Chapter 11 / 51 · 4 min

PHOTOCOPYMAN

Taking the sheets in my hand, I said, “How many copies, buddy?”

Rupkotha laughed. “If you’re making them for yourself, then two copies! You need them too?”

I flipped through the class notes again. Yes, I needed them. But I couldn’t afford the luxury of photocopying them to study. I’d take pictures with a friend’s phone and read them on a laptop. There was no need to share that little middle-class detail with this rich girl.

“Yeah, I need them,” I said. “I’ll make two copies, then.”

“Alright then. Just get them to me by evening.”

I looked at her for a moment with a questioning gaze.

“Alright, I’ll go then. I’ll drop them off with your gatekeeper this evening.”

Rupkotha didn’t read the silent words in my eyes. If she had, she’d have at least forced fifty taka into my hand and said it was for the photocopies. Maybe she thought I’d feel insulted taking the money. But she didn’t know that for the cost of this photocopying, I wouldn’t be able to buy the seventeen megabytes of internet for my Java phone for a week, that I’d have to skip my afternoon snack for two days.

Rupkotha never once tried to understand me, and for that I’m a little grateful to God. If she had tried, she’d never have made me her best friend.

So far, thirty-three people had confessed their love and gotten swept out of Rupkotha’s kingdom with a broom. I’d have been the thirty-fifth. I’d have gotten the broom too and had to run. Rupkotha never understood that I loved her. She never will.

Oh, right, I forgot to mention. I said thirty-fifth because number thirty-four is Kamrul. He’s Rupkotha’s boyfriend now.

I was about to take the copies to their gatekeeper when Rupkotha shouted out the window.

“Nafi! Come up to the house!”

The moment she opened the door, she said, “Buddy, I made a mistake!”

“What mistake?”

“I forgot to give you Harun sir’s notebook… I need a copy of that too!”

“Oh, alright…”

“But you can’t go through all that trouble again now… never mind, I’ll go myself tonight.”

I couldn’t help laughing inside. She could’ve just said it straight. I said, “No, you don’t have to go. I’ll do it! It’s nothing!”

“Ufff, Nafi… you are so cute,” Rupkotha said, and quite naturally threw her arms around me. This was nothing new. This was just how Rupkotha showed her happiness. But having Rupkotha this close to me makes my head spin. I quietly hide the restless, desperate urge to crush that soft body tight against my chest. Keeping a smile on my face, I say with mock anger, “Hey, let go, you witch!”

Rupkotha enjoys my anger. “Why? I won’t let you go!”

“I won’t be able to take this much spoiling!”

After I said that, Rupkotha let go. Suppressing a laugh, she said, “Gotten real clever, haven’t you?”

I stared at her like a wet cat. Rupkotha said, “You’re a brat! Stay a hundred feet away from me!”

I said, “You stink anyway… I’d have stayed away regardless!”

This time Rupkotha got genuinely angry. She lunged at me, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and said, “You filthy dog! Learned to talk back, have you?”

I was enjoying it. What lies beneath these mock quarrels, that’s the thing I savor most. It’s for these quarrels that I stay on as photocopyman. I photocopy page after page just for these few moments. I know the girl is probably using me under the name of friendship, but in exchange I get to spend some honest, uncomplicated time as her friend, and for me that’s more than enough.

I know our relationship is impossible. Rupkotha shouldn’t fall for some aimless middle-class boy like me, and I shouldn’t be thinking about her either. Sooner or later I’ll have to take on the responsibility of my family. I’ll be the one who has to marry off my little sister. How much longer can a retired old father keep pulling the weight?

And yet, on evenings like these… when Rupkotha calls and asks if I can top up twenty taka on her phone, and I go top it up and come back and secretly think of her, and at that very moment, with the money I gave, Rupkotha is whispering sweet little nothings of love to her boyfriend, then for some reason… somewhere deep in my chest I hear a faint, choked cry of despair.

In this society, being born middle-class is really a sin… we can never become the lovers of the Rupkothas of this world…

Sometimes best friend, sometimes just friend… on average, photocopyman.