by Penny Jaye
‘Rehydration fluid. Drink it whenever you can,’ she said, as if she didn’t expect Meena to understand. ‘Once you can keep that down, we’ll order some rice from the cafeteria.’ She handed Meena a cup. Meena took a sip, the fluid tasted of foul mandarins. She handed it back.
‘And here are your things.’ The nurse reached for a bundle from the lower level of the trolley. Sarita’s scarf was folded neatly on top of the wrinkled kurta-suruwal and blanket.
‘My skirt?’
‘They probably burnt it. Don’t complain.’
Meena pulled the bundle closer, it no longer smelt of Sarita’s old perfume or the accumulated sweat of bodies. Dust, sickness and age had been washed from the blanket but not its memories. Nausea rose around the unwelcome orange liquid in her belly. The sparkled silver threads of Sarita’s scarf shone under the fluorescent lights. She didn’t understand what was happening. From what the doctor had said, Madam wasn’t funding her hospital treatment. Someone called Little Sister was. Who were they? What had Sarita done? The only thing Meena fully understood was that Madam wouldn’t let go of what she was owed. Either Meena would be returned to the brothel to work off her debt in whatever way Madam felt was fair, or someone else would have to pay. Someone always had to pay.
Nine
For three days the nurse forced the foul orange liquid and bright blue tablets down Meena’s throat. The fevers came less frequently, and the nausea almost completely subsided. Eventually the nurse came in and removed the tube and bag of water, and placed a sticky plaster over the prick mark on Meena’s hand. The next day a young boy, who said he was from the cafeteria, arrived with a small tin bowl of rice and watery lentil dal. He put it on the cupboard beside Meena.
‘Who’s that for?’ Meena asked, making herself sit up.
‘Nurse said first bed to the left. That’s you, isn’t it?’
Meena eyed the meal in disappointment, a familiar pang of hunger stirring in her stomach. ‘I haven’t got any money.’
The boy shrugged. ‘Already paid for.’
‘By who?’ Meena glanced towards the door.
‘I don’t know. I just deliver it. Wouldn’t complain if I was you. None of them get anything.’ The boy motioned with his head at the other women in the room, two of whom were watching the bowl of food with interest.
Meena lifted the bowl onto her lap. The boy turned and left, his flip-flops scuffing the floor softly. The scent of the food spread into the room—cheap, warm but food. Meena ate with her fingers. Two mouthfuls, three, then she put the bowl back on her bedside cupboard and laid down again.
***
The woman in the bed beside Meena died the next day. Her body was rolled away on a thin trolley covered in a sheet. Then a cleaner came and wiped down the brown plastic of her mattress with something containing bleach and a nurse wheeled in another patient. Another woman with sunken cheeks and a bag of water attached to her arm. The new patient grunted as she was lifted up onto the bed but Meena didn’t see her face. It was bandaged severely.
Several hours later a young Indian woman in jeans and a deep orange kurta-suruwal shirt was led into the room. The woman’s eyes seemed to scan the room with familiarity before approaching Meena’s bedside. The nurse who had led her in stood at the end of Meena’s bed.
‘There are chairs in the hall,’ the nurse said.
The woman in the orange kurta-suruwal just studied Meena.
‘She says she’s fifteen,’ the nurse read details from the metal clipboard. ‘Admitted last week, hasn’t agreed to a blood test yet. Do you need a chair?’
‘No.’ The new woman pushed Meena’s blanket away to make space to sit on the bed, then she placed the palms of her hands together and smiled showing wide white teeth Devi would have been jealous of.
‘Namaste,’ she said kindly. ‘My name is Sharmila. I work at the Little Sister Rescue Home. We’ve been paying for your food and medication since the hospital contacted us. Apparently you had our details from the Kamathipura Drop-In Centre? But they have no record of a girl called Meena on their visit list. Did a friend give you their card? Or are you using another name now?’
Meena didn’t speak. This drop-in centre—was that where Sarita had gone when she wasn’t at the hotel or soliciting clients from the street? Is that where she had learned about clean needles and AIDS? Is that why she had begun to change, becoming increasingly agitated with Madam?
Sharmila continued to talk, ignoring the fact Meena hadn’t answered. She explained how Little Sister Rescue Foundation had several drop-in centres in red-light districts, a child care facility in one, and almost three homes for girls who had been rescued from brothels. Meena didn’t really listen. She just studied Sharmila silently. She was just the type of girl Madam liked to keep on the lower floors; pretty features but not too exquisite. Affordable but still reliable as a steady income for the hotel.
‘You are from Nepal, no?’ Sharmila asked.
Meena didn’t answer.
‘We have a few girls from Nepal at Little Sister,’ Sharmila continued. ‘Some from Bangladesh and even one from Myanmar. Our aim is to rescue as many girls as possible, and to provide care for those who escape the brothels. After a period of rehabilitation and re-skilling, we support reintegration of survivors to their home communities.’
Meena didn’t understand. She knew Hindi fluently now, but these words were unfamiliar.
Sharmila kept talking. ‘The nurse on the desk said you don’t answer their questions. You must feel very worried. Are you afraid of being sent back to the brothel?’ Sharmila laid a hand on Meena’s leg. ‘You don’t have to be afraid. You can talk to me. I know how you feel. I can understand.’
Meena shifted her leg and looked away.
‘I do understand,’ Sharmila lowered her voice. ‘About five years ago. I came to Mumbai when I was fifteen. “Mumbai city, the land of dreams”, ehh?’ She quoted a pop song. ‘I was in the brothel for four years.’
Meena narrowed her gaze. Brothel? Hotel? Sharmila kept talking. Softly, gently. ‘I was almost fifteen. I stole my step mother’s money and ran away with a boy. He said he loved me, so we caught a train from Rajasthan to Mumbai. He said we’d find good jobs and get married, but he left me at his “Auntie’s house” which turned out to be a brothel.’
Meena pulled her legs further away from Sharmila and stared at the end of Sarita’s scarf poking from the bedside cupboard. She clenched her teeth together then asked without looking for the answer, ‘Do you know Sarita?’
‘Sarita? No. Was she your friend? Did she give you Little Sister’s business card?’
Meena didn’t answer. She pulled the scarf from the drawer and wrapped it around her hands.
‘You don’t need to be afraid,’ Sharmila said softly. ‘I’m here to help you. I’m not working for a madam.’
Meena eyed the woman at the end of her bed. Sharmila wore tight jeans, but her shoulders were covered. So was her middle. She wore makeup, but it wasn’t working makeup. Not like Sarita had taught her to apply several times a night.
‘I ended up in a brothel, just like you,’ Sharmila spoke so quietly. ‘I was sold, by the boy who said he loved me. But Little Sister rescued me. They’ve helped me so much. And now I help other girls. Like you. Tell me your story. Where are you from? How old were you when you left home? And who is waiting for you to come home?’
Meena stared at the orange top. It was embroidered around the neckline with tiny mirror inserts ...
‘I was twelve ...’ Meena whispered, but only partly to Sharmila. The gap between memory and reality was closing and it ached. ‘There’s no one waiting for me.’
Sharmila smiled like she was trying to be kind. ‘I’m sure there is. A friend, maybe?’
Meena shook her head. She felt her throat constrict but framed the sounds anyway. ‘I don’t know where she is.’
‘Who?’
‘Pu ... Put ...’ Meena couldn’t say it. She waited for the slap, the cursing, the scowl. The past mingled with the present—aching, spitting, fighting—and she was afraid. But Sharmila didn’t flinch. There was no anger on her face, no anticipation of punishment and in its place a silent searing pain began to build in Meena’s chest. The type of pain medicine could only look at. The pain Meena had locked away deep, so deep she thought she had forgotten it.
‘Tell me ...’ Sharmila said.
But Meena rolled to the wall and waited, without speaking, until she felt Sharmila rise from the bed and leave.
They ride quickly up Old Bazaar Road to Uncle’s house, Meena behind Rajit again, Putali behind Santosh. Zipping in and out of local taxis, motorbikes and the occasional bhaisi, buffalo, without stopping to look at any other fancy shops. Uncle’s house is tall and skinny, the concrete painted apricot orange.
‘We’ll stay here tonight,’ Santosh explains as he holds the front door open and then locks it securely behind. He introduces Meena to his mother, a woman she has only heard about but never met. She sits thin and pock-faced in a dark room with Rajit’s baa. The air is thick with cigarette smoke.
Meena presses her palms together at her chest and greets her aunt formally. Putali does the same, but the woman barely nods in return. She eyes the girls suspiciously from her narrow face then sends them to the bathroom to wash. ‘Use lots of water!’ she calls after them as they hurry in the direction she’s instructed.
Meena and Putali push the bathroom door open and gaze in awe. Putali’s father had built a tiny hut of old rice and grain bags to cover their family’s pit toilet. The roof leaks but at least it’s private and tidy. Meena’s baa has never been bothered to dig a proper hole after the old one was covered by a mini mudslide four monsoons ago. So, she and her father just use the ground a little way away from the house. For clean water, both Meena and Putali’s family access a common tap morning and afternoon, and all laundry or body washing is done by the river.
But Rajit’s father’s house is pretty fancy; there are taps inside! Meena saw two in the kitchen on their way in, and now there are several in the bathroom—the same room as the toilet! The toilet itself is shiny blue crockery, like the stuff posh tea cups are made of. There is a small blue sink with a tap hanging over the top of it and another tap sticking out of the wall that must be used for washing. Meena fiddles with the main taps. ‘Do you think there will be hot water? Like on the soap ads on TV?’
Putali shrugs her shoulders.
Meena tries the taps in the other direction. Putali lets out a brilliant shriek. Cold water streams like messy rain from a shower spout above their heads. Poor Putali is saturated. Meena laughs as her friend hurries out of the rushing water, anxiously wringing her sopping shirt. Her face in panic.
‘Don’t worry. We get new clothes tomorrow!’ Meena chuckles.
Uncle’s wife opens the bathroom door and growls at them. She tosses two sachets of shampoo under the shower’s stream. ‘Don’t play,’ she scowls. ‘Just get clean.’ Then she shuts the door again.
‘Don’t play, get clean,’ Meena mimicks between giggles. Putali ducks a hesitating hand under the stream of water to retrieve the shampoos. A soft smile creeps onto her face like sunshine on wet rice fields. ‘It is warm!’
Ten
Sharmila and the nurse were both frowning. The nurse waited impatiently beside a small hospital trolley and Sharmila sat on the end of Meena’s bed.
‘Suno, listen, Meena.’ Sharmila leaned forwards trying to replace the frown with a look that resembled kindness. ‘A blood test doesn’t hurt much, just a little sting. The blood is collected in tubes and taken to the lab. It won’t take long, and you’ll get your results—’
‘I don’t want it,’ Meena repeated. ‘I’m feeling better. I don’t ... need it.’ Her voice wavered, it sounded too weak to agree with her.
The nurse sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘They’re all the same. Ignorant. Uneducated—’
Sharmila’s frown deepened and shifted direction briefly to the nurse. The nurse shrugged and pulled on a pair of new gloves. ‘There’s only so much we can do for patients who refuse to be tested. We don’t know what conditions they have without a thorough investigation.’
‘I know.’ Sharmila interrupted firmly. She turned back to Meena. ‘The doctor is already treating your dehydration, typhoid and dysentery. You’re obviously improving and gaining strength. And you have been eating the meals we’ve organised?’
Meena tilted her head slightly in agreement, not taking her eyes off the nurse and her needles and tubes.
‘Good. But it’s time now to check for other diseases, so you can get back to full strength—’
‘For what?’ The question was out before Meena had intended it.
Sharmila looked confused. ‘So you can be healthy again, of course, and get on with the rest of your life.’
Meena felt her chest constrict at the statement. The rest of her life? What did that mean? The nurse took her silence as agreement and stepped forward, a small damp wipe between her fingers.
‘Nain,’ Meena said, pulling her arm out of reach. ‘I don’t want it. The doctor said I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to, he said I have a choice.’ Meena heard herself repeating the ridiculous claim. No one would ever say such a thing to her. They would hold her down. They would force her and draw the blood from her arm. Then they would test it and when they found disease, they’d throw her out and let her die on the street, or worse ... Is that what had happened to …? Meena couldn’t finish the thought. She jolted backwards. The bars at the end of the bed pressed into her back. Her head shook like Devi’s under Vishnu’s beating. The other women in their beds turned to watch. The woman down the end with dyed red hair was laughing. Meena could hear her words. Whore. Bitch. Slave. Filth. The nurse grabbed at Meena’s arm.
‘Stop,’ Sharmila said suddenly, reaching out to hold the nurse at bay. ‘There’s no rush. If she’s not ready, she can wait.’
The nurse scowled. ‘And the longer she’ll stay sick, wasting a bed with her waiting.’
Sharmila’s face surged with colour. She stood so suddenly the bed shook and a brief look of shock swept across the nurse’s face. ‘Wasting a bed?’ Sharmila’s voice rose. ‘Really? Is that because she’s poor? Or because she comes from the brothel?’
The nurse didn’t answer.
‘I thought hospitals were supposed to care for the sick. Any sick! Well you write on her file that Little Sister Rescue Foundation will follow up the blood tests. You don’t have to wait any longer for your silly bed. All you have to do is get her healthy enough to leave. Whenever that is, call me, and we’ll come and pick her up.’ Sharmila swung her handbag over her shoulder and waited, hands on hips, until the nurse returned her gloves to the trolley and wheeled it away. The room was silent, but for the soft sound of the woman in the next bed trying to breathe. Even the woman up the end had stopped laughing. Sharmila stepped closer to Meena. She spoke softly now, gently.
‘If she brings you medicine, accept it, but don’t let them take your blood. We’ll worry about testing later. You don’t belong in a brothel,’ Sharmila went on. ‘But you don’t belong in hospital, either. At Little Sister, we’ll help you, and when you’re ready you’ll be able to go home. You’re free now.’
Meena kept silent. The bars from the bed pressed into her back, accusing her of the past. Sharmila patted her knee. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be home soon.’
Meena looked away. It was as if the stronger she got, the weaker her hold on the lid of the past. She could almost smell it: the wind from a bus, the hot air of the Terai, the sickly scent of a frowning man’s aftershave. Where was home? And who would be there ready to blame ...?
***
It took a few more days before Meena could manage to walk, one foot after the other, on the elbow o
f a nurse’s aide to the toilet. She entered the stagnant room and squatted over the white porcelain hole. Then the aide came to scoop Meena up again.
The medicine Sharmila had spoken about was delivered as expected. The blue pills had to be taken twice a day for another week, the orange pills three times a day for two weeks, and the thick white cream applied regularly to her vagina. Meena ate what was delivered by the cafeteria boy and managed to keep it down. But she didn’t get her blood tested.
Eventually the day came when the doctor asked no more questions and gave no further instructions to the nurse.
‘She’s ready for discharge,’ he said without looking up. ‘Get the bed ready for someone else.’
Meena pulled herself into a sitting position and stared at the other women in the room after the doctor had left. The bed next to Meena held the bandaged-head woman. On the bed next to that lay a woman who’d been beaten by her husband’s other wife. Beside her lay a middle-aged sex worker with a pelvic infection like Meena. On the other side of the room were a skinny, long-legged girl with a fever, a woman who continued to bleed after a still birth and a girl with a complicated broken leg. They were all like her: poor, used, alone, and yet Meena now realised they were different too. Of all the girls in the room, she was the only one who’d received daily meals, the only one whose condition had improved since the day she’d arrived. The others were growing weaker, talking softer, moving slower. They were waiting to die. A sick taste rose in Meena’s throat. She lay down and rolled over, so she couldn’t see the others anymore.
Sometime that afternoon the noise of heels woke Meena from a dreamless sleep. Sharmila was standing triumphantly at the end of the bed. She wore a bright pink shirt that laced up at the neck and long black trousers. A dozen pink bangles glimmered on her wrist. ‘Are you ready to go?’