The Year of the Runaways

by Sunjeev Sahota

  Narinder nodded. ‘Please.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty, with the guru’s grace.’

  ‘The same age my daughter was when she left here.’

  Narinder lay on her bunk that night unable to sleep. In the bed underneath was a young sikhni from Fresno and her quiet sighs swept the room. The moon hung tiny in the far window. Narinder turned back to the ceiling. Everything was so peaceful, the night so heavy-lidded, that she half thought she had only to lie there as still as she could and she’d catch herself in the act of thinking. That she’d be able to observe herself thinking. It was something she’d often tried to do, and in some unexplainable but vital way it was an impulse linked to the idea that if she flicked her pupils quickly enough she’d be able to glimpse the side of her face, the part that was otherwise only visible to her when looked at in the mirror. Childish habits, for the child in her.

  She’d left the woman’s home promising to do her best and, God willing, find her daughter and tell her to contact her family. Narinder imagined the girl wandering lost in England. Asking for help and no one listening, no one caring. Strangely, sleepily, this feeling of loss opened out into a further memory. They’d been sitting together at the back of the Croydon gurdwara, Narinder playing with her mother’s green rosary, when Bibi Jeet Kaur smiled and said that if she were to die now, by her twenty-first year Narinder wouldn’t even be able to recall what her mother had looked like. Lying on her bunk, sadness washed over Narinder in a single large wave, for her mother had been right. Already her face was becoming nothing more than a warm smile surrounded by a faraway blur.

  She told her father about the encounter with the woman and the missing daughter in England. He was at the dining table, going through his pension statements, and light from the standard lamp made his beard glow red.

  He listened to Narinder without interrupting, then returned to his work. ‘It’s a police matter, beiti. Let’s not get involved.’

  ‘Ji,’ Narinder said, nodding. She looked down, looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Baba, but does she not need our help?’

  ‘I agree she needs help. She should go to the police.’ He looked across, smiled. ‘You can’t take on all the world’s troubles. I’ll say an ardaas for them both tomorrow. Theek?’

  ‘Ji. It’s just that I thought I could maybe—’

  ‘Narinder? We’re not getting involved, acha?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, Baba.’

  She regressed into the daily shuffling between the house and the gurdwara, to reading and tidying and heating up meals, to working at the langar hall and awaiting her turn on the harmonium. If a verse was unfamiliar, she brought the songsheets home and stood them on her dressing table, against the wall. She practised by imagining keys on the wood, eyes slightly scrunched in application, whispering the words. Time seemed to vanish and her father had to shout to get her attention.

  ‘Ji?’ she said, moving onto the landing and stretching over the banister.

  ‘I said I’m going to the bank. I’ll be back before lunch.’ She heard the door shut. She paused. She was still leaning over the banister. The house was silent. She returned to her dressing table and took the piece of paper from the drawer. It was the number of the agent in Ludhiana who’d arranged the missing girl’s transit. She went down to the hallway and dialled the number. The agent answered and very happily gave Narinder ‘full, all disclosure’ details of the fabric factory the girl was headed to on reaching England. Encouraged by how easy that was, Narinder called the factory. Another man answered – gruff voice, thick Indian accent – and said he had no sister-fucking idea who she was talking about and to leave him the fuck alone. Shocked, Narinder put the phone down, her hand shaking on the receiver. She looked over her shoulder, though she knew the house was empty.

  In August, Baba Tarsem Singh said he’d arranged for her to perform the kirtan during the gurdwara’s morning service.

  ‘It must get very boring for you to spend so much time in the house with me.’

  ‘I’m not bored, Baba. I love you.’

  ‘You’re a kind daughter. Nevertheless, it will do you good.’

  She loved these services, with their accompanying birdsong, and afterwards she had at least four hours before her father arrived to escort her back home. Usually she did some sort of seva, but one morning she buttoned up her duffel coat and caught the train to Newham and waited outside the factory boss’s office. She was a girl to whom waiting came easily and when the man showed up he didn’t seem able to turn her away. He pored through his battered tea-stained register and said that the girl had left some months ago. He did, however, have the girl’s telephone number. Did Narinder want that? The next day, she called the number from the payphone in the gurdwara and it was several minutes before the old lady understood that this wasn’t her granddaughter Anastasia calling. It transpired that she had had an Indian girl staying in her basement – ‘lovely-looking thing she were, too’ – but not any more.

  ‘Said she was going to Poplar. God knows why.’

  Narinder smiled into the phone at that.

  It was almost September before she had sufficient opportunity to attend the Sri Guru Go bind gurdwara nearest to Poplar. The granthi, a snowy-bearded man with a wooden cane, sighed disappointedly and confirmed that it had been brought to his attention that they had a handful of daughters living illegally in the area, who needed the community’s help. It was rumoured they lived in some sheds backing onto one of the alleys. He gave Narinder the address and, in the name of their gurus, asked her to help these sisters of hers.

  ‘Third one along, pehnji. Look for the rubbers,’ a brown girl with severely straightened hair directed, and at last Narinder walked up the alley, sidestepping the used, teaty condoms, the thrown-out sofas and TVs. She wasn’t sure which of the wooden gates to knock on first and then, sooner than expected, found herself at the alley’s end, facing a concrete wall sprayed with rude green graffiti. She frowned at herself. Be brave. Guruji is with you. She firm-stepped it to the first gate but hadn’t even knocked when it was hauled open and a frightening Indian woman loomed above her. Chapped pink lipstick and emerald eyeshadow. Orange-henna hair frizzing back like an afro. All on a thick, angry face with a pronounced chin-wobble.

  ‘What the fuck you spying up and down for?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m looking for Savraj.’ Then, more confidently: ‘I have a message from her mother.’

  The woman shifted her weight onto her other foot. ‘What message?’

  ‘Does Savraj live here?’

  ‘I said what message?’

  ‘Her mother’s worried. She hasn’t heard from her daughter in months. I promised I’d try to find her and see how she is. If she needs any help.’

  ‘We all need help, sister,’ the woman said, laughed. With some effort she turned herself around and padded up a wispy little path barely visible in all the overgrowth. ‘She’s in her room, I think.’

  Her room, it turned out, was the shed at the bottom of the garden, a small wooden structure with a white net aslant across the only window. Narinder knocked with the back of her hand. No response. She tried again, and this time she heard movement – a mattress groaning – and footsteps. The door opened but remained on its flimsy chain. A high-boned face with sharp, darting eyes showed itself. Her mother’s face.

  It was a dispiriting little room: damp, cold, unloved and unloving. Not quite enough height to stand up straight. The mattress lay on the floor, beside a dog-chewed armchair probably taken from the alley outside. No electricity. Narinder wondered how she cooked or went to the toilet. Perhaps the orange-haired woman let her use the house for things like that.

  ‘Your mother asked me to tell you to call home. She’s very worried.’

  Savraj sat on the grey mattress and pulled her oversized woolly jumper over her knees and black leggings, so just her feet poked out. She must have cut her hair that short in England.

  ‘You mean she’s worried about no
t getting any money,’ Savraj said.

  It had occurred to Narinder that at no point had Savraj’s mother expressed fear for her daughter’s safety, or concern over her welfare. The message had simply been that they’d run out of money and Savraj was to stop messing about and call home without delay.

  ‘If you could call her, I think that would help.’

  Savraj looked up, cocked her head to the side. ‘You got money? I’ve not eaten for two days.’

  She refused to go to the gurdwara, so Narinder took her to a coffee shop she’d seen near the station. They perched on high stools by the window, overlooking some workmen drilling. Narinder sipped at her small sugarless tea. Savraj dipped cake into her hot chocolate.

  When she’d worked out how to phrase the question, Narinder put down her cup and said, ‘Pehnji, can I ask how many sisters are in the same situation as you?’

  Savraj didn’t answer straight away. She finished off her cake, licked her fingers. ‘Honestly Pehnji? You sound fresher than me.’ She shrugged. ‘A few. There’s three patakeh sheds in my alley.’

  Narinder didn’t understand. ‘You keep fireworks?’

  ‘It’s what the men call them.’ A tiny smile, as if pleased at the shock she was about to deliver. ‘We make their fireworks go off.’

  Narinder gazed at Savraj and nodded slowly. She didn’t blink.

  Savraj looked annoyed. ‘We have sex.’

  Narinder nodded.

  ‘They pay. For sex.’

  ‘I understand. I’m sorry.’

  And now it was Savraj’s turn to gaze at Narinder, to scrutinize her. Then she threw her head back and a great laugh burst forth. ‘Oh my God! You want to make me into one of your turbanwallis!’

  Her shoulders were shaking, each breaking wave of laughter rapidly overtaken by another. People were starting to stare, but Savraj’s laughter kept coming, so Narinder slipped down from the stool and tried not to look like she was rushing for the door.

  For all of the next week, the last of the summer, her days fell back into place: morning chores, kirtan at the gurdwara, evenings of silence and prayer. She couldn’t stop thinking of Savraj, though. How strong she’d seemed. How exciting Narinder had found it, going into the world and seeking her out.

  ‘Don’t think too hard,’ her brother, Tejpal, warned.

  He was chaperoning her home from the gurdwara. Since she’d turned eighteen her father had decided she was never to take the evening walk alone. For your safety, he had said.

  ‘Or maybe he doesn’t trust you,’ Tejpal had later suggested. ‘Maybe he’s seen something in you that worries him.’

  He was about a foot taller than she was, with a vast gym-trained chest that made his shoulders pop up.

  ‘What do you mean, don’t think too hard?’

  ‘You’re thinking. Don’t. Girls shouldn’t think.’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’

  ‘You’ll get into tra-ble.’

  She ignored him – there was no way he could have known about Savraj – and the following Monday she effected a return to the sheds of Poplar. Her gurujis wouldn’t have just left it at that, she told herself. No one answered the door, so she waited beside the battered green gate, shielding her eyes from the low sun. A kid raced up on his bike, wheelied round at the wall, then just as quickly disappeared left out of the lane. Later, a postman emptied his sack of mail onto the rubbish tip. ‘Fuck that!’ he said, grinning at Narinder.

  Savraj arrived, and, ignoring Narinder, unlocked the gate. Narinder followed her in, maintaining a distance.

  ‘Pehnji—’

  ‘Don’t. I’m not your pehnji or your bhabhi or your didi. I don’t want you babeh-brains near me.’

  Narinder stopped at the shed door. She reached inside her pocket and held out the brown parcel. It was tied with orange thread. ‘For you.’

  ‘What is it? A gutka?’ Savraj said, snatching at it. It was a velvet box inside which rolled a tube of red lipstick.

  ‘Yours is running out. I noticed, last time I came.’

  Narinder visited Savraj once, sometimes twice a week, leaving the gurdwara after her morning kirtan and always getting back before her baba arrived. Usually she’d take along a margarine tub filled with whatever sabzi they had at home. They’d give the tub to the landlady to put in her fridge and head to the coffee shop near the station. The workmen were still drilling outside.

  ‘You should know I’ve started talking to my family again.’

  ‘Oh, peh—! Savraj!’ Narinder embraced her. ‘I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.’

  ‘Calm down. Your turban’ll fall off. I guess I’d just got sick of her always pestering me for money, like I’m earning millions. Like everyone in England must be earning millions. But I think she understands now. I’ll only send what I can.’

  ‘Oh, that’s brilliant! It’s so good that you help. I knew you would.’

  ‘Did you? I don’t see what’s so good about helping others, though. If they only become reliant on you. Then you’re just part of the problem.’

  ‘But we have to help,’ Narinder insisted. ‘I couldn’t live with myself if I just walked away. I don’t know how people can do that.’

  Savraj laughed a little. ‘I’ve never met someone who talks like you.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with giving your life to His teachings. Our gurujis—’

  ‘Oh, shut up. I’ve met worse fundos than you. I don’t mean the things you say. I mean the way you say them. It’s like you actually believe in your words.’

  Narinder didn’t know what was wrong with the way she spoke her words. Did she sound too serious? Was that it? ‘I’m better when I’m singing.’

  ‘You sing? A singing preacher?’

  ‘It’s true,’ Narinder said, laughing. ‘Come and hear me. I’m singing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘To the gurdwara?’ Savraj clucked her tongue. ‘Not my scene. If a beardy’s going to touch me up, he can pay for the privilege.’

  ‘I’ll be with you.’ She reached out and placed her hand on Savraj’s arm. ‘You don’t have to do what they make you do. We’ll look after you. We look after each other.’

  Finger by finger, Savraj released her arm from Narinder’s hand. ‘What who make me do?’

  Narinder could tell from her voice, like a knife being unsheathed, that Savraj knew what she was driving at. Narinder said it anyway: ‘The men.’

  ‘Hmm. The men. What if I told you that some of those men are from the gurdwara?’ Savraj leaned in. ‘What if I told you that they don’t make me do it? That I enjoy doing it?’

  ‘Stop it. Please.’

  Savraj laughed, mirthlessly, and Narinder looked away.

  On the Tube she stood staring at her reflection in the knife-scratched windows. Two months now. For two whole months she’d tried to help this woman. Perhaps she wasn’t strong enough. Good enough. Why hadn’t she been made good enough? She exited at East Croydon and tunnelled through the press of humanity, surprising commuters with her turban, and walked home via the clock tower, whose advertised music library she thought she might one day visit. Outside her front door she straightened the chunni over her turban, and, stupidly, wiped a hand across her lips, as if she’d been the one wearing lipstick. She twisted the key and slipped inside, up the hallway, and was turning into their front room when a blow came crashing down on her face, sending her sprawling to the floor. She heaved, staggering up onto her hands, only for her brother to grip her at the neck and drag her across the carpet and into the centre of the room. She could hear her father rushing down the stairs, the thud-step thud-step of his cane.

  ‘Tejpal! How dare you strike your sister!’

  ‘If she’s going to hang around with whores then we’ll treat her like one.’

  ‘Enough!’ Baba Tarsem Singh said, struggling to kneel beside his daughter.

  ‘Let her do more, you said. Let her do her singing. All day in the house is not good for her. What has it got us? What will people think?
’

  ‘I’m helping!’ Narinder said. ‘You can’t stop me!’

  ‘Watch me.’

  ‘I’m not doing anything wrong!’ she shouted, and launched the CD remote by her hand at her brother’s face. It cracked against his forehead.

  ‘You nasty little . . .’

  But Baba Tarsem Singh banged his cane hard on the table. ‘I said, enough!’

  *

  On the night of Diwali, Narinder covered their dining table with a hundred and one tiny clay dia lamps. She did this every year and it was always a ravishing display. Liquid shadows slid across the ceiling, and the shapes thrown against the wall were a dark vibrating mass. It made her feel as if she was underwater, submerged deep within His love. She drew out a chair, closed her eyes, and, quietly, began to sing. She felt weightless, like she was gliding. The words seemed to generate inside her a different heartbeat, and behind her interlocked lashes, sunlight squandered itself across the world. Swallows swooped over copper fields. And in the penance of song she could hear His breathing. At the end of the shabad, she opened her eyes and saw Savraj outside the window, staring with her forbidding brown eyes.

  ‘I need money,’ she said.

  Narinder had shuffled her down the side of the house, away from Tejpal who was upstairs with his Khalistani friends. They huddled together for warmth, to whisper.

  ‘You haven’t come to see me in months,’ Savraj went on.

  ‘How’d you know where I live?’

  ‘I asked. At the gurdwara. I was sure you’d be there tonight. What happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Your baba?’

  Narinder was silent, then: ‘I’ve never been so angry. When they said what I was doing was wrong, I just wanted to scream. I wanted to shout. I’ve never been like that.’

  She looked across to Savraj, who seemed to be considering this, saying nothing.

  ‘Your chunni,’ Narinder said, and Savraj pulled her chunni – borrowed from the gurdwara, Narinder could tell – forward so it veiled her face completely, comically.

  ‘Happy? Now all I need is a husband who doesn’t mind me hiding my ugly face all day.’