Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

‘And what I can afford,’ Avtar said.

‘Naturally.’ The marriage route was usually the most expensive, but you could work legally and it more or less guaranteed full rights after one year. It could sometimes take some time to find the right girl. At the opposite end, holiday visas were cheaper, but you can’t work and you have to come back. ‘Many don’t, of course. But then many don’t find work either. So they starve in a shed at the bottom of some chacha’s garden.’ He could always get Avtar there illegally — there was a truck leaving UP only next week. Higher chance of getting caught on the way, but cheaper, and if you made it and found work you’d generally do well. If he were to get caught then the lawyer and agent fees, it went without saying, were non-refundable.

‘He’s not going illegally,’ Lakhpreet said. ‘They die on the way.’

‘There have been many sad incidents, yes.’

‘She mentioned a student visa,’ Avtar said, meaning Lakhpreet.

‘That is another option.’ He turned the piece of paper over and directed Avtar towards the relevant section. ‘Usually for one year but if you’re good the institution will keep you on. I had one boy who went to a college in Wisconsin. Eight years now and he’s a lecturer earning more than me. His whole family has moved there. American citizens all.’

Avtar nodded cautiously, fearful of being drawn into such wishful dreaming.

‘Of course, most of our boys enrol on day one and start work on day two. Usually in one of those takeaway houses. And then they go into hiding. They don’t think about the long view. Only concerned with what they can earn now.’

‘It’s hard not to be, uncle. When you’ve got a hungry family back home.’

At the end of the discussion Vakeelji walked them into the waiting room, where the receptionist quickly minimized her screen. The student visa form was secure in Avtar’s hand, his hand pressed against his thigh. He kept rubbing his thumb along the edge of the folded paper. He thanked the lawyer, who was busy talking to Lakhpreet.

‘Tell bhabhi I’ve not forgotten. I’m hoping for a suitable girl later this month. He’s not getting off that easily, the rogue.’

‘Thank you, uncle,’ Lakhpreet said, and with the most girlish of movements tipped up onto her toes and left an elegant kiss on the lawyer’s cheek.

The money the lawyer was asking: Avtar didn’t know how he’d ever earn that much, even if they did remortgage the shop. And Navjoht’s school fees were coming up. And the rent and bills. He reached a window in the stairwell, traffic glowing below. Nothing in their lives was working and the city lay there roaring its indifference. What a world.

Trudging up the final steps, he had to flatten himself against the wall so two men carrying a large TV could pass by. Avtar’s neighbour, Mr Lal, stood at the top.

‘I’ll call my son. I’m sure there’s been a mistake,’ he said, voice quivering.

The men looked up from their squatting position. It was a big TV. ‘Tell him to cough up or we’ll be back for the rest.’

Avtar ventured up a few steps. ‘Is everything all right, uncle?’

Mr Lal frowned, probably annoyed that Avtar had witnessed this, wondering who else in the building would find out. ‘Fine,’ he said, snapped, and disappeared into his flat.

During the evening, Avtar sat with his family around the small fold-out table, eating the plain rice and wet potatoes his mother had prepared. It was a pitiful meal.

‘The lady with the red bangles came again,’ his father said. ‘I think soon she’ll be placing a sizeable order. Didn’t you think so?’

Afterwards, his father lay on the settee and Navjoht opened the English newspaper they bought at half price from a man who passed by the shop each evening. Avtar stepped through the shower curtain and onto the warm concrete of the balcony. He crossed his arms on the railing, his knee nosing familiarly into the fretwork. It was a greasy airless night. Crickets scratched in the hot spaces and leaves from the amrood tree hung drily by his face. He could hear Mr and Mrs Lal arguing next door. He reached up and closed his hand around a gnarled branch, right where branch met trunk, and ripped at it and ripped at it until all that was left was the white wound.

His mother called him to take the empty gas cylinder to Karthik’s, and to make sure he got a fair price this time.

‘Tell Navjoht.’

‘He’s emptying the bucket.’

Avtar pushed off the balcony, throwing the branch aside, and lifted the gas cylinder to his shoulder. When he got back, his brother still wasn’t there.

‘Downstairs. Teaching. Earning.’

‘I thought I was his only student.’

‘You were his first,’ his mother said.

He told them he’d been to see a lawyer. A good one. An honest one who said he’d help. He explained about the student visa and when his father asked how much Avtar told him a figure that was less than half of what the lawyer had said.

His father looked concerned. ‘We’ll sell the shop.’

Avtar laughed. It was typical, reassuring even, of his father to go straight for the big and obvious answer. ‘We could just take out a loan against it. And I’ll start paying that back as soon as I find work over there.’

‘A loan. Yes. So we can keep the shop?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you think they will lend us that much?’

‘I think so, Papa. I’ll find out.’

‘Yes. Find out.’

‘Do you have to go? Can you not find work here?’ It was his mother, speaking from the kitchen, her back to them.

‘It’s been over six months, Mamma. And I’ll be back in a year. Maybe two. And then you can get me married and I can try again for work here. But at least we’ll have money.’

‘And Navjoht will be working by then,’ his father said.

‘How will you pay his college fees if you’re paying for this loan-shoan?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll do two jobs. Maybe he’ll have to wait a year. But at least there’s a chance it can work. There’s nothing for me if I stay here.’

‘There’s us,’ his mother said, turning sharply. Her sari had snagged on a nail in the counter and strained almost indecently across her body. ‘There’s your family.’

Avtar was silent. She turned back round and after a while her hand hovered over the two small mangoes ripening on the window-sill, wondering which to choose for a dessert.

He didn’t know how he was going to earn the rest of the money. Each morning for two weeks he dressed in his blazer, shirt and trousers and took the bus round the city. He tried the same places he’d tried several times already this year — the rubber factory, the software firm, the rickshaw hiring company. The manager of Parvati Jewellery Emporium didn’t even wait for Avtar to speak.

‘Same as last time, yaara. Nothing.’

‘But I can speak English now, sir. You said if I could speak English.’

‘Sorry,’ and the man went back to arranging his female busts.

The evenings he devoted to whatever new list of English phrases his brother had drawn up. Where can I locate the train station? The weather today is very fine. Might I interest you in a cup of tea? He’d lie on the balcony, list in hand, the stars encouraging while at his side a white candle burned steadily down to its little hot pocket of wax.

*

He was coming back from the mandi, blazer hooked over his shoulder, when Navjoht ran to meet him.

‘They’re being kicked out!’ he exclaimed. ‘Uncle and Aunty.’

A truck was parked outside Gardenia Villas, piled high with a florid sofa, a French-looking dining table, several cabinets, beds. A whole flatful of stuff. There were police, too, to oversee the exchange. Beyond the truck, the neighbours had gathered, Avtar’s parents among them.