An Unrestored Woman (10 page)

Bandra smiled and said nothing.

After two weeks, she dressed Zubaida in various clothes until she found the right ones. Gulabi was her color. She drew a thick line of kohl around her eyes and painted her skin with henna. Bandra stood back. The blouse was low cut but not overly revealing. The girl had small breasts, no larger than a baby chikoo but that made no difference; men liked the suggestion of childhood. She grabbed Zubaida by the chin, hoisted her face up to meet her eyes, and said, “Your name is now Layla. Don't forget.” Then she sent for her oldest and most regular customer, Abdul Kareem. He was forty-eight, a well-to-do wheat merchant, and he had paid extra for the virgin. When he came in she could see the lust dancing in his eyes.

“What's her name?” he asked.

“Layla.”

“Ah.” He sighed. “Just like in the lover's tale.”

“Yes,” Bandra said, “just like that.”

She hadn't told Layla what to expect. It was better not to. She waited outside, as she always did with her new girls. At first she heard tussling. Later there were screams, the girl's, followed by low grunts. Then a loud thump before it went quiet. When Abdul Kareem came out of her room, he and Bandra went straight to her sitting room. “Feisty.” He smiled. Bandra looked at his face and saw scratches on his neck and chin. He showed her a bite mark on his arm. Bandra was apologetic but Abdul Kareem said, “Oh no, oh no, you should charge extra.” After that, the stream of customers for Layla was steady. Six, seven a day. Bandra watched her carefully. She was still obedient, eating only what was given her, speaking only with Gulshan, but on some mornings Bandra noticed that her eyes were red. She once spied mysterious burn marks on her ankles. One evening she handed her a knife, the curved one attached to a flat wooden base, to cut vegetables and Layla reached for it and then she stared at it. And then, for the first time, she smiled. After that, Bandra instructed Gulshan to keep all sharp objects away from Layla. She stripped her room down to its barest: a cot stuffed with straw, a wool blanket, a cushion for the customers, a wooden hook by the door, to hold the men's caftans, and a chamberstick for the candle. She took the candle. But she left a small decorative rug on the wall. It was pretty, and after all, what harm could it do?

*   *   *

Two years went by. The number of customers for Layla only increased. She was busy from early afternoon to late at night. Sometimes with two or three at the same time. Even if Bandra had given her father the remaining coins, she would have made it back many times over. She was pleased, and even though Layla still only spoke one or two words to her, Gulshan passed on whatever there was to know. And once, Abdul Kareem, who now requested Layla at least three times a week, said to Bandra, “She kept repeating the same name, over and over again.”

“What name?”

“The name Zubaida,” he said, perplexed. “Who is Zubaida?”

Bandra looked away. “No one,” she said.

At dinner that night, Bandra grabbed Layla's hand as she reached for the roti. “I told you,” she said, “your name is Layla. Did you forget?” Their eyes met. The other girls stopped eating. Layla looked at her, a glint of melancholy, near sadness, coloring them for an instant. Then she closed them, slowly, as if she was struggling with something—something indescribably painful—and when she opened them, she took her free hand, her left, and flipped her plate over. The plate, piled high with brinjal and potato curry, clattered against Siddiqah's plate. It rolled to a stop in a far corner. Bits of curry spewed across the floor and down the opposite wall. It dripped down their clothes, their hair. Bandra yanked Layla up by the arm and dragged her to the almirah. She pushed her inside. To fit in the wardrobe, Layla had to pull her knees to her chest, crumple her body into a tight ball. Bandra locked the door and left her there till morning.

Two or three weeks after that incident, just before daybreak, Bandra was walking through the courtyard when she heard a sound. She stopped. It was summertime, and the heat was scorching. Waves of hot air, thick as walls, streamed in from the valleys. Only the early mornings were cool, and so she'd gotten up in the dark to bathe. She stood in the courtyard and listened. The sound was coming from Layla's room. She tiptoed closer. It was Layla; she was talking. It was only a hush, a whisper, but it was definitely her voice. Bandra leaned in. The door was open, for a breeze, with only the curtain pulled across it. She could hardly hear but it sounded like she was having a conversation with someone. But who? Bandra yanked the green curtain aside. At first only darkness. Then, in a far corner, Layla huddled on her cot.

“Who were you talking to?”

Layla glared at her.

“Who?”

She said nothing. Bandra saw that her hands were behind her back, against the wall. She took two steps, crossed the room, and wrenched her hands out so she could see them. What was that? A scrap. A tiny piece of roti.

“I was hungry,” she said.

“You get plenty at dinner.” Bandra took the morsel of roti, hardly bigger than her fingertip, and left the room.

She enlisted Gulshan. “Find out who she's talking to,” she said. “Early in the morning, and in this heat. Maybe only to herself, but find out.”

It took her hardly a day. That evening she told Bandra, “A mouse.”

“A mouse?”

“It lives with her. In her bed. In the straw.”

Bandra was baffled. She said, “What could she possibly have to say to a mouse?”

“She says it's her only friend.”

Bandra shook her head. It was disgusting, and besides, she should be sleeping, not staying up all night
talking
to a mouse. And what was that she was feeling? Envy? Over a mouse? It was ridiculous. She brushed the thought aside. It took her a few days but one evening she found the neighborhood cat, lured it into Layla's room when she went to bathe, and closed the door. She asked Layla for help in the kitchen when she returned. She kept her busy: cleaning the main hut, sweeping the courtyard, mending clothes. Then she suggested all the girls sleep in the sitting room. They stared at each other in disbelief. Bandra made it known that she preferred sleeping alone, and she always padlocked both doors leading from her quarters—the door opening onto the street and the one to the courtyard—keeping the keys to the padlocks tied to the pull string of her kurta bottom. But this evening she said, “It's cooler in here,” and invited them to stay. She set out bowls of water at the open windows and courtyard door to cool the room further. When they woke in the morning the girls plodded back to their rooms, evenly, in a straight line. Bandra waited inside. She heard laughter, something Siddiqah had said, and then there was quiet. A cat darted past her. And then came the scream: the one she knew would come.

*   *   *

Bandra took a strange, disproportionate pleasure in imagining the mouse's shredded body. Its slippery entrails, shining like the insides of fruit. Tiny tufts of white hair, strewn around the room like miniature clumps of mountain grass. She expected anger, rage, weeping, or perhaps even a greater stoicism from Layla, but instead, later in the morning, before the customers began to arrive, she emerged from her room and stood at the door.

“Bandra-ma,” she said.

Bandra looked up, astonished. “What is it?”

“I need a pail and a rag, Bandra-ma.”

“Oh? What happened?”

“Nothing. I just want to clean the floor and the walls.”

“Why?”

“A cat got in last night. And you know how cats are.”

What was she playing at, Bandra wondered. And why was she being so sweet? She had never once, in the two years she'd been here, called her Bandra-ma. And
now
? She was suspicious, but she lent her the pail and rags and kept a close watch on her for the next few days. Nothing happened. She only grew sweeter. Day by day, week by week, until, one day, Bandra stopped watching her.

*   *   *

The months passed. Layla no longer confided in Gulshan. That, of course, was to be expected. Bandra realized that their friendship had been a source of information, and that she'd lost a link that had been instrumental, but it had been worth it, she decided. Layla was tame. Still, other things, peculiar things, began to happen. Nothing alarming but just things that gave Bandra pause. The wooden hook, for example, the one in Layla's room meant to hold the men's caftans, broke off.

“It broke off?” Bandra asked. “How?”

“I don't know, Bandra-ma,” Layla said. “It just did.”

“Then where is it?” Bandra said, looking at the jagged stump that remained stuck in the wall.

“The man took it.”

“He took it?
Why?
”

Layla shrugged. “How should I know,” she said.

Bandra looked around the room: the cot, the cushion, the rug hanging on the wall. All of these were in place. So she shook her head, puzzled, and had the hook replaced.

Soon after, winter arrived. They shivered and built fires in the courtyard. They sat huddled in thick shawls. The girls, in their windowless rooms, waited for spring. What they couldn't see were the foothills white with snow then brown with moisture then green with new spring grass. When the air turned warm, after long months, and swept into the courtyard, they were delighted. Bandra believed in none of the romance of spring, but the scented air loosened her limbs, made her more generous than she was in other seasons. So that when Abdul Kareem came to her and requested more straw, she smiled and said, “What for?”

“The girl's bed,” he said, “it's lumpy.”

“Lumpy? But it was refilled just last year.”

“My knees hurt.”

“Then lie on your back, old man.” Bandra laughed. “Let her do the work.”

Nevertheless, she ordered a bale of straw and had all the cots stuffed to capacity. But when autumn came, Abdul Kareem brought it up again. He said, “I thought you were going to have them stuffed?”

She looked at Abdul Kareem for a long moment, longer than she'd intended, and said, “I did.”

The following winter, Gulshan got sick. She was pregnant by one of the men. Bandra was used to this, it had happened twice before. She gave her herbs, the same ones she'd given the other girls, but Gulshan reacted badly. At first, she retched and retched, just as the others had. She was nauseated. She stayed in bed, screaming in pain. Bandra couldn't understand it: for the others, it had been over in three or four days, but with Gulshan, it only got worse. Two weeks passed. She was faint with hunger, delirious with pain. Then she began to bleed. There seemed no end to the blood. “Call the doctor,” Siddiqah cried. The other girls turned away. Layla stood silently. Bandra refused. “She'll be fine,” she said. Layla looked at her and walked out of the room.

They took turns watching her. One night, while Bandra was at her bedside, Gulshan sat straight up on her cot and smiled. Her eyes were mad. She looked around the room with an ineffable pleasure, as though it were a room from a childhood she did not have, then she picked up the sheet—soaked in blood—that was between her legs and held it tight against her bosom. “Roses.” She sighed.

You fool, Bandra thought, as if you've ever held a rose.

The next morning she was dead.

*   *   *

When Layla was fifteen, Abdul Kareem came to see Bandra again. He was fifty-two but he sat on the cushion as shy and squirming as a little boy. Bandra served him tea. He still said nothing.

“What is it, Abdul Kareem?”

“I want to marry her,” he said.

Bandra knew exactly whom he meant. “It will cost you,” she said.

“I have money.”

“You can't marry a randi,” she protested mildly. “You'll never be able to raise your head again.”

“Then I'll keep her.”

They decided on a price. It was twenty times what Bandra had paid for her. She could buy
ten
new girls with that money. Bandra could hardly believe her luck; she counted and recounted the money and laughed. The other arrangements too were conducted as if it were a wedding. Abdul Kareem sent more money for Layla's trousseau, and he requested that Bandra apply uptan on the night before she was to leave the brothel. It's all a rich man's whim, Bandra thought. As for the trousseau, she kept half the money and with the other half, she bought cheap silks and thin cotton underclothes. She placed them all in a trunk in her sitting room, lest the other girls take them during the night.

The day before Layla was scheduled to leave, the compound was bustling. As instructed, Bandra applied the uptan. All the girls bathed and dressed in their best clothes; none of them worked. They played games in the courtyard, and teased each other like schoolgirls. Abdul Kareem sent sweets, which made them squeal, and they ate them all afternoon with relish. That evening they had a meal of mutton, and capsicum curry, and paratha lathered with ghee. Siddiqah lay on the cushion in the sitting room, groaning with stomach pain from all the sweets and rich food. Bandra told her to go to bed. One by one all the girls left, except Layla. She walked over to the trunk full of clothes and touched its edges.

“This is all for me?” she asked.

“That's right,” Bandra said, dozing.

She opened the squeaking lid of the trunk and looked inside. She turned and said, “Bandra-ma?”

“Yes?”

“May I sleep here tonight?”

“Why do you want to do that?”

“It's my last night.”

Bandra agreed, yawning. She was asleep almost as soon as Layla blew out the candle. But just before she did, Bandra saw that the lid of the trunk was still open. She thought she should ask her to close it, but she didn't.

*   *   *

It was nearly morning when Bandra felt a gentle waft of wind against her feet. It was so soft; it tickled. She rubbed her feet together in her sleep and smiled, slightly, as if she were dreaming. Then there was another breeze (she thought she'd closed the window) but this time, it blew the other way, though it was just as lovely, like feathers. She was playing in this wind; she heard it rustle the leaves of the trees. They danced gaily, just for her. But then the branches swung low and scraped against her ankles. Cut into them. The branches of what trees? That's what she asked herself in her dream, what trees?