Next I’ve headed to Phuta Maqbara. Behind the ruined tomb that stands among the shacks of the poor, the moon’s rising, and with it rises my fear. Fear plus guilt, it’s me who’s stirred up this trouble. In the disquiet moonlight I search alley after alley, find only shadows. It’s seriously late. A loony old nun out alone, who might she meet? Where might she have fallen?
I go back to the convent, hoping she might have returned. All the lights are on, they’re saying prayers for her safety. I go out again right away. Towards midnight I come to the Nutcracker. Of all Khaufpur’s slums this is the biggest and most desperate, but for that reason also the most interesting, I could spend all day there flying kites of gossip. Now I’m asking everyone I meet if they have seen Ma. No one has. Right in the heart of the Nutcracker, at the crossing of Paradise Alley and Seven Tailors’ Gulli is Chunaram’s chai shop, where it’s my habit to drop in each afternoon to taunt its owner and blag cups of tea. When I reach it the place is shutting down for the night, one kerosene lamp there’s with the wick turned down, couple of guys playing cards in the gloom, but here finally I get word. Someone had seen an old woman of Ma’s description leaving the house of Huriya Bi. Eyes, do you remember that I mentioned hearing Aliya’s voice calling me to play? Her granny said I behaved like a kid? Well, Aliya’s granny is Huriya Bi. The moon’s lost behind clouds, in full darkness I’ve groped my way up Seven Tailors’ towards the northern edge of the Nutcracker. By now most people are sleeping, here and there are a few flickering lights behind the sack doors of the houses and from within, soft voices and coughing. No light there’s in the tiny house of Huriya Bi, it’s a shack with no door just a black opening. I’ve gone in and shaken the sleeping forms. Huriya waking with a start, says “Goodness, is it Friday?”
“Granny, it’s me Animal.” I’ve whispered, so as not to wake Aliya and Hanif, her granddad. “I’m looking for Ma. She’s not returned to the convent. Everyone is worried something bad has happened.”
“What’s happened?” she asks, mishearing me. “Is it the factory?” Like all the folk living round here, she’s terrified that one night the factory will rise from the dead and come striding like a blood-dripping demon to snatch them off.
“Ma’s missing. I’ve been searching for hours.”
“Your Ma? Ma Franci?”
“Yes, yes.” I can just make out her shape, leaning up on an elbow.
“Are you hungry, son? Have you had anything to eat today?”
“Never mind about that,” says I, cursing the frail wits of the old. “Have you seen Ma Franci?”
There’s silence while the old lady sweeps her head clear of dreams. Then she says, “Ma Franci was here earlier, chatting away like always about who knows what. She was laughing a lot. I do not know where she went.”
“I do,” says a little voice out of the darkness. It’s my naughty friend Aliya. “Want me to show you?” I swear she’d have jumped up and come, but by this time her grandfather Hanif Ali’s also awake, even his parakeets have started squawking. The old people keep Aliya wrapped tight in her sheet with talk of school in the morning and slaps if she doesn’t obey.
“But I know where she is. Suppose Animal can’t find her?”
“I’ll look after Aliya,” I say, but absolutely they refuse to let her go.
She’s their only grandchild, they say, all they have in the world after their daughter, her mother, died after how many years of lung-rotting illness, she’s their joy, their school-going pride, the night air is full of fever, they dare not risk the child’s health, all of which the child hears with heavy hearted sighs.
“Where the Nutcracker ends,” she tells me. “Cross the tracks.”
Well at least the moon’s out again. In hardly two hundred paces I’ve come to the gleaming rails beyond which is the factory wall enclosing its enchanted forest. Halfway across I have to stop for a train to pass, it goes by close, big wheels pumping right by my head, sparks flying, lump of coal’s dropped, rolls to my feet, lies there like the fire in a dog’s eye till the moonlight puts it out. When the last echoes are gone I hear the sound of old woman’s quavering
Quand j’étais chez mon père,
Petite à la ti ti, la ri ti, tonton lariton
A little way off, across the tracks and near the factory wall, is a falling down tower of stone with grass growing out of its walls. Some bigwig built it hundreds of years ago, in those days the factory lands were orchards. It was maybe a tomb, no one knows its purpose, when the poison factory came and threw its wall around the orchards, this ruin was left outside. Out of this place is coming the singing, a faint light flickers inside.
That’s where I find her, sitting on the floor, with a simple bundle of her possessions opened and strewn around her.
“Ah, there you are, home at last,” she says. “Be a dear and put the kettle on.”
TAPE FOUR
For long I refused to admit I had feelings for Nisha. Man, how I would argue with myself. She’s not even pretty. Not my type. The voices in my head grew all excited. Oh yeah? growls a shnaggerfucker voice, sounds like it comes from a mouth full of blood with pigs’ teeth curling from the corners.
Could you be loved? demands another.
Listen, I like those film girls with made up faces, they make an effort to look pretty.
All know what he wants! hisses a sly she hovering near my left ear.
I reply that of course I fucking want. Who doesn’t? But nearest I’ve ever got’s looking at pictures that Farouq showed me, torn from a magazine. Farouq goes to see dirty flicks in the dive underneath Laxmi Talkies, made-in-USA movies screened by the Happiness Association. He tried to take me once, but they wouldn’t let me in because I wasn’t a member.
Pussy pussy pussy, says a voice full of dark horrifying laughter.
Fuck off, says I, refusing to be scared. Not all of the voices are mocking or hostile. Some are friendly, they tell me not to worry, I should listen to them, they will tell me the best way to proceed. You too can fuck off, I tell them. You are all pathetic. Voices without bodies, what the fuck is the use of you? Without me you’re nothing.
We’ve minds, blinds, lemon rinds
But no bodies. It’s why you get so excited, having no bodies of your own you can only feel sexy when I do. This is why you’re always putting these thoughts in my head.
we are voices loud and clear
in all the world there’s none like we’re
as for you one thing is sure
dirty little fucker you’re
I don’t know about where you live, Eyes, but here in Khaufpur you can see everything on the internest. Guys with money can go to this shop, they have booths with computers that show sex. The guys can see as much as they like, the owners even leave rags in the booths. Farouq, Zafar’s 2iC, told me this, he claims you can even get in touch with girls, like in Dil Hi Dil Mein didn’t Sonali Bendre meet Kunal that way? Stupid movie, with a crap song, dub you dub you dub you love dot com? Farouq is always singing it.
Fancy Sonali do you? sniggers blood tusks.