by Amitav Ghosh
It took Zindi a long time to sell the lemon-squeezers, and they fetched less than half the money she had bargained for. It was as good as throwing them away. But she had no choice – she had to hurry, for she could see that Boss was hungry, even though he wasn’t crying (he never cried).
Back in the house, with Boss fed and put to sleep, she had nothing to do but wait for Kulfi or Jeevanbhai. The house was empty except for her and Boss. It usually was now, because Abu Fahl and Chunni and Rakesh and all the rest of them spent all their time after work with Alu, at Hajj Fahmy’s house. What did they do there? Zindi almost didn’t want to know. Often they didn’t come back till late at night. They even ate their dinner there sometimes – Professor Samuel had made arrangements to transfer the expenses to Hajj Fahmy’s accounts. Only Kulfi came back to the house early, sometimes. She was a good girl, Kulfi. It’s all a lot of nothing, she told Zindi. Nothing happens there. They just sit there and laugh and talk and drink tea and listen to Hajj Fahmy and watch Alu weaving. Late into the night – talk, talk, talk and weave, weave, weave. So boring: what to do? I wouldn’t go at all except for the films. Now they say they’re going to get a video and have a new film every day.
Maybe Kulfi would be back early today. But early for Kulfi nowadays was usually quite late at night. She had found work as a cook for another Ghaziri family, and they ate late in the evenings, sitting on their terrace because of the heat. Perhaps Jeevanbhai would be back early. But if he’d bought a new bottle and gone to his room behind the Durban Tailoring House who could tell? Nothing to do but wait.
Wait. Zaghloul and Rakesh came to the house to bathe and change after work, but they went out again half an hour later. The house was very quiet. She went up to the roof, and she could see the lights in Hajj Fahmy’s house. She could almost hear the talk and the laughter. She wandered into the courtyard to feed the ducks and the geese. Her eyes fell on the door to Jeevanbhai’s room. She looked at the lock. It was made of brass and it looked very strong. She weighed it in her hand. It wasn’t as big or as heavy as it looked. Perhaps it wasn’t as strong, either. She gave it a small tug and something in it seemed to yield. She dropped the tray of corn she had been holding, and caught the lock in both hands. She pulled, but the lock held firm. She was suddenly very angry. It was not that she wanted anything from the room – she didn’t know what she would do if the lock opened – but why should a door be locked against her in her own house? She spread her legs, took a good grip on the lock and pulled with all her strength. The door creaked on its hinges, but the lock held.
There was a gentle cough behind her. She didn’t hear it, for the blood was pounding noisily in her head. She pulled again. There was a sound of wood cracking, near the hinges, but the lock still held. Then a hand snaked out and tapped her on the shoulder.
Zindi turned and saw Jeevanbhai. She looked at him and she looked at the lock in her hands and her anger vanished and her face began to drip with sweat. Jeevanbhai, she stammered, dropping her hands. I … I don’t know.
Jeevanbhai nodded politely; he was as sober as a rock in a desert. You should have asked me for the key, Zindi, he said.
No, no, Zindi said confusedly, it wasn’t that. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t forgotten to lock it.
Are you sure now? Jeevanbhai smiled, putting his key into the lock. Come in – look around. There’s nothing here.
I know that, Jeevanbhai, Zindi pleaded, following him in. It was a small narrow room, with one small window set high in the far wall. There was a camp-bed in one corner, and beside it a rough wooden desk and a chair. A few neatly folded files lay on the floor, next to the desk.
Jeevanbhai flicked a switch and a pedestal fan in a corner began to turn slowly, sweeping the room with gusts of hot, damp air. He sat on the chair and pointed at the bed: Sit down, Zindi.
Really, Jeevanbhai, believe me, I wasn’t doing anything, Zindi said, sinking on to the bed. It creaked under her weight. A dimly glowing bulb dangled on a wire above her head.
I know, Zindi, Jeevanbhai said, I know. You didn’t want anything. It’s just that you’re worried about something, aren’t you?
A long minute passed while Zindi weighed the significance of the question. Then, hoarsely, she said: What do you mean?
Well – Jeevanbhai looked at his fingers – you’re worried about Forid Mian’s marriage, for example, aren’t you?
Zindi felt the breath rushing out of her. She stared at Jeevanbhai’s impassive face: What do you mean?
I suppose, Jeevanbhai said quietly, it would be nice for you if he married Kulfi and came to live here and started working for you? He would be reliable; not like the others? Isn’t that so?
Zindi, watching him, felt her face going stupidly slack, her mouth falling open.
Zindi, Zindi, he said, chiding her gently, shaking his head. How could you be such a fool as to plot against me with Forid Mian? You’re growing so old and desperate, you’re losing your wits. Did you really think I wouldn’t hear about it? Don’t you know? Forid Mian has no secrets from me; he can’t have. Do you know how he came to al-Ghazira? He used to work in a ship which, in Dhu-l-Hijja, used to carry pilgrims on the Hajj, all the way from Singapore and Chittagong and Bombay and all kinds of places. It used to stop here on its way to Jiddah. That’s how I met Forid Mian; he used to carry things for me sometimes. One year the ship arrived with Forid Mian locked up in the hold. He’d killed an eighty-year-old woman, a pilgrim. They found him under the covers of a lifeboat, trying to file the gold off the corpse’s teeth. He’d have hanged for murder in Chittagong, if I hadn’t managed to buy his way off the ship. But I kept the papers of course. So, you see, Forid Mian can’t afford to have any secrets from me. Did you really think you could make an ally out of him?
Zindi’s enormous shoulders sagged, and for a long time she sat slumped forward, in grim silence. Then, with an effort, she rose from the bed. She went to the chair and stood behind Jeevanbhai. She ran her hands over the sides of his face, over his nose, and over his lips and the edges of his red teeth.
Jeevanbhai, she said, do you remember that time? How you crawled into this house black with bruises and sweating fear? Do you remember how I hid you with the geese, and rubbed your body with oil?
Very deliberately, she undid the first button of Jeevanbhai’s shirt and slid her hand inside. She rolled the coarse hairs of his chest between her fingers and, slipping her hand under his vest, she brushed her thumb over his nipples. She could feel them stiffening. Jeevanbhai’s breath became a trace heavier. Do you remember? Her hand wandered down, past his navel, till they reached the drawstring of his underwear. She bent forward and caught his earlobe in her mouth. Jeevanbhai was shivering now. Remember? She took her hand out of his shirt and rubbed the fly of his trousers. She could hear him gasping for breath. She pulled the button open and slid a finger in.
Jeevanbhai caught her wrist with both his hands and tried to fight it off. She had as much strength in her wrist as he had in both his arms. Zindi, he gasped, stop, you’re going crazy. He twisted his body sideways and managed to struggle to his feet. Lowering his shoulders, he gathered his strength together and threw himself against her stomach. She staggered backwards, in the direction of the bed. For a moment she tottered on her feet, staring at his flushed face, and then, covering her face with her hands, she crumpled on to the bed. Her sobs came in short dry bursts, shaking the bed.
Zindi, Zindi, Jeevanbhai said, what’s the matter? What’s happened? He latched the door and went to the bed. Awkwardly he put his arm around her shoulders.
Zindi, he said, what’s happened? What have they done? Tell me.
He brushed her cheek clumsily with the back of his hand. Tell me, he said. I can help you. You know that. I know you want the shop. Why didn’t you just ask me? Why did you have to go through this drama?
He took her black scarf off, folded it neatly and put it beside him on the bed. Then he ran his hand gently through her thin, greying hair, and stroked her
neck and her arms. His hand brushed her heaving breasts, and he drew it back sharply in embarrassment. Zindi, he whispered, tell me. What have they done to you? Is it something terrible?
Terrible? What could a word like ‘terrible’ mean for someone who had to spend each day watching her own house slipping out of her hands, watching it turn against her, defying nature, like a horse turning on its rider? What did ‘terrible’ mean for someone who had to watch the very people she had sheltered, her own children, picking the world apart, hunting for chaos and calling from the rooftops for their own destruction? What is terrible? Is it terrible to find yourself afloat on a whirlpool of madness, to see the currents raging around you, and to be powerless to do anything but wait helplessly for the last wave?
Sometimes broken bones and pain aren’t necessary to make things terrible; being a spectator is terror enough.
In the beginning it wasn’t so bad; it had seemed as though nothing would come of it. Everyone who had lived in the Ras long enough had seen it swept by bursts of craziness. There was the time someone spread a rumour about the potato liquor that was being sold on the beach, and the men went into a frenzy because they thought their balls were climbing back into their bodies; and there was the year people spent every night for a whole month sitting up and waiting for an earthquake.
This was different; it went on and on and on. There was no end to it.
First, they got Romy Abu Tolba. It was Abu Fahl and Professor Samuel who went to him (Alu never went anywhere; he only sat in Hajj Fahmy’s courtyard and wove and wove and wove). They went to Romy with a huge gang and they said: Your shop spreads dirt in the Ras. We won’t put up with it. Either join us and we’ll run it together, like everything else, or you’ll lose your shop.
Romy is one of those people who minds his business and doesn’t bother to find out about things. That’s madness for a shopkeeper; every good shopkeeper has to stay ahead of the news. Romy didn’t know what was happening in the Ras. When they said all that to him, he was so astonished he couldn’t think of anything to say. After a long time, he laughed and said: Are you mad? It’s all right to drink, but drunks shouldn’t go around disturbing honest people.
They said, All right, you’ll see, and they left. They were the last people to set foot in Romy Abu Tolba’s shop.
The next day Romy opened his shop in the morning and sat down to read his newspaper and wait for customers. He waited and he waited but nobody came into his shop. He called out to people when he saw them going past, but they turned their heads and walked away. He’d stocked watermelons that day, and they began to rot. And still nobody came, all through the day.
Never mind, he told his son Tolba the next day. They’ll need things; they’ll fall short.
But Abu Fahl and Zaghloul and the rest had already taken one of Hajj Fahmy’s trucks and bought stocks of sugar and oil and tea and everything else in the Souq, and they began to give them out in Hajj Fahmy’s courtyard, while Samuel noted it all down in his account-books.
There was no shortage of anything, and that evening Romy’s stock of eggs began to smell.
Next day, Romy dropped his prices. Still nobody came. That night almost the whole of the Ras gathered around Hajj Fahmy’s house and till late in the night they talked about the terrible dirt that shops deal out.
Next morning Romy began to beg people to go in. He needed money now. But nobody even passed by his shop any longer; they skirted fearfully around it as though it were a leper’s lair. They were afraid; afraid of the dirt and the germs. Germs! In Romy Abu Tolba the Fayyumi’s shop, where everyone had bought everything for God knows how many years!
At the end of the day Romy knew he was beaten. What’s the use of a shop without customers? He went to Hajj Fahmy that evening and said: Do what you like with my shop.
They say Hajj Fahmy kissed him on both cheeks and hugged him like a brother.
The day after that they went to the shop and washed every inch of it with carbolic acid. They washed the shelves, the floor, the walls, the counter, even the lane outside. They took away Romy’s old iron cash-box, and in its place they put their files and account-books.
That night on the beach they burnt the cash-box and danced around it.
Now everything in the shop is given away and the price is marked down in the files against people’s names. There aren’t any profits any more. Romy’s just a clerk now, in his own shop. He spends the day noting down who buys what in the account-books. They pay him a wage. It’s not a bad wage, but you can already see death weighing down his eyelids. Who wants to be a paid clerk in his own shop?
That was just the beginning. After that the flood of carbolic acid started. Every day they send out groups with buckets of carbolic. They wander all over the Ras, washing out lanes and houses as they please. They came to this house, too, but the door was barred, and Abu Fahl, for some reason of his own, led them away. But they’ll be back, and who’ll stop them the next time? They’ll come again and again and again, until they get in. And what then? Who can live with the stench of that stuff?
Next, they say, they’re going to put a stop to the dirtiest of the dirty – the mugaddams, the labour contractors. Soon, they say, no one in the Ras will ever work for a mugaddam again. And after that? After that – no mistake about it – they’ll want the houses; houses which have been held together for years with sweat and love. They’ll want them, too.
Everyone’s with them now. They’ve got so much money, it’s unbelievable, but at the same time they say there’s not a note or a coin left anywhere in the Ras. It’s all in their account-books and files. Every day every person who works outside takes money for the day in an envelope, and at the end of the day they burn the envelopes. Every week they bring their pay to the Professor in envelopes (he’s got a kind of office now, in a shack near Hajj Fahmy’s house). He writes it all down in his books and puts it in the bank. Then, at the end of every week, he goes to the post office and sends money to all the addresses in his files. They say the shacks in the Ras are now full of people who’re growing as rich as kings back home in their villages. They’re sending back three, four, five times more money than they used to before, because they don’t have to spend any of it here, as they used to. But there’s so many of them, and there’s so much money in those books, that they still have money to burn. They began by showing films on the beach every second day. Now it’s videos and a new film every day. Then they’re going to hire buses to take them on holidays to the hot springs. They’re not going to go home on ordinary planes any more. They’re going to charter whole planes, and everyone who’s going to Egypt or India or wherever will go together. They’ll save half the money, they say.
And now it’s not just the Ras any more. People are getting to hear of it outside, and they’re pouring in. Last week the Baluchis, who used to sweep the streets of the New Town during the day and sleep in them at night, started arriving and they’ve all been given places to stay.
It’s getting worse and worse every day. Now no one will talk to me any more or let me into their houses or their shacks, because I’m not fool enough to wear their duster on my arm. They say I bring in germs. Think of it! Zindi at-Tiffaha, without whose consent no shack could be built in the Ras once upon a time, brings in germs now!
Whatever happens, it’s the end for me: either they’ll get the house or the police will. It’s just a matter of time now before the police and the Amirs get to hear of it. No one’s gone to them yet, because that’s the one thing no one in the Ras ever does. But soon enough someone or other will go, and then it’ll be the end of the Ras, the end of our houses, the end of our peace, the end of our luck and our good times.
And where shall I go then?
Jeevanbhai Patel was staring at the floor, his hands clasped between his knees. It was a long time before he spoke. He said: Zindi, you don’t have to go very far. What about the shop?
Zindi, still hiccuping with sobs, stopped wiping her face: What shop?
My shop. The Durban Tailoring House. Don’t you want it?
Zindi looked him over suspiciously: Yes. Why?
Jeevanbhai smiled and patted her on the shoulder. Tell me, Zindi, he said, why do you want that shop so much?
Why do I want it so much? Can’t you see why I want it so much? If I had it, I’d be able to get away from here before the end comes. And who knows? God willing, I might be able to take a few of them with me. They might listen to me if I had something to offer, some alternative. They won’t listen to me now, but with that shop who knows? And at least, if I do get it, when the end comes a couple of them will have somewhere to hide.
Jeevanbhai ran his tongue over his teeth. Zindi, he said, I told you before, but you weren’t listening. You can have the shop.
Zindi rose from the bed and went to the door. All right, Jeevanbhai, she said briskly, tell me what you’ve got in your mind or I’m going. I know you’re not a man who gives away shops for love and sweet words. So just tell me the truth; I’m not a child.
No, Jeevanbhai said quietly, you’re right; I’m not the kind of man who gives away a shop for nothing. But I’m not going to give it away for nothing. You’ll have to pay me half what it would cost on the open market. I know you’ve got enough money hidden away somewhere. We can talk about the price later. The other half will be my share. We can divide the profits. The place needs a change anyway; it never brings luck if it stays the same for too long. I’ve been thinking of it myself.
Watching him closely, Zindi said: But that’s not all, is it?
Jeevanbhai smiled. No, Zindi, he said, it’s true. That’s not all. I want something from you, too. But it’s a small thing, and it’s not very important.
Tell me quickly and no more talk. You know you can have what I’ve got to give, but that you don’t want. What do you want?
She leant forward and peered at him. Not Kulfi? she gasped in surprise. No, not her?
