Boys without Names (7 page)

T
wo days ago five of us arrived from our village. Now there are only four of us riding the bus.

Every time I think of Baba, my eyes get blurry. Naren and Sita sit quietly across from each other, maybe because they are too timid to call to each other across the aisle. But I don't think so. I think they miss Baba too. Aai stares down and wipes her cheeks. It reminds me of the last evening in our home, when Baba brushed off Aai's tear with his finger.

The bus has left the station and rushes through the wide road. I've been watching the road, but I don't think I can remember the way back to the footpath where we spent two days. To me all the streets look the same, even though I notice different shops and different buildings. I try to read the names of the stores as we pass them by but
it is difficult. My stomach wobbles and my head spins. I close my eyes to calm down.

I wonder what Jama's home looks like. I think of my friend Mohan's copy of
Star Homes
magazine. As we thumbed through the pages the first time, we fell silent like people did when they saw the sunset from the Matheran hills. It had pictures of beautiful houses and beautiful people. As we got more familiar with the pictures, we would point and say what we liked and which house we wanted to live in. Later, when the magazine got beat up, Mohan found a plastic bag to store it in. When he showed it to us, he didn't allow us to flip the pages. He did it himself and we had to point at things from a distance.

I see a few buildings that are so tall they look like bridges between the earth and the sky. It would be wonderful if Jama lived in one of those fancy houses, but I don't expect that. I just hope he lives in a nice mud hut like the one we had in the village. It smelled of red earth and stayed cool in the summer.

Naren and Sita have not said a word since we left. Are they silent because they are watching all the fancy buildings, people, and shops, or because they are afraid? I can't tell and I don't want to ask them. I don't want to bang pots and wake up the elephant, as Aai would say.

This travel seems easier than I thought. Did Baba have difficulty going to Jama's house? It's true that Baba can't read—maybe he got on the wrong bus or
got off at the wrong stop?

It takes an hour to get to Dadar, the closet suburb to Mumbai. Many people get off here. I show the conductor Jama's address. “Is this place nearby?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “How do I know? Ask one of the locals.”

We get off the bus with our luggage. “Where do we go?” Aai asks, looking around.

“You wait here and I will find out,” I tell her. The open shops are full of customers, and I don't want to wait in a long line to ask shopkeepers for directions. I walk a couple of blocks before I find a man waiting by his motorcycle. I ask him and he says, “Not from here.”

“Not from here” is the answer I get from two more people. Finally I see a corner shop open with the old shopkeeper sitting close to the door. I walk over to him and show him Jama's address. “Go right down this lane, take the first left, and then walk all the way to the end. You'll find him in the last shack on the right.”

“Do you know him?” I ask.

“I know everyone who lives in my neighborhood,” he says.

I thank him and return to where Aai, Naren, and Sita are waiting. We follow the shopkeeper's directions and take the first left. If the man is right we are almost at Jama's. But the lane goes on and on. I am carrying the sack with pots and pans, and it is heavy and uncomfortable. The jute is rubbing against my fingers and palms
and they burn. I can't put the sack down because right in the middle of the lane there is sewage flowing through an open ditch and a rotting smell rising from it. It is difficult to hurry along while carrying a heavy, clumsy load.

The dank air is stuffed with smells, and it is not the scent of earth but of rotting food and filth. In the fading light, people slide past, children stare, and snippets of conversations, laughter, and cries spill out from the plastic-and-tarp-covered shacks. The walls are made of plastered brick and corrugated metal sheeting. The man at the shop said Jama lives at the end, but there is a bend in the street so I can't tell how far we have to walk.

I hope the shopkeeper is right, because I don't think I can carry the luggage for much longer. Finally we come to the end. The last shack on the right has light in it. I look at Aai and nod toward the shack. She hesitates for a moment and that is all it takes for Jama to poke his head out of the door.

For a second, Jama has a blank look on his face, but then he breaks out in a smile. “Radha!” He rushes toward her. “Radha? Is that you? And Gopal, Naren, and Sita?”

Aai's answer comes as tears. This is the first time since Baba went missing that she has smiled or cried freely. Jama takes the sack from her hand and puts his other arm around her. “Come in, come in. All of you.”

I put my sack down and look around. A dented, narrow metal cupboard leans on the back wall. In the far corner is a table that has a tall box covered with fabric. I
wonder what is under it. There are two chairs and a table in the room, and a sofa that has some springs coming out but otherwise is in good condition. I sit on it and sink deep. To get up, I will have to put my hands down and push myself up.

I wait for Aai to mention Baba, but it is Naren who asks, “Have you seen Baba, Jama?”

With teary eyes and a few sobs, Aai tells Jama what happened to us while he listens silently.

“Radha, don't worry. The day is almost over but tomorrow morning I will go to the police office and file a report. I'll also go to Thane and see if he has returned, and talk to the grocer and the people by the railway station,” Jama says.

“What if Baba is lost forever?” Sita asks.

“This city is big but not endless. Don't worry, we will find him.”

She nods.

We are all quiet. Our fear for Baba has stolen our voices.

After a while Jama speaks. “You all must be hungry. I made some spicy potatoes and cauliflower
bhaji
and bought some bread today, so we can have
pav-bhaji
.”

We all eat together. The fresh bread is spongy and soft, and the
bhaji
is spicy and tingles my throat as it goes down. I take a sip of water. It tastes different than the water in our village or by the station, but it doesn't taste bad. It feels strange to have a full stomach.

Jama takes two mattresses from a pile on a wooden bench in one corner and spreads them on the floor. They are lumpy and soft. I help Aai spread sheets on them. She sleeps between the twins and I stretch out on the other side of Naren. Jama takes the sofa. He has to curl up on it, but he says he is perfectly comfortable.

I hope Baba is warm and dry like we are.

I wake up in the middle of night. Aai is crying.

“I'm sorry, Radha,” Jama says. “Tomorrow I will talk to people around the station, ask the police, and file a missing person's report. I'll also ask the man at the Deepak Food Store to watch the station area and give him my work phone number so he can contact me.”

“I—I don't know how, I mean, what happened? What if we don't find him? The twins, Gopal, me, what will we do? Without their baba my children—”

“I am sure we will find him.”

After a long silence, Aai says, “I hope so.” She has stopped crying, but her voice sounds hollow.

I can't go back to sleep, so I lie awake wondering what I can do to help, now that Baba is gone.

I must find work soon.

 

The morning comes early with pots banging, children screaming, and people shouting. A voice as irritating as a buffalo's grunt fills the air.

On the station's footpath, there were traffic noises and blaring horns that drowned out everything else, but
here we're a little ways from the big street. So why can't I hear birds? I wonder if parrots, sparrows, and pigeons can live in the city. Maybe, like people, some of them can. I hope I am the right kind of person to live in the city.

A cursing war begins between two men and it is loud enough to wake up the entire neighborhood. One voice is needle-sharp, the other is well-deep.

“What is it?” Aai asks as she gets up.

“Nothing,” Jama says. “Just a couple of regulars fighting about whose turn it is to get water first.”

“What do you mean by ‘regulars'?”

“People who fight with each other almost every day.”

“But why do they do that?”

“Radha, the water only comes for two hours and sometimes it stops after an hour, so everyone is in a hurry to get it.”

There is enough light coming through one window to see Aai's face tense up. “We'll need water too.”

“Come, I'll show you where the tap is,” Jama says. They carry a pail each to fill with water.

I hear the sound of fighting stop. As soon as Aai and Jama leave, I cover myself with my blanket so I can doze off again. It doesn't work.

Soon they come back with pails of water and set them on the side of the house that is used as the kitchen. “I can make tea while you get more water,” I say to Jama.

He looks pleased with my offer and shows me how to use the kerosene stove. First, he pumps the piston for
a few seconds and as soon as the fuel comes up from the tiny holes on the top, he strikes a match and lights the stove. I make tea for all of us while Jama and Aai get four more pails of water to fill the barrel.

“Let me show you where the latrine is,” he says after we drink our tea.

In the village, you could walk over to a bushy area and relieve yourself. But here there are people all around, and just like at Thane Station I don't see any bathrooms. Jama gives me a tin can full of water and asks me to follow him. He carries a can, too.

We walk to the back of Jama's house and onto a dirt path that leads away from the huts. An airplane flies over my head, and I am so absorbed in looking at it that Jama pulls me back. “Don't want you to fall into the
nalla
,” he says.

I don't see any stream of water. “What
nalla
?”

He points to the wide ribbon of scum that meanders down on one side of the road. “That is the
nalla
, and if you are not careful, you will end up covered with the sewage.” It looks so thick and settled that I can't believe there is water underneath it. I cover my nose with my palm and follow him silently. The open sewer in the middle of all the lanes must flow into this.

After a while, I know I am close to the latrine because it stinks.

This was one thing I hadn't thought about when I thought of the city. I knew there would be a lot more
people, long lines, noise, and traffic, but not the smell. I wonder: If you live here, do you get used to it?

I don't think I'll ever get this stench out of my head.

There is a line for two latrines that look like giant wooden boxes with doors, and only adults are standing there. When I see a row of children crouching down outside, I know what I have to do. The city steals any modesty out of you. In the village, you hide behind a bush, a shrub, a stump of dead wood, or even a clump of grass. But here, you're out in the open. I don't see any women or girls. There must be a women's bathroom somewhere else.

After his breakfast, Jama takes a bath just outside the kitchen with his shorts on. The soapy water flows off into the street. Once he is done he gets ready quickly. “Where will I take a bath?” Aai asks Jama.

“Oh!” He scans the room. He grabs my hand and says laughingly, “Gopal, come, be useful.”

We hang a sheet on nails around the kitchen floor drain making a small bath area. “After you are all done with your baths take this curtain out,” he tells me.

“I will.” I am glad Jama has made a small place for bathing so I don't have to take one outside in the open with so many people watching me.

Jama is ready to leave. He walks out the door, stops, turns around, and says, “Radha, we will find him soon.”

“Ho,”
she whispers, and wipes her tears after he turns around.

I help Aai unpack the two sacks and put away my
books. She unwraps the cracked mirror and hangs it on a wall. Then she washes the twins' hair and dresses them in their second set of clothes. I take a bath in the tiny stall, but I don't mind. It is better than being at the station. After spending two days on the footpath, Jama's home feels like a palace. Except for the smell.

Jama is gone only for an hour before he returns. “May I take your umbrella and walk around the neighborhood?” I ask him.

“No, you may not.” He opens up his cotton bag and starts to empty it out. “Gopal, I bought some secondhand clothes for all of you. Try them on and see which ones fit you. If there're things we can't use, I can return them right away and they will give me money back.”

“Oh!” No wonder Jama wanted me to stay.

I find two half-pants and three T-shirts that fit me. Now I have five pairs of half-pants, three T-shirts, and two shirts altogether. I have never had this many clothes before. There is a raincoat with a hole in the left sleeve, but it comes to midcalf, so it fits perfectly too.

“You look good in that bright blue raincoat,” Aai says.

I go to the cracked mirror to look, but all I can see is my face. Jama laughs. “Here is what you need.” He inserts a key, turns it, and flicks open the door of his cupboard. Inside is a big mirror. The only time I've glanced at all of myself is in the lobby of a hotel in Matheran.

Naren has put on an orange shirt as bright as the sky
at sunset. His hands are lost in the sleeves and it comes to his knees. “It is too big for you,” I say.

“No, it isn't.”

“Naren, you'll have to wait until you lose two more teeth before you can wear it,” Jama says.

“One of my teeth will fall out soon. Look, I can wiggle it.”