Amitav Ghosh - The Circle of Reason

A little later the Professor finally finished counting and discovered that there were fewer people in the courtyard than he had expected — only thirty-two, where he had allowed for forty-five — so there was plenty of money for everyone. He tried to spread the good news, but his voice was too weak, and by that time people had forgotten about him anyway, so he had to ask Abu Fahl instead. But it was some time before even Abu Fahl could make himself heard, and when he did it only made matters worse in a way, for there was a great cheer and people began streaming out of the courtyard, and Abu Fahl had to run out and bring them back, because he hadn’t distributed the tools yet. There weren’t very many — a few crowbars, a couple of saws, some coils of rope and a pulley, a few shovels, pickaxes, an ancient car-jack, and three powerful torches — but because of the confusion it took a long time to hand them out.

At last, when all the tools had been given out and everything was more or less ready, Abu Fahl remembered Alu and saw him sitting at the loom with his head in his hands. It made Abu Fahl angry to see him sitting there like that. Come down here, Alu, he shouted, we’re going now. But Alu hesitated, and sensing his reluctance Abu Fahl went up to the platform and pulled him off it. What do you think? he said, thrusting a coil of rope into his hands. Do you think you’re going to sit there like that all day while we do all the work and fetch you your sewing machine?

The others were already straggling out, led by Hajj Fahmy and Professor Samuel. Abu Fahl waited with Alu and Zaghloul till everyone was gone. Then, after making sure that no one was left in the courtyard except the women of Hajj Fahmy’s house, they set off through the lanes of the Ras. By the time they reached the top of the embankment the sun had dipped low over the city, and the others were strung out over the road ahead of them. They could see Rakesh, Karthamma and Chunni a long way ahead of them. They stopped for a moment to catch their breath, and when they started walking again Abu Fahl clapped Alu on the shoulder. So, he said, at last you’re going to get your sewing machine.

The sleek black road on the embankment ran through a kilometre or so of empty sandflats after leaving the Ras behind. Then gradually it sloped downwards till the road was on level ground. A little farther on, stray mud-brick houses appeared on either side. With every step after that the houses crowded closer and closer to the road. Soon the road merged into a narrower and much older thoroughfare which ran along the inlet. From that point onwards the road became a thronged, bustling hive. Fifty or even a hundred men, no matter what they were carrying, could have vanished into that crowded street with all the ease of pigeons in a piazza.

On one side of the road, jostling for space, were tiled Iranian chelo-kebab shops, Malayali dosa stalls, long, narrow Lebanese restaurants, fruit-juice stalls run by Egyptians from the Sa’id, Yemeni cafés with aprons of brass-studded tables spread out on the pavement, vendors frying ta’ameyya on push-carts — as though half the world’s haunts had been painted in miniature along the side of a single street.

The other side of the road was comparatively less crowded, for it looked out over the inlet and no shops or stalls were allowed there. That was where the people of the Old City came with their friends and brides in the evenings, to walk and eat and watch the brilliant sails of the sambuqs and booms in the inlet.

The other bank of the inlet rose steeply out of the water into a solid concrete-and-glass cliff of hotels and offices.

The road became even narrower and still more crowded farther on when it reached the wooden jetties and rickety wharfs of the old harbour. There, the pungent muddy waters of the inlet were only a step away from the road, and in places the pointed lateen sails of the sambuqs sometimes seemed to be poised directly above the pavement.

It was there, in a little room above a café, that Jeevanbhai Patel had had his office.

Soon after that the road wound around the inlet, through a huddle of houses and away, straight into the sands beyond, towards the broad sweep of a curving headland in the distance. At that point the road broadened and blackened and became the Corniche.

A short way after the last cluster of houses, the Corniche began to rise gradually, and by the time the sea first became visible on the left, a kilometre or so away, it was a good height above the sand on the seaward side, and still rising. In contrast, on the other side of the road, to the right, the ground fell away only slightly. All along that side of the Corniche the viscera of newly begun high-rise buildings lay scattered in a long, skeletal trail. Soon an outward curve took the road even closer to the sea, and there it rose still higher, till it was about ten feet above the sandy beach on the far side. At its outermost point the road was so close to the sea that its surface was usually moist with spray. At that point there stood a huge, almost-finished airline office. The office had been built to take advantage of the view, and one part of it jutted out almost into the road. There the road turned, angling sharply around the building, so that approaching the building from one end the other side of the curve was blocked out of view. After that the Corniche ran inland for a stretch before curling out again to meet the Star.

When Zindi first spotted the airline office, Hajj Fahmy, Professor Samuel and a knot of people immediately behind them were very close to the building and walking fast. The rest were strung out behind in an untidy dribble, their dusters bright against the indistinct greyness of the twilight. Sometimes, when the road curved, she could see silhouettes; the outlines of crowbars and axes on bent shoulders clearly etched against the sand and the evening sky.

Abu Fahl, Zaghloul and Alu, still bringing up the rear, were only a hundred paces or so ahead of her. That was a stroke of luck for her, for she could not have planned that. Otherwise it had all happened exactly as she had hoped. She had waited in the harbour with Kulfi and Boss, hidden in the little launch that was to carry them to Zeynab . She had spotted Hajj Fahmy and Professor Samuel easily enough despite the crowds, for the dusters on their arms stood out like bright lights. She had waited till they had gone past, all of them, and then, at a careful distance, she had hurried after them to salvage what she could of her fallen house.

It had been a long walk and she was tired now. Her feet ached and the tension of expecting something to happen at every turn had worn her patience away. But nothing had happened. Maybe it was she who was wrong after all, and Hajj Fahmy right. She stopped to wipe her face. She could see the shadowy figures of Hajj Fahmy and Professor Samuel in the distance, very close to the airline office and the blind curve. She shut her eyes and turned to the sea breeze and let it play over her face. She pulled the neck of her dress up with her finger and gratefully felt the coolness of the breeze on her chest.

And while she stood there, with her eyes shut and the wind licking gently at her body, she knew suddenly that it had happened, for she heard something like a shout, and by the time she had turned a whirling cloud of sand had blotted Hajj Fahmy and Professor Samuel from her view.

As she watched, a helicopter rose into the greyness behind the building and swooped down on the road. She had seen it before that evening, twice. It had flown overhead and away, in the other direction. She hadn’t given it much thought: rich young Ghaziris were always buzzing the roads in their planes and helicopters. But this time it was coming in very low, sweeping the road slowly. And now it was above her, a high staccato drumming noise, buffeting her with axe-like strokes, pulling at her clothes. Around her the sand was rising in solid walls from both sides of the road to meet it. As it passed above, only a few feet from her head, she saw a pointing arm, the barrel of a gun and a black uniform.