The Shopkeeper

Under the shade of the Sequoia tree that obscured half of Sector I-4 in Beldangi II, Sajan ran a small, nameless food shop with his father. Every day he opened at eight-thirty in the morning, and from the little square window he’d made in the facade of the shop, he sold creme-filled biscuits, Wai-Wai, Haldiram’s snacks and savories, and anything else he could transport with him from Damak to his camp. Sometime later, after students cleared the streets, his father would check in with a bowl of deep-fried fritters, tiny shreds of areca nuts, and a plate of freshly washed betel leaves. With the leaves, shredded nuts and other sweets and spices they kept inside the shop, they made and sold paan to those who came by and asked.

“You still don’t fold it properly,” his father would occasionally tell Sajan. “This will easily fall apart in your mouth.” Following his father’s instructions, Sajan would unfold the leaves and try once again.

Sajan spent most of his day at this small food shop. He wasn’t the type to start a conversation, but whenever his customers did, he listened and tried his best to respond with something thoughtful. Around noon, he would lock the shop and walk a short distance to his house, eat the daal, rice, and sabzi his mother had made for the day, and on his return to the shop, smoke a cigarette. When business was slow, he would lean his back against the wall, stare out the window, and watch people stroll by.

He was a quiet man, twenty-three years of age, skinny, hair parted to the right, and when a drama played on the radio he kept in the shop, he would keenly listen and lose himself in the story. The noise of students running home would return him to reality, where he would proceed to make the most of his daily sales. When the sun started to set, he would pull the window down, carefully push the bending antenna of his radio, tuck away his old Casio calculator, collect the day’s earnings, lock the door, and head home. It was simple work, straightforward. He’d been doing it every day for the past three years.

In one ordinary Beldangi day, when Sajan was preparing himself to leave for the shop, his father — a once sturdy man who’d built every part of the house after fleeing from Bhutan to the Jhapa district of Nepal in ’96 — called him over.

“You see this, I thought we fixed the damn thing,” his father said, standing on a stool as he investigated the roof with a flashlight. “We’ve got water dripping everywhere, it didn’t even rain much last night.”

Their house was modest, like all the other houses in the camp. Small windows, a thatched straw roof, walls made out of woven bamboo strips, and its inside painted with glue and newspaper through which Sajan liked poking holes to let in the air in the camp’s sticky summer nights. In the middle of their house, one upstanding bamboo supporting pole divided the space into two. Another half-wall made a space where they stored their ration and hid behind whenever they had to change their clothes. Sajan slept near the corner where lay their makeshift kitchen — a simple stove carved out of mud, which burned lumps of coal beneath — while his parents shared the other relatively spacier bed.

“I’ve told you already,” Sajan’s mother, who steadied the stool with her feet, started, “we have to replace the plastic. Just look at it. Holes everywhere.”

Following his father’s flashlight, Sajan noticed a puddle of water on their roof that had formed overnight. His father poked the swollen roof with the back of his flashlight. The plastic grumbled.

“Look,” his father shook his head. Frustrated, he told Sajan to get a bucket, “the blue one should be outside.”

Sajan went outside, got the bucket, and aligned it under their leaking roof.

The communal water standpipe designated to Sector I-4 opened at five-thirty in the morning. People let the water run for a few seconds to pump out the grass and mud that children yesterday had pushed deep into the mouth of the tap. By six a.m, at least one person from every family in the sector would’ve joined the elongating line, empty metal containers and yellowing plastic buckets by their sides. On the Saturday morning line Sajan stood in, he was closer to the front than he usually found himself in. Not too close for him to feel the need to ready his containers, but enough for the pressure to keep him from falling, as he often did at the end of the line, into a reverie.

When the containers filled all the way with water, he carried one in his hand and balanced the other on his hip. Water swayed at the top and some of it drenched his clothes as he limped home.

“Well, that didn’t take long,” Sajan’s mother said, blowing heavy air under her mud stove. His father sat on the kitchen floor peeling husks of corn. Now that his son had returned with the water for the day, he waited for his wife to make tea. He would then grill the stripped corn on the hot coal.

“Yeah, I got lucky,” Sajan responded, placing the containers in the corner, away from the strips of sunlight that passed through the bamboo walls. He then went to change his clothes.

“Oi,” his father called. “When are you going to get the plastic? We shouldn’t wait too long. Another rain and the whole roof will collapse. You know what happened last time.”

“I told you I’ll go today,” Sajan yelled from behind the half-wall, his words mumbling as the shirt’s fabric dragged along his lower lip. “We need to get more stock too. I’ll close the shop early. Then I’ll go.”

Like any other day at the shop, he sold to those who stopped by, talked to those who talked to him. As a child, he had never imagined himself running a food shop, or any kind of shop, for that matter. But through the years, he had grown a certain respect for this humble line of work. He was at least doing something with his time. And to a degree, he was thankful. Not everyone in the camp could replace their roof whenever called for.

It was sweltering inside the shop. He sat in the heat for another hour, blowing air down his shirt, listening to the music that played on his radio, watching people pass by. People on bicycles, people barefoot, people he knew, people he didn’t.

When Sajan was getting ready to close the shop for the day, a customer stopped by, one whom Sajan knew well. The boy seemed a few years younger than him and was wearing new looking clothes.

“Raju?” Sajan smiled. It had been a while.

“How are you, dai?” Raju asked. “It’s nice to see you.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Just here for a free paan.”

Sajan gave out a soft laugh.

“I remember you liked them as a kid.”

“Yes, and I remember you used to buy them for me.”

Once again, Sajan smiled. “No paan today though. In fact, I was just about to close. But come here,” Sajan opened the door, “come inside, talk to me. It has been a while.”

Raju stepped in. And as they moved and crammed to fit themselves in the tight space, an old feeling took hold of Sajan.

“So?” he asked softly, after letting Raju adjust.

“I just wanted to see you one last time before we left, dai,” Raju talked with a grateful smile on his face, “We are soon going to America.”

“America?” Sajan turned his radio off. “The whole family?”

“Yes, everyone.”

Sajan took a moment of time to swallow the thought. “So that’s why you’re all dressed up. Look at you. New shoes and all.”

Raju smiled and crossed his feet, trying to hide his new shoes in slight embarrassment. “We are leaving for Kathmandu tomorrow. Two nights there, then we’re gone.”

“Tomorrow? That’s so fast. I thought the application opened only a few weeks ago.”

“It did, but you know, my father. He knew some people inside, so I guess they helped us out.”

“Ah, it always helps to know people inside.”

Raju nodded. “But yeah, Ama and I’d come to say goodbye to her sister here, so I wanted to meet you one last time.”

Sajan opened a bag of chips, grabbed a few for himself and offered some to Raju. “Thank you. I’m happy that you still remember me.”

“Of course,” Raju munched on the salted chips and when finished, continued, “you and your group always came to our house with my brother. Always telling me to do stuff. How can I forget you.”

Sajan laughed. “You were the youngest, so… But that was before you guys moved.”

Raju nodded. His lips dry in the heat, he looked around for water.

When Sajan and his friends were still in school, they had been a much tighter group. Every day they would gather at the Sequoia tree, that is, before they cleaned the space under for the shop to be made. It was a tradition that had started when they were fairly young, in primary school. Stay close together, their mothers had told them, that way, you don’t get lost. They would meet wearing their proper white button-up shirts and blue trousers, erasers and pencils juggling inside their pockets.

“Here,” Sajan helped Raju open his water bottle.

“Thank you.”

“So… tell me, how is he? Your brother.”

“He wanted to come but had to go to the I.O.M office for some last minute things. He wanted to see you. He still can’t believe that you run a shop.”

Sajan gave out a soft laugh.

When Sajan and his friends had gotten older and reached Secondary School, they had continued the tradition. They would still meet under the tree and walk together as a group to school. In school, they were the same thing. A unit Chance had shuffled together, one which they had accepted without challenge. While in class, teachers would scatter them everywhere on the cool mud floor. Let them sit next to one another, no one in the class would learn a thing. And there, in separation, where they could pay attention, some of them found themselves fascinated by the poems of Laxmi Prasad Devkota and Lekhnath Paudyal, immersed in the stories of Parijat.

Outside of the class, they had made something of a name for themselves by playing for the school’s sports teams. Some of them played cricket, some of them soccer. And they played every day until the sunset. When they tired of playing, they would gather again at the tree, drink water, smoke a cigarette, cool themselves under the shade before heading home. On weekends, they would gather money and travel to Damak to watch a film, sometimes to the rivers outside of the camp. On days when they returned home with buckets of trout and catfish, they would divide their shares and bring it home for their mothers to prepare. Sometimes they would stay over at one of their houses, eat dinner, chat, play cards until the candlelight diminished. Sometimes they would meet late at night, light a joint behind the tree, get high, lie on their backs, and stare at the vastness of the universe.

But all of that was before they understood that whatever they did, it would not amount to anything. It was a simple truth everyone in the camp, sooner or later, came to understand. They had just finished the game. And that day was like any other. Sun in the sky, mosquitoes buzzing over their heads. And both teams were fooling around, throwing sweaty gloves and socks at each other, when one of the opposing players decided to get a little serious and ask Sajan where he was planning on studying after he finished his SLC exams.

It wasn’t the typical question people asked in the camps. Sajan did not have anything prepared to respond.

“What about you?” he’d instead asked.

“Well, I just got into some colleges overseas. The U.S, some in the U.K, one in Germany too, but I’m thinking of this one in Wisconsin. Beloit. You ever heard of it?”

“No.”

“Well, that one gave me a nice scholarship.”

Although unfamiliar with how to respond in such situations, Sajan had nevertheless congratulated him, “Oh, that’s good.” Sajan’s friends who overheard the conversation had tried their best too.

“Yeah, it is…” The player had said with a smile on his face. “You have to do something with your time, you know. You can’t just spend your days playing pick-up.”

Sajan had let out a fading laugh, “Yeah, you’re right.”

There was an uneasiness in hearing this truth out in words. Nevertheless, it didn’t take much time for it to settle well in them. They accepted it like they accepted everything else in their lives, like the slow rolling ball they knelt to collect before their feet and held quietly in their hands. They sat there, surrounded by their city friends, not knowing what to do, think, or feel. Even if they were to know of those colleges, what were they to make of it? They couldn’t even afford to attend the local ones in Damak, let alone the ones overseas. Where was the tuition money going to come from? The airfare? These questions were not meant for them to ask. They were outside of their boundaries of thought. And if trespassed into that gray area, it was certain to leave an aftertaste in their mouths. That day, it did more than that.

“He says he misses you,” Raju told him, returning the water bottle.

Sajan understood.

As Sajan and his friends had approached the end of their final year, they had had increasingly more problems to take care of. Life moved fast, and for them, it was heading towards uncertainty. They started meeting less often. Sometimes they would cross their paths in school, but Sajan could tell it wasn’t the same. On the instances they did get together, they were quicker to argue with one another. And whenever they fought within themselves, they weren’t as quick to forget as they once were. There was a sudden surge of ego and aggression they couldn’t quite understand, a new phase in life they couldn’t quite balance. As days went by, they grew more distant. Some of them started roaming around with other groups. Some of them, when asked, said they were busy with something else. Some didn’t respond. Once when Sajan was returning home from the bazaars, he found two of his friends lying on the roadside, black plastic bags filled with dendrite and fevicol on their hands. Sajan ran and screamed for help. He dragged his friends to their homes, panting. He didn’t see them at school ever since.

Despite everything, Sajan had prepared intensely for the exam. And when the news that their SLC scores were published reached him, he asked his father for a small sum of money and boarded the afternoon bus from Beldangi to Damak Multiple Campus. It was on the second floor of this college, three months ago, where he had given his exam.

On the campus’ black announcement board that everyone squeezed themselves through the crowd to get to, their test scores were posted on rows and columns of standard white printing papers. An individual I.D. number kept personal scores confidential. There was noise. Eager students pushing against one another. Mothers nervously asking their child, how it had gone, what happened? Are you serious? Like the color black keeping hold of the waves of light, the blackboard held much of their future: Success. Content. Failure.

Sajan found his number and dragged his finger across the page. When he lost track, he went back and tried again. He double checked. He checked again. Every single time, his finger pointed to a quiet forty-four percent, and the box next to it read 3rd Division. He had passed, barely. But he didn’t know what to do with it — there was nothing he could do with it. He remembered, as one might standing still in solitude, his own face on the day of the exam, the itch on the back of his head, the uncertain glare in his eyes. What would the test unfold? He had thought to himself, what would life unfold? He remembered the long, condescending pauses guards and moderators took as they walked by his desk. Because I’m a refugee? He remembered the stiff wooden chair he was made to sit on. It had somewhat thrown him off; he had grown accustomed to the cool mud floor, which, if sat on for long enough, would mold to the shape of his body. He stood there in the middle of the crowd for one long moment and let the noise and emotions soak in.

On his return home that night, the moon was gleaming like silver overhead. When he finally reached home, he drank a glass of cold water, sat on his bed for an hour, and went to sleep — leaving the rice, daal, and sabzi his parents had left for him untouched. The next morning his mother shouted at him for wasting food. He quietly stood from his bed, rubbed his eyes, went outside to wash his face, and wiped it with a dry towel. His mother didn’t say anything. His father didn’t say anything. And all the while, he kept quiet.

“Okay,” Raju broke the silence. “I have to get going.”

“Okay.”

Five people joined the next week to fix the plastic under their roof. Sajan, his father, and a few of his father’s friends. The sheet was sized and cut yesterday before sunset. They worked the entire morning, taking water breaks in intervals. The plastic was fairly easy to replace, they had done it many times in the seventeen years they had lived in the camps. It just needed for people to play their parts. They first pulled down the old sheet, and carefully made a foundation for the new one to be laid on. For that, they used what they used for everything else — their houses, latrines, children’s cricket bats — bamboos and their Khukuris to cut.

When Sajan was using his Khukuri to hew the bamboo stick, he mis-hit, and the stick punctured deep into his hand. His mother poured Dettol over the wound, and Sajan heaved as the chemical mixed with his blood. He went outside and sat there until they finished. Afterward, Sajan’s mother made tea and spread a few handfuls of dried, beaten rice on a plate. The men sighed, sat down for their tea, ate the rice-snack, and stared above and admired what they had just fixed.

“This should do it for a while.” One of them said. They all agreed, sipping their tea.

They talked for a bit, and their teeth stained red from the paan they chewed. When one of them asked Sajan’s father if he could take the leftover plastic to cover the open walls of his latrine, he told him okay. When they finished their tea, Sajan’s father asked them to stay over for lunch, and his wife eyed him; they didn’t have enough rice and daal to last them until the next ration weekend. The others caught her signal and politely declined. She fixed the free end of her sari and asked if they wanted more tea, her soft voice hiding under her tongue in shame. The men, again, politely declined.

“Raju came by the store the other day,” Sajan interfered, “Raju from our sector. He said they finished their process and were leaving for America. They’ll get there next week.”

“Oh, I heard about it too,” said one of the older men. “I don’t understand how some people can just leave everything behind and start a new life somewhere they have never been before.”

“That’s what I was thinking. But I guess that makes them brave, or, I suppose, impulsive. I don’t know. Aren’t they like one of the first five families to migrate?”

“Probably, but I don’t understand,” Sajan’s father joined, “I mean weren’t they already doing well here? They had some money. They were already living outside the camp. Why leave all of that and go to a place where they can’t even speak the language?”

“I don’t understand, too. I guess they know something we don’t.”

“I guess so.”

Sajan had thought about the idea of going to America, or Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, or any of the seven countries who were offering resettlement. He knew the most about America, not much, but had glimpsed some of it in the Bollywood movies he and his friends used to go to the city to watch. He’d also seen parts of its glittering skylines in the square, trimmed, postcard paper spoons shopkeepers pushed into his bowl of chatpate. He knew a little about New York, but he didn’t know if it was in the east or the west, or that it was in one of the fifty states, just a place near the ocean with tall buildings, yellow taxis, a beautiful bridge that one famous actor sang and danced on, and somewhere on its waters a large green lady with a torch in her hand.

But his father had also told him about their life in Bhutan. He had described for him the house they lived in, a two-story on the hills of Chirang that overlooked a plantation they owned, his beautiful Dukpa girlfriends before he decided to marry his mother, how people came to their house and paid their respects to his father, what the dragon on the flag stood for, the King, the good and the bad about the King, and would always describe it in a tone he reserved for only when he spoke of Bhutan, a deep yearning to relive his past memories. Sajan would listen quietly, his heart torn in half, between Bhutan and America.

One day at the shop, a young woman about Sajan’s age, wearing a plain, green Kurta and a small, red Bindi on her forehead visited him. It was one in the afternoon. He had just had his lunch, and the drama on the radio was approaching its climax.

She called out twice, grabbing his attention only on the second try. “Surya please,” she said and slid a twenty-rupee note through the window.

Women normally didn’t buy cigarettes from him, and when he would think of it later, he couldn’t remember the last time a woman came to his shop and purchased a pack of cigarettes. But for now, he didn’t make much of it. He reached for the shelf and pulled out a pack, grabbed the twenty-rupee note, and returned her change.

“Can I borrow a lighter?” she asked, a cigarette stick dangling from her lips.

Sajan handed her his lighter and watched the young woman hunch her neck and repeatedly flick the flint wheel. She had long, dark hair that rested freely on her back. A slim nose. And balancing her sharp, almost masculine, facial features were a pair of wonderful wide eyes. She took a long drag, studied him closely, and exhaled the smoke out in the open, some of which escaped into the shop.

“What happened to your hand?” She asked, returning his lighter.

“Oh, just a cut,” Sajan replied, pocketing his lighter.

She looked at his palm and took another puff. She then met his eyes, and after a moment’s silence, said, “you really don’t remember me, do you?”

A little overwhelmed, Sajan asked what she had meant.

She smiled at him. “We were in the same class for two years. Remember? Secondary.”

Sajan took a closer look at her. He was slightly embarrassed, unable to find her in his memories.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Sorry. It took a while. I do.”

She gave out a loud laugh, dropped her cigarette and crunched the bud with her foot. She looked at him and told him her name, “Lachhi.”

He nodded. “Sajan.”

“I know,” she told him, laughing to herself.

“Oh and can I also get some center-fresh?” she asked. “If you have any. I don’t want to return home smelling.”

Sajan opened a jar and handed her a handful of the mint candies.

“How much?” she asked, counting her change.

“Don’t worry about it.”

She looked at him with a glint in her eyes. He remained still, letting her study him.

“Pepsodent,” she said after a minute. “Apply some on your hand and let it dry. That should help.”

Sajan nodded.

Slowly placing her cigarette pack inside her breast pocket, she gave him a warm smile. “Okay then.”

“Okay.”

The young woman walked away, still holding that smile on her face. He stared at her until she vanished into the distance.

The next day after lunch, one of his father’s friends intercepted Sajan on his return to the shop. Sajan greeted him. The man, forty-five, maybe older, had a pinched mouth, wore glasses that needed tightening, and was carrying a wooden Chinese-Checker board with a small tin can of checker pieces. He asked Sajan where his father was. Sajan told him he was still eating lunch when he’d left the house, and that he was probably expecting him.

“Oh, okay,” the old man said.

“Okay,” Sajan repeated. Both men carried on.

“And oh, listen,” the man called from behind. Sajan turned around.

“I need your help next week. We have to fix our latrine. Okay?”

“Oh, okay.”

The old man waved in approval and walked away, rattling his tin can.

When Sajan reached his shop, he loosened his belt and unbuttoned the top half of his shirt. It was stuffy inside, and he was full from lunch. He fanned himself with his hand fan, but only warm air engulfed him. So he stepped outside and squinted at the sun. He walked around his shop and examined its condition. He kicked its bamboo foundation. It was sturdy, unwavering. Then he studied around and noticed had he build the shop a little closer to the tree, the entire area would’ve been under its shade today. But maybe not tomorrow. Or even in an hour. An ant stung him. Then he realized it was hotter outside than it was in the shop.

He returned inside and tried his fan again. He looked around the shop, then at the rack in front of him. Something felt off. He reached for the rack and shuffled the items around. He leaned back and looked again, sitting still, as if waiting for the scene to come into focus. It didn’t. He sighed and then arranged the biscuits by flavor, the chips by color, moved some items from the second rack to the first, from the first to the third, and ordered the packets of spices and Bhujia by price. Then he hung red links of chewing tobacco packs near the window, turned his cash-box towards him, and gave it a shake. The coins clattered. He then pressed the soaked betel leaves with his good hand. The wetness of the leaves stuck to his palm, causing the other pair to itch. Before he knew, he’d reorganized the whole shop. He leaned his back against the wall and looked around. And for one lovely moment, he didn’t want anyone to come by and shop.

Lachhi returned next week to the shop and asked for another packet of cigarettes.

“You know I gave it some thought the other day,” she started, “and I remember exactly where you sat. You were a few rows behind me. Weren’t you? And you were loud. The whole back section was loud.”

Sajan handed her a Suryapack and told her that she’s probably thinking of someone else.

“Yeah, probably.”

He confirmed her with a smile and returned her change.

“Anyways, tell me. Did the toothpaste work? Did you even try it?”

“I did. I tried it a few times, but I don’t think it worked. See,” he showed her his palm. “But it did help the pain a little.”

“Oh yes, I see,” she peered at his hand through the window. “Well, your center-fresh didn’t work too! It had no taste. It was like dry air. I almost got caught!”

Sajan stuttered.

“No, no, don’t worry about it,” she told him, smiling. “It’s okay. And listen, I’ll come by tomorrow. I have some medicine at home. You don’t want your hand to get worse. And I’m pretty sure what I have will work. But only if you want me to come, of course.”

“Oh yes, please.” He glanced at his cut. “It’s been troubling me. Thank you.”

“Alright then.”

“Alright.”

He watched Lachhi walk, the way her body moved. When she reached a distance, he opened the mint jar, grabbed a piece, unwrapped the plastic, and tossed it in his mouth. He tongued the hard candy around and watched the woman’s disappearing silhouette. It did taste like dry air.

Even though it was she who had asked, Sajan wasn’t sure if Lachhi would really come. He’d nevertheless prepared himself well the next morning. He washed his face, put on a clean shirt, parted his hair, and had left the house to open his shop by eight-thirty. There he sold to his customers, listened to the radio, and, from time to time, scanned his surroundings. Around noon, Lachhi called his name from outside the window and hinted at a bag she carried. She was wearing the same green Kurta, and the same round bindi dotted her forehead. Sajan invited her in.

They squeezed themselves in the tight space. Sajan crossed his legs to make room. She adjusted herself and looked at him, then around the shop. Now that they were both inside, it strangely became difficult to start a conversation. As if the square window that stood between them before had now been replaced by a thicker, impenetrable sheet of glass. But she took the lead.

“Pinjada Ko Suga, remember that poem?” She ran her fingers down the wall of the shop. “A Parrot In A Cage, this must’ve been how he felt.”

“You think so? This isn’t that bad.”

“Of course not.” She smiled at him. “But, who knows, maybe he did.”

Sajan looked at the bag she had brought with her. “Is this it? Your medicine?”

“Yes,” Lachhi folded the plastic open. A sharp, biting smell filled the air.

“What is it?” He asked and then reached to close his window. Now only the strips of sunlight passing through the walls lit the shop.

“I ground Tulsi leaves, some ginger, and a few other herbs. Smell it. I also added water.” She tilted the plastic for him.

He bowed in. The thick liquid stung his nose. It was numbing, smelled promising.

“Go ahead, put your hand in.”

Sajan stared at her with a slight hesitation.

“C’mon.”

He slowly placed his hand in the plastic. The liquid crawled on him, and to that eerie, vibrating sensation of the herbal juice, he let his wound marinate. “Now what?”

“Now we let it soak for a couple of minutes.” She smiled at him.

Sajan smiled back.

“Shopkeeper!” she said surveying the shop. “Do you always keep everything this neat?”

“Sometimes. When I have the time.”

She touched around the items and returned to him. “Tell me, Shopkeeper. Are you married?”

Sajan shook his head. “No, are you?”

She nodded. Quietness followed.

“The mints. It’s because of him? Does he know you’re here?”

“Maybe,” she replied, “what do you think?”

Sajan looked down and, ignoring the question, adjusted his hand to a more comfortable position. She folded the edges of the plastic for him.

“It should be good now,” she told him.

“You sure?”

“Yea, take it out.”

Sajan carefully removed his hand from inside the plastic. The rich, numbing aroma mixed into the air again. For the first time, it smelled something different than the usual smell of dry, woody ramen in his shop.

Lachhi wiped the residue off his hand with the wavering end of her Kurta. They both examined the deep slit on his hand.

“It’s still the same,” Sajan said. “I thought you said this would work.”

She looked at him and then at the wound, “I don’t know… Maybe the cut is simply too deep.”

They stared at each other. After a quiet, solemn moment, she gently took his injured hand, and caressed it, drawing circles with her thumb. He could feel the softness of her touch. She grabbed his other hand and matched them side by side, as if to see what he had, to show him what he had.

“Maybe because there’s nothing to heal.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, maybe there’s nothing inside that can heal you.”

A sudden rush of anger and disgust filled him, but before he could do or say anything, she entwined her fingers with his and stretched out his arms. He moaned.

“Or maybe there’s nothing inside you that can heal.”

She dug her thumb deep into the cut. He squinted, sighed, but, to his surprise, felt nothing.

“See, nothing.”

She pulled him closer and placed his hand on her chest. “This is what’s inside me. Can you feel it?”

His hand perspired, but he didn’t feel anything.

“No,” he told her.

She gave out a laugh. “You’re a funny one, Shopkeeper.”

She moved the plastic away and gave him an alluring, inviting stare. “Come here,” she slowly pulled his head and pressed it between her breasts. Sweat lingered on his forehead. He breathed heavily.

“What about now? Can you feel it?”

He looked at her, his face frozen in time. She brushed his lips with her thumb. A warm sensation simmered deep inside him. He hadn’t felt this in a long time. It engulfed him, like a wool blanket in a cold, rainy night. She gave him a smile and softly bit his lips, piece by piece. He returned the kiss, running his fingers through her hair. It was thicker than he’d expected. He then carefully made his way down and unrolled her breasts. Like two peeled eggs dropped on an uneven surface, they fumbled on his trembling hands. She moved on top of him and unbuttoned his shirt. He shivered as she clutched him, her nails deep in his flesh. It was exactly like what he had imagined the last few nights, and getting it right pumped his blood and filled him with great satisfaction. Fully ripened, he turned her around, and as they both struggled to get the rest of her Kurta off in the cramped space, he realized he needed this just as much as she did.

When they finished, they laid naked on the shop floor. The afternoon air whistled through the walls of the shop, rippling on their bare skin. She played with his hand, her right thigh resting on top of him. He rubbed her back. They laid there for a long while, staring above at the shop’s short ceiling, unwinding themselves, catching their breath, letting the steam evaporate.

“We should probably put our clothes back on,” she suggested.

Sajan watched her as she stroke her hair, pat the wrinkles on her Kurta, and smoothly slid back in her dress. A sticky sensation of guilt now clung to his skin. He wondered if she too felt something similar, or what she was thinking now. But her face was flat — one could draw anything from it, or nothing at all. After one long, final press on her Kurta, she let herself out the door without glancing at him or muttering a word.

For the next hour, he tried to remove the moist smell that lingered on the inside air. He opened the square window and went outside to pour the leftover medicine on the tree trunk. Fresh air circulated through the shop. When he thought he had given enough time for the air to circulate, he went inside and rigorously waved his hand fan up and down, now wanting the smell of dry ramen back. Once the musky air cleared, he ordered the items around, leaned against the shop’s wall, and, blowing down his sweat-stained shirt, waited for people to stop by.

The next morning, a letter came to their house. Sajan had just finished drinking his tea and was readying himself to leave for the shop. His mother was pushing the access end of her sari under the edges of her hips, while his father, squat atop a small mound on the ground outside, was trimming his mustache. Sajan’s father informed his son about the letter.

Instead of the traditional short, diagonal strips of red, white, and blue that edged the envelopes found there, this one was unusually white and bland in color. When he flipped the letter, a blue, circular stamp on the corner gleamed against the white background. And below it, towards the middle, was his full name and address. It struck him: the unfamiliarity of whatever he had in his hands, and even more so, the fact that this object was intended for him to receive. Sweat seeped from his neck. And as he rubbed his thumb across the stamp, he felt the brailling of three unusual letters, causing his heart to pound restlessly.

“Baba,” he called in a soft, child-like voice. “It’s from the U.S.A.”

His father, face covered in lather, surged to get a closer look at what his son was claiming, but still, fully aware, maintained a respectable distance, and his wet, bristle-covered hands, as if not to contaminate a holy relic, away from the letter.

“I didn’t accidentally step on it or anything, did I?”

“Ah… doesn’t look like it.”

Sajan deeply scrutinized the letter, its penetrating blue stamp, the sharp, white edges, and wondered, both in freight and excitement, from whom it had come, why at all it had come, and what it could possibly contain inside.

“Should we open it?” Sajan asked.

After a seemingly deep pause of contemplation, his father nodded.

Carefully, Sajan opened the envelope and pulled out a photograph of a group of young men. He stared at it, waiting for something, anything, familiar to emerge. His father scooched in.

“It’s Raju!” exclaimed Sajan, pointing at the squatting figure on the middle of the picture.

“What is it that he’s wearing?” asked his father. “Look how good he looks. And so handsome. Don’t you think?”

Sajan brought the photograph closer; Raju stared back, then smiled gleefully at Sajan, holding a baseball bat by his side, the yellow sun animating his beautiful face. It annoyed Sajan. Why smile like that?

“Take it,” Sajan gave the photograph to his father and went inside. His father then called his wife out to see “a letter from a land far, far away.”

And just like that, with one glance at Raju’s glinting smile, Sajan felt a weight pressing against him from all directions, slowly suffocating him. He no longer wanted to open his shop. The last thing he wanted to do was open his shop.

Instead, he headed to the I-4 grounds, where he once regularly played cricket and soccer with his friends. On the way there, he kicked tempting rocks and hoped to see some of the younger people, or even one of his childhood friends, and that he would be asked by them to join their game. But when he reached the grounds, there was no one. The next day, he closed his shop early and tried again — that smile still tantalizing his mind. Maybe today, he would see someone. But again, there was no one at the grounds. He looked around and thought of how different it used to be when he was younger. Where green grass once covered the fields, there were now only patches of it left. He recognized only the Sequoia tree, old but standing at the same place where it had always stood. And if it weren’t for the tree, he would’ve perhaps even questioned his memories, whether or not he was even standing on familiar grounds.

For five straight days it rained the next week. What had started out as an unpromising shower had turned into a storm overnight. Secured under the new roof, Sajan stayed inside his house for the whole week, waiting for his wound to heal, thinking about the empty grounds. He thought about how he and his friends once rushed to it after school, racing along the way, to occupy the space before another group did. He thought about that afternoon at his shop, recalling, again and again, the look on Lachhi’s face when she left. The way she walked. Her fumbling breasts. Would she ever return? He thought to himself, then wondered if anyone had seen them together, writhing like two dying worms. Or whether or not she made love to her husband when she reached home that night. He thought about his friends, too. The smile on Raju’s face. He thought about when they were younger, before the drugs, thefts, and crimes. He thought about their house in Bhutan and the bridge in New York. He sat inside on his bed, looking out at the pattering rain, and let his thoughts dry out.

Kept awake by the hail and thunder outside, he couldn’t sleep until late at night. And his wound worsened; he could no longer feel or move his injured hand. In daylight, when he got bored, he opened his old books and read the poems and stories inside. On some of the pages, he found old notes and annotations he had made. It struck him, the subjects he wrote about, how disciplined his handwriting once was. On others, he found ridiculing drawings of his school teachers, slurs his friends had scribbled in blue pen at the corners of the page. When he stumbled upon Pinjada Ko Suja, he gave it a quick read. When he finished, he read it again. More thoroughly, the second time around.

Maybe there’s nothing inside that can heal you. What had Lachhi meant?

Nothing, he thought. Nothing like dry air?

He stared at his mother. Stay close together, that way, you don’t get lost.

One night when he had to use the latrine, he lit a kerosene lamp and stepped outside his house. The night was slippery, and rain hit hard on his face. He didn’t get far before the strong wind blew out the lamp. But the lightning in the sky was bright, so he kept on, his clothes soaking in the rain. It was cold and dark. His slippers plucked mud from the wet earth, and he felt something behind him. He was sure of it. He felt it close. Fighting the weight on his feet, he ran towards the latrine. It followed him. He ran faster. But he felt it even closer, deep in his heart. He rushed inside the latrine and slammed the door shut. He breathed. The rain, wind, and thunder, all came to a stop. He breathed again, slowly. Then he took a long piss, let a tear fall, and felt the warmth escape his body.

When he opened the door, it was quiet, and there was nothing. He looked around but couldn’t find his house or a speckle of life. He moved slowly, treading carefully in this nothingness, his clothes heavy from the drenching rain. The rain. Where had it gone? He looked up, but couldn’t find a sky — only the vastness instilling in him a cold, deep chill. He stared ahead of him, at no point in particular, but somewhere far out in the nothingness. And after a while, a narrow strip of light slowly distinguished at the distance. He took a step toward the light and realized he could walk to the light and perhaps even escape from this place. What was this place? He took a few more steps. Now he felt a pressure, like the kind he felt when he held his breath for long in deep waters. He looked at the light, a tear in the fabric of time. He looked at the tear in his hand. And slowly he grew accustomed to the void. This was a familiar place. This was him. This was what had chased him. Not what had chased him, but a part of him, all of him. This was the camps. This was life in the camps — tossed away in an unknown, inescapable corner in space. He took another step. A sharp, static noise rang inside his ears. He couldn’t map where it was coming from. The more he fidgeted, the sharper the noise grew, until finally, piercing him. He winced and dropped to his knees, sinking in the cold nothingness.