“Eliminated?”
“Yes. You know – got rid of. Counting them as unemployment statistics year after year gets us nowhere, just makes the numbers look bad. What kind of lives do they have anyway? They sit in the gutter and look like corpses. Death would be a mercy.”
“But how would they be eliminated?” inquired Maneck in his most likeable, most deferential tone.
“That’s easy. One way would be to feed them a free meal containing arsenic or cyanide, whichever is cost-effective. Lorries could go around to the temples and places where they gather to beg.”
“Do many business people think like this?” asked Dina curiously.
“A lot of us think like this, but until now we did not have the courage to say so. With the Emergency, people can freely speak their minds. That’s another good thing about it.”
“But the newspapers are censored,” said Maneck.
“Ah yes, yes,” said Nusswan, at last betraying impatience. “And what’s so terrible about that? It’s only because the government does not want anything published which will alarm the public. It’s temporary – so lies can be suppressed and people can regain confidence. Such steps are necessary to preserve the democratic structure. You cannot sweep clean without making the new broom dirty.”
“I see,” said Maneck. The bizarre aphorisms were starting to grate on him, but he did not possess the ammunition to launch even a modest counterattack. If only Avinash were here. He would straighten out this idiot. He wished he had paid more attention when Avinash talked politics.
Still struggling with the earlier maxim, about breaking democratic eggs to make a democratic omelette, Maneck tried to formulate a variation by juggling democracy, tyranny, frying pan, fire, hen, hard-boiled eggs, cooking oil. He thought he had one: A democratic omelette is not possible from eggs bearing democratic labels but laid by the tyrannical hen. No, too cumbersome. And anyway, the moment was past.
“The important thing,” said Nusswan, “is to consider the concrete achievements of the Emergency. Punctuality has been restored to the railway system. And as my director friend was saying, there’s also a great improvement in industrial relations. Nowadays, he can call the police in just one second, to take away the union troublemakers. A few good saltings at the police station, and they are soft as butter. My friend says production has improved tremendously. And who benefits from all this? The workers. The common people. Even the World Bank and the IMF approve of the changes. Now they are offering more loans.”
Keeping her expression as grave as she could, Dina said, “Nusswan, can I make a request please?”
“Yes, of course.” He wondered how much it would be this time – two hundred rupees or three?
“About the plan to eliminate two hundred million. Can you please tell your business friends and directors not to poison any tailors? Because tailors are already hard to find.”
Maneck smothered a laugh before it broke. Nusswan spied the facial effort as he said to her disgustedly, “It’s useless talking to you about serious things. I don’t know why I even bother.”
“I enjoyed listening,” said Maneck gravely.
Nusswan felt betrayed – first her, now him. He wondered what sort of mockery and ridicule took place at his expense when the two were alone.
“I had fim too,” said Dina. “Coming to your office is the only entertainment I can afford, you know that.”
Glowering, he began moving papers on his desk. “Tell me what you need and leave me alone. There’s a lot of work to do.”
“Be careful, Nusswan, your eyebrows are doing funny exercises.” She decided not to press her luck further, and got down to business. “I haven’t given up the export work. It’s just a matter of time before I find new tailors. But till then I cannot accept more orders.”
The moment of asking, the moment she hated, did not become less unpalatable with the brisk matter-of-fact explanation or the levity leading up to it. “Two hundred and fifty will be enough to get me through this month.”
Nusswan rang for the peon, and filled out a cash voucher. Dina and Maneck were treated to a vehement display of penmanship, the ballpoint scratching savagely across the form. He crossed his t’s and dotted his i’s with heavy blows, as though competing with the typewriter being battered in the next room.
The peon carried the voucher to the cashier across the corridor. The run-down ceiling fan laboured like a noisy little factory. So much money, thought Dina, and he still hadn’t air-conditioned the office. She lowered her eyes, fixing them on a sandalwood paper-knife stuck strategically inside a half-opened envelope. The peon delivered the money and retreated.
Nusswan began, “None of this would be necessary if only –” He glanced at Dina, unable to reach her downcast eyes, then at Maneck, and abandoned the thought. “Here,” he held out the notes.
“Thank you,” she accepted, eyes still averted.
“Don’t mention it.”
“I’ll return it as soon as possible.”
He nodded, picking up the paper-knife, and opened the rest of the envelope.
“At least he spared me his favourite speech today, thanks to the Emergency,” said Dina when they got off the bus. “That’s something to be grateful for. And what is so terrible about marrying again?’“ she imitated in a sanctimonious voice. “ ‘You are still good-looking, I guarantee I can find you a good husband.’ You won’t believe the number of times he has said this to me.”
“But I do, Aunty,” said Maneck. “It’s the one thing on which I agree with your brother. You are good-looking.”
She smacked his shoulder. “Whose side are you on?”
“On the side of truth and beauty,” he pronounced grandly. “But it must be quite funny when Nusswan and his business friends get together and talk their nonsense.”
“You know what I was remembering, in his office? When he was a young boy. He would talk about becoming a big-game hunter, about killing leopards and lions. And wrestling crocodiles, like Tarzan. One day, a little mouse came into our room, and our ayah said to him, Baba look, there is a fierce tiger, you can be the hunter. And Nusswan ran away screaming for Mummy.”
She turned the key in the lock. “Now he wants to eliminate two hundred million. His big talk never stops.”
They entered the flat and were confronted by the silent sewing-machines. Their laughter now seemed out of place; it dwindled rapidly and died.
X
Sailing Under One Flag
THE TRUCK GROWLED INTO THE CITY after midnight along the airport road. Sleeping shanty towns pullulated on both sides of the highway, ready to spread onto the asphalt artery. Only the threat of the many-wheeled juggernauts thundering up and down restrained the tattered lives behind the verges. Headlights picked out late-shift workers, tired ghosts tracing a careful path between the traffic and the open sewer.
“Police had orders to remove all jhopadpattis,” said Ishvar. “Why are these still standing?”
Beggarmaster explained it was not so simple; everything depended on the long-term arrangements each slumlord had made with the police.
“That’s not fair,” said Om, his eyes trying to penetrate the rancid night. Splotches of pale moonlight revealed an endless stretch of patchwork shacks, the sordid quiltings of plastic and cardboard and paper and sackcloth, like scabs and blisters creeping in a dermatological nightmare across the rotting body of the metropolis. When the moon was blotted by clouds, the slum disappeared from sight. The stench continued to vouch for its presence.
After a few kilometres the truck entered the city’s innards. Lampposts and neon fixtures washed the pavements in a sea of yellow watery light, where slumbered the shrunken, hollow-eyed statuary of the night, the Galateas and Gangabehns and Gokhales and Gopals, soon to be stirred to life by dawn’s chaos, to haul and carry and lift and build, to strain their sinew for the city that was desperately seeking beautification.
“Look,” said Om. “People are sleeping peacefully – no police to both
er them. Maybe the Emergency law has been cancelled.”
“No, it hasn’t,” said Beggarmaster. “But it’s become a game, like all other laws. Easy to play, once you know the rules.”
The tailors asked to be let off near the chemist’s. “Maybe the night-watchman will let us live in the entrance again.”
Beggarmaster insisted, however, on first seeing their place of work. The truck travelled for a few more minutes and stopped outside Dina’s building, where they indicated her flat.
“Okay,” said Beggarmaster, jumping out. “Let’s verify your jobs with your employer.” He asked the driver to wait, and strode rapidly to the door.
“It’s too late to wake Dinabai,” pleaded Ishvar, wincing as he hurried on his bad ankle. “She’s very quick-tempered. We’ll bring you here tomorrow, I promise – I swear upon my dead mother’s name.”
The beggars and injured workers in the truck shivered, yearning for the comforting arms of motion that had cradled them through the journey. The idling engine’s rumbles endowed the night with a menacing maw. They began to cry.
Beggarmaster paused at the front door to study the nameplate, and made a note in his diary. Then he shot out his index finger and rang the doorbell.
“Hai Ram!” Ishvar clutched his head in despair. “How angry she will be, pulled out of bed this late!”
“It’s late for me also,” said Beggarmaster. “I missed my temple puja, but I’m not complaining, am I?” He pressed the bell again and again when there was no answer. The truck driver sounded his horn to hurry him up.
“Stop, please!” begged Om. “At this rate we’ll surely lose our jobs!” Beggarmaster smiled patiently and continued his jottings. Writing in the dark posed no difficulty for him.
Inside, the doorbell agitated Dina as much as it did the tailors. She rushed to Maneck’s room. “Wake up, quick!” He needed a few good shakes before he stirred. “Looks like an angel but snores like a buffalo! Wake up, come on! Are you listening? Someone’s at the door!”
“Who?”
“I glanced through the peephole, but you know my eyes. All I can tell is, there are three fellows. I want you to look.”
She had not yet switched on the light, hoping the uninvited visitors would go away. Cautioning him to walk softly, she led the way to the door and held the latch. He took a peek and turned excitedly.
“Open it, Aunty! It’s Ishvar and Om, with someone!”
Outside they heard his voice and called, “Hahnji, it is us, Dinabai, very sorry to disturb you. Please forgive us, it won’t take long…” Their voices trailed off in a timorous question mark.
She clicked the switch for the verandah light, still cautious, and opened the door a bit – and then wide. “It is you! Where have you been? What happened?”
She made no attempt to disguise her relief. It surprised her: she relished the wholeness of it, her feelings rising straight to her tongue, without twisting in deception.
“Come inside, come!” she said. “My goodness, we worried about you all these weeks!”
Beggarmaster stood back as Ishvar limped over the threshold and forced a smile. From his ankle trailed Doctor sahab’s filthy strips of cloth. Om followed close behind him, stepping on the bandage in his haste. Through the darkened doorway they crept shamefacedly into the verandah’s revealing light.
“My goodness! Look at your condition!” said Dina, overcome by the haggard faces, dirty clothes, matted hair. Neither she nor Maneck spoke for a few moments. They stared. Then the questions rushed out, tripping one over the other, and the fragmented answers were equally frantic.
Still waiting at the door, Beggarmaster interrupted Ishvar and Om’s confused explanations. “I just want to check – these two tailors work for you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“That’s fine. It’s so nice to see everybody happy and reunited.” The truck honked again, and he turned to leave.
“Wait,” said Ishvar. “Where to make the weekly payment?”
“I’ll come to collect it.” He added that if they wanted to get in touch with him at any time, they should tell Worm, whose new beat would be outside the Vishram Vegetarian Hotel.
“What payment, what worm?” asked Dina when the door had shut. “And who is that man?”
The tailors digressed from the main story to explain, starting with Beggarmaster’s arrival at the work camp, then backing up to Shankar’s account, racing forward again, getting confused, confusing their listeners. The harrowing stretch of time in hell was over; exhaustion was flooding the place vacated by fear. Ishvar fumbled with the bandage to wrap it properly round his ankle. His hands shook, and Om tucked in the loose end for him.
“It was the foreman’s fault, he…”
“But that was before the Facilitator came…”
“Anyway, after my ankle was hurt, it was impossible…”
The thread of events eluded their grasp, Ishvar picking up a piece of it here, Om grabbing something there. Then they lost track of the narrative altogether. Ishvar’s voice faded. He pressed his head with both hands, trying to squeeze out the words. Om stammered and started to cry.
“It was terrible, the way they treated us,” he sobbed, clawing at his hair. “I thought my uncle and I were going to die there …”
Maneck patted his back, saying they were safe now, and Dina insisted the best thing to do was to have a good rest, then talk in the morning. “You still have your bedding. Just spread it here on the verandah and go to sleep.”
Now it was Ishvar’s turn to break. He fell on his knees before her and touched her feet. “O Dinabai, how to thank you! Such kindness! We are very afraid of the outside… this Emergency, the police…”
His display embarrassed her. She pulled her toes out of his reach. So urgent was his grasp, her left slipper stayed behind between his clutching fingers. He reached forward and gently restored it to her foot.
“Please get up – at once,” she said with a confused sternness. “Listen to me, I will say this one time only. Fall on your knees before no human being.”
“Okayji,” he rose obediently. “Forgive me, I should have known better. But what to do, Dinabai, I just can’t think of how to thank you.”
Still embarrassed, she said there had been enough thanks for one night. Om unrolled the bedding after wiping his eyes on his sleeve. He asked if they could wash the dust from their hands and faces before sleeping.
“There’s not much water, just what’s in the bucket, so be frugal. If you are thirsty, take from the drinking pot in the kitchen.” She locked the verandah door and went inside with Maneck.
“I’m so proud of you, Aunty,” he whispered.
“Are you, now? Thank you, Grandpa.”
Morning light did not bring answers to the questions Dina had wrestled with all night. She could not risk losing the tailors again. But how firm to stand, how much to bend? Where was the line between compassion and foolishness, kindness and weakness? And that was from her position. From theirs, it might be a line between mercy and cruelty, consideration and callousness. She could draw it on this side, but they might see it on that side.
The tailors awoke at seven, and packed up their bedding. “We slept so well,” said Ishvar. “It was peaceful as paradise on your verandah.”
They took a change of clothes from the trunk and prepared to leave for the railway bathroom. “We’ll have tea at Vishram, then come back straight – if it’s all right.”
“You mean, to start sewing?”
“Yes, for sure,” said Om with a weak smile.
She turned to Ishvar. “What about your ankle?”
“Still hurts, but I can push the treadle with one foot. No need to delay.”
She noticed their cracked and bruised feet. “Where are your chappals?”
“Stolen.”
“Sometimes there is broken glass on the street. Drunks smashing their bottles. You cannot gamble with your three remaining feet.” She found an old pair of slippers which fit Om; Man
eck gave Ishvar his tennis shoes.
“So comfortable,” said Ishvar. “Thank you.” Then he inquired timidly if they could borrow five rupees for tea and food.
“There is much more than five rupees coming to you from the last order,” she said.
“Hahnji? Really?” They were overjoyed, having presumed that leaving the work incomplete meant forfeiting the right to any payment, and said as much.
“It may be the practice with some employers. I believe in honest pay for honest work.” She added jokingly, “Maybe you can share it with Maneck, he deserves something.”
“No, I only helped with a few buttons. Dina Aunty did it all.”
“Forget your college, yaar,” said Om. “Become a partner with us.”
“Right. And we’ll open our own shop,” said Maneck.
“Don’t give bad advice,” she scolded Om. “Everyone should be educated. I hope when you have children you will send them to school.”
“Oh yes, he will,” said Ishvar. “But first we must find him a wife.”
After Maneck left reluctantly for college and Dina went to Au Revoir Exports for new cloth, the tailors idled away the time at the Vishram Vegetarian Hotel. The cashier-cum-waiter welcomed back his regulars with delight. He finished attending to the customers at the front counter – a tumbler of milk, six pakoras, a scoop of curds – and soon joined them at the solitary table.
“You two have lost weight,” he observed. “Where have you been so long?”
“Special government diet,” said Ishvar, and told him about their misfortune.
“You fellows are amazing,” the sweaty cook roared over the stoves. “Everything happens to you only. Each time you come here, you have a new adventure story to entertain us.”
“It’s not us, it’s this city,” said Om. “A story factory, that’s what it is, a spinning mill.”