Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

‘Massiji?’

There was no one in the courtyard, just the same buffalo that had been there the previous year. She stepped through the hatch, hitching up her salwaar so it didn’t snag on the rivets. A television played in the back room, and maybe that was a foot dangling over the menjha. She started across the yard, head tilted, peering. Something shot down beside her.

‘Bibi!’ she called out, arms protecting her head. But it was a man, only a man. She looked up to the roof from which he’d jumped, then back at him.

He clapped the dust from his hands. He had the same sharp nose as Savraj and his white shirt was so full of sweat she could see the hair underneath. Narinder averted her eyes.

‘Sorry,’ they both said.

He laughed. She didn’t.

‘I’m Savraj’s friend. From England. I’ve come to see massiji.’

‘Oh, Narinderji?’ He took a step towards her, so close she was forced to lean back slightly. ‘Savi’s always talking about you.’

Other than siblings and cousins, no boy had ever stood this near to her. She wished he’d move away, though he appeared to be enjoying her flutter of awkwardness.

‘Mamma’s just lying down.’ He bowed, making a sweep of his arm. ‘Please allow me to take you before her.’

‘No, no, please don’t wake her. Let her rest. I’ll come back tomorrow.’

He had a languid, appraising smile. ‘It’d be like turning away the Rani of England.’

Savraj’s mother lay propped against the wall, a gold cylinder of a pillow squashed behind her. The TV showed a game show, similar to one Narinder thought they had in England. She slipped out of her chappals, her feet warm on the stone floor.

‘Massiji?’

She said it twice more before the eyes opened and a greyer face than she remembered turned to look at her. Narinder spoke softly: ‘How are you? Would you like some water? Did you get my messages?’

Massiji pulled herself up straight and blew the hair from her eyes. ‘When I’m dead, then talk to me like I’m a baby. And even then I’d still wipe the floor with you, chikni, cancer or no.’

They talked. Narinder reassured the woman: Savraj was doing fine. Working, eating, living with friends. Nothing to worry about.

‘Tell her we need double next month. The rent on the bike is due.’

‘Any other message? How much you miss her?’

Massiji looked across, doubtful. ‘I don’t understand.’

Later, Narinder asked how the treatment was going — they want to slice off my breasts, Massiji said — and put forward her plan to stay around and help for a few days.

‘You don’t have to.’

‘But I want to.’

The older woman snorted.‘I can imagine the look on everyone’s face.’

‘No one will mind. It’s a form of seva, in my eyes.’

Savraj’s brother returned with three glasses of pomegranate juice. He must have been to the bazaar to get it.

‘Maybe you can sleep in Kavi’s room,’ Massiji said, laughing, and Narinder blushed.

She didn’t stay, in the end. She didn’t seem to be needed. And Savraj’s brother unnerved her, with his smile and the way he’d whistled for a rickshaw even though she’d have preferred to walk. She passed the following week improving her harmonium skills: a renowned ragi was visiting from Bikaner and offered to help the young ones with their playing. It was a beautiful time, full of devotion and song. On the Sunday Narinder was chosen to play for the evening rehraas prayers and afterwards the famous ragi told her that her singing was like a balm for the troubled soul. Pleased with herself, she packed the instrument away into its wrinkled leather bag and heaved it to the metal cupboard in the adjoining room. Coming back through the alcove, she saw Savraj’s brother — Kavi — lounging around with his friends at the back of the darbar sahib. A blue ramaal was tied around his head like a bandana and his feet were bare. He saw her too and pressed his hands together in respectful greeting. Narinder responded likewise, and then one of the granthis ushered the boys out, saying this was God’s house, not one of their cricket grounds.

She started seeing him everywhere — in the market, near the hostel, eating at the dhaba she passed on her way home. She saw him one gruellingly hot afternoon in the langar kitchen, handing out cold lilac sweat towels to the women. And there he was the next day, too, praying with his head bowed. His kara was as it should be: chunky and clean on his wrist. And his hair, she noticed, wasn’t slopping with smeary oil like that of his friends. It was blowier, the lengthier strands tidied away behind his ears.

‘You have a lovely voice.’

He’d caught her in the tiny garden outside Sisganj Sahib, singing to herself, as she did sometimes of an evening. One of the best things — perhaps the very best thing — about coming to India was being able to roam, to breathe. She drew her chunni onto her head. ‘Sat sri akal, ji.’

By rights, she should have addressed him as bhaji, as brother. That would have set the proper and chaste tone for their encounter. But she hadn’t. She didn’t know why. And of course he’d picked up on it. Look at him smiling.

‘How’s massiji? I keep meaning to visit.’

‘I thought maybe you were avoiding us.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Avoiding me, then.’

Her mouth moved, until: ‘The seva this year is more than usual.’

He plunged his fists into his pockets and sighed deeply. Irritatedly? His top two buttons were undone. He had long eyebrows. She could feel something at base start to unstitch, releasing into her feelings she’d not experienced before.

‘When do you go back?’ he asked.

‘In two weeks. If you have a message for Savraj I’d be happy to deliver it for you. I’m sure she’d want to receive a message from her brother.’

‘Don’t you think we have phones?’

Narinder felt herself redden. ‘Of course. I didn’t mean to say—’

He was laughing at her, and almost but not quite tweaked her elbow. ‘I’m only joking, Narinderji.’ He emphasized the ‘ji’, which made her feel threatened. ‘So you’re telling me I’ve got two weeks to convince you to give me a kiss?’

She didn’t know what to say. She looked around but no one was paying them the least attention. She stepped away — ‘I have to go’

— and concentrated on the sound of her footsteps on the stone path, which seemed to be flaunting her exit.

A week before her flight home, it was time for the blanket distribution, and she wrote her name against the three sub-district villages to the west of the city.

It was the festering, sticky end of the afternoon when she got to Savraj’s house. The spiderbush plant had bloomed horrendously well, conquering both sides of the metal gate and most of the sandy wall. Blankets against her chest, Narinder opened the gate hatch and stepped over the gutter and into the courtyard. To her right, a small cardboard box kept crashing against the wall, the feet of a cockerel padding underneath. Narinder lifted the box off the poor thing and the bird squawked away in a flap.

‘Massiji?’ she said, turning back to the courtyard.

She could hear noises from the back room. The TV, probably: Massiji watching one of her game shows. Narinder wandered across the yard, ducking neatly under the washing line. She stopped at the door. It wasn’t the TV, and she knew she should turn right round and leave. She pushed the door open, silently, smoothly. On the menjha Kavi was lying on top of a girl, both of them naked. Narinder watched, fascinated, feeling pangs of shame and excitement. The girl smiled and tapped Kavi’s shoulder. He twisted round and Narinder said sorry and hurried back across the courtyard and out of the gate, the blankets still clutched to her chest.