She Will Build Him a City

by Raj Kamal Jha

  ~

  Kalyani tears a slip of paper from her notebook. Dr Chatterjee wants to tell her that it would be easier if she calls him from her phone and he can save her number but he decides against it because he wants to watch her write. She is unsure about holding a pen, he thinks, for all her fingers are pulled into a fist, clenching, straining hard, as if she’s bracing for a fight when she is writing, the pen her weapon. He looks at the way her hair falls over her face – neatly cut, as if by a professional, she must have saved money for this – he notices her lips move as she writes, maybe she is reading her number to herself, slowly, like a child.

  ‘Here’s my number,’ Kalyani says. ‘I am here each night Monday to Saturday but on Sundays when I am at home, I put the phone on silent by 9 p.m. because everyone sleeps early, we all have to wake up when it’s still dark. That’s the only time when there is no crowd at the community tap where we live, when we can bathe and fill our buckets before anyone comes.’

  ‘I won’t call you so late,’ he says.

  Dr Chatterjee hears Orphan cry, their talking must have woken him up.

  ‘See you,’ he says as he turns to leave. Kalyani doesn’t say anything in reply, her back turned to him as she stands next to Orphan’s cot, reaches down to lift him up, to tell him a story to lull him back to sleep, fragments of a dream which she has once seen.

  About The Mall in New City, across the street and the Metro tracks from her slum, about babies who walk through doors made of glass.

  MEANWHILE

  Babies Walk Through Doors Made of Glass

  Far, far away from Little House, in Apartment Complex in New City next to The Mall, the largest mall in the country, there are scores of apartments, minimum four-bedroom, hall, kitchen, where, unlike in Little House, there are no orphans, where babies live with their parents, each one safe and happy.

  ~

  Once upon a time, there is a power-cut in Apartment Complex right in the middle of the night.

  Fans drone to a stop, air conditioners click, go silent.

  There is full power back-up with a row of generators in the basement but something’s wrong, maybe diesel has run out, maybe the night-shift technician is drunk, he cannot be woken up.

  It is July.

  Very, very hot.

  ~

  In one apartment on the top floor, in a room where each wall is painted a different colour, the ceiling like the sky, Baby gets up, drenched with sweat.

  He climbs down from his bed, walks out of his bedroom.

  Baby is confident. The way he walks down the steps, one by one, you would not guess that he has just learned how to walk.

  Baby reaches the door.

  He drags a stool, gets up on it, stands on his toes, slides the bolt open.

  Through the open door, a light night wind enters the house, fans his face.

  Baby walks out.

  ~

  In the house, in the room upstairs next to Baby’s, his parents are fast asleep. So deeply that the power-cut and the heat do not wake them up.

  Baby’s father spends fourteen hours at work, in the office, the mother the same time at home.

  ~

  The lift’s working, it has emergency power.

  Baby calls the lift.

  Baby is now tall enough to reach 0 on the panel.

  He presses 0, Ground Floor.

  Down and down goes the lift.

  Ground Floor, lift doors open.

  Baby steps into the lobby.

  It’s dark.

  ~

  Baby walks out.

  Security Guard cannot see Baby because he is out in the garden, looking up, catching cool waterdrops from the long line of air conditioners along the wall.

  Into his mouth, into his dry lips. He is thirsty.

  Drip, drip, drip.

  ~

  Step by measured step, slipping into the shadows when he’s afraid he may be noticed, Baby walks out of his building, out of Apartment Complex – and is now on the street outside.

  Fifty steps later, Baby reaches The Mall.

  To his left, the first shop is Weekender for Kids.

  Baby sees clothes coloured red, green and white.

  Jeans, shirts, plastic pails, plastic spades. For the seashore that’s more than 1,300 kilometres away.

  Next shop: McDonald’s.

  On an iron bench, sits Ronald McDonald, his plastic lap a seat into which Baby crawls.

  ~

  Look, look, what can you see? On the street, more babies.

  Because when Baby woke up, let’s call him Baby One because he’s the first one to wake up, he is the one the story begins with, maybe he sends a thought-message to other babies. This message wakes them up, too, and all of them tiptoe out of their homes, their parents fast asleep.

  And they walk towards The Mall.

  Big babies, small babies, boy babies, girl babies, sleepy babies, wake-up babies.

  Babies like you, babies unlike you.

  They are all here.

  To lie down on the steps right at the entrance to The Mall.

  ~

  And, then, a strange thing happens.

  All the babies stand up. And, led by Baby One, they walk through the glass door of The Mall.

  Like light, like sound.

  Like the night breeze that blows the heat around.

  They are inside The Mall.

  All lights are out, all shops are closed but so powerful and so big are The Mall’s air conditioners that even after they have been switched off for more than six hours, the air inside is still cool.

  The babies feel it in their face, in their hair, and they smile.

  The babies are happy.

  ~

  ‘Hush,’ says Baby One. ‘Let’s get to sleep without making any noise, no talking, the security guards are asleep.’

  They lie down, one by one, on the cold, tiled floor.

  ‘I will stay up,’ says a baby who cannot sleep. ‘Because I slept in the afternoon.’

  ‘OK,’ says Baby One, ‘then you be our Alarm Clock Baby. When the power’s back, when you see the streetlights switch on, you wake us up.’

  ‘Sure, that sounds wonderful,’ says Baby Who Slept In The Afternoon who now has a new name, Alarm Clock Baby.

  ‘I will wake all of you up so that we can return to our homes before our parents wake up so that they do not need to worry,’ says Alarm Clock Baby.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ all babies sing in a chorus.

  ‘Hush,’ says Baby One.

  The babies sleep.

  The Mall sleeps.

  Alarm Clock Baby is the only one up.

  Goodnight, The Mall.

  Goodnight, babies.

  WOMAN

  Nobel Prize

  On the way here, you don’t say a word, your eyes are closed, you sit still, you only move with each shudder of the taxi van as its wheels spin, lurch over the broken road. Your head rests against the window pane smudged with dust, hot to the touch. Your arm is draped over your suitcase, pressing it hard as if you are trying to stop it from growing wings and flying away.

  What do you have in that suitcase? You can show me later.

  I sit next to the driver, I keep turning round to look for hints of the past, immediate and distant, in your face. In the way your hair falls over your forehead, straight, in the way only two of your nails are stained with half-moons of red polish, the faint smudge below your eyes marking, possibly, the line of your tears.

  The rest of you is a puzzle with a million pieces that I neither have the skill nor the time to put together.

  ~

  When you walk into the house, breakfast is ready.

  The cook, who comes in once a day, made egg curry, your favourite. I have told her what you like to eat. But the food remains untouched as you sleep right through whatever is left of the morning, the afternoon, evening, even a bit of the night.

  You are awake now, I think, because I hear you cry. Let me know if you need anyt
hing, an extra blanket or something.

  It’s so clear how helpless I am, how useless. All I can offer, after all these years, to you, my daughter, are the assurances of room and board. I am little more than a motel, old and run-down.

  ~

  A few days earlier, I get your call.

  ‘I need a place to stay for a while,’ is the first thing you say.

  A million questions tie my tongue.

  ‘Ma, are you there?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘I need to visit you, can I come over? Just for a few days, not more than a week.’

  ‘Of course,’ I say.

  I move the phone away, I am crying, I don’t want you to listen to the noises I make.

  ‘On one condition, Ma. Are you OK with that?’

  ‘What condition?’ I swallow my tears, I steady my voice.

  ‘You don’t ask me anything. No questions.’

  ‘Where are you calling from?’ I ask.

  ‘I am calling from New City.’

  ‘What kind of a name is that, where is this place?’

  ‘I told you, Ma, no questions.’

  ‘OK, fine.’

  Of course, it’s not OK, it’s not fine, but what else can I say?

  ‘Can I, at least, ask when you are coming? I need to put some things in order, prepare the house for you.’

  ‘Ma, is there a room for me?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A room, where no one will disturb me?’

  ‘Of course there is, no one will disturb you.’

  ‘I need to rest. Is it quiet?’

  ‘From your room, all you see is an empty field, barren at this time of year. There is the highway but the windows keep out the sound of traffic.’

  ‘You have someone to help you?’

  ‘You don’t worry, you don’t have to do a thing. I told you there’s this woman who cooks and cleans. Her son is Neel, a bright boy, he wants to be a doctor. He helps me with errands, you will like them.’

  ‘Ma, are you still teaching at the school?’

  ‘No, I left the school, I retired, I am very old, you know.’

  ‘You stay at home the entire day?’

  ‘Yes, but I won’t get in your way.’

  ‘Are you sure? Or are you just saying that?’

  ‘You don’t worry about me, my students gave me a beautiful farewell gift, a set of three books. They told me, ma’am, you don’t know how to use the Internet so we have ordered them for you. Three books written by Nobel Laureates, each for a very important year in my life. The first one is by Henri Bergson, Nobel, 1927, the year your father was born. I was born in 1945, the year it went to Gabriela Mistral, so the second book is a book of poems by her. You were born in 1973, that’s the year for Patrick White, the third book is a novel by him. You should read them too.’

  ‘Ma, I am not interested in the books you have, I have no wish to read. You read, I am not coming there to read a book.’

  ‘I was just telling you…’

  ‘Bye, Ma,’ you say. ‘See you at the station.’

  You are rude but, no, this isn’t the time to tell you that.

  Indeed, this isn’t a time to ask you any of the questions I want to ask:

  Why haven’t you called me all these years?

  What have you been up to?

  Why does a smart young woman want to return home?

  Are you hurt? Are you ill?

  Is there something, someone you are running away from?

  No, I don’t ask any of these questions.

  ‘Have a good trip,’ is all I say instead. ‘I will see you soon. I will get a taxi van if you have luggage.’

  I speak to the dial tone.

  ~

  So let it be your way.

  I will ask no questions.

  We are two people in 1 billion plus if you take this country, 7 billion if you take the world, and, of course, whatever happened to you, my child, whatever happened to me, your mother, whatever happens to us from now on doesn’t matter to anyone except us. Because look around, near and far, everywhere else, outside this house, beyond its darkness and its tears, its walls, its floors, and you will see the healthy, the happy, the young, the old, the quiet and the noisy live on, unaware that we even exist. You will see traffic move down streets, the sun rise up in the sky. Trace your finger on a globe, close your eyes and stop – if it’s land you can be sure that if someone is crying there, someone is laughing as well.

  That’s why, my child, the only thing that matters is my love for you even if I have made such a mess of it, even if I don’t know who you are now or what secrets you have dragged here with you.

  With this as comfort, I will try to drift away to sleep, to the sound of tears, yours and mine, to the rustle of strange creatures that wake up some nights in this house.

  If we are lucky, you may see some of them.

  Funny little dogs with flesh-coloured wings pinned to their backs.

  Rainbirds that fly through thick sheets of falling water, the rest of the time they sit on branches, their wings closed and dripping.

  Fireflies that enter your head, through your eyes. To light up the darkest of your dreams.

  MAN

  Google Maps

  His three friends are lucky.

  Sukrit Sharma is in Singapore (Orchard Road), Aatish Patil is in New York (Park Slope), Arsh Pervez is in Paris (rue du Bac). He explores their neighbourhoods on Google Street View, cursor-walks up and down their cross-streets, right and left. Zooms in to examine a store, patch of pavement. Each one’s neighbourhood is far far superior to his, there’s absolutely no comparison.

  He doesn’t have a florist as in Park Slope, its rows of peonies, lilies, dahlias, red, white and purple, under the azure Brooklyn sky, waterdrops like pearls sitting on petals; golden-skinned women pushing strollers, pregnant; hearts, newly formed, beating under blue dresses.

  There’s no river beside his street, as in Paris, no beautiful Algerian woman wrapping oven-fresh croissants in butter paper, no tiny cars scurrying around like bugs in picturebooks, no evening light dappling the tall glass windows.

  There’s no manicured rainforest as in Singapore, leaves draped over flyovers like thick green curtains. Spotless quadrangles on Orchard Road, odour-free toilets in Sentosa, a little corner to wash the sand off your feet. Women, slender, in beige and black, their skin smooth and white as steamed fish, the scales removed.

  What’s here, instead, outside Apartment Complex, in New City?

  Garbage the size of a hill.

  Six giant sewer pipes, waiting for almost a year to be installed Godknowswhere. These serve as homes for mothers and babies who sleep after their day’s work at a nearby construction site.

  There are six security guards huddled at the gate, forced to wear long-sleeved shirts and ties in this heat. Two are from Bihar, the other four from Uttar Pradesh, all leaving behind fathers with cancer, mothers with TB, wives with uterine cysts, children who have dropped out of school, all waiting for Rs 4,000 to come every month.

  They carry disease and death, grief and rage.

  Yes, there is a florist, right next to The Mall, but the shop is wet, you walk through mud to reach flowers that wilt. The man who prepares the bouquet sprays his hollow cough on the plastic wrap.

  No florist, no river, no rainforest.

  But his is the biggest house of them all.

  ~

  Six rooms (6,275 square feet carpet area, Rs 5 crore cost price, market value Rs 12 crore, $2 million). Great community, peer comfort, barely a mile from The Leela, the seven-star hotel (rack rate for Single Deluxe Suite: Rs 32,540 per night, drop-off and pick-up from Indira Gandhi International Airport in a BMW 6i), half a mile from The Mall (4.3 million square feet of retail space). The apartment is his, he owes nothing to no one. He spent Rs 1.5 crore on its interiors, double-glazed Fenestra windows imported from Bangkok, false ceiling for air-conditioned vents, rafters for special energy-saving fluoresce
nt lights the contractor said he got from Belgium. He spent so much because they pay him so much. Why, he doesn’t know. He has stopped asking this question. What does he do to get paid so much? He once knew but now isn’t sure. What he knows, for sure, is that he is going to kill – and get away.

  ~

  Because quite a few get caught these days. Even the rich ones because you can no longer buy your way out of everything. Because there’s no stopping the lynch mob, hungry and thirsty, fed and watered by TV. He has seen their victims, checked towels covering the face, herded into Tis Hazari Court by dirty cops in dirty uniform. Chased by reporters. There’s one reporter he loves to look at. Every time she comes on, he spreads her legs inside his head, he pushes the microphone deep inside her, switches off all the lights, lies down on the sofa to listen to her spasm magnified through his home theatre. He saw her first when she was reporting on the Rahul Malhotra case: Malhotra, the grandson of a former chief of the Air Force, visiting home from Stanford, driving a Ferrari on his way home after a party, ran over six people sleeping on the street, got away because the witnesses turned hostile, one by one. One said it was a truck that ran them over, not a car; another said the car had wings and flew away.

  Malhotra was convicted, let off on good conduct.

  He isn’t Rahul Malhotra, he can’t pull strings, he knows no one powerful.

  His father is a simple man.

  Like the man in that Gieve Patel painting, the old man wearing old glasses, in the rain with bread and bananas.

  ~

  Race Course gone.

  Next station Jor Bagh.

  Next station INA.

  Only two other passengers in his coach now.

  An elderly man with a woman, much younger, both with their eyes closed as if in invitation, to let him look at them. Perhaps, a father and daughter, he thinks, but the way her head rests on his shoulder, their fingers lock, they may be man and wife. For a moment, he’s tempted to sit next to her, smell the heat from her hair, but, no, he won’t because he likes standing, the train rocking him, the knowledge that he, and steel and glass, and these two lovers on board, old and young, are all hurtling, together, through the blackness beneath the city.

  ~

  Next station is AIIMS. Doors will open to the left.