Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - Deepa Anappara Page 0,69

ponytail with a white scrunchie, which Ma would have never allowed. If you tie your hair when it’s damp, ugly, fruit-like things grow in it and you can’t pluck them off or anything. You have to shave your head. That’s what Ma says.

I’m already dressed in my usual cargo pants and two T-shirts. Now, over the shirts, I put on a red sweater. Then we make sure Shanti-Chachi and her husband aren’t outside and run.

Luckily, Pari is sitting by her front door, studying.

“Can you make sure this idiot stays at home with you?” Didi asks Pari and, with her hand on the back of my neck, pushes me forward. “He’s not supposed to go anywhere. Definitely not Bhoot Bazaar.” Her voice sounds different; with me, Didi is shrieky, but with Pari she speaks politely, as if she’s talking to a grown-up.

“God promise you won’t do anything annoying, Jai,” Pari says.

I touch the bottom of my nose with my upper lip so that I’ll look like a pig. Then I say, “God promise.” God knows I don’t mean it.

Didi runs off.

“I need to go to the bazaar,” I say.

“But you promised,” Pari says, “just two seconds ago. Aren’t you afraid God will punish you?”

“It’s only to buy gulab-jamuns. God will understand.”

“Where do you have the money to buy gulab-jamuns? Just sit here quietly.”

I’m tired of people telling me what I can and can’t do. “Faiz got me a job in Bhoot Bazaar,” I blurt out.

“What?”

“I have to return the money Didi gave me to take the Purple Line.”

“She wants it back?”

“She hasn’t asked but I’m going to give it back. It will be a surprise. She doesn’t know I work. You can’t tell anyone.”

“You’re lying too much. About everything.”

“Come see for yourself.”

Pari waits until her neighbor-chachi’s back is turned, and then we sprint toward Bhoot Bazaar. It’s crowded like always. The biggest crowd is outside a shop that sells little Santas and teddy bears wearing round caps with ruffles around the edges.

Duttaram takes one look at me and says, “Where were you? Half-pay today. That’s all you’re going to get.”

“It’s wrong to hire children,” Pari whispers to me.

“Just go,” I say. She rolls her eyes at Samosa, who is licking his boy-parts under the samosa cart. He’s doing that to embarrass me in front of Pari.

“Get back before your didi does,” Pari says. She’s a rule-stickler but she understands why rules have to be broken too.

Duttaram asks me to buy cinnamon from a stall nearby because his stock has run out. “This winter-cold is making everyone constipated,” he says, “so they keep drinking tea for relief.”

“Isabgol is better,” I say.

“Don’t go around telling people that,” Duttaram warns.

I fetch him a bundle of cinnamon sticks. I listen to the basti-news that’s always floating around the tea shop. Today’s news is spiky with fear. People say they are worried about leaving their children alone. They blame the police who asked Chandni’s parents for a bribe instead of filing a complaint. Some people want to organize a protest against the police, others say that can only end with machines crunching our houses. One man says the pradhan and his Hindu Samaj party are planning a demonstration. Only Hindu children are being taken; therefore, the snatchings must be the work of Muslims. Another man says Aanchal’s boyfriend is a Hindu; that breaking news must have come from Naina, or her eavesdropping, bleach-whitened customer. It doesn’t stop people from blaming Muslims though.

Most of Duttaram’s customers are Hindus. They say Muslims have too many children and treat women badly. They say ultimately you can’t trust people who write from the right to the left like Muslims do in their demon language.

No one says Chandni ran away; she’s too small to go anywhere by herself. This means there’s a real snatcher in our basti, maybe more than one, and we don’t even have a Mental to save us.

* * *

Sometime late in the afternoon, Duttaram hands me a kettle heavy with tea, a thick cloth wrapped around its handle, and glasses stacked on top of each other. He tells me to take it to the customers at a jewelry shop in the next alley; he gets many calls on his mobile with such requests for chai deliveries. I’m walking, thinking about how much better I have got at carrying tea without splashing, when I clap eyes on Runu-Didi and she sees me too before I can hide. Didi is taking a shortcut home through the bazaar.