Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

The coach station at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport was so blazingly floodlit that Mr Thipureddy changed his mind and told the tuk-tukwallah to drop them off in the cargo park instead. That had been over an hour ago.

‘She’s always late,’ he said and flipped open his phone.

‘No need to call, uncle. I’m here.’

She approached through the smoky lilac air, the skirt of her sari held away from the dirt.

‘Madhu,’ Mr Thipureddy said.

Her shiny plastic waistcoat looked crimped in the moonlight and from the lanyard around her neck hung a whistle and perhaps a security pass. The niece, Tochi thought. She asked how her aunty was, if Aanjay’s marks had recovered sufficiently to get into college this year. Only then did she say hello to Tochi. ‘You’ve heard of Russia? Because we’re going to have to go via Ashgabat, which is pretty much the same thing.’

Mr Thipureddy kissed the air. Tochi wondered if he’d have to hand over more money.

‘No choice,’ she said. ‘They moved Annie. Too much flip-flopping in Customs these days.’

She showed her uncle the new tickets and asked if he’d got all the papers officialized. He gave them over.

‘Which route?’ Mr Thipureddy asked.

‘B. Ashgabat to Turkey. Then Europe.’

‘You don’t get seasick, do you?’ Mr Thipureddy said to Tochi. ‘But Arhan will look after you.’

The niece looked up from palming through Tochi’s documents. ‘It’s Deniz now. How long since your last carry-over?’

‘Not since that business with the food on the plane.’

She said to Tochi, ‘The food on the plane is free. Do you understand? Don’t try to pay for it. Don’t cause a scene — just eat it.’

Tochi thanked Mr Thipureddy, who wished him the best of luck, and followed the niece into the airport. She talked him through what to expect, what he’d have to do. It sounded like a routine she was ploughing through, even where she said she was going to repeat the key points because she could tell he was nervous. She gave him a small red rucksack to hold over his shoulder — ‘A book, toothbrush, socks. Motor magazines. I don’t know why you boys never bring hand luggage. It looks so suspicious’ — and a bright green-and-gold ribbon to tie onto the bag before he got to Turkey. It was how the driver would recognize him.

‘Won’t that look suspicious?’ he asked.

‘On a plane with Indians? It’ll look restrained.’

She asked if her uncle had shown him how to use an escalator — moving stairs. He said he hadn’t and she made a frustrated noise. She looked at the watchface on the underside of her slender wrist. ‘We don’t have time now. You’ll have to just work it out.’

They checked in his suitcase, where a woman name-badged Annie stamped his ticket and fake passport and wished him a safe flight. He put the red rucksack through security and rejoined the niece on the other side of the beeping electronic arch. She checked the boarding time and pointed out the gate. Then she extended her hand and wished him very good luck.

‘If anyone stops you or asks you anything, just remember what I told you. But Annie will be on the flight.’

‘Thank you,’ Tochi said.

She seemed about to go, half turning. ‘I was sorry to hear about your family.’

Tochi said nothing.

She sighed. ‘Well, let us know how you get on.’ And she walked back, ignoring the security guard who laughed and asked her how much she’d pocketed this time.

The boarding call was announced and her instructions started to churn in his mind. He looked to the floor, fighting his nerves, then got on the plane and found his window seat and belted himself in. Somehow — the graceful stewardesses, the exasperated passengers, the hard, straight seats — it all looked as he’d expected it to. An elderly Sikh man in a three-piece suit sat next to him.

The plane began to move. He looked out of the window at the dirty white span of wing veering away and beyond that to the floodlit luggage men playing cards on the bottom step of a mobile staircase. Then the plane started to speed up and there was a savage oncoming roar as Tochi felt himself forced back into his seat. He could see the luggage men clasping their cards to their chest and their trousers yapping wildly about their ankles and then the ground tilted away and the dark sky opened, beckoned, and a sense of being freed, of freedom, poured beautifully through him.

He didn’t see Annie again until they arrived in Ashgabat, when he took up his rucksack and followed everyone out of the plane and into the airport. She was sitting behind a glass counter, as though she’d always been there. People were reaching for their documents and joining one of two queues. He waited in Annie’s line. She had a serious face, which complemented the way she stamped tickets and dispatched passengers on their way. When he gave over his documents, she glanced up briefly, then applied the circular green stamp and moved on to the next.

He filed into the waiting room: a small, sorry place with rows of rudimentary grey seats and an old-style black-and-white ticker board that looked broken. There was a bar at the back playing American-sounding music, and a barman who was punching open boxes of snacks and stacking them high. There was no one at the bar, though. Everyone was sitting on the seats and quietly waiting. He’d seen lights and cars on the descent, but now it felt as if they were all stranded here in this Russian desert. He rested his head on the rucksack.

It was still dark outside when people started to queue at the airport’s only boarding gate. He half rose out of his seat, then saw Annie at the bar, tidying her skirt over her knee as she talked to another girl. She’ll let you know when it’s time, Mr Thipureddy’s niece — Manju? Mandip? — had said. So he sat back down.

Two hours passed and more flights had departed before Annie came down in her high heels and announced that the flight to Gaziantep was now boarding. She spoke first in English and then, with almost smiling slowness, in Hindi.

He stayed awake all through the flight. The flickering map on the beige-boxed screen at the front of the plane made little sense to him and he spent most of the time watching the slow dissolving of the night, the way the heavy black-blues hung on and hung on until finally relenting to the turning world and the first faint pinks of daybreak.

Though the landing wasn’t as smooth as last time, and passengers gasped and lurched, the pilot’s voice came over and he said something which made everyone laugh. Out of the plane, he noticed Annie up ahead, in front of all the other stewardesses. He kept his head low, trying to keep up. Suddenly, the moving stairs appeared in front of him, like a cliff drop. He didn’t have time to wonder how the thing worked — he could feel people at his back — and put one foot onto the grille and gripped the rail, his left leg somehow following. He felt a little dizzy, as if he wasn’t sure if the stairs were carrying him down or if the ground was floating up. He focused on the man in front and tried to copy him off the thing.

The hall was large and carpeted red and his fellow travellers were taking out their passports. Once more, Tochi joined Annie’s line. She didn’t look at him as he passed and when he turned round, she’d gone. A gum-chewing man with a glistening bald head called him forward. Tochi handed over his passport, and as the man flicked through, a tricky smile came to his lips.

‘So you’re paying my rent this month, ha?’ he asked in bad Hindi.

Tochi said nothing.

‘Which of Annie’s are you? Germany? UK?’

‘France,’ Tochi said.

The man nodded, tapping in some numbers. ‘Good. I hate the French.’