Painted Ghosts, page 22
Dickie’s face was puffed with welts and bruises, the large swelling over her left cheekbone shone a strange mauve in the blue light, and the right ear was inflamed. She lay on a low wooden bed that looked centuries old with dirty blood stained sheets.
‘Diksha, Diksha,’ Bijal said gently, dipping a dirty cloth in water and dabbing her wounds. ‘Sweet Diksha, little Dickie—’ Bijal nursed her as though she were a child.
The other hijra stood behind as Daya pulled the cloth from her father’s hand and addressed him. ‘You go,—’ she told her father. ‘It’s late now. The contract—’
Bijal shook, tears in his eyes, as he knelt by Dickie, stroking her hands and running his fingers through her hair and bending, kissed her forehead.
Daya regarded her father for a moment, letting the cloth fall to the dirt floor. Ria’s realisation came at the same time. Bending to retrieve the cloth, Daya wrung it tightly, then flung it in the bowl splashing Dickie’s wounded face. Daya took two steps back, turned and dived through the ripped curtain crying, ‘Daddy-ji, Daddy-ji, you can’t — Not with Dickie. Not you, you can’t do this—’
8
Ria was about to turn and go after her but Dickie grasped at her wrist and held her back and looking up at her said, ‘Are you scared like them?’
‘Let me go,’ Ria yelled.
‘There’s something different about you. If we could explain,’ Dickie still held on to her and despite Dickie’s thin damaged frame her grip was powerful.
‘Explain what?’
‘You’re not scared like them.’
‘Let me go.’
‘Are you too scared to hear then?’ Dickie croaked. ‘Run away from the truth? Like Daya? It always catches you up in the end.’
‘This is my sister’s.’
Bijal quietly stroked Dickie’s hair and forehead with a damp cloth.
‘We didn’t know. Not at first. We found an empty place—’
‘You want me to believe that. You and Bijal set it up.’
‘Bijal is a good man,’ Dickie relaxed her grip and Ria pulled away.
‘It wasn’t his to give. You two making out or something?’
‘People hate us everywhere,’ Dickie sounded resigned to Ria rather than angry. ‘You can see.’
‘Who beat you?’ Ria looked in her eyes.
‘Boys with clubs and bats. There are even people in your family who hate me. I have nowhere else.’
The other hijra sitting in shadows grunted. ‘People say all hijra bad. Some people take us to wedding. They like. We bring good luck. Sing song. Some boys in village do not like.’
‘Mickie is my friend,’ Dickie glanced over to her. ‘She looks after me. I owe everything to her.’
‘Boys beat you?’ Ria softened.
‘Beat,’ Mickie carried on. ‘Throw stone. We are not bad people. We give to people in the village. We want to bring good things, good luck.’
Ria could not dismiss Madhu’s comments from her mind and was angered by the injuries she saw now.
‘And you? And Bijal?’
‘Bijal helps me. ’
‘How long?’
‘Two years now.’
‘You planned it all with him,’ Ria suppressed her anger, feeling she should run after Daya but Mickie slid a chair behind her, a crude wooden thing with split matting, and motioned for her to sit.
‘Bijal knows who I am,’ Dickie said as Ria sat. ‘Two years ago I was with a Nayak who beat me.’ When Dickie looked in her eyes Ria felt Dickie trusted her. Yet she was anxious about the entanglement she was getting into and confused about how she could help. ‘A Nayak is who you live with, a leader of the commune. You give all money to her — she decides. When I was with her first she was good, but she was jealous always of me and always had bad words: “You do not bring me enough money.”’
A shaft of sunlight came like a laser beam through a tiny hole in the plastic roof sheeting, playing over her gesticulating hands. The room was dirty and smelled of damp. When Mickie lit incense sticks the tone changed and she felt how affectionate and loyal the two hijra beside her were — like sisters whose lives depended on each other. Bijal too, who she had forgotten in shadows, sat with the sweet aroma encircling him, letting life be what it was. Although she had impulses to get up and go, Ria was compelled to stay and listen.
‘No,’ Dickie went on, ‘my Nayak wasn’t always like that.’ She paused, her fingers playing childlike in the beam of light. ‘When I was a boy I knew I was not the same — the loud play-fighting boys with long competitive arms and legs — I knew that was not me. I loved dresses and make-up and dolls and — I was different, my body was not right for my mind. I was scared: you do not feel like other girls and boys but you don’t know why and you don’t know what to do about it. I was blessed that my Nayak took me in. My father didn’t care about me, he had taken me away from my mother a year before, and he went off doing jobs, leaving me in the day. He often beat me if I didn’t come home with money. My Nayak gave me food and shelter and I grew up with other hijra. They cared for me — more than my own family—’
‘You had no other family?’ Ria said. Mickie pushed the curtain aside and went into the other room.
‘A sister once. I don’t know what happened to her. She was taken away.’
‘And you were snatched by your Nayak?’
Dickie’s shoulders seemed to relax, and although the wounds masked the beauty of her face she was no longer angry. ‘People think hijra steal young boys. They don’t. With new born babies we pass money over their head to keep evil spirits away. We check them. If the boy has a lingam he stays with his mother. But some, they belong to us and we wait for them to come — we just wait, we never steal. I knew when I was taken in I would be all right, I had found people who would be my real family. I lived with her for many years. When I got older men came. Married men sometimes. Like Bijal.’ She drew breath, glanced over to Bijal’s smile and carried on surely. ‘It’s hijra. Who we are. You can hate us. You can beat us. But we are hijra. We are proud. When you beat us you are beating something you don’t like about yourself.’
Mickie returned with a steaming cup of tea and handed it to Ria and she smiled and nodded in response. ’Dickie get tired,’ Mickie said, ‘After tea, you go—’
Mickie’s words prompted Ria and she turned to Bijal. ‘Uncle you must go to the hotel. You must talk to your daughter—’
Bijal motioned to Dickie to stop but she insisted on carrying on. ‘I must tell her,’ Dickie said. ‘She must know.’ And turning back to Ria asked her name.
‘Ria.’
‘That’s a good name for you. I like it. Sounds English and Indian. I took the name ‘Diksha’. It means “initiation.” That is good for me. I was initiated into the hijra.’
‘Few minute,’ Mickie cautioned. ‘Dickie need rest. Get well with rest.’
Bijal nodded.
‘Bijal found me two years ago sleeping alone outside. He knew I might get attacked like that and saw that I was unhappy. The Nayak I was staying with shouted at me: “You do not bring in enough money, you are lazy, how can I live on this?” She was rich and she had got jealous and scared of me. I have ideas. I want hijra to be great. She could not see it. She said my ideas were too big and she threw me out. Everywhere we are hated and seen as dirty. And we live to that, we become that, and we become separated and only known as dirty sex workers. I do not want that. I want to change it. I ran away from my Nayak to set something up — a community of hijra, making and buying and selling fabrics and goods. And other things too — artefacts, tourist things,’ Dickie smiled with excitement, ‘I want hijra in the market respected for the quality of their work. Not just dirty people, sluts, but business people who know how to manage things, keep accounts, buying and selling and giving something to the community. I came to this bit of land for that. We will make this place thrive.’
‘How can you?’ Ria was sceptical and blowing steam from her tea looked towards Bijal who looked away.
‘It might take years, but others will join,’ Dickie went on. ‘Two are coming next week—’
‘Long time,’ Mickie said, ‘but we will do.’
‘You can really do it?’ Ria sipped the sweet tea.
‘I want all to be equal in the hijra house, not one dictator. A democracy, Ria, a co-operative. Is that good? Our business here will be a co-operative where everyone gains money and status and all the skills are recognised, and hijra can hold up their heads. I had that vision for years, but my Nayak thought she would lose all her power. Bijal has a big heart, he brought me here. This is where I am, this is where we do it. Can you see hijra in town and people coming to us as trusted business people? Can you?’
‘With everyone against you?’ Ria tipped back her cup finishing her tea.
‘We need people to help.’
‘I can’t do anything—’
‘Mickie came with me. She has the dream. What is life without a dream? Nothing. Drudge, hatred, stones on your back. Dreams give you hope, dreams dig you out of despair, they make you become somebody, they build your belief in life. We found this old ruin. Like a gift from the gods. We said to ourselves it must be true, this dream. Nobody lived here, so we said we would start now, spread the word to other hijra to come and join us — people to share our vision. So hijra are not just seen as child kidnappers who are weird and want to mutilate themselves.’
Ria’s curiosity was awoken, but she did not want to be in the middle of the feud. She was also intrigued by Dickie’s eloquence: she must have been educated in a good school and have learned English to a high level. Dickie had been good at hiding that when they first met on the road. There were many questions Ria wanted to ask, but she was concerned about how Daya was reacting to finding her father with his new lover.
‘I want to make hijra accepted as part of everyday life. We can grow mangoes on the land and other fruits, we can trade fabrics, saris, chunni scarves, make-up, simple jewellery, icons and statues. Bijal can help find companies to trade with us, and we sell on. We can take our goods to Goa, there are many places to sell to tourists. Perhaps linking with someone in England so we can buy and sell. Nobody has done anything in India about solar energy — look at all the free sun we get. There’s so much we can set up and do. Respect, that’s all we ask.’ Her bruised face glowed. ‘Can you imagine? No longer living like sex slaves with little money and dignity. Many people would want us to come to their weddings and bless their children because we would be prosperous and bring good luck. Ria. You understand. You’re not like the others. You listen—’
‘But this is my sister’s land,’ Ria stood up.
‘More hijra will come,’ she held her stare at her.
Ria turned away and scowled at Bijal. ‘What have you done, Bijal?’
‘You will think about me?’ Dickie said.
Impressed by the credibility of Dickie’s ideas, but confused and anxious about how the situation could be resolved Ria said, ’I’ve got to go.’
Dickie grabbed her dangling wrist loosely as she was going, pulled it to her and kissed it. Ria recognised a change in her own views but still doubted herself. In Dickie she saw a young excited mind with determination. Dickie sat up, opened her palm and blew a kiss to her. ‘Respect is what we ask. I lost my family, this is all I have—’
9
Resigned that there was little she could do, Ria felt impatient not to get too involved and to get on and find her brother. She was impressed by Dickie’s enthusiasm, though. Sadie was almost impossible to work with, and Ria’s influence useless. As she pushed past Mickie who smiled a goodbye and Bijal whose eyes searched her face for clues to what she might do, Ria mused she would have more luck trying to convince a tiger to become a vegetarian than moving her sister Sadie from her viewpoint.
Ria left the ruin, coming out to sunshine and far off snow tipped mountains. They did not ask her to come back, in fact they did not ask her to do anything, but she knew she was not done with them. Maybe they would get fed up and move on anyway, she shrugged. She could hear Dickie singing as she walked out under the peaks:
‘Shiva rules the skies of our intent,
In the morning he rises in the east
And brings us the confusion of daylight,
Trips our egos with his enlightenments,
Throws us confusion, hurt and hate,
Falls and dies in the west,
Destruction, death and resurrection,
Shiva brings his change,
The certainty of the change the Buddha sent.’
She could hear voices a few houses away as she descended the path from the village to Padma’s home and as she stepped on to the veranda she found Daya and Padma loudly tearful, holding each other. Madhu slammed a book down on the low wall fronting the space and Sadie was pounding about in a small circle thumping her thigh with her fist, baby Krish crying in a bundle at her feet.
Daya broke away from her mother, who stood bent alone, weeping, came to Ria and held her arm, ‘Ria. Daddy-ji. How could he do this? Why? Mummy-ji is sick with worry. He’s finished her. How can she live? The shame. Who will look at him again?’
Padma pushed away tears. ‘Without my husband, we have no money. Everything is his.’
‘People will not come to his shop,’ said Madhu. ‘You don’t understand, when people know they will stay away. If he leaves Mummy-ji we have nothing. No studies, no—’ Madhu’s anger brought her close to tears. ‘Who will want to marry us?’ Madhu banged her book down again.
‘On my land—’ Sadie said.
Ria scowled at her, ‘It’s more complicated than that.’ Ria could see Daya was struggling to find something positive although she was still in shock, a look of disgust for her father on her face. ‘We must talk to him.’
Sadie stopped pacing. ‘Calls himself an uncle, and sweet as pie to everyone, with jokes, and all this behind our backs. Now we know what happened — Bijal told him to take the land.’
Ria reflected that the motives of Bijal’s action could not be denied. Again she felt in the middle of a quarrel that wasn’t hers, trying to understand all sides, feeling ineffectual and not wanting any of it.
‘You listen to them and not your own sister,’ Sadie told Ria, ‘All you want to do is find your brother. Even when we were kids you and Hari froze me out. I was glad when he was gone. Ijay is the only one who really helped — keeping contact with your dad’s family in Manchester and auntie Padma—’
Ria paused, letting the reality sink in. ‘You took it. My model of the glass mountains, didn’t you?’ Ria had not wanted to believe Sadie could have taken the piece she valued so much, but Sadie’s coldness and jealousy indicated she was the culprit. Ria’s anger was up. ‘Did you even really know Ijay?’
‘He was everything,’ Krish’s crying finally got to Sadie and she picked him up. ‘Ijay stayed here lots with his auntie Padma. Anyway, mum said your dad brought Hari to the glass mountains.’
Ria struggled to hold back her anger. ‘You treat Ijay like he was some god.’
‘That’s why you really came here. Not for me — or Ijay’s ashes.’ Sadie clung on to Krish unworried about the audience. Daya was sitting with her mother on the bench and Madhu was crouched by the wall. ‘He was everything. Have you never loved, Ria?’
Ria was suddenly aware that her fists were clenched by her side. ‘You looked the other way then with his scams.’
‘He always looked after us.’
Ria shook her head, smiling ironically. ‘You don’t even know whether it was really an accident—’ This was the argument that they should have had years ago. It had to come out. They had to shout at each other and then move on, with or without sisterhood.
‘I took your model of the glass mountains,’ Sadie snapped. ‘Yes, you left it lying around, you weren’t bothered with it then.’
The theft of Ria’s model symbolised to her the depth of Sadie’s long held resentment of her. And Ria could not help responding. It was cruel, but it had to come out — all of it.
‘And the women he had on the side. Everybody knows. They talked about it in my restaurant. One of the girls who’d been with him had pictures on her phone—’ Ria regretted saying it as soon as the words were out. She did not want to fight, and was surprised at the feelings of rage and revenge that boiled in her.
‘Your dad never gave me a piece, so I took it,’ Sadie glared at her, ignoring Ria’s words.
Years of resentment between them reared and they could not stop it now. ‘You think Ijay wanted this place to grow mangoes?’ Ria carried on. ‘Where have you been? He was a dealer. We don’t even know what really happened to him—’
Sadie tightened her lips. Ria regretted going so deeply into her sister’s secrets, especially in front of the family, and bit her tongue. She had been nasty and cruel. Ria asked herself why nobody else had told her about Ijay’s double life — the stupid girls at her old restaurant. It had to be Ria. Sadie was tough but fragile and Ria had found a breaking point.
‘You always hated him,’ Sadie’s defences were still up and strong at the moment, but Ria could see past them.
‘I want it back.’ Ria was determined not to be involved anymore and was about to go upstairs and pack ready for home when Bijal came down the path.
Padma looked up in tears at her husband as he passed her without comment and went in the kitchen, followed by Daya and Madhu.
All was quiet for a time, Sadie holding back tears as she took Krish upstairs. Ria watched her go, guilty a moment for telling her the truth.
The silence that followed was broken by Padma as she dashed outside. ‘The contract.’
Daya followed her, with Madhu behind.
‘Daddy-ji. He’s lost it. The contract. He’s lost the contract,’ Daya said. ‘The hotel. He didn’t turn up. How can you do this to us, Daddy-ji?’
‘It’s gone to another tailor,’ Madhu shouted.
*****
‘Why are you here?’ Dickie sat on the edge of her bed, a torn red shawl around her shoulders. The same shaft of light beamed through a hole in the plastic roof. Mickie was sweeping the floor with a switch-broom causing motes to rise in the beam and turn sparkling.
