Jai Lal shook his head: Oh, I’m not expecting anything like that. It’s much too early yet. Let’s see how the reports and things turn out first. But it’s turned out well for you, hasn’t it? You can go back now, with your friend all tied up. I’ll send a telex so that they’ll be ready for you.
God, yes, said Das. I’ll be glad to get back.
Jai Lal got up to go. Jyoti Das was staring at the streets below the hotel and the expanse of white sand beyond the city. He turned suddenly. Listen, he said on an impulse, couldn’t we meet Jeevanbhai Patel again before I leave? I’d like to ask him a few things — just personal things. How he ended up here, what he did and suchlike. Meeting him was the only worthwhile thing that happened to me here. Is it possible?
No.
But couldn’t you ask this chap in security, since you know him so well? Or else couldn’t we visit him in gaol, like ordinary visitors?
Lal shuffled his feet uncomfortably. No, he said, it’s not possible. You see, Jeevanbhai hanged himself this morning. With his belt. He was dead when I got there. Must have done it as soon as he sobered up. That’s why I took so long. They needed someone to identify the body and sign papers and all that. He had no relatives.
Chapter Seventeen. A Last Look
There was no sleep for Zindi that night. When she got back to her house, she lay on her mattress with Boss beside her and tried to still her pounding pulse and shut her eyes. But it was no use; the metallic sharpness of her excitement worried at her tongue like a brass shaving. Soon she gave up and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, and to the tune of the snores in the next room she filled the darkness with her plans for the Durban Tailoring House.
She rose a little before dawn, alerted by the stirring of the geese in the courtyard. That was when, she knew, sleep is at its deepest; she could have knocked down a wall without waking anyone in the house. But, still, her every instinct cried to her to be careful. She found her torch, and stealthily, crouching on the floor, she cleared a pile of mats, mattresses and cooking-pots from a corner of the room. Once, a tin tray dropped from her hands. She froze as the clattering echoed through the house. But there was no break in the steady rhythm of snores in the next room. She went back to work, biting her lip fiercely.
When she had laid the floor bare, she counted four handspans from the corner towards the centre of the room, and marked the place with a matchstick. Then she sat back, closed an eye and examined the angle again. She had to get it just right. When she was sure, she removed, very carefully, a section of the thin, cracked layer of cement which served as the floor. There were bricks underneath. She shone her torch over them, squinting hard, until she found the brick she wanted: one with a tiny daub of white paint in a corner. That brick had an almost invisible dent in one side, which provided a grip of sorts for a fingertip. But the bricks were wedged firmly together and it took her a long time and a broken fingernail to pull it out. After that, the four bricks around the empty space of the first came away easily, exposing a large patch of loose soil.
Zindi bent down and dug her hands into the soil. She scrabbled about for a moment, and then, sucking in a long breath, she drew out a large aluminium cooking-pot. Inside, wrapped in cellophane, was a heavy iron box. It was fastened with a huge padlock. She drew her handkerchief-wrapped bunch of keys out of the neck of her dress, found the right key and opened the box.
It was all there, all the money she had saved in her decades in al-Ghazira: the measure of her life. It was a lot of money: dirhams and dollars and sterling in yellowing cash. Enough to pay for the shop and lay in an entire range of new stocks.
She shut her eyes and breathed the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
It took only a few minutes after that to stuff the money into her dress, to put the empty box back, and rearrange the bricks and the cement and the mats and mattresses. Then she stood back and looked at it, pleased with herself; even she wouldn’t have known whether anything had been moved.
It was dawn now, and the wads of notes rustling against her skin charged her with an unbearable impatience. But before leaving she had to talk to Kulfi, and Kulfi was still asleep in the women’s room. If she went in there to wake her up she might wake the others as well. So instead she decided to wait in the courtyard, for Kulfi was always the first one up in the morning.
Squatting in the courtyard, listening to the hissing of the geese, Zindi suddenly remembered that other day, so many long months ago, when someone else had waited for Kulfi at dawn, and she smiled to herself. Mast Ram was beaten now, at last. She had beaten him. With the shop in her hands, she would wean Rakesh away first, with clothes perhaps. Then Zaghloul. Kulfi was with her anyway, only too timid to say so. Abu Fahl would follow, and then they’d all come, back to the shelter of her house. All of them, hanging their heads and pleading …
Kulfi came out soon, yawning. Zindi gestured quickly to her to be quiet and caught her arm. Don’t go anywhere today, she whispered into her ear. Wait for me in the house. I’ll need you later today — there’ll be work to do. I can’t talk now, but I’ll tell you about it later. Boss is in the other room. Look after him. Don’t go anywhere; don’t move. Stay here and wait for me.
But where are you going at this time of the morning? Kulfi asked in surprise.
To the Souq, Zindi hissed, to Jeevanbhai’s shop.
Now? Kulfi said doubtfully. She turned and looked at Jeevanbhai’s door. A lock hung upon the latch. But, she cried, he’s not here. Where is he?
Zindi pinched her arm and Kulfi squealed. Be quiet, Zindi snapped. What does it matter? You know he often passes out in his sleep when he’s been drinking. He’s there, in his shop, waiting for me. Now, remember: don’t go anywhere — just wait for me.
With a last warning tap on Kulfi’s arm, Zindi turned and surged out of the house.
It was not yet seven when she reached the Maidan al-Jami‘i, and the shops and cafés in the square were all shut. A man was washing the pavement outside the mosque, singing to himself, and in the square there were a couple of figures stretched out on the stone benches. Zindi hurried past them, straight to the Bab al-Asli. She stopped there for a moment, and for the first time that morning a doubt struck her. Would he be waiting after all? She shook her head and slipped quickly through the Bab al-Asli into the enveloping blackness beyond.
She had to feel her way along slowly at first, half-blinded by the sudden darkness. She tried to hurry and stumbled. Muttering to herself, she slowed down again, though impatience and worry were clawing at her scalp now.
She turned into the first lane and a huge sigh of relief gushed out of her lungs. The steel collapsible gates of the Durban Tailoring House were drawn and its neon lights were glowing like beacons in the gloom of the passageway. She stopped and carefully patted the wads of notes around her neck and waist. Then she looked up again, and at exactly that moment a head appeared in the shop’s doorway, blew its nose, and vanished into the shop.
It wasn’t Jeevanbhai. Even in that brief glimpse she had seen, quite clearly, a peaked cap and the neck of a black uniform.
Her mouth went dry and she had to lean her shaking body against the wall of the corridor. After a while, when her knees were steady again, she pressed herself against the shop-fronts and inched forward, towards the Durban Tailoring House, grateful for the shadowy blackness of her fustan.
An age seemed to pass before she was halfway down the corridor. The head didn’t appear again, but she could hear muffled voices now. They grew louder as she worked her way forward, but she could see nothing except the shop’s window. When she was almost opposite the Durban Tailoring House, she dropped to her knees and half-crawled along the corridor till she could see inside. Three black-uniformed men were lounging on stools, laughing and talking good-humouredly. Files and papers lay piled up in heaps all over the floor of the shop. Zindi crouched back against the billboards of the travel agency behind her, shivering. They had only to turn their heads to see her.