“My phone?”

  “It’s office property. Or have you forgotten that I pay your phone bill? I’ll also need your key to the office now that you no longer work here.”

  It’s as though I’ve been kicked in the chest. “Gauri Ma’am, no. You can’t fire me. What will I do?”

  “Ask your friend Alex. Or better yet, ask yourself. You’re an independent woman, after all.”

  I meet her eyes again, and she stares back, her gaze steely. I should be pleading with her, getting on my knees and begging for my job. But I can’t. I won’t.

  “Your phone,” Ma’am says.

  As I place my blue Nokia in her outstretched palm, something in me shifts. I’ve been dreading this moment for so long, and yet I feel nothing.

  “And the office keys?”

  I fish them out of the drawer and drop them into her hand. Before Ma’am can say anything more, I grab my bag and the college applications from my desk, then dash out of the office. I don’t bother turning around to look back.

  As I march away from the office, the shadowy old buildings in the narrow laneway seem to be growing taller, looming over me. I pick up my pace but I can’t shake the feeling that the city is closing in. What did I just do? I want to go home to Behrampada and lie down on my mat, but I don’t have it in me to face Tazim right now. Directionless, I keep walking, my nerves raw. Eventually, I sink to the footpath under the glow of an orange streetlamp. Where to go?

  There’s Alex’s flat. But I can’t just show up at Blossoming Heights without calling. And what if the Motianis are back from Lonavala?

  Who else would take me in right now? One of the lawyers from the office, maybe? Where in Sion does Vivek even live? Or Bhavana or Sudeepthi? I wouldn’t begin to know. In this crowded place full of millions of people, I am suddenly very alone.

  I close my eyes. I feel as lost as I did the day I first arrived at VT Station when I was a kid.

  Of course—Babloo. Brimming with a fresh burst of energy, I spring up from the curb and sprint through the darkened streets toward VT.

  * * *

  —

  Rajshree Castle Housing Society stands apart from the rundown buildings beside it, with a fresh coat of pink paint. The interior is just as spotless. Not a red paan stain in sight. Babloo really has made it. From the streets to Dongri to a flat in the central suburbs. I bet some firanghi would love to make a movie about him. The kind that hardly gets shown in India, even though the rest of the world is buzzing about it.

  There’s no night watchman in Babloo’s building, and no way to know which flat Babloo lives in. I mill about in the lobby, waiting for people who might know him. Moths fly in through the open door and buzz loudly around the tube light on the wall, zapping themselves into a suicidal crisp.

  A family with three sleepy-looking girls comes in. They don’t know who Babloo is. Next come a couple of men with suitcases. They don’t know him either.

  After about an hour, some young guy with a pockmarked face says he knows Babloo, but he eyes me suspiciously, his eyes lingering on my breasts. “Who are you?”

  “I’m his sister,” I blurt out. “Visiting. From our village. I forgot his flat number.”

  The guy nods and takes me up a few flights of stairs to Babloo’s door, then continues on his way, whistling. He glances at me over his shoulder. “Came all this way without luggage, is it?”

  I resist the urge to slap him as he laughs to himself and enters one of the flats.

  There’s no response when I knock on Babloo’s door. I press my ear to listen for footsteps or stirring. I keep knocking, louder and louder, until my knuckles go red and warm. “Babloo,” I yell into the door, even though he was always a light sleeper. “Open up!”

  A woman in a nightgown bursts into the hallway. “It’s one in the morning, get out of here,” she yells.

  I ignore her, and continue banging on the door until she threatens to call the police. I lean against Babloo’s door. I’m so tired it’s hard to see straight. Where could he be?

  Exhausted and parched, I’m ready to go home to Behrampada. Tazim will be asleep by now. I can lie down for a few hours and leave before dawn so I don’t see her.

  Back at Ghatkopar Station, the trains have stopped running so I sit on the steps outside, counting my change to see if I have enough for a cold drink and a taxi ride. Three hundred and four rupees. Will that be enough?

  I swing my bag from side to side, hoping to find some hidden coins. The sound of metal clinking prompts me to dig into the bag with my hands. I pull out a one-rupee coin and a key with OFFICE SPARE written in black ink on its face.

  Tears of relief spring to my eyes. I kiss the spare office key then run toward the taxi stand. Even Gauri Ma’am will have left the office by now. I can let myself in, retrieve my phone, and stay there till morning.

  When the taxiwala drops me off outside the Justice For All office, I spot the glow of a lone canewala’s neon-lit stand a few buildings away. I still haven’t had anything to eat or drink all day. Licking my dry lips, I hurry toward the stand, pressing eight rupees down on the metal counter. The canewala feeds long stalks of sugar cane into the machine, two, three times over, until they are dry as dust. A tiny stream of frothy, light green juice dribbles onto a giant slab of ice and into a glass that fogs up from the cold liquid. The canewala hands me the drink, and the sugar hits my brain, jolting me awake. I drink the entire glass without a breath.

  Sugar coursing through my veins, I hurry back to the office as rain starts to fall in fat drops on my head and through my hair. I slide the spare key into the door, which unlocks effortlessly. Leaving the lights off, just in case, I tiptoe in. Someone outside could be looking in. I move slowly through the dark, careful not to trip over the boxes filled with Vivek’s old files that I didn’t put away.

  When I hear something rustling a few metres away from me, I back up against the wall, holding my breath. The rustling gets louder, until a small rat scurries out from under a desk, along the wall, and into the kitchen. I let out a sigh and run my hands through my damp hair.

  The clutter in Ma’am’s office makes it hard to feel around for things. My hands reach her desk and run over her pens, books, a teacup, a food spill that’s hardened and dried.

  I pull open drawers until I finally find my phone.

  I cradle it in my hands and turn it on.

  Five text messages from Babloo.

  stay @ ur office 2nite…dnt ask why

  pick up d fone

  where r u

  call me

  r u home?????

  What is going on? Why is he so desperate to reach me?

  After I dismiss all the SMS alerts, chills graze my neck. I have forty-three missed calls. They’re all from Babloo.

  * * *

  The sandwichwala who had sold us the canister of kerosene ratted Babloo and me out.

  After the police booked us, they took us to the remand home in Dongri, a building surrounded by tall, mossy stone walls. Separating us immediately, they took my clothes away and handed me a scratchy blue uniform. After they registered me as a juvenile detainee, I was taken to a barrack to sit with a hundred other girls on a cold tile floor. That night, I stared up at the sterile glare of a tube light until it flicked off and the guards told us to go to sleep.

  The nightmares started my first night at Dongri, and they were so vivid they would haunt my thoughts all day. They were always the same: the paanwala’s clothes were on fire, and the flames spread everywhere—the ground, the cars, the trees, the buildings, the gargoyles perched atop VT Station. Eventually, the flames would come for me, but I couldn’t move my legs. I couldn’t escape. I would wake up on the floor, drenched and shivering.

  The days were punctuated by fights at the long line of taps where we bathed with buckets and rags, and fights at mealtimes when the girls who had been there longer tried to bully the newer ones. The guards only intervened when things got bloody.

  I didn’t see Babloo until the morning of our hearing at the Juvenile Justice Board, two months after we arrived at Dongri. How funny he looked, with his hair combed and his neat blue uniform shirt tucked into his shorts. I was no better, with my curls tightly yanked into two thick plaits smelling of rancid oil.

  “Ssst,” I whispered to Babloo as soon as I saw him. “Get us out of here. This place is the worst.”

  The wooden bench at the JJB was hard and splintery and faced the magistrate, a stern, mustachioed man named Kapure. As the hearing started, Babloo and I were seated together, with our advocates, Chitradidi and Josephbhaiyya, on either side of us. Each time I moved or squirmed or shook my leg, Chitradidi pinched me. I hadn’t sat still in over five years.

  Josephbhaiyya said there were supposed to be two social workers on the Board with Magistrate Kapure. We waited for them to show up, but they didn’t. No one in the room wanted to schedule a new date, so they continued without the social workers. Nobody asked Babloo or me what we wanted.

  Eventually, I stopped listening entirely and focused instead on little details around me. Chitradidi’s maroon nail polish was chipped on every single finger. The pimples on Josephbhaiyya’s forehead formed a perfect circle. A big fly landed on Magistrate Kapure’s oiled combover, rubbing its front legs together. The beige paint on the wall was peeling off, leaving two naked patches that reminded me of a big fish and a tree. As if fishes lived in trees.

  Magistrate Kapure called for our pleas and I said I didn’t do a single thing to the paanwala or his stall, and they must have mistaken me for someone else, just as Babloo and I had agreed to do if the police ever caught us. Kapure pressed his temples as if to ward off a headache, took a breath, and held it for a moment.

  “And you knew Mr. Talpade?”

  “Who?”

  He brought his pencil down on the table so hard the tip snapped off. “The paanwala. The man who’s lying in the hospital with burns all over his body because of you.”

  “No. Never seen him before.”

  “Even though his paan stand has been in the same place every day for the past eight years?”

  I flinched, trying and failing to shake the image of the paanwala thrashing on the ground, flames creeping up his body.

  “Even though you said you have lived near VT Station for the past five years?”

  I wiped my cold and sweaty palms on my ugly blue Dongri frock, wishing this stupid hearing would be over.

  When it was Babloo’s turn to speak he smiled at me, then faced Magistrate Kapure.

  “And how do you plead, Mohammed?”

  Babloo puffed out his chest. “I did it. I burned the madherchodh paanwala.”

  I laughed nervously. Was he playing a prank on everyone? This wasn’t part of the plan, but I trusted him. He would do the right thing for us. Chitradidi, on the other hand, seemed shocked. Eyes wide, she peered at Josephbhaiyya, who shook his pimpled head and rocked in his seat a few times before he stood up tentatively. “Magistrate Sahib? Please, one moment, sir. If I may speak with the boy.”

  Magistrate Kapure nodded, got up, stretched his arms behind him, and strolled out of the room. Josephbhaiyya clasped his hands together, flashing a sweet, tight-lipped smile at Magistrate Kapure’s back. When the door swung shut, Josephbhaiyya spun around to confront Babloo, gripping his narrow shoulders. “Yaar, what are you doing?”

  Babloo ignored him and stared ahead.

  Josephbhaiyya pulled Babloo off the bench and into the hallway. They were gone for a few minutes. When they came back in, Josephbhaiyya took Chitradidi aside, whispering.

  Babloo glared at me, unblinking, and put a finger to his lips. I didn’t understand what was happening. How was this going to set us free from Dongri?

  Magistrate Kapure returned and asked Babloo once more for his plea. Sweating visibly now, Babloo swallowed and again said he did it. He gave up every last detail. The green-and-black pattern on the kerosene tin. The many canisters of fillings laid out on the paanwala’s table when we doused it in fuel. The precise shade of the paanwala’s tan pants that day.

  And then Babloo explained his motive. He was taking revenge for the paanwala crushing his little silver MP3 player.

  “MP3 player?” Magistrate Kapure repeated, narrowing his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  Babloo didn’t leave out a single point—except for me. He told the entire story as if I never existed. Chitradidi shushed me each time I tried to interrupt.

  When Magistrate Kapure asked Babloo whether I had assisted him, he replied, “She’s much too stupid to help me pull off something like this. Just look at her.”

  My cheeks burned as though he had slapped me across the face.

  “This chick is in love with me,” he continued. “Follows me around everywhere. Watches too many romance films. It’s sad.”

  Kapure, Chitradidi, and Josephbhaiyya all turned their eyes toward me. It was as if someone had stripped off my Dongri frock and now everyone in the room was staring at me. I jumped to my feet but Chitradidi caught me by the wrist. “I’m not stupid,” I shouted as she struggled to pull me back down to the bench. “And I’m not in love with you!”

  Babloo shrugged. “You see? What else can I say?”

  I wriggled away from Chitradidi, pointing my finger at Babloo. “You’re a piece of shit,” I screamed. “And your mother was a randi and I’m glad she killed herself in front of you because that’s what you deserve.”

  Babloo bent his head back, as if he was examining the ceiling, but otherwise showed no reaction. Magistrate Kapure ordered Chitradidi to shut me up. She dug her fingernails into my arm and hissed at me to stop shouting.

  Sobbing quietly, I sat back on the wooden bench. Chitradidi tried to pat my shoulder, but I whacked her bony hand away.

  When the hearing was over, Josephbhaiyya escorted Babloo out of the room.

  “Why did you do that?” I yelled at him.

  “Just trust me, yaar,” Babloo called out over his shoulder. “You’ll be fine.”

  I clenched my fists and screamed so loud Chitradidi dropped her papers all over the floor.

  That was the last time I saw Babloo.

  27

  Gauri Ma’am’s empty office glows green from the light of my phone. Eventually, the screen light times out, shrouding the office in darkness again. I sink into Ma’am’s seat. It’s so much softer than the chairs the rest of us use.

  Forty-three missed calls? I squeeze my knees together tight, staring at the phone, which I hold in my clammy palm as though it’s a small, sick animal. The muffled sound of rain crashing down outside comes through the office’s thin windowpanes. Lightning strikes, and I jump in my seat.

  I take a deep breath, exhale, and call Babloo. After one ring it goes straight to his voicemail.

  Leave a message.

  His voice is flat. Like he doesn’t want anyone to know who he is. I hang up and call back.

  Leave a message.

  Maybe he’s in a lift and has no service. No, that’s impossible: it’s almost four in the morning. He should be in bed. Perhaps his battery died and his phone isn’t plugged in.

  Leave—Leave—Leave—Leave, he blurts out each time I call.

  My tongue feels heavy and dry. Where could he be?

  Suddenly, my phone starts ringing. I jerk back and it slips out of my hand and onto the floor. I fall to my knees and scramble to answer it before I can even see who’s calling.

  “Rakhi?” It’s Vivek. At this hour? “Hello, Rakhi? You are okay? Tell me, you are okay.”

  “Sir, ji, sir, I am okay.” Confused, I wait for him to reply.

  “Oh, thank god.” I can hear him let out a big sigh. “Thank god, thank god,” he murmurs. “Where are you?”

  What is going on? Did a bomb go off somewhere? “Sir, I’m at the office.”

  “Office still? Have you been home at all?”

  “N-no,” I stammer, not sure if Gauri Ma’am has told him she fired me. “I haven’t been, sir.”

  “Rakhi, there was a major fire last night.”

  “What do you mean? Where?”

  “Behrampada’s been gutted. Five hundred hutments gone.”

  * * *

  —

  Bombay swirls around me as my taxi drives up to Behrampada, rain trickling sideways across its windows. The wet roads shimmer orange from the streetlamps. It is almost five in the morning. Dawn will break soon.

  I hung up on Vivek after he told me what happened. Then I unlocked Ma’am’s cabinet and grabbed a handful of bills from the petty cash box, just in case. Vivek called back a few times but I didn’t pick up.

  Five hundred hutments, he said. I think of the zari workshops, with their threads of silver, jars of tiny beads, and panels of silk, and the boys with thin fingers who embroider the kinds of saris and lehengas their mothers and sisters could never dream of wearing. The goats lingering in the narrow gullies. The metal cabinets lined with wads of cash. Shit. I had six hundred rupees stuffed into my cassette player. And that crystal elephant.

  And then I remember Tazim.

  Tazim and Ayub. Oh my god.

  I bolt upright, clutching the sides of the passenger seat in front of me while my knuckles whiten.

  “Are you going to vomit in my car?” The driver, an elderly man with a skullcap and a long white beard, gives me a worried look in his rear-view mirror.

  “No, no,” I say, between shallow, panicked breaths. “Just drive.”

  The taxi drops me off at the west side of Bandra Station, and as I race across the footbridge to the east side, the smoke stops me in my tracks, stinging my nostrils. I scrunch my eyes shut as though someone has thrown a fistful of sand in my face, but the smell of smoke conjures up the paanwala in my head. He thrashes about, covered in flames. My breath disappears. I can’t do this. What do I care if this place is burned to the ground?