Animal's People: A Novel Page 2

  “Sir,” mumbles Chunaram. “Sir, I am so sorry, this boy says that if he talks to the eyes the book must contain only his story and nothing else. Plus it must be his words only.”

  Only his story? His words only?

  “Sir, he is a beastly boy, but it’s a good story.”

  Jarnalis, your brow creases, strange figures dance on your forehead. You gitpit with Chunaram, who pleads, “Drop this demand. It’s impossible. This jarnalis already has a plan for his book. It is already agreed. Jarnalis talks of an agent, plus a type called editor.”

  Makes no sense. How can foreigners at the world’s other end, who’ve never set foot in Khaufpur, decide what’s to be said about this place?

  “I guess the way it works,” says Chunaram, “is jarnalis bribes agent, agent bribes type. Business, na?” He gives a laugh, smirky bastard thinks he’s won.

  Well, I’m in a shining fucking rage, here and now I will cut the throat of this plan. “Give me the address of this editor type, I’ll send a letter! I’ll say this Jarnalis should not be allowed to tell my story. Comes here strutting like some sisterfuck movie star. What? Does he think he’s the first outsider ever to visit this fucking city? People bend to touch his feet, sir, please sir, your help sir, sir my son, sir my wife, sir my wretched life. Oh how the prick loves this! Sultan among slaves he’s, listens with what lofty pity, pretends to give a fuck but the truth is he’ll go away and forget them, every last one. For his sort we are not really people. We don’t have names. We flit in crowds at the corner of his eye. Extras we’re, in his movie. Well bollocks to that. Tell mister cunt big shot that this is my movie he’s in and in my movie there is only one star and it’s me.”

  “I’m not saying all that,” says Chunaram, but we both know he must, it’s Animal he’s dealing with, not one of his stooges, no one can get the better of me, I do what I want.

  How often have I watched Chunaram make deals? After all the talking, there is always a silence as money changes hands, notes are counted, folded, put away. What is that hush? Jarnalis, I will tell you. On your side it’s shame because you know you’re paying shit for something priceless. Chunaram has no shame, his silence is delight, he has taken a fortune for a thing he considers worthless.

  So then there’s silence.

  “One more thing, he must give me his shorts.”

  Two days pass, comes Chunaram with a bundle. Inside is the tape mashin and many tapes, folded on top are the shorts. First thing I do is put them on, they are too big but by tying string I make them tight. There’s a lump in one of the pockets. I put in my hand, out comes the shiny lighter. There’s a picture of a cannon on it, plus some writing. Holding it to the light, I make out Inglis letters. PHUOC TUY so I guess that’s your name, it’s Phuoc Tuy. On the other side in Hindi is my name, ANIMAL, so then I know you’ve given me your lighter too. Chunaram reads the letter you sent. “Animal, you think books should change things. So do I. When you speak, forget me, forget everything, talk straight to the people who’ll read your words. If you tell the truth from the heart, they will listen.” There’s a lot more like this, then a good bit, “The shorts come from Kakadu where there are crocodiles.”

  Such a fool you were, Jarnalis. Gave your shorts but left Khaufpur with nothing. Not a single tape did I make. Not one. Chunaram said if you are not going to use the mashin, I’ll sell it, so I hid it in the wall where the scorpions live, from then till today solid time has passed, you must be wondering, why is this putain telling his story now? What’s changed? What happened?

  What’s changed? Everything. As to what happened, well, there are many versions going round, every newspaper had a different story, not one knows the truth, but I’m not talking to this tape for truth or fifty rupees or Chunaram’s fucking kebabs. I’ve a choice to make, let’s say it’s between heaven and hell, my problem is knowing which is which. Such is the condition of this world that if a creature finds peace, it’s just a rest before greater anguish, I do not know what name you could give to the things I have done.

  Jarnalis, I’m a hard bastard, I hide my feelings. Ask people they’ll tell you I’m the same as ever, anyone in Khaufpur will point me out, “There he is! Look! It’s Animal. Goes on four feet, that one. See, that’s him, bent double by his own bitterness.” People see the outside, but it’s inside where the real things happen, no one looks in there, maybe they don’t dare. I really think this is why people have faces, to hide their souls. Has to be, or every street in Khaufpur would be a passage through hell, which Ma Franci says it is anyway, except she sees angels suffering, I see panicked humans. One night Farouq and me, we’d drunk a lot of bhang, about enough to get you on first name terms with god, we were ogling women in Naya Bazaar, as I looked at passersby their faces vanished, just disappeared, I could see their souls. Most were ugly, some shone like green birds, but all without exception were full of fear. I told this to Farouq and said, “Look at my soul, tell me what does it look like.”

  “Your soul?” He began laughing and couldn’t stop. “Your soul, my dear, is a tomb, even god can’t see inside.” This happened on the night of Holi, when he was trying to get me laid.

  Jarnalis, there’s a lot to tell, it wants to come out. Like rejoicing, the world’s unspoken languages are rushing into my head. Unusual meanings are making themselves known to me. Secrets are shouting themselves into my ear, seems there’s nothing I cannot know. Ssspsss, haaarrr, khekhekhe, mmms, this is how the voices are, often I’ll babble aloud the things they tell me. “Tu dis toujours des absurdités,” Ma says, smiling, the rest just shrug, “Fucking boy, crazy as fishguts. Sees things, hears voices that aren’t there.” Well, I do see them, I do hear. To deny what you do see and believe in things you don’t, that you could call crazy. Some believe in god whom they’ve never seen, who never says hello. In each other’s dreams we are all fucking fishguts. It’s better I speak these things to the tape.

  Hah! This story has been locked up in me, it’s struggling to be free, I can feel it coming, words want to fly out from between my teeth like a flock of birds making a break for it. You know that sudden clap of wings when they take off in a hurry, it’s that sound, listen, clap, clap, clap.

  Pandit Somraj’s good friend, the poet Qaif Khaufpuri, when he grew old his poetry dried up inside him, an ulcer came on his leg, an open mouth that wouldn’t go, one day it began reciting such sweet verses, his poems were trying to burst their way out of him.

  Same way is this, a story sung by an ulcer.

  My friend Faqri gave me this mashin, batteries I stole from Ram Nekchalan’s shop, he can’t say anything to me. Now the tape is running. I’m remembering the eyes that hide inside your eyes, you said I should ignore you and talk straight to those who’ll read these words, if I speak from my heart they’ll listen. So from this moment I am no longer speaking to my friend the Kakadu Jarnalis, name’s Phuoc, I am talking to the eyes that are reading these words.

  Now I am talking to you.

  I am saying this into darkness that is filled with eyes. Whichever way I look eyes are showing up. They’re floating round in the air, these fucking eyes, turning this way and that they’re, looking for things to see. I don’t want them to see me, I’m lying on the floor, which is of dry dust, the tape mashin is by my head.

  The instant I began talking the eyes came. I tried to hide. For some time I stayed silent. The eyes remained, they were wondering where the words had gone. They watched quietly, blinking now and again, waiting for something to happen.

  See, it’s like this, as the words pop out of my mouth they rise up in the dark, the eyes in a flash are onto them, the words start out kind of misty, like breath on a cold day, as they lift they change colours and shapes, they become pictures of things and of people. What I say becomes a picture and the eyes settle on it like flies.

  I’m looking right now at my feet, which are near the hearth, twisted they’re, a little bent to one side. Inside of left foot, outer of right, where they scrape the ground the sk
in’s thick and cracked. In gone times I’ve felt such hunger, I’d break off lumps of the dry skin and chew it. Want to see? Okay watch, I am reaching down to my heel, feeling for horny edges, I’m sliding the thumbnail under. There, see this lump of skin, hard as a pebble, how easily it breaks off, mmm, chewy as a nut. Nowadays there’s no shortage of food, I eat my feet for pleasure.

  The hearth near which my feet are resting is of clay shaped somewhat like, like what, I’ve never thought of this before but it’s like a yoni, which is a cunt, I don’t know another way to say it, there’s a gap you feed in hay, twigs etc., then put bits of dungcake and sticks to get a fire, which I’ve one burning. Outside the sun has yet to show its face. I can hear people passing, going for dawn shits on the railway line. They’ll be well wrapped up this morning, blanket or thick shawl. The poor sods who are on the street must cover themselves in what they can find. Winter nights here you can freeze. That night they say was a night of great cold. Zafar used to say that as people were breathing clouds of mist out of their mouths that night, they little knew what kind of mist they’d soon be breathing in.

  The eyes are watching people breathing mist. Stupid eyes, they don’t know what the mist does to the people, they don’t know what happens next. They know only what I tell them.

  In this crowd of eyes I am trying to recognise yours. I’ve been waiting for you to appear, to know you from all the others, this is how the Kakadu Jarnalis in his letter said it would be. He said, “Animal, you must imagine that you are talking to just one person. Slowly that person will come to seem real to you. Imagine them to be a friend. You must trust them and open your heart to them, that person will not judge you badly whatever you say.”

  You are reading my words, you are that person. I’ve no name for you so I will call you Eyes. My job is to talk, yours is to listen. So now listen.

  My story has to start with that night. I don’t remember anything about it, though I was there, nevertheless it’s where my story has to start. When something big like that night happens, time divides into before and after, the before time breaks up into dreams, the dreams dissolve to darkness. That’s how it is here. All the world knows the name of Khaufpur, but no one knows how things were before that night. As for me, I don’t remember any time before my back went bad. Ma Franci would talk, proud as if she were my real mother, of how I used to enjoy swimming in the lakes behind the Kampani’s factory. “You’d dive right in, with your arms and your legs stretched out in one line.” Whenever she said this I’d feel sad also angry. I still dream of diving straight as a stick into deep water leaving my crooked shadow behind.

  On that night I was found lying in a doorway, child of a few days, wrapped in a shawl. Whose was I? Nobody knew. Mother, father, neighbours, all must have died for no living soul came to claim me, who was coughing, frothing etc. plus nearly blind, where my eyes had screwed themselves against the burning fog were white slits bleached on the eyeballs. I was brought to the hospital. Was I Hindu or Muslim? How did it matter? I was not expected to live. When I did, they circumcised me, if I was Muslim it was necessary, if I was Hindu what difference did it make? After this I was given to the nuns. I grew up in the orphanage. I do not know what religion I should be. Both perhaps? Neither? Or should I listen to Ma Franci, loves Isa miyañ, he said “forgive your enemies, turn the other cheek.” I don’t fucking forgive. I’m not a Muslim, I’m not a Hindu, I’m not an Isayi, I’m an animal, I’d be lying if I said religion meant a damn thing to me. Where was god the cunt when we needed him?

  I was six when the pains began, plus the burning in my neck and across the shoulders. Nothing else do I remember from that time, my first memory is that fire. It was so bad I could not lift my head. I just couldn’t lift it. The pain gripped my neck and forced it down. I had to stare at my feet while a devil rode my back and chafed me with red hot tongs. The burning in the muscles became a fever, when the fevers got bad I was taken to the hospital, they gave me an injection. It did no good. After that my back began to twist. Nothing could be done. It was agony, I couldn’t straighten up, I was pressed forward by the pain. Before this I could run and jump like any other kid, now I could not even stand up straight. Further, further forward I was bent. When the smelting in my spine stopped the bones had twisted like a hairpin, the highest part of me was my arse. Through flowers of pain I could make out an old woman kneeling by my cot, wiping my head and mumbling strange words in my ear. Her skin was wrinkled as a dried apricot, so pale you could see clear through it, she looked like the mother of time itself. This was Ma Franci. She already knew me well, but this is my first memory of her. Ma stroked my face and comforted me in words I did not understand. Tears were falling down her face. Mine too. This feverish dream gradually faded and became my new life.

  On my hands I learned to walk, my legs grew feeble. My hands and arms are strong, my chest is strong. The upper half of my body is like a bodybuilder’s. I walk, also run, by throwing my weight onto my hands, hauling feet forward in a kind of hop. It took a long time to master this new way of getting about. Maybe it was months, maybe a year. When I could run I ran away because the teasing had begun.

  The orphanage kids started calling me Animal one day during a round of kabbadi. You’d think such a tough game I’d have difficulty playing, but with my strong shoulders and arms I was good at catching opposing players and wrestling them to the ground. One day I grabbed this boy, he kneed me in the face. It hurt. I was so angry I bit him. I fastened my teeth in his leg and bit till I could taste blood. How he yelled, he was howling with pain, he was pleading, I wouldn’t stop. I bit harder. The other kids started shouting, “Jaanvar, jungli Jaanvar.” Animal, wild Animal.

  Another time, I’d have been about eight or nine, we’d gone to swim. Just now I mentioned lakes, really they’re clay pits behind the Kampani’s factory where bulldozers would dump all different coloured sludges. These pits are massive, the water in them stinks, but when the rains come they fill up and become proper lakes with reeds etc. Since rain water is clean people would wash their cows and buffalos, we kids would jump in, splash around in the water. I could no longer dive or swim, I’d wade up to my neck, but my arse stuck out of the water.

  One day we were lying on the grass in hot sun, drying off. A girl about my own age, she pushed me and left the prints of her muddy fingertips on my body. The mud dried pale on my skin. She said, “Like a leopard!” So then they all dipped their fingers in the clay and covered me with leopardy marks. “Animal, jungli Animal!” The name, like the mud, stuck. The nuns tried to stop it but some things have a logic that can’t be denied. How do you shit, when your arse is up in the air and legs too weak to squat? Not easy. What do you look like as the turds tumble from your hindquarters? Like a donkey dropping dung, when I walk, it’s

  feet on tiptoe

  head down below

  arse en haut

  thus do I go

  In my street years I hated to see dogs fucking, my mates would shout, “Hey Animal, is this how you do it?”

  They’d make a fist, ram two fingers in and out with loud sucking noises, then let on the fingers were trapped, they’d yell, “Hey Fourlegs, you get glued up like this, you and your girlfriend? You and Jara?” Never have I been able to cope with teasing. I’d lose my temper, fataak! I know how to fight. Early in life I learned to look out for myself, to put myself first, before all others and every other thing. Who else was going to stick up for me? It’s a bad idea to attack an opponent who can kick shit out of you, I got a few beatings, but if they know you’ll fight back, people mostly leave you alone. Plus I used to bite. Maybe they were afraid of getting rabies.

  Jara’s my friend. She wasn’t always. We used to be enemies. In the days of living on the street we were rivals for food. We used to work the same territory, the alleys behind the eating houses in the old city. We’d get there late evening when the waiters were tired and would sling the day’s scraps at, rather than in, the bins. Such delicacies we fought over, bit of naa
n, thrown-down banana skin, with nub of meat going gooey brown where someone had not fancied it. I might arrive to find Jara crouching over some prize, a bone to which clung a few shreds of mutton, a splash of daal. Or I’d be there first, slobbering over a choice morsel, and look up to see her eyes fastened on mine, drooling from the back corners of her mouth. I was scared of her. Of her sharp teeth, her orangey-brown eyes in which there was no friendliness. She’d lie and watch me until hunger drove her forward, crouching on her haunches, a low growl, rrrrr, starting in her throat. I came to know that snarling mouth quite well. A long curved tooth in her lower jaw had lost its tip. When she got close enough for me to see that tooth, I’d back away.

  One day, I found a thing with flies sticking to it like peppercorns, fish-snout with backbone protruding behind, a fair slab of flesh, brown with masalas, lying on a bed of rice, remains of someone’s dinner. I’d begun making a feast of it when I heard her growl. The fish was too good to give up. I stuck firm as she made her approach, the lips lifted over those evil yellow teeth. She started all that rrrrr business. I don’t know how, but some rebellion ignited inside me. On all fours I rushed at her snapping my jaws, growling louder than she, the warning of a desperate animal that will stick at nothing. She turned and slunk back a few paces, then lay down again, giving me a reproachful look.

  She was as thin as me, her hide shrunken over her ribs. A pink sore on her nose was leaking some clear mess. With my own body pumped full of victory I suddenly felt sorry for her. I fed myself then moved off, gestured for her to come close. “Eat!” She licked her lips, wagged her tail so hard her whole backside shook. Man, what a dog. A yellow dog, of no fixed abode and no traceable parents, just like me. After this we always shared. I named her Banjara, gypsy, free spirit, because she belongs nowhere and everywhere is her kingdom.