Fifteen Lanes (5 page)

Im not. I don’t know u vry well but I want to get to no u. I lik what I do no of u

U don’t

I DO!!!

How can I believ u when it took u so long to say it?

I’m shy

2 shy 2 kiss me?

Bosco pawed the hand that had frozen on his stomach. My own stomach was doing somersaults. I’d never kissed a boy in my life. Even the idea made my whole body feel tingly. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant either.

“I think this is it, Bosco. I think this is the opportunity Kyle was talking about. My life will never get better if I don’t change. I need to take risks.”

I could feel the sweat beading on my forehead and collecting under my arms. If Todd had seen me just then, kissing me would have been the last thing on his mind.

“What should I do, Bosco?” He’d rolled over again and was watching me intently. “I have to go for it, don’t you agree? Maybe Madison will understand. If Todd likes me, it would never have worked out for her anyway. And it’s not like she and I are best friends. I just want a life, Bosco. Imagine what Mom and Dad will say when I come home with a boyfriend. They’ll have to stop worrying that I’m a social reject. Kyle might be angry at first, but when he sees how happy I am …”

I looked at the clock on my side table: a minute to twelve. I picked up the phone and cradled it in both hands, almost as if it were the boy himself. Just like Cinderella, on the stroke of midnight, my life was about to change.

If I’d only known how much …

Ma is a devadasi …

Deepa-Auntie and I were in the washing room, doing dishes. It was my job. Even on school days, dirty dishes would be left there, awaiting my arrival. The single bucket of water, which had to last me two days, was also my responsibility. Along with the dirty dishes, I collected money from the aunties to pay for the water.

The space in the washing room was too small for us to crouch side by side so Deepa-Auntie couldn’t really help me. That wasn’t why she was there. It was a humid Sunday afternoon with not a breath of wind, so there were no customers. The aunties had arisen, as they always did, around one o’clock in the afternoon, to bathe and eat. Most had gone back to sleep. The men would come later that evening, when the temperature dropped, which meant more customers squeezed into fewer hours. Deepa-Auntie wanted to enjoy the temporary respite, so she had to hide where Pran wouldn’t
find her. He always considered a lull in customers his own chance to take a turn with her.

He could have had any of the aunties. Some would have appreciated the opportunity to win favor with Binti-Ma’am’s son—even Ma would have agreed—but Pran’s cold eyes always fell on Deepa-Auntie. Ma said Deepa-Auntie’s golden skin was both her good fortune and her bad. I wasn’t sure it was Deepa-Auntie’s skin that held Pran’s interest. He didn’t have the restless hunger of the men who came at night. Usually he looked tired, even bored. Only if Deepa-Auntie cried and begged him to choose another did he light up, and Deepa-Auntie always cried.

“I grew up on a farm,” said Deepa-Auntie. It was the beginning of a story I’d heard variations of many times. I never tired of hearing it, nor she of the telling.

“We were very poor but I didn’t know it. When the rain came it was so heavy it dripped through our grass roof. Mama caught it in buckets and joked that it would save me a trip to the river, though in the rainy season I never had to go as far as the river to fetch water. It filled the cistern in our front yard and was so plentiful we’d throw full buckets over ourselves when we bathed.

“I never went to school. Only my younger brothers went. I didn’t mind. I was happy to have them out of the house. They were always chasing the chickens and stealing eggs. They never took a turn milking the goat, or helping Daddy hitch the bulls to the plow. The house was peaceful without them. I enjoyed the time alone with Mama and my baby sister, Yangani. I carried Yangani everywhere on my back, even while doing chores. Daddy called me ‘little mother,’ and I dreamed about the day I
would have my own babies. My blood had not yet come when the man took me and brought me here.”

Deepa-Auntie always stopped her story at this point, though she arrived there in a slightly different way each time. She never told me what happened between the day a man came to her village with promises of domestic work and the day she ended up in our house. Many times I’d seen the scars on her body. I pretended not to notice. Though I was nine and in the 4th class at school, she thought I was too young to know the truth. We colluded in this, my feigned innocence and her delusion that anyone could remain uncorrupted in that house.

With the dishes done, I sat back on the floor, trying to stay clear of the drain so I didn’t get my kameez wet. It would take hours to dry and I didn’t own another. I wanted to go outside but I couldn’t leave Deepa-Auntie.

“Tell me about Yangani,” I said.

Deepa-Auntie smiled at the memory. “She was the most beautiful baby in the village. All the other girls were jealous of me and would beg to hold her. I’d let them, but Yangani would always cry until they gave her back. After I taught her to walk, she followed me everywhere.”

We both jumped when the door suddenly opened. It was only Ma, with my sister, Aamaal, who was born three years earlier.

“What are you doing in here, Noor? If you’re done with the washing up, you should do your homework.”

I was already finished my homework, as Ma well knew. It was the first thing I did when I got home from school every day, such was my pleasure in studying. Ma also took pride in my schoolwork. Every year I won firsts in Math and English. She secreted each medal into the hem of her skirt as if they
were made of real gold and not just gold-colored tin. Her real concern was not too little time spent on homework, it was too much with Deepa-Auntie.

“I’m telling her about my farm,” said Deepa-Auntie. “Didn’t you also grow up on a farm, Ashmita-Auntie?”

“No,” said Ma. “I didn’t. And if I had I wouldn’t waste my time thinking about it since I’d be smart enough to know I would never live there again.”

“How can you be sure, Ashmita-Auntie? The voyage of life is very long with many bends in the river. So many things can happen. Who knows what course it might take?”

“It’s not so long for us,” said Ma.

“Why do we never visit your home anymore, Ma?” My breath quickened to ask.

The last time we’d been to Ma’s village was for the birth of Aamaal. Before that we’d gone once a year. On our final visit, Ma and Grandma had argued behind closed doors, and when we left, Grandma didn’t walk us to the main road, where we waited in silence for a bus. Ma hadn’t spoken of Grandma since. I never asked, but I missed those visits. For those few days, I could laugh as loudly as I wanted and run far and fast. No one shouted at me, or beat me. I risked a beating now, asking Ma about these visits, but she was far less likely to let her anger loose with Aamaal beside her. I didn’t begrudge Aamaal her favored status. With her golden skin and thickly fringed eyes, anyone could see she was going to be a beauty. She was my mother’s child in a way I could never be.

“You should not waste your time thinking about the past, Noor.”

“Please, Ma.”

She frowned.

“Please, Ma,” Aamaal echoed. For once I was happy that she always copied me.

“They only wanted our money, Noor. In my village the elders pretended it was something else, a sacred duty. Maybe there was a time when that was true but it was many years ago. When my mother dedicated me to the temple, it was for money, not religion, not even tradition.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Grandma felt it was time for you to learn your history, your calling. We didn’t agree. She’s a devadasi, as am I.”

It was the first time I’d heard the word that dropped like a stone from my mother’s lips. I understood it was significant. “Am I also a Devadasi?”

Ma laughed mirthlessly. “The foolish hen tells you life is a twisting river like the one in her mountain homeland. Do you see such a river flowing past our house? There is only the open sewer carrying foul waste discharged from bodies too numerous and worthless to count. Perhaps it goes underground when it passes the great mansions of South Bombay, or slinks, like a thief carrying treasures, when it courses through the sleek neighborhoods to our north. It makes no difference. When it empties into the sea it’s still shit, and the destination was never in question. You were born into your fate, Noor. I may forestall it but you can’t escape it. We can only hope your next incarnation will be more forgiving.”

She stroked her belly where another child was already growing inside her, though the bump barely showed. “I’m going to lie down. Look after your sister.” She pushed Aamaal through the doorway and closed it behind her.

“What’s a Devadasi?” I asked Deepa-Auntie.

“I’m not sure, though I know several women here are also devadasis and they all speak Kannada, like your ma. I don’t think we had Devadasis in Nepal.”

“If Ma and Grandma were devadasis, am I also one?”

“You are whatever you choose to be, Noor-baby. Someday we’ll leave this place. I’ll pay off my debt to the fat one and her pig-faced son and we’ll go back to my village. We’ll climb the hills of my homeland, follow the egret’s flight to my father’s herd. We’ll see him first as we crest the hill overlooking my home. He will be watching for me, as he’s done every day since I left, and will run to greet us, shouting the news of my return. Even my worthless brothers will laugh with joy. We’ll take them presents like they’ve never seen—a cooking pot made of the strongest iron for my mother, and bells for each of our goats, so my father will never have to search long for them when they stray. But the greatest gift will be for Yangani.”

“What will that be?” I asked. I already knew the answer.

“It will be you, of course. A new sister for her to play with and love. She will follow you as she once followed me, or perhaps she will be grown and you will walk side by side, sharing secrets as sisters do.”

I wanted to ask her how she could have such optimism. We knew not one woman who had escaped the trade. The few who had managed to buy their freedom continued to work alongside us. Rejected by their families, who were ashamed of what they’d become, regardless of the circumstances, they survived in the only profession they knew, among the only community that would accept them.

“Do you want me to check if Pran has gone out?” I asked.
“Perhaps we could sit out in the window box for a while. Men won’t bother with us on such a hot day.”

“Thank you, my love. I’d like that.”

The window box was the only outdoor freedom Deepa-Auntie was allowed, and of course that had all the freedom of sitting in a shop window. Unlike the other aunties, not to mention myself, she couldn’t come and go from the house as she pleased. She had to ask permission and be escorted by Pran or Binti-Ma’am. Her only outings were infrequent trips to the temple to pray, and she always returned home more disheartened than when she’d left. I often stayed in on the weekends, when I’d have preferred to play in the street, because it cheered her to have my company. I didn’t realize until years later that Deepa-Auntie was not so many years older than me and my friends.

Taking Aamaal’s hand, I left Deepa-Auntie and went into the hallway, pausing for a moment to listen to the voices of the house. I could hear murmurings from the second floor. One of the aunties barked with laughter, which was enough to confirm that Pran wasn’t upstairs. I put my finger to my lips to silence Aamaal and led her down the short, narrow passage to his room. We had to pass Binti-Ma’am’s room. There was no danger of awakening her. She slept deeply in the afternoons, knocked out by the heat and her own bootleg booze.

I leaned my ear against Pran’s door. Aamaal’s hand sweated in my own. How quickly she had learned to fear him. I shook my head to let her know he wasn’t there, though I didn’t speak, as it was possible he’d heard us come out of the washing room and was deliberately keeping silent, waiting to pounce. Aamaal tugged at my hand and I let her lead me back down the hall to
the washing room. I stuck my head in and gestured to Deepa-Auntie to come out. I still didn’t dare speak.

The three of us crept as silently as we could to the ladder leading to the second floor. Deepa-Auntie had one foot up when the door to Pran’s room flew open and he raced out.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

Deepa-Auntie started to cry.