Indra Sinha - Animal's People

“You’re right, I wouldn’t.” He’s silent a moment, then asks in what ways specifically is the water affecting people’s health? What kind of illnesses are showing up? Has she seen the evidence with her own eyes? How can she be sure the chemicals in the factory are to blame?

Furiously, Elli cites names of chemicals, illnesses, people, her small hope is fading fast. Frank is here to do the Kampani’s bidding. Then again at least he’s listening and says he loves her. Suppose, just suppose, she can manage to touch Frank, to move him. All the Khaufpuris need is seven days.

“Elli I’m sorry,” Frank says. “I honestly wish I could help you.” They are approaching the tree, beneath which is a long table loaded with food. “You hungry? I can’t eat any of this stuff. I live on omelettes and fries.”

She says, “Frank I beg you. I’m pleading with you. You must stop this deal.” She clasps his arm. “Please listen to me, if you had spent any time among these people, you’d understand.”

He stands appraising her. “Elli, you are amazing,” he says. “Full of passion, infuriating, adorable.” He reaches out, unhappily she endures the touch of his hands on her shoulders. “I admire you,” he says. “I always have. No, admire isn’t a strong enough word. Elli, you know how I feel about you.”

“Then do this,” she says. “Do this for me. Please do it.”

“Can’t. It can’t be stopped.”

“Then delay it. Give these people their chance of justice. Delay it till after the hearing.”

“You want this real bad, don’t you?” he says. “There’s something I want every bit as bad. Can you guess what it is?” She shakes her head, not daring to think.

“It’s to hear you say you’re coming home.” He’s facing her, now he puts his hands on her shoulders. “Elli, you’ve done a great job here. Come home now. Hand over your work to local doctors and come home.”

“You know I can’t do that,” she says. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to, and I don’t want to.”

“Now you’re sounding like me,” says Frank. “There’s no way you can do what I want, no way I can do what you want.” He bends his head and kisses her on the cheek. “Sounds like we should make a deal.”

“What deal?”

He thinks for a while. “What if I can find a way to delay the agreement, to put it off beyond the date you mentioned? Will you come home?”

“Can you really do it? How?” It’s impossible, she thought, he can’t mean it, he’s a lawyer. If he did this, Zafar and Farouq needn’t go on their fast, and the Khaufpuris would get their day before a sympathetic judge. “You’d be doing such a good thing for the people of this town.”

“I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing it for you. And if I do it, you must come back to America. Promise.”

Sadness whelms up inside, as if the big lake under the hills has burst its bung and sent its waters rising swiftly and silently to drown her.

“I promise.”

There comes a banging at the clinic door. Outside is Bhoora’s auto, light on, engine’s ticking over. “Come,” he cries when he sees Elli, “there is no time, you must come right away.”

“What’s going on?” I ask. He says he has come to bring Elli doctress to the Nutcracker. Aliya is bad, her fever is worse, the old ones fear for her life.

“Let me come too,” says I, afraid for Aliya but also for Ma Franci.

“Quickly, madam,” says Bhoora. “Don’t worry about your clinic. Somraj Pandit has given orders it is not to be touched.”

Without another word she gets in and Bhoora guns the engine. Then we’re jolting along through night-time Khaufpur, with the auto’s narrow beam of light picking out a way. The road outside the factory is wrecked, it has been ripped to pieces, great stones and lumps of concrete lie in the middle, crowds are roaming around, inside and outside the factory, of police there is no sign, but a TV crew is outside the gates which are still lying flat, from the darkness inside the grounds come sounds of singing.

There’s a small group of neighbours gathered outside Huriya’s and Hanif’s house, from within comes the noises of weeping.

We find the old man with his granddaughter lying in his lap. Aliya’s face looks strange. She has rouge on her cheeks, her eyes are ringed with kohl, her mouth is smeared with lipstick. She is wearing a fancy new dress. Old Hanif’s fingers are moving over her face, as if he is trying to memorise its details.

Huriya is sobbing. “Save her, doctress sahiba,” she says. “God bless you, I don’t believe what they are saying about you. Save this child. She is all we care for in this life.”

Elli gently lifts the old man’s fingers from the child’s face.

“Why have you dressed her like this?”

“The angel of death is here in this city. When he comes for Aliya, he will see her looking well, healthy. Death will believe he’s made a mistake, he will not want to take her and he will go away.” He turns his eyes to the doctor he can’t see. “Won’t he?”

The doctress on her knees, bent over the child, listening for her heart, stands, but does not reply.

“Non Elli, non!” I’ve cried in français so the old ones won’t understand, may the anguish in my voice not give me away. “Pas possible! Fais quelque chose, je t’implore!”

Eyes, I won’t translate, there’s not a language in this world can describe what’s in my soul. Oh my poor friend, why did I never take you fishing? Come back and you shall ride daily on my back, my ribs you may kick as much as you like. Poor child, so sudden your going that your grandparents are still pleading with Elli to save your life. Oh dear old folk, a rupee’s worth of rouge, a street-corner lipstick, the angel of death is not so cheaply bought.

Now the old bugger too is crying, I cannot watch. There is something so cruel about eyes which may not see, but may yet shed tears. My own breath is coming in sobs, in gluts like the lungs are refusing it, and why should I live? No longer is there love, nor hope, it’s the death of everything good. Gone is Zafar, gone Farouq, hard enough is that grief to bear, plus I am aching from being beaten, but worse is the agony that now fills my body, wants to leak from my eyes, out of my mouth. O god if really you exist, how wicked you must be, how you must hate us folk to torture us so, while in the gardens of Jehannum the evil men are eating well and drinking wine, them you save while the poor go to the dogs, are you in heaven so starved of joy that you must take our best, our most precious, already you have my friends, call off your dark angel from this child, spare her life and I, Animal, who’s servant to no one, will be your slave.

Says at last Elli doctress in the language of humans, “C’est plus à moi.” It’s no longer in my hands. The child I loved is gone.

A weird keening cry comes from beyond.

“God be merciful!” says the old lady, Huriya, and Hanif lifts his blind eyes to the sound.

“ Zafar bhai is dead!”

Again that voice calls, others answer in the name of god in whom Zafar refused to believe. So at last the news has broken. Like dogs howling, first one, then another and another, voices from afar are wailing, the eerie sound floats up over the Nutcracker, from all sides it seems the echoes are arriving.

“Farouq bhaiya is dead! God save us! Our Zafar bhai has died!”

A voice from inside me says, “Animal, this is the end of your carefree days.”

Another warns, “Do not let them see you cry.”

I run outside, never has any Khaufpuri heard me howl. The heartless stars glitter like knives above the city.

“Zafar bhai is dead! Farouq bhaiya is dead!”