Girls Burn Brighter

by Shobha Rao

  There was a slight shuffling, and then a whimper. And then a thin voice said, “I do.”

  “Then what is it? Come out.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  Poornima stepped back. Of course she was. She had no idea what awaited her in America. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll be there with you.”

  “But that’s what I’m afraid of,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  “Your face. It scares me. I had a dream, when I was little, and I saw a face just like yours.”

  Poornima laughed out loud. And then she grew silent. She said, “Madhavi,” and then she stopped. She felt something rise inside of her, something bitter, something angry, and she spit out, “You fool.” She heard the girl back away from the door. “You fool,” she cried again, and heard the girl whimper. What a fool you are, she thought, fuming. What fools we all are. We girls. Afraid of the wrong things, at the wrong times. Afraid of a burned face, when outside, outside waiting for you are fires you cannot imagine. Men, holding matches up to your gasoline eyes. Flames, flames all around you, licking at your just-born breasts, your just-bled body. And infernos. Infernos as wide as the world. Waiting to impoverish you, make you ash, and even the wind, even the wind. Even the wind, my dear, she thought, watching you burn, willing it, passing over you, and through you. Scattering you, because you are a girl, and because you are ash.

  And you’re afraid of me?

  She went to where Guru was waiting and said, “Break it down.” When he looked at her uncomprehendingly, she said, “The door. Break it down.”

  * * *

  They left in the afternoon, in mid-September. Chennai to Mumbai to Doha to Frankfurt. In Frankfurt, they waited five hours in a busy transit lounge. So far, Madhavi had avoided her entirely, wedged into the corner of her window seat and hardly speaking. She hadn’t eaten on the plane, only picked at the food. When Poornima told her to eat, she said, “I don’t like it.” In Frankfurt, Poornima watched people coming and going. Travelers from all different places, hurrying home or away from home. The transit lounge had no windows, but Poornima raised her face to the ceiling and thought she could scent the mountains of Switzerland, she was so close. She then looked over and saw that Madhavi was staring at a display of pastries at the coffee shop near where they were sitting. She said, “Wait here,” and went and bought one for her.

  She watched the girl eat.

  It was as deeply satisfying as if she were her mother, watching the way her eyes glistened when she reached for the pastry, how she broke off the sugary dough piece by piece, wanting it to last, and then nibbled the pieces with such pure and ravenous delight that Poornima nearly took her head in her hands, held it to her chest.

  They flew into JFK in the dark early-morning hours, and just before they landed, Poornima leaned over Madhavi, sleeping now, and looked down. She saw a field of thick stars and she thought the plane must be upside down; how else could there be stars below them? But then she realized they weren’t stars, they were lights, and her breath caught in her throat, her chest ached, to think a country could be so alight, so dense and dazzling. Once they landed, though, they were herded into a long line for immigration, and when Poornima reached the border control agent, all her English left her. She stammered through her responses, barely understanding the man’s accent. She wondered if she’d even learned the right kind of English. He hardly seemed to notice her responses, though. He was bald, with the thickest shoulders Poornima had ever seen, and a stern face, and skin so white that Poornima could see the little pink pinpricks in his nose, and the blue and purple capillaries in his cheeks. He had the dainty rose lips of a baby, and Poornima thought his voice might be soft, but it was harsh, and deep, and he said, “How long are you staying?”

  “Three weeks,” Poornima said.

  “Where you headed?”

  Headed? “Pardon me, please?”

  “Where are you traveling?”

  “Seattle, sir.”

  He studied her face, and Poornima dared not look away, but she was suddenly conscious of her scars in a way she had never been in India. He stamped their passports and waved them through. The man at customs was the opposite of the man at immigration. He was so black he shone. Poornima could see the gleam of the fluorescent lights reflected in his face. He avoided her face, though, and said, “Anything to declare?”

  This, Poornima understood. “No, nothing to declare,” she said triumphantly.

  They took a small train, and then, as they were walking toward their next gate, jostled and harried, people brushing past them rudely, Poornima slowed to study the gate numbers. The crowds and the newness and the enormity of glass and light and sound were overwhelming, but just as they neared their gate, Poornima stopped in her tracks. Madhavi bumped into her from behind, and some man in a suit gave them a dirty look. “What,” Madhavi said. “What is it?”

  But Poornima didn’t hear. She was looking at a glass case. Overcome, broken, by the bowl of fruits on top. One of them a banana.

  She stared at it. Could hardly believe its beauty. The perfect yellow of the sun. The biggest banana she’d ever seen, and yet flawless in posture. Arced like a bow, her gaze an arrow.

  She spoke.

  Look where I am, she said to the banana. Look how far I’ve come. We were in Indravalli once. Do you remember? We were so young, you and I. And the words of a crow were our mother and our father. Look where I am. For you. For you, I’ve come this far. I’ve lost no hope. I take this girl from slaughter to slaughter—because of that hope. Because it’s made me cruel. But I have not lost it. Do you remember? We were children, you and I. And look at you now, unbendable and strong. Shaped like a machete, pointed at my heart.

  She would’ve stood like that for days, but Madhavi nudged her, and two hours later, they boarded the last plane, the one bound for Seattle.

  * * *

  They landed in Seattle midafternoon. When they came out of the airport, Poornima took a deep breath and felt as if it were her first one in days. And though they had not been outside of the airport in New York, the air here felt colder and brighter. A car waited for them. Black and sleek.

  Out stepped a man who glanced at each of them perfunctorily and then lifted their bags into the open trunk. He was handsome, Poornima thought, and though he was clearly Indian, he seemed unlike any Indian man she’d ever known. Too brawny, she thought, too sad. Though against his stature, his vigor, she imagined that she, with her burned face, and Madhavi, with her cleft lip, must look like circus performers, or carnival acts. And he their keeper.

  They entered a wide road, and it reminded her of the road leading out of the airport in Singapore, and she realized, with something like awakening, like freedom, that this was the last road, the one that would take her to Savitha.

  4

  “What’s your name?” the man asked Poornima in Telugu, out of the silence. But no, it wasn’t silence. Poornima realized in that moment that music was playing, from the car’s radio, but the music had no words. It could’ve been a hum, carried on the wind.

  “Poornima,” she said. “And she’s Madhavi.”

  He nodded, or so Poornima guessed, or maybe he was just hanging his head with that awful sadness he seemed to carry in his eyes, around his neck. “What’s yours?”

  His hand reached for the radio, and as he turned up the music, she saw in it such strength, such wholeness, that she almost took it. Held it in her own. And he seemed to sense it, because he looked over at her, and she saw in his face a fineness, a fallenness, that of great ruins, and he said, “My name is Mohan.”

  * * *

  Immediately, Poornima could tell two things about him. The first was that Mohan was an alcoholic. The signs were all there: the eyes rimmed with red, the barely submerged anguish, just beneath the skin, the hands that fluttered, or hung limp and useless, not knowing their purpose without a bottle in their grip, the gray skin, the gray gaze, the gray, cele
stial waiting—for the next drink, for the next clink of bottle against glass, for the next ethereal rising. The second thing she knew was that his heart was broken.

  And these two things, she realized, were her best weapons.

  Besides, she understood, in this new country, that she had to confide in someone, and Guru had mentioned only three people, and even then, only vaguely. The first was Gopalraju, the patriarch, but Poornima doubted that the man who commanded this vast network of apartments and money and girls would in any way lead her to Savitha. In fact, he would most likely do quite the opposite. She’d also once heard a brother mentioned. But who was he? What was his name? Would he be beneficial? It was impossible to know.

  And so she chose Mohan. They hadn’t spoken any further on the drive from the airport; he’d driven her to a motel, brought her suitcase around to the passenger side, and said, “You’ll stay here until your return flight.”

  Poornima remained in the car. “What a strange city,” she said, peering out the windshield. “From the plane, the islands looked like floating banana leaves, waiting for rice.”

  He eyed her impatiently. “You coming?”

  She turned her gaze to him, shook her head.

  “You’re not leaving today, are you?”

  “No, my flight’s in three weeks.”

  “Three weeks,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “The shepherds usually leave in a day or two.”

  She watched his hands, the sorrow he held in them, as surely and as firmly as he would a glass, a lover. “They’ve been asking more questions. At border control,” she said.

  “On the Indian side?”

  “Both,” she lied. “But I have a thousand dollars. Is that enough for this place?”

  He sighed heavily, marched to the back of the car, threw her suitcase into the trunk again, and dropped into the driver’s seat. He looked at Madhavi in the rearview mirror—Poornima had hardly heard her breathe since they’d climbed into the car—and then he looked at Poornima. She couldn’t quite decipher his expression. A mixture of curiosity, maybe, but also a vague protectiveness, she thought, perhaps from her scarred face and neck. She tilted her face imperceptibly to the left, to reveal the center of the burn. He studied her face some more, but he didn’t seem at all to be pitying her, which she’d come to expect. Nor did he seem disgusted, to which she’d also become accustomed.

  “I’m still monitoring you. Every day for those three weeks. Don’t think I won’t,” he said, and drove them to a small, one-room flat in a different part of town, more residential, with peeks of dark blue water between some of the buildings. He and Poornima took an elevator to a flat filled with light, even though clouds were gathering to the west, which was the direction the apartment faced; it had wood floors and spotless white cabinets. She looked around the room and said, “Here? We can stay here,” knowing Madhavi would never be allowed to remain with her.

  “The girl comes with me.”

  “Where will she stay?”

  “This is your first time being a shepherd, isn’t it?”

  She wanted to smile, but knowing her face contorted grotesquely, she only nodded.

  “You’ll need food,” he said, looking around the empty apartment. “I’ll get you a blanket, some dishes.”

  “Rice and pickle will be fine.”

  “There’s a small store two blocks from here. Don’t go any farther than that. They’ll have rice. No pickle. You have to go to an Indian grocery store for that.” He seemed to be considering that statement, and Poornima wanted to ask him where the Indian store was, but she knew he wouldn’t tell her; her burned face was far too conspicuous to frequent a small store where the Indian community probably gathered and most likely gossiped. Who is she? they’d ask, and then look around for an answer. “Do you know English?” he asked after a moment.

  “Yes,” she said proudly, lifting her head, “I know English.”

  He seemed unimpressed, and said back to her in English, “I’ll bring them over tonight.”

  * * *

  What surprised Poornima was that there was no snow. It was the middle of September and she was in Seattle, and yet there was no snow. She’d heard endless stories over the years about how cold it was in America, and how the snow reached to your waist, and how the cars just went along anyway, slipping and sliding on the snow and ice. She had to admit that she was a little disappointed. Not only was there no snow, it was actually hot. Not as hot as Indravalli or Vijayawada, certainly, but it must be over thirty, she thought, opening the two windows of her one-room flat, fanning herself, taking off the thick brown men’s socks she’d bought in Vijayawada, specifically for the trip, in anticipation of a cold country.

  She was also surprised, by the time she returned from the corner store—with a small packet of rice and some vegetables and salt and chili pepper and a container of yogurt and a few pieces of fruit, along with a bar of soap and a small bottle of shampoo—that the country was so empty. In the two blocks to the store, she’d seen a few cars drive past and a plane overhead, and heard a distant honk, but there hadn’t been a single person on the streets. Not one. Where were they? Did anyone even live here? she wondered. Did they all go to another city to work or to school or to shop? And where were the children? She’d passed a small park, but that, too, had been empty. It frightened her a little, the quiet, the emptiness, the loneliness of the streets and the sidewalks and the houses, standing so abandoned, built for people who never passed or never stayed. It wasn’t till that evening, while she waited for Mohan, that she saw a few lights come on inside the neighboring houses, and every now and then saw a figure pass in front of a window; Poornima nearly whooped with joy to see them.

  All through that first afternoon, though, she held herself back. She clenched her fists and kept herself from bursting out of the door and running up and down the streets looking for Savitha. Yelling out her name. What good would that do? None. She had to be systematic, and for that she needed Mohan.

  He returned that evening with a sleeping bag (which he had to show Poornima how to use), a pillow, and a bag containing a pot, a pan, a few utensils, and some plastic plates and cups. Poornima looked at them, piled on the kitchen counter, and said, “How is the girl? Madhavi?”

  He eyed her sternly. “Why?”

  “I traveled halfway around the world with her.”

  “You no longer have anything to do with her,” he said. “Forget it.” He turned and walked to the front door. When he reached it, Poornima forced her voice to thicken, to break, and said, “They’re loved, you know. You think they’re not, because they’re poor, or because they were sold, or because they have a cleft lip, but somebody loves these girls. Somebody longs for them. Do you understand? They’re loved. You can’t possibly know that kind of love.”

  He glared at her with what seemed to her like murder, and she blanched, falling silent, but then his gaze seemed to ebb in some way, and he said, his voice disquieted, “She’s fine.”

  “Then show me where she lives. What could it hurt? Take me now, in the dark. She can’t be far, can she? I just want to see.”

  She held her breath. She thought he would refuse again, but he looked at her for a long moment. “This once. Just this once. After this, shut up about it.”

  * * *

  She didn’t think it possible, but the streets were even quieter than they had been during the day. She rolled down her window, better to see the street names, but she couldn’t make out a single one in the dark, or else Mohan drove so fast past them that she didn’t have a chance to read them. The ones she did glimpse—with her limited English—just looked to her like a jumble of letters. So she began focusing instead on the turns he was making, the number of streets between each turn, and the slope of the streets and the look of the houses and the reach of the trees. Even flowerpots, on the edge of porches, she memorized.

  Finally, after ten or so minutes of driving, they reached a narrow street that was long and lined with what
looked like cheap apartment houses. He drove to the middle of the street, eleven houses in, on the left, pointed to a window on the second floor, and said, “There. See? The light’s on. She’s fine.” Poornima, in the few seconds before he sped up again, noted every feature she could of the shadowed building: the tattered brown awning over the front door, the lighted windows, six across and each hung with cheap curtains, a tree with flat, dark green leaves at the edge of the building, one of its branches angled toward the window that Mohan had pointed out, Savitha’s window, maybe, the branch twisted, trying to reach inside. Would it look the same during the day, or was it a trick of the light? She needed more. She looked for a star, any star, but the sky was now completely smeared with clouds. They were waiting at a traffic light, at the end of the street.

  “Are the stars here the same as in India?”

  “More or less,” he said.

  “So the North Star,” she said, her voice relaxed, as if only mildly curious, making conversation, “it’s behind us?”

  “No, it would be there,” he said, pointing ahead of them.

  She said, Oh, as casually as she could manage, and smiled into the dark.

  * * *

  That night Poornima tried to sleep. She said to herself, You can’t go out in the dark, in a strange town, in a country not even your own, in which you arrived all of ten hours ago, looking for one particular building and for one particular person in that building. So she tried to sleep. But she couldn’t. She was jet-lagged, and the time difference between India and Seattle was twelve and a half hours, so basically, night was day and day was night, though Poornima didn’t know any of this. She only tossed and turned in the sleeping bag, rolling some along the smooth wooden floor. Around three or four A.M., she began to doze, but she was jolted awake. She felt a sudden chill. What if Savitha had already been sold to another ring? In another city? What if the trail was dead? What if this was the end, and she’d lost her scent forever?