by Amitav Ghosh
In the harbour the shots were heard from a long way off, and since it was already dawn a crowd soon gathered. When they saw a galloping horse beating up a cloud of dust on the far side of the inlet, there was a tremendous commotion. Some thought it was a Bedouin raid like those their grandfathers had told them about; others thought the sheikhs of the neighbouring kingdoms were attacking at last as people had so often said they would. All was confusion: al-Ghazira had been quiet so long nobody knew how to deal with a crisis. People – men, children, women – ran into the streets, screaming and crying. Then the horse was upon them, rearing, hoofs scything the air, and Nury and poor, half-naked Jeevanbhai were picking themselves from the dust and shouting, Run, run – but before they could turn the earth shook beneath their feet, for the Malik, no longer able to hold himself, was firing his ill-directed bazookas into the sea, raising volcanoes of water where it didn’t matter. And then that whole early-morning crowd, half-dressed and unwashed, underweared and unshat, turned as one man and fled down the road with Nury in the lead.
For some reason, nobody has ever understood why, instead of turning into the city, after the harbour, Nury ran straight on, past the sandspits and further, with the crowd flocking behind him in a dust-clouded mass, and shots and bazookas shaking the whole city; on, down past the Ras, along the old road, while behind them, far away in the New Palace, the Amir and his mounted guards were trotting out, towards the Maidan al-Jami‘i; and in the Oiltown the Oilmen’s uniformed hirelings from every corner of the world were polishing their guns and their batons …
But Nury knew nothing of that, and Jeevanbhai was already lost far behind; he had fallen and rolled into the Ras where he lay hidden for days, in which other house but Zindi’s? Nury just ran, on and on, until in front of him, out of the sand, there suddenly arose the barbed-wire fence of the Oiltown. From the other side of the fence, faces stared silently out – Filipino faces, Indian faces, Egyptian faces, Pakistani faces, even a few Ghaziri faces, a whole world of faces. In despair Nury threw himself on the fence begging them to open the gates. But the faces stayed where they were, already masks, staring at his sad, desperate, crossed eyes.
You must remember this was long ago, so long ago that even oil didn’t bring much money and not one Ghaziri in a hundred or even a thousand had cars and houses and palaces in Switzerland. It was before the great strikes and the riots; before the Oilmen’s planes bombed the Ghaziris in the Oiltown; before the unions were driven into secrecy; before the women and the schoolchildren poured into the streets to fight, and were murdered with the newest and best guns and helicopters and computers money can buy. It was before all of that.
In those days many Ghaziris wanted work. But there was no work for them in the Oiltown, for the Oilmen knew that a man working on his own land has at least a crop to fight for. Instead they brought their own men. They were welcome: since the beginning of time al-Ghazira has been home to anyone who chooses to call it such – if he comes as a man. But those ghosts behind the fence were not men, they were tools – helpless, picked for their poverty. In those days when al-Ghazira was still a real country they were brought here to slip between its men and their work, like the first whiffs of an opium dream; they were brought as weapons, to divide the Ghaziris from themselves and the world of sanity; to turn them into buffoons for the world to laugh at. And with time on their side they succeeded. So, when Nury threw himself on the fence and clawed his hands to ribbons, begging them to let him in, nothing happened, for there were no men inside to open the gates for Nury the desperate Damanhouri.
When the gates did open, it was to let out the Oiltown’s uniformed guards with their batons and shields and water-hoses. There was nothing Nury could do but turn again, and run, with the crowd milling behind him.
By this time the crowd was an avalanche of people and confusion, and they were driven straight on, past the Ras again, straight towards the Maidan al-Jami‘i, like fish into a net. The Amir’s men had long since ringed the square, and blocked all the lanes and roads leading out of it. Once the crowd was inside, coolly and efficiently the guards let fly.
It was not the End or the Day of Judgement – nothing of the kind. The guards hurled not bullets but tear gas. In a few minutes the excitement died away and the crowd was as docile and drugged as a school of stunned fish. The Amir’s men let them out and herded them back to their houses. Some people’s eyes watered for days afterwards, a couple of old men were stricken with palsy because of the excitement, and there were a few broken legs and a miscarriage or two. All that was lost was a little breath.
We were wrong. This was no feud: no tyrants died; there was no fratricide, no regicide, no love, no hate. It was just practice for the princes of the future and their computers – an exercise in good husbandry.
Only Nury died. He was running across the Maidan towards the Bab al-Asli when the tear gas burst. Temporarily robbed of his sharp eyes Nury shambled helplessly around until he blundered into a Bedu boy, come to the Souq on his camel to sell wool. The animal, frenzied by the noise and the gas, bit poor Nury’s head cleanly off his shoulders.
That was the end of Nury the Sharp-Eyed Damanhouri.
It happened for the best: even if Saneyya had not already blown away the foundations of his trade, Nury would have been homeless in the new Ghazira. There was no place in it for sharp-eyed egg-sellers. All the eggs now came from the poultry farms of Europe, and Nury could never have afforded a plane.
The Malik was rarely seen after that, though he was, and still is, said to be the ruler. He was left in the Old Fort, but more as a prisoner than a king. They say the Amir found and seized a vast trove of arms in the Fort. The Oilmen offered to pension the old Malik off in their own country, but they could only have carried his dead body out of the Fort, so the Amir had to be content with leaving him there, with his own guards posted outside. But, still, he’ll never have a day’s rest as long as the Malik still lives, for no one can tell what the old man is plotting.
And Jeevanbhai: all his businesses and ships, his warehouses and customs contracts were seized. Only his shop in the Souq and his office near the harbour were left to him. For years he was a broken man. But his happy couples didn’t forget him, and with a little bit of help he started again. What little he has today he had to build up anew. Then, just when he thought he still had his gods’ blessings, his wife died, and today he is the walking corpse you see. A man can try only so many times and no more. That’s why Jeevanbhai has taken to drinking in the secrecy of his shop.
Jabal the Eunuch moved to the New Palace and soon became one of the Amir’s closest advisers. The Amir never forgot that he may have lost the Battle of the Date Palms if it were not for Jabal, and he slipped a dozen or so of the most lucrative British and American agencies into his lap, and today they say Jabal the Mountainous Eunuch has grown into a whole cordillera, with enough money to buy a continent to spread himself out on.
The Amir found out which shopkeepers had supplied Jeevanbhai with kerosene that night, and their shops were seized, every single one, and distributed among the Amir’s friends. Soon after, the fairs on the empty site were stopped as well.
The New City appeared overnight, like a mushroom. The Oilmen forgot all about a new Oiltown, for the whole country was their Oiltown now.
For years that bit of land on the edges of the New City was left as it was, covered with charred date palms. Then, long afterwards, when the Amir judged the Battle of the Date Palms forgotten, he had the plot cleared, and later the Corniche was laid around it. Then, last year, people said that a group of Ghaziri companies were putting up money to build a market greater than any in the continent; an immense shopping arcade, with five pointed arms, in celebration of the starry future. It would be called an-Najma, the Star, and it was to be built on a marshy, useless bit of land at the far end of al-Ghazira near the border. Nobody knew at first where the money was going to come from; the newspapers gave the names of unknown companies.
Truth lies
in silences.
That money was put up by Jabal, King of the Eunuchs, and his friends.
Hajj Fahmy retreated into a long silence. No one in the room spoke, for they knew there were many twists and turns to the Hajj’s storytelling. At length, the Hajj put up his hand again.
Let me tell you now, he said, why the Star fell. It fell because no one wanted it. The Malik didn’t want it: he hasn’t forgotten one moment of the Battle of the Date Palms and never will. Nobody in the Souq wanted it: they haven’t forgotten the Battle, either, nor the confiscations. Besides, none of them had been allotted a shop in the Star. If the Star had actually opened, how long would the Souq have lasted? The Mawali didn’t want the Star because of their sheikh’s grave. The contractors who built it didn’t care whether it stood or fell – they had made their money anyway. The lovers who went there at night didn’t want it; the smugglers who landed there didn’t want it; Jabal and his friends didn’t want it – they’ll be happier with the insurance money. Did even the Amir want it? His money’s far away in some safe country, and nothing that happens in al-Ghazira matters to him much.
No one wanted the Star. That was why the Star fell: a house which nobody wants cannot stand.
Hajj Fahmy leant back against the wall, sighing with exhaustion. After a long while Abu Fahl broke the silence with a laugh. For an old man, he said, a grain of sand can become the Dome of the Rock. Nothing is simple. Anybody can see why the Star fell: it fell because too much sand was mixed with the cement. Anyone with any experience of building can see that. There is no mystery to it. Alu had no experience of building, so he reacted too slowly and got himself caught in the wreckage while everyone else managed to get away. Finished. Some things are simple.
Abu Fahl threw a dismissive glance across the room at Hajj Fahmy. The Hajj did not see it, for his eyes were shut. It was Rakesh who spoke: You really think it’s so simple, Abu Fahl? The words were forced out of his throat with a visible effort: Rakesh was not a man who relished being conspicuous in a crowd.
Abu Fahl, artlessly skilled in carrying an audience, looked around the room smiling, encouraging laughter. Yes, he said to Rakesh, it’s really that simple.
Then, maybe, said Rakesh, there’s something you don’t know. You say Alu didn’t run out with us because he didn’t realize that the building was going to collapse? The truth is that Alu was the first among us to hear the rumbles and the noise of the falling bricks and plaster. At the time he had just discovered two sewing machines, meant for display, under a tarpaulin sheet. When he heard the noise, he left the machines uncovered and pushed us out of the basement. That was before you shouted to us. I was already running when I heard you. I stopped once on the stairs – the walls were already buckling all around – and I saw that Alu wasn’t behind me. I ran back and looked into the showroom. I couldn’t see much because there was dust everywhere but, still, I’m certain I saw him carefully covering those two machines. I shouted to him: Run, Alu. He turned and waved me on, and if it were not for the dust I would swear I saw him smile. Then the rumbles grew louder, and I ran up the stairs, while Alu stayed behind, perhaps still smiling.
Chapter Thirteen
The Call to Reason
As soon as the plane took off from Bombay, Jyoti Das knew that the light-headedness he was feeling had nothing to do with the altitude. He had been in planes before; planes didn’t make you feel quite like that. It was a mystery; he could think of no explanation.
It became a little clearer when he talked to the man who was sitting next to him. He was a motor mechanic from Gujarat and he was going to al-Ghazira because he had been offered a job which would pay him, in a month, more or less as much as an ASP earned in a year, allowances included. But, still, there were problems, the mechanic complained: no medical benefits, no accommodation, no security at all. It was all a big worry. Would he fall ill? Would he be able to find a place to live? Would his boss be reasonable or not? Would he save enough money to get married at the end of it? No escape – worries everywhere, no matter what you were paid. Listening to him, Jyoti suddenly felt his light-headedness throwing him into somersaults; blowing the weights off his feet.
He knew then that it didn’t matter, at least for a while. Things like that matter only at home, and foreign places are all alike in that they are not home. Nothing binds you there.
And it became clearer still when he looked through his window and saw an indentation on the horizon, barely visible, no more really than a speck of dust on the glass, but enough to snap something tight in his stomach and send surges of excitement coursing through him. The hairs rose all along his arm, and he had to grip the sides of the seat to hold himself steady. He knew that his swimming head had no connection with that hint of sand in the distance. It would have made no difference whether that bit of land was al-Ghazira or Antarctica. The journey was within and it was already over, for the most important part was leaving.
And then, in his exhilaration, he knew also that he was grateful. Even six months of hellish confusion were worth a journey which helped you through time even before it had ended.
He had returned from his journey to Mahé, over six months ago, ripe with enthusiasm. The DIG, he thought, could be no less enthusiastic. After all, it was he who had taken up the case and followed it through, even when he, Jyoti Das, had thought it a dead end. The DIG had trusted his own judgement and gone ahead, and in Mahé he had been proved right, after a fashion. So Das worked hard on his report of his visit to Mahé, ignoring his mother’s recommendations of prospective brides. He assumed that once the DIG was shown the hard facts he would leap to push the case through. In fact Das reckoned that he would have to fight hard to play a part in the follow-up.
But when he sent the file up it disappeared and the DIG said not so much as one word about it. A week later Das put up an application for travel allowances and foreign allowances and so on, hoping to prod the DIG into doing something. But nothing happened. When he went to meet the DIG in his room he was leaning back in his chair, mournfully toying with half a cabbage. He refused to discuss the case and instead brought the conversation menacingly around to Das’s stationery indents. Exorbitant, he said, and unaccountable – enough to stock a new shop.
Das left the room bewildered. Nothing happened for a couple of months, though Das put up regular memos and reminders. He even cultivated a humiliating familiarity with the DIG’s personal secretary. Nothing came of it: a veil had fallen.
After another couple of months, during which he slipped from anger into sleepless, nail-biting frustration, and then finally into frustrated resignation, the DIG summoned him to his office. The problem, he said, absent-mindedly snapping a carrot into bits, was that if he, Das, were to go there had to be a replacement. It would be impossible for the office to manage without so valuable an officer. The answer was, obviously, a replacement. He had already looked at the service lists and decided upon a suitable replacement: a young police officer. Unfortunately, the application he had sent to the higher-ups in the Secretariat had been turned down. Therefore the delay. Of course, the case was important, but the office couldn’t do without a replacement.
He looked at Das meaningfully.
Again Das went away bewildered. It seemed to him that the DIG was trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t understand what.
He was still scratching his head a week later when he was called to the DIG’s office again. The key to the problem, the DIG said, crumbling a piece of fried potato, was the replacement. He told Das the name; it meant nothing to him. Anyway, the DIG said carefully, stressing certain words, solve the replacement problem and we’ll see about your foreign trip. Go away and think about it. Go to Delhi if you like. You have an uncle there in the Ministry, no?
Grand-uncle, sir, Jyoti Das said automatically.
Still confused, he took a week’s leave and went to Delhi to meet his mother’s uncle, the Secretary. It was embarrassing, for Jyoti hadn’t met him in years, and he was afraid he wouldn’
t be acknowledged. But in the event it turned out well: his grand-uncle was keen to buy a house in Calcutta, and wanted Jyoti’s father to look around for something suitable. On the assurance that it would be done, he set to work, and within a week the DIG’s application was cleared.
After that, the DIG’s office burst into a storm of activity: files hurtled about, the DIG spent hours on the telephone, and suddenly one day Jyoti heard that everything had been worked out. The rest took less than a week.
The day before he was to leave, the DIG came to his office, patted him on the shoulder and said: Don’t worry about the delay. Time gives a case a chance to develop properly. And don’t hurry when you get there. Take your time. Let the case mature. Then, as a token of his good wishes, he presented Jyoti with a crate of Golden Delicious apples.
And, like one of those golden apples, al-Ghazira rotated slowly below him, as the plane banked. He squinted down, through the glare of the midday sun on white gypsum-laden sand. Black roads cut through the expanses of whiteness; he picked out the radial patterns of planned roads at one end of the town, and a large square far away, with huddled, twisting lanes dribbling out of it. As the plane came in to land, blinded by the glare of the sun, he forgot the Barbary falcon and the Saker falcon and the other birds he hoped to see, for he knew suddenly that al-Ghazira wasn’t a real place at all, but a question: are foreign countries merely not-home, or are they all that home is not?
