Animal's People (9 page)

Elli appeared the way a spider does, from nowhere. Catch a movement in the corner of your eye, it's there. We were all in Nisha's house, which is her dad Somraj's house in the Chicken Claw. Who's we? Nisha of course, Zafar, he virtually lived there. Farouq I've mentioned, he was Zafar's right hand man. As well as these there were some other cronies, plus me and Jara. We're on the verandah, talking about the thing that had happened in Amrika, and Farouq's chafing me because I'd thought it was a movie.

“It was you who talked of movies. Just love making me look stupid, I hate you second-most in the world.” I could not say who I detested the most.

“Animal, take your head out your arse, I mentioned movies because movies show how they live over there.”

All's set for one of our rows, but Zafar intervenes, “We know zilch about their lives, they know nothing of ours, that's the problem.” How does a person become so fucking wise I don't know. I'm trying to think of some ploy that will make me look good in front of Nisha simultaneously making Farouq look bad in front of Zafar when suddenly this racket kicks up in the street, kids are shouting “Aiwa! Aiwa!” Stopped outside in the slush of the Claw is a car, not an auto or even a taxi mark you, a full four-wheel car it's, driver in uniform, everything. This foreign woman has climbed out, she's stood with tilted hip, looking at the building opposite. Some man's with her, he's pointing at the building and talking, she's listening and nodding. Hardly have they arrived, but already she's gathered a small crowd. In addition to “Aiwa, Aiwa!” the kids are calling out the other things they shout whenever they see a foreigner.

“Hello!” “What's your name?” “Baksheesh,” etc.

This foreigner is tall, taller than Nisha, plus to my mind très baisable, wah, what a sexy. Midriff's bare, she carries herself like someone who knows what she's about. Like in the song,
zulfein hain jaise kandhon pe baadal jhuke hue,
dark hair rests like a cloud on her shoulder, in the sun it's giving off bright flashes, like gold. The main thing I notice about her is that her blue jeans are so tight you can see everything. I half close my eyes and it's as if she has naked blue legs. She sees me watching her with my eyes screwed up and gives me a smile. I'm just about to wink back when Farouq nudges me with his foot and says, “Look who's got his hopes up.”

“Just his hopes?” asks some other wag.

So then they're all laughing at me and Farouq says in a loud voice, “Oy baba, must hurt going up the crack like that.”

Zafar was livid. “Shut your filth!” None of them can stand up to Zafar, they hold him in some kind of awe because of how he's given up everything in his life for us Khaufpuris. Farouq starts mumbling that the woman won't understand, being a firangi, Zafar says, “I was thinking of Nisha.”

The woman begins gupping with the kids, the moment she opens her mouth it's obvious she can speak Hindi. Farouq starts blushing but if she's heard what he said she's giving no sign. As soon as she and the man go into that building we're all over to the driver, it's who is she, what's going on, but he doesn't know fuck all except she is Amrikan. When she comes out we're still roaming around in the street. She stares a long time at me, I am hoping she doesn't think it was me that said that thing about her crack, although I can't deny I was thinking along the same lines.

Later Nisha's dad comes home from one of his meetings and tells us that she's bought the place.

All our lives we'd known the building across the road. It was dirty, in need of attention, none of us could think why an Amrikan woman would want it. It had once been a bicycle-repair shop, kept by a surly fucker called Ganesh. After that it became a sweet shop, rasgullas and gulab jamuns were fried there in big pans and we kids hung around hoping for treats. Next it was a carpenter's, turning out chairs and items like massage rollers. Then it was a tailor's place, where women from the bastis ruined their eyes doing gold and silver zari embroidery. I think one reel of gold thread was worth more than those women earned in a month. The tailors moved to a better part of town, a smart arcade where their saris could hang outside filling with wind like coloured sails and the arses waddling past took twice as much cloth to cover. After that the place stayed empty, until the blue-legged Amrikan.

What would bring an Amrikan woman to Khaufpur of all places? None of Zafar's contacts could tell us a thing about her. Labourers came, gutted the building, threw out its rotting wooden frames, burned them right there in the street. Next, carpenters arrived and Somraj came out of his house to listen to the music of their saws and drills, the drumming of their hammers. They were bossed by an old bugger in a lungi who chain-smoked two bundles of beedis a day.

“Health laboratory,” he told us, in a croaking voice.

Right off Zafar's suspicious. “Why does an Amrikan come to do medical experiments in this town?”

“Son, why jump to conclusions?” says Somraj. How I hate to hear Nisha's dad calling Zafar son. “What better place for a health laboratory than a town full of sickness?”

Zafar shakes his head. “It's the timing that's strange.”

His frown deepens when a few days later a van arrives bringing mashins various and plural, such as are found in hospitals. “I can just smell the Kampani,” says Zafar.

“Some keen nostrils you've,” says I because he irritates me.

“Okay so figure it yourself. Since Bhoora's chicken day barely six weeks have passed, we're awaiting the judge's decision. Let's say he finds in our favour. Then if the Kampani bosses still won't come to court, their other businesses could be seized. That they can't risk, so right now they are planning how they'll fight if they are forced to come to the court.”

“Sorry boss, still don't get it.”

“Think like the Kampani. Thousands of people say that for twenty years their health's been ruined by your poisons. How do you refute this? We say that the situation is not as bad as alleged, that not so many people are ill, that those who are ill are not so seriously ill, plus of whatever illnesses there are, most are caused by hunger and lack of hygiene, none can be traced back to that night or to your factory.”

“Zafar brother,” says Farouq. “These ‘yous' and ‘yours' make me feel sick in the gut. Let the Kampani say what it likes, who'll believe? People here know the truth.”

“You are the Kampani,” says Zafar, showing no sympathy for Farouq's gut. “Thousands more claim that your factory has poisoned their water and made them sick. To refute them you'll say that whatever may be in the wells, it does not come from the factory, that the chemicals in the factory don't cause those kinds of illnesses. To make such arguments you need facts and figures. You need case histories, a health survey. Now do you see? Abracadabra-funtootallamish! Out of the blue appears an Amrikan to start a health laboratory.”

Everyone's nodding, but my instinct says Zafar is wrong. Blue-legs does not fit my idea of a Kampani person and I'm not the only one who thinks this.

Says Somraj, “There may be other explanations. We know nothing yet about this person. She may have no connection with the Kampani.”

“You are right, abba.” Zafar's polite as ever, but so deeply does he hate the very shadow of the Kampani that until the mystery's explained, for him it will remain a conspiracy. “You are right, but before we can discover the truth the damage could be done. There's too much at stake. We need to plan.”

One morning a cycle rickshaw struggles up with a sign balanced across the back, so big that it's sticking out on both sides like an aeroplane's wings. On the sign is written
KHAUFPUR FREE CLINIC
, plus below in smaller letters,
DOCTOR ELLI BARBER
.

It isn't a health laboratory but a clinic, and not just any clinic, we soon learn, but a well-equipped modern clinic such as scumbags like us have never known. The
Khaufpur Gazette
runs an article.
DOCTOR OFFERS NEW HOPE TO POISON VICTIMS
. According to the paper, the Chief Minister has given his blessing, says the clinic is a great and wonderful act of charity by a good-hearted doctor, this Amrikan, Elli Barber.

“Sounds like Ali Baba,” says Nisha, Zafar laughs but not very happily.

The clinic is to be opened by Zahreel Khan, Minister for Poison Relief. That motherfucker's involvement plus the CM's blessing confirms all Zafar's worst suspicions.

“Praise from that quarter does not come free. What's happening?”

One morning there's a snarl-up in the street. A truck carrying bales of cotton has got itself jammed beneath a tree branch. Coming the opposite way is a bullock cart carrying four men and a strange curved case of polished wood, very large, that sticks out behind. Cart can't move forward, motorbikes and autos are jamming the road behind, terrific jackass-braying of horns there's.

The doors of the clinic fly open. Out steps Elli Barber, stands with hands on hips taking in the confusion. The truck driver's got down from his cab and is looking at the tree, auto-wallahs are mingling abuse and advice. Next thing this Elli's walked right into the middle of the mess.

“Okay, okay! everyone calm down! You sir, if you could jump up there, loosen the bale, driver-ji you move the truck back twenty feet.”

To the master of the bullock cart she says, “If you just back up a few feet the autos will be able to squeeze through.”

“Madam,” says he, marvelling at this Hindi-speaking foreigner, “hardly is this some fancy car-shaar, a bullock cart it's.” He gives a roar of laughter and winks at the men behind him. “It has no reverse gear.”

“So,” says she, “it needs some help. Come on.” She's caught the bullocks by their nosebands and begun shoving. The men on the cart jump down to lend their shoulders. Bystanders are laughing, bullocks look amazed, they roll their eyes and toss their heads, slowly, slowly the wheels begin creaking backwards. This is not to the liking of the carter, who's now looking foolish. “Just how am I supposed to steer?” So this Elli's jumped up on the cart. “Move over,” she says and takes the ropes. Standing on the cart, gliding slowly backwards, she sees me chuckling and gives me a grin. But I can read feelings and it comes to me, my god, she's terrified.

“Bravo,” I call out. “Brave you're.”

“Can't have them damaging my piano.” Next thing she's jumped down and's fussing round the men lifting the wooden case off the cart. It looks like a strange shaped coffin. The dammed up traffic begins pouring past. I've dodged my way across the lane through a frenzy of horns.

“Excuse me. What is a piano?”

Closer up she doesn't seem so glamorous. Her two eyes are set a little bit close to her nose, but wah! those legs! right now's their V just in front of my face. Voices in my head start making filthy comments.

“It's a musical instrument,” says Elli Barber. Seeing I'm none the wiser she explains, “It has keys. You press them to get the notes.”

“Black and white keys?” Pandit Somraj in his house has a harmonium with such keys.

“That's right.” She steps back and's staring at me like she did the first time. “Your back. How long's it been this way?”

“Long as I can remember.”

“Do you know what caused it?”

“Fuck should I know?” The rough words just jump out. After the grand children's doctor, I've vowed never again to talk of my back.

“Has no doctor ever explained?” she asks, unfazed by my rudeness.

“What's the point?”

“You see, if we knew why—”

I've turned and walked away on my hands and feet. Fuck and bugger why, such unanswerable questions just lead to discussions about the nature of god.

After some time I look back. The men are trying to squeeze the piano box through her doors, but she isn't watching them, she's looking at me. It's that stare, we call it ghurr ghurr. Of a sudden her eyes from across the street seem to grow larger, a voice inside my head says,
She will change your life!

When I regain my senses, I'm in Somraj's house, with Nisha bent over me. “What happened, darling, we were so worried about you?”

What happened? At the moment I heard the voice speak those words I turned and dived in pursuit of it. The universe with all its stars and galaxies is a pinhead compared to the space inside the mind. Into that deep abyss I went diving, chasing the voice which fled away downwards squeaking like a bat. I flew through clouds of voices, must have been millions of them, only one comment do I remember.
You got angry because when you looked at her you thought sex, when she looked at you she thought cripple
.

“Some men brought you here,” Nisha says. “Along with that foreign woman from across the road. She said sorry for not taking you inside her place, it is not ready. She thinks you had a fit, but you don't have fits, do you darling?” Nisha's long hair as she bends over me, touches my face. Forget legs, forget sex, sweeter by far is love.

Doesn't bear a grudge, Elli doctress. Next time I see her she gives a big smile. “Hello Animal, how's tricks?” How did she find out my name? Elli always seems to be laughing. She's a loud voice, isn't shy to call out greetings in the street. Soon the entire basti knows her to say hello. Next she's hired some staff for her clinic, we get to know them as well. There's Dayanand the manager, Suresh compounder plus an Anglo-Indian lady called Miriam Joseph, wears dresses with large flowers.