I said, “Don’t fucking stare or I won’t speak.” I said it in Hindi, I’m not supposed to let on that I know some Inglis, Chunaram gets an extra bunce for translating. You gave a thumbs-up, carried right on staring. I called you a wanker. You nodded, smiled at me. Khaamush, silent then I’m. After some time I’ve joined another silence to the first.
Inside your skull thoughts were scrabbling like rats. I could hear them like voices in my own head — why has this boy stopped talking, queer as a winged snake is he, leant against the wall with such a look on his face, would be handsome if he weren’t so sullen, what a chest he has, deep as a wrestler’s, how does it spring from those twisted haunches to which are pawled legs like hanks of rope, oh god, his ribcage is heaving as if at any moment he may vomit, maybe he is ill, boy what is your problem, alas, my wordless enquiries cause his convulsions to grow worse, I think he may be going to have a fit, what will I do if he dies, oh dear, my further anxious attempts to communicate, with twisting “wherefore” hand motions and raising of eyebrows, seem to cause violent shudders, bugger’s lips are writhing in some kind of agony, should a doctor be called, where can one find a doctor in this place, where the hell am I anyway, what the fuck am I doing here?
Actually, Jarnalis, I was trying not to show that I was laughing at you. After that, what else, I talked. Your tape crawled. Then you were happy, this is what you had come for. You were like all the others, come to suck our stories from us, so strangers in far off countries can marvel there’s so much pain in the world. Like vultures are you jarnaliss. Somewhere a bad thing happens, tears like rain in the wind, and look, here you come, drawn by the smell of blood. You have turned us Khaufpuris into storytellers, but always of the same story. Ous raat, cette nuit, that night, always that fucking night.
You listened politely, pretending to follow, smiling now and again pour m’encourager, as Ma Franci would say. You were so fucking sure I was talking about that night. You were hoping the gibberish sounds coming from my mouth were the horrible stories you’d come to hear. Well, fuck that. No way was I going to tell those stories. I’ve repeated them so often my teeth are ground smooth by the endless passage of words.
With no Chunaram to tell you what I was saying, I could say anything. I could sing a filthy song:
I may be just a twisted runt
But I can sniff your mother’s cunt
Hahaha, oh dear, your face, you were wondering, the song this boy is singing, with such a nasty tune, what is it, sounds like a lament, but pourquoi il rit? You scribbled something in your book. Let me guess. “Animal chanted a poem, probably a traditional song of mourning, just now he was crazy with grief.”
Jarnalis, you were such a fool. The best thing about you was your shorts. Six pockets, I counted. Two at the side, two on the front, two on the arse. With shorts like those a person does not need a house. From one pocket you fetched out a pack of cigarettes and from another a shiny lighter, it made a grinding noise when you flipped it, and a flame sprang up. I coveted that lighter, but more than that I craved your shorts.
Thus and thus time passed, Chunaram returned reeking of apologies and strong liquor, some Inglis gitpit passed between you. He said, “I shall listen to the tape.” The thing squeaked like a rat having its back broken and I heard my own voice earning fifty rupees.
Well, Chunaram was appalled. He started shouting, with great tappings of the brow and circlings of the temple. “You cretin! You are not right in your head. You have not said what’s wanted.”
“Did as bid.”
“You must do it again. You must tell the real stories.”
“Balls to you!” says I with wanking gestures. “Did I ask you to go and get drunk?”
“You miserable boy,” yells Chunaram. “Who’s going to pay for this foul-mouthed shit? Why didn’t you just spout the usual?”
I’ve thought about this. “It is usual for me.”
“Mother’s cunt? Where do you get that from, you twisted little bastard? Next time I ask you to record a tape, keep your mouth shut.”
After this, Jarnalis, I’m not expecting you back, but you show up next day with grinning Chunaram qui me dit que Jarnalis wants you to carry on telling your story.
“Don’t ask me why,” says he. “Yesterday what you said, I thought it was one of your fucking madness fits, I admit I was wrong it has done the trick now I’m thinking it’s this jarnalis who’s cracked.” He shrugs and gives a thook onto the floor. So smug does he look that there and then I decide to teach the fucker a lesson.
“I’m done talking to tape mashins.”
So then Chunaram’s wheedling, pleading with me. “Think of the money. Jarnalis is writing a book about Khaufpur. Last night he had your tape translated. Today he comes saying he has never found such honesty as in that filth of yours. Really I think he is mad, but listen how I buttered the shaft, I told him that you are an orphan of that night, you grew up in a crazy franci situation, you used to live on the streets like a dog, you are a unique case. Jarnalis really wants your story, this could be a big business, don’t fuck it up.”
“Well,” says I, pretending to consider it. “No.”
“Listen, you can string it out. Make ten tapes. Why ten? Twenty. I will treat you to free kebabs at my place as long as it lasts.”
Wah Jarnalis, big money you must have offered him, his kebabs are famous throughout Khaufpur, well, at least in the Nutcracker, which is our part of Khaufpur, but one more look at his greedy face convinces me.
“Salty fucks to you, I won’t do it.”
So Chunaram’s shouting again, I am giggling, you’re meanwhile wanting to know what’s going on. Chunaram does some Inglis guftagoo, then he’s back to me. “Jarnalis says it’s a big chance for you. He will write what you say in his book. Thousands will read it. Maybe you will become famous. Look at him, see his eyes. He says thousands of other people are looking through his eyes. Think of that.”
I think of this awful idea. Your eyes full of eyes. Thousands staring at me through the holes in your head. Their curiosity feels like acid on my skin.
“What am I to tell these eyes?” I demand of Chunaram. “What can I say that they will understand? Have these thousands of eyes slept even one night in a place like this? Do these eyes shit on railway tracks? When was the last time these eyes had nothing to eat? These cuntish eyes, what do they know of our lives?”
“Don’t talk that way,” says Chunaram, casting a fearful glance at you. “Think of kebabs. Plus,” he says with a nod at my rags, “you can buy a good shirt and pant, go to the cinema every night, take the best seat, kulfi eat.”
With Chunaram everything is a question of money, I’m about to tell him to stick it up his cul when a notion occurs.
Chunaram falls into a rage. “You idiot,” he cries. “This deal is nestling in my palm. Why ruin it with stupid demands?”
“It’s my story. If he doesn’t agree, I will not tell it.”
“Have some sense,” says he, “how can I ask such a thing?”
“Je m’en fous you nine-fingered cunt.”
I know Chunaram won’t give up, he lives for money, but as he speaks to you every word is a stone in his mouth. I catch his thoughts, badmaash boy, too much cunt, fucking boy, francispeaking, got too grand, bastard. Mixed in with this is allwhat he’s saying to you. I know most of the Inglis words, those I don’t know spit their meanings into my ear. C’est normal. Since I was small I could hear people’s thoughts even when their lips were shut, plus I’d get en passant comments from all types of things, animals, birds, trees, rocks giving the time of day. What are these voices, no good asking me. When at last I told Ma Franci about them, she got worried, soit un fléau soit une bénédiction, curse or blessing, that’s what she said. Well, she should know whose own brain’s full of warring angels and demons. She took me to a doctor, it’s how I met the Khã-in-the-Jar, which I’ll tell about later, but the voices, some are like fireworks cracking the nearby air, others are inside me, if I listen carefully I’ll hear them arguing, or talking nonsense. Once I was looking at Nisha, this voice says, the hair pours off her head like history. What the fuck does that mean? I don’t know. Some voices are slow like honey melting in the sun, Elli and I saw a locust spread scarlet wings in the Nutcracker, it was crooning “I’m so gorgeous.” I said aloud, “Yeah, till a bird sees you.” Such a look I got from Elli. She was interested in my voices, being a doctor with a mission to save, even shits like me. I will get to Elli soon, too the Khã-in-the-Jar, but right now I’m telling how Chunaram’s thoughts were giving him a headache. Poor bugger was rambling like a lost soul, he did not want to put my demand to you, at one point he grew so confused he forgot to speak Inglis, whinged in Hindi, “Don’t get offended by what this idiot is asking.” Then I knew greed had him by the ear.