Boys without Names (10 page)

W
hen I wake up, a man with a crescent scar on his right cheek looms over me. I have never seen him before. He is small-boned with a large head and close-set eyes. Who is this man? Where am I? Where is my family?

The faint memory of Jatin, tea, and the taxi wash over me. I sit up. “Who are you?”

He stares down at me cross-eyed. “I am your boss.”

“Is this the factory Jatin told me about? Are you his uncle?”

He laughs. His scar bunches up. “Did he tell you he was taking you to his uncle?”

“Yes. You know Jatin, the boy who brought me here?”

“That boy is something!” Scar-Man shakes his head in amusement. “I know him. I just didn't know
his name was Jatin this time.”

I don't like the way he says, “His name was Jatin this time.” Who
is
Jatin? What's his real name? Why am I here? I look around. The insides of the front and the back doors have latches and they are closed with iron locks on them. Fear digs in my heart.

This place doesn't look like a factory. It is just one rectangular room with a window on each long side. The wooden shutters are closed, and the room is lighted by a single fluorescent tube light. I'm on a floor made of rough stones that no one has washed for many monsoons and the paint on the wall is smeared with stains. Some of them are red. Is it betel-leaf juice or blood? The ceiling is made of wooden boards, so there must be a room upstairs. A wall clock with yellowed, faded, unreadable numbers ticks away as its brass pendulum moves back and forth, back and forth. I look away from it before I get dizzy.

The man sits down on a cushion on a bench that runs almost the length of the room. There is a TV across from the seat. The kitchen is in the far corner. A narrow bamboo ladder leans against one wall.

I pick up my blue raincoat and hold it close to my chest. It helps me steady myself. “Do you have work for me?”

“Sure do.”

My throat aches and my lips are dry. I move my tongue over them and they have a parched, scaly feel, like the earth before monsoon. “I'm thirsty.”

“Have some water,” Scar-Man says. He shuffles to the kitchen, fills up a tumbler, and hands it to me.

I clutch the dented tumbler and gulp down the water. When I try to hand it back to Scar-Man, he snarls, “I'm not your servant. You're mine.”

From the cracks between the shutters, I can tell it is dark outside and I know Aai must be waiting for me. “I want to go home now,” I say.

“Where? Back on the street?”

“To my aai.”

“Are you still a baby or what? Grow up. Your aai isn't here and you must earn your keep. You are staying here.”

“Let me go.” I push myself up. He whacks me on the cheek and I fall back down.

Scar-Man hits me again. “Stay there, you rat.”

I cover my head with my raincoat, put my hands on top of it, and curl up into a ball. Baba never kicked or slapped us. He used to say, “Animals don't beat their own babies, and if we think we are better than animals then we must behave at least as well as animals.” So I decide that a person who hits me doesn't deserve
man
behind his name. He doesn't even deserve
beast
behind his name. He is Scar. Just Scar. Nothing more.

“Up!” he shouts.

Slowly, I get up. My head feels empty like my stomach. I need food.

“Here is the thing, boy,” Scar says. “Tomorrow, you'd
better be ready for work.”

Where have I heard “here is the thing”? It is familiar, but I can't think anymore. My mind is a fog-enveloped mountain. As a wave of sickness moves in, I close my eyes and collapse on the floor.

Scar, his voice, and the room all disappear.

 

“Wake up, lazy boy,” I hear.

I open my eyes. It is Scar standing nearby. His feet remind me of the policeman who kicked me the first night we slept on the station's footpath. Morning light filters through the half-closed shutters, and the room looks dirtier than it did last night. Spiderwebs wink in the far corner, and a couple of black ants scurry across the floor. Under Scar's wooden bench are boxes, a stack of newspapers, and several jute bags.

Scar claps. “Up.”

I am still groggy, and struggle to get on my feet.

He grips my right arm and pulls me up. “Enough laziness. Time to work. The others have been at it for hours already.” I am close enough to smell his stale breath.

He lets go of my arm but leaves behind a red welt. There's no one else around and there is no sound. “Where are they?”

“In the shop upstairs.”

“What about my pay?”

“Pay? You will get food, a place to sleep. And what other workers get.” He points me to the kitchen. “Drink
your tea and use the bathroom if you have to. Be quick.”

I use the bathroom that is across from the kitchen corner next to the back door. It is small and stinks. I am still standing in the bathroom when what has happened to me becomes clear. Jatin tricked me. He drugged the tea. He sold me to Scar. Sold me. Now I belong to Scar. A wave of panic grips me. I burst open the bathroom door.

I need to get out, now. I need fresh air.

The opened bathroom door blocks Scar's view of me. The back door is not locked from inside today, so I push it, but it doesn't budge. I look through a crack and see a big brass padlock hanging on it from the outside.

“What are you doing?” Scar shouts.

“I'm coming,” I say.

On the floor of the kitchen is the dented tumbler half full of a strange-looking liquid. I take a sip. I guess it is tea, but there's not enough milk or flavor to it, and it is cold.

I smell
dal
cooking on the stove. A metal rack hangs crooked on one wall. It holds five other tumblers like mine, one stainless-steel one, and several bowls and plates. There is a small metal shelf on the side with one wooden rolling pin, two serving spoons, a couple of pots, and one flat pan.

Ting, ting, ting
…the clock chimes nine times.

Clap! “Hurry up. Let's go!” Scar hollers. He is sitting on the pillow on the bench wrapping beautiful beaded frames in newspapers.

I gulp the last of the tea, rinse my tumbler in the sink, and place it on the rack.

“Take your raincoat and go on up,” he orders, pointing to the ladder. I grab my raincoat from the floor and climb up. He follows me.
Khas-khas
,
khas-khas
, the ladder groans. I'm afraid it will break under his weight.

At the top, I pause. Five faces stare back at me. They sit cross-legged on the wooden floor in front of their short, slanted desks. One by one, I take them in. The biggest kid has a tiny bump of a nose and fat fingers. The one sitting next to him has his eyes downcast, the dark fringes of his lashes a curtain around them. The third boy has a dimpled chin and looks as old as Naren and Sita. The fourth one, with curly hair, is rocking back and forth, and the fifth one has stooped shoulders and eyes the color of a gray city cloud.

Scar claps again. “Move.”

Stunned, I almost fall off the ladder before I steady myself.

I climb the last two steps. Scar follows me. The boys start working again. They bend low over their desks and their fingers hold blunt wooden needles. They dip their needles in their trays, pick up a bead at a time, and stick each on the frame. Maybe this is the factory Jatin told me about.

The sharp, biting odor stings my eyes and burns my throat.

I cough.

Scar thumps my back. “Take care of him,” he says, looking at the boy with the small nose and thick fingers.

“I will.” Thick Fingers looks at me. “Over here, next to me.” The boy with dark, fringy eyelashes scoots over without looking up. I settle between them under a window with vertical bars and tuck my raincoat behind me. Now I am part of their circle.

Khas, khas, khas, khas
. Scar is already climbing down.

Thick Fingers hands me a plain picture frame. Then he slides a metal bead tray closer to me. “We'll share the work desk and beads so I can show you how to do this.”

He brushes his hair back and holds my gaze. “This is what we do.” He puts his frame on the desk and spreads a thin layer of glue on one side. His hair has fallen down onto his forehead again. “Your turn.”

I copy him, but the layer of glue is too thick. He slaps my hand. “Don't be so wasteful. Use as little glue as possible.”

My throat is on fire and my eyes water. I can't stop coughing. Thick Fingers snickers. “That's what happens when you use too much glue. It gets in your breath and burns as it goes down, so one more reason to use as little as you can. Get it?” Thick Fingers pinches me hard on the side. I muffle a cry. He points at the paper. “This is our design. No mistakes are allowed. Work. If you don't get four of these done before lunch, you'll have to work right through and there won't be any
food for you. Understand?”

I nod.

My last meal was lunch yesterday and the mention of the word
food
makes my stomach churn.

I look at the design and start placing beads on the sticky side of the frame. It is a challenge to pick up the tiny beads with the blunt wooden needle. But the geometrical design with shiny red, green, and white beads is pretty. I like the way it changes the look of the dull wood.

Thick Fingers watches me for a few moments. “You're not bad,” he says.

I stay quiet. Maybe if I do a good job he will be nice to me. I concentrate on my work.

When one side is done, I hold my breath, take a very small amount of glue, and put as thin a layer as I can on the opposite side of the frame. Then I start putting the beads on. Halfway through the design, the beads don't stick to the frame. Thick Fingers is watching me. “What did I do wrong?” I ask.

“You didn't put enough glue.”

“I thought I was supposed to put a little. You said—”

“Shut up! You have to use the right amount. If you put on too much, you're wasting it. Too little, the beads won't stick, or worse, they fall off when Boss tries to wrap them. He will be mad.”

How will Scar be able to tell that I did this frame? I look around. Every one of the workers has a different pattern, except for Thick Fingers and me.

I apply a little more glue and try again.

Thick Fingers is twice as fast as I am. As I work, the rocking boy with curly hair sitting across from me catches my eye. His eyes shimmer like the pond at sunrise. He is thin, and his knobby knees stick out from under his wooden desk. As he moves back and forth, back and forth, he picks up beads and glues them on. Then his gaze drops as if he is praying, but that's not what he is doing. He is working as fast as he can.

Another sharp pinch on the side makes me yelp. “This is not a show. Get to work,” Thick Fingers says.

I finish four beaded frames before the clock strikes one o'clock. Scar claps from downstairs. It is loud. If I hadn't named him Scar, I would have named him Thunderclap.

Thick Fingers lifts his head. “Time for lunch.”

When I stand up, I am dizzy and shaky. I extend my hand to hold on to something and Rocking Boy grabs it. “Thank you,” I say.

He nods.

No one has talked to me except Thick Fingers. They haven't whispered a word to each other. Even in school, when we were supposed to be quiet, we talked—and sometimes got in trouble. Once the classes were over the
kal-bal, kal-bal
of tongues grew loud. Maybe Scar has forbidden talking and so the boys must be afraid of Scar overhearing them and beating them up.

One by one, everyone goes down the ladder and
heads straight to the sink. There's a pail of water and a scrap of soap. Everyone washes his hands, so I do as well. The glue still lingers on my fingertips, so I wash them again.

“Don't waste water,” Thick Fingers says. Scar is ladling
dal
in a bowl and is turned away from us. I am thankful for that. I don't need more trouble from Scar.

We sit on the stone floor and Scar gives us a bowl of rice and
dal
. I wait for other food, but everyone else starts to eat. I guess there is no
roti
or
bhaji
. Scar's
dal
is like his tea, watery and flavorless. Still, I will eat it all up.

“How did the new one work out?” Scar asks Thick Fingers.

Thick Fingers glances at me. “Slow, but it won't be long before he gets in line.”

“My name is Gopal,” I say.

Scar fixes his stare on me. “So? You're working for me. I'll call you cockroach if I want. No names are allowed in this place, you understand?”

I don't get that at all. “Why are names not allowed?”

“Don't open your mouth unless I ask you a question.” Scar moves closer to me. I do feel like a cockroach about to be squashed by his big, bare, ugly foot.

Rocking Boy, who sits across from me, taps his fingers on his knobby knee. When he has my attention, he shakes his head ever so subtly between Scar's spread-out legs. He is warning me of the danger.

 

After lunch, we wash our bowls, dry them, and put them back on the rack. Then we return upstairs. Before I settle under the window with vertical bars, I glimpse a
nimba
tree covered with raindrop-size green fruit. It is so close to the window that I might be able to stick out my hand between the bars and touch the leaves. I sigh as I sit down.

Everyone works silently. The wind picks up and the leaves murmur softly. The window is behind me so I can't look, but I know the clouds are floating by because the room turns bright and shadowy, bright and shadowy.

I can't believe only a few days ago I was in the village by the pond, yesterday I was with Aai, and now I am trapped in this place. If I had not gone out looking for Jatin I would have been safe. I could have never imagined something like this happening to us. First we lost Baba and now I am locked in here. I wish Jama hadn't asked us to move to Mumbai and Baba hadn't agreed to it. It would have been better to work in the moneyman's quarry than to be here alone. We would have been safe and together in the village.