by Tabish Khair
He half turns towards the voice and hesitates. He hesitates, and half turns towards the voice.
Nawabzada, jahaajbhai, where are you?
At that instant, the morning or the wind passes a thin blade across the belly of the clouds to the east and sunlight spills out like blood.
120
The sudden stab of light after a powercut was always greeted with shouts and comments. Allah be praised, my grandmother would mutter, not without irony. The bulbs and mercury tubes would burst into light, blinding us for an instant. Darkness would be defeated, but sight would still take a few seconds to be restored. No, let’s put this differently: eyes that had gotten used to seeing in the darkness would be blinded by light. Who says only darkness is blinding?
As the dawn bursts over Amir Ali in London, I am blinded by it. I see him hesitate and turn towards Gunga’s voice; I see him turn and hesitate. The sunlight falls on him. He stands drenched in sunlight.
Amir Ali knows he can duck into one of the corners and the ship will sail without him. Or he can respond to Gunga and sail with the ship. But whatever he does, he has already embarked on a new story — the Hindustani from Patna, the thug of Captain Meadows’ science, suspected murderer in the streets of London, a lascar in Gunga’s gang, the instrument of love’s revenge... There are so many possibilities, some already visible, some still lurking under the surface of reality; some half-visible in darkness; some half-hidden by brightness.
Not one of the possibilities is Amir Ali, and yet he is in all of them. No choice can ever be embraced whole-heartedly, no story will ever tell all of what he was, but one or more of the stories would have to be chosen, uttered, lived out. Any choice would leave him with the option of spinning another set of stories, stories that would sweep him on to other voyages, other destinies. But he knows now that all stories are not equivalent, no, not at all; each story relates to his illegible reality in a different way, each also relates to different realities. Perhaps he turns towards the voice. My sight fails me; the library in Phansa fails me; all libraries fail us at this instant of decision.
Forgiveness and vengeance are easy only in thought, when language pretends to tell us all about life.
But face to face, say, aboard a ship off the coasts of Africa, still some moments away from sighting land, a ship smelling of a long voyage, a stale, rotting, confined smell that even the brine of the sea breeze cannot blow away, on a ship like that, when one of the lascars turns and stares at the nobleman who has financed the voyage, what is it that appears in his eyes: vengeance or forgiveness? Does Lord Batterstone read the face on that skull, the new face of Amir Ali the Lascar? A squall has blown up. The sailors are running about on deck, pulling down sails, scampering up and down riggings. What happens when Amir Ali faces Lord Batterstone? Can my language dare to choose between the options? Can my language claim to tell all of Amir Ali? Or should I let the squall blow in the blind whiteness of a sea fog behind which I can hide my choice of words, the fact that what I have chosen, what I can choose is never enough, never complete?
I see Amir Ali look at Lord Batterstone, seasick and soul-weary. The sea is choppy; the wind is howling; the heavens press down on the earth, heavy with clouds. Lord Batterstone steadies himself against a sudden lurch and looks back at Amir Ali. He sees a lascar. He sees no story worth reading.
About the Author
TABISH KHAIR is an award-winning poet, journalist, critic, educator, and novelist. A citizen of India, he lives in Denmark and teaches literature at Aarhus University.
Author photograph © Lars Kruse
