The Blue Notebook Part 4

I have pulled the robe around myself and cower back as he returns to sit next to me on the bed. He senses my fear of him and smiles at me. His jowls wobble. He reaches for my ankle and speaks as he strokes it, "Look here, little thing, I'm done and you'll be pleased to hear that everything looks really very good-s.h.i.+pshape." He continues, "A couple more questions and then I must write my report and leave so that you can have the loveliest holiday." He gets out his pad and pen, looks at me, and asks, "Now, how many men are you with ... say, in the last week ... ten maybe?" I look at him. Ten in a week-I would be beaten through to the flesh if I only baked ten times per week. "No, Doctor." "More?" he asks. I nod. Taken aback, he asks, "How much more?" I answer, feeling the shame I am made to feel, "Ten in one day ... sometimes," I answer. Rubbing my ankle, which at the best of times I would find highly annoying, he continues, "Little princess, you are now in this lovely hotel, with so many lovely things, a little cuddle for Dr. Prathi would not do any harm and I would give you an excellent report." I look at him but do not speak. I am the mouse trapped in the snake's gaze.

I say nothing, for there is nothing to say. He grips my right calf firmly in one hand and with his other hand pushes the robe up my legs. He half falls, half climbs, and half rolls on top of me. His weight alone divides my legs under him. His eyes are yellow but he is fat and slow and by heaven he stinks. I try to slide under him toward the floor but his weight traps me. He grabs my left wrist and drives it above my head and pins it there. His grip is so tight that feeling starts to ebb from my hand. "Listen," he snarls at me, "you think I cannot hear your b.l.o.o.d.y TB lungs ... you want to get kicked straight back to the street? ... One word from me and you will be back there in a minute. Now, little girl, I just want a little ..."

No! I know I am the vessel of all men but he will not have me by his will. I am wriggling and pus.h.i.+ng against him with no effect. I turn my head and sink my teeth into the forearm holding my wrist. I tighten my sharp teeth and bite down as hard as I can. My! How the swine hollers. He throws himself backward but he is still sitting on me. Blood is trickling down his arm. His face transforms into crimson and his nostrils flare wide. "You little b.i.t.c.h wh.o.r.e," he cries. I smile at him, and spa! spa! I spit in his face. By reflex, he raises his b.l.o.o.d.y forearm high and swipes my face with his open right hand. The sting is agony, but my head will not fall off and I feel a pulsing in my cheek-another bruise. He wipes my spit from his face with the sleeve of his s.h.i.+rt. "Oh, how you will regret that." But as he wipes his face, his weight has s.h.i.+fted and I push against his knees and I have slipped free. I jump off the bed and race to the bathroom. I slam the door shut. My hands are trembling uncontrollably. I am trying to lock the door, but no! The key has gone. I look frantically on the sink. It is not there. Despite the futility, I throw myself against the door with all my weight. I spit in his face. By reflex, he raises his b.l.o.o.d.y forearm high and swipes my face with his open right hand. The sting is agony, but my head will not fall off and I feel a pulsing in my cheek-another bruise. He wipes my spit from his face with the sleeve of his s.h.i.+rt. "Oh, how you will regret that." But as he wipes his face, his weight has s.h.i.+fted and I push against his knees and I have slipped free. I jump off the bed and race to the bathroom. I slam the door shut. My hands are trembling uncontrollably. I am trying to lock the door, but no! The key has gone. I look frantically on the sink. It is not there. Despite the futility, I throw myself against the door with all my weight. Bam!- Bam!-the door flies open and I am driven by its force onto the floor. I am stunned as my head bangs on the stone, but I am conscious. I look over and he is standing in the bathroom entrance, a sweaty ma.s.s of flesh spewing torrential anger.

He stomps over to me, his belly trembling with each step, grabs my hair, and lifts me to my feet, drags me to the sink, and pushes my head down into the basin, which is still full of water from when he washed his hands. I breathe out and feel the random, haywire bubbles on my face. I can taste soap. He has me fixed. I try to thrash my head but he has a handful of hair and pushes my face down harder. I draw the disgusting water into my mouth as if I want to breathe it in, but know that I cannot. I relinquish my body, for that is all that is left. All tone washes from my muscle and I start to see gray "Ooosh." He pulls my head out. I gasp for air. I pant. He is pulling the robe off me-off one arm, off the other. I am naked. He laughs and jams my head back into the sink. This time, though, the sink is far emptier than before and I can suck a jet of air through the corner of my mouth ... if I turn my head just a little bit. He kicks my legs away and pushes my head harder into the sink so that my face is now pressing right down on the plug hole. My legs are floating in the air; I do not even think to kick out. I feel his hand between my legs. He jams his fingers into me and drives them back and forth fast ... jam, jam, jam, jam, jam. I am pinned, held, bent over the sink, as he pushes his bhunnas into where the metal instrument had been minutes before. His flesh variant is small and barely penetrates compared to the metal and in seconds I feel his poison on my thigh; I guess he did not use the rubber-johnny in his pocket. More enduring, however, is the mixed taste of blood and soap in my mouth.

He raises my head from the sink by my hair and throws me to the stone floor like a vicious roll of the gambler's dice. "That wasn't so bad now, was it?" he says, and roars out laughing. I hear his zipper and he is waddling from the bathroom. I lie on the floor. There is rummaging around in the main room. I lie still, listening. He is leaving. A few minutes later, I hear the key in the door and then it slams shut and he has gone.

There is a specific silence that follows the exit of a person; the air is more silent after a person has left than if he had not been there. There is a tangible silence now. I listen to it while lying on the bathroom floor and my mind starts to disconnect as random thoughts and colors enter it. I think only a few minutes pa.s.s before the door is opening again and Hita's voice awakens me. "I am back, Batuk. Where are you?" I say nothing and lie still. I hear her call, "Batuk ... Batuk." Hita walks into the bathroom with a large bundle wrapped in brown paper. She looks down at me, horror-struck, but does not drop the package. "What happened to you?" she shrieks. "The doctor," I say. Hita's brow furrows in disbelief. "Dr. Prathi did this to you?" My head nods. "Don't be so stupid; you obviously fell." She pulls me up and helps me stand and then she sees me and shrieks, "He bruised you, he bruised you. You are bleeding. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" She is white with anger and half carries me to the bed. The lime green bedcover is now smeared in blood. She sits next to me, dialing on the telephone; her finger pounds out the number. Hita is barely coherent. "It's Dr. Prathi ... yes, that that doctor ... he attacked the girl ... he bruised her ... raped her ... her mouth is bleeding ... yes, I think that is all right ... she will be fine ... she is conscious ... her arms, her back ... I will ... bye." I can hear a man's voice crackling through the telephone but I cannot hear what he says. Hita replaces the handset and sighs. doctor ... he attacked the girl ... he bruised her ... raped her ... her mouth is bleeding ... yes, I think that is all right ... she will be fine ... she is conscious ... her arms, her back ... I will ... bye." I can hear a man's voice crackling through the telephone but I cannot hear what he says. Hita replaces the handset and sighs.

Hita turns to me. "Come, let's clean you up! You stupid girl, you didn't need to fight him ... he is an old idiot! Look at you ... look at you." She helps me to the bathroom as I am still unsteady walking by myself. She runs warm water in the sink (the one I was almost drowned in), tests it with her hand, and leaves it running. She turns on the faucets for the bath, and we examine me in the mirror. As I look at myself in the mirror, I reach out to touch me. I feel gla.s.s but I know that I am not made from gla.s.s. If I were, I would be broken.

My face looks like a garden; a purple flower here and a shrub there. Plant more or till the soil, it will always be a garden.

There is a bruise on my left cheek. Although there is dried blood on my face, there are no obvious cuts on the skin; the blood is either from cuts inside my mouth or his arm. She gently wipes my face with a cloth soaked in the warm water. By the time she is done, apart from the discoloration under my left eye, I look perfect, though my right shoulder is badly bruised and there are bruises from his fingers on my wrist. My back and hip hurt from the fall. She makes me sit on the closed toilet seat, parts my legs, kneels in front of me, and peers between them. She shows a hint of a smile and tells me to get into the bath, even though it is not full yet.

Hita's makeup has rendered the bruise on the left side of my face almost aesthetic, as it now matches a pigmented discoloration on the other side of my face. I love staring at myself in the mirror, and as. .h.i.ta rea.s.sembles me, I do so for well over an hour. I peer into my eyes to try to see myself; stare hard into the black holes but inside of them there is nothing. "Where am I?" I think. I try to gaze into myself from all different angles and catch reflections of one aspect of me off another aspect. How do I define what exactly I am, as opposed to what reflection I appear to be? The more simple way to argue, though, is that I am as I appear to be now. In this way of thinking, everything is exactly as it appears to be and nothing else. Feelings, the emotions that course through me, thoughts, and the nine senses are irrelevant as I am simply what I appear to be at this moment: a bruised fifteen-year-old prost.i.tute being made up by a woman in a luxurious bathroom.

In this fas.h.i.+on we can similarly look at how others perceive us. I am a straightforward ent.i.ty because everyone sees me the same way. I make sweet-cake and I am nothing else. I eat, breathe, and move to fulfill that role alone. Others have more complex functions. For example, consider the peddler who walks on his route along the Common Street every day. He carries a basket around his neck that contains batteries, shoes, laces, cigarettes, and other bits and bobs. He tilts his large straw hat to shadow his face so that all you see is a tuft of white hair at the back of his head. The interactions he has with his customers are wholly anonymous; they point, he utters a price, they pay, and he gives them change. This is his appearance to his customers: a straw hat, white hair, and a voice. Appearance one: the peddler. He buys his products from a dealer somewhere, and then he is a customer. Appearance two: the customer. At home, he may be, although I doubt it, a pa.s.sionate man or even a family man. Appearance three: the father. You see, even the old peddler is a multiheaded animal; with so many different appearances, who is he? Is he the vendor of cigarettes on the Common Street, a customer of others, a pa.s.sionate lover, or a loving father? When does one role stop and another begin, or do all these roles coexist in a single person? Of course you argue that he is one person supporting multiple swirling roles. However, do you not see that there is an alternate explanation? A man has only one appearance, namely the one you see at the moment of time that you see it; when he sells cigarettes in his straw hat, his sole role on earth is to be a vendor of cigarettes (he is not a father or husband at that moment but only a vendor of cigarettes). Our external reality is exactly what we are at that moment in time; history and the future are irrelevant.

This is the philosophy of the prost.i.tute. I am who I am only at this moment in time; my past does not hang from my shoulders and my future is indefinable and so cannot be a concern. I am nothing else and there is nothing else. As I look at myself in the mirror, it dawns on me again that the tree was correct-all is created for me alone. I close my eyes tight and hear the tree laughing.

Up to now, the pace of my new existence in the Tiger Suite has had an unmetered quality; time has simply been prancing by from event to event. Things were occurring but not in a paced fas.h.i.+on, and Hippopotamus was not keeping record. This was different for me, as. .h.i.therto my life was by the clock. When I first started in my nest several years ago, I would become anxious if the clock ticked too many times without my producing sweet-cake. Over time, on the Common Street, I developed an inner rhythm that I tuned my body to, and life followed this beat. In the Tiger Suite, things are different; the clock has stopped. I inwardly watch the second hand and know that soon it will tick, but do not know when. Many times I have prayed for time to stop, but beware of such dreams because should it do so, events will then move along another plane. Without the tick of the clock we are confused and get lost. In order to wait for a bus that never comes, I must sink my roots into the earth to sustain me, but still enter the upper air to see.

Time was inching forward in the Tiger Suite like the stooped old man creeping up the Common Street with his walking stick. I lay on the bed staring out of the window, knowing that the next event would follow the last, though when I did not know. As the sky darkened and the sun set behind the building, I got out of bed and walked over to the window. The electric lights on the promenade were coming on and the long lines of light illuminated the streams of tourists, the wealthy, and the beggars. I am not sure how long I watched, but it was quite a long time.

Hita had been in the main room all this time and came into the bedroom. She asked me how I felt ("Fine, thank you, miss") and instructed me to put on my new clothes, which she unwrapped from the brown paper parcel. These were clothes I had only seen on advertising billboards and in the old magazines that Mamaki would occasionally bring us. Hita zipped me into a long red dress that dipped into the breast line and fell away at the back. The trim was gold; it defined where the dress stopped and my skin began. I did not wear an unders.h.i.+rt or bra.s.siere. The fabric of the dress was astonis.h.i.+ngly soft. I ran my hand up and down my body loving the feel of it under my hand and the tightness of it against my skin. My b.r.e.a.s.t.s created gentle rises in the fabric. The tail of the dress was split, so that my left leg became uncovered if my leg moved. The shoes were made from black leather, shaped like a fish's body and heeled so high that I could barely walk; in them I became a handbreadth taller. To top it all off, Hita hung white pearls around my neck. I was bouncing with excitement and at the same time toppling over as I attempted to accommodate her. "No panties, no lines," Hita said. The makeup, besides hiding the doctor's bruise, made my face look older; I bet Puneet would not have recognized me. Tiger was at a loss for words.

Night fell and the stars sparkled outside my window. Hita ordered dahl and bread for me. It was brought to me by a food man who was different from the one who had brought me the paper earlier. I was hungry. Hita wrapped a towel around me before I ate so that my dress would not get stained, and touched up my makeup afterward. She was pleased with the product of her efforts-as was I. I sensed that the reason for the move from my nest to the Tiger Suite was approaching. Hita paced while we waited in the main room, and I chatted with Tiger.

The first indication that the pace of this adventure was about to change was a commotion outside the main door. Then, almost as if by a volcanic eruption, the paired doors of the suite were thrown open. Three men marched into the room, led by the largest. Second in line was the man in the light blue suit (still in the same suit-or did he have many suits exactly the same?). Third in line was the youngest, shortest, and trimmest of the bunch.

It was obvious that the man who led the entrance parade was in charge. He was beaming. Bubba was a one-man force of nature. He stood a head shorter than the man in the blue suit and a foot wider. He wore a gray Western suit; the material was soft and flowed and had delicate vertical white lines sewn into it. His tie was gold and his s.h.i.+rt was ultrawhite. On his left wrist he wore a bejeweled watch plus at least four gold bracelets. On his right hand was a gigantic gold ring with diamonds embedded in it. His right wrist bore a thick gold charm bracelet with what appeared to be teeth hanging from it, along with a host of gold shapes and trinkets. The enormity of his jewelry contrasted (pleasingly) with the delicacy of the white lines in his suit.

His musical movement reminded me of the traditional dancing my cousin used to do for us. She would wear bells on her wrists and ankles so that each limb's twitch carried its own tune and each dance's whirl made its own song. When Bubba moved there was music; he was a song of dangling, clanking, and puffing to the beat of the whoos.h.i.+ng whoos.h.i.+ng of thigh against thigh. I loved him from the second I saw him. He was one of those people who could bolt a smile onto your face even if you felt glum. "Bubba," he said to me, his hand outstretched. I smiled and tried to skip over to shake his hand, but my left ankle buckled over the shoe and I almost fell. He burst out laughing. Once I reached him, he dropped his outstretched hand and pulled me to him in a tight hug. He wore rich cologne and kissed my cheek. He let me go and turned to the blue suit and said, "She's perfect." Raising his voice even louder he called out, "Iftikhar, Iftikhar, where are you? Look at her. She's here." Out of the shadow of Bubba, Iftikhar's head popped out. If, at that moment, someone had told me that Iftikhar was Bubba's son (albeit illegitimate), I would have jumped on the table and pretended to be a donkey. of thigh against thigh. I loved him from the second I saw him. He was one of those people who could bolt a smile onto your face even if you felt glum. "Bubba," he said to me, his hand outstretched. I smiled and tried to skip over to shake his hand, but my left ankle buckled over the shoe and I almost fell. He burst out laughing. Once I reached him, he dropped his outstretched hand and pulled me to him in a tight hug. He wore rich cologne and kissed my cheek. He let me go and turned to the blue suit and said, "She's perfect." Raising his voice even louder he called out, "Iftikhar, Iftikhar, where are you? Look at her. She's here." Out of the shadow of Bubba, Iftikhar's head popped out. If, at that moment, someone had told me that Iftikhar was Bubba's son (albeit illegitimate), I would have jumped on the table and pretended to be a donkey.

The young man who stepped forth was the total opposite of the patriarch. Where Bubba was generous in physique, Iftikhar was miserly. Where Bubba wore an expansive gray Western suit, Iftikhar wore a traditional (collarless) white narrow suit. Gold necktie for one, no tie for the other. Bangly and clangy one-soft, silent, and smooth, the other. Effervescent, one-reticent, the other. A clumping elephant, one-a purring gentle household cat, the other. What a pair! The only possible similarity they appeared to have was that they both wore shoes.

The old doorman, his face hidden, gray head ever downcast, gently pulled the doors shut. Despite there being five bodies in the room, there were only three relevant people: Bubba, his son, and I. The man in the blue suit, having been the master mover, was now invisible, as was. .h.i.ta. Father looked at son and nodded. "You like her, boy?" His son forced a smile and responded, "Father, yes, I like her."

There was a second of silence as if to let the air soften. Unexpectedly, Iftikhar broke the stillness by moving toward the table. He was light and nimble and had a higher-stepping gait than his slim physique necessitated. His movement reminded me of a gazelle. His body was so thin that it merely served as a coat for his skeleton, rather than his skeleton providing a scaffold for his body. Because of his meager physical presence, he looked younger than I suspected he was. I estimated him to be about eighteen. Also, probably for the same reason, his head looked large on his body. It was triangular-wide at the brow, long to the jaw, with thin cheeks. There was an impotent attempt at a mustache below his dead straight and narrow nose.

Sometimes, when I was a child, I would catch lizards with my bare hands; it required enormous inner stillness and explosive release. The lizard's lips reminded me of Iftikhar's. They were thin and pale and rolled over his teeth like cigarette paper over tobacco. Looking closely, I could see that the little muscles of his mouth were taut, which drew his pencil-thin lips inward, as if tightened by elastic. This was a mouth that would hold words in rather than divulge inner thoughts. His hair was a haphazard blob of black. His eyes were his most perplexing feature. They were blacker than they were brown and were framed dramatically by the harsh lines of his face. His eyes held an unwavering stare and I sensed he was somewhere that was "not quite here." On first guess, this son of an effervescent, wealthy man might be expected to be the meek recipient of plent.i.tude. Iftikhar was not this at all. His eyes portrayed steel. He was an engine quietly turning over, unconvinced by the exuberance that had seeded him. His eyes were those of a quiet will in waiting, in contrast to his body, which exhibited a jitteriness of immediacy. This was a person you would be foolish to discount or turn your back on.

Iftikhar's voice matched his body. There was tremulousness to his diction and his tone was set high. For a man he sounded shy, hesitant, and effeminate. He said, "Why is there a pile of paper on the table?" It was a deflecting question that came from a nervous mind. Everyone else looked at my pile of paper too. Hita spoke, "It is for the girl." "For the girl?" Iftikhar said, as much with his dark eyebrows as with his mouth. Hita answered, glancing at me and throwing a wave in my direction, "She likes to write stories." "She does?" Iftikhar said, and c.o.c.ked his head. He looked at me and was about to say something when Bubba interjected, "You've got a bright one here, Ifti ... Anyway, you lovebirds, have a wonderful time. I have business to take care of." As he said this, he glanced at the blue suit, who silently nodded in agreement, and the two of them turned for the door. As they exited, I heard Bubba say to the blue suit, "As always, Mr. Vas, you excel."

The door closed behind them. There was a long silence and both Iftikhar and I looked to Hita as if she knew the next step in the dance. Momentarily thrown, she gathered her wits and said to me, "Come to the bathroom, Batuk, and I will check your makeup." I knew my makeup was perfect and followed her to the bathroom. "Sit!" Hita said to me, pointing to the closed toilet seat. "I will speak plainly," she continued. "You are here to make Iftikhar happy." She cleared her throat and looked down at the stone floor. "You will teach him how to ... how to ... be a husband." She cleared her throat again. "With a woman. You understand?" She held me by the shoulders, her fingers pressing into me. "You understand?" Never had I truly doubted why I had been taken from my nest to this palace. I understood the impact of time on events and now my current purpose was upon me. I looked at Hita and nodded.

Hita continued, "You would be a wise girl to make Iftikhar happy ... If you do, you could be well rewarded, and if you don't ... well, I am sure you know." She smiled and I nodded. "I will be back tomorrow. One last thing: gifts or money or jewelry he gives you-you give to me. You understand, Batuk ... you understand?" I laughed to myself, as I suspected that Hita was well versed in all the tricks Puneet used to hide little extras from Mamaki. However, the Tiger Suite was much larger than any nest and I was much smarter than Puneet and much, much smarter than Hita. Hita left the bathroom and seconds later, I heard the main door of the Tiger Suite close. The performance had begun.

I walk through the bedroom into the main room to find Iftikhar flicking through the pile of empty paper on the table. He turns to me. "So where's your writing, then?" I lied, "I haven't done any since I have been here."

I had written all about my trip here and the grotesque doctor while Hita had been absent. I hid the sheets of paper in the bathroom. By folding the papers lengthwise, I could slide the paper up behind the tubing under the sink and it stayed there, perfectly invisible. What was even better was that I had placed a pen in the crease of the paper fold so that whenever I wanted to write, I would come to the bathroom, pull the paper down, and there was my pen. When I was done writing, I would quickly replace the paper and pen. I have also rehidden the blue notebook, shoving it between the mattress and the base of the bed as deep down as I could reach. I figure that not even the most voracious cleaner will ever find it there.

Iftikhar continues, "So what would you write about me?" I take the pose of the subservient and look downward. "I don't really know you." I tense, as there is irritation in his voice: "Say how you would describe me!" I hesitate as though I am pretending to think. "I would say you are nice and well dressed and handsome." "How old do you think I am?" he asks. "Twenty-seven or twenty-eight," I say. I hear him s.h.i.+fting his weight, but he does not correct me even though I know this is rubbish.

He sits on the sofa, takes the small black control box in his hand, and switches on the television. He is looking at different television channels and eventually chooses football. "You can sit," he says. I had remained unmoving, standing in front of him, but now I sit on the sofa next to him, separated by a few feet of s.p.a.ce. I clench my hands and my toes and wait.

Which do you think has supremacy, the bus or its fuel? You may say the bus, because it conveys the driver and its pa.s.sengers over distance. However, it is stationary and useless without fuel. Fuel on the other hand can be used to run another bus or a car or to heat water. The fuel can also be used as a bomb. It is clear that the fuel has the power. Here, I am the fuel and I follow the scent of his fear like a leopard tracking prey.

I remain sitting separately from Iftikhar and watch football with him. I could be watching bread rise for all I care. I do not know the rules or understand the rationale of men dressed in different colors kicking a ball endlessly to each other, only to eventually kick it into a net so that it can be taken out of the net and the process repeated. As I watch I realize that without the ball, there is nothing, just twenty men wearing shorts and wondering what to do for a few hours. It is the ball that has the power. When the game ends (another one will soon start, according to the announcer), Iftikhar turns to me and says, "Write me a poem." I do not say anything. I walk over to the table and sit in front of the pile of paper. I close my eyes for a second. My father has come to bring me home from the hospital. I cuddle against his chest, which smells of the fields, and I read. There before me are the streaming verses of Namdev; one verse flows into the next. Soon Father and I are asleep, blanketed in each other's dreams. I take a pen from the desk and write: My master is a bow of yew On his arm an arrow rests It is his command to release Its flight to feathered nestListen to my voice whisper: You You are my prize, beyond All value on earth, behold Me It is a contrived and ugly little poem. I walk over to the couch and hand it to him. As he reads, his upper lip curls in disdain. He asks, "You wrote this?" To which I respond, "Yes, sir." He looks up at me with a gaze as pitiless as steel, smiles, and raises the paper between us. He tears the paper down its middle and then tears it again. As he lets the pieces fall, he watches for my reaction. Does he really think that the paper contains the poem? What a fool he is, for it is the words that contain the poem.

"That is what I think of your stupid poem," he says. At first, I look down at his feet in feigned regret. "I am sorry sir." Then, I raise my gaze to his. He stands up, the television singing an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the background, and takes a step toward me. I meet his gaze out of defiance. We stare at each other, our faces a handbreadth apart. Almost as if he cannot think of anything else to do, he spits in my face. There is no malice in this action whatsoever. He spits again. He watches with detached curiosity as his saliva slides down my face. After watching a full minute in silence, he whispers, "Go clean yourself." "Yes, sir." I subserviently go to the bathroom and wash. The cool water I dab on my face is a pleasant pause and I temporarily become lost staring at myself in the mirror. I turn off the faucet and my consciousness rejoins the present. I return to the main room, which seems smaller than when I left.

"Iftikhar, sir." It is the first time I use his name and I speak it quietly. "I am sorry you did not like my stupid poem. It was my first try and I am not a good writer." He has returned to the sofa and the television. "Then why do you like writing if you are no good at it?" he asks in a clipped tone. I am standing in front of him. He stares at the television. I answer, "I do it because I like to put things on paper. I like to see my thoughts because otherwise they are invisible." His eyes flick away from the television and meet my gaze for a moment. He asks, "But why do you do something that you are bad at?" I ask him in reply "Then, sir, are you good at everything you do?" He thinks and answers, "Yes." I am still standing in front of him in my beautiful dress and s.h.i.+ning black shoes, a bird of prey. There are torn pieces of paper on the carpet. He continues staring at the television. After a silence, I ask him, "So what do you do?" This question has baked more bread for me than any other. A man's favorite subject is himself; become his mirror and he will talk forever. He frowns and continues staring at the screen. "What do you you do?" he says with a wry smile flickering onto his face. "You know what I do," I say, "but I am interested in what you do." "Why?" "I just am." He answers without looking at me, "I waste time at school and work for my father, that fat pig." I need him to like me and so I take a long stick and poke the snake and agree. "He seems to be a little overbearing." "So you think he's overbearing?" "Yes," I say, but I am right, he is a snake, and I have been trapped. "So you, wh.o.r.e, who screws men all day, think my father, a businessman and financier, is overbearing? Well, let's see if he agrees with you, wh.o.r.e." do?" he says with a wry smile flickering onto his face. "You know what I do," I say, "but I am interested in what you do." "Why?" "I just am." He answers without looking at me, "I waste time at school and work for my father, that fat pig." I need him to like me and so I take a long stick and poke the snake and agree. "He seems to be a little overbearing." "So you think he's overbearing?" "Yes," I say, but I am right, he is a snake, and I have been trapped. "So you, wh.o.r.e, who screws men all day, think my father, a businessman and financier, is overbearing? Well, let's see if he agrees with you, wh.o.r.e."

Iftikhar silences the television and picks up the phone that sits on a small table to the left of the sofa. He is watching me with his every movement as he dials. He speaks into the mouthpiece, "Daddy, hi-it's Ifti." The snake has me in his coil. Panic seeps onto my face and tightens around my body. He speaks with a sneer. "I am here with your birthday present ... I should tell you she has quite a mouth." I throw myself at his feet. Holding both his feet in my hands I start kissing them. "Please, please, master, I beg you." I grasp his thighs in my hands and press my body against him. My b.r.e.a.s.t.s press against his knees and I look up at him-an imploring puppy dog. He continues on the telephone, my whimpering in the background. "Yes, I rather like her. She is more interesting than the last one" (a pause), "yes, that too" (laughter is followed by a pause), "yes, yes I will." He looks down at me, stretches out his lizardlike grin, and puts the phone down. I am desperately grasping his legs. I fold my body over his legs and bury my head between his thighs. As he puts the phone down, he roars with laughter. "You were terrified I'd tell the fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d." "Thank you, master, thank you, master," I say to his legs. "Now let's see how thankful you are." He places his hands on the back of my head. The second I feel his hands there, I know that it is I who have him.

He grasps my head tightly and pulls my head up his thighs. He pushes it into his groin. I can feel and see his growing bhunnas through the soft material of his pants. I can size up a man the instant he enters my nest and I am never wrong. I know Iftikhar is as constrained in this area as everywhere else. He is pus.h.i.+ng my face down hard over the mound in his pants and I obligingly open my mouth and sing the song he wants to hear. Almost within a second he jams my mouth down over him, pus.h.i.+ng as hard as his might can bear. I feel his pulsations on my lips and without tasting the wetness through the cotton, I know his juice is oozing from him. He cannot see this, but my eyes are staring widely into his groin and my mouth is breaking into a smile.

Iftikhar then catches me off guard. In one movement, he throws me off him. I plunge to the floor. I can see the damp spot in his pants from here. He now stands over me. Time slows, but I have no control to move within it. I am watching and cannot move. He tilts his body forward so that his weight rides over his left leg; his right leg draws back. I think of the footballer on television and I become a football. I am watching his foot race to my face. My eyes respond but my body cannot. The contact pain is excruciating. My head is being booted off my body. I am conscious but my head spins, the flesh of my cheek has ripped on his shoe, and I reel in agony, for I am wrong; it is the foot that has power. I scream out as I fly backward and land on my back. He is moving toward me, pivoting on his left leg, but this time my arms pull up to my face and my head folds downward. The impact of his foot on my arms is a new pain. I scamper from him on all fours-a rat-under the table. I cry out; the pain is ripping across my face. I am panting but I can see he is not coming after me. Suddenly Iftikhar screams. I am startled. What right has he to scream? He cannot feel my pain. But then I listen to his noise and it is more a cry that he utters. Within the long, constant howl, I hear a sound I know well: hopeless despair. It is a torrent of misery that spills out of him, and even when his voice becomes silent, the sadness pours forth.

From here under the table I can see his legs. He s.h.i.+fts his weight from foot to foot. His feet are making a decision. I barely breathe. The pain shears across my face. My arms ache. Time pa.s.ses. He decides; he turns and walks away. The bedroom doors are slammed together and bounce back unshut. I am not moving from here. I do not make a sound. He slams the doors shut again but this time they hold. He kicks at something. Then the noise from the bedroom stops. The television sings another advert.

A long time pa.s.ses. I am still crouched under the table listening to the television (another game of football). He has not come back in here. I can hear the bath filling. He makes a telephone call from the bedroom but I cannot hear the words. Minutes pa.s.s and the bathwater is turned off. I wait and crawl to the bedroom door on all fours, lifting each limb to avoid creating any sound; the carpet is so soft. I listen against the bedroom door. It is silent except for occasional sloshes of water. I get up. I can walk. I try out my body. I am hurt but I can move. I walk to the main door and very gently try the handle. It is locked. I crawl back under the table. I lie here. What? Oh, I know. You don't need to pity me, for you have suffered much worse. You were free. I was also free but a long time ago. Now we are here together. You and I both were wanderers but now here we are together. You need to go to sleep too. Good night, Tiger.

Lying under the table, protected by the chairs, I hear a knock at the Tiger Suite's main door. The bedroom door opens and I can see Iftikhar's legs. He unlocks the main door. A tray of food has arrived and he orders it to be taken to the bedroom while he stands (guard?) by the door. He switches off the television in here before locking the main door again and returning to the bedroom. He does not look for me or speak. The bedroom television is on, but an hour or two later it is silenced. I a.s.sume that he has gone to sleep. It is too quiet here. I miss the sounds of the Common Street that have for so long been a part of my rhythm.

Despite the silence, I fall asleep under the table. I half awake with the sunrise as the first sun showers into the room. When I wake up, the carpet where my head has been is stained with darkened blood and my face aches. I need to go to the toilet.

I tiptoe across the main room and silently rotate the door handle of the bedroom. The right door gently swings open. There is a tiny whine of the hinges but not enough to stir the sleeping prince. I inch across the bedroom to reach the bathroom door, which Iftikhar has left open. He is a silent sleeper.

Once I reach the bathroom, I am faced with a dilemma: how best to urinate. If I go in the toilet, I will have to flush it, which will be far too noisy. I cannot climb up onto the sink, and so I decide to urinate in the empty bath. I pull the red dress up over my hips and walk silently up the three stone steps to the bath. I step into it and stand as close as possible to the plug hole and allow my bladder to release itself. The urine is dark and smelly and trickles over the floor of the white tub and down the drain. Once I climb out of the bath, I pull a few pieces of toilet paper from the roll and wipe away any traces of urine, then throw the paper in the trash.

He awakens long before he appears. As soon as I hear movement from his room, I hide what I have been writing behind the cus.h.i.+on of the armchair. I hear him use the toilet, run the bath, and speak on the phone. He switches on some modern music. It must be at least an hour before he comes out from the bedroom. He is wearing a long white robe and his messy hair is wet. I have a strange impulse to go and dry his hair but this urge only crosses my consciousness like a rustling of leaves in the breeze. He walks over to me. I do not fear him but look downward in a show of deference. It is not by design that my eyes fall to the spot on the floor where I had been his football the night before. "Here," he says, and thrusts a piece of paper toward me. "Thank you," I say as I take it from him. "Read it," he says. It is a poem.

My SwordMy sword is made from the finest steelAnd flies at every thrust.i.t parries oppositionTo never break my trustMy arm is always forwardMy eyes have focused sightMy guard is always readyI never lose a fight.

His handwriting is far tidier than mine and the penmans.h.i.+p is flowing and without correction, which leads me to believe that he wrote a draft and that this is the final copy. It is the poem of a boy. I look up at him and smile. "It is brilliant, master."

I see he is not accustomed to praise, as he smarts. "Well, it is certainly better than yours," he says. "Yes, it is ... would you teach me to write like you?" I ask. "Well, first of all, a poem has to rhyme. Yours didn't rhyme properly-it was rubbish." "Next time, master, I will write in a rhyme, if I can. Will you let me write you another poem, I beg of you?" He answers, "Well, I have to go out today with Father. Write me a poem while I am out and I will read it tonight." I answer, "I will try my best ... but please do not be angry if it is not good ... I will have to study if it is to be like yours." This angers him; my attempted subservience was in error. He throws his head back and raises his voice. "If you think someone like you can ever write like me, you are more stupid than I imagined." I fall at his feet and grasp his ankles. "Please, master, give me another chance. You are right, you are so right. I will never write as you do ... I can only try my best." I feel the tension alter in his feet muscles as he adjusts his body against my hands. I press my head to his feet. He orders me to get up. "Thank you, thank you, Master Iftikhar," I whimper. He orders, "Switch on the television and clean yourself up." I switch on the television and hand the control box to his outstretched hand. I go to the bathroom, which is becoming my refuge. Iftikhar was not tidy; water has pooled on the floor and wet towels are strewn everywhere. Just before I turn on the bath, I hear him talking on the phone again.

I smile as I lie in the hot water; I have been compelled to write all day long at the bidding of my master.

I did not stay for long in the hot water. I dried quickly, put the dress back on, and returned to Iftikhar. He was watching television. I entered silently but he heard and called to me, "Come here." I went over to him and sat on one of the armchairs; I did not lean back, as the furniture invited me to do, but instead sat upright. The morning sun was s.h.i.+ning in my eyes. I had no sense of his current mood; suffice it to say he was not exuberant. "Get on your knees." The hot water had stung my abrasions and my face pounded from the previous night. I knelt in front of him. I knew from experience that the encounter would not take long but I feared the consequence of its brevity. I started to stroke his thighs through his robe and almost immediately saw his bhunnas hardening. I was trying to work out how best to proceed when fate intervened.

Fate is a misplaced retreat. Many people rationalize an unexplained event as fate and shrug their shoulders when it occurs. But that is not what fate is. The world operates as a series of circles that are invisible, for they extend to the upper air. Fate is where these circles cut into the earth. Since we cannot see them, do not know their content, and have no sense of their width, it is impossible to predict when these cuts will slice into our reality. When this happens, we call it fate. Fate is not a chance event but one that is inevitable; we are simply blind to its nature and time. We are also blind as to how fate connects one occurrence to another.

There was a knock on the door. "h.e.l.l," Iftikhar said, "breakfast is here." He stood up and I fell off him. "Come in," he shouted. The bulge through his robe was still evident as a gentle shadow in the morning suns.h.i.+ne. The food man entered carrying a tray of breakfast and laid it on the table. He was the same man I had seen the previous day, but this time he glanced at me with dislike rather than flirtation. The seemingly ever-present, ever-invisible doorman sealed me back in with Iftikhar when the food man left; two pickles in a jar.

Iftikhar surveyed the morning's food. I remained sitting, perched on the edge of the armchair. Iftikhar sat at the place that had been laid for him at the head of the table. The plates were made from delicate, almost transparent white porcelain with a gold-patterned rim. The porcelain may have been delicate but Iftikhar was not. He drank tea like a common man, holding the tea cup clasped in his hand rather than by the cup handle as Father Matthew did. As his sipped, he looked at me. "Turn the television so that I can see it." He knew that I was watching him eat. I was hungry but I was well conditioned to be so.

At times in my nest I would dream of food, and on each occasion, the dream would contrive for me not to be fed. For instance, in one dream I was behind bars. I saw a feast in front of me in a far-off room, but could not break through the bars despite their being made of paper. In another dream I was swimming in the river when I saw a festival feast being laid out on the river's bank, but however hard I swam I could not reach the bank, even though the water appeared still. In both these dreams my feelings deceived me, for on both occasions I was hungry but did not strive to eat. This is how I felt now, hungry but not wanting to be at the table.

I noticed that Iftikhar drank unsweetened black tea and liked a breakfast of eggs and sausages. For a little man he seemed to eat an incredible amount. He ate like a hungry person even though I knew he could not be. He held his knife and fork in an undignified style, grasping each implement in his fist. He jabbed at the sausage pieces the way I used to stab for fish in the river. He did not take his eyes from mine as he ate, that same steely gaze.

As he wiped his mouth on his sleeve he said to me, "Now, come over here and finish what you started." It seemed that my previous dilemma had been postponed rather than canceled. He pushed his chair back from the table, half stood up, and pulled his robe up over his thighs. He sat back down with his entire lower body exposed and parted his legs. I knelt before him and looked ahead between his legs. His bhunnas was hardening before my gaze. It was shorter than my fist. He had a dense patch of curly hair that extended up his upper thighs and stopped at his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, which were completely hairless. It looked as though the artist who made him had dabbed a splash of black paint down there for good measure but had then given up when she realized her painting was displeasing.

I placed my palms on the outside of his thighs again and gently started to stroke up and down. I lowered my head and started to kiss the inside of his right knee. I could taste remnants of soap on his skin. I heard him moan and then felt his thighs contract on my head. He cried out. I looked up and saw that he was emitting his essence skyward. It had taken seconds. They were short little white squirts, six of them. His bhunnas must have been slightly angled to the right, as some of the juice splashed onto his right thigh and then slid downward. The remainder was in my hair. I hesitated and then drove my head deep between his thighs and started hungrily kissing both his legs. I pushed my head into him so that his thighs divided and I started to kiss his s.c.r.o.t.u.m. I moaned, "Oh master ... oh master ... thank you. You are ..." Before I could finish my empty applause, he grabbed my hair in his fist, pulled my head up, and threw me away from him. As I flew backward, my shoulder hit the table's edge. My head flicked backward and struck the table with a loud thump. The table shook. The force was so strong that my head flicked back a second time and hit the tabletop again, although the second impact was negligible. I slumped onto the soft carpet and knew to close my eyes and not to move.

Above me Iftikhar shouted out "Oh s.h.i.+t" repeatedly as a mantra of self-rebuke. First he lightly kicked me with his foot to see if I would respond. I did not. Then he knelt down and shook my shoulder. He placed his hand on my head before quickly removing it and repeating his mantra; I realized my blood must be on his hand. My head was pounding, my shoulder stung, but I was fine. I wanted to be back on the street and I prayed my submission would get me there. Tiger was furious and roared. "Shh, shh Tiger. I am fine-behave yourself."

Iftikhar ran for the main door, found that he had locked it, and pounded on it. He shouted out, "Help-open the door, open the door." He ran to the bedroom, presumably to fetch the key, but I heard the door unlocking. Iftikhar ran back to the main room screaming, "Quick! Get Mr. Vas ... get Mr. Vas." The door opened. Within moments, a person knelt beside me who smelled of the streets. He gently shook my floppy shoulder and stroked my hair; he whispered in my ear, "Are you awake, little girl?" I was silent. I opened my eyes a slit to see the white hair on the back of the elderly doorman's head. He was calling to Iftikhar, "Hurry, she needs a doctor, quickly call a doctor, call the doctor!" Iftikhar was on the phone. In a panicked voice he said, "Come. You need to come ... right now ... there's been an accident with the girl ... she fell." Just as he put the phone down, I heard a woman's voice coming from the vicinity of the door. It was. .h.i.ta. She cried out, "Oh heavens, oh heavens, not again." I could feel the rush of air ahead of her as she ran toward me. She knelt beside me and shouted at the doorman to get out. "But she needs a doctor," he cried; Hita screamed, "Get out! Now!" The door slammed shut.

I felt Hita's bony fingers on my neck and then she proclaimed to herself, "She's alive ... she's alive." I felt Hita kneel close to me. "I feel her breathing. Call Mr. Vas," she ordered Iftikhar. "I have already," he answered in panic. She called in my ear, "Batuk, Batuk darling. Can you hear me?" She gently shook my shoulder as if to loosen a response from me that was stuck. "We need to get her onto the bed. Master Iftikhar, please help me." Iftikhar obviously did not move since she repeated her request, which now sounded more like a demand. I felt three hands under my back and a hand under my head. I was lifted onto the bed. Iftikhar was told to go and get a towel and water. He did not know to warm the water first because its coldness made me start. "She's moving," Hita said, princ.i.p.ally to herself. "Batuk, Batuk, wake up, darling," she pleaded.

The phone next to the bed suddenly rang. This too made me start. Hita answered it. "Master Iftikhar, the phone. It's for you." He had left the room, it seemed. "It's for you," she called again. Iftikhar used the phone in the main room but it was easy to hear what he said. "Yes, Father ... it was an accident ... she fell ... she tripped over the carpet running around." "And Buddha is a melon," I heard Hita mutter. Iftikhar's voice was tremulous. "No, Father, it's this stupid hotel, everything is falling to pieces ... she tripped over the carpet ... no, no, she is fine ... right, Hita?" he called. "She's breathing," Hita responded. "You heard that, Father," Iftikhar repeated. "She's fine, Hita just said so ... all right." "Come here," he called out in the direction of the bedroom. "Father wants to speak to you." Hita left my side and walked to the phone, "Yes, master, yes, master ... yes, master ... she is injured ... on her head ... it's bleeding and her face is bruised ... I don't know, she is unconscious ... I wasn't here ... yes, she probably ... yes, a terrible accident ... yes, she most likely tripped ... I think we should get a doctor ... yes, sir, yes, sir, you are right, we should wait ... Mr. Vas is coming ... yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Master Iftikhar, your father wishes to speak with you again." I heard Hita return to the bedroom and sit next to me on the bed. It was impossible to hear what Master Bubba said to his son, but he was screaming at him; I could hear it right across the room. This tirade was punctuated by a loud knock at the main door. Hita ran to answer it, "No ... no one called the hotel doctor ... no, everything is fine ... everyone is fine." She shouted, "I said everyone is fine," and slammed the door shut and locked it.

I lay on the bed for about half an hour when there was another pounding on the door and m.u.f.fled cries of "Hita, open it." Hita sprang from beside me, where she had been intermittently wiping my head. She ran to the door and unlocked it. The door opened. She was slightly out of breath. "Sorry, Mr. Vas, I left the key in the lock to stop the doorman and the cleaners from coming in." "Fine, fine," he said, "where is she?" I heard the pairs of footsteps enter the bedroom and felt bodies standing over me. Hita said hurriedly, "She's breathing fine."

There was a short pause and I heard footsteps go into the bathroom and the bath being run. In an instant I felt a torrent of cold water drench my head. I sat up coughing and spluttering. Mr. Vas stood at the end of the bed with a tipped-over silver bucket still dripping with water. "She's fine," he said. He did not scold me but his look told me that he understood my pretense. He was not wearing his blue suit but rather gray trousers and a white s.h.i.+rt. He was a handsome older man.

I sat up on the bed, my face wet, hair drenched. There they were: Mr. Vas and Hita. Iftikhar entered the room, looking like a condemned man awaiting the firing squad. The firing squad was soon to come.

The silence was broken by Mr. Vas. "Master Iftikhar, might I please suggest that you get yourself ready as your father will be here in a minute to go out to the factories. Hita, do you have clothes for the girl? I suggest she wash up. We'll be leaving soon, so there should be plenty of time for you to put her back in shape."

While Hita had been frantically scurrying around, I was rehearsing in my head. "A poem," I groaned. "What?" Mr. Vas asked. "A poem ... Master Iftikhar told me to write a poem today." Here was the opportunity I could not let pa.s.s: a chance to write all day long. I continued, "He is teaching me to write as brilliantly as he writes." I certainly had not meant this to be a joke but Mr. Vas burst out laughing. "You said what? Master Iftikhar is teaching you to be a poet?" For the first time in ages Iftikhar spoke. "I got an A grade in English last term and Mr. Mitra said I had a gift in composition." Vas laughed again. "What Mr. Mitra meant," Vas responded, "was that he he had a gift from your father to give you an A." Mr. Vas repeated half to himself, laughing, "A poet ..." Humiliation ignited anger in Iftikhar. "Listen, Vas, you are my father's servant, and when he hears what you said he ..." Vas cut him short. "Listen, Master Iftikhar" (he said "master" with a sarcastic leer), "you go right ahead; you tell your father whatever you want. I have a strong feeling that your father will have more on his mind than your poetry right now. All I will tell you is that if you are a poet then I am Elvis! Yes, Master Iftikhar, Elvis reborn as an old Indian!" Even Hita smiled. I stayed impa.s.sive as I had a feeling that it would be in my interest to do so. It was a plan well executed. Whether Iftikhar was a poet or not, Hita would understand the need for me to appease him and write the day away. had a gift from your father to give you an A." Mr. Vas repeated half to himself, laughing, "A poet ..." Humiliation ignited anger in Iftikhar. "Listen, Vas, you are my father's servant, and when he hears what you said he ..." Vas cut him short. "Listen, Master Iftikhar" (he said "master" with a sarcastic leer), "you go right ahead; you tell your father whatever you want. I have a strong feeling that your father will have more on his mind than your poetry right now. All I will tell you is that if you are a poet then I am Elvis! Yes, Master Iftikhar, Elvis reborn as an old Indian!" Even Hita smiled. I stayed impa.s.sive as I had a feeling that it would be in my interest to do so. It was a plan well executed. Whether Iftikhar was a poet or not, Hita would understand the need for me to appease him and write the day away.

Vas was still chuckling at his humor (and partially I think, out of relief that I was still alive), when Bubba burst in. Even from the bedroom you could feel the sonic boom of his entrance. "In here, boss," Vas called. Bubba strode in, jangling. Iftikhar was still standing in his nightclothes. I was sitting on the bed with wet hair as Bubba looked me up and down. "Well, pretty little thing, you seem alive," he boomed. Vas said, "Yes, she came to." "Good," Bubba said, "then no harm done."

He then walked over to Iftikhar, raising his right arm as he did, and without a moment of hesitation, he struck the boy's head. The power of Bubba's descending open hand could have snapped a cricket bat in two. Iftikhar was completely unsuspecting of this a.s.sault and on (jangling) impact was launched under his father's power two feet across the room before landing in a pain-ridden heap. I am sure that his howl was heard in Delhi. I was smiling internally as soon as I realized that he and I would have matching bruises across the left sides of our faces. As I looked down at Iftikhar, bouncing around the floor in pain, you could make out the indentations from Bubba's ring on his face.

"Boy!" Bubba boomed. "We have to be at the first factory in an hour. Get your clothes on or you'll be going in your sleeping gown. Now get dressed." I could have sworn that the windows rattled with the might of this final command.

Iftikhar opened the closet in the bedroom, still gripping the left side of his head. He was whimpering while Hita helped him dress. Bubba ushered Mr. Vas into the main room to speak to him privately. I do not think they were aware that I could hear. "What the h.e.l.l are we going to do with the boy?" Bubba asked. Mr. Vas answered, "Well, we could send the girl back, and then we're done with it." "But you already paid for her," Bubba responded. "It wasn't pricey," Vas said. "Say he finishes her-that's going to cost us another hundred thousand." "I am a father, Vas. Part of a man's job on earth is to prepare his son for his path, right? My father got girls for me ... and look at me. This is what you do for your boy. Look, Vas, if he finishes her, he finishes her ... the trouble is she's a pretty one. You know ... if I were a few years younger, I wouldn't mind a taste of her myself!" He laughed and slapped Mr. Vas so hard on the back, I could hear the thump. He sighed and then with a voice loud enough to wake the dead, shouted, "Iftikhar, I am leaving." Iftikhar, still holding his head, followed his father and Mr. Vas out the door.

When Hita returned to me, she appeared contrite; I suspect that, like Vas, she was relieved. I was worried that the bucket-of-water trick might have alerted her to my sham. Instead, I think, she viewed it more as a medical procedure than as a means of removing the cloak from my fine acting. "You had better get cleaned up," she said. I obediently went and soaked in the bathtub again, and when I was ready I came into the main room wearing the bathrobe I found hanging on the back of the door. Hita was sitting at the table, staring ahead. When I entered she looked over to me. "Are you all right?" she asked. I smiled at her. "I am all right." Hita said, "So Master Iftikhar told you to write him a poem today. Well, you had better get going then. I am going to get you something else to wear. I have ordered food for you." Food (bread, dahl, fruit, b.u.t.termilk) arrived shortly thereafter, and as soon as the food man left, she gathered up her things. She seemed pleased to leave the suite and locked the door from the outside.

I peered out the window. Light clouds displaced the intensity of the suns.h.i.+ne. I wrote a simple poem for Iftikhar.

ImmersionImmerse me in thy beauty Anesthetize the pain Stop my heart from beating That I never feel againCome sink within my beauty Cast away your fear Hold me close and love me And let me hold you, dearImmerse me in thy beauty Anesthetize the pain Take from me my fingers, My pen, my words, my brainCome sink within my beauty Cast away your fear This life is but a droplet A salty, falling tear Immerse me in your beauty Immerse me in your beauty Anesthetize the pain Here is my life. Take it Make me one with you again.

It rhymes.

Hita reappeared in the mid-afternoon and interrupted my writing. I quickly shuffled my papers, placing my poem for Iftikhar on the top. "So you finished your writings?" she said. "Yes," I replied. Since the poem lay on top of the pile and my other writing beneath it, I had no fear of discovery even if Hita could read. Under her arm, she carried another bundle wrapped in brown paper, similar to the first. I a.s.sumed that it was my next costume. Hita for once appeared relaxed. I smelled a whiff of a particular fragrance on her, suggesting that she had spent some time in a drinking establishment. When she said, "Let us go and put on some makeup over those bruises and make you all pretty," I felt that I had already fallen into a routine.

Despite the freedom I enjoyed all morning, the pain across my eyes and deep in my head was constant and had intensified over the day. This cast a net of melancholy over me. It is rare for me to feel this way, but I felt overwhelmed by a blanket of despair. My mind drifted back to the riverbank with Grandpa, the feasts, the feuds with Mother, the fights with my brother Avijit, the smell of dirty perfume on Father's clothes, the conversations I used to hold with Shahalad lying in the back room of the Orphanage, Puneet's whole-bodied laugh, and the jokes we made about Hippopotamus. Who are you to judge if my path is wretched? Judgment is the shadow cast by preconception. You are ignorant of the Common Street and of the raw and wild color that would paint my every hour and splash across my day. But now-here-there is silence, and for the first time I can taste my soul's lament.

Hita is skilled with face paint, as a result of which my beauty is restored. She is entirely detached as she rebuilds my face and she steps back in admiration as a portrait painter steps back to admire the image she created. The dress I am to wear is a bright blue with a similar shape to yesterday's dress (I think the store label is the same) except that the back of this dress rests higher up the neck. Before I put it on, Hita stretches a bra.s.siere around my chest, which is obviously meant to accentuate and pad out my as yet quite limited bosom. I slip into the dress and I must admit that the bra does help fill it out somewhat.

We are in the bathroom and Hita is humming as she pins my hair when the main door bursts open. It is slammed shut so hard that the windows rattle. Mr. Vas is screaming his lungs out at Iftikhar. "You are such a spoiled waste of s.p.a.ce. If I had my way ..." Iftikhar's voice is shouting too. "But you don't have your way, Vas. You are Father's servant. You do understand what a servant is? Let me tell you this, when I take over the Mumbai factories, I will have you sacked faster than you can light a match. I will personally watch you rot in the gutter." Vas replies with palpable anger, "If the boss lets you take over, don't worry, master, about sacking me. I will throw myself in the gutter. Believe me, Iftikhar, he knows exactly what type of weasel you are."

Silence ensues before Iftikhar's voice is heard in its normal high-pitched tone. "h.e.l.lo. h.e.l.lo. Has my father returned to the office? ... Oh, fine ... It's Iftikhar ... have him call me immediately after his call." The phone is replaced. Iftikhar says, "Let's see, Vas, who Father really trusts. Didn't you know that trust flows in the blood?" Vas replies, his voice now calmer and more measured, "Let me tell you, Master Iftikhar, I have worked for your father for more than twenty years and he knows that I have never put a foot wrong. You can go to h.e.l.l." Iftikhar emits a false laugh. "Oh, Mr. Vas, we shall see. You forget that Andy Tandor married my sister and Father got him the job in the ministry. He is like a brother to me." Hita has stopped brus.h.i.+ng my hair and we are both listening to the exchange.

Iftikhar switches on the television but immediately the telephone rings. The television is silenced and Iftikhar speaks. "Father, yes, it's me. Thank you for showing me the factories today, they are magnificent ... you are incredible ... I know ... I so look forward to that, I want you to be proud of me, Father." Pause. "Father, I have a serious matter to discuss with you. You know the s.h.i.+pment of cotton we sent to Mauritius under that government contract last year ... yes, that one ... did you know that we bought it back from them at forty-five cents U.S. above the original cost per meter? Yes, of that I am sure. Just call Andy at home; he discussed it with me today ... he is very concerned ... he can show you the papers. You will be so sorry to hear ... I was devastated ... it was Mr. Vas; he's pocketing twenty cents per meter on the sale. I know you needed to know ... you can ask him yourself; he is here right now." I hear Vas bounding across the room. He p