Darshan Read Free Page B

had just started school in Harpind and had been excited about it. Baba Singh threw another pebble at the wall, and their older sister Desa pursed her lips. She was fourteen and had left someone behind in Harpind. There was supposed to have been a wedding next year.
    Ranjit squatted on his haunches to face Kiran. He was tall, with his father’s high forehead and his mother’s almond-shaped eyes. “Don’t you like this place?” he asked her.
    She tugged at her braid. “Does it have goats and a pond?”
    Ranjit smiled encouragingly. The smile spread carefully across his mouth as though he did not want her to think he did not take her seriously. “Maybe not. But we should at least go inside and find out.”
    Baba Singh took Avani’s hand. “Everything will be okay,” he said, looking at his brother for reassurance.
    Lal pushed open the door, but quickly stepped back as the rank smell of stale urine escaped in a thick, malodorous gust. Harpreet gagged and they all turned away, covering their mouths and noses as Lal kicked the door the rest of the way open.
    Feces were in nearly every corner of the closed-in space, debris scattered across the floors. To the right, Ranjit flung another door open. It led to a small outdoor courtyard where they found a cracked clay oven caked in dried grime and sticky cooking oils. At the end of the hallway, past six small sleeping quarters, the washroom’s ceramic basin was cracked. There was another door by the basin, and Baba Singh opened it, discovering the collapsed outhouse.
    Harpreet clung to the doorframe of the front entrance, not able to enter. She pulled her chuni over her head with her free hand. The thin cotton shawl had fallen down around her shoulders, revealing her hair—frizzy that day—making her appear all the more exhausted. “It just needs to be cleaned,” she said, then made a face and clutched her stomach.
    “What is it?” Baba Singh asked her in alarm.
    “Nothing,” she said. “Just a small pain.”
    Ranjit shook his head. “They told us that it was ready, that we could live here.”
    “The British do not really care what happens to us,” Lal replied, defeated.
    Ranjit looked at Kiran with sympathy. She was very distressed. “I am sorry about the goats and pond.”
    “We should talk to Mr. Grewal,” Baba Singh said. “Maybe he—”
    “That man is a liar,” Lal said, his voice rising. “There is no negotiating with liars.”
    Sweat dotted Ranjit’s forehead just under the rim of his turban. He wiped it with the back of his hand. “Don’t worry, Bapu. I will find work.”
    “We all will,” Desa said.
    “What did Mr. Grewal do?” Kiran asked.
    Lal turned to her, his expression so severe that she took a step back. He seemed to be taking her question into account, determining whether or not he should answer it. Finally, he replied, “He stole our land.”
    “But isn’t land too big to steal?”
    Lal frowned, a tinge of red coloring his cheeks. “Not for him.”
    “Oi!” Khushwant shouted from down the hall. “Stay out of this room here!”
    “What is it?” Baba Singh asked, hurrying over with Ranjit to discover a decaying dog corpse in one of the guest rooms at the back of the hotel.
     
    ~   ~   ~
     
    That night, after a cheap meal of dhal and yellow maize chapatis from a steaming food stall on Suraj Road, the Toors slept outside on unfurled mats by the hotel’s entrance.
    Ranjit removed his turban, undid his topknot, and shook out his long, wavy mane of hair. “Khushwant, Baba, come here,” he said as he briskly flicked his wrist, twisting his hair back into a bun. He shook out the yards of cloth that was his turban and held up one end.
    Khushwant crawled over, and Ranjit handed him the turban. Baba Singh remained on his mat.
    “Baba,” Ranjit said again, showing Khushwant how to begin wrapping the cloth in tight, layered pleats around his head.
    “Later,” Baba Singh replied from his mat. Reclining, he could see the stars