Chapter Seven

Bu sat on her father’s bed and squeezed her eyes but she could still see Ajit Yadav standing with his hands on his hips and a finger on his gun in the middle of her living room. ‘My Dad’s not here,’ she said.

Ajit walked into the kitchen and pushed the bathroom door open with his foot, then went back to the green wardrobe in the living room, ‘alone at last, as they say in the films,’ he said noticing that Bu’s hair was loose this time. Her face and neck were a soft pistachio colour and her soft pink nostrils were almost hidden from view. He thought of his grandmother who had once told him that a person’s wealth is written on their face. ‘If the nostrils can be totally seen, they will never have any money. Wealth will drain from their lives, through their nose. But if the nostrils are hidden they’ll always have money.’

Ajit cracked the joints of his fingers, ‘where’s the key?’

‘I don’t have it. I’ve never opened it.’ Bu moved closer to the doors but Ajit was deceptively light on his feet and stopped her with one hairy arm.

‘Don’t make life difficult for yourself. I know everything about you Buju Khosler.’

Ajit opened the small cabinet from where the Gulab Jamuns had appeared on his first visit, it was sadly bare. In the kitchen he turned over clay water pots, steel plates and non matching china cups looking for something worth possessing. He returned and banged the green wardrobe.

‘Do you want to go to jail? I can bring all sorts of false witnesses to testify against you. You’ll be accused of Mangal’s murder. And like the other useless rats of Mumbai you will never come out,’ he said.

‘We haven’t got any more money,’ she said but he came closer. Bu hurled her right foot at him, striking his thigh with all her force but he did not retreat.

Ajit calmly put his palms around Bu’s neck, feeling her throbbing with life. His fingers squeezed.

Bu tried to call for her dead mother, ‘M-,’ useless. After thirty seconds, she could not breathe. She tried to move her arms but they were dead. Ajit began to press harder and harder, his passion for his bribe rising up from his gut and taking him over completely. People from nearby flats were gathering outside with ‘oh’s,‘ and ‘hai hai’s.’ They must have seen him come in, he had to let her go. Bu’s mouth was shuddering. Three women, two old men and seven children were filling the curtain space at the doors, people who had nothing to do with Bu, who did not even know her name. Ajit sprang to the other side of the living room as if he never had any connection with the green wardrobe.

‘Police business. Murder enquiry is going on,’ he said raising his voice.

Ajit left the flat carrying the rice and dhal drums from underneath Bu’s bed, on his shoulders.

‘Evidence, make way for the Mumbai Police.’ Ajit said holding his head high, high enough for the crowd outside to see the two black holes of his very flared nostrils. Bu could hear people tutting and huffing. Fingers and heads were creeping into the flat, gnawing at the curtain and feet were stepping over the threshold. Bu slammed the doors shut, ran to the phone and dialed her father’s office.

‘Connaught House, may I help you?’ said the operator.

‘H-h-’ Bu’s voice had gone, Ajit had sucked it out of her and taken it away to jail.

Bu greeted her father with a soggy note on which she had written down what Ajit had done to her. Mr. Khosler pounded his legs, piercing his knee caps with his fists. He pushed his chair away like he was trying to kick his own back off and came up teetering on his legs. Mr. Khosler stood tall with just air to support him for just a second then crashed on the floor face first like a hollow wall. Mr Dutta leapt forward and picked him up.

Bu wished she had not told him, she sat under her bed and rolled herself up into a ball. After two cups of tea and samosas served by Mr Dutta, Mr Khosler calmed down. Their conversation floated over to her. Did her father know anybody who could influence the Mumbai police, override this corruption? He did not. What about higher up? The Government was even worse. Then Mr Khosler got agitated again when Mr. Dutta suggested another possible solution, ‘what about Mudhvani?’

‘Kalpana’s father?’ said Mr Khosler, ‘go to him like a beggar? Never.’ Mr Khosler rested on his bed and grabbed Dutta’s arm, ‘I’m sorry Dutta, I know you’re trying to help. You’re like a brother to me but this is my fate, my horrible fate.’

Mr Dutta’s eyes watered up and he sniffed into his shirt.