Animal’s People

by Indra Sinha

  Endless the way home is, there’s moonlight on the ground, splashed all over, making familiar ways strange, it’s glittering in the gutters, washing over small unlovely things, transforming them into precious objects. At the corner of the Chicken Claw where the gulli goes to the main road a piece of shiny foil from a tobacco sachet has been lying for at least five days, on the main road itself, as you cross to Kali Parade, that heap of bottles is diamonds, on the wall the letters HELL WILL REIGN look black in the light of the moon, close by is a blown-apart rubber ring, a dead truck tyre in which weeds have rooted. How well I know this city’s zameen, its ground, from an altitude of two feet, this is my home earth, discarded things are my city’s treasures, this wall is its history plus also where its history finished without warning when no one was expecting it, on a night of moon alchemy just like this. Past the rusty gates I go, past KILLER KAMPANI and skull, the moon is shining on my arms and hands as they pace forward before my face, I am a silvery beast casting a four-footed shadow on the factory wall.

  I’m heading home and normally I would go across the railway into the nearer end of the Nutcracker and thus to Paradise Alley but there is a shorter way. On this night perhaps because I am thinking of Elli I turn north by the tracks and make my way along the wall to the hole where I took her into the factory. Looking through I see leaves caught by the moon. In, then, the smell of chemicals rises to meet me, softly I move through the long dry grasses, thumping my fist on the ground every few paces to warn the snakes that I am about. Of snakes there’s no sign, but after ploughing a hundred yards through thick grass I come to one of the dead zones. Suddenly there’s rough growling, one of the guardians it’s, maddened by the moon and glaring, but I know how to deal with dogs, I take a step towards it and say “Brother dog or bitch sister I can’t make out which, quit your tamaasha I am in shit just like you are, so fuck off and find someone else to annoy.” The creature turns and disappears into the bushes. Nearby is the poison-khana with its pile of poison rocks and its stairs to nowhere. Seized by an impulse, I don’t know why, I find a ladder and start climbing. Instantly the whole structure vanishes, it takes a second to realise that a cloud has blotted out the moon.

  Up on the highest platform, where the death pipe starts its solo climb into the sky, I’m sitting with my arm round its blackened stack, the city is mapped out below in a million pricks of light. Join the brightest dots, you get the lines of the main roads. High above the lake is a cluster of lights, it’s Jehannum, a little way below some lesser lights where a few hours ago the demo was held. Around me the factory is a region of darkness, a black shape outlined by the low glimmer of slums. Now a strange thing happens. In one instant all the lights of the city go out, between them appear pale shining shapes, triangles, squares, oblongs, in Chowk the minars and dome of the mosque are shining, it’s like my eyes are playing tricks, then I realise that the moon is out again.

  There’s a battle going on between earth and sky, war is being waged between the light of human beings and the light of the moon, I am thinking of Somraj, because his name means lord of soma and soma is the moon and also the golden sun. Somraj, what will become of you? This animal, with his inner eye, sees you crushed beneath heavy blows. My news will wreck you. I think you will die, Somraj, because death has been in your mind a long time. That dream of yours, the one which keeps coming back, which won’t leave you, Nisha told me, it’s your memories of that night, but in the dream all the things of then are happening over and over again. You are in a street where lights are reduced to pinpricks by a thick cloud of gas. In this dim kerosene light dying figures are stumbling past. Nafisubi Ali’s child is standing at the corner, crying for his mother. The boy’s crying grows louder until in your mind it becomes a raga, one so awful that no instrument except the human throat can sing it. This raga fills you with fear and despair. Your mouth opens and emits no sound. The dead in their hundreds are sprawled in the roads, they are leaning half upright in doorways, their mouths are open and they are singing, out of their throats the death raga pours in green gusts, it swirls round them and flies in your face, in that green burning fog your world is lost.

  My arms are round the pipe, now cold, up which the poisons flew to kill a city. The pipe is moaning. A hundred feet above my head wind is blowing across its mouth, the death pipe’s wailing like a giant flute. I put my ear to its rough surface and listen. Inside are voices and it’s like they are screaming. It’s the dead of night, in my head is this howling that makes the hairs of my neck stand on end. I have the power to understand these things, I know right away what this is, it’s the dead beneath the earth, it’s their bones and ashes crying out in rage against their murderers. The dead are shrieking at me that the good earth has been defiled with blood. In thick clots the blood lies, won’t be washed away by rain. The blood cries out for justice. Once the earth has tasted blood it craves more, now the killers must be killed. This is the old and the real law, it’s the price that must be paid for murder, the price demanded by the furious spirits beneath the earth. Give us justice, screams the blood. It promises years of disaster, years of illness, if I do not take revenge. It warns me that ulcers will eat my flesh with white and weeping sores. Things will come to haunt me, nightmares from hell, sent by my murdered parents, hideous night demons, unnameable horrors of the night. If I do not take revenge they will come for me. Whips, like scorpion-stings, will flay my body and drive me out of human society. Never again will I share food or drink with human beings. I’ll be an outcast. For me there’ll be no sanctuary, no relief, no end to suffering. No one will shelter me. I will end up friendless, despised by all, and then, worn away by endless pain, I’ll die. This is the song of the blood. The dead are rising up in the factory grounds, they are coming, looking as they did on that night, with eyes dripping blood they are coming, they’re coming for me.

  There are times to be afraid and there are times when you can be pushed just so far. This day’s had too much of everything, of mayhem and excitement and betrayal and emotion and confusion, I too have fucking had enough. I say to the dead, who the fuck do you think you are, to threaten me with your reedy fucking complaints? If you had power you would have long ago taken your revenge, you are as powerless as us living, all you can do is wail in empty pipes, nothing can you do to the people who took your lives, they will grow fat and we will die and they will build factories above our graves and use our ashes for cement. Another thing, I yell, descending. You can hurl what curses you like, but I’ve already lost my place in the human world, plenty of people already despise me, but you are dead and I am alive.

  “Here’s a filament of fluff, spun on a farting breeze. So it crows, so it crows.” Long before I reach home I hear Ma’s thin voice scraping at the sky. It’s past midnight. I’m afraid, the shouting in my head’s getting louder. I slide in under the plastic sheet to find Ma sitting on the floor crooning to herself. “Hear it all-hallowing out of the sea, one, three, look there’s four, how many more, how many more? Hello, Animal.”

  “Ma,” I say, “I am in a mess.”

  “Off its scales see the sea pouring, hear it roaring, just like snoring, shut the door shut the door, ha ha there’s no door.”

  It’s not a good time to be hearing this strange crap. “Ma, come back from wherever you are. It’s important.”

  She listens carefully as I pour out my story.

  “Ma, what should I do?”

  “Be a dear and fetch my name. I had it just a moment ago, I must have put it down somewhere.”

  “Your name?”

  “Yes, dear, I seem to have lost it.”

  “Where did you have it last?”

  “Well, I was reading, by the lamp there.”

  “I shall have a look for it.” I make a show of hunting round, lifting things, looking in corners. “Oh look, here it is, it’s in your book. You must have used it to mark the place.”

  “Are you sure?” she says, peering at me with milky eyes. “I don’t see it.”
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  “It’s here.” I’ve picked up a leaf from the floor and blown it towards her. “Your name is Ma Franci.”

  “That’s not my name, that’s a leaf,” she says, getting cross. “What have you done with my name? Have you taken it?”

  “What would I do with your name?”

  “Well, you need a name, don’t you?”

  “My name is Animal.”

  “Oh look, it’s all right,” cries Ma. “Here it is. It was keeping my place in Sanjo’s book.”

  Sleep is impossible. Talking to Ma solves nothing. She informs me that there are a lot of angels operating in the Nutcracker, they seem to be planning something big. “All’s arranged,” she says. “Isa’s on his way.” What kind of world is it where you have to ask advice of the insane?

  The dog, as if sensing my turmoil, comes to the foot of the ladder and whines, but she can’t climb up. Out of the darkness comes Ma’s voice singing.

  Qui vient là frappant de la sorte

  Qui vient là frappant comme ça.

  Ouvrez donc j’ai posé sur un plat

  De bons gâteaux qu’ici j’apporte.

  Toc! Toc! Ouvrez-nous la porte

  Toc! Toc! Faisons grand gala

  After some time she says, “Animal, are you awake? Aliya is not well. I told Huriya to take her to the doctress, but of course the mad old fool didn’t understand a word, you must make sure she goes tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow, tomorrow, I want to cancel tomorrow.

  Above my head there are holes in the roof, through them I see the moon a silver ball and I think of all the people in this world who are also looking at the moon and I wonder what they are thinking.

  TAPE EIGHTEEN

  I wake to earth’s shivering. It’s vibrating like when a train goes by a mile away and you can feel it under your hands and feet but you’re not really sure what’s happening. If you put your ear to the earth you can hear it as well, a kind of growling. Only today it’s not a train and it’s not the platoons of the poor on the march and it isn’t me, if you are crazy enough to put your ear to the earth today you will regret it because the earth is shivering not with fear but with fiery, blistering heat. The Nautapa has begun.

  Eyes, Nautapa is nine days of heat so fierce it fries any part of you that touches the ground. You know how air shimmers over hot ground, well during the nine days, the air dances so violently you can’t see straight, it’s like looking through rippling water, but water is the one thing there isn’t. Bang, it’s gone. Being out in the Nautapa is like breathing inside a clay oven. They say that when these nine days arrive the rains are just around the corner, which is just as well because suffering this bad can’t last long. Things crack, wilt, start to give up. The air is sucked from the sky and out of people’s lungs.

  On this first morning of the Nautapa I get to Huriya’s and Hanif’s place to find that Ma was right. Aliya is coughing, her forehead is virtually glowing.

  “Could Elli doctress come?” the anxious old people want to know.

  What can I say? Can’t tell them I don’t want to face Elli the Betrayess, besides she’ll be busy. Nobody but me knows the truth about her so things will be going on as normal, the clinic will be full of people waiting to be seen.

  “Aliya will have to go there,” I say. “I’ll take her.” I can’t see how I am going to do this. Autos, which need paying customers, don’t bother coming to this part of the Nutcracker, anyway, there’s no money to pay for one. I could go to the Chicken Claw and look for Bhoora but he might not be there plus it would take a long time. Neighbours who could have taken Aliya on a bicycle are not at home. There’s a rusting bike a few doors away but even if it works it will be no use to Huriya, and Hanif’s blind. As for me, despite my boasting this Animal can neither ride nor push a bicycle.

  “I can walk,” says Aliya, but outside is wicked, the best part of a mile to the railway crossing and the road past the factory, however there is no other plan, so we set off.

  As we step outside the heat hits. “Lean on me,” I tell her, “we’ll stop if you get tired.”

  “I can’t hold your hand,” she says. “You’d fall over.”

  “True. So hold just here.”

  Yip! The ground burns like hot metal. I’m wanting to dance, skip from shade to shade, but the poor kid is gasping, her mouth is wide open and her hand on my neck is a flame, hot and angry like when my back began to twist.

  “Listen Aliya, and I’ll tell you a story I heard from Ma. Once there was a man called Jacotin, who had a massive nose. He was a lonely fellow and lived all by himself.”

  “Wasn’t he married?” asks Aliya, brave she is.

  “No, he never found a wife. He was a bit simple, you see.”

  “Like you.” She’s limping. The earth is biting our feet with fiery teeth.

  “Me? What crap. There’s nothing simple about me. The older this Jacotin got the lonelier he became.”

  “Granny says you’re a bit touched.”

  “Does she now? He could hear music, could Jacotin, that no one else could hear. He called it the music of angels.”

  “Yes, she does. Because you talk to people who aren’t there.”

  “It was a sweet music beside which human music seemed dull.”

  “Animal, I’m all dizzy.”

  “Aliya, listen.” I’m very afraid for her. “I am going to be a horse and you shall ride on my back.”

  We stop in the shade of a wall and look for a foothold from which she can scramble onto my shoulders. “Aliya, wrap your arms round my neck, hold tight to my hair.” Thus, with her small burning body on my back I’ve started again, thinking it won’t be long before we meet someone who’ll help.

  It gets to be a question of counting steps. When you are a human you can count left right left right, but with four feet left hop right hop, it’s not so straightforward. For the next hundred paces I’ll think of water. There’s no water. A hundred is too many, do twenty at a time, think of soft grass. The grass in the factory is by now long and dry, the grass at Jehannum last night smelt of earth, the kind of rain that comes from rich men’s hosepipes. Last night, how I wished last night had never happened. How will I break the news? I don’t have the guts to face Somraj, so I should tell Nisha, but I don’t want to upset her, so I must tell Zafar, because he will know what to do.

  By god how each step hurts. Aliya is whimpering, I’m afraid she’ll slip and fall off. Still the track is empty. I can’t really lift my head to see how far away the road is, her fingers are wound in my hair, I might send her tumbling. She’s pressed so close, I can feel her heart thudding. It’s racing. Farouq told me once that the heart is made to beat a certain number of times, the number for each is different, but the heart keeps count, when it has done its stint, it stops, not one extra beat will it give. He said it was best to make the heart beat slow, that way a lifetime can be stretched and I said some might ask why anyone would wish to stretch a life like mine? Meanwhile Aliya’s small heart is rushing her life away and never will I reach the road.

  How much time passed I do not know, but there comes a moment when I hear voices and start calling for help, people come running. Some men lift Aliya off my back and carry her while I fetch along behind on my blisters.

  When we reach the clinic I’m all done in. Miriam Joseph takes one look at Aliya and runs for Elli, who’s furious with me. “You should have phoned, she could have died,” says angry Elli.

  I cannot look at her, who must at this moment be play-acting, for how else could she so badly betray us? I say nothing. I have nothing to say. What use to say there is no phone in the Nutcracker? Without a word I turn and go across the road to Nisha’s house where I can bathe my hands and feet in cool water.

  It’s evening before Somraj brings news. Aliya was so bad that Elli said she must go to hospital. This of course terrified Aliya. Like all Khaufpuris she believes that if she goes into the hospital she will never come out again, so Elli kept her in her own bedroom all day with
ice and fans and medicine to take away the fever. By evening Aliya’s temperature was down. Elli took her home in Bhoora’s auto and ordered him to bring her and her granny Huriya to the clinic each morning without fail for the next seven days. She’s sent word for me to go over and have my hands and feet looked at.

  “It’s too late.” No fucking way am I going there.

  “Elli’s waiting,” says Somraj.

  “Sir, I have to get home or Ma won’t eat tonight.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Nisha says, “how will you get home like that?”

  I tell her I am feeling much better. My hands and feet are pretty tough, any time other than Nautapa it would have been no problem.

  Nisha says, “No, you must go to Elli. After our meeting Zafar will take you home. I’ll send food for Ma.”

  Well, is there ever saying no to Nisha? To keep her sweet, I promise to go to Elli’s, but what I actually do is sit outside Somraj’s house and listen to the voices inside.

  “No violence,” Zafar says. “This I insist, there must be no violence.”