by Indra Sinha
This request and his pessimism catch me off guard. “Zafar, you silly sod, stop this right now, you don’t need to do it any more.” Even as I say this I realise that my news is bound to make him even more determined.
“She trusts you,” he says, ignoring my remark. “She has a real soft spot for you. You must look after her.”
“Me? How can I look after anyone?”
“Because you care for her.” Once again his arid tongue fails to moisten his mouth. To watch it is painful. “That is the main thing, Animal, that you care, but there’s this too, you’re clever, you’re gifted. You’re the brightest guy I know.”
“Come on, don’t try to sweet talk me,” says I. Never did I guess he thought such things about me.
“If some untoward thing happens,” says he, closing his eyes, “if it happens, she’ll need someone she can trust, who can lift her spirits. You’ve such a wicked sense of humour. You must get her through.”
I cannot believe he’s talking like this. “She loves you, arsehole. If you die, what will I do? Crack jokes to lighten her mood?”
“I envy you,” he says. “Seriousness is a curse. I wish I’d laughed more. Been more like you.”
“Stop!” I say sharply, seeing him beginning to slide to some dark place. “Never did I think to hear you say such things. You are our hero, you are our leader, we need you. Now come back and fight.”
He says affectionately, “Fucker, you pretend you’re an animal, and in this much you resemble one, you keep your nose to the ground and your tail up.”
“Fucking fishguts. Who says I’m pretending?”
His eyes open, a slow smile tears at his mouth. “See? Such an ironist. You have understood something worthwhile, my friend, in the end the only way to deal with tragedy is to laugh at it.” His dry tongue scrapes the smile away. “How I wish I had some water. I’ve had to tell them, don’t drink in front of me. It makes me crazy.”
“Who drank in front of you?”
“A friend. Yesterday. I saw her drinking out of a bottle. She didn’t know I was watching. The bottle was frosty.” He closes his eyes, swallows, you can almost hear his throat cracking. Poor bastard, every word is costing him. “I was imagining, no, I was longing for, the sensation of cold water going down the throat. The image of that bottle would not leave me, it just got worse. Last night all my dreams were about water, I woke with such a thirst.” He falls back, the long speech has exhausted him.
All of a sudden I am ashamed to my depths of what I have done to Zafar. “Zafar brother, forgive me. I came to tell you one thing, but first I must tell you something else.”
“Go ahead.”
“I have been jealous of you.”
“I know.”
“How can you know?”
“Nisha told me,” he says.
“You don’t know. Not how bad it was. It was like your fire, burning me up from inside. You know what, I thought of every way to split you up. Hindu girl, Muslim boy? I even considered fomenting communal troubles so your marriage would be impossible.”
“So what happened?” he asks, something like a gleam returning to his eye.
“Pointless, this is Khaufpur, na?” So many times the politicians have tried to stir trouble between the communities in Khaufpur. Always the Khaufpuris say, we have suffered together, we will not be divided.
“Fucker.” He’s still holding my hand and gives it a squeeze.
“Zafar brother, I have something else to tell you. It’s bad. Very bad.”
“Tell me, my brother.”
“Zafar bhai, I am afraid that I have poisoned you.”
Confession is like puking, you can’t stop till you’re empty. So I tell him about the pills, how Faqri had assured me they were for one purpose, which was the derogation of his sexual urge, Nisha vis-à-vis. Plus I wasn’t to know they contained datura.
“Datura?” he says. “Fucking datura. No wonder I felt so bad.”
Then I confess to climbing the tree, once, to spy on him and Nisha. He doesn’t need to know about the other times, only once can you be executed no matter how many murders you commit. I am expecting he’ll be livid, but he lies on his rug looking at me out of his reddened eyes.
“Aren’t you going to get angry?”
He sighs. “Animal, brother, I’m too tired to be angry.” Then he reaches out and taps my head. “So all this turmoil, chaos, this churning rage against the world, has been going on in here?”
“Anyway, no need to be cross,” says I, “for I did not see anything. You did nothing of that sort.”
An odd snort escapes him, and his chest is palpitating. I’m thinking oh shit the shock of this is killing him, but turns out he’s laughing. It’s a dried up kind of laugh, somewhere between coughing, sobbing and snotting.
“Animal, you are too much. By god in whom I refuse to believe there are limits, but you exceed them all.”
“Nothing that I saw, anyway.”
“Yes, I know that. Such things can wait till marriage.”
“What, not even a kiss?”
“Maybe a kiss.”
“Bastard.”
“Well,” says he, pushing up on one elbow, “at least it proves one thing, that you’ll look after Nisha. I can trust you to keep her honour safe.”
“Don’t joke, yaar. I am too ashamed.”
“Definitely, you are the right man.”
“I am not a man.”
“Well my brother,” says he, “definitely the right animal.”
Someone suggests that I should not keep Zafar talking any more, but Zafar says not to worry. “Old friends, it gladdens the heart to see them, and this bastard, with his impudence and his lopsided grin, he makes me laugh, and by god in whom I don’t believe I feel better for it.”
So then it’s time to give him the real news. Leaning right down to his ear, I whisper, “Zafar, the thing I came to tell you, it’s bad. I have proof that Elli doctress is working for the Kampani.” So I start telling him about what I saw at Jehannum, how I’d hidden under the table and caught Elli with the foreign lawyer, how he said she’d done a fine job and could go home, and then how he’d kissed her. Zafar listens to all this with no expression. When I’ve finished he says, “Animal, you have done right to tell me, but I already know. Last night, Elli told Somraj. I’m afraid it will be bad for her. Try to see she too is okay.”
After these puzzling words he says, “Brother, I’m burning up. Ask them to fetch ice. Crush it in a cloth and put it on my skin, please do the same for Farouq.”
TAPE TWENTY
“No deal! No deal!” The second demo in a week, here we are again, the paltaniyas of the Apokalis, the people’s earth-shaking platoons. This day, which is the seventh of the Nautapa, it’s the fiercest heat yet. Not yet ten in the morning but the steps outside the courthouse are like bars of hot metal. We’ve all arrived full of excitement because the Kampani’s deal has not been signed and the hearing’s about to begin. Zafar and Farouq are there, so weak that people must stand beside them and steady them. Zafar’s staring out of eyes that already look dead. “Sit, don’t stand,” someone says. Zafar says he’ll wait until they are inside. Then he will sit. Ten minutes are left before the court opens its doors and the hearing begins, but when the appointed hour comes, of the judge is no sign. We are used to their lateness, but people are saying the milord should have made an effort, he must know that some here are half dead with their fasting, and still refusing to touch water? After twenty minutes a court official comes out and mumbles a few words. People nearby exclaim in anger. “What’s happening? What’s going on?” The news spreads like fire in dry grass. “The hearing has been postponed. They’ve postponed the hearing.”
“NO DEAL! NO DEAL, NO DEAL!”
The chant begins again. People are furious. The judge, it seems, has been transferred, already he has left Khaufpur for some other court, they forgot to inform us.
Shouts someone, “The Amrikans are coming.”
Wi
th an escort of armed police the four lawyers arrive at the courthouse.
Will they really feign surprise? What? the hearing’s been postponed, well I never, who’d have thought it? The cops, knowing the mood and quality of the crowd, are not keen for the lawyers to leave their car, and once they’re out are anxious to hustle them back in, but it’s too late. They are surrounded by a gang of jarnaliss from the Khaufpur Gazette, Doordrishti etc., shouting questions. “Why is the hearing postponed?” “Has a deal been agreed?”
“We’re here to offer generous humanitarian aid to the people of Khaufpur,” says the buffalo.
“Are charges against the Kampani being dropped?”
“NO DEAL! NO DEAL!” Sound of a crowd working itself into a rage.
“Will you clean the factory?”
“Where are your clients? Where are the accused executives?”
“We’re confident that all outstanding issues will be resolved.”
“NO DEAL! NO DEAL! NO DEAL!”
“How much will the compensation be?” “What is your agreement with the government?” “Did you know the hearing would be cancelled?”
“NO DEAL! NO DEAL, NO DEAL!”
“Say again, quite a bit of noise going on here.”
Hear O paltaniyas, learn wisdom. You can shrill and cry as much as you want. You can scream in their fucking ears, still you will not be heard.
“When will the agreement be signed? Days? Weeks? Months?”
“Can’t be too soon for me,” says the buffalo. “I’m missing home. I have two Italian greyhounds. They sleep on my bed.”
An old woman hobbles forward out of the crowd, it’s Gargi, whose back is almost as bent as mine. “Mr. Lawyer, we lived in the shadow of your factory, you told us you were making medicine for the fields. You were making poisons to kill insects, but you killed us instead. I would like to ask, was there ever much difference, to you?”
So the buffalo asks what she is saying and a jarnalis standing nearby says, “I don’t know how to translate it.”
Then Gargi says that if the Kampani has any honour it must stand trial, and it should pay just and proper compensation for all the wrongs it has done.
“What’s she saying now?” the lawyer asks.
“Sir,” says the jarnalis, “she is asking for money.”
The buffalo reaches in his red-lined coat, gets out his wallet. “Buy yourself something nice,” he says. Old Gargi’s standing there with five hundred rupees in her hand.
“Mr. Musisin, how do you justify what you do?” asks a voice that comes from a creature not of this world. It’s Zafar, propped between two friends. His face is sunken, he has not taken a drop of water.
The lawyer knows who Zafar is. The smile on his face grows broad.
“Hey, Zafar,” he says. “When you get to my age and you have two Italian greyhounds and you’ve read as many books as I have, and have as many friends among lawyers and judges, and have won as many cases, you don’t have to spend time justifying yourself.”
“He won’t let me see him. You must go, Animal. Tell him I love him, if he dies I will die too. Remind him of all the reasons there are for him to live.”
“He can’t die.” Zafar is invincible, untouchable, immortal.
“Animal, I’m afraid. Elli says he’s weak from his stomach upsets. He has forbidden her for her own safety to go to him.”
A huge stone slides in my bowels. I have done this, if he dies it’ll be my fault. I’ll go to him and say, Zafar stop this fucking nonsense, take some milk, take a little kheer. Meanwhile I’ll pray, “Gods of fate, or whatever, if you exist you know Zafar’s a marked man, one day some Kampani hitman is sure to take his life. For love’s sake I made one stupid mistake don’t make me his fucking murderer.”
Bhoora Khan returns empty-handed from Huriya’s place. Although Aliya’s still burning up, the old people say they can no longer take her to Elli.
“Who says you can’t?” Bhoora argued with them. “Zafar brother would want Aliya to take treatment.”
“People say Zafar brother is dying. We cannot go.”
So then I know that this time the people will not come back. Elli’s dream is finished and so is mine.
Seven days without water. Even Zafar knows it’s over. He has to give up now or he will die. His body is failing, he is so weak, he can no longer stand. His eyesight is blurring. He whispers, “Animal, is it you?”
I put my mouth right next to his ear, “Speak brother, I am here.”
In that moment I love him utterly and know it will break my heart if he goes, plus I feel Nisha’s love within me like a torrent.
“I’m okay,” he lies, his breath is rasping. “Who wouldn’t feel weak after a week without water? There’s a stove in my chest. I’m burning inside. When I wash my face I feel tempted to take a sip. When I see someone drinking water my heart whispers let’s have just a little drink. But then I think, if I drink what will happen to our struggle?”
“How is Farouq?” I ask, seeing my archenemy lying there on the rug. I feel pity even for him.
“Farouq has the Upstairs One,” he says. “He gets strength from that. Me, I won’t ask god to help, but I get strength from my friends. Like you, Animal, bastard.” He manages a faint smile. “Such a bloody idiot you are, did you never realise that datura is an aphrodisiac?”
“What, you felt the urge?”
“What else?” says he. “Am I not human?”
He lies back, someone places a cushion under his head. They are there waiting with frosted bottles, trying to tempt him with the cool water, heedless are they of the agony it causes him, they are trying to break his will and save his life, but still he will not drink. “Animal, ask Somraj to come and see me. Take good care of yourself, mate. Best as you are able, look after Nisha.”
“We’re going to win,” I tell him. Almost I am in tears. “I’m confident we will win. Listen you bastard, listen, you darling cunt of a man, we are going to win.”
I am smiling at him through my tears, and trying to hold in my mind the vision of a world in which the power of nothing has swept away the Kampani and all the evil and cruel things are no more. Come, you power of nothing, if ever there was a time for you to show yourself it’s now, it’s now. Whatever he had, this man has given. Nothing more has he to give, except his life, and soon there will be nothing left of Zafar. Never has his power been greater than at this moment. The Nautapa is flaring out of his body, his breath is like flames. One breath from Zafar could set the world on fire.
How long do I sit there, beside the man who is going? An hour maybe, two, time has no meaning. My head is full of thoughts that circle like pigeons, always coming back to the same roost. On Zafar’s face is an expression that is filled with peace, as if he has resolved all his struggles.
What is this thing called dying? Saying goodbye, letting go, one by one, of memories and sensations, the last time one ever thinks of cloves, or ginger, or green silk, or the white etawa bird. All the things that make up life, let them go one by one, until there is only now and here, the colours on the wall of the tent, that blur of light, voices…let all that too go.
“Zafar, my brother, I once heard you say something beautiful. You said, jahã jaan hai, jahaan hai.” We have the world, while we still have life.
“Fucking romantic.” These are the last words I hear him speak.
A great noise begins outside. “The factory,” voices are shouting. “They’re beating people! We must all go there.”
At the factory gates there’s a brawl going on. People from Jyotinagar, right across the road, are gathered there, demanding to be let inside. About forty cops have their backs to the gates. The rusting ironwork begins to rock. People have climbed over the wall and come up from behind. They’re climbing on the gates, gripping the bars and shaking them, trying to pull them down. The gates are swaying. Guards come running from inside, but these are village oafs the Kampani has hired, the ones who sit drinking tea all day and night,
they do not want to get involved. The police are screaming at them to attack the invaders, pull them off the gates, beat them, but the guards stand and watch. More and more protesters appear each minute, thin figures running out of alleys, shouting, waving their arms. I too push close, shouldering my way past knees and thighs, trying to avoid having my fingers stepped on. Rage I’m feeling, plus sorrow. I have just left Zafar, never will I forgive his death or the manner of it. I want to rend the bastard Kampani in bits, if I could attack that buffalo lawyer I would bite his cancerous tongue out and squeeze his throat till greyhounds pop out of his eyes and he feels maddened teeth tearing his heart. In this moment of anger I look up and there are placid clouds drifting across the sky. This shakes me. Outside of ourselves nothing cares.
Zafar and Farouq are far away in the old city, they have breathed their last, if this news should reach the crowd, god knows what the result will be. One of the women is shouting at the senior cop. He is afraid, I can see, though I cannot hear what is being said. She stoops, rises again with a slipper in her hand. She strikes him with it right across the face. The cop does nothing, his men are scared, now the fury of the people has been let loose who knows where it’ll stop, it’s a storm battering everything in its path, it’s an avalanche pouring down a mountain, it’s a flood that rises swiftly with no warning, it’s a fire lit by lightning on a hillside where all is dry, awaiting the spark. These things I’m saying I did not believe before, now I do, the power of nothing is unleashed, as Zafar feared it is already out of control, it will destroy what it touches because it is fuelled not just by anger but despair. The cop who was struck’s being harangued by others. The gates are rocking wildly, one’s come away from its hinges and is hanging, the men clinging to it double their efforts, others are jumping on to add their weight. Still the guards stand watching, many of them have thrown down their sticks, it’s not worth their lives to defend this place of horror, this land of cobras. The police are trying to get out from underneath, or they’ll be crushed when the gates fall. Another hinge gives way and slowly, the barred portal to the factory sags, then dhoofs flat on the ground in a cloud of dust, the police have fled, some of them too are sitting on the ground with their sticks laid down. The crowd surges into the wilderness beyond the gates, but now they’re in they do not know what to do. There is an open space, to one side of the avenue of small mango trees that leads to the guardhouse and here the crowd gathers. Many sit down, there are no leaders to tell them what should happen next, this is something they’ve done themselves. Someone has to take charge, but there is no one. “What shall we do now?” people are asking.