“Count your money, shut your trap. Hypocrite cunt, you’re just wondering which way to jump.”
“Come here, I’ll give you such a thrashing,” says he, enraged. But I’ve just laughed and gone away.
Some way outside Khaufpur is a greenish river called Bewardi, there’s a place on the edge of the forest, some cattle-herders have made a small hut there, to watch over the animals as they drink, no more it’s than a thatched roof hoisted on four bamboo poles, but it has a smooth floor of clay, there’s a small hearth where tea can be made.
Our bhutt-bhutt-pig has farted its way through the city and out to this peaceful place. This is after Elli’s demo by one or two days, as day by day my tale unfolds, it’s the weekend, we’re at last having the picnic promised by Zafar after our court victories against the Kampani. The original plan got postponed because of last year’s rains, then everyone forgot about it, but after the recent hearing someone said we should now definitely have the picnic, so Zafar told Farouq to organise it.
On the day there’s about twenty people, we’ve hired the bhutt-bhutt to carry us. Somraj is coming later in Bhoora’s auto. He’s bringing the windup, it’s a wooden gramophone mashin with a handle, he’s had it since he was a kid, belonged to his dad, it does not need electric, so it comes to places like this and performs very old songs, songs older than anyone here alive.
On the way people start singing. Everyone must teach a song to the rest.
“Ma Franci, Ma to teach one.”
So I’ve put this to her. “Something that’s easy to learn.” Shyly she starts singing:
Dormez, dormez, mon petit pigeon
Dormez, dormez, mon petit agneau
Ferme tes yeux mon petit mignon
Et laisse toi faire des rêves si beaux
Soon all are doing their best with this, after which Ma sings Tonton Lariton and Zafar gives Hillélé Jhakjor Duniya. Add to such songs a big pot of chicken biryani, kebabs by Chunaram who’s here to brown them, plates, cups etc., in this way we’ve come to the Bewardi. Now smoke is rising from the hearth, food’s heating in the big pot, kebabs are dripping on twig spits, games we play, mostly kids’ games such as seven tiles, gulli danda, bird fly-up, cards, etc.
Nisha says, “Animal, can we talk? I’ve something to ask.”
When we’re sat by the river, she comes straight out that she and Zafar know I’ve been spending a lot of time in Elli’s clinic, plus recently I’ve been seen with her in the Nutcracker.
“When have I tried to hide it?” I’ve been expecting this. “Hardly a secret, it’s right across the road. Plus she wanted to see the Nutcracker.”
“Yes, but she was trying to get people for her clinic.”
“Which of course she’ll do. Wouldn’t you?”
“Have you told her anything about us, how we work, our plans, etc.?”
“Aren’t you forgetting,” I reply to deflect this question for I hate lying to Nisha, “I am your Jamispond, jeera-jeera-seven?”
Nisha bursts out laughing. “Animal, so desperate is your Inglis accent, you know what you just said, cumin-cumin-seven. So what have you found out?”
“She’s harmless.” None too pleased I’m that Nisha’s making fun of me. “She’s sincere. We shouldn’t be troubling her.”
“Leave those decisions to people who know more.”
Soon the person who knows more’s come to join us, Nisha tells him what I’ve said, he sits cupping his chin, serious as ever. “Animal, you are a free human being, you are free to make your own decisions. Nobody will stop you or say you shouldn’t.”
“So?” I don’t say what’s in my mind, which is I’m not a human being, plus I don’t need anyone’s permission to be free.
“Nothing more, that’s it.”
“First of all, Zafar, Elli doctress is not from the Kampani, at least I don’t believe so, but like I said I am keeping an eye open.”
“This Elli,” says Zafar, “she’s pretty, has a nice smile.” Nisha shoots such a look, it’s aimed at him but pierces me. “What do you suppose Kampani-wallahs look like? Blood-dripping teeth, red eyes, claws?”
Well, I’ve never thought about this, of course I’ve no idea.
“They look ordinary,” says he. “You know why? Because they are ordinary. They are not especially evil or cruel, most of them, this is what makes them so terrifying. They don’t even realise the harm they are doing.”
After lecturing some more on how some people who think they’re leading normal lives are in fact creating hell on earth he goes away, leaving Nisha curled up in a little ball of misery.
“Nish, it’s like you hate Elli doctress. But why?”
“I don’t hate,” she says, throwing a pebble into the river.
“You’re too sweet and kind a person to dislike without reason, what is it?”
“It’s nothing.” But there are tears in her eyes.
“Nish, this is your own Animal you’re talking to, whom you plucked from the gutter, to whom you taught writing plus Inglis, who owes everything to you, who adores you, who never wants to see you sad. So tell me, darling, what is it?”
So gradually it comes. At first it seems, Nisha disapproved of Elli’s blue legs, she disliked the way men’s eyes used to be drawn to them. At last out slips the real reason. “It’s so embarrassing to see your own father looking at a woman. To think such things go on in his mind.”
“What things? Things such as…?”
“You know what I mean,” she says. “The way he looks at her.”
“How looks? He just looks. He’s a fair man, darling. Besides, what if he finds her attractive? Don’t you find anyone attractive?”
She blushes and won’t say another thing. This tears me up. Not that I myself was hoping for a compliment but I feel certain she’s thinking of Zafar. The merest hint of sex, she thinks of Zafar! I feel sure they’re shagging. How have I missed it, so many nights in the tree, never once have I caught them. To be on the safe side I decide to double Zafar’s dose.
“Living this way is hard,” says Nisha at last, her pebbles plop in the river louder than mine. “To have a dream, yet not dare to believe in it.”
“Yes,” says I, who’s about to confess a terrible hope. “What is it, your dream?”
“For this struggle to end. For us to win. As things are going, maybe it can even happen.”
“You really believe that?” I’m looking over to where Ma’s sat at the centre of a group of young men and women, holding forth. They’re giving it their best nods and grins, though no word of hers do they understand.
“Do I believe it?” says Nisha. “Not really, that’s why it’s a dream.”
“Is this all you dream of, Khaufpur, the struggle?”
“You don’t understand,” she says, “I want it to end. I don’t want to spend my whole life fighting against the Kampani.”
“Suppose it ends, what will you do?”
Nisha sighs and says, “I’d like to have kids, but I told Zafar, I don’t want our children growing up here. The poison in Khaufpur’s not only in the soil and water, it’s in people’s hearts. Zafar and me, we’ve promised each other that the day we win, when there’s justice and no more need for us, we’ll leave this city. Animal, have you ever seen the coast near Ratnagiri? Zafar says it’s a really peaceful place. We would live in a little house by the sea, we’d grow vegetables and have lots of children.”
“Name one after me.” It’s the first I’ve heard of this plan of theirs, with what jealousy it fills me.