The Year of the Runaways (17 page)

They spoke of nothing for a while, or at least nothing that Avtar could later remember. He’d felt a little light-headed at seeing her again. They ordered two more drinks and Avtar asked for a burger each as well. She said to forget the burger – it was too expensive here – but that only made him more determined to have one. The food arrived.

‘Where’s your friend?’ she asked.

‘He’s gone to Geri Route. With balloons.’

She gave a gorgeous little laugh. ‘If he’s gone to find girls, it’s too early. The balloons will go to waste.’

‘Oh, he’ll find some way to have fun.’

She swivelled her Thums Up, the glass bottle dancing unpredictably on the table. ‘This is a very boring city, janum. Old people and government types only. There is no fun. I miss doing things. Going to the cinema, boating on the river.’ She smiled at him. ‘And other things with you.’

He asked how her father was. She said nothing. Her mood changed. He wished he’d not mentioned it.

‘He’s given up. I don’t know how long we can keep him.’

He said that God would find a way through and she frowned and said she hoped He’d find it soon.

‘It’s the crying. He cries so much. At night especially. And I know he can’t help it but I just want to scream at him.’

‘Your mamma? How is she?’

She shook her head. ‘And Randeep’s at college so it’s just me and Mummy trying to stop him from doing anything crazy all night.’

As their tray was collected, she asked him when they could get married. Avtar coughed and waited for the waiter to leave. ‘Where would we live? On my mamma-papa’s balcony?’

‘I wouldn’t mind. It’d be fun. It’d be an adventure.’

‘It wouldn’t. And I want to be able to afford a small hut for us both at least.’

‘By the lake, maybe.’

‘With mountains in the background.’

‘Ducks outside?’

‘And a little pink pig.’

‘Oh! To keep as a pet?’

‘To eat.’

‘No!’ And she laughed hard, ponytail swishing side to side. ‘You know, my friends think it’s so romantic what we’re doing. They’re so jealous.’

‘You’ve told your friends we’re getting married?’

‘Shouldn’t I have done?’

He wasn’t sure. ‘I suppose we never agreed not to tell anyone.’

‘Oh, but I want to tell the world!’ She brought her thumbs together and rested her lovely dimpled chin on them. ‘How long, janum?’

‘I don’t know, honestly. It’s so tough right now. Papa’s not doing well.’

She looked alarmed, in a slightly theatrical way. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I mean, the shop. Business is slow. Has been for a long time. Everywhere is slow right now.’

She sighed, nodded. ‘So many boys are going abroad these days.’

‘You want me to go abroad?’

She made a cute puck of her mouth. ‘I don’t know. How long for?’

‘A year, maybe. I have thought about it. A lot.’

‘And maybe then, if you earned enough, we could have a bigger wedding. With all our family and friends. And a bigger house to live in.’

‘Maybe.’

‘As long as you come back. Some boys never do.’

He said of course he’d come back. He needed to.

‘And me? Don’t I need you?’ She leaned in, head to one side, eyes intent. He could see down her kameez, to her breasts. ‘Don’t you need me?’

They left the mall and Avtar used the last of his money to rent a cheap hotel room. An hour later she freed herself from his limbs and said she had better go. He pulled her back down, needing her mouth again, and it was a full hour more before she could finally reach for her clothes.

Harbhajan wasn’t answering his phone. Forty minutes passed, fifty, one hour and then two. He should have known Harbhajan would do this. The mall chowkidar came by, swinging his lathi. He asked Avtar what he was up to.

‘Waiting for my friend, sahib.’

‘You can wait by the road. Business people come here. Foreign types.’

At the roadside, Avtar snapped off his denim jacket and sat on it with his arms square around his knees. Still no sign. The sun pressed down on his eyelids and soon he fell asleep. When he looked up again, blinking, the red Honda was there. Harbhajan was some feet away taking a piss into one of the potted trees. Avtar stood up.

‘What happened to the balloons?’ he asked, as his friend walked back, zipping up.

Harbhajan stared at his car. ‘Oh yeah.’

There was a sort of empty pressure in his eyes. Avtar said he’d better drive but Harbhajan got in and started the engine, revved it. Avtar hadn’t even closed the door and they were speeding off.

They jumped lights and joined the trunk road.

‘Slow down,’ Avtar said. Harbhajan stared ahead, top teeth biting his lip and arm straight at the wheel, as if in a brace. Cars dodged out of their way. ‘Hari, slow down.’

‘Does your father hate you, Avtar?’

‘Don’t think like that.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

A green-and-red lorry came honking towards them. Harbhajan veered onto the dirtroad and they felt the car shake as the lorry rumbled past.

‘Does your girl love you?’

‘Hari.’

‘Does life bring you joy?’

Avtar looked out of the window. The fields merged. He turned to the front and saw three cars barrelling down. Harbhajan let out a wild laugh and swerved left where a concrete stump seemed to jump out of the ground. The air filled with crushing metal and the car lurched, then stopped. Harbhajan sat there looking at the steering wheel. Avtar put a hand on his shoulder and a short while later the young man in the turban began to sob.

Night fell. Maybe the electronics weren’t working because the chowkidar had to apply his back to the bars and push the gates open. Avtar drove slowly in. On the porch, under the security light, Nirmalji was waiting in a regal-looking shawl. He had his hands behind his back. Avtar got out of the car and made his sahib-salaams. He was helping Harbhajan to his feet when the driver who’d taken Avtar home that one time shoved him aside and near-carried Harbhajan indoors. Avtar watched his friend dragged into the house, the driver closing the door behind them. It was several seconds until he summoned the courage to turn and look at Nirmalji: only briefly, for Avtar’s gaze dropped reflexively down and rested somewhere around his employer’s knees.

‘You got my message, sahib?’

Nirmalji said he had and that the doctor was inside so not to worry.

‘I think it is a sprained knee only.’

‘Did you know he bought the car with stolen money?’

‘Some ice. My mamma would put some ice on it.’

‘You knew he was stealing from the workers’ funds. Everyone knows that is what he is doing. I have to take action.’

Avtar felt sick. He was determined not to cry. He carried on talking. ‘The radiator, sahib. I had to keep filling it up.’ He showed his blackened hands and wrists as if providing evidence.

‘They’re angry, the workers. And when workers are angry they do silly things like revolt.’ His voice lost its soft edges. ‘They need to know I won’t tolerate that. You cannot be weak in this world. Do you understand?’

‘Please, sahib, forgive my mista—’

‘Chup! Don’t embarrass yourself. Don’t be weak.’

Avtar looked at the hard, thankless ground.

‘I’ll give you a month’s pay. That is the best I will do.’

‘Please, sahib,’ and Avtar started the move onto his knees. Maybe he felt that was what he was expected to do.

‘Get up immediately,’ Nirmalji commanded. ‘Do not ever bow down before a man. Not anyone. Is that understood?’

Avtar nodded, swallowed. He heard the older man sigh, saw his heavy gut rise and fall.

‘I am doing you a favour, son. Go abroad. Follow the others. It’s too hard for boys like you in this benighted country. Abroad you might stand a chance.’

Avtar said nothing. He kept looking down. At least there was no danger of tears.

Nirmalji walked him to the gates and handed him his wages, plus some. Avtar managed a faint thank you and with a subtle declination of the head Nirmalji conveyed that it was time for Avtar to leave.

At the brass tap behind Gardenia Villas, he washed the grime from his hands and wrists as best he could. Then he made the long climb to the flat and waited outside the front door. The moon was high and caged beyond the thickly tubed windows of the stairwell. He could hear the TV in Mr Lal’s next door. He turned the handle and went inside. His mother was at the stove, fiercely stirring. On the sofa, his brother read from a loosely stapled pamphlet of some sort, in English. Their father listened, smiling but clearly not understanding.

‘Tari’s back,’ his father said, sounding relieved. ‘Where have you been? Your brother got his marks.’

‘I’m making prasad,’ his mother said.

‘Top five per cent,’ their father said. ‘Top five!’

‘God listened.’

Navjoht turned back to the front page. ‘Shall I start again, Papa? Now bhaji’s here?’

Their father hesitated. Avtar swept his hand through his brother’s hair and sat gingerly on the precarious armrest of their sofa. He felt something behind his back and pulled round a brown parcel. It had the green stamp of his father’s shop, above that in green ink his mother’s name, and at some point it had also been tied with green string. Now it lay ripped open, and folded inside was a red and very beautiful Jamawar shawl, the kind that he knew took many weeks to make by hand. Months, if you only had an hour or two each night after the shop had closed. He put it aside and decided that, no, he wouldn’t say anything tonight.

‘Beita, can you get some barfi? Is he still open? I want to take it to the gurdwara tomorrow. Ask your papa for some money.’

Avtar stood and said Nadeem would be closed but he’d find some somewhere else. He stepped over the urine bucket.

‘The money,’ his mother said.

‘I’ve enough,’ and he closed the door and started down the stairs.

His father’s postings meant the family moved around a lot. Chandigarh was the latest. It was the ninth city Randeep had lived in and in each city they’d changed residence at least once, so he must have had more than twenty different addresses by now. More than his age – seventeen. His early years were in the south and east of the country – Tiruchirappalli, Bangalore, Nellore, Bhubaneshwar – then, when his naniji was dying, his mother insisted they head closer to home: Delhi, Pathankot, Ludhiana, Amritsar and now Chandigarh. He’d liked Bhubaneshwar the most, and often remembered the six months on the outskirts of the city, in a compound of thatched white cottages, as the best years of his whole life. He’d been about twelve and for the first time made some friends – two boys from the neighbouring village – and they’d given the entire summer to playing cricket in the village grounds. One day, Randeep promised himself, he’d return.

The bell sounded – shrill, constant – and he packed away his unopened books and moved to the windows of the library, looking down. From all sides of the pillared quad students spilled out of the doors, chattering, filling the square until it was all pigtails and schoolish greys and blues. Jaytha was at the centre of her group of girlfriends, head thrown back, neck lushly exposed, laughing. He watched until she vanished out of the quad. Then he returned to his room to pick up his suitcase.

He went home every weekend. It was only an hour on the local Sutlej bus but by the time he alighted and dragged the wheels of his battered suitcase over the rocky ground, darkness had fallen like a shutter. He got into the nearest auto and asked for the government flats in Madhya Marg.

‘DIT side?’ the driver asked, turning the thing around.

‘Sector side, please.’

At Building 3B on Santa Cruz Drive, the resident chowkidar in his old peacock hat saluted and opened the door. Randeep took the lift and outside flat 188 he removed his shoes because the sound of footsteps in the hall had once made his father panic terribly.

That night, as he was watching TV with Lakhpreet, she asked him if he knew any boys who’d gone abroad. How easy was it?

‘How would I know?’ he said.

‘But is it expensive?’

He shrugged. ‘Who wants to go abroad?’

She shook her head. ‘No one. A friend.’

‘Tell her it won’t be all shopping and playing in the park.’

He flicked through to the news and then to a yoga class.

‘Has Daddy done his exercises this week?’

She nodded.

‘How’s he been?’

‘Same same.’

‘I wish I was here more to help,’ he said, but he knew he didn’t mean it, and her silence told him that she knew it too.

On Saturdays, the twins had their classical dance lesson followed by violin practice – or maybe it was piano these days – so when Randeep emerged showered and dressed from the bathroom they were kissing their father goodbye and disappearing out of the door. Then Lakhpreet said she was going – off to meet friends. The door slammed to a close and it was just Randeep and his parents in the light-filled room. The only sound was the hum of the squat grey fridge.

‘A long time you spent in the bathroom,’ his father said, not looking up from the newspaper laid out flat on the coffee table. ‘Avoiding us?’

‘Of course not,’ he said, and as if to prove this came and sat beside his father.

He was a long, thin man, made to appear even taller in his white kurta robes. People spoke of him as being noble, intelligent, with sharp, questioning eyes. Nothing got past Sanghera Sahib. He was starting to grey and, reading his paper with deliberate slowness, looked exactly how people expected a senior government manager to look on a lazy summer morning. He’d shaved, too, Randeep noticed, which was a good sign. Mrs Sanghera darted about the kitchen. Cleaning, wiping, washing the steel and plastic cutlery, wondering out loud why-oh-why they didn’t have a maid. She asked Randeep if he preferred eggs or paratha and he said he’d have some Tiger Flakes later. Then she placed two chalky pink pills and a steel tumbler of water beside her husband’s elbow and left for the bedroom.

‘How’s school?’

‘College. Good. The board exams are soon.’

His father nodded. ‘NIT would be good.’

‘If I get the ranking.’

‘Isn’t that why we pay the fees?’ His father closed the paper, folded it twice, then picked it up and slapped it back down on the table again. ‘These right-wing loons are taking over the country.’