They seized screwdrivers, cooking spoons, a twelve-inch steel rod, knives, a roll of copper wire, tongs, and a comb of bone with teeth deemed too large and sharp. A guard gave Om’s plastic comb the bending test. It broke in two. He was allowed to keep the pieces. “We’re not supposed to be here, my uncle and I,” he said.
The guard pushed him back in line. “Talk to the foreman if you have a complaint.”
The extremely ragged were issued half-pants and vests, or petticoats and blouses. The beggar on castors got only a vest, there being nothing suitable to fit his cloth-swaddled amputated lower half. Ishvar and Om did not get new clothes, nor did the ragpicker and the metal-collector. The latter, whose many sharp-edged items had been confiscated, was chagrined, considering it most unfair. But the tailors felt the new clothes were poorly stitched, and preferred what they were wearing.
The group was shown to a row of tin huts, to be occupied twelve to a hut. Everyone rushed in a frenzy to the nearest of the identical shelters and fought to get inside. The guard drove them back, allocating places at random. A stack of rolled-up straw mats stood within each hut. Some people spread them out and lay down, but had to get up again. They were told to store their belongings and reassemble for the foreman.
The foreman was a harried-looking individual, sweating profusely, who welcomed them to their new houses. He took a few minutes to describe the generous scheme the government had introduced for the uplift of the poor and homeless. “So we hope you will take advantage of this plan. Now there are still two hours of working-time left, but you can rest today. Tomorrow morning you will start your new jobs.”
Someone asked how much the salary was, and if it would be paid daily or weekly.
The foreman wiped the sweat from his face, sighed, and tried again. “You didn’t understand what I said? You will get food, shelter, and clothing. That is your salary.”
The tailors edged forward, anxious to explain their accidental presence in the irrigation project. But two officials got to the foreman first and led him away for a meeting. Ishvar decided against running after him. “Better to wait till morning,” he whispered to Om. “He’s very busy now, it might make him angry. But it’s clear that the police made a mistake with us. This place is for unemployed people. They will let us go once they know we have tailoring jobs.”
Some people ventured to lie down inside the huts. Others chose to spread their mats outside. Blazing under the daylong sun, the tin walls enclosed a savage heat. The shade cast by the corrugated metal was cooler.
A whistle blew at dusk and workers returned from their tasks. After thirty minutes it blew again, and they made their way to the camp’s eating area. The newcomers were told to go with them. They lined up outside the kitchen to receive their dinner: dal and chapati, with a green chilli on the side.
“The dal is almost water,” said Om.
The server overheard him and took it personally. “What do you think this is, your father’s palace?”
“Don’t take my father’s name,” said Om.
“Come on, let’s go,” said Ishvar, pulling him away. “Tomorrow we’ll tell the top man about the policeman’s mistake.”
They finished eating in silence, concentrating like everyone else on the food’s hidden perils. The chapatis were made from gritty flour. The meal was punctuated by the diners spitting out small pebbles and other foreign bodies. Tinier fragments which could not be caught in time were triturated with the food.
“They should have been here more than an hour ago,” Dina said to Maneck when breakfast was done.
She’s after the poor chaps again, he thought, gathering the books he needed for the day’s classes. “Does it matter that much, if it’s piecework?”
“What do you know about running a business? Your mummy and daddy pay your fees and send you pocket money. Wait till you start earning your living.”
When he returned in the afternoon, she was pacing by the door. The instant his slightly bent key rattled in the keyhole, she turned the knob. “No sign of them all day,” she complained to him. “I wonder what excuse they’ll have this time. Another meeting with the Prime Minister?”
As the afternoon meandered towards evening, her sarcastic tone was elbowed aside by anxiety. “The electricity bill is due, and the water bill. Rations to be bought. And Ibrahim will arrive next week to collect the rent. You’ve no idea how harassing he can be.”
Her worries continued to bubble like indigestion after dinner. What would happen if the tailors did not come tomorrow even? How could she get two new ones quickly enough? And it wasn’t just a question of these dresses being late – a second delay would seriously displease the high and mighty empress of Au Revoir Exports. This time the manager would place the black mark of “unreliable” next to her name. Dina felt that perhaps she should go to the Venus Beauty Salon, talk to Zenobia, request her to again use her influence with Mrs. Gupta.
“Ishvar and Om wouldn’t stay absent just like that,” said Maneck. “Something urgent must have come up.”
“Rubbish. What could be so urgent that they cannot take a few minutes to stop by?”
“Maybe they went to see a room for rent or something. Don’t worry, Aunty, they’ll probably be here tomorrow.”
“Probably? Probably is not good enough. I cannot probably deliver the dresses and probably pay the rent. You, without any responsibilities, probably don’t understand that.”
He thought the outburst was unfair. “If they don’t come tomorrow, I’ll go and ask what’s wrong.”
“Yes,” she brightened. “It’s a good thing you know where they live.” Her anxiety seemed to diminish. Then she said, “Let’s visit them right now. Why spend the whole night worrying?”
“But you always say you don’t want them thinking you are desperate. If you run there at night, they’ll see you are helpless without them.”
“I am not helpless,” she said emphatically. “Just one more difficulty in life, that’s all it is.” But she decided to wait till morning, agreeing that he should check on them before going to college. She was too distracted to continue working on the quilt; the squares and scraps sat in a pile on the sofa, hiding their designs.
Maneck ran back from the chemist’s shop, frantic. Near the Vishram Vegetarian Hotel he slowed down for a quick look inside, hoping that Ishvar and Om might be sipping their morning tea. Empty. He reached the flat, panting, and repeated the nightwatchman’s account for Dina.
“It’s terrible! He thinks they were mistaken for beggars – dragged into the police truck – and God knows where they are now!”
“Hmm, I see,” she said, weighing the story for truth and substance. “And how long is their jail sentence? One week, two weeks?” If those rascals were trying a new job somewhere, playing for time, this would be the way to do it.
“I don’t know.” Distraught, he did not detect her question’s cynicism. “It’s not just them – everyone from the street, all the beggars and pavement-dwellers were taken away by the police.”
“Don’t make me laugh, there’s no law for doing that.”
“It’s a new policy – city beautification plan or something, under the Emergency.”
“What Emergency? I am sick and tired of that stupid word.” Still sceptical, she took a deep breath and decided to be direct. “Maneck, look at me. Straight in my eyes.” She brought her face closer to his. “Maneck, you would not be lying to me, would you? Because Ishvar and Om are your friends, and they asked you to?”
“I swear on my parents’ name, Aunty!” He drew away from her, shocked. Then the accusation made him angry. “You don’t have to believe me, think what you like. Next time don’t ask me to do your work.” He left the room.
She followed him. “Maneck.” He ignored her. “Maneck, I’m sorry. You know how worried I am about the sewing – I said it without thinking.”
A moment’s silence was all he could maintain before forgiving her. “It’s all right.”
Such a swee
t boy, she thought, he just cannot stay upset. “How long have they been sleeping outside the – what is it, chemist’s shop?”
“Since the day their home was destroyed. Don’t you remember, Aunty? When you wouldn’t let them sleep on your verandah?”
She bristled at the tone. “You know very well why I had to refuse. But if you were aware of it, why didn’t you tell me? Before something like this happened?”
“Suppose I had. What difference? Would you have let them stay here?”
She avoided the question. “I still find it hard to believe this story. Maybe that watchman is lying – covering up for them. And in the meantime I will have to go begging to my brother for the rent.”
Maneck could sense the things she was trying to juggle, conceal, keep in proportion: concern, guilt, fear. “We could check with the police,” he suggested.
“And what good will that do? Even if they have the tailors, you think they will unlock the jail on my say-so?”
“At least we’d know where they are.”
“Right now I’m more worried about these dresses.”
“I knew it! You’re so selfish, you don’t think about anyone but yourself! You just don’t –”
“How dare you! How dare you talk to me like that!”
“They could be dead, for all you care!” He went to his room and slammed the door.
“If you damage my door, I’ll write to your parents! For compensation, remember!”
He kicked off his shoes and fell in bed with a thump. It was half past nine, he was late for college. To hell with it – to hell with her. Enough of trying to be nice. He jumped off the bed and exchanged his shirt for an old wear-at-home one from the cupboard. The door clattered off the lower hinge. He jiggled it into the bracket and banged it shut.
He flopped on the mattress once more, his finger angrily tracing the floral design carved in the teak headboard. The bed was the identical twin of the one in the sewing room. Dina Aunty’s and her husband’s – they must have slept side by side on them. A long time ago. When her life was filled with happiness, and the flat with the sounds of love and laughter. Before it went silent and dingy.
He could hear her pacing in the next room, could sense her distress in the footsteps. And barely a week ago the work had been going so well, after she gave the Amrutanjan Balm to Om. Massaging his arm had put her in a good mood, she had started reminiscing about her husband’s back, about their lives.
All the things she told Maneck came back now to crowd his room: those enchanted evenings of music recitals, and emerging with Rustom from the concert hall into the fragrant night when the streets were quiet – yes, she said, in those days the city was still beautiful, the footpaths were clean, not yet taken over by pavement-dwellers, and yes, the stars were visible in the sky in those days, when Rustom and she walked along the sea, listening to the endless exchange of the waves, or in the Hanging Gardens, among the whispering trees, planning their wedding and their lives, planning and plotting in full ignorance of destiny’s plans for them.
How much Dina Aunty relished her memories. Mummy and Daddy were the same, talking about their yesterdays and smiling in that sad-happy way while selecting each picture, each frame from the past, examining it lovingly before it vanished again in the mist. But nobody ever forgot anything, not really, though sometimes they pretended, when it suited them. Memories were permanent. Sorrowful ones remained sad even with the passing of time, yet happy ones could never be recreated – not with the same joy. Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.
So what was the point of possessing memory? It didn’t help anything. In the end it was all hopeless. Look at Mummy and Daddy, and the General Store; or Dina Aunty’s life; or the hostel and Avinash; and now poor Ishvar and Om. No amount of remembering happy days, no amount of yearning or nostalgia could change a thing about the misery and suffering – love and concern and caring and sharing come to nothing, nothing.
Maneck began to weep, his chest heaving as he laboured to keep silent. Everything ended badly. And memory only made it worse, tormenting and taunting. Unless. Unless you lost your mind. Or committed suicide. The slate wiped clean. No more remembering, no more suffering.
Poor Dina Aunty, how much of the past she was still carrying around with her, although she deceived herself that these were happy memories she was dwelling upon. And now the problems with the sewing, the rent, the rations…
He felt ashamed of his earlier tantrum. He got out of bed, tucked in his shirt, dried his eyes, and went to the back room where she was pacing the prison of her incomplete dresses.
“When do you have to deliver them?” he asked gruffly.
“Oh, you’re back? Day after tomorrow. By twelve o’clock.” She smiled to herself, having expected him to sulk for an hour; he had emerged in thirty minutes. “Your eyes look watery. Have you got a cold?”
He shook his head. “Just tired. Day after tomorrow – that’s two whole days. Lots of time.”
“For two expert tailors, yes. Not for me alone.”
“I’ll help you.”
“Don’t make me laugh. You, sewing? And me with my eyes. I can’t see to put my finger through a wedding ring, let alone thread the eye of a needle.”
“I’m serious, Aunty.”
“But there are sixty dresses, six-zero. Only the hems and buttons are left, true, but it’s still a lot of work.” She picked one up. “See the waist, all puckered? That’s called ‘gather.’ Now it measures” – she stretched the tape – “just twenty-six inches. But because of the gather, the hemline of the skirt is, let’s see, sixty-five inches, to be done by hand. That takes a lot of –”
“How will they know if you do it by machine?”
“The difference is like night and day. And then eight buttons on each dress. Six in the front, one on each sleeve. An hour’s work per dress for someone like me. Sixty hours altogether.”
“We have forty-eight till delivery time.”
“If we don’t eat or sleep or go to the bathroom, yes.”
“We can at least try. You can deliver what we finish, and make an excuse that the tailors fell sick or something.”
“If you’re really willing to help …”
I am.
She started to get things ready. “You’re a good boy, you know? Your parents are very fortunate to have a son like you.” Then she turned abruptly. “Wait a minute – what about college?”
“No lectures today.”
“Hmm,” she said dubiously, selecting the thread. They took the dresses into the front room where the light was better. “I’ll teach you buttons. Easier than hems.”
“Anything. I learn quickly.”
“Yes, we’ll see. First you measure and mark the places with chalk, in a straight line. It’s the most important step, or the front will look crooked. Thank goodness these are plain poplin dresses, not slippery chiffon like last month.” She took him through the paces, emphasizing that the stitches in the four-holed button should be parallel and not crisscross.
He tried the next one. “Oh, to have young eyes again,” she sighed, as he moistened the thread between his lips and passed it through the needle. Finding the holes in the button from the blind side took a bit of poking around with the needle. But he managed to finish in fair time, and snipped the threads, triumphant.
Two hours later, between them they had finished sixteen buttons and three hemlines. “See how long it takes?” she said. “And now I must stop to make lunch.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Not hungry today, no lectures today. Very strange.”
“But it’s true, Aunty. Forget lunch, I’m really not hungry.”
“And what about me? Worrying all yesterday, I didn’t eat a single bite. Today at least may I have the pleasure?”
“Work before pleasure,” he smiled down at the button, looking up from the corner of his eye.
??
?Planning to be my boss, are you?” she said with mock sternness. “If I don’t eat, there will be no work and no pleasure. Only me fainting over needle and thread.”
“Okay, I’ll take care of lunch. You keep on hemming.”
“Proper housewife you are becoming. What will it be? Bread and butter? Tea and toast?”
“A surprise. I’ll be back soon.”
Before leaving the flat he readied six needles with thread, to spare her pitting her eyes in contest with the little silvery ones.
“Wasting money like that,” scolded Dina. “Your parents already pay me for your food.”
Maneck emptied the alayti-palayti from A-l Restaurant into a bowl and brought it to the table. “It’s out of my pocket money. I can spend it any way I like.”
Chunks of chicken liver and gizzard floated tantalizingly in the thick, spicy sauce. Bending over the bowl, she sniffed. “Mmm, the same wonderful fragrance that made it a favourite of Rustom’s. Only A-1 makes it in rich gravy – other places cook it too dry.” She dipped a spoon, raised it to her lips, and nodded. “Delicious. We could easily add a little water without harming the taste. Then it will be enough for lunch and dinner.”
“Okay. And this is specially for you,” he handed her a bag.
She felt inside and withdrew a bunch of carrots. “You want me to cook these for us?
“Not for us, Aunty – for you, to eat raw. Good for your eyes. Especially since they’ll be very busy now.”
“Thank you, but I prefer not to.”
“No alayti-palayti without carrot. You must have at least one with your lunch.”
“You’re crazy if you think I will eat raw carrots. Even my mother could not make me.” While she got the table ready, he scraped a medium-sized specimen, lopped off the ends, and placed it next to her plate.
“I hope that’s yours,” she said.
“No carrot, no alayti-palayti.” He refused to pass her the bowl. “I make the rules. For your own good.”
She laughed but her mouth started to water while he ate. She picked up the vegetable by the thin end as though to hit him over the head with it, and bit into it with a vengeance. Grinning, he passed her the bowl. “My father says his one eye is equal to most people’s two because he eats carrots regularly. A carrot a day keeps blindness away, he claims.”