The Circle of Reason

by Amitav Ghosh

  As soon as I shone my torch down we both exclaimed, for we could hardly believe the depth of that room. We talked about it for a while, but in the end there could be no doubt that it was the same room we had been working in that day. I shone my torch all around it, but it was like using a pin to cut a bale of cloth. We could only see a thing at a time – overturned sewing machines, ovens with their doors thrown open, like huge laughing mouths, all kinds of things. We worked the torch all over that room, but all we could see was machinery strewn about the place, and rubble. There was no sign of Alu.

  We should go down, Rakesh whispered, maybe he’s unconscious. And I said: How? We’d need ropes and many more men. We have to come back tomorrow.

  Then Rakesh said: We should call the police or the contractor and tell them to get him out. And I said to him: What would happen then? Maybe they’d get him or his corpse out, but the first thing they’d discover after that is that he has no work permit and no passport. He’d go straight into gaol. Then they’d find out who he was working with. And then we’d follow him into gaol. We have to leave that to the last – only if we can’t get him out ourselves.

  Suddenly, behind us: Phow! Like a revolver. I turned around as quick as a thought, my hands ready.

  Phow! again. It was Isma’il, standing on a girder, pointing an electric hair-dryer at us and pretending to shoot. He called out to us, happily, as though we were at a wedding: He’s there. Haven’t you found him yet?

  Then Isma’il went to the edge of that black hole and shouted down: Alu? His shout grew inside that huge pit, echoing and booming until the rubble behind us started to slide. I clapped a hand on his mouth and pulled him back before he could do it again. Then the echoes died away, and quite distinctly we heard Alu’s voice.

  All right, all right, Hajj Fahmy smiled across the steaming, smoke-filled room at Abu Fahl. Was he there or not? What did he say? Just tell us.

  Yes, said Abu Fahl. He was there, but we couldn’t see him. He was under a heap of rubble, broken machinery and pots of paint. There were two massive concrete beams projecting out of the heap. We couldn’t believe that anyone could be alive under all that. It seemed impossible. Then he said he was trapped under the heap, but there was a steel girder across him holding up the beams.

  Was he hurt? Hajj Fahmy asked.

  No, he said he wasn’t hurt at all. He was perfectly all right.

  Did you see him?

  No, we couldn’t. I told you. But that’s what he said. We asked him if he needed food or water and he said: No.

  That was a strange thing. He said: No, I’m all right, I don’t need anything. We told him we would be back tomorrow and he laughed. Yes, he laughed. He said: It’s all right. Come when you can. And while he was speaking your son Isma’il shouted down to him: Alu, have you seen the Sheikh of the Mawali?

  Abu Fahl broke off and looked curiously across at Hajj Fahmy: Who is this sheikh?

  Hajj Fahmy looked away, embarrassed, and twisted the hem of his jallabeyya around his fingers. Before he could say anything, Isma’il broke in: He’s Sheikh Musa the Mawali. He was buried there and he protects everyone who passes by.

  Hajj Fahmy clapped a hand on his shoulder. Be quiet, Isma’in, he said sharply. He turned to the others: It’s just a bit of harmless nonsense the Mawali women believe. It’s blasphemous, and I’ve argued with them a thousand times, but they believe it. Never mind. Carry on. Did he say anything else?

  Yes, said Abu Fahl hesitantly. He took off his cap and ran his hands through his hair. He turned and called out: Zindi, are you listening?

  Zindi was staring out of the door, biting her lip, her face screwed small with worry. She started and turned to Abu Fahl: Yes, yes, of course I’m listening. Go on.

  Abu Fahl said: For a while he was quiet. Then he told us that he was thinking. We said: What are you thinking about? And he answered: I’m thinking about dirt and cleanliness. I’m thinking and I’m making plans.

  Dirt and cleanliness? Hajj Fahmy’s voice rose in incredulity.

  Yes, that’s what he said. He said: I’m thinking about cleanliness and dirt and the Infinitely Small.

  Chapter Twelve

  From an Egg-Seller’s End

  Abu Fahl woke early next morning, worrying. It was taken for granted that, if there was to be another expedition to the Star, Abu Fahl would be its leader. So, as if by right, it fell to Abu Fahl to worry.

  First, there was the problem of finding men to go with them to the Star. And where were they to find the men? They would probably have to hire them from one of the construction gangs in the Ras. But they would almost certainly expect to be paid (for they would be losing the day’s wages). In all likelihood they would have to be paid extra because of the risks. Where was the money to come from? And tools: they’d need shovels for the rubble; ropes; maybe ladders as well, to lower themselves to the basement; perhaps even blowtorches for the steel girders. Where was he to get the tools? And, even if he found some, how were they to carry them through a cordon of policemen?

  Abu Fahl shook Zindi, asleep beside him: What are we to do, Zindi? Can you think of a plan? Zindi grunted, pushed a leg between his and shut her eyes again. Abu Fahl taxed her later: You don’t care whether that boy you brought into this house – you, yourself – you don’t care whether he lives or dies.

  Zindi gave him a drowsy answer: I know he’s alive and I know you’ll get him out somehow. What more is there to say? In the meanwhile someone has to think of the future and other things, too. We still have to go on living.

  Abu Fahl fell silent: the beginnings of a plan were already stirring in his mind. He and Rakesh would visit the two construction gangs in the Ras before they left for work, and explain the situation. Some of the men might agree to work free. After all, it could happen to anyone – that was the point to press home.

  So planned Abu Fahl, the organizer, at dawn, complaining but with secret relish, for in his instincts Abu Fahl was a storyteller and plans are the fantasies of the practical life.

  Before Abu Fahl’s plans were ready there was a sharp, insistent hammering on the door to the lane. Abu Fahl opened it. Isma’il stood outside, a hacksaw in his hands. Behind him, in the lane, there was a large group of men. Some of them were brandishing axes, some crowbars, and others shovels.

  Once or twice Abu Fahl, too, had visited a house or a shack with a crowbar in his hands. He smelt a threat the moment he saw the men crowding into the lane. Without flinching, betraying nothing, he parted his legs and planted them squarely in the doorway. Folding his arms across his chest, he clamped his one, red eye on Isma’il: What is this?

  This? said Isma’il, surprised. This is a kind of saw. In demonstration he sawed a groove into the wooden door-post.

  Abu Fahl caught his wrist. No! Not that, this. He waved a hand at the crowded lane.

  Ya salaam! Isma’il exclaimed, turning. Are there so many now? You see, I was coming to help you get Alu out of the Star. I brought this saw with me, for I thought you might need it. On the way I met some people, and they said: Where are you going, ya Isma’il? And I said: I’m going to get Alu out of the Star; he’s been buried three days and he’s still alive, and they say he has something to tell us. But there was no need for all that; they already knew about Alu and they all said: Wait, Isma’il, we’ll come with you. Everyone wants to know what a man can have to say after being buried alive for three days.

  Isma’il scratched his head and smiled at Abu Fahl. The next moment Abu Fahl found himself overwhelmed with shouted offers of help.

  There were too many men, far too many. Abu Fahl soon realized that he could only take a small group safely into the Star. But then there was a new problem – the men would not leave. Some even tried to force their way into the house, and Abu Fahl barely kept his temper.

  Abu Fahl’s problems grew through the morning. People began to arrive from every part of the Ras, virtually from every shack. A whole construction gang arrived, determined to get Alu out of the Star befo
re going to work. They wanted to set out at once, and Abu Fahl had to quarrel with them to keep them from doing so.

  Soon the house was in turmoil: Abu Fahl shouting, astonished, gratitude turned to exasperation; Professor Samuel, loudly complaining until Jeevanbhai Patel led him away to his office; Karthamma and Chunni racing from the courtyard to Zindi’s room with glasses of tea; Isma’il fighting the geese with Kulfi-didi’s newly washed sari.

  Only Zindi sat through it all unmoved. She greeted the men who flooded in and out of her room politely enough, but when they began to talk she turned silently away. Soon she was forgotten, left to herself, in her corner. She was grateful, for later, when she caught Rakesh’s arm and whispered into his ear, nobody noticed her. Go one last time, she said, just one more time. Go to Romy Abu Tolba’s shop and tell Tolba to give Forid Mian another message – Zindi will be waiting for you this evening. Just that.

  Rakesh did not see at first that she was begging. When he did, he put his arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. Much later, he slipped out of the house and was back again before anyone missed him.

  Abu Fahl was still under siege. He decided finally that he would go to the Star with perhaps five men, and only a few tools: some crowbars, ropes and torches, nothing else. The others resisted at first, but Abu Fahl cajoled, argued and shouted, and in the end he had his way. Only Isma’il, who appeared to know the way to the basement in the dark, Rakesh, and three other men, all of them experienced construction hands, were to go with him.

  At dusk, when the six men were to set off, the crowd, swollen by people on their way back from work, had spilled out of Zindi’s house into the lane and beyond. The six men were pushed along the lanes of the Ras with cheers and shouts of encouragement. At the embankment Abu Fahl stopped and shouted into the crowd. If there was a crowd on the road the police would notice, and that would be the end of it all; they would just have to go back to their houses and wait till Alu was brought back.

  The crowd watched the six men till they disappeared. Then some people wandered back to their shacks and some trickled back to Zindi’s house. As the evening wore on the trickle grew, and before long Zindi’s house was crammed with people again.

  Zindi, frustrated and angry, her nerves worn by two days of waiting, doubled the rates for her tea, but still people called for more, faster than she and Karthamma could make it. They ran out of tea altogether, and Kulfi had to be sent to Romy Abu Tolba’s shop to buy more. She came back frightened. She had never seen the Ras so empty before; everyone who could walk was waiting at Zindi’s house, for Alu’s return. Once, Zindi left her room to go to the lavatory. She found her courtyard packed coffee-pot full and boiling over. Karthamma had prudently moved the geese, the rabbits and the chickens to the roof. Amazed, Zindi picked her way through a group of squatting Mawali women: the Mawali women rarely left their quarter and they had never been in her house before.

  Then suddenly the excitement mounted. They heard a boy running and a shout: They’re coming, they’re coming. The younger men ran out of the house, pushing their way through the lane. After that word came in relays: Only Isma’il’s back. No, they’re all back, Isma’il’s running ahead. What about Alu? Have they got Alu?

  Uncertain murmurs ran around the room and the courtyard: They’re leading someone; there’s a seventh person with them. And then voices somewhere in the lane: No, that’s a shadow – it’s just the five of them and Isma’il.

  What about Alu? Is he dead? Has the Star killed him at last?

  Abu Fahl stepped into a crackling silence. The crowd in the courtyard stirred and rose; people shoved and elbowed each other, straining for a glimpse of the men. And then it was certain – the only men with Abu Fahl were those who had gone with him. No Alu.

  At once Abu Fahl was struck by a thunderclap of questions. The crowd surged towards him, jostling and pushing. He stumbled, fell, picked himself up again and shouted. He shouted again, and again, but even his bull’s bellow was lost in the commotion. Then Rakesh began beating an empty kerosene-tin, and slowly the metallic clanging prevailed and the shouts died away. Rakesh upturned the kerosene-tin on the floor and pushed Abu Fahl on to it.

  Abu Fahl stood precariously still on the tin for a moment, rubbing his blind eye and looking at the faces that were raised towards him. He saw Hajj Fahmy’s wife, a lean string of a woman, and he heard her rumble: So tell us, Abu Fahl, is he dead at last?

  No, said Abu Fahl. He isn’t dead. He’s as alive as you or me.

  A long sigh blew through the courtyard, stirring up a volley of angry questions: Then, why isn’t he here? Why didn’t you get him out?

  Abu Fahl held up his hand: There was nothing we could do; there were too few of us. He’s lying under a pile of rubble, and do you know how large that pile is? It’s a mountain. Even after we managed to get down to the basement, it was a long time before we could so much as see him. He’s right at the bottom of that mountain.

  But just above him was a concrete slab, almost flat on the ground. At first we thought there couldn’t possibly be any living thing under that slab.

  Then we saw that the slab was inclined very slightly. At one end it was about a foot or two off the floor. In the beginning we couldn’t see what lay under it there, for there’s a tangle of webbed steel blocking it at that end. And then, when we managed to look through, we saw him there, right in front of us, lying flat on his back, with that huge slab of concrete so close to his nose he could have touched it with his eyelashes. Another hair’s breadth and he would have been a dead man.

  How did it happen? Why did that block of concrete stop there, just a hair away from his nose? Do you know why? Because beside him, on either side, were two sewing machines, of the old kind, of black solid steel. They must be the only ones of their kind in al-Ghazira now, real antiques, probably kept for display. But, if it weren’t for them, our friend Alu would have been flattened days ago.

  He was lying right in front of us, but there was nothing we could do. We’d have had to cut through the steel mesh, move the rubble and shift the concrete slab to get him out. That slab’s two feet thick, two feet of ground rock and sand held together by steel. It’s so strong it could hold up a shopful of cars. And the girders fallen around it are as thick as tree-trunks and a thousand times stronger. On girders like that you could hang the whole of the Ras. It would have taken dozens of men with a truckload of equipment to move them, and we were just six.

  We didn’t dare move a thing: the slightest slip, and who was to know? Perhaps the whole mountain of rubble would come down on him. We had to stand there and stare at this man, hardly more than a boy, buried alive under a hill of rubble, with death barely an inch from his chest, and miraculously still alive. All we could do was marvel; all of us, we marvelled, for there was not a man amongst us who had seen a thing like that before.

  I could hardly speak. I remember at last I laughed, to make the whole business seem ordinary, and though we had taken nothing with us I said to Alu, Do you need food or water? – and he said simply, No, I’m all right.

  I tried to think of something else, but nothing would come to me, so I asked him, Alu, how are your boils? – and he answered, They’re gone. So then, trying to laugh again, I said: Alu, do you want to come out now, or do you still want to lie there and think about dirt and cleanliness and your Infinitely Small?

  He said: Take me out of here, Abu Fahl. I have been here long enough, I have thought enough, and now I know what we must do …

  Abu Fahl stopped and glanced over the courtyard. The whole crowd was staring intently up at him. He drew a deep breath.

  I asked him: Alu, what must we do?

  And he said: We must have a war.

  Abu Fahl beat down the stifled gasps and murmurs that rose all around him: I said to him, What kind of war?

  And Alu said: We shall war on money, where it all begins.

  After that Abu Fahl would say no more: he waved the crowd out, telling them to go home and think about what
he had said. Then he went into Zindi’s room and demanded tea from Karthamma.

  Zindi set about the business of clearing the house with energetic enthusiasm. Her insults soon emptied the courtyard and the lane outside. But there was nothing she could do about her own room, which was so crowded there was barely room for the smoke. She saw from the way Hajj Fahmy was sitting, with his hands planted firmly on his crossed legs, that it was likely to remain so, for it was always he who gave the lead to the others.

  In despair, she tucked Boss under her arm and went to sit on the doorstep. And there she found Forid Mian, waiting timidly in the shadows of the lane, inconspicuous in his usual starched shirt and checked green lungi. For an instant she gaped at his long parched face and his ragged beard. Then her surprise was swept away by waves of relief and hope, and all at once she was babbling strings of phrases of welcome, squeezing his twig fingers, and pushing him through the door.

  Forid Mian drew back when he saw the crowd in her room, but she tightened her grip on his arm and led him in. Once he was inside, he straightened his shoulders with an effort and worked his way slowly around the room, shaking hands and whispering Salaams. Everybody was listening to Abu Fahl telling the story of his journey to the Star again, and only Hajj Fahmy held Forid Mian’s hand long enough to talk to him. You’re here after a long time, Forid, he said curiously. But, before he could answer, Zindi appeared at his elbow and led him away.

  Zindi cleared a space in a corner near the stove by pushing two men aside and sat Forid Mian down. She settled Boss on her lap and lit the stove. So how are you, Forid Mian? she said softly in Hindi. It’s a long time since you drank tea with us. Hajj Fahmy is right.

  Forid Mian combed his beard with his fingers. Not so long, he said. You know there’s a lot of work in the shop. And now you have Jeevanbhai staying here. I’d feel strange sitting with him in the evenings.

  Zindi smelt a promising spoor and leapt: Why? Then she checked herself. No, she said gently, I only meant … There hasn’t been trouble, I hope?