Flash House

by Aimee E. Liu

  Simon grunted from his perch on the couch. It wouldn’t be fun without his friends or Lawrence. Mem pointed out that I was going, though I had not yet said I would. Simon didn’t answer that, nor did he so much as glance my way, but after another minute or two he rose and went off in search of his rucksack.

  That rucksack went with him everywhere these days. I did not know what he kept in it, but it made a loud clanking noise as we climbed into the car. “What have you got?” I tried to tease him into good humor. “Babur’s saber and shield?”

  He merely shrugged and stared out the window, wincing a little as the dusty heat blew into his eyes. A few moments later he turned to Mem. “Where are we going swimming?”

  I had simply assumed we would go, as usual, to the Cecil, but when Mem answered, “The Jai Mahal,” an unexpected thrill shot through me. The Jai Mahal’s swimming pool lay just a few yards from the car park where I conducted my midnight trade. Princess Kamla of Kashgaria, I could hear Lawrence breathe in my ear. I would swim and dive like a firenghi guest. I would feel the sun wash my back. I would splash as if I hadn’t a care, and no one, not even the invisible waiter who brought whiskey and cigarettes in the darkness, would recognize my face.

  We pulled in between the two front lions and up a long curving drive to the Jai Mahal’s main entrance. Mem turned the car over to one of the uniformed men who stood like sentries, then we marched in through the revolving door and down the marble corridor as if this were our home. I pulled myself up and looked directly into the eyes of every staff member I passed. The carefully groomed and made-up women behind the reception desk. The old man with a goiter on his neck who sold newspapers from a stand. The young manager with his side-combed hair and double-breasted English suit. The Sikh with a yellow turban and waxed mustache who peered at me through the window of his lobby jewelry shop. These were my colleagues, I thought, for did we not all work on the premises of the Jai Mahal? Did we not all perform services—entertain and make comfortable the paying guests? Surely these men and women knew about, and some doubtless profited from, the nightly commerce conducted behind the hotel. Yet here and now I was above them. I could tell as I studied their faces, not one suspected me.

  Simon’s bag thumped against his hip. He stuck out his tongue at a little girl, maybe two years old, who promptly lifted her dress and stuck out her belly back at him. Her mother, an Englishwoman to judge by her speech, scolded the girl but sent a killing look back at Simon and Mem.

  Mem didn’t notice. She was too busy looking about the lobby. As we passed through the wide glass doors into the garden the bar stood to our left, with umbrellas and tables and chairs on a terrace outside. The pool lay some distance across the lawn to our right. Mem’s breath shook a little as she sighed. “I’d better wait here. I’m supposed to be by the bar. You two go ahead to the pool. Behave yourselves, and don’t go wandering off, Simon.” I looked to see if she meant this warning for me, a reminder of that night at the maidan, but no, she had waved her hand and dismissed us already. Her mind was on this meeting, her business.

  I followed Simon across the lawn, a radiant green swell of grass bordered by marigolds. A wedding was to take place in the garden that night, and all tables and chairs had been removed to the lawn so the deck around the pool could be used for dancing. A bandstand rose behind the diving board, and large wooden trellises covered with lights and tinsel and white and red crepe paper flowers screened the deck from the hotel, but at the moment no one else was about, and this private swimming pool/dance hall seemed at once festive and eerie. As it should be, I thought. Tonight some virginal girl would be tied in marriage to her groom within shouting distance of the very activity that wives were supposed to dread most. And even as one part of me envied this girl, whom I could clearly envision in her gold-threaded sari, with ears and nose studded with diamonds and hands laced with henna designs, another part of me pitied her for the servitude she would be required to perform from this night forward. At least we night birds were compensated, and we had hope of freedom one day. Her only hope was that her husband would be a good man, that he would stand by her and not visit us or the flash house, not beat or rape her himself. Had she even met this man? Did she know the first thing about him? Did he care for her at all? These thoughts tumbled and pushed their way through my mind as I stood at the edge of the pool, removing the thin blue shift I had worn over my bathing suit.

  “Race you,” Simon said, coming up behind me. He had stripped to his trunks and put on swim goggles. With the goggles he was bound to beat me.

  “It’s not fair,” I said.

  “Who cares?” And with that he reached forward with both arms and pushed me into the water.

  I fell sideways, snorting and thrashing. Simon dove in over my head and was off. In that split second we became brother and sister, children again. There was no one here but the two of us, and we could still pretend.

  So we swam, from one end to the other and back again. Simon won. He had the advantage. But I was not far behind, I told myself, and I had what Lawrence used to call the handicap. That meant that I did not have the equipment. I did not have the training or skills, the native intelligence, the birthright. I did not have the advantage, and so I must claim my disadvantage and turn it into strength.

  I remembered suddenly the day when Lawrence first explained this notion of handicap. He had taken us to a tournament at the golf course—this was just one year ago, not long after Mrs. Solomon interviewed me for her article—and he was trying to explain how handicaps “equal the playing field.” I could not understand this idea. Was not the playing field—in this case, the golf course—the same for all players? It was the players themselves who were unequal, no? And was it not the purpose of games to prove one player stronger and therefore unequal to the others? This idea of handicaps seemed so much nonsense to me. Certainly, it was not the way of the world. Who in this world ever gave the advantage to the poor, or the ignorant, or the weak? One was always having to prove oneself. Even beggars climbed over each other to claim the scraps of the rich. This equal playing field, this notion of fair play, I decided was a firenghi invention. It had only to do with games, and nothing to do with truth.

  Now suddenly I did not even want the handicap. “You win,” I told Simon. “You have what you want.”

  He had pushed his goggles up on his forehead like a second set of eyes. The strap turned his ears out so they looked even more like handles than usual. His face was red and wet from the race, as if he had been crying, and there was a kind of strain in his mouth as he looked at me, as the harshness of my voice penetrated. He said nothing, but cupped his hand and sliced it over the surface of the pool so that a skin of water rose to hit me with a slap.

  It stung, but before I could retaliate, he swam away to the other end, climbed out and crouched with his back to me, busying himself with his rucksack. I thought of the clown, the underwater Shiva he had once played, and a piece of me wept for Simon. I wondered if the firenghi could see how they handicapped themselves?

  I flipped onto my back and floated, staring into the sky. Threads of cloud lay across the heavens like strands on a balding man’s skull. I had run my fingers over such strands, had inhaled the tonics that old men used in vain to preserve their youth, and felt the knots of bone and flesh that lay beneath the pretense. I had fixed my eyes on these threads in the darkness, making a game of their disarrangement as their proud possessors rode me on their laps.

  The water held me. It lapped over my thighs and chest and face. It filled my ears and pores. It entered me like a gentle lover, like Shrilal might have, I thought, had he been a younger man—if youth can ever be gentle. The water entered me as the blood had left me when my first period arrived last month. Mem, very businesslike, had assured me that this simply meant I was a woman now. She gave me a supply of American-made pads and a belt and showed me how to wear the contraption, how to roll the pads in paper and discreetly throw them away. She touched my shoulder and asked if I wa
s frightened. I shook my head. Any pain? I said no. She bit her lip and removed her eyes from me, then came back and said, “Kamla, this is a good sign. It means that you are well, your body is healed. It means that someday you might have children.” She did not tell me what my night sister Scarlett told me, which is that once I started bleeding I must tell the men I had a disease so that they would wear a condom and I would not get pregnant. Mem gave me pads, Scarlett a supply of condoms. Scarlett said to think of this as the necessary equipment for my trade as a woman. My handicap, I thought now. My weakness turned in futility to advantage. The water was soothing as the blood.

  Above me the clouds thickened with color until the sky seemed to drip magenta and gold. The sun had fallen below the fringe of palm trees that bordered the hotel property, and the pool now lay in a trapezoid of purple shadow. It was the mosquito hour. I dropped lower under my blanket of water, closing my eyes so that only my nose was exposed. It was a trick Lawrence had taught Simon and me. “Drives the bugs batty,” he told us. “They can’t smell your skin or feel your heat. They can’t get to you.”

  This was what I was thinking when Simon landed on top of me.

  Later I realized that he had been crouching at the end of the diving board, waiting for me to float beneath him. At that moment, however, I did not know where he came from, only that I felt his weight knock the air out of me, his legs wrap around my hips. They pulled inward and pushed me down. Water went up my nose. My ears filled with thrashing, and the chlorine stung my eyes so that I could make out only the darkness of his body against the brilliant sky. He was too heavy. I panicked and lifted my arm, trying to pull out from under him, but he grabbed me and I felt a snap of metal around my wrist. I got my head above water. He was riding me like a horse, leaning forward, now yanking my arm, for he wore the mate of my handcuff.

  I realized he was speaking into my ear. “I am the great Houdini.”

  “Let me go!” I cried, flailing and trying to kick free. We were still in the middle of the deep end. Simon began to laugh. As I slipped under again, I felt his palm press against my right breast. He dragged our cuffed arms behind my back, cinching me against him. We sank.

  Houdini, I remembered him telling me, could stay underwater for five minutes. Holding his breath had been one of Simon’s favorite tricks long before he even heard of Houdini.

  Our bodies righted themselves in the water, but his legs remained locked around me, and now he began to rub himself like a dog against my thigh. At last I understood the game he was playing. My lungs burned. I was being pushed down, but I knew that in this particular contest Simon’s powers of endurance were no match for mine. I closed my eyes and sent my thoughts back to the Shahidulla Gorge, to those tiny reaching hands, that blood-tinged foam. I remembered the sensation of escaping skin and life easing out of my grip. My sister Mira once told me that some Sikh women in the flash house slice their wrists with their kara, their metal bracelets, then hold their hands in a basin of water watching their blood drain away. She said she imagined this would be a peaceful way to die, and when she decided she’d had enough, this might be the path she would choose. And perhaps it had been. If I ceased to struggle, I told myself as the water around our handcuffed wrists began to cloud with red, I could escape as well.

  But I felt Simon weakening. Beyond rubbing and kneading he didn’t know what to do with my body, and, Houdini or no, he was losing air. I gave a great kick, shoved him with my free arm, and pulled with all my strength to drag us to the surface.

  I took a gulp of air and was about to cry for help when I felt Simon’s hand between my legs, a desperate, angry grabbing. I brought my knee up hard into his groin, a defense I had inadvertently discovered (and which cost me my hour’s pay) several nights earlier in the cramped confines of a car not twenty feet from where we now fought. Simon’s body clenched. I reached out and caught hold of the pool deck, dragging his folded weight. Another few inches and my foot found the shallow bottom.

  Simon would not meet my eyes. When he had recovered his breath, he began wrestling with the cuffs and key he had hidden in his trunks. He swore words I did not think he knew. His impatience suggested this was all my fault. I did not make a sound. Finally he pulled in his thumb and wrenched his hand out, leaving me with his manacle dangling from my wrist.

  “You’ll be sorry,” he said, still not looking at me, and swam hard across the deep end. When he reached the ladder he swung himself up, grabbed his sack, and disappeared among the wedding decorations.

  Looking up I realized the sky had changed. The streaks of pink and amber cloud had turned as dark as bruises and the air around them hardened to a flat, pale gray.

  5

  The terrace was crowded. After sending the children off to the pool Joanna had claimed a table on the outskirts, under a massive kapok tree. When the waiter came she reluctantly ordered a lemonade. She longed for a gin and tonic, but alcohol would be a mistake. She’d received the chit yesterday at work. It named this place, this time. Nothing more. She had no idea what to expect.

  A few feet away a Sikh wearing a chartreuse turban and a beard rolled thick as a sausage sat poring over architectural plans with two Italian men. Four Scandinavians surrounded another table littered with tourist maps. These men occasionally glanced at Joanna and smiled. She faced her chair away from them. Through a flower-covered trellis she could just make out the forms of the children diving into the pool. It looked as if they were alone over there, but this was no cause for concern. Lawrence had taught them both to swim like otters.

  The waiter delivered her lemon water. She pulled an International Herald Tribune from her bag and stared at the headlines. REDS IN STATE? one banner trumpeted. SENATORS TO HEAR FROM SPY’S EX-WIFE announced another. She turned the pages in desperation until she reached a column headed PREPARING YOUR GARDEN FOR SPRING PLANTING, with a companion photograph of a field of blooming tulips. She pretended utter absorption.

  “Excuse me, memsahib?”

  She looked up into the beaming face of her waiter. He held a silver tray on which lay a small square envelope. “Mrs. Joanna Shaw?”

  She nodded.

  “Please.” He wiggled his head. “A messenger is just now bringing this chit for you.”

  She took the envelope and fumbled in her purse for a tip, then watched the waiter return to the bar. A glance around the terrace told her the other men, too, had lost interest in her. She shifted her chair back toward the empty lawn.

  Dear Mrs. Shaw,

  I apologise that I am unable to convey this message in person, however, the meeting you have requested is now arranged for tomorrow at 3:00 P.M.

  All other details remain as we have discussed.

  I trust you to keep this confidential.

  Your friend, Mr. C.

  Tomorrow! After all the waiting, the suddenness stunned her. Tomorrow.

  In a daze, she refolded the note and tucked it away in her purse. Then she caught the waiter’s eye. This time she ordered whiskey, and when it came she drank it fast.

  Somehow more time had passed than she realized. The sky was streaked with eggplant black. Small white lights had gone on in the trees, and Kamla and Simon were out of the pool, already changed and moving in opposite directions as a group of musicians cut between them hauling trumpets and drums. There was to be a wedding tonight, the waiter said as she paid her check.

  A great celebration.

  Chapter 15

  1

  LAWRENCE STAGGERED INTO HIS DELHI FLAT at two in the morning. It had taken the better part of a week to fly back from Washington, and he still hadn’t decided how to warn Joanna—how to minimize the damage. But late March was yet a ways off, and for the moment all he could think about was sleep. As he flipped on the light, however, Lazarus sat up blinking in the only bed available.

  His own fault: He hadn’t bothered to send a warning that he was coming back.

  Lazarus leapt to attention. But the bedclothes did not stop moving. At first La
wrence thought his exhaustion was playing tricks on him. Lazarus grinned. Lawrence stepped past him and tore off the sheet.

  A young boy who could not have been older than twelve reared up biting the air in laughter. His skin and hair white as coconut flesh, he was dressed in a dhoti and one of Lawrence’s castoff undershirts. “Salaam, mistah!” the albino cackled, and sprang like a frog to the floor.

  Lazarus showered abuse on the boy as if he’d had no idea he was there, and within seconds had him out and down the stairs. He returned buttoning his shirt and tightening the drawstring of his pants, his face an almost convincing imitation of outrage. The undershirt was crumpled in his right hand. His left thumped his breast. “Bloody little bugger. He claimed the Red Cross led him to me, some rot about our being cousins—”

  “Don’t waste your breath.” Lawrence sank into the old draggled armchair. The room looked as cluttered and anonymous as ever but reeked of sex and sandalwood cologne. He paused, then slowly lifted his eyes. “If you’ve touched Simon or Kamla like that I swear I’ll rip your heart out.”

  “Bloody hell!” Lazarus staggered backward as if from a physical blow. “I love those kids like my own brother and sister.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” But he wasn’t, really. Lazarus knew how to play both ends against the middle. In the lingo of Asia, Simon and Kamla represented his “rice bowl,” and he was hardly likely to risk shitting where he ate—whatever his other perversions.

  With eager officiousness Lazarus whipped off the bedding and smoothed on a clean set of linens. “I’ve taken bloody good care of the lot of them, if I do say so myself.”

  “Have you?” Lawrence noticed a pile of letters strewn across the writing desk. He’d instructed Lazarus to bundle his mail and forward it, care of External Affairs, but he’d received only one dispatch—while in Sydney, and none of it worth the postage. “Hand me those, would you?”