Ten Past Two

"You can sell the house," Ajji said. "You can't sell the door."

"I'm not selling the door, Amma. I'm painting it."

"Then tell that to whoever knocks on it at ten past two."

"That isn't me." Pa held the brush out to Kiran. "For the record, I was asleep in Whitefield last night. 20 kilometres away. 500 rupees, like we said."

"For one door?" said Kiran.

"You're 13. You can manage one old green door in Malleswaram. In cream, by Saturday, because buyers like cream."

"Buyers," said Ajji, as if it were the name of a beetle. "Your father hung that door."

"In 1971, Amma. And it's stuck every monsoon since 1972."

"Somebody's written on it, Pa," said Kiran.

"Read it, then."

"Naale baa." He touched the letters. "There's chalk under the chalk. And more under that. It's like the rings in a tree."

"She writes it fresh every evening," said Pa. "Has done for 32 years."

"What does it mean?"

"Come tomorrow," said Ajji. "It's Kannada. You'd read it if your father had taught you."

"Is that a real rule or an Ajji rule?"

"Paint first. Then ask."

So he painted, and she told him.

"In the nineties a thing walked these streets at night. It knocked. It called you the way your family calls you, in the voice of someone you would open the door for."

"And if you opened?"

"You didn't need to open. If you answered it, one word, your heart stopped." She watched the brush. "But it can read. If it finds naale baa on your door, it reads it and goes away."

"For good?"

"Till the next night. Then it comes back and reads it again."

"Every night?"

"Since 1994."

"What does it sound like?"

"Like whoever you miss," said Ajji. "Mind the drips."

Pa laughed. "The whole of Malleswaram wrote that in 1994, Kiran. Then everybody stopped. Except your Ajji."

"Your Ajja wouldn't have it on his door," Ajji said. "He called it village nonsense." She looked at Pa. "Like you."

Pa didn't answer that.

"New rubber seal," he told Kiran, thumb on the foot of the door. "I fitted it with the camera last month. Nothing gets under this door now. Not a mosquito, not a lizard, not a builder's letter."

"The chalk's gone," said Kiran. "One coat and it's gone."

Ajji scraped a stub of chalk across the wet paint. "See? It skids. It won't take, not till morning."

"Good," said Pa. "The buyer comes Saturday. I'll get the second tin." He went out to the car.

"Ajji," Kiran said quietly. "Pa needs Saturday. I heard him on the phone to Ma. His company let 40 people go."

"And he's one of the 40," said Ajji.

"You knew?"

"Your mother phoned me first. A man should get to tell his own mother, so not a word to him." She looked at Kiran. "What's your plan, then? Everybody here has one."

"You could have my room in Whitefield. I'll take the sofa. I don't mind."

Ajji patted his cheek. "Kind boy. Wash that brush."

"Right," said Pa after dinner. "30 clips, one for every night since I put the camera up. Every one stamped 02:10. Watch."

"Just the step and the tulsi pot," said Kiran. "Why ten past two?"

"Because that's when the builder's boys finish drinking," said Pa. "Wait."

Two knocks, light, the way you knock when your hands are full.

"Amma," said Pa's voice, from the empty step. "It's me. Open up. I've lost my key."

"That's you," said Kiran. "That's exactly you, Pa. I've got goosebumps."

"It's a clone," said Pa. "Look, it's simple. A computer copies my voice off my work talks online."

"So who's knocking?"

"The builder's men, just out of shot. They want her scared, so she signs. Tonight I sit up by the door, and when they knock, I open it and film their faces."

"It's not the builder," said Ajji from the kitchen doorway, drying a steel plate. "For 32 years it used your father's voice. The week you put that camera up, it changed to yours."

"Why would it change?" said Kiran.

"It listens. It looks for the voice I'd open for."

"And you've never opened?"

Ajji dried the plate all the way round. "Not for that one."

Pa rubbed his face. "I had a dream at your age, Kiran. Amma was calling me from the street, at night. I got up to answer, and Appa put his hand hard over my mouth."

"That's just a dream."

"I could smell his coconut oil. Then he died, the same year. His heart."

"In that chair," said Ajji.

"That one?" said Kiran.

"Teak and cane. He wore the arms pale, sitting up every night for nothing."

At midnight she came out of her room in silk.

"Ajji, is that your wedding sari?" said Kiran. "And jasmine? Are you going somewhere?"

"It's my good green one, not my wedding one. And I'm staying somewhere."

"Amma, what are you doing with Appa's chair?" said Pa.

"Facing the door." She turned it round and sat, straight, with her tablets in her lap.

"You'll fall asleep in it."

"Your father did." She turned to Kiran. "Rules. If it says your name, shut your mouth. If it says your father's name, your hand goes over his."

"And if it says yours?"

"That's my business." She looked at the blank cream door. "With nothing on the door, it doesn't go. It stays till sunrise, or till somebody answers."

"That's four hours."

"So you see the trouble." She tapped his notebook. "Write it big. Push it under when it knocks."

"Is paper a real rule or an Ajji rule?"

"It reads," said Ajji. "That much I know."

"NAALE BAA," said Kiran, writing it in black marker. "Pa, stop making the school play face."

"I'm being supportive," said Pa, on a stool by the door.

"Ravi," said Ajji. "When were you going to tell me about your job?"

Pa went still. "Who told you?"

"Nobody tells me anything. I'm old, so I guess. Sell the house, then, but not to them tonight."

"What was Ajja like?" Kiran asked.

"He sang badly," said Ajji. "He brought me jasmine from the corner market every Friday. And he called me by my name. Never 'listen', like the other husbands."

"Nobody's called you Usha since Appa," said Pa.

"No," said Ajji. "Nobody has."

"What if it's real, Pa?" Kiran said.

"Then we have one page of marker and a boy who talks cricket in his sleep."

"I can keep quiet."

"Four hours?" Pa grinned. "You can't keep quiet through one over."

"Kiran," said Ajji, without turning her head. "Whatever happens tonight, you don't touch this chair. Promise me."

"I promise."

At ten past two, nothing knocked. At eleven minutes past, nothing.

"Builder's boys have the night off," said Pa, and stretched. "Bed, Kiran."

"Five more minutes." Kiran leaned his head back on the window grille behind the sofa.

Something tapped the grille, an inch from his ear.

"Kiran," said Pa's voice, right there, through the mesh. "Let me in. It's Pa."

Pa was across the room, on the stool by the door. His mouth was shut.

"Pa," Kiran whispered. "Is anyone on the step?"

Pa turned the phone round. "Nobody," he whispered back. "Kiran, there's nobody."

Slow feet on the paving. Two knocks on the door.

"Kiran," said Pa's voice. "Open up. Ajji's locked out. She needs her tablets."

Kiran was up and halfway to the door. Ajji caught his wrist.

"Look at my lap," she said. "Whose tablets are those?"

"But it's Pa's voice," Kiran whispered. "Pa's here."

"Don't," said Pa. "Look at me. Not the door."

Then Ajji's voice, from outside, thin and frightened. "Kiran, my boy. I'm cold out here."

His mouth came open. Pa's hand clamped over it, warm and shaking.

"The paper," said Ajji. "Now."

Kiran shoved the page under the door. It slid, caught, went.

"It's through," he gasped, round Pa's fingers. "I felt it go."

The voice outside went quiet. Then it said, very softly, "Ravi."

An old man's voice, low and kind. Kiran didn't know it.

"Appa," Pa breathed.

Kiran twisted round and covered Pa's mouth with his hand.

"Usha," said the old man outside, gentle, as if he'd been away a long time.

Somebody whispered, "Yes." Something came after it, too low to catch under the thud of Kiran's heart.

It came from just behind his head, where Pa's face was. Pa answered, Kiran thought. Pa answered it, and now his heart will stop, here, under my hand.

Nothing knocked again.

"You said yes," Kiran whispered.

"I didn't." Pa pulled Kiran's hand away. "I thought it was you."

Pa found the switch.

"Kiran," said Pa. "Your paper."

"It went. I felt it go."

"It's here. It's stuck flat on my seal." Pa picked it up. NAALE BAA, creased where Kiran had shoved it. "It never went out."

"Then why did it stop?" said Kiran. "Pa. Why did it stop?"

Pa didn't turn round. Kiran did.

Ajji sat in Ajja's chair, facing the door, with the jasmine in her hair and her hands folded on the tablets. Her eyes were open.

"Amma?" said Pa. "Amma."

Her eyes did not move.

Pa knelt and took her hand. "It's warm," he said. "Kiran, it's still warm. It won't hold mine."

"Pa."

"His heart. In that chair. In '94." Pa said it slowly, working it out as it came. "Appa wouldn't let her chalk the door. So it came, and it called me in her voice, and he held my mouth shut."

"Then it called him," said Kiran.

"And he answered it. It wasn't a dream." Pa pressed his mother's hand to his face. "And tonight the door was blank. Because I had it painted."

Kiran looked at the smooth cream door.

"I painted it," he said. "You paid me 500 rupees."

"Look at her," said Pa. "The silk and the jasmine. She knew, Kiran. She dressed for him."

"She made me promise not to touch the chair."

"She told me to sell the house," said Pa. "Just not tonight."

Pa's phone buzzed on the floor. "New clip," said Kiran, and pressed play. "02:13."

The grey step. The tulsi plant. Nobody.

"Usha," said the old man's voice, kind and patient, as if he were calling her in to eat.

Ajji's whisper came next. The mic had caught every word. "Yes, Mohan. Just me. Leave the boys."

The clip ran on, the step empty.

Then, from the step, soft and polite, in Kiran's own voice: "Thank you, Ajji."