Fifteen Lanes

by S. J. Laidlaw

  Standing outside the café, waiting for Parvati, I felt spent. The nervous energy that had seen me through the last hour had left me feeling hollow and weak. I just wanted to sleep but I didn’t want to bed down without Parvati. Pran’s recent viciousness was still vivid in my mind. The streets felt even more dangerous than usual. Without Parvati’s reassuring bravado I felt exposed and vulnerable. I tried to think where she might have gone. We’d recently found a quiet spot behind the train station but I’d checked there before I came to the café. There was no sign of her.

  “What do you think, Shami?” I looked down at Shami, who was sitting on the pavement at my feet. He was too little to have an opinion but his presence comforted me. “Where’s Parvati? Should we try the bridge?”

  “I want Par-di,” said Shami.

  “Me too,” I said.

  I hitched him up on my hip. His arms circled my neck and he rested his head against my chest. It didn’t make sense to me that she’d go back to the shantytown where we were attacked, but it was the only place, other than our own street, where I knew she had friends. I was on the point of setting off when I heard a noise that froze me in place.

  “Did you hear that, Shami?”

  He cocked his head, his face scrunched with the effort of listening.

  “Paru,” he confirmed.

  It certainly sounded like someone calling my name, but the sound was so faint it might have been buzzing from the fluorescent streetlamp above us.

  “Noor,” called the voice again. That time it was unmistakable.

  I looked past the café to the narrow alley that separated it from the pawnshop next door. I wanted to run but my legs had gained twenty pounds in an instant. I was terrified of what I’d find. I put Shami down and took his hand. We followed the sound, running as quickly as we could. It felt as if we were moving in slow motion.

  Rounding the corner of the building, we stepped into a dimly lit passageway. It was barely wide enough for the two of us to walk side by side, and it got darker with every step. Broken glass crunched under my sandals, and I almost slid on something with the distinctly foul smell of human waste. We moved cautiously, jumping at every shadow. Finally, we saw a mound on the ground that moved ever so slightly. We’d found her.

  I cursed the darkness as I knelt beside her and tried to assess the damage. Curled up on her side, she raised one hand and touched my face, feeling my features like a blind person. That terrified me. Her blouse was ripped, exposing one shoulder. She had no other clothes on. I gagged at the metallic smell of blood.

  “Noor.” Her voice cracked. I could hear rather than see that she was crying. I took her hand and held it.

  “Paru,” I said. “Were you …?” I couldn’t finish my question. I didn’t want to hear her answer.

  “Yes. It was Suresh,” she said. “And he wasn’t alone.”

  “We need to get you to a doctor.”

  “No.”

  For just a moment I felt a searing flash of anger toward Lali. If I hadn’t been delayed by her escape, I would have been on time to meet Parvati and this wouldn’t have happened. Deepa-Auntie and now Parvati; how many more victims would Lali claim with her selfish flight? I immediately felt guilty. Lali couldn’t have lasted much longer. But what could I do now for Parvati?

  I pulled Parvati’s head and shoulders onto my lap and scanned the dark alley for her clothes. I could see a pile of something some distance off.

  Shami crouched beside me and touched Parvati’s face.

  “Is Par-di sick?” asked Shami, his voice etched with worry.

  “She’ll be fine,” I said. “Go find her clothes, Shami.”

  He set off with the resolve of a three-year-old on a mission. He crouched down at the pile then straightened up and kept going. My heart stopped for a minute when he disappeared around a huge heap of refuse. Seconds later he reappeared with something in his hands and ran back to us.

  “Don’t run,” I scolded. The damp, uneven ground was littered with all manner of dangerous things. I felt a surge of hatred for Parvati’s attackers, who had discarded her in a dumping ground.

  Shami handed me her clothing. Her pants were ripped as well. I wasn’t sure they would cover her. For the moment I laid them on top of her. She moaned at even that light pressure. Shami crouched down beside us and patted Parvati’s hair.

  “It’s okay, Par-di. Me and Noor-di are here.”

  She closed her eyes and gave the smallest of smiles, wincing with the effort.

  “I know, baby,” she said. “I’m okay now. Don’t worry.”

  After a time her breathing became deep and regular and I realized she’d fallen asleep. Only then did Shami settle himself on the other side of me, curling against my side, with one arm draped around my waist. He too fell asleep. If I’d only had Aamaal, my world would have been complete, surrounded by the people I loved. Then I thought of Ma and felt bad because I’d so easily forgotten her. And what of Deepa-Auntie?

  Though it was now the early hours of the morning, the noise from the street beyond our alley still echoed inside our narrow refuge—a refuge where my best friend had been thrown away like trash. In my head, I made a list of all the people I would take with me if I could disappear like Lali had. I’d start over someplace clean and safe, where young girls slept without fear, and children never went hungry or were wasted by sickness.

  Finally the events of the night caught up with me. My determination to remain on guard faltered. I too gave in to sleep.

  Not many hours later I awoke to the coldness of Parvati’s absence. She hadn’t gone far. She’d pulled on her pants and was several feet away, near the garbage where Shami had found them. She didn’t notice I was awake, too intent on what she was doing. It was seconds before I realized what that was.

  I leaped to my feet, startling Shami awake, and ran down the passageway, dropping to the ground beside her. I grabbed the fist that was doing the slashing and wrenched the broken glass from her hand. There was so much blood it was hard to tell how many gashes she’d already made.

  She gaped at me wordlessly as if she shared my horror at her handiwork.

  “No, Paru,” I sobbed. I took off my dupatta and wrapped it tightly around her crocodile arm.

  Grace

  We entered the open doorway of a narrow, nondescript, two-story wooden building. The single thing that set it apart was a small hand-painted sign above the door that read “Sisters Helping Sisters.” I was glad to leave behind the heat and chaos of the street outside, until I discovered the temperature inside was easily several degrees hotter, and the cacophony of voices was ear splitting. Even more overwhelming was being immediately swallowed up by a pack of street urchins.

  Altogether, there were perhaps thirty children. From their clothes, I thought they were all girls, though it was hard to tell. Several had shaved heads. Most of them were dressed in salwar kameez, though a few wore bright frilly frocks and still others were in school uniform. Their clothes looked worn but relatively clean. They ranged in age from three or four years old to perhaps ten or eleven. They were desperately thin in the arms and legs; many had protruding bellies. I knew enough to understand this was a sign of malnutrition and not good health. It took me several minutes to realize that, amid the cacophony, several were shouting in English: How are you? and What is your name? I glanced at VJ, who was removing his shoes while carrying on multiple conversations at the same time. I recognized a bit of the Hindi, but he must have been speaking other languages as well because sometimes I couldn’t pick up a single word. Mr. Donleavy, who’d preceded us inside, was nowhere to be seen.

  VJ carried his shoes to a large pile of sandals, mostly little ones, on one side of the entrance, so I took off my own sandals and did the same. We walked farther into the room, dimly lit by a single fluorescent bulb, and paused to allow our eyes time to adjust. There wasn’t a single window or any source of ventilation but the open doorway.

  The children led, or more accurately dragged, us over
to a metal ladder that went straight up to an open hatch in the ceiling. Since it was the only place Mr. Donleavy could have gone, we started climbing. I went first, eager to get away from the noise. I hoped the children wouldn’t follow. I already felt overwhelmed.

  I saw Mr. Donleavy as soon as I emerged through the hatch. He was sitting on a chair, talking to three women, all Indian, in a tiny office partitioned off from the rest of the room by a half-wall. One of the women was sitting in the only other chair. The other two were awkwardly hunched over behind her. The ceiling was too low for them to stand upright.

  “Grace, there you are,” said Mr. Donleavy.

  I stepped through the hatch and kept moving to allow VJ to follow. I was dismayed to see he wasn’t alone; the children were right behind him. The upstairs room quickly became even more crowded than the downstairs had been.

  Since the only other option was crouching, VJ and I plopped down on the cement floor in the room outside the office. Though the floor was stained, it was spotlessly swept. The children seemed to have some sense of what was happening. After much shoving to establish who would have the privilege of sitting next to us, they all sat down as well. I had one on either side, and they pressed up against me, even though there was room for them to have a bit of space. One grabbed my hand and held on to it. The other reached up and stroked my ponytail. My hair has always been a mousy brown, definitely not worthy of the admiration she was according it.

  The upstairs room was at least ten degrees hotter than it had been downstairs, and again there was no ventilation. The sweat poured off me. VJ, on the other hand, was as fresh and dry as when we’d arrived, and happily chatting with the children.

  “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a kid-lover,” I said, trying not to sound as jealous as I was feeling.

  “Come on, Gracie, in a world full of conspiracies, malice and deceit, how can you possibly not like children? They’re the only honest creatures on the planet.”

  I had to admit I’d never thought about it that way. I gave the little girls now leaning against me a tentative smile and was rewarded with two exuberant gap-toothed grins in return.

  Mr. Donleavy came out of the office with the women and they joined us on the floor. I wouldn’t have believed there was space for close to thirty children, two teenagers and four adults.

  “This is Miss Chanda,” said Mr. Donleavy, introducing one of the women. “She’s going to tell us a little bit about their concept for the program.”

  Miss Chanda didn’t look much older than a teenager. She wasn’t beautiful, but every time she smiled, every single kid in the room smiled back. You could tell they worshiped her.

  “I want to thank you so much for volunteering,” she began. “I’d like to introduce you to one of the girls who will explain what we do.” She looked across the room at an older girl. “Fatima, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?”

  “My name is Fatima,” said the girl, and laughed nervously when she realized she’d just told us the one thing we already knew. “I’m fourteen years old and I like school very much.” I was shocked to discover she was that old, and I looked more closely at the other girls. They were all so small. Perhaps I’d misjudged their ages.

  “My mother says I should be going to school but sometimes we don’t have money for books and …” She hesitated and looked at Miss Chanda, as though she wasn’t sure how much detail she should go into. I was willing to bet the list of what her family didn’t have money for was a long one.

  “One of the things we provide here is funds to cover any school-related costs the girls have, as well as meals and sometimes night shelter,” said Miss Chanda. “Why don’t you tell them how long you’ve been coming to SHS?”

  “I am coming to Sisters Helping Sisters since I am three years old. My mother didn’t to let me sleeping in the … the …” She looked at Miss Chanda again.

  I was shocked at how good her English was, though I suspected that was why she’d been chosen to be spokesperson.

  “Do all the children speak English?” I asked Miss Chanda.

  “They all speak a little. Some, like Fatima, study in English-language schools, so they speak more. We’ll only match you up with girls you can communicate with.” She gave VJ a worried look. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to give you a girl to mentor. Many of our girls have already been molested, so we’re careful not to put them in vulnerable situations. But you’re more than welcome to work here at the center in our after-school tutoring program.”

  “I’d be happy to do that,” said VJ smoothly, not mentioning that the girls were in no danger of sexual advances from him. “If it’s all right, I can help Grace with whoever she’s paired with.”

  Miss Chanda looked relieved to have that settled. “Great. Then let’s talk about how this will be structured. Today I’m going to introduce you to a few girls and give you a chance to get to know each other. At the end of the session, I’ll ask you if there was a particular girl you felt you could help.”

  “This sounds just like speed dating,” said VJ. “What fun! I’ve always wanted to try that!”

  Miss Chanda gave him a stern look. “We’re going to get out some paper and pencils. Our girls love to draw. It will help them relax and give you a chance to chat at the same time.”

  “What happens when we’ve found the girl we want to be paired with?” I asked.

  “We ask for a minimum of two hours a week. Our girls have had little experience of life outside the brothel. Most of their mothers were sold against their will, and in spite of that, many have been disowned by their families. For the girls who grow up here, the brothel life is all they know, and there’s often pressure to follow their mothers into the trade.”

  I looked at the sweet faces of the girls surrounding me. I could tell Mr. Donleavy was watching me carefully. If he was wondering whether it had been a good idea to bring me here, he had reason to be concerned. There was no question these girls and their mothers needed help, but what could VJ and I do? We were just kids ourselves.

  “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you,” said VJ, “but I can’t wait to get started. Where are the art supplies?”

  Noor

  Coming first …

  In the months after Parvati’s rape I threw myself into my studies. Only at school could I pretend everything was the way it had been before. Parvati had become a ghost. Suresh hadn’t stopped with the single rape; he took her every night he could find her. Together we hid from him, constantly changing where we slept. Still, there were days I got home from school and Parvati was nowhere to be found. On those days, I knew he’d found her first.

  In the middle of September every year, regular classes ceased and we wrote our first-semester exams. Just before we broke for the holiday, the grades were posted. My friends and I always met at school to look at our grades together. For many children, this was a time of great anxiety and disappointment. For me, it was a rare time when I didn’t feel like a fake. I always took firsts in English, Math, and Biology. Several times I’d taken firsts in Chemistry as well.

  None of my schoolmates knew where I came from. Over the years I’d created a family history of such complexity, with so many embellishments, that to them it had the familiarity of truth. I retold the lies so often that at times I almost believed them myself. My classmates knew all about my father, the mid-level civil servant, my mother, the former actress who gave up fame to marry him, and of course my siblings. It was my one disappointment that I couldn’t enhance their attributes, but Aamaal already went to the same school, and I had every hope that someday Shami would as well. Aamaal had been coached to maintain our fiction. With her sweet face and enormous, thickly fringed eyes, people were always inclined to believe her. They never suspected that in addition to being beautiful she was a skilled liar.

  The one time I felt closest to my fictionalized self was when I looked at my exam results. No one would have believed that the girl who was awarded so many prizes came from a brothel
in Kamathipura. Even I found it hard to reconcile. My two selves—the school-going girl and the daughter of a sex worker—felt like two separate people, awkwardly inhabiting one body. I was like a hijra, not one thing and not the other, but a third thing entirely, unique and not happily so.

  Gajra and I stood with a group of our friends near the school gate discussing our results.

  “I knew you’d sweep the awards,” said Gajra, squeezing my arm excitedly. Her pleasure was so complete you might have thought she’d achieved the results herself. Gajra had never taken a first in anything in her life, though her kindness outshone all my achievements. I could never understand why being a truly good person was overlooked when it came to handing out medals. It seemed to me it must be much more challenging, considering how few people managed it.

  “Of course she did well,” said Sapna, whose scores were never far behind mine. “Her father does nothing but sit at home and coach her. My father’s a doctor. He can’t be spending every minute helping me.”

  “Which is why you have hours of paid tutoring every evening,” said Kiran, Sapna’s best friend and fiercest competitor. I actually think their friendship survived only because I so often snatched the wins from both of them.

  “Well, it appears to have paid off. You beat me in only one subject this year,” said Sapna.

  “The year’s not over yet,” Gajra intervened. “There’s still plenty of time for everyone to get good results. The important thing is to improve our own scores.”

  “Tell that to my father,” said Sapna darkly.

  “I think you’re going to have to tell him yourself,” said Kiran, forgetting their recent fight and slinging her arm around Sapna’s shoulder. She nodded to the other side of the street, where Sapna’s father was just emerging from a parked car.