by Amitav Ghosh
Jeevanbhai burst into laughter: An old whore’s like an old zip – stuck. Can’t you ever think of anything else? No, I don’t want her or anything like that. You can still marry her off to Forid Mian if you like – if he has the strength to sign the khitba. No, what I want is a very small thing. I just want you to tell me what’s happening here, now and then. You know I don’t get to hear as much now as I used to and, as you said yourself, nowadays one can’t afford to be behind the news. And I may want you to do a couple of things for me sometimes.
What things?
Small things. For example, I’ve got a couple of friends – Indians, nice people. One of them’s heard about Alu and wants to meet him. Maybe you could take him tomorrow?
Zindi leant her head against the door and thought hard for a while. Then, with a quick, regretful shake of her head, she said: Police, I suppose? No, I can’t. You know that’s one thing I couldn’t do to them. Whatever happens in the future, in the past they all ate my bread and salt. They’ve become part of my flesh. You shouldn’t have said that, Jeevanbhai. You know I can’t do it.
Zindi, Zindi, don’t be a fool. Do you think I’d ask if they were police? Don’t I know you well enough? They’re not – they’re just ordinary people who I met once in India. They’re just ordinary people. You’ll know as soon as you see this man. He’s a boy really, just like Alu. He must be in his twenties. He always looks surprised, like a schoolboy. One of his eyebrows is higher than the other. He’s just heard a few things and he’s curious, like anyone else. Like you or me. That’s all. Believe me.
Zindi hesitated for an instant, and then she shook her head. No, she said, you know I can’t do it.
So what about the shop, then?
Zindi turned, swinging her huge bulk sharply on her heel, and took the latch off its hook.
Jeevanbhai spoke rapidly, at her back: Listen, Zindi. God didn’t mean you to be a fool. Listen to me. I’ll talk to my friend and I’ll tell him to wait for you, in the road opposite my office, near the harbour. Don’t come into the office. Bring him straight here and take him to Hajj Fahmy’s house. Wear a duster if you have to, for once. Give him one, too, if they won’t let you in otherwise. Let him talk to Alu if he wants. He may even want to take a few pictures. Afterwards take him out of the Ras, put him into a taxi and send him home. But I want you to tell me what he does and what he says. So come to the Souq the next day – day after tomorrow. Come to the Durban Tailoring House at nine. I’ll be there. We can talk safely there. And the very next morning you can start setting up the shop. Do you hear me? Zindi?
Zindi threw the door open and hurried across the courtyard. It was time to feed Boss again.
Chapter Fifteen
Reflections
Zindi knew that today she would have to walk all the way to the Souq. Very few share-taxis or buses passed by the Ras after dark, and those that did never stopped.
She left her house at a quarter past eight, for she knew it would take her three-quarters of an hour, probably more, with Boss in her arms. At least there weren’t any lemon-squeezers to carry. She remembered at the last minute to take her torch; it was very dark in the Ras at night, and even someone who knew its lanes like the lines on her own hands, as she did, stood in danger of tripping over a sleeping dog or stumbling into some newly sprouted shack. As an afterthought she decided to take a stick as well – many of the stray dogs in the Ras were known to turn vicious at night.
It took her longer than she had expected to reach the Maidan al-Jami‘i. She had to stop twice on the way to rest: Boss was growing heavier every day. By the time she reached the Souq it was almost nine-thirty. Most of the jewellery- and electronics-shops had already shut down, but a few of the cloth-shops were still open. She didn’t expect to see a light in the Durban Tailoring House. She knew Jeevanbhai would be in the small room behind the shop. Drinking, probably. He could wait: it would do him good; make him drunker. Maybe he’d drink himself to death.
Zindi wandered into one of the cloth-shops and looked it over. It took her no more than a glance to see that it was all wrong – some shelves were too crowded, some too bare, and there weren’t enough sample leaflets on the counter. She left it, nodding to herself. She knew she could do better.
The Durban Tailoring House was dark, as she had expected; but she could see a sliver of light under the door to the room at the back. She rattled the shop’s heavily padlocked steel collapsible gates. The door at the back opened promptly, and she saw Jeevanbhai silhouetted against a rectangle of dim light. He stood there for a moment, fumbling for his keys, his shoulders slightly stooped, his hair neatly combed as always, his teeth an iridescent ruby streak in the darkness. As she watched him unlocking the gate, the helpless, unnameable rage that had kept her awake for two nights suddenly poured into her head and began to throb in her temples.
’Aish Halak ya Zindi? he said, smiling politely, as he pushed the gate back along its rails.
Zindi crashed past him into the shop, knocking him aside with her shoulder. Why is it so dark here? she snapped. Spinning around, she slammed the edge of her palm on the light switches. Two neon lights flickered on, filling the shop with their silvery glare.
Zindi, what’re you doing? Jeevanbhai protested, sheltering his eyes and groping for the switches.
Zindi blocked his way with an outstretched arm. What’s the matter? she said. Why d’you always hide from the light like a cockroach?
She reached over the counter to the shelves and yanked out a roll of cloth. With jerks of her hand she spread several layers of the cloth over the counter. Then, very gently, she laid Boss on the improvised cot.
Yalla, go on, ya Boss, she whispered loudly. Piss, shit, do what you like. It’s our cloth now – yours and mine. We’re buying it tomorrow.
Zindi, Zindi, Jeevanbhai muttered in mild protest. Can’t you do all that later? I’ve been waiting for you. Come into the other room, and tell me …
Listen, Zindi snarled, spraying his face with spittle. I did what you said, for my reasons. Mine, not yours. I’m not your bought slave like Forid Mian. So don’t give me any orders. I’ll do what I want, and I’ll tell you when I want.
She reached into a pocket in the waist of her fustan and pulled out a tape measure. Laying one end of it at the corner of the shop, beside the collapsible gate, she measured along the wall to the far corner. Then she started at another corner and measured the breadth of the shop.
Just four metres by three metres, she said to Jeevanbhai. Very small; much smaller than it looks.
It’s big enough, Jeevanbhai said.
Have you got the documents ready?
In good time, Zindi, he answered guardedly. In good time.
‘Good time’ means tomorrow morning, as you said that day. You’ll remember that, if you want to keep all your bones together.
Zindi lifted Boss, together with his makeshift cot, off the counter and put him on the floor, in a corner. Then she put her hands and shoulders to the counter and pushed with all her strength. It scratched out a tooth-jarring squeak as it moved across the floor.
Zindi, Jeevanbhai shouted over the noise, what’re you doing?
Zindi dusted her hands and leant back to look at the counter. It was now parallel to the far wall. It looks better this way, she said. And it’s more convenient. Tomorrow I’ll get it painted nicely.
The counter had left behind a long, rectangular plinth of dust near the shelves. Zindi picked a dead scorpion out of the dust and threw it out through the bars of the collapsible gate. Look at this filth! she said. I’ll have to get it properly cleaned tomorrow.
All right, she said briskly, looking round the shop. Now I’ll do the shelves.
Zindi, Jeevanbhai said, can’t you do that tomorrow? Come inside now and tell me what happened.
Zindi smiled grimly at the unfamiliar sight of Jeevanbhai pleading. First, she said, tell me, what time shall I come tomorrow?
Any time.
No, I want a definite time. I�
��ll come in the morning, at eight-thirty, before the other shops open. I want to take the signboard down and shut the place up, while I rearrange it and get new stock and all that.
Jeevanbhai spat disgustedly through the collapsible gates into the corridor. All right, he said, come at eight-thirty, come at seven, stay the night, do what you like. Can’t we decide all that later?
No; the important things come first. So you’ll be here at eight-thirty with the documents, then?
Why do we want documents? Can’t we just have an agreement, between friends?
Yes, we could if we were friends, but you haven’t had a friend since your wife died. So listen, you bastard, you bring those documents with you tomorrow or I’ll tear out your cock and stuff it up your arse with a pneumatic drill. Do you understand?
Jeevanbhai backed away from her, licking his teeth. Yes, he said, I’ll bring them.
Fine, she said and shoved him towards the room at the back. We’ll go inside now.
Before going into the room, Jeevanbhai switched off all the lights in the shop, while Zindi put Boss back on the counter. The only light in the tiny room at the back came from a table-lamp that had been turned to the wall. Jeevanbhai cleared files and papers off a folding steel chair and gestured to it. A half-empty whisky-bottle and a few glasses stood on the desk, weighing down the litter of flapping paper. Jeevanbhai waved the bottle at her. Have a little bit?
Zindi made a face: A little bit.
So what happened yesterday? Jeevanbhai asked, pouring whisky into two glasses. He handed Zindi one of the glasses. She stared at the amber liquid for a moment, and then threw her head back and drained the glass.
A little bit more?
A little bit.
So what happened yesterday? Jeevanbhai asked again, pouring whisky into their glasses.
Nothing very much happened, she said. She took the glass and gazed into it, holding it in both hands. Then she pinched her nose tightly shut and tossed the whisky down.
I met him exactly where you’d said, she began. He was standing in the road outside your office and I went straight up to him and spoke to him in Hindi.
He was absolutely flabbergasted. Who knows what he’d expected? His mouth fell open and his eyebrows shot all over his forehead. He looked as though he was longing to run back across the road into the office. Perhaps he thought there had been some kind of mistake; that he was talking to the wrong woman. And then, when he understood that it wasn’t a mistake, he began to behave like a schoolboy who’d run into his headmistress with a cigarette in his mouth. In the taxi he sat squeezed against the door, as though he was afraid of being beaten, and began to talk about birds.
Birds!
It seemed as though he wasn’t really in his right mind. It grew even worse when he was trying to explain what he did for his living. He seemed to be choking on his tongue. In the end he managed to say: I’m a journalist – but he didn’t, for one instant, look as though he expected to be believed.
The whole thing seemed more and more difficult as the taxi drew closer to the Ras. How was anyone going to take this tip-top suited-booted babu into the Ras without people knowing exactly what he was the moment they saw him?
But it was the Ras itself which solved that problem.
From a long way away it was clear that something unusual was happening around the embankment. The driver saw it, too, and he slowed down. There was a crowd at the foot of the embankment. Even at that distance, they could hear shouts and a tremendous noise. Then a large part of the crowd broke away and went up and over the embankment, and disappeared into the Ras.
They saw then what had drawn the crowd – a car lying on its side. The taxi-driver stopped the car when he saw the crowd. He was a Ghaziri and he tried to stay away from the Ras, he said, when it looked as though there’d be trouble. So they had to walk the last part.
There was so much confusion, nobody looked at them twice. They slipped into the crowd and worked their way down the embankment to the car (she holding him by the hand). It was a new Peugeot, balancing on one side, with a wheel still spinning, and a door open in the air, like a trapdoor. There was a jagged, gaping hole in one side of the windscreen, and what was left of the glass was all frosted over with cracks.
Someone must have been hurt, she said to somebody.
No, he said, whoever he was, no one was hurt. It must be true, she thought to herself. There’s no blood anywhere.
So how did it happen?
It was all to do with the mugaddams, the labour contractors.
Adil al-Azraq, the blue Moroccan, and his cousin had come to the Ras in their car that evening as they often did. When they reached the embankment, they lit cigarettes, gave the horn a gentle push, and sat back in their seats, expecting people to come running up to them, as they usually did.
But there was a surprise waiting for them. They sat for a full five minutes, which they’d never done before, and there was still no sign of anyone. They blew the horn again, a little less languidly this time. It made no difference. They blew it again, and again, until at the end of twenty minutes, when the setting sun had heated the car into an oven, Adil the Blue had his elbows jammed on the horn. But still they wouldn’t get out of the car and go into the Ras – their prestige wouldn’t let them.
Then the men appeared – not running, but in a compact, dignified group. There were a lot of them there – about thirty, including Rakesh and Zaghloul. Abu Fahl was in the lead. They’d decided that he’d speak for all of them.
Abu Fahl didn’t waste any breath on greetings. He went straight up to them and said: Listen, I have to tell you something. Here in the Ras we’ve all been thinking a lot about dirt and germs and money. We’ve managed to do away with almost all the money in the Ras. The big problem is you mugaddams. With you it’s money, money, money all the time: take money, hand out money, take back money. It’s a dirty system: it spreads germs like a squid spreads ink. We’ve decided to do away with it. From now on we’ll go to the contractors and architects ourselves, all together, and we’ll work out our own terms, and we’ll carry the money we make safely to the bank, in envelopes. You can join us if you like – you can come and work with us. But – salli-’ala-n-nabi – no one here will work for a mugaddam again.
Adil the Blue and his cousin were fuming and steaming all through this, especially Adil, whose burnt blue cheeks had turned purple. He’d have run Abu Fahl over right then, but his cousin stopped him. He saw Zaghloul and twenty-eight others standing around the car, so he squeezed Adil’s elbow to keep him quiet and smiled at Abu Fahl and said: Abu Fahl, why not send all these people away, to the bottom of the embankment, and then we’ll talk?
Abu Fahl could see no harm in that, so he told Zaghloul to take the others off, and he went to the side of the road and watched them go down the embankment.
The moment the others had gone Adil the Blue started the car and threw it at Abu Fahl’s back.
Abu Fahl spun round, as quick as a top, but the car was just a hair away from his chest. So, instead of running, he jumped at the bonnet and managed to roll over safely on the other side. He picked himself up, ran to the side of the embankment and looked for something to throw, but there was nothing there, except a few pebbles. So he slipped his watch off his wrist – it was a heavy old automatic, not one of those thin quartz things – and hid it in his palm.
Adil the Blue looked back, and he was surprised to see Abu Fahl still on the embankment, waiting for him. He wheeled the car around and went straight for him, steering carefully. Abu Fahl waited until it was almost on him, and then in one movement he hurled his watch at the windscreen and jumped aside.
The watch was thrown with such force that when it hit the windscreen there was an explosion of glass. Adil lost control and the car rolled over the side of the embankment.
The others were already running up the embankment, and they followed Abu Fahl down to the car. Nothing had happened to Adil or his cousin, though they both had a bit of glass in
their hair. Soon enough they got over the shock and climbed out through the door at the top.
Abu Fahl would have beaten them to a pulp right there, but Zaghloul and Rakesh stopped him. No, they said, we shouldn’t do anything to them ourselves. We’ll take them to Hajj Fahmy and see what he has to say. And so they led them off across the embankment and into the Ras.
And it was only a few minutes after that that their driver stopped his taxi and told them that they would have to walk the rest of the way.
In a way it was the best thing that could have happened. In all that confusion and excitement, it was clear that nobody would have the time to notice who was who, and who was wearing a duster and who wasn’t. So she decided not to waste any more time and led the Bird-man straight to Hajj Fahmy’s house.
There was a huge crowd there already. The news had spread everywhere: Adil al-Azraq had tried to kill Abu Fahl, but Abu Fahl had been too quick for him, and they’d caught Adil and his cousin and taken them to Hajj Fahmy’s to be judged.
She had to use all her strength to clear a path for them through the crowd, holding tightly on to his arm all the while so that he wouldn’t fall and end up being trampled to death. Once, she wondered how this young bird-lover was taking the crowds and the Ras and the excitement; whether he was frightened or nervous.
He wasn’t. The arm she was holding so tightly was perfectly steady, though damp with sweat. He seemed curious, mainly: he was staring all around him, at the crowds, peering into shacks, watching people, looking at the colourful dusters on their arms. It was as though he were watching a film.
Pushing, shoving, thrusting her weight at sharp angles, she managed to clear a way for them right up to the door to Hajj Fahmy’s courtyard. By wriggling a couple of tall Baluchis out of the doorway she managed to get a good view of the courtyard. The crowd had formed a huge circle around the courtyard now. Adil the Blue and his cousin were alone in the middle of the circle, squatting. Someone handed them a couple of cigarettes, and they lit them, and puffed away furiously. But that wasn’t enough for them. They asked for tea. Hajj Fahmy sent a message into the house, and Professor Samuel made a note in his pad, and soon a tray with two glasses appeared.
