“Let’s focus on finding your daughter first,” Quarter says.
He forces his way into people’s houses as if he will find Runu-Didi tied up inside. No one protests, not even an old woman who is changing out of her clothes when Quarter kicks open a door. She quickly wraps a sheet around herself.
I see older sisters taking care of little babies, families that are still whole, nobody missing, not even a pet goat or a kitten.
We go around Bhoot Bazaar. Our throats run dry. Someone offers us water. Someone else offers us tea. Bahadur’s ma stays close to my ma, but she tiptoes around her as if she’s afraid she’ll step on Ma’s sadness, which must be the same size and shape as Bahadur’s ma’s sadness, only a lot fresher.
“The rubbish ground,” someone shouts.
I run and so does Ma and Papa and everyone else. I stumble and fall.
Ma’s hands help me up. “Maybe they have found Runu,” she says. “Maybe she was hiding when we went there yesterday.”
Her eyes are bright like a crazy person’s, her hair has come undone, and white spit-marks have crusted around her lips. I want to believe her, but I can’t. Nothing good is ever found at the rubbish ground.
* * *
“Send the women and children back,” a man’s voice roars at our patrol. I can’t see him because I’m too short.
“Who are you to tell us what to do?” a woman roars back.
There’s a gash in my palm from when I fell down. It stings and throbs. Clothes hanging from washing lines flap against the faces of grown-ups. There’s pushing and shoving and cursing. Elbows punch my face. I scream but no one hears it, the scream is quiet.
“We deserve to know what’s happening to our children,” a woman shouts. “We gave birth to them, not you.”
The crowd sweeps forward, carries us forward too. It’s like the wind, and Ma and Papa and I are kites with broken strings, going where it takes us. A hundred people might be around me, maybe two hundred. The air, stinking of rot and shit and burning rubber and batteries, shudders with our fear and anger.
We enter the lane that faces the rubbish ground. There’s more space here and the crowd spreads out and I can finally see what’s happening. Quarter, Aanchal’s papa, the press-wallah, and Kabir-Khadifa’s papa are standing near Bottle-Badshah and the ragpicker children. I grab Papa’s hand and we join them.
“Go on, tell them, don’t be afraid,” Bottle-Badshah says to a snotty boy my age, wearing a yellow glass-bead chain around his neck and holding a muddy-brown sack tight in his hand. I don’t think Ma and I talked to him yesterday.
“My kids are always on the hunt,” Bottle-Badshah says, looking at Quarter as if he knows Quarter is the most important person here. “Whoever gets the best stuff makes the most money.”
I wonder what the children found. I want to know. I don’t want to know.
A girl with a red headband keeping her hair out of her face pushes the bead-necklace boy. “Talk,” she says. He doesn’t.
I recognize her; she’s the girl who was flying the broken helicopter when I came here with Faiz. She doesn’t seem to remember me.
“Arrey, just now,” the helicopter-girl says, “we saw a man go deep into the rubbish with something hidden under his blanket. Nobody goes that far to do No. 2.”
I look around. Everywhere there are small fires and smoke and pigs and dogs.
“After the man left, we went to check—we didn’t go close at first, in case he had really done No. 2. Then we saw a plant this high”—she brings her hand down to her waist—“and it had a white rag tied to it. The rag wasn’t dirty. Everything is dirty here, even us, look at us.” She shows us her sooty hands.
“I was the one who found it,” the bead-necklace boy finally speaks. “I pulled up the plant and checked underneath. I thought the man had hidden something that cost a lot of money. Something he had stolen that he didn’t want his wife or mummy to see. And it was this—” He looks at the sack he’s holding.
Bottle-Badshah takes it from him and brings out a blue plastic box spattered with mud and filth. The box is the length of his forearm and less than a foot wide. He opens the lid, but it’s above my head. Aanchal’s papa gasps. Omvir’s papa screams. Kabir-Khadifa’s father cries.
“Is that…?” Papa asks.
Bottle-Badshah looks at me and brings the box down so that I can see. “Is this hairband…is this your didi’s?” he asks.
Inside there’s loads of stuff, a plastic ring that glows white, bead necklaces, black-and-yellow folded sunglasses, red bangles, anklets made of a silvery material that has turned black in parts, a headband with a red, papery rose to its side, an HTC phone and, underneath it, a white scrunchie. It could be didi’s but it could be someone else’s too.
“Jai?” Papa says, his voice stretched thin as if he is begging.
“The phone is Aanchal’s,” I say. “The glow-ring is Omvir’s.”
Aanchal’s papa picks up the mobile, turns it around. “It’s Aanchal’s,” he says.
“The sunglasses are my son’s,” Kabir-Khadifa’s abbu says. “And the red bangles could be Khadifa’s, I’m not sure.”
“All of you came here searching for your children,” Bottle-Badshah says and pauses as if he’s giving a speech. I wish he would hurry. “You told me what they were wearing.” He looks at Aanchal’s papa. “I remember you telling me about your daughter’s HTC phone. You asked me to call you if I saw something like that being sold second-hand in the bazaar. And little boy”—he looks at me now—“when you and your mother were here yesterday, she told me about your sister’s hairband. As soon as the children brought this box to me, and I saw what was inside, I knew something was wrong.”
“The man who buried it, where is he?” Papa asks.
“The children didn’t follow that man, regrettably, because it took them some time to find this box. By the time they brought it to me, he was gone.”
“Big he was,” the bead-necklace boy says. “Like a tree.”
“Very tall,” Helicopter-Girl agrees. “Looked like a fighter.”
My breath gets stuck in my throat. “Was he wearing a gold watch?” I manage to ask.
“Don’t know,” a scavenger boy says. He’s drinking from a crushed-up mango-juice box. I want to kick it out of his hands.
“Hatta-katta he was,” someone else says. Then I’m sure.
I turn to look at Quarter. He knows Wrestler-Man. But I can’t ask him anything because he has moved away and is speaking into his mobile, hand over his mouth. He doesn’t want us to hear what he’s saying.
Bahadur’s ma and Drunkard Laloo and my ma jostle through the crowd to reach us.
“What’s it, what’s it?” Ma asks.
“It’s a box with a few things that appear to belong to the missing children,” Bottle-Badshah explains.
Ma picks up the scrunchie.
“Put it back,” I tell her. “It’s evidence.”
“This is not your stupid show,” Ma screams at me. “What’s wrong with you? I cannot bear to listen to you for a second more.”
Ma knows it’s my fault Didi has disappeared. Hot tears spring out of my eyes. Papa pulls me close.
“Bahadur?” Bahadur’s ma asks. Bottle-Badshah gives her the box and she roots through it and says, “But there’s nothing of his here.”
“Something might have fallen out when the children were playing with it,” Bottle-Badshah says. “They didn’t mean to—they’re only children. They didn’t know what this was.”
The bead-necklace boy touches his necklace proprietarily.
“Where did you find this?” Bahadur’s ma asks the scavenger-children. “Take me there.”
Two of the children start walking through the rubbish. Bahadur’s ma lifts up the hem of her sari and follows them. Drunkard Laloo goes with her, but he collapse
s into the rubbish and she has to pull him up. This will take forever. We don’t have time. We have to find Wrestler-Man. He has Runu-Didi.
“Papa,” I say, “I have seen that man at Duttaram’s tea shop.” I look at Ma. She is getting ready to scream at me again, so I cut my words short. “I think he lives near the Shaitani Adda. We should go there.”
It’s only a guess but that’s where the snatchings took place, so his house must be there.
“My children will go with you,” Bottle-Badshah says. “They’ll recognize him if they see him, won’t you?”
The children nod, but their faces don’t look so sure.
* * *
Quarter tells us he has called the police. They will bring JCBs so that they can move things around in the rubbish ground and check it properly. But JCBs are for destroying our homes, not for finding Runu-Didi. She isn’t in the rubbish.
“The kidnapper is from your party,” I tell Quarter before Ma can stop me. “You know him. He looks like a wrestler.”
“I doubt it,” Quarter says, and he says it calmly, but his fists are clenched, and his knuckles have turned white.
“He works at Golden Gate, but he lives in our basti,” I say. “He was at Thumper-Baba’s puja. I saw him talk to your father.”
“Lots of people talk to my father,” Quarter says.
“We’ll check around the adda, okay, Jai?” Papa says, almost as if he feels sorry for me.
“I’ll wait here for the police,” Bottle-Badshah says.
I look at the box in his hands. There are too many fingerprints on it now, and the kidnapper’s might have been wiped out.
“Shouldn’t you stay here?” Papa asks Quarter as he follows us with his gang-members. “The police don’t listen to us, but they’ll listen to you.”
Quarter waves his mobile in Papa’s face. “They’ll let me know when they get here. It will take them some time, especially as they have to call for JCBs.” With a hooked index finger, he beckons me. “What is this kidnapper’s name?” he asks.
“Don’t know,” I say.
I think he’ll punch me, but he lets me go back to Papa and Ma.
* * *
The people who live near the adda say there’s only one hatta-katta man in this neighborhood, and they show us his house. We knock on his door. A bicycle, black and speckled with mud, leans against the wall by a row of empty jerrycans. Wrestler-Man comes out, looking cross.
“It’s him,” I whisper to Papa.
“It was him,” the bead-necklace boy confirms with a vehement shake of his head.
“Arrest him,” Helicopter-Girl shouts. Then she looks at me sadly.
Quarter and his gang grab Wrestler-Man by the collar. He’s so strong that he shrugs, and they fall aside in a heap.
“What do you want with my husband?” screams a woman who rushes out of the house to Wrestler-Man’s side. Her sari is askew, and her bangles smash against each other as she clutches the sleeve of his shirt.
There are enough people in our patrol to form a cordon around Wrestler-Man. He can’t fight everybody off. Papa and me and Ma scramble into his house. Runu-Didi has to be inside.
The house is one room, just like ours, and Didi isn’t there. Ma stifles a cry and hobbles back outside.
Someone switches on the light. I look under the charpai, I drag out the vessels stacked there. Quarter’s gang-members open flour tins and empty their contents. Lids spin and clank; shelves nailed to the wall crash; voices circle me like trails of smoke. I slip on the sugar and salt on the floor, but I still crawl around, searching every inch for clues. Was Runu-Didi here? I can’t tell. Papa and someone else, it’s the press-wallah, they rummage through the clothes in the house, both washed and unwashed. Other people want to come in, but it’s too crowded inside the house. Aanchal’s papa asks some of us to leave so that he can look for his daughter’s belongings. I go out, Papa holding my hand.
The air is heavy like sludge with the weight of shouts and curses and swears. Quarter’s gang-members tie Wrestler-Man’s hands with a rope. His gold watch is on his wrist, and it’s broken. There’s a flurry of movement, hands curling into fists, muscles flexing, legs and hands slamming through the air to hit him. The sound of the thwacking is the same as the sound of bloody cleavers hacking meat at Afsal-Chacha’s shop in Bhoot Bazaar. My heart pumps blood into my ears too-fast.
Wrestler-Man’s wife screams and wails. A woman puts a hand around the wife’s throat and tells her to shut up or else. The bicycle I had seen earlier lies on the ground, its frame crushed, the tires slashed. I remember the scratch marks I had spotted on Wrestler-Man’s wrist at Duttaram’s tea shop. Had these been made by Bahadur and Omvir while trying to claw out of his grip? All of him has been cut up by people now, and one dotted red line on his skin looks like the other.
Four policemen, including the senior and junior constables I have seen many times, turn up. Quarter takes them aside and talks to them. The senior constable doesn’t even look at Bahadur’s ma though he took her gold chain.
The arrival of the police doesn’t soften the sharpness of the anger in the alley. Wrestler-Man crumples under the kicks and punches that don’t ease up. Everything unfolds in slow motion. The smog dips and rises; the light turns blue and grey; a man scratches his armpits; voices whip through the air asking could the children be…no, not dead! The buzzing in my ears grows louder. Blood spills from Wrestler-Man’s broken lips, but he doesn’t say a word. “Where are the children?” each man hitting him asks. A thousand questions, and he stays silent through them all.
I go near Quarter. He’s telling the constables that Wrestler-Man’s name is Varun. He has been seen at a few Hindu Samaj events, but he doesn’t know Varun and neither does his father. The constables ask the scavenger children a few questions: who saw Varun bury the box, what is in it, where is it. They don’t write anything down in a notebook like Pari does.
“Where is Runu-Didi?” I scream. The words taste like rust in my mouth. I don’t understand what is happening. I can’t think like a detective because I’m not one. The constables look at me and look away.
The pradhan arrives in a cycle-rickshaw. The policemen stand around him in a half-circle. He puts his hands together, he says thank you for coming.
“I can’t believe someone who worships our baba can be a criminal,” the pradhan says. “When Eshwar called me and told me about it, I was heartbroken.”
I don’t know who Eshwar is and then I realize it’s Quarter.
The pradhan approaches my ma and Bahadur’s ma, who stand up. Aanchal’s papa and the press-wallah stagger out of Varun’s house empty-handed.
“He’s your friend,” I say, and push aside grown-up legs so that the pradhan can see me. “Wrestler-Man Varun. I have seen you talk to him. Ask him where he has locked up my didi.”
“Eshwar said Varun has done some work for the Samaj,” the pradhan says, addressing the crowd and not me. “But the Samaj has so many members, and I speak to so many people, I’m afraid I do not personally know this fellow.” He doesn’t even glance at Varun. “Be assured we will get to the bottom of this. You have my word.”
“But where’s my daughter?” Ma asks.
“My son?” Bahadur’s ma asks.
“Why were their things in a box?” I ask.
“All in good time,” the pradhan says.
“You’re waiting for all of us to die?” Ma asks, her words soft and clear. “Will that be a good time for you to do something?”
* * *
The police put handcuffs on Varun and his wife and say they are taking the two of them to the rubbish ground.
“He’ll show us what else he has hidden there,” a policeman explains to us. “Since the children aren’t in his house, and since he seems to have collected souvenirs from every child he snatched, there’s only one logical explanation as to
what he was doing with them.”
“What do they think they’ll find there?” the press-wallah asks my papa as we follow the police procession. “Our children aren’t there.”
He knows what they are looking for; we all do. We can hear the questions the police are asking Varun and his wife.
“Did you cut them to pieces and throw them in the rubbish?”
“Leave them to be eaten by dogs and pigs?”
“Tell me, you motherfucker. I’ll make you talk.”
People spill out of their shops to watch us. “What is happening here?” they ask. The Muslim shopkeepers wrangle their skullcaps into little balls in their hands and turn away from us.
“Runu-Didi is alive,” I tell Papa.
Varun must have hidden Didi somewhere, maybe an abandoned factory or a godown. A trafficker would sell those he snatched, not kill them. Who has Varun sold Didi to? Or is Varun a djinn that has taken the form of a human?
Papa scrambles ahead and grasps Varun’s elbow. “My daughter, Runu, where is she?”
Blood trickles down Varun’s bruised face and onto his sweater. He eyes Papa with his swollen eyes and smirks.
* * *
At the rubbish ground the policemen question Bottle-Badshah and the scavenger children again. The blue plastic box is now in the hands of the police; none of them are wearing gloves.
“Why does your husband have this?” a policewoman asks Varun’s wife.
We don’t have anything to do with it, she says.
“Where have you buried them?” another policeman asks.
Nowhere, we don’t know anything, she says.
The pradhan steers clear of the rubbish that he seems afraid will stain his kurta-pajama. He makes calls on his mobile, one after the other. Quarter ferries messages from him to the policemen and back.
I don’t understand why they are wasting their time like this. My head feels like it will burst. I speak to a scavenger boy passing by. “Are the missing children lying in the rubbish?” I ask.
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line Page 26
