Many amazing stories about Somraj the internest knew. It told how he’d be out taking the air with his mates and would sing the stuff he saw. He’d be walking by the Upper Lake and sing fish leaping at sunset, or he’d see a V of cranes passing overhead and fire off a song at them. Once in Bombay during the monsoon he stood on Marine Drive and matched his Miya ki Malhar to the wildness of the sea. Waterspouts were bursting forty feet above his head but Somraj refused to move till he’d caught the swing of the waves. Forty minutes he stood on the parapet, drenched by heavy falls of saltwater, and sang, a crowd of Bombay-wallahs gathered to listen. “Who is this guy?” they asked in their atrocious accents.
Said his spoonies, “It’s the famous Aawaaz-e-Khaufpur.”
“Khaufpur? Where’s that?”
Says Nisha with a sigh, “Obviously, this was before that night.”
“Does it know stuff about you, Nish?”
“Let’s see,” she says and taps buttons. The internest has got hold of a letter that Nisha wrote to a newspaper. Also it has taken a picture of her plus Zafar at a demo.
Of Zafar are countless reports, the internest has followed him around, taking pictures of him at a meeting in Delhi, throwing paint on the Kampani’s office in Bombay, with Farouq addressing a rally in Khaufpur, no mistaking there’s his unruly curls and flashing specs. Sometimes Zafar wears his old red turban, in one pic it’s fallen off because he’s being kicked by a policeman.
“Nisha, look me up, yaar. What does it say about me?”
“Darling it doesn’t work that way,” she says, after we have examined many scenes of owls, frogs, panthers and etcetera.
“Why not? About everybody else even Farouq it has things to say. How come it knows nothing of me?”
“It will, darling, one day, I’m sure. You are going to do some great work in the world. Then everyone will know about you.”
When Zafar hears we’ve found no trace of Elli Barber and she’s here under a false name he says he has reached wit’s end. “On the one hand, people want this clinic, on the other, it may destroy all that we’ve worked for. If we can get the Kampani into court, they’ll have to build a dozen such clinics.”
Eyes, it amazes me that such a fellow as Zafar, who shifts his opinion daily, is considered a great leader. Each night at Nisha’s house he holds discussions with different groups. Comes the turn of folk from the Nutcracker, among them’s Chunaram, for like I already told you, Zafar has taken a shine to him. Zafar says Chuna’s a pirate, plus it’s good he has nine fingers because a pirate must always have a bit missing. “What Chunaram’s missing,” says I, “is a fucking heart.” Zafar laughs and reminds me not to swear.
So Chuna’s there among the rest, they’re hacking the usual question of what should be done about Elli Barber. Says Zafar, “No doctor of her name can be traced. No option there’s, we must ask people to avoid her clinic.”
Somraj, who’s a fair man, differs. “Our people have great need of a clinic like this. Let them go and derive benefit from it, afterwards if we discover that it is a Kampani clinic up to no good, we can ask them to stop going.”
Zafar says, “Abba, if a man is dying of thirst and you give him cool water, can you afterwards snatch it away from his lips? Better he waits a little longer.”
Somraj says, “So you are proposing a boycott?”
Chunaram starts laughing and says that Wasim and Waqar can bowl out Inglis batsmen even with an orange. Well, everyone’s amazed, until he explains he’s remembering something said by an Inglis cricketer called Boycott. After this everyone starts arguing about cricket and the point of the meeting is lost.
It’s now, after all this that Chunaram says, “Animal, I forgot, Ma Franci was wandering round shouting and raving. Some women tried to take her home, she wouldn’t go. They said her head was burning.”
“Forgot? You fucking idiot! Has someone shat in your brain?”
“Told you now, haven’t I?” he’s called after me in an aggrieved tone as I’m out of there. “Busy man, I’m. Lot on my mind, I’ve.”
It’s late when I get back. Place is dark, I find Ma Franci huddled in a corner. No fire there’s, she’s shivering.
“It wouldn’t light, Animal,” she says. “The matches are all gone. I used the last one.”
“Don’t worry, Ma, I’ve got my Zippo.”
“God bless you, you are a good boy,” says she out of the darkness.
Ma knows that I hate using the Zippo because I don’t want to wear it out, but this is an emergency. I fetch out the lighter, flip the lid back, grind my thumb on the wheel. Zip-zip-zippo, le bois prît feu! Shadows go jumpfrogging round the tower. I’ve wrapped Ma in a cloth and settled her by the fire.
Now there’s some light to see by she’s peering at me. “What are these scratches all over you?”
“I fell in a bush,” says I who’d been up the tree again.
She sighs, “Such a difficult child, marchais toujours au rhythme de ton propre tambour.” You’ve always marched to the beat of your own drum.
To change the subject I start telling her what happened earlier at Pandit Somraj’s house. When I get to Zafar wanting to boycott the clinic, Ma says the Amrikan doctor is bound to have a bad time and won’t be able to do anything good for the people of this town. It isn’t just that the Khaufpuris refuse to talk like humans, but babble like macaques and orioles, the real reason the Amrikan will come to grief is because she has no way to reach their souls. “People here have suffered too much. Outsiders don’t understand.”
“I don’t,” says I. “And I’m an insider.”
“Such hurts can’t be healed.”
“Doctors are in demand.” Somraj at the meeting had spoken of the lack of help for the poor.
“Doctors are no use. Things are getting worse. In the old days, people would talk properly to me. The Apokalis took away their speech.”
I stare at her, wondering how anyone can get it so totally wrong.
“I cope, it’s not with words that you treat such wounds. The people ache, their bodies are bottles into which fresh pain is poured every day. Their flesh is melting, coming off their bones in flakes of fire, their bones are burning, they’re turning into light, probably they’re becoming angels.”
Dear oh dear, and here’s me thinking she’d been making sense.
“Tonton lariton, that’s what it is, my smallest of Animals, tonton lariton. See, people don’t realise how deep is the river. The Apokalis has begun, and the whole world’s full of it.”
Her old woman’s voice begins to sing…
Quand j’étais chez mon père,
Quand j’étais chez mon père,
Petite à la ti ti, la ri ti, tonton lariton
Petite à la maison.
On m’envoyait à l’herbe pour cueillir du cresson.
La rivière est profonde, je suis tombée au fond.
Never have I heard her rave so. She’s still shivering, despite the fire, and putting my hand on her head, I can feel the fever.
“Ma, have you eaten?”
She shakes her head.
“Rest by the fire Ma, stay wrapped up, I’m going to get food.”
I can cook two things that Ma loves, baingan bharta and chai, both are good for warming a person from within. For the first I’ll need an aubergine, big and round, plus garlic plus oil, for the chai I need tea leaves, or a pinch of tea dust, too some sugar. I also need water. Some people, like Somraj, have taps that give water inside their own houses, but this is the Nutcracker. I’ve headed off to Aliya’s house and found her holding a school book to a lantern.