The City of Joy

by Dominique Lapierre

  ♦Ceremony of the offering of lights.

  family. It was also a fine guarantee of his standing with the clients. But how many fellows had that sort of luck?

  "I knew that to do my job properly, I needed a heart of stone like my boss. How else would I be able to claim the five-or-six rupee hiring fee from some poor bum whose carriage hadn't budged from the spot. I knew that some days many of them would have to go without food to pay me. Poor guys! How are you supposed to pull two clients and all their parcels or two fat women from one of the rich neighborhoods with nothing in your stomach? Every day pullers collapsed in the street. And each time some fellow couldn't get back on his feet, I had to look for a replacement. Thank God there was no shortage of candidates! But, the Old Man had always gone to a great deal of trouble to choose the right pullers, to find out about their background. He had good reason for doing so. He didn't want to get mixed up with politics. Claims for this or that, blackmail, threats, strikes were a nightmare to him. 'Musafir, I don't want any worms in my guava,' he would say repeatedly, because rickshaw pullers now had their own unions and the government was trying to infiltrate them with phony pullers who would stir up action against the owners. Rickshaw pullers, people were saying, should be granted the ownership of their instruments of labor. Up till now it had never actually happened. I knew one or two who had become, as I had, their owner's representative. I knew even some who had managed to swap their shafts for the steering wheel of a taxi. But I didn't know of anyone who had managed to buy his own rickshaw—even an old jalopy with no operator's license.

  "The goddess Lakshmi, in her goodness, was not deaf to my prayers and my offerings. By the end of my first' week I had a nice bundle of a hundred and fifty rupees to take to the munshi* outside the post office in Park Street. My family in the village would be well and truly surprised. Their last postcard asking me for money had arrived only two days before. Their cards always said the same thing. Either they asked me for money or they informed me that my last money invoice had arrived safely and that they had

  ♦Public letter writer.

  been able to buy the paddy or whatever else for the family field. I had left behind in my home village my father, mother, wife, three sons, two daughters, and three daughters-in-law plus their children. Altogether there were a good twenty mouths to feed off two poor acres. Without what I sent, famine would strike the dried mud hut in which, forty-eight winters previously, my mother had brought me into the world.

  "At the post office in Park Street I had my regular munshi. His name was D'Souza and he was a Christian. He came from the other end of India, a place called Goa, below Bombay. The munshi always greeted me with a smile and some kindly words of welcome, for we were good friends. I had brought him business from my rickshaw pullers working in that area and he slipped me a commission on any transactions he undertook for them. It was in the usual run of things. There is nothing like money matters for cementing strong bonds between workers.

  "That was what I was thinking about on the morning I saw Ram Chander, one of my pullers, rushing toward me with two ten-rupee notes in his hand. Ram was one of the few Bengalis who worked for the Old Man. The night before, he had had his carriage picked up by the cops for having no light. It was only a pretext for baksheesh in a city where the vast majority of trucks and cars operate without lights. Nevertheless, Ram Chander wasn't offering me twenty rupees for me to go and get his rickshaw out of the pound, but rather for me to take on the companion he had with him. 'Sardarji, you are the most noble son of Ma-Kali,'* he exclaimed. Td like to introduce a compatriot of mine to you. He comes from my district. I and my family have known his clan and his lineage for generations. He is a brave and honest worker. For the love of Our Mother Kali, give him one of your rickshaws to pull.'

  "I took the two notes he was holding out to me and examined the man who seemed slightly reluctant to come forward. Although he was very thin, his shoulders and arms looked solid. I asked him to lift up his longhi so that I could check the condition of his legs and thighs too. The

  *The goddess mother Kali.

  Old Man always used to do that before employing a puller. He used to say that you shouldn't entrust a rickshaw to a young goat. I weighed the pros and cons before responding to the eager expectation of the two Bengalis. 'You're in luck. There's a man who died last night near Bhowanipur market.'"

  i

  The Muslim quarter of the City of Joy had burst into a celebration state. During the last two days, in all the compounds, women had unpacked the festive clothes they had so religiously preserved. The men had strung garlands of multicolored streamers across the alleyways. Electricians had installed loudspeakers and strings of colored light bulbs. On every street comer, confectioners were heaping up mountains of sweetmeats on their trays. Their poverty and anguish forgotten, the fifty thousand Muslims in the slum were preparing to celebrate one of the most important events in their calendar, the birth of the prophet Muhammad.

  Resounding strains of hymns and chants transformed this stricken neighborhood into a frenzied kermis. Prostrate and facing in the direction of the distant, mystical Kaaba, thousands of the faithful filled the six mosques for a night of uninterrupted prayer.

  The barbers', tailors', and jewelers' shops were packed with shoppers. The poor adorned themselves for the occasion like princes. Hindu women came running to assist their Muslim neighbors with the cooking of the traditional feasts. Others, armed with combs, brushes, flowers, and

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  ribbons, helped with the hairdos. Yet others brought saffron, carmine, and henna powder to embellish their friends' faces, arms, and feet with skillful motifs. Children were the objects of a particularly subtle toilet. With their eyes accentuated with great rings of kohl, their skinny bodies draped in shiny silk tunics and muslin veils, and their feet tucked into Turkish slippers, they looked just as if they had stepped out of an illustration of A Thousand and One Nights. Fbr all their noises, the popular rejoicing and the loudspeakers could not drown, however, the groans Kovalski could hear. But the torture that Sabia, his little neighbor, was going through, no longer repelled the priest. Eventually he had conceded that it was indeed Jesus who was suffering on the other side of the mud wall and that his suflFering was a prayer. One question, however, continued to haunt him: Was the child's sacrifice really indispensable?

  Allah Akbar! God alone is great!

  Peace be with Muhammad his prophet!

  Allah Akbar!

  Peace be with Noah, Abraham, Moses, Zachariah,

  Jesus, and all the other prophets!

  The congregation took up in a chorus each verse as it was called into the microphone by the blind mullah with the goatee from the Jama Masjid, the City of Joy's main mosque. With its cream fa§ade pierced by meshed windows and its four minarets tapered like candles, it was the tallest and most colorful building in the slum. It rose from a square that formed the only uncluttered space in the ants' nest, beside a pool of stagnant water in which the occupants of the neighborhood did their washing. A joyful crowd filled the square and all the surrounding streets. Above their heads fluttered a multitude of little green-and-white flags, red banners marked with the crescent of Islam, and banderoles decorated with verses from the Koran and the golden cupolas of the sacred mosques in Jerusalem, Medina, and Mecca—magic symbols that illuminated with faith and dreams their decaying surroundings.

  The blind mullah, a venerable patriarch in a white silk turban, walked at the head of the procession. Two reli-

  gious figures dressed in gray abayas guided his way. Blaring from a cyclecar equipped with a loudspeaker, a litany of canticles taken up by thousands of voices gave the signal to move off. Every two minutes the mullah stopped, took over the microphone, and chanted invocations that electrified the faithful. Soon the cortege extended for more than a mile, a prodigious stream of color and voices flowing between the walls of the hovels and irrigating the pestilential labyrinth through which it passed, with its vibrant faith and g
littering finery. On this festive day Islam was infusing the slum with lights, noise, and religious fervor.

  From the doorway of his hovel, Kovalski looked on with amazement as the procession approached. How, he wondered, could so much beauty spring out of so wretched a place? The sight of the children was particularly compelling. The pinks, blues, golds, and cameos of the girls' shalwars and ghaghras, and the boys' embroidered muslin kurtas and braided topis* robed the procession in an enchanting medley of color. Kovalski recognized his neighbor, Mehboub, in the third row, holding the pole of a red-and-green standard decorated with a minaret. The feast day had metamorphosed the famishing unemployed worker into a superb soldier of the prophet. Among the children, paraded his eldest son, Nasir, the one who lined up for the latrines on Kovalski's behalf, and also his two little daughters, together with Sabia's sisters, all dressed up and ornamented like princesses with sparkling glass bracelets, spangled sandals and multicolored muslin veils. "Thank you, Lord, for having given the down-trodden people of this slum so much strength to believe in you and love you," the priest murmured softly to himself, overwhelmed by the crescendo of voices, proclaiming aloud the name of Allah.

  It was at that point that he heard someone calling him. "Big Brother Stephan, I would like you to bless my son before he is taken away. Sabia was very fond of you and you are truly a man of God." Sabia had just died. He had died at the very moment the procession of the prophet was passing the hovel in Nizamudhin Lane that had sheltered his agony.

  ♦Trousers drawn in at the ankles; skirts; shirts without a collar; and toques, respectively.

  Even in her pain, Sabia's mother's dignity remained exemplary. At no time throughout her great trial had this woman's face betrayed the slightest despondency. Whether she was crouched in the street making her paper bags, wading through the mud with her bucket of water, or kneeling in prayer at her son's bedside, she had held her head high and managed to maintain the serenity of her smile and the beauty of a temple statue. "I never met her without giving thanks to God for having lit such a flame of hope in this place of suffering," Kovalski was to say. "Because she never gave up. On the contrary, she fought like a lioness. In order to pay for the doctor's consultation and the expensive medicines, she took the last of her jewelry to the usurer—two bracelets, a pdndant, a pair of earrings which had survived other disasters. Often at night I heard her reciting verses from the Koran to ease her child's pain. Sometimes she would invite the neighboring women in to pray with her at his bedside, just as the holy women of the Gospels prayed at the foot of the Cross. In her there was neither fatalism nor resignation. Nor did I ever hear her utter a single word of rebellion or complaint. That woman taught me a lesson in faith and love."

  Now, she cleared a way for him between the mourning women. The child was lying on a litter, swathed in a white shroud, with a garland of yellow marigolds placed upon his chest. His eyes were closed and every feature of his face had relaxed into an expression of peace. With his thumb Stephan Kovalski traced the sign of the Cross on the boy's forehead. "Goodbye, my glorious little brother," he whispered. A few moments later, borne by youths from the alleyway, Sabia left his hovel on his final journey to the Muslim cemetery at the far end of the slum. Immersed in prayer, Stephan Kovalski followed the small cortege. Because of the festivities, there were not many people along the route to mark the passing of an innocent child. In any case, death was so natural a part of everyday life in the City of Joy that no one paid particular attention to it.

  PART TWO

  Human Horses and Their Chariots of Fire

  Hasari Pal stood and gazed at the rickshaw before him, as if it were Ganesh in person—Ganesh the elephant-headed god, benefactor of the poor who brought good fortune and removed obstacles. Instead of the rickshaw's shafts, Hasari could see a trunk; in the place of wheels large ears. Eventually he approached the vehicle with respect and rubbed the moonstone in his ring on the shafts, then touched his heart and his forehead with his hand.

  "That carriage, lined up against the pavement, was a gift of the gods," he was to say, "an urban plow with which to make my sweat bear fruit and provide food for my children and for all my relatives waiting expectantly in the village. And yet it was just an old jalopy, completely run-down and with no license to operate. The paint was peeling off in strips, the straw stuffing was coming out of the holes in the seat, several hoops in the hood were broken, and the rubber tires around the wheels were so worn that you could see the wood through them. Under the seat there was a locker designed to contain any essential accessories, a bottle of oil to grease the hubs every now

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  and then, a wrench to tighten up the wheel bolts, a lamp to light at night, the linen screen that hooks onto the front of the hood when you're transporting Muslim women who wish to remain concealed from men's eyes, or to protect travelers during the monsoon downpours.

  4 'If I mention these things, it's only because my friend, Ram Chander, had shown them to me in the locker of his rickshaw, the day we took the injured coolie to the hospital. My locker was empty. Someone must have ransacked it when the previous puller dropped dead in the street. Ram had already warned me that if it was possible to steal the air we breathe, there'd be people in Calcutta prepared to do it.

  "On the back of the carriage a metal plate bore a number and some inscriptions. I didn't know what the latter meant but I engraved the number on my mind like a talisman, like the magic formula that was going to open the gateway to a new karma. Overwhelmed with happiness, I had shown my friend and benefactor, Ram, the number 1 and the three 9s that were featured on the plate. It didn't matter that the number was a phony one, it was made up exclusively of figures that in our calendar augur well.

  "Having admired it at length, I finally took my place between the shafts of the rickshaw, raised them respectfully, and placed my fingers on the worn spot vacated only hours earlier by the hands of the poor fellow to whom the number 1999 had certainly not brought good fortune. I thrust my hips forward and heard the wheels creak. That creaking was like the reassuring sound of a millstone grinding the grains of rice from our land. How could I fail to believe in the benediction of the gods? What was more, that first day of my new life fell on a Friday, the best day in the week along with Monday, because that was when the most money was about. And it was the beginning of the month. From the fifteenth day onward, people were apparently as tight as the trident of Shiva. Good old Ram had already revealed plenty of secrets and taught me the tricks of the trade. There are all sorts of people,' he'd said to me. 'Good ones and bastards. There'll be those who make you run and others who'll tell you to take your time. Some

  will try and knock a few paisas off the cost of the journey. But if you're lucky enough to pick up a foreigner, you can ask for more money.' He had put me on my guard against gundas* who, like some prostitutes, specialize in giving you the slip without paying when you reach their destination. 'You'd be well advised to lay in a stock of mustard oil to massage your limbs,' he had also warned me, 'because for the first few days your thighs, arms, and back will be as painful as if every cop in Calcutta had busted his lathi on you.'

  "I found myself alone, alone with this extraordinary cart in the middle of an unknown city, teeming with people. It was terrifying. How would I ever find my way through the labyrinth of streets? Or manage to edge between the trucks, buses, and cars that bore down upon me with a deafening roar, like waves from a tidal storm? I was panic-stricken.

  "As Ram had advised me, I pulled my rickshaw to Park Circus to wait for my first client. Park Circus was a very busy junction where several bus routes and streetcar lines intersected. There were lots of little workshops and schools there, as well as a large market frequented by housewives from the rich neighborhoods. A long string of rickshaws was permanently parked on this privileged junction. I can't say that the pullers waiting patiently there, sitting on their shafts, received me with shrieks of joy. There were so few crumbs to be gathered up in this inhuman city that
the arrival of one more competitor was not exactly guaranteed to induce a state of joy. They were all Biharis. Most of them were very young, but the older ones had a really worn look about them. You could count their ribs beneath the threadbare cotton of their vests.

  "The line shortened swiftly. Soon my turn would come. As it approached, I felt my heart pounding in my chest. Would I actually manage to pull this old heap? The prospect of plunging with it into the furious flood of traffic was already paralyzing my arms and legs. To give myself strength, I went and bought a glass of sugarcane juice for twenty-five paisas, from the Bihari who passed bits of

  *Crooks.

  cane back and forth under his grinding wheel. He did a good business. There was a constant line in front of his grinder, for a glass of cane juice was often all that a fellow could manage to get down him all day. The poorest among us sometimes had to content themselves with buying a piece of cane and chewing on it to keep hunger at bay. That cost only ten paisas (one U.S. cent). But drinking a whole glass was like putting a whole tank of gasoline in your engine. I felt a blast of warmth descend from my stomach to my thighs. As for the old jalopy, I could gladly have pulled it to the highest peak of the Himalayas.