Higher up the branches spread out and nearly touch the wall, but they’re starting to get bendier plus there’s still a long way to climb. I’ve to pull myself up, get an elbow over, haul my body across, then twist and roll my arse onto the branch. Tough work it’s, the legs being useless and all. I’m wearing nothing but my kakadu shorts, and getting scratched to fuck by thorns and twigs.
“Fucker climbs like a monkey.” From the darkness there’s a laugh that sounds like that lout Farouq. I look down to give him a scowl, it’s a long drop to where they’re clustered at the foot of the tree.
The building’s right across the road from Nisha’s house. From where I’m perched I can see Pandit Somraj sitting in his room listening to music. Listen, listen, listen, it’s all he does all day and night. If he isn’t listening to records he’s listening to the radio, if he isn’t listening to the radio, he’s listening to his students, or else to frogs and bicycle pumps and dripping taps. Nisha’s inside with her father. I can see her offering him a cup of something and my heart thuds like a dholak thrashed by a monkey. Taka dum takataka dum dhoiiing dhooom! Better she stays inside. Zafar said not to tell her what we were doing. Nisha wouldn’t approve. Spying on the Amrikan, she’d say it’s immoral.
“Well done, keep going.” It’s Our Leader, always has an encouraging word. Mr. Perfect, fuck him.
“Shut up!” I hiss. “She’ll hear you!”
“Don’t worry she’ll think you’re a baboon,” says Farouq.
I consider pulling down my kakadus and shitting on Farouq’s head, but I can’t see him well enough, just the glow of someone’s beedi.
“Too big for a monkey,” someone else chips in.
“What does she know?” says Farouq. “She’s Amrikan.”
Eventually I get going again. I am still below the window but it is getting nearer. I can now see the ceiling, which is a bright pink, like the inside of a camel’s mouth. Here’s a woman’s hand, holding something red. It appears in the bit I can see, then vanishes again. This happens a few times. What is she doing? The buggers down below are silent now, they sense I’m on the brink. The hand comes up again, with the red thing in it. One more branch, it dips dangerously, I struggle to keep my grip. I can see her head. It’s glistening. The hand, holding a red plastic jug, appears and pours water over it. With her other hand she’s rinsing her hair. Now at last I’m higher than the window. Elli Barber’s in there, ten feet away. She’s taking a bath and she’s got nothing on.
Her legs aren’t blue but as pale as milk. She reaches down and nothing is hidden from me. Next she’s soaping herself all over. Every part. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how a woman’s body is made, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen one naked.
Yes, it’s the first time, except in sleep. Often I’d dream of making love with I won’t say her name. I never told anyone because if people got to know, what would they do, laugh at me, pity me? “Animal, don’t have those kind of hopes.” I’d see the warnings in the faces of old women who caught me looking at her. Animal mating with human female, it’s unnatural, but I’ve no choice but to be unnatural. Many times I would dream that she and I were in love, sometimes we were married and naked together like in the movies having sex. In such dreams was my back straight? Did I stand upright? No and no. I was exactly as I am now and it did not matter. Such dreams! I woke from them shaking with hope. This frightened me, I despise hope.
“What’s going on?” comes the whisper from below.
Elli turns away again. She bends, showing all she’s got.
“Pssst, Animal?”
I can’t answer. I can’t speak. She straightens up, pours more water and hai hai hai, what is she doing? She’s feeling her breasts. My heart’s thudding, I’m giddy, I grab at the branch above my head, there’s this great noise of leaves.
Elli Barber comes to the window. She stands there drying herself with a towel looking this way and that. Any moment now she’ll look right at me.
The light goes out.
“Animal, what the fuck?”
They want me to come down now, report what I’ve learned. I can’t move. There’s a furnace in my groin. No way will I go down and let them see me in this state. I am going to be up here for some time.
Well, at least one part of me can stand upright.
Eyes, I don’t know if you are a man or a woman. I’m thinking the things I am telling are not suited to a woman’s ears, but if a person leaves things unsaid so as to avoid looking bad, it’s a lie. I have sworn not to lie to you. If you feel embarrassed throw down the book in which these words are printed. Carry on reading it’s your lookout, there’s worse to come, don’t go crying later “Animal’s a horrible person, full of filth,” think I don’t know it already? Eyes, if you’re a woman I ask you not to leave me now, in this world my best people have always been women, such as Jara, Ma Franci, Nisha. If you’re a man it doesn’t matter, you’re a dirty fucker anyway.
So I’m stuck up the mango.
She comes to the window and looks out. There’s a bright bulb behind it’s outlining her shape, light is splashing the leaves in my tree. I am holding my breath hoping she can’t see in the dark. Man, this thing in my pants is hot and rigid, jutting that far it’s I’m thinking it’ll catch in the branches.
The light goes out. A whisper comes from below. “What can you see?”
What can I see? Are they mad? She’s still there. I’m sure of it, although my eyes are playing tricks. For the first few instants after the light’s doused all I can see is the ghost of the bulb, it’s burning violet with a green edge. Then a black square appears, which is the window, there’s a pale shape swimming about in it. She’s leaning out, taking a good look left and right.
“Hey Animal, what’s there?”
How come she doesn’t hear them? They’re not getting an answer, but what can I do? I’m stuck on the branch trying not to move. Breathing, what’s that? There’s a fishbone caught in my throat. I can’t drag my eyes away. I’m thinking any moment she’ll see two hot coals glowing in the tree. A whole dark age of the world passes before she leans back inside. Still I daren’t stir. What if she is still there in the darkness? Suppose she calls the cops? Spying on a naked woman, won’t the bastards be thrilled to see who they’ve caught? That Fatlu Inspector, at Habibganj police station, it’ll make his day to find me in this windy tree. He’ll drag me down and if this pole’s still sticking out the front he’ll break the fucking thing off and beat me round the head with it. But Fatlu Inspector does not come and after some time as the window stays dark I realise that she has gone. It takes me a full ten minutes to get down that tree, a dick-scraping slide every inch to the ground.
They all want to know, “What did you find out? What did you see?”
I said, “I’ll tell you later,” because at that moment Nisha came out onto the verandah. Nisha didn’t know what we’d been up to. Probably thought we were taking the night air. Enjoying the frangipani scent. It got me out of a difficult spot, didn’t want to tell Zafar & Co. what I’d seen.
When we get into the light, on the verandah, Nisha says, “Animal, you’ve scratched yourself.”
Sure enough, there are big scratches running down my chest where I’ve slid down that tree.
“My god what has happened to you?”
Well, there’s one thing I can’t do, which is lie to Nisha, so it’s, “Je suis monté dans cet arbre-là.”
She gives me a look. “What does that mean?”
I start mumbling some shit about mangos.