A Walk Across the Sun (23 page)

Navin took Sita's hand and led her across the floor to the ramp leading to the baggage carousel. He didn't speak until they entered the airport ticketing area.

“You were wise not to talk to them,” he said. “They would never have believed you.”

Sita blinked and looked away. Her emotions were a chaotic mess. She had escaped the clutches of French immigration, but her intestines were stuffed with pellets of heroin and the pain was increasing with each passing minute.

“We will take a taxi into the city,” Navin said. “It is faster than the Metro.”

Sita followed Navin out of the terminal to the taxi stand. The Parisian winter shocked the breath out of her. She began to shiver and huddled deeper into her coat. Navin hailed a taxi and gave instructions in French. The only words Sita understood were the last: Passage Brady. The driver nodded and accelerated into traffic.

Sita held her stomach and winced. She looked out the window and watched as the city of Paris appeared—first as a network of gray and white suburbs, then as a patchwork of industrial parks and train yards, and last as a city of wide boulevards and elegant buildings.

The taxi driver deposited them at the entrance to a pedestrian passage and took two twenty-euro notes from Navin. Navin led her through an archway to a set of heavy double doors painted blue. He placed a call on his mobile and spoke in Hindi to a man he called “Uncle-ji.”

“We are here. Yes, she is with me.” He grunted and hung up.

After a minute, the door swung wide and a man greeted them. He was short and balding, with round eyes. He shook Navin's hand and welcomed him with a fleeting smile. He turned to Sita and his gaze lingered.

“She will do,” he said cryptically and gestured for them to follow.

Beyond the doors lay a private courtyard with entrances to a number of flats. The man led the way into a dark foyer.

“Use the washroom at the end of the hall,” he said. “I will be in the restaurant.”

Navin gestured toward a door at the end of a short hallway. He entered the bathroom and switched on an overhead bulb. The room was equipped with an ancient porcelain toilet, a grimy sink, and a stained bathtub.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I'm thirsty,” Sita replied, her mouth as dry as cotton.

“Take a seat on the toilet. I'll get you a glass of water.”

She sat down slowly and took a deep breath. Navin returned with a mug brimming with water. She accepted it and gulped the water down. She looked at Navin, her eyes making a plea for more. Navin took the mug and replenished it. This time, however, before giving it to her, he handed her a round pill.

“It is a laxative,” he said. “It will help you flush the drugs. Otherwise, you could wait for a day or two before the last condom leaves your system.”

She took the pill and swallowed it and drank the water to its last drop. Navin turned on the faucet over the tub, and hot water poured out in a billow of steam.

“You will soak in the bathtub to loosen your bowels. When the drugs come, they will float. Place them gently in the sink. If the condoms rupture now, I will not be pleased.”

Navin turned and left, closing the door behind him.

Sita looked at the floor, disgusted by the thought of what she must do. She allowed the water level to rise in the bathtub until it was three inches shy of the upper rim. She disrobed and slipped into the hot water. It gave her welcome relief from the pain in her belly. She closed her eyes and thought of Ahalya as she was before the madness, before the tsunami came. She listened for the sound of her sister's voice, singing sweet songs and reciting poetry. Would she ever see her again?

What did Navin and his uncle have in store?

The pellets began to emerge quickly. She didn't urge them along for fear they would burst. When they appeared in the water, she cleansed them of waste matter and placed them gingerly in the sink. The process was disgusting and extremely uncomfortable, but she persisted, her skin shriveling like a prune, until she had accounted for the thirtieth pellet. The latex and Navin's knots had held. She breathed a huge sigh of relief and felt the spring of tension in her body begin to uncoil.

She released the drain plug and allowed the filthy water to retreat. When it was gone, she turned on the faucet and rinsed the bath and her skin. Then she let the tub refill until the water covered her core and warmed her again. She soaked in the bath for many minutes and tried to relax.

In time a knock came at the door. Her heart lurched and she watched the doorknob, anxious that Navin would enter.

“Sita,” he said through the doorjamb, “how many condoms have come?”

“All of them,” she replied.

“Perfect. And they are in the sink?”

“Yes.”

“There is a plate of food outside the door. Dress and eat quickly. I will introduce you to Aunti-ji.”

Five minutes later, Sita left the bathroom wearing her churidaar. She collected the plate of food—chicken, rice, and chutney—and ate hungrily. Soon Navin reappeared and led her through the living quarters to a door she had not noticed before. The door led to a hallway and the hallway to a cluttered kitchen. In the kitchen stood a matronly Indian woman dressed in a sari along with a boy about ten years old clad in jeans and a Western-style shirt. The woman was scolding the boy in a language Sita didn't understand.

They turned toward Navin, and the woman switched to Hindi.

“How was Bombay?” she asked.

“Hot, congested, and crawling with slums,” he replied. “Each time I return I like it less.”

“Don't say such things,” she scolded him. “It will always be home.”

Navin chatted with the woman briefly. The boy, meanwhile, ignored Navin and regarded Sita through guileless eyes. She looked back at him and felt a twinge of nostalgia. He resembled a boy at the convent school who had always doted on her. The pleasant thought disappeared almost as soon as it came.

“Does she cook?” the woman asked Navin.

Navin looked at Sita inquiringly, but she shook her head.

“A
ladki
who does not cook,” said the woman harshly. “What good is she?”

“She can clean the restaurant,” Navin's uncle said, walking through a doorway on the other side of the room. “Navin has done us a great favor.”

The woman frowned at her husband and shook her head. “It is bad luck bringing her here. The priest says an ill omen is written in the stars.”

“Silly woman,” Navin's uncle said, “stop your ranting and get to work.” He turned to Navin and handed him an envelope. “Five thousand euros.”

“Five thousand!” the woman exclaimed. “What a waste!”

Navin's uncle glared at his wife and she turned away, clucking.

Sita looked at the envelope, and despair spread through her. She knew that another deal had been made.

The woman handed Sita a mop. “Use the sink,” she hissed. “Start with the kitchen. Then do the restaurant. Earn your keep.”

Sita had never before wielded a mop. Jaya had done all the cleaning in the Ghai household, and Sita's chores at St. Mary's had been limited to gardening and laundry. She took the mop and awkwardly doused it with water.

“Stupid girl,” the woman spat. “Fill the sink, soak the mop, wring it out, and then use it. Where on earth did Navin find a girl as dumb as you?”

Despite the barrage of insults, Sita did not allow herself to cry. She followed the woman's instructions and steeled herself against the pain. By some instinct, she understood that exhibiting weakness would only invite more abuse.

She spent the afternoon mopping and sweeping and scrubbing thick, oily grime off a multitude of surfaces in the kitchen. The woman was a cruel taskmaster; nothing Sita did was right. She rubbed so hard on the upper surface of the stove that her fingers began to lose sensation. Her nails chipped on exposed edges, and the rags and scalding water burned her hands. By the time the restaurant opened at six that evening, she was bone-tired and famished. The woman banished Sita to the flat and gave her a broom and a dustpan.

“I don't want to find a speck of dust on the floor, or you will have no dinner,” she said.

The woman tended the stove with the help of an Indian girl. They served up tandoori cuisine to a handful of their neighbors. It was a Friday night, but business was slow. The low table count made the woman even more irritable. When Navin's uncle closed the restaurant, the woman fetched Sita from the flat and gave her the mop again.

“Make this floor shine,” she said. She pointed at a plate of rice and chutney on the counter. “You may eat when you are finished.”

She mopped until midnight and collapsed in a heap in the corner with her food. She ate the meager offering but still felt hungry when she put the plate back on the counter. She thought of sleeping on one of the benches in the restaurant but feared that if the woman found her there, she would beat her. She returned to her corner and sat down.

As she began to drift off, the young boy appeared on the other side of the kitchen. After a long moment, he made a hesitant approach.

“What is your name?” he asked in Hindi.

“Sita.”

“I am Shyam,” he said, kneeling down in front of her. “Can we be friends?”

Sita shrugged, but Shyam persisted. “I am ten. How old are you?”

Sita didn't respond. She could barely keep her eyes open.

“I brought you a gift,” the boy said. He removed a small figurine from his pocket and placed it in her hand. “It is Hanuman. He will keep you company.”

Suddenly, he turned his head and looked at the door in fear. His mother was yelling his name. “I have to go,” he said.

He stood up and switched off the lights. A few seconds later, Sita heard the door close and the lock snap into place.

In the darkness, she traced the shape of the figurine with her fingertips. She could feel Hanuman's tall crown and scepter. She held him to her chest and remembered Ahalya's voice as she told the story of the great monkey on the night Navin first came. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried in vain to fall asleep.

At some point, she began to shiver. The kitchen was poorly heated and cooled quickly with the stove off. She struggled to her feet and searched a nearby closet for a way to cover herself. She found a sack of soiled tablecloths. Spreading one on the floor, she lay down in the closet beneath a rack of cleaning supplies. She pulled a second tablecloth over herself and buried her feet in the lightweight fabric. She still felt cold, but at least now the temperature was bearable.

She placed her head on the sack and clutched Hanuman beneath her chin, warding off the icy tentacles of isolation and fear.

At last, she slept.

Chapter 13

The soul, it is said, is enclosed in bones, that human love may be.
—T
HIRUVALLUVAR

Mumbai, India

Thomas placed the call the day after the raid. The rescue had affected him profoundly, and he could no longer justify irresolution. Either he was going to contact her or he was going to let her go. His heart quickened with the sound of the ring and then her voicemail picked up.