Boys without Names (20 page)

He seems trustworthy, but a bead of doubt rolls around in my head. My heart wants to believe in him. I think Sweets-Man is a good kind of person. But what if he talked to the police and they don't do anything? What if Scar has bribed some of the police and they tip him
off? Roshan said they were once moved hastily before. It could happen again. If Scar finds out about what I did he will split us up and send me far away from Mumbai. Then I will never see my family again. Barish and Amar will get separated too. Maybe by asking for help, I've put my friends and myself in danger.

 

All afternoon as I work, time mocks me by sauntering slowly. Finally, around seven, Scar gives us dinner and leaves.

Alone! At last! I hug my secret for two more hours. Before I share the sweets I want to make sure that Scar doesn't return. Finally, it is time to quit work.

“Tonight let's keep the light on and share stories,” I say. I want to see their expressions when I pull out the box of sweets. “This is Diwali season.”

“Yes, this is a festival of lights,” GC says.

“Before we start I have to go downstairs,” I say.

“Why?” Barish asks.

“You'll see.” I skip down the ladder.

I feel around under the bench until I find the right sack. When I do, I grab the box and untie it. “Close your eyes and don't open them until I tell you to,” I call to the boys as I climb back up the ladder. Amar has put his hands on his eyes while the others have just closed them.

“Can we open our eyes?” Amar asks when he hears me sit down.

“No. Wait.”

I take off the lid and put the open box in the middle. “You can look now.”

Amar's dimple lights up his face, Barish covers his mouth with his palm, Sahil hugs his knobby knees, and GC's gray eyes sparkle. Roshan's lashes flutter in excitement and his mouth is wide open. “Ar-ar-ar-are these for us?”

“Yes.”

They all stare at me for a moment and I stare back at them. “I knew you were hiding something. I just didn't know it was this! How did you get them?” GC asks.

I notice he doesn't accuse me of stealing. I tell them about what happened when I went to get the sweets. After I finish, we admire the sweets. There are white and green diamond-shaped bars, yellow round
laddus
, orange honeycombed cubes. Some of them are covered with a thin layer of silver and some are garnished with nuts and dark cardamom seeds. I pass the box around and they each take one piece. When it is Sahil's turn, he picks up one, breaks off a bit and offers it to me. It is his way of saying thank you. Barish, GC, Roshan, and Amar follow his example.

We eat without talking. The sugary, nutty, spicy flavors fill my mouth and I let them play on my tongue.

When we are done, Amar wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “We still have some more left!”

“Enough to last us for probably two more days,” I say. “You had money, you met a kind man, and you were
alone. You should have gone back to your aai,” Sahil says.

Barish brushes his hair back. “I was thinking the same. Why did you come back?”

I am tempted to say, “I almost did.” Why did I not stay on the bus? If I had, I might have been with my family. Regret washes over me.

“If Gopal runs away Boss will break up our group. He will make our lives miserable.” GC's eyes darken with fear.

“So? Our lives can't get much worse. And Gopal would have been with his family,” Sahil says.

Amar wiggles closer. “
Yaar
, maybe next time you can get away and then come back and help us.”

“I do want all of us to be free,” I say.

GC shakes his head. “It is never going to happen if you escape alone, because Boss will send us somewhere else right away. You won't be able to find us.”

They all sit, glum-faced and silent. I wish I could tell them about my note to Sweets-Man. But I don't know if anyone would come to rescue us. Why get my friends' hopes up the mountaintop and have them come tumbling down?

Besides, I still don't trust GC completely.

“I promise, if I get out of this place, so will you.” As I say this, my voice wobbles like a table with three legs, but inside I feel solid. With my promise I try to keep them hopeful.

“May we have some more sweets? Please?” Amar asks.

“Yes, let's eat some more.”

We take a few pieces out.

“Where should we keep the box?” I ask.

“No-not here,” Roshan says trembling. “This ro-room is so bare there is no place to hide the box. If-if Boss finds it he will beat us.”

Roshan is right. This room holds nothing but our benches, jute sacks, pairs of clothes, and our towels. I have a raincoat and Roshan has a comb, but that's all. If Scar comes up, he will see the big, red box right away.

“Hide it in the same place you did before,” GC says.

Sahil reties the string on the box.

I go down, slip the box in a jute bag and shove it way in the back under Scar's seat.

We sit and eat silently in the story circle with the naked yellow light off. “I want to share a secret with you,” I tell them when I am done eating. “The first time I saw the Boss, I named him Scar-Man, but then he kicked and hit me, so I decided he didn't deserve
man
behind his name.”

It feels good to talk about Scar.

Amar sits next to me. He says something, but even I can't hear it because he mumbles.

“Louder,” Barish says.

Amar shakes his head.

Sahil goes next. “Gopal tells us about his family and it reminds me of my maa. I used to push her out of my thoughts, but now I let her stay with me.” His voice sinks
low and soft. “The more she stays with me, the more I miss her.”

“How did you get separated from her?” I ask.

“It happened on a day when the earth shook, houses came down, and people got crushed.”

I remember him telling me how his school building came crashing down. “Did your house collapse too?” I ask.

“Yes. When I ran home from school my home was no more. So I kept on running. I never saw my parents again.”

Amar leans forward. “Then what?”

“There was a sandstorm and then, then someone came, I think. I don't remember.” Sahil becomes distant. We know he won't talk now.

“I-I-I hate my father,” Roshan declares. “I hate him for believing in strangers and sending me away with them. And, and…”

We wait for a few minutes for Roshan to continue. He doesn't.

“I was not bad,” Amar says. “My stepmother wanted me out of her house, so she complained to my father about me. He knew it wasn't true. I guess he didn't love me, because he never, even once, took my side.”

“Your mother loved you very much,” Barish says.

“So what? She left me, didn't she? If she hadn't died, I wouldn't have had a stepmother in the first place.” He starts sobbing.

Barish puts his arm around Amar. It takes a few minutes before Amar stops crying.

“Will you tell us how you came here?” he asks Barish.

Barish hesitates a minute before he begins. “One day I borrowed my uncle's bicycle without asking him. I didn't know how to ride well and I ran into a tree. The bicycle was banged up and I was scared to tell my uncle, so I ran away before he found out what I had done. It was a mistake.

“I hid behind a temple for two days and there I met a man who said he would take me to a city where I could work in his tea stall and make so much money that I could buy a new bike for my uncle. He was well dressed, wore sandals, and was not skinny like the villagers. For a few months I stayed with him and he treated me well, but then the man passed away. I had money saved up and I was ready to go back to the village when my money got stolen.”

“Wh-where did you keep your money?” Roshan asks.

“Under my pillow in an empty cigarette box. Without money I couldn't go home so I found a new place to work, and the boss promised me he would pay me well. The promise was like a rose, but what I got was one big thorn of a boss. For two years, I served tea, washed dishes, swept floors, and cleaned the tables. One day a customer cursed me because his glass was not full. I told him it was not my fault since my boss filled up the glasses. The man
argued with my boss, demanding his money back. Finally he threw the tea at my boss, smashed the glass on the wall, and walked away. That night my boss beat me up and I ended up here. Now I am afraid of Scar and what he can do to me.”

GC is the only one who hasn't shared his story, but I don't expect him to do so. I am about to say that we should go to sleep when I hear GC's voice. “I loved my grandmother very much. We had three cows and a few goats and I used to take them to pasture in the surrounding hills. My grandmother packed me lunches of corn
roti
with garlic chutney. There were eight of us friends who went together, and while our animals grazed, my friends and I played, shared stories, and played pranks. Sometime we let each other's cows into the fields. The farmer would come running and shouting, chase the cows away, and catch the owner. When I returned in the evening my grandmother and I milked the cows and goats, and I delivered the milk.”

I am afraid that if I interrupt GC the spell will be broken, so I keep my hands tucked under my feet like Naren did to keep myself from saying a word.

“Did you drink real milk?” Amar asks.

That doesn't stop GC. “Yes, we did. It was creamy, foamy, fresh, and warm. During the long winter my grandmother told me stories. Then one day she got sick, and even with medicine she didn't get better. One by one we sold our goats and cows until we had none left. We ran out
of money. We were hungry and my grandmother needed medicine, so I stole money from a neighbor's house. I got caught. When she found out, my grandmother cried. She passed away that same night.”

Sahil scoots closer to GC and puts his arm around GC's shoulder.

“My grandmother was the only person I had in the world and when she died, I had nobody. I killed her. I know I killed her,” GC whispers.

I wonder if the old lady in the street reminded him of his grandmother. “Don't blame yourself,” I say.

He wipes his eyes. “Once she died I left the village. I traveled without a ticket, and when the ticket collector caught me he kicked me off the train. But I just snuck back on the next train. Sometimes people on the train were kind and shared their food with me. This is how I reached Mumbai. I made friends with a boot-polish boy and started helping him. We traveled in the trains and slept in different stations at night. It was not bad.”

“How did you end up here?” I ask.

“One day some
gundas
, thugs, came and asked us for money. We tried to run away. My friend got away but they caught me. They took all my money, beat me, and tied me with rags. The next day one of them told me he was my boss and I had to work for him.”

“Doing what?” Barish asks.

“Pickpocketing. I wasn't good at it and I got punished a lot. One day a man caught me with my hand in his
pocket. I begged him not to turn me over to the police, and he asked me if I wanted to make frames. It was better than pickpocketing, and I came here. By the time I realized Scar had trapped me it was too late. I wanted to get out of this place and I tried to escape twice, but you see me here.”

“
Yaar
, I wish you could have run away,” Amar says.

“Never get tangled in wishes and dreams, because they never come true.” GC adds, “It is very late and we must go to sleep.”

I guess he doesn't want us to ask questions, and we don't.

I wonder why GC doesn't tell us his name? He has told us everything else. As I spread my sack I think about how he has become part of the group. If we don't get rescued we could still be free if we come together and attack Scar. We can overpower him and tie him up, because he can't fight six of us at the same time. But will GC ever do that? As bad as this place is, this is like a home for him now. I remember how difficult it was to sleep on the footpath just when Baba, Aai, the twins, and I arrived in Mumbai. I can understand why GC doesn't want to end up living in the streets, alone.

T
he next morning, on Kali Chaudash, Scar arrives early. We're up but haven't started work. We scramble to set up our trays, but he comes up the ladder quickly.

“You filthy, ungrateful pigs! You haven't started work yet?”

He twists Sahil's ears and slaps him, then he turns to me, “You are the smart one. You should know better than to waste your time, Gopal.” He jerks my arm behind my back and twists it. The pain shoots up to my shoulders. I bite my lip to stop a scream. He looks at me. “Keep an eye on them. I want the work done, and done right. If any one of them messes up, you will get a beating that you will never forget.”

I want to hit him over the head with the bead tray. If we had all done that as he came up the ladder he would
have collapsed. Why didn't I plan the attack with my friends last night? “Yes, Boss.”

“I have brought some milk for your tea. Make it last for the next two days because I don't want to see your faces on Diwali.”

“We will,” Barish says.

“I'm talking to Gopal.”

“Yes, Boss.”

Scar is cruel and shrewd. Now that we have a big fancy order, he gives us tea. He wants us to be alert so we can do a good job. But that is all. I don't like the way he plays us against each other to make us distrust each other.

After I make tea, he tells me, “Start working on the new pattern.”

I wait for Scar to give me the pattern while the others go up.

“What are you still doing here? The stuff is upstairs,” he says.

When I get upstairs, there are stacks of frames and a pattern. I have done this one before so it is not new, but Scar must think it is.

My mind churns as I work. If the police come tonight I can be with my family on Diwali! How happy they will be. In my excitement I glue the wrong-colored beads twice.

I have to concentrate or else I will be punished. The only way I can do it is if I work faster than before, so my mind can't wander like a goat. It is easy to do the pattern since I have already done it and finished them quickly.
Before I take the frames down, I make sure I have not made a single mistake. Then I give them to Scar. He must have taken some medicine, because he doesn't look miserable like he did yesterday.

“It is nice you got done with this quickly, but what good does it do when you mess up? You donkey! You used the wrong pattern!” he screams.

“This is the pattern that was by the frames.”

“Who told you to use that one? You careless, no-good, wandering dog!” he says, looking around. He shuffles the newspaper pieces and a piece of paper slips to the floor. I pick it up and hand it to him. “This is the one I gave you,” he says.

It is a new one and I have never seen it before. “I—you didn't give—”

“You left it here, you cockroach.”

How could I have left it in his pile of newspaper? “The frames and the pattern were—”

He slaps me across the face. The pain blows away the cover I have placed on my anger. I hold on to my words—
you never gave the pattern to me and now you punish me. You're a liar and a cheat
—with all my might and don't let them spill out.

It doesn't help. “You—you fat little worm! Who will pay for this? Wait until I send you to a fireworks factory to shut your smart mouth.” Scar slaps me on the other cheek so forcefully that I stumble. “Get back to work. No food for you today.”

 

When I get upstairs the rest of them are working away with their heads down just like they did when I saw them the first time. I fight back the lump that settles in my throat. Now before we are rescued, Scar will send me away and I will end up in a factory far away from Mumbai. I wish I could somehow send a message to Sweets-Man that we need help right away. At least he knows where we are trapped and maybe he will be here with the police, soon.

I don't get food but it doesn't matter, because we have sweets. After Scar leaves we make the tea because the milk would spoil by next morning. We drink our tea upstairs with sweets, come down, wash our tumblers, and hang them up. Barish turns the light off and I turn on my flashlight. I put it in the middle. “Who wants to tell a story?” I ask.

“You tell one, Gopal,” GC says.

I begin my marble story. “One day a little boy went for a walk looking for a treasure. He didn't want silver or gold; he didn't want money or jewels. All he wanted was something beautiful. He meandered into a forest where trees as tall as a ship filled the land. Before long the boy saw something glint. It was under a pile of leaves, so he knelt down to remove it.”

I stop to catch my breath. Before I can tell any more the flashlight starts to flicker. I turn it off. “What happened?” Amar asks.

“The battery is low. Until we put in new ones we won't
be able to use it. I can still tell the story in the dark.”

Amar starts to cry. “What's the matter?” I ask.

“We will never be able to buy new batteries, and we will never have the flashlight again.”

We fall silent.

There is something strange about this story because it remains untold. Maybe it is cursed and that is why I have never been able to finish it. Or maybe because it is the Kali Chaudash night, which bring evil spirits out and one of them have stolen my story.

Oh, no! I am turning superstitious like Scar.

It has been thirty hours or more since I gave my message to Sweets-Man and no one has come. I don't know how long I can wait. Maybe in a few days when I give up my hope completely I will feel better. But would I ever give up? To have no hope would be like the night of Kali Chaudash—dark and evil. But after every Kali Chaudash comes Diwali!

 

“Have you planned to get us out of here?” GC whispers just as I am falling asleep.

I am anxious and nervous inside, but my voice must not give it away.

“I thought you didn't want to leave this place. You told me that, remember?” I ask as calmly as I can.

“Yes. But at that time I didn't have anyone. Now I have all of you. If we escape together, then I am not alone. Am I?” His voice breaks when he says the last few words.

I am torn between doubt and trust.

“You believe me, don't you?” he asks.

There is something in GC's voice that tells me he is not lying, but I can't tell him my secret—not when he won't even share his name.

“Gopal, I trust you. If you are planning something, please don't say a word to the group. Amar will fidget, Roshan might not be able to keep a secret, and the others might also show their excitement.”

“I'll remember your advice.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Like before, let Scar keep thinking we don't get along.”

“
Accha
, I'm good at that,” he says. Even though I haven't told anything to GC, I still hope and pray he is on my side.

He has given me the right advice about not talking to the group. But one thing GC said bothers me.

What did he mean that Roshan might not be able to keep a secret? I think of the day Scar found out about Naren and Sita. It was the same day Roshan went down to give Scar a haircut. Maybe it wasn't Barish and GC who told Scar. Maybe it was Roshan. Scar's threats may have made Roshan tell my secret, and that is why he has been quieter than before. I sweat with new worries.

My mind whirls and I am awake, asleep, dreaming, thinking, floating, and falling, all at once.

Then a dream takes hold. The window behind Scar's
bench is open and does not have the iron grille on it. Scar is not there. All of us are huddled together and Amar is waving to someone. Why don't we just hop out of the window and run away? I move my feet and jerk myself awake.