Amitav Ghosh - The Circle of Reason

In the house everyone waited, aching with fear. It was certain that if Mast Ram were found the courtyard would become an abattoir that night. Abu Fahl would smash his teeth first, then dig his eyes out with the crowbar and break the bones in his body on the paving stones till they were like links in a chain. And only then would he leave the body on the beach for the tides to wash away. Mast Ram would not be the first man Abu Fahl had killed, and previously Abu Fahl had not killed in anger.

But none of it came to pass, for there was no trace of Mast Ram; he had vanished like a ghost in a graveyard. That night Abu Fahl came back to the house alone and sat drinking tea with everyone else in silence, while Zaghloul wept like a baby. Everyone’s mind was full of Abusa’s goodness and Mast Ram’s treachery.

It was then, while they were sitting there, empty-eyed and silent, that the first barks sounded, far away, at the edges of the Ras, somewhere near the embankment. Suddenly, like the beginning of a storm, the noise grew until every stray dog in the Ras seemed to be howling together. It was all over and around us, like waves, crashing and breaking on the house. Then Boss began to cry in terrible strangled sobs and a moment later the whole courtyard seemed to explode; every animal in it went into a frenzy, geese honking, chickens screeching … Inside, nobody moved. Everyone was absolutely still, staring at the windows. You could feel your bowels growing cold. There are few things more frightening than the midnight frenzy of animals.

Then there were voices, shouts, far away, pricking through that curtain of sound like needles. The noise seemed to gather itself together in the distance, near the embankment, and suddenly it was moving, moving straight towards the house. Faintly you could hear the drumbeat of feet echoing in the lanes; running towards the house, panic-stricken screams and pounding feet, dogs howling after them.

And then a hammering on the window and screams tearing through the house: Ya khalg gum — rise, you created! — gum ya khalg .

Abu Fahl and Zaghloul sprang up like deer, for since their childhood they had seen those dreaded words send their parents and relatives pouring into the village lanes. And no sooner were they on their feet than we saw the first wisps of smoke curling down, through the courtyard and the corridor, into the room.

Abu Fahl was the first one up on the roof — by some miracle the ladder still stood, though the fire was all around it. When he saw what he did he tried to push the others back, but there were too many of them and they shouldered past him.

There were flames everywhere. But Mast Ram’s head and his face were untouched and unblackened. His eyes were closed and at peace, while the rest of his body was burning so hard it couldn’t be told apart from the straw and wood of his pyre. Lying beside him, away from the flames, were the matches and the tin of kerosene he must have stolen from the courtyard, whenever it was that he slipped back into the house and up to the roof to put an end to his love and his remorse, his treachery and his hate, in the only honourable way he knew.

By that time the fire had leapt to the neighbouring shacks and barastis. They were like matchsticks — gone in minutes. Though every man and woman in the Ras helped to carry water, at least fifty shacks were burnt to the ground. It was a miracle the whole of the Ras didn’t go up in flames. The house was saved by its cement and bricks, but only after a battle which lasted through the night.

The others had trickled back: Zaghloul the Pigeon, barely twenty, his handsome, friendly face, with its cleft chin and sharp, straight nose, tired after the day; Chunni and Kulfi, exhausted by their long vigil at the ruins of the Star. They crouched on mats around Zindi, listening intently to every word. They had lived through everything Zindi spoke of and had heard her talk of it time and time again; yet it was only in her telling that it took shape; changed from mere incidents to a palpable thing, a block of time which was not hours or minutes or days, but something corporeal, with its own malevolent wilfulness. That was Zindi’s power: she could bring together empty air and give it a body just by talking of it. They could never tire of listening to her speak, in her welter of languages, though they knew every word, just as well as they knew lines of songs. And when sometimes she chose a different word or a new phrase it was like the pressure of a potter’s thumb on clay — changing the thing itself and their knowledge of it.

Zindi looked around the room at the circle of frowning, intent faces. All that, she said, and now this. The house already empty and without work, and then still another accident. Is it going to end or is it going to take everyone?

Abu Fahl leant forward. He pulled his grey taqeyya off his head and ran his fingers through his short, wiry hair. So what are we to do, Zindi? he said, looking straight at her.

Zindi rose briskly to her feet. I’m thinking of something, she said. Maybe I’ll even tell you about it some day. But not today, not now after all that’s happened, with Alu lying dead under tons of rubble.

Professor Samuel rose to go and the others shuffled out after him. Only Rakesh hung back, nervously flipping through the leaves of a calendar on the wall. Twice he turned, bit his lip, and turned back again. Then he could no longer contain himself. Listen, Zindi, he burst out. Alu isn’t dead. At least I don’t think so. He’s alive. I heard his voice under the rubble.

Zindi stared at him, speechless.

Yes, he said, it’s true. I’m almost sure I heard him.

Go to sleep now, Zindi said. The collapse has been too much for you.

Next morning Professor Samuel came back from his morning visit to the beach (he preferred sand and the clean sea breeze, he said, to the evil-smelling darkness of the lavatory in the house) looking very bemused. Chunni, who had made him a glass of tea, found him sitting on his mattress staring blankly at a wall.

What’s the matter, Samuel? she asked him. Are you unwell?

The Professor shook his head. So, then? she snapped. Why’re you sitting here like a wet cat? Do you know what the time is? Do you want to lose this job, too?

The Professor hesitated and threw a glance around the room. Except for Zaghloul snoring in a corner, it was empty. He patted the floor beside him. Sit down, he said. I’ll tell you. It’s nothing really. Just a foolish story Bhaskaran told me on the beach.

Outside, in the courtyard, Kulfi and Karthamma were cooking their usual morning meal of rice and fried potatoes on a mud oven. When the rice was done they carried the pots into Zindi’s room and called out to the others. The women ate at one end of the room and the men at the other. While they were eating, Chunni said loudly: Samuel heard a strange story on the beach this morning.

Professor Samuel frowned at her across the room. He shook his head as the others looked at him curiously. It was nothing, he said dismissively. Just a foolish story.

Abu Fahl banged his tin plate on the mat and shook the Professor’s knee. Tell us what you heard, Samuel, he said. I don’t like secrets. What did you hear?

All right, said the Professor, irritated. If you want to waste your time. You know Bhaskaran from Kerala, who lives down by the beach with all the others? In their house they’re saying Alu was seen in the ruins of the Star last night. The story is that he’s not dead at all, but just hiding in the ruins. I asked Bhaskaran: why should he hide in the ruins in all that dirt when he has a bed to come back to? It would be irrational. He had no answer, of course. All he could say is that everyone in the Ras knows that Alu survived by some miraculous chance, and now he’s hiding in the ruins.