should I say it in Hindi? In other words do I have to fucking spell it out? “Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t presume.”
She placed a finger to my lips. “Hush. Silence also speaks.”
“Silence is what makes sound into song.” This is what Nisha’s father Pandit Somraj told me one time, amazed I was that he talked to me. This was not long before Elli’s arrival, which I’ll come to soon. It was the rainy season and I was on the verandah peeling potatoes, admiring the large frangipani tree that grew in his garden. During the monsoon it would make flowers, white with golden hearts and such a scent, somewhat like jasmine. On this day the tree was full of flowers, rain was dripping through its leaves. Pandit Somraj came out and stood for a while beside me.
“Are you hearing it too?” he asked, solemn as ever.
“Hearing what sir?” As you know I was scared of Somraj, plus he’s the kind of man you can’t say a bad thing about, nothing’s scarier than that.
“In Inglis,” he says, “there is a word SILENT, which means khaamush, it has the exact same letters as the word LISTEN. So open your ears and tell me, what can you hear?”