Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line

by Deepa Anappara

  Even while watching TV, Kabir had found his mind drifting toward Call of Duty 2, but Junction-ki-Rani was such a brutal story, it made him forget for a few minutes the recoil of the MP40 with which he mowed down his attackers, and the blood-red spatters that subsequently leaked into his vision.

  This story is a talisman, the beggar in the wheelchair said. Hold it close to your hearts.

  His sister nudged him and said it was time to leave. The streets were beginning to empty.

  They hurried home. Kabir’s thoughts quickly drifted back to the gaming parlor, where today he had fought Nazis in Russia. Images from the game flashed in front of him: a long and cold winter, snow smoothening into ice, him hiding behind a pillar, throwing a grenade, the smog a smokescreen saving him from enemy bullets. He tripped over something and ended up in a heap on the ground, his two worlds merging together in the pain that washed over him from his feet to his skull.

  His plastic sunglasses that had a black frame and yellow arms, carefully tucked into the collar of his sweater, crunched under him. Still lying down, he lifted his chest high enough to check if they were broken. Only a few scratches. He would wear them again tomorrow, sun or no sun, because it made him feel hip as he walked into the parlor. But he wasn’t going to the parlor again, was he?

  Khadifa waited for him to get up, watching the smog blot out lamps and houses, feeling an unexpected burst of tenderness. Kabir was only a child still, living in a grown-up’s world. It was exhausting, even for her.

  “Okay?” she asked.

  He gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Do you think Ammi will make us move?” Kabir asked once upright. “To another basti? Because here the Hindus”—he paused—“are after our lives?”

  “The police have taken the Muslims they wanted,” Khadifa said. “The Hindus must be happy. They’ll leave us alone.” She hoped this was true. She had never met the Muslim men the police had arrested, and she was glad for it.

  She didn’t want to move from the basti. All her friends were here, girls who called her when their parents were out working so that they could hold pretend hi-fi parties, who lent her their clothes and jewelry, and who gossiped about the scandalous love affairs that grown-ups considered their secrets. These girls were the ones who had taught her to sew sequins onto shirts sent in bulk from factories, and to save a few sequins for herself so that her headscarves could sparkle.

  The idea of leaving it all behind, being forced to get married, these thoughts brought her to the edge of a tantrum again; she wanted to scream, break the red glass bangles on her wrists by slamming her hands against walls. But something in her stopped her from acting out. Maybe Ammi and Abbu were right; she was a responsible child.

  Kabir waited for his sister to say something but she didn’t. He wished he wasn’t such a disappointment to her. He decided he would henceforth spend his time only at some place good and wholesome, like the gym in Bhoot Bazaar whose posters promised to turn lambs into lions. Kabir saw his chest growing broad and muscly like a Hindi film hero’s. He imagined his heavy footsteps echoing through these alleys, the shopkeepers he worked for quaking as he walked by. The thumping footsteps seemed to be real, and he turned around to see what looked like a hulking form wrapped in a black blanket, but how could he be sure this form was real? Half of his mind was still in 1942.

  Khadifa looked at her brother and, from the glazed expression on his face, could tell he was dreaming again.

  “There are no secrets in this basti,” Khadifa said. “Abbu is going to find out soon how much money you steal from him to waste on video games. He’ll kick you out. You’ll have to live on the streets, and sniff glue to fall asleep on cold nights like these.”

  Then she saw something move. A gleam of a golden coin in the dark. She glanced at Kabir and knew he had seen it too. They should have been home by now. They had heard the stories of the children who had been snatched.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw the flash of a silvery needle, the flutter of a square of cloth that reeked of something sweet, the smell so strong it cut through the smoky air to reach her nose. She heard the clinking of bangles that weren’t on her wrists. The packet of milk in her hand felt damp and slushy.

  “If you’re scared, you can call Junction-ki-Rani,” Kabir said, seeing his sister shiver. “She protects girls.”

  “Hindu ghosts won’t have anything to do with us,” Khadifa said, grabbing his hand and running. “And what about you? Who will protect you?”

  THREE

  THIS STORY WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE

  We believe djinns moved into this palace around the time our last kings died, their hearts broken by the crooked victories of white men who claimed to be our rulers. No one knows where the djinns came from, if Allah-Ta’ala sent them, or if they were summoned here by the feverish utterances of the devout. They have been here for so long, they must have watched the walls of this palace crumble, the pillars soften with moss and creepers, and pythons slither over cracked stones like dreams wavering in the light of dawn. Every year they must feel the wind trembling the champa trees in the garden, shearing flowers as fragrant as vials of attar.

  We can’t see djinns unless they take the form of a black dog or a cat or a snake. But we feel their presence the moment we step into these palace grounds, in the rustle that tickles the backs of our necks like the branch of a shrub, in the breeze billowing our shirts, and in the lightness we feel in our hearts as we pray. We can see you are frightened, but listen, listen, we have been caretakers of this djinn-palace for years, and we can assure you, they have never harmed anyone. Yes, there are bad djinns and trickster djinns and infidel djinns who want to possess your soul, but the ones who live here, the djinns who read the letters that believers have written to them, they are the good djinns Allah-Ta’ala shaped out of smokeless fire to serve us. They are saints.

  Look now at the crowd thronging these grounds, flinging cubes of meat up into the sky for kites to catch, leaving foil bowls of milk for dogs on the odd chance that one of the kites or the dogs is a djinn in another form. These believers are from all faiths. It’s not just us Muslims, Faiz—you said that’s your name, right?—Faiz, see, here there are Hindus and Sikhs and Christians and maybe even Buddhists. They come here clutching the letters they have written to the djinns, and they will paste their petitions on the powdery walls. At night, when the gates are locked, and the ash-tips of joss sticks collapse to the ground, the djinns will read the letters scented with incense and flowers. They read fast, not like us. If they find your wish genuine, they will grant your request.

  As caretakers of the djinns’ home, we have seen that happen many times. But don’t take our word for it. Over there by the champa tree, you will notice a grey-haired man barking orders at four boys carrying cauldrons of biryani. For years his daughter had a constant cough that no medicine could cure. He took her to government hospitals, to private hospitals that looked like five-star hotels, to a godwoman who lived in a hut by the Arabian Sea, and to a baba’s ashram high in the Himalayas. She was X-rayed and CT-scanned and MRI-ed. She wore rings with blue gems and green gems and purple gems for good health. Nothing helped. Then someone told them about this place and the father came here with a letter for the djinn-saints. He would have done anything for his daughter by then, pulled out all his teeth and tied them up in a satin cloth like pearls if that was what the djinns wanted.

  His letter to the djinns was brief. Some people write pages listing their grievances, and they attach copies of birth certificates and marriage certificates and sales deeds of houses that are being divided, unequally and disagreeably, between brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts. The father, however, just wrote: Please take pity on us and cure my daughter of her cough. He showed the letter to us, that’s how we know. He pinned a photo of his daughter from before to his letter, before the cough made a rattling skeleton out of her.

  And now
, see for yourself. The daughter is the girl in the green salwar-kameez standing by the champa. Her hair is covered fully with a scarf so as not to tempt the djinns—even the good djinns have a weakness for beautiful girls, we will be honest with you—but doesn’t she look well? There’s color in her cheeks, strength in her bones, not a bend in her spine, and her cough is gone. She’s getting married next month. The father is thanking the djinns by feeding biryani to visitors.

  You have done the right thing by coming here. Now you must go inside, join your ammi and your brother. It’s darker there, certainly. The curls of smoke from joss sticks and candles have stained the walls black. We won’t lie, you will encounter fearful sights: a woman shivering, madness spouting from her lips, brought here by her husband who hopes our good djinns will expel the bad djinn that resides in her; a young man bashing his forehead against the wall until blood furrows his skin; and bats that hang upside down from collapsed roofs, their screeches a chorus to the frantic prayers of the distraught.

  But listen, listen, our djinn-saints are powerful. Your ammi’s letter will tell the djinns what your family wants: good marks for you in your next exam, a suitable bride for your brother, the safe return of a missing cousin or a friend. Perhaps—and we are not saying this is the case with you—you hope to secure justice for your father or someone in your family who has been unfairly targeted by the police or the court. Don’t look so surprised. It happens to us Muslims more often than you can imagine. But whatever bad air hovers around you, trust us, the djinns will make it vanish.

  We will tell you a secret: by the smoothest roads in this country, lined by amaltas and jamun trees, live politicians who became Union ministers only because they called us Muslims foreigners. They holler during rallies that Hindustan is only for Hindus, and that people like you and me should go to Pakistan. But even they come here to pray. They send their henchmen at dawn, when these ruins are almost empty, to clear the grounds of people so that no one can take a photo of them bowing before our djinns. They also stop the Archeological Survey from locking us out because they trust our djinns as much as we do. These politicians have rotten tongues and wicked hearts, but the djinns don’t turn them away. Everyone is equal here.

  Talk to any of the visitors. You will learn that they are here because they have lost something. Sometimes they have lost hope itself and it’s here, in these ruins that frighten you so much, that they will find a reason to live.

  Dear boy, listen to us for your own good. Take off your slippers, wash your feet, and step inside. The djinns are waiting.

  SCHOOL IN THE NEW YEAR IS THE—

  —same as school in the old year but also worse because of exams. After the last bell rings, Pari and I stand in the corridor, Pari biting her nails and then adding up numbers with her fingers because she thinks she has got one answer wrong in the Maths test. I must have got one-two-three-ten-all answers wrong, but I don’t care. I tell Pari about Papa slapping Runu-Didi and she clenches and unclenches her hand and says, “Five times, five times you have told me about this today.”

  “I didn’t too,” I say. Pari didn’t even let me talk this morning because she wanted to revise in her head. I wish Faiz was here because Faiz is good at listening. But Faiz is at a traffic junction, selling roses or phone covers or toys we don’t get to have ourselves, but we are too old for toys anyway. He’s missing exams, and afterward he’ll miss many days of school, maybe even a whole year if Tariq-Bhai isn’t released soon.

  Runu-Didi comes out into the corridor.

  “We’re ready,” I say when she stops near us. Didi, Pari and I are supposed to go home together.

  “Don’t wait for me,” Didi says. “I have to talk to Coach.”

  “Will he be angry you have to miss inter-district?” Pari asks.

  Didi’s hard eyes tell me off for being a blabbermouth. Then she says, “He’ll have to make a change at the last minute. What do you think?”

  Didi’s ears look bare without her earrings. I put my hand out to pat her forearm.

  “Chi,” Didi says. “Why is your hand so sticky?”

  “Better not to ask,” Pari says.

  “Pari scratches her backside. Not me.”

  “Stay away,” Didi says.

  “Go pick the ticks off your coach-boyfriend’s balls. That’s what you do best anyway,” I find myself saying.

  Pari gasps and covers her mouth with both her hands. I march toward the school gate, and Pari comes running after me. At the gate, I turn my head to look at Runu-Didi. She’s still standing in the corridor outside our classrooms, leaning against a pillar. Her fan, the spotty boy, stands on the other side of the pillar, smiling a wide smile into what must be the camera of his mobile. He runs his tongue, slowly, over his teeth. Didi is looking at the part of the playground where the coach is about to start his training session for girls, so she may not have noticed her fan.

  No one talked about Kabir and Khadifa today; maybe because they aren’t from our school. Even the headmaster didn’t name them at assembly, but he did warn us to be on our guard at all times.

  * * *

  “Runu-Didi told me to come home by myself,” I say when Ma gets back. “She’s still at school. Her coach must be making her train extra.”

  Didi and I are fighting, so we don’t have to keep each other’s secrets. That’s the rule. Didi will understand.

  Ma sighs and sits on the bed. I look at the alarm clock. It’s six, which means it’s six-fifteen or six-thirty. Didi’s training should be over by now. I guess she’s staying out just to spite Ma and Papa. It’s a stupid thing to do.

  “Runu must be angry,” Ma says. She closes her eyes and starts to pray, Lord, let my daughter be safe. She says it nine times and opens her eyes.

  “Parents shouldn’t hit children,” I say. “We aren’t in ancient times like when you were a child.”

  Ma goes out to talk to Shanti-Chachi. I put on another sweater over my first sweater. Ma comes back and tells me she and chachi’s husband are going to the school to speak to Coach.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “Jai, I can’t do this today.”

  Ma leaves. I say sorry to Runu-Didi in my head. I ask her to come back. I promise her I’ll never bother her. Shanti-Chachi sits with me and rubs my back and tells me to breathe slowly.

  “Where’s your ma, Jai?” I hear Papa ask. “Shanti, what’s going on?”

  I pray hard. I hear Runu-Didi’s voice. She’s home! I look around. She isn’t here. My ears tricked me.

  “What do you mean Madhu is looking for her?” Papa shouts. “Where is Runu?”

  When he raises his voice in anger, he seems much bigger. I want to curl up like a millipede or go into my shell like a turtle and never come out.

  “What exactly did Runu say to you?”

  Papa is talking to me. I tell him everything, but I also don’t tell him everything, like how I said your coach-boyfriend’s balls to her.

  “Runu wanted to talk to the coach?” Papa asks, grabbing me by the collar. “How long do you think talking takes? You couldn’t wait for her?”

  “Don’t shout at Jai,” Shanti-Chachi says. “He’s just a child.”

  “Didi isn’t snatched,” I say as Papa’s grip loosens. “Coach must have convinced her to stay on the team.”

  Papa takes out his mobile and calls someone.

  “I’ll go to the school right now,” I say. “I’ll bring Runu-Didi back.”

  “Shanti, can you watch him?” Papa asks, his phone pressed to his left ear.

  “Of course,” chachi says.

  “Haan, Madhu,” Papa says into the phone as he runs out of the house.

  I squeeze into the headstand corner of Ma’s and Papa’s bed and try to think like a detective, but I can’t think at all because of the noise around me. Neighbors keep wandering in to ask Shanti-Chachi and
me if we have heard anything. They knock against Ma’s precious-things bundle and scatter our textbooks and clothes. They ask each other if a Muslim has taken Runu to avenge Buffalo-Baba’s beheading. At first they speak in lowered voices so I won’t hear them, but soon they forget about me in their excitement and their voices shoot up into the sky. Shanti-Chachi tells them not to speculate until we know more. When they don’t listen, she threatens to cut out their poisonous tongues.

  I pinch my arms so that I’ll wake up from this bad dream, but I’m already awake. I ask myself the questions Pari and I asked Bahadur’s brother and sister. I decide Runu-Didi is hiding because Papa beat her, though it was just one slap and hardly matters.

  Shanti-Chachi checks with Runu-Didi’s basti-friends if they know where Didi is. They don’t. “She was fine this morning at the water tap,” one of them says. “She didn’t look upset.”

  A chachi asks me if Didi could have gone to a mall, or the cinema, but Didi doesn’t have the money to watch a movie and we never go to malls and mall security guards won’t let us in anyway. Shanti-Chachi calls Ma on her mobile. Ma says Didi isn’t at school, and she and Papa are now going to the homes of Didi’s relay teammates.

  I try to think of where Didi might be. I would have hidden behind a pushcart in Bhoot Bazaar or in the kirana shop where Faiz works. But Runu-Didi can’t hide in those places because she’s a girl, and also, she doesn’t know any shopkeepers and they will just tell her to go home.

  * * *

  All night people search for Runu-Didi. She can’t be found. I believe it and I don’t believe it. Ma and Papa return home, Ma’s hair sticking to her cheeks, Papa’s eyes redder and bulging. I ask them if I can go out to look for Didi. My secret plan is to find Samosa and let him track Didi. Ma says I’m not to move.