The Roof Beneath Their Feet by Geetanjali Shree

Author:Geetanjali Shree
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Published: 2013-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

How many this Lalna has blinded! Again and again, they’ve looked at me and refused to see me. It doesn’t scare me or hurt me any more, it just makes me laugh.

But oh those first nights in this house, when I slept alone in the room by the courtyard – my heart would shudder every time the window shook and I would wonder who was throwing stones. Was it that bastard nephew out to take revenge for the slap? Or members of his gang? Or one or more of the many worthy people of the mohalla?

Yes, once upon a time, even Lalna could be frightened!

I’d lie awake, silently, as if I had nothing more to do with sleep in this life. Stay awake. Was that the sound of a stone? It’s hot, but do I dare open the window? Let me turn the lights on!

Okay, now they’re on. But what’s this? It has become even darker outside! And someone is watching me, through a hole, through a crack, furtively.

No, no, turn the lights off. But now the darkness is a demon crouching over me!

What darkness, what demon? Your Uncle. Standing outside the door. The bolt is in place, but who knows… If the panels could be parted enough to peep through, perhaps they would part enough to let a hand snake in? Perhaps enough to unlock the door?

I jumped up and sat in the darkness, pulling the sheet over me – and the bed squeaked!

‘What is it?’ Om Babu asked, feigning innocence.

In all these years he’d never spoken to me!

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Behen-ji scolded me. How was she to know that Lalna, who was as fearless as a tornado on the rooftop, turned into a mouse in the room by the courtyard?

After that, we started sleeping together.

Behen-ji would get up from the bed. She’d get a torch. She’d creep up close to me with hair covering her face and the lit torch in her mouth. Then she’d wake me.

The light from the torch would burst forth, red through her jamun-coloured cheeks.

I would laugh, I would be frightened. I would drag her in front of the mirror. In the torchlight, she would be on fire. I would push out my teeth from under my lips and become an ogress.

Laughter. Fright. Our images in the mirror. Rocking in pleasure.

And somewhere, a sound.

‘Behen-ji, did you hear?’ My teeth back in my mouth.

Squeak, squeak.

‘Yes.’ She’d wrap her arm around my waist.

‘What is it, Behen-ji?’

‘Someone’s new Bata shoes. Now go to sleep.’

Bang.

‘And this?’

‘A door in some other house.’

Creak.

‘Now?’

‘Don’t other houses have windows?’

Riiinnngg!

‘The doorbell at this hour, Behen-ji?’ I’d cower, still a bit scared.

‘What? Who dares ring the doorbell when the two of us are here!’

Our whispers and murmurs and giggles would begin!

‘Quiet! He’ll wake up.’

‘Come, let’s wake him up ourselves!’

‘I’ll scream, and you can hold the torch in your mouth to scare him!’

In my sleep, I’d reach for Behen-ji and she would let me rest my head on her shoulder and tuck the sheets properly around me.

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