“You’ll regret this,” he snarls.
The clear light of the moon falls on the jar and I see with horror what it is I am carrying. The jar slips from my hands and falls, bursts, liquid gushes out. Lying on the ground inside the factory is the thing that was within, a half-rotted relic of that night.
Fleeing that cursed place through moon-licked grasses and bushes that bite, I am driven by a fear greater than snakes or dogs or men with sticks. The thing I am fleeing is more deadly than any of these and fouler than that poor creature rotting in his chemical womb. I am running from myself. I am running from the things I’ve done. I think of Zafar, whose death my poisons hastened, dry as a smoked fish he ended, yet right to the end how kind he was, the tears he could not shed are making my eyes watery lenses through which the world bends and bulges in unknown ways.
There are beings in the grass too, flitting beside me and mocking. The faces of the dead swim around me, jeering, is this that Animal who swore at us, insulted us, rebuked us for being powerless puffs of wind, mere gusset-gusts? Well, it is your turn, good it’s to see you suffer, Animal, limping along with thorns in your paws and waking nightmares, look, here is the poison-khana, you didn’t expect to see it, did you? You are lost in your own jungle. Come, climb it, do, and just try lording it over us this time, climb up to the top and go hang from the moon. Go on, leap off the top and grab hold of the moon. It will feel cool like ice. There, get your paws round the top of it, cling on. What, you are afraid of falling? That your back will break, that you’ll die? What difference, son? Your back’s already broken and you are dying. Feel the datura burning you up, the Nautapa is nothing compared to this heat which eats you from the inside.
I was right to eat the pills, I deserve to die, I should have done it sooner, made an end to myself, all of these things might have been avoided, yes it’s good to be dying for at last I shall be free of myself, of grief, pain, horror, despair, self-loathing there will be an end, and whether there is resurrection or reincarnation, whatever plans angels, devils or gods may have in store, I am never coming back.
At last there is the wall again on the far side, and I’m through a hole in the bricks and ahead is the railway track and on the other side the low roofs of the Nutcracker, as I enter its alleys I sense something going on, the rumble of a crowd, voices raised in argument. What time is it? No using consulting the moon, it has slipped away to the other side of the sky. Hours must have passed. The fire in my guts is growing worse, but some clarity has returned. It will not last long for have I not swallowed thirteen of Faqri’s golis? I am going to die, first I must say goodbye to Jara and to Ma.
“J’entends la voix d’une multitude d’anges et des autres êtres vivants, et leur nombre était des myriades de myriades et des milliers de milliers.” Thus is the old woman shouting. She’s hearing the voice of a horde of angels and other living beings, numbering millions and millions, they are crying out to god, and all the creatures of the air, on the earth and under it, in the sea, are crying. There is a tang in the air, my eyes begin to sting. Why is Ma cooking this late at night? Why is she frying chillies? Coming nearer to the tower, I begin to cough, the chillies are catching in my eyes, my throat, each breath feels like fire, matching the datura blaze in my guts. Still she shouts, “Je regardai, et voici, parut un cheval blanc.” What are you doing you foolish old woman, yelling about white horses and crowns of victory? I know what comes next, it’s the red horse whose rider has a sword to end men’s gorging on one another’s flesh, then a black horse, ridden by one who carries scales of justice. It is not just my eyes and guts which are on fire. There’s a heat on my back, the ground around me is a mass of writhing shadows.
Chants the voice of the madwoman, “Parut un cheval d’une couleur pâle. Celui qui le montait se nommait la mort, et l’hadès le suivait, pour exterminer les hommes par l’épée, par la famine, par la peste, et par les bêtes sauvages de la terre.” It’s a pale horse, on him’s death with hell twoup behind, come they’ve so men may be extermined by war, famine and plagues, their bodies devoured by the wild beasts of the earth. My eyes are streaming, it is hard to keep them open, there seems to be smoke drifting, voices are shouting, “Run, run for your lives! The factory is on fire!” I look behind, there’s a glow in the sky, clouds of smoke are billowing upward. “Run run,” the voices cry, “the gas has come.” “Run! Save yourselves!” “That night has come again!” Now I know why the ground is heaving, the little light from the door of our tower shows the earth alive with snakes and other small creatures, rushing desperate to escape the flames.
Inside with the dog’s Ma dressed in nun’s getup, clutched to her chest is Sanjo’s book, but she’s not reading, who knows its every word by heart. Seeing me she cries in a loud voice, “Come Animal, we’ve work to do.”
My eyes are burning so badly I can hardly see her. “Ma, you must run.” Hardly can speak. “Quick, to safety.”
“There’s no safety,” says she. “It’s the Apokalis.” She moves to the door and stoops to go out. “Come, the people need our help.”
Alas, knowing what must be happening in the lanes of the Nutcracker, I cannot move. Never will I forget this moment, filled with dread I’m, it’s like my four feet have grown roots. Ma is standing in the doorway, waiting for me, curls of smoke are entering our tower.
“Come Animal.” Still I do not move. Ma smiles at me and says, “Goodbye, my dear child. Always I have loved you and I always will, yes, until after the end of time itself. We’ll meet in paradise.”
“Wait!” I cry, but she’s turned and gone.
Jara gives me a reproachful look, then follows Ma, looking back over her shoulder as if to say, goodbye then, for never in this life shall we see each other again. And I, who am anyway doomed, who’ve already lost friends, love and hope, watch the last two beings I love go out into that cloud of death and have no courage to go with them. No courage have I, but I have shame. Shame drives me forward a few steps, then the poison smoke is in my face, I’m retching, tears are running down my cheeks, Ma and Jara are faint figures heading into the thickest haze, from which now fewer and fewer figures are emerging.
Then I’m jostling panic-stricken people in alleys where so thick is the fog that lamps are reduced to pinpricks. In my head is the nightmare of Pandit Somraj who every night of his dreams sees Nafisubi Ali’s child crying under a street light as in a brown light dying figures stumble past.
Running I’m, running, I don’t know where, just to clutch onto one more hour, I do not want to let go even of these last burning moments, O lord how sweet it is, how tempting, is life.
TAPE TWENTY-TWO
Grey of morning comes jolting, my eyes can hardly open, there’s a bad taste in my mouth, my lungs are painful, but the datura fire in my belly, that is now raging out of control, bending and warping the world, hard to accept what I am seeing, country scenes, trees, fields rushing past, amazed to be alive I’m on a truck full of people lying in huddles, their eyes raw and swollen, ahead a man is throwing up over the side, the rushing air sends drops flying back a foul spray comes blittering on my face, my own stomach’s declared war on me, tearing itself apart it’s, ripping me from the inside, air’s gone purplish sun’s risen in a ball of orange and purple light, violent, swollen and strange.
“Let me off, where are you taking me?”
“Lie still brother, they’re taking you to hospital in Diwanabad.”
“No!” My gut’s in hideous pain, but I am filled with revulsion for human life and human society, I want no more of it.