“She is at home crying because you told her not to come here.”
“Why would I do that?” he demands, glaring at me as if I am lying. No, worse, as if I am to blame for all this.
“She tried to put some water on your mouth.”
“Water? Please…” His voice dries up, for a moment I think he’s asking for water, but probably he was begging me not to mention it because in a moment he starts again, following some thoughtway of his own. “I never walked in fire because I refuse to bow to god. Refusing to bow is not the same thing as not believing. Look at the world’s misery and you have to believe that something very malevolent is at work here. I can’t honour this vile thing.”
He looks at Farouq who is lying asleep nearby with a sheet draped over him, pretty much like a corpse in its shroud. “Farouq can walk through fire because his mind is calm,” Zafar whispers. “But right now the fire is inside me and I tell you Animal it’s fucking burning me up.”
I think Zafar doesn’t hear these words that are crawling out of his mouth. It’s like he is this parched old corpse, uttering thoughts which have chewed him up from the inside starting with his muscles and bones and ending with his soul. Now they are like beetles, dropping from his mouth onto the ground. Never would I have expected it, but it pains me to see my old rival in this state. It fucking hurts, for a moment I even feel proud of the man. He’s talking like a weakling, but he’s not weak. If he was weak, he’d take a drink and he’d live. It’s his strength that’s killing him. Once inside the factory I found a parcel of furry skin stretched over bones, it was a dead dog, so old it no longer stank. I prodded it with a stick and a lizard ran out of a gap in its ribs. Its insides were full of white peas, which must have been lizard eggs, and it was crawling with black beetles. This will be Zafar in another day or two.
I am just thinking what news I can carry to Nisha when, of a sudden, there comes cheering outside the tent. People are applauding. Then Elli’s here, she’s telling Zafar and Farouq that they can stop their hunger strike, they can drink water, they can eat an orange, they can chew a date, they can rejoice, get up and dance because the deal has been delayed. She’s just had a call from someone she knows. The deal is not going to happen. There’s no way it can be signed before Monday, which is the day of the hearing. We have won.
Khaufpuri-style celebration is a no-holds-barred affair, every festival it’s, all rolled into one. Folk have so little good news in their lives, when they get some they go apeshit. Someone has brought gulal, coloured powder, the stuff that’s thrown at Holi, others are lighting firecrackers, little bundles of red fatakas, they’re flipping about in the dust like exploding fish. Happy people are jigging round the square, everyone’s saying, “We have won, we’ve done it, the Kampani’s on its knees.” All around us Khaufpuris are dancing and yelling. Some are hugging each other. The tent is full of people grinning and giving victory signs and there’s a long queue to shake Zafar’s and Farouq’s hands. In the midst of all this rejoicing I am wondering, who has really won? How come Elli, who is in cahoots with the lawyers, has brought such news at such a time?
Through the excited crowd I catch sight of Elli’s pale face, she is the only person other than me who isn’t smiling.
The scorpions have gone barmy, or perhaps it’s Ma. I’m woken by the madwoman chuckling to herself and’ve gone down the ladder to find Ma with a pissed-off looking scorpion crouched on the palm of her hand. Seems to be giving it instructions. I freeze so’s not to alarm the creature. These red ones, they’re the dangerous kind. One bite from one of these you are history. This is not what’s needed right now. I’ve hardly slept. All night I have been fighting with my newly discovered conscience, I have decided that I must warn Zafar, brother don’t be fooled by Elli’s news, Elli is a fake.
“Can you feel the heat?” Ma asks, giving me a sweet smile. “Hell is opening under this city. The stones in the wall are burning, it’s driving the scorpions out, poor little things, their time has come, soon the earth will burn, plus trees and all green things, the abyss is opening, smoke will hide the sun and moon, like a scorpion it’ll sting, with such pain that men will beg to die.”
“Yes yes,” I tell her, “please put that creature down.”
“Honestly Animal, don’t you hear a word I say? The night is coming when this city will be full of angels and dead people, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She holds out her hand to me, the scorpion still crouched there flexing its tail. “Here, mind you don’t hurt him, isn’t he lovely? His name is François.”
Carefully, carefully, I take François and lower him to the earth. A score of heartbeats shake my body before his little legs start moving and he grants me the gift of my life. It’s only seven in the morning, already the heat’s climbing a spiral to the unbearable.
Sunday, sixth day of the Nautapa. 124F. I call at Somraj’s place expecting to find Zafar there, now there’s no more reason for his hunger strike. Somraj looks ill. There are dark marks under his eyes as if he has not slept. Zafar and Farouq are still in the tent, he informs me, the fast goes on.
“But what about Elli’s news? Last night, people were dancing.”
Somraj says there’s been no confirmation of her news. The politicians are terrified that Zafar or Farouq will die, the story might have been a trick to get them to stop their fast. Tomorrow morning is the hearing, Somraj says. One way or another, by then we’ll know.
The crowd outside the tent has grown, it fills the small park and it is quiet. Word has got about, our heroes must endure one more day. Everyone knows that if tomorrow comes and if Zafar and Farouq do not call a halt, by day’s end they will surely die. Eerie is the silence of so many people, almost, you can hear them breathe. Farouq and Zafar are lying on rugs with their eyes closed, a few people are sitting silently by. One of those in the tent is a man called Ramlal who knows me, he’s the husband of Devika, one of the original hunger strikers, so I ask if anything’s been heard.
“What? You don’t know? It’s all over Khaufpur.”
“I’ve just come from home.”
Ramlal is about to speak when Zafar stirs and mumbles, “Who has come?”
“Zafar? Zafar bhai, it’s me, Animal. I’ve something to tell you.”
“Animal? Good you’ve come,” he says out of lips so puffed, blackish they are, falling apart, they hardly can speak. “I also have something to tell you.”
“What is it, mate?”
“Come near, I can’t talk so well.”
Yesterday he was bad, today he’s worse. His eyes are red storms. His breath rattles like dice.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’ve stopped sweating. Can’t take a piss. I’m burning up.”
“It’s Nautapa.”
“No. I’m burning from inside. Like a furnace.” Poor fellow’s trying to lick his lips but they don’t get moist. “Let that be. Come nearer, I don’t want anyone to hear.”
So I crouch down right by him and he takes my hand. Almost I jump back, his skin is so hot. It’s like when I was carrying Aliya.
He says, “You are fond of Nisha, I know.”
“Of course. We all are.”
“Yes, but with you…for you it’s special, na?”
“What do you mean?”
“No time to argue,” he says. “Can hardly talk, so just listen.” I nod, and he says, “What we are doing, it could go wrong. If anything happens, look after her. Make sure she’s okay.”
This request and his pessimism catch me off guard. “Zafar, you silly sod, stop this right now, you don’t need to do it any more.” Even as I say this I realise that my news is bound to make him even more determined.