Disowned

by Tikiri

  I opened it with trembling hands. Pink paper. A jolt went through my heart. Preeti always used pink paper to write her letters, soft paper like this. When I saw her signature scrawled at the bottom of the letter, my heart jumped to my throat. I started to read, holding my breath.

  Dearest Asha,

  I don’t know if you will ever receive this letter. You haven’t replied to our earlier letters. I am hoping that’s because you have found a good life and moved on. I’m sad about that but hope all is well.

  Franky told us you are back in Tanzania now. That sounds so far away, I can’t even imagine what it is like there. Is it too hot for you? Have you found your old friend Chanda again? Franky said you were soon going to marry a rich Indian businessman over there and that you were doing very well. I am so happy for you. I know that if anyone deserved a good life, it is you. I hope that your new husband is treating you well.

  After you left, Grandma got quite angry. She declared to everyone that she disowned you from the family, that you can never come back. Kristadasa came to our home with the marriage broker after you left and said if I didn’t marry him, they will throw us out of our house. I told Grandma I will marry that man, but on one condition, that she can’t disown you, her own granddaughter. I want you to know that. No matter what you have heard or anyone has told you, you will always be part of our family. But in a way, her words don’t matter anymore, because she has left us for the afterlife.

  It has been a very difficult marriage for me. Some days I wished to kill myself, but it was Aunty Shilpa who kept me going, who kept me alive.

  I miss her a lot. Even though we knew it was coming, it was still very difficult. The disease wrecked her body. When she died, she was thinner than a rake and looked like a skeleton. She could barely speak, but she asked for you. She lay in her bed for weeks before she took her last breath. I was with her that last day, holding her hand. She was not scared of death. She was scared of leaving me alone. I told her not to worry, that you were doing well and that you will come and rescue me one day. She smiled when I said that.

  Five days after we buried her, Grandma’s heart gave away. Hers was a quick and painless death, or so the sadhus in the temple told me.

  I am now alone here. I miss you and wish you would join me again. You are my only family and friend. Please write back. Even if you don’t, I will keep writing, dreaming, and hoping that I will see you again, my dear cousin.

  With all my love,

  Preeti

  I sat on my bed, staring into space for a very long time. My mind was blank and my body numb. When I finally came to, my muscles were stiff and I was still clenching Preeti’s letter—so tightly my fingertips had turned white.

  Did I imagine all this? I looked down at the letter. No, the words were still there in Preeti’s neat handwriting on her favorite pink paper.

  It had been almost two years since I’d left Goa. I had about one month to go before I would have paid my dues for the car damage, and my high school classes would end. I looked up at my calendar. It seemed too long to wait to return home, to see Preeti again.

  A tsunami of memories rushed in. I remembered Preeti’s pretty dark eyes, her innocent face, and the brilliant mind of hers that impressed our teachers and even the school monitor. I remembered her funny hobby of collecting chocolate wrappers in her scrapbook diary, and how we’d curl up under the ratty old blanket on the sofa bed giggling like little girls over some silly joke or the other. I remembered Aunty Shilpa’s sad and tired but beautiful eyes, and how her face had lit up whenever I’d read from a book. I remembered how much she’d tried to help us, and had always been there for us. I recalled Grandma’s wrinkled old face as she’d stooped over the heavenly smell of her curry pot on the stone stove. Such precious memories. They were my family, my only family.

  The image of the dirty, drunk Kristadasa looming over me in the apartment corridor flashed across my mind. A wave of nausea washed over me. This was the life of horror Preeti was going through every day. And it was all because of me, because I ran away like a coward.

  I uncrossed my numbed legs, got up and walked unsteadily to the bathroom. I collapsed in front of the toilet, and threw up.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  I didn’t leave my room the next morning. I couldn’t face Mrs. Rao. I couldn’t eat or sleep or do anything. I wished I could stop breathing.

  I lay in bed, curtains drawn, devastated at what I’d done. Aunty Shilpa had died, and Grandma too. I didn’t even want to think of what Preeti’s life must be like with that vile man.

  When Mrs. Rao buzzed me the next morning, I told her I was sick. She didn’t inquire after my well-being; she was only irritated she had to make her own coffee. I stayed in bed in a haze of sadness and despair, getting up only to drink from the tap in my bathroom.

  After one day, I began to feel weak and dizzy. After two days, I started thinking about how to kill myself. On the third, I fantasized about killing Franky and Mrs. Rao, poisoning them with my cupcakes laced with something bad. Meanwhile, the intercom buzzed every morning. Each morning, I told Mrs. Rao I was sick. Each time, she hung up, annoyed.

  On the fourth day, I decided to get up. The previous night, as I’d lain in bed with Preeti’s letter still tucked under my pillow, I’d thought of her and only her. She was still alive, somewhere in Goa. The least I could do was go and see her. I had to help her. How, I didn’t know, but I knew I couldn’t save anyone lying in bed, feeling sorry for myself.

  With the remaining strength I had, I took a shower and stumbled into the kitchen for something to eat. “Ah, you’re back,” Mrs. Rao said sharply. “I need the laundry done. It’s been piling up!” With a snort, she walked out, got in her car and left. I watched her leave, an unspeakable anger gnawing inside me.

  Over the next few weeks, I lost my appetite, I didn’t sleep much, and I got tired easily. When my teacher asked me what was wrong, I told her I had a bad case of the flu and was just recovering. My hands shook so badly, I had to redo the icing on the cakes Mrs. Rao had asked for three times. I couldn’t bear to look at her anymore, so I kept my eyes down and went through the motions, but my mind was racing a million miles a second.

  How do I get out of here? How do I get back to Goa? Who can I call for help? How can I tell the police what Mrs. Rao’s up to without getting myself thrown in jail first? An image of a white-and-blue police car rushing to our house with sirens blaring haunted me every night. The thought of prison sent cold shivers down my spine. If I’m in prison, how can I help Preeti?

  Two weeks after I got out of bed and started working again, the landline was picked up for the second time during my stay at Mrs. Rao’s house.

  Ashok was nowhere to be seen. Mrs. Rao was upstairs cloistered in her bedroom as usual. There was not much time.

  I dropped the icing tube on the counter, the pink icing splattering everywhere, but I didn’t care. I dashed to the den as fast as I could and closed the door gently. I leaned across the big desk and slipped the phone out of its cradle.

  Buzzz whirrr buzzzzzz. I nearly dropped the handset. What’s that?

  “Hello? Hello?” Mrs. Rao was trying to speak through the crackle and hisses coming down the line.

  Buzzz whirrr buzzz. More static.

  “Hello? Hello?” Mrs. Rao sounded irritated.

  A crisp female voice cut through the noise with a lilting Hindi accent. “Will you please accept a collect call from India, madam?”

  “Oh?” Mrs. Rao said. “Yes, yes.” Her voice sounded strained.

  “You can go right ahead, mister,” the female voice said from far away.

  “Mrs. Rao?” This time, I did drop the phone. It slid down to my lap. I picked it up gently and brought it back to my ear.

  “Hello, Franky,” Mrs. Rao was saying in a subdued tone. “May Lord Vishnu smile upon your family. I hope all is well.”

  “Yes, yes,” Franky said. He sounded hurried. No, he sounded irritated. “Let’s get to business, shall w
e? We have to make arrangements very fast now.”

  I clutched the telephone to my ear, not daring to breath.

  “I will find the money, I promise,” Mrs. Rao said. “Please be patient, Franky, please.”

  “You ran out of chances. I gave you six months to solve this problem. What did you do?”

  “I…er…” I’d never heard Mrs. Rao speechless. “Please, Franky. Give me time.”

  Is Mrs. Rao begging?

  “No!” Franky yelled so loudly I had to pull the headset away from my ear. “I already made other arrangements. I am fed up, very much fed up. Do you understand?” He sounded furious.

  “I’m only asking for one more week. You have to understand. I promise over my dead husband’s grave—”

  “That stupid husband of yours was no better. Pretending he was a Brahmin from New Delhi. I paid him well, but he gave me trouble, just like you. You owe me.”

  Mrs. Rao let out a whimper. “My husband, rest his soul, did his best for you. He worked so hard. Please do not insult him, Franky.”

  “Oh yeah, bless him. Lost all the money he left you to those rich friends of yours, eh?”

  “My friends are all I have,” Mrs. Rao whimpered. “They wouldn’t come if I didn’t feed them and entertain them. I’m just a lonely widow, Franky.”

  “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to over there, Mrs. Rao. You gambled all the money we made. Now you’re losing your house, and you’re ruining my business. We’ll be finished, and this is all your fault!” Franky sounded like he was frothing at the mouth.

  “Please. You know I am a good woman. I always give a little something to the animal society. I’m a good person—”

  It was strange to hear Mrs. Rao sound meek. I imagined her in bed upstairs, cowering, pleading.

  “You can’t even do a simple job.” Franky was not done shouting yet. “I sent you the girl as a favor, and you let that footloose tramp run around like a gora. How many times did I tell you to be careful? You couldn’t even do this one simple job.”

  “But someone told Social Serv—”

  “Stop making excuses, Mrs. Rao!”

  I listened in shock, my heart pounding. Did I have this all wrong? Was Franky Mrs. Rao’s boss? Was he the real snake-head?

  “How hard is it to keep a schoolgirl locked up when we’re making deliveries? A few thrashes to the back of her head was all that was needed. Make them bleed a bit and they will listen. You’re a coward, like your husband. Even Ashok could have done a better job.”

  “Franky,” Mrs. Rao said in her most endearing tone, which she reserved for outsiders, like my teachers and our neighbors, “you know the Arabs pay very good money for young girls. I have a friend who can help us make a deal. The girl is still very fresh, healthy, only sixteen.”

  The hair on my neck stood straight. Is she bartering me off?

  “Ha!” Franky said. “The Arabs don’t like them over twelve. Besides, have you seen that girl? The color of over-brewed tea. You could have at least used that skin-lightening lotion on her that I sent you. We could send her off for domestic work, but even then, we won’t get much for her.”

  I looked down at my arms as I turned them over. I hadn’t realized I was the color of over-brewed tea.

  “I’ve tried my best, Franky. If you had sent a girl version of Ashok, we wouldn’t have these problems, you know. An illiterate, dumb girl from a village wouldn’t gossip with the neighbors, ask to go to school, or bring boys into the house. She is so much trouble. What can I do, Franky? At least that boy and her didn’t call the police.”

  “Enough! I already found a businessman from Tamil Nadu who is ready to pay to solve both of our problems. He needs to leave the country for a while, and we have to get a marriage visa for him. I know he will pay, not like the rich Arabs maybe, but he will pay something. We can get rid of her first and solve our immediate problem.”

  “Does this mean,” Mrs. Rao said in her sweetest tone, “that I get to keep my house? This is all I have. My memories of my dear husband, our life together—”

  “I don’t give out free money, you understand? You will be paying back with big interest for the rest of your life. You were too busy stuffing yourself and playing with your rich friends to do your job. It was my mistake to even start this business with you.”

  Silence from Mrs. Rao.

  “Any more boyfriends around?” Franky snapped. “I don’t want more trouble.”

  I nearly choked. I clenched my fists. I should have trusted my gut when I first saw Franky’s yellowed hyena smile back in Goa.

  “No. No boyfriends,” Mrs. Rao said quickly. “I keep her very busy here at home.”

  “That, at least, is good news.”

  “She cooks excellently. My friends think she cooks better than those fancy restaurants on Queen’s Quay. That’s why they always want to come to my house. I’ve taught her very well.”

  Taught me? How dare she?

  “Good, that was your job anyway,” Franky said, apparently satisfied. “Balasubramanium, this man I found, is fifty and already has a wife, so he will know how to give a good thrashing if she misbehaves. Maybe you need to learn something from him.”

  With that, Franky hung up with a click. With a huge sigh, Mrs. Rao followed suit.

  I stayed still for a minute holding on to the phone, listening to the dead monotone. My shoulders felt tighter than a bow drawn taut. When I finally put the phone back on its cradle, there were red marks on my palm from clutching the handset too tightly.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “Franky’s sending the man from Tamil Nadu next week.”

  I heard Mrs. Rao’s voice from the living room. My head jolted, banging on the table. I winced from the pain.

  It was two weeks after the fateful phone call from Franky. Mrs. Rao and her friends were playing their usual game of cards after dinner, chatting over cigars, port, and a pile of money on the coffee table.

  If Mr. Raj Kapur hadn’t made a mess under the table after stealing a slice of chocolate cake, I’d have been cloistered in the kitchen half an hour earlier. I’d only spotted it after I’d cleaned the table and almost finished vacuuming the room. I’d been scrubbing with one hand for a while, using the other to cover my nose. I hunkered under the table next to Mr. Raj Kapur’s vomit and listened in.

  “Maybe it’s time you got remarried, Mrs. Rao,” the Proboscis Man said, “to solve all your problems.”

  “Never!” Mrs. Rao snapped. “I will never betray my dead husband.”

  “You found a solution then, Mrs. Rao?” someone else asked.

  “I get to keep the house. But it would have been so much easier if the girl had been younger. Much easier to handle.”

  “Like that last one you had,” someone else said.

  “She was older, but an illiterate. I married her off for a good sum and she didn’t say a word,” Mrs. Rao said.

  I involuntarily shivered in my corner.

  “If you had a second girl who could cook like this one, you could pay all of your debts.”

  The guests laughed.

  After the phone call from Franky, Mrs. Rao had slowly turned back to her normal self. She shed her bunny slippers and dressing gown and started eating at the dinner table again. One day, I walked up with her dessert tray to hear her tell Mr. Raj Kapur in a gleeful voice, “We get to keep the house, my daaarling. We get to keep the house.”

  After a week, she had become jovial, even. She started taking long baths again and watching Bollywood movies over supper in the dining room with Mr. Raj Kapur. She invited her friends to dine, wine, and gamble that first weekend. It was a merry party when they all got together, as if the guests were celebrating Mrs. Rao’s good fortune with her. But while she was on an upswing, I was running downhill fast.

  Every time the bell rang, my heart jumped. I’d bitten my nails to the quick wondering when the old man from India was going to force me to marry him and give me a good thrashing, as Franky had thr
eatened. Other days, I worried myself sick about the police coming to cart me off to jail or do whatever they do to illegal immigrants.

  I wanted to run away, and fast, but I had one more day before my exams ended, and I was desperate. I didn’t care about the prom, the dresses, the dates, or the after-parties. I had other things on my mind, like returning to Goa to rescue Preeti, but I wanted to finish school for my parents, to honor my promise, no matter what. Taking a year off to get out of a forced marriage and get medicine for Aunty Shilpa had been understandable at that time. Not finishing school with a few days remaining was unthinkable. I had come this far—I couldn’t quit now.

  “So when’s the wedding?” said a woman’s voice from the living room party.

  Wedding? I dropped my wet rag on the carpet, got up carefully so as to not bang my head again, and tiptoed over to the entrance. I stood with my ear to the door, as still as a statue.

  “Wedding?” Mrs. Rao said with a snort of derision. “Ha! She’s drained me enough. I even paid for her immigration application and test.”

  “You only did that so you could negotiate more,” someone said with a guffaw. “You’re a clever one, Mrs. Rao.”

  “But look at all I’ve done for her,” Mrs. Rao said defensively. “I fed her, I clothed her, I even sent her to school. I treat her practically like my own daughter.”

  “The immigration department will ask for wedding photos, Mrs. Rao. You need one whether you like it or not.”

  “The groom can pay for them.” Mrs. Rao sniffed. “I’ve done my part.”

  “What about us, Mrs. Rao?” someone asked in a slurred voice.