Chapter Two

Bu woke up with a headache. For a moment, she was not sure where she was until she looked at her watch. Her father moved in his wheelchair into her small bedroom that was also the kitchen of their flat, ‘go back to sleep,’ he said, ’India’s booming remember? So what if it’s ten o’clock, best thing is to sleep for a decade then maybe we’ll wake up to a better world.’

Bu held her head with both hands. Mr Khosler took a creased photograph from his shirt pocket and offered it to her.

‘Oh Dad,’ she said.

‘At least put it under your pillow at night.’

Bu widened her eyes at him, she had never and would never believe in any of his religious stuff.

‘Cinnamon tea?’ He put the picture of Lord Shiva back.

Bu tired to wave him away but he did not budge.

‘Then how will you get rid of your headache?’

‘It’s not that bad,’ said Bu getting out of bed, the pain was sharp.

‘No taking drugs behind my back,’ said Mr Khosler wheeled back into the living room that was also his bedroom. Bu folded her cotton blanket and tucked it with her stiff pillow under her bed on top of three large aluminum drums full of oiled rice and lentils. Next to her bed was a tall, red gas cylinder, kicking it with her right foot, it sounded hollow, ‘only a third left,’ she said.

‘Why worry? God will provide,’ said Mr Khosler. ‘Did Kalpana Mudhvani invite you in this time?’

The Mudhvanis had never invited Bu in to see their living room or taste their chai. Or to lie back on their hard pillows with polyester cotton cases from ‘Westends’ - the new shopping mall - eat their spongy onion and potato bhajis and listen to the gossip of the building, Bu was not lucky, ‘...er...she was fine, Dad.’

‘Did she or not?’ Mr Khosler’s jaws tightened.

‘I’m raising my prices,’ she said.

Mr Khosler picked up The Times of India and began to read. A minute later he crushed the newspaper and threw it onto his corner bed.

‘Don’t go to school today, we’ll do something fun,’ he said, ‘I hardly see you these days. What’s on at Sterling cinema?’

‘No Dad.’ Bu went to the back of the flat and locked herself into the tiny bathroom, her head was now pounding. She pushed the death scene at Vivek’s flat out of her mind but it slid back like an automatic door. She tried again, each time the boy’s face came back sharper and closer. She could see the angle of his head just off the end of Vivek’s bed and the outline of his lips slightly apart. She crouched down, turned the brass tap on and filled a plastic bucket. The front hem of her T-shirt from the day before was stained. She rubbed it with a bar of soap made with real coconut oil and real Neem leaves until the red was caked in a greenish white sludge. Dunking her hands in cold water brought some blood flow to her head.

The double front doors to the Khosler’s flat were normally left open during the day, the space covered by a single, cotton curtain pulled over leaving two inch slits on either side. Beyond in the corridor went all the traffic of a ground floor flat in Tardeo, a district that had one of the best vegetable markets in south Mumbai and one of the largest slums. It also had a huge rust coloured water tank used mostly by boys as a swimming pool in the summer, occasionally invaded by would be Yogis floating cross-legged on their backs and level with the green bottom trying to meditate amid the splashing, plastic ball hitting and name calling.

Mr Khosler switched a table fan on. Someone was knocking using the outside steel bolt on one of the front doors.

‘Buju Khosler..?’ Two police officers in beige uniforms stood in the doorway. One swiped the curtain back with his right arm. His left hand was palm open and an inch from his left hip where a gun was strapped in by dark, brown leather.

Bu was rubbing the ends of her T shirt together making her fingers numb.

‘Is this the home of Buju Khosler?’

‘Good morning, you’re chasing children now who are late for school?’

The officers did not find Mr. Khosler’s joke funny, they sat spread out on his newly made bed, ‘where is she?’ one of them said.

‘Bu, the...the police are here...er... what can I offer you? Masala cold coffee? Biscuits then?’ said Mr. Khosler.

The two men did not respond and after waiting a full minute Mr Khosler wheeled over to a small rainbow-coloured cabinet and took out a Tiffin box. In the bathroom, Bu turned the water off. Mr Khosler offered the open box to the officers. The men looked at each other, dove in with their forefingers and thumbs fishing out Gulab Jamuns. Juice dripped onto their shirts as they threw the glossy dumplings into their mouths.

Bu came into the living room, her hands still wet, not looking into the faces of the strangers, but still catching that their tongues were stained by chewing too much paan and their shoes were unusually free of Mumbai dust, ‘yes Dad?’

‘Buju Khosler?’ The taller of the two flicked from Bu’s small face to the Tiffin box, ‘where were you yesterday at seven thirty?’

‘She was running errands, now that her mother is gone, poor girl, she has the burden of this hopeless cripple,’ said Mr Khosler pointing to both of his frozen legs.

‘Were you at the Maya Building last evening, yes or no?’

‘Yes...’ said Bu, thinking about adding an ‘Uncle’ or Uncles’ but it was too late.

‘Until what time?’ said the taller.

‘Not late, I don’t let her out late...’ said Mr Khosler.

The shorter officer put his right hand up showing his flat, pinkish palm in the form of a stop sign to Mr Khosler as he had done so many times when on duty at the Colaba roundabout. It was thrilling for him to use his power to halt rich men speeding round and squatting flies with their mint tinted windows. It worked - Mr Khosler fell quiet.

‘I went to see Kalpana Mudhvani, I think it was...’ said Bu.

The shorter man stood up, ‘who else did you visit?’

Bu’s gut crimped, something was egging her on to lie but how could she? Everyone from the Maya Building had seen her. Bu looked at her father but he was staring at her blankly and not giving her any clues as to what she should say next. ‘The... Sharmas err...Uncle, Uncles...I...the door was open, I looked in and...then...then...’

‘What did you see?’ The shorter man hooked his fingers into his leather belt. ‘This is a very serious case, Mangal Awasthi, ten and a half years old, was found dead yesterday at the home of Mr and Mrs Sharma. Come on lets go to the station, Chief of Police will want to see her.’ The shorter tried to nudge Bu’s right shoulder towards the front doors.

‘No but I didn’t do any-’ said Bu, ‘wait a minute, dead? Did you say dead? But he was sleeping wasn’t he? Yes he was trying to go to sleep...’ Bu put her hands to the sides of her face, she felt cold. It struck her that the boy, Mangal, was dead and not half asleep because they were saying so. He was dead because Mrs Pravin had shoved her out of the Sharma flat as quickly as she could. He was dead because she had seen his body ashen and still but then again she had heard his voice, spoken with him as if he was a normal person - alive. Bu had seen the dead before, two real Aunts, two grandparents, one cousin and one mother. She knew exactly what they looked like - all the same, the dead. Grey chocolate skin, eyes gone, toes so rigid you could snap them off and thoughts that were hanging, thickening the atmosphere, thoughts like...like ‘why are you staring? I’m not here stupid.’ The more she stared at the officers, the more unhinged she felt, unsure of her own thoughts.

‘Let’s go,’ said the taller officer standing up and also hooking his fingers into his police issue belt with standard brass buckle.

‘Please, my daughter’s a good girl. If she looked in, it was a young girl’s curiosity, she didn’t do anything wrong, then she came home. To help her father, who is dependent on an innocent girl-’

The shorter man picked up the Tiffin box and held it to his pink lips. His lashes formed a black line as he closed his eyes, drinking the contents. Four gulab jamuns rushed into him, syrup flowed down his throat like a river and potent threads of saffron widened his nostrils. He lowered himself to the level of Bu’s father, ‘I’m doing my job,’ his lips were sticky like they had just been lip glossed, ‘a child is dead. This is a murder investigation and your daughter is involved.’ He burped.

’No, you have misunderstood officer....please...’

Bu had never seen that look on her father’s face - his eyebrows joined up to make one line and every part of his skin screwed up like old paper. He was shaking his hands in the air as if the officers may punch him at any moment.

The taller officer unclipped a pair of well scratched handcuffs from the back of his belt, they shone in Bu’s eyes. Mr Khosler quickly moved to a metal wardrobe that was in the corner of the living room opposite his bed. He unlocked it with a thin key, pulled back an inner steel door and brought out a wad of rupees. He threw it onto his lap without counting. Bu swallowed. The taller officer picked up the wad and without another look or word, the men sauntered out of the Khosler flat as if they had been invited, as if they had been called to a dinner party and now full and merry on sugar they were going home to talk about all their merriment. Bu quickly bolted the doors behind them. Mr Khosler circled tightly.

‘Dad I just looked in. I saw the boy but I thought it was Vivek at first, then I saw that it wasn’t. I heard a voice but... he was dead so maybe I didn’t hear anything...but I didn’t do anything Dad...’ she was trying her best.

‘The boy was murdered Bu. Don’t you know what that means for us?’

Bu did not know, she had never been in the middle of a murder before.

‘Oh no, Bu. No. Was there anyone else in the flat when you got there, someone who could be a witness for us?’

‘No.’

‘Anything else? Are you hiding anything else from your father? Tell me the truth...Bu.’

‘There’s nothing else Dad. I swear.’