Mumbai Noir by Altaf Tyrewala Page A

brother. The smallest secret between the two of them could get them caught. And then he’d proceed to tell Rahim every last detail of the day. It was a habit they’d cultivated from when they’d gotten that rickshaw license. Since they were to be one person by day and night, they needed to know all there was to know about each other, so they’d never get caught off guard.
    But there was one small embarrassing detail Rahman never shared with Rahim. On those days when even the ittar was of no use and he felt himself shivering in a fever of fear, Rahman would end his day early, park the auto behind the abandoned boats outside Khoja Gully, lift the backseat, empty the little chamber there of their tools, climb in, and slide the seat back into place above him. Scrunched up in a fetal position in there, he’d think of Ammi and the nine months he had spent inside of her, and of which he had no memory. For those few dark, breathless, unending minutes that womb would be his alone, not shared with one exactly like him. His ammi would then be alive, and he’d be unborn, waiting to live. Sometimes he’d lie there till he gagged. Sometimes he’d lie there till his legs cramped. Most times he’d just lie there till he could weep no more. And then he’d climb out, his fear washed off, his mother’s death accepted, replace the tools, the seat, and drive back home.
    As Rahman lay watching the first few fingers of dawn slowly taking hold of his eyelids and pulling them down, he had a sinking feeling. I hope the cops don’t take Rahim this time, he muttered into his shapeless pillow. Ever since they interrogated Rahim the last time he’s been so short-tempered and distant. If they come knocking I’ll find a way to reason with them. And we’ll leave this place. This gully of the lost. This city of the unfortunate. We’ll run again. I’ll lead this time. And where we go we can live fearlessly as two. Not one, by two, like we do here.
    And just as his eyes slid shut, a key rattled nervously in the lock on the door outside. Rahim, shaking, tumbled in, and with his hands doing a manic dance in midair he signed out: Bhai, there’s been a blast in Borivali .
    Ramdulari
    The first time Rahim had gone missing from the streets he’d taken his hands off the handlebar in response to Ramdulari’s query, and joined his fingertips to gesture home . And where’s that? she had asked, snapping her powder-case shut, not convinced. Far away , Rahim had indicated dramatically in the rearview, a small railway junction where no one ever stops .
    The complete opposite of Mumbai , she had added, everyone’s last stop. Rahim had smiled triumphantly. He had taught her the sign language over the many months he’d known her. And she had learned well.
    The second time he had gone missing he’d signaled to her that he had been sick. What with ? she had asked with concern. He paused. It was a cold night. He fogged up the rearview with his breath and with his finger scrawled loveria . Ramdulari had taken over a dozen customers that night to spite his blatant lie, and watched his drawn face in the smudgy rearview with one eye as she got fingered and squeezed.
    Both times Langdi had been off the roads for a few nights.
    “Rahim” never missed work if he could help it. In the hallowed circles of the rickshaw-wallas he was nicknamed Duronto, after the new nonstop long-distance train to Kolkota. Now this Rahman didn’t mind. All said and done, it felt powerful to be the possessor of a secret that no one else in the whole world would ever be privy to.
    Or so he thought.
    The last time Langdi disappeared, Ramdulari had heard that Rahim had been picked up for pooch-taach in connection with the bomb blasts that very day. Fist-fucking the right havaldar revealed to her that Rahim had been a usual suspect, picked up by the cops every time there was a round of interrogations. She went cold down to her tailbone. The five times she had been compelled to hire