4.
Ajay is sold to a short, fat man with ruddy cheeks and fine clothes and a pompous air. “You can call me Daddy,” the man says, taking Ajay by the hand, leading him to the nearby autorickshaw stand. “And your name is?”
But Ajay can’t answer. He’s too fixated on the shock of a big man holding his dirty little hand.
* * *
—
They ride up the east side of the valley in the back of an autorickshaw. The town folds away below in diminishing curves. Out the canvas flaps of the rickshaw, the higher ranges reveal themselves, glaciers like jewels, shining in the heavy rain that has started to fall. Ajay sits silently, pressed into the seat, shivering, while Daddy perches forward chatting with the driver. A few kilometers up, a smaller, more peaceful settlement emerges, a village dotted with dark houses in the old mountain style—thatched roofs, heavy stones, timber frames, ornately carved wooden balconies going to seed. They are threatened by new bullying homes of concrete, with piles of river sand under plastic sheeting next to piles of stone.
The rickshaw deposits them at what looks like a small cottage built on the hillside, but when they stand on the road, Ajay sees it stretches five stories down, as if leaking down the mountain in a landslide. They rush inside the top cottage along a short, bare passageway, emerging through a heavy wooden door into a place of light and warmth, a large, cluttered room with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides that look out at the panoramic wonder of the valley. The room is full of sofas and woven carpets and ornaments and artifacts, the centerpiece a huge wood-burning stove waving tentacles of pipes vanishing into other rooms, while one belches smoke through a vent beside the window and into the sky. A huge vat of milk bubbles on top of the stove. The room is creamy with the smell.
A woman, plump and pink and fragrant, more glamorous than any Ajay has ever seen, stands up and smiles.
“This is Mummy,” Daddy says, holding Ajay by the shoulders.
“Hello,” Mummy says, extending her rosy hand. “What’s your name?”
“Go on, take it,” Daddy says.
But Ajay only stares.
“What’s his name?” Mummy says, straining to hold her smile.
“Shake hands,” Daddy says. “See.” He takes Mummy’s hand and shakes it. “Like that.”
Ajay looks up at Daddy and grins stupidly.
“Have you eaten?” Mummy asks Ajay in a baby voice. “Will you have chai?”
Ajay only grins.
“He’s shy,” Mummy says, as if diagnosing a patient. She bends her knees and examines him a little closer. “Are you sure he can speak?”
“Of course he can speak,” Daddy says.
But Ajay doesn’t say a word.
“I doubt he can read or write,” Daddy says. “But he can speak. Can’t you?”
“Didn’t you check?” Mummy says, mildly annoyed.
“He was the only one left,” Daddy says.
“What’s your name?” Mummy asks again, taking both his hands.
Ajay is mesmerized.
He whispers, so inaudibly he cannot be heard.
Ajay.
“Again?” she says, turning her ear to his face with a smile.
“Ajay,” he says.
“Ajay!” she exclaims, victorious, pushing herself to her feet, repeating it as if it were the finest name in the world. “That’s very sweet.”
“I told you he could speak,” Daddy says.
“Why don’t you show him to his room?”
He leads Ajay back out; instead of joining the road, they turn round the side of the building, down a set of stone steps protected from the rain by the overhanging roof, past a series of small grassy terraces, all the way to the ground floor of the building, five stories down, and enter a room seething with damp, as if the rain-soaked earth threatened to spring through the bare concrete. It’s a storeroom of junk and bags of cement with a grimy mattress and a few blankets.
“This is your room,” Daddy says. “And here’s the key.” He hands Ajay the key. “Take care of it; if you lose it, you can’t lock your door.”
Ajay stares at the key in his hand.
“The bathroom is there,” Daddy says, pointing to a door. “There’s soap inside. Wash up and take rest. It’s one now. I’ll be back to get you at five, when you’ll start work.”
Ajay is staring at a shelf next to the mattress that holds some personal effects, two T-shirts, a school notebook, a deflated football, a wind-up duck on wheels, and a frosted mirror.