“Each of the girls is given a plant of her choice to tend,” Sister Ruth explained. “What would you like, Ahalya?”
“A blue lotus,” she replied, recalling the cherished kamala flowers that her mother had cultivated in a pond beside her family’s bungalow. They were Sita’s flowers. As a small child, her sister had believed them magical.
Sister Ruth looked at Anita. “We have a pond near the orphanage,” she said. “I think a lotus would grow well there.”
The nun’s words lifted Ahalya’s spirits. She looked toward Sister Ruth and then at Anita.
“You would let me plant a lotus?” she asked, astonished. Blue lotus seeds were rare and expensive, and germinating them successfully was difficult even under ideal conditions.
“I have a pot that would be just right,” Sister Ruth said. “What do you think, Anita?”
Anita took Ahalya’s hand. “Give me a few days. I’ll see what I can do about seeds.”
Chapter 12
The heart will break, but broken live on.
LORD BYRON
Paris, France
Sita awoke when the plane landed at Charles de Gaulle International Airport. Her mouth was parched with thirst, but she knew she couldn’t drink anything until Navin gave the word. She distracted herself by looking out the window. It was seven-thirty in the morning, Paris time, and the winter sky was still dark.
The plane taxied to the gate. Navin took his suitcase out of the overhead bin and handed Sita a down coat. “It’s cold outside. Put this on.”
Sita stood slowly and donned the coat, ignoring the sloshing of the pellets in her stomach. The garment felt awkward over her churidaar, but she was grateful for its warmth.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “Two more hours at most.”
Sita trailed Navin up the jetway to the international terminal. With the other passengers, they were funneled through a series of hallways to a bank of glass-encased cubicles. In each cubicle sat an immigration official. Sita ran through the details of her new identity again. I’m Sundari Rai. Navin sells insurance. We’re in Paris on a honeymoon. Don’t act like a criminal because you aren’t a criminal.
The immigration agent eyed them wearily. He flipped open Sita’s passport and barely glanced at her photograph before stamping her visa and setting it aside. Then he took Navin’s passport and opened it. At once something registered in his face. He held the passport up to the light, peering at the photo. Then he looked hard at Navin, all sleepiness gone from his eyes. He punched a few keys on his computer. Frowning, he picked up a handheld radio and placed a terse call. Within seconds, two security officers approached them, looking at Navin.
The immigration agent stepped out of his booth. “You must come with us,” he said. “We have some questions for you.”
“What kind of questions?” Navin demanded. “What is the problem here?” When the agent didn’t blink, he went on: “I’m a French citizen. You can’t hold me without a reason.”
The agent shook his head, unimpressed. “We will speak in private. I am sure we will be able to correct any … misunderstandings, no?”
“This is outrageous!” Navin said, but his protest met a blank stare.
Standing beside him, Sita felt a stab of gas in her intestines and tried not to wince. She looked at the immigration agent and wondered for an instant whether he knew the truth. The thought of being caught smuggling heroin terrified her.
The security officers escorted them from the checkpoint area to a concealed door on the far wall. Navin took Sita’s hand as if to reassure her, but the pressure he applied sent an unmistakable message. Sita’s heart began to race. The weight in her belly was heavy as lead, and she felt the strong urge to relieve herself. She didn’t know how much longer she could wait.
On the other side of the door was a corridor with security cameras. The immigration agent led them to another door not far down the hallway and gestured for Sita to enter. She glanced at Navin and fear blossomed in her. Instead of anxiety in his eyes, she saw only menace.
She stepped into the room, and one of the security officers followed. The room was featureless, furnished only with a table and two chairs. The officer pulled out a chair for her, and she took a seat. She wanted to speak, to ask what was happening, but she knew her voice would betray her. The security officer took up a post beside the door and stared into space. It was obvious he was waiting for someone.
The delay seemed interminable to Sita. In the vacuum of silence, her thoughts spun and tumbled. She pictured the inside of a French jail and imagined herself imprisoned behind bars of iron, a convict among hardened criminals. She folded her hands and looked down at the table, struggling to steady her breathing.
At last the door opened and a woman appeared, dressed in the uniform of an immigration agent. She was thin and her blond hair was cut short. She glanced at the security officer, and he disappeared without a word. The woman sat down at the table and placed Sita’s passport and a pad of notepaper in front of her. She regarded Sita coolly, twisting her pen in her fingers.
“Your name is Sundari Rai?” Her English was crisp, with only a trace of a Gallic accent.
Sita nodded meekly, steeling herself against her raging heartbeat.
“You do not look like you are eighteen.”
For a split second, Sita considered telling her the truth and letting karma take its course. Perhaps a judge would give her a lighter sentence for confessing. Perhaps he would believe she had acted under Navin’s compulsion. But then the second passed and the terror returned. If she were deported, she would be delivered into the hands of the Bombay police. In all likelihood, she would be charged with drug smuggling under Indian law. She recalled Navin’s words the night before: Believe me when I say that you do not want to see the inside of a Bombay jail.
“I am eighteen,” she said, trying to give her voice the confidence of an older girl. “I have always been small for my age.”
The woman tapped her pen on her pad. “Your family, where are they from?”
“Chennai,” Sita said.
“Where is that, exactly?”
“It is on the Bay of Bengal in southeast India. It used to be called Madras.”
The woman wrote something down. “The man you are traveling with, who is he?”
“He is my husband,” Sita replied, clasping her hands together in her lap to keep them from trembling.
The woman looked nonplussed. “You are very young to get married.”
Sita tried to imagine how Navin might respond if asked the same question. “It was arranged by our parents,” she said at last.
The woman thought for a moment and then took the conversation in a different direction. “Have you ever been to Pakistan?”
The question took Sita by surprise. “No,” she said simply.
The woman looked at her with sudden intensity. “Did your husband ever tell you about his frequent trips to Lahore?”
Sita narrowed her eyes and shook her head slowly, having no idea where this was going.
“Did he ever mention his connections to Lashkar-e-Taiba?”
Sita shook her head again. Her father had spoken about LeT. It was a radical Islamic organization responsible for numerous terrorist attacks on India. If the woman was right, Navin was far more dangerous than he seemed.
“No,” Sita replied. “All I know is that my husband is in the insurance business.”
The woman looked down at her pad. “You are in Paris for pleasure?”
Sita was about to nod when she felt a lancing pain in her gut. She grimaced involuntarily. The wave of intestinal gas persisted for a long moment before passing.
The woman noticed her discomfort. “Are you in some kind of distress?” she asked, leaning forward in her chair.
Blood rushed to Sita’s face and her mind went blank. She had managed to avoid tripping over her words, but the churning mass in her colon had a life of its own.
“It’s just …” she began, grasping
at the bits of the story she was missing. What was it Navin had said? What was her excuse? It came to her: “I’m three months pregnant. I’ve been feeling a little nauseous.”
The woman sat back and regarded her. After a long moment, her face seemed to soften. Suddenly, they heard a knock at the door.
“Just a moment,” the woman said and left the room. When she returned, her face had transformed. In place of her interrogator’s mistrust, she wore an apologetic smile.
“There has been a misunderstanding. Your husband resembled a man we are looking for, but the match was a mistake. You can go now.”
Relief flooded Sita. She tried to stand too quickly and winced at the pain.
“Let me help you,” the woman said, steadying Sita on her arm. “I remember the feeling. I have two children of my own.”
The woman escorted her to the end of the corridor where Navin stood waiting. He smiled at Sita and gave the woman a look of profound annoyance.
“If anything happened to my wife or my child …” he said, dangling the threat in the air. It was an effective ploy. The woman actually looked afraid.
“Please accept our sincerest apologies for your inconvenience,” she said, opening the door to the checkpoint area and handing back their passports. “I hope you enjoy your stay in Paris.”
Navin took Sita’s hand and led her across the floor to the ramp leading to the baggage carousel. He didn’t speak until they entered the airport ticketing area.
“You were wise not to talk to them,” he said. “They would never have believed you.”
Sita blinked and looked away. Her emotions were a chaotic mess. She had escaped the clutches of French immigration, but her intestines were stuffed with pellets of heroin and the pain was increasing with each passing minute.
“We will take a taxi into the city,” Navin said. “It is faster than the Metro.”
Sita followed Navin out of the terminal to the taxi stand. The Parisian winter shocked the breath out of her. She began to shiver and huddled deeper into her coat. Navin hailed a taxi and gave instructions in French. The only words Sita understood were the last: Passage Brady. The driver nodded and accelerated into traffic.
Sita held her stomach and winced. She looked out the window and watched as the city of Paris appeared—first as a network of gray and white suburbs, then as a patchwork of industrial parks and train yards, and last as a city of wide boulevards and elegant buildings.
The taxi driver deposited them at the entrance to a pedestrian passage and took two twenty-euro notes from Navin. Navin led her through an archway to a set of heavy double doors painted blue. He placed a call on his mobile and spoke in Hindi to a man he called “Uncle-ji.”
“We are here. Yes, she is with me.” He grunted and hung up.
After a minute, the door swung wide and a man greeted them. He was short and balding, with round eyes. He shook Navin’s hand and welcomed him with a fleeting smile. He turned to Sita and his gaze lingered.
“She will do,” he said cryptically and gestured for them to follow.
Beyond the doors lay a private courtyard with entrances to a number of flats. The man led the way into a dark foyer.
“Use the washroom at the end of the hall,” he said. “I will be in the restaurant.”
Navin gestured toward a door at the end of a short hallway. He entered the bathroom and switched on an overhead bulb. The room was equipped with an ancient porcelain toilet, a grimy sink, and a stained bathtub.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I’m thirsty,” Sita replied, her mouth as dry as cotton.
“Take a seat on the toilet. I’ll get you a glass of water.”
She sat down slowly and took a deep breath. Navin returned with a mug brimming with water. She accepted it and gulped the water down. She looked at Navin, her eyes making a plea for more. Navin took the mug and replenished it. This time, however, before giving it to her, he handed her a round pill.
“It is a laxative,” he said. “It will help you flush the drugs. Otherwise, you could wait for a day or two before the last condom leaves your system.”
She took the pill and swallowed it and drank the water to its last drop. Navin turned on the faucet over the tub, and hot water poured out in a billow of steam.
“You will soak in the bathtub to loosen your bowels. When the drugs come, they will float. Place them gently in the sink. If the condoms rupture now, I will not be pleased.”
Navin turned and left, closing the door behind him.
Sita looked at the floor, disgusted by the thought of what she must do. She allowed the water level to rise in the bathtub until it was three inches shy of the upper rim. She disrobed and slipped into the hot water. It gave her welcome relief from the pain in her belly. She closed her eyes and thought of Ahalya as she was before the madness, before the tsunami came. She listened for the sound of her sister’s voice, singing sweet songs and reciting poetry. Would she ever see her again?
What did Navin and his uncle have in store?
The pellets began to emerge quickly. She didn’t urge them along for fear they would burst. When they appeared in the water, she cleansed them of waste matter and placed them gingerly in the sink. The process was disgusting and extremely uncomfortable, but she persisted, her skin shriveling like a prune, until she had accounted for the thirtieth pellet. The latex and Navin’s knots had held. She breathed a huge sigh of relief and felt the spring of tension in her body begin to uncoil.
She released the drain plug and allowed the filthy water to retreat. When it was gone, she turned on the faucet and rinsed the bath and her skin. Then she let the tub refill until the water covered her core and warmed her again. She soaked in the bath for many minutes and tried to relax.
In time a knock came at the door. Her heart lurched and she watched the doorknob, anxious that Navin would enter.
“Sita,” he said through the doorjamb, “how many condoms have come?”
“All of them,” she replied.
“Perfect. And they are in the sink?”
“Yes.”
“There is a plate of food outside the door. Dress and eat quickly. I will introduce you to Aunti-ji.”
Five minutes later, Sita left the bathroom wearing her churidaar. She collected the plate of food—chicken, rice, and chutney—and ate hungrily. Soon Navin reappeared and led her through the living quarters to a door she had not noticed before. The door led to a hallway and the hallway to a cluttered kitchen. In the kitchen stood a matronly Indian woman dressed in a sari along with a boy about ten years old clad in jeans and a Western-style shirt. The woman was scolding the boy in a language Sita didn’t understand.
They turned toward Navin, and the woman switched to Hindi.
“How was Bombay?” she asked.
“Hot, congested, and crawling with slums,” he replied. “Each time I return I like it less.”
“Don’t say such things,” she scolded him. “It will always be home.”
Navin chatted with the woman briefly. The boy, meanwhile, ignored Navin and regarded Sita through guileless eyes. She looked back at him and felt a twinge of nostalgia. He resembled a boy at the convent school who had always doted on her. The pleasant thought disappeared almost as soon as it came.
“Does she cook?” the woman asked Navin.
Navin looked at Sita inquiringly, but she shook her head.
“A ladki who does not cook,” said the woman harshly. “What good is she?”
“She can clean the restaurant,” Navin’s uncle said, walking through a doorway on the other side of the room. “Navin has done us a great favor.”
The woman frowned at her husband and shook her head. “It is bad luck bringing her here. The priest says an ill omen is written in the stars.”
“Silly woman,” Navin’s uncle said, “stop your ranting and get to work.” He turned to Navin and handed him an envelope. “Five thousand euros.”
“Five thousand!” the woman exclaimed. “What
a waste!”
Navin’s uncle glared at his wife and she turned away, clucking.
Sita looked at the envelope, and despair spread through her. She knew that another deal had been made.
The woman handed Sita a mop. “Use the sink,” she hissed. “Start with the kitchen. Then do the restaurant. Earn your keep.”
Sita had never before wielded a mop. Jaya had done all the cleaning in the Ghai household, and Sita’s chores at St. Mary’s had been limited to gardening and laundry. She took the mop and awkwardly doused it with water.
“Stupid girl,” the woman spat. “Fill the sink, soak the mop, wring it out, and then use it. Where on earth did Navin find a girl as dumb as you?”
Despite the barrage of insults, Sita did not allow herself to cry. She followed the woman’s instructions and steeled herself against the pain. By some instinct, she understood that exhibiting weakness would only invite more abuse.
She spent the afternoon mopping and sweeping and scrubbing thick, oily grime off a multitude of surfaces in the kitchen. The woman was a cruel taskmaster; nothing Sita did was right. She rubbed so hard on the upper surface of the stove that her fingers began to lose sensation. Her nails chipped on exposed edges, and the rags and scalding water burned her hands. By the time the restaurant opened at six that evening, she was bone-tired and famished. The woman banished Sita to the flat and gave her a broom and a dustpan.
“I don’t want to find a speck of dust on the floor, or you will have no dinner,” she said.
The woman tended the stove with the help of an Indian girl. They served up tandoori cuisine to a handful of their neighbors. It was a Friday night, but business was slow. The low table count made the woman even more irritable. When Navin’s uncle closed the restaurant, the woman fetched Sita from the flat and gave her the mop again.
“Make this floor shine,” she said. She pointed at a plate of rice and chutney on the counter. “You may eat when you are finished.”
A Walk Across the Sun Page 15