Moths are whirring round the lamp that sits between them. He is silent, thoughtful, bent forward like a statue. What did he know of marriage, whose own had lasted only three years before it was terminated by that night?
“This is when I thought of coming to Khaufpur. I would open a clinic. I would touch the real world. It was a completely unreasonable idea and I was sure he’d hate it. Instead he praised me for being noble. When I began taking Hindi lessons, he said it was a beautiful dream to have.”
“I am glad you had that dream.”
Oh please, Mr. Somraj sir, let’s not have you descending into slush. Any moment now they’ll be holding hands and after that, who knows what? Of course it’s why I am here, I’m waiting to see what they’ll do, jamisponding has become my career. Will they kiss? Maybe even do it?
“I wish you’d let me treat you,” says Elli, after they have been silent a while. “I hear you coughing at night.”
“You know I can’t do that,” he says. “How can I take your help for myself while others are still denied it?”
“Then make them come, reason with Zafar.”
“Be patient with us, Elli,” says Somraj. “One day the patients will come.”
“That’s what Zahreel Khan said,” she replies. “Him I didn’t believe, but somehow I believe it when I hear it from you.”
Once again the moment comes close for which I am waiting. Night has plunged Khaufpur into its peculiar blackout, beyond the small cloud of lamp light is a deep sky of stars. Somraj in his white garments looks like a headless ghost, his dark face and hair have vanished.
“Can you smell the flowers?” he asks, ending this new silence.
“The jasmine?” It’s like both of them are relieved to change the subject.
“They are not simply jasmine,” says Somraj, “they are raat-ki-rani, which means queen-of-the-night, the most powerful of all the jasmines.”
“Well, they certainly grow fast. They’ve climbed right up into the mango.” They glance up towards me, I nearly die of fright.
“I love the scent,” says Elli. “It reminds me of the jasmines my mother grew in our house near the forest. The scent is shining white, just as patchouli is a deep red note. Do you ever think of scents that way?”
“It’s intoxicating,” says Somraj. “Like a woman’s voice singing both high and sweet. A pure voice, yet the notes are grainy, diffused, glowing.”
Again a silence, seems to me they are gabbling just in order to reach these wordless moments when perhaps are thought things the tongue dares not utter.
“I am determined you shall sing again,” she says. Well, now she’s blown it, touching that forbidden subject which never must be mentioned.
“Alas, I think not.” To my surprise Somraj’s voice is gentle as before. “The breath of a singer is not ordinary breath. My father could take a breath and hold it for two minutes and then exhale it smoothly for one minute more. At first I could not do that, I learned slowly. I’d draw a deep breath and then recite a verse without inhaling. I had to speak clearly and slowly. When I could do this, I was given a longer poem, and a longer one. It came slowly, my father would get impatient and say it was a pity that breath could not be dissolved in water and given to me in a glass.”
“Who knows what can be done?” cries Elli. “I won’t let you give up.”
“Breath is everything,” says Somraj. “Sa can be sung in as many ways as there are ways of breathing. For a singer, breath is not just the life of the body but of the soul.”
This is the moment! She leans towards him, the lamp outlines her face in golden light, in her thoughts I hear a kind of confusion, all now depends on Somraj, does he see the effect he is having on this woman, has he recognised the effect she has on him? Surely now that dark gap between their heads will diminish, they will come so close that no longer will they have a choice. After that, anything could happen, a kiss, strokes, more, clothes off, him on her in the bed, oh I can just imagine her pale arms on his dark skin, but the gap does not diminish, Somraj is still as a statue, she settles back in her chair, and me, who’ve been imagining all kinds of things, it’s my nerves which are jangling, aiiee, que j’ai vachement envie de tringler, as they say in the human tongue.
It’s late when they stop talking. Somraj gets up to leave, she accompanies him down. After a few minutes she returns in her nightclothes. She’s climbed into her bed, carefully tucked in the mosquito net all around, but looks like she’s having difficulty getting to sleep. She tosses and turns and can’t settle.
Now is the time for my aching creature to have its freedom. I peer at it in the dark, what a relentless monster, no peace does it give me, always it’s demanding, demanding, in my hand it feels hot and stupid, swollen like a jackfruit. My beastly lund wants to be pointed at Elli, brute thinks it’s a kind of magic to mark her as prey, who’s in control here? I aim the fucking thing away. Big moths are flying in the tree, I’m thinking maybe I’ll accidentally shoot down one of them, what a dismal way to die.
That very night Zafar fell ill. I’d taken a big risk increasing his medication. His risk, not mine. The poor guy has had an appalling time. Nisha tells me that while her father was over at Elli’s, Zafar’s mouth became dry, he complained that insects were crawling over him. After this his heart started blurring like a tabla player’s fingers doing a fast solo. No way could he drive his motorbike. When Somraj got home from Elli’s, he found Zafar burning up and babbling. Somraj wanted to call Elli, but Nisha said no. Zafar’s heart had slowed to normal. They put him to bed, she sat with him most of the night.
All next day Zafar sleeps, by evening is feeling a little better, tells us of a dream he had in which he’s flying above Khaufpur sitting on a plant stalk, and while he is high over the clouds a crow comes along and flies by his side and asks if he has the time. “I am afraid not,” says Zafar, all polite, how irritating that he should display such perfect manners even to a worthless bird like a crow. “You seem a decent sort,” comments the beady-eyed shit-eater, “I will grant you three wishes.” Quick as a flash Zafar pours out his heart’s deepest desires, “The Kampani must return to Khaufpur, remove the poisons from its factory plus clean the soil and the water it has contaminated, it must pay for good medical treatment for the thousands of people whose health it has ruined, it must give better than one-cup-chai-per-day compensation, plus the Kampani bosses must come to Khaufpur and face the charges from which they have been running for so long and the court case against them should conclude.”
“Whoa,” says the crow, “I make that at least seven wishes.”
Says Zafar, “All these proceed from one wish, which is that simple natural justice should prevail.”
So the crow starts cawing with laughter. “What a fool,” it chortles, “to think that such a thing as justice is simple or natural. Why do you expect that the lawyers up at the Collector’s office wear silly little wigs and funny collars? If justice were simple what need for fancy dress? Why do they charge so much? If there were such a thing as natural justice, wouldn’t you be entitled to it, whether or not you could pay?”
“Undoubtedly you are right,” says Zafar, “but a wish however foolish is still a wish, and that is my first one.”
Says the crow, “Granting an impossible wish is even more foolish than wishing it. What is your second wish?”
Zafar without hesitation replies, “My people are the poorest on the planet, those we fight against are the richest. We have nothing, they have it all. On our side there is hunger, on theirs greed with no purpose but to become greedier. Our people are so poor that thirty-three thousand of them together could not afford one Amrikan lawyer, the Kampani can afford thirty-three thousand lawyers. So my second wish is that you go back to my first wish and make the impossible possible.”