Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

‘Sat sri akal,’ Narinder said.

The young woman nodded, smiled.

‘Is — I was told my friend lives here?’ She didn’t know whether to use Savraj’s name, or if that would blow whatever cover she might have created for herself.

‘Your friend?’ the young woman said, just as Savraj walked into view behind her and Narinder lifted her hand to wave.

Savraj’s room-mate brought Narinder orange squash in a china cup riven with cracks and asked her to take a seat. ‘Please, sister.’

Savraj was quiet. She wore the same blue-grey apron as her friend — it said Dasbwood’s in a modern font along the hem — and sat on a straight wooden chair near the fan heater. The heater’s clackety whirring was pretty much the only noise in that sparse room.

‘You go,’ Savraj said, and Narinder looked up, but no, it wasn’t aimed at her. ‘I’ll follow.’

The friend asked Narinder to forgive her leaving — ‘But I hope we meet again’ — then grabbed her phone and went. They listened to her quick tread on the metal staircase.

‘That’s Karthika. We work together.’

‘At Dashwood’s,’ Narinder said.

‘It’s owned by him downstairs. One of our former “customers”. We clean offices.’

Narinder smiled, encouraging. ‘That’s good. That’s so much better.’

Savraj frowned, as if unconvinced. The lines, Narinder thought. The two lines that widened down from her nostrils to the twin tips of her mouth. How much deeper they’d got. Furrows now. And her eyes. They seemed dimmed. Grey hairs, too. She hadn’t noticed it last time. Perhaps it had been too dark. She’d aged so much in a few months. The winter, the work, the worry.

‘I hope you’re taking care of yourself,’ Narinder said.

Savraj stood and went into a doorless room in which Narinder could see only the corner of a candy-striped mattress. She came back pulling a slim roll of notes from a maroon purse. ‘I can give you the rest later. Next month. I’m sorry you had to come all this way.’

Narinder stood up too, so they faced each other. ‘I didn’t. . I don’t. .’ She shook her head. ‘Please keep it.’

Savraj’s arm fell to her side. She moved to the grubby white settee and perched on its edge. ‘I need to ask for more money.’

Narinder sat beside her. ‘What’s the matter?’

She stayed silent, staring.

‘Tell me, please. I want to help.’

Savraj rubbed together the notes in her hand, the crisp insect rustle of them. ‘Mamma’s not well. They say it’s cancer.’

Narinder put an arm around her friend.

‘We can’t afford the treatment. That’s why I came round. It doesn’t matter how hard we try. We were hoping the rice would pay for it, but the land caught a disease and my brother doesn’t know what else to do. None of us do.’

Narinder squeezed her friend’s shoulder. ‘Stay strong. God will find us a way.’

‘There is no way,’ Savraj flashed. She looked up to the ceiling as the tears coursed down.

No brother, no mother, no father. She sits with face turned, no turning known. These lines kept coming to Narinder. For several nights now, she’d lain awake in bed thinking of Savraj cold in that flat, face turned away from God, and the thought seemed to clot into a physical ache along Narinder’s abdomen. Throwing back her duvet, she headed downstairs and into the kitchen. She put the japji sahib on a low volume and closed the kitchen door. She prayed for Savraj’s family. Her lips moved in rapid silence, hands clasped in her lap, thumbs together and knuckles directed to heaven. She spoke to Him and He spoke back, the wingbeats of His presence changing the air around her. When the stereo clicked off, she raised her clasped hands to her face and finished her prayers. So deep had those prayers been that she hadn’t heard her father come in and sit beside her. It was still dark outside.

‘Your kesri?’ Baba Tarsem Singh said.

‘Upstairs.’

It was strange how unprotected, fearful even, she felt without her turban during the day, but how much closer to Him she felt without it at night. She didn’t understand it.

She told her father about Savraj and the hardships she and her family were facing and how much she wanted to help them.

‘I went yesterday and gave her food and a little more money. But I want to do more, Baba. Please don’t be angry.’

‘You’ve done what you can. She’ll find her own way to Him. Let’s just hope your brother hasn’t found out.’

‘You’ve always said we should help people find their way.’

‘She’s as loose as dust. The night will bark before she thinks of anyone but herself.’

Narinder looked away, at the night shadows along the wall. ‘Her mother’s dying,’ she said flatly. A long silence followed. Then, something that had been bothering her: ‘Baba, why does God make people suffer?’

‘Hm?’

‘I’ve asked Him. Maybe I’m not listening hard enough, but I don’t know why some people have to suffer so much.’

Baba Tarsem Singh sighed. ‘You do ask difficult questions, beiti. Must we know all the answers? Might not we trust Him?’

Narinder looked down at the table and pressed her thumbs together until the tips blushed.

‘Our gurus suffered. They gave their lives for us. There’s an answer of sorts there.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why would we do anything, feel anything, for anyone else? If there’s no pain, how can there be love?’

‘Yes,’ she said again, and put her hand on his.

*

One spring evening, she brought Savraj kadi-chawl and munghi-di-dhal, food that could be preserved and eaten over several days. ‘How is massiji? Have you spoken?’

Savraj nodded, ate, running her tongue over grey teeth. ‘Same. Hopefully soon we’ll have enough for the operation. My brother found a job.’

‘See? I said God would show a way.’

Before she left, she reminded Savraj that, as normal, she’d be going to India in the summer. ‘To Anandpur Sahib.’

‘Oh good, out of this cold. Does it ever get warm?’

‘Anything you want to send your mother?’

‘You’re going to visit?’

‘Of course I’ll visit. I’ll even stay a few nights and help if I can.’

Narinder buttoned up her cardigan, her duffel coat. Savraj walked her out of the door, onto the metal landing, and said, ‘Mamma will be so pleased you’re coming.’

It was the hottest summer. Only ten o’clock, and the men were out of the fields and rushing indoors, to ceiling fans and chilled glasses of nimbu-pani. In the bazaar, shopkeepers lay asleep on their menjhe, not expecting any trade. A buffalo lay sprawled in the tree shade, blinking fatly each time a guava fell onto its wide head. Standing at the bottom of the marble steps, she took the metal pin from its neck pocket and scuttled it along the brim of her turban, and as the turban loosened the sweat oozed down her forehead. It felt nice. She heard her name and saw her mother at the top, holding a basket. Then they were together and the basket was piled high with slippers.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Bibi Jeet Kaur said. ‘I’ll do it myself.’

When Narinder woke, she lay still, recovering, gaze fixed on the three dazzling white blocks the sun had painted on the ceiling.

She couldn’t remember the route to Savraj’s house and all she had to help her was the family name. The teller at the grotty municipal bank waved her away, saying couldn’t she see it was deposits this morning? Further on, outside the mandir, a man with pyramids of Spanish apples arranged on his cart accepted a ten-rupee note and directed her to an alleyway about twenty paces back.

She recognized the gate, the solid metal and slope of it. Even the wild spiderbush sprouting from the wall cast a shadow at her feet that seemed familiarly menacing. She knocked two, three times, pushing the tall hatch open.