The Blue Notebook

by MD James Levine

  I was stunned. I had not prepared anything and did not know any dances. A couple of the men shuffled their chairs around so that they all were facing me. My heart was racing and bumping against my chest. Since no one spoke and they were all watching me, I started to hop from foot to foot, jingling as I did so. The old woman shuffled toward the back of the room. After I stopped my little performance, the men broke out in hysterics and clapped vigorously. I smiled shyly. One of the men said, “Gahil, at least you did not claim she was a dancer; I hope you are not going to make her sing …” I think the fright coupled with the affront got the better of me—after all, I am a performer—and I said in the voice of a cricket, “I can sing, sir.” The man who had just spoken looked at me. “You sweet little thing,” he said, “go on then, sing us a song.” After a short pause, I started to sing in a voice that was so quiet it was almost smothered by the street noise from the open window. I sang the little bedtime song my grandmother used to sing to us:

  Mother river, carry me to the spring of your eternity

  My little tail tires but I know the sea bids

  I see the worm wiggle on the hook but I must not be tempted

  Your wind blows against me but I know I must swim harder

  My little body fails, my tail flips and flops

  And all I want is to see the ocean before I die.

  When I finished, the men applauded enthusiastically with colossal smiles on their faces. I clearly was a success. Master Gahil bellowed, “Little princess, that was wonderful. Little puppy, come here and give each of your uncles a hug. They love you.”

  I smiled a little girl’s smile and went to hug my newfound uncles. The first uncle was the one who had requested that I sing. He got up from his chair and I saw he was extremely tall. He bent down and opened his arms, then closed them tightly around me like a fish’s mouth snapping shut. He smelled of cigarettes. My face was squished against his tummy. He rubbed my back, then kissed my head and muttered something I could not hear while he stroked my hair.

  “Come here,” said the second uncle. This uncle was fat and smelled dirty. He did not get up from his chair but pulled me to him and hugged me briefly. He then loosened his grip, took one hand off my back, and started to rub my chest with quick circular motions. His head remained on my shoulder and his breath in my ear; he was puffing hard. As his hand started to rub my tummy Master Gahil coughed loudly and the uncle released me.

  The third uncle was short and thin. He walked toward me from around the other side of the table. Although he was ugly, he had a nice smile. He said gently, “Little princess, that song was lovely. I would love to hear you sing for me later; would you do that?” I hesitated, looked around the table, and nodded. “Come here … to Uncle Nir,” he said. I inched toward him and as I did so he smiled sweetly. I came to his arms and he held me close. I turned my head against his belly and felt his tummy rising up and down quite fast. He was wearing a light brown suit and a white shirt. He was clean and his shoes were shiny. Uncle Smiley-Nir then released me and said, “Go say hello to your next uncle.”

  The previous uncles had been quite old (about the age of Master Gahil or Father) but this uncle was young. As he walked toward me I could see that his face was sweating. He was a small man, thin, and in a gray suit. He did not hug me at all but extended his hand toward me. I was not sure what to do until Master Gahil said, “Take his hand in yours, princess.” I extended my two hands to his one. It was funny in a way because my hands were shaking and his hand was shaking and we both had to concentrate hard for them to meet. I took his trembling outstretched hand in my two hands. My little hands were small against his and I thought he had big hands for a little man. His hand was moist between mine. The uncle said in a quiet voice that trembled like his hand, “I too enjoyed your singing … can you give Uncle a little kiss just here?” He pointed to his cheek as he leaned down toward me. I gave him a little kiss on his cheek and felt his wet lips on mine.

  Master Gahil’s booming voice interrupted, “All right, gentlemen, let’s take our seats,” and the sweaty little uncle stepped away from me and sat down. The master ordered, “Princess, come here, darling, and stand next to me.” I obeyed; there was something about him that made you obey. As I stood next to him, he put his hand around my waist and continued, “Gentlemen, I think it obvious that this is a jewel. I have not in many, many years seen such a lovely little fledgling.” The fat smelly uncle interrupted him and addressed a question to the old woman. “Is she clean … has the doctor checked her?” The old woman answered from the shadows at the back of the room, “Dr. Dasdaheer gave her a thorough examination earlier today. I have his report here. He says that she is in perfect health and,” she coughed, “pure.” Fat Uncle and Young Big-handed Uncle both grunted together like hungry hogs.

  Master Gahil, with his arm still around my waist, continued. “Gentlemen, it is time for business. Who is going to enjoy our little princess fresh from the country?” He looked around, eyeing each uncle before continuing. “Let’s start, say, at fifty thousand rupees.” The cushion of silence was brief as Fat Uncle and Young Big-handed Uncle both spoke together. “I’ll go there” and “Sure,” they said simultaneously. Master Gahil said, “Seventy-five thousand?” looking around the table; Tall Uncle, Uncle Smiley-Nir, and Fat Uncle all assented with nodding grunts. The master continued, “A hundred thousand, one lakh.” I had been to livestock auctions with Father and my brothers and realized that I now was attending the same. There were more grunts of agreement and then Uncle Smiley-Nir interrupted and asked me, “Darling, did any of your brothers or cousins or uncles ever touch you between the legs or put any toy or perhaps themselves between your legs?” I had no idea what he was talking about and shook my head. Uncle Smiley-Nir then looked at Master Gahil and said quietly, with the same smile on his face, “Gahil, let me make this quick, as our little princess is tiring fast. Will anyone here go over five lakh … cash?” There was not even the sound of breathing. I heard the old woman’s clothes rustle in the hush.

  Master Gahil said, “Gentlemen? Do I hear any advance?” He waited, but the hogs’ grunting had ceased. Master Gahil exclaimed flamboyantly, “Going, going, going … gone.” He was grinning so excessively from ear to ear that I thought the top of his head would flop off. Then he spoke. “Nir, she is yours.”

  Uncle Smiley-Nir then turned to me and said, “Darling, I so look forward to hearing more of your singing. I will be with you in just a minute.” The old woman drifted toward me from the dark, took my still-trembling hand, and led me from the room. As I left, I turned to see Uncle Smiley-Nir dealing bank notes to Master Gahil.

  It is well known that the crane∗ stands dead still in the shallow water. I used to watch the cranes for hours with Grandpa. We would sit next to each other by the river, never touching and never talking. There was no old-man gibberish or child gibberish. We would sit and share the silence together. He taught me that the crane can feel when the fish approach by the change in water flowing against its legs. Grandpa was wrong but I never told him so.

  The crane never knows when fish are approaching; it is simply always ready. The crane bends its body at its hips so that its eyes stare down into the water, and thereafter it stands still as steel, poised. At the moment the crane sees a fish within its reach, bam! It throws its beak into the water. The closed beak pierces the water and opens under it to grab the fish. Once the beak closes over the fish, the crane lets its neck go floppy, allowing the fish some freedom to wriggle. The crane uses the fish’s own momentum to draw it from the beak cavity into its throat. It is a dance of one second but if you watch many such motions you will see this. The crane fishes in exactly the same way regardless of whether it is hot or the monsoon rains are falling. It is constant in variable surroundings.

  Little girls are not cranes. They never stand still; they run inside when the weather darkens and it rains. There were bars across my window and a lock on my door and the clouds were very dark. I could feel the flow o
f water changing beneath me, but I did not have the ability to remain constant in the shifting stream.

  The old woman led me back to my room. I was still overcome by the smells of the dining room and by the experience of meeting my new uncles. I felt emotionally layered, like a hut painted in many colors, one on top of the next: tiredness superseded by loneliness, coated in panic. I did not cry for fear of ruining my makeup.

  Again I was locked alone in the room. Candles burned from tall black metal candelabras that had been placed on both sides of the bed. I jumped onto the bed as if it were an island that would enable me to avoid the swirling undercurrent beneath me. The bed had been made up with fresh crisp white sheets that shone in the candlelight, making the bed appear to me as a glowing refuge, fool that I was.

  Minutes later the old woman returned with a tray on which lay a plate of sweet-cakes, but I had lost my taste for them. I was hungry though, but more for Mother’s stew. Also on the tray were incense sticks, which the old woman lit. They were not as gagging as the ones in the dining room but I still detested the smell. Grandma, who never threw away anything, used to overspice the meat to hide the fact that it was partially rotten. Her spices did not hide the meat’s taste and the incense sticks did not disguise the doom that hung in the air.

  The old woman sat down in the chair next to the bed. I looked at her but she did not look at me. I could sense a tension in her. She continued to stare downward at nothing. I was comfortable in the silence but asked, “Can I have my coloring things?” She glanced up at me, moving only her eyes. Her only answer was a pencil-thin smile that skimmed across her mouth.

  There was a soft knock at the door. The old woman unhurriedly got up and opened it and in walked Uncle Smiley-Nir. “Hello there,” he chimed, with his big smile stuck on his face. He looked at me on the bed as if I were a precious vase. “It’s Batuk … right? Remember me? I’m Uncle Nir.” I looked down at the floor and nodded. “Batuk,” he continued, in a slow, carefully metered voice, “we are going to have a lovely time together. But first, my little darling, I want to hear you sing some more.” I nodded and said, “Yes, Uncle.” I looked at the floor and noticed a centipede inching toward the bed, looking for sanctuary there. The old woman stood up and drifted to the far end of the room next to the door (in case I tried to escape?). Uncle Nir took his place, sitting with his hands on his knees on the wooden chair next to the bed. He smiled at me.

  Then Uncle Nir got up from the chair and perched on the edge of the bed. “Now, let me hear you sing again,” he said. His tone was no longer gentle. I could not remember the words to any song and I felt tears starting to fill my eyes, but I still did not cry. The old woman coughed and I knew she was about to reprimand me when “Goat Song” somehow popped into my head.

  I started to sing in a small voice and with little enthusiasm but I saw that Uncle Smiley-Nir was enraptured with me. He maintained his unceasing close-lipped grin that showed plea sure and nodded at me encouragingly. As I have written, he was physically ugly; it was not that he had three eyes and two noses, but rather that the two eyes and one nose that he did have did not quite fit on his face. Also, his face was too big for his neck. There was just something not-fitting about him; all of him was the wrong size. He continued to smile and nod but then he took off his shiny shoes. I sang,

  Goat—goat—try and run

  Over the hills and far away

  There are birds in the air

  Where you go—they will say

  Goat—goat—try and run

  Over the hills and far away

  There are fish in the stream

  Where you drink, I will know

  Goat—goat—try and run

  Over the hills and far away

  There are blades of grass

  Where you eat, they will tell

  Goat—goat—try and run

  Over the hills and far away

  After I finished the song, he clapped his little manicured hands and broadened his smile. “Batuk, that was lovely. Now would you stand up and sing that again for me … would you … please?” I did not move and the nighttime noises of the street seemed to become louder in the silence. The smile fell from his face and he repeated, “Stand up and sing, Batuk.” His voice was quiet but in my mind, I trembled. Disobedience was not an option.

  I stood up on the bed and sang the song again. On the last chorus my voice faltered. When I finished the song he looked up at me, smiling. “Now, there’s nothing to be scared of. Come over here and sit on Uncle’s lap.” I hoped that what he had just said would disappear if I ignored it (I used to handle demands from Mother in the same way). But the command hung in the air and I took three steps uneasily across the bed and lowered myself onto Uncle Nir’s lap. My legs lay against his, dangling over the side of the bed. He folded his arms around my body and pulled my back close against his chest. He was breathing through my hair. Tears started to roll down my face and fall onto my lovely sari. His hands loosened their grip and he started to massage the sides of my chest with his hands, up and down like polishing furniture. He whispered in my ear, “You see, there’s nothing to cry about, I’m as gentle as a pussycat.” I could feel the warmth of his breath. “You sing so beautifully.” He slid both his hands to the front of my chest and continued rubbing up and down. He started to rub the top and sides of my thighs. I was paralyzed. As he rubbed, horror washed through me.

  Under his touch I blackened, like a pot of ink being poured over paper. The blackness soaked across, through, and inside me. Go on, touch me! Now take your hands from my skin and look. Look! You can see the ink stain. Go ahead, try to wash me off. No, you will need far more water than that; I am forever in the creases of your fingertips.

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

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

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

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

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

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