Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - Deepa Anappara Page 0,80
She has to walk up and down the same alleys ten-twenty times a day, collecting water, going to the toilet complex, buying vegetables, buying rice. She says I don’t help at all, but I do.
Something shifts the smoky air around us, a flurry of noises, footsteps pounding the ground. It goosepimples my skin, dries my mouth. A group of men zigzag through the alley, stopping to talk to grown-ups.
Shanti-Chachi comes out of her home. “Stay right there, you two,” she says.
Didi takes the pot back in but returns to my side, Papa’s old shirt still in her hands. She twists it tightly around her fingers. The men talk to the women in the alley, who scoop up their children and run into their houses. Windows are pulled shut, doors closed. Shanti-Chachi listens to the men with her hands on both cheeks. The bear balloon, now abandoned, brushes against the edge of a tin roof and bursts. It sounds like a gunshot on TV.
Shanti-Chachi clutches her heart. “What was that?” she asks. She sees the dying bear but doesn’t look comforted. She walks over to me and Didi, puts her hand on our shoulders and steers us inside. She shuts the door even though the smoke from the kitchen-fire hasn’t left our house.
“What have you made for dinner, Runu?” she asks.
“Just rice. We’ll have it with dal.”
“What did those men want?” I ask.
“I’ll wait with you two until your mother gets home,” Shanti-Chachi says. “It’s past dinner-time and her hi-fi madam is still making her work. So heartless that woman is.”
Runu-Didi switches on the TV. The newsreaders are sad that people can’t celebrate New Year’s outside because the winter smog has other plans.
Shanti-Chachi’s husband knocks on the door to give chachi her mobile. “It won’t stop ringing,” he says. He nods at us and leaves. Chachi walks around the house with the phone pressed against her ear, not saying anything except haan-haan and wohi toh. She opens tins and checks what’s inside them. She even inspects the Parachute tub. If Ma had told her the tub holds our what-if fund, chachi would have guessed a little money is missing because she’s smart like that.
“Someone disappeared?” Runu-Didi asks when chachi finishes another phone call.
“You should tell your ma to put a clove or two into the chili-powder tin,” chachi says. “That will stop the powder from getting spoiled.”
The door opens. It’s Papa. He’s home early and he smells a bit like Drunkard Laloo. Papa never smells like that; only once or twice a year maybe. Nodding at Shanti-Chachi, he says, “Came home as soon as I heard. It was good of your husband to call me and Madhu to tell us they are”—he looks at Didi and me—“fine.”
“Shocking,” chachi says, “what’s happening. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
“Stand what?” I ask.
“Two more children are missing,” Papa says. “Musalman children. Brother-sister. Went out to buy milk earlier this evening and haven’t got back yet. Almost the same age as you two.”
Farzana-Baji is loads older than Faiz, so he hasn’t been snatched.
“Jai, what this means is that the kidnapper is still out there,” Papa says. “Do you know why I’m telling you this?”
I hate it when grown-ups talk to me like that.
“Will Tariq-Bhai be released now?” I ask. “He couldn’t have kidnapped from jail.”
“Who knows anything,” Shanti-Chachi says.
“Did the Muslim children disappear near the transformer?” I ask. “It’s also a temple and it’s close to Chandni’s house.”
“How do you know where her house is?” Papa asks.
“We saw the transformer when we went for Thumper-Baba’s big puja. That place is like a manhole into which children keep falling tak-tak-tak. Shaitan djinns live there. We call it the Shaitani Adda.”
“Who’s we?” Runu-Didi asks.
“Pari and Faiz and me.”
“Jai,” Papa says, “this is not a game. When will you understand that?”
* * *
That night I dream of child-legs and child-hands hanging out of bloody mouths and then I hear fighting voices. I think it’s part of my bad dream, but when I open my eyes it’s morning and Ma and Papa are arguing outside about who should stay back to look after us.
Runu-Didi is sitting on the bed, her hands propping up her chin, her face scrubbed. She and Ma must have already fetched water.
“Look at how they’re being raised,” Papa says. “A girl who runs around like a boy, and a boy who wanders around the bazaar like a beggar. It’s a wonder they haven’t been kidnapped yet.”