We sit in a side corridor under a row of tube lights, examining the ceramic-tile floors with lines of dirt separating them. Two nurses are gossiping beside a man on a stretcher. A young boy with a mop and bucket walks past us barefoot.

Praveen is restless. He jogs his left leg up and down. I put a hand on his knee to settle him.

After an hour the receptionist comes over to us. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Now you can go.’

Valluvan is in a room with another patient who is corpulent, turned over on one side, the great back of him shrouded in a green hospital blanket. Beside him Valluvan looks like a tiny relic. There’s a stool beside his bed with a mobile phone and a photograph of Amma, the hugging saint.

He’s covered in bandages – legs, arms, head. One eye is covered with a patch. There are stains of yellow through the bandages and whatever little we can see of his face is blue and bloated. The receptionist hovers behind us. ‘I told you he’s unconscious, but you wanted to see, so here. But you must go soon. Actually, this is not allowed.’

I walk up to Valluvan and peer into his face. I want to say something about how worried I am for him, for us, but I just pat the air around his arm lightly, too scared of touching him.

‘Bloody thugs,’ Praveen says, as we leave the hospital. ‘This state is run by thugs and we are surrounded by thugs.’

‘I just want to get out of here.’

‘Three of them. I mean, they fucking sliced this guy and he’s still alive.’

‘It was just one extra day that I stayed,’ I say. ‘Just one extra day.’

We drive towards the city. The traffic moves with purpose. Outside, the flash of paddy fields through the window in quick succession. We pass under a canopy of wide-limbed trees, and the effect of the dappled light on the road is so beautiful, so incongruous, it feels like we’ve momentarily been transported somewhere else, to a country where gangs of men cannot set upon a man without fear of retribution. I feel a sense of confidence returning. Valluvan will live. Things will be put back to what they were. I do not need the freedom I imagine I need.

Chapter 28

28

I occupy Papi’s flat like a bird. I make multiple nests in different rooms. I need a space to sleep, a place to read, a nook by the window. I hear the heavy labour of his breathing wherever I am – guttural sounds. ‘Grazia,’ he’ll call, but only when he needs me. He’s lived with such staunch ideas about the limitations of responsibility. Now that his body is showing signs of diminishment, he wants to be sure to uphold those ideas.