Out of the Cages

by Penny Jaye

  The only answer is a slap, red and raw across her left cheek. Then, ‘Stand up!’

  Meena tries to obey. Her legs are thick and clumsy. She’s never been drugged like this before. She forces her eyes to stay open. The woman in front of her wears a red cotton sari. She studies Meena like a newly acquired purchase.

  ‘Hmmm.’ The woman frowns. ‘They certainly gave you some bruises. Still, we can hide them with make up. How old are you?’ She tilts Meena’s face upwards. Roughly. Meena cranes to see behind the woman. The air feels different, it smells different. The ceilings are lower. Where is Putali?

  Another slap. ‘Age?’

  ‘I’m ...’ Meena wills herself to remember. ‘Twelve.’

  The woman crows in pleasure. ‘It’s not often Anchita sells her new little girls. You must have given them some trouble, ehh? But not anymore.’

  Meena understands the Hindi threat more than the words themselves. She hears footsteps.

  ‘Putali?’

  The footsteps halt and a tall, attractive Indian woman with black strappy heels and tight blue jeans appears.

  Meena falters. ‘I can’t stay here. I have to go back ...’

  The fat woman ignores her. She turns to the girl in blue jeans. ‘Give her a wash, then take her upstairs, to the empty room. She’s obviously not a virgin, but she’s fair and if you clean her up, we may get away with it for a couple of months before anyone notices.’

  The girl on heels nods.

  ‘But Putali ...’ Meena tries to explain. Her head pounds, the image of her little friend writhing on the bed fills her mind. ‘They’ve still got her. I need to go back. I need to get her. She’s bleeding. We don’t belong here—’

  ‘Well, actually, you do.’ The fat woman snaps. ‘I bought you.’

  ‘But I’m not for sale.’ Meena struggles to remain upright. ‘And Putali—’

  ‘I don’t know or care who she is.’ The woman shuts Meena down. ‘I paid for you. Good money. Lots of money. That sounds like a sale to me. But if you don’t want to stay ...’

  Meena sits up as straight as she can. ‘I don’t!’

  ‘Fine.’ The woman looks only marginally annoyed. She holds her hand out, palm up. ‘But I’ll be needing my money back. All forty-three thousand, five hundred rupees of it.’

  ‘But I don’t have any ...’ Meena trips over the sickening realisation.

  ‘No, I didn’t think so,’ the woman snaps. ‘Get her ready to work.’

  The floor rises to catch Meena as she falls. The girl with heels steps forward to catch her head.

  ‘My friend, Putali ...’ Meena tries again. But the girl pulls the door behind her closed and lowers her voice. ‘Listen to me, listen carefully.’

  Meena tries to focus.

  ‘You have no friends. There is no one called Putali. You will not mention her name again. You will forget all about her.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No!’ The girl slaps her. Her eyes narrow and in them, Meena reads an urgency she doesn’t want to believe. ‘If you want to survive, you will do what I say. If I say forget, you forget. If I say lie still, you lie still. You weren’t cheap, but you’re fair and beautiful—yes, even with all that Anchita’s men have done to you. You’ll be able to make enough money to keep Madam happy. And if she’s happy, you will survive. Do you understand? Madam is not kind.’

  ‘But Putali—’ The force of the girl’s fist slams Meena’s head against the wall. ‘You can remember when you are free,’ the girl retorts. ‘But not here.’

  Meena feels the tears before she hears them. Hot wetness running down and mingling with the bruises on her face. Defeat rises. And with it, anger. Meena screams. She lunges at the girl, but trips and lands crumpled against the floor. Something akin to compassion skitters briefly across the girl’s face. But she pulls it in check as quickly as it had come.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the girl asks.

  Meena sobs her name into the concrete.

  ‘Well, mine’s Sarita,’ the girl responds with a click of her tongue. ‘And I promise, if I can, to keep you alive.’

  Thirty-two

  Meena’s feet led her further into Kamathipura, her heart pounding so hard she felt short of breath. The air reeked of urine, frying fat and cheap perfume. Meena stumbled over a cracked piece of bitumen but no one gave her a second look, so she readjusted Sarita’s scarf and kept walking. She could see the suburb’s wealth now: expensive shoes on the occasional businessman, a private cafe with computer cubicles and a growing number of men gathered around tables in cafes playing cards and carrom.

  Sarita had once talked of a hierarchy of hotels. Now Meena saw it. Dark-skinned girls and women—some so old or ugly they would only get a few rupees for the most unpleasant acts—lay resting outside. Their children played beside them with smooth pebbles or bottle tops. Other girls, with fairer skin and tidier outfits, rested behind barred doorways, curled asleep on hard beds. The air stirred of dirty incense and unshowered bodies. But every now and then a different kind of hotel broke the line and no women lingered outside. The paint work on these was fresh and new. Tubes of unlit neon lights waited patiently to call clients in from the night. From these hotels’ upper floors airconditioners jutted out over the street, their balconies and windows barred to the world.

  Meena reached into her kurta bag and pulled out Putali’s stained photo. How fair had she been? Why could she remember Putali’s laughter, her hands working the wet washing, but not her face? She pushed the photo back into the bag and stared at the hotel in front of her, willing herself to remember: Mohan’s hands gripping hers, Putali’s worried comments. What was the hotel like, where they had been promised good jobs waitressing or in bustling kitchens?

  A memory flitted through her mind of a hotel, tall and white with multiple caged doorways along the road side but only one door without a grill. The upper floors had flapped with laundry, just like so many in this suburb. Meena felt despair rise. The scarf around her neck too tight, too warm in the near midday sun.

  Meena felt the panic climb, her mind fogging over, the details slipping from reach. She spun around, searching, comparing, willing the hotel Mohan had taken them to appear. But while some hotels had grilled doorways, their balconies were locked. Others had laundry flapping—but no cages. Meena stumbled forward. The smell of the street, the leery glances from men waiting at drinking rooms, the puffs of cheap cigarette smoke in her nose—it all made her retch. The donut in her stomach suddenly rejected.

  What had she thought she’d be able to do? The streets were a maze, the buildings leaned too close, the air stagnant. Down every alley more women lay on beds, more clean-painted hotels shut their doors to the world, more large-busted madams sized her up as she floundered confused by their doorways. Meena began to run, her fingers slipping on the kurta bag in her hands. She could hear the men laughing at her clumsy gait, feel the poking of the polished fingers pointing from the open balconies above.

  Why had she come?

  She retched against an electricity pillar. The donut chunks joining the rubbish collected at its base. She leaned her face against the chipped concrete and gasped for breath. What was she doing? What had she expected? Didi was right, it was foolish, so foolish. There was nowhere to hide from the staring faces, the faces that watched her run as if she were entertainment. People stood around her at all angles. Hotels, restaurants, drinking stalls, carom bars, and paan corners everywhere, all asking for her money or her body or...

  Meena choked. She pushed herself from the pillar and staggered into the street again. She had to get away, to get somewhere, anywhere.

  But a pop song rang out from one of the tea shops, calling of love and devotion and forever together. Someone was singing along to the lyrics, slapping their thighs in time with the dance beat. Meena felt her shoulders tense. She knew that voice. It was the man Sarita had
called ‘her babu’. But a babu was a girl’s favourite client, the man to whom she gave discounts or free sex because they promised presents and treats and true love. Meena had never wanted a babu. Instead she had given him the name Waman in conversations behind his back; Waman which meant short. The memories were so many and so thick she could almost smell him.

  Meena forced her legs forward, away from the music, away from the voice. But something about the scene before her made her stop. Her will to hide fought the instinct to study the buildings. She scanned the cheap signboards, English words, Hindi words— they shouted accusation at her. A rickshaw almost ran her into a drain.

  Why wouldn’t her legs move? What was it about this place? Meena turned, the sense of dread at facing Waman only defeated by the nagging familiarity. Yes, she did remember it. It was the tea shop Mohan had taken them to. Where he’d ordered cold samosas and Fanta. Meena groped her memory for more details but Waman spotted her. His thin frame emerged from the tea shop shadows.

  ‘Puja, Puja, Puja,’ the man sung her working name in his high nasal voice—the name Madam had allocated her once she’d given up the fight.

  ‘I’ve missed my little Puja.’ Waman leered over her. ‘They told me you had gone home, back to your little village and your little mountain hut.’

  Meena tried to ignore him.

  ‘Are you pleased to see your babu? You were always my favourite, my special girl.’

  Meena took a step backwards. She could smell the hair oil he used, the non-effective deodorant, the beetle-nut on his breath.

  Waman cocked his head to one side, properly taking in her appearance. ‘Why aren’t you wearing make up? I almost didn’t recognise you ’till I saw you walk. But then I thought, ‘ooooh yeah’, I know that back end. My favourite ass in the whole of Kamathipura it is, and I was right.’

  Meena felt sick but didn’t speak. She had never had conversation with Waman before. He never asked for it.

  ‘Come, I’ll buy you a drink.’ Waman pulled her by the elbow back into the tea shop. Memories assaulted Meena. Waman didn’t seem to notice, he just pushed her onto a bench with a laugh and went to order drinks. One tall bottle of beer and a cup. He poured the cup half full and slid it across the table to Meena. Then he sucked at the bottle as if he was parched, never taking his eyes off Meena. When he was finished, the bottle hit the table again with the noise like Devi’s head against the partition wall. ‘Drink!’

  Meena lifted the metal cup to her lips. The scarf around her neck felt too tight. The beer bitter on her tongue. She drank it all under his glare, then placed the empty cup on the table. Waman nodded, satisfied.

  ‘Where can we go? Where’s your bed if you’re not sharing the room with that sour bitch anymore?’ He leaned forward, referring to Sarita. The woman behind the counter chuckled. Waman grinned like it was a compliment.

  Meena let her eyes wander past him, out over his shoulder, the nagging connection of memories growing ever stronger. She dug into the kurta bag, feeling for Putali’s photo, but the photo had slid further down in the bag and the movement of her elbow made the table shake, knocking the bottle over. Waman swore and lunged to catch it. ‘What are you doing, you clumsy dog?! I only gave you one cup. I’ve seen you drink twice that much!’

  Meena ignored him, she felt the alcohol hit her bloodstream, but she steadied herself. She was close now. She felt it. She strode back out to the street. The sunlight stubborn. The hotels lazy before the evening rush.

  ‘Where are you going? I just bought you a drink!’ Waman complained.

  The hotel at the end of the road tugged her memories.

  ‘You work there? Good Hotel’s expensive. Let’s go somewhere else, somewhere ... intimate.’

  But Meena just stared at the hotel. She didn’t recognise the muscled Indian guard, or the fresh coat of yellow paint. But there were three grilled doorways against the street, each with a space for displaying a girl. And above them, a balcony, with richly decorated sari skirts tugging gently in the breeze. A man dressed in an expensive suit coat and gold watch slipped out from the only ungrilled door and nodded acknowledgment to the guard. He crossed the street and brushed past on his way, smelling foul of sweat and perfume. Meena drew a wavering breath.

  Waman gripped her shoulder. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘No,’ Meena whispered, only barely aware of Waman now. The memories colliding with hope, then curling in fear. What had been her plan? What did she think she was going to do? The guard wouldn’t just let her in ...

  Waman leaned closer, clamping his hand around her wrist. ‘Do you have a friend in Good Hotel?’

  Meena tried not to nod, but her fingers were shaking now. Waman noticed and grinned.

  ‘Is she locked up? Is she little, like you used to be?’

  Meena nodded, hating herself for it. Hating the alcohol. Hating him.

  ‘What does she look like? Is she fair? Like you?’

  Meena clamped her lips together. She felt her eyes fill with tears, the tears Sarita had warned her about. Tears that made her seem weak. And she was weak. The kurta bag slipped. Soap, shirts and sanitary pads fell to the road. And then Putali’s photo. Landing in the mud and paan for everyone to see. Waman’s lips twisted into a putrid smile. Meena lunged, but Waman was faster. He snatched the photo from the mud and held it out of reach. Little Putali stared down at them with dark, shy, unsmiling eyes.

  ‘Is this her?’ He sounded hungry.

  Meena wiped furiously at the wetness on her face. What had she done? Waman laughed—a cruel, sick laugh. Slowly and with deliberate care that she was watching, he slipped Putali’s photo into his top shirt pocket.

  ‘Mine now,’ he snickered.

  ‘No!’

  ‘No? Then show me where we can go.’

  She didn’t understand.

  ‘I bought you a drink. You owe me. And now’—he patted his pocket—‘give me what I want and you can have it back.’

  He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. A dull automation fought in Meena’s chest. She saw the lines of alcohol in the whites of his eyes. She saw the row of prickles the barber had missed when shaving. She saw the stinging red of the gums above his chipped tooth. She knew what he was like. She knew about the tiny sores he wore under his trousers. But he had her photo. The only link she had to the past. To Putali ...

  ‘Where can we go?’ Waman asked.

  And Meena felt her soul cower in silent shame.

  Thirty-three

  Sarita had told her once about a place with small rooms in the bazaar. Space she used for private customers who gave generous tips away from Madam. She used to laugh about its location between a shrine and a beauty parlour.

  ‘Take me to the shrine opposite the beauty parlour,’ Meena instructed, her voice sounding distant, like it belonged to someone else.

  Waman didn’t seem to notice. He just led the way without further instruction. Up a laneway, past a water tap and around a bend.

  ‘Here it is.’ Waman pointed.

  The shrine was just as Sarita had described; squat and dark, pasted with orange powder paste of multiple rituals and worship, a stone image of the god honoured to protect from disease and keep children safe or unborn. Meena couldn’t look at it.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Waman’s eagerness made her stomach cringe. ‘Where’s the room?’

  Defeat clambered up Meena’s spine. Putali’s photo now poked from the top of Waman’s shirt pocket. Meena swallowed the lump of yuck that rose in her throat and turned to the dark hotel with its street counter slouching low between the shrine and the parlour. The woman behind the counter motioned Meena closer.

  ‘We have space, small, but enough for what you need.’ The woman spoke to Meena, ignoring Waman.

  Meena didn’t move. The doorway behind the woman was crowded with dark women and men in stained lungis, some movi
ng in, others moving out. Waman pushed her forward but the woman at the counter thrust out an arm to block their entrance.

  ‘Space isn’t free,’ she barked.

  Meena glanced at Waman. He just grinned, ‘I’ll pay if you want, but that means I get to keep the photo of your little friend, which will make it easier for me to locate her when I save up enough to visit the Good—’

  ‘No!’ Meena pulled Maa’s money from inside her shirt. Maa’s money. She fingered the dusty notes just for a second before Waman snatched them away. He bargained with the woman at the counter, then pushed three notes into her hand, the rest into his pocket. The woman waved her arm, bangled with cheap and dented jewellery, down the hall to the curtained spaces behind. Already, before it was even midday, Meena could hear the groans, grunting and sharp intakes of breath indicating several spaces were in use.

  Waman strode down the hall until he found an empty cubical. Meena knew what would be inside. Sarita had described it once: a bed, a thin mattress and curtains for walls all the way around.

  ‘Come!’ Waman ordered. He held a curtain up. All civility was gone. Meena’s mind felt numb, and yet she could hear Sharmila lecturing her, bossing on about how she was worth much more than this, so much more. That she deserved to be loved. Not bought. Not sold. And that love didn’t come with a price like this.

  Not 35 rupees for the space Waman needed.

  Not 43,500 rupees to repay a ‘debt’.

  But Waman was growing impatient. She saw the shadow of anger flick across his face. Behind another curtain, she heard a woman cry out in pain, just once before the sound was muffled. Fear rose from a hidden place in Meena’s stomach and she stepped backwards. She couldn’t do this, not again, not with Waman and his sores and his thin cold hands. Not in there, with the dirt and the grime and the wetness from someone else. Not now, not after Nahita and Maa and Didi.

  Shaking, she turned from the counter. She shouldn’t have finished the drink Waman had given her. Her mind felt thick and fuzzy, but she could feel the sunlight now, shoving its way through the smog to see her. She felt its pull. She tasted the thread of freedom on a putrid gust of wind.