Amitav Ghosh - The Circle of Reason

Meanings are never apparent.

Late one night, when the whole town was asleep, Nury galloped out of the road to the New Palace on his donkey, hoofs flying, eggs scattering, dogs barking, through the harbour, straight towards the Maidan al-Jami‘i, past the Souq, heading directly for Jeevanbhai’s house. There, without so much as tethering his donkey, he flung himself on the door and hammered with all his feeble strength.

But no one can reckon for chance. Unusually for a man so quick and alert Jeevanbhai sleeps like a dead man, and it so happened that just a few days earlier his wife had gone to India on a visit. She was a rather suspicious woman, so before leaving she had gone around al-Ghazira looking for a woman of suitable age and decrepitude to work in the house while she was away. She found Saneyya, grandmother of Ali the taxi-driver and Nasser of the blue café, then a woman of seventy-five, famed in all the kingdoms for her astonishing ugliness, much loved of the pearl divers and boatmen because she could scare sharks into tearing out their own entrails simply by grinning into the water; widowed at sixteen, on the dawn after her wedding, when, after the darkness of a night in which she conceived her son, her bridegroom rose eagerly to lift the veils from her face and died at once, of shock (blinded, some say). For Jeevanbhai’s wife, Saneyya seemed God’s gift. Poor woman: little did she know what fires smouldered in Saneyya.

On that night when Nury hammered on the door, with fate hanging in the balance, the only person in the house apart from Jeevanbhai was Saneyya, and it was she who awoke and came to the door, creaking and complaining, it was she who whispered, hoarse and suspicious: Who’s there?

It’s me, Saneyya, Nury answered, I have something terribly important to say, can’t wait another moment. Open the door a crack, ya Saneyya, and as God is Great let me in.

There was something in those words, some hint of a memory, which played havoc in Saneyya’s heart. Trembling with disbelief, her voice shaking with eagerness, Saneyya whispered: At last, at last, Nury, you dilatory Damanhouri. At last after all these years. Say it again, ya Nury, let me hear you again.

And Nury, as though he were reciting a poem, whispered: Quick, Saneyya, quick, I can’t wait any longer. Open up, open, let me in.

At that Saneyya could not keep herself from giggling, and giggling she said: Wait, ya Nury, there’s no hurry. We have the whole night.

Outside, Nury was beside himself: Saneyya, there’s no time to waste. Open up. I tell you, you’ll be well rewarded.

Talk of rewards already, ya Nury? Do you think I need a reward? Your heart’s enough, no less than the other things. Hold tight and wait a little. What can I do with my petticoats all tied up?

Nury was desperate; his eyes had gone wild and sweat was streaming from his face. He started to explain what he had overheard at the New Palace, but then he stopped himself, for there was no telling who might overhear him. Instead he spoke in riddles: Listen carefully, Saneyya, and use your mind. What happens when you have a pot of rice about to boil over and somebody calls you to the door? Do you stand there chattering? No, you run back because you have to stir your pot. It’s like that, Saneyya. Now, stop talking, open this door and let me in.

Like a whip Saneyya’s hand flashed through the door, slapped him and shut the door again. For shame, Nury, she cackled. Why all this dirt? Boiling or not, you’ll have to wait.

Then Nury understood, and he understood, too, that if Saneyya were denied she would drive him from the house and make sure he didn’t meet Jeevanbhai for as long as she could. There was no escape for Nury. When Saneyya opened the door at last, he screwed his courage together and resigned himself to his fate.

What had to happen happened: Nury the Cross-Eyed Damanhouri and Saneyya, Terror of the Deep, coupled. It was no ordinary coupling: after a little awkwardness in the beginning, during which Saneyya learnt not to look into his eyes, and he got used to the gaps in her teeth, they so lost themselves in ecstasy that people say they shook the whole of the Souq, and Nury almost forgot his errand.

Some things happen for the best even though it doesn’t seem so at the time. Even if things had taken a different turn later, Nury was a ruined man, a beggar, egg-less for life, because Saneyya was not the woman to be silent about a conquest so long in the coming.

When Nury recovered from his raptures he woke Patel and told him what he had overheard at the New Palace. Years after, people often spent whole days talking about what he said that night, but still nobody knows exactly what it was; most of it is just guesses and conjecture. Some say it was this: that night the Oilmen were planning to fly in two aeroplanes full of specially grown date palms; unique palms, which could thrive on any soil, however inhospitable. The Amir’s part was to rush the palms to that empty bit of land by the sea and plant them there, all in one night. Then in the morning he was to make proclamations in all the squares of the city inviting the townspeople to witness the near-miracle; to have a glimpse of the things the world could do for the forgotten land of al-Ghazira. Then, as the Public Works Minister, he was to lay claim to that empty bit of land and fence it off. The Malik was bound to resist, they calculated, perhaps by force. But by then the townspeople, so long loyal to the Malik, would hesitate, dazzled by their glimpse of the Amir’s power to turn the desert green, and in the end would rally to his side. And then together, with a little help from the Amir’s bodyguards and the Oilmen, they would storm the Old Fort, banish the Malik and the past, and install the Amir and the future.

That was the plan, some say, but nobody knows for sure. What is sure is that, within minutes of hearing what Nury had to say, Jeevanbhai was on his donkey flying towards the Old Fort. What happened there nobody knows. Some say that Jeevanbhai had to lock the Malik into a room to keep him from attacking the New Palace at that very moment with all his hidden arms. What is sure is that Jeevanbhai found some way to stop him, for of course he had his own plan. Within an hour he was back in the town, with Jabal the Eunuch and a wad of letters from the Malik.

Feverishly Jeevanbhai, Jabal and Nury raced around the old city, waking up certain shopkeepers known for their loyalty to the Malik and showing them the Malik’s letters. They worked like madmen, for they knew, each one of them, that they were fighting for their survival (though already, unknown to the others, in one of those heads, ripples of doubt about the future were spreading).

Then a large group of shopkeepers led by Jeevanbhai, Jabal and Nury vanished into the Souq. When they came out again they were carrying and pushing barrels and tins of oil — mainly kerosene, but all kinds of other oils as well, mustard oil, cottonseed oil, linseed oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, even ghee. The oil was taken down to the harbour in carts and loaded on to a flat-bottomed boat. When that was done Patel, Jabal, Nury and a couple of boatmen climbed into the boat and rowed down the inlet towards the sea until they disappeared into the blackness of the night.

The next anyone saw of them, Jeevanbhai, naked except for his long white shirt, and Nury were clinging to an enormous horse, white-eyed with fear, galloping crazily up the dirt track which later became the Corniche, towards the harbour. A whole platoon of the Amir’s guards, huge bandoliered Pathans from the Khyber, were chasing them on foot, almost as fast as the horse could run, whooping and pot-shotting.

As it was reconstructed in the cafés, Jeevanbhai’s plan was to row silently along the coast to the site. The Amir’s men, he reasoned, would probably guard the dirt tracks along the road, and turn their backs to the sea. Once there, he planned to soak the whole place in oil, step back into the boat and toss a lighted rag behind him, sending the Amir’s dreams up in flames.