Amitav Ghosh - The Circle of Reason

And so, with her worries gnawing at her mind anew, Mrs Verma quickened her pace.

Just before leaving her house she had spoken to an acquaintance of hers, an Indian doctor in the hospital in Ghardaia, far to the south-west, deep in the Sahara. He or, rather, his wife was more or less her last hope. All her other Indian acquaintances in various hospitals in Algeria had said no, some rudely, some nicely. The young doctor’s was the last name on her list, and now he had said no, too. She couldn’t really blame him, for Ghardaia was a long way away and in any case she had got such a bad connection that he had barely understood what she was trying to say. At the end of her long explanation he had shouted: You want a young Indian woman? Why? She had begun to explain all over again, but the phone was crackling wildly, and she couldn’t even begin to imagine what he heard, for suddenly he shouted, very angrily: No, we don’t have a maidservant, and if you want one you should go back to India, Mrs Verma, instead of asking for my wife.

Then he had slammed the phone down.

So now, despite that unbelievable stroke of luck three days ago, she was back exactly where she had started. It looked as though it was all over.

Mrs Verma pulled the anchal of her sari tight over her head and walked straight on. She was always careful to keep her head covered when she went out into the streets of El Oued; it seemed appropriately modest somehow in that land of cavernous hoods.

But she was still conspicuous as she walked down the Avenue, not only because so many of her own and her husband’s patients greeted her with deep bows and their hands on their hearts, but also because her sari was brilliantly orange. Otherwise there was nothing at all remarkable about a short, pleasantly plump, honey-complexioned woman in her mid-thirties striding briskly down a dusty avenue in a small town. If there was anything to distinguish her from the thousands of other similar women who were probably doing the same thing in thousands of other small towns around the world, it was something which had no connection with her at all. It was the stark lunar majesty of the immense golden sand-dunes which towered above the avenue.

And so Mrs Verma hurried on down the Avenue Mohamed Khemisti, as strikingly visible as a newly flowered anemone on a beach, walking even faster now, for there was her father again, stooping over his bookcase, smiling, saying in his firm, gentle way: Stop worrying about it; it won’t work. It’s pointless. Can’t you see — the issue is political ? Haven’t I told you? It’s the very same mistake that the Rationalists made.

Kulfi, who was sitting next to the window, saw her first. Alu, opposite her, was staring down into a glass of thick mint tea; and Zindi, sitting between them, was testing Boss’s forehead with the back of her hand, trying to decide whether he was running a temperature or not.

Kulfi spotted the orange sari when Mrs Verma was still a long way down the street. Very slowly, as though she were afraid to trust her eyes, her thin, tired face froze, and then suddenly she shot upright on her hard steel chair and struck the tin table-top with her fists.

Zindi looked up at that, and when she saw Kulfi sitting deathly rigid in her chair, gripping the edges of the table, her eyes feverishly bright, a great tide of weariness washed over her. She knew the symptoms; she could hardly not. In those two months she had watched the onset of Kulfi’s attacks of chest pains more than a dozen times. She had always done what she could to help her; but this time, with Boss already ill, in an unknown town in the middle of the desert, with nowhere to spend the day but the sand-dunes, an almost irresistible longing to let go gripped her — a yearning to give up, like them.

But instead she leant forward, saying instinctively: Kulfi, do you want to lie down?

In answer Kulfi turned, eyes glittering, and her arm went up and pointed rigidly out of the window.

Then Zindi saw her, too: a short woman in a bright orange sari, with a comfortable, homely face and a prominent upper lip, walking briskly down the street, smiling and nodding at people as she passed them by.

The men at the other tables, who had watched the two women enter the café with frowning disapproval, were staring at them now. Zindi, suddenly self-conscious, pulled Kulfi’s pointing hand down and growled: Be still, Kulfi — people are watching. Let me think. Kulfi pulled her arm free, sprang to her feet and stood poised above the table like a bird about to take flight. Zindi reached out again and this time she took hold of her sari and pulled her down hard. Kulfi crashed down on the chair with a gasp. What’re you doing? she snapped. Can’t you see? She could help us.

Wait, I have to think, Zindi began, but her voice died in her throat and then she forgot Kulfi altogether as the days-old knots of fear in her stomach uncoiled and something seemed to shoot up her spine in a warm jet, bathing her in a blessed shower of relief. Her cradled arms lifted Boss’s head to her cheek and, kissing him, she whispered: Allah! You’re saved now; saved in the middle of the desert. They’re your countrymen; they’ll have to do something for you.

Yes, said Kulfi, swaying on her chair, that’s right. I knew something was going to happen today. I could feel it in my heart. I prayed to Bhagwan Sri Krishan this morning, and he told me. He said: Something’s going to happen today. It won’t go on like this any more.

Kulfi leant forward and squinted into the sunlight. She looks very respectable, she said anxiously. Good family. She smoothed her hair back, ran her fingers through the drapes of her sari and stood up, muttering to herself: What’ll she think? Hair all in knots, no powder, nothing … in the middle of the desert.

Kulfi, wait, Zindi said quickly. You can’t just go like that. What’ll you tell her? She looks a proper babu’s wife. She’ll ask you all kinds of things, she’s bound to: Who’re you? What’re you doing here? and all that.

So? said Kulfi. I’ll tell her something.

Yes, Zindi said sharply, but what?

I could tell her something like — we got off the bus …

No. Zindi shook her head. What you’ll tell her is this. You’ll tell her that you’re tourists; that Boss is your son and that you and Alu are married.

What? Kulfi’s lips curled thinly back. Married to him ? she spat, her voice jagged with contempt. Married to that thumbless half-wit? It’s no use, she won’t believe it. Not when she sees him and his withered thumbs.

Alu’s head dropped and involuntarily his hands hid themselves between his legs.

Zindi jabbed Kulfi’s thigh with a forefinger. Listen, she said, you’ll do exactly as I say or you can go on alone. You’ll tell her that Alu is your husband. Never mind his thumbs; he can hide them in his pockets. You’ll tell her that he works for an oil firm in al-Ghazira — she’ll like that. Babus’ wives like people who work for oil firms. Tell her I’m your ayah and you’ve brought me along to look after Boss. Tell her that you’ve come sightseeing; that we’ve arrived here by mistake and Boss has suddenly fallen ill, and that we need a place to spend a night or two. That should satisfy her.

She won’t believe me, Kulfi said. She’ll know I’m not married the moment she sees me. There’s no sindur on my head and there aren’t any bangles on my arms. She’ll know at once.

Tell her something, tell her you’ve lost your things — anything, it doesn’t matter.

Zindi snatched at Kulfi’s arm as she started forward. And listen, she hissed. Not one word about the Bird-man following us. Do you understand?

Do you think I’m a fool? Kulfi glared at her.

The orange sari was passing the window now. Zindi gave Kulfi a push — Go on, tell her — and watched as she darted out of the door. Then she looked up. The stretched white sky seemed to be smiling at her at last, and she smiled back. But a moment later she picked out a tiny speck, hovering like a mote in the sunlight, far above, and gazed at it with gathering unease.