Out of the Cages

by Penny Jaye

  ‘Where?’ Meena watched Sharmila carefully.

  ‘To catch a taxi. You’re ready to go home!’

  Home? Meena studied Sharmila’s face. If it had been Sarita, Meena would have been able to tell if the words were lies. Even Devi, or Vishnu, or Madam showed their lies on their faces. But Sharmila was a stranger.

  ‘Come on, get up.’ Sharmila laughed at her.

  Meena fumbled under the blanket until she found Sarita’s purple scarf and wrapped it round her shoulders.

  ‘You won’t need those old things anymore.’ Sharmila dropped a plastic bag onto Meena’s lap. ‘Here, have a look.’

  Meena glanced through the bag’s opening. A T-shirt and trousers lay folded together. She shook her head. ‘I don’t want new clothes.’

  Sharmila’s thin eyebrows crossed slightly. ‘I thought you might like to get out of your old stuff and leave in something fresh.’

  ‘Nain.’ Meena pushed the bag away. ‘I don’t want the clothes.’

  Sharmila hesitated for a moment, then tilted her head in agreement. ‘Okay. No new clothes. You’ll have to wear your old stuff then. Get in.’ She pointed to an empty wheelchair. Slowly, Meena lifted the blanket and slid her legs over the side of the bed. Her old kurta-suruwal barely disguised the thinness of them. She felt weak, like a too thin twig holding up a leaf.

  ‘Do you need help?’ Sharmila leaned forward, her pink bangles jingling.

  Meena shook her head. She eyed the navy-blue vinyl of the wheelchair seat, then dropped her feet to the cold hospital floor and twisted to sit in it. Sharmila pulled the blanket off the bed and gathered it into a bundle, handing it to Meena before collecting the bag of medicines from the bedside cupboard.

  ‘What about this?’

  Meena looked up. Sharmila was holding the old sari blouse—the sparkled, sequined one from Madam’s hotel.

  ‘This yours?’

  Meena nodded. Hers. She had bought it with a collection of tip money. Money she could have paid to Madam to lower her debt. But girls out of the little rooms had to provide their own clothes.

  Sharmila dropped the blouse to land on the blanket in Meena’s lap. Meena pushed it away. The sparkles dropped to the floor.

  ‘Don’t you want it?’ Sharmila asked.

  ‘Nain.’ Meena looked away.

  ‘It’s quite pretty—’

  Meena pulled the blanket closer. She kept her eyes from Sharmila’s. If she was expected to go back to work, then she’d need the blouse. But if she wasn’t ...

  ‘Thika, okay,’ Sharmila said as she positioned herself behind the wheelchair. ‘You ready?’

  Meena fingered the scarf on her shoulders watching the faces of the other women in the room. What had Sarita done when she had made the bargain with the police? If it hadn’t been for the card in Sarita’s scarf, would she still be lying here with these women? Was there really no Madam waiting to collect her? Waiting to collect her debt?

  The wheelchair began to roll towards the door, leaving the sparkled sari blouse on the floor. Sharmila chatted as she pushed, describing trees and lawn and flowers of the Little Sister Rescue Home. Down the hall they went, Sharmila stopping only briefly at the nurses’ station, before continuing down a ramp, and then another. Finally, Meena saw the doors of the hospital—the ones she had seen that first day from the outside. Sharmila pushed Meena between struggling patients and a cross-looking woman, to a queue of waiting taxis. Meena stared upwards; she couldn’t help herself. The open sky was a grey blanket above the buildings.

  ‘Out you get.’ Sharmila jiggled the wheelchair outside a waiting taxi. The door was open, the seats inside were red and shiny. Meena hesitated. Shiny seats. Bus seats. Jeep seats. Rickshaw seats. She glanced back at Sharmila.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Sharmila smiled. ‘I’m coming with you. You won’t be alone. Not anymore.’

  And Meena ducked her head, despite herself, and slid into the taxi.

  ‘Putali, ehh, Putali!’ Meena nudges the sleeping green shoulder. Her little friend wakes, snaps her mouth shut and wipes the wetness around it, embarrassed.

  ‘Look,’ Meena points to a frantic butterfly butting against the inside of the bus window.

  ‘What’s it doing here?’ Putali asks.

  Meena shrugs. ‘I’ll let it out.’ She shoves hard against the stubborn glass and forces the grudging window open. A gust from outside the bus tumbles against the butterfly’s wings. They watch it fight forwards and then fall outside, quickly disappearing behind the bus. Meena pulls Putali closer so they can lean together and take in the view. They both smell of shampoo and new clothes now. Their wrists jingle with glass bangles. Putali has even managed to get Santosh to buy her some earrings by smiling shyly at him. The small dangles of green glass beads hit the sides of her neck. She looks much older than eleven now, especially with the dark make up they have both drawn around their eyes. They look like fashionable young women!

  Meena points out the bus window to the tumbling river far below the cliffs. ‘See how it winds like an angry snake?’

  ‘Oohhh, I hope we don’t crash.’ Putali grips Meena’s shoulder. Meena laughs. The water shines bright turquoise, like the kurta-suruwal fabric Putali had almost bought. It pounds the boulders that bars its way down the mountains, leaving little sand banks on opposite bends. Himal water, rushing down, down, down to freedom. Just like them.

  The bus is noisy and full. It is so full that Meena’s uncle had only been able to buy three tickets. The boys were so brave, hiding their disappointment. But now it is Putali and Meena, side by side, two rows from the back of the bus. Rajit’s baa sits across the aisle beside an old man wearing traditional Newari dress: skinny trousers, long shirt, vest and topi. Meena’s uncle sits with his face forward and mouth tightly shut. He probably doesn’t like the music. It is loud and western in style, the Nepali language scattered with English words like, ‘cum an pardi’ or ‘aye luv yu’. Meena has no idea what the English words mean but the music is fun. Right now, everything is fun, and so far away from chipping rocks or cutting grass.

  The woman sitting in front of Putali is rich. She has hill-tribe-style gold hanging from her ears and chats constantly to the young man carrying a chicken who is sitting beside her. Constantly, that is, until she suddenly leans across him and shoves the window open to vomit outside.

  ‘Chhya! Disgusting!’ Meena swears as the huge splats of vomit fling through her newly opened window and land across the top of her pink kurta-suruwal. She tugs the window pane back in place before the rest of the vomit slides across the glass. The woman has obviously drunk a Mango Frooti with her meal at the last stop and it now blurs the view of the river to a lumpy, sickly sight.

  ‘Uggh,’ Meena grimaces, taking in the disgusting mess across her chest—across the only beautiful, new thing she has ever worn.

  Putali reaches into her plastic bag of belongings and pulls out her old shirt. ‘Here. Use this to wipe it,’ she offers.

  Meena takes the shirt. ‘Next time throw up in a plastic bag!’ Meena shouts as she tries to wipe the vomit from her.

  She looks across at her uncle, appealing to his kindness and help, but he scowls at them. Before they boarded the bus, he’d warned them to be quiet. ‘Don’t talk to anyone about why we’re going to India. There isn’t enough work in Nepal these days. If everyone finds out where we’re going and why, they’ll hurry ahead and take your jobs!’

  Meena glances around the bus. Several passengers are watching her now, her and Putali. Their faces are blank, staring, but the girls have been noticed. Meena ducks her head to hide her shame. She doesn’t smell like shampoo anymore, and Rajit’s baa seems annoyed.

  ‘How much longer, do you think?’ Putali asks softly as she puts an arm around Meena. ‘It’s not your fault she vomited on you.’

  Meena shrugs. There are hills all around them. The bus is spee
ding down a road that hugs the rock on one side and teases a cliff to the river on the other. All she knows is that their destination is somewhere flat. Close to India. She holds up Putali’s old shirt, now stained with vomit. ‘What will we do with this?’

  Putali pinches two fingers on a clean edge and drops it to the floor of the bus. ‘I won’t need old rags like that now, will I?’ she grins shyly and leans back to rest her dark head on Meena’s shoulder.

  Eleven

  Meena snapped her eyes open as the taxi horn belched once more. The sprawl of Mumbai flickered past her window. Traffic swarmed: trucks, taxis, double-storey buses. Buildings changed personalities like the sets on movies, some looking so old and foreign, Meena felt like she was watching a film. Sharmila smiled as Meena straightened up, her fingers pausing as she typed something onto the screen of her mobile phone. Meena didn’t smile in return. She just turned back to the window to watch the city. At one point, Meena was sure she saw an endless break of sky and an enormous expanse of water. The ocean. She’d seen it only once before, with Putali. Meena felt a sob rise but forced it back, forcing her focus, like Sarita had taught her, on what was real: the buildings, people, buses and cars. Eventually the tight-packed city breathed a bit more space. Shorter apartment blocks became more common, scattered among large private houses with high walls and big iron gates. Finally, after driving through several choked intersections, the taxi heaved to a stop at the top of a narrow road.

  ‘Keep going’—Sharmila leaned forward—‘Little Sister Rescue Home is just down the road.’

  ‘You can get out here.’ The taxi driver dropped his hands from the steering wheel.

  ‘But she’s sick. We came from the hospital, remember? She can’t walk that far. You keep driving, I’ll keep paying.’

  ‘Taxi’ll get stuck.’

  ‘No it won’t. Many taxis come here, and trucks too. It’s just down the road, behind the old house. Keep driving.’

  The taxi driver didn’t speak. He tipped some tobacco out of a small sachet and popped it in his mouth. Meena could see his jaw in the rearview mirror. It ground lazily.

  ‘Ugh!’ Sharmila snapped the taxi door open and gathered Meena’s blanket and bag of medicine with her. ‘Here!’ She dropped the taxi fare ungraciously in the driver’s waiting hand then marched around to Meena’s side.

  ‘Out you get then. I’ll have to get the girls to come help you.’

  Meena swung her legs out of the taxi and onto the gravel track. She wobbled to stand up. Sharmila propped her arm under her shoulders and helped her over to the side of the road, where a large block of concrete—presumably left over from some long ago road works—waited. The taxi backed up and drove lazily away to find new passengers. Sharmila swore under her breath.

  ‘You wait here.’ She deposited Meena on the concrete block along with her blanket. ‘I’ll go and get someone to help you to the home.’

  Sharmila marched down the road she had tried to make the taxi go. One of her heels twisted in the gravel and she let out another curse. Meena tugged gently on Sarita’s scarf. Sharmila was acting more like a hotel girl now. Maybe her story had been true?

  But Meena didn’t have time to consider it any further. A small cluster of girls soon strolled from the gates Sharmila had disappeared into. These girls wore plain kurta-suruwals and flip-flops. There were four of them. The tallest appeared about twenty, but the rest were maybe only slightly older than Meena. One girl had her hair cut short, so it hung cropped under her ears. She walked with a limp.

  ‘Namaste,’ the oldest one said as they approached. ‘Welcome to Little Sister.’

  Meena didn’t reply.

  ‘I’m Manju.’ The girl continued as if Meena had introduced herself. ‘This is Asha, Kani, and Nahita.’ On the last name, she pointed to the girl with the short hair. The girls gathered comfortably around her. There was no urgency or secrecy in their manner. Asha and Kani latched their arms together to make a carry seat.

  ‘Sharmila said you’re not so strong,’ Manju commented. She lifted Meena up and placed her on Asha and Kani’s waiting arms.

  ‘My blanket—’

  ‘I’ve got it,’ the short-haired Nahita spoke up. She fixed a grin to her face and picked up Meena’s blanket as if she had other things she’d prefer to be doing.

  The girls carried Meena down the road, through the black gate and past a small guards’ hut. Manju closed and locked the gate behind them. Meena heard the latch click and tightened her grip on the shoulders of the girls carrying her.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ one of them laughed. ‘We lock the gate to keep people out, not in.’

  Meena couldn’t speak. She gripped their shoulders and let her eyes take in the new surroundings. Nothing felt like a hotel. The property was a large rectangle, fenced with high yellow rendered walls. There were two large, flat-roofed yellow concrete buildings and a smaller brick residence to the left. Between the buildings was a strip of grass big enough to park two mini-buses, several tall, though scraggly trees and a water tap. There was a sound, too. Chickens?

  But the girls didn’t stop long enough for Meena to be sure. They carried her up the steps of the first yellow building and into a small office to the left. ‘Sharmila will be back soon,’ one of them said, before they left her sitting in a chair in front of the wide desk.

  Meena stared out the window. The curtains, though dusty, were tied back to let in sunlight and air. Meena could see the girls who had carried her. They were walking, laughing now, towards the second large building at the back of the property. One by one, the girls disappeared through a doorway leaving the garden empty. Even the girl, Nahita, limped up the stairs with Meena’s blanket, taking it away. Meena’s chest constricted. But the air here was moved by breeze, not bodies. The trees outside were real, with real leaves, and there was a clothesline on which clean, dry clothes flapped in the sun: kurta-suruwals, underwear, trousers. A fancy kurta top hung on the line beside a long deep-orange shirt Meena recognised. It was the shirt Sharmila had worn on the day she had first come to see Meena in hospital. Sharmila must live here.

  ‘Taxi drivers make me so angry.’ Sharmila entered the room just as Meena turned away from the window. Her heels were back on her feet and her face held some form of composure. ‘I heard there’s a Mumbai taxi service driven by women for women nowadays. They have magazines to read in busy traffic, and mirrors for reapplying makeup. How I wish I had the money to afford that!’ Sharmila said. Behind her an older woman entered the office. This one was short and dark-skinned like a southern Indian. She wore a simple sari that contrasted with the weighty gold bangle around her wrist.

  ‘So this is Meena, another Nepali girl come to stay with us for a while?’ The older woman seated herself in the large office chair and wheeled herself forward awkwardly, until she could lean her elbows on the desk. She opened a cardboard file and took a shiny pen from a wooden pencil holder. Meena had never seen hotel managers use a pen like that. The woman wrote something at the top of a page, then leaned forward to study her. Meena stared back. The woman had skinny lips that were barely coloured. It looked as if she had applied one layer of lipstick at the beginning of the day before her morning meal and not touched up since. Her eyes were small but her nose, which stood proud without a nose ring, was long.

  ‘Welcome to Little Sister Rescue Home. The girls here call me Maa. You can do so also. My role here is to facilitate your recovery. We have a daily schedule of activities that you will be expected to participate in once you are able, but for now we will be working to bring you back to full health. Sharmila has been bringing regular updates from the hospital, so I am aware of the treatment you have received so far. But how are you feeling, really? It must feel very different to be away from the brothel, no?’

  The woman didn’t really give Meena enough time to form an answer. She just smiled kindly and then proceeded to read from her paperwork. ‘Shar
mila also mentioned that you are feeling apprehensive about your blood tests? We hope once you are settled with us, you will feel confident enough for it. Blood tests can give us a clearer understanding of what your body is dealing with. It helps us help you. HIV is only one of the things we test for at Little Sister.’

  ‘Do you have HIV?’ Meena heard the question escape before she was ready.

  A peculiar expression skittered across Maa’s face for a moment. Then the older woman smiled. ‘No, I do not have HIV. But I did not work in a brothel. HIV is a virus that is commonly spread through unprotected sexual contact. Some of our girls here are HIV positive, but we treat everyone the same. We cook together, and wash our clothes together. There is no discrimination.’

  Meena heard the words, but her mind was thick. She couldn’t understand. Sarita had told her about AIDS; she’d said that condoms trapped the disease and kept you healthy, but she had said nothing about HIV. Were they the same thing? But Maa had moved on. ‘I just need some more basic details for my file today, then Sharmila will settle you into the dorm with the other girls. Now, where are you from, bahana, little sister? Sharmila said you come from Nepal—is this true? Were you born in Nepal?’

  ‘Western district, Nepal.’ Meena stared out the window again. A girl was taking clothes from the line. A blouse. A skirt. A colourless handkerchief ...

  ‘Do you have family at home?’

  How old would Putali be now? Fourteen—almost a woman—except …

  Maa continued speaking. Meena tried to concentrate, but it was becoming harder to keep her mind clear. It hadn’t been like this in the hotel. She’d been able to steady herself, like Sarita had taught. She’d been able to forget. There’d been nothing else to do. Nothing else ... Her fingers clawed the arms of the chair. The room began to spin. She heard Maa’s chair roll back and Sharmila’s heels clatter forward. Away. Away. Meena pushed the images. Her head hit something hard and someone took her hand. But she couldn’t pull herself back. She had seen pink—perhaps it was just Sharmila’s top? But once, once it had been her own. Her new kurta-suruwal bold against the dust of the Terai. Bold and brave like a butterfly about to be hit by a train. And then blackness.