The Circle of Reason

by Amitav Ghosh

He was already older.

  In the crowded, luggage-cluttered, airsick chaos of the airport Das spotted Jai Lal with relief. He was a short, dapper man, with the last traces of adolescent acne still lingering incongruously on his thin, aquiline face. He had met – rather, bumped into – him once, at the head offices of the Secretariat in Delhi. Jai Lal had not paid him much attention then, for he was a few years his senior. But Das knew him by reputation: everyone who had met him talked of his clipped urbanity and his powerful connections with awe.

  Hullo, Das said, sticking out his hand, I’m—

  Yes, Jai Lal said, tapping his hand perfunctorily, we’ve met, haven’t we?

  Jal Lal waved a few cards with careless arrogance and they were soon out of the airport. The air outside was like hot steam, and the sweat leapt from Das’s pores. He followed Jai Lal to his car, suppressing an urge to linger in the airport and watch the extraordinary assortment of people. But Jai Lal was already at his car, arguing with the porter in Hindi.

  As soon as Das had shut his door, Jai Lal said: What happened, Das? Why did you take so long? I must have sent you over a dozen telexes. Couldn’t you have come a little earlier?

  With an effort Das wrenched his eyes away from the billowing concrete folds of the airport’s tent-like roof. He sighed: You don’t know what trouble I’ve been having. My DIG wanted a replacement, one particular replacement, for my post, and it took months and months to arrange the transfer. I’ll tell you about it sometime. Let me just say I’m lucky to be here at all. But forget all that. Have there been any developments in the case?

  Lal laughed acidly. He reached out and pressed a button. He waited until the metallic twanging of an electric guitar had filled the car. Yes, he said, you could say there’ve been developments in the case. In fact you could call your case overdeveloped. Your man’s dead.

  Oh? After the plane and the airport, Das could find no stronger reaction in himself. I suppose, he said, I’d better telex back to stop them sending next week’s foreign allowance.

  Lal thought for a moment. No, he said, there’s no hurry. But maybe we’d better telex them to approve your return ticket. You know, to tell you the truth, frankly, I don’t think there was any need to send you all the way here. I could easily have handled it myself. After all, it’s my job. I even wrote to HQ. But your boss was very keen to keep his fingers in the case, and the higher-ups insisted. But, if they were going to send you, at least they could have sent you earlier.

  With an aching sense of loss, Das watched the shining metallic bulbs of al-Ghazira’s desalination plant diminishing in his window. Anyway, he said, tell me what happened. I might as well know.

  Nothing much, said Lal, as far as I can tell. I only heard about it yesterday, from one of our sources – someone really reliable, who’s been living in the same house as your suspect. You see, that’s the thing: we chaps in the field do all the work, build up our sources and our networks, and then they send you people out, with no experience of local conditions. And that, too, when it’s too late. There really wasn’t any need.

  Lal frowned at the road, his mouth a thin white line. Yes, thought Das, there wasn’t any need at all. You could have sent in a few reports; your uncles in the Ministry would have made sure everyone saw them; you’d have got a couple of quick promotions and an ‘A’-class posting – Bonn or Brussels or something. No need at all for anyone else to come along.

  Aloud he said: What happened?

  Oh, just an accident really, said Lal. The chap was working with some kind of construction gang. They used to do distempering and whitewashing and things like that. They were working in a building when it collapsed. It happened about four days ago. The collapse was in all the newspapers, because the building was meant to be a real showpiece. They called it the Star. These collapses happen all the time here. The contractors save money on material and so the buildings fall down. There was nothing in the newspapers about a death. Apparently your man was the only one, and even the authorities probably don’t know. My source says the gang he was working with wants to keep it quiet, because he was here illegally, and they could all have got into trouble. Anyway, you can hear all about it yourself; we’ll go and see my source this evening and find out if there’s anything to clear up.

  Lal looked at Das, and saw him staring out of the window in silent disappointment. He gave him a consoling slap on the shoulder. Never mind, yar, he said. You’ve had a good ride on a plane, you’ll get to see al-Ghazira and buy a few nice things and, besides, you’ve got your travel allowance and foreign allowance for a week, so you’ll get something out of it. Don’t feel too bad about the whole thing.

  Certainly not, thought Das. A week’s travel allowance and foreign allowance for me and an Italian car for you. Clearing his throat, he said: Yes, that’s true. When do we go to meet your source?

  This evening, said Lal. I’ll pick you up from your hotel. You must have dinner with us afterwards.

  They drove in silence for a while, past fountained roundabouts, and vast pitted construction sites and jungles of steel scaffolding. Soon they were caught in snarling traffic and Lal’s little car was lost among sports cars, and limousines with heavily curtained windows, and dust-spattered articulated trucks as long as trains, come all the way from Europe. Then, frowning thoughtfully, Lal asked: Who did you say your DIG is?

  Das told him.

  And what’s your replacement’s name?

  Das told him, a little puzzled by his curiosity. Lal smiled when he heard the name: Let me see … I think they’re related; uncle and nephew in fact. Yes, I seem to remember hearing that. I suppose he couldn’t think of any way of getting him into the Secretariat without shifting you from your post for a bit.

  Das felt as though he had been hit in the stomach. He propped himself upright with an outstretched arm, resisting the temptation to double up.

  He had known but he had not noticed.

  Oh, he said, I didn’t know. What else was there to say?

  No, Lal said kindly, I suppose you didn’t. I remember hearing that you’re always very busy with birds and painting and things.

  Jyoti sat out the rest of the drive in silence. He could not bring himself to ask Lal about the Barbary falcon, as he had meant to.

  His name’s Jeevanbhai Patel, Lal said, hurrying Das through the Bab al-Asli, past the evening crowds strolling through the Souq’s main passageway. Das looked around him at the robes and headcloths of the Ghaziri men, at the black masks of the women, at gold watches and silver calculators, jewelled belts and silk shirts. He wanted to stop and look at everything properly, but Lal was ushering him rapidly along.

  My predecessor passed him on to me, Lal said. He came here years ago – God knows when – long before the oil anyway. They say that once upon a time nothing happened in al-Ghazira that he didn’t know about. He’s a businessman. I believe he was quite successful once, but he got involved in something and lost all his money. That’s the odd thing about him. Your usual Indian bania’s first instinct is to stick to his shop or his trade and not get involved in anything, whichever part of the world he may be in. He knows he can make more money that way. But this man’s different: he jumps into things. That was his undoing. He’s an old man now of course, and his life’s behind him, but he still keeps his ears open. He drinks too much nowadays but, still, I must say we’ve had some very useful material from him.

  They stopped at a shop – the Durban Tailoring House, Das read, on a board hanging askew over the door. It was a very dilapidated shop, in sharp contrast with its glittering neighbours. A figure materialized somewhere in the murky interior and advanced towards them: a man well past middle age, thin and slightly stooped, his face delicately lined, like a walnut, but nondescript except for large, decaying teeth that stuck almost horizontally out of his mouth.

  Jeevanbhai led them through the shop to a room at the back. As Das entered the room, he faltered, for the reek of whisky clouded the room like a fog. It was a small room made eve
n smaller by two large steel cabinets. There was a desk in the middle of the room, marooned among scattered files and stacks of paper weighed down by cracked saucers and chipped cups. Bits of paper blew around the room chased by half-hearted gusts from an ancient table-fan. It was very dim; the only light came from a single, dusty table-lamp that had been placed on the floor.

  Jeevanbhai cleared piles of paper off two steel folding chairs, wiped them with a duster and hesitantly pushed them forward.

  Patel sahb, Lal said, I hope we haven’t come too early?

  No, no, said Jeevanbhai, not at all, never. No formalities. The man who works here leaves early nowadays. I let him go; he’s growing old. This is the best place and time to meet.

  Lowering himself into a chair behind the desk, he pulled a drawer open and took out three glasses, one of them half-full, and a bottle of cheap Scotch whisky. A little bit? he said, turning a raised eyebrow from Jai Lal to Das.

  Jai Lal glanced at Das and nodded. Jeevanbhai drained his glass and poured whisky into the glasses. Splashing a little water into them, he handed them out. Cheers! he said, knocking his glass against theirs.

  So, Patel sahb, Lal said, sipping his warm whisky fastidiously, how are you?

  Not bad; growing older.

  Lal laughed: We’re all growing older.

  Yes, said Jeevanbhai. We’re all growing older. He drained his glass and poured himself another drink.

  Lal cleared his throat: Patel sahb, this is a friend of mine, Mr Das, who is also interested in what we were talking about yesterday. Could you tell him what you told me – about how this young man died?

  Died? Jeevanbhai ran his tongue over his teeth. Who said he died?

  Lal raised a quick eyebrow at Das. Didn’t you say he died? he said smoothly.

  No, said Jeevanbhai, I just said the building fell on him, and that nobody could have survived it. That is not the same thing as saying nobody did survive it. No, no.

  I see, I see, said Lal. What happened?

  What happened? Who knows what happened?

  What do you think happened?

  Who am I to think anything happened, Mr Lal? Who are you?

  Lal half-rose from his chair. Perhaps, Patel sahb, we could come back later, when you feel like talking? Or when your head is clearer?

  Later, earlier, how does it matter? Jeevanbhai said softly. Whatever it is, whether it’s happened or not, it’s a little difficult – to use simple words – a little difficult to understand.

  Lal shot a glance at Das and motioned to him to keep quiet and sit back. But Das could not keep himself from straining forward to look into Jeevanbhai’s face. Abruptly the bulb went out. Jeevanbhai rummaged among some papers on the floor, pulled out a bent candle and struck a match. When the flame spluttered Das noticed that Jeevanbhai’s hands were shaking, but he could not tell whether it was drunkenness or only an old man’s tremor. Jeevanbhai’s eyes glowed momentarily in the candlelight. Then he put the candle on the floor, beside his chair, to shield it from the fan, and at once his face disappeared into pools of shadow, and all Das could see were the enigmatic red teeth.

  Late last night, Jeevanbhai said, with an almost imperceptible slur, they brought him back. Bhagwan jane, God knows how they did it. They must have taken thirty or forty men into the ruins of that building, and tools and things as well. There’s a police cordon around the ruins, all day and all night. How did they get through it? God knows. Perhaps, but of course this is just speculation, Abu Fahl – you don’t know him, a very wily man; knows every corner and every turn in al-Ghazira – found a way to pay those policemen to stay away from the building for a while. Perhaps.

  Anyway they brought him back. And it wasn’t as though he was barely alive, like a survivor from a disaster of that kind ought to be. He was well, hearty, smiling, as healthy as any of us. I know: I saw him later. How does one account for that? A whole building had collapsed on him. No ordinary building, but millions and millions of dirhams in effect. It wasn’t good money, but any money on that scale has a certain weight. You can’t disregard it. And still he lived through the fall of that whole building. Apparently – this is just hearsay – he lay flat on the floor with a huge block of concrete just inches from his chest. And that, too, for four days. It is no exaggeration to say that many people in that situation would have died of shock. And, far from being dead, he seemed to have come out a new man altogether, if such a thing is possible.

  People say, I don’t know with what truth, that he had no food or water for those four days. And when they were offered to him, they say, he refused. And when they asked him whether he wanted to leave that place, right till the very end, they say, he said no, he wanted to be left alone to think.

  One could say: people think of these things when something unusual happens. But the truth remains, and it is that when he was brought out at last he was unscathed. It came as no surprise to anyone when some of the women there started saying that it was the doing of a dead sheikh whose grave lies under those ruins; one of his many miracles. People say these things.

  I believe a crowd had gathered there long before he was brought back. When they saw him in the distance, they ran on to the road and carried him back to a house which belongs to one Hajj Fahmy – you don’t know him – an elderly man, greatly respected in that area. They carried him into the courtyard and put him on a platform where Hajj Fahmy keeps his loom – he was once a weaver – and they all crowded into the courtyard to listen to him.

  And all evening the crowds grew and grew.

  I heard all this, for I wasn’t there at the time. I was at my office near the harbour. I went there after I left the Souq, for there were a few things I had to do. Even in my office things weren’t as they usually are. My assistant, one Professor Samuel – no longer my assistant, I should add, but that comes later – had left the office even though I had told him to wait. And, very unusually for him, he had left it in great disorder.

  But I had my work to do and it was only much, much later that I went back to the Ras, where we all live. Anybody could see that something unusual was happening there. Usually the Ras sleeps early, all except Zindi’s house, because people have to work. But last night I had a feeling – if one may talk of such a thing – that no one was sleeping. And yet the whole place was in darkness. Not a light in any of the shacks, not a person to be seen on the lanes, nobody sleeping out on the roofs. The whole place was, to use a simple word, deserted.

  But at the other end of the Ras, where Hajj Fahmy lives, there were bright lights, and a faint hum, like a slow-running machine – the noise a crowd makes merely by breathing.

  I thought they had organized a film on the beach as they do sometimes, though the place is never so deserted then. But I was tired, and I wanted to sleep, so I went straight back towards my room.

  There again, when I pushed the door of the house open, things were not as they usually are. It was empty, or so I thought, and that house is never empty. I called out once or twice, but there were only echoes and the sound of geese hissing. I looked into the room on my left, where the men sleep, and it was empty. I looked to my right, into the room opposite, and – to tell you the truth – I was so startled I almost bit my tongue off.

  Zindi at-Tiffaha – you don’t know her – a woman large enough to fill a room, was sitting on a mat in the corner, staring at me, but sightlessly, and without a sound, like a corpse. And in her lap was a baby no less silent, staring at me, too, with huge black eyes.

  Zindi at-Tiffaha is the key to your mysteries, though you don’t know her. She’s the solution. It was she who brought your man here; it was she who fed him and found him work; and it was her house that he was living in when the Star fell. She rules over that house like a seth over a shop: nothing happens in it that she doesn’t plan. But last night there she was, sitting alone, like a statue, while her whole house was elsewhere.

  Something’s wrong, I said to myself. This is not how Zindi is. There’s something on her mind. To tel
l the truth, actually, I knew quite well that there’s been something on her mind for some time. She’s been arranging secret meetings with the man who works in this shop and he’s been telling me a few things. But with me at least she’s always been able to keep up a brave face. Last night that face had melted away.

  I said to her: Zindi, where’s everyone else? And when she answered I was, to admit nothing shameful, quite relieved, for even though she looked alive I couldn’t be sure.

  She said: They’ve gone to bring Alu back.

  Very quietly, I said: And what about you, Zindi? Why didn’t you go?

  To my surprise – for Zindi is not a woman who tells people any more than they need to know – she answered. She said: If we all spent our time chasing every new madness that sweeps the Ras, what would happen? Some of us have to think of staying alive and keeping the house together as well. And what would I do there anyway? I’m just an old woman trying to cope with the world on my own.

  Of course, you don’t know her, so you don’t know what her words meant. Neither I nor anyone else has ever before seen the slightest crack in Zindi’s strength. Even yesterday I would have sworn to you that not even a pile-driver could squeeze anything like hopelessness out of her. When she said what she did, I knew something had driven Zindi at-Tiffaha to the edge of her wits; that she was ripe and waiting for a guiding hand.

  But at that very moment a woman called Kulfi, who lives in the house, ran into the room and shouted: Zindi, Karthamma’s stolen your money-tin. She’s throwing all your money away. Come on, quickly.

  Then the old Zindi was back again. Faster than we could see, she counted from the corner, along the wall to the fourteenth brick. She pulled it out and found the hollow behind it empty. And the next moment she was out of the house, rolling like a wave, with the baby still in her arms, and we were running behind her.

  The lane behind Hajj Fahmy’s house was thick with people, even though you can’t see into the courtyard of his house from the lane. But, still, there must have been more than a hundred people there, in a lane where two men usually have to fight to pass abreast. The crowd was like a wall. But Zindi was running fast, and with her weight she had worked up the power of a steam-roller. Holding the baby above her head, she crashed through the crowd, and we were carried along in her wake. She stopped at the door to the courtyard, not because she could not have gone any farther, but because – I think you could say – she was frozen with surprise.