Temporary People

by Deepak Unnikrishnan

  Once, after Iqbal, a man she helped patch up, Kuriakose, sought her out, stood outside her door, begged her to come with him to his boss to demand unpaid wages. He just wanted to return home. She could fix this, he was sure. She went along. The boss had called the cops. Before arresting her, an officer asked her what she did. When he heard she worked for Khalid, he let her go with a warning. Khalid had been furious. “There’s a system in place here; we obey,” he said.

  “What happened to him?” she wanted to know.

  Kuriakose was sent home. His roommates collected some money for him, but he had to go.

  “The lies are there to see,” Khalid liked to say. “It falls like slime. It falls off people like slime.” The man had a point. There were no lies at the gates as ships docked, people pinned like barnacles, as planes landed spitting out new arrivals, as smugglers chucked live cargo miles away from port or land. Everyone came to secure their futures.

  The city flirted with these people, making all give and give up. The air was spiked; everyone wanted a taste. Anna, too, she admitted. She had thought about bringing her family over, but she didn’t want her children turning into in-betweens. Children she saw everywhere, those with cultivated accents, kids fattened by cable and imported chocolate, coddled by Japanese electronics and American telly. No, her kids would respect her land; they would know it. “Know the land, not the mother,” Khalid had warned her. They’d been walking near the corniche.

  “You see that,” Anna said, pointing at a dark man fixing the sprinklers, as dark as the tiny nanny pushing a baby stroller past them, less dark than the men in the buildings nearby, nutting and bolting, even falling quietly when they slipped, falling quickly. “I’ve been lucky; my kids don’t understand.”

  “Tell them,” Khalid replied, “before they stop caring.” Then he held her hand. But Khalid had been right. Her husband, then her children faded from her life. “What to say?” she asked Khalid. He said nothing. He couldn’t understand; he had sent for his wife as soon as she was pregnant with their first child. With little to say, the two of them watched the barricaded sea. There was some tide, spittle, chewing-gum wrappers, fizz cans, little fishes licking ice-cream cups, and matches floating like little rafts, hitting the stone walls, where algae clung. Not far away, a thin man roasted peanuts in a wok of salt. The night was damp and the sky was flecked with gray.

  Anna cycled slowly. “It’s like impregnating the sky,” she said out loud. Iqbal’s words. I ought to try it at least once, she thought, deciding to take a shortcut by the corniche, which was now under construction. Months ago, on her morning walk, she had noticed Caterpillar scoopers and tractors parked near the date palms. She heard dredgers in the water. There was smoke everywhere. The sea was being kicked farther out. More fountains were being built. Anna didn’t understand why, but she sat on a bench and wept. The construction was part of a larger plan. Anything with an old soul was being taken apart. It was what they did with the old souk, with its markets: tore it down, moving the merchants to a more modern building.

  “They put us in a room!” Kareem Ikka, her grocer, scoffed, offering Anna piping-hot chai. The toy sellers were put in rooms, too. Her son and daughter had visited twice. The first time, she took them to the souk on a Friday, where they had to make their way past wayward tanks, robot monkeys, rotating princesses, woofing dogs. They bumped into people, she made them smell attar. She bought them cotton candy and a falooda each. The only mall she’d taken them to was in Hamdan Center. If they visited now, she wouldn’t know where to take them. She didn’t know the new malls as well. Or her children. But those thoughts would need to wait. She had arrived at her destination.

  Watchman Babu greeted her with a smile. They were old friends. “Best job in the world,” he told her once. The man who owned the empty building, a big shot named Majid, refused to sell. He was biding his time, waiting for its property value to soar. When he died unexpectedly, his son Rashid, who had been very close to his father, couldn’t part with the building, and kept it, even though his brothers wanted him to sell. There was now an on-going property dispute. The case was being heard in the courts. Babu had been there from the beginning. He lived on the first floor, where he hosted parties for his bachelor friends. One such party, many years ago, led him to the roof. It wasn’t a tall building, only six floors, but when his friends found his crumpled body, they had no hope, until Anna happened to cycle past. She saved his life, but he lost use of his right leg and an eye. Over time, they became firm friends, and sometimes Babu allowed Anna to sleep on the roof, which she did when she wanted to think. Tonight, she wanted to think. She fell asleep on the cot Babu laid out for her. She was soon dreaming.

  She was standing on the roof of a very tall building, near the edge. Below, the city looked like drops of paint. The wind was strong. Iqbal was there; he gave her a friendly nod. There were many other faces she didn’t recognize, men and women. There were hundreds of them. It was a hot day. The sun was brutal. It was then that she noticed that she had on the most magnificent wax wings—perfectly detailed. The others did, too, testing them by flapping them up and down to see if they worked. Anna wanted to try her new wings immediately, but sensed everyone was waiting for a signal. Then she heard the door to the roof open. She turned around and watched as hundreds of red-eyed pigeons, the size of schoolchildren, with their wings clipped, bells on their feet, iron lockets on their necks, walked towards them, extremely disciplined. Each bird stood behind a wax-winged man or woman. The one behind her stood so close Anna could smell its scent, hear it cooing. Anna’s legs trembled. Before she had a chance to ask what now, the bird gave her a firm push. As she fell, she recalled asking Iqbal what the birdman Nandan had named his pigeon. As she tried flapping her giant wings, doing it all wrong, having trouble catching drift, she remembered Iqbal laughing. “Take a guess,” he had said. She was falling with her back to the ground, peering upwards. The glint of the sun made it difficult to see. She sensed people falling past her, falling with her, dropping like rocks, trying to steady themselves, putting those wings to work. As she flapped harder, she thought she faintly caught sight of many bird heads peering down at her. Their beaks were moving. “Fly,” they seemed to be mouthing. “Fly!”

  CHABTER THREE

  PRAVASIS

  Expat. Worker.

  Guest. Worker.

  Guest Worker. Worker.

  Foreigner. Worker.

  Non-resident. Worker.

  Non-citizens. Workers.

  Workers. Visa.

  People. Visas.

  Workers. Worker.

  A million. More.

  Homeless. Visiting.

  Residing. Born.

  Brought. Arrived.

  Acclimatizing. Homesick.

  Lovelorn. Giddy.

  Worker. Workers.

  Tailor. Solderer.

  Chauffeur. Maid.

  Oil Man. Nurse.

  Typist. Historian.

  Shopkeeper. Truck driver.

  Watchman. Gardener.

  Secretary. Pilot.

  Smuggler. Hooker.

  Tea boy. Mistress.

  Temporary. People.

  Illegal. People.

  Ephemeral. People.

  Gone. People.

  Deported. Left.

  More. Arriving.

  CHABTER FOUR

  FONE

  NEAR JAWAZAT ROAD, THERE used to be an ordinary looking kadakaran who owned a little kada. In the back, where he kept the surplus Basmati rice, the colas, the cooking oil, and the hardcore porn, was what some customers sought him out for, a fone. The device resembled a rotary phone, but it wasn’t a phone; it was a fone. The fone did the one thing you would expect a phone to do: it could make calls. However, it couldn’t receive any. The fone’s main purpose was teleportation. A man could use the fone to talk to his wife, and as his wife cried softly into the neighbor’s phone, her husband would hover over her, like a giant bee, seeing his wife cry like that, feeling satisfied t
hat his wife could cry like that, content that he could see her cry like that, even though she wouldn’t be able to see him, or even know that he was there, so close he could see the dirt on the back of her neck. And he was so happy he could see her cry like that. Or a woman could be speaking to her daughter, a daughter who hasn’t learned to form words yet, but is instead biting the phone, like it’s meant to be bitten, drooling into it, as her father steadies her wobbling body, coaxing her to talk, to speak, pleading with her to perform something worthy for her mother, and the woman sees all of this, her husband encouraging their child to say something, anything, as long as it’s a word, any word, it didn’t matter as long as it was a word. Or the phone simply rang and rang and no one picked up, even though the fone caller was in a state of bliss, itching to tell someone that he’d been promoted, that he was happy, that he needed to tell people he was happy to feel happy, that he needed to see people pretending to be happy in order to be happy. So the fone had its uses, but its usage was regulated by the kadakaran. It would break if too many people used it, he said, and I don’t know how to fix it if it breaks. So a person could use the fone only once a year. One couldn’t tell one’s friends about the fone. They had to find it. Stumble across it and the kada itself was like stumbling across a Kurdish-speaking macaw or a wizard in a bar. Then once one knew what the fone did, one put oneself on a list and chose a date and time. If one were smart, one didn’t choose religious or public holidays, or a late-evening time. One wanted to be sure the person one was calling was home, because one only got one fone call and it had to count. On the appointed day, one cut work by calling in sick, made one’s way to the kada, and made that call. Then when one hung up, one would make an appointment for the next year.

  If Johnny Kutty hadn’t called his wife, maybe the fone would still be in operation.

  Johnny Kutty was married only a month before a distant relative found him a job as a car mechanic’s apprentice in Dubai. Johnny Kutty bought phone cards and called his wife once a week. He called his friend Peeter’s STD booth, and Peeter sent a helper to fetch Johnny Kutty’s wife and they talked frantically until the card ran out. When Johnny Kutty discovered the fone, he couldn’t wait; he made an appointment for the next available date. On that fateful day, as Johnny Kutty hovered over his wife in his friend Peeter’s STD booth, he noticed Peeter sat there, smiling at her, and she at him. He offered her cold cola, which she sipped using a straw, blushing as she did so, blushing, Johnny Kutty couldn’t be sure, at Peeter’s attentiveness or because of what Johnny Kutty was telling her, of the things he wanted to do to her—dirty, dirty things—and she nodded and blushed, and blushed then nodded, smiling all the time, smiling until it drove the hovering Johnny Kutty crazy, until the phone card ran out. Quickly, Johnny Kutty made the next available appointment for the following year, but he continued to call his wife every week using a regular pay phone. It wasn’t enough anymore. He imagined all sorts of things: that she was drinking cola, that Peeter had bought bottles of cola only for her, that he put the straw in himself, that he sucked on that straw after Johnny Kutty’s wife left, that he licked the tip where her lips and spit had been. When his young wife shared she was pregnant a few weeks later, Johnny Kutty knew then that his life was ruined. That night, he broke into the kadakaran’s kada and called Peeter. The phone rang and rang and rang, and Johnny Kutty was sure Peeter wasn’t managing the STD booth, which was also the front portion of his house. Peeter, Johnny Kutty knew, was busy with Johnny Kutty’s wife, and had no time to answer phone calls from his best friend, too busy cuckolding his best friend with his friend’s young wife, the bitch who loved cola. As he realized what his wife had done, Johnny Kutty started hating his once-happy life, destroyed now by his cheating wife and his once-best friend. He wished he wasn’t in that kada by himself, standing next to that fone, the fone that broke his heart, a device that may have done the same for countless others, and thus needed to be put down. Exterminated. So he got to work. Johnny Kutty poured fifteen liters of cola into a bucket the kadakaran used to clean his kada, and dropped the fone into the fizzing liquid, holding it down as it were a person, drowning it, drowning the people it contained. Then he looked for match boxes, piled them next to the bucket with the dead fone, then poured three tins of cooking oil on the floor for good measure. He lit one match and watched it drop. When the shurtha at the police station told Johnny Kutty that he could make one phone call, he told them they could do whatever they wanted to him, but if they asked him to phone someone or brought a phone to him, he would die, and for a man to die so many times in one year was not normal, and he said he probably wouldn’t survive that, which would be a shame, because he had been through a lot.

  CHABTER FIVE

  TAXI MAN

  HELLO, GOOD MORNING. WHERE TO, PLEASE?

  Yes, yes, Dubai, no problem. But Dubai where?

  No, that place not far distance, I sure. This time, less going out traffic from Abu Dhabi past ten o’clock time—everybody in office time that time. Should make there in hour and a half maximum, Insh’Allah. What address again? Hmm, don’t know place sure—must be old industrial place—but I have phone with GPS and your phone also GPS? I put GPS now and then we go Dubai, OK?

  *

  By the way, you Indian, aren’t you? Where about? Figured, so we’ll manage in Hindi the rest of the way then, even though you people down south say Hindi no maalum nine times out of ten. But you’ve got a few words of Hindi under your belt, right? We’ll be fine.

  See, when you’ve been in the taxi business as long as I have, you get a feel for people. Like whether they’re cultured, ordinary, decent. First, their skin gives them away. With you, I guessed Indian. Wasn’t sure, though. You don’t act Indian, more like Amree-kun with your military haircut and glasses. Someone foreign, that was clear. And you’ve got that wisha-washa-wusha Englishness about you. But I knew I could talk to you. You said hello.

  Tone, that’s how you know. Some customers, no time for small talk. They hail you like the world’s about to end, then spit out directions like they own you. Half the time they’re slurring. You can’t push them too much when they’re like that, you know. They get wild. Fuck this, fuck that, that’s all they’re good for past midnight. And I’m thinking, Calm down, maaderchod! I’m trying to get you home.

  Or you’ve got some dame in the backseat whose pussy starts to itch. You know the kind I’m talking about? Bitches! That’s the English word, right? Bitches. You understand, right?

  Listen, friend, cometh the hour in this city of men when your dick’s practically licking itself because it’s spoiled for choice. Where? Everywhere, man. You’ll find broads at Hotel, the parking lot by , rooted like trees in front of sandwich shops and fast-food joints exchanging numbers with some unwashed teen. Or saunter around Club past midnight. You’ll have trouble fending them off. They swarm these working gals, like moths to light. And they won’t be talking to you, yaara; they’ll be talking to your cock. And if you’re the kind of man you were born to be, whatever your morals, you’ll get hooked on the attention.

  Have I sampled some of these big-assed, big-tittied specimens? What you think? You can’t help yourself. But I don’t pay, yaara. I save my dough. Look, when I worked in Dubai back in the day we had Filipinas on staff. I drove for the big boss, see. But I also had plenty of free time with the car, and in it, if you know what I mean. Boss Man let me take the company ride home, and these Filipina chicks would want to go places, know what I’m saying? Jamal, help us out, they’d squeal. Sure, baby, I’d say, anywhere you want, but what’s in it for Jamal?

  Some bitches, though, they sneak up on you. I was taking this customer home the other night. Hot little birdy. Shoes louder than canaries. Doused in enough perfume to pollute the moon. And pale—pale as bone, friend. And hoo-wee, I tell you, so fuckin’ smashed, if blood trickled out I could’ve bottled and sold the stuff back to the hooch-sellers. But she wanted some Pakistani meat, oh you could so fuckin’ tell. She put a hand
on my shoulder. Know what she said, friend? Fuck me, Taxi Man.

  Look, when customer’s foreign and shit, I mind my own business. You don’t want white-people trouble. But this bitch was way out of line. I waved her off. I fuck I like, I replied in English. What now, she seemed to say. Then she laughed, coz bitch dug English-talkers, suit-boot people who spoke smack. Coz she got all sultry and shit. But that’s my point; with some people you’ve got to lay down the law. Doesn’t take much. No broad’s telling me when or who to fuck. And do I look like an airhead? No shit I don’t. Once the bitch sobers up and spots my plump Lahori dick on her thigh, no telling what she might do. Let me tell you what gonna happen. She gonna call the shurthas on me and they gonna come. They gonna pull up in their ride. And let me tell you what they gonna do: they gonna nail my cock to a cell infested with other chuthiyas who got caught with their pants down. Government then gonna deport my chubby-ass Lahori ass back to homeland, friend. I didn’t come here for that kind of lafda, yaara. Masti can wait. My begum’s waiting back home, see, and my little girl’s right by her side, see? Then there’s my son. This little man’s weeks from being born and he’s not coming into this world to meet his unemployed once-jailbird chubby-ass Lahori-ass father.

  What now? Speak up, yaara.

  DID I WANT A BOY! You got NGO blood, friend? Know what I think? I think NGOs think we don’t treat our ladies right. Tell you what, find me some lady NGO. You walk her to my bed. I’ll treat her so good she’ll let me play cricket on her wicket. But you want to know if I wanted a boy. Look, Allah decides. If He’d destined me two daughters, so what! But I won’t lie, yaara, my family’s complete now. I mean, we’ve got a girl. And now I’m getting a boy. Full set, like dinnerware. We’re happy.

  What’s that?

  You not listening, friend. I didn’t care whether it was a boy or a girl. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were baiting me. Look, boy, girl, honestly same-same. I’ve got one rule. Kid’s got to be mine. And my begum understands, see. She’s never breaking that rule.