The Blue Notebook Read online

  If I had hoped that my nuptials would be protracted, I was to be disappointed. As soon as the roars of mockery died down, Shahalad said in a strong voice that had a slow, even rhythm and sounded completely alien to his small physique that it was time to take his new wife to her wedding feast. He grasped my wrist and led me toward the back of the room amid calls of “Does she know what gifts you have for her?” “Don’t honeymoon too long,” and, in a mocking high-pitched tone, “Darling, darling, I love you.”

  In the Orphanage everything was done in haste. Shahalad led me to a back room in the building that was lit only from the main room. He pushed me up against a wall and lifted my white smock, and I felt him try to push his bhunnas into me from behind, with one hand on the back of my neck. He was fumbling and panting. He cursed. He soon realized that he could not maneuver me to couple with him in the way he envisioned. He threw me down onto a mattress on the floor covered with a threadbare blanket. He split my legs apart, lay on top of me, and pushed himself into me. He had far more strength than I had imagined, although I did not fight hard against him—perhaps this was a result of my rewiring. He had not said a word since we entered the room. He completed a handful of thrusts before I felt his terminal pulsations. As he finished, he rolled off me onto his back. I could sense that words were percolating inside him but he did not speak. We both lay on our backs, silently looking at the dark featureless ceiling of this cell.

  At that moment, the darkness was punctuated by the shouts of the Yazaks and the television noise from the main room. I could feel my identity separating from my body. When you create a painting, you apply paint to canvas; it is a mechanical process whereby a brush is dipped in paint and smeared over the canvas. As a masterpiece is painted, however, there comes a moment when the picture is no longer only a mere representation but possesses the essence of the artist. At this moment an unquantifiable element has been added to the canvas; you cannot weigh it and you cannot see it, but there it is! It is soul.

  In that dark little cell, I willed my soul free of my body. My soul jumped onto the spinning upper air that covers the top of the earth and there she was unconfined. I roared across the upper air and kissed Navaj goodnight, moved Mother’s favorite necklace so that she could not find it in the morning, and watched Father because he needs me to. I swirled at the feet of the great poets and rode in the manes of the swiftest horses. I filled the silent caves of the mountains and I confused the eagle as he was about to snap his talons over a field mouse (and so contravened “will”). I ignored the dying, for they will soon join me here, but helped the sick taste their pain. I laughed at the same blindness that the poor and rich share. All this, as I lay next to my silent husband.

  The stillness that hung in our space was splintered by Shahalad suddenly jumping to his feet; I had thought he was asleep. As he shot from the cell, he stopped short, spun round, and came back to where I lay. He stood over me and looked down. There was a jingle in his eyes and a smile on his face that were not altogether unattractive. He then turned away and left me.

  As Shahalad entered the main room, I could hear cheers from the Yazaks. “What a man” was one. After a short while my husband returned to the cell. I half expected another round of sweet-cake but no, he bade me enter the main room with him. I did as I was asked. Once I had gotten onto my feet, my body was not in pain, but I felt his juice sliding down my thigh. As I entered the main room behind Shahalad, I was barraged with the verbiage of the mindless: “You lucky bitch, to get a man with such a small penis,” and “Are you ready girl for the main course?” I stared intently at the floor and noticed the smoothness of the bricks worn down by centuries of feet.

  It was clear that my beauty served Shahalad well, as he frequently glanced at me from different points of the room as he mingled there. I saw children come and go from the main room; on each occasion they sought out their respective Yazak to presumably gain orders and collect rewards. I soon learned that everyone was taken at their word at the Orphanage. The Yazaks never verified that a task was complete and issued rewards as verbal requisitions: “Tell cook So-and-so to give you rice and meat” (a rare treat). Since disobedience was so brutally enforced, contravening a Yazak’s order carried enormous risk and necessitated stupidity. Some of the brutality was not judicial but unchecked sadism. For example, I saw a child (maybe eight) executed for threatening another child with a knife. The Yazak made the guilty child kneel and then he knelt behind him, holding the boy tightly in his arms. The Yazak made the other child slit the restrained boy’s throat while the now-silent crowd watched. Rape was common too; an older prostitute or even a girl would be brought into the main room, tied to a table facedown, and left there stripped to pleasure any man who wanted her. I knew not to interfere and learned that obedience was unquestioned and that the value of life is a moment; that was the unspoken creed of the Yazak.

  On my second day, Wolf, who was the head of the Yazaks, called across the room, “Shah, I am going to take your wife for a cup of tea to make sure she is settling in well and you are treating her right.” Wolf was not like the other Yazaks. The others, Shahalad included, were dirty and wore rags, whereas Wolf dressed tidily. Today, for example, he wore a spotless white shirt, pressed denim jeans, and brown leather shoes. Similarly, he was well groomed. He was clean shaven, wore his hair neatly combed, and had well-defined facial features. He was neither ugly nor handsome. His most remarkable physical feature was that he looked like a fourteen-year-old child when in fact he was far older. He gave an impression of innocence.

  The Yazaks feared Wolf. They never spoke of him when he was not there for fear of another Yazak ratting on them. When he came into the main room, there was an utter hush, and when Wolf issued an order there was absolute obedience. I never once saw his authority questioned. Another interesting thing about Wolf was that he did not live in the Orphanage, like the Yazaks, but somewhere in the city. He would show up in the main room at odd times to speak with the most senior Yazaks or sometimes just to watch television, but then he would leave. At least once a week, he would bring his light tan briefcase, which contained neatly apportioned sachets of white and brown powders, multicolored tablets, and brown-looking pieces of wood. Orphans, who had been organized by the Yazaks, were used to deliver the sachets throughout the city. On all the occasions I saw Wolf, he never raised his voice and always smiled. The orphans loved to see him as he always had sweets, a coin, or a kind word for them. His outward appearance of kind innocence was effective and remarkably deceptive.

  Wolf beckoned me to him and I obeyed; there was a tangible power to him. “What is your name, little one?” he asked. “Batuk,” I answered, eyes downcast. “Batuk. That’s a nice name. I just want to have a cup of tea with you and make sure that scallywag Shahalad is being good to you. Master Gahil specifically asked that you have a nice time here as he has good plans for you. Let’s go somewhere a bit more private.” As Wolf led me toward the back rooms, the sea of Yazaks, orphans, and whores split apart before us. When we got to one of the larger rooms, one of the Yazaks, who had followed us, laid out a clean-looking blanket over the mattress and then left us. Wolf spoke so softly that I could just hear him over the noise from the main room: “Batuk, kneel down.” I knelt before him and he continued to speak softly to me. “I am called Wolf, and my job is to take care of everyone …” With that he removed his bhunnas from his trousers and pushed my face onto it. It was soft and doughy. I knew what I was supposed to do. He continued as I moistened and licked him, “I have to make sure, you see, that everyone … you, Shahalad, Gahil … is organized and happy. Master Gahil, for example, needs to make sure that you will work well for him so that he can take care of you.” He was responding to the warmth and wetness of my mouth. He carried on, “You will need to work hard for Gahil if you want nice clothes and toys …” He pulled my face off him. His bhunnas was sticking straight out from his body. I watched from my knees as he took a little sachet from his pocket and sprinkled white powder along its
length. “Batuk,” he continued, “here is a little treat for you. Lick the sugar off … be a good girl.” The sugar did not taste sweet at all but had a bitter taste. As he guided my head over the stretched, bitter skin, a glaring, screaming bright light came on in my head … I was going to explode but I gave myself to Wolf.

  I woke up at night on the mattress. The blanket had been removed. I was in pain and completely naked. Most of all my neck hurt. My hair was wet and cold and the room smelled bad. I looked around. Shahalad was sitting at the far end of the cell watching me. When he saw me wake up, he folded his lips into his mouth like he was sucking on a lollipop. As much pain as I felt, I could see that he too grieved—maybe for me or maybe for him.

  Shahalad got up, walked over to me, and stood over me. I could not read his eyes, as it was dark. He slipped off his trousers (he did not wear shoes) and climbed onto me. He jammed into me with so much anger that I thought he would crush my body, but he did not. As he was releasing himself, I recognized the smell on my hair as urine.

  Shahalad was not a demanding husband, as I was predominantly a showpiece for him. This was a role I was happy to play. The more I attested to his potency, the less potent he seemed to need to be. In fact, within a week, he would drag me into the back room (I had learned to scream in mock fear) and there we would sit, sometimes for hours. While we sat together on the mattress, I would scream out in feigned agony from time to time or beg for “more.” This was entirely my idea and it pleased him.

  Our times together in the cell varied. Sometimes Shahalad would fall on me and make sweet-cake but this was always short-lived and became less painful as I became habituated. Also with habituation I gained greater skill at releasing myself to the upper air. There were other times when he would speak to me. He would most often speak of events at the Orphanage. He told me of the beatings and the cruelties, I think to dissipate his own pain. He would tell me about Wolf’s exploits in part out of admiration and in part out of hatred. Once he mentioned a dead brother, but he never said anything else about himself or his family. Once he told me that he liked me. He did not seem to expect me to say anything, which was just as well, as I had nothing to say. There were other occasions when we would sit together in perfect silence. He would smoke and we shared serenity together. There were occasions when I wished that those times would never end and I think he wished this too.

  Between sessions with Shahalad in the back room, there was little else for me to do, and so most of the time I would sit doing nothing in the main room. I favored a wooden bench at the back of the room where I could sit or lie down and just watch the goings-on. I was happy to be alone most of the time. The other girls, by contrast, would parade themselves around the main room. Just as there was a hierarchy among the Yazaks, there was a similar pecking order among the wives. They would expose their thighs or uncovered breasts. They would flirt with Yazaks who were not their husbands, which often resulted in terrific fights among jealous wives. Sometimes wives would contribute to the punishment of a street prostitute who was brought to the main room for “correctional teaching” for becoming lazy or unproductive; here a wife might help tie down a woman or even goad a Yazak to “split her.” I once saw a wife push a beer bottle into one particularly ugly street girl, saying, “That should get her going.” I observed a savagery among the wives, some barely older than me, the motivation for which I suspect was simply survival. I happily melted into my chair at the back of the room and sought invisibility.

  For most of the time the Yazaks, other than Shahalad, left me alone. There was a strict code that one Yazak did not take another’s wife to the cells and I never saw this rule violated. Wolf of course was the exception. I was not Wolf’s favorite and he never took me to the cells again, although every time I caught a glimpse of him or felt his eyes glancing on me, I smarted and felt the hairs on my body stiffen. My bruises from him soon healed. Another Yazak’s wife was Wolf’s chosen one, a very tall, stunningly beautiful older woman who reveled in Wolf’s attention and oftentimes mocked her husband publicly, knowing that she was untouchable; that was until one day she just disappeared. I soon realized that Wolf welcomed all the new wives personally and loved to evoke fear and hatred in each. His dominance over the wives implied the same over the husbands. A couple of years later, when I was on the Common Street, I heard that the Yazaks eventually turned on Wolf and hacked him to pieces with knives and broken bottles. His evisceration was so complete that he was taken to the dump in two dozen brown paper bags. It is the nature of great leaders to rise and fall.

  It was during my second week at the Orphanage that I first met Puneet. In the midday heat, I had been taken to the back room by Shahalad where he briefly made sweet-cake with me before we both fell asleep. We were awakened by a commotion in the main room and Shahalad jumped up and ran out. A few minutes later, I lolled into the main room and headed for my seat at the back of the room. There, in my chair, sat Puneet; he was eight at the time, a beautiful-looking boy. He sat with his knees drawn to his chin, dried tears on his face. His black hair was dusty and he was thin. He had been sucked off the street.

  Like many hungry street boys, Puneet had been caught pilfering food from the market and had been sent to the Orphanage. This is the way many children arrive there; they are caught committing small crimes, say by a vendor, by another member of the Orphanage, or even by the police. A Yazak is then called to cart them away and bring them to the Orphanage. When the Yazak came to collect Puneet from the fruit seller who had caught him, he was tied to a lamppost by his neck and hands. The Yazak immediately saw Puneet’s potential as a love-boy These boys either become prized as being male or become girl-boys—boys who get dressed as girls. Puneet inevitably became a girl-boy because of his femininity. He had been deposited by the Yazak at the brick hut while Shahalad and I had been sleeping. Wolf had immediately taken him, before assigning him to a Yazak, and broken him; new girl-boys were Wolf’s greatest pleasure. I had actually heard Puneet’s shrieks a few hours before but I had thought nothing of them, as these sorts of noises formed part of the air in the Orphanage. Wolf had been at him for hours before an emergency at the Orphanage had occurred, which had necessitated his cutting the boy free.

  As Wolf became immersed in the mounting crisis, I sat next to Puneet and we watched in silence as the Yazaks congregated in the middle of the room with Wolf at their center. The issue of concern was that another Orphanage had started to traffic stolen goods through our territory. The demarcation between the three major Orphanages was well defined and rarely infringed upon. Clearly today was the exception. Wolf, who always spoke softly, urged caution. For the only time I ever observed it, one of the senior Yazaks disagreed with him, asserting that they needed to defend their territory aggressively. I could not see exactly what happened because of the crowd, but this Yazak ran from the middle of the huddle screaming, with blood pouring from his cheek. Everyone else seemed to agree with Wolf’s approach.

  The crisis of the trafficking violations absorbed the Yazaks’ attention for the entire night. This resulted in my sharing several uninterrupted hours alone with Puneet. I remained sitting next to him for the whole time, watching the goings-on, but he did not apparently notice or care. Since I was accustomed to sitting alone in silence for hours, Puneet’s silence was no inconvenience to me at all. We sat together, alone, in silence.

  Generally, when night came, the Yazaks took their wives to the back rooms. Many couples shared rooms as there were more Yazaks than there were rooms. (Some couples also slept in the main room.) Tonight was different, as the Yazaks who had not left with Wolf to investigate what had happened stayed behind but were hushed and tense. A cricket game was on the television but the room was otherwise silent. Eventually I saw Puneet’s eyelids start to droop and soon his head flopped to the side and he fell asleep. I slid off the bench to let him lie down. As he fell sideways, I saw a puddle of blood on the seat where his bottom had been; the blood was already dry and darkening. I slept on the floo
r at his feet.

  Wolf proved to be correct. What had occurred, I learned later, was that a single rogue gang of house thieves had strayed into our territory. The matter was quickly resolved that night when Wolf and several of our Yazaks met with the equivalent leadership from the other Orphanage. Apparently reparations were made; Shahalad did not know exactly what they were but we both guessed that the rogue gang had become part of the great garbage mound of Mumbai.

  The following night I dreamed for the first time of the hat vendor at the market. Though I did not yet know I would see this dream several times in the future, even then it puzzled me. It was such a realistic experience that I awoke with a start in the middle of the night, trying to grab the falling hats. I felt that my descent through the marketplace was a premonition. Truth proved me to be right because three days later I was collected by Mamaki Briila.

  When Mamaki Briila entered the main room, the Yazaks called her “Hippopotamus” to her face. She did not seem to take offense but rather laughed at the endearment. Hippopotamus and I left for the Common Street on foot—I was unbound. I had no idea that Puneet’s destiny was married to mine but a few weeks later he showed up to occupy the nest two doors down from mine. I never got to say goodbye to Shahalad.

  He may have laughed yesterday at the joke about the disappearance of Hippopotamus’s husband, but Puneet is a sullen pile of horseshit. He is no use to me as he sits downcast all the time. Pah!