by Amitav Ghosh
Think of Kulfi: on her way to her morning shit, half-awake, when this man with snake’s eyes jumps out from behind the rabbits and flings money at her feet. She screamed and flung her tin of water right into his face and, while he was still hopping around spitting out water, she locked herself safely into the shithouse.
After that there was no sleep for Mast Ram. He spent his nights squatting in a corner, brooding. Abu Fahl said he should be watched, so for a while he was never left alone; but then people forgot him again, for that was when the Professor was arrested.
The day we heard everyone was stunned. How? How did it happen? Had he talked about queues again, at his new job, even after everyone had sat around him at night and told him not to, at least a hundred times?
No. It was something else altogether.
The Professor had a fine job in those days: the best in the house, and one of the best anyone in the Ras could hope for. He was a manager’s assistant in a huge supermarket in Hurreyya Avenue. He spent his days wrapped in air-conditioning and the smells of freshly frozen Australian lamb and Danish mutton, French cauliflowers and Egyptian cabbages, Thai rice and Canadian wheat, English cod and Japanese sardines, prawns and shrimps and lobster from the world over … All that and nothing to do but sit at a desk and add up numbers. It was just luck, getting that job. Of course, it made good sense for them, for they paid him less than they should have because he had no work permit.
The morning he was arrested the Professor left the house in a great hurry. He had been told to get to the shop early, but when he woke up he found that he had no clean trousers to wear. So, neat as ever, he tied on a starched white lungi and went off. Nobody noticed on the bus and, since he was early that day, no one saw him go into the shop. Once he was behind his desk all they could see of him was his spotless white shirt.
At about eleven o’clock, when most of the other people in the shop were drinking tea in a back room, a rich and beautiful Ghaziri woman came into the shop. Seeing no one, she wandered about until she spotted Professor Samuel at his desk at the far end and she went up to him and asked in Arabic: Please, can you tell me where the prawns are kept?
Now, the Professor had been working hard since morning, staring at figures, adding them, dividing them, and he was just a little confused. The moment he saw her he stood up. She was very beautiful: no burqa for her; she was dressed in the most expensive of European clothes and her hair was piled high on her head.
She asked him again, and this time he was even more confused. He heard the word gambari and knew that he had heard it before but couldn’t remember what it meant. Scratching his head, blinking distractedly, he stared straight into her face and tried to speak.
The woman had been just a little alarmed when the Professor first stood up. Now, with him staring at her, mouth open, a tiny chill of fright crept up her spine. She looked quickly over her shoulder, wondering whether to call out. As it happened, the Professor’s desk was at one end of a long, deserted corridor of shelves. It was the darkest and gloomiest part of the shop. When she saw that she was really scared.
The Professor was still thinking, half about gambari and half about his accounts and figures, so absent-mindedly he did something he would never otherwise have done in public: he reached down, pulled his lungi up over his knees and tied it up at his waist, as people do when they’re at home.
The rich woman saw this blinking, staring man suddenly pulling his clothes up. She saw him baring his stout, hairy legs, and in terror she cowered back into the shelves.
Just then the Professor remembered. Gambari! Oh, gambari! he cried, flinging his arms open and rushing towards her. Come, Madam, come, I will show you gambaris like you’ve never seen …
The woman leapt backwards with the strength of the terror-stricken, right into the shelves. The Professor shrieked – No, Madam, that’s the tomato sauce! – and lunged forward to save her. She swooned into the shelves, the Professor fell upon her and five hundred bottles of American tomato sauce fell upon them.
When the other attendants arrived after the crash they saw the Professor sprawled on an unconscious rich lady, lying in a small blood-red lake. When the Professor stood up and tried to explain they fled, too, right into the street, where they screamed and screamed till the police arrived.
Abu Fahl and Alu had to spend a lot of money to get him out of gaol, and there’s at least one shop in Hurreyya now which will never hire an Indian again. After that the Professor had to be content with the job Jeevanbhai gave him, so that was another person in the house who’d lost a good job.
Again, in the telling of that story Mast Ram was forgotten. But he had forgotten nothing: not his broken skull, or the contractor, or Kulfi, or the shrivelled flowers and the dead rabbits. He crouched in a corner and brooded and brooded on the whole of his life and fate until jealousy and hate were pouring from his body like sweat in the midday sun and he was no longer a man but an animal, beyond reason and sanity. One night he roused himself from his corner and prowled around the house until he found Abu Fahl’s crowbar. In the dead of night, while the whole house slept, he fell upon the locked door to the women’s room with the crowbar. He attacked it as though it were a wild animal, and while he beat upon it he screamed, in his nasal, mountain Hindi: Why not me, you cunt? You’d fuck a dog if it had money, why not me?
By the time Abu Fahl got to him he had almost battered the door down and the women inside were cold with fear. And then for the first time in his life Mast Ram fought. Even Abu Fahl couldn’t hold him down, and Alu and Zaghloul had to help.
And still we couldn’t rid ourselves of him, for by then he had grown into us like a curse. The others would have been willing to forget the past, but it was no use; Mast Ram’s half-crazy head was a storm of love and hate and envy, and Abusa the Frown was at the centre of it.
Soon after that the fever hit the house, and one day while Rakesh, Zaghloul and Chunni were lying in bed, half-delirious, Mast Ram slipped out with his passport and his papers and went straight to the police and told them how Abusa’s work permit had lapsed a year ago. They caught Abusa next morning, on his way to the sheikh’s garden. They lay in wait for him in a car and Mast Ram pointed him out.
When they caught him Abusa lost his head. He fought, and he fought so well he cracked a policeman’s jaw. If it weren’t for that, perhaps it would have been all right; a little money in a few places would have got him out in a matter of days. But after that nothing could save him.
Abu Fahl and the others did everything they could, but it all came to nothing. Nobody could tell them when they would see Abusa again.
At first Abu Fahl wept. Abusa was dearer to him than any of his own brothers. Then he put his revolver in his pocket and set out to scour the town for Mast Ram.
In the house everyone waited, aching with fear. It was certain that if Mast Ram were found the courtyard would become an abattoir that night. Abu Fahl would smash his teeth first, then dig his eyes out with the crowbar and break the bones in his body on the paving stones till they were like links in a chain. And only then would he leave the body on the beach for the tides to wash away. Mast Ram would not be the first man Abu Fahl had killed, and previously Abu Fahl had not killed in anger.
But none of it came to pass, for there was no trace of Mast Ram; he had vanished like a ghost in a graveyard. That night Abu Fahl came back to the house alone and sat drinking tea with everyone else in silence, while Zaghloul wept like a baby. Everyone’s mind was full of Abusa’s goodness and Mast Ram’s treachery.
It was then, while they were sitting there, empty-eyed and silent, that the first barks sounded, far away, at the edges of the Ras, somewhere near the embankment. Suddenly, like the beginning of a storm, the noise grew until every stray dog in the Ras seemed to be howling together. It was all over and around us, like waves, crashing and breaking on the house. Then Boss began to cry in terrible strangled sobs and a moment later the whole courtyard seemed to explode; every animal in it went into a frenzy
, geese honking, chickens screeching … Inside, nobody moved. Everyone was absolutely still, staring at the windows. You could feel your bowels growing cold. There are few things more frightening than the midnight frenzy of animals.
Then there were voices, shouts, far away, pricking through that curtain of sound like needles. The noise seemed to gather itself together in the distance, near the embankment, and suddenly it was moving, moving straight towards the house. Faintly you could hear the drumbeat of feet echoing in the lanes; running towards the house, panic-stricken screams and pounding feet, dogs howling after them.
And then a hammering on the window and screams tearing through the house: Ya khalg gum – rise, you created! – gum ya khalg.
Abu Fahl and Zaghloul sprang up like deer, for since their childhood they had seen those dreaded words send their parents and relatives pouring into the village lanes. And no sooner were they on their feet than we saw the first wisps of smoke curling down, through the courtyard and the corridor, into the room.
Abu Fahl was the first one up on the roof – by some miracle the ladder still stood, though the fire was all around it. When he saw what he did he tried to push the others back, but there were too many of them and they shouldered past him.
There were flames everywhere. But Mast Ram’s head and his face were untouched and unblackened. His eyes were closed and at peace, while the rest of his body was burning so hard it couldn’t be told apart from the straw and wood of his pyre. Lying beside him, away from the flames, were the matches and the tin of kerosene he must have stolen from the courtyard, whenever it was that he slipped back into the house and up to the roof to put an end to his love and his remorse, his treachery and his hate, in the only honourable way he knew.
By that time the fire had leapt to the neighbouring shacks and barastis. They were like matchsticks – gone in minutes. Though every man and woman in the Ras helped to carry water, at least fifty shacks were burnt to the ground. It was a miracle the whole of the Ras didn’t go up in flames. The house was saved by its cement and bricks, but only after a battle which lasted through the night.
The others had trickled back: Zaghloul the Pigeon, barely twenty, his handsome, friendly face, with its cleft chin and sharp, straight nose, tired after the day; Chunni and Kulfi, exhausted by their long vigil at the ruins of the Star. They crouched on mats around Zindi, listening intently to every word. They had lived through everything Zindi spoke of and had heard her talk of it time and time again; yet it was only in her telling that it took shape; changed from mere incidents to a palpable thing, a block of time which was not hours or minutes or days, but something corporeal, with its own malevolent wilfulness. That was Zindi’s power: she could bring together empty air and give it a body just by talking of it. They could never tire of listening to her speak, in her welter of languages, though they knew every word, just as well as they knew lines of songs. And when sometimes she chose a different word or a new phrase it was like the pressure of a potter’s thumb on clay – changing the thing itself and their knowledge of it.
Zindi looked around the room at the circle of frowning, intent faces. All that, she said, and now this. The house already empty and without work, and then still another accident. Is it going to end or is it going to take everyone?
Abu Fahl leant forward. He pulled his grey taqeyya off his head and ran his fingers through his short, wiry hair. So what are we to do, Zindi? he said, looking straight at her.
Zindi rose briskly to her feet. I’m thinking of something, she said. Maybe I’ll even tell you about it some day. But not today, not now after all that’s happened, with Alu lying dead under tons of rubble.
Professor Samuel rose to go and the others shuffled out after him. Only Rakesh hung back, nervously flipping through the leaves of a calendar on the wall. Twice he turned, bit his lip, and turned back again. Then he could no longer contain himself. Listen, Zindi, he burst out. Alu isn’t dead. At least I don’t think so. He’s alive. I heard his voice under the rubble.
Zindi stared at him, speechless.
Yes, he said, it’s true. I’m almost sure I heard him.
Go to sleep now, Zindi said. The collapse has been too much for you.
Chapter Eleven
A Voice in the Ruins
Next morning Professor Samuel came back from his morning visit to the beach (he preferred sand and the clean sea breeze, he said, to the evil-smelling darkness of the lavatory in the house) looking very bemused. Chunni, who had made him a glass of tea, found him sitting on his mattress staring blankly at a wall.
What’s the matter, Samuel? she asked him. Are you unwell?
The Professor shook his head. So, then? she snapped. Why’re you sitting here like a wet cat? Do you know what the time is? Do you want to lose this job, too?
The Professor hesitated and threw a glance around the room. Except for Zaghloul snoring in a corner, it was empty. He patted the floor beside him. Sit down, he said. I’ll tell you. It’s nothing really. Just a foolish story Bhaskaran told me on the beach.
Outside, in the courtyard, Kulfi and Karthamma were cooking their usual morning meal of rice and fried potatoes on a mud oven. When the rice was done they carried the pots into Zindi’s room and called out to the others. The women ate at one end of the room and the men at the other. While they were eating, Chunni said loudly: Samuel heard a strange story on the beach this morning.
Professor Samuel frowned at her across the room. He shook his head as the others looked at him curiously. It was nothing, he said dismissively. Just a foolish story.
Abu Fahl banged his tin plate on the mat and shook the Professor’s knee. Tell us what you heard, Samuel, he said. I don’t like secrets. What did you hear?
All right, said the Professor, irritated. If you want to waste your time. You know Bhaskaran from Kerala, who lives down by the beach with all the others? In their house they’re saying Alu was seen in the ruins of the Star last night. The story is that he’s not dead at all, but just hiding in the ruins. I asked Bhaskaran: why should he hide in the ruins in all that dirt when he has a bed to come back to? It would be irrational. He had no answer, of course. All he could say is that everyone in the Ras knows that Alu survived by some miraculous chance, and now he’s hiding in the ruins.
Karthamma rose eagerly to her feet: What else did you hear?
Allah il-’Azim! Zindi exclaimed. Sit down, Karthamma; you’re not a child. You know whenever anything happens people think of a thousand stories. This is just the beginning. Alu’s alive, Alu’s hiding – there’ll be no end to the tales people will think up now.
Zindi’s sentence died away as Jeevanbhai Patel came into the room. Karthamma settled reluctantly back on the mat.
Jeevanbhai smiled vaguely around the room. His eyes were heavy with sleep; he had come back to the house very late the night before. He was a short, slight man, neatly dressed in a white shirt and grey trousers. A few grey strands of hair were combed carefully across his head. He would have had a gift for inconspicuousness if it were not for his teeth. They protruded like fingers from his thin, deeply lined face: great, chipped, triangular teeth, stained blood red by the pan he incessantly chewed.
’Aish Halak? How are you? he said politely to Zindi in Ghaziri-accented Arabic.
How are you? she answered, looking away. She frowned at Professor Samuel, biting her lip.
Jeevanbhai lowered himself on to a mat. His tongue flickered delicately over his teeth. Were you saying something about Alu? he asked softly. I thought he died in the collapse of that big building on the Corniche.
Yes, yes, said Zindi. That’s what I was trying to explain to Karthamma here. We would give anything to save his life, but he’s beyond that now.
Does someone say he’s alive? said Jeevanbhai.
No. How could they? Zindi began to collect the plates, banging them together till their ringing filled the room.
Later, she managed to find Professor Samuel before he left with Jeevanbhai for his office near the h
arbour. Don’t tell him anything, she whispered urgently, taking him aside. Not a word of all the nonsense you heard this morning. You don’t know him. He spreads even the most foolish stories all over al-Ghazira, and God knows who they get to.
Jeevanbhai appeared at the end of the corridor, and Zindi hurried into her room. Leave me alone this morning, she shouted into the courtyard. I’ve got things to do. The door closed upon her with solemn finality.
But soon she had to open it again. Kulfi, sent out with an empty bottle on a string to buy two days’ supply of cooking oil, came running back to the house. She stood in the courtyard and shouted, her pale cheeks pink with excitement, her voice girlishly high: Alu was seen getting into the plane for America this morning; he didn’t die in the collapse, though he was pale and ghost-like and covered in dust. He discovered a huge store of gold in the wreckage of one of the Star’s jewellery-shops.
They crowded around her – all but Zindi, who stood apart, only half-listening. At least, Kulfi said breathlessly, he’s alive. Maybe he’ll be back someday, with all his money.
Who told you all this? Abu Fahl demanded.
Kulfi had gone to a shop near the embankment that was owned by an Egyptian from the Fayyum called Romy. There she had met a woman who had heard from someone else …
Abu Fahl caught Kulfi by the shoulder and shook her. You can’t believe these stories, he said. Someone heard from someone who heard from someone. They’re just wild fancies. I was there. I saw it all. I know what the truth is.
Karthamma pushed past Abu Fahl and Kulfi. She was halfway down the corridor when Zindi said sharply: Karthamma, where are you going?
I’m going to look for him, Karthamma said.
Karthamma, don’t forget yourself, Zindi said. We know what there was between you and Alu, but don’t display it before the whole world like this. Where’s your shame that you’re running about like a bitch on heat, and you with a son? Do you think, if there was a chance of his being alive, Abu Fahl wouldn’t have gone himself? Get back into the courtyard.
