Animal's People (21 page)

“What are you doing?”

“Ever since that day I had the row with him, whenever I play the piano a loud music starts up from inside that house.”

“I know nothing about it,” says I, with perfect truth.

“Wait and see.” She begins to play her favourite, that piece that sounds like bells. Sure enough, after hardly a minute, comes the full throat of someone singing a raga.

“How long has this been going on?”

“A couple of weeks. I don't mind, I just play even louder. The piano can easily drown him out.”

So, both sides of the road it's the same complaint.

“Animal, your friends.” Her fingers are still jumping around the keys. “They are not much liked in high places.”

“Really?”

“The minister said they were ‘professional activists.'”

“Ha ha, is that all?” “Agitator,” “trouble-maker,” “ring-leader” etc., these are the words the politicians usually use to describe Zafar.

“Worse.” So then she stops playing and tells me what happened.

Eyes, I don't have difficulty recalling her words. Even after all this time, I've only to think of Elli, imagine her standing in front of me with her slightly too-close-together eyes plus too-tight blue jeans, it gives a throb to my zabri plus I can hear her voice speaking in my head.

Elli goes to the government building where Zahreel Khan and the other Khaufpur politicians have their offices. It's in the posh part of town, by the shore of the lake. It looks clean from outside, but inside it's filthy. She says, “At first I thought the reddish criss-cross streaks up and down the stairs were some sort of decoration, but then I realised that they were made by clerks letting fly betel-spit.” They send her to an office filled with steel cupboards, on top of them are toppling stacks of brown paper folders. Hundreds more folders are stuffed in sacks on the floor. Everything wears a thick shawl of dust.

Zahreel Khan's secretary does not seem pleased to see her. “The minister is rather busy. It's not possible to see him today.”

From inside Zahreel Khan's office she can hear a murmur of voices.

“But he's expecting me. I rang to say I was coming.”

“Nevertheless.”

“Then when can I see him?”

“Tomorrow he has a cabinet meeting, then he is gone to Delhi for three days. After this…”

“It can't wait that long,” Elli says. “There are sick people who need my help, they're being stopped from coming to my clinic. Some might die.”

The official points at the heaped up files. “Madam, we are dealing with claims that go back twenty years, what difference will a few days make?”

“I am sure the minister must have a few minutes free soon. I will wait here until he is able to see me.”

“Madam, you are wasting your time.”

“I'll be the judge of that,” says she. “What are all these files?”

“Each one is the claim of a person who was injured on that night. What you see here is just a few. We also have a godown full of dossiers, we have processed more than half a million.”

“May I look at one or two?”

“They are confidential.”

“They are public health records, I am a doctor, your minister personally assured me I'd have access to whatever information I wanted.”

“Madam, go ahead,” says the harassed secretary. Fed up he's with this pushy foreigner, but dares not be rude for his minister had opened her clinic. An hour passes. Elli is deep in the depressing records of Khaufpur's tragedy, when from behind Zahreel Khan's door comes a loud yell, plus a kind of a roar. It then strikes Elli that for quite some time she's been hearing strange tok tok sounds. In a flash she's up and at the door.

“Wait!” shouts the secretary, “you can't go in!”

Too late, she's in. First thing she sees is a tele screen on which are white figures of celebrating cricketers. A guy with some kind of bat, says Elli, who knows nothing of cricket, is walking off the field. Zahreel Khan is dozing in an armchair, a newspaper is spread on his lap. He wakes to find Elli smiling down at him.

“So sorry to disturb your meeting, minister,” says she. “I need a quick word.” Before he can protest, she's pouring out her problem.

“Arré, why are you still there?” says Zahreel Khan to his secretary, who's wringing his hands in the doorway. “Can't you see I have a guest? Send tea plus cake for two. At once.”

Then Zahreel Khan tells Elli she should not worry, in Khaufpur things move slowly, people are cautious, they stick to what they know. “Give it time and they will come crowding, you'll see.”

“It's not caution,” says Elli. “People have been told to stay away. The only reason I can get is that they are afraid I have come from the Kampani. You know that's not true. Can't you tell them not to worry?”

At this the minister looks miserable and even as she asks, Elli realises it is pointless. No one will believe a word he says.

“The people behind this so-called boycott, who are they?”

Hearing Somraj's name he scowls. “That bunch, they are troublemakers. Professional activists. Dear lady you should realise that they have an interest in promoting Khaufpur as a tragedy. Ask yourself, if the problems are solved, what will happen to their funding? It will dry up because there is no further need for it. For this reason, they are bound to oppose any and all efforts to improve the situation.”

“And my clinic is one of those efforts?”

“What else?” says he. “Why else are you here?”

Tea comes on a tray of silver, brought by a bearer in a fancy uniform. Elli who does not like tea with milk in, watches as Zahreel Khan sips his tea and eats cake. He has dainty fingers, for so large a man.

“Mr. Khan, why am I here?”

“My dear, who should know better than you?” Zahreel Khan's eyes have by now zigzagged their way to her blos.

“How was it that I wrote so many letters, for months I had no reply, then suddenly it was all go?”

“Permission in such cases takes time to arrange, obviously,” says he sounding aggrieved. “After all, it's a virtually unheard of thing, a foreign woman coming on her own, in a strange country.”

“What about Mother Teresa?”

“Idealism doesn't work in Khaufpur,” he says. “I think you are beginning to find this out.”

Elli tells me she could see his mind calculating how long it would take before she's worn down and broken by the heat, dirt and despair of Khaufpur.

“So are you saying there's nothing you can do?”

“I've already done all I was asked,” says Zahreel Khan, looking at his watch.

“Animal, I just don't know what he meant by this,” Elli says.

But listening to her words, I've felt a strong alarm, because again in her mind there's that uneasy darkness.

Elli's finished her tale of Zahreel Khan, now from across the road comes the sound of someone singing, it's
Dil Hi To Hai Na Sang-o-Khisht,
a ghazal of Ghalib's, I'm hoping Elli won't start pounding her piano and spoil it.

“Animal, the piano. Would you like to play?”

Okay, Ghalib I can hear any time, when will I ever again get a chance to play a piano?

“Come and sit here, on this stool.”

So I've climbed and faced the piano. “Now spread out your hands like this and place them on the notes. Play, one at a time, like this,
do re mi fa so la ti do
. That's what the notes are called.”

“This is the same as our
sa re ga
. So this one is
sa
,” I've pressed a key.

“Your
sa
is our
do
,” she says.

“And this is
re
.” Ding goes the next key.

“Your
re
is our
re
. Same name, same note, they're exactly the same in both our musics.”

“Now listen.” Elli takes over and plays wonderful clusters of notes, different from anything I have heard before. Somraj will play one note after another, very fast and graceful, but these notes combine to chime, they sing together, sometimes three, four, even five of them, each with a different voice, the effect is very beautiful.

“Okay, now you know the notes, let's make a tune.”

“How?”

“Just use one finger, like this.” She plays one or two notes, but then two together. So I've done the same.

“Think of some words we can fit to your tune.”

So I've thought of some words, and she's helped me make a song of them.

“That is so sad,” says she, laughing.

“If it is sad, why are you laughing?”

“I don't know,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “Maybe because otherwise I would cry. The idea of living without hope, it's terrifying.”

“Elli, it's just a song. This is how it is, in the kingdom of the poor.”

“I guess,” she says, “I was thinking of my mother too. In her bad times she didn't know what was going on, but she had sane moments too. She must have known her case was hopeless.”

“You learned to play the piano for her.”

“That's right. I learned all her favourite pieces, they're still all I know, really. The other night I was sitting here, trying to think what my own favourites were, I couldn't think of one.”

“Elli, I think you are very lonely.”

She says nothing, but nods.

“Pandit Somraj, it's a pity you didn't get on, he is a decent man, plus he is fascinated by music. You should try to get to know him.”

“How can I, when he is boycotting me?” Now she's dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

I should have taken that moment to tell her that it is not Somraj who is doing the boycotting, that he has in fact all along spoken out against it, but for some reason my lying mouth stays shut.

“Now, how have you been?” she asks, and the chance has gone. Long I spent, that day, talking to Elli doctress. Down below her staff closed up the clinic and left. All kinds of things she told me, about her town, her family, her parents. Eyes, you shall hear this from her own mouth soon, so I'll not spoil it. Plus she said that the very next day she would take an X-ray of my back. It's dark by the time we finish talking.

As I step out of the clinic, ready to head home to Ma Franci, there arrives the moment I've been dreading. Pandit Somraj is standing outside his door. “Animal, please spare me a minute.”

No escape, now I am fucking for it.

“Yes, sir?”

“Were you there to hear her playing?” he asks.

“I was. Plus I played myself. I made a song.”

“Very good. How did you do it?”

“Elli doctress taught me. Sir, she showed me how to put my hands on the piano, and press the keys to make
sa re ga
etc. Also, in her music
re
is called
re
, which is the same as in ours, she was very pleased by this.”

“Was she now?” The way he says this, I'm thinking now he'll get furious, but instead of shouting at me, catching my ear or landing a kick to the arse, he just puts his hand on my shoulder and says in a friendly tone, “Son, we have all missed you.”

“Me, sir?”

“You, sir. My daughter was worried.”

“Sir, no need for worry.” Oh happy, happy. Pandit Somraj has forgiven me, plus called me son plus Nisha cares about me.

“You had other business to attend, no doubt.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nothing to do with frogs, I suppose?” His face is stern as ever, but his shoulders give a twitch, on this day of surprises not only have I seen Pandit Somraj smile, but now I realise that he is doing his best not to laugh.

“Fully not frogs, sir.”

“Goodnight, Animal.”

“Sir, goodnight.”

“The kingdom of the poor, I want you to take me there.”

It's the day after the petition. Despite promises, not one of those who signed yesterday have turned up to the clinic. I've come for my X-ray, expecting to find quite a few others, but apart from me and Jara the place is empty.