Amitav Ghosh - The Circle of Reason

After that Zindi talked to the half-empty Datsun about her plans not because she believed in them any more, but because she could not bear the silence.

It happened that very evening in Alexandria. Zindi and Alu saw him while Kulfi was away buying a comb at a shop in Tahrir Square. He was standing on the Corniche, leaning on the parapet with his back to them, watching the gulls as they scavenged in the harbour.

Two days later they heard that an Indian was asking about a huge woman called Zindi and a potato-headed Indian. Zindi decided then that Alexandria wasn’t safe. Next morning she dug out the passports she had had made for them in al-Ghazira and went off to a friend in Muharram Bey who dealt in currencies and visas, and she had them stamped for every country she could think of.

He asked: Where are you going, Zindi? And she answered: We’re going west, where the sewing machines are.

It happened again. This time Alu saw him alone. Zindi had raced off to the harbour because the wind had brought news that Virat Singh, the great pehlwan of Bareilly, had turned sailor and arrived in Alexandria in a Greek freighter. So Alu, with Kulfi snarling at him, and nothing else to do, wandered off to the Mohattat ar-Raml; and there, just as he was about to cross the street to the tram station, the door of a Greek restaurant opened and the Bird-man stood opposite him, staring him in the face. He ran, managed to lose him, but only just, by barging through the crowds on Safia Zaghloul Street and doubling back down Nabi Danial.

Later he discovered that at that very moment Virat Singh had asked Zindi: And where are you going next? And Zindi had answered: Westwards.

But it turned out well, for it so happened that Virat Singh’s ship was going west, too, to Lisbon. So naturally he decided to take them with him: balls to the captain.

So the ship it was and plain sailing, with the four of them safely hidden away below deck, until Alu asked: What after Lisbon, Zindi? Absent-mindedly (for she was tending to Kulfi, who had just had an attack of chest pains) she answered: Westwards still; where the sewing machine sets.

Sure enough, at dawn the next day, when the ship docked at Tunis, soon after Zindi first detected Boss’s fever, Virat Singh came scrambling down to tell them that there was an Indian on the bridge, some kind of policeman, who was insisting that the ship be searched for stowaways.

With the help of a few friends and a little money Virat Singh smuggled them off the ship and through the port, to the vast football-field width of the Place d’Afrique. Where now, Zindi? he asked, before turning back.

Zindi covered her face and sobbed: Westwards, where else?

It broke his great pehlwan heart to see her like that. He put a huge corded arm around her shoulders and barked, tugging fiercely at his moustaches: I’ve got to go now, before they find me missing. But I’ll be back. The ship will be in Tangier exactly three weeks from now, on its way to Port Said and Bombay. If you need help, meet me there.

Inevitably, that day they saw the Bird-man again. It happened while Zindi and Alu were wandering along the Avenue de France trying to find a doctor for Boss. They shot across the Avenue with his claws almost digging into their shoulders. They managed to lose him in the maze of the Medina and later, somehow, they dragged themselves to the Souq al-Attarine where Kulfi was buying perfume. That was the end of Tunis for them. But there he was again at Kairouan. This time it was he who spotted them, Alu and Zindi, bargaining at a taxi-stand, and he chased them all along the city walls, shouting.

What was he shouting? Zindi asked Alu later.

Alu said: He was shouting — Come back, I only want to talk to you.

Yes, snorted Zindi, come back to be tear-gassed.

After that Zindi would hear of nothing, stop for nothing — fever, chest pains, anything short of death. But mysteriously, just then, chance began to play at puppetry with them; trains left moments before they arrived at the station, buses were full up, taxis had flat tyres … And no sign of the Bird-man all that while. Where was he? Where was he waiting? Or had he flown away at last?

Never again, Zindi swore, would she say those words, those deadly, poisonous, son-of-a-bitch words. There was only one hope now: the border. The border it had to be; safety lay on the other side, in the vast welcoming emptiness of the Sahara.

So there they were, ten days after they left Virat Singh, sitting in a café in the desert. And now?

And now, said Zindi, you’ve said it again.

She looked up at the sky and a flash of hope sparked in her eyes. Perhaps, she said, we are safe after all. There aren’t any birds in the desert.

But a moment later she saw the vulture again, circling patiently above.

As they walked down the Avenue, Kulfi was still wondering, with gnawing apprehension, what exactly Mrs Verma had meant when she remarked: It sounds rather as if you were running away from something. She couldn’t help shooting a few quick sidelong glances at her.

Mrs Verma saw Kulfi looking at her and instinctively her hand rose to cover her protruding upper lip. She knew what her profile was like. She tried to think of something to say, but nothing occurred to her. It was always like that: since her girlhood she had never had the defences to cope with those particular looks.

It would have been different if her father had listened to her while she was still at school. There was still a chance then. She knew, because when she was twelve two girls in her class had had braces fitted by the Parsi dentist who had his clinic near the Odeon. Their cases were much worse than hers; their teeth fell like weighted curtains over their lower lips. But six months after they got their braces you could see the difference, and after a year you could hardly tell.

She talked about it to her father, all the time, hinting, hoping. He had prominent front teeth as well; she got hers from him. It gave her a right to hope that he would understand; after all, he had suffered the name Dantu through all his college years. Surely he had once felt something of what she went through every time the teacher told her to stop staring and cover her teeth, and the whole class exploded into laughter? It wasn’t the money; she knew that. It didn’t cost much; he could have raised the sum if he’d wanted. It was only a question of making him understand. He had always listened gravely and attentively to everything she had ever had to say. But when it came to this subject he never seemed to notice.

Actually, of course, he did notice; had noticed all the time. She discovered that when she couldn’t bear it any more and said to him, weeping: Ba, if you don’t take me to that dentist I’ll die. I know it. Even if I don’t die right now, no one will marry me so I’ll die as soon as I grow up.

There was a strong practical streak in her even then, so she added: And think of all the trouble you’ll have trying to find me a husband.

He took her into his lap then and dried her cheeks with the hem of his kurta. My love, he said, do you think I don’t know what it’s like?

Then, take me to that dentist, she sobbed.

I can’t, he said helplessly. I can’t — not for this. Don’t you see: it’s not important. If it was to do with your health, we’d go this very minute. But this is just a thing of appearances.

But it’s important to me . And it would be so easy.

No, my love; it wouldn’t be easy at all. What do you change if you change your face? Those are things of the outside; if we wanted things like that, where would we stop — jewellery, cars, money, houses? That’s not how I’ve lived, and that’s not how I want you to live. As for marriage, if no one wants you, why, you’ll be free. Anyway you’re going to be a microbiologist, a scientist; you’ll be too busy with your experiments to think about such things.