in her basti, and whose eyes blazed with recognition and judgment as they locked with hers, and a guard, also from the basti, whose job it was to inspect the underbellies of cars with a portable search mirror. The men took extra time to let them through.
Inside the mall, they went to a McDonald’s where she bought Suraj an aloo-tikki burger though she had already spent beyond her budget for the day. They sat by huge glass windows that overlooked a bridge on which Purple Line trains drifted like white apparitions in the black smog. Suraj attempted to return his helmet-flattened hair to its original style but failed. They watched street urchins being shooed away by the security guards standing next to the metal detectors at the mall entrance. His arms pressed against hers. She could see the outline of his biceps under his tight sweater.
Suraj’s fingers spelt out L-O-V-E on the side of her thigh. Her jeans were thick and snug, but the heat of his touch made her shift in her seat. He draped his left arm around the back of her chair. They took small bites of the burger so that the other would have more. He asked her about her lessons and suggested that she talk to him in English, but that only made her tongue-tied. He spoke to Americans all night at his call center. Her English-speaking skills, despite the classes she diligently attended, didn’t go beyond where do you work and how was your day.
He asked her about her mother and father and brothers. She wondered what her parents would make of him, if they would worry that he was an upper-caste boy who would discard her when he tired of her, or if they would see the stillness in him that she admired most of all, the calmness in his voice that reflected a lack of expectation on his part. He wanted nothing from her, or only what she was willing to share. This was new to her. The boys and men whose messages rumbled her phone all day and night were clear about their intentions, their wants, though some of them attempted to couch these in flattering terms.
Even in her own house, unspoken demands seeped through the walls to enter her room where she sat with TOEFL textbooks. Her mother wanted her to pay her brothers’ tuition fees and, some day in the future, marry well. Her brothers acted as if it was her responsibility, as the elder sister, to share with them the money she earned as a beautician. And her father? He lashed out at her when she didn’t listen to him, calling her too-stupid-too-slow to pass the tenth standard exams. He always apologized quickly, weeping, choking back the phlegm that his cough brought to the corners of his mouth.
Suraj’s phone rang. Office, he mouthed to her, and took the call. The image of the burly man who had followed her earlier came into her mind. She glanced around the McDonald’s, fearful she would see him slurping a Strawberry Shake. But no, there were only office workers grabbing a bite, boys and girls her age, and indulgent mothers giving in to their child’s burger cravings, nannies standing to the side holding Tupperware boxes crammed with home-cooked food in case munna-munni changed their minds about what they wanted.
Her mother must, at this very moment, be looking at her phone, wondering where her daughter was. Aanchal sent her a message saying she was still with Naina. I’ll be late, I’ll let myself in.
Suraj finished his call and asked her to eat the last of the burger. He showed her on his phone a rowhouse that had been put up for sale in a gated community a few kilometers away from the malls. Within its ivory-painted gates there was everything, swimming pools, gyms, gardens and supermarkets. Her phone beeped and she switched it off.
Suraj took her to the cinema on the top floor of the mall and paid for the tickets that were much more expensive than the burger and they watched an American film which he said would help them improve their English. The actors spoke so quickly their words sailed past her ears. There was much violence. She couldn’t decipher the reason for the frequency with which characters appeared on the screen only to be knocked down by a fist or a bullet. But Suraj was engrossed and she pretended to enjoy it too.
After the movie they walked around