“Animal, do you ever listen to anyone else? Talk talk talk, is all you do. How you chunter. Honestly, if talking’s what makes people human, no one is more human than you.”
Well this is a dirty dig, but I adore Nisha, and content myself with giving her a reproachful look like one of Jara’s, all big eyes. This does the needful, never is she cross with me for long. She sighs, “You idiot, I’m trying to tell you something important. I’ve just been to Ghanshyam’s to have my photo taken.”
Eyes, this Ghanshyam has a shop in Iltutmish Street with pictures in the windows of people with hairstyles from twenty years ago. They’ve gone yellow, these pictures, and there is flyshit on the corners, but people go to him to have their babies photographed and, oh my god, for wedding pictures.
“You are not getting married?”
She bursts out laughing. “No, fool, I am getting a passport.”
“Passport?” In times of surprise, Eyes, maybe you do it too, I transform to a parrot. “A passport? What for do you need a passport?”
“Going to Amrika,” she says, no longer laughing.
“Amrika? Why are you going to Amrika?”
“Elli is going, she is going with my dad. They are taking me to meet Elli’s family.”
“Elli and your dad? But why?” Hardly am I able to breathe, it’s like a heavy stone is crushing my chest.
“My dad and Elli, they’re going to be married.”
“Animal, won’t you speak? Please say something. You were the first to suspect this. Why are you looking so upset?”
Upset? Eyes, I’m gutted. How can I tell Nisha that it was me that was supposed to go to Amrika with Elli? She was taking me for my back, somehow we would find money for the operation. She was going to show me New York, dinosaur museum etcetera. Now she will go with Somraj and Nisha and what’s to become of me?
“Nisha, this is very fine news.”
“Is it?” she asks. “I wish I did not feel so miserable.”
“Why miserable? You are going too.”
“I never expected him to fall in love.” She utters the word “love” as if it tastes of dung. “He’s told me since I was small that he would never marry again.”
“Twenty years is a long time to be alone.”
“I know, I know,” says Nisha, with her head in her hands. “It is wrong of me to feel this way. I should be happy for them.”
So the story comes out. After Somraj and Elli discovered they were in love, Elli asked him and Nisha to go with her to meet her family. Tickets she has bought for the three of them to travel by plane to Amrika.
“When is this happening?”
Nisha told me they would wait until the big hearing when the Kampani would have to show up in court, then for a month they’d be gone.
“The hearing, it’s when?” I’ll be counting the days.
“It’s about three weeks away. Elli has arranged for some old doctor she knows to stand in for her while we’re gone.”
“What does Zafar say?” Strange it’s, although I’m jealous of Zafar, plus I’ve nearly killed him with Faqri’s pills, in a crisis I feel it’s him we must turn to. Zafar will see what’s right, he will tell us what’s best to do.
“Oh Zafar’s thrilled,” says Nisha bitterly. “He says our case against the Kampani will be strengthened because Elli will report the truth about people’s illnesses, it will help us when we get them into court.”
So Zafar has gauged this, as he measures everything, by how much good it will do for the cause. What a selfless man, such singlemindedness is rare, and Zafar shines with it.
“Are you looking forward to seeing Amrika?”
“I don’t want to go. Know why they’re taking me? My dad’s feeling guilty, plus Elli wants me to like her. She says her father will take me fishing.”
This raises a pang, when Elli talked about taking me to Amrika, she had said the same thing about fishing to me. “You should go, Nish. No one can see the future. It might be the best thing.”
“I asked her if she really loved my father. You know what she said?”
“Well, how should I?”
“She said, ‘He has the purest soul of anyone I have ever met.’”
“So that’s good. Why does it upset you?”
“I don’t know. I’m selfish. It means my childhood is over.” Poor Nisha’s dabbing her eyes with a kitchen cloth. “Ever since I can remember, it’s been me and my dad, and I’ve looked after him and the house. Now those days are over.”
“A new time is beginning, darling, it’ll bring a new kind of happiness.”
An odd look she gives me. “Animal, you should not go around wearing just shorts. Times’ve I told you? Let me buy you some proper clothes.”
“I won’t be parted from my kakadus.”
She sighs. “This news is still secret. Don’t tell anyone. Not a soul.”
“On my life.”
Well, I am feeling sick and betrayed, but I keep my promise to Nisha. Only two people do I tell, Ma and the Chairman of the Board, alias my little two-headed friend. His advice proves that he too is a selfish cunt and that everyone in this world is out for number one. “This is good,” says he, “when Elli doctress is in Amrika, it will give you a chance to get us out of here.” Some days later he informs me he has told the other members of the Board, they’ve passed a resolution welcoming the merger between Somraj and Elli.
Somraj and Elli, Elli and Somraj. What else does this news mean? Eyes, I’ll gulp down old remembered bitterness, be a ringmaster of the imagination. When it is announced, the news means celebrations. A party. Not just a party, a grand party. It means a big tent in the street under the mango tree, yes, a coloured shamiana just like the one Elli’s opening ceremony was held in. It means drinks, snacks, barfis in silver paper, supplied by Ram Nekchalan who claims to have hired a sweet maker from Agra. It means a feast of biryani and kheer with plenty of cream and raisins. Everyone is there. Musicians come from far away to celebrate the engagement of their great hero. Elli has asked me to make sure Ma Franci is there, so the party is enlivened by her tonton lariton and crazy etceteras.
“Je connais tes oeuvres, ton amour,” she tells Zafar, smiling blessings on him, taking his face in her hands. “Ta foi, ton fidèle service, ta constance.”
“Ma, it is Somraj who is getting married. Not Zafar.” How I hope this remains true. The music and reciting of poetry continues deep into the night, each of the city’s poets trying to outdo the next.
“Chalo dildar chalo, chand ke paar chalo. Somraj-ji, let’s all go to the lake. Right now, yaar. You must take a boat. Look, there is a moon, it’s a night made for love.”
Love, what a charade. Too much of it in the world. Everyone is in love. Elli with Somraj, Somraj with Elli. Nisha with Zafar, Zafar with Nisha. Everyone except me. This world no longer pretends to be made of such things as music and promises but announces its true nature, which is love.
The happiness wished on all sides is endless and ever deepening. Thus do we spin and spin, trying to turn a moment’s pleasure into forever, but why not, let’s make the most of it, because it never lasts long. Always, there’s something along to spoil it.
TAPE SEVENTEEN
The Kampani lawyers arrive in Khaufpur with no warning.
Timecheck sees them first. Four Amrikans, leaving the Collector’s office, getting into a car. “They met senior persons,” Timecheck tells us, “their leader is a big fellow dressed peculiar.” Well, no one knows what this might mean but alarming information is soon flying in thick and fast. This very afternoon the Amrikans will meet Zahreel Khan, tomorrow the CM.