Algren at Sea

by Nelson Algren

  “Immediately after mid-day prayer they place before the doors of the chambers, which are decorated with extreme magnificence, thrones and chairs, on which the courtesans seat themselves.

  “Each of these women is bedecked with pearls and gems of great value, and is dressed in costly raiment. They are all extremely young, and of perfect beauty. Each one of them has by her two young slaves, who give the signal of pleasure, and have the charge of attending to everything which can contribute to amusement. Any man may enter this locality, and select any girl that pleases him, and take his pleasure with her. Each of the seven fortresses contain places of prostitution, and their general proceeds amount to twelve thousand fanom.”

  The proceeds of the holy whorehouses, it would appear, were turned over to the military before midday prayer and spent back in the houses in sacred copulation that same night. If the girls were thus kept content while the state was being protected, everyone shared in the general prosperity, nobody got up before noon and all were too busy screwing after to dissent from anything, is it any wonder that the king kept laughing his head off?

  A Portuguese traveler, Duarte Barbaso, perceived, behind this grandeur, a fearful savagery. (It must be borne in mind that he came of a Christian country which denied womanhood to women: either she married for the advantage of her house or was locked into a deathly vise of enforced chastity.)

  “Many women,” Barbaso reported, “through superstition dedicate the maidenhead of a daughter to one of their idols here; as soon as she reaches puberty she is taken to a house of worship, accompanied, with exceeding respect, by all her kindred holding festival for her as though she were to be married. Outside the gate of the church is a square block of black stone of great hardness of the height of a man, shut in by gratings.

  “Upon these oil-lamps burn all night; and they are ceremonially decorated by many pieces of silk that folk outside may not be able to see within. Upon the said stone is yet another, the height of a stooping man; in the middle of which is a hole into which a sharp-pointed stick is inserted.

  “The maid’s mother takes her daughter, and other kinwomen within the grating. After ceremonies have been performed the girl takes her own virginity with the stick and sprinkles blood on the stones. Therewith the idolatry is accomplished.”

  How Barbaso found out so much without putting an eye under the grating is a problem only posterity can resolve.

  What seems more pertinent is that these idolatrous women knew that the vagina was intended for use: an idea which now so completely confounds the American woman that she attaches it to a two-car garage instead. And then can’t understand why years of searching for her femininity through analyst’s offices end by leaving through the same door by which she came in—except that her husband is less masculine than when she entered. Wow.

  The correlation between our rising incidence of homosexuality and our increasing indifference to the suffering of others is partially accountable by the proximity of cruelty to effeminacy; these shade into each other because both overvalue pain. And both are rooted so deeply in Puritanism that we have become more tolerant of homicide than lovemaking.

  The thirty-eight witnesses to the murder of Miss Genovese were not uniquely worse than any other thirty-eight window-watchers between Schenectady and Sausalito—had a couple been making love on that walk instead of a woman being stabbed to death, there would have been a surge of outraged citizens upon them like buffalo stampeding.

  Of the ancestral savagery of India much remains in Kamathipura; but nothing at all of the grandeur. The tradition of the temple harlot has brought the devi-dasis to the stalls and the sons of the poor to the areaways.

  Between the areaways and the stalls, peddlers of ices and toters of pots, seamen going up stairs that lean and other seamen coming down, sellers of condoms and hawkers of gum, riders of bikes between fly-buzzed cafés, taxis, gharries, hay wagons, drivers and bringers, changers and criers, all are borne past the cages in a diffused light lit by occasional flares. And carried on waves of sound now loud, now soft, now far, now near: of rock-’n’-roll from jukeboxes, transistor-jazz amid a thin bleating of dying balloons; and of a doorbell being buzzed again and again and again.

  And all move on a tide of cheap perfume pervaded by urine, face powder, onions frying, burning oil and decaying fruit, a sea of smells, scents and odors diverging; then merging into the single smell of thronging humanity.

  Between hush-hush whisperings of the night—“Come to me here you—Papa you give—Short-term-long-term—You speak-Joe-you-like-nice-boy—Papa-I -show-you-good-place-you-do-what-you-like-Papa—I heard a whole night-universe begging Americans for their lives.

  Between the cold white glow of the stalls and the hotter light of the areaways, I saw a woman coming toward me; whose eyes, I saw, were crossed.

  I’d never before been accosted by a cockeyed whore. It was my first time.

  We sat down at a rickety table in front of a café that cast a pale blue light. When a boy came out bowing and scraping I ordered tea before he could start saluting.

  She would have been passably good-looking but for those incredibly crossed eyes: I mean this girl was completely cockeyed. And wearing a smile so foolish it was pitiful.

  “No short-term,” I told her, “no long-term.” And shook my head with infinite regret.

  She shook her head regretfully as well.

  Then took my hands as though to read my palms. But, instead, began matching my fingers with hers, finger for finger. When she had ten apiece, and had established that we both had the same number, I cocked my head toward her to see what she had in mind.

  She cocked her head at me in turn.

  If this kid wasn’t demented then she had a going sense of humor.

  I stuck out my tongue.

  She reddened, rose and was gone in the misty light of Kamathipura. I called the waiter out to pay him for the tea.

  “That girl no can talk, sor,” he assured me.

  “Why can’t she talk?”

  “Her Papa very rich Arabian, sor.”

  “Why can’t she talk?”

  “Her name, Kusum, sor.”

  “Why can’t she talk?”

  “She Singapore gel, sor.”

  “Why can’t she talk?”

  “Japan soldier take her from Papa. When give gel back to Papa, gel no can talk. Japan soldier cut off tongue. Papa no like gel no more. You think she see out them eye, sor?”

  I spent the rest of that night talking to the women of the cages of Kamathipura, of whom many spoke English brokenly. Some spoke not at all, but merely held out a palm.

  Several spoke of Kalyani, the woman who’d spoken for them to Ghandi. And who still spoke for them to the continual parade of reforming committees which visit Kamathipura. Men and women of goodwill who come to take count of incidence of the V.D. rate to see whether syphilis is on the rise or declining; to determine the percentage of women who become prostitutes of their own will or by kidnapping; and to determine from what provinces of India these women have come. Because there is nothing to do about Kamathipura except to chase the pimps off the corners for an hour and take a fresh count.

  A light rain was falling, as the light of ordinary day was breaking, when I left Kamathipura. Suklaji Street, Falkland Road and Foras Mews were deserted but for a few taxis in which bearded Sikh drivers were asleep at their wheels. Even the pimps had given up. All the café tables had been taken in but one; and at that a woman slept with her head upon her arms.

  As I passed her I realized it was my mute and mocking friend of the blue-lit café.

  Idling the night in blue cafés

  Mid roar of cab and cabaret

  Wand’ring the flares of Foras Mews

  The girl Kusum whose eyes are crossed,

  Whose eyes indeed lean each to each,

  Walked smiling among the alien crews.

  Fists matter little to a whore,

  Baksheesh matters more.

  When doors are
locked to all cafés

  And morning slants along the street

  Sailor and soldier alike have left

  And pimps have made a night of it

  Then Kusum, after all have gone,

  Dreams yet of seamen on the beach.

  In a rain that lightly rains regret

  Lamps along the long gray street

  Bend, wearied out with all-night love

  Like cockeyed lovers each to each.

  Fists are no matter to a whore,

  Baksheesh is what matters more.

  JULY 17TH: PORT OF BOMBAY

  III.KALYANI-OF-THE-FOUR-HUNDRED

  When Mahatma Ghandi came to the south of India he was met by four hundred whores of Bombay.

  “How may we become good women once more, Master?” their spokeswoman, one Kalyani, asked the Mahatma.

  “Go to the spinning wheel, my children!” the Master instructed Kalyani-of-the-Four-Hundred.

  “How is the wheel to save us, whom the loom has brought such shame?” Kalyani asked The Master.

  CAGE I

  Kalyani’s parents were weavers. They owned their own looms, upon which Kalyani’s parents, her two brothers and herself worked. They also owned their own house.

  When Kalyani was sixteen she married a man from Bombay, who did not have living space for a wife. So Kalyani went to live with her mother-in-law until her husband found accommodations.

  Kalyani’s mother-in-law mistreated her, as she had wanted her son to marry another girl; yet Kalyani could not go back to her own home. So she lived unhappily with her mother-in-law, hoping her husband would soon send for her.

  After a son was born to her, an older woman advised Kalyani to take the child to its father in Bombay, and offered to accompany her there as Kalyani had never been to the great city.

  When they reached the city the woman took Kalyani to a brothel and sold her for four hundred rupees. Kalyani at first refused to give herself to men; yet she had no choice, for there was no way of getting out of the place. She gave in to the keeper at last.

  CAGE 2

  Seeta was brought up by her widowed mother who worked as a farm hand. She had an easy childhood and was married to a farmer at the age of eleven. After puberty she lived with him for four years and bore him a son. Then her husband died. Seeta lived alone as she did not want to burden her mother.

  She worked as a domestic for paid Rs. 5/- per month plus food and clothing. When the other members of the family went out, the master of the house used her sexually. This continued until her mistress found out and dismissed Seeta.

  She was now a spoilt woman; she went to Bombay to become a prostitute.

  CAGE 3

  Parvati’s parents were very poor. Her father was a porter and her mother a blind beggar. She was the eldest child and had eleven siblings, all younger than herself. With her family she lived in a Harijan colony amongst the poorest people. Parvati picked wastepaper, rags, and bones from the garbage pails and sold them. She used to roam the streets alone at all hours. Men took advantage of her. Parvati had sex experience from the age of eight. At fourteen she was happy, with the approval of her parents, to join an aunt in a brothel.

  CAGE 4

  Prema’s parents were industrial workers and she was their only child. When the parents were away for work, Prema was left alone. When she was fourteen, Prema fell in love with a lorry driver and eloped with him to Bombay, where they lived together for four years.

  The man started drinking and beat Prema every day. She ran away and came to Kamathipura, where she found shelter and an easy way of life.

  “We are prepared to take any number of men, but they don’t come,” Prema now complains.

  CAGE 5

  Sarasa’s family lived contentedly, as they had their own farm and house. Sarasa played a lot with the children of her locality and passed a happy and comfortable childhood. At the age of nine she was married to a farmer. Later, she lived with him. Two years passed happily. Then her husband died of a fever.

  Sarasa continued to stay with her in-laws, who asked her to remarry; but she felt that her marriage had been broken by God. So it was no use marrying again.

  At eighteen Sarasa returned to her own home. She worked on her father’s farm for four years and then she saw women from Bombay who appeared to be happy and well-to-do. So she went to Bombay. At Victoria Terminus a gharwalli took her to Kamathipura.

  “Why do you make me think of days that are now gone?” Sarasa wants to know.

  CAGE 6

  Sheela was brought up by her widowed mother, a domestic. Her mother loved her and Sheela helped her mother; When Sheela was twelve her mother died of a short illness. She took up her mother’s job.

  Sheela fell in love with a young man of her neighborhood and married him at thirteen. Within a few months, her husband died. Sheela felt alone and lost. An elderly woman from Bombay persuaded her to return to Bombay with her, where the woman sold her. At first Sheela refused to work. When she found out she could not leave, she capitulated.

  CAGE 7

  Anjana’s parents died when she was ten. She and her sister started working as domestics. When Anjana was fourteen a man from Bombay showed the sisters sympathy, and they went with him to Bombay; where he sold them to a gharwalli for Rs. 500/-. The sisters cried but had to give in.

  “Everything is left to God,” Anjana believes.

  CAGE 8

  Usha was the only daughter of a sailor who died when she was ten; her mother was a domestic.

  Usha’s time was her own, and she spent it roaming with friends. By the time she was eighteen she was completely out of her mother’s control. Tired of her incorrigible daughter, her mother no longer cared whether Usha came home or not.

  The girl stole some gold ornaments from her mother and went to Madras, where an actor’s agent obtained work for her in films, as an extra. He harassed her for sexual favors, but she despised him. She preferred to sleep with a film director. The agent began threatening her life, and the director no longer wanted her. Usha migrated to Bombay and became a prostitute.

  CAGE 9

  Krishna’s father died when she was six and her mother found it difficult to earn enough to maintain the family. The mother used to weep that she could not give enough food to her children. Krishna was married at the age of five, when her father was living, to a grown man who had a mistress. He refused to take the girl when she grew up because he was attached to his mistress. Her mother felt sorry that she could not get her married again because of poverty. Krishna came to know a woman from Bombay who explained to her about prostitution. Her mother gave her permission to go with the woman to Bombay and enter the business “because it is better to live comfortably at any cost than to starve.”

  CAGE 10

  Nancy’s parents died when she was an infant and she remembers nothing about them. She was brought up by farmers. They gave her enough food and clothes, but treated her like a servant. When she was ten, her guardians left her with a Christian family as a domestic. When her employers left Bombay Nancy was abandoned. She begged on the streets and slept in doorways until she came to windows where women sat with their faces painted. She served as a domestic in a house where most of the women were Chinese. At ten she began accommodating men.

  A superstition was then prevalent that a venereal disease could be cured by making love to an under-age girl. By being put to the use of this superstition, the girl suffered several early infections. Although she has now, she claims, effected a partial cure, she has no doubt but that she has infected a number of men.

  CAGE II

  Padma was three when her parents died. An old friend of her father, a petty businessman who had no family of his own, brought her up as his own daughter. He was very affectionate toward her and fulfilled her needs till she came of age. She was fourteen when he died.

  Padma was left alone. She was attractive to men and was without obligation to anyone. She took up prostitution of her own will, without being se
duced into the trade.

  “It is just as well not to marry,” she feels. “If a woman falls in love with her husband, and is foolish enough to let him detect it, he will deceive her. If she does not fall in love, then she is a slavey. I meet new gentlemen every night, every one of whom swears he loves me. Of course they are all lying. But then that is what I am being paid for—to pretend to believe gentlemen. I would rather be lied to by a variety of gentlemen whom I respect than by a husband I despise.”

  CAGE 12

  Maya’s earliest memory was of begging on the streets of a city she now thinks must have been Pandharpur. She remembers a railway station, and of begging through railroad carriages. She remembers a train beginning to move before she could alight and that she was not frightened.

  The train came to Bombay and Maya came begging to Kamathipura. She was not yet ten, but a gharwalli took her in. She worked in a brothel, as an ayah, until she attained puberty. Her gharwalli then turned her over to the trade in young girls.

  “Just you wait,” she stands at the bars of her cage and tells men who are passing, “just you wait, you child-killers.”

  CAGE 13

  Girija lived in an abandoned hut and worked for her neighbors to have food. Girija had nobody in the world. She was grateful to a man who came to her and made love, though she was too young to feel or to understand the act. He used her regularly, sometimes giving her money, and was later replaced by other men. One of these brought her to Bombay and sold her for four hundred rupees.