by Amita Trasi
I told him about that evening when Papa hung himself. The streetlight at the end of the street flickered when I told him this and my eyes suddenly moistened with tears.
“Anyway,” I continued, “after the funeral I found some documents in Papa’s drawer. And I knew I had to come back to look for Mukta.
“I’m sorry you had to see your father that way,” Raza said.
“There is something else I haven’t yet told you.” I paused. “In the village, I learned something from my grandmother, something about Papa—that he had a relationship with a village prostitute and Mukta could be . . . ” I took a deep breath and continued, “that Mukta could be his child.”
“Mukta is your half-sister?” He raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t know. I wish I knew for sure.”
It was such a relief to have told someone. The shack behind us had closed long ago, and before we knew it, the sun was rising in the distance, spreading its light, washing away my worries, giving me renewed hope. We had spent the entire night talking about our lives, our troubles. More than two years had gone by, sitting on the sidelines of my life, watching it pass by me, and even though it looked like there was no ray of light ahead, I wasn’t ready to give up, and oddly, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I wasn’t alone.
Secrets have a way of remaining safe. You’ll find them hidden away in our hearts, like a disease we have learned to live with.
–TARA
Twenty-six
Navin woke me up early that morning, knocking on the door vehemently, speaking hurriedly, out of breath, as I opened the door. “Daddy is in the hospital, they say it is serious. Will you come see him? He’s always wanted to tell you something.”
“Of course.” Gathering my things, I asked, “How is he doing now?”
“He is out of danger for now, but the doctors say . . . ” his voice softened, “it’s anytime now.”
Before I left, I called Raza and asked him to pick me up at the hospital so we could drive back to Dinesh’s center later. The hospital was situated between a market and a construction dump. The hospital smelled of antiseptics as the doctors and nurses rushed past us. The whitewashed walls reminded me of the time Papa and I had waited in hospitals just like this one, frantically searching for Aai.
“Room 38,” Navin said, shuffling his feet and jabbing the elevator button.
I put my hand on his shoulder,
“No, no, I am not worried. My wife, Vibha, is with Daddy. He will be fine . . . I know, I know,” he repeated.
“Oh, I forgot,” he told me, standing outside as I got into the elevator, “I have to get some medicines; I will be back before you know it. Room 38, okay?”
I knew by the way he was looking away, hiding his face, that all he wanted was some privacy for his grief. I got out on the third floor and walked across the corridor, glancing from room to room, searching for room 38. A nurse hurried past me, and the tired visitors sitting outside other rooms glanced at me as I passed by them. Room 38 was at the end of the corridor. I stood outside the door watching Anupam chacha lying in that bed, tubes running in and out of his nose. Navin’s wife, Vibha, was sitting on a chair beside his bed, knitting something. She looked up as soon as I entered the room and Anupam chacha gave me a small wave and pointed to a chair. Vibha dragged the chair toward the bed.
“He wants you to sit down,” she said as if I hadn’t understood.
I sat down next to the bed and took his hand in mine.
“Chacha, how come no one told me you were so sick?”
He gave a weak smile at my lightheartedness and tried saying something, but it came out as a croak. I helped him take a sip of water and looked behind me at Navin, who had entered the room, and his wife, who stood beside him. But they looked at me blankly, dismayed.
“We’ll be outside, in case Daddy wants to tell you something in private,” Navin said and nodded at Anupam chacha.
“Your grandmother must have told you by now.” He sighed.
I nodded.
“I don’t think your Papa was ever sure Mukta was his kid . . . you know. I told him to let that kid go . . . just leave her at an orphanage or something. But your Papa was always the messiah. He yelled at me once . . . and said Mukta could be my kid. After all, almost every man in the village had slept with Mukta’s mother. In the end, no one will ever know . . . I suppose, who the fathers . . . of such kids . . . are.”
“Aai thought she was my half-sister. She must have known. I don’t know—” I said softly.
“It is my fault . . . whatever happened.” Anupam chacha interrupted, his voice came haltingly. “I should have . . . never been tempted . . . to do . . . what I did.”
“What, Anupam chacha?”
“After Navin’s mother . . . died, I wanted to . . . fulfill her wishes . . . make Navin a brilliant musician. I . . . I would have done anything . . . to fulfill her last wishes. So much so . . . that I . . . I was blinded . . . with this dream.”
It wasn’t something I didn’t know. “It’s all right,” I said, wiping the spittle from the side of his mouth.
“As much as I tried, Navin couldn’t . . . reach the level . . . I wanted him to reach. I . . . I realized he . . . needed extra coaching . . . from the best teacher. It . . . would have made him . . . the kind of musician . . . I wanted him to be,” he stopped and coughed. “The only problem was . . . my business wasn’t doing well . . . and I couldn’t afford . . . the fees . . . for the services of a good teacher. I . . . I borrowed heavily from . . . a man who claimed to charge . . . no interest. In my desperation . . . I wasn’t thinking. In just a . . . a few months the man sent . . . goondas after me . . . asking me to return three times the amount. . . . Then I understood . . . I had foolishly put . . . my son’s life at risk . . . by borrowing from the mafia. So . . . so . . . one evening when I was walking back home . . . in the alley . . . a man called out to me . . . said he could help . . . I thought that was the answer . . . God was sending me. This man . . . this goonda . . . he spit the paan on the street as . . . as he approached me . . . said he knew how much I needed money. He said . . . all I had to do . . . was deliver a girl to them.
“At first, I said . . . there was no way I . . . I would commit a crime. There . . . was no way I would spoil . . . a little girl’s life. He . . . followed me . . . asked me to imagine a life . . . where Navin is dead . . . all because I made the . . . the stupid decision . . . to borrow money. Don’t make another stupid decision . . . he said.”
Anupam chacha spoke slowly, softly. It came in waves, like a man confessing to a priest. And I sat there silently, his words peeling off the wounds of his past.
“I was frightened when he came to me . . . day after day . . . reminding me of how I wasn’t doing what . . . what was good for my son. He said the girl . . . was not a girl from a good family. What . . . what difference would it make? I thought . . . the girl didn’t have a future anyway. He . . . he told me her name and I refused. But the next few days . . . it weighed heavily on me as . . . as if there was nothing else in life I could see . . . but my son . . . alive and happy. I told the man I . . . I would deliver the girl. Then one night . . . I heard you scream at Mukta . . . heard you unlock the door . . . say the devil will come for her . . . I knew your Papa would be fast asleep that night. He . . . he took sleeping pills in those days . . . after the grief of your mother’s death had . . . had left him heartbroken. I . . . I saw my chance. I had a spare key . . . I easily entered your apartment. It is . . . ”
By now, I could sense the warm flush on my face, see my hands tremble. I stood up and took two steps back. Everything was suddenly surreal; the sunlight poured from the window; this man sleeping in this bed couldn’t be someone I knew. Anupam chacha raised his hand, tried to reach out to me, but I could only hear my whimper.
“It is the worst thing . . . I have done in my entire . . . life. Spoil a girl’s life like that. What . . . what if she really was my kid? How . . . how cruel of me. Go
d punished me for it. Navin told me . . . later . . . that he saw me that night. The hate . . . the hate I have seen in his eyes . . . for me ever since . . . he told me he didn’t want . . . to sing anymore. And this cancer . . . it is my punishment. If I—”
I walked outside the room, his sentence unfinished, the words he uttered lingering in that hospital room I left behind. Navin watched me walk away and followed me.
“I told your Papa long ago, when he called once from America. I couldn’t keep that secret, couldn’t live with what Daddy had done. Your Papa broke all ties with us and never called again.”
“Papa knew? You knew?”
“Yes,” he said, lowering his gaze. “I am sorry.”
I walked away.
I sat outside the hospital on a bench, watching the doctors go in and out, patients coming or going. In the distance I could see Raza walking toward the hospital. He stopped when he saw me sitting on that bench; his face tightened in pain as he looked at me. My tears made everything hazy. But I watched his pace increase. He sat next to me, and I took the photograph of Mukta and me out of my wallet, tracing my hands over the lines that had developed on it over all these years.
“This . . . forever . . . I . . . don’t . . . know . . . ” I said, my words trailing off.
Raza put a hand on my shoulder, my sobs coming out in spurts. And I knew that, even though my words were incoherent, he still understood me. He pulled me closer, putting his arm around me. The tenderness in his eyes, in his touch, shocked me. I sobbed louder, huddled closer, my head resting on his chest, my tears soaking his shirt. I could hear his heartbeat, his slow, steady breath, smell his cologne, feel the touch of his strong arms around me. I let him hold me.
I wanted to think my child was like the flowers that bloom every summer no matter how hard winter has been on them.
–MUKTA
Twenty-seven
“She is sweet,” Sylvie said with a dismal, knowing expression on her face when she saw Asha. I was given a week to rest, feed my baby, and enjoy her company. After a week, Madam took her away and said, “You better get back to work. Who do you think is going to keep paying for your stay here?”
Every evening they took her away. I would think of her sweet gurgles all through the night, hear her cries as I went through the ordeal of my profession. I waited until morning for them to bring her back to me, to put her on my chest and feed her. But she survived—the little one. She must have had a stronger spirit than I had. With time she learned to remain hungry through the night, to stave off her hunger by sleeping. She adjusted her time to Madam’s feeding schedule. I was amazed. In spite of being so little she adapted, understanding the world she was born into.
It must have been a week after she was born that Arun Sahib stood in the doorway, watching me closely.
“Don’t you want to see her?” I asked.
“Who?”
“The baby.”
Arun Sahib’s eyes flashed with anger.
“Why would I want to see the baby? I come to see you not some damn child.”
I had to appease him, tell him I didn’t have the ability to think before I talked. After spending the night, he stopped at the door and said, “Don’t ask me such a stupid question again.”
I should have learned my lesson from that episode, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty for bringing my little girl into this wretched world. I watched children as young as four or five, born to women like me, running around freely, playing with other children in the dirty alleyway, not knowing the world they were born into, unable to understand there were pimps prowling around them, that the world surrounding them was full of nothing but men with just one thought on their minds. Then I would look at my baby sleeping on the cold ground, swaddled in hand-me-down clothes as tattered and soiled as my life, the light flickering on her luminescent skin, and wonder what she would have to endure in her life. So I didn’t give up. I tried telling Arun Sahib that I didn’t want her to grow up understanding anything of this trade. But he blinked at me as if he hadn’t understood that I was speaking of his own daughter.
“He doesn’t care,” I told Sylvie once when we were washing clothes at the water pump downstairs.
“You are worried they will take her away from you. But don’t you worry. You still have time. They are not going to do anything to her until she is eight or nine. You have time until then. We will think of something.”
I wondered if I could stop time for her—hold it ransom until I was able to get her out of here. To delay time, I dressed my baby like a boy, sewed her tiny pants and shirts from some of my clothes in the hope that everyone around us would remain confused as long as possible. I wanted them to look at my child and forget she was born a girl. But time is like sand—the tighter I tried to hold on to it, the faster it slipped through my hands.
Asha—my Asha—grew up to be an effervescent five-year-old girl, full of energy and surprisingly aware of her place in the world. She learned to adapt her moods to her surroundings. In the morning she would be like any other child, full of enthusiasm, asking too many questions. Why do the birds fly? Why do dogs not fly along with them? Shouldn’t God have given them wings so they could see the world too?
“That isn’t fair,” she would tell me.
Her questions wouldn’t stop. I didn’t have the patience to explain everything to her like Amma had with me.
“That is how God made things,” I told her.
To distract her, I would tell her stories of my Amma, of how we lived in a village in a house whose roof leaked.
“Can you believe I would watch the rain drops fall through the roof into a bucket and think the roof was crying?” She would giggle and look at me wide-eyed as I recounted my time with my Amma, fetching water, washing clothes, and cooking. I left out all the painful moments that were too difficult to recount, too arduous for her to understand. Then I told her about Tara, about the first time I met her, how she came to my aid when I had no one to lean on, how she saved me from a terrible turmoil.
“What is turmoil, Amma?” Asha asked.
“I will tell you one day when you grow up.”
“Did they do the same thing to you that makes so many women scream here?” She sat up, watching my face closely. I tried to hold back my tears. I had pretended that she was unaware of this life. The irony of it was, I realized, that our terrible lives were all out in the open. How could she have not known? And yet, I didn’t want her to know.
“Amma . . . ” she shook my hand, waiting for an answer.
I distracted her again—told her about my time with Tara—our time spent on the terrace where she taught me how to read, how she was one of the kindest girls I ever knew.
“But Amma, you don’t read now.”
“I-I don’t get the chance. But if you meet her, you can ask her if she will teach you.”
“Will she teach me?”
“You ask her. When you meet my Tara, never let go of her hand,” I told her, though I knew there was no chance of ever seeing Tara again. But hope had great powers. It had helped me survive for so long. It would do that for her too. Someday the color of our sky would turn bright, I knew. I tickled her before she asked me another question. She cackled and giggled. But like always, I knew it wouldn’t last long.
Every evening Asha became subdued as she got ready before the brothel began its business, wearing the only dress Arun Sahib had bought for her at my insistence. She took the small shoulder bag I filled with paper and crayons, one that Sylvie had stealthily gotten from her customers. Madam didn’t question me about it, assuming Arun Sahib had brought it for her. Every day I would assure her, “Your Amma will be here when you return.”
Every day she would look at me with suspicion, as if she knew it could be the last time we would ever see each other, and nod, the tears pooling in her eyes. I never knew where they took her. Once I asked her, “Is it a room? Where they keep you?”
She shrugged and scampered to get her crayons from her bag.
“Are they giving you food to eat?” I would ask often.
She would nod and refuse to tell me anything else. I knew from the way she came back every morning that she’d had nothing to eat or drink for twelve hours. Then there were times when Madam didn’t have the time and slipped a sleeping pill into the milk she gave Asha before shoving her under my cot. The men who visited me didn’t seem to notice her. She was fast asleep anyway. I had become thankful for those nights when I knew she was in the same room with me, when I knew she would wake up every morning in the same room I was in.
Then one morning, the day Asha turned six, after I waited for her for more than three hours, they dumped her in my room. She was unconscious.
“She is sleeping,” Madam said to me. Her bodyguards behind her looked at me but didn’t say anything.
“What did you do?” I yelled after them as they closed the door in front of me.
Sylvie and I had to throw water on her face. Sylvie went downstairs, boiled milk, and made her sip it. She came around in no time, the little one, but this was my wake-up call. I could wait no longer. Time was slipping from my hands.
“They drug the children through the night and keep them in a closed room down the street so they aren’t much of a nuisance. They must have given her a stronger dose,” Sylvie sighed as she squatted on the floor beside me. We looked at each other in horror, at the ease with which those words had spilled out of her mouth. Deep down, both of us had known. But not speaking of it had allowed us to avoid the truth for this long. But now, here it was out in the open.
“Sylvie . . . there has to be a way out . . . you . . . you have got to help me. I have to do something . . . for my child.”
Sylvie looked at me for a while, took a deep breath, and said, “Let me think of something.”
I nodded and sniffled.
