Amitav Ghosh - The Circle of Reason

I know that, Jeevanbhai, Zindi pleaded, following him in. It was a small narrow room, with one small window set high in the far wall. There was a camp-bed in one corner, and beside it a rough wooden desk and a chair. A few neatly folded files lay on the floor, next to the desk.

Jeevanbhai flicked a switch and a pedestal fan in a corner began to turn slowly, sweeping the room with gusts of hot, damp air. He sat on the chair and pointed at the bed: Sit down, Zindi.

Really, Jeevanbhai, believe me, I wasn’t doing anything, Zindi said, sinking on to the bed. It creaked under her weight. A dimly glowing bulb dangled on a wire above her head.

I know, Zindi, Jeevanbhai said, I know. You didn’t want anything. It’s just that you’re worried about something, aren’t you?

A long minute passed while Zindi weighed the significance of the question. Then, hoarsely, she said: What do you mean?

Well — Jeevanbhai looked at his fingers — you’re worried about Forid Mian’s marriage, for example, aren’t you?

Zindi felt the breath rushing out of her. She stared at Jeevanbhai’s impassive face: What do you mean?

I suppose, Jeevanbhai said quietly, it would be nice for you if he married Kulfi and came to live here and started working for you? He would be reliable; not like the others? Isn’t that so?

Zindi, watching him, felt her face going stupidly slack, her mouth falling open.

Zindi, Zindi, he said, chiding her gently, shaking his head. How could you be such a fool as to plot against me with Forid Mian? You’re growing so old and desperate, you’re losing your wits. Did you really think I wouldn’t hear about it? Don’t you know? Forid Mian has no secrets from me; he can’t have. Do you know how he came to al-Ghazira? He used to work in a ship which, in Dhu-l-Hijja, used to carry pilgrims on the Hajj, all the way from Singapore and Chittagong and Bombay and all kinds of places. It used to stop here on its way to Jiddah. That’s how I met Forid Mian; he used to carry things for me sometimes. One year the ship arrived with Forid Mian locked up in the hold. He’d killed an eighty-year-old woman, a pilgrim. They found him under the covers of a lifeboat, trying to file the gold off the corpse’s teeth. He’d have hanged for murder in Chittagong, if I hadn’t managed to buy his way off the ship. But I kept the papers of course. So, you see, Forid Mian can’t afford to have any secrets from me. Did you really think you could make an ally out of him ?

Zindi’s enormous shoulders sagged, and for a long time she sat slumped forward, in grim silence. Then, with an effort, she rose from the bed. She went to the chair and stood behind Jeevanbhai. She ran her hands over the sides of his face, over his nose, and over his lips and the edges of his red teeth.

Jeevanbhai, she said, do you remember that time? How you crawled into this house black with bruises and sweating fear? Do you remember how I hid you with the geese, and rubbed your body with oil?

Very deliberately, she undid the first button of Jeevanbhai’s shirt and slid her hand inside. She rolled the coarse hairs of his chest between her fingers and, slipping her hand under his vest, she brushed her thumb over his nipples. She could feel them stiffening. Jeevanbhai’s breath became a trace heavier. Do you remember? Her hand wandered down, past his navel, till they reached the drawstring of his underwear. She bent forward and caught his earlobe in her mouth. Jeevanbhai was shivering now. Remember? She took her hand out of his shirt and rubbed the fly of his trousers. She could hear him gasping for breath. She pulled the button open and slid a finger in.

Jeevanbhai caught her wrist with both his hands and tried to fight it off. She had as much strength in her wrist as he had in both his arms. Zindi, he gasped, stop, you’re going crazy. He twisted his body sideways and managed to struggle to his feet. Lowering his shoulders, he gathered his strength together and threw himself against her stomach. She staggered backwards, in the direction of the bed. For a moment she tottered on her feet, staring at his flushed face, and then, covering her face with her hands, she crumpled on to the bed. Her sobs came in short dry bursts, shaking the bed.

Zindi, Zindi, Jeevanbhai said, what’s the matter? What’s happened? He latched the door and went to the bed. Awkwardly he put his arm around her shoulders.

Zindi, he said, what’s happened? What have they done? Tell me.

He brushed her cheek clumsily with the back of his hand. Tell me, he said. I can help you. You know that. I know you want the shop. Why didn’t you just ask me? Why did you have to go through this drama?

He took her black scarf off, folded it neatly and put it beside him on the bed. Then he ran his hand gently through her thin, greying hair, and stroked her neck and her arms. His hand brushed her heaving breasts, and he drew it back sharply in embarrassment. Zindi, he whispered, tell me. What have they done to you? Is it something terrible?

Terrible? What could a word like ‘terrible’ mean for someone who had to spend each day watching her own house slipping out of her hands, watching it turn against her, defying nature, like a horse turning on its rider? What did ‘terrible’ mean for someone who had to watch the very people she had sheltered, her own children, picking the world apart, hunting for chaos and calling from the rooftops for their own destruction? What is terrible? Is it terrible to find yourself afloat on a whirlpool of madness, to see the currents raging around you, and to be powerless to do anything but wait helplessly for the last wave?

Sometimes broken bones and pain aren’t necessary to make things terrible; being a spectator is terror enough.

In the beginning it wasn’t so bad; it had seemed as though nothing would come of it. Everyone who had lived in the Ras long enough had seen it swept by bursts of craziness. There was the time someone spread a rumour about the potato liquor that was being sold on the beach, and the men went into a frenzy because they thought their balls were climbing back into their bodies; and there was the year people spent every night for a whole month sitting up and waiting for an earthquake.

This was different; it went on and on and on. There was no end to it.

First, they got Romy Abu Tolba. It was Abu Fahl and Professor Samuel who went to him (Alu never went anywhere; he only sat in Hajj Fahmy’s courtyard and wove and wove and wove). They went to Romy with a huge gang and they said: Your shop spreads dirt in the Ras. We won’t put up with it. Either join us and we’ll run it together, like everything else, or you’ll lose your shop.

Romy is one of those people who minds his business and doesn’t bother to find out about things. That’s madness for a shopkeeper; every good shopkeeper has to stay ahead of the news. Romy didn’t know what was happening in the Ras. When they said all that to him, he was so astonished he couldn’t think of anything to say. After a long time, he laughed and said: Are you mad? It’s all right to drink, but drunks shouldn’t go around disturbing honest people.

They said, All right, you’ll see, and they left. They were the last people to set foot in Romy Abu Tolba’s shop.

The next day Romy opened his shop in the morning and sat down to read his newspaper and wait for customers. He waited and he waited but nobody came into his shop. He called out to people when he saw them going past, but they turned their heads and walked away. He’d stocked watermelons that day, and they began to rot. And still nobody came, all through the day.

Never mind, he told his son Tolba the next day. They’ll need things; they’ll fall short.

But Abu Fahl and Zaghloul and the rest had already taken one of Hajj Fahmy’s trucks and bought stocks of sugar and oil and tea and everything else in the Souq, and they began to give them out in Hajj Fahmy’s courtyard, while Samuel noted it all down in his account-books.