Animal's People: A Novel

by Indra Sinha

  “Nowhere you’ve ever heard of, I grew up in Coatesville, Pennsylvania.” She says this like her mind’s elsewhere.

  “That’s an odd sort of name.”

  “What’s odd about it?”

  “Just sounds odd. How do you spell it?” In this way, Eyes, I’ve tried to make sure of the name of her city.

  She’s sitting at her piano looking at me. “Animal, listen to me. The clinic will open soon. Soon’s we’re up and running I’d very much like to examine you.”

  “Ghostville? Ghostville Pencilmania?”

  “Coatesville,” she says, laughing. “C-O-A-T-E-S…”

  Feet first then hands, I’m down the stairs, out of that place.

  Farouq says that hiring an internest booth is cheaper than a hotel room so often couples go there to have sex. No doubt this is why people stare when Nisha and I walk in together. I look for a rag but can’t see one. There are two seats, I’ve hauled myself up onto one, Nisha’s slid her neat little bum onto the other. Her fingers are tapping on a flat thing covered with rows of buttons, somewhat like those of a harmonium. First time I’ve seen a computer, a screen there’s, like a tele except instead of movies it shows pictures plus Inglis words.

  Nisha asks the internest to tell her all it knows about Elli Barber from Coatesville, Pennsylvania. She waits for an answer, but nothing at all comes. Again and again she tries, there is a Veterans’ Medical Center in Coatesville but the internest knows not a single Elli Barber.

  “She’s using a false name,” Nisha says. “Doctor doing an important job in a hospital, her name would surely be on record. You would expect the internest to have that kind of information.”

  “How come it knows so much?”

  “It just does. Look I’ll show you something.”

  On the screen appears a familiar building.

  “Well fuck me sideways,” says I. “It’s the Pir Gate.”

  “Because this is Khaufpur dot com.” She’s explained that it’s a part of the internest that belongs to Khaufpur. It has pictures of all our famous places.

  “Bugger me backwards! It’s Abdul Saliq!” Pigeons are flying up round the huge red arch. Down in the shadows, if you look hard, is the tiny figure of the Pir Gate beggar with his hand out. I had never realised that the internest would know the same people I do.

  Nisha’s ignored the bad words, she’s caught my excitement, says she’ll show me more. Next thing the screen’s filled with huge golden letters of Urdu which say Aawaaz-e-Khaufpur, plus there’s someone tall, white-clad, looking twenty years younger than I’ve ever seen him.

  “Nisha, it’s your dad!”

  “So handsome he was,” says she with a sigh. Taps more. The internest has gathered dozens of pictures of Somraj. Young Somraj with his guru Sahadev Joshi, him they used to call Lajawaab, peerless. With various musicians. With the governor of the state. With other stars at All India Radio. Singing with hands raised in rapture. When Somraj performed he’d get into a kind of trance, he’d utter without knowing what he was singing. Meaningless sounds just for rhythm, such as na ta da da ni odani ta re tanom da ni yayali na ta na yayalom, even these he sang with such conviction that some swore they were poems, or else mystical Persian syllables with the power to summon djinns.

  Many amazing stories about Somraj the internest knew. It told how he’d be out taking the air with his mates and would sing the stuff he saw. He’d be walking by the Upper Lake and sing fish leaping at sunset, or he’d see a V of cranes passing overhead and fire off a song at them. Once in Bombay during the monsoon he stood on Marine Drive and matched his Miya ki Malhar to the wildness of the sea. Waterspouts were bursting forty feet above his head but Somraj refused to move till he’d caught the swing of the waves. Forty minutes he stood on the parapet, drenched by heavy falls of saltwater, and sang, a crowd of Bombay-wallahs gathered to listen. “Who is this guy?” they asked in their atrocious accents.

  Said his spoonies, “It’s the famous Aawaaz-e-Khaufpur.”

  “Khaufpur? Where’s that?”

  Says Nisha with a sigh, “Obviously, this was before that night.”

  “Does it know stuff about you, Nish?”

  “Let’s see,” she says and taps buttons. The internest has got hold of a letter that Nisha wrote to a newspaper. Also it has taken a picture of her plus Zafar at a demo.

  Of Zafar are countless reports, the internest has followed him around, taking pictures of him at a meeting in Delhi, throwing paint on the Kampani’s office in Bombay, with Farouq addressing a rally in Khaufpur, no mistaking there’s his unruly curls and flashing specs. Sometimes Zafar wears his old red turban, in one pic it’s fallen off because he’s being kicked by a policeman.

  “Nisha, look me up, yaar. What does it say about me?”

  “Darling it doesn’t work that way,” she says, after we have examined many scenes of owls, frogs, panthers and etcetera.

  “Why not? About everybody else even Farouq it has things to say. How come it knows nothing of me?”

  “It will, darling, one day, I’m sure. You are going to do some great work in the world. Then everyone will know about you.”

  When Zafar hears we’ve found no trace of Elli Barber and she’s here under a false name he says he has reached wit’s end. “On the one hand, people want this clinic, on the other, it may destroy all that we’ve worked for. If we can get the Kampani into court, they’ll have to build a dozen such clinics.”

  Eyes, it amazes me that such a fellow as Zafar, who shifts his opinion daily, is considered a great leader. Each night at Nisha’s house he holds discussions with different groups. Comes the turn of folk from the Nutcracker, among them’s Chunaram, for like I already told you, Zafar has taken a shine to him. Zafar says Chuna’s a pirate, plus it’s good he has nine fingers because a pirate must always have a bit missing. “What Chunaram’s missing,” says I, “is a fucking heart.” Zafar laughs and reminds me not to swear.

  So Chuna’s there among the rest, they’re hacking the usual question of what should be done about Elli Barber. Says Zafar, “No doctor of her name can be traced. No option there’s, we must ask people to avoid her clinic.”

  Somraj, who’s a fair man, differs. “Our people have great need of a clinic like this. Let them go and derive benefit from it, afterwards if we discover that it is a Kampani clinic up to no good, we can ask them to stop going.”

  Zafar says, “Abba, if a man is dying of thirst and you give him cool water, can you afterwards snatch it away from his lips? Better he waits a little longer.”

  Somraj says, “So you are proposing a boycott?”

  Chunaram starts laughing and says that Wasim and Waqar can bowl out Inglis batsmen even with an orange. Well, everyone’s amazed, until he explains he’s remembering something said by an Inglis cricketer called Boycott. After this everyone starts arguing about cricket and the point of the meeting is lost.

  It’s now, after all this that Chunaram says, “Animal, I forgot, Ma Franci was wandering round shouting and raving. Some women tried to take her home, she wouldn’t go. They said her head was burning.”

  “Forgot? You fucking idiot! Has someone shat in your brain?”

  “Told you now, haven’t I?” he’s called after me in an aggrieved tone as I’m out of there. “Busy man, I’m. Lot on my mind, I’ve.”

  It’s late when I get back. Place is dark, I find Ma Franci huddled in a corner. No fire there’s, she’s shivering.

  “It wouldn’t light, Animal,” she says. “The matches are all gone. I used the last one.”

  “Don’t worry, Ma, I’ve got my Zippo.”

  “God bless you, you are a good boy,” says she out of the darkness.

  Ma knows that I hate using the Zippo because I don’t want to wear it out, but this is an emergency. I fetch out the lighter, flip the lid back, grind my thumb on the wheel. Zip-zip-zippo, le bois prît feu! Shadows go jumpfrogging round the tower. I’ve wrapped Ma in a cloth and settled her by the fire.

  Now
there’s some light to see by she’s peering at me. “What are these scratches all over you?”

  “I fell in a bush,” says I who’d been up the tree again.

  She sighs, “Such a difficult child, marchais toujours au rhythme de ton propre tambour.” You’ve always marched to the beat of your own drum.

  To change the subject I start telling her what happened earlier at Pandit Somraj’s house. When I get to Zafar wanting to boycott the clinic, Ma says the Amrikan doctor is bound to have a bad time and won’t be able to do anything good for the people of this town. It isn’t just that the Khaufpuris refuse to talk like humans, but babble like macaques and orioles, the real reason the Amrikan will come to grief is because she has no way to reach their souls. “People here have suffered too much. Outsiders don’t understand.”

  “I don’t,” says I. “And I’m an insider.”

  “Such hurts can’t be healed.”

  “Doctors are in demand.” Somraj at the meeting had spoken of the lack of help for the poor.

  “Doctors are no use. Things are getting worse. In the old days, people would talk properly to me. The Apokalis took away their speech.”

  I stare at her, wondering how anyone can get it so totally wrong.

  “I cope, it’s not with words that you treat such wounds. The people ache, their bodies are bottles into which fresh pain is poured every day. Their flesh is melting, coming off their bones in flakes of fire, their bones are burning, they’re turning into light, probably they’re becoming angels.”

  Dear oh dear, and here’s me thinking she’d been making sense.

  “Tonton lariton, that’s what it is, my smallest of Animals, tonton lariton. See, people don’t realise how deep is the river. The Apokalis has begun, and the whole world’s full of it.”

  Her old woman’s voice begins to sing…

  Quand j’étais chez mon père,

  Quand j’étais chez mon père,

  Petite à la ti ti, la ri ti, tonton lariton

  Petite à la maison.

  On m’envoyait à l’herbe pour cueillir du cresson.

  La rivière est profonde, je suis tombée au fond.

  Never have I heard her rave so. She’s still shivering, despite the fire, and putting my hand on her head, I can feel the fever.

  “Ma, have you eaten?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Rest by the fire Ma, stay wrapped up, I’m going to get food.”

  I can cook two things that Ma loves, baingan bharta and chai, both are good for warming a person from within. For the first I’ll need an aubergine, big and round, plus garlic plus oil, for the chai I need tea leaves, or a pinch of tea dust, too some sugar. I also need water. Some people, like Somraj, have taps that give water inside their own houses, but this is the Nutcracker. I’ve headed off to Aliya’s house and found her holding a school book to a lantern.

  “Hello Animal,” says old Huriya. “What brings you here so late?”

  “Need to fetch water,” I say. “Ma’s not well. Has a fever.”

  “That good woman,” says Huriya, sucking in breath and shaping it into a prayer for Ma. “I do hope it’s not serious. Come Aliya, Animal needs our help.”

  “Can I ride you to the pump?” asks the child, putting down her book.

  “What, is he a horse to be ridden?” scolds her granny.

  “No, a donkey,” replies cheeky Aliya, but I’ve said it’s okay I don’t mind, my shoulders are broad and strong, I’ve given rides to countless kids. So she’s climbed atop, complete with large water pot, and it’s away to the pump, her heels urging my ribs, she’s shouting trrrr, hup and the like.

  “Good you can read,” I tell her. “What was the book about?”

  “It’s a story,” says she, “about a girl called Anarko who won’t do as she’s told.”

  “Like you, then.”

  “Huh, aren’t I coming with you? I work hard.” It’s true, she does. Her granddad Hanif being blind and all, and Huriya old, Aliya does all the water fetching, cleaning and more besides, plus goes to school when she can.

  “Only joking,” I tell her, “you’re a good kid.”

  This compliment earns me a hard kick to the ribs.

  Well, Eyes, with Aliya’s help the water is no problem because although Khaufpuri pump water stinks it is free.

  On the way back from the pump, Aliya’s walking ahead with the big pot balanced on her head, I call to her to carry on to our place while I knock on the door of the local shopkeeper, Baju. By this time it’s maybe ten at night, he’s probably in bed giving his wife one but my banging gets him up again.

  “Oh it’s you,” says he with a surly expression. “What is it?”

  “I need an aubergine and a teaspoon of tea,” says I with my sincerest look. “I’ll give you the money tomorrow.”

  “You haven’t paid me for the last time yet,” says Baju.

  “Listen, I wouldn’t ask, but Ma Franci is ill, there isn’t even a humble onion in the place, for the poor nothing is easy.”

  “Hope it’s not malaria,” says he, somewhat softened. “If it’s for Ma then there’s no charge.”

  “I’ll also need some sugar.”

  “Anything else?” he asks with a resigned air.

  So I give him the list. Garlic and then, because he’s offering, “milk, salt, a few cardamoms, some black pepper, thumb of ginger, cinnamon stick, couple of cloves.”

  “What? Is that all?”

  “It’s for Ma. You know what they say about proper chai, the old women say it will make a dead man warm.”

  “It must be malaria,” he says. “She has had it before. You’d better take some aspirins as well, if the fever hasn’t gone by morning come back and I’ll find something better.” As I’m leaving he says, “This lot’s on me, but mind you pay me for the last time.”

  Tight bastard.

  News of Ma Franci’s sickness must have reached the nuns because a few days later I come home to find her growling at the dog, who’s curled up with her paws crossed over her nose, almost it looks like she’s trying to cover up her ears. Ma isn’t swearing, not exactly, she does not use the kind of bad language I do, putain con, bordel de merde etcetera, which I was taught by a jarnalis français, he and I sat on a fallen log for half a day swapping gaalis, but Ma’s cursing in a way that sounds more terrible because she really means it, il vient encore, cet glos pautonnier, qu’il se morde sa langue de douleur. It means, again he’s coming, that…

  “Ma, what is glos pautonnier.”

  “A bad hearted person who eats too much.”

  Someone’s coming who is an evil glutton, may he painfully bite his tongue.

  “What is all this about?”

  “Son, these wretched people can’t let me be, again they’re trying to send me away from here. A padre is coming, I am supposed to go with him.”

  She shows me an envelope. Slowly I trace out the Inglis writing, Mère Ambrosine, St Joseph’s Convent, Khaufpur, over which someone has scrawled in Hindi, Ma Franci, About-To-Fall-Tower-By-Factory-Corner, Nutcracker.

  Ambrosine, so that’s Ma’s real name, all these years I never knew. The thought of her leaving gives a lurch to my stomach. This old woman who calls me son, she’s the only mother I’ve known.

  “I don’t want to go back,” she says. “What will I do there? It’s been so long, hardly can I remember that place.”

  “When will the padre come?”

  “The letter does not say.”

  I’ve right away gone to see Aliya’s granny Huriya Bi, Ma’s best friend in Khaufpur she’s, not a word of each other’s speech do they understand, yet sit cackling like a pair of old hens.

  “Maybe it is best for her,” says Huriya. She’s making tea, which she does whenever I, or anyone, comes to her house. Her wrinkled hands push twigs into the clay hearth, causing tiny flames to spurt under the kettle. That kettle with blackened bottom and sides, must be hundreds of cups of tea I’ve had from it. Let others believe in go
d, for goodness and a kind welcome I’ll believe in that kettle.

  “Dadi, Ma does not want to go to France, she wants to stay here. There she has no one, here are many who love her. We are her family now.”

  “The boy is right, what will she do in some foreign country?” says Hanif Ali, Huriya’s husband.

  “Animal, I think in the end Ma will do what she wants to do.”

  “Yes, so we must find a way to help her.”

  Ever since Ma’s illness I’ve had to avoid passing Baju, until I can pay him I’m having to dodge round behind his place through a labyrinth of huts to reach “I’m Alive” Ajmeri’s shop in Paradise.

  Paris has its Champs-Elysées, in Delhi is Chandni Chowk, even Khaufpur has Nilofer Road where the rich go to shop, we people have Paradise Alley, it’s that boulevard of dreams that runs from the corner of Kali Parade to the heart of the Nutcracker. Here is the shop of Uttamchand “I’m Alive” Ajmeri. This shop, to someone like you I daresay it’s not much, an open-fronted shack with packets of gutka and supari dangling from strings, twirling in the breeze, not so grand it’s as Ram Nekchalan’s shop in the Chicken Claw, which has a metal shutter, but it’s a step up from Baju’s hole in the wall. In I’m Alive’s place every lad in the Nutcracker buys his first cigarette, rupee a clope. Kids come bringing coins they’ve scrounged for kites and tops and marbles, those who can afford buy glass marbles, others like me had to use clay ones or pellets of dough baked hard in their mothers’ hearths, which, not having a mother I used to ask Huriya Bi.

  On this day I’m approaching I’m Alive’s from the back, when I hear kids up ahead shouting “Aiwa! Aiwa!” So then I know there’s a foreigner in the basti. From that way’s come someone wobbling on his bike. I’ve asked him what’s happening. Says he, “Arré, nothing it’s. Some jarnalis going into houses on Paradise along with a government-waali doctress.”

  Near I’m Alive’s place I find a crowd of kids with the proprietor frowning at them. “Bugger off,” he’s croaking. Like all shopkeepers, he hates children. “Fuck off, go upset your mothers.”