Arabaz

Koon Homestay lay on a dead-end street stemming from the main road running between Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal.

We could hear Agra hustling a hundred yards in the distance, but that commotion didn’t reach us. None but those who lived here ventured into this neighborhood, and that made it off-limits to everyone else.

Even our rickshaw refused to take us down the gravel path.

We’d gotten out and walked.

~

A family ran Koon Homestay by renting out the spare bedrooms of their mansion.

The home rose five stories tall but stood a mere twenty feet wide. The home sat just off the road, letting the exterior walls of the neighboring buildings create a front yard.

The surrounding walls rose stories tall, casting the yard in perpetual shadow. Grass and topiaries thrived in the courtyard, sheltered from the merciless heat. 

The grass had crisscrossing stripes clipped into it like a golf course, although its upkeep was done by hand with scissors.

Along the perimeter, bushes manicured like tapering corkscrews, twisted their way to the sky. Mirrors and clashing patterns of black and white tiles decorated the front of the house.

Inside too, the home had marble flooring and gaudy wallpaper that gave the immediate illusion of luxury, but none of the finishes matched each other from room to room, or even from area to area.

In the center of the room, a fat man in a white linen shirt reclined on a large brown couch, his bare feet resting on the ottoman.

“You’re back?” Arbaaz said, ending his phone call early and rising to greet us.

“Yes … Our train to Varanasi is delayed. May we stay here again for tonight?”

“Of course.” he said. “Your room key is … there.”

Arbaaz pointed to the computer desk, where one of his two sons had instructed us to leave the key when we’d left that morning.

Dani grabbed it and headed to her room upstairs, but Arbaaz signaled for me to stay.

“You know,” Arbaaz continued, “I work for the railroad. What’s s your train number? I can call and find out when it will be here.”

I pulled out my phone and retrieved the schedule.

“The train is number 14854, the Marudhar Express for Varanasi. It should have left at eight tonight from Agra Fort station, but they made us go to Agra Cantonment and then told us it won’t be here until the morning.”

Arbaaz called a coworker.

“There is construction on the tracks here in Agra,” he said after hanging up. “This is why your train didn’t go to Agra Fort station and will go to Agra Cantonment station instead. But it hasn’t started.”

This last part confused me, so he started again.

“Your train is in Jodhpur. It hasn’t yet begun its journey. Once it leaves there, it has many hours before Agra and won’t be here until fifteen hundred tomorrow.”

“Fifteen hundred?” I said. “They told us ‘eight’ at the station.”

“Yes, they say this to not make people as upset. First, ‘tomorrow,’ then ‘one hour,’ and ‘two hours more,’ then ‘two hours’ again. See? No, your train will come at fifteen hundred. Get some sleep, I can check again in the morning.”

~

I ascended a spiral staircase of marble slab treads on one side of the living room to join Dani.

On the second floor, the staircase transformed from spiral to switchback and exited to the building’s lower roof. The building here had no doors holding back the outside. Nothing but the thermal mass of the faux-marble building and labyrinth of stairs and halls kept the cool in and the heat, rain, and mosquitoes from entering. I walked along the balcony and picked up a third stairwell that took me to our room.

I opened the door to see Dani standing near the bed in the middle of the room.

“There’s someone else’s underwear on the floor. There!” she said pointing.

Arbaaz had two college-aged sons. As she finished her sentence, one of them burst into the room.

“Wait!” he said. “This room is… dirty. I will make you a bed in the next room. One moment.”

He shooed us out and slammed the door.

We sat on a balcony chair and waited for him to prepare our new room.

Though we sat outside, the craziness, noise, and pollution of Agra couldn’t penetrate the suburban solitude. The night felt warm, peaceful, and quiet.

I closed my eyes and found it difficult to not fall asleep.

In time, I heard running water, and the shuffle of sheets, and the son returned to show us inside.

Our new room sat in a weird corner of the house that didn’t receive Wi-Fi. Bars covered the windows, and the door had a sliding cane bolt with padlock hasps on both sides.

The bars kept monkeys out.

They also meant Arbaaz could have locked us in if he’d wanted.

Somehow that thought never worried me.

I fell asleep almost immediately.