When I was eight, Ma told me never to go near the woman in Quarter Number 7.

“That woman is not good,” she said, while washing fish at the courtyard tap. “Why?” I asked. Ma flicked the scales into the drain with her thumb. “Children don’t need to know everything.”

We lived in the government quarters in Agartala, where the buildings were painted the colour of old custard and the staircases always smelled of damp clothes, kerosene, and boiled rice. Every family knew who cooked with too much mustard oil, whose daughter had run away, whose son drank cough syrup behind the ration shop, and who had recently received an LIC maturity cheque.

Nothing remained private for long. Not quarrels. Not illnesses. Not exam marks. Not the number of eggs bought from the market.

Quarter Number 7 stood directly opposite ours.

The woman who lived there wore sleeveless blouses even in winter, when respectable aunties wrapped shawls over their heads and complained about the cold. She wore lipstick so red it looked painful. Sometimes orange. Once even purple. She smoked standing near the hibiscus hedge and laughed loudly, with her head thrown back, as if the whole colony had been built for her amusement.

She said things like, “Oh please,” and “Darling, nonsense.” She was not married. That was her biggest crime.

Her name was Madhurima, but everyone called her Madhuri Di, with the sort of “di” that meant the opposite of affection. Baba said she worked in some cultural department. Ma said no decent woman came home at ten at night in an auto-rickshaw. Leela aunty from next door said that she had seen different men entering her quarter. “Different men.”

The phrase travelled through the colony for weeks. Nobody explained what was wrong with ‘different men’. They only lowered their voices whenever they said it. As secretary of the Residents’ Welfare Committee, Baba took the matter personally.

“A government quarter is not a hotel,” he declared.

Baba liked declaring things. He declared how long I should study, how much salt Ma should use, how loudly the television should play, how a girl should sit, how a wife should speak, and how a family should behave. He declared many things into silence.

Madhuri Di had a dog. A skinny brown Indian Pariah with a torn ear and a tail that curled only halfway. She called him Raja, although there was nothing royal about him. He had patchy fur, suspicious yellow eyes, and a bark that sounded like someone being murdered.

He was the ugliest dog I had ever seen. Naturally, I loved him. Ma said street dogs carried disease. Baba said stray animals encouraged low-class habits.

Still, every evening Madhuri Di came out with a steel bowl. Raja appeared from nowhere, paws skidding on the concrete, body trembling with happiness. She fed him chicken bones, rice and stale rotis soaked in milk. After he finished eating, she examined him like a doctor. She checked his torn ear, pulled burrs from his fur, and sometimes held his face between both palms.

“Mad creature”, she would say softly. Raja would close his eyes.

One summer afternoon, when the electricity had gone and the whole colony smelled of sweat, mango peels and hot cement, I saw Madhuri Di sitting outside brushing her hair. It fell below her waist, black and glossy, like the heroines in old Bengali films Ma watched on Sunday afternoons.

She caught me staring. “Come here,” she said.

I froze. Then I slowly crossed the courtyard.

Raja came first. He sniffed my knees, my slippers, my fingers. His nose was wet and serious.
“You like dogs?” Madhuri Di asked.
I nodded.

“Your mother doesn’t.”

I stared at her.

“How do you know?”

She pointed upward, toward our window.

“Our windows.”

Then she laughed.

“In these quarters everyone hears everyone.”

That was true.
At night I heard pressure cookers whistling, babies coughing, aunties fighting over borrowed onions, and men returning late on bicycles. I heard Leela aunty scolding Piu for losing hairclips. I heard the retired bank uncle clearing his throat every morning as if removing gravel from his chest.

And sometimes I heard Ma crying.

The first time Baba slapped Ma, I was seven. At least it was the first time I remember. The evening had begun normally. The television was playing the news. The ceiling fan clicked overhead. Ma was serving dinner. Baba tasted the dal and frowned.

“Why is this so thin?”

Ma looked tired. Her braid had loosened, and there was turmeric on one wrist. “I added a little more water,” she said.
The slap came before I understood what was happening. A sharp sound. Then a silence that felt larger than noise. Ma’s face turned slightly to one side. Her cheek reddened almost immediately. I stood near the almirah holding my school notebook. For several seconds I stared at the page in my hands because looking anywhere else felt dangerous.

Then Ma picked up the serving spoon and continued serving dinner.

Later, I asked her if it hurt. She smiled without looking at me.

After that, whenever Baba shouted, I imagined Raja biting him.

Soon I began visiting Madhuri Di secretly.

Her room smelled of talcum powder, cigarette smoke, and a perfume like wet flowers. She had a cassette player, a real one, with buttons that clicked satisfyingly when pressed. She played Lata, Asha, Hemanta, and sometimes songs from plays I had never heard of.

Raja lay under the table while we listened. Madhuri Di let me feed him glucose biscuits.
“Not too many,” she warned. “He will become spoilt.”
“He already is,” I said. Raja thumped his tail.
Once she painted my nails pale pink and removed the paint before I went home. “Your mother would faint,” she said. I giggled.
She told stories. About acting workshops. About Kolkata rain. About eating phuchka near Victoria Memorial. About theatre halls with red curtains. About a baby brother who drowned when she was little. About a man who had promised marriage and then married someone else.

When she spoke of him, she smiled strangely.

“Some people leave before they go,” she said.

I did not understand.

But Raja did or seemed to. He placed his chin on her foot.

In those afternoons, Madhuri Di became my first grown-up friend. She did not tell me to study. She did not ask about my marks. She did not say children should not ask questions. She even answered the foolish things.

“Why did women wear lipstick?”

“Because sometimes the mouth wants colour.”

“Why did Raja’s ear tear?”

“Because the world is rude.”

“Why did people say she was bad?”

At that, she looked at me for a long time.

“Because they have too much free time.”

One day a new tenant arrived in Quarter Number 11. His name was Kuntal.

Madhuri Di called him Kuntal Da, so I did too. He was thin, soft-spoken, and always neatly dressed. Too neatly, Baba said. He walked with small steps and smiled with his whole face. He wore scarves even in mild weather. Once, I saw him carrying a packet of marigolds wrapped in newspaper.

Ma said there was something odd about him. Adults loved that word.
“Odd”. It meant anyone unlike them.

Kuntal Da first spoke to me when Raja stole one of his sandals. I was sitting on the steps of Quarter Number 7, feeding Raja bits of biscuit. Kuntal Da came out of his quarter wearing only one sandal and looked around in confusion.

“Have you seen a thief?” he asked.

I pointed under the hibiscus hedge.

Raja lay there with the sandal between his paws, looking extremely
proud. “You are a pirate, stealing my treasure”, Kuntal said.
Madhuri Di laughed from inside.

After that, Kuntal Da began stopping by in the evenings. Sometimes he brought flowers. Sometimes he brought oranges. Once he brought me a small packet of orange candy and said, “For the assistant dog trainer.”

I liked him immediately.

He never spoke loudly. He never declared things. He never looked at children as if they were furniture. He taught me how to fold a paper boat properly, with sharp edges, and how to make a coin disappear by pretending to place it in one hand while keeping it in the other.

“You are a magician,” I said.

“No,” he replied. “Only a badly paid one.”

Soon the three of us formed a small routine. Madhuri Di sat on the verandah with tea. Kuntal Da sat on the cane chair beside her. I sat on the steps. Raja lay between us, accepting everyone’s attention as his due.

They discussed music, theatre, rain, food, cinema, and people from places I had never seen. Their conversations moved differently from the conversations in our house. Nobody corrected anybody. Nobody became afraid when a cup made noise. Nobody’s face tightened before answering.

Sometimes Kuntal Da sang in a low voice. Sometimes Madhuri Di joined him. Sometimes Raja barked for no reason and Kuntal Da said, “Critic.”
The colony noticed, of course. Curtains shifted. Aunties paused while watering money plants. Children slowed their games near Quarter Number 7. Friendship, I learned, could also be treated as evidence.

One afternoon I went to Madhuri Di’s house carrying two guavas stolen from Leela aunty’s tree. The door was open. Music drifted out. Inside, Kuntal Da sat on a wooden chair while Madhuri Di stood before him with an eyeliner pencil. He was sitting absolutely still, his hands folded in his lap.

“Don’t blink,” she said.

“Human beings blink,” he replied.

“Not when they are becoming beautiful.”

He saw me in the mirror and smiled shyly.

“Oh no! We have an audience.”

Madhuri Di turned. “Come in.”

I stepped inside. Raja sniffed the guavas and approved.

Kuntal Da looked at me.

“Tell me honestly. Do I look terrible?”

I studied him. The eyeliner made his eyes look dark and soft.

“No,” I said.

“See?” he said.

“Children are unreliable judges,” Madhuri Di replied.

I thought it was fun. Nothing seemed frightening or wrong.

But then Leela Aunty screamed from outside. A sharp, high sound, as if she had seen blood. We all turned.

She stood in the courtyard, pointing at the house. Within minutes, people began appearing from every direction. First the retired bank uncle, then two clerks, and three aunties in nighties.
Then Baba.
They simply stood there and stared. Kuntal Da rose slowly from the chair. His face had gone pale. He wiped at his eye with shaking fingers. The black line smudged across his skin. That made people stare harder.

Madhuri Di stepped in front of him. Like a shield.

Baba climbed the verandah steps. His face wore the expression he used during
Independence Day speeches. “Disgraceful,” he said. The word seemed to satisfy everyone.

“What influence will this have on children?” Leela Aunty said.

I looked around. The only child there was me.

Another person laughed.

Ma stood at the edge of the crowd. Her sari pallu was pulled over one shoulder. For a moment her eyes met Madhuri Di’s. Neither woman spoke. Then Ma looked away.

Inside, the cassette player continued singing.

Raja came to the doorway and sat beside Madhuri Di. His torn ear twitched. He looked from one face to another, unable to understand why everyone had arrived angry.

The crowd lingered. They had expected shame. Instead, Madhuri Di stood still with one hand resting on Raja’s head, and Kuntal Da stood behind her, smaller than I had ever seen him.

Finally, people began to leave. Doors closed. Curtains moved. Someone laughed again from across the courtyard.

That evening, Baba beat Ma because she had “encouraged my roaming.”

I heard the steel tumbler hit the wall. I heard Ma say sorry. I heard Baba’s slippers striking the floor. I heard myself breathing under the bedsheet. Outside, Raja barked and barked and barked.

The next week, Kuntal Da moved out. A government truck arrived in the morning. His metal trunks were loaded first. Then a rolled mattress. Then two cane chairs and a potted palm that looked half-dead.

Usually, when people left the quarters, neighbours helped. They gave tea. They tied ropes. They promised to write. This time everyone watched from a distance. Baba watched with the satisfaction of a man who believed order had been restored.

Kuntal Da moved quietly between the truck and the house. Once, he looked toward Quarter Number 7.
Madhuri Di stood behind the mesh door. She did not wave. Neither did he. Raja ran to the truck and barked, excited at first, then confused. Kuntal Da bent and touched his head.

“Be good,” he said. Raja tried to climb after him. The driver pushed him down gently.

When the truck started, Raja chased it until the gate. His paws slipped on the dusty road. The truck turned left and disappeared.

Raja stood there for a long time. That was the first friendship I lost. Not fully mine, perhaps, but enough to hurt.

After Kuntal Da left, Madhuri Di changed. She stopped sitting outside in the evenings. She stopped singing where others could hear. She stopped smoking near the hibiscus hedge. The flowers dried on the bush and nobody trimmed them.

Sometimes I saw her through the window, moving from one room to another. Once I knocked. She did not open the door. Raja still came. He waited near our steps after school. I began saving biscuits from my tiffin. On some days he followed me to the ration shop. On others, he walked beside me around the colony like a guard assigned by some secret government.

“Go away,” I would whisper when Ma looked from the window. Raja never obeyed. I liked that about him.

One night I woke up because he was whining. It was a thin, broken sound. At first I thought I had dreamed it. Then it came again. I went to the verandah. The colony was dark except for one weak bulb near the staircase. The air smelled of damp earth. Somewhere a baby coughed.

Madhuri Di was sitting on the steps and holding Raja too tightly. His body was twisted against her chest, but he did not struggle. His head rested under her chin. Her hair was loose. There was no lipstick on her mouth. Without it, she looked younger and older at the same time.

For one terrible second I thought she was hurting him. Then she bent over him and sobbed. Not crying like Ma cried behind closed doors. This was different. It came from somewhere deep and old. Raja made a small sound and pushed his face closer to hers.

I stood hidden behind the verandah railing. I wanted to go to her. I wanted to say something. But I was eight, and all the useful words belonged to adults who used them badly. So I stood there until she quietened.

Before going inside, she looked once toward our quarter. I do not know whether she saw me. The next morning, Quarter Number 7 was locked.
Gone. No goodbye. Just a new lock on the door and a silence where her music had been.
Leela aunty said, “Peace at last.” Baba said, “Discipline restored.” Ma said nothing. Ma rarely said anything. That evening I carried leftover fish bones downstairs. Raja was sitting beside the locked door. Waiting. When he saw me, his tail moved once. I placed the bones in front of him. He sniffed them but did not eat.

Every few minutes he stood, walked to the gate, looked down the road, and returned to the door, as if Madhuri Di had only gone to the market. I sat beside him.

The courtyard filled with evening sounds. Pressure cookers hissed. Radios played. Someone called a child home. The colony continued exactly as before.

Only Quarter Number 7 remained still.

The next day Raja was there again.

And the day after that.

For a week, I found him beside the locked door. Sometimes I brought rice. Sometimes biscuits. Sometimes nothing. He never complained. He only waited.

One evening, clouds gathered over the colony, and the air smelled of rain. I stood up to go home. Raja rose too. He followed me across the courtyard. Not all the way. Only until our steps.

Then he sat down and looked at me. I looked back at Quarter Number 7. The locked door. The hibiscus hedge. The verandah where Madhuri Di had brushed her hair. The place where Kuntal Da had once laughed. Nothing moved.

“Come,” I said.

Raja remained where he was. Then slowly making a decision, he stood. He crossed the last few feet and came to me. Ma saw us from the doorway. For a moment I thought she would shout. Instead, she looked at Raja, then at me.

“Wash your hands after touching him,” she said. That was all. Raja slept that night under our staircase. The next morning, he was still there.

For weeks he followed me to school until the gate; sat beside me while I did homework on the verandah. Sometimes he slept so close to my feet that I had to nudge him aside to stand up. When I scratched the torn edge of his ear, I remembered Madhuri-di laughing on the verandah. When he stole somebody’s sandal and ran through the colony with it, I thought of Kuntal-da. It seemed to me that he remembered them too. Neither of us let them go completely. For a long time, whenever footsteps entered the compound, Raja would lift his head. Then he stopped. I don’t remember when. Perhaps that is how most friendships leave us, little by little, until memory becomes gentler than hope.
Eventually, I stopped thinking of him as Madhuri-di’s dog and he stopped looking at me as someone who merely fed him. Somewhere between waiting for them and missing them, Raja and I had found each other. We belonged to the same absence.