*
It took the better part of a year, but one winter evening, when Guru came to check the account books, she waited outside the madam’s door. He was saying something about having hired a new accountant, someone trustworthy, he thought, and then he laughed, and then the rest of the conversation was muffled. When he came out, Savitha stepped in front of him. Guru was taken aback, or so she guessed by the slight quiver she saw at the edge of his lips, though he said and did nothing more to indicate his surprise.
“Do I know you?”
So that’s how many girls he had: more than he could remember.
“Savitha.”
“Savitha?”
“I’m the one you spit on.”
He seemed to consider the statement, the words themselves, and the fact that they’d been spoken. To him.
“I’d like a banana,” she said.
By now, the madam had come to the door. Her eyes blazed. She laughed nervously. “A joker. It’s nice when one of the girls is funny.”
Savitha braced her feet to the floor. She willed her body taut. Her eyes blazed back. Guru seemed amused. He rocked on his elevated shoes, eye to eye with Savitha, and said, “You get enough rice.”
“I do. But I’d like a banana to eat with my rice. My yogurt rice.”
He laughed out loud, for a long while. And when he finished, his voice dropped; it settled like stone. “Come with me,” he said. “Let me show you how you can get that banana.”
She followed him inside. He sent the madam down the hall and closed the door behind her. Then he walked to the desk in the center of the room and opened one of the large books stacked in a far corner. Savitha had never seen a book that big, the pages filled with lines and columns and numbers and all manner of scribbles. “You see this,” he said, pointing to a row in the middle of a page. She leaned over. No, she didn’t see. It looked to her like random markings. “This is how much you make in a month. And you see these? These numbers here are what you cost me. The difference is my profit. You see?”
Savitha nodded.
“Very good. Then you must also see that for every banana you want, all you have to do is take on one more customer. One banana, one customer. You see?” He looked at her.
Savitha looked back. “I see. I’d also like to know how to leave here,” she said.
He sat down on the chair behind the desk. He folded his hands. His look was one of sorrow, or maybe sweetness. “Forget what I said about a woman who won’t listen. The worst thing is a woman who knows what she wants.” He rose slowly and came around the desk. His heels clicked on the stone floor. “Let’s start here,” he said, and led her to a cot in the corner of the room. Savitha lay down on her back, but he turned her over and took her that way. “I don’t like faces,” he said.
*
Over the next months, Guru sought her out whenever he came to the brothel. It wasn’t very often; usually he had the books delivered to the main house, where the accounts were kept. Somewhere outside of town, Savitha was told.
He’d asked for her by name.
Each time, he’d ask her how many bananas she’d earned that month. Six, she’d say, or five. You like them that much? he’d ask. They keep me from forgetting, she’d say. Forgetting what? Savitha would only smile and burn brighter.
In the spring of that year, Guru summoned Savitha into his office. It had been nearly two years since she’d left Indravalli. This time, as she looked around the room, she saw that the books were gone; there was only him, behind the desk, waiting. “Sit down,” he said. And when she did, he said, “There’s a Saudi prince.”
“Saudi?”
“It’s a country.”
“Is this a story?”
“Sort of. Yes, yes, it is. He wants to buy a girl. Young, not too young. You might be just right.”
Savitha listened.
“A lakh rupees. We’ll split it two ways. A year or two over there, and you’ll be free.”
Savitha’s eyes widened. Fifty thousand rupees! She could get all her sisters married; she could buy her parents a house, a castle! But wait. Why would he share the money with her? Why would he give her a single paisa?
“The thing is…” Guru continued, hesitating, though Savitha had never before seen him hesitate. “The thing is, he has interesting tastes.”
“What kind of tastes?”
“He likes amputees.”
“What’s an amputee?”
“Someone who’s missing a limb.”
Savitha shook her head, confused. “But I’m not missing a limb.”
He looked at her. A long, cruel look.
“No.” She laughed, chilled by the realization of what Guru was suggesting. “Never.”
But he continued looking. He waited. She jumped up, breathed with effort. “You’re worth about a quarter of that to me,” he said. “Twenty-five, let’s say. Do you know how long it will take you to buy your way out of here?”
Savitha thought of the book, the markings, the figures. She thought about what a banana cost. “I don’t care. I’m not—”
“So the question is,” Guru said, interrupting her, “do you want to be worth what you are, or do you want to be worth more?”
There seemed no greater question in the world.
Savitha looked down at her hands, and as if prophetic in her gaze, when she asked, “Which limb?” he said, “Any limb. A hand, let’s say. Either one. You choose.”
*
The operation was scheduled to take place two days later, but was then moved up to the next day. Less time to change my mind, Savitha thought. Regardless, she lay in bed all the night before, cradling her left hand, letting it wander over the ridges of her body. How can they take a hand? How can a hand be taken? she wondered. The palm, the fingers, the crescent moons at their tips. The warmth of blood beneath the skin, already curtailed, lost. The ends of a body as beautiful as its beating center. She decided in that moment, resolutely, lying in bed, No, I won’t do this, I won’t let them. But then she gazed into the dark of the room, into the dark oblivion of her waiting sisters, their waiting dowries, and knew she would. Knew she had to. She would let them buy it—her hand; she had nothing left to sell.
3
It was called a general anesthetic, but it felt to Savitha as if a light had been turned off, as if night had crashed through her like an anvil. When she woke up, the stub of her left arm was bandaged. The doctor beamed with pride and said, “Cleanest one ever. It looks almost pretty.” When the bandage came off, Savitha sat in her room and stared at it. What did they do with my hand? she wondered. Where did they take it? If someone paid for a stub, then maybe someone else paid for a hand?
Regardless, in the end, she realized, it had come down to the body.
She held back tears. She could never again sit at the loom, or the charkha, but why would she need to? With fifty thousand rupees she could buy all the cloth in the world. Silks and chiffons and gold-bordered pottu saris. Saris she could’ve never before imagined, but now could buy as gifts for her sisters on their wedding days. With that thought, she searched in her pillow and took out Poornima’s half-made one. She held it to her chest; she buried her head in its folds. What reason was there to be sad? It was just a hand. Imagine Nanna’s surprise, she thought. Imagine his delight. All that money. And yet, and yet the scrap of a sari she held now, she knew—the knowledge grottoed in her heart, hidden in a cove, reached only by the darker waters, the quieter ones—was the truest offering. What did they matter, the ones to come? What did they matter to her? What mattered was that once, long ago, a line of indigo thread had met a line of red, and out had poured a thing of beauty. A thing of bravery.
She lifted her head and noticed a dampness. She was crying. And the cotton, as cotton will, had soaked up the tears.