The Braid

by Laetitia Colombani

  But the intern seemed concerned. Sarah’s blood pressure was low, and she was dreadfully pale. Sarah made light of it. She was pretending, putting him off the scent. She was good at that; it was her job, after all. Everyone at the office knew the old joke: How can you tell when a lawyer is lying? You can see their lips move. She had got the better of some of the wiliest magistrates in town; this young intern wouldn’t catch her out. A minor blip, was all. Burnout? She smiled at the term. The expression was very current, and very overused, too. A big word for a passing bout of fatigue. She hadn’t eaten enough this morning, that was all. Or maybe she hadn’t slept enough? Hadn’t screwed enough, either, she was tempted to add, with wry humor, but the intern’s severe expression dissuaded her from any attempt to get to know him a little better. A shame. He was almost good-looking, with his little glasses and curly hair, almost her type. She would take vitamins, if he wanted, yes. She could recommend a terrific pick-me-up, she told him, smiling: coffee, cocaine, and cognac. Highly effective, he should try it some time.

  The intern was in no mood for jokes. He suggested rest, a break from work. “Take your foot off the accelerator,” he said. Sarah burst out laughing. So he did have a sense of humor after all. Take her foot off the accelerator? How exactly? By selling the kids on eBay? By declaring that, as of tonight, they were giving up food? By announcing to her clients that she was going on strike? She was handling a number of highly important cases, which were impossible to delegate. Stopping was not an option. She’d forgotten the meaning of the term “take a break.” She could hardly even remember the last time she took a holiday. Last year? Or the year before? The intern muttered something she chose to ignore: No one is irreplaceable. Clearly, he had no idea what it meant to be a partner at Johnson & Lockwood. No idea what it meant to be in Sarah Cohen’s shoes.

  She wanted to go, now. The intern tried to persuade her to stay for more tests, but she talked her way out of them, though it was unlike her to put something off until the next day. At school, she had been a star pupil, “very studious,” her teachers had said. She hated doing a piece of work at the last minute. She liked to “get a head start,” as she put it, and had always devoted the first few hours of each weekend, or the school breaks, to her homework, so that she felt freer afterward. It was the same at work: she always had a head start over the others, that’s what had enabled her to rise so fast. She left nothing to chance. She always planned ahead.

  But not here. Not now. Now was not the time.

  And so Sarah headed back to her world, to her appointments, her conference calls, her lists, her cases, her pleas, her meetings, her notes, her minutes, her business lunches, her assignments, her referrals, her three children. She headed back to the front like a good recruit, donned the mask she always wore, the one that suited her so well, the mask of the smiling, successful superwoman. The mask was intact. Not so much as a hairline crack. Back at work, she would reassure Inès and her colleagues: it was nothing. And everything would carry on as before.

  In the weeks ahead, there would be a checkup with her gynecologist. Yes, I feel something, she would say, while checking Sarah’s breasts, and her expression would be tinged with worry. She would prescribe a series of tests with outlandish names that strike fear whenever they’re spoken: mammogram, scan, biopsy. The tests that are practically a diagnosis in themselves. A pronouncement of sentence.

  But now was not the time for all that. Against the intern’s advice, Sarah left the hospital.

  For the moment, everything was fine.

  If you didn’t talk about it, it didn’t exist.

  A space no bigger than a bedroom.

  You could fit a bed inside, at most,

  And even then, only a child’s bed.

  This is where I work, alone,

  Day after day, in silence.

  There are machines for this,

  Of course,

  But the result is less fine.

  No production line here.

  Each model is unique.

  And each one makes me proud.

  Over time, my hands have learned their work,

  Independent of my body.

  The gesture is taught.

  But speed comes with years of practice.

  I’ve been working for so long, bent over my loom,

  That my eyes are strained.

  My body is tired,

  Stiff with rheumatism,

  Yet my fingers have lost none of their agility.

  Sometimes my mind floats

  Far away from the workshop,

  Transporting me to distant countries

  And lives unknown,

  Whose voices reach me here,

  Like a faint echo,

  And intertwine with my own.

  Smita

  Badlapur, Uttar Pradesh, India

  Smita enters the hut. Right away, she sees the expression on her daughter’s face.

  She had hurried to finish her rounds and didn’t call on her neighbor to share the Jatts’ leftovers, as she usually did. She had run to the well to fetch water, set down her rush basket, and washed herself in the yard—one bucket, no more, leaving enough for Lalita and Nagarajan.

  Each evening, before stepping over the threshold of her house, Smita rubs her body all over three times with soap. She refuses to bring that vile stench home; she doesn’t want her husband and daughter to associate her with the filthy smell. That smell, the smell of other people’s shit, is not her; she will not allow herself to be reduced to that. And so she scrubs her hands, her feet, her body, her face with all her strength, she scrubs enough to rub away her skin, behind the piece of cloth that serves as a screen at the far end of the yard on the edge of the village in Badlapur, in a far-flung corner of Uttar Pradesh.

  Smita dries herself and puts on clean clothes before entering the hut. Lalita is sitting in a corner, her knees folded tight against her chest. She is staring at the ground. An expression flickers over her face, one that her mother has never seen before, an indefinable mixture of anger and sadness. She moves closer.

  “What is the matter?”

  The child says nothing. Her jaw is clenched tight.

  “Tell me.”

  “How was your day?”

  “Say something!”

  Lalita says nothing and stares into space, as if fixing her gaze upon an imaginary point that only she can see, an inaccessible place, far from the hut, far from the village, where no one can reach her, not even her mother. Smita is angry now.

  “Speak!”

  Lalita curls tighter into herself, like a frightened snail retreating inside its shell. It would be so easy to shake her, to shout, to force her to speak. But Smita knows her daughter: she will get nothing out of her that way. The butterflies in her stomach are a crab now. She is gripped by a feeling of anguish. What happened at school? She knew nothing of that world, and yet she sent her daughter there, her treasure. Had she been wrong? What had they done to her?

  She looks carefully at the child, then stands rooted to the spot: her sari seems to have been ripped at the back. Yes, it is torn!

  “What have you done?”

  “You’ve got yourself dirty!”

  “Wherever have you been?!”

  Smita catches hold of Lalita’s hand and pulls her daughter toward her, peeling her from the wall. The new sari, the sari she had stitched, night after night, for hours, losing sleep so that it would be ready in time, the sari that was her pride and joy, is ripped and ruined and filthy!

  “You’ve torn it! Look!”

  Smita begins to shout. She is furious. And then she stops dead. A terrible thought has struck her. She takes Lalita outside into the yard, into the light—the interior of the hut is dark; hardly any daylight enters. She sets about undressing her, pulling roughly at the sari. Lalita shows no resistance. The fabric comes away easily. Smita stops. She can see Lalita’s back: it is streaked with red lines. The marks of the cane. Her skin has split in places, raw and red. Scarlet, like
her bindi.

  “Who did this to you? Tell me! Who hit you?”

  The little girl lowers her eyes. Two words escape.

  “The schoolteacher.”

  Smita’s face is dark red. The vein in her neck is swollen with anger—Lalita is terrified by the small, bulging vein. It frightens her.

  Her mother is usually so calm. Smita catches hold of the child and shakes her. Her small, naked body trembles like a twig.

  “Why? What did you do? Did you disobey?!”

  Smita explodes with rage: her daughter has been disobedient, on the very first day of school! The teacher will not take her back, for sure, all her hopes have vanished, all her effort for nothing! She knows what this means: the latrines, the slime, other people’s shit. The basket, that cursed basket from which she had so wanted to save her.

  Smita has never shown violence, she has never hit another person, but suddenly she feels an uncontrollable burst of rage. A new sensation that fills her whole body, a tide that breaches the dam of reason and engulfs her. She slaps the child. Lalita huddles against the blows, she protects her face with her hands, as best she can.

  Nagarajan is on his way home from the fields when he hears the cries from the yard. He hurries back. He places himself between his wife and his daughter.

  “Smita! Stop!”

  He manages to push her away and takes the child in his arms. She is racked with sobs. He discovers the marks on her back, the stripes, and the split skin. He holds her tight against him.

  She has disobeyed the Brahmin, yells Smita. Nagarajan looks into his daughter’s face, holding her still.

  “Is this true?”

  After a moment’s silence, Lalita mumbles a phrase that stings them both like a sharp slap.

  “He wanted me to sweep the classroom.”

  Smita stands frozen. Lalita spoke the words so low, she isn’t even sure she heard them correctly.

  “What did you say?” she whispers.

  “He wanted me to sweep up, in front of the others. I said no.”

  Fearing she will be hit again, the child curls up tight. She seems smaller, as if shrunk by fear. Smita cannot breathe. She draws her daughter to her, holds her as tight as her frail limbs will allow, and begins to cry. The little girl buries her face in her mother’s neck; she has let go, they have made their peace. They stay like that for a long time, under Nagarajan’s bewildered gaze. He has never seen his wife cry before. In the face of all the trials life has sent her way, she has never flinched, never broken. She is a strong, determined woman. But not today. Clinging tight to her daughter’s hurt, humiliated body, she is a child once more, like Lalita, and she weeps for her dashed hopes, for the life she had so long dreamed of and which she cannot give her now, because there will always be Jatts and Brahmins to remind them who they are, and where they come from.

  In the evening, when they have put Lalita to bed and lulled her to sleep at last, Smita unleashes her fury. Why did he do that? That teacher, that Brahmin? He had agreed to take Lalita with the others, the Jatt children, he had taken their money and said “All right!” Smita knows him, that man, and his family, too. His house is in the center of the village. She cleans their latrines every day. His wife gives her rice sometimes. So why?

  Suddenly she thinks of the five lakes that Vishnu filled with the blood of the Kshatriyas while defending the Brahmin caste: the educated people, the priests, the enlightened ones, above all the other castes, the summit of all humanity. Why attack Lalita? Her daughter was no danger to them, no threat to their learning, nor their status, so why push her back down into the slime? Why not teach her to read and write, like the other children?

  Sweeping the classroom means: You have no right to be here. You are a Dalit, a scavenger, and a scavenger you will remain, your whole life long. You will die in other people’s shit, like your mother and your grandmother before you. Like your children, and your grandchildren, and all your progeny. There will be nothing else for you, the untouchables, the rejects of humanity, nothing but that vile stench, for hundreds and hundreds of years, just other people’s shit. The shit of the entire human race.

  Lalita had not given in. She had said no. Smita feels proud of her daughter. This six-year-old child, barely taller than the stool the schoolteacher sat on, had looked the Brahmin in the eyes and said, “No.” He had caught hold of her and caned her in the middle of the class, in front of all the others. Lalita hadn’t cried, hadn’t shouted out, she hadn’t made a sound. The bell had rung for the midday break. The Brahmin had denied Lalita her meal; he had confiscated the little metal tin that Smita had prepared for her. The little girl was not even allowed to sit, only to watch the others eat. She had not protested, not begged. She had stood alone, and dignified. Yes, Smita is proud of her daughter. She may eat rat meat, but she is stronger than all the Brahmins and the Jatts put together. They will not tame her, they will never break her spirit. They had struck with the cane, striped her back with scars, but she was still there. Self-possessed. Intact.

  Nagarajan does not agree with his wife: Lalita should have given in, taken the broom, that’s not such a bad thing to have to do, a few swishes of the broom—less painful than the swishes of the cane . . .

  Smita explodes. How can he say such a thing? School is where children go to learn, not sweep the floors. She’ll go and talk to him, that Brahmin, she knows where he lives, she knows the hidden door at the back of his house, she goes in that way every day with her rush basket to clean out his filth . . . Nagarajan stops her: there is nothing to be gained by confronting the Brahmin. He is so much more powerful than her. Everyone is more powerful than her. Lalita must accept the bullying, if she wants to go back to school. It’s the price she must pay if she is to learn to read and write. That’s how it is in this world. You can’t break out of your caste and go unpunished.

  Smita glares at her husband. She is trembling with rage. She will not let her child become the Brahmin’s scapegoat. How could Nagarajan even think such a thing? He should be defending her, making a stand, fighting for his daughter against the whole world.

  “Isn’t that what a father does?”

  Smita would rather die than send Lalita back to school; Lalita will not set foot there again. Smita curses a society that crushes its weakest members, its women, its children, the very people it should protect.

  Nagarajan agrees. Lalita will not go back there tomorrow. Smita will take her along on her rounds, he says. She will teach her the trade practiced by her mother, and her grandmother before her. She will give her the basket. After all, it’s what the women of her family have done for centuries. It is her dharma. Smita was wrong to have hoped for anything else. She had wanted to set Lalita on another path, a different path from the one laid out for her. And the Brahmin had beaten her back into place with his cane.

  The discussion is closed.

  That night, Smita prays before the little altar to Vishnu. She knows she won’t be able to sleep. She thinks again about the five lakes of blood and wonders, How many lakes must be filled with their blood, the blood of the untouchables, to free them from the yoke they have carried for thousands of years? There were millions like her. Multitudes resigned to their fate, waiting patiently for death. Everything will be better in the next life, her mother used to say. And perhaps the relentless cycle of reincarnation will be broken. Nirvana, the ultimate destination, that was what she hoped for. She dreamed of dying beside the Ganges, the sacred river. After that, it was said, the harsh grind of life would cease. Never to be reborn—to melt into the absolute, the cosmos, that was the ultimate goal. A blessing not granted to many, her mother said. Most were condemned to live. We must accept the order of things as a divine punishment. That’s how it is: eternity must be earned.

  And while they wait for eternity, the Dalits cower, and work.

  But not Smita. Not this day.

  She has accepted the cruel inevitability of her lot. But they will not have her daughter. She promises herself this, in front
of the altar to Vishnu, in the dark hut where her husband is already sleeping. No, they will not have Lalita. Her rebellion is silent, inaudible, almost invisible.

  But it is there.

  Giulia

  Palermo, Sicily

  He’s like Sleeping Beauty, thought Giulia, as she looked at her father.

  He had been lying between the white sheets of the hospital bed for eight days now. His condition was stable. He looked peaceful, sleeping like a bride who waits to be awoken. Giulia remembered the story of the Bella Addormentata that he would read to her when she was a child. He would put on a deeper voice for the Wicked Fairy, the one who casts the evil spell. She had heard the story a thousand times, but it was always a relief when the princess awoke at last. She had loved that so much: her father’s voice ringing through the house at bedtime.

  The voice was silent now.

  Everything was silent now, around her papà’s bed.

  They had gone back to work—what else was there to do? The women had all shown Giulia their support. Gina had cooked her the cassate she loved so much. Agnese had bought chocolates for Mamma. La Nonna had offered to take turns at Papà’s bedside. Alessia, whose brother was a priest, had offered prayers to Santa Caterina. Giulia was surrounded by a small, close-knit community that refused to succumb to grief. For their sake, she wanted to remain positive, just like her father. He would wake from the coma, she was certain of that. He would take his place at the helm of the workshop once again. This was just an interlude, she told herself, a moment suspended in time.

  She sat at his bedside every evening, after the workshop had closed for the night. She had taken to reading aloud to him. According to the doctors, coma patients could hear what was being said around them. And so Giulia read aloud, for hours: poetry, prose, novels. My turn to read him stories now, she thought. He who read so much to me. Her papà could hear her, from where he lay, she knew that.