Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line: A Novel by Deepa Anappara

Author:Deepa Anappara [Anappara, Deepa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Coming of Age, Mystery & Detective, Amateur Sleuth
ISBN: 1784743089
Google: 5iSZDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B07RXFXFWL
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2020-02-04T05:00:00+00:00

Below Suraj’s helmet visor, she could see that his eyes were red. He worked all night and must have had only three or four hours’ sleep. She sat behind him with her arms encircling his waist and her chin resting on his right shoulder. She didn’t feel cold even when Suraj started the bike and the wind whisked her hair.

He took her to a mall and drove into its underground parking lot with its hi-fi parking charges. First they had to pass a boom-gate attendant who lived in her basti, and whose eyes blazed with recognition and judgment as they locked with hers, and a guard, also from the basti, whose job it was to inspect the underbellies of cars with a portable search mirror. The men took extra time to let them through.

Inside the mall, they went to a McDonald’s where she bought Suraj an aloo-tikki burger though she had already spent beyond her budget for the day. They sat by huge glass windows that overlooked a bridge on which Purple Line trains drifted like white apparitions in the black smog. Suraj attempted to return his helmet-flattened hair to its original style but failed. They watched street urchins being shooed away by the security guards standing next to the metal detectors at the mall entrance. His arms pressed against hers. She could see the outline of his biceps under his tight sweater.

Suraj’s fingers spelt out L-O-V-E on the side of her thigh. Her jeans were thick and snug, but the heat of his touch made her shift in her seat. He draped his left arm around the back of her chair. They took small bites of the burger so that the other would have more. He asked her about her lessons and suggested that she talk to him in English, but that only made her tongue-tied. He spoke to Americans all night at his call center. Her English-speaking skills, despite the classes she diligently attended, didn’t go beyond where do you work and how was your day.

He asked her about her mother and father and brothers. She wondered what her parents would make of him, if they would worry that he was an upper-caste boy who would discard her when he tired of her, or if they would see the stillness in him that she admired most of all, the calmness in his voice that reflected a lack of expectation on his part. He wanted nothing from her, or only what she was willing to share. This was new to her. The boys and men whose messages rumbled her phone all day and night were clear about their intentions, their wants, though some of them attempted to couch these in flattering terms.

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