Animal’s People

by Indra Sinha

  Low are the doorways we come to now, perfect for a four-foot animal. I know a lot of people here, so I’m in and out, calling greetings to those inside. People come stooping to their thresholds. Some stare. Others beckon us in but I tell them we can’t stop.

  It’s old Huriya’s house I’m heading for, an earthquake-erected room with a floor of bare earth. The air is made delicious by the smell of wood burning in the hearth. I love the scent, plus these people, Aliya’s grandparents, Hanif and Huriya, she’s squatting kneading dough on a board.

  “Hello Dadi, what’s cooking?”

  “Hello Animal, I’m making rotis for his lordship’s meal.”

  Hanif’s bent in front of the cage in which are his two green and purple parakeets. His fingers feel for gaps between the wires, when he finds one he feeds in a seed, one seed at a time. He’s looking not at the beautiful birds, but up into a corner. Hanif hasn’t seen a thing since that night.

  “Who’s this you’ve brought with you?” the old lady asks.

  “Oh no one, just a jarnalis.”

  “Another one?”

  “Well you know, Chunaram collects them.”

  “Will she have tea?”

  “She’s Amrikan, there’s no way to ask her.”

  “Well, if she can’t talk, she can’t refuse,” says Huriya, reaching for the pot in which they store water.

  “Don’t waste it, Dadi.” Huriya’s old, the pump’s a long way off. “We’re not stopping long. We’ve just come from the Chicken Claw.”

  “A guest in the house and you talk of waste!” She starts unscrewing a paper containing some black tea leaves. “I’ll send the child for more later. So what’s the latest from the Claw?”

  “Haven’t you heard? Yesterday the foreign-waali doctress was trying to entice people into her clinic. But still no one’s going.”

  “Yes, we know about that,” comes the gruff voice of the old man, Hanif Ali. “I don’t agree with it.”

  “As if that Kampani has not done enough wickedness,” Huriya says. “Make your friend comfortable. Ask her to sit.”

  “She’s not my friend, she’s a jarnalis.” Elli pulls a face, useless jamispond she’d make. “So why don’t you agree with the clinic, baba?”

  “You’re hearing me wrong,” says the old boy, giving a harsh cough. “I don’t agree with what’s going on. A clinic is a clinic. So what if it’s paid for by the sisterfuck Kampani? Don’t they owe us for the harm they’ve done? Isn’t our own granddaughter sick and needing good treatment?”

  Elli says to me in Inglis, “Call the child. I’ll look at her.”

  “Not a word of Hindi does this fool jarnalis speak,” I’m shaking my head sadly. “Aliya’s out there somewhere. Let me call her.”

  “Leave the child be, we have a guest. Will she take something with her tea?” Huriya gives Elli an encouraging smile. “These rotis are nice and hot.”

  Elli’s looking as if she wants to say something, but she mimes no thank you, and returns the smile.

  “She seems almost to understand,” says Huriya. “Her eyes are a little close set, but she’s quite pretty really, isn’t she? In that bizarre way that foreigners are. It’s a pity her clothes are so indecent.”

  “Hah! Fine thing is this,” says the old bugger. “An indecent woman in my own house and I haven’t the eyes to see her. What a cruel fate. Her voice is sweet, does she have good tarboozas?”

  Ouf! Shot, sir! I’m creased up laughing. Elli is impassive, which makes it even funnier.

  “You be quiet,” says his wife. “Don’t go embarrassing yourself.”

  “Baba, you were saying about this clinic?” Good idea to turn the talk away from Elli’s melons.

  “Well, I want to talk to Zafar about it,” Hanif grumbles. “If it is a good clinic why shouldn’t we take Aliya there, poor child? Animal, when will Zafar brother come?”

  “I don’t know, baba. Zafar brother is an important guy. Everyone wants him. I guess he’ll come soon.”

  “Inshallah. Where are you taking the foreigner?”

  “Round and about. To hear people’s stories. You could tell her yours.”

  “Mine? Who’d want to hear my story?” But you can see the idea tickles him, I guess he’s never been asked before. Then he remembers. “What’s the good? She doesn’t speak our language.”

  “Never mind, did you ever read anything good a jarnalis wrote?”

  “Me read?” He points at his eyes. “What, like you ride a bike?”

  “I can ride a bike bloody,” says I. “Arse to handlebars, hands on pedals, look between legs to see where you’re going. Easy. One day I’ll show you.”

  “What nonsense,” chuckles the old man. “Such a prize idiot as you I think there’s never been. How is Ma Franci, recovered yet from her adventure?”

  “Day by day going madder.”

  “It was a sweet time she spent with us,” says Huriya, reaching for heaven’s kettle. “Like a schoolgirl she was, all naughtiness plus pranks.”

  “She’s talking a great deal about her childhood. Plus also angels.”

  “I pray for that good woman. At the end of time when God judges us humans, I just hope He remembers to judge Himself as well.”

  “Tauba tauba tauba,” says Hanif, touching his cheeks. “Don’t talk that way, old woman. Animal, when you see Zafar be sure to tell him that the child needs more medicine, her coughing is worse.”

  “Well, you can tell me,” Elli suddenly says in Hindi.

  Such a silence there’s. Even old Hanif turns and sends his sightless eyes searching for her. “Animal, she speaks. Why didn’t you tell us?”

  I shrug, open my mouth, out’s come nothing but a giggle.

  “I’m the doctor you were talking about,” says Elli. “I’m the one who opened the clinic that everyone’s afraid of. I’m not a monster, I’m not from the moon and I hate the Kampani as much as you do.”

  “Tauba tauba tauba,” says Hanif again. “For shame, Animal. Madam, great apologies, don’t think us rude.”

  “Wasn’t me talking about tarboozas,” I’ve said.

  Says Huriya, placing a glass of tea and a plate with a roti in front of Elli. “This beastly boy deserves a good slapping.”

  “What is wrong with your granddaughter?” asks Elli, but first she must taste the tea, also the roti, which Huriya has sprinkled with sugar plus a little coriander leaf. When she’s pronounced both to be delicious the old folk begin to tell how Aliya has been ill for almost a year with a cough and fevers.

  “Where is she?” says Elli. “May I look at her?”

  The old man lifts his head and calls, “Aliya!”

  “Aliya! Aliya!” shout the kids in the doorway.

  Presently the child appears, steps shyly forward. One reason I’m so fond of Aliya is she’s cheeky. Cheeky in kids is good. It’s a real shame for a kid to be non-cheeky.

  “Hi Animal.”

  “Hi again Aliya.”

  Elli asks in a soft voice, like she’s cooing to a pigeon, “Aliya, how long have you been coughing?”

  “Forever,” says Aliya. “I’ve not been well for ages.”

  Elli’s produced her doctor’s dangling thing which she must have hidden in a pocket, she listens to Aliya’s chest. “Aliya has an infection. I need to find out what it is. I’ll do a throat swab, then I will give you medicines, there will be nothing to pay. Everything is free. Bring her to the clinic.”

  Elli has that smile on her face, same as when she flung open her doors. It has again to fade because Huriya’s looking worried, shaking her head she’s.

  “Doctress madam, I’m so embarrassed, we can’t bring the child. We are not supposed to come.”

  “Who says you’re not to come,” asks Elli. “I suppose it’s Pandit Somraj.”

  “Not Somraj. Zafar brother. He says we must be careful.”

  “Oh, how I’d love to slap Zafar brother,” cries Elli. “Come on people, this is your granddaughter we’re talking about.
”

  Now everyone is silent. Aliya stands there looking from one to another of her grandparents. “Hey Aliya,” I tell her, “go and play.”

  Hanif gives a sigh. “This is stupid,” he says. “It’s cruel, by my life. Heaven knows how much we love that child. Nevertheless we must do as Zafar asks. We will come when he says we can come. Let’s hope it’s soon.”

  “What?” I ask, “does he hold you in his power like slaves?”

  “If you bring her, what will Zafar do?” Elli asks.

  “It’s not like that, madam,” says the old man. “Animal knows this. All of us here respect Zafar bhai, plus Somraj, that whole family. They are good people, they do a lot to help us poor. If we do what Zafar asks, it’s because we trust him, and we do it out of love.”

  “Strange kind of love,” says Elli. “It’s not them I blame, it’s this Zafar. He is one of Somraj’s gang. They’re all one family.”

  “Not one family,” I say sharply, this kind of talk I find upsetting. It’s like a dark cloud spreading in my mind, that first Hanif, then Elli, talks of Zafar as part of Somraj’s family.

  There’s a gaggle of folk now, following us from house to house. The kids are still there of course, but also plenty of grown-ups, who soon put a stop to the endless Aiwas. “Stop eating the doctress’s head, such a dhaap you’ll catch!”

  Word has spread that a foreign doctress has come to give free treatment, people are appearing from their houses, calling, “This way, come to my mine.” “No, mine first.” “There’s someone sick in here who needs help.” Well, someone’s sick in every house in the Nutcracker, in many houses everyone is sick. Elli’s quickly into and out of a dozen houses. All want treatment, but not one is willing to come to the clinic. Time after time there is the polite, embarrassed refusal. Elli’s disbelieving. “These people have nothing. Why do they turn down a genuine and good offer of help? I just don’t get it.”

  Seeing how unhappy she is, I try to find something to say that will make her feel better. “Elli doctress, no surprise or shame. I understand because these are my people.”

  “So what the hell do I have to do to get through to these people of yours?” She cups her hands to her mouth and shouts, “HEY, ANIMAL’S PEOPLE! I DON’T FUCKING UNDERSTAND YOU!”

  Oh what glee among our young rabble. Forgotten is Aiwa, as we leave the Nutcracker we can hear the chorus of small voices gradually falling behind, “Hey hey, Animal’s People! Hey ho, Animal’s People! Hee ha, Animal’s People! Ha ha, Animal’s People! Don’t fucking, fucking, don’t fucking understand! I don’t fucking understand you!”

  Up Paradise Alley out of that place I’ve led her, across the railway tracks. Remembering that she understood français I’m thinking I will take her to meet Ma Franci, but when we get there of Ma there is no sign.

  “You live here?”

  Eyes, wherever a person lives is normal to them, but in Elli’s eyes is the same look that I have seen in Kakadu’s, Père Bernard’s and so many others.

  “Please, Elli doctress, will you take tea?”

  I’ve placed my hand into the hole in the wall where we keep our food, it is a somewhat nicer hole than the one in which Kakadu’s tape mashin is quietly rotting. Elli shrieks.

  “What is it now?” I’ve brushed a couple of scorps off the paper screw of tea leaves. Still angry I’m, that the world in its ignorance considers Zafar to be Somraj’s son-in-law.

  “Those things!” says she, pointing, as the creatures scuttle back to the wall. When their tails have safely vanished into a crack between the stones she turns to me and pigeon-coos, “Oh poor Animal, what a life!”

  “Look Elli,” I say, feeling like I want to explode, “I’ll tell you what disgusts me about this place, which isn’t what disgusts you, such as scorpions, filth, lack of hygiene, etc. It’s not that if I want a shit, I must visit the railway line…”

  “Hardly your fault,” says she, misunderstanding.

  “Not a question of fault. You foreigners talk as if the sight of a bum is the worst thing in the world, doesn’t everyone crap?”

  “Not in public, they don’t.”

  “There’s a lot to be said for communal shitting. For a start the camaraderie. Jokes and insults. A chance to discuss things. It’s about the only opportunity you get to unload a piece of your mind. You can bitch and moan about the unfairness of the world. You can spout philosophies. Then there’s the medical benefit. Your stools can be examined by all. You can have many opinions about the state of your bowels, believe me our people are experts at disease. The rich are condemned to shit alone…”

  “Please! No more!”

  “Okay. How did I get started about shitting?”

  “You said that it wasn’t that which disgusted you.”

  “Right. What really disgusts me is that we people seem so wretched to you outsiders that you look at us with that so-soft expression, speak to us with that so-pious tone in your voice.”

  She asks very seriously, “Don’t people here deserve respect?”

  “It’s not respect, is it? I can read feelings. People like you are fascinated by places like this. It’s written all over you, all you folk from Amrika and Vilayat, jarnaliss, filmwallass, photographass, anthrapologiss.”

  “I’m not a jarnalis, I’m a doctress. And I did mean respect. If I don’t give it, how will I get it? It’s clear to me how these people love Zafar, plus I do understand why, he treats them as equals with respect.”

  “Bollocks!” I don’t have such an idealistic view of people, who are shits. “These people love Zafar because he’s all they have. He’s the only ally they know. And he’s always there for them. That’s why they’ll turn out on demos with him, block roads, shout slogans.”

  “I too am there for them, they will get to know me,” says Elli, as if just wishing a thing can make it true.

  I’m in no mood to be nice. “You haven’t a hope. You are a good-hearted doctress but nothing do you fucking understand. Tell me please, what is that?” I’ve pointed at her wrist.

  “My watch?”

  “Yes, your watch. What do you need it for?”

  “To tell the time of course. Why do you ask?” Maybe she thinks I’m going to ask for her watch as a fee.

  “Elli, I don’t need a watch because I know what time it is. It’s now-o’clock. Look, over there are the roofs of the Nutcracker. Know what time it’s in there? Now o’clock, always now o’clock. In the Kingdom of the Poor, time doesn’t exist.”

  “You’re right,” says she, “I don’t understand.”

  “Elli, if you had no watch, your stomach will churn and growl and say, hey Elli, it’s food time, hey it’s still food time, hey don’t you hear me, it’s food time. What happens if you can’t afford food? When you can’t remember the last time you ate something? I’ll tell you. When it’s light there’s binding a cloth tight round your belly to squeeze out the pain, when it turns dark you’ve to drink plenty of water to fill your miserable gut. Hope dies in places like this, because hope lives in the future and there’s no future here, how can you think about tomorrow when all your strength is used up trying to get through today? Zafar says this is why the people don’t rise up and rebel.”

  Thus in my lousy mood do I rattle off the ideas of our leader, his vision of a people for whom there is no night and day, only a vast hunger through which suns wheel, and moons wane and wax and have no meaning.

  “Animal, I don’t know what such suffering is like, but it doesn’t mean we’ve nothing in common. There’s simple humanity? Isn’t there?”

  Cheap lying bastard, I’m. “No good asking me,” I tell her. “I long ago gave up trying to be human.”

  On the way back I’ve turned instead to follow the factory wall as it runs beside the railway. I’ve brought her here because if you want to understand Khaufpur and Khaufpuris, plus particularly how they feel about Amrika, this is where you have to start.

  “Elli, see inside there, it’s the factory. In there every
thing is just as it was on that night. Since then, hardly anyone has been in. Except me.”

  I start to tell her about what’s in the factory, Eyes, the very same things that I have already told you.

  She grips my shoulder. “Let’s go in!”

  Well this is not in my plan. “You can’t. Not allowed.”

  “But you do.”

  “That’s different. I’m an animal. I come and go.” If she gets in trouble with the powers-that-be, thrown out of Khaufpur maybe, what will become of my back? But Elli, like everyone, thinks only of what she wants.

  “Elli, you can’t go inside. People like you must get a permit from the Dippety Collector, Poison Affairs.”

  “FUCK THE DIPPETY COLLECTOR, POISON AFFAIRS!”

  Two fat tears are running a race down her cheeks. She turns away like she doesn’t want me to see. All the way back to the Claw we’ve walked in silence. My mood grows worse. Zafar married to Nisha, this thought grips my brain with red hot tongs. It’s me who should marry Nisha, no other ambition is greater than this, and walking upright on two legs is the way I’ll achieve it.

  I must repair Elli’s mood, I must show her that I am her friend. I was a fool to ask for a fee, nothing more must I do to upset Elli doctress. This very morning she took my X-ray, tomorrow she will send it to Amrika. Soon a reply will arrive. It will say come for an operation. This fucking hope grows wilder every day. When I return to Khaufpur after my operation, I will walk up and down the Claw. Nisha will not recognise me. She will see a young stranger, upright and handsome, there and then she’ll fall in love. She’ll forget Zafar, phhht, he’s gone. She will be besotted with her new love, desperate to marry him. Only one regret, in some part of her mind she will be wondering, what happened to my dear and faithful Animal, where has he gone? She will mourn for Animal who’s vanished no one knows where, but he will never return.

  Eyes, I’m not a complete cunt, I know these dreams are so much crap, but with fluff like this, once it’s there it’s there, and you see stranger things in the movies.

  TAPE THIRTEEN