The Bracelet

by Roberta Gately

Nick threw himself dramatically into a chair. “Can we just drink on the way? I want to get going.”

  “After my second cup of coffee, I’ll be ready.” Abby refilled her cup. “Relax, Nick. Zara said ten. It’s just nine. Have some coffee while I jump on the computer for a bit.”

  Nick groaned. “You’re killing me, Abby.”

  Abby raised her brows and headed to the office, where she finished up her most recent vaccine report and e-mailed it to the UN vaccine office in Geneva. She hadn’t had any feedback yet on her refugee stories, but she expected that sooner or later someone would actually read them and maybe even comment.

  At nine thirty they set off for the rescue house, Nick’s foot bearing down on the gas pedal the whole way. “We’re too early,” Abby lamented as Nick stepped from the car.

  “They won’t mind, bet they’re waiting for us.” He knocked on the gate.

  As the gate opened, a stocky man appeared, blocking the entrance. He opened his mouth to speak, but relaxed his frown and smiled instead. “You here for Miss Zara?”

  Abby nodded, and the man stood to the side, motioning for them to enter.

  The two-story stucco house was surrounded by flowering plants and trees, not unlike Abby’s own UN staff house. She glanced at the windows and wondered if the women were peering out, watching them. They stepped into the house, and a small flurry of activity greeted them. Women scurried down the hall, colorful veils and head scarves flying out behind them like so many butterflies in flight.

  “I think they were not quite ready to be seen,” Zara said, appearing in the hallway and guiding Abby and Nick into the front room. “Sit. I will see if they are ready now.”

  Nick nodded and sank down onto a thickly cushioned couch. Abby sat next to him and watched as he pulled a notebook and pen from his bag. He set the notebook on his lap and began to click his pen up and down. Abby raised her brows.

  “What?” he whispered.

  Abby placed her hand over his pen. “Relax. They’re coming, and they must be terrified to speak with a stranger. Don’t let them see you’re impatient.”

  Nick nodded and, slipping his pen into his front pocket, turned suddenly quiet.

  “Nick,” she said, intending to say something supportive, “I . . .” Before she could finish, Zara returned to the room and sat across from them.

  “They are coming,” she said as Mariyah entered the room.

  “Hello,” she said, taking a seat by Zara.

  A sudden flash of color at the doorway caught Abby’s eye, and she looked up to see a young woman clad in a red-and-gold sari peeking in.

  Zara turned and stood. “Here we are. Come, Bina. Sit with us.” The woman entered the room and walked to Mariyah. “This is Bina,” Zara said.

  Bina’s gaze fell to the floor. Her red sari was woven with flecks of gold and silver, and the colors danced in the morning light. Bina’s skin, Abby saw, was the color of creamy caramel, and her long, thick braid was coal black. She was thin as a reed, and like Mariyah she sat perfectly still.

  Nick stood and motioned to the couch. “Please,” he said to the women, “sit here.”

  Bina shook her head and nestled closer to Mariyah.

  A third woman slipped into the room and took the final chair. She was tiny, almost lost in the voluminous yards of green fabric that covered her frame. Her black hair was pulled tight, showing off clear, chocolate-colored skin and brown eyes so large they seemed to take up half her face. She was, Abby thought, just beautiful.

  And absolutely terrified.

  “Anyu, Bina,” Zara said quietly, “please say hello to Abby and Nick.”

  Bina smiled, but Anyu seemed to wither at the invitation to speak. “Hello,” she whispered, pushing back into her seat.

  Nick reached into his bag and retrieved his tape recorder before turning to Zara. “I’d like to record today’s interview too, if that’s all right with everyone?”

  Bina reached out and touched the tiny machine. “Music?”

  “No, but watch this.” Nick held out the recorder to Bina. “Can you tell me your name?”

  Bina leaned in and said, “I Bina,” a hint of irritation in her voice. “You not remember?”

  Nick smiled and pressed PLAY. Bina’s voice filled the room, and the women howled with delight. “Me,” cried Anyu, sitting forward, her wariness suddenly vanishing. Nick recorded each of the women in turn, and each time one heard her own voice, she giggled and chattered.

  “All right,” Zara finally said. “Let’s get started. Nick, you know that today Bina and, inshallah, Anyu will be sharing their stories.”

  Abby sat forward, determined not to miss a word.

  “Bina will speak first. Our Anyu is not yet sure if she is ready. Understand?” Zara asked.

  Nick and Abby both nodded.

  “Bina,” Zara continued, “is from Nepal and she speaks Nepali and a little Urdu. She is learning English, so I will tell her story.” Zara turned and looked at Bina. “Acha?” she asked softly.

  Bina nodded and pulled at her head scarf. She folded her arms and glanced at Zara, who began.

  “Bina is from a small village in eastern Nepal, a place where people live in straw huts and where many are of the lowest caste, the Dalits, the untouchables. You understand, you know untouchable, Nick?”

  Nick, still fiddling with his tape recorder, looked up only long enough to nod. Abby sat forward, her eyes on Bina, who sat nervously twirling the tin bangles on her wrist.

  “Bina and her family worked at breaking up heavy rocks, that was how they earned their living, but it was a poor life, very poor, and for a girl, it was very bad. You see how thin she is.” Zara glanced at Bina. “Girls in Nepal are considered worthless, less than nothing. They work the hardest and they are always the last to eat. It is not a good life, but even untouchables, even girls, have dreams for a better life, and one day, a rich tourist, or so they thought, came through the village. He seemed not to care that this village was filled with untouchables, and more important, he told the villagers the girls had real value. He was a businessman, he said, and he would give money to the families, and in exchange, he would take the girls with him. He told the girls that they would work in nice houses in Kathmandu, and they could save money to go to school. Who wouldn’t be happy to hear that?”

  Bina seemed to understand Zara’s words and she smiled. “I be nurse,” she said, motioning toward Abby.

  “Bina had hoped to study nursing,” Zara said. “Nursing is an honored profession in Nepal, a difficult university course, and only the very smart and the very lucky are accepted there. For an untouchable, there is no chance for school, so when this tourist said he would bring the girls to Kathmandu, where they would work in fancy houses and have a chance to enroll in the university, the girls were excited to go. What an opportunity for these poor girls, and their families were given money. It was good for everyone. You agree?”

  Nick nodded.

  Abby sighed heavily. She knew this story was about to break her heart.

  “Bina and three others packed up their clothes and left with the man, but when they got to Kathmandu, there were no lessons, no fancy houses, no jobs. Instead, the man went to a slum, a bad section, and turned them over to another man. This new man was angry, and he grew angrier when he took money from his fat wallet and handed it to the tourist, who stood and counted the bills. The two men argued over the money, and finally they parted, the angry man scowling and pushing the four girls roughly along until they reached a small house. There the four were locked in a small, windowless room.” Zara looked sadly at Bina. “Her story is not so different from Mariyah’s, except that she wasn’t beaten, she was starved. Starvation will make a person desperate. For three days, the girls didn’t eat. They had water and nothing else. On the third night, when they were too weak to fight, they were separated, and Bina was taken from the house and brought to Pakistan, to a brothel in Lahore.”

  Zara turned to Bina and spoke in Urdu. Bina nodded
her head and spoke rapidly, and though Abby couldn’t understand a word, she realized that the two were probably discussing the details of Bina’s life in Lahore.

  Bina turned and looked at Nick, and Zara spoke for her. “Nick, Bina wants you to know that she was a good girl, and when she went to Kathmandu, she was a virgin, and you probably know that virgins are prized and fetch a princely sum in Lahore. On her first night there, she was dressed like a doll in gold and red. They placed flowers in her hair and perfume on her skin, and when she saw her reflection in the large mirror, it took her breath away. She was beautiful, and she thought that surely she was about to be married.” Zara paused and exhaled slowly. “It was only when she was brought to a wrinkled old man wearing a stained white pajama suit that Bina understood, and she knew that there were not enough tears in her eyes or prayers to Vishnu to save her from this destiny. She did not scream or cry or fight, and instead she prayed to Shiva and Ganesh to keep her soul safe and apart from that place and that moment. She made it through the night, but even a virgin is only a virgin once, and after that first long night, she was just another whore, there to keep men happy and earn money.”

  Nick cleared his throat. “Sorry to interrupt”—his tone was apologetic—“but does she know where she was in Lahore, the name of the place maybe?”

  Bina seemed to understand Nick’s question, and she turned to Zara and shook her head.

  “No,” Zara said, “but she was there for almost two years, and she wondered if that was to be her karma, her debt to the gods for transgressions in another life. She’d accepted her destiny, and when the police raided the brothel and arrested her and the others, she was sure Krishna had blessed her. The police, however, weren’t much of a blessing. They didn’t care that these women were trafficking victims, and they probably didn’t believe them anyway. In Muslim society, it is always the woman who is to blame, and they charged every one of them with crimes of prostitution and threw them in jail. Even jail might not have been so bad, but it wasn’t long before the policemen demanded sex. The women had no rights and no hope until a UN women’s group appeared and demanded they be released.” Zara smiled as she caught Abby’s eye.

  “When women work together,” Zara said, “anything is possible. The women were released, and Bina, the only woman from Nepal, was sent here to us in the hopes we might work with her and decide if she wants to go home or stay here. Bina is in training as Mariyah is; she helps out two mornings a week in Railway Hospital, but Bina is also in school, where she is learning to read and write and, inshallah, someday she will enter university to study nursing.”

  “Is there anything else she wants me to know, to write?” Nick asked.

  Bina whispered to Zara, who smiled as she listened. “She is still a good girl. She wants you to know that.”

  “I’ll make sure those words are in my story.” He turned to Bina. “Dhanyabaad, thank you, Bina.”

  “You speak Nepali?” Zara asked.

  Nick shook his head. “I can say hello, thank you, and that’s about it.”

  Bina laughed. “Dhanyabaad, Nick.”

  The room had grown close and stuffy as Bina and Zara spoke, and a line of sweat trickled down Abby’s back. She stood and squirmed in her dress. “Water, anyone?”

  Mariyah rose from her seat. “I need to move. I get it.”

  “I’ll help.” Abby followed Mariyah into the small, tidy kitchen.

  Mariyah retrieved a pitcher from the refrigerator. “Please, Abby, you can reach cups?” She pointed to a cabinet over the sink.

  Abby reached up and plucked six cups down, placing them on the counter before turning to face Mariyah. “I just want to tell you,” she said, taking Mariyah’s hand, “how much I admire you.”

  Mariyah’s lower lip quivered. “Shukria, Abby. You be my good friend?”

  “Forever.” Abby squeezed Mariyah’s hand.

  They returned to the room, and Abby set the tray down. “Help yourselves.” She poured out a full cup of water, then swallowed it in one long gulp. Nick and Mariyah poured out cups and sipped, but the others shook their heads and remained huddled in conversation.

  Abby and Nick watched as Anyu gestured to Zara, who smiled. “You are sure?” she asked, and Anyu nodded.

  Zara turned to Nick. “She will tell you her story.”

  Nick looked quickly at Anyu. “I’m grateful.” He leaned forward to change the battery in his recorder.

  The women fell quiet and Zara turned to Anyu, who’d sat meekly as Bina had spoken.

  “Anyu?” Zara asked.

  Anyu folded her hands together in her lap and nodded. “Yes, I ready.” Her voice was soft, her English clear.

  “You speak English?” Abby asked.

  “Little, little, but some Urdu also,” Anyu said. “Zara talk for me, acha?” Nick nodded, and Anyu pulled herself forward on her chair.

  “Anyu is from Uttar Pradesh in northern India,” Zara said, “and in her small district, there was a school, and everyone, even the girls, attended for a time. Anyu can read and write a little, and though she would like to go home, she has a big problem in India, and so for now she is here with us.”

  Anyu’s mouth crumpled into a frown when Zara mentioned her “problem.” Abby sat on the edge of her seat, and Nick seemed to catch Anyu’s reaction as well, and he moved the recorder closer.

  “Anyu’s father is a farmer, but heavy rains flooded the area just as with Mariyah, but there the similarities end. When the man with money came to her village, Anyu’s father sold her straightaway.” Zara turned to Anyu. “How old were you then?”

  “I had twelve years then. And my bleeding had just . . . you say it.” Anyu turned to Zara.

  “Anyu’s menstrual cycle had begun not long before the floods, and the coincidence of that timing, the floods following so quickly after Anyu’s blood began to flow, fueled her father’s superstitions about menstruations and the impurity of women. He blamed her for the floods, and when the family’s only ox died, Anyu was forced from the house. She climbed to the roof and hid there until the day she saw the stranger arrive in the village. He was tall, and even from a distance, she could see the roll of money in his pocket, and she scrambled down to join the others who’d gathered to see what he wanted.”

  Anyu smiled, an unexpected burst of happiness that made her hands tremble in her lap. “It was good day, but I not know what come. I only know it best day in my life.”

  Abby listened in silence. There wasn’t anything to say.

  “The man approached several of the village men, Anyu’s father among them. The man had come, he told them, to buy some girls to work for him. He couldn’t say what the jobs might be and no one asked. Anyu’s father was happy to get the money, and happier still to be rid of his worthless daughter. Anyu was one of four girls who left with the man that day, and she was not sad to leave her home, though she’d heard about these men and the lies they told,” Zara said. “For Anyu, there was no pretense, no trick to convince her that she was going somewhere better. For Anyu, anywhere else was better. So, she knew where she was going, maybe not the exact location, but she knew what her job would probably be, and she went quietly because women in her village do what they are told.”

  Anyu bowed her head. “I think that some of the money men give for me will be mine to keep. I think I save money and come back to village rich. Then father of me be happy with Anyu.”

  Zara patted Anyu’s hand and whispered, “Acha, acha.” Zara turned to Nick. “The man brought Anyu to Delhi, where he turned her and the others over to another man. That first night, she was cleaned up and offered as a virgin. Anyu was not a virgin, but no one had asked her, and if they had, she would have told them that she’d been raped by a cousin when she was nine, and the rapes had continued until she left the village. Now you see why she was happy to go. If you’ll be raped no matter where you are, maybe a new place is your only hope.

  “When her customer discovered she was not a virgin, he beat her, and w
hen the man in charge heard her screams and then the customer’s story, he beat her as well. For Anyu, her nightmare in Delhi grew by the day, or perhaps night is a better word.”

  Anyu sat quietly, her fingers drumming nervously on the chair’s edge.

  “In Delhi,” Zara continued, “Anyu did what she was told. After that first beating, she’d learned her lesson, and she was determined to go unnoticed, but it was not to be. Her customers were always the dirtiest of the men, the ones who ordered her to perform hideous acts for them. It wasn’t just the sex, it was the humiliations night after night.” Zara paused, seeming to steel herself for the remainder of Anyu’s story. “The men beat her, urinated on her, and placed sharp objects inside of her. When she was torn up in there and bleeding, it was then the men would climb on top. The pain was unbearable, and one night, when a regular customer put the sharp end of a knife just inside her, Anyu snapped.”

  Anyu had been listening impassively, but now a shadow seemed to pass over her face. She pulled herself straight in her seat, and a long frown sprouted on her lips. Gone was the meek, submissive girl—she had been replaced by an angry, scowling young woman.

  Zara seemed to notice the change in Anyu as well. “You must understand,” Zara said, turning to Abby, “this was very bad time for Anyu. She is a good girl.”

  “I know she’s good.” Abby nodded, tilting her head toward Nick. “We can both see that.”

  “Yeah, absolutely,” Nick added.

  “I just wanted to be sure you know that before I continue, but I think you understand.” Zara glanced at Anyu, who’d begun to chew on her lower lip. “So I continue. When the man rolled his body away from Anyu, he closed his eyes, and she saw her opportunity. She pulled the knife out of herself, her own blood and tissue on the blade, and she took it and plunged it into the chest of the man who’d lain so quietly. His eyes, she’s told me, opened for an instant, and he reached up to fight back, but Anyu cut into his hands and face. He reached up to shield his face, and she plunged the knife into his chest again and again. When she was sure he was dead, she emptied his pockets of his money and identification and escaped. She made her way to Lahore, and a women’s group there sent her on to us.” Zara gripped Anyu’s hand. “She is our newest houseguest, and she arrived only last week.”