by Indra Sinha
It’s past eleven when she leaves the clinic. She’s wearing a burqa to disguise herself. Still she keeps to the dark side of the lane.
Elli walks up the wide road leading to the Chowk. It’s late, but the place is still full of people. No one takes any notice. In a quiet place she removes the burqa and puts it into a bag. Then hails an auto.
The Jehan-nabz Hotel is clean and softly lit. In the garden are dinner tables and waiters with turbans like roses clearing away dishes. Elli checks her reflection in a case of swords and guns that had belonged to the Chhoté Nawab. The few months in the Khaufpuri sun have browned her skin. The receptionist is discreet and efficient. “Of course at once, madam,” he smiles, shortly afterwards reporting, “The gentleman is coming right away.”
Nearly a year since she’d last met Frank. She wonders if he’s changed, it would be odd to treat him like a stranger. But Frank looks as familiar as ever.
“Elli!” He catches up her hands. “You look great.”
“So do you.” He looks elegant, completely relaxed. Never ruffled, always charming. She remembers how proud she had been when he used to sweep her into a room full of strangers, announcing, “Hey everyone, this is my wife,” and how jealous she would get when the other women flirted with him.
“It’s okay to kiss you? Just a chaste one?”
She offers her cheek, trying to hide the tumult inside. What can I offer him, she’s wondering, to make him do what I want.
“Two Jack Daniels, long as the glass is tall,” he tells the hovering waiter.
“Frank, is there somewhere private we can talk?”
“There’s my room,” he says, with a smile.
“Not that private. Perhaps we can walk in the garden.”
When they’re outside and he takes her arm, she is not sure how to react. The hand steering her elbow is the old possessive Frank. He’s still thinking of her as his wife.
If her ex-husband notices her awkwardness, he gives no sign. “Back home it’s late spring,” he says. “You should see the flowers. They’re out everywhere. Just before I came out here, I went walking in the woods with your folks. We saw all those things you used to tell me the names of. Let me see, cow’s tongue, that’s yellow, right? Bloodroot, Indian pipe, that little thing that looks like a dog’s tooth, Dutchman’s bitches…”
“Britches,” she says, with a genuine laugh. “How are my parents?”
“Martha’s having a grand spell. Your dad’s good. He said to tell you they are looking forward to your visit.”
“That’s good, I’m looking forward to it too.”
Frank hesitates. “Apparently you’re bringing some friends.” Uh oh, she seeks escape in her glass, but the drink is going straight to her head. They have come to a group of wicker chairs in the middle of the hotel’s wide lawn. Ahead is the blue glow of the swimming pool and near it a tree hung with coloured bulbs.
“Your dad says you’re thinking of marrying an Indian guy. Is this true?”
“We’ve talked about it.”
“Are you serious?” Now his voice is a river of concern, as if she were a child about to do something stupid. Same old Frank, so reasonable, utterly lacking in imagination and adventure.
“He’s a singer,” she says, as if this explains everything.
“A singer? What is he, in a band?”
“He sings classical music.” How can she begin to describe Somraj? “Indian classical,” she adds, to stop him making a comment about opera or Pavarotti.
“Do you love him?”
This question pierces her. Don’t ask me that, she thinks, or I’ll cry. “No more questions,” she says, trying to smile. “I’m not on oath here.”
“The witness will answer,” he says in his light teasing manner.
“The answer is that you don’t consider marrying someone if you don’t love them. At least I don’t.”
“Ouch,” he says, making a face. It was the way he always used to end their quarrels, make a funny face, make her laugh.
“You used to love me.” He’s heading straight back into territory she wants to avoid. “You know I want you back.”
“I’m sure you’re better off without me.”
Frank begins to complain about his life in Pennsylvania, how it’s work, all work these days, no time for fun.
He’s stalling, she suddenly realises. He’s wondering why I am here.
“Frank,” she says, “I’ve come to talk to you about something important.”
She begins to tell him about the people she has met in Khaufpur. Of Hanif Ali, left blind for twenty years by the gases of that night, of the woman who poured her poisoned milk onto the ground. She tells him about me, the strange, half-mad boy who goes on all fours, and believes he’s an animal. She describes the horrifying things she sees every day, and tells how the Kampani’s refusal to share its knowledge of the poisons is hurting people.
“Elli, this is awful, but you know that people like me don’t have control over those kind of decisions. All I can do is my own job.”
“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 whom 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 m
ake 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.”
