A Walk Across the Sun

by Corban Addison

  Each evening, Sumeera brought them a meal of dal and chutney. She saw the kolam designs, but she never reprimanded them for wasting their food, as Suchir or his young lieutenant—the girls now knew him as Prasad—might have done. Instead, she often lingered in the room and told them a story of her own.

  When Sumeera left, the sisters ate their dal with their hands, saving only those morsels of rice needed for the next day’s kolam design. Sumeera returned half an hour later to collect the dishes. By then darkness had fallen upon Kamathipura. The brothel’s first customers usually arrived a few minutes after Sumeera bid them farewell. They knew the men by the sounds that erupted from the sex rooms.

  In the hours between dinner and sleep, the sisters sat opposite one another on the floor, and Ahalya told Sita stories. Each night when her sister’s eyelids grew heavy, Ahalya accompanied her sister to the sink and they washed their hands and faces together. After that, they slipped into bed and spooned as they had at home. Sita seemed to find it easy to sleep, despite the noise in the brothel. But insomnia kept Ahalya awake.

  In the daylight, she found distraction in caring for Sita’s needs. At night, despair returned and shame metastasized. She lay on the thin mattress, remembering Shankar and the birthday boy and contemplating the limits of her fortitude. She was strong, but she could resist for only so long. One day she would have no more stories to tell.

  Something touched Ahalya in the night. She opened her eyes and tried to see through the gloom. She looked toward the door and her eyes began to adjust. A shape stood at her bedside. She suppressed the urge to cry out. Sita was asleep next to her, unaware of the intruder.

  The shape changed and she felt hot breath on her neck. A male voice whispered in her ear in Hindi: “Do as I say and make no sound.”

  The man reached for her hand and drew her out of bed. She stumbled, but he caught her and kept her from falling. He led her down the stairs. Still half-awake, she barely registered the fact that the moaning had ceased and the adda was quiet. Even the street sounds were muted, distant things. It seemed that all of Bombay was asleep.

  They left the stairwell through the hidden door, and the man pulled her into one of the sex rooms. His skin was rough, his grip viselike. She bumped into the bed and stubbed her toe, but she stifled her cry, for terror had seized her.

  He pushed her down on the mattress and closed the door behind them. He struggled with his clothes and then he was on top of her, exploring her with his hands. She writhed beneath him, pushing him away, but he was powerful and restrained her long enough to do his business. When a small cry escaped her lips, he clamped his hand over her mouth. He made sounds like all the others, but she knew he wasn’t a customer. No customer stayed the night or had access to the attic room. The man was short and young. It couldn’t be Suchir.

  It had to be Prasad.

  When he finished, he lay beside her, breathing heavily. She moved her sari back into place and cried silent tears. The act, in all its sudden and inexplicable violence, had left her feeling numb with shame.

  He began to speak then, whispering words of devotion and love, words he had stolen from the poets. On his tongue, however, they were leprous. She resisted the urge to lash out at him, to drive her fingernails into his eyeballs and leave him blind. She knew it would solve nothing. She and Sita were entirely at the mercy of Suchir.

  At last Prasad fell silent. He turned to Ahalya and kissed her on the cheek. Then he took her by the hand and led her back to the attic room. Prasad was smitten with her; that much was obvious. But his infatuation had been deformed by the lust of the brothel. In Golpitha, love was sex and sex was rape. It came to her that his affections knew no other outlet.

  She walked to the foot of the bed and saw that her sister was still asleep. She knew that Sita’s innocence was all too fragile. She had not yet been defiled, but it was only a matter of time.

  Prasad leaned toward her and whispered, “This is our secret. Tell no one.”

  Ahalya nodded, as much to herself as to her rapist. She slipped under the covers and watched as Prasad glided silently out of the room, closing the door behind him. She listened to the noises drifting in from the street. They were louder now. She heard the horn of a rickshaw and the rumbling passage of a bus. The city was waking up. Dawn was coming.

  And with it another day.

  Prasad came for her again the next night and the night afterward while the rest of the beshyas slumbered. During the day, Ahalya kept up the routine she and Sita had established. She bled a little, but not too much, and she masked her injuries. Inside, however, she felt hollow. When she told Sita stories, her tone often fell flat, and she struggled to smile. She was listless when she drew Jaya’s kolam designs. She didn’t laugh when Sita told one of their mother’s jokes.

  Sumeera must have noticed Ahalya’s sadness, for one evening after she delivered their meal, she sat down on the floor beside the girls and shared a lesson in religion she remembered from her childhood. She told them it had come from a traveling Brahmin, and it had become her lifeline in the adda.

  “Desire is the enemy,” she said. “Desire for the past, desire for the future, desire for love, desire for family. Everything. A beshya has to detach herself from all affections and accept her karma. You will never be happy here. But you don’t need to be sad.”

  When Sita fell asleep that night, Ahalya watched her with a trace of envy. She resembled one of the angels stained in glass at the convent school, her peace unbroken. Ahalya lay back against her pillow and stared at the ceiling, certain in the knowledge of what the night would bring. She couldn’t sleep. She knew he would always come again.

  Night turned toward morning, and the sounds in the brothel diminished. Ahalya lay awake, watching the door. He came for her in time as she expected. They were the only people awake in the adda. He touched her arm, and she rose from the bed without a sound. There was no use in struggle, no purpose in resistance.

  The room was waiting for them, the bed barely large enough to accommodate them both. She did what he asked. It was shameful and disgusting, but it proved Sumeera right. Detachment was the only escape.

  When Prasad tired of lust, he rolled off her and started to talk. He surprised her by sharing about his family.

  “Suchir is my father, did you know that? He has sired many children, but I was the first. My mother was a beshya and died when I was a boy. I grew up in the adda.”

  As Prasad continued to share, Ahalya learned that Suchir had inducted him into manhood on his thirteenth birthday. The girl had been one of the malik’s youngest acquisitions. Her name was Manasi, and Prasad considered her his first love. He had come to her in the attic room many times. She had stayed in the adda until she was nineteen. That year she tested positive for some venereal disease or another.

  “I don’t remember what it was,” he said, “but it wasn’t HIV.”

  When Sumeera delivered Suchir the news, he put Manasi on the street. She had haunted the adda for weeks, begging for food, until Suchir had paid a police officer to put her in jail. Prasad had never seen her again.

  Ahalya listened to Prasad’s confession with astonishment and revulsion. In her mind, he was a demon in a man’s body. She found it profoundly disturbing that he could sound so human. Worse—far worse, in fact—she felt a twinge of pity when he told her the brothel was all he had known. It was a moment of weakness, and she drove the feeling away. The pain between her legs reminded her that his sins were unpardonable. His childhood didn’t excuse them.

  Nothing did.

  After Prasad finished talking, he lay beside her in silence, making no move to take her back to the attic room. He reached for her hand and squeezed it. The intimacy of his touch nearly made her retch. She swallowed the bile in her throat and thought of her sister. What if Sita awakes and finds me gone? An idea came to her then. It was risky, but she needed to know, and Prasad could tell her. It was the first time she had addressed him directly.

  “What does Such
ir intend to do with my sister?” she asked.

  “Sita is like you,” he said. “She is special. But Suchir will break her in.”

  Ahalya controlled her rage. “When?”

  “Soon,” he said enigmatically, and then he took her back to her bed.

  The next day was a Sunday, the only day of the week when Golpitha seemed to rest. At breakfast, Sumeera brought them a box of colorful beads and lengths of string, and the sisters spent the day making jewelry. Despite the heat, Sita was playful, engaged, almost happy. Ahalya practiced the art of detachment. The pain in her lower abdomen was part of her existence, like the walls around her and the floor beneath her feet. She could bewail her karma or she could see the pain as a sign that her life still had meaning. It was all a matter of the mind.

  When it came time for her evening story, Ahalya began to recount a tale from the Mahabharata, the great epic of love and war. Sita, however, interrupted and made a request. She wanted to hear the story of her namesake. Ahalya took a deep breath. The tale was long, and she had slept little in three nights.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to hear about Arjuna’s great victory?” she asked.

  Sita shook her head. “You told me about him last night. I want to hear about the princess of Mithila.”

  Ahalya sighed. She had never been able to resist her sister’s enthusiasm. “Sita of Mithila,” she began, “was a woman of great virtues. Yet in her kindness she was unwise. Without knowing it, she gave her trust to Ravana, lord of the underworld, and he took her by force to the island of Lanka, where she remained in exile, awaiting rescue by Lord Rama and Hanuman.”

  “Tell me about Hanuman,” her sister said, her large eyes brimming with interest.

  “The noble monkey had received a blessing at birth,” Ahalya went on. “He could assume any size he wished, large or small. When he learned that Ravana had carried Sita through the skies to Lanka, Hanuman grew so large that he stepped over the sea. He carried Rama’s signet ring across the water and gave it to her—”

  Ahalya stopped speaking when the stairs outside the attic room creaked. The sisters turned to watch the doorknob. Ahalya expected to see Sumeera on a housekeeping errand, but instead it was Suchir who appeared at the door. He stood on the threshold and studied Sita in silence. His wrinkled face was impassive, but his calculating eyes made Ahalya’s skin crawl. Prasad’s words came back to her. “Sita is special. Suchir will break her in.”

  At last the brothel owner spoke. “Come,” he said to Sita.

  Ahalya stood desperately, hoping to intervene. “Take me. Leave her alone.”

  Suchir turned to Ahalya and frowned. “You stay here,” he said, his voice harsh. He reached out and took Sita by the arm. Sita glanced fearfully at her sister and followed Suchir down the stairs.

  The click of the door sounded like a gunshot to Ahalya. She buried her face in her hands and wept. Blood rushed to her head and the walls seemed to close in on her. The thought of her sister lying beneath a man in the throes of lust rendered absurd her novice attempts at detachment. She teetered on the edge of collapse, wondering how she would find the strength to comfort Sita in the aftermath.

  Suchir led Sita past a group of chattering beshyas and into the brothel lobby. Business was slow on Sundays. Men were home with their families, watching soccer and cricket on television and sleeping with their wives.

  Following Suchir’s direction, Sita stood beneath the lights. She placed her hands together to keep them from trembling. She saw a man no older than thirty-five sitting on the couch. He was dressed in expensive clothes and wore a silver watch on his wrist. The man appraised her openly but kept his seat.

  “Suchir says you are an orphan,” he said in Hindi. “Is this true?”

  Sita nodded, confused.

  “He says you are healthy and that you aren’t pregnant.”

  She nodded again.

  The man turned to Suchir and they exchanged a few words in an indecipherable tongue. Eventually, the man nodded and shook Suchir’s hand. He took a last look at Sita and left the brothel. During the entire exchange, he made no attempt to approach her.

  Sita was relieved—overwhelmingly so—yet she was also troubled. Both the man’s behavior and Suchir’s were a mystery. She thought back to New Year’s Eve when Shankar had purchased Ahalya’s virginity. Sumeera had dressed them both in the finest saris and jewelry and garlanded them with flowers. The costumes had been an enticement to the buyer, a lure for his money. Tonight, Suchir had simply appeared and taken her as she was.

  Sita followed Suchir up the dank wooden stairs to the attic room. In the doorway she looked at Ahalya and saw her tears. She ran to her sister and clutched the fabric of her sari. She wept even though she had not been violated. She wept over the death of her parents. She wept because her sister had wept.

  In time Sita drew back and answered Ahalya’s unspoken question. “Nothing happened,” she whispered. “A man was there, but he didn’t touch me.”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “He wanted to know if I was an orphan and if I was pregnant.”

  “And Suchir, what did he say?”

  “I couldn’t understand him. They weren’t speaking Hindi.”

  Suddenly, Ahalya’s arms were around her again, hugging her to her breast. “Rama was watching over you, Little Flower,” she said. “He kept you from harm.”

  “Not Rama,” Sita corrected her, “Baba. He promised always to protect me.”

  Sita closed her eyes and pictured her father’s face. The strong chin, the salt-and-pepper hair receding at the crown, the gold-flecked eyes full of wisdom and kindness. He had made the promise when she was five years old. And she had never doubted him.

  “You’re right,” Ahalya agreed, stroking her hair. “It was Baba.”

  Chapter 8

  If thou has not seen the devil, look at thine own self.

  —JALAL-UDDIN RUMI

  Mumbai, India

  Thomas’s first week at CASE was a study in immersion learning. The days began at eight thirty with an office-wide meeting led by Jeff Greer. The three departmental directors reported in with news from the field—investigations ongoing, leads being pursued, cases up for trial, and rescued girls making progress or regressing. No punches were pulled; no rosy portraits painted. Whether delivering hard-boiled grit or a hopeful report, the CASE directors had no patience for sensationalism or spin.

  Thomas realized on his first day in the office that working for CASE was light-years away from the stereotypical nonprofit job—at least as he and his colleagues at Clayton had conceived of it. The hours were long, the professional standards high, and the cases intellectually demanding. In addition, there was danger in the work. CASE had few friends in Bombay and many powerful enemies. Most of the permanent staff members had been threatened or accosted by a pimp or trafficker, some more than once.

  In many ways, life in the legal department at CASE was little different from life in the trenches at Clayton. The similarities ended, however, where the law itself began. The particulars of Indian jurisprudence were largely foreign to Thomas, and the vernacular of Indian law suffered from a profusion of strange phrases and archaic terminology left over from the days of the Raj. Thomas kept a pen handy and took copious notes, but they usually left him more bewildered than enlightened.

  His education took a giant leap forward when Samantha Penderhook asked him to review a legal brief written by one of CASE’s Indian lawyers. The case involved a pimp who had operated a makeshift brothel in the Jogeshwari slum. He had a friend who was in the business of trafficking girls from villages in the far north of India on the pretense that he would give them work as waitresses and nannies in Bombay. The pimp had five girls in his stable when the police, assisted by CASE, took down his operation. All five were minors. Two of the girls were barely thirteen. The evidence against the pimp was damning. Yet the case had been pending in court for four years, and the pimp was still on the street.

  T
he Jogeshwari case highlighted the crisis in the Bombay judicial system. The pimp had admitted his crimes to the police, but the confession was not admissible into evidence because the police were presumed to be corrupt. The police also bungled the First Information Report they prepared at the scene. The FIR contradicted the statement prepared by the pancha—the third-party witness—giving the pimp’s lawyer an opening to attack the credibility of the FIR and the police constables.

  In addition, the trial process had been a model of inefficiency. The victims were called to testify six months after the raid, but the prosecutor had to wait more than two years to cross-examine the pimp. By then neither the judge nor the lawyers could quite remember what the victims had said. The only records of the victims’ testimony were “depositions” typed in shorthand by the judge’s clerk on her ancient computer. Unfortunately, the victims’ “depositions” contradicted the notes taken by the CASE lawyer assisting the prosecution.

  Finally, there was the problem of the language barrier. The girls were from a region of Uttar Pradesh near Nepal and spoke a dialect called Awadhi. It took CASE two months to locate an Awadhi translator. When at last the girls were placed under oath, the translator admitted he was hard of hearing. Although he stood directly beside the girls, he interrupted them incessantly, asking them to repeat themselves.

  The Jogeshwari case was a complete disaster. After reading the brief, Thomas went to Samatha’s office. She was on the phone, but she waved him in anyway.

  When she hung up, he held up the brief. “Is this a joke?”

  She smiled. “No joke. I told you Bombay legal work would drive you crazy.”

  He put his outrage into words. “Four years ago, this pimp was selling these itty-bitty girls to his friends in the slum, and today his lawyer is arguing he should be let off because the police couldn’t write a coherent sentence in the FIR and the clerk couldn’t hear the girls testify and the confession of the pimp was unduly influenced by the cops, even though there were five witnesses and two third-party panchas present at the scene who said the guy just spilled his guts. What kind of kangaroo court are these people running?”