by Indra Sinha
“Can you smell the flowers?” he asks, ending this new silence.
“The jasmine?” It’s like both of them are relieved to change the subject.
“They are not simply jasmine,” says Somraj, “they are raat-ki-rani, which means queen-of-the-night, the most powerful of all the jasmines.”
“Well, they certainly grow fast. They’ve climbed right up into the mango.” They glance up towards me, I nearly die of fright.
“I love the scent,” says Elli. “It reminds me of the jasmines my mother grew in our house near the forest. The scent is shining white, just as patchouli is a deep red note. Do you ever think of scents that way?”
“It’s intoxicating,” says Somraj. “Like a woman’s voice singing both high and sweet. A pure voice, yet the notes are grainy, diffused, glowing.”
Again a silence, seems to me they are gabbling just in order to reach these wordless moments when perhaps are thought things the tongue dares not utter.
“I am determined you shall sing again,” she says. Well, now she’s blown it, touching that forbidden subject which never must be mentioned.
“Alas, I think not.” To my surprise Somraj’s voice is gentle as before. “The breath of a singer is not ordinary breath. My father could take a breath and hold it for two minutes and then exhale it smoothly for one minute more. At first I could not do that, I learned slowly. I’d draw a deep breath and then recite a verse without inhaling. I had to speak clearly and slowly. When I could do this, I was given a longer poem, and a longer one. It came slowly, my father would get impatient and say it was a pity that breath could not be dissolved in water and given to me in a glass.”
“Who knows what can be done?” cries Elli. “I won’t let you give up.”
“Breath is everything,” says Somraj. “Sa can be sung in as many ways as there are ways of breathing. For a singer, breath is not just the life of the body but of the soul.”
This is the moment! She leans towards him, the lamp outlines her face in golden light, in her thoughts I hear a kind of confusion, all now depends on Somraj, does he see the effect he is having on this woman, has he recognised the effect she has on him? Surely now that dark gap between their heads will diminish, they will come so close that no longer will they have a choice. After that, anything could happen, a kiss, strokes, more, clothes off, him on her in the bed, oh I can just imagine her pale arms on his dark skin, but the gap does not diminish, Somraj is still as a statue, she settles back in her chair, and me, who’ve been imagining all kinds of things, it’s my nerves which are jangling, aiiee, que j’ai vachement envie de tringler, as they say in the human tongue.
It’s late when they stop talking. Somraj gets up to leave, she accompanies him down. After a few minutes she returns in her nightclothes. She’s climbed into her bed, carefully tucked in the mosquito net all around, but looks like she’s having difficulty getting to sleep. She tosses and turns and can’t settle.
Now is the time for my aching creature to have its freedom. I peer at it in the dark, what a relentless monster, no peace does it give me, always it’s demanding, demanding, in my hand it feels hot and stupid, swollen like a jackfruit. My beastly lund wants to be pointed at Elli, brute thinks it’s a kind of magic to mark her as prey, who’s in control here? I aim the fucking thing away. Big moths are flying in the tree, I’m thinking maybe I’ll accidentally shoot down one of them, what a dismal way to die.
That very night Zafar fell ill. I’d taken a big risk increasing his medication. His risk, not mine. The poor guy has had an appalling time. Nisha tells me that while her father was over at Elli’s, Zafar’s mouth became dry, he complained that insects were crawling over him. After this his heart started blurring like a tabla player’s fingers doing a fast solo. No way could he drive his motorbike. When Somraj got home from Elli’s, he found Zafar burning up and babbling. Somraj wanted to call Elli, but Nisha said no. Zafar’s heart had slowed to normal. They put him to bed, she sat with him most of the night.
All next day Zafar sleeps, by evening is feeling a little better, tells us of a dream he had in which he’s flying above Khaufpur sitting on a plant stalk, and while he is high over the clouds a crow comes along and flies by his side and asks if he has the time. “I am afraid not,” says Zafar, all polite, how irritating that he should display such perfect manners even to a worthless bird like a crow. “You seem a decent sort,” comments the beady-eyed shit-eater, “I will grant you three wishes.” Quick as a flash Zafar pours out his heart’s deepest desires, “The Kampani must return to Khaufpur, remove the poisons from its factory plus clean the soil and the water it has contaminated, it must pay for good medical treatment for the thousands of people whose health it has ruined, it must give better than one-cup-chai-per-day compensation, plus the Kampani bosses must come to Khaufpur and face the charges from which they have been running for so long and the court case against them should conclude.”
“Whoa,” says the crow, “I make that at least seven wishes.”
Says Zafar, “All these proceed from one wish, which is that simple natural justice should prevail.”
So the crow starts cawing with laughter. “What a fool,” it chortles, “to think that such a thing as justice is simple or natural. Why do you expect that the lawyers up at the Collector’s office wear silly little wigs and funny collars? If justice were simple what need for fancy dress? Why do they charge so much? If there were such a thing as natural justice, wouldn’t you be entitled to it, whether or not you could pay?”
“Undoubtedly you are right,” says Zafar, “but a wish however foolish is still a wish, and that is my first one.”
Says the crow, “Granting an impossible wish is even more foolish than wishing it. What is your second wish?”
Zafar without hesitation replies, “My people are the poorest on the planet, those we fight against are the richest. We have nothing, they have it all. On our side there is hunger, on theirs greed with no purpose but to become greedier. Our people are so poor that thirty-three thousand of them together could not afford one Amrikan lawyer, the Kampani can afford thirty-three thousand lawyers. So my second wish is that you go back to my first wish and make the impossible possible.”
“Impossible possible?” caws the crow. “This is more foolish than the first. And your third?”
Zafar thinks about this for a long time then he says, “I would like to see the face of my enemy.”
“Look then,” says the bird.
As the crow says this, Zafar looks down and sees himself, a small figure standing alone on the shores of a sea that stretches up and away to the edge of the world, which begins to flash like a neon sign. Over the horizon appears a city of tall buildings. It grows taller, pushing above the ocean. It sprouts huge buildings like tusks in a pig’s jaw. One building towers above them all, bleak, windowless, formed of grey concrete. The air around Zafar now starts to throb with pulses of purple and green light, a fierce fire howls in his bowels. The fire begins to consume him, his sight blurs, he has trouble focusing on the huge building.
The crow says, “Behold, the Kampani. On its roof are soldiers with guns. Tanks patrol its foot. Jets fly over leaving criss-cross trails and its basements contain bunkers full of atomic bombs. From this building the Kampani controls its factories all over the world. It’s stuffed with banknotes, it is the counting house for the Kampani’s wealth. One floor of the building is reserved for the Kampani’s three-and-thirty thousand lawyers. Another is for doctors doing research to prove that the Kampani’s many accidents have caused no harm to anyone. On yet another engineers design plants that are cheap to make and run. Chemists on a higher floor are experimenting with poisons, mixing them up to see which most efficiently kill. One floor is devoted to living things waiting in cages to be killed. Above the chemists is a floor of those who sell the Kampani’s poisons with slogans like SHAKE HANDS WITH THE FUTURE and NOBODY CARES MORE, above these are a thousand public relations consultants, whose job is dealing with protesters li
ke Zafar who are blind to the Kampani’s virtues and put out carping leaflets saying NOBODY CARES LESS. It is the job of the PR people to tell the world how good and caring and responsible the Kampani is. In the directors’ floor at the top of the building the Kampani is throwing a party for all its friends. There you’ll find generals and judges, senators, presidents and prime ministers, oil sheikhs, newspaper owners, movie stars, police chiefs, mafia dons, members of obscure royal families etcetera etcetera.”
The crow pauses to draw breath after this lengthy speech. Its wings brush close to Zafar’s face and blot out the light. Zafar, seeing himself down there alone, begins to despair, no matter how long and hard he works, how can he win against such a foe?
Says he, “This is not my wish. I asked to see my enemy’s face.”
“Third time impossible,” says the crow. “The Kampani has no face.”
It wheels away and vanishes and Zafar begins to fall from the sky. As he falls he sees the land of India spread out beneath him with all its forests and fields and hears his own voice crying agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast, hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast and he remembers that he is not helpless, that he possesses the invincible, undefeatable power of zero. Against that que dalle, zilch, nil, rien de tout, the Kampani’s everything stands no chance. Instantly, the patterns of the land dissolve to designs such as are woven into carpets by the Yar-yilaqis and others from Kabul to Kurdistan. Zafar, marvelling at the ravishing colours and shapes, thinks, “By god, in whom I don’t believe, if I could remember these I’d be a champion carpet weaver.”
Finally he sleeps, a deep sleep that lasts most of one day. He wakes free of pain but with his mind in turmoil and this thought chasing itself round his head: “I’m blind as a bat, mad as a hatter, red as a beet, hot as a hare, dry as a bone, my bowel and bladder have turned to stone, my heart runs alone.”
“Faqri you cunt, what did you put in those pills?”
After Zafar’s dream which everyone receives with awe, but which was really every old mantra he’d been regurgitating for years jumbled into one big druggy nasha, I’ve no choice but to stop the medication.
“Trade secret,” Faqri informs me.
“Don’t give me that.” Trade secret is a big joke in Khaufpur. It’s what the Kampani said after that night, when the doctors asked for medical info about the poisons that were wreaking havoc in the city. “What’s in those pills?”
He’s thinking about telling me, but taking his time, so to encourage him I lean forward and sink my teeth into his calf.
“Fuck!” he says, leaping back. “You’re a fucking savage, you are.”
“What’s in ’em?”
He’s rubbing his leg, looking aggrieved.
“Do I have to do it again?”
“Fuck off, no.”
“So what did you put in them?”
“Datura.”
“Datura?” I am not sure I’ve heard right.
“Yup,” he says. “I had a bit lying spare. I use it in my medicines, you know what a place Khaufpur is for asthma…” he hesitates, seeing my expression. “World capital of fucked lungs.”
“You stupid git.”
“Working, aren’t they?” says Faqri.
“Working? You idiot, I said to make him feel sick, not kill him.”
“Depends on the dose,” said Faqri stubbornly. “But I have a suggestion. Stop giving the pills to Zafar, take them yourself because it seems to me the real problem is your famous lund.”
Fuck Faqri, the bastard’s right, all this day I’ve thought of nothing but sex, it’s all I want. I want to fuck. Everyone’s at it, why not me? The whole world fucks away day and night, why am I the only one left out? Why shouldn’t I too have the pleasure, my thing aches with need of it, I mean need of the real thing, spit on your palm it’s not the same. It hurts when people hint, never do they say it to my face, that I should face facts, no woman will want me. Eyes, admit it, even you have thought this. Why shouldn’t I be wanted, even loved? Nisha loves me, okay not how I’d like, but she will when my back’s straight. It’s why even in his sickness I hate Zafar, he could have any woman, but he’ll take the only girl who treats me like normal, which by god I am, one day I’ll prove it by plunging this thing of mine into a living woman. I’ll pierce her and open her up until my cock is stroking her heart and she’s crying my name, “Animal! Animal! Animal!” and I will suck the sweetness of life from her lips.
Ever since he saved my life Farouq’s been acting like he’s my best mate. At his suggestion I must eat with him, drink chai with him, roam around the city with him. We should forget past quarrels and be chums, what a horrible thought. On the festival day of Holi, hardly a week after the fire walk, I’m in his flat near Ajmeri gate, where most of the Yar-yilaqis live, it’s the one place in Khaufpur where you’ll always find camels parked in the street. Farouq says to me, “Animal, Khã, today is your birthday.”
Well, that it isn’t. I don’t know on which day I was born, but it must fall close before the anniversary of that night. When I was smaller, and cared about such things as birthdays, there was no one to wish me happiness, so I’d pretend that the torchlight processions and the chants were in my honour, plus the burning of the Kampani big boss’s effigy was my party, because he was the monster who killed my parents.
“Nonetheless it’s your birthday,” Farouq insists when I’ve uttered all this. He gives a strange grin. “Must be, friend Animal, because I’ve a gift for you.”
“Such as?” I’m amazed, but also intrigued, usually the only gifts I get are those that I myself have stolen.
“It’s a surprise. Something you will like very much.”
Of course I am suspicious. I don’t think there is anything Farouq could give that I would like very much.
He’s looking me up and down. “Have you nothing to wear besides those disgusting shorts?”
“What’s it to you?”
Says he, “I’ve a mind to take you somewhere special.”
“Where?”
“For a special treat. Very special. Trust me.” The weird smile stretches itself like a mask across his face.
“Trust you? What am I, fishguts?” I’m trying to sound like I couldn’t give a damn, but the truth is he’s got me wondering. “What treat?”
“If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise,” says he. “It’s supposed to be a surprise. That’s the whole point.”
“When you tell me, won’t that be a surprise?”
“No, no,” says Farouq. “That would spoil everything. Let’s forget it.”
“Okay.” No way am I going show my disappointment.
“Pity. You’d have liked it,” says the salaud. “It’s a thing you’ve always wanted. When you know what it was, you’ll be kicking yourself.”
To this I make no reply, so we sit in silence, listening to the cries of those who are playing Holi in the streets. After some time Farouq says, “Remember when you nearly died, and I saved you from the fire?”
“I’ll never forget it, because you’ll never let me.”
“Don’t be that way. I got to thinking about you, you having a bad time and all, no chance of getting a girl, no chance of darling-mischief.”
“Worry about yourself,” I tell him, but he just shrugs.
“Don’t pretend you’re not always thinking about it.”
Fucker’s got a point there. It’s spring, when the balls grow heavy and the todger leaps to attention like a drunken soldier saluting every woman he sees. At this season, when every male thing wants to ghuss into the nearest puss, Somraj is giving Elli the glad eye, Zafar pills or no is probably having his way, and I’m the only one getting no satisfaction.
“I see lots of girls, can pound puss whenever I want.” Such shameful lies. I’ve been seeing a lot of Elli and Nisha, albeit without them knowing, I want to do it with Nisha but I’d do it with Elli, to be honest I’d do it with anyone.
“What rubbish,” says Farouq. “You’ve never fucked
.”
“Course I have. Done it loads. More than you, probably.”
“Well, well,” he says, “and there’s me thinking you were a flute soloist.” He sits staring at me. The stupid grin is back. Then he says, “Animal, yaar, let’s drink some bhang.”
“Well now,” I say, relieved to change the subject, “at last a good idea.”
Farouq’s fetched his bike, I’ve climbed on the carrier, and we’ve bumped away to the government shop in New Market, where they sell hemp balls ten rupees for four. It’s Holi and the streets are lost in clouds of colour. Every stall in the bazaar has put out baskets of yellow, pink, orange, blue pigments. Flings of powder come at us from all directions. We’re hit by rainbow squirts.
Farouq calls over his shoulder, “Hey Animal, later, we can go girl dousing.”
I should explain, Eyes, that Holi is a time when men claim they’re allowed to do whatever they want, get fresh, drench a girl till her blouse clings, give a little grope to her she-bits, she can’t say anything back. This is one reason why a lot of girls stay inside at Holi with their doors locked, at least that’s how it is here in Khaufpur. I can’t speak for the way it’s done in Bombay or New York.
We wobble back to his place, completely streaked in blue and purple and green. The hemp balls are like small round cow cuds, we’ve stirred them into milk, added sugar, plus, because it’s Khaufpur, a flick of salt. Pretty soon I am floating about sixty feet above my own head. Oh how I’m flying. The bhang is roaring ahead, so powerful it’s, must have been grown from seeds spat on by a snake. Eyes, if you ever drink this stuff be careful it can knot your liver round your eyebrows and weld your toes into your eye-sockets. Maybe erotic feelings come with bhang, because I can’t stop thinking about sex, recalling things I’ve witnessed from trees, frangipani and mango, my monster is beginning to stir, swelling it’s, lifting its blunt snout to sniff the air, blame the season, whatever, this troublesome phallus of mine is beginning to be solidly aroused.
