Daddy’s coming. No, no crying. Get up. We’ll go home.

No, not home. We’ll go to, to…

Not to the village. Mamu owns the village.

Up! Good girl, Jhimmi. Head and spine, that’s the thing to watch out for. Protect your face and neck at all times. Daddy’s not going to be here all the time to look after you.

Please. Not like this. Daddy, please.

Bitoo, call out. Call my name. At least I’ll know for sure. I bet they threw you down. I hope they threw you. Dragged you. I saw that. On market road. Six people standing at the shop. Seven. One kid, purple and yellow kite in his hands. They’d got you upside down, dragging behind the tractor. Two women watching, from the balcony above. I stretched my hands up but they just stood and

So much I haven’t told you yet, Bitoo. Just five days, you and me. That’s all we had. Five days.

How just five? Because, let’s see. Five into twenty-four? One hundred and twenty. One-twenty, as you say. We had one hundred and twenty-one hours together. I’m not counting the four hours from before, when we hadn’t started talking. That doesn’t count. Half an hour in the line to pay the electricity bill. Ten people between us. You turned around to look at how long the queue had grown. I was leaning sideways to see how long the queue was ahead of me. I was counting. You were standing fifth in the queue. Our eyes met, for two seconds.

Number five, I called you. You didn’t know that I was talking about the queue at the electricity office. I could tell at once what you were thinking. You thought, fifth means, there were four others before. For a moment, I wanted to slap you hard. I would have never spoken to you again if you said one word about the boys before. But you didn’t. You lowered your head and smiled. And then, Bitoo, then what chance did I have? I went flat.

Minty kept asking. You’ve gone flat on him? On him? What’s in him?

I lied. I said, it’s his eyes. But it wasn’t your eyes, Bitoo. It was the way you smiled after I called you Number Five. I had changed two buses, three cycle rickshaws to meet you. I wanted to ask you to pick me up from home. You had a motorbike, I already knew. When you paid the electricity bill and walked out, I had turned, slowly, as if I were just stretching my back. Through the window, I saw you go to the two-wheeler parking lot. I saw that you too were looking back at me. You got on the bike, kept the engine revving. Deliberate.

A girl can’t ask a boy to pick her up if he doesn’t offer to, so I was annoyed. But you knew how it would be if you came around to the house. I didn’t know. Stupid, stupid girl. Too much advanced, as you say. I thought it was rude of you not to offer to pick me up. The ice-cream parlour was so far. I didn’t yet know that you suggested that particular parlour because it was so far from my house.

We had two hours in the ice cream parlour. Could have stayed longer. Could have told you many more things. We wasted four hours commuting, and not one word spoken.

Jhimmi, sweetheart. Focus! Strong girl. Brave girl, Jhimmi. There’s still time, if you can just get on your feet. Does the leg move? Up! Up!

Okay. It’s okay, rest for a bit. Daddy will come and,

Never mind. We had that half an hour in the bus, going to the Elephant Park. Your mother was sitting beside you in the bus. Nice nose. Sharp lines. Mouth pinched but not in a mean way. In a tired way. That’s another thing I liked about you. Your mother’s face.

Fifteen minutes in the supermarket. You were buying giant biscuit packets on discount. I wasn’t buying anything. I’d just stepped in for the free air-conditioning.

Bitoo. It’s so quiet down here. Where will they take you? To the village, right? Your people can’t do anything once you are in Mamu’s village.

I’m glad we had that one hour at the dargah, although we didn’t sit together. I was with my family. You weren’t intending to go in, but you saw me get off the car and you followed us. You stayed the whole time, right through the qawwali. I have the words by heart now. Fair arm, green bangles, he grabbed my arm and took me away. Took away my caste. Didn’t you?

There was another half hour at the shoe shop, remember? I bought new shoes, lace sneakers. Who buys lace sneakers? Frivolous girls. You never said it. But it is true. I stood there thinking, this is the most frivolous, impractical, silly purchase ever. The lace was sea-green and the soles were brilliant white, like foamy waves. Two steps on the road and the shoes would be ruined. I used to throw money like that. Those shoes were half your month’s salary.

Bitoo! You should have run far, far away from me. A girl who spends half your salary on lace sneakers? Should have run as far as you could when you saw me admiring myself in the store’s mirror. I tried on a dozen pairs. I could see you glancing at the mirror. You were hanging out at the fifty-percent-off table. Women’s shoes, loaded untidily, pairs separated. Did you come in for the free air conditioning? No. My guess is, you came in wanting to buy something for your mum but then you saw me. Throwing money at lace sneakers. Then you didn’t feel like buying anything that was sensible and reasonable.

Thirsty. Jhimmi, elbows. Try to move. Eyes, nose, mouth, chin. Knees, elbows, shoulders. You’re going to be fine. Up. Please.

No pre-school, do you know, Bitoo? I went straight to grade one. Daddy played see-saw with Jhimmi in the park. Mind your feet, he’d say. Mind your feet, don’t get hurt. Daddy, Jhimmi’s hurt.

One hour at the bank. You were handing out application forms for credit cards. I was with Minty’s new wife. She wanted to put her jewellery in the bank locker. You were trying to net customers. I was listening to your spiel. This benefit, that discount, free branded watch if you sign up for the gold card.

You stood barring our way, holding out the form. Free watch. Branded items. My sister-in-law kept saying, no. She’s not even from here. How quickly you turned that around. It’s an international credit card, you said. Perfect for customers who travel abroad. Also for those who intend to travel abroad. Both of you ladies should apply for this card. It’s Platinum. Better than Gold.

That stalled her, just long enough. You ploughed ahead. Name, phone number, address. You said, don’t worry about filling forms. Just put down name, address and phone number, I’ll do the rest. I didn’t dare look into your eyes, and you didn’t look in mine. Enough said. You would do the rest.

Bitoo! Such a waste! A whole week was wasted between the bank and you calling me. The same day, within an hour, you should have called me. I would have said, yes! Please yes! I want your damn credit card! Then I would have run out and met you at the bank. We could have had another whole week.

Sorry, Bitoo. I don’t know why I’m saying sorry. Just feel like I should.

I didn’t tell Mummy. Not Mummy. She’s risky business. That’s why I was saying, let’s do a public ceremony. Let’s take photos. Print them. Not just photos on the cell phone. Let’s get photographers, bring witnesses. Let’s not keep it quiet. Mummy would like to keep it quiet, so she could undo us in a way that nobody would remember that we were ever a thing, you and I. Now you understand?

Did you print out the pictures, Bitoo? I told you to print copies. Put copies in different places, so they can’t burn them all at once.

Wherever you are, listen. Breathe, just breathe Bitoo. For me. And make prints of our photos. Get them to the cops, to the press. That organisation? Remember I showed you the office, behind New Market? Show them the photos, tell them what we were. You and I.

Which photo? The Taj, Bitoo! Of course, print out the Taj photo. Everything was worth that. The Taj Mahal and us. I got a shivery feeling and the hair on my arms stood up when we walked towards it. I don’t like to call it a monument. That’s pamphlet language. Such beauty is not about geometric balance or spatial harmony. All of those things the guide was saying. The German group’s guide. Ha! He knew only four sentences in German. The rest of it was in English. I caught some of it, trailing them. Three steps behind, trying to act as if we weren’t listening for free. Cheapies. Can’t afford our own guide. The Indian group’s guide was talking rubbish. Endless fantasies about harems. He did take the picture for us though.

Remember how I was giggling? Giggled non-stop until people turned around to stare. You kept asking, what’s so funny? It was the guide, going on about the emperor having hundreds of wives and concubines. In my head, I was seeing the Red Fort filled with crawling babies. A hundred white diapers. Little red brocade caps for the boys. In my head, a hundred babies were in the Diwan-e-khaas, on hands and knees. Hanging onto the knees of their father, the Emperor.

Can you see it, Bitoo? Badshah Salaamat has three babies perched on his lap. One of them has a leaky diaper, so His Highness gets miffed and he calls out to someone to take this prince away and change his diaper. What’s Urdu for a soggy diaper? The throne will need to be washed. And all those courtiers, their spines erect. Fancy turbans. Keeping a straight face. Bowing to the babies who tug at their belts. I was imagining the Prime Minister, holding out one heavy beringed finger, and the crown prince trying to chew on it with toothless gums.

Why didn’t I tell you right then, when you asked what’s funny? I thought I’d tell you later, at night, when we would be alone in our hotel room. But there was no room. Horrible people.

I tried to show them photos. You and me exchanging rose garlands, but you stopped me. That way they would know for sure that we were on the run. No parents in the photo. No friends. I had no friends that I could trust. But you grew up here, Bitoo. Why don’t you have friends?

What was it to a hotel manager? I was raging mad that night. I forgot all the funny stories I’d been saving up to tell you. All the sad stories too. Mummy pinching me when I tried to eat with my hands. Only villagers eat like that, she scolded. We haven’t crossed the seven seas so you can grow up a villager.

I wanted to tell you when we were alone. Some place where you could hold me and nobody else was watching us. In bed, on adjacent pillows. Quiet room. Lights off. Safe room.

I hate hotel managers. I curse them. I curse their eyes, their sex, their wives’ wombs. I hope their children are stillborn. Or if born, are born so deformed that they can never again go with the beloved into a private room. I curse them so that their children are never safe in any city of the world.

Shh. Shh. Jhimmi. No cursing. Daddy says, a curse always boomerangs. Like an empty slingshot.

I didn’t tell you about the slingshot, did I? Daddy taught me, with an elastic rubber band. I was five. Or six. I used to roll up bits of paper. Fold it small, use it like a pellet. Fix it on the elastic and zatack! Mummy got mad. She took it away, put it in the trash. I didn’t even hit anything. It was just playing with paper. All these village games you’re teaching her, she would scold Daddy. You could teach her the alphabet instead. You do know at least the alphabet in English, she would say.

I was five years old, lying in bed, I remember thinking, I’ll just creep into the kitchen and fish my elastic band slingshot out of the bin. Maybe she won’t find out. There was a broken flower pot in the backyard. I used to hide my things in there. A green bead from a necklace that broke. One hair clip with a Santa Claus face stuck on it. Don’t know why I was hiding the clip. It got it free at the mall. Santa gave it to me. At Christmas, all the malls had decorations. Red and green and fake snow. Santa gave candy to the kids. Hard candy. The malls here have guys wearing Santa caps and handing out flyers about discounts. Real skinny guys. You need a fat Santa.

I remember one Santa, he was so big, my arms wouldn’t go around his waist. I remember worrying. How does this Santa get into the house? I didn’t worry about him getting into the malls because they have massive doors that open before you touch them. I used to think it was magic. Daddy would say, let’s show you some magic! And he’d take me to the mall.

How old were you when you first stepped into a mall, Bitoo? Automatic doors. Escalators. Did you get nervous on the escalator the first time? Your family, you said, they’re scared to go places that look fancy. Guards outside. So much glass around, you feel you’re breaking something just by looking at it. You should tell them, it’s not too expensive. Tell your mum to look at the biscuits, five bucks off in the supermarket. The corner shop never gives discounts; you should tell her that.

You didn’t finish telling me about capital. Big capital. Money pulling money. Big money pulls everything. Like a black hole. Mops up all the little bits spread around. A giant magnet drawing in all the iron nails strewn across a table. You keep other, smaller magnets on the table but the bigger magnet pulls more easily.

You explained that to me. Gave me a demo. You held my hand for the first time then, to pull me to my feet. That was our longest date. You took me to your old college. Yellow paint peeling. Black cement patches showing through. Glossy brown paint on the doors. It was during the summer break and everything was shut. But you know how to jump in through the window above the staircase.

Science lab. Physics, Chemistry, Biology. One long room. Basins and dissection trays filled with yellow wax. To pin down the frogs and rats, you said. Troughs and pipettes. I hadn’t gone anywhere near the lab in high school. Flunked out twice. That’s why I had to be sent back to the village. Here, Mamu had pull, so that I passed without even sitting for the exam.

That’s your word. Pull. I said, influence. You said, pull. My uncle was a magnet and the town is full of iron nails. The heads of all the nails join to the body of the chief. Sharp end turned outwards. No eyes on these nails. No ears.

I warned you, didn’t I? Minty keeps a plank of wood in the boot of his car. It has long nails driven in, down its length. Sharp ends of the nails exposed. Like one of those clubs carried by warriors in the comics.

You like comics, don’t you? Asterix. Not Betty & Veronica comics. Cheap, you called them. American culture is not respectful, you said. I got riled, even though Britain isn’t America. Still. I said, you haven’t even seen the culture. And you said, the comics showed it to me. But you were wrong, Bitoo. You never knew what a respectful culture looks like. So much humiliation at those hotels. Three hotel managers, leering at us. Such a beautiful day. Ruined at the end. They ruined us.

Jhimmi. Use your voice. Help might be near, you never know. There’s Bitoo up there, somewhere. He might be looking for you. Call out to him. Sit up. Up!

Okay, never mind. Daddy will come looking for you. You’re not exactly in camouflage. It’s daylight. You’re wearing a pink suit. It’s new. Semi-satin. That’s what the guy at the shop said: semi-satin. Rose pink. Always wanted to be married in rose pink. Not in red and not in white.

You don’t worry. Girls like me, Bitoo? We hold down jobs. Even if we’re not college graduates. We handle shops, cafes. Mummy worked at the airport all her life. All the women we knew worked as sweepers and security guards. But Mummy would never use that word, sweeper. Not even janitor. She used to tell people, she works at the airport. Never told anyone in the village what her job actually was. Pretended she was an air hostess or something. I told them the truth.

When Mummy started yelling, I said it out loud. Don’t talk to me about lying to the family, I shouted back. I don’t lie half as bad as you. Sweeping floors, that’s what she does. Has she told you all? Mamu? Minty? You think we’re much better than Bitoo’s people? Guess what? We’re sweepers too!

They didn’t give me warning. Waited outside college to grab me. I’d have called you but first thing they did, they took away my phone. I wouldn’t unlock it, so they pushed me into the car and Mamu told my sister-in-law to hit me. Minty was behind the wheel. I thought I’d catch his eye in the rear-view mirror, but he kept his face turned towards the window. Looking out, as if I wasn’t there at all, not in the back seat getting hit by his new wife. Then, they took me to the village and there was Mummy. But no Daddy.

Minty followed us. I don’t know what day that was. Maybe the day we went to the clock tower. You wanted to show me everything there was to see in this town, so that when we left, it wouldn’t be with a sense of regret. Nothing to come back for, you said.

Daddy should have come down with Mummy. What’s more important to him than Jhimmi? Now look what’s happened. Jhimmi’s lost her shoes. Can’t get up. Mind your feet, Jhimmi. Daddy always said, mind your feet. Don’t get hurt.

Won’t go back. Never. But maybe Daddy will come to see us? Or we’ll go see him. We’ll check into a hotel and he can meet us at the cafe. Over there, hotels don’t ask for marriage certificates.

Why did it matter to the manager? I hate those guys. Don’t bob your head and slink away, Bitoo. That look on your face. As if we were thieves trying to sell stolen goods. Three times that evening, I saw that look on your face. I wanted to hit you too. I wanted to burn down all the hotels in Agra.

Smoggy night. Buying tickets and sitting on filthy plastic chairs in the waiting room at the railway station. Our wedding night. I went into the bathroom and cried. Didn’t want you to watch me crying. There was dried shit stuck in the toilet and somebody had stolen all the taps from the washbasins. That made me cry harder.

You asked me to be sensible. You said, we should check into two different hotel rooms. I should have listened. But it was our wedding night. I felt like if we did that, and if you tried to sneak into my room, or I into yours, then it would be like the shadows of my mother, my uncle, all those horrible managers were hovering around us. Better to sit with my head on your shoulder on a plastic chair in the railway waiting room. But I was wrong. It wasn’t better. It was tolerable once I put my shawl around the two of us. We could hold hands without people staring.

We were mad! Mad to return home. Should have planned it better. Why don’t you have better friends, Bitoo? Don’t they have a spare room? A holiday cottage? What did you go to college for?

Five days. That’s all of you and me. One whole day and one night and another half day on the road. Bike rides. Your back, cool with sweat. My back warm from the sun. Achy thighs from being on the bike. Two days. Bike, Taj Mahal. Lake. Sun glancing off water. Resting on the steps. Breathing.

Number Five. So much to tell. I’d have told you about the boys too. When we were older. After we had two kids. Or, after the kids had finished high school. Then I’d have told you each little thing. Not yet. Jhimmi is just a song in your head now. Jhimmi is your happy dream. You are number one and infinity in Jhimmi’s heart. First and last, as you say.

Jimi, they called me. Jhimmi at home, Jimi in school. I was a good kid, Bitoo. A real good kid.

There’s one really pretty place we could go. It’s in the foothills. Daddy’s cousin has a farm up there. He married one of those hill girls. He sent us a photo card one year. His family on their farm. Season’s Greetings. Mummy said, I bet he’s trying to send you feelers. I bet he wants to move abroad and wants our help. Horrible woman, my mother.

Daddy’s cousin’s farm. We could just show up. I’ll say, hello uncle! I’m your long lost niece from London. Please meet my husband. I’ve memorised the address. Got it from the note inside the card. Always wanted to go visit Daddy’s people. They looked nice. Those faces. The farm. You wouldn’t have to do any farming, Bitoo. Banks and credit cards and insurance. You go and do that.

Now here’s a plan, Bitoo. I’ll go to uncle’s farm. And I’ll wait for you. You come and get me whenever you can. I’ll live in a field of flowers. Mustard. Seeds is what they’re after but the flowers look like heaven. Yellow sunshine whipped up in butter. I want to lick it all up. Put my mouth to the field and eat that sharp smell. I can feel the seeds come rolling out. Like grit in my mouth.

Jhimmi, stay awake. You’re a big girl. Daddy can’t do everything for you. Sit up! Not nice if someone sees you here like this. Cover your waist. Turn on your side. Good girl, Jhimmi. Close your mouth. Nose breathing. One. Two. On your elbows. On your mark. Get set. Go. Big girl. No more games. Study hard. College is a chance to fix your mistakes. Take responsibility, Jhimmi. Up! Up! Good girl.