Seven years pass in this place that never turns into home but is the only place he knows, to live, to breathe, to grow, tied to his body, the place he cannot leave. Ajay performing these chores, running after foreigners, learning Punjabi and Himachali alongside his Hindi, picking up a spattering of English, German, Hebrew, and Japanese, filling the hollow proofs of his existence, giving name to many things, Mummy kind to him—sometimes tearful or cruel—but she teaches him with great diligence to read and write, to write his name in English too.
And in the house and on the farm he becomes a strong and obedient teenager, muscled, lean; he learns to shoot, learns to hunt, helps birth the calves, keeps the dogs fed and trained, keeps a watch for leopards and bears, watchful as ever, always there, never quite there; the grains of life picked out and soaked, a functionary, loyal to Daddy, vital but so inconsequential in the scheme, exposed to the rhythms and terminal undercurrents of his domestic cove but somehow sheltered too; he eats, he drinks, drinks his milk, spurts in growth, grows an absurd little mustache, learns to shave—his work is relentless, how can he not become strong? His body inhabits adulthood though his mind is still somewhere behind, sometimes a child, always looking to be needed more than he really needs anyone. He sleeps alone every summer night in his room, listening to the parties in the apple orchards, every winter night upstairs, smothered by the hearth. Soon he’s taller than Mummy, then Daddy, though they never see it like that. And in the village, every summer as the hippies come, clustered with them in the maze of cafés and guesthouses around the hot springs, he keeps learning his English, Ajay Matchbox, the Matchbox Kid, mute performer, silent clown, ever ready, learning to score charas for commission, roll joints for a rupee, pack chillum for five, keeping handy with the gauze; this boy who was once mocked by some strung-out German, some hardened Israeli, some Japanese acid freak, some hardscrabble Englishman, now strong and watchful and more beautiful than he ever had a right to be. But ready to serve above all else, delighting those who return each spring, saying, “Ajay, is it you? God, you’ve grown . . .” And those who ordered him so casually before become hesitant, and proprietorial too, seeking his good favor. And those who never laid eyes on him are eager to impress. Women joke about how handsome he is. “It’s only a matter of time,” one says, and they laugh at each other knowingly. Funny, the passage of time. Funny, this body. But Ajay isn’t built that way. He has no guile and knows how precarious the body can be.
He learned the fates of those other boys by and by, the ones who traveled with him in his cage. One went missing in the woods and was found eaten by God knows what, one was drowned while swimming in the river in spate. Four ran away together after stealing from their employers, and of those four, two were convicted of dacoity and murder and two were known to have been shot before ever reaching jail.
“And why don’t you run away?” Daddy asks each time a new report comes in.
“Because I’m not stupid,” Ajay says.
“That’s right,” Daddy says. “Because you’re not stupid, because you’re a good boy too. Repeat after me,” he says, switching to English. “There’s no place like home.”
* * *
—
Over the years Daddy expands that great, deep, empty home, renovating the shells of the lower rooms, making the place fit for guests, each floor painted and bright, bringing a summer profit. Another task: Ajay, now manager of the guesthouse alongside his farming chores, changing sheets, cleaning rooms, cooking food for the guests, running every errand that’s required.
Sometimes the foreigners who stay here ask him questions: Where are you from? Where is your family? Do you go home? What’s life like in the village you’re from?
All of these he deflects with a shy smile.
“You go school?” the sun-leathered Italian asks when Ajay is fifteen.
Ajay shakes his head.
“What you do? To learn?”
“I work.” He smiles.
“You go school before?”
“When I was little,” he says, thinking out each word.
“When you leave?”
Silence. A shrug.
“When you come here?”
The Italian follows him with his eyes, persistent, trying to bore into his mind.
“You get the money, no?” The man makes the universal sign, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, producing a ten-rupee note for good measure. “Money. Rupees.”
Ajay pretends not to understand, continues making their lunch.
“Here, is for you, take it.”
Ajay looks at the money and smiles and shakes his head.
“Go on, take it.”
He takes the money and puts it in his pocket shyly.
The Italian leans back and watches him. “You don’t get the money, no. Do you?”
It’s true. Ajay has never been paid. Daddy has told him that his mother receives his salary every month. He has no reason to disbelieve, he takes it on faith.
But now he wants to know the details, like hearing the same fairy tale each night.
Picking his way through the forest from the farm one afternoon soon after, pausing every now and then so as not to leave Daddy behind, he asks offhandedly how it is that his wages reach his mother in his village.
Daddy remains silent awhile, as if he hadn’t heard. Finally he says, “I put your wages in a bank account. And your mother takes the money out on her side.”
“From a bank?”
“Yes.”
“She has a bank?”
“Yes. The one in your village,” Daddy says.
“I don’t know it.”
“There was no bank when you were there. It just opened.”
“How did she get it before?”
“The man who brought you here paid her.”
“How much money does she get?”
“Every month,” Daddy replies, “she receives five hundred rupees.”
Ajay spins the figure in his head, calculating all the things she could buy.
They walk on. In the sun the branches seem to catch fire. The sweet scent of resin fills the air.
“Can I see her?” Ajay asks.
“Of course,” Daddy says, without missing a beat. “You can go anytime you want.”
“I’d like to see her,” Ajay replies.
“But if you go,” Daddy continues, “I’ll have to replace you and you won’t be able to come back, you realize that?”
The thought of another boy arriving to take his place drives fear in his heart.
“I can’t remember the way home,” Ajay finally says.
Silence.
“But can I talk to her on the phone?”
“Perhaps,” Daddy says, as if the thought had never occurred to him. “Does she have a phone?”
“I don’t know,” Ajay says.
“Even if she did, we don’t know the number.”
They dwell on this in mutual silence.
“What about the men who brought me here?” Ajay says. “Can we ask them?”
“They stopped coming years ago,” Daddy replies. The trail widens, they pass an abandoned machine, the smell of rust and old oil hangs in the air. “Aren’t you happy here?”
“I’m happy.”
“You have everything you need. No hunger, no worry. You’re surrounded by nature.”
“I think about my mother sometimes.”
Daddy sighs. “It’s normal,” he says.
“Sometimes I dream about her.”
“Your mother wanted you to work.”
“Sometimes I think of going back there after.”
“After what?”
“After you’re done with me. I want to go back there and be a big man.”
“You do?”
“When I’m older.”