“Impossible possible?” caws the crow. “This is more foolish than the first. And your third?”
Zafar thinks about this for a long time then he says, “I would like to see the face of my enemy.”
“Look then,” says the bird.
As the crow says this, Zafar looks down and sees himself, a small figure standing alone on the shores of a sea that stretches up and away to the edge of the world, which begins to flash like a neon sign. Over the horizon appears a city of tall buildings. It grows taller, pushing above the ocean. It sprouts huge buildings like tusks in a pig’s jaw. One building towers above them all, bleak, windowless, formed of grey concrete. The air around Zafar now starts to throb with pulses of purple and green light, a fierce fire howls in his bowels. The fire begins to consume him, his sight blurs, he has trouble focusing on the huge building.
The crow says, “Behold, the Kampani. On its roof are soldiers with guns. Tanks patrol its foot. Jets fly over leaving criss-cross trails and its basements contain bunkers full of atomic bombs. From this building the Kampani controls its factories all over the world. It’s stuffed with banknotes, it is the counting house for the Kampani’s wealth. One floor of the building is reserved for the Kampani’s three-and-thirty thousand lawyers. Another is for doctors doing research to prove that the Kampani’s many accidents have caused no harm to anyone. On yet another engineers design plants that are cheap to make and run. Chemists on a higher floor are experimenting with poisons, mixing them up to see which most efficiently kill. One floor is devoted to living things waiting in cages to be killed. Above the chemists is a floor of those who sell the Kampani’s poisons with slogans like SHAKE HANDS WITH THE FUTURE and NOBODY CARES MORE, above these are a thousand public relations consultants, whose job is dealing with protesters like Zafar who are blind to the Kampani’s virtues and put out carping leaflets saying NOBODY CARES LESS. It is the job of the PR people to tell the world how good and caring and responsible the Kampani is. In the directors’ floor at the top of the building the Kampani is throwing a party for all its friends. There you’ll find generals and judges, senators, presidents and prime ministers, oil sheikhs, newspaper owners, movie stars, police chiefs, mafia dons, members of obscure royal families etcetera etcetera.”
The crow pauses to draw breath after this lengthy speech. Its wings brush close to Zafar’s face and blot out the light. Zafar, seeing himself down there alone, begins to despair, no matter how long and hard he works, how can he win against such a foe?
Says he, “This is not my wish. I asked to see my enemy’s face.”
“Third time impossible,” says the crow. “The Kampani has no face.”
It wheels away and vanishes and Zafar begins to fall from the sky. As he falls he sees the land of India spread out beneath him with all its forests and fields and hears his own voice crying agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast, hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast and he remembers that he is not helpless, that he possesses the invincible, undefeatable power of zero. Against that que dalle, zilch, nil, rien de tout, the Kampani’s everything stands no chance. Instantly, the patterns of the land dissolve to designs such as are woven into carpets by the Yar-yilaqis and others from Kabul to Kurdistan. Zafar, marvelling at the ravishing colours and shapes, thinks, “By god, in whom I don’t believe, if I could remember these I’d be a champion carpet weaver.”
Finally he sleeps, a deep sleep that lasts most of one day. He wakes free of pain but with his mind in turmoil and this thought chasing itself round his head: “I’m blind as a bat, mad as a hatter, red as a beet, hot as a hare, dry as a bone, my bowel and bladder have turned to stone, my heart runs alone.”
“Faqri you cunt, what did you put in those pills?”
After Zafar’s dream which everyone receives with awe, but which was really every old mantra he’d been regurgitating for years jumbled into one big druggy nasha, I’ve no choice but to stop the medication.
“Trade secret,” Faqri informs me.
“Don’t give me that.” Trade secret is a big joke in Khaufpur. It’s what the Kampani said after that night, when the doctors asked for medical info about the poisons that were wreaking havoc in the city. “What’s in those pills?”
He’s thinking about telling me, but taking his time, so to encourage him I lean forward and sink my teeth into his calf.
“Fuck!” he says, leaping back. “You’re a fucking savage, you are.”
“What’s in ’em?”
He’s rubbing his leg, looking aggrieved.
“Do I have to do it again?”
“Fuck off, no.”
“So what did you put in them?”
“Datura.”
“Datura?” I am not sure I’ve heard right.
“Yup,” he says. “I had a bit lying spare. I use it in my medicines, you know what a place Khaufpur is for asthma…” he hesitates, seeing my expression. “World capital of fucked lungs.”
“You stupid git.”
“Working, aren’t they?” says Faqri.
“Working? You idiot, I said to make him feel sick, not kill him.”
“Depends on the dose,” said Faqri stubbornly. “But I have a suggestion. Stop giving the pills to Zafar, take them yourself because it seems to me the real problem is your famous lund.”
Fuck Faqri, the bastard’s right, all this day I’ve thought of nothing but sex, it’s all I want. I want to fuck. Everyone’s at it, why not me? The whole world fucks away day and night, why am I the only one left out? Why shouldn’t I too have the pleasure, my thing aches with need of it, I mean need of the real thing, spit on your palm it’s not the same. It hurts when people hint, never do they say it to my face, that I should face facts, no woman will want me. Eyes, admit it, even you have thought this. Why shouldn’t I be wanted, even loved? Nisha loves me, okay not how I’d like, but she will when my back’s straight. It’s why even in his sickness I hate Zafar, he could have any woman, but he’ll take the only girl who treats me like normal, which by god I am, one day I’ll prove it by plunging this thing of mine into a living woman. I’ll pierce her and open her up until my cock is stroking her heart and she’s crying my name, “Animal! Animal! Animal!” and I will suck the sweetness of life from her lips.
Ever since he saved my life Farouq’s been acting like he’s my best mate. At his suggestion I must eat with him, drink chai with him, roam around the city with him. We should forget past quarrels and be chums, what a horrible thought. On the festival day of Holi, hardly a week after the fire walk, I’m in his flat near Ajmeri gate, where most of the Yar-yilaqis live, it’s the one place in Khaufpur where you’ll always find camels parked in the street. Farouq says to me, “Animal, Khã, today is your birthday.”
Well, that it isn’t. I don’t know on which day I was born, but it must fall close before the anniversary of that night. When I was smaller, and cared about such things as birthdays, there was no one to wish me happiness, so I’d pretend that the torchlight processions and the chants were in my honour, plus the burning of the Kampani big boss’s effigy was my party, because he was the monster who killed my parents.
“Nonetheless it’s your birthday,” Farouq insists when I’ve uttered all this. He gives a strange grin. “Must be, friend Animal, because I’ve a gift for you.”
“Such as?” I’m amazed, but also intrigued, usually the only gifts I get are those that I myself have stolen.