Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

‘Your hair looks different.’

‘I used a hair press.’

He said, ‘Chandigarh’s not far.’

‘Four hours ten minutes by bus.’

He smiled, she did too, and they went inside the tower and started to take off their clothes.

*

The morning after he received his month’s wages, Avtar buttoned up his uniform and left the flat by 6.30 so he’d have time to call at the collector’s house and settle the rent. Then he waited at the bus stand for Harbhajan to come by, sipping the malati water his mother mixed for his winter cough. They completed two circuits before taking lunch at the Roti Dhal Stop, and where previously Avtar had always ordered two keema naans he’d now taken to ordering one, and a plain one at that. It was one of the ways he was saving money in advance for the bus trips to Chandigarh.

‘What’s her name?’ Harbhajan asked. ‘Otherwise why so glum, yaar?’

Avtar gave him a disapproving look and told him to finish up or they’d be late.

‘I always knew you had a secret chokri hidden away.’ A little later Harbhajan said, ‘Let’s do something. Let’s hit the clubs in Delhi.’

‘A few weeks ago you were lost on Goa.’

Harbhajan mopped up the last of the dhal and stuffed it into his mouth. He downed the glass of water in one and sat back and prepared to burp, but when the burp didn’t come he sank a little further in his seat and looked around, disappointed. At the next table a businessman was on his mobile, facing the slightly absurd poster of a gun-slinging pelican. A second phone lingered by his elbow at the edge of the table; Harbhajan palmed it and slipped it into his own shirt pocket. Avtar glared, eyes wide, watching his friend put on his large brown sunglasses and calmly pay the cafe owner on his way out. Avtar waited until they were back on the bus and away before asking what the bhanchod hell did he think he was doing?

‘He already had one, na?’

He plucked the phone from Harbhajan’s pocket. ‘You could buy ten of these if you wanted.’

‘Where’s the fun in that?’

Avtar looked at him. ‘So who did you steal those sunglasses from?’ he asked, and Harbhajan smiled through his thick, neat beard.

At home, his mother was flitting through some sort of pamphlet. Her hair bun hung loose down her nape, the strands around her forehead white with flour. Avtar closed the front door.

‘Prove the cosine rule,’ she said tiredly.

Navjoht fell back against the settee, as if exhausted. He was still in his school uniform. ‘Too easy again. Ask me something hard, na?’

She handed him the booklet, saying she hadn’t realized what the time was. Rising, she lifted the sofa cushion and carried the bag of rice to the stove.

‘Papa?’ she asked.

‘Working late again,’ Avtar said.

‘Will you test me, bhaji? Please?’

‘Later, na.’

Navjoht shut his book and, sulking, went off to his parents’ room.

‘Why are you late? Get the table.’

Avtar dropped to his knees — ‘We have to go all the way to Chogawan now’ — and pulled the table out from under the sofa. ‘That kentiwallah’s gone to Dubai.’

Pointedly, his mother said nothing.

‘Mr Lal says Monty’s earning thousands every month.’

‘Mr Lal has a slick tongue. And why are they still living next door, then? Using a bucket for their soo-soo?’

‘He said there’s money in Toronto.’

‘Avtar, we’ve spoken about this. Roti’s roti no matter where you eat it.’

He moved to the balcony shower curtain, where his shadow loomed gigantically. His mother was still talking.

‘I saw Mrs Sanghera last week and even they are moving. Tomorrow. To Chandigarh.’

It was Avtar’s turn to remain silent. She added jeera to the pan and increased the flame.

‘You remember them? They used to live ten, twelve floors down. They moved to that new compound by Verka last year.’

‘Maybe.’

‘A son and three daughters. The eldest girl is pretty.’ A pause. ‘Lakhpreet. A little immature, maybe, but no matter. Girls grow up after marriage.’

Avtar looked across to his mother, chopping onions. So she knew.

‘I think your papa and I will go to bed early tonight.’

The Ganesh clock balanced between TV and wall said a little after eight when Avtar stole out of the flat and walked the three miles to the temple. She was waiting in the shadow of the main gate. Her salwaar kameez was blue, without embroidery or effect. Her hair she’d tied up and covered simply with a white chunni. For once, she wore neither make-up nor colour.

‘You nervous?’ he asked.

‘I’m impatient. Let’s do it.’

They slipped off their shoes and sandals and stepped through the shallow water trough. Before them, the gold temple sat in its medieval lake, the black liquid surface glimmering with grand reflections distorted by the complications of light on water. The marble was warm under their feet, and damp.

‘We should wash first,’ he said.

‘Fine.’

It was said with an edge of irritation. He knew she was only doing this because it was important to him, because he wanted them to make a promise before God.

‘So melodramatic!’ she’d said. ‘You don’t trust me.’

‘I just know what these Chandigarh goons are like. And I don’t want them anywhere near you.’ He took her in his arms. ‘I really do love you.’

‘And you? While I’m over there will you let anyone else near you?’

‘I’m only human,’ he’d said, and she’d blocked him in the ribs.

He watched her cross towards the female bathing room on the steps of the lake, ducking to enter. He took off his shirt and rolled his trousers above his knees. He went down the steps and into the lake and when he was waist-deep he reached under for the chain and walked further out until the water reached his neck and he could taste the salt on his lips. He held his breath and bent forward until the water covered him completely and then he rose back up and said the first verse of the japji sahib. He went under again, and again, until he had completed all five verses and then he returned, hand over hand on the red chain, shivering as he reached for his shirt. It was late, and the japji was a morning prayer, but what they were doing felt like a new beginning.

She emerged from the bathing room dressed, her face glistening sharp in the moonlight.

‘You ready?’ she called.

A widow in a white kameez handed them a bowl of prasad. The bowl was made of overlapping palm leaves and they held it between them and carried it up the marble pier and to the temple in the centre of the lake. Two men knelt praying on either side of the doorway. Avtar and Lakhpreet bowed their heads and said a small prayer before stepping over the threshold. The Guru Granth Sahib lay open on its bed of gold and glass. Avtar’s trousers still dripped water. He placed the offering at the granth’s feet and they folded onto their knees and touched their foreheads to the ground. Then they went slowly round the chamber and bowed their heads three more times, on each side of the granth. They left by the same door through which they’d entered, walked back down the marble pier, around the lake, and out of the large open gates.

‘Did you make the promise?’ Avtar asked.

‘I said I would and I did.’

‘But you’re sure? I’ll understand if you want to change your mind.’

She looked at him, her smooth forehead suddenly constricting. ‘Will you? Will you really? And what was the point of this if we’re just going to change our minds?’

‘I don’t want to force you.’

‘Uff, janum, you forget I want to marry you. Even with your romantic delusions. I just don’t think we needed to go through all this drama first.’