The Blue Notebook Part 2

I scream and claw and kick against him. The old woman comes over to restrain me. She grasps my wrists and pins me down; she is one strong goat. He grabs my kicking ankles (I landed a few blows on his crowlike chest), spreads my legs apart, and sinks his body between them. I cannot kick him off. From her pocket, the old woman draws strands of white cotton with which she ties my wrists together and straps them to the back of the bed. Another wad of cotton is pushed in my mouth to stop the screaming and the biting. I try to bite her fingers as she pushes the cotton in. It almost chokes me and I gag. The old woman slaps me hard across the face. Uncle Nir grins and says, "Oh, you're a strong little thing. This is more fun than I'd hoped." I keep throwing my head, as it is the only thing I have left to defy him with. The old woman swats me again and again across the face with her bony hand until Uncle says, "That's all right ... I've got her. Now let's see what she's really made of."

A moment of silence lapses. Looking down at me, his eyes glistening, he penetrates. Seconds later I feel his hot black ink gush from him and pulse into Bunny Rabbit's mouth. It sweeps through me-I can feel it; his blackness courses through me.

I take my eyes and turn them around to look inside myself. It is like seeing a wave crash onto the riverbank. The black torrents wash within me and I watch my light darken. I have used up so much energy in the fight that I have no resistance. I can see waves of black cascading through me in streams. I can see pools of darkness forming. I look for somewhere to hide but there is nowhere. I look in my kidneys, black. I travel to my tummy black. My head too is black. I spring to my legs-useless legs that failed me-those stupid paralyzed sticks-they are black. I zip across to my hands-yes, they clawed, but that is just another embrace-black. My pounding heart pumps the blackness deeper within me, carried by every corpuscle. He has left nowhere for me to go. Everywhere I seek, every nook and avenue is awash with darkness. But then I see my salvation.

All words are hewn from black. When you take all the words written in the world and push them together in a cup, what do you get? A cup filled with blackness from which the words ascend and descend. We may think that a word is our own as we hear it or write it, but no, the words are on loan. Words can be young and bouncing like children and they can age like people. Like dead people, words ultimately return to the black from where they came.

And so I look within myself and a.s.semble myself in words. I take the words that are my thoughts and dreams and hide them behind the dark shadow of my kidney. I compress my need for love into words and hide that as a drop of blackness next to my liver (it will be safe there until I need it). I transcribe the poetry of life into words, and with care slide it between sinews of muscle where he will not find it. I craft the words of merriment and sadness (they are the same) into a pyramid and place it under my skin so I can touch it whenever I need to know where my feelings are. I compile my memories into a record full of words and slip that into a slot left open for it in my head. There is plenty of room for all the words in the world to live in me; they are welcome here. He may have taken my light and extinguished it, but now within me can hide an army of whispering syllables, rhythms, and sounds. All you may see is a black cavity that fills a tiny girl, but trust me, the words are there, alive and fine.

The time for sweet smiles and placating words is over. He pushes off me. There is a gray tinge to his skin and not a hint of that smile. I have scratched his face and back. He has blood (mine?) on his thighs. His issue is inside me, sliding down my left thigh. Street air caresses my body and cools the sweat he has left on me. I close my eyes, still bound in white cotton restraints, and tell my power to take his soul and kill him.

He stands and takes the towel that is offered to him by the old woman. He walks from the bedroom with the white towel wrapped around his hips. Although neither he nor the old woman can see it, he also wears a dense, heavy maroon cloak that hangs from his shoulders. When he was a little boy he bore this cloak, given to him by his parents, with ease. Now that he is a failed man, he can only just move under its weight. The brilliance of all light is blocked from him so that he will live in darkness forever.

I lay completely motionless. I could not move and I did not think. I felt no pain or sadness, just exhaustion.

The old woman returned after a few minutes and said, "You cannot bathe yet because your uncle is still in there. But when he is done you can bathe, and then you will sleep." She pulled the gag out of my mouth and untied my wrists. There was a sting where the wrist-ties were but I could feel nothing else. She sat in the wooden chair next to my bed.

I said nothing. I did not move because I refused to order my stupid legs to do anything. Then the old woman touched my hair. I pulled away only out of surprise. I heard again the noises from the street and listened intently to them as if they were music. I had no real sense of time and my tears had long stopped falling. I did not think of Mother and Father and I did not think of home. I thought intently of nothing. After a time I raised my eyes to the old woman. I stared at her, and for a second she was beautiful to me. Only for a second, though. She stared blankly out the window, unaware of my gaze. Tears rolled down her cheeks one by one. She showed no expression and did not utter any noise. She stared out the window and silently cried. She did not try to touch me again.

A time pa.s.sed and the gentle rumble of the late-night traffic was eventually interrupted by the old woman. "Get up now; you have to wash." I tried to get onto my legs. The sari and my underclothes had long been ripped from me and I stood naked on the floor. The old woman gave me a white towel. I set my legs far apart because I did not trust them and I was in pain. I staggered slowly toward the washroom behind the old woman. I did not notice the blood dripping from my rabbit's mouth that left a trail behind me.

The room with the bathtub smelled of steam and the floor was wet. I climbed into the empty bathtub and noticed that it was still warm from the previous user. I looked down and saw a tiny pool of blood forming between my legs on the floor of the white bathtub. Both the old woman and I stared at it but neither of us reacted; we just watched as the puddle grew bigger. The old woman turned on the water and the little puddle floated away leaving only the faintest remnant of red on the bathtub floor as it filled with water.

I soaked in the hot water for a while. The old woman did not hurry me, clean me, or speak to me, and there were no scented oils this time. I climbed out of the tub with considerable difficulty, as my strength was drained. The old woman wrapped me in my towel and we returned to the bedroom. I could see that the drips of blood had stained the stone floor.

I fell onto the bed and crawled upward to the pillow. The old woman locked the door as she left. I would never see her again.

The windows were open and I could smell the street. I was lucky that the man did not touch my pillow. My head sank into it. All that I could smell as I fell asleep was the bleach that was used to wash the pillow white.

Not too busy a day. Puneet, clad in a bandage from his waist to his thigh, is still gloomy. I have become used to Puneet parading his made-up, dressed-s.e.xy beauty at the gateway to his nest, and I miss it. It was my daily theater. He would flaunt himself at the entrance of his nest in his tight little shorts, bra.s.siere, top, and chiffon veil, and I would watch him tilt his upper body a trace to accentuate his bottom. I would see him straighten a curl and toss the edge of the veil to cast a web of air to draw men to him-like a fisherman throwing his net on the river. The fact that he was a boy only p.r.o.nounced his femininity. There were many times when I was sure my simple, chin-down, eyes-up fluttering smile would entice a novice cook (the most valuable) toward me only for him to become entrapped in Puneet's deviant, honey-kissed web. To put it simply, there were many men who never dreamed of lying upon the throne of a boy whom Puneet persuaded otherwise. He would tell me, often with a salacious grin, that when they felt his mouth on theirs, he became woven into their dreams. He said that their tongues would first press hesitantly against his, but then would dance and weave with his. His theory was that all men had a part of him inside them; it was just waiting to be released. His constant river of business attested to this.

Despite Puneet's gloominess, men still stood waiting in the Common Street until the moment his curtain opened. Oftentimes, as soon as one devotee left him, I would see a man accelerate or even trot from halfway down the street to ensure he reached Prince Puneet's gate before any other. Even when Puneet just plopped himself outside his door and did not advertise his promise, men would drift to him. It could be that his sultriness intensified his attractiveness. A forbidden pleasure unadvertised is perhaps the sweetest.

I tried to think back to the village. For sure all the boys wanted the toy that other boys had. However, there was also the toy that was too dangerous to play with, which had a unique allure. Jitendra was my age and the weakest and smallest of the boys. Not only was he physically slight, but he also was an insignificant person who was annoying at every opportunity. He was like a small pebble stuck in your shoe. All the boys and even several of the girls would pick on him; you could blow and he would crumble. He was friendless. However, this all changed when he received a flick-knife for his birthday sent to him by a stupid uncle from Delhi. If you pressed a b.u.t.ton on the knife's handle, the blade shot out. The blade's edge was jagged and so sharp that it could slice a rat's head clean off. This became a favored trick of Jitendra's.

Walking through the village one day, a ten-year-old boy a year or so older than Jitendra, tried to take the knife from him. In the struggle, Jitendra pressed the b.u.t.ton and the blade shot out into the boy's flank; cascades of blood poured forth and torrential screaming. That night frightful rows broke out between the parents, and both boys were severely punished. However, after the thigh-slicing incident Jitendra was never picked on again, although he remained friendless. He became feared by the village children as well as by the local rats. There are "toys" that require a certain courage to possess and thereby acquire a special attraction. Jitendra's knife was one such toy. Puneet was another.

Puneet had been a "lost boy" from the time his mother disappeared. The fact that he survived is a miracle. He has told me of atrocities he has seen on the street even before Master Gahil acquired him: murders, tortures, and violent robberies to name a few. He told me how his father broke out of prison to try to find him, only to be recaptured after a sensational street battle. He explains frequently how his mother married a wealthy businessman who will fetch him, "any day now-just you watch." The stories about his parents are fiction. Puneet has long been erased from the memories of his father and mother. How else could they reconcile their place on earth, knowing that their son lives two nests down from mine and every day pleasures men who are filthy inside and out? Puneet has no reality other than his cage and this street. That is why he never seeks to escape; this is all there is.

Puneet slides inside his nest, following a man in an ill-fitting gray suit. Puneet's body speaks to his latest round of defeat, although his eye and lip makeup are still meticulously applied. He is becoming thin and his bandages slide down his waist, even without him bending over to display his love-hole. I have a great idea to cheer him up; I will write him a story. It does not matter that he cannot read; I will read it to him. In point of fact, I am the only person I know who can read.

Dear my beloved Puneet, this story is for you. I hope you love it.

THE GRAIN OF RICE.

The Master taught, "The world balances on a grain of rice."

The students asked the Master, "Master, how can the whole world, with all the elephants, houses, cities, palaces, crops, fields, and sky, balance on a grain of rice?"

The Master smiled serenely, looked over the field of students before him, and told this tale.

In a distant kingdom was a small village, and in that small village lived a family, a farmer, his wife, and their five children, two girls and three boys. The youngest of the boys was strong, quick-witted, and agile but beyond these traits he was connected to the flow of the earth. In his previous lives he had been the horse that was ridden by the greatest of all kings, a tiger that had given his coat to a queen, and a prince who was destined to rule the greatest kingdom on earth, except that he was cut down by jealousy Now, in this life, he was born as the youngest son of a poor farmer. But how his inner beauty shone. Even as a little boy his radiance drew attention from seers and the blind alike. Rumors spread of a holy child gifted with inner sight and the power to heal.

To look at this fourteen-year-old boy, you might be distracted by his physical beauty. He was blossoming into manhood and his lean and muscular body could twist with a change in the wind. His eyes were entrancing and his face lovely to behold. But if you were able to look beyond this sh.e.l.l of physical beauty, you would see something even more glorious. He shone with the wisdom of eternity, for he could see not only this life and the last but also the next. He could see the false pride of the rich and the faked lament of the poor. He could separate love from l.u.s.t and could taste spring in the air even when it was winter. His name was Puneet.

In the village, the crops had failed for the third year in a row and the earth was barren. The stream that had fed the village no longer ran and the drinking wells were almost completely dry. The village had long used up all its reserves of food and the villagers were starving in the streets. The farmer said to his youngest son early one morning, "Darling Puneet, we are all starving. You are a very special boy with tremendous powers. You must leave the village and seek fortune for us. Bring us back riches so that we may buy food and eat." Within the hour, before the ferocity of the morning sun took hold, Puneet bade farewell to his father, mother, and brothers and sisters. He gathered up some pebbles, wrapped them in a rag, and slung them over his shoulder, heading out from the village on foot. must leave the village and seek fortune for us. Bring us back riches so that we may buy food and eat." Within the hour, before the ferocity of the morning sun took hold, Puneet bade farewell to his father, mother, and brothers and sisters. He gathered up some pebbles, wrapped them in a rag, and slung them over his shoulder, heading out from the village on foot.

He walked for many days through unimaginable heat and evaded many dangers. He found water by following animal tracks and ate roots and plants that had grown on the side of the path to sustain him. He came to a large town. By then he was dusty and very thin but he still carried the pebbles from his village. This was a rich town full of greed and falseness. At the town inn, he drank from the trough used by the horses until his thirst was satisfied. He scavenged in the garbage of the inn for food, of which there was plenty. He ate until his strength returned. Wandering through the village, he saw how the poor and rich coexisted, neither sharing grace with the other, and he saw falsehood and greed all around him. He vomited the food he had eaten, for he did not want the filth of this town inside him.

At the village square, he beheld a great commotion. Since he was slender, he easily slid his way to the front of the crowd, which had gathered around a wrestling ring built upon a wooden platform. The ring was square and bounded by ropes. In the middle of the ring stood a giant. He was taller than an elephant and almost as broad. The shadow he cast from the sun almost filled the ring. In front of the giant kneeled a bloodied man, his armor half cut from him; he was begging for mercy from the giant. The giant looked across at a beautiful woman who sat on a throne at the far end of the ring, and the crowd hushed. She was the queen of the mighty kingdom; she wore a golden crown studded with a mult.i.tude of pearls and diamonds and a glistening golden cloak draped over her shoulders. Her hair was oiled and she appeared as a vision in a famous painting. To her right and left sat two lions with chains around their necks thicker than a man's arm, and at her feet was a chest of gold coins. their necks thicker than a man's arm, and at her feet was a chest of gold coins.

She spoke into the silence. "Let him live, but for failing the challenge, he, his wife, and his children shall become my slaves. Soldier, do you accept these terms?" The groveling man had dried blood on his face and fresh blood oozing from his wounds. He answered, "Beloved queen, I and my family would be honored beyond measure to be your servants for eternity" With that, the queen waved her hand to silence the murmuring crowd. "Kill him, giant," she ordered, "and have his family burned alive in the foundry. A man whose family is so easily bought is a family not worth having-even as slaves. A man with so little honor is not worthy to drink even the water of my kingdom. We must purge the realm of such weakness. Kill him now! That is my command."

The giant, with one swoop of his ma.s.sive sword, severed the soldier's head from his body. Blood shot out from the soldier's neck, splattering over a village woman who was standing beside the ring. The queen silenced the astonished crowd. "Quiet!" she shouted. "Are there any other heroes in this town who wish to earn this chest of gold by killing my giant?" There was silence.

Meanwhile, the giant had taken out a short knife from his hip and was kneeling beside the dead soldier. He proceeded to cut the heart from the lifeless body. Holding the dripping organ in his hand, he smeared it across his chest so that it blended with the dried blood from previous challengers. He stood up and roared and raised the dismembered heart above his head in his blood-smeared fist. A huge cheer rose from the crowd. And then Puneet stepped into the ring.

There was immediate silence, broken by a thunderous laugh from the giant. "What, boy? Are you the sacrificial lamb?" The queen waved her hand and spoke to Puneet. "Boy what are you doing in the ring? Is this b.l.o.o.d.y carca.s.s your father? Are you here to avenge him?" Puneet answered the queen, "No, mighty queen. I am not his son. I am here to earn the chest of gold." The queen laughed and said, "Do you not know that to earn this chest of gold, you have to kill my giant? He has hacked the heart out of a hundred men twice your size." Puneet answered "Most n.o.ble queen, I accept the queen, "No, mighty queen. I am not his son. I am here to earn the chest of gold." The queen laughed and said, "Do you not know that to earn this chest of gold, you have to kill my giant? He has hacked the heart out of a hundred men twice your size." Puneet answered "Most n.o.ble queen, I accept your challenge, but I ask one favor of you since I am not armed." "Ask," 'said the queen. Two street dogs had entered the ring and were grazing on the soldier's heartless carca.s.s. Puneet said to the queen "May I please borrow your challenge, but I ask one favor of you since I am not armed." "Ask," 'said the queen. Two street dogs had entered the ring and were grazing on the soldier's heartless carca.s.s. Puneet said to the queen "May I please borrow from you one gold coin? If I win the challenge, it will be mine, and if I lose it, you may take it from my dead hand." The queen asked "What do from you one gold coin? If I win the challenge, it will be mine, and if I lose it, you may take it from my dead hand." The queen asked "What do you have to offer as collateral?" She was amused by the beautiful boy whom she rather fancied for her own plaything. "This," Puneet answered, holding up the bag of pebbles from his town. "It is some pebbles from my town." The queen burst out laughing, along with the crowd. "For the sake of sport," said the queen, "I accept your terms. Loan him one gold coin." you have to offer as collateral?" She was amused by the beautiful boy whom she rather fancied for her own plaything. "This," Puneet answered, holding up the bag of pebbles from his town. "It is some pebbles from my town." The queen burst out laughing, along with the crowd. "For the sake of sport," said the queen, "I accept your terms. Loan him one gold coin."

Puneet carefully placed the bag of pebbles on the floor of the wooden ring in front of the queen and he received a single gold coin from one of the queen's attendants. The remains of the soldier were dragged off and the ring was cleared. There was absolute silence as the small boy faced the giant. The giant growled in a voice that resembled thunder, "You are not even a snack for me. You are not even a mouthful." Puneet responded, "Mighty warrior, I cannot fight you." There were jeers from the crowd. The queen waved for silence. She was angered, for she enjoyed watching men dismembered before her. "Boy you agreed to fight. You have no choice." Puneet answered "It is not that I am afraid to fight, Your Highness. It is that your beauty is so overpowering that I cannot fight while you are within my sight." The queen loved flattery as all vain people do, and she smiled. "I cannot make myself less beautiful," she said. Puneet answered, "Your Majesty, even if you were half as beautiful, your beauty would still blind even the keenest eye." "What do you suggest?" asked the queen, who was enjoying this public exchange. The giant, on the other hand, was becoming irritable, as he was eager for his snack. Puneet continued, "May I ask that the giant stand between me and you, so that I may fight bravely without your beauty blinding me?" The queen laughed and felt a woman's desire for this beautiful young man. "Let it be so." The boy and the giant switched positions and faced each other. The town square hushed to a painful silence. You could hear the buzz of the summer heat that scorched the back of Puneet's neck. the other hand, was becoming irritable, as he was eager for his snack. Puneet continued, "May I ask that the giant stand between me and you, so that I may fight bravely without your beauty blinding me?" The queen laughed and felt a woman's desire for this beautiful young man. "Let it be so." The boy and the giant switched positions and faced each other. The town square hushed to a painful silence. You could hear the buzz of the summer heat that scorched the back of Puneet's neck.

"Fight now!" roared the giant, and stomped toward him. Puneet watched as the giant's ma.s.sive feet thumped on the wooden platform, approaching him step by step. Puneet waited without moving a muscle as the giant advanced. The moment that Puneet smelled the giant's fetid breath, he spun the gold coin high in the air. The giant looked upward at the s.h.i.+ning, spinning coin. As he did so, he was blinded for a moment by the sunlight that reflected off the coin, for this is why Puneet had switched fighting positions. Puneet, who knew the cycle of all life, understood that if the whole world balances upon a grain of rice, then so does a giant. As the giant was blinded by the coin, he lost his balance. Puneet sprang forward and pushed on the giant's right knee with all his might. The giant wobbled and toppled backward, spinning his arms round and round as he fell. He landed on the wooden platform with such force that he shook the entire earth. The giant's mighty head was the last part of his body to hit the platform, and when it did, it landed right on top of Puneet's little bag of pebbles. The giant's head split open like a melon and his brain spilled onto the ring's floor like la.s.si. He was dead before the gold coin landed on the wooden ring.

There was stunned silence and then the town square erupted in screaming cheers.

"You see, my beloved students, the world is balanced upon a grain of rice." Then the Master was silent.

The students, sitting in their orange robes, were taken aback by the story, for it was a very strange tale indeed. After a while, one student raised his hand and asked, "Honored Master, did Puneet then take the gold back to his village? Did he marry the queen and become the greatest ruler on earth as was his destiny?"

The great Master smiled. "No. It did not end like that." The Master enjoyed a little silence before continuing. "After the giant fell, Puneet immediately grabbed the gigantic sword from the giant's dead hand and thrust it straight through the neck of the queen.

"You see, my students, a queen who sells the death of her subjects for sport is not a queen. Her death was married to the death of the fallen soldier."

Another student asked, "But what of Puneet's family ... what of the starving village, dear Master?"

The great Master looked into nothingness and answered, "After watching the queen die, Puneet closed his eyes and listened to the screams of his father and his mother and his brothers and his sisters and of the villagers crying for food. He could hear the cries of agony that are special for those dying of starvation. Puneet pushed his mind deeper, pushed aside his heart, and willed their deaths."

There was a gasp from the students. One asked, "But how can that be, oh great Master?"

The Master waited for his students to settle their inner commotion so that they could listen. He waited with them for two days before answering. Eventually he said "What village loses three years of crops and does not either find new water or relocate to the valley? What father sends forth his son to save him? Puneet rose to the upper air and willed them all to die, for they had willed death upon themselves."

The oldest of the students sat in the front row. He loved and was beloved of his Master. He asked, "Beloved Master. What is it that you will of us?" The Master, who was the greatest of the great teachers and who was once a boy who had felled a giant with a single gold coin, answered, "To have no will at all." of us?" The Master, who was the greatest of the great teachers and who was once a boy who had felled a giant with a single gold coin, answered, "To have no will at all."

The end. Love, Batuk.

I learned to read and write at the missionary's medical clinic, where I was sent when I was seven. The illness that landed me there was entirely my mother's fault, at least according to Grandma.

As a little girl, I would find any excuse to go to the river, whether to fish with Grandpa, or play, or even wash clothes. I could always be found on the riverbank. It was strange because unlike my friends I hated to get wet! I liked to be next to the river, though. I was entranced by the music of the water and the dance that light played on it. I liked the sense of loneliness without being alone, for the water connected me to all life. I appreciate many years later that the Common Street is a river too; back and forth people flow, and containers, cars, and small buses. The flow never ceases to connect the world to me, to take me to it.

On the day in question-the air was wet and yet the sky a cloudless blue-I returned from the river in the early evening. As soon as I walked through the hut's entrance and coughed, Grandma said to Mother, "I tell you not to let her sit by the river all the time. Now look at her, she's sick."

Grandma had the extraordinary gift of making even a simple phrase sound like a tirade of disapproval directed toward my mother. For example, Grandma could say, "Pa.s.s the cake," to which Mother would immediately respond, "What's wrong with it?" Even if Grandma said, "Oh, nothing," her words conveyed that Mother's cake was no better than a mound of rotting flesh covered in icing. Grandma was very gifted in this regard. And so when Grandma directly accused Mother of deliberately trying to make me ill, Mother took the bait (as she always did). She spun round and snapped to Grandma, "I told Batuk not to sit by the river all day, but you know what she's like, watching the lizards and talking to the gra.s.s. She is a fool, that one." I coughed again but this time a little harder (I said that I have a taste for drama). "There, I told you!" Grandma said. "She isn't a fool. She's just simple. I would keep her on a rope." I almost spoke back but let Grandma continue as I knew there was more fun to come. I was right. Grandma now turned up the volume and the shrillness of her voice box. "You are the idiot!" Grandma squealed at Mother. "You let her sit out all day-now look at her. Tell me, did I ever try to kill you? you? If I had treated you like you treat that little Batukee"-her pet name for me, which I loathed-"my mother would have beaten me with a stick." If I had treated you like you treat that little Batukee"-her pet name for me, which I loathed-"my mother would have beaten me with a stick."

This was terrific sport, so I threw in a coughing fit that lasted a full minute (the drama of the sick). Grandma threw me a momentary glance of pity (or was it applause?) and angled the edges of her mouth downward in preparation for the kill. "If she dies," spat Grandma, "you will rot in prison on your fat behind and guess who will have to take care of the rest of those dear children ... and that poor spastic Navaj?" Grandma often claimed that Navaj was handicapped because Mother had refused to drink Grandma's special pregnancy tea. I thought I had better cough some more (curtain rises on the second act). Grandma, with venom seeping from her skin, continued, "I have already raised my family. Do you really think me strong enough to raise your family too? ... Mind you ... at least the children would survive through high school." I then let rip the harshest cough a seven-year-old could muster. Grandma turned toward me with a mixture of pity and sheer delight in her eyes; I think she would only have been happier if I had dropped dead then and there. I watched the pity melt off her like b.u.t.ter in midday heat. She whipped her ever-intensifying glare back on Mother, took in a breath, and proclaimed, "She needs the doctor" (cough), "NOW!" (cough, cough). The odd thing was, I was actually extremely ill.

To her credit, Mother had learned well over the years. She simply deflected this shower of abuse at Father. Up until now Father had been silent, as he had been enjoying every second of the show. Mother screamed at him, "You heard her, you good-for-nothing drunk, get her to the doctor."

There were three ways to get medical attention. One way was to send a message to the neighboring town for the doctor to come to us, but we could never afford this. Another way was to have Father gather whatever money he could, load me onto a cart pulled by the field ox, and off we would head to the town a few hours away where the doctor resided. When we eventually arrived there, we would trek to the doctor's house and wait an eternity before I was seen. The doctor's consultation would last for moments before he pushed up his gla.s.ses and scribbled like an imbecile on a pad of paper. He would give his little drawing to the nurse, who subsequently would give Father a powder wrapped in a light, s.h.i.+ny brown paper sachet. The visit would conclude in a shouting match in which Father would explain that he had no more money "than this" and the nurse would insist that he'd better find some.

The third way to receive a medical cure was to head to the neighboring town just as I described but not actually go to the doctor. Father would take me out for a sherbet and then leave me on the ox-drawn cart at the market square for an hour while he visited his cousin. Once he returned, with his cousin's lavender perfume on his s.h.i.+rt, we would head home, both of us happy. The sherbet must have contained some potent ingredients because I generally got better.

This occasion fell in the third category. I had a bright red sherbet and Father had tea. He tied the ox and cart up in the market square and left me there while he went to see his cousin. An hour later we started home, but now I really was coughing hard and by the time we got home I had a fever. Mother asked what the doctor said and Father lied that he had promised I would soon be well; we just had to ride out the fever with cool soaks. Mother asked Father if I had been given medicine and he explained that I had been and that I had already taken it. He then inserted an elegant detail to add authenticity to his lie by explaining that the powder was a white-brown mixture that smelled awful. I was too sick by then to confirm or deny his fiction.

I remained with a high fever for days and coughed up platefuls of yellow-and-brown slime that was sometimes bloodstained. The fevers climbed higher still and I stopped eating; the cough was unrelenting. I cried whenever I had the strength. People from the village came by to offer best wishes, diagnoses, and cures. The only thing that they all agreed upon was that the doctor we had gone to was a quack and a charlatan. I heard at least three people say he wasn't even a doctor. Father looked ashen.

After five days of ever-mounting fevers and a worsening cough, it was decided to take me to the missionary's medical clinic, which was a full day's ride away in Bhopal. I was bundled up and Father and I headed off before the sun had risen. We rode in the covered wagon pulled by the ox, and I was hacking all the way. When we arrived at the clinic, which was located on the outskirts of the city, the nurse listened to my father's story and saw me cough up what looked like berry-stained ghee. Much to my bemus.e.m.e.nt she collected a sample of this gunk as if it were a prize. When she returned a few hours later, she told Father that I had TB and needed to be admitted to "the ward." The ward was actually a large converted chicken hutch that now housed the sick. It smelled of its previous inhabitants, overlaid with the smell of iodine and illness. Along one wall of the ward were the women's beds and along the other, the men's. I was allocated a gray mattress and a steel bed about halfway down the women's wall. When Father left I was too sick to cry.

Despite my initial fear, I felt at ease, although I was the youngest patient by far. During the day, there was a constant stream of sound: wheels rolling; people groaning, vomiting, and dying; and the buzz buzz buzz buzz of flies and the whir of heat. At night, silence rested like a blanket over the snores and rustling of the forty-three patients and one nurse. I must have become numbed to the smell because I often saw visitors enter the ward and immediately rush out holding their mouths in disgust before choking and sometimes vomiting. of flies and the whir of heat. At night, silence rested like a blanket over the snores and rustling of the forty-three patients and one nurse. I must have become numbed to the smell because I often saw visitors enter the ward and immediately rush out holding their mouths in disgust before choking and sometimes vomiting.

On the bed next to me lay a near-naked old woman who looked as though she were having a baby. She was far older than Grandma and so thin that her baby looked almost bigger than she did. One of her hands hung from the side of the bed; when her fingers moved I could see the sinews writhing through her skin, which was as thin and delicate as cigarette paper. Sometimes I would watch the gentle undulation of her pulse as she slept just to see if it ever stopped, and a few days later it did. Within an hour she was rolled on a tarpaulin and disappeared.

Lying on the bed on the other side of me was a woman about Mother's age who was twice as round as Mother. Her left foot was heavily bandaged and the nurses came by every day to change the dressings. Her foot had been cut off because it had gotten infected from sugar sickness. Oddly, she did not seem at all distraught that her foot lay in a waste bin somewhere. She seemed, in fact, to revel in the attention she received, as she was nearly always surrounded by people saying, "You poor thing," "Tttt, it's a terrible disease," "You look wonderful" (albeit footless), and bringing her containers of the most fantastic food. The woman took pity on me from time to time and gave me some of the leftovers she had not scarfed down. But her acts of generosity were rare and she nearly always licked the containers of food clean. She left the clinic about two weeks after her operation, in a wooden box on wheels pushed by her rancid husband, who was always smoking. I bet she would have happily sacrificed the other foot for a few more weeks of pity and delicious food.

During the day, the ward was staffed by three nurses and a doctor. There were also two orderlies, who carried, mopped, cleaned, and when necessary removed those who died. There was also a priest. Every day, Father Matthew, a young, stringy white man, would talk to us for about half an hour and then give us each a piece of bread and fruit juice. He had a soft, lolling voice and a gentle manner that he tried to disguise when he addressed us each day. He would stand on the table in the middle of the ward by the entrance. As he talked, he gesticulated, shouted, and jumped up and down like a lunatic. This excessive exertion was unnecessary as none of us understood him and none of us were able to leave even if we wanted to. It was worth watching him, though, for the entertainment as well as for the bread and fruit juice. We were his forty-three-strong army of devotees, although all of us would later leave him, one way or another. Once or twice a day, he would walk along the two rows of beds and would always stop at mine, as I was the youngest. He would smile at me and I would smile at him. He carried his book and his cross, which I knew were important to him. I could tell that he often spoke to the nurses about me because I watched his eyes.

I did not have any visitors, which I was thankful for because I was learning to read.

After a week on the ward, I was feeling better but I was not allowed out of bed. The doctor, who led the daily parade of the medical staff, listened each day to my back with his rubber ears. Every day was the same; he would nod his head, mutter to the head nurse, write something on the board at the end of my bed, and move on-all without saying a word to me. The most junior of the nurses was called Hita. It was. .h.i.ta who gave me reading.

Hita looked exactly like a girl from our village: she was healthy and round and had the loveliest smile (although she was missing several teeth). She would sit on my bed in her stiff white uniform and talk to me from time to time. One day, I asked her what the doctor was writing about me and she took the chart and read aloud, "August seventh, making progress, keep on bed rest. Lung bases collapsed; consolidation in right mid zone. Allow food. No exercise." "He wrote all that on one line?" I asked. The scratches across the page fascinated me. She nodded. She bustled off and returned with a book, the cover of which showed a rabbit and a wheelbarrow, both of which were smiling. I opened the book and saw the patterns that the words made on the page. The shapes of the letters and the s.p.a.ces that separated the words made the page look like a drawing. Nurse Hita showed me the first word and I repeated it. "Rabbit." She left abruptly seconds later because a man on the other side of the room had inconveniently dislodged his pee tube and the liquid was pulsing onto the floor like beer from a toppled bottle. I stared at this word and repeated it over and over again, like a mantra. She left abruptly seconds later because a man on the other side of the room had inconveniently dislodged his pee tube and the liquid was pulsing onto the floor like beer from a toppled bottle. I stared at this word and repeated it over and over again, like a mantra.

Each day Hita, and in due course the other nurses, would teach me a word or two or three; I would spend the entire day reading my new words and practicing the ones I already knew. After a week I could read a paragraph. Hita was delighted with me. I explained to her that I wanted to read my book to the white man because he was always carrying a book with him and so I thought he must love to read too.

The late summer heat had let up and Father Matthew had become particularly expressive in his tabletop sermons. So much so that whenever he finished his incomprehensible ranting, which he always did with a dramatic flourish, those who had two hands applauded him while the handless cheered. I could see he was pleased with this reception. On one particularly cool evening, when Father Matthew arrived at my bed on his tour of the ward, Hita spoke to him in English. The Father then turned to me and gave me a nod and a welcoming smile. I had been rehearsing from sunrise and read the first two pages of my book to perfection. I even incorporated a little emotional expression into my reading, although I omitted gesticulations; the story was about a rabbit who helped cheer up his friend the wheelbarrow by helping him become more useful. When I finished reading, Father Matthew beamed and clapped his hands. After a moment's pause, he said something to Hita in English. The following afternoon a teacher came: Mr. Chophra, my own reading teacher.

Mr. Chophra came to teach me (and visit Hita) three times a week during the rest of my twelve-week stay on the ward. I was a fast study. Having walked across the desert with no water, I was thirsty and could not drink enough! Within three weeks I had rudimentary reading skills. Thereafter, Mr. Chophra brought books for me to read of advancing complexity. My thirst was not quenched, though, as I read the books almost as quickly as he brought them. I read from the great poets, stories of boys who went to the army and even translations of some English books. Every day, Father Matthew would come and listen to me read. I knew that he did not understand me but this did not seem to matter. I understood that he too could hear the patterns that words made without the need to understand them. Each day that I read to him he beamed at me and applauded. After I finished, he would sit at the end of my bed and read to me from his special black book. He would read for five to ten minutes and I would sit back and listen to the rhythm of the words coupled to the softness of his voice. It sounded like a song. When he finished he would mark the page with a gold thread that was attached to the book's back. In this fas.h.i.+on we read to each other almost every day. I got into the habit of falling asleep at night reading a book and would wake up to the faint smell of book print and moldy pages.

I learned to write in concert with learning to read by hand-copying pa.s.sages from the books Mr. Chophra gave me. It was obvious that Mr. Chophra was delighted to come and see me at every opportunity possible (even when I was fast asleep). It was not my thirst for reading that drew him to my bedside, however. It was. .h.i.ta. On several occasions, I woke up from a nap and there Mr. Chophra was standing, gaily laughing with her. It was fun to watch them; he would blush and stumble and she would revel in his trepidation of her. After he left, she would often talk about him with the other nurses and they would collectively giggle as girls have a tendency to do. I once asked Hita if she liked Mr. Chophra. In response, she scolded me, and so I knew that she did. There was one occasion, when the ward was quiet, that Hita sat next to me throughout my entire lesson, staring like a hypnotized rabbit at her ever-smiling Chophra-barrow.

Mr. Chophra's ever-more-diverted attention never bothered me, for whenever he came, under whatever pretext, he brought me more to read. The trouble was that I became so engrossed in my reading I forgot to pretend to be sick, and before I knew it, the silent doctor with the rubber ear pieces had written "discharge" on the chart at the end of my bed.

On the day I was to leave, I dressed early in the day. I said goodbye to all of my fellow inmates and the staff; even the ever-silent doctor said, "Goodbye and be well." Mr. Chophra had come the evening before to give me a cardboard box full of books to read and keep. and keep. Just after the morning rounds, Father walked onto the ward. I was so excited to see him, I could not control myself. I sprinted across the ward, leaped into his arms, and hugged him. He grinned like a monkey, crying, "Girl, you look so well. What have they been feeding you?" After the initial pleasantries we were at a loss as to what to say to each other and so I took him by the hand and gave him a tour of the ward, although I bypa.s.sed the patients who would probably die in the next day or two. Father Matthew had been fetched and came running onto the ward with the tails of his long black coat flying behind him. He shook my father's hand; the two giants were somewhat wary of each other but I willed their affection and it came to pa.s.s. Father Matthew gave me my own Bible (Mother would later throw it away) and held me close to him for as long as it had taken me to read the opening paragraph of my first book many weeks before. I gave Father Matthew a poem I had been writing for several days. I had decorated the paper with trees and leopards and suns.h.i.+ne. Just after the morning rounds, Father walked onto the ward. I was so excited to see him, I could not control myself. I sprinted across the ward, leaped into his arms, and hugged him. He grinned like a monkey, crying, "Girl, you look so well. What have they been feeding you?" After the initial pleasantries we were at a loss as to what to say to each other and so I took him by the hand and gave him a tour of the ward, although I bypa.s.sed the patients who would probably die in the next day or two. Father Matthew had been fetched and came running onto the ward with the tails of his long black coat flying behind him. He shook my father's hand; the two giants were somewhat wary of each other but I willed their affection and it came to pa.s.s. Father Matthew gave me my own Bible (Mother would later throw it away) and held me close to him for as long as it had taken me to read the opening paragraph of my first book many weeks before. I gave Father Matthew a poem I had been writing for several days. I had decorated the paper with trees and leopards and suns.h.i.+ne.

To Father Matthew:Every day you come and read a little bit to me Dressed in black, book in hand, happy I can see I read to you a little bit. Not a word you understand You listen hard, smile at me, and take me by the handYou always pat my hand (twice); happy words you seem to say I feel your hand holding mine, even when you've gone awayLove from Batuk.

After I read the poem and Hita translated it, he hugged me again and I could see that he wanted to cry. Hita, on the other hand, was sobbing. I looked at the little streams of water on her beautiful round face and hoped that she would see Mr. Chophra again.

On the long way home in the ox-drawn cart, I chatted inanely to Father, gesticulating with my arms as I spoke. Father was happy to listen to me with a quiet smile on his face. There were moments, though, when he would reach across the cart and touch my hair or accidentally b.u.mp me. Sometimes he would reach over and give me a little hug. Although he asked, I wouldn't tell him what was in the cardboard box.

When we stopped that night, we sat outside drinking tea and I made Father put his hat over his eyes. I took a book of stories from the top of the cardboard box and asked him if he was ready. I told him to keep his eyes closed, and I started to read to him. In the story the hero loses his beloved to another family. Her new husband treats her cruelly as he only married her for power and money and because he knows his wife loved another. The heartbroken wife escapes and tries to make her way back to the hero, who has been pining for her. On the return journey by means of a river, a torrential storm sinks her boat and washes her up onto a tiny island in the middle of the river. The island begins to disappear as the waters rise, and she sends her cries of desperation into the winds. The hero hears her cries, dashes to a boat, and rides through the storm onto the island. Though his boat is also destroyed in the storm, he manages to clamber onto the island and rushes into her arms. The lovers die in each other's arms, and the island is submerged along with them.

Father did not say a word until I finished. As I concluded the story, I peeked under his hat; his eyes were s.h.i.+ny and tears were streaming down his face. He just stared at me. "Father, there are happier stories, let me ..." "Batuk, that is not why I am crying. I never imagined that any child of mine would ever learn to read ... this is your ticket out of Dreepah-Jil." He caught his thoughts and continued to speak excitedly. "We will have to find you a teacher ... One day you will be a ... doctor, a lawyer." I interrupted, "Or a teacher." "Yes, darling, or a great teacher, Batuk. Come to me." I went to my father with another book tucked under my arm, the magical abhang poems of Namdev. As I read words I barely understood and soaked them within me, my father held me. That night we both created dreams for me. Neither he nor I ever aspired to my becoming a prost.i.tute.

Despite the story I wrote for him, Puneet remains miserable. Today, again, he sits at the entrance of his nest with his head down, moping. The bandages have gone (along with his bhunnas). I wave h.e.l.lo to him but really, I want to walk over and slap him across the face. I must admit that I think about him less and less these days. He waves back at me unenthusiastically. The good news is that he has more devotees than ever.

No one seems to mind that in between baking sessions, I sit at the entrance to my nest, my pad on my knees, writing. My earlier fear of my notepad being discovered was unfounded as Mamaki cannot read, although she is able to place check marks against our names in her little book. She quite likes that I "scribble away" at the entrance to my nest because this seems to bring in cooks rather than deter them. Novice cooks will often walk up to me from the street and ask what I am writing. My answer is always the same: "I'm just scribbling" (men don't like to feel stupid). My writing creates an easy way for shy men to approach me, and once they have done so, Mamaki pounces. She throws open her arms and swoops them under the folds of her sari, into my nest; job done! Also, with me sitting and scribbling, Mamaki can point down and talk about me to men who are walking by. She said to me yesterday (I am fast becoming her favored), "Maybe I should get all the others to scribble too."

For me, the cooks become my paragraph ends or, sometimes, my chapter breaks. The afternoons are often the quietest and that is when I generally write in my book. This afternoon is hot. I call to Puneet, "Puneet, I have a joke for you!" Meera's little head pops out from the cage between ours with a big grin. "Oh, I love jokes," she says with a smile on her squished-up face. Puneet is unmoved and grunts. I continue, "What do you call a dog with two heads?" Meera squawks, "Woof, woof." "Other one, other one," she pipes. "All right," I say, "what do you call an elephant leaning against a tree?" Meera furrows her brow; she is adorable. I answer, "Bruised." Meera looks puzzled. "I do not get it." Puneet then speaks in a most gloomy drone. "It's because the tree fell over and the elephant hurt itself." (It is a terrible joke but I am awful at jokes.) Meera then responsively bursts into hoots of laughter and I laugh with her; she really is a child (this is her key selling point). Mamaki takes extra for her by telling her cooks that she is ten years old when in fact she is twelve. "Other one, other one," Meera calls. I think for a while and say in an undertone, "What do you call a woman with three t.i.tties?" Meera shakes her head and shrugs. "Mamaki Hippopotamus," I answer, "two on her chest and one on her chin." Meera breaks into hysterics. Then Puneet perks up: "What do you call a woman with a beard?" He sits up straight. Meera answers, "Mamaki Hippopotamus." "Yes," Puneet says a bit too loudly, and laughs for the first time in ages. I continue, "Puneet, what happened to the sixth girl of our group?" Puneet answers, "She is in between Mamaki's b.u.t.tocks." Meera is laughing so hard I think she will wet herself. Meera says, "My go, my go," barely able to get out the words. She says, "Where is Mamaki's husband?" I answer, "Between her t.i.tties." No response. Meera and Puneet are silent and both are looking over my left shoulder. "He's dead," Mamaki says from behind me, and waddles off down the street. The three of us are silent for as long as we can possibly be, but then Puneet starts to smirk. His smirk becomes my giggle and soon the three of us break out in floods of laughter. Gripping his stomach, Puneet, who is almost crying with laughter, says, "He suffocated ... they were having s.e.x and he slipped inside her ... That's why she walks like that."

That was the last tummy-aching laugh we would ever share together.

I first met Puneet in what is referred to as the Orphanage. It covers a s.p.a.ce about half the size of the meat market and is a series of bamboo poles that support a patchwork of threadbare cloths of many vintages. As one cloth piece becomes decrepit and falls apart, it is replaced with another piece that is slightly less worn.

The Orphanage is policed by Yazaks, men and women who have divested themselves of humanity. Yazaks view their orphans solely in terms of the income they provide. The Yazaks reside in a brick house at the easternmost end of the Orphanage, from which sounds of music and television continuously blare. Interestingly, except where money is concerned, the policing is lax because there are so many children who are indistinguishable from each other. The Orphanage is made up of a herd of street urchins who reside there until called upon to perform some service or other, for which they are directly rewarded with food, clothing, or sometimes (rarely) money. No work, no food. No one steals from the Yazaks or cheats them because just as a child's presence is anonymous, so is his or her absence. Many rumors abound; for example, I heard about a child from the Orphanage who stole a bicycle on his own and pocketed twenty rupees from a fence without telling his Yazak. The fence told the Orphanage, as the child's wrist tattoo was a signature that identified him as coming from this particular Orphanage. Justice was immediate and occurred in the open. Using his right hand, the Yazak lifted the child, age eleven or twelve, by his hair off the ground and with his left hand cut his throat with a Damascus blade. Before the second spurt of blood had shot from his neck, the Yazak had thrown the boy to the ground just as you might throw away a sweets wrapper. Before the boy's soul was released at the moment of death a minute later, he had been stripped of his meager clothes and shoes by the other urchins. That evening another child collected a bowl of rice with sauce for carrying the body to the public dump, the burial ground of the poor.

The girls are not spared Yazak savagery. There was an instance where a girl had her v.a.g.i.n.a sewn shut for copulating for her own pleasure. This was done by a large female Yazak with a needle and thread while sitting on the girl, with older children restraining each limb. A hole was left for urination but this is generally irrelevant either because the girl manages to remove the st.i.tches herself with a knife or broken gla.s.s, or infection sets in on the inevitable path to the garbage dump. For second offenders, the c.l.i.toris is sliced away and the v.a.g.i.n.a sewn completely shut; few second offenders become adults. You might think that this makes no sense as the girl is lost from the pool of prost.i.tutes. You are wrong because the punishment creates such fear in the other girls, of which there are many, that they never cheat their Yazaks. Closing a girl, as this procedure is called, is therefore an investment. What is more, the "closed girls" who survive become specialized at serving with their mouths and brown holes and draw a higher premium from their clients.

Running away is rare. When a child runs, recapture is almost inevitable because there is a strong honor system among the Orphanages for returning wanderers. The punishment for running is stoning. Here, the runaway is tied into a yam sack and laid on the pavement in the middle of the Orphanage. The child is then stoned; the verification of death is irrelevant, as once the fun is over, the sack is sealed and thrown into the garbage dump. The cries of pain during a stoning are so petrifying that it serves as a most effective deterrent, particularly as the punishment is delivered by those whom it seeks to deter.

Through this system of skillfully metered justice, the Orphanage is a remarkably orderly and peaceful home for children who otherwise would become street vermin.

There are no babies in the Orphanage, as they go to a separate place. Babies are highly valued, and in fact the prost.i.tutes are discouraged from wasting their clients' issue. The babies go to a light brown tent, directly in front of the meat market, that houses upward of fifty babies and wet nurses. The babies are rented out daily to the well-organized beggar network, since a beggar with a baby gets five times more income than a childless beggar (this rule of thumb is also true for children with deformities and missing limbs). It is important to nourish the babies well enough to keep them alive but it is crucial not to overfeed them, to prevent them from becoming fat. A fat baby does not cry from hunger although a needle poked in the bottom guarantees that any living baby will cry Babies are tattoo-marked also and have to be returned at sundown for refeeding. If a baby survives to childhood, he graduates to the Orphanage; and if not, to the dump.

How do I know all of this? My husband, Shahalad, taught me.

The morning after I was initiated at Master Gahil's house by the smiling uncle, Dr. Dasdaheer came to see me again. His s.h.i.+rt seemed to be the same crumpled one I had seen him in the day before. The doctor examined me but this time only around my v.a.g.i.n.a. He declared, as if this would lift my spirits, "Good. No damage." He left a folded white long-s.h.i.+rt on the bed for me to wear. After he left, I put it on, as I had been naked up to that point.