Animal's People (10 page)

When Miriam Joseph sees me she says, “Animal, isn't it? Y'all remember me? I'd see all of y'all when I came to mass in the convent, my, how the world's changed.” She scratches her armpit, looking sad, so I guess the convent is just not the same without Ma and me. Miriam must have told Elli my name so that small mystery is solved. Just leaves the big one.

Everyone is buzzing about the clinic. Why should such a thing be started in Khaufpur by an Amrikan woman? On whose behalf has she come? Seems Zafar's suspicions have spread for there's murmuring that Elli doctress, it's what the Khaufpuris call her, has been sent by the Kampani.

“So what if she has?” reply some to this rumour. “The Kampani made us ill, why shouldn't it make us well again?”

“More than this,” say others. “Why should anyone else have to pay for our treatment? It's the Kampani alone who should pay.”

“Better it's the Kampani's clinic,” yet others argue. “Only the Kampani knows what deadly things flew from the factory on that night, who else will know the antidotes?”

People settle like mosquitoes on Elli doctress's staff and probe with sharp questions to suck out the truth.

“Elli madam is a good person,” Suresh the compounder tells a small crowd in the Chicken Claw. “With her own money she's making this clinic. She left a big job in Amrika out of pity for the people of Khaufpur.”

Well this sounds pretty unlikely. Plenty of Amrikans are here in Khaufpur these days doing all kinds of work from teaching to planting herb gardens, all are here because they don't agree with what the Kampani did, but not one has ever opened a clinic. Not with their own money. Not by themselves.

Manager Dayanand buys his chaws in Ram Nekchalan's grocery store, it's where the people of the Claw gather to chat and get their news. We soon learn that he's partial to laal imli ka gataagat which is tamarind bits, two rupees per small piece, nicely sour, with some salt and spices, good for the digestion, but when we ask about his new boss, apart from confirming that Elli's spending her own money, he's as clueless as everyone else. Dayanand was introduced to her by an elderly doctor for whom he once worked. This doctor is retired, lives in a posh house up by the lake. Elli doctress stayed with him when she first came from Amrika, he helped her find staff for the clinic. More than this Dayanand does not know or else is not willing to say.

From where does one woman get money enough to open a clinic? This is what everyone's asking. “Must be rich.” But Elli doesn't seem the rich type, she doesn't ride round in big cars, okay, she turned up here in a government car but since then's only used three-wheeler autos. A few times she's travelled with my mate Bhoora Khan and's haggled over each journey.

“Elli doctress, she's a real tight-fist, bloody,” says he ruefully, who like all auto-wallahs thinks foreigners should pay more than locals. This isn't only fair it's mathematical. Amrikan one dollar's forty rupees, therefore one Khaufpuri kilometer should equal forty Amrikan ones. But when Bhoora tells her this Elli doctress just laughs and asks him to calculate instead by the mathematics of free medicine.

Elli doesn't dress rich, never is she to be seen in anything but her blue jeans, plus the rich don't mix with the likes of us, but Elli likes joking with the street urchins, does not mind them shouting “Aiwa” and “I love you” at her, pretty soon every kid in the Chicken Claw knows her name, plus that she has come from Amrika and does not give sweets or baksheesh.

One day Elli herself goes into Nekchalan's shop. What she says to him I don't know but from that moment he's her greatest fan.

“When this clinic opens,” Nekchalan tells all who'll listen, “any of us can walk right in off the street, we'll be examined, we'll get treatment, medicines, and how much will we pay?” He pauses for effect, fucking bada batola, so important and knowledgeable, bigshot in the street, it's a long long pause, full of Nekchalan.

“Come on then, tell us how much?”

“Nothing.” Nekchalan's smiling like he's Elli's best friend, like he'd helped her plan the clinic.

“What?” people gasp. “Really free?” Don't forget, the government hospitals too are supposed to be free, but their kind of free no one can afford.

“Fully free,” says Nekchalan, trousering the money for their tea, matches, salt, flour, oil, whatever.

Word's soon spread from the Chicken Claw to Jyotinagar, Phuta Maqbara, the Nutcracker where Ma and I live, plus to other areas near the factory where lots of people are still ill. Free of charge? Treatment from a foreign doctor? Sounds too good to believe, but if Ram Nekchalan says it's true. Nekchalan doesn't cheat people, never gives short measure, usually will tip in a little extra of whatever it is they are buying, rice, sugar, daal, kerosene.

Wonderful guy? I don't think so. A little generosity keeps them crowding into his shop, and friend Ram is getting fat on his own goodness.

“Now we'll get some good treatment,” this is what everyone's saying. Kampani or no Kampani, the Khaufpuris are all for the clinic.

How would Elli Barber change my life? Of unknotting the rope of my spine there was no hope, and from the day of meeting the Khã-in-the-Jar the very idea of hope had become bitter and repulsive to me. One day I said to Zafar, “Hope is a crutch for weaklings. The strong carry on without.”

He nodded and beamed at me. “Brother, you're right. Let go of hope and keep fighting, it's the lesson of Khaufpur.”

I was actually surprised that he agreed. I'd been thinking of my own case, plus I was trying to needle him. How could he carry on his long fight without hope? Wasn't it he who'd said, “Why not today?”

“That's not hope.” He thought for a moment. “You can fight without hope, if the heart finds strength in something stronger.”

“What's that?” I knew I shouldn't have asked.

“Well,” says the fool, removing and wiping his specs as he always did when he was feeling emotional. “It is love.”

Eyes, did I just now say “Forget sex”? What fucking hypocrisy! Sex was the one thing I could never forget, my second impossible wish. My first wish was to stand upright, but why did I want that if not because it led to the second?

The thought of sex was in my head when I woke in the morning with my thing huge like a cricket bat, plus again when I lay down at night, thinking of what I couldn't have. On nights when the urge was strong, let's face it, almost every night, I'd pretend there was a woman lying beside me. She'd stroke me all over, when I was good and ready she'd show her secret place. The rest you may imagine, I certainly did, but of what use is a cunt of hay when it's a real live creature you want in your arms?

In what way would Elli change my life? Well, Eyes, you can call me seven suppurating kinds of fool, but if Elli wasn't to mend my back, for me it left only one other possibility.

One evening me, Zafar, Farouq and a couple of others from the group are in Nisha's garden, looking at Elli Barber's building. There's a light on at a second floor window. A tree's growing up right beside it.

Zafar jokes, “Maybe we should climb up and see what's going on in there.”

“I'll do it.” I don't know why I say this. Not to impress Nisha because she isn't there, maybe just to show I'm as good as them. Well, I've got strong arms, probably stronger than any of them. I can haul myself up with no need of legs.

This tree, it's a large mango, growing right by the building. We go over to it and Zafar says, “Do you need a leg up?” I tell him to fuck off, there's enough knobbles sticking out I don't need any help. After the first branch it's easier but still not that easy. I've gone up the tree best I can arm over arm, the buggers below in the dark egg me on in loud whispers. “Higher, Animal, you bastard.” “Come on, show us what you're made of.”

Higher up the branches spread out and nearly touch the wall, but they're starting to get bendier plus there's still a long way to climb. I've to pull myself up, get an elbow over, haul my body across, then twist and roll my arse onto the branch. Tough work it's, the legs being useless and all. I'm wearing nothing but my kakadu shorts, and getting scratched to fuck by thorns and twigs.

“Fucker climbs like a monkey.” From the darkness there's a laugh that sounds like that lout Farouq. I look down to give him a scowl, it's a long drop to where they're clustered at the foot of the tree.

The building's right across the road from Nisha's house. From where I'm perched I can see Pandit Somraj sitting in his room listening to music. Listen, listen, listen, it's all he does all day and night. If he isn't listening to records he's listening to the radio, if he isn't listening to the radio, he's listening to his students, or else to frogs and bicycle pumps and dripping taps. Nisha's inside with her father. I can see her offering him a cup of something and my heart thuds like a dholak thrashed by a monkey. Taka dum takataka dum dhoiiing dhooom! Better she stays inside. Zafar said not to tell her what we were doing. Nisha wouldn't approve. Spying on the Amrikan, she'd say it's immoral.

“Well done, keep going.” It's Our Leader, always has an encouraging word. Mr. Perfect, fuck him.

“Shut up!” I hiss. “She'll hear you!”

“Don't worry she'll think you're a baboon,” says Farouq.

I consider pulling down my kakadus and shitting on Farouq's head, but I can't see him well enough, just the glow of someone's beedi.

“Too big for a monkey,” someone else chips in.

“What does she know?” says Farouq. “She's Amrikan.”

Eventually I get going again. I am still below the window but it is getting nearer. I can now see the ceiling, which is a bright pink, like the inside of a camel's mouth. Here's a woman's hand, holding something red. It appears in the bit I can see, then vanishes again. This happens a few times. What is she doing? The buggers down below are silent now, they sense I'm on the brink. The hand comes up again, with the red thing in it. One more branch, it dips dangerously, I struggle to keep my grip. I can see her head. It's glistening. The hand, holding a red plastic jug, appears and pours water over it. With her other hand she's rinsing her hair. Now at last I'm higher than the window. Elli Barber's in there, ten feet away. She's taking a bath and she's got nothing on.

Her legs aren't blue but as pale as milk. She reaches down and nothing is hidden from me. Next she's soaping herself all over. Every part. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how a woman's body is made, it's the first time I've ever seen one naked.

Yes, it's the first time, except in sleep. Often I'd dream of making love with I won't say her name. I never told anyone because if people got to know, what would they do, laugh at me, pity me? “Animal, don't have those kind of hopes.” I'd see the warnings in the faces of old women who caught me looking at her. Animal mating with human female, it's unnatural, but I've no choice but to be unnatural. Many times I would dream that she and I were in love, sometimes we were married and naked together like in the movies having sex. In such dreams was my back straight? Did I stand upright? No and no. I was exactly as I am now and it did not matter. Such dreams! I woke from them shaking with hope. This frightened me, I despise hope.

“What's going on?” comes the whisper from below.

Elli turns away again. She bends, showing all she's got.

“Pssst, Animal?”

I can't answer. I can't speak. She straightens up, pours more water and hai hai hai, what is she doing? She's feeling her breasts. My heart's thudding, I'm giddy, I grab at the branch above my head, there's this great noise of leaves.

Elli Barber comes to the window. She stands there drying herself with a towel looking this way and that. Any moment now she'll look right at me.

The light goes out.

“Animal, what the fuck?”

They want me to come down now, report what I've learned. I can't move. There's a furnace in my groin. No way will I go down and let them see me in this state. I am going to be up here for some time.

Well, at least one part of me can stand upright.

Eyes, I don't know if you are a man or a woman. I'm thinking the things I am telling are not suited to a woman's ears, but if a person leaves things unsaid so as to avoid looking bad, it's a lie. I have sworn not to lie to you. If you feel embarrassed throw down the book in which these words are printed. Carry on reading it's your lookout, there's worse to come, don't go crying later “Animal's a horrible person, full of filth,” think I don't know it already? Eyes, if you're a woman I ask you not to leave me now, in this world my best people have always been women, such as Jara, Ma Franci, Nisha. If you're a man it doesn't matter, you're a dirty fucker anyway.