She Will Build Him a City (24 page)

‘There’s another thing. Orphan is the youngest of us all, a mere infant, someone has to teach him to walk, someone has to teach him to talk. Aunty is the only one who could have helped but she is busy with Bandaged Baby. I cannot leave him alone since I have seen his mother walk up to the steps of Little House and leave him there, I have seen tears in her eyes.’

‘Why not take him back to Little House, Bhow?’ asks Aunty. ‘At least someone will take care of him there – they will feed him better food than we can give, teach him what he needs to learn.’

‘No, he isn’t going back, Aunty. His mother has left him, his nurse has left him, his doctor, too. And that morning after the storm, I see Orphan crawl out through the hole all by himself. Something, someone pushes him out and so, no, he cannot return, that will be against his wishes, against his best interests. But he cannot live here, on the pavement under the highway. Sorry, no disrespect to any of you, but he is a human child and I got him here, he’s my responsibility. So he will move across the street.’ Bhow turns around to face The Mall. ‘He will live there with Ms Violets Rose, two flowers in one name, a tiny bouquet, if you so wish.’

~

‘You mean the cinema woman, the one who lives inside the theatre?’ asks Windshield Wiper Boy. ‘Have you met her? Is she willing to take him in?’

‘I haven’t talked to her but I can tell you one thing,’ says Bhow, ‘she remains largely invisible but ever since Orphan has been coming with us to The Mall, I see her every morning, looking at us as we leave.’

“How do you know?”

‘I turn to look back and I see the day’s first light bouncing off her glasses.’

‘Can she take care of him?’asks Uncle. ‘Isn’t she too old?’

‘That’s exactly why she can, Uncle, she is older than New City, she has the wisdom of ages, she can take care of him,’ says Bhow.

‘Why doesn’t she come out and talk to us, Bhow?’ asks Aunty. ‘I hardly see her.’

‘Don’t get her wrong,’ says Bhow. ‘For so long has she lived in the dark that she doesn’t want to step out into the light. Maybe her eyes hurt. But I will tell you one thing, she likes the fact that we come to play in The Mall at night, it makes her feel less lonely. She likes to hear the noises we make.’

‘How are you so sure that she will take him in?’ asks Aunty.

‘Let’s find out,’ says Bhow. ‘I will take Orphan to her, right away. He is sleeping, so now is the best time to carry him. You don’t have to come with us, you all need rest. And we do not want to create a crowd, we do not want to frighten Ms Rose.’

‘We will miss Orphan,’ says Cartwheel Dancer Girl. ‘He never says anything but I am beginning to like him. I can take care of him.’

‘You are an angel,’ says Bhow. ‘I am sure you will take good care of him but he needs to be away from here. And he’s not going far away, he will be across the street and I am sure once he learns how to speak and walk and run, Ms Rose will send him to play when you go visiting The Mall.’

~

Orphan’s eyes are closed in sleep as they all help place him on Bhow, adjust his legs on her back, rest his head against hers.

Watched by all, Bhow waits for the road to clear before they cross the street, climb up the embankment that separates the lane leading to The Mall from the highway, walk along the wall, slip into Gate 12, which leads to the Europa cinema theatre where Ms Violets Rose waits in the dark.

MEANWHILE

A Day in the Life of Kalyani’s Mother

‘It’s your turn tonight, Ma,’ says Kalyani.

‘I am not well,’ Ma says.

‘Tell us what happened to you, that will make you feel better,’ says Kalyani.

~

‘All of you know the house where I work for Didi. In Apartment Complex, right at the top, on the 20th floor, so high that although it’s been more than a year I’ve been working there, I still get dizzy every time I step out onto the verandah and look down. One day, a friend of Didi’s told me the view from the verandah is like when you look out of the window of an aeroplane. They have one lift in the building only for us. I don’t know how to read but it’s written on a poster on the wall next to the lift’s button. In English: the lift is for servants and pets.

‘Before I sweep and scrub the floors, I wash the dishes. Above the kitchen sink is a window that opens out onto the verandah. Standing there, I see green as far as my eye can see; the tops of trees, just like in our village, and beyond that, the highway. But this morning, when I look out, my head begins to spin. I think it’s the height but soon, my legs, shoulders and arms all begin to hurt.

‘I need to take breaks during which I sit down on the floor of the kitchen, close my eyes, that seems to reduce the pain. Didi walks in, asks what is wrong. I don’t wish to hide anything from her so I tell her that my body hurts. She says, forget the dishes today, just do the floors and go home. Don’t forget to take some medicine from me when you leave because there is a party at home tomorrow. At least eight to ten people have been invited, we will serve them snacks, drinks and dinner so there will be a lot of work to do, many dishes to wash. I want you to be here tomorrow and the day after, that’s why no need to tire yourself out today. Don’t forget to take the medicine when you go.

‘Twice, I feel I am falling down. After the floors are done, when I tell Didi I am going home, she gives me a banana and says, eat this because you should not have medicine on an empty stomach. She makes me take two green capsules. Rest for a while, sit down on the floor, leave after ten, fifteen minutes, says Didi.

‘The capsules work like magic. Ten minutes, the pain is gone.

‘Don’t forget, says Didi, as I leave, tomorrow is a big day. Tell people at home that you will be returning late tomorrow night. Take this capsule for the morning, she says, have it just before you come.’

~

‘I hope you are feeling better, Ma,’ says Kalyani. ‘If not, I can go to Didi’s tomorrow and help her out.’

‘The capsules have worked, I will be all right, I feel better already,’ says Ma.

After dinner, she washes the dishes, empties out the coal oven. The ceiling has sprung a tiny leak, a thin stream of water from the tank on the roof scurries down the wall, collects into a puddle from where it darts into the cracks on the floor. Kalyani puts a bucket against the wall to collect this water.

‘We will have to fix it tomorrow,’ says Baba, ‘before the rains.’

~

They live in one of a row of rooms, small rectangles cut out of brick and mortar, each with a tarpaulin sheet as a door, the tin in the roof beaten, cracked in many places. These rooms are owned by a slumlord who comes once a month to collect the rent. Many families who live here are from Bangladesh, all illegally migrated, who have, to escape detection by the local police, changed their names from Muslim to Hindu. The police know this, the owner knows this, both use this information to threaten, coerce and extort. You complain about water leaking, you should be lucky I am letting you stay here, the slumlord will say if Baba goes to complain. At least once every six months, there is pressure from higher-ups – usually following a debate in the press or a security threat – to crack down on the migrants. Suddenly, platoons of policemen show up, in helmets and with riot shields just in case bricks and stones are thrown. Bulldozers run through homes, what’s inside – pots and pans, clothes and boxes – is thrown outside. Some residents are picked up, taken to the detention centre in the city. But most are out at work where they stay until they get news that the police have left. Some families get split, wife is arrested, husband hides, children are picked up, some tears are shed but within hours, it all settles down, the police are paid off, the slumlord raises the rent saying his risk has gone up.

~

The children are sleeping, Baba’s eyes are closed, too, one arm over his face to shut off the light that slips into the room through the gap in the door.

Ma imagines Pinki playing on the blue slide in The Mall. The capsules have helped ease the pain, banished the fever, but not the heaviness she feels almost crushing her forehead. She tries to distract herself with new questions, new concerns.

What will Kalyani do now that she has left the orphanage?

Why did she leave? Why does she look so drained?

We don’t need her money immediately, all of us are earning, so she can take some time off. She says she already has a job at a new hospital. What kind of a job is it?

They all need voter-identity cards otherwise they will have to keep paying the police; they need ration cards; they need to save money; they need to find a husband for Kalyani.

She worries about Pinki after she heard last month that a thirteen-year-old girl, a few rooms down, ran away with a twenty-five-year-old good-for-nothing boy, returned after two weeks, pregnant. What if something like this happens to Pinki? And Bhai? Someone has talked to her about a girl for him, time to get him married so that his wife can come and help you, how long will you run this house but, no, Bhai is still a boy, let him grow up, let him earn, save some money.

She hopes Baba doesn’t fall ill, how will he pull that cycle rickshaw? Even when he is healthy, his legs, his arms are so thin, so weak. Their savings, all of it in a tin box, underneath the blanket, will be gone once they have to see a doctor.

She has heard frightening stories in the neighbourhood, of an entire family’s six months’ savings gone for just a few blood tests, an X-ray, two visits to the doctor.

Fear swirls like floaters, brightly coloured, in front of her eyes as they close to the drip of water from the roof into the bucket. She times the drips, roughly one a minute. When the bucket is full, it will be time to wake up.

WOMAN

Shortest Story

The shortest love story ever told is when a parent tells her child that she loves a man who is not her father. Because that’s all she needs to say.

There is a man, he isn’t your father, he loves me and I love him.

Whatever else she says, by way of explanation, serves no purpose because, for the child, this new love is always a kind of betrayal.

~

That’s why I will keep this short:

Yes, your father’s student and I love each other.

And as I say this, I can see them come, the fireflies in the dark, ready to enter our heads, light the darkest of our dreams.

MAN

The Flies

A fly from the AIIMS mortuary slips into his car and sits on his dashboard. He tries to swat it away, he turns the fan on to maximum, rolls all four windows down but it doesn’t leave.

~

He cannot avoid the flies just as he cannot avoid the poor.

Wherever he looks, wherever he goes, they are there, many many more of them than there are of him. They stalk him, look him in the eye. Whether they stand or sit, crawl or crouch, cry or laugh. Or, even when they make love, as he sees them once, in the middle of the road in the middle of the night, they keep looking at him. At traffic lights, they tap and claw at his windows. Leave trails on glass. Of sweat and slime, like the dead do in movies. They even look like the dead, many of their faces half-eaten by disease. Some have noses missing, their lips chewed off. Some have black hollows where once there were eyes, stumps where once were limbs, wounds and sores where once was skin.

They speak the language of those whose tongues are twisted beyond repair. They use few intelligible sentences, theirs is a rambling, an incoherent garble of beg and beseech. Some fall to the ground and stay there, sniff at his trouser-legs, rub themselves against the heels of his shoes. Like lonely dogs do, when in heat. Others sprawl on pavements, their legs splayed, their heads thrown back as they sleep.

So many of them crawl out at night that he fears he will trip and fall right into them, into their mass, damp and dark. Like the basket of bait, fresh worms, grey and slimy, he sees at the fish market. Once they suck him in, their faces will touch his, his fingers will slip into their mouths, their lips and tongues will meet. They may even make love to him, rape him, and if he’s lucky, they will let him do whatever he wants to do to them in return for money.

That’s on the road.

~

Off the road, at home, when he sits down to dinner, they stand outside his room, looking in.

Like mournful pets kept out, they stare at him through the window or the door. If either is made of glass, he can see them. All standing in line, young and old, big and small, looking at his hands as his fingers pick up food and drink, their eyes following each movement from plate to mouth, from glass to lips.

They don’t spare him even if he hides in a place they cannot see. Because they know he is there, they smell him out, like dogs, they pound the wall, scratch at the plaster, crack the cement. Like bawling infants who do not have words to either express or explain their hurt or anger, they sometimes hit their heads against the wall. Hard, harder, hardest, until they bleed. Until blood, thick red and brown, flows down their faces, mixes with their drool and sweat, loops back to enter their mouths through their parted lips.

Most shameless are mothers with children. Like the one he sees when he stops under the highway, next to the traffic lights across from The Mall. She shows him her tongue, her nipples, once she shows him her vagina when she lifts her sari all the way to her waist and before the lights turn green, she shows him her bandaged baby. The sight of the baby makes him hard, she makes him throw up as well. Then there is a man at the same signal, who is only face and chest. He crawls up to the car and smiles at him. Give me money, he says, mocking, give me money and ask me anything in return, I will do it. I will show you how I shit, how I pee and how I fuck. You want to see that? Given that I have no legs, no arms, do you wish to see how I hold my woman?