by A. X. Ahmad
He hands the pocketbook to Ali. “The guys at Sonny’s Roti Shop must know Leela. She said that she goes there all the time. Just walk in there and say she dropped this in your cab, and you want to return it. Ask them where she lives. It’s somewhere very close by.”
Ali looks down disbelievingly at the pocketbook. “You think this is going to work? Sounds dangerous to me—”
“It’s a roti shop, for God’s sake. Don’t be such a coward.” Ranjit’s arm throbs with pain. “Ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll do it.” The big man heaves himself out of the car, pulls down the tails of his Hawaiian shirt, and waddles down the sidewalk toward Sonny’s.
Ranjit sighs and settles back into his seat, seeking some position that will hurt less. He watches the old Guyanese ladies in their crumpled skirts and cheap slippers stand by a vegetable stall, squeezing eggplants and tomatoes, raising them to their noses to sniff out ripeness. Some shopkeepers are brushing at their wares with colored feather dusters, and that gesture reminds him of India, as does the smell of incense drifting out of the small shrines in the shops.
How strange, he thinks, to transplant Indians to the Caribbean, where they lose their language, and all their memories of India. All that remain are these scattered gestures.
Another train rumbles overhead, and the whole cast-iron El shakes. A few passengers trickle down the stairs from above, and then it is quiet again.
There is the blur of Ali’s yellow-and-red Hawaiian shirt as he emerges from Sonny’s Roti Shop. His face is reddened—from embarrassment or exertion, Ranjit cannot tell—and he is clutching a grease-spotted brown paper bag to his chest.
The smell of hot roti and mango pickle fills the cab as Ali gets in.
“So?” Ranjit’s eyes dart worriedly to his friend’s face.
“So? I bought some chicken doubles. Three for me, two for you. Or if you don’t want any…”
“Stop messing around—”
“… and while I was buying these, I inquired, casually, about your friend, Leela, who dropped this purse in my cab. I said she had green eyes, and was beautiful, as you described, and the lady behind the counter laughed. She gave me this—” Ali holds up a takeout menu with something scrawled on it. “—and said that the beautiful princess lives close by, on 120th Street.”
“Thank the Guru.” Ranjit slumps back in his seat.
Ali reaches forward and turns the key in the ignition. “So, you want to go there? What about those local hoodlums you tangled with? What if they recognize you?”
“I don’t think so. Look at me, yaar. I’m practically undercover.”
Ranjit gestures at his own clothes: he is wearing jeans and a crumpled blue half-sleeved shirt that is misbuttoned, and flip-flops, since he couldn’t tie his shoes. He couldn’t tie his turban either, so his long hair is in a topknot, and covered by a baseball cap with MIKE’S TOW written on it.
“Aare, Ali, don’t worry so much. Bad guys only come out after dark.”
“Okay, okay.”
Ali switches on the engine and drives away one-handed, chomping on a roti roll with the other.
* * *
They park a block away from the address scrawled on the takeout menu, in the scant shade of the scrawny trees that line the narrow road. Ranjit asks Ali to wait in the cab, and he grunts contentedly, chewing on his second roti roll.
Walking slowly down the street, Ranjit looks at the numbers on the small two-story wooden houses, feet away from each other, with tiny yards facing the street. Despite their modest size, they are all freshly painted in bright greens, pinks, and yellows. High stone balustrades have replaced many of the chain-link fences, and the more affluent homeowners have even refaced their front façades in brick.
In those details, Ranjit recognizes the Indian belief that stone and brick speak of respectability and permanence; only the poor live in wooden houses. There are other traces of India, too: the bright red of chili pepper bushes, and statues of Krishna and Lakshmi displayed in the large picture windows, some accompanied by crossed American flags.
Unlike the scrappiness of Jackson Heights—where only the poorest Indian immigrants live, departing as soon as they can for the suburbs—this street speaks of community and prosperity. These Caribbean immigrants are clearly here to stay.
These are all single-family houses, and Ranjit wonders whether Leela rents a room in one of them. But the address that Ali has obtained—on the corner of 109th Avenue—is a faded yellow single-family, with no name on the mailbox, and only one buzzer.
He stands uncertainly by the chain-link fence, half overgrown with weeds; maybe there is another entrance around the back. Turning the corner, he walks the length of the house, toward a long, grassy backyard, bordered by more chain-link fence. It is shaded by a huge, leafy tree that must have existed for a hundred years before these houses were built. In the sunny part of the yard a girl stands by a dug-up flowerbed, one foot pushing down on a spade. She is wearing cutoff jean shorts and a gray T-shirt stained with sweat. Ranjit can’t tell if this is Leela: her face is masked by white plastic sunglasses, and her hair is covered with a brown kerchief knotted at the back.
The girl digs deftly, turning over the earth, and then crouches to scatter seeds from a packet. The rest of the flowerbed contains masses of yellow marigolds, blue hydrangeas, and tall sunflowers that sway in the breeze.
A screen door slams and an older woman comes out of the back of the house, carrying a tray laden with a jug of lemonade and plastic glasses. She is in her sixties, and wears a faded red pantsuit, with dyed, jet-black hair and painted-on arched eyebrows. A small black-haired boy in yellow shorts and a matching T-shirt walks behind her, and when he sees Ranjit he stops, shyly rubbing one shin against his other leg. He has plump cheeks, a round belly, and solemn brown eyes.
“Dev, I told you to bring the folding table—” The older woman jumps when she spots Ranjit standing by the fence. “Oh my Lord.”
She steps backward, still holding the tray, her face contorting with fear.
The girl by the flowerbed hears this and turns around quickly. There are streaks of mud on her catlike face and dark smears on her T-shirt. It is Leela, Ranjit realizes, but without her tall stiletto heels and platinum blond hair, she looks very different from last night. And clearly, she doesn’t recognize him without his turban.
“Leela, it’s me, Ranjit.”
“Oh.” She takes a step backward, the spade still in her hand.
The only friendly one is the boy, who walks up to the fence and smiles at Ranjit.
Ranjit crouches down. “Hey, big guy. How old are you? Ten, right? You in fourth grade?”
The boy waggles his big head. “Nooo. I’m five. I’m in first grade.”
“You’re pretty tall for first grade. Can you drive?”
“Drive? Nooo. We don’t have a car.” The child looks up at Ranjit, catching on to the game. He has Leela’s smile too, bright and effortless.
Leela throws her spade down and walks toward the fence.
“How long have you been standing here?” Her voice is a whisper. “Did anyone see you?”
“I just want to talk. I’m sorry I frightened you last time.” He gestures at the plaster cast on his arm. “I went looking for you at the club, and Patel’s men did this to me.”
The old lady must have heard him, because she gasps again. “Leela, what is the man saying?”
“It’s fine, Ma. I’m handling it.”
Ranjit stares at Leela: her gray T-shirt, faded from many washes, has a printed pattern of brown palm trees, and her denim shorts cut into her thighs. Without her heels she is very short and looks much younger, and suddenly vulnerable. And there is something else: a dark bruise on one cheek is half hidden by her sunglasses, and there are red welts high on both her forearms.
“Who did that to you? Lateef?”
“Leela? Who is this man?” The old lady’s voice quavers with anxiety. She st
ill holds the heavy tray of lemonade, and her arms tremble from the effort.
“He’s a friend, Mama. Take Dev and go back into the house for a few minutes. Please.” She pauses while the old lady and the boy scuttle back into the house. “How do you know about Lateef?”
“These two men, they beat me, in the alley behind the club, and I passed out. When I came to, they were talking about you. I heard some things I shouldn’t have.” He points to the bruise behind her sunglasses. “Lateef did that to you, didn’t he?”
She tilts her head and examines him, and then she nods slowly.
“Okay, we can talk. Not here, though. You have a car?”
“Down the street.” He nods in the direction where Ali is parked. “A yellow cab, you can’t miss it.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes. Go now.”
She marches back into the house, and he can hear her raised voice issuing instructions.
* * *
True to her word, Leela walks down the block five minutes later. She still wears the same clothes, but has changed into high wedge-heeled sandals, and her catlike face has taken on her old, confident look. He gets out and opens the back door for her, but she pauses and peers into the cab.
“That’s my friend, Ali.” Ranjit holds up his cast. “I can’t drive. Please, get in.”
He gestures to the cab, then realizes that this is the second time in twenty-four hours that Leela is being told to get into an unknown car.
She ducks into the backseat of the cab and he shuts the door. Ali stares hard at her in the rearview mirror, and Ranjit nudges his friend’s ample midriff.
Leela twists and looks through the back window. “We can’t talk here. Someone will see us.”
“Where do you want to go?”
She bites her lower lip. “Umm. Do you know Jamaica Bay?”
Ali clears his throat and addresses her in his best cabdriver fashion. “Where, madam? By the North Channel Bridge? Where the Guyanese ladies like to go?”
“Yeah, sure.”
She leans back and crosses her arms, and Ranjit knows she isn’t going to talk to him, not with Ali here. He looks over at his friend and raises his eyebrows. Where the hell are we going?
Ali waggles his hand, palm out, in a gesture that means Wait. Trust me.
They drive down Lefferts, leaving behind the crowded streets of Richmond Hill. A jet roars overhead on its approach to JFK airport, so low that Ranjit can see dark heads in the window. He remembers arriving in this country, peering out of the plane window at the strange landscape and wondering what it would be like.
Soon Ali is on Cross Bay Boulevard, heading toward Jamaica Bay. Soon, Ranjit smells salty air, and sees the bright glint of sunshine on water.
Chapter Eighteen
The cab is now a small yellow speck, far away by the North Channel Bridge.
A trail of footprints lies behind Leela and Ranjit as they walk along the wet, sandy shoreline of Jamaica Bay. She has taken off her wedge sandals and carries them in one hand, the wooden heels clacking against each other.
They pass some narrow beaches, sloping down to the water, and other parts where the tall grass fringes the shore. Leela doesn’t say a word. She walks fast, her bare legs scissoring angrily, and Ranjit struggles to keep up, half dazed from the sunlight glinting on the water. In the distance, shrouded in heat, he can make out a long arm of land that must be the Rockaways; from here, it looks like some enchanted world.
The sand grows dirtier. There are curious circles of ashes, and farther in, tangled in the grass, the flash of saffron cloth.
Drawing closer, Ranjit peers at it. “Is that a sari? And those things, next to it? Coconuts?”
Leela walks on silently. He stoops to pick up a scrap of cardboard, and sees a crudely printed image of the Hindu god Vishnu, his face surrounded by a fan of snakeheads.
“Leela? What is this place? What is going on here?”
She still doesn’t answer. They round a curve of beach, and see a young man and a woman, dressed in traditional Indian clothes, standing in knee-deep water. The man pours a pitcher full of orange liquid into the water, and the woman has her eyes closed, her palms pressed together tightly.
“Shhh. They are praying.” Leela stares at the couple, as though afraid of being recognized, but they are oblivious, and she relaxes a little.
They walk quickly down the beach, and soon are alone again, the silence interrupted only by the soft lapping of the waves. As though reaching a decision, she stops and turns to him. The front of her T-shirt is black with sweat, and rivulets run down her flushed face.
“You asked about this place. It’s a special place for Guyanese. That couple back there? They want a child, so they’re offering saffron milk to Ma Ganga. People come here to pray, to make offerings. Ma Ganga, she takes away your pain, your sadness.”
Ma Ganga? That is what Hindus in India call the Ganges, the holy river that runs through North India.
“But Leela, the Ganges is in India. This is Jamaica Bay—” He sees Leela’s face darken, and stops. “Wait. Do you have a Ganges in Guyana, too?”
She nods. “Yes, we have a holy river.”
“Okay.” The Guyanese, it seems, are used to adopting their local rivers and treating them like the Ganges. “Do you come here to pray? To ask for help?”
“Sometimes … yes.”
“What’s wrong, Leela? Why do you need help?”
She turns her back to him and stares out at the Bay. She is so short that he can see clearly over her head to the glittering water.
“I’m not a whore, Ranjit.”
The statement comes out of nowhere, and he doesn’t know how to reply.
“I’m not a whore.” Her voice is breathless. “Yes, I work at the club, but I’m a hostess.”
“I’m not judging you, Leela. You do whatever you have to, to survive. I understand that. I worked for Patel for a year, and I knew he was up to something, but I just ignored it, because I needed the work. But I can’t ignore what happened to Shabana.”
Despite the heat, a slight shiver runs through her slim shoulders. He notices that, and decides to press his point.
“The cops showed me photographs of what happened to her: someone beat in her face with a statue of Ganesh, a big, heavy marble statue. They smashed her nose, her mouth, teeth, shattered her cheekbones—”
“Stop. I don’t want to hear any more.” Her lips are trembling.
He decides to press on. “What happened to your face?”
“I wasn’t looking. The club was dark, I walked into a door.”
“I saw you leave Ghungroo with that man, Lateef. You looked very frightened. He beat you, didn’t he? Is that how he gets his kicks?”
She stands with her back to him, her arms crossed over her chest. Walking in front of her, he gently tugs the sunglasses from her face, and she does not try to stop him.
Her left eye is swollen and red with blood, and there is a vivid purple ring around it. There is a deep gash on her cheekbone, the kind left by a raised ring. He thinks of the many gold rings on Lateef’s hands, and feels the slow burn of anger.
“Why are you letting him do this to you? Why don’t you just leave the club?”
“I can’t. You don’t understand.”
He realizes that something else is different, too: her eyes are hazel, not sea green. It’s amazing how colored contact lenses, heels, and a platinum-blond wig can transform this ordinary girl into an exotic nighttime creature.
“Leela, I want to help you, but you have to talk to me.”
“You can help me? How? You’re a taxi driver.” She snatches her dark glasses from his hand and puts them back on, masking the bruise.
“When the NYPD questioned me about the murder, they kept asking me about Patel. They know he’s connected to the Mumbai mob.” He decides to lie a little. “They have a surveillance team watching the club, twenty-four hours. They want him badly, but I don’t think they have anyone inside the club. If yo
u give me some information, I can cut a deal with the cops, they will help both of us.”
She ignores his words, and sits down, throwing her wedge heels next to her. She works her toes deep into the sand, as though trying to bury herself in it. He sits down next to her and waits.
Over her shoulder he sees a wave come in, depositing a broken clay vessel and two rotting limes onto the sand; this, too, must have been some anxious, lonely person’s offering to the gods. The thought of Leela coming to this desolate place to find solace fills him with sadness.
When she does speak, her voice is almost absentminded. “I’m sorry, Ranjit. I have nothing more to tell you.”
“Damn it, Leela! Damn it.” He scrabbles with his good hand and levers himself to his feet, towering over her. She lowers her head, her feet frantically burrowing into the sand.
“Shabana is dead. Patel is going to find Mohan and kill him. I’m going to jail. And you know what? You’re so scared, you let Lateef beat you up. Why? Does he pay you well?”
“I told you, I’m not a whore.” Her lower lip quivers.
“I’ve seen the rings on Lateef’s hands, he’s going to cut you up badly. His men were talking about him, he’s a real animal—”
“Yes, he’s an animal all right, he’s worse than a pig. But I’m still not talking to you.”
Her fists push violently into the sand on either side of her, expending the anger stored inside her. She is furious about what is happening to her, but why won’t she talk to him?
He remembers the two men standing over him last night. What had they said? This one will keep her mouth shut … One fucking peep from her, and the old woman and the kid are screwed … At the time, it hadn’t made any sense, he hadn’t known about Leela’s family.
“That old lady at your house, she’s your mother, and the kid is your son, right? If you say anything, something bad will happen to your family?”
“You leave my family out of it—”
He remembers the fear on the old lady’s face, and has a flash of intuition. “Are they illegal? Is that it? That’s what Patel is holding over your head?”
