Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

About an hour later, a beautiful yellow-haired girl smiled at Avtar as if she’d been waiting the whole day just for him to walk into the college registration office. She looked like one of those white girls that used to come on the television, selling Sunsilk or Amla Shampoo. He managed a weak smile and tentatively presented his folder. He hoped he’d removed all the grass stains.

‘Welcome to North-West,’ she said, unclipping the folder, going through his papers. ‘Computing with Security Systems. I hear that’s a good course.’

‘Thank you,’ Avtar said, just about understanding.

She asked him where he was from and he said India, and then she said they had him down as making his own accommodation arrangements, and he said that, yes, that was true.

‘Not a long way, I hope?’

‘Ilford?’ He showed her the address Massiji had written down for him.

‘Lots of early starts if you want to make your nine o’clocks, then!’ She laughed, which permitted Avtar to laugh too.

She photostatted his visa and passport and Avtar watched her filing the copies into a metal cabinet. She handed him various things: maps, a student union application form, an events listing, his timetable, a pass with his name and picture on it — to give him access to the Mathematical Sciences building, she explained. All this he gathered into his folder, thanking her, keen to leave before they reneged and shipped him back home.

‘There is a strong college Indian Students’ Society, which does a lot of good work helping students adjust to — ’ she struggled for the word. She seemed to want to avoid saying England — ‘a new approach. They’re still open. It’s just down the corridor if you’re interested.’

He thanked her again, inadvertently bowing his head a little, and turned to leave. He couldn’t believe it had been so easy. No interview, no questioning, no police. At the exit, he thanked her once more, only to catch her staring at the cracked heels of his naked feet. He felt suddenly embarrassed and, clearly, so did she.

‘It’s just down the corridor,’ she said again, pointing.

The corridor — an open-air walkway, really — was a low corrugated roof protecting a slabbed concrete floor. To his left were doors and classrooms, while the right opened onto a half-empty car park. There were several squat buildings: Materials and Metallurgy, Blocks 3F to 4B, the Tony Baker Building. So this was a real college. He imagined impossibly clever people in spectacles behind each of those doors, being groomed for a rich and employed future. And here he was, amongst them. If his parents could see him now. Behind him, a voice called out, ‘Hello?’ An apna, Avtar knew, before he’d even turned around. A plumpish middle-aged Indian, in fact, in woolly, dark-coloured clothes. His round glasses balanced on top of his shaved bald-grey head.

‘Ji?’ Avtar said.

‘Foreign students should come see us.’

Avtar tracked back and followed the man into a classroom plastered floor to ceiling with detailed maps of India and huge images of students on elephants. Across the wall ran a banner: NWL IndiSoc Back to Roots Annual. The desks were arranged into a horseshoe, as if for a meeting. The man sat down and started pulling out great sheaves of paper from a nearby cabinet.

‘First day?. . Please sit.’

Avtar didn’t.

‘I’m Dr Amarjit Singh Cheema. General Secretary of the International Society here at NWL. Of which IndiSoc is one part. We offer foreign students support and guidance. Language courses. Visa advice. Accommodation tips. Pastoral care. Et cetera et cetera.’

Finally, the doctor seemed to find his papers and slapped them on the desk and looked up at Avtar.

‘We have an excellent mentoring programme.’

Avtar nodded, smiled. He wanted to get out of here. This man was an Indian and a doctor to boot. He’d work out everything. ‘I’ll come tomorrow, thank you.’

There was a pause, and something like a question mark appeared in the man’s face. Avtar could feel himself being studied, filleted.

‘The annual fee is very reasonable,’ the doctor said, but the tone of his voice seemed to convey something altogether different. ‘Where are you from?’ he asked, switching to Panjabi.

‘Amritsar.’

‘Your elders?’

‘Nijjar.’

The man’s face softened pleasantly. ‘My mother’s people are from there. So you’re Doabi?’

Avtar nodded, said ji, Chachaji, and the doctor laughed.

‘Nice, very nice.’

He put the lid on his pen and closed the door and told Avtar to sit, and this time he did.

‘How much did it cost you?’

Avtar looked down to his knuckles.

‘Listen, I’m Indian. I might have been born here but I’m Indian and I want the people of my country to prosper.’

So Avtar told him and the doctor nodded and asked Avtar what course he was doing and whether he intended on actually doing any of it or if he was just going to disappear like most of them did.

‘I’m here to work.’

‘But there is no work. It’s drying up. Pfft!’

‘I’ll find something.’

‘You kids. .’ He sighed, and, removing his glasses, rested his chin on interlocked hands. ‘Work, by all means. But you’ll be in a much stronger position if you also pass your first year. Then the college will protect you. But if you fail. . Well, the college will kick you out and you’ll have no choice but to disappear. And for how long can you really hide?’ He advised Avtar to keep up with the course. He might not be able to make the lectures — he understood that — but he should definitely improve his English and get the textbooks from the library: ‘They’re free. Think of the long term, Nijjara. If you leave here with a diploma, just think what you could do back home. If you’re lucky, you could even stay and bring your family over. You shouldn’t waste this chance.’

They had a cup of tea — with cloves and fennel and elaichi — and the doctor listened as Avtar told him the story of how his grandparents had moved from tiny Nijjar to Amritsar city. Until recently, his papa used to take the family back there every summer. Avtar had always liked the bull races best.

‘Do they still happen?’ the doctor exclaimed. ‘Ha! My mother still talks about them. You should come to our house. Mataji will light up when she knows someone from her village is here.’

‘How often do you go back, sir?’ Avtar asked.

‘Me? Oh no, no, no. I’ve never been. I’ve always wanted to, but with one thing and another. . And the kids weren’t ever interested.’

‘Life is busy here,’ Avtar offered.

The doctor made an agreeable sound and his gaze shifted away from Avtar. For a long while he stared at the large bookcases beside the whiteboard, at the ordered ranks of books upon books upon books. A lifetime of them. He looked back at Avtar and smiled sadly.

Avtar received by post three waxy-paged and thickly dog-eared computing texts. Dr Cheema had also included books on learning English, with accompanying CDs. Attached to the package was a note saying that Avtar was to remember their chat and be sure to visit him and his family at their home once he was settled in. Avtar folded the note and slipped it into an elasticated pouch on the inside of his suitcase. He couldn’t imagine someone being as helpful to a newcomer in his own country. He ran his hand over one of the textbooks, over the laminated image of lightning bolts forking wildly out from a computer screen. He was sitting at the kitchen table in Massiji’s house. Randeep was sleeping a few feet away on the sofa. He opened to the first page and began to read.

He studied for two hours every morning, rarely getting further than a few paragraphs. By seven, Massiji would be downstairs preparing for her shift at the 24-hour supermarket. She’d make them a breakfast of paratha with achaar, and foil-wrap some more to keep them going for the day. Not long after, they tidied away their blankets and left the house too, before Jimmy bhaji and Aki pehnji woke up.