by Sabyn Javeri
She considered turning back, but then she thought of the rain. And of the cheeky driver, whom she had just taught a lesson. And what of Chaudry Sahib, she thought. She couldn’t afford to lose a client like him. He would be displeased. Very displeased.
‘What should I do?’ she wondered aloud and, as if on cue, the doors creaked open.
An old man with trembling hands stood to one side to welcome her into the inner wing of the palatial house.
‘Radha Bibi, hurry,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Chaudry Sahib doesn’t like to be kept waiting, and you are a whole hour late.’
That alone made her pause, for she knew what these big men could be like when irked.
‘The smaller the penis, the bigger the ego,’ she mumbled, walking as briskly as her damp sari and wet chappals would allow her to.
Radha knew it was a mistake when she opened the door to the bedroom and saw a half-devoured bottle of whisky on the floor. And two glasses. Two? she thought as she looked up to see Chaudry Sahib’s face appear slowly from behind the cloud of smoke he was puffing. He put down his cigar, grinding it ruthlessly as if it were a repulsive worm that had slithered unexpectedly on to his person. Seeing her, he got up.
‘Oho, welcome jee, welcome, Radha madam,’ he said with an exaggerated, theatrical laugh. ‘So you finally decided to show up.’
‘Sir, woh … the rain … I …’ she stammered.
Chaudry waved away her explanation. ‘Come, come,’ he said.
It’s when he moved aside that she saw him. The son. Little currents ran up and down her arms and legs, making her feel numb and dizzy.
‘Have you met my son, Nisar, the singer?’
Radha panicked, remembering the stories she had heard on the grapevine and the photos she had seen on WhatsApp, of his face next to an injured girl. He doesn’t look like a killer, she thought, but it would’ve been less disturbing if he hadn’t been smiling so menacingly.
‘Aadaab,’ she said in a tone that was almost apologetic, for it was all she could do not to turn away and run out the room. The boy had a strange way of smiling so violently that it seemed he wanted to hit the other person.
‘You are very late, Radha. I have a meeting with the General Sahib now. But since you are here…I’ll leave you with Nisar.’
So this was to be her punishment. Radha watched in dismay as Chaudry Sahib sauntered out. This time, there was no one she could call to help.
‘Make a man out of him,’ her benefactor had demanded as he left the room, leaving her entirely at his mentally disturbed son’s mercy. Make a man? She had smiled bitterly, thinking, You can’t turn animals into human beings. But, like a submissive lamb, she had offered herself up. The boy had pawed at her like an animal, a wild animal. Getting more and more drunk with each attack, uncaring, indifferent, his eyes as stony as the whisky glasses reflected in them.
Later, Radha wondered why she hadn’t just made a U-turn and run out of the room. But she knew the answer to that well. In the land that they lived in, there was no place to run. All doors were closed on people of her kind. Of her class. Of her gender.
And so she had suffered and swallowed, oohed and ahhed, faking it till the boy finally passed out – a bundle of rupees dangling from his left hand, mocking her. Afterwards, the driver was summoned to take her home. The rain had given way to clear skies and the air was thick with the smell of steaming concrete. There was nothing left of the earlier romance of the monsoons. Radha clutched miserably at the pallu of her sari, trying to make sense of what had happened to her. She walked stiffly, her hips still sore from where he had entered her despite repeated protests that she didn’t provide that kind of service.
‘Bitch’, he kept calling her. ‘Fucking bitch.’
She looked down at her feet which seemed to be disobeying her every command, dragging when she wanted then to run. Her new chappals no longer seemed new. And she stepped deliberately into a puddle that did little to cleanse her skin. She took one shoe off and threw it hard against the marble lions, not caring if she broke their precious statues, for something much more precious had been shattered today. Her dignity.
As she waited for the car, a torrid wind spitting sand began to rise, unleashing a maelstrom of loose leaves, broken twigs and spiralling plastic bags. The car appeared and, seeing her condition, Abdul Rahim stepped out of the car.
‘Madam,’ he hesitated.
She got in quietly, eyes downcast. She wondered what he was thinking.
Whatever he thought, the driver kept to himself as he got into the driver’s seat and began the slow ride home.
At a signal, he locked eyes with her in the rear-view mirror. But this time his gaze seemed kinder. Gentler.
‘Ruqaiyah madam, I take you to hospital?’ he enquired.
‘No,’ she said, alarmed that he could sense what she had suffered. ‘Home,’ she had pleaded. The earlier bravado replaced by a whisper that just about held back her tears. Ruqaiyah, Radha … who cares, she thought. In the end, she was just a woman. Fashioned out of a rib.
‘Take me home,’ she repeated weakly.
He didn’t argue. He kept driving till, halfway through, when she couldn’t help but let the tears seep out of her eyes, he stopped the car. He turned around and stared at her. Just stared as she cried. Then he reached out and took her hand in his.
‘Ruqaiyah ji, I will be back.’ Saying this, he stepped out.
A few minutes later, he returned with a plastic bag with Dettol and cotton wool.
‘May I?’ he asked and, like a rag doll, Radha went limp in his arms as he cleaned the tiny cuts around her arms and the scrapes on her skin.
Radha felt one last tear squeeze past her swollen eye.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
‘Animals,’ the man replied as he held her. ‘Animals,’ he repeated with even more vigour this time.
Then he shook his head and, to Radha’s amazement said, ‘No. To call them that is an insult to animals. They are worse. It is about respect, you know. You respect me, I respect you. It’s very simple, you know.’
Radha felt a wave of something she told herself must be surprise, for no one had ever stood up for her like this. This man with his kind eyes seemed to know that it wasn’t about sex or money, or both. She wasn’t a whore. She was a companion, a therapist, a catharsis, for she listened, she pleasured, she pleased. And perhaps that’s why Chaudry Sahib had entrusted his son to her.
She opened her swollen mouth to say something, but the pain was unbearable. So she stayed quiet, alternating between gazing into the driver’s kind eyes and at her fancy chappals.
When they reached her house, the driver once again glanced at her and said, ‘You are very strong, madam. And beautiful.’
A warmth enveloped her and she told him to wait. She would pay him for the medicines.
‘Ek minute,’ she said, as she slowly got out of the car and went inside.
‘Arrey no, no,’ he protested, but she insisted.
Once inside, she took out a couple of hundred-rupee notes and called to her maid. The lights flickered as the rain began again, and she realized with a start that she had let Shanti go almost a month ago. Clutching the notes and pouring out a glass of water, she walked with a slight limp towards the door she had left ajar.
She was about to call him in when she heard him speaking. He seemed to be talking on the phone and laughing at something. Radha too felt her lips stretch painfully in a smile. She was about to step out when she heard his voice again.
‘No, no. VIP passenger, yaar. Just dropping off an old whore who got beaten up.’
Radha froze, hand on the doorknob, foot raised mid-step.
‘Calls herself Radha.’ She heard him laugh again. ‘Thinks she’s a sixteen-year-old Alia Bhatt. Chal, rakhta hoon.’
Outside, the driver had turned on the radio and was humming a tune.
‘Radha likes to party, Radha likes to move…’
Radha felt her face streaming wet and wo
ndered how it was that it was raining inside.
She forced herself to step out, hoping the rain would disguise her tears as she handed him the money.
‘There was no need,’ he said as he pocketed the money.’
‘It’s your tip,’ she said, watching as the boy’s expression hardened.
‘Thank you, Ruqaiyah ji.’
‘Radha,’ she said, looking firmly into his eyes. ‘My name is Radha.’
And with that she limped slowly back inside, shutting the door firmly behind her.
An Irreplaceable Loss
The girl felt as if she would explode. Nevertheless, she kept a straight face as the agent negotiated her pay with the new baji.
‘24/7 rates, Baji. I am not just giving you a new maid, I am giving you my daughter. At least pay a few thousand more.’
The girl inhaled deeply, trying hard to stifle her laughter. She was neither young enough to be his daughter, nor he mature enough to act like someone’s father. It was all she could do to hold back her laughter, for her sudden, uncontrollable fits of giggles had already cost her the last job where she had laughed at the baji’s new haircut, or the one before that when she had laughed at the fat kid whose mother couldn’t stop telling people how her son never ate anything. She sucked in her already sunken stomach and forced herself to think of the time she had cut her foot on a piece of sharp glass.
‘Baji ji, she is very hard worker,’ the agent was saying. ‘Only sixteen, but works like a horse.’
The baji looked her up and down but didn’t say anything.
‘Don’t go by her young looks. Believe me, she is very strong.’
The baji looked sceptical but remained silent.
The silent type, the girl thought. Those were the toughest. No words. Slaps and kicks straightaway. Sometimes burns. She didn’t feel like laughing so much now.
Tough, tougher, toughest.
Later, once the agent left her alone there, having taken half her salary in advance as his fee, the baji finally turned to her.
‘How old are you, really?’
The girl tried hard to remember what the agent had told her.
‘Fifteen,’ she said, scratching her head. ‘No, Baji. Sixteen!’
The woman rolled her eyes and asked, ‘What did you do at the last house?’
‘Dusting, sweeping, laundry.’
‘Why did you leave it?’
The girl shuffled a little and replied, ‘My old baji moved to Dubai.’
The woman in the chair threw back her head and laughed. ‘You all have the same excuse. At this rate, there would be no women left in all of Pakistan to hire you people.’
The girl watched in fascination the baji’s pearly teeth and her melodious laughter, making a mental note to practise it quietly at night.
When the woman stopped laughing, she asked, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Tarannum,’ the girl replied.
‘Real name,’ the baji said, tapping her foot impatiently.
‘Baji, that is my real name.’
She could tell the baji didn’t believe her, for her name meant ‘melody’, hardly a name someone would give to the fifth daughter of a drug addict and a malnutritioned mother who cleaned houses.
‘You can ask the agent,’ the girl offered, seeing the suspicious look in the eyes of her new mistress, for surely her kind didn’t think poor people could have the imagination to name their children so creatively. Anyhow, she consoled herself, she was used to this. None of the three houses she had worked at before had called her by her real name, finding it either too fake or too filmy.
‘Call him, Baji. You can check. I’m not lying…’
‘No need,’ the woman waved a manicured hand with glossy pink nails at her. ‘Look, I’ll just call you …’ the baji paused to think, and the girl admired the way her lashes seemed to roll back, the clumpy mascara only adding to the thickness.
She smiled, slightly excited at the prospect of getting yet another new name. And sure enough, she did not have to wait too long.
‘I will call you Tooba. Tarannum sounds too …’ the baji’s voice trailed off, but her silence had said more than her words ever could.
Doesn’t sound like a maid’s name, the girl completed the woman’s sentence in her heart.
Just then, the woman’s cellphone rang and the girl watched as she picked it up with her delicate, fair hands, and started speaking in English. The girl loved the sound of English and observed closely, picking up familiar words here and there, tucking them into her memory, the way she collected shells at the dirty, garbage-filled beach her Abba took her to on Sundays, hoping to string them in a necklace someday.
‘Okay …’ the baji said, clicking off her phone and turning to where the girl sat on the floor. She looked distracted for a second, trying to remember the name she had given the new maid.
‘Tooba,’ the girl supplied helpfully.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ the woman said. ‘Saima,’ she bellowed, and a stocky, middle-aged woman appeared almost instantly. ‘Now listen, Tooba. Saima here is my oldest maid. She will show you the work around the house. You can share her quarters. Now look, I didn’t argue about the salary, so you must not give me a reason to cut any. No going outside without my permission; no talking to the cook or driver. I want you to take a bath every other day. There is a water problem, so don’t get carried away, okay? One bucket per bath for all servants. And most importantly, trust. My things … any of my things … better not go missing. Understand? Okay, now go.’
The girl got up, thinking, same rules everywhere. She wondered if there was a baji rule book they all followed religiously. She placed her hands on the cold floor to raise herself and was about to follow the tough-looking Saima, when the baji called her back.
‘Tooba,’ she said, and at first the girl, unused to the new name, continued to walk.
‘Girl, are you deaf?’ the older maid nudged her.
‘Hah?’ The girl turned around to see the baji looking irritably at her as she ran her fingers through her long, expensive-looking hair.
‘I almost forgot,’ the baji said, looking sternly at her as if it were her fault, ‘Hand over your cellphone.’
The girl looked at her toes. Hard and stubby with chipped red polish that looked more angry than stylish.
‘Well?’
She looked back up to the baji’s hand, outstretched and impatient. ‘Hurry up,’ she said.
The girl continued to look down.
‘Listen, I will give it to you if you need to call home.’
‘Baji,’ she began, ‘I … I…’
The woman leaned forward in her chair. ‘Look, I don’t allow any affairs-shaffairs, okay? Now hand over the phone and go.’
‘I don’t have one,’ the girl said without looking up.
The woman stared at her in silence for a good few seconds before she spoke.
‘Listen, if I find one on you, I’ll fire you without pay!’ The baji’s face took on a hard, impenetrable quality and for a moment the girl considered surrendering it. But then she thought, What if he calls?
She looked down again, this time at the patterns on the plush Persian carpet, and nodded mutely.
‘Okay then, go.’
Going, going, gone.
The first thing the girl did as soon as they left the baji’s room was to ask for the toilet. There, she squatted down on the floor, putting her phone on silent, and rolled it into the waistband of her shalwar. She wondered if he would call. Their eyes had met, however briefly, in the car ride here, and she had made sure she gave her number out loud to the agent before stepping out of the car.
The baji had sent her driver to pick them up when the maid provider couldn’t find the address. And in the car, he had locked eyes with her in the rear-view mirror, of that she was sure. She chewed her chadder, partly covering her face, but when she got off the car, she had turned around to look. He was looking straight at her. It had meant something, she told herself. It had to
.
Phone safely hidden, she emerged from the bathroom, head covered, eyes down, and got to work, which was the same in all Karachi houses.
Dust, dusty, dustier.
She worked while her mind dreamt. And she mostly got away with it, for there were many servants in the house and Baji didn’t run a tight ship. Every now and then, she would flare up, making everyone run around cleaning the big house; but in the next few days, she would forget all about it. Only a few times, she had been cleaning the baji’s room or massaging her legs when her phone had started vibrating and she had shifted uncomfortably from leg to leg, wanting to sink into the ground, hoping against hope that she would not notice.
Shift, shifty, shiftiest.
It took barely a few days for him to text her. And not surprising, for she had seen him stare at her when she went out to the terrace to dry the laundry.
‘I love u,’ the message read, and she felt a warmth surge up between her thighs. That night, she ducked into the bathroom and locked the door. She ignored the knocking on the door, feigning diarrhoea, as she texted back, ‘I love u 2.’
He rang back.
After ten minutes of hurried whispering, the phone began to beep ‘credit finished’.
The few minutes of talking did nothing for either of them, and so it was that after a few nights, the girl agreed to meet him.
‘About 3.00 a.m., I’ll call you when I’m outside the front door,’ the man had said.
The girl had not thought much about what she was about to do, for she didn’t have much to lose. Her possessions were few and her dignity was stripped every day by taunts and accusations of work not done. Hell, even her name was not her own.
And so it was she told the man: ‘I’ll open the front door and you slip in. That old maid Saima sleeps like a drunk. The baji stays up late watching TV, but she sits with the air-conditioner on, which drowns out all noise.’
Come, coming, came.
And that was how the girl lost her latest job and her latest name too, when one night, possessed by one of her sudden cleaning frenzies, the baji summoned all her staff in the middle of the night. Having come across an unexpected cobweb as she reached for a DVD in the wrought-iron rack, she squawked in terror when, instead of a disc, her hand pulled out a spider.