Animal’s People

by Indra Sinha

  “Tear this place down,” someone cries. “Burn it!” yells another, so I start shouting, “Friends, do not burn anything here, or the chemicals will catch light, it’ll be that night all over again.”

  This word spreads in the crowd, who by now number hundreds, with more still arriving. “Do not burn anything. Do not light matches.”

  The ever-swelling crowd is full of energy, it wants to do something, but no one can agree what. The women, possessed by nothing’s power, begin their chants, “We are flames not flowers. With our brooms, we will beat the Kampani, we will sweep them out from Khaufpur. Out of India we will sweep them. Out of all existence.”

  Of course it can’t last. Dark vans are pulling up by the shattered gate, many vans, maybe twenty. Out jump police wearing helmets, carrying shields and long staves. They form up in ranks, then enter the factory. The crowd, which had gone quiet, watching, now resumes its chants of defiance, louder than before the whole crowd is singing. At such moments people get carried away and say things they otherwise never would utter. They’re shouting, come on, do the Kampani’s dirty work, beat us, take our lives, what do we care, who’ve lost everything anyway? The police advance, without halting or asking questions, their long staves begin to beat. Then there’s uproar, cries of men and women being hurt, howls of anger from deeper in the crowd, which draws back, away from the zone of beating. A police general steps up, a loudhailer in his hand. His voice sounds twangy as he shouts. “Go back to your homes, don’t be led astray, the people who have organised this are Hindu extremists, they have come here from outside to sow hatred and divide your community.”

  Despite the fear, there is a great shout of laughter. “Go away,” voices shout. “There are no Muslims or Hindus here, there are just humans.”

  Plus one animal. I am lost in a thicket of legs, so I work my way to one side of the crowd, then I can see the fallen gates, police dragging people out, throwing them in the trucks.

  “Leave us alone,” cry the voices. “Go and lick the arse of your master the Chief Minister, who licks the hole of Peterson.”

  “Get out! Go!” Then the chants begin again, flames not flowers, the chant of sweeping away with brooms, the song of the people’s platoons.

  Even now, the horror of that day has hardly begun. More police trucks are arriving. Out of one jumps my old enemy Fatlu Inspector, whom I caught with a stone at the CM demo, this fat bastard is entering the factory site with his gang of goons. They don’t hesitate, but go straight into the crowd and then they are grabbing people, man, woman, doesn’t matter, by any part they can reach, arm, hair, ear, and dragging them off kicking and protesting.

  “Send for help,” people are yelling. “Tell everyone to come!”

  Fatlu, this putain, he is a bully, he takes pleasure in dealing out pain. He loves his power to hurt. At other times I have been afraid of him, I have run away, at the CM’s demo I hid behind a tree, but today is the day Zafar died. I’m burning with a bloody rage. Fatlu has grabbed hold of a man from Jyotinagar, he is beating him with his fist. “Bastard, where is your permission to enter this place?”

  “Sir, I came with the others,” says this fellow, who’s thin and weak, with all the woes of Khaufpur written in his face.

  “Bastard,” says Fatlu, “how dare you speak to me? Where…is…your…permission?” During each of these pauses, the fist falls on the man’s head.

  “We don’t need your permission,” a woman shouts. It’s Nisha. All in white is she, the colour a widow wears. The news is confirmed then, Zafar is dead. Fatlu continues to beat the man. Nisha grabs hold of his arm, tries to drag him off. Fatlu swings his elbow. She falls to the ground, holding her face. Blood is coming from her mouth. He has hurt Nisha, I will kill this bastard and eat his heart.

  Fatlu never sees his death approach, I’ve come running up behind, he’s missed me because I’m so low to the ground, I’ve grabbed the swine round the legs and hauled him down. With a shout, Fatlu falls. Struggling he’s to get back on his feet, but I’ve got him pinned. In vain he strikes at my head, I am stronger, far stronger than he. My shoulders and arms are powerful, muscled like a wrestler’s, I’ve told you this, and now they will end this bastard’s life. My hands fasten round his throat. With what horror his eyes bulge. “No more torture for you, sisterfucker,” I shout in his ear then take the ear in my teeth, I bite until blood is running between my lips, he is screaming. I will not stop, let the ear come off, that’s just the beginning, I am going to tear out his throat and gouge his eyes, but rough hands are pulling me off, blows are falling, blows of heavy sticks, on my head, my back, my shoulders, nothing of me is there that is not being beaten. From far away, it seems, I hear Nisha’s voice crying, “Leave him alone, he was just trying to save me. Father, help him.” As the blows fall I’m thinking, Nisha darling, no use is it appealing to the father, nor to the mother, the son nor the holy ghost, for neither Christian am I nor Hindu nor Muslim, not Brahmin nor Sufi nor saint, neither man am I nor beast. I don’t know what is being beaten here. If they kill me what will die?

  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 unle
ashed 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 wasn’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.