Animal's People (41 page)

I sit staring into the tub, in its green water the backs of rescued goldfish can be glimpsed among whorls of weed. God forgive me, how many secrets have I kept from this girl?

“Nisha,” I say, taking her hand, “Zafar asked me to look after you.”

“Thanks, but I don't want anyone to look after me.”

“You can't grieve alone.”

“You think I'm grieving? I was. For days I have been crying. Every tear that was in me I've cried. Of grief there's none left in me, but something worse.”

“I will help you. Let me be here with you.”

“What I feel is anger. So much anger it's going to blow my head off.”

“I too am angry. The whole city is angry.”

“But I want to rip things and tear and smash them,” says this most gentle of girls. “I am so angry with Zafar that he did this, I'm so angry with myself that I did not stop him. Oh, I want to take a knife and carve out my womb and throw it in the street for the dogs to eat. Of what use is it now?”

“It's such feelings that are of no use, sister.”

“I'll tell you what's of no use,” she cries. “My father's precious justice is of no use, our government's of no use, courts are of no use, appeals to humanity are no use, because these people are not human, they're animals.”

“Nish,” I say, ignoring her insult to animals, “I will devote my whole life to making you happy.”

“How can you talk of happiness, at a time like this?”

I'm still holding her hand. “Nisha, you yourself just now said there's only you and me. We can still go to Ratnagiri.”

“No!”

But the words are already blurting from my mouth, “Marry me, Nisha, I'll never leave you. Babies, we'll have. I'll get educated, I'll find a job.”

“Stop it! Animal, stop! I've told you before, I will never marry you!” The rage of that day is rushing through both of us, I can feel her hand shaking. I should not say what is in my mind, I should bite it back, apologise, but already I'm gone too far, plus the hurt has been there a long time, it won't stay quiet.

“Because I am an animal, that's the real reason isn't it, that you can never marry me?”

She's wrenched her hand from mine. “Have you gone mad? How dare you talk like this!”

“Because it's true. If I were human maybe I could be your lover. No chance of that now!”

“Animal, please!”

“I'll always be nothing but a fucking animal!”

She looks at me with crazy eyes. “If you are an animal then fuck off and be one! Go and live in the jungle and see how much of an animal you are. Just leave me alone!”

So I'm gone, running out of that house, into the street and into this night. Behind me I can hear, or maybe I imagine, Nisha calling, “Animal, I'm sorry, come back.” But I can't go back, not ever, for it's clear that she's revolted by the idea of marrying such a creature as me, who goes on fours and is first cousin to a hyena. How did you meet your husband? Well he was foraging in garbage bins in the old city. My head is full of screaming because I don't know what to do, I don't want to live any more. With great sobs, I find my way across the alley and sit with my back to the trunk of Elli's mango tree. What is the point of living? Everything I care about is gone, swept away in a day and a night. So fast does the world change. Zafar, Farouq, Aliya, all gone. Voices shrieking in my head are forecasting disaster. Ma, in the full ecstatic tide of madness, will be out on the streets somewhere seeking Isa. Maybe she's in the graveyards, trying to rouse the dead, telling them, come out it's time. Or maybe she's at the funeral ghat where the aghori sadhus sit with eyes like pools of blood, drinking from skull cups and eating the baked flesh of human beings, for tonight is this night the night of Qayamat which Ma calls Apokalis, a word in which is Kali's name, who's also called Ma. Yes, Ma is Kali Ma, why did I never think of this? Garlanded with bones she'll stalk the streets of Khaufpur crying the end of the world, with great strides she'll come to the factory to rouse the hungry and desperate spirits that live there, then the soldiers will shoot her. Fools, they cannot kill Ma. Ma is from the beginning of time. Ma will unstring their guts and hang their severed heads on her belt. She will drink their blood and her tongue will hang below her waist and when Isa comes she will greet him with bloody kisses and call up her beasts out of the abyss and they will let loose hell on the earth. So the voices rave at me. But I too am on the street. Maybe soldiers will shoot me. I get an idea. I will go and throw stones at the soldiers, I will defy their guns and stand in front of their tanks, and I will shout at them, come on you bastards, do your worst, I promise never to rise from the dead. I've had enough of this fucking world. Nay, if Isa came and begged me to rise up, if he promised to mend my bones personally with glue and reshape my body with his own hands, if he swore to make me straight and tall, still I would tell him to fuck off because this world is too cruel, it's too hard and no more of it do I want. Let them kill me. What do I care? Better I die, because torturing hope too will perish. How live, when Elli is going away and my back will never be straight and even Nisha who I loved above all things is gone from me? In a single day everything I care about is lost, I will throw away my worthless life. To whom shall I give my Zippo? I reach into the side pocket of my kakadu shorts, my fingers encounter a hard shape, it's Faqri's box of golis. So I've slid it open and counted. Thirteen golis there are, like black goatshit pellets, it will be enough. One by one I crunch the golis, after each one I ask myself, do you want to die? Comes the reply, yes, eat one more. Another is crunched, and another. They taste bitter, yet not unpleasant. Thirteen golis I chew, my mouth like a dark cloud engulfing thirteen little black moons, a final swallow and it is done.

Four feet have I my brain is a hare my eyes are sacks of wool a gulf is where my palate was briny gutters are my cheeks a rushing and a roar is in my head from above and below voices are calling hell is burning in my guts why did I never notice before that the world is full of crazed beings? These demons running along the road carrying flaming firebrands, never have I set eyes on such creatures before. They have gathered outside the door of Elli's clinic and are calling with loud voices for Elli to come out.

“Kampani clinic, burn it down!”

How interesting. So the demons too are opposed to the Kampani. Who'd have thought they'd give a damn about our Khaufpuri affairs? Eyes glaring like eggs are oozing out of their faces. Now they've got a pickaxe and are hacking at the doors. “Kindly exit and oblige,” calls a being who's mostly whiskered teeth. “We wish to destroy this place.”

Of a sudden a door is gone, in its place is a dark rectangle that frames Elli, whose nightclothes are shining in the moon's teary light. At the sight of her the demons become confused and whicker together in low voices.

Like the whole rest of the world, Elli doctress is angry. A fist of fire is she, and she yells at the demons to go away and leave her alone.

“Where should we go, madam?”

“Without burning this place we cannot leave.”

“Smash a window, put in fire.”

There's a sound like a lump of music shattering into shards, it is a whole raga in two seconds. Somraj comes flying out of the darkness like a giant white moth, such a fine sound he'll be wanting to catch and keep in a jar.

“Kill the bitch!”

“There will be no killing here,” says Somraj, placing himself between Elli and the demons.

“Stand aside Pandit-ji.”

“No. You shall not touch her.”

“Bhai sahib and bhaiya are dead because of her friends.”

“Those people are not her friends, bhaiya and bhai sahib were her friends.” The pandit's looking somewhat blurred, as if he's in two minds. He puts his arm around the shoulder of an equally blurry Elli and leads her across the way. The demons and their torches vanish into the door of the clinic.

I look up and see the half-moon perched in the mango tree, peering down at me through the leaves. “I see you, Animal,” says the moon.

“I see you, moon,” says the animal. “Are you jamisponding me?”

“You are dreaming,” says the moon. “You need to wake up.”

“I would rather dream.”

“There's a thing you must do.”

“What is this thing, O moon?”

“Wake up and find out,” it says and is disintegrated into shining pieces by moving mango leaves. The windows of the clinic are flickering orange. It comes to me that my little friend, the Khã-in-the-Jar, is inside and the thing I must do is save him.

Elli's office is alight. Flames are coiling like snakes in the corner, spitting fiery seeds at the walls.

“Oh don't hurry,” says the Khã-in-the-Jar. “All the time in the world, me.”

“Where are you?” She must have shut him away.

“Over here you dozy cunt.”

“Where?”

“In the cupboard.”

I move towards it and suddenly I am sliding, there's liquid on the floor, it smells like rough daru, it's overpowering it makes my eyes water, I'm retching, my hands gash on something sharp, I'm slipping and sliding in pools that burn like raw hatred, I bump into something cold and slimy. It's the cyclops. His one eye stares at me. He smells like a rancid pickle.

“Leave him,” says the Khã-in-the-Jar. “Eight we were, board members of the poisonwallah shares. Seven flasks were smashed and our friends are on the floor, any second this stuff will catch light and badoof!”

“I'll save them.”

“No no,” he says. “By burning they'll be freed. My fear is that the flames won't reach this cupboard.”

“Then I'll save you.”

“Shabaash Animal, smash my jar too. Quick, there's no time.”

But I've disregarded the bugger's wishes. I've tucked his jar under my arm then it's out of there, fast as three feet can fly ignoring his yells I gain the street, apart from my mind spinning spiderwebs, the moon above constantly changing shape and the wolfshead gnawing my guts, things seem normal.

“Hey,” he's shouting. “Where are you taking me?”

“You'll burn I swear but first we must have a chat.”

“Where's the time for chatting? Don't you know it's this night?”

“Shut up, or I'll be forced to do you no harm.”

This threat is very terrible to him, so his two heads glug fluid and seethe in silence. I'm out of the Claw in a flash, hiding in shadows. Various kinds of uproar can be heard, shouting coming from different parts, fires are burning, from the direction of the old city come loud bangs like gun shots. I need to avoid the main road so I'll take the shortcut home. Many ways are there into the factory and I pick one on the Claw side where a small tree leans onto the wall. How to mount? Place Khã in fork of tree. Pull up. Move Khã higher. Climb. Place Khã on wall. Shift self onto wall. All the while I am muttering, “Just a little while, we'll get home and have a talk then I am carrying my Zippo I swear I'll burn you.”

“You'll regret this,” he snarls.

The clear light of the moon falls on the jar and I see with horror what it is I am carrying. The jar slips from my hands and falls, bursts, liquid gushes out. Lying on the ground inside the factory is the thing that was within, a half-rotted relic of that night.

Fleeing that cursed place through moon-licked grasses and bushes that bite, I am driven by a fear greater than snakes or dogs or men with sticks. The thing I am fleeing is more deadly than any of these and fouler than that poor creature rotting in his chemical womb. I am running from myself. I am running from the things I've done. I think of Zafar, whose death my poisons hastened, dry as a smoked fish he ended, yet right to the end how kind he was, the tears he could not shed are making my eyes watery lenses through which the world bends and bulges in unknown ways.

There are beings in the grass too, flitting beside me and mocking. The faces of the dead swim around me, jeering, is this that Animal who swore at us, insulted us, rebuked us for being powerless puffs of wind, mere gusset-gusts? Well, it is your turn, good it's to see you suffer, Animal, limping along with thorns in your paws and waking nightmares, look, here is the poison-khana, you didn't expect to see it, did you? You are lost in your own jungle. Come, climb it, do, and just try lording it over us this time, climb up to the top and go hang from the moon. Go on, leap off the top and grab hold of the moon. It will feel cool like ice. There, get your paws round the top of it, cling on. What, you are afraid of falling? That your back will break, that you'll die? What difference, son? Your back's already broken and you are dying. Feel the datura burning you up, the Nautapa is nothing compared to this heat which eats you from the inside.

I was right to eat the pills, I deserve to die, I should have done it sooner, made an end to myself, all of these things might have been avoided, yes it's good to be dying for at last I shall be free of myself, of grief, pain, horror, despair, self-loathing there will be an end, and whether there is resurrection or reincarnation, whatever plans angels, devils or gods may have in store, I am never coming back.