Flash House

by Aimee E. Liu

  “You’ve read Robinson Crusoe?” Joanna was unable to conceal her surprise. With his persistent good humor and apparently limitless talents Lazarus would have fit right in on Crusoe’s desert island.

  “Read it in school. Dr. Graham thought I’d identify ’cause I came from an island—Luzon in the Philippines—and I was shipwrecked as a boy. My parents drowned.”

  It came back to her then, Lawrence telling her about this wartime orphan, half Portuguese, half Filipino, who’d wound up in Calcutta tuning pianos. Lazarus, as in raising the dead. A survivor, Lawrence had called him. “Aren’t we all?” Joanna had shot back. And Lawrence had skewered her with that look that was half admonition, half plea. “Some are more talented than others,” he said. “And those of us who are less able would do well to take a few lessons.”

  So here, it seemed, was her lesson, wrapped in the guise of Lawrence’s stand-in. Lazarus was at once obnoxious and irrepressibly likable. Over the days that followed they would discover he cheated at cards, roared at his own jokes, and deflected the inevitable slights he received from the servants (who perceived him as an Anglo-Indian and a usurper) with the practiced agility of a clown. But he wisely took a gradual approach with the children. Kwality ice cream and afternoon cricket games were no longer enough to cheer even Simon, and Kamla barely looked up to be introduced to their new “man Friday.”

  Fortunately there was the cinema. This was not a part of Indian life that Joanna had enough attention or interest to fully appreciate, especially after the Lost Horizon fiasco, but Lazarus adored it. He could sing the scores to a dozen Bombay spectaculars, complete with the flashing eyes and swiveling hips of the dance accompaniments. He quoted lines from Hamlet and Gone With the Wind with equal enthusiasm and was delighted to learn that the Regal, Rivoli, Odeon, and Plaza cinema halls of Connaught Place all offered Hollywood fare. He and Simon took to spending every Saturday afternoon in these dark, stifling theaters, and soon he had Simon, too, once again whistling theme songs. Simon remained aggrieved with Lawrence. “Why couldn’t he have taken us with him?” he demanded over and over. But Lazarus was a distraction, and for that Joanna was grateful.

  As for Kamla, it was difficult to say how much of her moodiness was due to Lawrence’s absence. For weeks, even months, the girl had been preoccupied, aloof at times to the point of muteness. Joanna chalked it up to the approach of puberty. During meals she stared into her plate as if it would tell her fortune. In the car she insisted on taking the back seat, letting Simon sit up front, and the rest of the time she would curl up on her bed or the living room sofa reading the endless supply of books she brought home from the school library. Joanna could hardly remember the last time Kamla on her own had ventured close enough to hug. But then, the girl had always shown this capacity, a kind of heightened self-sufficiency and strength. She was another talented survivor, and under the circumstances, Joanna could hardly criticize her behavior. Withdrawal seemed a sensible defense.

  If only she herself had that luxury. She had honored Mr. Chou’s request. She had not exactly lied to Lawrence, but evasion was a form of deceit. Bertie Solomon’s warning had proven true—in part, at least. She couldn’t trust him. Not with this. And especially not if he was right, and Aidan was just playing along with the Chinese in order to survive. She had to rely on what she remembered. What she believed. And that was Aidan’s love for her and Simon. His last words to her. His last touch.

  In fact, she was relieved when Lawrence left.

  But the passage of time now gnawed at her. She’d reorganized Safe Haven so successfully that it ran like a machine, and the meetings and paperwork, the minor crises of the girls and the management of their education required her time but hardly her full attention. She kept tripping over the card Bertie Solomon had given her, which she left in her desk at work. She hadn’t mentioned that, either, to Lawrence. A kind of fear, perhaps. Dread. And hope that Aidan’s reply would eliminate the need for any more questions. But though Mr. Chou promised he’d delivered her letter, no reply came.

  The address on the card directed Joanna to the heart of Old Delhi—the maze of bazaar alleyways known as Chandni Chowk. The ancient streets were narrow and filthy, crowded with displays of silver and beads, mechanical toys, luridly colored soft drinks, bolts of cotton and silk, embroidered hats, packaged underwear, eyeglasses, hair tonic. People lived behind the storefronts and in upper-level apartments—you could see the terraces with their canvas awnings and lines of drying laundry, but given the red-light district’s proximity, it did not surprise Joanna that most of the women here hid under burqas or were carefully shepherded by male relatives. Schoolgirls rode past in cycle rickshaws, three to a cab or with servants, but never alone or on foot. A rickshaw wouldn’t have been a bad idea, as no car could possibly get through and Joanna had to park out by the Red Fort, but she hadn’t realized how far she was going to have to walk. So she clutched her purse to her hip and her hat to her head, stepping between a man with a glass eye selling cauliflower to her right and a leper shrouded in dirty gauze stretching an oozing palm to her left. It was not yet ten but already she felt herself fading. She’d had to wrestle the car away from Lazarus this morning, insisting on dropping the children at school herself so she could come here alone. And now she half-regretted this—she could use his company in this place. But she couldn’t risk the chance that Lazarus might report back to Lawrence. Also, she wasn’t sure what she expected, or even what she hoped to find in this man, Douglas Freeman.

  To the left of Nurwala’s Sweet Shop, an unmarked door opened onto a steep, two-foot-wide stairway that smelled of urine and mold. There was no directory, no indication that anything other than apartments lay upstairs, but this seemed to be the right alleyway and the building that most closely matched the address. On the bottom step a little boy, maybe four with flat black eyes, sat shirtless in a pair of worn shorts, playing with a length of red string.

  “Freeman sahib?”

  The child gave her a gap-toothed smile and pointed up the stairs.

  The scent of curry now laced through the stink. Maybe a hundred years ago some artisan had carved an ornate pattern of birds and ferns into the handrail. The paint had long since worn away. There was just one door on the landing. A small, brisk woman wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a turquoise sari greeted her at the second knock.

  “International Vision?” Joanna said.

  The woman peered at her suspiciously.

  “Is Mr. Freeman here?”

  The woman let out a short peremptory breath and stood back for her to enter. “Who is calling, please?” she asked. Joanna told her and added that Mrs. Bertie Solomon had sent her. The woman left her in a gloomy cubicle where two young assistants sat on the floor before low writing desks. The girl, wrapped in a thin blue shawl against the chill of the unheated building, appeared to be working her way through a pile of invoices and receipts, while the young man entered figures in a ledger book. A third desk, presumably the older woman’s, was stacked with closed manila folders. Pasteboard boxes full of pamphlets and softbound books filled what little floor space was left. The pamphlets proclaimed “Livelihood Through Literacy!” and displayed photographs of International Vision at work through outdoor classes in villages and city bazaars.

  Joanna stood, for there was nowhere to sit. The two assistants bent over their desks, studiously ignoring her.

  “Please.” The woman reappeared, and Joanna followed her down a tiled hall past the kitchen.

  Freeman’s office was a bedless bedroom containing a wooden desk of Western height, two chairs, and a military green file cabinet. The exterior door and windows were open to the outer balcony, and a grimy breeze blew in streaks of lukewarm sunlight. He sat in one of these streaks but rose as she entered.

  She was struck by how much thinner he was than she’d realized in their brief encounter that night at the maidan. A pale-skinned man with a dirty-blond crew cut, he actually looked like a recently released—or escaped—prisoner
of war. His white short-sleeve shirt seemed to float on his shoulders, and the belt of his khaki trousers, though tightened to the extreme, drooped on his hipbones. The skin of his face was stretched over his jaws and cheeks, the dome of his forehead so tight it seemed polished. Burning blue eyes in this spare face gave him the look of a zealot, though his voice, when he spoke, was mild.

  “How can I help you?” he asked, gesturing for her to take the chair next to his desk. There was nothing on the desk but a large black telephone.

  She hesitated. “I’m Joanna Shaw. Perhaps you don’t remember. Bertie Solomon introduced us during the Ram Lila celebration.”

  Not a flicker of recognition. “Doug Freeman,” he said, offering his hand. A Midwestern accent, maybe Chicago. “Sorry. I’d just arrived in Delhi then. The Solomons gave me the whirlwind tour, you know? I was a little overwhelmed.”

  She smiled. “India can do that. Never mind. I’m here on business, anyway.”

  “Oh?”

  She handed him her card from Salamat Jannat. “I run a rescue home for young prostitutes. We ’re funded by the Indian government through the Social Welfare Committee. As you can imagine, it’s not enough.” She was racing. Slow down.

  He sat back in his chair. “I can imagine.”

  “Actually, before I make a fool of myself by suggesting something impossible, perhaps you could clarify exactly what International Vision does. Bertie said you do literacy work. Is that right?”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  There was a timid knock, and the girl from outside brought in a tray with two tumblers of hot milk tea and a plate of sweet biscuits. To Joanna’s relief, Douglas Freeman received the food with enthusiasm, promptly popping a biscuit into his mouth and washing it down with a long swallow of tea. It disturbed her that he was so much thinner—so much more visibly damaged by his time in the hands of the Communists—than Aidan’s photographs showed him to be.

  As if reading her mind, Freeman said, “I’m just over a rotten bout of dysentery. Trying to fatten up.”

  She smiled. “What kind of literacy work, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Not at all. We work with labor groups and community leaders, get visiting teachers into the neighborhoods and factories. We support the teachers, help organize the classes, supply books and materials. It’s very grass roots.”

  Joanna nodded. Doug Freeman, she suspected, knew all about grass roots, but very little about real literacy work. “It sounds perfect. Here’s what I’m thinking. The girls in the red-light district are sorely in need of just the education you’re describing. And we at Salamat Jannat are sorely in need of more eyes and ears in the district to help us identify the girls who’ve been trafficked into prostitution.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a copy of Bertie’s article about Kamla. She tapped the photograph. “This is one of the children we rescued from the district. She’s an extraordinary case, of course. So extraordinary I decided to adopt her. She’s now at the head of her class at the All-Nations School.”

  He looked at the picture. “She’s very beautiful.”

  “Yes.” She knew he had seen Kamla, seen Joanna strike her. And probably knew all about both of them. But he simply reached for another biscuit and waited for her to continue. What if Lawrence’s intelligence about Freeman was wrong?

  She said, “The point is, there are hundreds of others like her out there, and we simply don’t have the resources or personnel to identify all of them. Our rescue home primarily serves girls who are remanded through the courts, and too often these girls would frankly rather be back in the brothels than studying for exams. We need to reach girls like Kamla, who are still young enough, eager enough to see some possibility in life. That’s why I thought we might team up with you.”

  “Team up?”

  “If you set up a class for the children of G. B. Road, you would get to know those children and their mothers—and earn their trust. Then you could link them to us, and we would arrange the rest.”

  “An interesting thought, Mrs. …” He glanced at her uncertainly.

  “Joanna.”

  “Joanna. But we’re stretched as tight as you. We’re working with the street kids over by the bus terminal, and in some of the slums near the river. Maybe we’ll catch some girls before they wind up in the red-light district, but as for setting up shop there, I’m afraid we’d run head-on into the police. They like their take, as I understand it, and they don’t much cotton to anyone getting in the way. Imagine that’s why you folks rely on the courts.”

  “You’ve been well briefed.”

  “Oh, I’ve spent enough time in Asia to know some things are the same wherever you go.”

  She took a handkerchief from her purse and blotted the perspiration from her upper lip and throat. Then she removed her hat and gave her hair a calculated toss. Freeman’s eyes followed her as she’d hoped they would. “Where in Asia?” she asked.

  “China mostly. Shanghai for a while. Later out west.”

  “West?”

  A delay, just long enough that she knew Lawrence had gotten this right. “I spent a few months in Sinkiang before the Communist takeover.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “I had a grant to study some of the border languages.” His bony face betrayed nothing.

  “I’m almost afraid to ask this, but you didn’t…by any remote chance, you didn’t cross paths with my husband while you were in Sinkiang? He’s a correspondent. Aidan Shaw. American, though he’s half Chinese and mostly grew up in China.”

  Douglas Freeman made a show of giving this question his full consideration. Then he answered, “No. No, there weren’t a lot of Americans in Sinkiang, and I think I remember every one I met.”

  “Or a young woman? Blond. Her name was Alice James.”

  That split-second delay again. This time she detected a flicker of disquiet. “Now that, I know I’d remember,” he said.

  “She was traveling with my husband,” Joanna said. “She died in an accident not far from Tihwa. My husband disappeared around the same time.”

  “My God! I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “Sinkiang was a dangerous place.”

  “How did you get out?”

  “Oh, me. I was lucky.” His breathing sounded uneven. “I flew out months before the takeover.” As he finished off his tea, his face flushed pink.

  “Well,” Joanna said. “I guess that’s that, then. I apologize for taking your time. If you change your mind about working together, I hope you’ll give me a call.”

  Freeman cupped her card in his palm. After a moment he lifted his eyes, the blond fringe of his lashes lending a touch of innocence to his otherwise searing stare. “Forgive me for asking,” he said, “but, given what you’ve just told me, what keeps you here in India?”

  Joanna hesitated, for the first time wondering if he might be sincere.

  “I’m afraid perhaps I misled you a moment ago. As far as I’m concerned, my husband disappeared. But there are others who believe he’s defected to the Chinese. I suppose you could say I’m ashamed to go back to the States until I’ve proven his innocence. With all the talk around Washington lately, maybe I’m even a little frightened.”

  “How do you prove his innocence if you don’t know where he is?”

  “I keep asking questions, knocking on doors.” She met his eyes. Steady. “I love my husband very much. And I’m very, very stubborn.”

  Douglas Freeman pocketed her card and dropped his gaze, blinking twice before clapping his hands to his knees and standing up. “Let me think about it, Joanna. I’d really like to help you out.”

  “I hope you can,” she said, wishing she believed him.

  2

  Lazarus Figredo reminded me of the marmots we used to see along our trek popping up from underground tunnels in meadows or peering around boulders with their paws in the sun as we came down into the foothills. His skin was the color of coffee, his hair shiny as axle grease, and his nose w
as large and rounded, his restless hands always gesturing or flipping the cigarettes that he chain-smoked. I believed that Lawrence had sent this man to watch out for Mem and cheer up Simon. Perhaps he even imagined that Lazarus and I would “hit it off.” We both were orphans, after all, both stateless mixed-blood misfits of the scheduled caste. We both were survivors. But that was just the thing. I knew what survival required, and what it destroyed. And so I mistrusted the glint in his eye, his ferocious good cheer, his wild and contradictory stories of childhood escape and rescue. Simon, of course, loved him on sight, and Mem soon came to rely on him as she herself slid back under her blanket of duties at Safe Haven, her renewed preoccupation with her husband. No one asked my opinion about Lazarus, and I did not volunteer it, but I knew that I would never place my confidence in this man.

  From the first week after his arrival he would drive me and Simon to school. Sometimes he would stay to see us through the gate. More often he would clap Simon on the shoulder and tell us both, laughing, to work our “bloody pants” off, then honk the horn and drive away, back home to pick up Mem. I’d walk Simon inside and leave him on the path to his class’s bungalow as I turned toward my own. But one morning early in February, Teresa Ruiz, a rather stupid girl from South America, approached me on the path just as I was parting from Simon. I say she was stupid because she insisted that her father was considering whether to buy India. Now she tapped me on the shoulder and pointed back to the gate, twirling her finger as if I were her servant and she were sending me to fetch something. “Your man wants you,” she said.

  Lazarus must have forgotten to tell us some detail about our plans for the afternoon. I told Simon to go on his way and hurried back alone, fearful that this delay would make me late for class. When I reached the street, however, there were only the usual parents and servants hurrying tardy children. It was Teresa’s joke, I thought, annoyed with myself for playing into her hands. Just then a bicycle rickshaw pulled up beside me.