He thought for a moment. “Maybe three years. Four.”
Poornima felt a shiver go through her, and she thought, What if he did? What if he did see her? “Did you happen to see a girl, not quite two years ago? She would’ve been a little taller than me. And wearing a blue sari, patterned with peacocks. A beautiful smile. From Indravalli?”
Rishi considered for a long moment. His eyes began to spark. “What else?”
“She was thin, but not as thin as me. Straight hair, but with small ringlets at her forehead. Probably she was going north, too.”
“Did she have pretty lips? And did you say the sari was blue?”
Poornima’s eyes also lit up. “Yes! And her name was Savitha. Did you see her?”
“Savitha? Did you say Savitha?” Rishi smiled—a wide smile that plumped up his thin face, as if his cheeks had sprouted for just that smile. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? Of course I know Savitha.”
“You do?”
“Yes, it must’ve been two years ago. Now I remember. And she was from Indravalli. Are you from there, too?”
“What did she say? Where did she go?”
“Not north. Where did you get the idea she would go north? She’s right here. In Vijayawada. I got her a job.”
“Here? In Vijayawada?”
“Yes. Right here. Come on, I’ll take you to her.” He smiled again, and this time Poornima noticed that one of his teeth was discolored: one of the lower ones, in the front. She looked at it and wondered if he was lying.
9
They left the station by the same way Poornima had come in, nearly two weeks earlier. They walked for what seemed like hours, through the Green Park Colony and Chittinagar, and then they entered an area with run-down homes and shacks. The tea stalls seemed dirtier, and the eyes of the men followed them, rimmed with red. They saw Poornima’s bandages and turned quickly away.
“Do you have to have those?” he said.
“Have what?”
“Those bandages.”
Poornima felt the need to scratch again, the moment she thought about them. “Well, yes, of course I do.”
“Savitha might mind them.”
“Why would she?”
They walked on. By now, there were no more run-down houses, but only empty lots. Poornima could tell they were getting farther away from the Krishna. The wide-open lots were inhabited only by pigs and feral dogs and heaps of trash. At the edge of one of these garbage-strewn fields was a massive house, much bigger than anything else in the area, and much better maintained, too. They turned into the drive. “Savitha is here? She works here?”
“Sort of,” he said enigmatically.
Rishi didn’t ring the bell; they walked right in. As soon as they did, Poornima heard shuffling coming from the second floor. She looked up into the open balcony and saw maybe five or six girls, her age and even younger, milling for a moment, and then turning and walking away. She didn’t see Savitha, though. Rishi said, “Come on,” and led her deeper down the first-floor hallway. At its end was a door, and when they entered it—knocking this time—a thin man with large spectacles was sitting behind a desk. He had skin the texture of jackfruit, maybe from a childhood disease, Poornima thought. He looked up and eyed her, and his expression of boredom turned to distaste. But the edge of his gaze held more than distaste, and Poornima nearly stepped back and fled, to see such bold and ready ruthlessness.
“What is that?” he said, not looking at Rishi but clearly addressing him.
“Train station, Guru.”
“Are you stupid?”
“You said we were short, Guru. So I thought maybe—”
“Is that right? Is that what you thought?”
Rishi lowered his head and nodded.
“Well, take it back,” the man growled. “She’s ugly. And those bandages. Who’d pay for that? Don’t you have any sense? No one does. That’s the problem. And guess what that Samuel did? Left without a word. Took one of the girls with him. Now what am I supposed to do? Nobody to do the books and one less girl. And you. Bringing that around. Get rid of it.”
Poornima looked from Rishi to the man behind the desk. She thought of her money, and her jewelry, and she thought she might never have another chance. “Do you know my friend? From my village. Rishi said—” she began.
The man was scribbling in a book, a logbook of some sort, and when Poornima spoke, he looked up at her as if he was amazed, perplexed that she had a voice. He made a slow fist. “I said, get her out of here.”
“He said you did.”
He put down his pen, and she could see the anger rising. Constricting his mouth, his nose, and finally his eyes into pinpoints of rage. “You know, I’ve seen monkeys more attractive than you.”
Rishi grabbed her arm, as if to pull her out of the room. Poornima shook him off. She thought of the weaving hut, the morning after Savitha left, and she thought of how she must’ve walked out, all alone, into the night. She wondered whether she had turned around, just before leaving, and stood at the door, searching for a reason to stay, and yet hadn’t found one. Nothing, not ever, would be emptier for Poornima than that thought. “I can do books,” she said.
The man looked at her.
“I can do books. Accounting. I’ve learned.”
The man laughed. He said, “Since when do village girls learn accounting? Where did you say you were from?”
“I can. I’ll show you.”
The man looked at Rishi and Rishi looked back at him. Then they both looked at Poornima. The man then turned the logbook around to face Poornima and said, “Go ahead.”
Poornima studied it. They just seemed a jumble of numbers at first, with letters heading most of the columns, with what had to be dates on the left-most column. But the longer she looked at them, the more she realized there was a pattern: the numbers under some of the letters were always bigger. And the dates, she saw, were the previous month’s dates. Then she realized what the letters were; they were initials. Three of them were S, followed by a number. Cold dripped down her spine. “Wouldn’t it be better if you knew more? Like, if it was the same man, over and over again? And what days he was coming. And whether for the same girl. If you tracked that, you could charge more.”
There was silence. A dog barked. “So you can,” the man said. He looked at her, as if for the first time. “What else can you do?”
“I can cook, and I can clean, and I can work on the charkha.”
Guru signaled with a wave of his hand for Rishi to leave the room. Once he’d gone, he looked at her with sudden interest, but interest laced with cruelty, with calculation.
“Guru,” he said. “That’s my name. We have more of these. Six others. You have to do all of them. Where are you staying?”
“At the train station.”
“There’s a room in back. You can stay there. Nothing in the room will belong to you, but we can try it for a few days. Are you willing to try it for a few days?” His tone sharpened, pointed at her like a dagger, and Poornima realized he was no longer talking about the books, or account keeping. She nodded.
Then he said, “What happened to your face?”
“Nothing,” Poornima said. “I had an accident.”
Guru smiled, horribly. Then he sat back in his chair and said, “Oil? Or acid?”
*