The previous autumn—the first autumn of the girl in the pear-print dress, I mean—I had gone back to school. For understandable reasons, I went to a different school from the one Karri went to. I noticed that I was a good student, better than Karri had been. All the information that had made Karri yawn was there in my mind, accessible, as if my mind were an entire library. I was, in fact, first in my class, and got a scholarship, although some of the teachers gave me some odd looks when they heard about my past.
I was thrilled when I realized I could play the piano, even though Karri had been a hopeless music student. The school music teacher encouraged me to get a proper piano teacher—she thought I might even have the talent to be a concert pianist.
Tourula started to feel oppressive; Anna thought I was an interloper. I found a job in Helsinki as a nanny. I packed my bags, left a short note for Anna telling her I’d got a job in domestic service, and hitchhiked to Helsinki. From there I went straight to Sweden, then to Amsterdam. I guess you could say that the little girl in the pear-print dress decided to go out into the wide world to find herself.
You can smile now, darling…
For a while I was working in a coffee house in the Jordaan district in Amsterdam. I shared an apartment with two Indian Hijra. We had a lot in common, and I ended up going with them to Bombay.
But before that I hired a boy prostitute. You see, I missed you terribly. I chose someone who looked and smelt a little like you. I wanted to experience the same feeling I had on that last summer night. I paid him, and then we went into a dark room. I did the same things to him that I had done to you. I explained in detail how he should touch me, and I called him Olli. I had my second orgasm.
I’m sorry, Olli. I can see that you don’t want to hear this. But it’s all a part of the history of my flesh, my skin, and I want you to know all of it.
Have you ever been to India? They have a book fair there, too, you know. It’s in Mumbai. Although when I was there it was called Bombay.
I spent three years in the heat of that city. It smells bad and there are too many people, too many rats, too much noise, but I felt extremely at peace there. Because there they recognize a third gender, the hijras, who aren’t men or women. My new Hijra friends welcomed me into their community.
The hijras have their own caste. A long time ago they were considered sacred and were respected, but then the English colonists gave India the gift of slow continuum attachment and showed them the hijras in the light of ordinariness, in other words as contemptible deviations from the norm.
We were hated and feared and honoured, depending on the situation. We got badly beaten up a few times, sometimes by gangs of men, sometimes the police. But we showed up at ordinary people’s weddings, made a lot of noise and sang naughty songs until they paid us to leave. It was a custom there.
When I’d been living in Bombay for almost three years, I learnt that a hijra friend of mine named Heena was in love with me. We had sought human happiness and warmth from each other and agreed that that was all it would be. And I ended up chasing her out of my bed. She was beautiful in her orange dress, and she was a sensitive person. There was something like you about her, so I enjoyed being near her.
The next evening we went out to some bars and I told her all about you. I also told her that for me she had mostly been a shadow of you. It was cruel, but at the time I thought it was necessary.
She cried but said she understood.
On the way home, three men ambushed us and dragged us into an alley. One held a knife to my throat while the other two violently attacked Heena. I was silent. She screamed like an animal being slaughtered. I knew it would be my turn next.
But a large, drunken tourist happened to walk by. He yelled something in German, waved a pistol and scared the rapists away.
The tourist and I helped the bloodied Heena to her feet and set off to take her home.
We hadn’t walked very far when a police car pulled up beside us. Two policemen in grey uniforms and caps got out. They asked us in a very intimidating tone what we were doing. I suspected that they had been watching the whole incident from a distance. The German explained that we had been the victims of an attack, but he was reluctant to get involved in the incident any further. The police ordered him to leave and threw Heena and me into their car.
In the back room of the police station, I was handcuffed to a chair and Heena was hung by her hands from a window grate. We were beaten and insulted. I still remember the words they said, although I didn’t understand them. Khoja! Gandu! Ninna ammane kevya!
The police continued to defile Heena. They treated me more warily because I was a Westerner, but I got a few good thumps from them and was unconscious part of the time. It was no longer morning when the German reappeared, cleaned up and wearing a crisp white suit. He must have bribed the police because they took off our handcuffs.
But Heena slumped to the floor.
The German, who said he was a doctor, pronounced her dead. He pointed out her wounds, explaining with dry professionalism what the cause of death was. It seemed to me like he was trying to establish his authority in the eyes of the police. They listened to him blank-faced. The atmosphere was tense.
I was crying with rage and sadness. I just wanted the police to be held responsible for what they had done to Heena. The German whispered to me in English that we had better be leaving. He understood enough Marathi to know that the police would kill me as soon as he wasn’t there to witness it. And he himself wasn’t completely safe now that he had been a witness to the police committing a murder.
We went outside and got into a taxi. The German introduced himself as Hans Engel, a plastic surgeon with a practice in Rio de Janeiro. I told him I was Finnish. He was delighted and suggested that I pick up my passport from my rooms and fly with him to Brazil. He wanted to give me a job as a receptionist, said that he thought Finns were reliable employees.
Heena was dead, so I couldn’t think of any reason not to accept his offer. And besides, I knew that I needed plastic surgery, so my chance meeting with Hans Engel felt like divine providence.
Olli, do you feel like hearing some more?
Good.
Tonight I’m going to tell you everything you need to know. After this we’ll never talk of these things again.
I spent the next seven years of my life with Hans Engel.
He turned out to be an agreeable person. I had my own room in a lovely house where he kept his practice. It was in a prominent place on Saquarema, on the Rua Maximino Fidelis, near the beautiful beaches. I was living in a picture postcard. I quickly mastered my job as a medical receptionist. In the meantime I studied the language and served as a sort of part-time substitute daughter to Hans.
Sometimes in the evenings I would play the piano and Hans would listen. He wasn’t the least bit musical, but he had an expensive piano because he thought it was a beautiful object. His younger daughter was also a promising pianist, and my playing lightened his gloom. Hans had to leave his wife and two daughters behind in East Germany several years earlier. Apparently it was due to some sort of tax difficulties. As time went by he told me more about himself, but his reason for leaving East Germany was always left unclear. I had the impression that there was something about it that even he didn’t want to remember.