Animal's People: A Novel

by Indra Sinha

  The blows stop. I’m lying on the ground, my mouth is full of blood, which I hope is Fatlu’s. Something slimy I’ve spat on the ground, then I see Somraj, who does not believe in direct or violent action, who trusts that law will flower into justice, walk forward and place himself in front of Fatlu Inspector.

  “You are a disgrace,” Somraj says, and slaps Fatlu across the face.

  The sticks blur around Somraj, they come crashing from all directions. I see him fall, his white spotless kurta turning red, many of them are standing around him with the sticks flailing. In this way my dream comes true, the one where sticks descended on Somraj, and afterwards crows flew down upon his lifeless corpse. The thought comes to me, it’s not his body that is dying, it’s his heart. Lying hearing the thud of police sticks beating Somraj, I don’t know what will happen to us. Maybe they’ll kill us here and now, or drag us to their cells to finish us. So many die in the cells. What will it be like to die? Can it be worse than this horrible life? I am not afraid, just curious. Then a thing happens that no one could have predicted.

  From nowhere a tide of ragged people surges over the police and sweeps them away. Thousands have come, they have heard of the fight at the factory and the plight of the Jyotinagar folk and they have come from the Nutcracker and Blue Moon and beyond, from Phuta Maqbara and Mira Colony, from Khabbarkhana and Qazi Camp, even from Chowk, the people have dropped what they were doing and run to our aid and the cursed police are gone. As they run for their trucks, they are forced to crouch behind their shields because the road is lined with crowds who want their blood, never have I seen such fury. One man, he’s ragged, thin his ribs are like furrows ploughed in his flesh, no strength can he have for portering or load-lifting, but so filled with anger is his weak body that he has ripped a paving stone from out of the earth and flung it at the pandus. Now it’s their turn to drop, it’s their blood that stains the earth. Let them bleed, cunts, no stomach have they for this fight. One thing it’s when people are unarmed, defenceless, but these newcomers are armed, the despair of twenty years has turned to rage, in some hands I see knives and swords gleaming. That’s when I know that this will not end here. This day is not over yet.

  People from the Claw find us and wipe the blood from us and bring us back to Somraj’s house. How long were we in the factory, I don’t know, it must have been hours, for the sun is setting, it is below the rooftops, the sky is streaked red like it too is wearing blood-soaked bandages. Somraj Pandit is beaten sore, but refusing to go and lie down, his daughter is fretting over him, it’s now I learn she’s had no news from the old city.

  “Animal,” she says. “You were there. How is Zafar. Tell me is he alive? Tell me he’s all right.”

  I do not know what to tell her. The day is over, the time when they could have saved their lives is gone, the tent has become a shroud for Zafar and Farouq. Gone they are, right when most needed, for the power of nothing is unleashed and must be directed or it will achieve nothing but destruction and death. They are gone. I would rather she heard this news from anyone but me.

  “You haven’t been to see him?”

  “Zafar forbade me,” she says simply. “I have to respect his wish. Besides, I told him I wouldn’t be there, that I could not bear to watch him die.”

  Oh no, Nisha. I have the gift and I know the truth, you’ve been hoping that Zafar will hang on, will not let go until he has seen you. So you did not go and do not go, hoping to stretch out his life a little further.

  “Go now,” I say. “Quickly. Find an auto.” But it’s too late and I am thinking that the streets are not safe. Distant uproars can be heard, police sirens too. Soon the army will be called, like they were on that night, when the politicians made them take thousands of bodies and throw them in the Chameli River.

  “If Zafar dies, I will take care of you Nisha. I will marry you.”

  “Please don’t talk like that. He will not die.”

  “I love you, Nisha. I always have. You are everything to me.”

  “Poor loyal Animal, I can never marry you.” She starts sobbing and I go to put my arms round her. She accepts the hug, but then says, “Animal, you must go to Ma. We don’t know what may happen on this night.”

  In the street outside her clinic I come across Elli, pale as a ghost she’s. “My god,” she says, “what happened to you? Come inside.”

  Well, I guess I am looking pretty bad, there are lumps all over my head, one eye is nearly closed plus my kakadus are stained with blood. The ache from these wounds is nothing compared to the ache in my heart. About Zafar and Farouq I don’t want to think. In place of the anger there’s a kind of numbness, a palace of desolation is my soul, not the kind of place I would choose to live, this world does not seem a good place to be, but I will go into Elli’s clinic one last time because she should know what I think of her.

  “Animal?” she asks, leading me towards her office, “are you hurt bad?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “What happened?” she asks, again all caring concern.

  This numbness I’m feeling, it’s like volcanoes on the tele, outside they’re black and dead, but inside red lakes are seething. I can’t be polite to Elli.

  “Don’t you fucking know? Your friends cancelled the hearing.”

  “So you’ve heard too.” She sighs. “It’s all over town that I’m a traitor. People think I’ve lied to them, Hanif and Huriya stopped Aliya coming to the clinic. Everything’s just collapsed.”

  “Elli,” says I, “I don’t know what game you are playing, nor why Somraj and Zafar want to protect you, but it’s me, Animal, you’re dealing with now. I saw you in the garden of Jehannum, kissing the Kampani lawyer and he’s told you you’ve done a great job and can go home. So I guess you’ll soon be off and forget us Khaufpuris and the promises you made about straightening my back and marrying Pandit Somraj, all so many lies…”

  “No,” she cries. “No. Not lies.”

  At this the red rage jolts up into my throat. “Fishguts I’m, Elli, to believe I could ever walk upright, but to poison the hopes of a man like Somraj, how could you do that? I saw him today being beaten, all the life had gone from his eyes. No one else might say this to you, Elli doctress, so hear it from me. You say the world is made of promises, but you are no better than the politicians who lie with every word they speak, or your master the filthy Kampani itself, I curse the day I met you plus I can tell you this, no matter how sick people are here, we are better off without your sort, so hurry up, fuck off back to Amrika, the land where people like you belong.”

  “Stop, please.” She’s crying. “How can you think such things of me?”

  “What should I think? Zafar and Farouq are dead.”

  “Dead? Oh god, oh no!” and she’s relapsed into such grief, what acting, I wouldn’t have believed it possible.

  “For all of this we can thank your friends.”

  She screams, “They are not my friends! I hate that Kampani. I fucking hate them. I hate them worse than you do.”

  “What? And will you also tell me that Amrikan lawyer man didn’t kiss you, in the garden at Jehannum?”

  “How could you know that?”

  “You are married to this man,” I say, ignoring her question. “Don’t ask how I know, it’s my gift, my voices tell me what’s in your mind. You are married to this man yet you do everything to make Somraj fall in love with you. Don’t you know how he has suffered? Torturing him, does it make you happy?”

  “I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Have you ever said a true or sincere word to any of us?”

  Anger is catching and now it’s in her voice too. “Some friend you are, Animal. If the voices in your head know everything they should know that I am fucking divorced from that man. He tricked and cheated me as he has all the rest of us. I can never forgive him.”

  “Oh, so how come you let him kiss you. Why did he say you’d done such a good job you could go home to Amrika? I was there wa
sn’t I? Me, mister Jamispond. I was sent to Jehannum to keep an eye on the lawyers.”

  “But you saw me, and immediately assumed the worst?” I can feel her eyes like hot lamps on my face.

  “What else to assume?”

  “What about the work I’ve done here? What about us being friends? Why didn’t you come and ask me about it?”

  “I felt sick.”

  “Well hear this then,” says Elli. “I don’t work for the Kampani. My husband does. I fought with him about it, it’s one of the reasons I divorced him and came here. But I was stupid. You can’t right other people’s wrongs. I am not going to apologise for anything, but get one thing straight. Those four men are not my friends. I hate them like poison. To me, they’re the worst people in the world. I was doing work I loved, I met a man I loved. They came here, they fucked all that up. God knows what I’ll do now.”

  “You’ll go back to Amrika, like the Amrikan lawyer told you.”

  “Like hell I will. I’m not giving up, I won’t be beaten by those bastards. Animal, I don’t blame you for thinking the worst, in your place I’d likely have done the same. But now you’ll hear my side.”

  So Elli tells me of the shock she had felt when the Amrikan lawyers came to the city. These were people who knew her, who could undo all her work. When Timecheck described the big guy with the red-lined coat, she knew exactly who it was. She’d been to his house, eaten pizza by his pool, shopped with his wife. Mel Musisin, he’s a heartless bastard, but the biggest shock was when she saw the fourth lawyer on the local tele. It was her husband, Frank. For all the next day Elli lived in fear of the phone, sure enough that evening he called her, asked to see her. She refused, so he gave her the number of the hotel and his room number. On the night of the CM demo, Elli waved the others off feeling like a Judas. She stood on her roof and looked towards the hill where the CM’s house was. Even across this distance, she could hear the crowd, the chanting. Then the rifle shots, hard flat cracks, echoing over the city. She rushed downstairs and turned on the tele, but there was nothing on but some old movie, Badnaami Ka Dilaasa. The solace of infamy. Elli hoped it was not an omen.

  An anxious half hour passed before Somraj stepped from an auto, his kurta snowy in the moonlight. He took her arm and led her into the garden. On an impulse she grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth.

  “Shhh,” said Somraj.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Nisha? She’s here? Zafar?”

  “They’re back.” She’s touched her fingertips to his cheek, his lips.

  “Please, not here,” says Somraj, removing her hands.

  “Tell me what happened. Why did the police fire?”

  “To frighten. Playing tough. The politicians want this deal.”

  “But the court is ready to make an order against the Kampani.” Mentioning the Kampani made her feel sick.

  “If they sign a deal, the case will be dead,” he says. “Our only hope is they don’t reach an agreement before the hearing. Once we have a ruling, it will be hard for them.”

  That’s why Musisin and the others are here, she realises, almost at once he echoes this thought. “It’s the first time they have sent lawyers.”

  “Surely the government has people’s interests at heart,” she tries, wishing to believe it. Somraj shakes his head. “In this country decent people don’t go into politics.”

  “So what can we do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Like Zafar’s power of nothing?”

  “Zafar is Zafar and by nothing I mean nothing, but maybe he is right. There is a strength that comes from having nothing because you have nothing to lose. What is it? Maybe courage, or ingenuity, or desperation, it appears where there is no help and no hope. Look at how you came to us. Out of nowhere, and out of nothing came a clinic.”

  And now Somraj tells her what at that time no one else knows, of Zafar’s plan for a fast unto death.

  Elli can no longer hide her unhappiness. Somraj, awkward and gentle as ever, reaches out his arms to her and draws her close to him. If ever’s the time to share her secret it’s now, but she does not have the courage.

  What can I find to do? she’s thinking. What can I do that might make even the smallest difference? Nothing presents itself. Elli closes her eyes and thinks about nothing.

  It’s past eleven when she leaves the clinic. She’s wearing a burqa to disguise herself. Still she keeps to the dark side of the lane.

  Elli walks up the wide road leading to the Chowk. It’s late, but the place is still full of people. No one takes any notice. In a quiet place she removes the burqa and puts it into a bag. Then hails an auto.

  The Jehan-nabz Hotel is clean and softly lit. In the garden are dinner tables and waiters with turbans like roses clearing away dishes. Elli checks her reflection in a case of swords and guns that had belonged to the Chhoté Nawab. The few months in the Khaufpuri sun have browned her skin. The receptionist is discreet and efficient. “Of course at once, madam,” he smiles, shortly afterwards reporting, “The gentleman is coming right away.”

  Nearly a year since she’d last met Frank. She wonders if he’s changed, it would be odd to treat him like a stranger. But Frank looks as familiar as ever.

  “Elli!” He catches up her hands. “You look great.”

  “So do you.” He looks elegant, completely relaxed. Never ruffled, always charming. She remembers how proud she had been when he used to sweep her into a room full of strangers, announcing, “Hey everyone, this is my wife,” and how jealous she would get when the other women flirted with him.

  “It’s okay to kiss you? Just a chaste one?”

  She offers her cheek, trying to hide the tumult inside. What can I offer him, she’s wondering, to make him do what I want.

  “Two Jack Daniels, long as the glass is tall,” he tells the hovering waiter.

  “Frank, is there somewhere private we can talk?”

  “There’s my room,” he says, with a smile.

  “Not that private. Perhaps we can walk in the garden.”

  When they’re outside and he takes her arm, she is not sure how to react. The hand steering her elbow is the old possessive Frank. He’s still thinking of her as his wife.

  If her ex-husband notices her awkwardness, he gives no sign. “Back home it’s late spring,” he says. “You should see the flowers. They’re out everywhere. Just before I came out here, I went walking in the woods with your folks. We saw all those things you used to tell me the names of. Let me see, cow’s tongue, that’s yellow, right? Bloodroot, Indian pipe, that little thing that looks like a dog’s tooth, Dutchman’s bitches…”

  “Britches,” she says, with a genuine laugh. “How are my parents?”

  “Martha’s having a grand spell. Your dad’s good. He said to tell you they are looking forward to your visit.”

  “That’s good, I’m looking forward to it too.”

  Frank hesitates. “Apparently you’re bringing some friends.” Uh oh, she seeks escape in her glass, but the drink is going straight to her head. They have come to a group of wicker chairs in the middle of the hotel’s wide lawn. Ahead is the blue glow of the swimming pool and near it a tree hung with coloured bulbs.

  “Your dad says you’re thinking of marrying an Indian guy. Is this true?”

  “We’ve talked about it.”

  “Are you serious?” Now his voice is a river of concern, as if she were a child about to do something stupid. Same old Frank, so reasonable, utterly lacking in imagination and adventure.

  “He’s a singer,” she says, as if this explains everything.

  “A singer? What is he, in a band?”

  “He sings classical music.” How can she begin to describe Somraj? “Indian classical,” she adds, to stop him making a comment about opera or Pavarotti.

  “Do you love him?”

  This question pierces her. Don’t ask me that, she thinks, or I’ll cry. “No more questions,” she
says, trying to smile. “I’m not on oath here.”

  “The witness will answer,” he says in his light teasing manner.

  “The answer is that you don’t consider marrying someone if you don’t love them. At least I don’t.”

  “Ouch,” he says, making a face. It was the way he always used to end their quarrels, make a funny face, make her laugh.

  “You used to love me.” He’s heading straight back into territory she wants to avoid. “You know I want you back.”

  “I’m sure you’re better off without me.”

  Frank begins to complain about his life in Pennsylvania, how it’s work, all work these days, no time for fun.

  He’s stalling, she suddenly realises. He’s wondering why I am here.

  “Frank,” she says, “I’ve come to talk to you about something important.”

  She begins to tell him about the people she has met in Khaufpur. Of Hanif Ali, left blind for twenty years by the gases of that night, of the woman who poured her poisoned milk onto the ground. She tells him about me, the strange, half-mad boy who goes on all fours, and believes he’s an animal. She describes the horrifying things she sees every day, and tells how the Kampani’s refusal to share its knowledge of the poisons is hurting people.

  “Elli, this is awful, but you know that people like me don’t have control over those kind of decisions. All I can do is my own job.”