But he wasn’t looking at me. He was busy with the cell phone and its buttons.
Punch, punch, punch.
To have a madman with thoughts of blood and theft in his head, sitting just ten inches in front of you, and not to know it. Not to have a hint, even. What blindness you people are capable of. Here you are, sitting in glass buildings and talking on the phone night after night to Americans who are thousands of miles away, but you don’t have the faintest idea what’s happening to the man who’s driving your car!
What is it, Balram?
Just this, sir—that I want to smash your skull open!
He leaned forward—he brought his lips right to my ear—I was ready to melt.
“I understand, Balram.”
I closed my eyes. I could barely speak.
“You do, sir?”
“You want to get married.”
“…”
“Balram. You’ll need some money, won’t you?”
“Sir, no. There’s no need of that.”
“Wait, Balram. Let me take out my wallet. You’re a good member of the family. You never ask for more money—I know that other drivers are constantly asking for overtime and insurance: but you never say a word. You’re old-fashioned. I like that. We’ll take care of all the wedding expenses, Balram. Here, Balram—here’s…here’s…”
I saw him take out a thousand-rupee note, put it back, then take out a five-hundred, then put it back, and take out a hundred.
Which he handed to me.
“I assume you’ll be going to Laxmangarh for the wedding, Balram?”
“…”
“Maybe I’ll come along,” he said. “I really like that place. I want to go up to that fort this time. How long ago was it that we were there, Balram? Six months ago?”
“Longer than that, sir.” I counted the months off on my fingers. “Eight months ago.”
He counted the months too. “Why, you’re right.”
I folded the hundred-rupee note and put it in my chest pocket.
“Thank you for this, sir,” I said, and turned the ignition key.
Early next morning I walked out of Buckingham B onto the main road. Though it was a brand-new building, there was already a leak in the drainage pipe, and a large patch of sewage darkened the earth outside the compound wall; three stray dogs were sleeping on the wet patch. A good way to cool off—summer had started, and even the nights were unpleasant now.
The three mutts seemed so comfortable. I got down on my haunches and watched them.
I put my finger on the dark sewage puddle. So cool, so tempting.
One of the stray dogs woke up; it yawned and showed me all its canines. It sprang to its feet. The other mutts got up too. A growling began, and a scratching of the wet mud, and a showing of teeth—they wanted me off their kingdom.
I surrendered the sewage to the dogs and headed for the malls. None of them had opened yet. I sat down on the pavement.
No idea where to go next.
That’s when I saw the small dark marks in the pavement.
Paw prints.
An animal had walked on the concrete before it had set.
I got up and walked after the animal. The space between the prints grew wider—the animal had begun to sprint.
I walked faster.
The paw prints of the accelerating animal went all the way around the malls, and then behind the malls, and at last, where the pavement ended and raw earth began, they vanished.
Here I had to stop, because five feet ahead of me a row of men squatted on the ground in a nearly perfect straight line. They were defecating.
I was at the slum.
Vitiligo-Lips had told me about this place—all these construction workers who were building the malls and giant apartment buildings lived here. They were from a village in the Darkness; they did not like outsiders coming in, except for those who had business after dark. The men were defecating in the open like a defensive wall in front of the slum: making a line that no respectable human should cross. The wind wafted the stench of fresh shit toward me.
I found a gap in the line of the defecators. They squatted there like stone statues.
These people were building homes for the rich, but they lived in tents covered with blue tarpaulin sheets, and partitioned into lanes by lines of sewage. It was even worse than Laxmangarh. I picked my way around the broken glass, wire, and shattered tube lights. The stench of feces was replaced by the stronger stench of industrial sewage. The slum ended in an open sewer—a small river of black water went sluggishly past me, bubbles sparkling in it and little circles spreading on its surface. Two children were splashing about in the black water.
A hundred-rupee note came flying down into the river. The children watched with open mouths, and then ran to catch the note before it floated away. One child caught it, and then the other began hitting him, and they began to tumble about in the black water as they fought.
I went back to the line of crappers. One of them had finished up and left, but his position had been filled.
I squatted down with them and grinned.
A few immediately turned their eyes away: they were still human beings. Some stared at me blankly as if shame no longer mattered to them. And then I saw one fellow, a thin black fellow, was grinning back at me, as if he were proud of what he was doing.
Still crouching, I moved myself over to where he was squatting and faced him. I smiled as wide as I could. So did he.
He began to laugh—and I began to laugh—and then all the crappers laughed together.
“We’ll take care of your wedding expenses,” I shouted.
“We’ll take care of your wedding expenses!” he shouted back.
“We’ll even fuck your wife for you, Balram!”
“We’ll even fuck your wife for you, Balram!”
He began laughing—laughing so violently that he fell down face-first into the ground, still laughing, exposing his stained arse to the stained sky of Delhi.
As I walked back, the malls had begun to open. I washed my face in the common toilet and wiped my hands clean of the slum. I walked into the parking lot, found an iron wrench, aimed a couple of practice blows, and then took it to my room.
A boy was waiting for me near my bed, holding a letter between his teeth as he adjusted the buttons on his pants. He turned around when he heard me; the letter flew out of his mouth and to the ground. The wrench fell out of my hand at the same time.
“They sent me here. I took the bus and train and asked people and came here.” He blinked. “They said you have to take care of me and make me a driver too.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Dharam,” he said. “I’m Luttu Auntie’s fourth son. You saw me when you came to Laxmangarh last time. I was wearing a red shirt. You kissed me here.” He pointed to the top of his head.
Picking up the letter, he held it out to me.
Dear grandson,
It has been a long time since you came to visit us—and an even longer time, a total of eleven months and two days, since you last sent us any money. The city has corrupted your soul and made you selfish, vainglorious, and evil. I knew from the start that this would happen, because you were a spiteful, insolent boy. Every chance you got you just stared at yourself in a mirror with open lips, and I had to wring your ears to make you do any work. You are just like your mother. It is her nature and not your father’s sweet nature that you have. So far we have borne our sufferings patiently, but we will not do so. You must send us money again. If you don’t, we’ll tell your master. Also we have decided to arrange for your wedding on our own, and if you do not come here, we will send the girl to you by bus. I say these things not to threaten you but out of love. After all, am I not your own grandmother? And how I used to stuff your mouth with sweets! Also, it is your duty to look after Dharam, and take care of him as if he were your own son. Now take care of your health, and remember that I am preparing lovely chicken dishes for you, which I will s
end to you by mail—along with the letter that I will write to your master.
Your loving Granny,
Kusum
I folded the letter, put it in my pocket, and then slapped the boy so hard that he staggered back, hit the side of the bed, and fell into it, pulling down the mosquito net as he fell.
“Get up,” I said. “I’m going to hit you again.”
I picked up the wrench and held it over him—then threw it to the floor.
The boy’s face had turned blue, and his lip was split and bleeding, and he still hadn’t said a word.
I sat in the mosquito net, sipping from a half bottle of whiskey. I watched the boy.
I had come to the edge of the precipice. I had been ready to slay my master—this boy’s arrival had saved me from murder (and a lifetime in prison).
That evening, I told Mr. Ashok that my family had sent me a helper, someone to keep the car tidy, and instead of getting angry that he would now have to feed another mouth—which is what most of the masters would have done—he said, “He’s a cute boy. He looks like you. What happened to his face?”
I turned to Dharam. “Tell him.”
He blinked a couple of times. He was thinking it over.
“I fell off the bus.”
Smart boy.
“Take care in the future,” Mr. Ashok said. “This is great, Balram—you’ll have company from now on.”
Dharam was a quiet little fellow. He didn’t ask for anything from me, he slept on the floor where I told him to, he minded his own business. Feeling guilty for what I’d done, I took him to the tea shop.
“Who teaches at the school these days, Dharam? Is it still Mr. Krishna?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Is he still stealing the money for the uniforms and the food?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Good man.”
“I went for five years and then Kusum Granny said that was enough.”
“Let’s see what you learned in five years. Do you know the eight-times table?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Eight ones are eight.”
“That’s easy—what’s next?”
“Eight twos are sixteen.”
“Wait.” I counted out on my fingers to make sure he had got it right. “All right. Go on.”
“Order me a tea too, won’t you?” Vitiligo-Lips sat down next to me. He smiled at Dharam.
“Order it yourself,” I said.
He pouted. “Is that any way for you to be talking to me, working-class hero?”
Dharam was watching us keenly, so I said, “This boy is from my village. From my family. I’m talking to him now.”
“Eight threes are twenty-four.”
“I don’t care who he is,” Vitiligo-Lips said. “Order me a tea, working-class hero.”
He flexed his palm near my face—five fingers. That meant, I want five hundred rupees.
“I’ve got nothing.”
“Eight fours are thirty-two.”
He drew a line across his neck and smiled. Your master will know everything.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Dharam.”
“What a nice name. Do you know what it means?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Does your uncle know what it means?”
“Shut up,” I said.
It was the time of the day when the tea shop got cleaned. One of the human spiders dropped a wet rag on the floor and started to crawl with it, pushing a growing wavelet of stinking ink-black water ahead of him. Even the mice scampered out of the shop. The customers sitting at the tables were not spared—the black puddle splashed them as it passed. Bits of beedis, shiny plastic wrappers, punched bus tickets, snippets of onion, sprigs of fresh coriander floated on the black water; the reflection of a naked electric bulb shone out of the scum like a yellow gemstone.
As the black water went past, a voice inside me said, “But your heart has become even blacker than that, Munna.”
That night Dharam woke up when he heard the shrieking. He came to the mosquito net.
“Uncle, what’s going on?”
“Turn on the light, you fool! Turn on the light!”
He did so, and saw me paralyzed inside the net: I could not even point at the thing. A thick-bodied gray gecko had come down from the wall and was on my bed.
Dharam began to grin.
“I’m not joking, you moron—get it out of my bed!”
He stuck his hand into the net, grabbed the lizard, and smashed it under his foot.
“Throw it somewhere far, far away—outside the room, outside the apartment building.”
I saw the bewildered look in his eyes: Afraid of a lizard—a grown man like my uncle!
Good, I thought, just as he was turning off the lights. He’ll never suspect that I’m planning anything.
An instant later, my grin faded.
What was I planning?
I began to sweat. I stared at the anonymous palm prints that had been pressed into the white plaster of the wall.
A cane began tapping on concrete—the night watchman of Buckingham B was doing his rounds with his long cane. When the tapping of the cane died out there was no noise inside the room, except for the buzzing of the roaches as they chewed on the walls or flew about. It was another hot, humid night. Even the roaches must have been sweating—I could barely breathe.
Just when I thought I’d never go to sleep, I began reciting a couplet, over and over again.
I was looking for the key for years
But the door was always open.
And then I was asleep.
I should have noticed the stenciled signs on the walls in which a pair of hands smashed through shackles—I should have stopped and listened to the young men in red headbands shouting from the trucks—but I had been so wrapped up in my own troubles that I had paid no attention at all to something very important that was happening to my country.
Two days later, I was taking Mr. Ashok down to Lodi Gardens along with Ms. Uma; he was spending more and more time with her these days. The romance was blossoming. My nose was getting used to her perfume—I no longer sneezed when she moved.
“So you still haven’t done it, Ashok? Is it going to be like last time all over again?”
“It’s not so simple, Uma. Mukesh and I have had a fight over you already. I will put my foot down. But give me some time, I need to get over the divorce—Balram, why have you turned the music up so loud?”
“I like it loud. It’s romantic. Maybe he’s done it deliberately.”
“Look, it’ll happen. Trust me. It’s just…Balram, why the hell haven’t you turned the music down? Sometimes these people from the Darkness are so stupid.”
“I told you that already, Ashok.”
Her voice dropped.
I caught the words “replacement,” “driver,” and “local” in English.
Have you thought about getting a replacement driver—a local driver?
He mumbled his reply.
I could not hear a word. But I did not have to.
I looked at the rearview mirror: I wanted to confront him, eye to eye, man to man. But he wouldn’t look at me in the mirror. Didn’t dare face me.
I tell you, you could have heard the grinding of my teeth just then. I thought I was making plans for him? He’d been making plans for me! The rich are always one step ahead of us—aren’t they?
Well, not this time. For every step he’d take, I’d take two.
Outside on the road, a streetside vendor was sitting next to a pyramid of motorbike helmets that were wrapped in plastic and looked like a pile of severed heads.
Just when we were about to reach the gardens, we saw that the road was blocked on all sides: a line of trucks had gathered in front of us, full of men who were shouting:
“Hail the Great Socialist! Hail the voice of the poor of India!”
“What the hell is going on?”
&nbs
p; “Haven’t you seen the news today, Ashok? They are announcing the results.”
“Fuck,” he said. “Balram, turn Enya off, and turn on the radio.”
The voice of the Great Socialist came on. He was being interviewed by a radio reporter.
“The election shows that the poor will not be ignored. The Darkness will not be silent. There is no water in our taps, and what do you people in Delhi give us? You give us cell phones. Can a man drink a phone when he is thirsty? Women walk for miles every morning to find a bucket of clean—”
“Do you want to become prime minister of India?”
“Don’t ask me such questions. I have no ambitions for myself. I am simply the voice of the poor and the disenfranchised.”
“But surely, sir—”
“Let me say one last word, if I may. All I have ever wanted was an India where any boy in any village could dream of becoming the prime minister. Now, as I was saying, women walk for…”
According to the radio, the ruling party had been hammered at the polls. A new set of parties had come to power. The Great Socialist’s party was one of them. He had taken the votes of a big part of the Darkness. As we drove back to Gurgaon, we saw hordes of his supporters pouring in from the Darkness. They drove where they wanted, did what they wanted, whistled at any woman they felt like whistling at. Delhi had been invaded.
Mr. Ashok did not call me the rest of the day; in the evening he came down and said he wanted to go to the Imperial Hotel. He was on the cell phone the whole time, punching buttons and making calls and screaming:
—“We’re totally fucked, Uma. This is why I hate this business I’m in. We’re at the mercy of these…”
—“Don’t yell at me, Mukesh. You were the one who said the elections were a foregone conclusion. Yes, you! And now we’ll never get out of our income-tax mess.”
—“All right, I’m doing it, Father! I’m going to meet him right now at the Imperial!”
He was still on the phone when I dropped him off at the Imperial Hotel. Forty-two minutes passed, and then he came out with two men. Leaning down to the window, he said, “Do whatever they want, Balram. I’m taking a taxi back from here. When they’re done bring the car back to Buckingham.”