Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - Deepa Anappara Page 0,89
stumbled out, blinking, his eyes slow to adjust to the sickly light of the alley. Then he saw her and smiled sheepishly.
“Where’s the milk?” she snapped. “Where’s the money?”
His fingers checked his pockets as if there was still a chance that his addled brain hadn’t spent it on games. She marched him to a stall that sold milk and curd. All the way there she chided him for his selfishness.
“The Hindus are after our lives, they’re calling us terrorist-pigs and child-snatchers and child-killers,” she said, “but you, you can’t think of anything other than those stupid games, can you?”
Kabir’s heart ached when his sister said that, mostly because it was true. At first, his gaming had been for timepass, but now he craved the highs of a gunfight the same way the glue addicts he saw in choky alleys seemed to pine for Eraz-ex. He had forgotten to offer namaz that day and on several other days, the muezzin’s call unable to jolt his conscience inside the parlor, where the only thing louder than gunfire was the stream of ridiculous abuse that poured out of the mouths of gamers. A thousand dicks in your ass, brother, or you’re in this world only because of a torn condom.
He knew he was too young to be in that room with its scratchy screens and unpliable joysticks, lit only by a tube light and aired by a ceiling fan whose blades were encased in black dust. But outside the gaming parlor he was a nobody; inside, he was good at fighting and part of something bigger than the basti and the bazaar.
“I won’t do it again,” he said now, unsure if he meant it.
“You won’t,” Khadifa said. “I’ll see to it, I promise you that.”
He braced for more of her anger, but she was quiet. She looked tired. He watched her purchase a packet of milk with money she must have earned herself and felt ashamed. He didn’t know how to tell her he was sorry.
A crowd had gathered in the alley outside. At its heart were two beggars, one in a wheelchair that had a loudspeaker attached to it, and the other his friend who ferried him around. They were telling a group of children returning from a cricket or a football game a story, bickering with each other about how it should be told. His sister, enthralled, stopped to watch them, shoving the little boy next to her so that she could get a better view.
It was already dark, and they were late, but Kabir didn’t say that to her. The beggars talked about Junction-ki-Rani, a woman ghost that saved girls in trouble.
Even while watching TV, Kabir had found his mind drifting toward Call of Duty 2, but Junction-ki-Rani was such a brutal story, it made him forget for a few minutes the recoil of the MP40 with which he mowed down his attackers, and the blood-red spatters that subsequently leaked into his vision.
This story is a talisman, the beggar in the wheelchair said. Hold it close to your hearts.
His sister nudged him and said it was time to leave. The streets were beginning to empty.
They hurried home. Kabir’s thoughts quickly drifted back to the gaming parlor, where today he had fought Nazis in Russia. Images from the game flashed in front of him: a long and cold winter, snow smoothening into ice, him hiding behind a pillar, throwing a grenade, the smog a smokescreen saving him from enemy bullets. He tripped over something and ended up in a heap on the ground, his two worlds merging together in the pain that washed over him from his feet to his skull.
His plastic sunglasses that had a black frame and yellow arms, carefully tucked into the collar of his sweater, crunched under him. Still lying down, he lifted his chest high enough to check if they were broken. Only a few scratches. He would wear them again tomorrow, sun or no sun, because it made him feel hip as he walked into the parlor. But he wasn’t going to the parlor again, was he?
Khadifa waited for him to get up, watching the smog blot out lamps and houses, feeling an unexpected burst of tenderness. Kabir was only a child still, living in a grown-up’s world. It was exhausting, even for her.
“Okay?” she asked.
He gave her a thumbs-up.
“Do you think Ammi will make us move?” Kabir asked once upright. “To another basti? Because here the Hindus”—he paused—“are after our lives?”