“Please! No more!”
“Okay. How did I get started about shitting?”
“You said that it wasn’t that which disgusted you.”
“Right. What really disgusts me is that we people seem so wretched to you outsiders that you look at us with that so-soft expression, speak to us with that so-pious tone in your voice.”
She asks very seriously, “Don’t people here deserve respect?”
“It’s not respect, is it? I can read feelings. People like you are fascinated by places like this. It’s written all over you, all you folk from Amrika and Vilayat, jarnaliss, filmwallass, photographass, anthrapologiss.”
“I’m not a jarnalis, I’m a doctress. And I did mean respect. If I don’t give it, how will I get it? It’s clear to me how these people love Zafar, plus I do understand why, he treats them as equals with respect.”
“Bollocks!” I don’t have such an idealistic view of people, who are shits. “These people love Zafar because he’s all they have. He’s the only ally they know. And he’s always there for them. That’s why they’ll turn out on demos with him, block roads, shout slogans.”
“I too am there for them, they will get to know me,” says Elli, as if just wishing a thing can make it true.
I’m in no mood to be nice. “You haven’t a hope. You are a good-hearted doctress but nothing do you fucking understand. Tell me please, what is that?” I’ve pointed at her wrist.
“My watch?”
“Yes, your watch. What do you need it for?”
“To tell the time of course. Why do you ask?” Maybe she thinks I’m going to ask for her watch as a fee.
“Elli, I don’t need a watch because I know what time it is. It’s now-o’clock. Look, over there are the roofs of the Nutcracker. Know what time it’s in there? Now o’clock, always now o’clock. In the Kingdom of the Poor, time doesn’t exist.”
“You’re right,” says she, “I don’t understand.”
“Elli, if you had no watch, your stomach will churn and growl and say, hey Elli, it’s food time, hey it’s still food time, hey don’t you hear me, it’s food time. What happens if you can’t afford food? When you can’t remember the last time you ate something? I’ll tell you. When it’s light there’s binding a cloth tight round your belly to squeeze out the pain, when it turns dark you’ve to drink plenty of water to fill your miserable gut. Hope dies in places like this, because hope lives in the future and there’s no future here, how can you think about tomorrow when all your strength is used up trying to get through today? Zafar says this is why the people don’t rise up and rebel.”
Thus in my lousy mood do I rattle off the ideas of our leader, his vision of a people for whom there is no night and day, only a vast hunger through which suns wheel, and moons wane and wax and have no meaning.
“Animal, I don’t know what such suffering is like, but it doesn’t mean we’ve nothing in common. There’s simple humanity? Isn’t there?”
Cheap lying bastard, I’m. “No good asking me,” I tell her. “I long ago gave up trying to be human.”
On the way back I’ve turned instead to follow the factory wall as it runs beside the railway. I’ve brought her here because if you want to understand Khaufpur and Khaufpuris, plus particularly how they feel about Amrika, this is where you have to start.
“Elli, see inside there, it’s the factory. In there everything is just as it was on that night. Since then, hardly anyone has been in. Except me.”
I start to tell her about what’s in the factory, Eyes, the very same things that I have already told you.
She grips my shoulder. “Let’s go in!”
Well this is not in my plan. “You can’t. Not allowed.”
“But you do.”
“That’s different. I’m an animal. I come and go.” If she gets in trouble with the powers-that-be, thrown out of Khaufpur maybe, what will become of my back? But Elli, like everyone, thinks only of what she wants.
“Elli, you can’t go inside. People like you must get a permit from the Dippety Collector, Poison Affairs.”
“FUCK THE DIPPETY COLLECTOR, POISON AFFAIRS!”
Two fat tears are running a race down her cheeks. She turns away like she doesn’t want me to see. All the way back to the Claw we’ve walked in silence. My mood grows worse. Zafar married to Nisha, this thought grips my brain with red hot tongs. It’s me who should marry Nisha, no other ambition is greater than this, and walking upright on two legs is the way I’ll achieve it.
I must repair Elli’s mood, I must show her that I am her friend. I was a fool to ask for a fee, nothing more must I do to upset Elli doctress. This very morning she took my X-ray, tomorrow she will send it to Amrika. Soon a reply will arrive. It will say come for an operation. This fucking hope grows wilder every day. When I return to Khaufpur after my operation, I will walk up and down the Claw. Nisha will not recognise me. She will see a young stranger, upright and handsome, there and then she’ll fall in love. She’ll forget Zafar, phhht, he’s gone. She will be besotted with her new love, desperate to marry him. Only one regret, in some part of her mind she will be wondering, what happened to my dear and faithful Animal, where has he gone? She will mourn for Animal who’s vanished no one knows where, but he will never return.
Eyes, I’m not a complete cunt, I know these dreams are so much crap, but with fluff like this, once it’s there it’s there, and you see stranger things in the movies.
TAPE THIRTEEN
“Zafar bhai, may today be a chicken day!”
It’s Bhoora, grinning like a fool. A small crowd is gathered outside Somraj’s house. Today the judge will give his opinion. Everyone’s excited, ready to leave for the court.
I’ve suggested that for luck me, Nisha and Zafar should travel with Bhoora like last time, so Farouq is taking Zafar’s motorbike. Another auto will bring Pandit Somraj with a couple of his music chums.
Quite a noise we’re making, chatter and laughing, the clinic doors open, Elli comes out, surprised to find all these people outside. Seeing me she says, “Hello Animal, what’s happening?”
“Elli doctress, we are going to the court.”
“Good morning Pandit Somraj,” she says coldly.
“Good morning Doctor Barber,” replies Somraj. No smile today, he keeps his feelings locked in an icebox, but Something Khan’s staring at her as if he has never seen legs before.
We’re just passing the big Hanuman temple when I spot Farouq, weaving through the traffic ahead. “Quick Bhoora,” I say, “speed up.” Bhoora obliges, I’ve reached out, caught Farouq such a slap on the back of his head, fucker’s all but toppled from the bike, cursing, vowing all kinds of bitter revenge.
“Animal, that was dangerous,” says Nisha reprimands me, but with her thigh pressed against me I’m just laughing, ha ha plus hee hee plus ho ho. “Why not today?” I’m shouting. “Why not today?”
When we arrive at the court there’s a big crowd, with jarnaliss plus a tele crew. The Khaufpur Gazette wants to interview Zafar. Our great leader has no time, says he will do it later, so I’ve bounded round the bugger, “Interview me, I’ll give a story that will shoot steam from your ears. Je te raconterai l’histoire de Jacotin et son nàs superbe.”
Nisha says, “Darling, you are out of control.”