Animal’s People

by Indra Sinha

  Chants the voice of the madwoman, “Parut un cheval d’une couleur pâle. Celui qui le montait se nommait la mort, et l’hadès le suivait, pour exterminer les hommes par l’épée, par la famine, par la peste, et par les bêtes sauvages de la terre.” It’s a pale horse, on him’s death with hell twoup behind, come they’ve so men may be extermined by war, famine and plagues, their bodies devoured by the wild beasts of the earth. My eyes are streaming, it is hard to keep them open, there seems to be smoke drifting, voices are shouting, “Run, run for your lives! The factory is on fire!” I look behind, there’s a glow in the sky, clouds of smoke are billowing upward. “Run run,” the voices cry, “the gas has come.” “Run! Save yourselves!” “That night has come again!” Now I know why the ground is heaving, the little light from the door of our tower shows the earth alive with snakes and other small creatures, rushing desperate to escape the flames.

  Inside with the dog’s Ma dressed in nun’s getup, clutched to her chest is Sanjo’s book, but she’s not reading, who knows its every word by heart. Seeing me she cries in a loud voice, “Come Animal, we’ve work to do.”

  My eyes are burning so badly I can hardly see her. “Ma, you must run.” Hardly can speak. “Quick, to safety.”

  “There’s no safety,” says she. “It’s the Apokalis.” She moves to the door and stoops to go out. “Come, the people need our help.”

  Alas, knowing what must be happening in the lanes of the Nutcracker, I cannot move. Never will I forget this moment, filled with dread I’m, it’s like my four feet have grown roots. Ma is standing in the doorway, waiting for me, curls of smoke are entering our tower.

  “Come Animal.” Still I do not move. Ma smiles at me and says, “Goodbye, my dear child. Always I have loved you and I always will, yes, until after the end of time itself. We’ll meet in paradise.”

  “Wait!” I cry, but she’s turned and gone.

  Jara gives me a reproachful look, then follows Ma, looking back over her shoulder as if to say, goodbye then, for never in this life shall we see each other again. And I, who am anyway doomed, who’ve already lost friends, love and hope, watch the last two beings I love go out into that cloud of death and have no courage to go with them. No courage have I, but I have shame. Shame drives me forward a few steps, then the poison smoke is in my face, I’m retching, tears are running down my cheeks, Ma and Jara are faint figures heading into the thickest haze, from which now fewer and fewer figures are emerging.

  Then I’m jostling panic-stricken people in alleys where so thick is the fog that lamps are reduced to pinpricks. In my head is the nightmare of Pandit Somraj who every night of his dreams sees Nafisubi Ali’s child crying under a street light as in a brown light dying figures stumble past.

  Running I’m, running, I don’t know where, just to clutch onto one more hour, I do not want to let go even of these last burning moments, O lord how sweet it is, how tempting, is life.

  TAPE TWENTY-TWO

  Grey of morning comes jolting, my eyes can hardly open, there’s a bad taste in my mouth, my lungs are painful, but the datura fire in my belly, that is now raging out of control, bending and warping the world, hard to accept what I am seeing, country scenes, trees, fields rushing past, amazed to be alive I’m on a truck full of people lying in huddles, their eyes raw and swollen, ahead a man is throwing up over the side, the rushing air sends drops flying back a foul spray comes blittering on my face, my own stomach’s declared war on me, tearing itself apart it’s, ripping me from the inside, air’s gone purplish sun’s risen in a ball of orange and purple light, violent, swollen and strange.

  “Let me off, where are you taking me?”

  “Lie still brother, they’re taking you to hospital in Diwanabad.”

  “No!” My gut’s in hideous pain, but I am filled with revulsion for human life and human society, I want no more of it.

  There is a line of forest on the hills.

  “Let me down.”

  “What will you do here? There’s nothing here.”

  “Fuck you let me down.”

  The ground is weaving patterns under my feet, playing tricks on me’s this earth, hot like burning coals, the hills are dancing, in the shimmer black birds with forked tails are darting. With some part of my mind I recall that this is the eighth day of Nautapa, then shame hits, plus despair. All whom I loved are gone, lost to me forever, distant is that city of disaster, its streets and alleys I knew so well, a far off and hopeless place, I will not go back, I won’t, never will I return, if I am dying let me die here in the open like a beast, or else let me live here, far from people, never again do I want to look on a human face. I’ve kicked off my kakadus. I’ll live as an animal, alone and free as an animal should, no master I’ll have, no work, no duty but survival.

  “Survive, will you?” The datura speaks, sitting coiled inside my gut, “you have eaten thirteen of my dark golis, O Animal, now you shall see what you shall see.” The flames climb in my throat but can’t exit, full of nothing I’m nothing full of flames, in my ear the datura sings a song:

  thou art an animal fierce and free

  in all the world is none like thee

  in fire’s forge thy back did bend

  my bitter fire be thy end

  “Vas te faire foutre!” Hopeless, friendless, alone, ill I may be, but I’ll not be bullied. “Fuck off!” I’m trying to speak, but my voice is a chirring cricket that hops from my tongue and is lost.

  It is late afternoon when I enter the first trees, thorns, dry grasses, twigs snapping under my feet, howra hoora cries of birds, japing greenly go thus trees through, oh I’ll discover my true state, die or live, animal returning to its truly home, four feet have I my eyes are stars my nose is snakes that lick their nostrils, dream lipless dreams, the sun above is like a mouth roaring out flames, the skin of my back is frying, a rod of fire is my throat, each breath is a fire-eater’s gush of flame, Farouq you thought you were so great to walk across a bed of coals, try a stroll in my gut. Naked, I lie on my belly drink from a ditch and bite the sonofabitch sun, I feel like my own father whom I have never known.

  Down inside me voices are speaking making no sense seems the plant season so rare it floats, pimpish stuff in there, pimpish, leave where it’s, ça fait un peu boui-boui, this is our kingdom

  Shady is the forest but under its trees is no relief. I am searching for other living things, none do I see, coloured like the back of a shrike’s the forest, browns and fawns, grasses dry, dry thorns, dry trunks, its leaves are suffering in the heat’s fierce fetch, not just in me’s this agony but in the world. Where are you, animals, let me introduce myself? I stop and listen, nothing’s there but stirring of leaves. This ground is strange to me, gone beedi wrappers, orange peels, plastic, here are bent grasses, twigs in patterns and piles mixed with old leaves on the forest floor, shapes that curl and spiral like twists of a stair are seeds. Here’s one beetle-winged, I am looking for signs left by hoof, paw, belly of snake, nothing can I find. My nose discerns only the scent of parched earth, my only fellow beings are these silent sufferers rooted in dust waiting for rain.

  “Silent, say you?” sniggers the datura, “then wait for night O Animal. Let night come, you shall hear what you shall hear.”

  “What, are you still here?” The sickness is squirming in my guts like a snake. “I do not think that you will kill me. I am stronger than you, I will defeat you.” The datura gives such a buffet of pain I go staggering my legs and arms give way I am biting the bitter soil.

  “I’ve not yet begun,” says the datura.

  Comes night plus a falling moon, caught in tangles of branches above my head. “Should we show him?” asks a familiar voice. “Yes, show,” says another.

  “It will be wasted,” says the first. “A great fool, he’s.”

  A tear drips from the moon’s eye and lands on a branch. Lines of light spread in all directions, racing from tree to tree, till all the trees of the forest have silver edges, their voices are noth
ing I’ve ever heard, like deep flutes filled with water. “Show the animal, show him what he really is.”

  A light appears on the forest floor, glow’s spread till it’s all around me.

  “Ha ha ha, so much for kidnapping, what would you like to chat about?” whispers he ex-of-the-jar. “Datura and moonlight, not a good cocktail, and this is just the beginning. Can you imagine what’s coming?”

  “My own death.” Waves of sickness are pushing up inside gut heaves throat yawns jaws gape, up comes nothing.

  “So Khã,” says he, “let’s talk. What shall we discuss? Death and life? This and that?”

  The nausea is bucketing through me horrors and griefs in my belly are rioting up comes nothing. “Don’t torment me, Khã, thirteen dark moons have I swallowed and I am going to die.”

  “Are you going to die, my dear?”

  “I think so, Khã.”

  My mouth opens a cobra slides up out of my throat its body fills my guts its tail dangles out of my arsehole every muscle in my body strives to expel it, up comes nothing.

  “Just so, it’s time for the Zippo,” says my mate, his first head. “Click whirr whoosh, do the needful kindly.”

  Adds the second, “And oblige.”

  A datura is growing in my gut pushes forth leaves and flowers out of my mouth and out my nose. “I don’t have my Zippo, Khã, I have lost it.” My tongue wags furry as a dog’s tail.

  “Then snap your fingers,” says he. “It makes no difference.”

  A flick of the thumb, a whooouf of blue flame, a violet flash. My little two-headed friend is no more.

  “You are handsome bastards,” I tell the two tall angels that shimmer there in the moonlight.

  “Don’t we know it?” they laugh, and give me friendly glances. “Free, at last, thanks to you, Animal.”

  Trees are writhing in the darkness I call out are you in pain, it’s me who’s dying. We are not in pain we are dancing. What, dancing with joy? We have no need of joy cry the deep flutes of the trees, we are in need of water and so are you O Animal. Find water if you want to live. Where can I find water on this dry hill? Go down, go up, your choice. My feet are raw with blisters, I can go no further. Then lie here and we shall wrap our roots around your bones. I need my bones, friends. Lie here, die here, we are no friends of yours, soon you will have no need of your bones.

  You are an animal fierce and free

  you shall see what you shall see

  que ta chair devienne sèche we shall

  feast upon your flesh

  Above my head a monkey sits on a branch, eating a fruit it’s, spitting seeds onto the earth, the fur slides from its face, revealing the skull beneath, its flesh drips in furry glowing blobs, all bones is the monkey, one by one the bones fall and lie shining in the moonlight, earth opens a brown mouth sends out a green tongue it becomes a tree gobbles the monkey’s bones, tree grows tall, shining fruits appear among its leaves, a monkey sits on a branch eating the moon.

  Now it’s fury, I’ve jumped up and yelled at the trees, “Keep your cut-price visions I’m not impressed putain con, who do you think you’re dealing with I’m not just any animal I’m THE ANIMAL have some fucking respect or I’ll climb up and wank on you, you don’t scare me.”

  “Plus you don’t scare us,” say the trees, joining branch to branch they’re, dancing in a ring, each tree leaping to the next quicker than eye can follow, ugly selfish demonic beings they have become, they reach down and rake me with thorny claws. All the night I cannot sleep for fear of the trees which will devour me if I sleep, grasses push sharp needles into my hands and feet, coiled in my gut the datura is rolling on its back laughing,

  The sun rushes up in hot smokes of red and green, gargling in my throat’s a new fire of thirst, tongue’s thuggish, bitter as a pheasant’s heart. Mouth agape, I climb in the forest, turning in circles, from waterless agony is no escape, to it is no end. I think of Zafar whom I poisoned, strange dreams I gave him, plus pain, yet even while dying he forgave, if I meet his ghost it may not be so kind, spirit of Zafar I’ll say, I too chose this death. The ache in my guts has a familiar edge, burnt in sharp blues and oranges, I know this beast that stalks within, it’s my old enemy hunger, gradually its shape clears, thirsty I’m plus so hungry I could eat anything, I tear grass, chew bark, berries, dig up roots plus mushy things and gnaw them all earthy. I’ve ripped the petals off flowers and munched them.

  Starving hunter creeps on all fours across the forest floor, dry twigs avoid, make no sound, I have spotted food, a lizard sunning on a rock, its little legs pump its fat body up and down, it has plump cheeks, a fine and meaty tail, I find a stone, fling, thud, lizard’s off rock flying, I’ve only caught it in the ribs, it’s lying panting its mouth open, a dent in its side, mine now, but the lizard’s skittered away in damaged panic, me on it like Jara on a rabbit, it’s wriggling under my hand. How to kill it? I can feel its heart jump, lizard eye’s glaring, just bite its head off bloody, you were not made for roots, think like a tiger, let red lust close your eyes, unhinge your jaw prepare to kill.

  “Don’t eat me,” cries the lizard, “I’ll tell you something most important.”

  “Sorry, I am too hungry to spare your life.”

  “I won’t taste good. If you think datura’s bad wait till you taste my venoms, boy you will wish you’d never been born.”

  “Already I wish that.”

  “Nothing it’s compared to the wishing you’ll do if you eat me,” says the creature with a sad look in its eye, like it’s lost hope of saving itself.

  “Go then,” I say, releasing it. “I am sorry I hurt you.”

  “A broken rib may mend,” says the lizard, “but your nature you can never change. You are human, if you were an animal you would have eaten me.”

  Night comes, no food nor water have I found, moon’s thinner as if it too is starving, it’s a night of still air in which a chouette is calling, hoo hoo, I rest my cheek against the hairy bark of a tree and hear its slow thoughts, climb, hand over hand, into the branches and sit there, Animal alone in his kingdom. Grief comes to me, all my rage and fear empty in dry coughing sobs. I call to my fellow creatures, “Brothers and sisters, the lizard’s wrong, I am one of you, come to live with you. Show yourselves.” None come, but there’s a rustling, it’s the lizard whose life I spared, she says, “Hey Animal, soon you’ll be a shrivelled old sack, I will creep into your dry carcase and lay my eggs around your heart.”

  The voice takes you where it wants, not where you want to go. It tells you there is no deceiving, what you see you shall see, you have chosen. The voice tells me things I couldn’t know, shows me stuff I don’t want to see. If I could open a window and run I would but no escape there’s, the window opens inward, to the visions and uncapturable beauty. The trees are tusked in Siva, I vomit rainbows, when I dung I make the earth. The voice inside me says, to enter a temple you must bring only yourself, this is why, Animal it’s right that you should starve.

  “Where shall I go, where shall I look?”

  The voice inside me says, whichever way you turn, this is the way.

  A ball of fire is rising between my eyes, whose twin’s spitting flame in my gut, it’s the heat of coming death, voices in my head are chattering, arguing, beyond is that other voice, which sounds deep inside, yet seems to come from outside and everywhere. I am climbing through a forest which grows greener the higher I go. Of water is no sign yet I sense it all around, I can hear the trees suckling through greedy tubes plus gurglings in the guts of unseen creatures. Why do they avoid me? “Come out,” I cry. “Come out and tell me, am I a man?”

  “WHAT IS A MAN?” The voice roars right in my ear like a thunderclap, it flattens me. Torn in pieces I’m, parts of me break off and float away. My misty thoughts go spinning and become the moon. The glare in my eye’s my eye turning into the sun, my breath’s a hot wind, riding it is a tiny god drunk with his own power whose body is covered with sores, from my middle parts come gusts of
air, out of my head slides the universe.

  “Who are you?” I’ve asked, who’s lying head pressed to the earth hearing a million things, stamping of ants, worms chewing grit, millipede legs whirring like drums in a parade, my stomach heaves, up comes nothing.

  Now if I open my eyes there are trees and dry grasses and thirsty plants and sun, but if I close my eyes creatures of all shapes and colours are floating and drifting. The dream animals come near, one by one they approach, they don’t look friendly, but even before my open eyes the world is changing, never till now have I seen trees clothed in feathers, why is grass growing from the backs of my hands? Under my four feet as I walk the earth comes into being. I do not know which way to go, do not need to know, for by turning my head from side to side the seven directions come into existence and whichever way I turn it is the way and I walk into it.