Still, once she decided to stay, the first thing she did was buy a small water jug, for the purpose of washing up, and then she sat down, next to the Higginbotham’s bookstore stall, and tried to look like she belonged there, like she was waiting for a train, or for someone—someone dear to her, someone on a train—to arrive. The stall had a niche, behind a stand of magazines and comic books, and Poornima found that she fit perfectly into this niche, as long as her legs were pulled to her chest and wouldn’t be seen. From this vantage point, looking up, she was amazed by how few people looked down. None, as far as she could tell during her first few hours in the niche.
After a time, she got up to stretch her legs and walked up and down the bridge that stretched over the platforms, with stairs leading down to each. From here, she could see the long sinews of the trains coming and going, the roofs over each of the platforms, and the tracks—how many were there? Maybe twenty, maybe more; she’d never seen such a thing, she’d never even known that so much commerce, so many people, and so much travel existed in the world—stretching in every which direction like the lines on the palm of a hand.
This was her daily schedule: sleep on one of the platforms, or the vestibule, check the train departures first thing every morning for anything going past Eluru, and if there were none, buy herself a packet of idlis and a cup of coffee or tea, depending on her mood, and then walk or huddle in the niche behind Higginbotham’s.
It wasn’t until the beginning of her second week that she met Rishi. He was a slim boy about her age, maybe a little younger. She had noticed him before, lurking on the platforms, at their very edges, and studying everyone who passed him. He studied them so keenly that she wondered if he wanted to draw them, or rob them. But he never did, at least not that she could see. He was there every day, just as she was. He’d studied her, too, once or twice, though she’d ignored him and had kept walking. Still, he must’ve known she was mostly living behind Higginbotham’s because one afternoon, he came over and began to examine the stand of magazines and comic books. He picked up a Panchatantra and flipped through it. Then he picked up a film magazine that had a woman in a red dress on the cover. When he put that one back on the stand, somebody Poornima couldn’t see yelled out, “Hey. Hey! You. Either buy it, or don’t. But don’t get your mother’s hair grease all over it.” The boy backed away from the stand—Poornima could see his sandaled feet take a step back—but then he swung his head and looked right at her.
Poornima jumped. Her heart stopped. Was he the police?
“What happened to your face?” he said.
Poornima pulled her pallu down over her forehead, nearly over her eyes, and didn’t say anything.
“Are you deaf?”
She shrugged.
“Let me see.” He came toward her; Poornima pushed deeper into the wall. He knelt a little, but gently, with a kind of grace. He wasn’t the police; that much Poornima knew, though she kept her face lowered and raised only her eyes. He looked in them, and then he said, “Your neck, too? Your father or your husband?”
Poornima was quiet for a moment, as if she was trying to decide, and she said, “No one. It was an accident.”
The boy nodded, and then he said, “It always is. My name’s Rishi. What’s yours?”
Why was he talking to her? What did he want? She clearly had no money, but he didn’t seem frightening. He seemed more like a brother than anything else. Still, she didn’t respond, and after lingering a few moments, he shrugged and walked away. She watched him: he walked forward, still where Poornima could see him, and then he went and talked to somebody unloading burlap sacks from a goods train, and then he bought himself a cup of tea. He looked in Poornima’s direction once or twice, as if making sure she was still there, and then, when he’d finished his tea, he waved at her, as if he’d known her all his life, as if she were an old friend he was seeing off at the train station, and then he walked right past her, out of the vestibule and into the world.
*
But he was back again the next day. And the next. And the next. And each time, he waved at Poornima when he came in the mornings and waved again when he left at night. She began, surprisingly, to look forward to seeing him. If he happened to pass her in the middle of the day, as he often did, seeing as they both wandered the same ten platforms, then he didn’t wave; he didn’t even look at her. They nearly bumped into each other once, on the passenger bridge over one of the platforms, and yet he didn’t so much as acknowledge her. How odd, she thought. That evening—after they’d bumped into each other on the bridge—she sprang up when she saw him approaching the exit, on his way to wherever he went every night, and she said, “Poornima.”
He looked at her and smiled, and she felt a rush of relief and warmth.
After that, they walked and talked together almost every day. She told him about Kishore, and her mother-in-law, and even about Indravalli, and a little about her father. Then she said, “Where do you go every night?”
He straightened his back, and his voice grew serious. “I have a very important job.”
“Oh? But you’re here all day. Is it a night job?”
He seemed to consider this for a moment, and he finally said, “I work here. I’m working now. I go in the evenings to report back to my boss.”
“You’re working? But all you do is walk around.”
“It just looks like that. You don’t know anything.”
Maybe I don’t, Poornima thought, but she knew when someone was working, and Rishi certainly wasn’t. “What is it that you do?”
“I find people.”
“Like who? Like lost people?”
He shrugged. “How long are you going to stay there? Behind Higginbotham’s?”
“Till the northern trains start running.”
“The Naxals blew up the tracks.”
“Why do you think I’m still here?”
“Do you have someone up north? Someone waiting for you?” he asked, his voice taking on a strange curiosity.
“Yes. In a way.”
“The tracks could take weeks, months. Why don’t you just go around?”
That had never occurred to Poornima. Why hadn’t it ever occurred to her? Something so simple.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not lying. About what?” she said.
“You don’t have someone waiting for you. I can tell. I can tell you’re alone.”
Poornima scratched at her bandages. The itchiness had begun, and she could hardly sleep or eat or do anything for how maddening it was to not scratch. “How can you tell?”
“I help girls just like you,” he said. “Girls who are alone. I help them be safe and make money. Just until they’re ready to leave. Like when the tracks are fixed, for instance. But most never leave, they like it so much.” He asked Poornima if she wanted a cup of tea, and she said yes.
“What do they do?”
“Office work. Like a secretary. Or they work in a fancy shop. Or sometimes in a sari store. Things like that. Easy work.”
“And you’ve helped lots of girls?”
Rishi nodded. “Oh yes. Hundreds. Probably more. I know every single girl who walks through this train station. I have one of those memories, you see. I know them all. And I know which ones could use a job like that.”
Poornima was silent, and then she said, “Every one?”
“Not a single girl gets on or off any train in this station without me knowing. I remember their faces. I never forget their faces. Sometimes, I talk to them, just like I’m talking to you, and then they take the jobs and they always make a point to come and find me and thank me.”
“I’ve never seen any girl thanking you.”
He sighed loudly. And then he said, “Why would you? Sitting like a mole behind Higginbotham’s. Anyway, I have work to do. I can’t stand here and talk to you all day. Take the glass back when you’re done,” he said, referring to her teacup. He turned away, but not very convincingly. He started to walk down the platform.
“Wait,” Poornima yelled after him. He stopped a yard or two away from her, and she thought he might be smiling, but she couldn’t be sure. It was just a sense she had. Though why would he be smiling?
When he turned to look at her, his face was serious. He said, “What? I have things to do.”
“Every girl?”
“Yes. That’s what I said.”
“How long have you been here? At the train station?”
“Why?”
“Just curious.”