“What? And will you also tell me that Amrikan lawyer man didn’t kiss you, in the garden at Jehannum?”
“How could you know that?”
“You are married to this man,” I say, ignoring her question. “Don’t ask how I know, it’s my gift, my voices tell me what’s in your mind. You are married to this man yet you do everything to make Somraj fall in love with you. Don’t you know how he has suffered? Torturing him, does it make you happy?”
“I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Have you ever said a true or sincere word to any of us?”
Anger is catching and now it’s in her voice too. “Some friend you are, Animal. If the voices in your head know everything they should know that I am fucking divorced from that man. He tricked and cheated me as he has all the rest of us. I can never forgive him.”
“Oh, so how come you let him kiss you. Why did he say you’d done such a good job you could go home to Amrika? I was there wasn’t I? Me, mister Jamispond. I was sent to Jehannum to keep an eye on the lawyers.”
“But you saw me, and immediately assumed the worst?” I can feel her eyes like hot lamps on my face.
“What else to assume?”
“What about the work I’ve done here? What about us being friends? Why didn’t you come and ask me about it?”
“I felt sick.”
“Well hear this then,” says Elli. “I don’t work for the Kampani. My husband does. I fought with him about it, it’s one of the reasons I divorced him and came here. But I was stupid. You can’t right other people’s wrongs. I am not going to apologise for anything, but get one thing straight. Those four men are not my friends. I hate them like poison. To me, they’re the worst people in the world. I was doing work I loved, I met a man I loved. They came here, they fucked all that up. God knows what I’ll do now.”
“You’ll go back to Amrika, like the Amrikan lawyer told you.”
“Like hell I will. I’m not giving up, I won’t be beaten by those bastards. Animal, I don’t blame you for thinking the worst, in your place I’d likely have done the same. But now you’ll hear my side.”
So Elli tells me of the shock she had felt when the Amrikan lawyers came to the city. These were people who knew her, who could undo all her work. When Timecheck described the big guy with the red-lined coat, she knew exactly who it was. She’d been to his house, eaten pizza by his pool, shopped with his wife. Mel Musisin, he’s a heartless bastard, but the biggest shock was when she saw the fourth lawyer on the local tele. It was her husband, Frank. For all the next day Elli lived in fear of the phone, sure enough that evening he called her, asked to see her. She refused, so he gave her the number of the hotel and his room number. On the night of the CM demo, Elli waved the others off feeling like a Judas. She stood on her roof and looked towards the hill where the CM’s house was. Even across this distance, she could hear the crowd, the chanting. Then the rifle shots, hard flat cracks, echoing over the city. She rushed downstairs and turned on the tele, but there was nothing on but some old movie, Badnaami Ka Dilaasa. The solace of infamy. Elli hoped it was not an omen.
An anxious half hour passed before Somraj stepped from an auto, his kurta snowy in the moonlight. He took her arm and led her into the garden. On an impulse she grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth.
“Shhh,” said Somraj.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Nisha? She’s here? Zafar?”
“They’re back.” She’s touched her fingertips to his cheek, his lips.
“Please, not here,” says Somraj, removing her hands.
“Tell me what happened. Why did the police fire?”
“To frighten. Playing tough. The politicians want this deal.”
“But the court is ready to make an order against the Kampani.” Mentioning the Kampani made her feel sick.
“If they sign a deal, the case will be dead,” he says. “Our only hope is they don’t reach an agreement before the hearing. Once we have a ruling, it will be hard for them.”
That’s why Musisin and the others are here, she realises, almost at once he echoes this thought. “It’s the first time they have sent lawyers.”
“Surely the government has people’s interests at heart,” she tries, wishing to believe it. Somraj shakes his head. “In this country decent people don’t go into politics.”
“So what can we do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Like Zafar’s power of nothing?”
“Zafar is Zafar and by nothing I mean nothing, but maybe he is right. There is a strength that comes from having nothing because you have nothing to lose. What is it? Maybe courage, or ingenuity, or desperation, it appears where there is no help and no hope. Look at how you came to us. Out of nowhere, and out of nothing came a clinic.”
And now Somraj tells her what at that time no one else knows, of Zafar’s plan for a fast unto death.
Elli can no longer hide her unhappiness. Somraj, awkward and gentle as ever, reaches out his arms to her and draws her close to him. If ever’s the time to share her secret it’s now, but she does not have the courage.
What can I find to do? she’s thinking. What can I do that might make even the smallest difference? Nothing presents itself. Elli closes her eyes and thinks about nothing.
It’s past eleven when she leaves the clinic. She’s wearing a burqa to disguise herself. Still she keeps to the dark side of the lane.
Elli walks up the wide road leading to the Chowk. It’s late, but the place is still full of people. No one takes any notice. In a quiet place she removes the burqa and puts it into a bag. Then hails an auto.
The Jehan-nabz Hotel is clean and softly lit. In the garden are dinner tables and waiters with turbans like roses clearing away dishes. Elli checks her reflection in a case of swords and guns that had belonged to the Chhoté Nawab. The few months in the Khaufpuri sun have browned her skin. The receptionist is discreet and efficient. “Of course at once, madam,” he smiles, shortly afterwards reporting, “The gentleman is coming right away.”
Nearly a year since she’d last met Frank. She wonders if he’s changed, it would be odd to treat him like a stranger. But Frank looks as familiar as ever.
“Elli!” He catches up her hands. “You look great.”
“So do you.” He looks elegant, completely relaxed. Never ruffled, always charming. She remembers how proud she had been when he used to sweep her into a room full of strangers, announcing, “Hey everyone, this is my wife,” and how jealous she would get when the other women flirted with him.
“It’s okay to kiss you? Just a chaste one?”
She offers her cheek, trying to hide the tumult inside. What can I offer him, she’s wondering, to make him do what I want.
“Two Jack Daniels, long as the glass is tall,” he tells the hovering waiter.
“Frank, is there somewhere private we can talk?”
“There’s my room,” he says, with a smile.
“Not that private. Perhaps we can walk in the garden.”
When they’re outside and he takes her arm, she is not sure how to react. The hand steering her elbow is the old possessive Frank. He’s still thinking of her as his wife.
If her ex-husband notices her awkwardness, he gives no sign. “Back home it’s late spring,” he says. “You should see the flowers. They’re out everywhere. Just before I came out here, I went walking in the woods with your folks. We saw all those things you used to tell me the names of. Let me see, cow’s tongue, that’s yellow, right? Bloodroot, Indian pipe, that little thing that looks like a dog’s tooth, Dutchman’s bitches…”
“Britches,” she says, with a genuine laugh. “How are my parents?”