Skinner Read Free Page A

Fighting the dirt and mud, an endless task, like keeping her family fed. He brings his foot back; a light kick, an accident, will send the ball outside. What choice but to follow? And once outside. Well, he will deal later with the consequences of not returning immediately. When he returns, hero to the boys. Bringer of the ball.
    “Rajiv.”
    He jerks his head around at the sound of his father’s voice, his bare toe stubbing against the tile.
    “Close the door.”
    He hops, lifting his throbbing foot from the ground.
    His father snaps his fingers.
    “Now, now.”
    On one foot, Raj bends, picks up his ball, the sun falling full on his face as he does so, the screams of the boys in the square coming to his ears clearly.
    “Inside, Rajiv.”
    His mother, hooking the collar of his overwashed Transformers t-shirt, pulling him inside as she swings the door closed and seats the latch.
    “Sit with your sister.”
    Raj, looking at the door, ball tight to his stomach.
    His mother yanks his collar again.
    “Later, later. Sit, sit.”
    Raj backs away from the door, limping slightly on his bruised toe. Eight steps to cross the room, this tiny journey an epic today because of all the guests he must edge around and squeeze between, his path taking him past the little table and its mismatch of chairs filled with the most senior and honored of their visitors.
    His father grabs his arm.
    “Come see.”
    Raj’s mother, the rattling tray of tiny cups in her hands.
    “Aasif.”
    His father looks at her.
    “I want him to see.”
    “Let him play with Taj.”
    His father still with a grip on the boy’s arm.
    “He should see. Why else if not for him? He should see.”
    She sets the tray suddenly on the table, one of the men pulling the laptop out of the way.
    “Yes, yes. For him.”
    Without serving, she takes three steps to the cot and scoops up Taj.
    “And also for her.”
    Aasif raises a hand.
    “For her also, yes, Damini. Bring her here.”
    One of the men at the table is staring at Raj. The one who brought him the ball. He also brought a stuffed tiger for Taj, almost as big as her. And a bag of aavakaaya for his mother. Pickled mangoes from his home to the east in Gadchiroli district, now heaped in a bowl on the tea tray. Small, dark, hair cropped close; hands calloused thick and smooth, compact muscles suggesting years swinging a hammer or an axe, but a potbelly at his middle. A voice, Hindi accented by the forests. They call him Naxalite sometimes, but Raj knows that his real name is Sudhir.
    “Like the ball, little Raj, for you.”
    He holds up his hands, ready to catch. Raj tosses the ball and it smacks into the easterner’s hard hands. He spins it between his fingers.
    “Someone will tell you that it’s not real. They’ll say, There’s no hologram, Rajiv. How can it be real if there’s no hologram. As if the only way we know a real thing is if it has a sticker. A hologram that says FIFA. But don’t believe them. The ball is real. It was made by real hands. Feel.”
    He throws the ball, shoving it two-handed so that it sends the boy back a step when he catches it.
    “Real?”
    Raj nods.
    The man reaches for the teapot, using a small square of clean rag to pick it up by its wire handle so as not to be burned by the heat conducted by the cheap tin. He begins to pour, filling the cups one by one, setting the pot aside, adding the milk and sugar he also brought, making thick chai, passing the cups to the others at the table, Raj’s mother first. There are some mutters from the old men of the nagar panchayat, the informal local council and arbiters of disputes: Should they not be served first, and by the hostess rather than this jungle communist? But Sudhir seems not to notice, pouring tea as if he were a wallah in an office, passing the cups to the women of the Social Ills Assistance Foundation, the representative of the Dharavi Business Is Booming Board, the boss of the electricity goons whom Raj’s father has known