by Indra Sinha
“Why do I have to be your conscience?” she cries. “Make it your job. Can’t you see that hiding behind trade secrets is totally wicked? There are people back home who know exactly what those gases do to the lungs, to the eyes, to the uterus. Frank, I see young girls who bleed three times a month and others who have one period in five months. No one knows how to treat them.”
“When I get back home I can knock on some doors.”
“If they withhold information that could save lives, that’s murder.”
“Whoa Elli,” he says, “now calm down, I would like to help you if I can. I’d do most things for you. But there’s no point pretending I can do things I can’t.”
“You can try,” she says. “At least get the Kampani to clean the factory. Its poisons are in the wells, they’re in people’s blood, they’re in mother’s milk. Frank, if you came to my clinic I could show you. Specimens, I mean. Foetuses, babies that never made it. You wouldn’t want to see such things, even in your nightmares.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t.” He’s silent a moment, then asks in what ways specifically is the water affecting people’s health? What kind of illnesses are showing up? Has she seen the evidence with her own eyes? How can she be sure the chemicals in the factory are to blame?
Furiously, Elli cites names of chemicals, illnesses, people, her small hope is fading fast. Frank is here to do the Kampani’s bidding. Then again at least he’s listening and says he loves her. Suppose, just suppose, she can manage to touch Frank, to move him. All the Khaufpuris need is seven days.
“Elli I’m sorry,” Frank says. “I honestly wish I could help you.” They are approaching the tree, beneath which is a long table loaded with food. “You hungry? I can’t eat any of this stuff. I live on omelettes and fries.”
She says, “Frank I beg you. I’m pleading with you. You must stop this deal.” She clasps his arm. “Please listen to me, if you had spent any time among these people, you’d understand.”
He stands appraising her. “Elli, you are amazing,” he says. “Full of passion, infuriating, adorable.” He reaches out, unhappily she endures the touch of his hands on her shoulders. “I admire you,” he says. “I always have. No, admire isn’t a strong enough word. Elli, you know how I feel about you.”
“Then do this,” she says. “Do this for me. Please do it.”
“Can’t. It can’t be stopped.”
“Then delay it. Give these people their chance of justice. Delay it till after the hearing.”
“You want this real bad, don’t you?” he says. “There’s something I want every bit as bad. Can you guess what it is?” She shakes her head, not daring to think.
“It’s to hear you say you’re coming home.” He’s facing her, now he puts his hands on her shoulders. “Elli, you’ve done a great job here. Come home now. Hand over your work to local doctors and come home.”
“You know I can’t do that,” she says. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to, and I don’t want to.”
“Now you’re sounding like me,” says Frank. “There’s no way you can do what I want, no way I can do what you want.” He bends his head and kisses her on the cheek. “Sounds like we should make a deal.”
“What deal?”
He thinks for a while. “What if I can find a way to delay the agreement, to put it off beyond the date you mentioned? Will you come home?”
“Can you really do it? How?” It’s impossible, she thought, he can’t mean it, he’s a lawyer. If he did this, Zafar and Farouq needn’t go on their fast, and the Khaufpuris would get their day before a sympathetic judge. “You’d be doing such a good thing for the people of this town.”
“I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing it for you. And if I do it, you must come back to America. Promise.”
Sadness whelms up inside, as if the big lake under the hills has burst its bung and sent its waters rising swiftly and silently to drown her.
“I promise.”
TAPE TWENTY-ONE
There comes a banging at the clinic door. Outside is Bhoora’s auto, light on, engine’s ticking over. “Come,” he cries when he sees Elli, “there is no time, you must come right away.”
“What’s going on?” I ask. He says he has come to bring Elli doctress to the Nutcracker. Aliya is bad, her fever is worse, the old ones fear for her life.
“Let me come too,” says I, afraid for Aliya but also for Ma Franci.
“Quickly, madam,” says Bhoora. “Don’t worry about your clinic. Somraj Pandit has given orders it is not to be touched.”
Without another word she gets in and Bhoora guns the engine. Then we’re jolting along through night-time Khaufpur, with the auto’s narrow beam of light picking out a way. The road outside the factory is wrecked, it has been ripped to pieces, great stones and lumps of concrete lie in the middle, crowds are roaming around, inside and outside the factory, of police there is no sign, but a TV crew is outside the gates which are still lying flat, from the darkness inside the grounds come sounds of singing.
There’s a small group of neighbours gathered outside Huriya’s and Hanif’s house, from within comes the noises of weeping.
We find the old man with his granddaughter lying in his lap. Aliya’s face looks strange. She has rouge on her cheeks, her eyes are ringed with kohl, her mouth is smeared with lipstick. She is wearing a fancy new dress. Old Hanif’s fingers are moving over her face, as if he is trying to memorise its details.
Huriya is sobbing. “Save her, doctress sahiba,” she says. “God bless you, I don’t believe what they are saying about you. Save this child. She is all we care for in this life.”
Elli gently lifts the old man’s fingers from the child’s face.
“Why have you dressed her like this?”
“The angel of death is here in this city. When he comes for Aliya, he will see her looking well, healthy. Death will believe he’s made a mistake, he will not want to take her and he will go away.” He turns his eyes to the doctor he can’t see. “Won’t he?”
The doctress on her knees, bent over the child, listening for her heart, stands, but does not reply.
“Non Elli, non!” I’ve cried in français so the old ones won’t understand, may the anguish in my voice not give me away. “Pas possible! Fais quelque chose, je t’implore!”
Eyes, I won’t translate, there’s not a language in this world can describe what’s in my soul. Oh my poor friend, why did I never take you fishing? Come back and you shall ride daily on my back, my ribs you may kick as much as you like. Poor child, so sudden your going that your grandparents are still pleading with Elli to save your life. Oh dear old folk, a rupee’s worth of rouge, a street-corner lipstick, the angel of death is not so cheaply bought.
Now the old bugger too is crying, I cannot watch. There is something so cruel about eyes which may not see, but may yet shed tears. My own breath is coming in sobs, in gluts like the lungs are refusing it, and why should I live? No longer is there love, nor hope, it’s the death of everything good. Gone is Zafar, gone Farouq, hard enough is that grief to bear, plus I am aching from being beaten, but worse is the agony that now fills my body, wants to leak from my eyes, out of my mouth. O god if really you exist, how wicked you must be, how you must hate us folk to torture us so, while in the gardens of Jehannum the evil men are eating well and drinking wine, them you save while the poor go to the dogs, are you in heaven so starved of joy that you must take our best, our most precious, already you have my friends, call off your dark angel from this child, spare her life and I, Animal, who’s servant to no one, will be your slave.
Says at last Elli doctress in the language of humans, “C’est plus à moi.” It’s no longer in my hands. The child I loved is gone.
A weird keening cry comes from beyond.
“God be merciful!” says the old lady, Huriya, and Hanif lifts his blind eyes to the sound.
“Zafar bhai is dead!”
Again that voice calls, others answer in the name of god in wh
om Zafar refused to believe. So at last the news has broken. Like dogs howling, first one, then another and another, voices from afar are wailing, the eerie sound floats up over the Nutcracker, from all sides it seems the echoes are arriving.
“Farouq bhaiya is dead! God save us! Our Zafar bhai has died!”
A voice from inside me says, “Animal, this is the end of your carefree days.”
Another warns, “Do not let them see you cry.”
I run outside, never has any Khaufpuri heard me howl. The heartless stars glitter like knives above the city.
“Zafar bhai is dead! Farouq bhaiya is dead!”
“Bhoora, quick, we must go to Ma, then you must take us back to Nisha.”
“Come,” he says, “Ma is alone, let’s go.”
I tell Elli ten minutes, we will be back, then it’s the alley narrowing to a dirt track, the crossing over the rails, Bhoora knows the way well, so many times has he dropped me, finally we are bumping across rough ground with weeds glaring white in the auto’s beam. There’s light flickering inside the tower, outlining its opening. So she is there. The strange cries are still echoing over Khaufpur, drifting up into the night, where clouds are lit by a half moon. Like a tear, they said the moon was on that night, and is again on this night of tears. Poor Aliya, nobody shall miss her like I shall.
The dog comes running to meet me. She’s jumped and licked my face. This alone, which has happened a thousand times before, makes me want to weep. Animals keep faith. Inside, I find Ma sitting by the oil lamp, in her hand is Sanjo’s book, but she is not looking at the pages. By heart she knows this book. You could tear it to pieces, or burn it, and still she will remember every line, each word. She looks at me and says, “It has come, Animal my dear, this is the night of Qayamat, the end of all things.”
“Ma, don’t go out tonight. Tonight, you stay here, stay put. Keep the dog with you. Don’t set foot outside tonight.”
She laughs at me, it’s a horrible old woman’s laugh that sucks and gurgles from lack of teeth, like a witch she looks, a haadal, a wild-eyed spirit of the night, her hair is tangled like the roots of a tree, incredibly old is her face, the lamp making shadows of its every line, of each wrinkle, as if indeed she’s been hanging around since the dawn of time. “Shouldn’t I go out tonight? This is my night, it’s the night for which I’ve waited so many years. Tonight Animal, it’s me who’s dangerous. Let the world beware.”
Well, I have no idea what she means by this, but I don’t like the sound of it. “Ma, Zafar bhai has died, the whole place will go mad. It’s not safe for you outside.” I’m thinking that maybe in their fury people may turn on foreigners. Ma is well known in the Nutcracker, but who knows where her madness might take her?
“I don’t want to be safe,” says she with that mad cackle. “What do I care if I die? On this night of all nights, to die will be a blessing. Animal, the angels are here, thousands and thousands of them, they’ve come to make an end of this sinning, sorrowful world, tonight it will go up in flames, it will burn and shrivel into ashes and become dust. Who will mourn it? Will you? Tonight to this city, do you know who has come?”
“I don’t know.” In my misery I am thinking that maybe some big politician has come from Delhi, or some fillum star. It couldn’t be a nobody, could it?
“Tell me Ma, who has come? Is it the President of India?”
She lets out peals of laughter like the carillons rung by Jacotin of the nàs superbe. “You are so silly, Animal. Guess again.”
“Jacotin, avec son nas superbe,” I say, who feels like howling.
“Right you are to speak the language of the angels on this night, Animal, they’re coming for souls, mine maybe, and also yours.” It makes me shudder the way she has started saying this night, in the same way we always say that night.
“Isa has come,” says she, “and Sanjo. I reckon they’re here already. Long have I waited to see their faces, I must surely go to meet them. And do you know why they’re here, mon pauvre petit? Because on this night the dead are going to come up out of the earth, like big mushrooms their skulls will push up out of the soil. Their bones will come up too, with a clickety noise like a train on the level crossing, and then all the bones will join together and they will walk again. Tonight, mark my words, this city will be full of the dead.”
“What of those who were burned?”
“Rain will fall, their ashes will get glued together and then the people they came from will gradually reappear. God made Adam of dust, ashes will be no problem for Him. Animal, why do you think this is happening here in Khaufpur? It’s because there are thousands upon thousands of dead here ready and waiting. God wants the Resurrection to get off to a good start.”
From outside Bhoora calls, “Hurry Animal, I too must get home.”
“Ma,” I tell her. “Ma, I love you dearly. Do not go out without me. Stay here, I will be back soon.”
“Where are you off to?” she says, her manner suddenly normal again. “Such a child you are, nothing you’ve had to eat, already you’re off again. Look at you, covered in bruises. And that black eye, you’ve been playing kabbadi again. Come, son, eat. There’s a little rice, a little daal.”
“Stay here, Jara,” I command the dog, I swear if she could have nodded she would have done. Then I am back into Bhoora’s auto and we are gone.
Elli looks exhausted, full of the despair of this terrible day. She climbs in beside me, closes her eyes and does not speak as we jolt out of the Nutcracker and back to Kali Parade. Another surprise. The streets are empty, the crowds of earlier have vanished, but still the weird howls are still going up over Khaufpur, on this night something deep and dangerous is rumbling, the sound of people behind closed doors plotting revenge. Twice in four hundred yards, on the road past the factory, we’re stopped by nervous soldiers with guns. Elli they eye with suspicion but Bhoora tells them she’s a doctor out on a mission of mercy. So then they warn us there’s a curfew, we must get off the streets right away. The rumbling grows louder, and for the first time in my life I see a tank, a huge gun sticks out of its head like the horn on a rhino beetle. When we get to the Claw, Elli’s gone without a word into her clinic. Almost before I can dismount, Bhoora’s turned his auto, headed for home. Me, I’ve headed into Somraj’s house for Nisha surely needs me.
Nisha does not cry, but neither does she say a word. She sits in the small garden where the pond is now dry, the Nautapa has sucked up its water and the fish are living in a plastic tub. On nothing her gaze is fixed. She knows, of course. Must. She has heard the keening.
“Nisha, could I bring you something? Tea?”
“No thank you.”
“May I sit with you?”
“If you want,” she says.
“I would like.”
“Then come and sit.” So we sit, neither speaking, I don’t know how she is staying so calm. Maybe it is that screaming, praying, crying out for help, these are things that people do when there’s some hope left, but let go of hope and nothing is left but wind in the grass.
Our long silence is broken at last by the sound of singing. The words I do not understand, but the meaning I catch is of such deep sadness, maybe it is better not to understand.
Nisha stirs. “Well,” she says, “there’s supper to prepare.”
“I will help you.”
In a small voice she says, “It’s just you and me now.” Then giving me such a pitiful look, she cries, “Oh Animal, why did Zafar leave me?”
“He was a hero,” I say, meaning it. “He was too good for this horrible world.”
She shakes her head. “They are wailing for Zafar, but I was the closest to him, and I cannot cry. Nearly, I was his bride. Look.” She shows me her wrists which are scratched and bruised.
“I broke my bangles like a wife should. I went to see him. I went with my father, but the tent was empty. Zafar and Farouq were gone. People said police and an ambulance had come, their bodies were taken to the hospital.”
“Did you go to the hospital?”
“Yes, but they were not there. The hospital denied they had come. So then we thought they’ve been taken to a military hospital, or maybe to prison, we began hoping they were still alive.”
“Did you ask the police?”
“There were disturbances. Dad said it wasn’t safe to be out. We came back.”
“Your father, is he okay?”
She gives me a look. “What is okay? It’s like he’s made of wood. Is that good? I don’t think so. Dad is full of guilt. He says all of this could have been prevented if Elli’d had a chance to explain herself. She wanted to tell him, long ago, he says, but lacked courage. She went to Jehannum to plead with her ex, she was trying to save Zafar’s and Farouq’s lives.”
“But why do I still feel as if she has betrayed us?”
“I guess it’s hard to trust someone,” she replies, “if they have been keeping secrets from you. Some deep part of you always knows. You can never really get close to a person like that.”
I sit staring into the tub, in its green water the backs of rescued goldfish can be glimpsed among whorls of weed. God forgive me, how many secrets have I kept from this girl?
“Nisha,” I say, taking her hand, “Zafar asked me to look after you.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want anyone to look after me.”
“You can’t grieve alone.”
“You think I’m grieving? I was. For days I have been crying. Every tear that was in me I’ve cried. Of grief there’s none left in me, but something worse.”
“I will help you. Let me be here with you.”
“What I feel is anger. So much anger it’s going to blow my head off.”
“I too am angry. The whole city is angry.”
“But I want to rip things and tear and smash them,” says this most gentle of girls. “I am so angry with Zafar that he did this, I’m so angry with myself that I did not stop him. Oh, I want to take a knife and carve out my womb and throw it in the street for the dogs to eat. Of what use is it now?”
