The Year of the Runaways

by Sunjeev Sahota

  ‘What happened to the balloons?’ he asked, as his friend walked back, zipping up.

  Harbhajan stared at his car. ‘Oh yeah.’

  There was a sort of empty pressure in his eyes. Avtar said he’d better drive but Harbhajan got in and started the engine, revved it. Avtar hadn’t even closed the door and they were speeding off.

  They jumped lights and joined the trunk road.

  ‘Slow down,’ Avtar said. Harbhajan stared ahead, top teeth biting his lip and arm straight at the wheel, as if in a brace. Cars dodged out of their way. ‘Hari, slow down.’

  ‘Does your father hate you, Avtar?’

  ‘Don’t think like that.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  A green-and-red lorry came honking towards them. Harbhajan veered onto the dirtroad and they felt the car shake as the lorry rumbled past.

  ‘Does your girl love you?’

  ‘Hari.’

  ‘Does life bring you joy?’

  Avtar looked out of the window. The fields merged. He turned to the front and saw three cars barrelling down. Harbhajan let out a wild laugh and swerved left where a concrete stump seemed to jump out of the ground. The air filled with crushing metal and the car lurched, then stopped. Harbhajan sat there looking at the steering wheel. Avtar put a hand on his shoulder and a short while later the young man in the turban began to sob.

  Night fell. Maybe the electronics weren’t working because the chowkidar had to apply his back to the bars and push the gates open. Avtar drove slowly in. On the porch, under the security light, Nirmalji was waiting in a regal-looking shawl. He had his hands behind his back. Avtar got out of the car and made his sahib-salaams. He was helping Harbhajan to his feet when the driver who’d taken Avtar home that one time shoved him aside and near-carried Harbhajan indoors. Avtar watched his friend dragged into the house, the driver closing the door behind them. It was several seconds until he summoned the courage to turn and look at Nirmalji: only briefly, for Avtar’s gaze dropped reflexively down and rested somewhere around his employer’s knees.

  ‘You got my message, sahib?’

  Nirmalji said he had and that the doctor was inside so not to worry.

  ‘I think it is a sprained knee only.’

  ‘Did you know he bought the car with stolen money?’

  ‘Some ice. My mamma would put some ice on it.’

  ‘You knew he was stealing from the workers’ funds. Everyone knows that is what he is doing. I have to take action.’

  Avtar felt sick. He was determined not to cry. He carried on talking. ‘The radiator, sahib. I had to keep filling it up.’ He showed his blackened hands and wrists as if providing evidence.

  ‘They’re angry, the workers. And when workers are angry they do silly things like revolt.’ His voice lost its soft edges. ‘They need to know I won’t tolerate that. You cannot be weak in this world. Do you understand?’

  ‘Please, sahib, forgive my mista—’

  ‘Chup! Don’t embarrass yourself. Don’t be weak.’

  Avtar looked at the hard, thankless ground.

  ‘I’ll give you a month’s pay. That is the best I will do.’

  ‘Please, sahib,’ and Avtar started the move onto his knees. Maybe he felt that was what he was expected to do.

  ‘Get up immediately,’ Nirmalji commanded. ‘Do not ever bow down before a man. Not anyone. Is that understood?’

  Avtar nodded, swallowed. He heard the older man sigh, saw his heavy gut rise and fall.

  ‘I am doing you a favour, son. Go abroad. Follow the others. It’s too hard for boys like you in this benighted country. Abroad you might stand a chance.’

  Avtar said nothing. He kept looking down. At least there was no danger of tears.

  Nirmalji walked him to the gates and handed him his wages, plus some. Avtar managed a faint thank you and with a subtle declination of the head Nirmalji conveyed that it was time for Avtar to leave.

  At the brass tap behind Gardenia Villas, he washed the grime from his hands and wrists as best he could. Then he made the long climb to the flat and waited outside the front door. The moon was high and caged beyond the thickly tubed windows of the stairwell. He could hear the TV in Mr Lal’s next door. He turned the handle and went inside. His mother was at the stove, fiercely stirring. On the sofa, his brother read from a loosely stapled pamphlet of some sort, in English. Their father listened, smiling but clearly not understanding.

  ‘Tari’s back,’ his father said, sounding relieved. ‘Where have you been? Your brother got his marks.’

  ‘I’m making prasad,’ his mother said.

  ‘Top five per cent,’ their father said. ‘Top five!’

  ‘God listened.’

  Navjoht turned back to the front page. ‘Shall I start again, Papa? Now bhaji’s here?’

  Their father hesitated. Avtar swept his hand through his brother’s hair and sat gingerly on the precarious armrest of their sofa. He felt something behind his back and pulled round a brown parcel. It had the green stamp of his father’s shop, above that in green ink his mother’s name, and at some point it had also been tied with green string. Now it lay ripped open, and folded inside was a red and very beautiful Jamawar shawl, the kind that he knew took many weeks to make by hand. Months, if you only had an hour or two each night after the shop had closed. He put it aside and decided that, no, he wouldn’t say anything tonight.

  ‘Beita, can you get some barfi? Is he still open? I want to take it to the gurdwara tomorrow. Ask your papa for some money.’

  Avtar stood and said Nadeem would be closed but he’d find some somewhere else. He stepped over the urine bucket.

  ‘The money,’ his mother said.

  ‘I’ve enough,’ and he closed the door and started down the stairs.

  His father’s postings meant the family moved around a lot. Chandigarh was the latest. It was the ninth city Randeep had lived in and in each city they’d changed residence at least once, so he must have had more than twenty different addresses by now. More than his age – seventeen. His early years were in the south and east of the country – Tiruchirappalli, Bangalore, Nellore, Bhubaneshwar – then, when his naniji was dying, his mother insisted they head closer to home: Delhi, Pathankot, Ludhiana, Amritsar and now Chandigarh. He’d liked Bhubaneshwar the most, and often remembered the six months on the outskirts of the city, in a compound of thatched white cottages, as the best years of his whole life. He’d been about twelve and for the first time made some friends – two boys from the neighbouring village – and they’d given the entire summer to playing cricket in the village grounds. One day, Randeep promised himself, he’d return.

  The bell sounded – shrill, constant – and he packed away his unopened books and moved to the windows of the library, looking down. From all sides of the pillared quad students spilled out of the doors, chattering, filling the square until it was all pigtails and schoolish greys and blues. Jaytha was at the centre of her group of girlfriends, head thrown back, neck lushly exposed, laughing. He watched until she vanished out of the quad. Then he returned to his room to pick up his suitcase.

  He went home every weekend. It was only an hour on the local Sutlej bus but by the time he alighted and dragged the wheels of his battered suitcase over the rocky ground, darkness had fallen like a shutter. He got into the nearest auto and asked for the government flats in Madhya Marg.

  ‘DIT side?’ the driver asked, turning the thing around.

  ‘Sector side, please.’

  At Building 3B on Santa Cruz Drive, the resident chowkidar in his old peacock hat saluted and opened the door. Randeep took the lift and outside flat 188 he removed his shoes because the sound of footsteps in the hall had once made his father panic terribly.

  That night, as he was watching TV with Lakhpreet, she asked him if he knew any boys who’d gone abroad. How easy was it?

  ‘How would I know?’ he said.

  ‘But is it expensive?’

  He shrugged. ‘Who wa
nts to go abroad?’

  She shook her head. ‘No one. A friend.’

  ‘Tell her it won’t be all shopping and playing in the park.’

  He flicked through to the news and then to a yoga class.

  ‘Has Daddy done his exercises this week?’

  She nodded.

  ‘How’s he been?’

  ‘Same same.’

  ‘I wish I was here more to help,’ he said, but he knew he didn’t mean it, and her silence told him that she knew it too.

  On Saturdays, the twins had their classical dance lesson followed by violin practice – or maybe it was piano these days – so when Randeep emerged showered and dressed from the bathroom they were kissing their father goodbye and disappearing out of the door. Then Lakhpreet said she was going – off to meet friends. The door slammed to a close and it was just Randeep and his parents in the light-filled room. The only sound was the hum of the squat grey fridge.

  ‘A long time you spent in the bathroom,’ his father said, not looking up from the newspaper laid out flat on the coffee table. ‘Avoiding us?’

  ‘Of course not,’ he said, and as if to prove this came and sat beside his father.

  He was a long, thin man, made to appear even taller in his white kurta robes. People spoke of him as being noble, intelligent, with sharp, questioning eyes. Nothing got past Sanghera Sahib. He was starting to grey and, reading his paper with deliberate slowness, looked exactly how people expected a senior government manager to look on a lazy summer morning. He’d shaved, too, Randeep noticed, which was a good sign. Mrs Sanghera darted about the kitchen. Cleaning, wiping, washing the steel and plastic cutlery, wondering out loud why-oh-why they didn’t have a maid. She asked Randeep if he preferred eggs or paratha and he said he’d have some Tiger Flakes later. Then she placed two chalky pink pills and a steel tumbler of water beside her husband’s elbow and left for the bedroom.

  ‘How’s school?’

  ‘College. Good. The board exams are soon.’

  His father nodded. ‘NIT would be good.’

  ‘If I get the ranking.’

  ‘Isn’t that why we pay the fees?’ His father closed the paper, folded it twice, then picked it up and slapped it back down on the table again. ‘These right-wing loons are taking over the country.’

  His mother reappeared, dressed hastily in a white-and-yellow salwaar kameez. Her eyes went to the pills, still untouched. Then: ‘Will you come with me? You’re expected.’

  ‘Next time. Take Randeep.’

  ‘But I want to stay with you,’ Randeep said.

  ‘You mean you’re too scared to leave me on my own for a few hours?’ He wiped his hand across the table, palming up the pills, and dropped them into his mouth. He drank the water. ‘There. I feel better already. Don’t I look better?’

  Mrs Sanghera said she’d be back by lunchtime – it was an akhand paat – but he had their number and there were two vegetable patties in the fridge if they got hungry. Then she kissed Randeep’s forehead and picked up a gold box of mithai from on top of the fridge.

  Later, while his father napped, Randeep took a textbook into the shade of the balcony. He set aside his mother’s plant pots and sat against the whitewashed wall and made a lectern of his lap. With a faint groan, he began to read – absent-mindedly, half-heartedly – and soon the benzene rings on the smudged paper of his chemistry textbook dissolved and reconstituted themselves into images of Jaytha. He wondered what to say to her when they next met – on the way to morning assembly, most likely, as long as this time he remembered that she walked via the mural on Mondays. And he should definitely ask after her bhabhi. As if on the breeze, a feeling of shame came over him. He didn’t know why he was like this. He wished he could be more easy-going about these things. Less calculating. Less like one of those crazed stalkies.

  ‘Shall we go for a walk?’

  Startled, Randeep looked up: his father, in trousers and clean half-sleeved shirt, hair combed. ‘Daddy?’

  ‘I feel like going for a walk.’

  Randeep pocketed the apartment keys as they exited the lift. The old chowkidar saluted – ‘Good morning, Sanghera Sahib’ – and opened the big glass door for them. Beyond the compound gates, they started down the chunky pink pavement of Santa Cruz Drive. The road was measured in trees, one following the other, orange blossoming through the leafgreen.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t be cold?’

  His father didn’t reply, just kept on ahead, chin tilted up to the day.

  They passed under the bramble archway of Zakir Garden, which was no more than a flat expanse of shrubs – mostly roses – with a fenced-off pond in the middle. North of the pond, at the sunken bandstand, some sort of trumpet group seemed to be rehearsing. Randeep suggested they go back but his father said not to be silly, that there was a lovely quiet enclosure right by the eastern gate.

  Mr Sanghera was right. A short walk up the path, a gap in the hedgerow revealed a secluded little garden: primrose, thistle, yellow jacobinia, more roses, and, in large clay pots guarded by bees, virgin-white rajanigandha twined with ice plants of the most intimate pink. At the centre of it all was a cheap and bow-legged red plastic bench.

  ‘Let’s sit,’ his father said.

  Though the hedges were high, the sun had risen and Randeep removed his sandals and wriggled his toes in the warmth. They used to do this all the time. Spending hours together. They’d talk about music or God or the state of the country. Mostly, his father did the talking. He was a great fan of Urdu poetry and would recite lines from Bahu or Bulleh Shah, testing Randeep to see if he’d understood the meaning. No, the deeper meaning, son. Always search for the deeper meaning. There was one that Randeep had especially liked, about wafa and khata. Loyalty and error and how one followed the other. How did it go? He couldn’t remember. Perhaps now would be a good time to ask.

  ‘Your mother and I would come here. We’d listen to the Christian Harmony String Quartet playing Schubert at the bandstand and then we’d come here.’

  ‘Explains our balcony. Mamma must be trying to replicate this garden.’

  ‘I wonder if they’re still playing.’

  ‘The band?’

  His father nodded. His legs were crossed at the knees, hands clasped loosely in his lap. ‘How is school?’

  ‘It’s still college and you asked me that already.’

  ‘I know I did. I’m not going mad. So this time give me a proper answer. Are we meeting anyone?’

  ‘Daddy!’

  ‘Uff, Randeep, you’ll be eighteen soon. Be an adult.’

  ‘But I thought I’d always be your little boy?’

  ‘That’s just something parents say when it suits us.’

  Randeep smiled. ‘There is someone. Jaytha.’

  ‘Sounds Hindu.’

  He said she was. ‘And she’s from the smaller castes.’

  ‘Your mother would have a problem with that. But problems are a long way off yet. First – is she pretty?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘And how long?’

  ‘Not long. A month. Bit less. We’re still getting to know each other.’

  He wished he could stop the words, these lies that came too easy. But however much he hated the untruths, he felt better for them, too. They seemed to allow a different version of himself to be presented to the world.

  ‘Well, I wish you the best of luck.’

  It was an oddly formal sentence, said with something like finality Randeep looked down and retracted his feet from the warmth of the sun. Mr Sanghera laughed.

  ‘Don’t worry. I meant it. I’m not going mad. Many years ahead.’ Then, more seriously, ‘I will beat this. You will get your father back.’

  Randeep extended his arm along the bench and cradled his father’s shoulders, which were as narrow as his own.

  But the trumpet band seemed to have neared, and Randeep grew alarmed. He ducked through the gap in the hedgerow: the musicians, in red-and-white, were circuiting the
park.

  ‘Shall we go?’ he said, trying not to sound anxious.

  ‘Slow down,’ said his father. ‘You worry too much. You always did.’

  ‘It’s only that Mamma will be back. I didn’t even leave a message.’

  ‘Call her, then.’

  A couple dawdled towards them, sharing an ice cream. Randeep was veering left to avoid a collision when the woman called out, ‘Sangheraji? Oh, I thought it was you. How wonderful!’

  She unlinked elbows with her partner and came rushing up, waving a little hysterically, a sixty-something with a bob cut and a short summer dress.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked, with heavy concern. ‘We missed you last week. The office wasn’t the same.’

  He saw his father force a smile, and the band rounding the corner.

  ‘Dolan said you fell?’

  ‘Nothing serious. A minor act.’

  She smiled with excessive slowness, as if she knew he was lying. ‘Is this your son? He’s even taller than you! A chipped block, is he not?’

  The band was closing in, the trumpets shrieking on the air. Randeep looked down and saw his father’s hand shaking in his pocket, his face emptying. The woman said something else, then turned to her partner and laughed. Mr Sanghera closed his eyes. He seemed to be struggling to breathe.

  Randeep took hold of his father’s elbow. ‘Let’s go, Daddy.’

  The woman gave a smile of confusion as he tried to drag his father on, but now the band was marching past, the air full of brass, and Mr Sanghera clasped the side of his head and fell to his knees.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ the woman asked. ‘Charlie’s a physician.’

  Back home, his father cried angry tears and turned chairs over, banging his fists on the walls. ‘What is wrong with everyone?’ he shouted. ‘What is wrong with you all?’

  Randeep crashed down blinds, shuttered windows. Mrs Sanghera followed her husband through the darkened flat with a glass of water and two more pills.

  ‘Get away from me!’ he flashed. ‘You’re trying to kill me. Don’t think I can’t see it. You’re all trying to kill me.’

  ‘How can you say that? I’m your wife!’