Outside the dukan, a man rode his bicycle along the long street, balancing a piece of papaya in one hand and manoeuvring the bike with the other. Hitched to the handlebar was a bundle of fabrics so big he had to stretch his neck to see over the top.
Jaya stepped inside. The dust swirled in the low light from the small window guarded by metal rods. Pran had suggested making a quick stop here on the way back from the temple, while Motichand and Vijay stayed behind to help clear up. Nowadays, Jaya made the most of those visits to the temple, one of the few times they could catch up with their friends. For years the family had enjoyed entertaining guests, cooking vast meals of shaak rotli and daar bhaat, samosa and bhajia, languishing for hours in the sitting room or out on the veranda, gossiping and laughing into the long night. But now everyone was eager to get back to their homes in time for curfew.
Jaya took it all in as Pran showed her and Asha around. He had certainly improved it, expanding into the space at the back. New shelves lined the freshly painted walls, filled with tins of Bird’s custard powder and ENO fruit salts, stacks of Carnation condensed milk and Ovaltine, jars of gobstoppers, bottles of whisky and gin.
Pran was nothing like his father. Motichand had flitted from business to business the whole time he’d been married to Jaya. In the early days, he ran a small concrete block of a dukan outside the city, where the rain used to rattle like pebbles on the tin roof and the stale air smelt of the spices they kept at the back: cloves and fenugreek and cardamom; not even the many piles of Lux soap could hide the scent. Motichand passed the hours playing cards outside with the neighbouring shopkeepers, until the day stretched into night and the only way he could tell the difference between a heart and a diamond was by waving his cards under the light of the kerosene lamp, the flame flickering as though it too was exhausted by the day’s heat. Later he’d owned the auto garage at the bottom of William Street, which he said could service all cars, BMWs to Renaults, Rolls-Royces to Citroens. He painted a sign on a long piece of thick cotton: ‘Motichandlal’s Motors’, but after a few weeks in the sun and a few afternoon showers it was a tattered wreck, leaving only the word ‘Moti’, which meant ‘fat’ in Gujarati, flapping in the wind. The trouble was that Motichand would give his ‘customers’ – mainly his friends – their own accounts and let them run up tabs as long as the Nile itself. People like Cyrus Mody, who’d been a regular customer since the beginning. Like others, he’d rarely paid his account. Eventually he stopped coming to the dukan at all, and even after Pran cornered him at weddings or outside the temple, Cyrus managed to wriggle out of paying them back, promising to do it very soon, very soon. And of course, the benefit of taking advantage of others was that you had plenty of money for yourself: Cyrus Mody had a huge house looking down on everyone from the top of Kololo Hill, and two sparkling Mercedes-Benzes sitting in the driveway.
No, Motichand had always been too relaxed with the customers. ‘Of course, you can pay next week,’ he’d tell them, never wanting to disappoint, always wanting to show how generous he was. But a week became a month, a month became two months. Little was written down or recorded and money came and went as often as the customers. The only thing that stopped Motichand going bankrupt was telling everyone he was selling up, which gave him a reason to call in the debts before he sweet-talked someone else into buying whatever business he was trying to flog that time.
For every shilling that slipped through Motichand’s fingers, Jaya found a way to catch hold of it again. She’d sewn shirts, made day dresses or an occasional miniskirt (this she wasn’t happy about, but they were popular with the girls and at least they were quick to make with so little fabric). Even now that things were better, the habits wouldn’t leave her. Asking December to find the cheapest produce at the market, hiding away money in corners of the house where Motichand would never look, just in case, just in case.
‘We want to get a fridge, for the Coca-Cola.’ Pran pointed to an empty corner at the far end of the shop. Asha didn’t bother to turn and carried on looking out of the window.
‘It looks very nice, beta,’ said Jaya, trailing her hand along the wooden counter, tracing the ridges and dents beneath her fingertips. She sat down on an old chair in the corner to rest her legs.
‘And these are all new.’ He moved over to the shelves at the back, yet Asha stayed where she was.
Perhaps she couldn’t appreciate how much the dukan had changed, how hard Pran and Vijay had worked, but she could at least show some interest. ‘What do you think, Asha?’ said Jaya.
Asha looked up at Pran, her voice flat. ‘It must have cost a lot.’
‘Don’t worry about the money,’ Pran said with a light laugh, as he fiddled with a button on his shirt. ‘It’s fine.’
‘People might talk, all this money being spent,’ said Asha. ‘Shouldn’t we be getting back now?’
In some ways, Jaya was in awe of Asha, the way she’d arrived at her new marital home, bold as anything. Jaya, on the other hand, in marriage, as with everything else in her life, had made herself fluid. She’d accepted others talking about her while she was still in the same room, as she’d been taught to do since she was a child. Never saying anything out of turn, though she often thought it, of course, screaming thoughts inside her mind, never doing anything to anger her in-laws. Shifting, moulding into new spaces, tucking herself into corners, never getting in the way. Surviving. Which was why it was all the more astonishing for Jaya to see Asha talk to her husband in this way.
‘We’re doing well, let them talk,’ said Pran. ‘We’ve done nothing—’
‘Nothing wrong?’ Asha said in a brittle tone.
‘You don’t like it?’ said Jaya. Why was she being so rude? ‘Pran and Vijay have gone to a lot of trouble to do this.’
‘Oh, I know. Tell us how you did it exactly, Pran?’ Asha wandered around the dukan, looking along the shelves. ‘How you managed to make it such a success.’
‘Asha—’ Pran’s eyes flashed towards his wife.
‘It’ll bring more money in, I suppose.’ Asha shrugged her shoulders. ‘And that’s all that matters.’
‘Let’s go home, shall we?’ said Pran, before Jaya had a chance to speak.
*
Dusk wrapped itself around the city. The road stretched before them as they drove out of the centre and back up along Kololo Hill. The music on the radio and the rumble of the car through the streets kept conversation at bay.
Up ahead, two army trucks were parked along the road. Four soldiers were standing around, two slouched against the trucks, the others swinging their legs out of the passenger doors, rifles propped against the huge wheels.
Jaya gripped the top of the car seat; the soldiers hadn’t been here on the way to the dukan. It used to be police cars in the road dealing with traffic issues. Idi Amin’s military police had taken over the official responsibilities now, although the way they hung around never looked official.
Pran brought the car to a halt near the trucks. ‘Let me do the talking.’
The soldiers suddenly seemed to spring into action, as though they’d only now remembered they were on duty. They pulled their rifles across their shoulders and adjusted their maroon berets.
‘Get out,’ shouted one, a stout young man with a voice so deep it seemed to vibrate through Jaya’s chest.
Pran spoke through the open car window, his voice surprisingly calm. ‘We’re just trying to get home before curfew.’
The other soldiers hurried over, staring at them through the windows as though the family were animals in a zoo.
‘You wahindis think you can ignore us? I said, out.’
They hurried out of the car. Pran stood in front of Asha and Jaya as he squinted at the soldiers through the sunlight. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t—’
‘Still talking. Like the sound of your own voice, don’t you? Well, you listen to mine now,’ said the deep-voiced soldier. ‘Get down on your knees.’ He shoved the rifle butt against Pran’s shoulder.
‘We don’t want any trouble.’ Pran’s knees thudded to the ground.
Jaya’s breath quickened, her sari blouse tightening against her chest. Please don’t hurt him.
‘Still going on and on.’ The soldiers laughed and circled around the group now, except for the tallest who had stayed by the truck, smoking a cigarette. The low-voiced soldier loomed over Jaya, his eyes on her throat. How could she have been so stupid? She was still wearing her mangalsutra, her wedding necklace, a thin gold chain woven through with tiny black beads. She’d forgotten it was there, tucked under the front of her sari; she should have taken it off before she left the house. And here it was, burning against her neck.
The soldier’s eyes widened as he pointed at the necklace. ‘I think my girlfriend would like that.’
‘Girlfriend?’ His comrade laughed, revealing the lines in his forehead. He smelt sweet, what was it? One of those sugar-filled fizzy drinks Vijay liked as a boy. ‘Which one?’
Jaya knew she should move fast, take it off before they got angry, but it was as though her arms were made of lead.
‘What are you waiting for? Is she deaf?’ said the deep-voiced soldier, looking at Pran. ‘Is she deaf?’ he shouted this time, his comrade laughing along with him, so close, his hot breath in her ear.
Asha stepped towards her, fiddling with the clasp until finally it was loose. The gold snaked together in her hand; she dropped it into the soldier’s palm.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ the tallest soldier who had hung back by the truck shouted, grinding his cigarette into the door. ‘We need to start patrolling for curfew soon.’
‘Always spoiling everyone’s fun,’ the soldier with the necklace called out, but he stayed put. He lifted the gun high and fast into the air, rifle butt pointing towards Pran.
‘No, please!’ Jaya shouted, hands reaching out. As though she could stop him. The soldier’s rifle froze inches above Pran’s head. He stared at Jaya to savour her reaction as the other soldiers’ laughter rang out behind them.
‘At least Mama loves you.’ He ruffled Pran’s hair and strolled away.