Sleeping on Jupiter by Roy Anuradha

Author:Roy, Anuradha [Roy, Anuradha]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781848666894
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2015-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

Latika wanted to ask him – why should she not ask him?

“Is that a folk song?”

“Ah Ma, it is nothing, I make these things up in my head.” Johnny Toppo laughed his gap-toothed laugh. “And they all have the same tune. There is only that one tune. It’s a tune from my village.”

He turned away, busying himself with soaking a stack of new clay cups in his bucket. Latika wondered why he wore a thick twist of cloth around his neck even when the day was so hot. That was another thing she wanted to ask him, but she could not.

“Mostly, you know, Ma,” he said over his shoulder, “I don’t even know what I’m singing. I never sang before, not until I left everything and came here.” He laughed again, his face creased, his eyes turned into lines between his crow’s feet, and Latika wanted to sit on his bench and ask him, What about the woman in the song? Who is she? Where has she gone?

But Johnny Toppo now had other customers and was asking if they wanted the sweet biscuits or the salty ones in exactly the tones he had put those questions to Latika and Gouri. Latika turned away, disappointed that his voice was so indiscriminately distributed. Her discontent returned and she wished again that her tea were coffee.

It was when they were drinking their second cups of tea that Latika tugged at Gouri’s hand and whispered, “Isn’t he . . .?”

For a while, Gouri couldn’t tell what Latika had seen. “Who are you talking about?” And at that moment, she saw.

It was Vidya’s son, Suraj, idling at one of the stands. With a girl. The stallkeeper urged trinkets upon them, picking up one thing, then another. Latika saw him thrust by turn a stone temple, a sea lion, and a key-ring at the girl. Then a long shell necklace. The girl stared at it as if she had never seen a necklace before, turned away abruptly. The stallkeeper offered it to Suraj next, seeming to coax him into buying it. After some resistance, Suraj dug into his pocket, paid the man, then followed the girl. He held the necklace out to her, got no reaction. He said something, touched her elbow. She seemed to pull herself back to the present. She smiled at him and took the necklace.

“That isn’t Ayesha, is it?” Gouri adjusted her glasses. “I’m sure Ayesha has short hair. But maybe I’m mistaken. I have a bad memory for faces.”

“Of course it isn’t Ayesha, can’t you see?” Ayesha, Vidya’s daughter-in-law, was at least ten years older and ten kilos heavier than this chit of a girl who was now fingering the shells on the necklace.

“Can’t you see, Gouri! It’s the girl who was with us in the train!”

“In the train? What train?”

“God, Gouri! In our compartment! The train in which we came from Calcutta. That girl – you even spoke to her, you exchanged seats – the girl in our compartment who got off and never came back.

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