Delhi Noir

by Hirsh Sawhney

  Sarika’s door was opened by a wrinkled woman in a gray sari and, despite the weather, a thick sweater-blouse. Her eyes were opaque with cataracts. She stood there like a sentry, and I could barely catch a word of her rustic Punjabi. “Mataji, I am Mrs. Verma’s nephew,” I kept saying in response to her soft, toothless mumbles. “I came for the case of apples.” Finally, she cracked the door wider, and I bent forward to better understand what she was saying.

  “Demon’s daughter …” she muttered, “a snake in human form. Keeps me locked up.” She grabbed my arm so tightly it hurt. “Poison. Careful of her poison.”

  I was about to leave when Sarika Aunty appeared. She was dressed in a loose, translucent salwar kameez which suggested that no special company was expected. The outline of her taut, shapely figure was noticeable even though she wasn’t in the form-fitting clothes she wore to my bua’s house. Her hair, black with streaks of brown, was tied in two thick braids. This gave her fair, oval face a pleasant expression. Around her neck were rudraksha prayer beads. Her feet were bare. She looked relaxed, glowing. Perhaps my unease was misplaced.

  “You’re not to open the door, Bibiji,” she said sharply to the old woman. “What if some Nepali slashes our throats?”

  I remained standing in the living room while she escorted the babbling Bibiji inside. The flat’s layout was like Bua’s, but the furniture was grander than Bua’s practical, well-worn things. A carved-wood sofa with silver cushions sat on a plush carpet, flanked by wide lounge chairs. In the center was a marble-topped table. Ornate brass lamps stood in the corners. I thought: Sarika’s husband must be the type of railway of-ficer my father resented when he was alive—the kind who demanded “sweets” for his children from contractors. My inheritance had been gnawed away by such officers.

  But there were no pictures of children here. The only item suggesting a child’s presence was a tall glass cabinet. Inside were displayed rows of dolls—circus dolls in costumes, dolls with fancy hats wearing party dresses, dolls with startling green eyes. They were so well made, they didn’t seem like toys. The large ones had realistic facial expressions; one had a sly, sinister look that followed you around.

  Sarika returned. She saw my gaze. “My father was in the foreign service,” she said proudly. “This is my collection. We traveled everywhere when I was a girl.” She pointed to the sofa. “Sit.”

  I had picked out my best shirt and ironed it myself. But now I felt like a peon offered a seat in an officer’s house. “Aunty, my bua said you called,” I ventured.

  “I don’t like this Aunty-vanty stuff,” she broke out, sitting down barely two feet from me. “Call me by my name.”

  “If my mother were to hear me—” I stumbled like a fool.

  “From heaven?” she snapped, and then caught herself.

  We both fell silent. Her fingertips, I noticed, were trembling slightly. Her nails were painted a dark maroon. As we sat close, my eyes downcast, I felt her assess me from head to foot. A prickly sensation arose on the back of my neck, just like when she teased me at my bua’s lunch parties. “Working so hard, Mukesh?” Or, “I need help around the house too. When can I expect you?” She spoke loudly while I served lemonade and pakoras, knowing all the ladies thought she was amusing, just incorrigible. The space between us began to stretch like an elastic band, until I was sure it could snap at any second. I shifted awkwardly and crossed my legs. Her forward manner disconcerted but aroused me. Barely lifting my eyes, I could see the shadow of her bra beneath her thin shirt, the way it lifted and fell with her breath.

  She said impatiently: “Why are you always at your bua’s? Don’t you have college friends?”

  I stayed silent. Those with cash to burn went to the movies with college yaars. I played chess in an old Paharganj cemetery.

  She moved closer. “What’s the matter? Are you scared of me?” She picked up my hand and casually placed it just above her knee. “A burly boy like you.”

  I was torn between giving in to the softness of her leg and the grave presumption of doing just that. I pulled my hand away. “Sarikaji, someone may think I am being impertinent.”

  “Who is there to think that?”

  I heard a scuffling noise from inside the flat. “Bibiji,” I said, my cheeks hot.

  “Bibiji is resting. She can sleep through a bomb blast.”

  “May I have the apples?” I pleaded. “Bua will be waiting.”

  “You took your time coming. I gave away the last case this morning. More will come soon from my brother’s orchard.” She passed her slender fingers through my hair. Every sinew and tendon in my body tensed. “So thick, like a girl’s. Comb it properly or get it cut,” she added cruelly.

  She took my face in her hands and turned it toward her. Then she kissed me. Her tongue reached inside my mouth and elicited reactions in faraway places—my toes, my stomach, my quivering thighs. My heart was beating so fast I didn’t know how it would slow down. I didn’t want it to.

  She stood up and removed her prayer necklace. Then she pulled her kameez up and over her head. It billowed like a banner before falling in a heap on the carpet. Her salwar had a drawstring like a man’s pajamas, but the shape at the hips and ankles was different. She loosened the string and the salwar dropped like a curtain. I remembered my middle sister Sonu’s shapeless drawers hanging on the clothesline. Sarika’s panties were small and dark and lacy, fitting snugly against her light skin. Other than the flare of her hips, her frame was slighter, more boyish than I’d imagined.

  She turned her back to me. “Get up,” she ordered, breaking the brief illusion that she was something frail. She reached her arms behind her. “Unclasp this.” I fumbled with her bra hook as best I could. Even from her backward glance I could feel the derision from her face.

  She commanded me to lie down, knelt over me, and began to undo my buttons and buckles. When my underpants were off, she said: “It seems you aren’t too scared. For a minute I thought you weren’t a real man. Now I see you are like most—overeager.”

  She guided my hands to parts I had only imagined with eyes closed on a woman. My trembling fingers outlined the orbs of her breasts. They were shiny with perspiration, and the way they rose and peaked made my jaw ache with craving. Her nipples weren’t much bigger than mine, but darker and harder. In my mouth they tasted like stiff, salty rubber. A line of fine hair traversed down the center of her stomach to a different kind of darkness between her legs.

  She was nice enough to let me make amends for my first, clumsy effort, but before that she called my bua. We were both naked. “Hope you don’t mind, Pammi. I sent Mukesh to Pa-harganj for some groceries.” She put the receiver to my ear as Bua was saying: “Any time. I’ve trained him into quite an expert shopper. Make sure he gives you a full accounting.”

  “Now,” Sarika said, “I am going to show you how to curb your enthusiasm.” I shyly followed her into the bedroom, but I must have shown potential because she left me a prize I kept for several days—her nail indentations on my back and buttocks.

  As the weather turned cooler, I found some release playing chess with Johnny in his caretaker’s office. I often wanted our matches to move faster, but I learned a lot by watching his methodical openings, his surprisingly lethal middlegame.

  Sarika, I discovered, preferred a combination of fixed and variable routines. Before we began, she would ask me to brush my teeth and take a bath, even if I had already done so. I would come out in my towel to find her lying undressed smoking her pipe packed with ganja she procured from a discrete Israeli dealer in Paharganj. She insisted on initiating any kissing, which she liked deep and rough. If I tried to just hold her, she would whinny and thrash like a trapped mare. My chest became bruised from her teeth marks. As soon as one set of scratches healed on my back, she covered me with another. This is what I remember from those days: her kneeling against the side of the bed, goading me on as I crouched over her from behind, my legs open and half-bent and trembling, her neck craning back
and her pretty mouth distended, her spine coiling and convulsing like it was a reptile trapped beneath her skin.

  She wanted me to be just as rough with her. I struggled to comply. “Bite me. Harder. Didn’t I say harder?” she would cry mid-frenzy. Once, approaching climax, she halted abruptly and changed positions. “Choke me. Do it. I’ll tell you when to stop.” I hesitated, but she pummeled me until I actually wanted to hurt her. Dark and angry urges rose inside me as I pressed my fingers around her supple neck. Fortunately, I soon lost control. Sputtering and coughing, she examined her neck in the mirror. Even from a distance I could see the bruises I’d left. The salty bile of shame rose up in my throat. “Now we’re making progress,” she said, eyes gleaming with strange pleasure.

  I played chess with Johnny after that session. He frowned and stopped the game. “What’s the matter, Mukesh? You’re sacrificing pawns early and without a plan.”

  “I have one,” I insisted, but my lie was soon exposed.

  After I’d lost the next three games, he looked at me and said kindly: “I enjoy our matches, Mukesh. But it’s not right that you come to this place so much. Go spend time with other young people.”

  With a curt goodbye I left his office. If he didn’t want to play, I had other preoccupations: I could sit under the neem and read my notes from college.

  In the bright, early winter light I walked up the cemetery’s central path. The bustle of Nehru Bazaar was just beyond the high walls but here the only sounds were the cackling of crows and the dull whack of workmen breaking the hard ground with pickaxes. I stood beside the workers for a moment, nursing the thick sensation I carried in my chest these days, a sensation like hard-boiled phlegm. The hole the workers were digging appeared too small for an adult. Perhaps it was for a missing person’s funeral. Only room to bury personal items was needed.

  I began to dress in my bua’s bathroom to avoid scrutiny of my wounds. She did remark on my new jeans and jacket. I told her I’d bought them cheap in Main Bazaar. Bua felt the jacket’s lining and said: “Main Bazaar or Bandits’ Bazaar?” In truth, Sarika had given me money for them, saying she didn’t care for my dreadful clothes. She also paid for me to get my hair styled, causing my bua to say: “Delhi air is something. Look how city wiles have sprouted.”

  In addition to Bua’s chores, I was now also on call for Sarika’s household errands. Picking up her dry cleaning one Sunday, I saw her tank of a husband lounging on the sofa in a loose bathrobe. Bibiji sat on the floor shucking peas into a steel tray. Locked away during my other visits, the old lady had become a rare sight. She rose and creakily approached, shouting: “She puts chains on my feet, but I am not a fool, you hear?”

  The hair on my arms stood up. What was she reporting to Mr. Khanna? But he only yawned and stretched where he sat. His wide, bushy midsection peaked out from underneath his banyan. “Bibiji,” he barked without putting down his newspaper, “brake lagao, or you’ll be sent to bed.” The old lady shuffled back to her peas.

  Sarika came out with the dry cleaning. Right under her husband’s nose she said: “Come back later. Mr. Khanna is going to the club by 1, and the peon is out today.”

  Bibiji’s face twisted with loathing. Mr. Khanna raised his thick eyebrows, but the rest of his face stayed hidden behind the paper. As I shut the door I heard him ask Sarika something in a gruff tone.

  She said: “No one. Mrs. Verma’s nephew. A helpful boy.”

  My grandfather’s heart stopped in his sleep in December. I could not see Sarika for some weeks and found that I missed her rough attentions. A council of uncles and aunts was held at Bua’s flat, just like after my parents’ accident. The agenda was my youngest sister Chhoti’s guardianship. “Already we are barely making ends meet,” Bua said grimly. Another aunt added: “Mukesh, finish your BA quickly, beta. Everyone is counting on you.” I responded to such demands with a blank face, and silently cursed my parents for their ill-timed pilgrimage, which, like a bad investment, was bearing expense without end. The decision was made to send Chhoti to the boarding school for orphans that Sonu, our middle sister, attended. People thanked my bua for the sacrifice of keeping me. The indignity of being a charity case sat like curdled milk in my stomach.

  In the New Year my liaisons with Sarika resumed. If she knew what was happening in my family, she never asked about it. After our third meeting in January, however, she handed me a slip of paper with a lady’s first name and number. I looked at her, confused, and she said: “You want to make some money, right?”

  I heard out her proposition. The aunty on the paper would pay for small but important errands. If I was reliable, there would be more jobs.

  The aunty sounded pleasant when I called her from Sari-ka’s phone. She gave me an appointment for the next day. Her bungalow was on Doctor’s Lane near Gol Market.

  Sarika smiled broadly. “Come by soon and tell me what happened.” Then she took out some money and said severely: “Buy a new undershirt before you go. Are you using deodorant regularly?”

  I laughed. This was how she spoke to me after we’d made hard, sweaty love for an hour. I tried to kiss her, but she cringed at my eagerness and pushed me back.

  I was the opposite of eager when I returned with my report from Doctor’s Lane. “Sarikaji,” I said, lips trembling, “forgive me for misunderstanding. I’m not that kind of boy.”

  “Oh?” she said, lifting her brows. “What kind are you then?”

  I’d come in with the intention of confronting her, but her haughty self-assurance washed away my resolve. “The aunty … she gave me the money first. It seemed like too much. When she told me what she wanted, I tried to give it back.”

  “She didn’t report any problems to me.”

  “I was forced to stay,” I said, shuddering at the memory. “She told me she would raise a noise if I tried to leave, have me beaten as an intruder.” I held all the money before Sarika. “Take this. I don’t want it.”

  She peeled out a few notes from the bundle. “That’s my share, Mukesh. Think of this work as social service you get paid for.”

  “No,” I cried.

  “Then don’t come back here,” she said flatly. “I can’t tolerate undependable boys. I give you a chance and you come back wheedling and whining.”

  “Don’t say that,” I said, almost hacking. My throat was dry, constricted.

  “Imagine what you can do with the money,” she said, and pulled me by the arm to the bedroom. Afterwards, she looked at the bites on her breasts. “I’ve taught you well,” she said. “Luckily, Mr. Khanna doesn’t like the lights on.”

  With my first earnings I bought a mobile and a diary to keep track of my appointments. If the person I called didn’t recognize the name I asked for, the rule was to pretend I had the wrong number. Sarika sent me to railway wives, lady doctors, businesswomen, young managers in offices. Now I understood why she usually began texting the moment we finished in bed. I saw the insides of flats and bungalows from Gol Market to Bengali Market, and as far south as Sundar Na-gar. Some aunties only wanted to meet in a seedy tourist lodge in Tooti Chowk after shopping at Connaught Place. Sarika’s instructions were to accommodate every request.

  I serviced aunties who were beautiful and bored, homely but adventurous, unabashed about their needs, or shy and self-conscious. One fed me afterwards; another threw money in my face as though I’d offended her dignity. Both asked for me again. I remember the aunty who liked to watch her favorite serial in bed. While I pleased her she delightedly gave me a rundown of the episodes I’d missed. One roundly cursed her husband while we made love; it drove her to heights of frenzy. Most never mentioned their husbands at all. They all appreciated that I readily agreed to their commands or requests. They all enjoyed the tricks with tongue and finger that Sarika had taught me.

  I’d wake up on my hard cot in Bua’s veranda, remember the day’s appointments, and think my mind was playing tricks. Then I’d feel the soreness in my lower back and thighs. A few times I caught Bua
watching me with narrowed eyes. I became convinced she could smell it on me—the disrepute, I mean.

  Winter was almost over when I sent a package of clothes to my sisters’ hostel. Sweaters, woolen socks, new shoes. Sarika gave me grudging advice on size and colors, calling me a simpleton. On an impulse I bought silver anklets and left them by Sarika’s bedside with my weekly payment. She said: “Money is enough. No presents.” She never wore the anklets.

  For Johnny, the caretaker, I bought a chess set from a Jan-path curio store, with pieces carved from dark and light wood. He was happy to see me once again. “I am in your debt for this,” he said. To remove some of his obligation, I played our next match with great focus and beat him in a fierce king and pawn endgame. Any awkwardness from our last exchange was gone.

  I wasn’t surprised when Bua commented on my new shoes. I told her Sarika Aunty had given me some tuition referrals. “I see you’ve both kept me in the dark,” she said. “Be cautious, beta, that woman is very clever.”

  As the days warmed, the wad of cash in my satchel grew in size. Its heft made me both excited and uneasy. I began to dream of renting a room in Paharganj. I’d bring my sisters to live with me. It would be tight at first. Bua would pretend to be upset, but secretly she’d be relieved.

  I tried to open a bank account, but they wanted to know my source of income and see my guardian’s ID card. Instead, I went to Sarika and asked her to hold on to most of my earnings.

  “Don’t trust me so much,” she said, very seriously.

  “I have nowhere else to keep it.”

  She was amused. “I will charge interest.”

  “I know,” I said, defending myself with my arms as she tried to clutch and bruise my chest. “This is that kind of bank.”