Free Don't Let Him Know by Sandip Roy

up on the roof. Sometimes there would be a power cut and everything would be dark – the houses black shapes cut out of an inky sky. Downstairs Mangala would have lit an oil lamp and he remembered the dim smoky light creeping up the stairway. From where he lay, smoking a cigarette, he could see the shadows of people downstairs – elongated and distorted like grotesque puppets. How hot and still it used to be on those nights – and lying there looking up he could very well believe that the stars were made of fire. Burning fiercely in the sky, scarcely bigger than the glowing end of his cigarette. From a nearby house he would hear a woman laugh – the noise jaggedly clear like a glass breaking. And the hum of the city – the noises all melted together in the heat – a yapping street dog, the clangour of a bicycle bell as the rider weaved through the lane between pedestrians and rickshaw-pullers. And then Avinash would start to sing, softly at first, as if he was singing only to himself. Then his voice would get bolder and stronger.
    ‘Je raatey mor duarguli bhanglo jhorey . . .’ On the night that my doors were broken by the storm . . .
    He would lie there contentedly, watching Avinash singing with his eyes closed. About storms, and rain, and unrequited love. During the day they would often laugh at Tagore’s songs. Sumit always argued that they were too sickly and sentimental. But at night he was just content to lie there and let the melodies wash over him and imagine that there was really a storm brewing in the corner where the neem tree stood. A storm that would break down the doors. And maybe the woman who was laughing in the flat next door had fallen silent listening to Avinash sing. He imagined her standing quietly at the window behind the curtain with the pattern of little flowers. Perhaps in one hand she still held the oil lamp she had been about to light. And he would fall asleep on the crook of Avinash’s arm and be woken up by Avinash stubbing out his burning cigarette.
    ‘Silly,’ Avinash would say gently mussing Sumit’s hair. ‘Do you want to set the world on fire?’
    ‘Let’s go into our club room,’ Sumit would reply, stretching, his fingers touching the stubble on Avinash’s chin in the darkness. In the dingy storage room on the roof where as young boys they’d once had secret clubs they would reach for each other, the darkness guiding their hands. Later that night as he rode his bicycle home through the shadowy sleeping streets, he’d lift his hand to his face and smell Avinash still clinging to him, his fingers, his lips, his neck, and he would start to sing as well. He couldn’t hold a tune but it didn’t matter as he wobbled down the streets, scraps of song trailing behind him.
    ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ said Romola brightly.
    Startled, Sumit shook his head and smiled.
    ‘We learned that in school from our English teacher,’ she laughed. ‘We thought it was such a fashionable thing to say because Miss Cole had actually been to England.’
    ‘It’s just this house. It brings back so many memories,’ said Sumit. Then turning to Avinash, he said, ‘Is the old room up on the roof still there? The one we called the club room?’
    Avinash replied, ‘Yes, where would it go?’
    ‘I would love to see it again.’
    ‘There’s nothing to see – just old junk and stuff.’
    ‘Still.’
    ‘No, really,’ said Avinash with a touch of irritation. ‘It’s all dusty and no one’s opened it in ages. I don’t even know if the light still works. And I’d have to look for the key.’
    ‘But I know where it is, Baba,’ piped up Amit. ‘It’s next to Ma’s powder case. I’ll take Mickey Mouse Uncle up to the roof.’
    ‘Now Amit – you have to do your homework.’
    ‘Oh, let him go up,’ said Romola with a glimmer of a smile. ‘It’ll only take a minute. Why are you getting so worked up?’ There was a slight tone of mocking in her voice that made Sumit glance at her.