She lunged for his eyes, he ducked, and this time the knife ripped open the skin on his cheek. He could taste the salt of his own blood as it streamed down his face. His shirt was soaking red. He tried to move away and she threw the whetstone from the tool kit at him, splitting the skin on his forehead. He fell to his knees, but she would not stop, she flung all his gouges and chisels at him, one by one, as if he were a dartboard. He cowered, trying to shield himself with his arms and she aimed a vicious kick at his side. He doubled up with a howl as her foot slammed into his crotch.
Suraj managed to get to his feet despite the agonising pain. He struggled with the glass doors to the private garden at the back, stumbled out of them into the lawn. Hauled himself up over the wall that separated the lawn from the waste lot at the back, where the eternal buffalo was lowing. He was wheezing for breath, he was staggering away as fast as he could. His arm bled, his face bled, his stomach hurt, he could barely see. He had no sense of where he was going, except forward. He pushed through the undergrowth, between trees, bushes, bulrushes, tearing his clothes, feeling his skin rip.
The grassy ground turned to sand, the darkness lightened. He was on the beach. It was the grubby part of the seafront, smelling of sewage, strewn with the detritus of many meals: discarded water bottles, plastic spoons, foil plates, plastic bags. He slipped on something, trod glass shards and puddles. Then the sea was before him. He ran to its edge. His slippers floated away in the water — or had he run out barefoot? Dogs barked somewhere nearby, a stray pack. The waves crashed towards him. The barking came closer. “What did I do!” his brain sobbed, “What did I do?” The beach was lit sickly green by a strip of fluorescent lighting. He ran without looking, collided into a man watering a twig pushed into the sand. The man shoved him out of his way, went on watering the twig.
Suraj wanted to tear his eye out, he needed to stop it burning. He ran, fell, picked himself up, cursed, ran again. He came to a stop where the waves tugged at his feet. He held his head in his hands and collapsed on his knees in the water, choking on brine, throwing up.
Something emerged from the churning green water. A pillar was moving towards him. In the eerie glow of the green light it was an apparition from a nightmare. When it came closer it became a man. Yellow robes slid off the man’s powerful shoulders as he moved. White hair fell to his shoulders. In spite of the darkness, he wore sunglasses. Suraj kneeled in the surf, transfixed, as the man came closer.
Piku, I promised I would come back for you.
I tried to explain then, I couldn’t. I’ll try again.
They had locked me up with the dogs for trying to untie you. Every feature of the days that followed has been playing in a loop in my head these past thirteen years. When I came out I walked into a thick silence. It was as if fear had become a real living monster panting one step behind. I had eaten very little for those three days. My eyes were crusted with dirt, my clothes were sticky with sweat and grime. I did not see you anywhere. Instead, there was Champa. She was waiting for me when I came out of the bathroom. She looked around us to see if anyone was listening, then she asked me if I knew what Guruji had done when I was locked up.
She spat on the floor and I wondered what made her brave enough to do that. Some months ago she had disappeared for a fortnight and come back thinner, her eyes dark and sunken. The girls had whispered she had been sent away because she was pregnant and her baby had to be killed and removed from inside her. Some said she had gone with the driver of the school van. Others that it was with one of the guards. Nobody had done anything to help her. Champa had a recklessness about her ever since.
“He came into the dining room and went straight to Minoti,” she said. “He smashed her head against the wall. She bled and he laughed.”
“I don’t want to hear any more. Leave me alone.”
“That’s not all,” she went on in a breathless whisper. “He threw her down to the dining room floor, in front of all of us. He pulled her skirt up and pulled her knickers down — why are you blocking your ears? You’re only hearing this, you didn’t go through it. And you didn’t see it. Think of Minoti. She was screaming her lungs out and he was still cracking up. Then he pushed a big spoon into her. All of us saw it. The girls were crying. She was bleeding. There was food everywhere because the plates fell and the serving dishes fell.”
Do you know what I thought then, Piku? I would spend my whole life in this hell, that there was no beginning and no end. I had known nothing else since I was seven years old. I would never know any world other than this. Neither would you.
“We’re going to run away. There’s nothing to lose,” Champa whispered. This is what she said to me, Piku.
I said, “You ran away twice. The police brought you right back.”
“This time I won’t go to the police. I know better than that.”
“There’s no place for us outside. We have to stay hidden or they’ll put us in jail.”
“Forget it, they told us lies all these years. If we had run away long ago, nothing would have happened. And jail’s better than this, I can tell you. Anyway, look. .”
Joba came in. Champa and I tried to look as if we had not been speaking. We didn’t know how long she had been out in the corridor or how much she had heard. Joba wrinkled her nose at me and said, “You’re stinking.”
She smiled at the mirror, re-clipped her hair and said, “You smell just like a dog.”
We wouldn’t allow Joba to run away with us. No. Who else would run away with us?
“Don’t be a fool,” Champa said two days later when we got a chance to whisper again to each other. “Nobody else.”
“Piku. I’m not leaving Piku behind.”
“She’ll give everything away. She doesn’t have a brain. She can’t speak properly. All she can do is bang things and yowl.”
That’s what they thought of you, Piku. But I knew better. We had a secret language, you and I, and we had spoken it for five years.
“Piku’s not like that,” I whispered back as vehemently as I could. “She’s just slow and she doesn’t speak, but she understands everything I say. I know how to calm her down.”
“Ssssh! Don’t raise your voice!”
“I’m not going without her. She’ll be finished without me. I’m the only one who knows what she’s saying!” I had tears in my eyes. I didn’t let Champa see them.
“You can come back for her. There’ll be no space in that manure truck. It’s too small. What if she has one of her screechy fits? What if Bhola hears? What then?” She did not need an answer to that question, Piku.
Champa said, “Look, the only reason I’ve even told you about the plan is because I like you. And I need you to get me into that manure truck. But if you try anything funny, I’ll figure out another way of leaving. Remember I’ve run away twice before? Without your help. You can stay with your Piku.”
I went quiet. I could not get out without Champa, I knew nobody in the world outside. Champa was older. Because she had escaped before and been caught she knew what not to do. She said that during her time in the hospital she had found out about a home for girls like us, abandoned or orphaned. They would tell nobody about us, they would look after us.
Now that freedom seemed within reach, Piku, I could not let it go. I began to think our only chance was if I managed to get out. Then I would come back for you.
“I’ve heard they find parents for children at these girls’ homes, rich parents. Parents abroad. It’ll be a different life,” Champa said when we were sitting side by side one evening making garlands from a pile of jasmine. It was almost time for the puja and we had to have all the garlands done and ready in another half hour. My red thread flew in and out of the white jasmine at the ends of fat needles while Champa whispered the details of our escape to me.