Out of the Cages

by Penny Jaye

  The movement of the bus ceases just before the golden Terai sun meets the flat horizon.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Putali breathes.

  Meena looks and smiles. They have made it to Bhairahawa. All the way down the mountains to the plains, just across the border from India. Together.

  Meena follows Putali and Rajit’s baa from the bus station to a nearby street. Her legs feel wobbly at finally being used again. She clutches their one bag of belongings, as if to steady herself. They only have one bag between them now, her clothes stuffed in with Putali’s. Putali hadn’t coped well with the final stretch of winding road and they had to use Meena’s bag as a sick bag, then tossed it somewhere in the gully before Butwal.

  ‘Chitto-chitto,’ Rajit’s baa calls. ‘Hurry up!’ He leads them through crowds of people, darker skinned and more pointed in features than back up the mountains. They hurry past snack vendors and tea shops, down a street of hotels until Uncle chooses a tall, thin one painted pale orange—almost like his house. Inside, a greasy-haired young man shows them upstairs.

  ‘Toilet’s in there.’ The man pushes a tin-panelled door open to show a grimy floor toilet that doesn’t smell as clean as the one in Rajit’s home. ‘There’s no lock, so use the brick.’

  Meena scrunches her nose up. It would be cleaner squatting in the empty block near her house, or over one of the drains near where the rock chippers work, than to use this filthy toilet. She doesn’t even bother considering the likelihood of hot water.

  ‘And this is your room.’ The man twists a key in the padlock of a room further down the hall and then hands it to Meena’s uncle. The girls follow him inside. The room is small, its one window offering a view of the paintwork on the building next door. Rajit’s baa allocates them one bed and dumps his bags on the other. Meena sits on the mattress and tries to bounce without success.

  ‘I’m going to buy tickets for tomorrow.’ Rajit’s baa says. ‘Stay here until I get back.’

  The girls wait until he’s locked the door behind him and his footsteps have disappeared down the hall. Then Meena removes the soiled pink shirt and replaces it with the swirly blue one. She lays back to stretch out on the bed. It smells musty and the pillow is hard, but at least the ground doesn’t move.

  ‘Have you ever been this far from Pokhara?’ Putali asks, climbing onto the bed, beside Meena.

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Me neither. It’s very flat here.’

  Meena nods, but she shuts her eyes in contentment. Hills mean walking up and walking down and walking back up again. 10 rupees a load is what she could get for carrying things up to the settlement from the city. 10 rupees. That is enough for one packet of two-minute noodles, or two cups of tea. She isn’t going to be walking up hills anymore—unless she wants to.

  Putali tucks her warm hand into Meena’s. ‘Where do you think we’ll go tomorrow? Will we get to the new job place?’ Putali murmurs.

  ‘Maybe,’ Meena answers. ‘I imagine we just have to get across the border. I don’t think it’ll take long, not like today. Uncle said India has lots of jobs for people like us. We should be able to send money home to your mother by next week if we work hard.’

  ‘What will we be doing?’ Putali asks.

  ‘I don’t know. Probably something easy, like working in a shop or a factory. There are lots of factories in India.’

  Putali lies quietly for a while.

  Meena rolls over and props her head on her hand to look at her little friend. ‘What are you thinking about?’

  ‘My mother. We won’t be away too long, working in our factory or shop, will we?’

  ‘No.’ Meena squeezes Putali’s hand. ‘Don’t worry, your mum will get better real quick once she gets the proper medicine.’

  She watches a small smile rise on Putali’s face.

  ‘I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this if you weren’t my friend,’ Putali says. ‘I’m not brave like you.’

  Meena smiles and lies back again. A single light bulb hangs from the middle of the room. Spider webs lace it to the roof and build a shade of dust. Later, after her uncle returns and they’ve had something to eat, someone will flick the filthy switch and the room will be blackness. Total darkness.

  Meena snuggles closer to Putali. At least she won’t be alone.

  Twelve

  The chattering of girls pulled Meena from sleep or dream or memory. She groaned and rolled over, her forehead pounding. Memories tripped over each other, threatening to tie her in knots. The blanket over her body was Sarita’s. But the roof wasn’t Madam’s hotel, or the hospital. The air here smelt like perfume, marigolds and curried okra. The wall nearest her was pale yellow. A spot of mould grew near the floor.

  The room held eight beds, most of which had a girl seated on them. All but one of the girls turned to look at Meena as she pushed herself up to sit. Some of them she recognised from yesterday, most she didn’t. A bell rang from somewhere else in the building and the girls started moving towards the door.

  ‘Bhojana? Are you hungry?’ one of them asked as she walked past Meena’s bed. It was the twenty-year-old girl who had lifted her from the rock. Meena managed a nod, unsure what was expected. The rest of the girls traipsed from the room, disappearing into an unseen kitchen. The short-haired girl hesitated by the foot of Meena’s bed. ‘I’m Nahita, I carried your blanket yesterday, remember? And that was Manju. The bell means it’s mealtime,’ she explained.

  Meena eyed the distance between the bed and the door.

  ‘I’ll bring you yours.’ Nahita sighed. ‘I feel like that some days too.’

  ***

  Meena waited in the empty room. She felt tired. Not sick—the cramps had gone—but so tired, and confused, like she should be asleep, resting before the evening arrived. But what was this place? Really? It was full of girls, but the windows were wide open and beams of sunlight sliced the floor into segments. Meena reached out her fingers until they entered the nearest stream of light. Bright, clean light. When was the last time she’d touched the sunlight? Sarita and her room hadn’t even had a window. Deepa and Devi’s was boarded up with painted plywood. Something inside her melted, like ghee beside a stove. Meena pulled her fingers back.

  There was no chattering coming from the unseen kitchen anymore, only the occasional sound of a spoon scraping against a cooking pot. Meena turned from the sunlight to see Nahita limp back with a plate of food. She laid the plate on the mattress beside Meena. Rice, thick lentils, spinach and potato curry. The girl placed two chillies beside the rice. Then she held out an empty bowl and a jug of water.

  ‘Wash your hands.’ Nahita spoke with a Bengali accent. Meena held her hands over the bowl as the girl poured the water and washed.

  ‘I’ll leave the water here for after. Enjoy Manju’s curry.’ Nahita slid the jug under the edge of the bed then returned to the kitchen.

  Meena ate, slowly, feeling the sting on her tongue and lips as she bit through the chillies. It was reasonable food; better than the hospital kind, not as greasy as the food at Madam’s hotel, but even so, Meena couldn’t eat it all. She piled what she couldn’t eat onto one side of her plate and licked her fingers. Then she leaned over the bed, pushed her plate out of the way and rinsed her hands.

  Eventually one of the girls returned from the morning meal. She stood close to the doorframe for a few moments, staring at Meena. Her face was wide and fair—Nepali. She moved her lips, but didn’t speak. Something that looked like fear entered her expression and she hurried past Meena’s bed to the one opposite, huddling on the mattress as far away from the other girls as possible.

  ‘That’s Purna.’ Nahita returned and answered Meena’s unspoken question. ‘She doesn’t talk much. And this is Leela, your neighbour.’

  She waved her hand in vague introduction to the calloused girl who’d returned with her and now lay across the
adjacent bed. This girl’s face was heavily made up, her eyes hard under the eyeliner and colour she wore. But her skin was pale and her features were almost Mongolian. She was obviously from up north, though probably not a true Nepali.

  ‘I guess I’m supposed to say a nice Namaskar?’ Leela muttered, after Nahita had taken Meena’s plate away. ‘Another poor girl trafficked from Nepal? Don’t expect any sympathy from me.’ She rolled onto her side, obviously ending anything that may have been a conversation.

  Meena pulled her knees to her chest. How old was Leela? Older than her, older than Manju even, but it was hard to tell with hotel girls. And she could easily imagine someone like Leela working years, maybe as long as Sarita, in a hotel. Meena turned her attention to the other girls. They each seemed to have a small cupboard up the end of the room, in which they kept their belongings. Several of the girls began getting dressed. Meena watched simple kurta-suruwals come out of the cupboards, or ordinary T-shirts. There were no sexy sparkled saris, no sleeveless blouses. Meena glanced back at Leela. She was lying on her stomach and had pulled a mirror out from under her pillow. She pouted her lips in the reflection, before winding up a stick of lipstick. It was full red—thick and glossy. She caught Meena watching and gave her a glare. ‘I’m not letting myself go just because no one’s paying me for sex anymore,’ she snapped, daring Meena to contradict her. From across the room, Purna whimpered and Asha, one of the girls who had carried Meena in from the road, let out a sigh. ‘You know, Leela, sometimes you should just shut up.’

  ‘Why?’ Leela asked. She had a look on her face like she was teasing a kitten. ‘You know I’m right. No one wants an ugly girl. Not in the brothel, not on the street and certainly not back home. Didn’t anyone tell you that?’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ Asha spat back. Her eyes darted in quick, hot anger, like this wasn’t the first argument the girls had had. Leela smirked, but shut her mouth and shoved the lid back on her lipstick, before winding it down properly. The tip of red squashed into the clear plastic lid. She pushed the mirror and the make up back under her pillow and stalked out of the room.

  Asha’s small face flushed. She pulled the ties of her trousers and knotted them. ‘It’s not true, what she says,’ Asha said, looking at Meena. ‘We’re valuable as we are, not because of how we look.’

  She paused, as if waiting for Meena to respond. But Meena had nothing to say. Madam had always insisted they look their best. She beat girls for not applying enough makeup. Men treated girls kinder if they looked better. Paid better. And the fair girls, the little girls ...

  Asha was staring at her. Purna began rocking. Meena wanted to block them all out.

  ‘Maa says we have rights. She says we’re beautiful because of who we are—’

  ‘Maa says?’ Nahita limped back into the room. ‘Are you lecturing the new girl before she’s had a chance to settle in?’

  ‘No.’ Asha looked even more flustered. ‘It’s just that Leela was spouting off all her stupid “you’ve got to be beautiful” garbage and I didn’t think the new girl had to put up with it. Leela thinks she is better than everyone. She thinks just because she was sold the youngest, she has the right to treat everyone else terribly, especially if they come from Nepal, but really she’s just ... just ...’ Asha searched unsuccessfully for words.

  ‘A bitch?’ Nahita put in with a grin. ‘Don’t listen to her, Asha. She couldn’t even be kind to her reflection. As for the new girl, she looks like she can take care of herself—even if she is from Nepal.’

  Nahita cast Meena something of a smile, then picked a bundle of washing from the last bed and placed it on the windowsill at the end of the room. She climbed up after it and sat there for a moment, before dropping both legs to the other side of the window. ‘I’ll see you at lectures, if I can bear hearing any more of it ...’

  Nahita dropped out of the window. Asha sighed. She didn’t look at Meena again, or speak to her. She gathered a green-covered booklet from her cupboard, and a pencil, and left the room. One by one, the rest of the girls left as well. Even Purna crept past Meena’s bed, her arms tight against her chest. Soon the room was empty. Small sounds came from other rooms in the buildings, and from traffic in a distant street. She could hear a dog barking. A crow calling. But no one came back into the room to talk to Meena, or take her to the ‘lectures’ Nahita had mentioned. The doors were all open, and no one was coming to lock her in.

  Carefully she shuffled to the edge of the bed and dropped her feet onto the floor. Then, listening for anyone coming, she reached over the gap to Leela’s bed. She groped under Leela’s pillow until her fingers hit the cool glass of the mirror. She let her breath out slowly and lifted the mirror to find her face in it. She was thin. Not as thin as she had been when Sarita had last shown her a mirror, but her skin was still pasty. Her lips were colourless, her hair dry and wiry. She looked old. She slipped the mirror back under the pillow. Her fingers hit something else—Leela’s lipstick. She darted a look over her shoulder and then pulled that out as well. Leela had made a mess of it. The dark glossy red Meena had once thought was so elegant was now crumpled and moist. She shoved the lid back on and replaced the lipstick under Leela’s pillow. Outside someone laughed. Meena stumbled backwards to her bed. It was becoming harder to hold back the pain. Groping for Sarita’s scarf, she lay down and curled herself into a ball.

  Thirteen

  It was a week since Meena had arrived at Little Sister—a week of restless sleep and wobbled journeys to the toilet. Now, Sharmila stood at the end of her bed with her painted nails resting neatly on the curve of her hips. Meena drew herself up to a sitting position.

  ‘There’s a seminar this morning you might like to attend,’ Sharmila said. ‘Shall I take you over to the meeting room?’

  ‘Seminar?’ Meena asked. ‘Like a lecture?’

  Sharmila sighed, an echo of frustration in her voice. ‘That’s what Nahita calls them.’ She sat on the edge of the bed, taking care not to touch Meena’s feet. ‘We call them rehabilitation seminars. Regardless of what Nahita thinks, they are a very important part of what we do here at Little Sister. We’re here to help girls grow into full health and some of that health includes teaching ideas and values. You know, things like that.’

  Meena didn’t know. Sharmila kept talking. ‘Some seminars focus on women’s issues and rights. Sometimes we do role plays. It is important to understand our place in the world. Just because we were forced to work in the brothels, doesn’t mean we are useless. And that’s why we have so many options for learning new skills too. Vocational classes are available for everyone—you can learn sewing, knitting, tailoring, beading, candle making. You can even learn to read too—’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Did I what?’

  ‘Did you learn to read?’

  Sharmila folded her hands almost smugly. ‘I knew how to read before I came to Mumbai. And Little Sister has just sponsored me to complete a business certificate. There are many options available for me now.’

  Meena didn’t say anything. If there were so many options, why was Sharmila still at Little Sister?

  ‘Come on. I’ll help you walk to the meeting room.’ Sharmila held out a hand with each fingernail painted a different colour. Meena left the offered hand empty and stood up by herself. She followed Sharmila across the garden and to the main building where Maa’s office was.

  ‘That’s the nurse’s office.’ Sharmila pointed to the locked door opposite Maa’s office. ‘Upstairs is Didi’s office and the accounts team. There is a toilet under the stairs.’ Meena took note of the small, closed door Sharmila pointed to.

  ‘And this is the meeting room,’ Sharmila announced with pride. The room they’d entered faced the street, though the view beyond the window’s decorative wrought iron bars showed only the stained brick wall surrounding the Little Sister property. The floor was carpeted wall to wall with two large woven rugs,
dedicated as seating space. Maa stood up the front, beside a desk and free-standing white board. She wore a floral yellow sari and smiled in approval at the sight of Meena and Sharmila. Most of the girls from Meena’s room sat on the rugs, waiting for something. Leela and Manju were leaning on the far wall. Asha sat with another group of girls Meena hadn’t met. They chatted and plaited each other’s hair comfortably, as if they had lived in the home forever. Purna and Nahita weren’t among them. Sharmila deposited Meena against the side wall, then strode to the front of the room to meet with Maa.

  Meena let the coolness from the wall soak into her back and focused on slowing her breathing from the walk across the yard. Maa and Sharmila whispered a bit more before Maa took a seat beside the desk. Sharmila flicked a switch on some sort of projector and a picture of a rickshaw landed on the wall.

  ‘Welcome to this morning’s seminar,’ Sharmila began. Her voice was loud and overly confident—similar to the tone she’d used with the staff at the hospital. The girls on the carpet stopped their chatting and plaiting hair. They each laid their hands calmly in their laps and fixed their eyes on Sharmila. Meena tried to do the same, but her mind seemed to jitter each time Sharmila changed the photo up on the wall: a woman carrying water, a woman carrying a baby with several toddlers gathered at her feet, a young girl washing dishes for a rich family. And then there was a logo. Pale blue. Something Sharmila called ‘the yu-enn’. Meena couldn’t understand.

  ‘Rights.’

  Meena turned to see Nahita sink down beside her. She was late. Maa frowned from her seat at the front, but Nahita didn’t flinch, she just leaned back against the wall and tucked her crooked leg away. ‘She is telling you about your rights,’ Nahita explained.