Бесплатный фрагмент - Meera

MEERA

Prologue

There is a hunger that screams, tearing the sinews from within, yet remains invisible. For it dwells deep in the heart, suppressed by will. And there is a hunger that is silent, but it settles in the deepest marrow of bones and memory. It waits in silence, becoming a part of the human being.

This story began with the smell of bitter oil and sweat soaked into the clay. And only the elusive aroma of bread, emanating from a distant oven, came from afar.

And even in the deepest darkness, there remained the light of hope and a place for love. This book is about a girl who survived and defeated death with her light.

Chapter 1. The Tea Shop at Dawn

In the old hovel stood a thick stench of rancid oil, mixed with the sour odor of the mat and the sweat that had soaked into the clay over years of poverty. Every breath was like a gulp of liquid dirt. Meera had long grown used to not breathing deeply, barely opening her mouth so as not to feel that aftertaste. She sat squatting by the entrance, in the narrow strip of gray dawn light that pushed through a crack in the door. The ray lay on the earthen floor like a pale, trembling blanket. Thin fingers with broken nails sorted through the rice, fishing out sand and small stones. Each clean grain was a tiny victory over hunger, which had twisted her stomach into a tight, painful knot. And it took enormous effort not to chew them raw. A dull ache gripped her stomach, dark circles swam before her eyes, and her hands reached for her mouth on their own. But if she ate now, her aunt would certainly notice. Then would come beatings and shouting. Hunger, at times maddening, was part of her childhood. Meera was six years old on the day she stood by her mother’s fresh ashes. The handful of ash that Shanti had tied in thick cloth and shoved into the girl’s hands remained the only reminder that she had had a mother. The rest was the memory of warmth: alive, smelling of milk and flowers, stroking her head before sleep. Now that smell had disappeared. What remained was the smell of burning and dirty cloth. This ash her aunt had handed to her with the words: “When one of ours goes to the sacred waters of the Ganges, it will be given to the river according to the tradition of niravapanjali. For now, take it to the hut and put it in the old jug.” On the darkest nights, when hunger became unbearable and the cold pierced to the bone, Meera closed her eyes and remembered her mother. Not her face — it was remembered vaguely, like a blurred spot. Her hands, thin, with long fingers that stroked her head, sorted through tangled hair and braided it. She remembered how those hands smelled — sandalwood and something warm, milky. She remembered her mother’s voice — quiet, tender, like the whisper of wind in leaves. Her mother sang a song before sleep, but Meera did not remember the words, only the melody. It was like the rocking of a boat on water. Slow, smooth, lulling. Sometimes, when Shanti shouted especially loudly, the girl began to hum that melody to herself — soundlessly, with only her lips. And her aunt’s voice became quieter, swallowed by that melody. “An extra mouth,” Shanti whispered then, looking down at the girl. In her voice there was neither warmth nor regret, only dry, prickly cold. Like wind on a winter night. Every day Meera did not eat her fill, only secretly tossed in handfuls of rice when everything swam before her eyes, the floor slipped from under her feet, and she clutched at the wall. She had learned to distinguish hunger by her condition. A light sucking under the pit of her stomach — tolerable, almost unnoticeable, daily, habitual. It often turned into sharp spasms that wrung her stomach like a wet rag. But worst of all was when the pain cut like a knife and she wanted to lie on the floor and not move. Now her stomach had curled into a ball and stuck to her spine, and every careful breath caused pain. Her thoughts tangled: Meera took the same pinches of grain again and again, forgetting that she had already sorted them. Hunger ate not only the body. It ate the mind and the will, leaving only instinct: to survive, to find food, not to die. Hunger instead of toys, beatings instead of affection. Water is also food. If you know how to drink it. Meera drank in small sips, stretching the liquid out so that it seemed like food, so that the rice and flour in her stomach, moistened, would give a little more strength. She imagined she was drinking not water but milk. Warm, sweet, thick, like her mother’s. And it helped. Not for long. But before sleep she did what her mother had taught her, and her mother — her own mother. She folded her palms together and whispered words she did not understand but knew by heart. Not to gods — there were none in the hovel. Just to sounds. “Om namah Shivaya.” She did not know who Shiva was. She did not know what “namah” meant. But her mother said: “Repeat it — and it will be easier.” And indeed, it did not always become easier, but it did. After these words hunger retreated a step. She did not pray for food, because she knew: there would be no food. She did not pray for Shanti to become kinder. She prayed in silence, and silence was stronger than words. And the words, though incomprehensible, filled the emptiness in her. Like her mother’s melody, like a piece of fragrant bread that did not exist and that she so desperately wanted. Shanti’s voice cut through the morning like a whip. Meera flinched, though she had been waiting for that shout. She was already standing by the hearth and kneading dough — sharply, furiously, as if it were guilty of all her misfortunes. Her elbows worked frantically, her fingers pressed into the floury mass so that the board creaked. “You’re not sorting rice, you’re sleeping on it and eating it! And it doesn’t matter that it’s raw. Which means you don’t need to be fed! I have no extra food for freeloaders! Every second you waste on air is a rupee stolen from me!” From the street came the many-voiced chorus of the slums. A baby’s crying, an old woman’s hoarse cough, the clatter of pots, the monotonous voice of the coal seller calling out prices with such indifference as if he were reading a prayer. Meera knew all these sounds by heart. They were her lullaby, her alarm clock, her funeral bell. Sometimes, lying at night on the hard mattress, she heard how these sounds merged into one drawn-out groan. The groan of the whole quarter, of all these people locked in clay and dirt, like herself. And then it seemed she heard not the street but her own heart. Just as hoarse, just as wrenching, just as tired. “I’m working, auntie,” she answered. Her voice was quiet, but in it was heard a thin, string-like vibration of barely restrained tears. She did not want to cry. Tears would change nothing. But they rose to her throat, and she swallowed them like a bitter pill. “Working?!” Shanti bent down, and her shadow covered all the light, blocked the window, blocked the world. The bowl flew out of Meera’s hands so sharply that the grains scattered across the floor like pale tears. “You’re poking around in the rice like a worm in shit! Ungrateful dirty girl, just as lazy as your mother!” “No, auntie, I’m working, I…” “Stand up! Stand up when you’re being spoken to!” The shout was so piercing that the neighbor’s dog barked desperately in fright behind the partition, and somewhere deep in the quarter another dog answered, then a third. Meera tried to stand, but her legs, like cotton wool, would not obey, belonged to someone else. She leaned on the wall, but her hand slipped on the clay, and the girl fell to her knees, hitting the earthen floor. For a moment everything went dark before her eyes, and she stopped hearing the world. A heavy pulse beat with the blows of cast-iron hammers, painfully, like a frightened bird in her temples. “Get up, pretender!” Shanti grabbed her by the shoulder, jerked her up, and her fingers dug into the skin, leaving black bruises that would remain for a week, maybe two. “You think I’ll believe in your infirmity, idler? You’re just a little, lazy, and vile creature!” Meera, swaying, stood up, leaning her back against the clay wall. She knew this feeling: it came every time Shanti suddenly shouted or raised her hands to strike. When the girl was left alone in the darkness and the shadows on the walls became like monsters, it was fear that made her freeze, shrink into a ball, or become invisible. She had learned to be afraid before she could speak. But today the fear did not go away. It remained, but mixed with it was a sensation of something dark and hot, like a coal smoldering in her chest. Meera did not know what it was, and she lacked words to describe that feeling. “You think I don’t know you steal food from the neighbors?” Shanti hissed, bringing her face close. The sour smell of onion in her breath mixed with the smell of an unwashed body and old cloth. “I see everything, you little snake. You’re just as much a thief as your drunkard father! That scoundrel stole my sister from me, and then stole her life too, mocking mine.” Meera flinched and shrank. She remembered warm hands and lips smelling of cheap wine, and his eyes — as dark and large as hers. Her father died when she was four. Her mother said he had gone for water and not returned. Later, from Shanti, Meera learned the truth. Her father had been found dead in a drainage ditch with an empty bottle. “Drunkard,” the neighbors said, spitting on the ground. Sometimes, when she looked at her reflection in the murky water, it seemed to her that she saw his face. The same, only younger and more feminine. And then horror seized her: what if the same weakness lived in her too, the same craving for oblivion, the same inability to live and love? This she feared more than Shanti. More than hunger and death. To be like her father — that is an end that lasts forever, but not to be her father — means not to be born. Yes, she secretly picked up leftovers, trying to do it unnoticed, knowing which trash bins held what. The butcher, for example, always had scraps of fat and bones which, if sucked on for a long time, gave vital strength, satisfying hunger and giving confidence to her feet to stand straight. The greengrocer always had rotting vegetables. The crusts of bread and flatbreads found in the trash bins she soaked in water to soften them. Meera was not a thief, only a child who wanted to eat. And Shanti did not understand a smiling, grimy, hungry child talking to birds and cockroaches. Shanti saw in her only what she wanted to see. “I’m not a thief,” she whispered. Her voice trembled, but determination was already appearing in it. “Auntie, I take only what people throw away. I collect what no one needs. And what people consider trash. I am trash myself to you, auntie. Can trash steal anything?” An uncomfortable, heavy silence hung in the air. Shanti straightened abruptly, and in her eyes for a moment flickered surprise. She had not expected such an answer from the ragamuffin. Usually Meera silently lowered her head and just as silently endured the beatings. But today in this skinny body had awakened something that Shanti could not understand, and something that frightened her. Shanti’s fingers clenched into fists, and she trembled all over like an old boiling cauldron ready to explode. “Trash, then?” she repeated in a slightly muted voice. “You’re right. You are rotten and worthless trash, and it should know its place. Trash should not speak, but should lie and not move, creature!” She stepped forward, and Meera retreated until her back pressed against the cold wall. The clay with dried straw dug into her skin through the thin fabric of her shirt. The girl felt every unevenness of the wall — the wall was her only support and protection. “Discarded,” Shanti continued, looming over her, “can be thrown out again, or can be burned like the corpse of your shameful father. Or can be trampled into the dirt like the ashes of your worthless mother. Do you understand?!” Meera looked into her aunt’s black, embittered eyes, like two soulless holes in which animal fear had suddenly appeared. Meera did not understand what it was, but she would understand it in a few years. “Why do you hate me, auntie?” the girl asked. Shanti’s mouth opened slightly, and bewilderment flickered in her eyes. She looked at Meera but saw not her, but the other — her deceased sister, Meera’s mother. A beautiful, stately woman with a warm smile, the kind Shanti had never managed to become. And Shanti’s voice faltered — for the first time in all these years. “Why?” she repeated, and her laughter became like the creak of an old cart’s wheel. “You want to know the truth? All right, I’ll tell you the truth.” Shanti moved away from Meera and sat down on the stool; her legs refused to hold her. She fixed her lost gaze on the floor, and her hands, sticky with dough, fell limply onto her knees. In that instant Shanti suddenly turned into a hunched, tired old woman. “I wanted to have my own children,” she said almost soundlessly. “I prayed for it every day, every morning, and even falling down in the evening from exhaustion, I asked the gods to give me a belly. So that I could feel that life had begun inside me. So that I could put my hand to my belly and feel — there, inside, my little heart beating, which would call me mama!” “But the gods did not listen to me. And year after year emptiness and loneliness approached me. Year after year I looked at other women who walked with rounded bellies, and felt a whole universe dying inside me. And then my husband left me, saying: ‘You are a barren and cursed woman.’ He went to another, to one who bore him two in three years. And then more, and more…” Shanti raised to Meera eyes filled with dirty, salty tears, which streamed in rivers, leaving wet tracks on her dusty skin. “And then your mother gave birth to you with ease, as if it were so simple — to give life. She brought you to me when you were three days old and said: ‘Look, Shanti, how beautiful she is and how she smells of milk.’ I looked and felt a knife cutting across my chest. She knew I could not give birth, and still she showed you to me, as if she wanted me to die of envy and anger. And when she died, she left you to me — making me also guilty of not being able to give birth to a child and become a mother. You became my punishment and my curse. You are living proof that the world can give life to others, but not to me.” Shanti’s voice broke from a whisper into a loud hiss, and then passed into a hoarse, wrenching cry, full of pain she had carried within herself for decades. “You are like a knife in the back that I must carry every day! You are my failure, my mistake, my pain! I cannot look at you without remembering what I was deprived of. Do you understand?! Now get out! Go to your loser uncle, let him feed you, you scum! Get out, wretch!” And the aunt kicked Meera in the stomach with her foot, and then in the backside of the girl running away in tears and fear. Meera saw how Shanti’s shoulders trembled, how her fingers clenched into fists, how tears flowed down her face, which she did not wipe away. And for the first time in her life it seemed to Meera that Aunt Shanti was not a monster but simply a woman broken by pain. Broken so that this life, which had dealt with her so cruelly, could no longer be glued back together. But this thought brought no relief. It only gave birth to new questions. Why does one person’s pain become another’s pain? Why does a crack in someone else’s soul pass through yours? They burned from within like little coals, and along with them anger grew. She hated Shanti and pitied her at the same time. And this was the hardest thing — to hold within herself both hatred and pity, tearing her to pieces. Meera ran, and hot, scorching tears flowed down her cheeks, leaving salty tracks on her dirty skin. She ran through the narrow alleys of the slums, and under her feet squelched the mud, in which water, someone’s waste, rotting leaves, and something else mixed — dark, sticky, which she was afraid to examine. Sometimes she thought that if you cut her skin, the same dark and stinking liquid dirt would flow out of her too. The smell of dirt was thick — musty, sweetish-sour, with notes of burnt coal and raw earth. This smell was the smell of her childhood, home and prison at the same time. She knew it as well as her own breath, and knew that this smell would never leave her. Whether she left or died, it would remain in her memory forever. “If I make it,” she whispered, and her voice broke into a rasp, “if I make it, I won’t die today.” She ran and saw around her blurred, as if in fog, faces: old women with empty eyes, a boy chasing a skinny dog with a stick, a woman washing clothes in a basin of water the color of dirt. All of them were part of this world where no one was needed by anyone. Meera looked at them with fear and thought: “I am just as much a part of this dirt. But I don’t want to be dirt.” When at last she ran to Naresh’s shop, she fell to her knees, gasping, right into that street mud. Her shoulders shook with dull, soundless sobs, like those of a beast that cannot speak. “Meera!” Uncle Naresh, seeing her, ran out to meet her. “Meera, daughter, what happened?! Did she beat you again?!” And the uncle embraced her with his arms covered in flour, as were all his clothes. Naresh squatted before her, and Meera felt the warmth of his rough, calloused, but so alive hands on her shoulders and cheeks. Naresh was her father’s brother, but unlike the deceased, the uncle had never mistreated his wife or disappeared for whole weeks. And after his wife’s death he had become even quieter, spending all his days at the oven and talking with bread more than with people. After the death of Meera’s father, and then her mother, Uncle Naresh came to Shanti and asked her to give him his niece. But Shanti would not give her up, loudly declaring: “This is an orphan, my blood, and my sister left her to me!” Naresh left, but continued to come almost every day — bringing bread and vegetables, which the aunt took for herself, continuing to starve Meera. “She said,” Meera sobbed, “that I am a thief and that I am nothing. She said that I am like my father and that I am her punishment. Because she could not have children, and my mother gave birth to me. And that I am a knife in her back. Uncle, I don’t want to be anyone’s punishment.” She, choking on tears, fell silent, and the words stuck in her chest like lumps of dry sand. And barely audibly whispered with lips wet from tears: “I’d rather die than be a curse.” “Hush, hush, daughter,” Naresh embraced her and carefully pressed her to himself. “You are like your mother. You are light. Do you remember what she said? She named you ‘Meera’ — ‘light.’ She always knew and saw your future. She saw you as you are now — alive, strong, unbroken.” “But if I am light,” she whispered, sobbing and burying herself in his chest, “then why am I so dark inside? Why do I so often want to die? Can light want death? Can light wish anyone harm?” Naresh drew back a little, and then, taking her by the shoulders, looked into her tear-stained eyes. His gaze was tired, but in it was what made Meera believe in herself. “Light,” Naresh repeated. “Light does not mean that there is no shadow in you. Light is what you choose when the shadow is already there. You are angry? You have the right. But you do not become hatred, you choose life.” “And what if I can’t cope? What if I fall and don’t get up, or become the same as her?” Naresh smiled and, turning to the hot maw of the oven, took from it an uneven flatbread, slightly scorched at the edges, which was already bubbling from fat and heat. Not ideal, like life itself, but real and alive, like the breath of a baby. And Naresh held out this hot flatbread to Meera. “Take it, daughter, and remember: ‘While there is bread, there is hope.’” Meera took the fragrant flatbread that burned her fingers and, bringing it to her face, inhaled this magical smell of hot bread. With the whole being of a hungry child, it pierced her with the aroma of life, like a sunbeam among storm clouds. Then she bit off a small piece of this flatbread and, without swallowing, held it in her mouth. The hot oil spread over her tongue, dissolving on her palate, and the crisp, tender crust crunched on her teeth, giving way to the soft, melting middle. The flatbread was thin, almost transparent at the edges, and in the middle — thick and incredibly juicy. On the surface of the crust gleamed tiny bubbles of oil, and the salt had soaked into the dough in uneven patches. Meera chewed every crumb of this bread with pleasure, blissfully smiling through her tears. “Thank you, uncle,” she whispered. Naresh continued to soothingly stroke her head with his warm, work-worn hand. “One day you will feed people, and you will make many people happy.” And he looked with a kind of reverence somewhere into an unknown distance, to what was known only to him alone. Meera looked at the rough clay structure of Naresh’s oven, breathing the heat of life, as at a large living being giving the whole world life called bread. And in the depths of this oven, in its hot heart, Meera suddenly saw the same simple, rough, created from clay and fire — herself.

Chapter 2. In Naresh’s Shop

The first month at Naresh’s was the hardest. Meera was afraid the uncle would say: “Enough. Leave.” And she worked with concentration, silently, without raising her eyes, trying to be quiet and unnoticeable. Her hands, still remembering beatings, sometimes disobeyed, and out of fear she dropped dishes more often than she washed them. Naresh looked at her with a smile, and then silently stroked her head, sincerely understanding that it was hard for the girl to come to her senses. At night Meera often woke from her own screaming. In her sleep the aunt was still strangling her and jumping with her feet on her chest, saying: “You are a curse, you are a curse…” Sometimes, frightened by the sharp cry of a trader outside the window or the sound of a spoon falling to the floor, she would freeze in the middle of the shop, falling into a stupor, until Naresh came up and placed a heavy, warm hand on her shoulder. It happened that her throat tightened with stone spasms, and words stuck in her numb tongue, as if she had forgotten human speech. But Naresh never once asked what was wrong with her. Understanding the full weight of her inner pain, he simply was there. In response he would set before her a cup of warm milk with a hot flatbread, sit down opposite and, lovingly watching her eat, say: “Everything will be fine,” accompanying the words with a kind smile. One morning Meera broke a cup that slipped from her fingers. The shards flew ringing across the clay floor. She froze, all shrinking in expectation of a blow. But Naresh came up, knelt down and with a laugh began to gather the fragments, saying: “Well, finally we’ll buy a new cup.” “Why don’t you shout?” Meera whispered. “Why should I?” he asked, without raising his head and continuing to laugh. “I broke a cup. I’m bad. I must be punished.” Naresh raised his eyes to her: “You are not bad. You are just a child. Children often break cups, and it’s not a sin but ordinary human life. And people are punished not for dishes but for evil. And you have done no evil. You are just a little tired, and that is not your fault.” Meera looked and did not understand how one could simply gather shards and say: “It’s not your fault.” She stood and cried. And Naresh stood up, wiped his hands on his apron, came up to her and embraced her — tightly, the way beloved children are embraced. “I will not beat you,” he said quietly. “Never. Do you hear? Never. Whatever you do. You are my daughter. And I will love you. Always. The only thing I can punish you for is if you endanger your life. The life given to you by God cannot be spent in vain out of neglect for it.” “Why?” she whispered. “Why do you love me so much? After all, I am nobody. I am trash. I am a punishment.” “Your aunt is a sick woman, Meera. She does not know how to love because no one taught her.” A couple of months later Meera became more agile and smiled more often, and often even burst into loud laughter if something did not work out, as all cheerful children in the world do. After three months she could already roll out dough faster than Naresh. Her fingers remembered every movement, every touch of the uncle who taught her to correct mistakes. She knew when the dough was ready by its elasticity, by the way it came off her hands. She knew the temperature of the oven by the heat of the coals and how much salt to add, even if the salt was of different coarseness. By the time winter came, she had become part of this shop. Meera came to Naresh every morning, helping to wash dishes, peel vegetables, knead dough. She woke before dawn, ran through the cold streets to the bakery, and within an hour her hands were in flour and on her face was a smile — spirited, glowing with the joy of a well-fed and happy child. Sometimes she still came to Shanti’s hovel. And every time, approaching its door, she stopped on the threshold, took a deep breath, and only then entered. Despite her aunt’s hatred, Meera understood that she was still her blood. And she tried to bring her bread, milk, butter and vegetables, because Shanti’s affairs were getting worse every day. The aunt usually met her with reproaches and curses, even though now there was not a crumb of bread in her house, and if not for Meera’s help, she would have died of hunger. Meera placed the food on the floor with a respectful bow and silently left. “Off again to your old baker?” Shanti would say in a voice hoarse as an old crow’s. “You think he loves you? He just pities you, the way people pity a stray dog. And when he gets tired of you, he’ll throw you out like I throw out scraps. Do you understand?” “He won’t throw me out,” Meera said once. “What did you say?” “I said he won’t throw me out. He loves me, and he considers me light.” Shanti laughed maliciously. “Light? You? You are utter dirt. You are trash and punishment. Because you are nothing. Because you cannot be loved.” “Auntie,” she said quietly. “I am not your enemy. I don’t know why you hate me. But I am not your enemy. I am just a girl who wants to live, wants to eat. And also wants not to be beaten.” Sometimes Shanti grabbed her by the arm right at the threshold and hissed through her teeth: “You are mine! You must work for me. You have no right to leave. I took you when you were nothing. I fed you. You are my thing. Do you understand me, wretch?” Meera learned to be silent, but even then she began to show her rebellious character. She forcefully pulled her hand out of the aunt’s bony grip and ran to Naresh. She would run to the shop and already on the threshold exhale — noisily, heavily, as if she had just escaped death. “I baked bread by a new recipe. With sesame seeds. Will you try?” “Uncle,” she said. “I was afraid you would throw me out.” “Why?” “Because I feel like trash and believe that I cannot be loved.” Naresh, setting aside the dough, wiped his hands. Then he came up and took her face in his large, rough palms covered with flour. Raising Meera’s face, he said: “Listen to me. You are not trash, you are my light. And I will always love you. Whatever you do and whatever happens. Because you are my daughter, and you are my family, and you are all that I have.” “I love you, uncle,” she whispered. “And I love you, daughter,” he answered. Lying on her old mattress, Meera listened to Naresh breathing in his sleep and thought: “When will I be able to leave here forever, and will I leave at all?” But every time she imagined leaving, a sense of duty awoke within her: if she left, she would become like Shanti — a woman who abandons her own. Naresh was not a rich man, but in his house there was always bread, raisins and nuts. It was always warm and dry. Everything always stood in its place. The uncle was a very neat man, who said that a baker’s heart must be clean because he prepares happiness for people. And bread is happiness because it is life. Bread equalizes everyone — both the poor and the rich. Meera saw how Uncle Naresh washed and carefully hung out his clothes. Soon Uncle Naresh began to buy Meera modest but new clothes too. And this became real happiness for the girl. When Naresh called her to him and handed her a package containing a new sari, Meera froze, looking at the simple but clean cotton fabric that smelled of the newness of the shop. “I cannot take this,” she said in a voice trembling with excitement. “You are my daughter, Meera. And this is not an expense but a father’s duty. I give you what I have. And I have you, and that is enough.” Meera fell to her knees before him and, embracing his feet, was unable to utter even the word “thank you,” shuddering all over with tears of gratitude and girlish happiness. She understood that it had cost the uncle considerable effort to buy her new clothes. After all, the uncle shared everything with her and was ready to give the very last for her happiness. Meera began to work even harder. One morning, when Meera was already rolling out dough, the door of the shop swung open with such force that it nearly flew off its hinges. Shanti stood on the threshold. Meera froze. Shanti was in her old, faded sari, her hair disheveled, her eyes burning with hatred. “Ah, there you are! You’re still here!” she stepped forward, and Meera, on the contrary, retreated back, pressing her back against the wall. “I waited for you to stop pretending and come back. I thought you would get tired of this sweet life. I thought you would understand that this is not your place, but you did not understand. You think you’re better than everyone now? That you’re not trash anymore?” Shanti raised her hand, and Meera closed her eyes, preparing for the blow, pulling her head into her shoulders, as she used to when Shanti beat her. But for some reason the blow did not follow. An unexpected silence hung. Meera opened her eyes and saw Naresh standing between her and Shanti. Calmly, with a face firm as stone, he looked at the aunt, and in his eyes there was neither anger nor fear, only cold determination. “Leave,” he said in a quiet but firm voice. “Leave? You say that to me — leave? You are a stranger here, and you are nobody here! You are a beggar baker who grows fat on my blood! This is my girl! Mine!” “Yours?” Naresh repeated, and his voice became firmer. “You beat her and starved her. You called her trash, and after that she is yours?” “She owes me,” the aunt hissed. “I took her when she was nothing. I fed her and gave her drink. She is my thing, and I demand her back right now!” Naresh took a step forward and stood almost close to Shanti. He was a short man, slightly stooped, but at that moment he seemed much taller and stronger than her. “You will not have her. And you will never enter this shop again. And if you touch her even with a finger, I will go to the headman and tell him how you treated her, like cattle. And you know how our headman is favorable to the poor and to orphan children. And you will be in trouble!” Shanti turned pale. Her face became ashen-gray. She tried to open her mouth to object, but without saying a word, she silently stared at Naresh. In her eyes appeared real fear and the understanding that her power was over. “She won’t leave me,” Shanti muttered. “She will come back. She always comes back. Because she is needed nowhere and by no one. Because she is nothing.” “She will not come back,” Naresh answered. “Because she has a home, and it is here, under my roof, and she is my daughter.” Shanti silently turned and left. The door slammed loudly behind her, and silence filled the shop. Meera stood by the wall and looked at the closed door. Naresh turned to her. He came up, took her trembling hands in his and, squeezing them — gently but firmly — said: “Meera, don’t worry. She won’t come again.” Meera sank to her knees, exhausted, and cried. Naresh squatted before her, embraced her and silently listened to her quiet sobs, and then softly began to sing some melody, not preventing the girl from crying her fill. He knew that tears in silence are water that washes old wounds. “Everything is fine,” he whispered. “Everything is fine, and you will never be alone again. I will always be here.” After that incident Meera became quite different. She no longer flinched when a loud sound came from behind the door, and did not wake at night to check whether the door was closed. Several years flew by as if one day or one month. During this time Meera’s body was ripening, blooming. The days flowed their own way. Meera woke at dawn, calmly washed her beautiful, growing body, put on a simple but clean sari, covered her head with a dupatta, and began to prepare bread, standing next to her uncle, always with a happy smile on her face. The neighbor Gopal came every day with his old dog for flatbreads and, looking at Meera, said to her: “You are becoming very beautiful, girl. You are becoming strong and noble, like a ladka (young bamboo shoot).” And the kind neighbor Lakshmi also came with her son, and now she bought more flatbreads. Her little son had often been ill before, but now he had recovered, and his eyes no longer looked at the world with the unhappy gaze of a lost puppy. Now he was becoming more and more of a mischievous boy and, on meeting, smiled affably at Meera, and she smiled back at him. Meera grew into an affable, very kind girl with incredible diligence and a desire to help all living beings. And in the evening, when the shop closed, she and Naresh sat by the oven. He told her stories about his wife, about how they met, how she loved him and what habits she had. And then — about how he was left alone. In Uncle Naresh’s stories she found something that was like her own life. And she understood: she was not alone in her pains, and that there were people who had also suffered and also lost. But survived — in spite of and for the sake of.

Chapter 3. The Hungry Winter

Winter in the slums was cruel. The wind pierced the thin walls of the hovel, and the cold seeped into every crack, making teeth chatter and fingers go numb. Meera still continued to come to her aunt, bringing her flatbreads, a little milk and butter. The aunt lay on her mat, covered with an old blanket that no longer warmed but only reminded of what had once been warm. The water in the bucket had frozen overnight. Entering the hovel, Meera heard Shanti coughing hard and wrenchingly. The cough was dry, sharp, and Meera knew what that meant. Shanti had been ill like this for several weeks, and no one came to help her except Meera. The neighbors were afraid of catching it, and those who were bolder simply did not want to waste time on an old, wicked woman. A few days ago Meera had seen bloody spots at the bottom of the cup from which Shanti drank. Her mother, too, had coughed blood before she died. And she watched every day as Shanti grew very thin, and her face grew sharp, emphasizing the darkness of her sunken eyes. Meera knew it was not a cold. It was that very illness for which there is no medicine and which had already taken her mother, and now had come for Shanti. She soaked flatbreads in warm milk with melted butter and fed Shanti from a spoon, because the aunt’s toothless mouth could no longer chew. She looked at her with kind compassion — without revenge and without memory of what Shanti had done to her. But sometimes she asked herself: “Why don’t I leave? Why don’t I leave her to die?” But, never giving herself an answer, she stayed. She continued to feed Shanti, carefully covering her with blankets and sheepskins that Uncle Naresh had sent, understanding that it was very cold in the hovel and that Shanti’s days were numbered. One day, when Meera was feeding her from a spoon, Shanti suddenly said: “Why are you here?” “What do you mean?” “Why are you here? I beat you and starved you, calling you trash. Why are you here?!” Meera was silent for a moment, and then answered: “Because you, auntie, are my family.” “Family?” Shanti laughed, but the laugh immediately turned into a cough. She coughed long and wrenchingly. Meera held her by the shoulders until the fit passed. Then Shanti, breathing heavily, leaned back on the pillow. “I am not family. I am a monster and your curse. I am the one who should have loved you but could not. Because I am an empty and broken woman.” “You are not nobody. You are a person who suffered a great deal and was afraid. And who is still forever my family.” Shanti opened her eyes and looked at Meera through a haze with a dimmed gaze. “You are light,” she said. And then, after a long pause, she added: “Bring me water.” Meera brought water and put the clay cup to the dying woman’s lips, cracked from fever. “I am dying,” Shanti said barely audibly. “Today I will die. And after me I leave only pain, the bitterness of memory, and shame.” Then Shanti slowly closed her eyes. Her hand — shrivelled, trembling — found Meera’s hand and squeezed it. It was a weak touch, but it was warm and kindred. “Forgive me. Forgive me, daughter, for everything.” “Don’t go until I’m gone. Please, don’t go. I am afraid of the dark. I have always been afraid of the dark. Mama said evil spirits live there. I am afraid…” Meera looked at the old, dying woman who had once beaten her, starved her and called her trash. And she saw in her a little girl who was afraid of the dark. Who had never grown up, had never learned to love, but had remained in the dark. “I am here.” Shanti fell still. Her hand went limp. Before leaving, Meera looked around the old, almost ruined hovel. Her eyes stopped on the wooden bowl — the very one from which she had fed Shanti. She cast a last glance at the hovel in which the dead woman lay. And Meera understood that she would never enter here again. She looked at the crumbling walls, at the rotting floor, at the empty dishes and the cold oven in which no fire had burned for a very long time… Closing the door behind her, she did not turn around, knowing with certainty that she would never return to it. Naresh met Meera at the threshold of the house and silently looked at her, at her face and eyes filled with deep sorrow. And then she said: “Shanti is gone. She is no more.” “You did what I could not have done. You stayed with her and forgave her when everyone had turned away, and I did not want to help her. You gave her peace in answer to war. And that is the hardest thing a person can do. And you did it not in spite of, but for the sake of.” Meera listened to her uncle’s words, and tears flowed uncontrollably down her cheeks. “I don’t feel like a saint. I feel tired, empty, and a little angry. Because she left, and I stayed, and I don’t know what to do with this emptiness.” “You will fill it. With bread, love and life. After all, emptiness is not an end but a beginning, where something new will enter, chosen by you.” The next day Meera went to the place of asthi-visarjan, where Shanti had been cremated. There were only remnants of ash and wind. She stood and looked at what was left of the woman who had been her tormentor and her family. She did not know what to say, and stood in silence, and the wind scattered the ash. “I forgave you, Aunt Shanti, and, as much as I could, I loved you. You are free, auntie. And if you can, forgive me for not giving you the love I could have given but was afraid to…” Then she turned and, without looking back, left forever. “Now you are going home,” Meera said to herself. She looked at the shop toward which she was heading, at the oven giving off smoke visible from afar. She walked toward the smell of bread that she had kneaded with her own hands, and that smell was dearer to her than any home. She walked, and with every step her gait became firmer.

Chapter 4. First Blood

The marble slabs in Mr. Raj’s study were cold and smooth as ice. A chill seeped unpleasantly through the thin sari fabric, rising up her knees, chilling her thighs and slowly crawling up her back. Kneeling, Meera wiped the floor with a rag, leaving behind glistening wet streaks that slowly evaporated, giving off the smell of cheap soap with a chemical note of lemon. After more than three hours of work bent over, her back was considerably tired and ached like an old unhealing wound. Mr. Raj, for whom Meera had found work, had initially been a generous master. The money he paid for cleaning was enough to buy rice, vegetables and a little sweets for tea for Uncle Naresh’s house. She sincerely rejoiced that she could not only work with her uncle and live under the roof of his warm house, but also bring a little of her own money into the family. Raj liked the cleaning to be quiet, without noise. So that Meera herself did not flit before his eyes. Her task — to clean everything quickly and leave. As she grew up, she saw how men looked at her more and more as at a woman. She caught the same looks on herself in the street and at the market. Her beauty, in a world where women were goods, for a poor girl became not a gift but a problem. She had heard stories about Indian girls who were taken away and sold into slavery. And she did everything to hide her appearance: she deliberately stooped, lowered her eyes, wore dirty clothes over her sari and smeared her face with dust, pretending to be a girl from the “bhangi” caste. Uncle Naresh had warned her about Raj: “Meera, my daughter, be careful. This man is very dangerous…” But she did not listen to her uncle, thinking that work is work and it is always paid according to merit. The main thing was to do it conscientiously. Once, before leaving for work, Naresh stopped her. “Meera, I want you to know. If he says anything bad, you leave at once. And don’t think about the money.” “I promise.” Absorbed in wiping the floors dry, she did not hear Raj enter. She flinched in surprise when the front door slammed loudly with the metallic clang of the bolt. “Ah,” Mr. Raj drawled in a voice like melted butter. “My little worker alone and unguarded. I see you always try and are always so diligent. Not like those lazy creatures who do nothing but drink tea and gossip.” He pulled the door tighter, checking the reliability of the latch, and slowly headed toward her. Her fingers, still clutching the rag, went numb with fear. She felt how her hot sweat, streaming down her back, suddenly became cool. “I’m almost finished, sir. And I’m already leaving, Mr. Raj. A few more minutes, and I’ll finish as you ordered.” “Don’t hurry,” he said, and his quiet steps came closer and closer. “You are always so obedient and quiet, like a mouse. I watch you. You are wonderful. You are the best of all the workers I have had. No one washes floors as cleanly as you, and no one bows their head so low before me.” His silhouette loomed over her, creating a sense of heavy tension. He came almost close, enveloping her in the smell of sweetly cloying cologne with notes of sandalwood and musk, seasoned with the stench of wine fumes and something else — sour, putrid, like rotten meat. Raj slowly reached out to her with hands bearing a gold ring on the ring finger. The massive blue stone gleamed dully in the daylight. “You know,” he said in an insinuating voice, “I have watched you from the very first day you came to work for me. You think I don’t notice how you hide your face and stoop to seem unpleasant? But I see that you are the most beautiful of all who have worked for me. Your eyes, your hair, your walk and your bearing — everything in you is beautiful. You know how hard it was for me to look at you and not touch you? Every day, every time you passed by, you drove me mad.” “Mr. Raj, forgive me, may I leave? I urgently need to go home. My uncle is waiting for me, and I still have much to help him with at work,” she answered, trying to speak as confidently as possible. “You cannot be just a worker,” he said in a voice hoarse with excitement. “You are too beautiful for that. You must be something more to me. You must be my mistress, who will have absolutely everything. Everything you wish!” The girl was at a loss and did not know what to answer, thinking only of one thing — how to escape from here right now. At that moment his hand with wet, sticky fingers lay on her exposed shoulder. The second hand slid down her back, to her buttock, and gripped it firmly. “What skin you have,” Raj whispered in a voice full of admiration. “You are like a flower that grew on a garbage dump. Do you know what I want to do with you? I want to pluck this flower and make it mine.” She, afraid to breathe, froze, feeling how his thick wet fingers dug into her shoulder and clenched tighter and tighter, pulling her toward him. His hand climbed under her clothes, giving rise to a nauseating feeling of shame and confusion. And with this came another — familiar, old as a neglected wound. She again became a little girl standing by the wall while Shanti shouted at her. It was an irresistible desire to cover her face with her hands and cry. Everything happened as if in slow motion. “What white skin you have,” Raj whispered with amazement. He kissed her neck with his sticky hot mouth, enveloping her in the stench of his breath. His wet, sticky tongue, like a snail, covered her neck with slime, trying to wrap around her earlobe. “So sweet,” he whispered, and his voice trembled with excitement. “You don’t even know how sweet you are. I want to lick you all over, to the last drop of your body.” His voice was hoarse, like that of a man who had lost control over himself. “I knew you would be like this, I knew from the first glance. I imagined it every night and thought about you, about how you would be under my body. About how you would moan under me, and I want you to beg me.” His hand clenched tighter and tighter, and his fingers dug into her breast, penetrating under the thin sari fabric. Hard, rough, merciless, as if she were a thing or merely clay. His fingers dug painfully into her flesh through the fabric, leaving marks, forcefully kneading her breast, pinching her nipples. The sari fabric tore under his hands, baring the skin at which he looked with the greed of a hungry tiger. And Raj, tearing her light sari and baring her breast, exclaimed with loud amazement: “How big it is, how full. I knew that under these dirty clothes a treasure was hidden. But you don’t even imagine how divine you are. I worship every centimeter of your body. Your breasts are the most beautiful I have ever seen.” She felt his fingers clench tighter and tighter, and his breathing became ragged and heavy. “Do you feel what you are doing to me? Do you feel how I want you? How I want to be inside you? How I want to enter and not come out! You are driving me mad!” “You don’t even know how tasty you are. I could stand here forever and inhale your smell, caress you forever. Your skin is like silk.” His other hand slid over her stomach, pressing and groping the inner part of her thighs, trying to penetrate between her legs, into the depths of her flesh. She felt his fingers persistently seeking entrance inside her. And then an indomitable fury boiled up in her. “You won’t do this!” she said loudly, not restraining herself, breaking into a frantic scream. “You won’t dare! I would rather die than let you enter me!” Raj froze for a moment, stunned, and his fingers loosened their grip. She looked boldly into his face flushed with excitement, into his bloodshot eyes. “You dare not refuse me,” hissed the enraged Raj. “You are nobody, you are dirt! You are nothing and have no right to say ‘no’ to me!” “I do!” she shouted loudly in his face. “I am not your thing and not your toy. I am a human being. And I tell you: no!” His face contorted with hatred. An unexpected blow landed right in her face, exploding everything around in sparks with red circles that swam like a rainbow before her eyes. She fell to her knees from his blow, feeling the floor slip from under her feet. Sitting on the floor, she spat a clot of hot blood onto the marble, feeling a pulsating pain in her cheekbone, echoing in her ear and neck. Pressing her palm to her broken lip, she slowly raised her head to Raj. Her sari was completely torn, baring her body, on which red, turning blue marks from fingers were already appearing. Her lips and nose were broken, blood oozed from them, mixing with saliva and tears. And Raj stood over her and did not take his eyes off her large, firm breast, drenched in blood streaming in trickles from her broken nose and lips. “You will regret this,” she whispered. And in her words appeared such indomitable strength that Raj involuntarily recoiled, as if he had been struck with a backhand. “What?” he repeated, and uncertainty sounded in his voice. “What did you say?” “You hit me,” she said, slowly rising from the floor. Her legs hurt badly and would not obey. Blood continued to trickle from her chin onto her breast, and then onto her stomach, soaking into the light-blue sari fabric that held on her hips. “You will never touch me again. I swear to you, Mr. Raj. You will remember my beautiful face, which you wanted to defile. And you will see it in a nightmare. I will return, sir, not as a servant, but as your worst dream and punishment.” She had not even suspected that this strength was in her. Then she wiped the blood, smearing it over her face with her hands, and, somehow gathering the torn clothes on herself, covering her breast with the rags, resolutely headed for the exit, leaving Raj in bewilderment. Darting out into the yard and running past the clotheslines, she grabbed someone’s almost dry sari from them. Running behind the garden bushes, she threw off the remnants of the torn clothes, changed, and, without delay, ran to Uncle Naresh’s house. In the street she was shaking with a violent tremor. She ran until her breath ran out, collapsing to her knees before the steps of an old, half-ruined, forgotten-by-all temple that still preserved the strength of its former grandeur… Hot tears flowed incessantly down her cheeks, mixed with the taste of blood, dripping onto the rough stones of the temple steps, warmed by the heat of the generous Indian sun. She looked at the worn frescoes on the walls. The dimmed faces of the goddess Kali with a necklace of skulls, of Shiva dancing in fire, of Durga holding a sword in her hands. She looked and thought: “They were strong, they destroyed evil. And I want to be like that too.” Then she slowly rose and with an unhurried gait headed into the cool silence of the abandoned temple. Her steps echoed quietly after her, the temple answered, greeting her with a whisper. In this temple, at the edge of the right wall with an exit to a large terrace, there was a small pool with a living spring that did not let the water stagnate and bloom. The dark but clean and moving water formed a small mirror that showed her a slightly trembling reflection. And in this reflection she suddenly saw not herself but her father. His dark eyes above sunken cheeks and those very full lips with which he had kissed her in childhood. Horror immediately seized her, making her recoil sharply from the mirror. “You were weak, papa,” she said quietly. “And you taught me not to be like that in my life. And today’s lesson was instructive for me, I have learned it. Thank you too, Mr. Raj, for this unforgettable day. Now I will remember it and you forever.” The girl stood up, shook the dust from the soiled hem of her sari, and went to Uncle Naresh’s shop. Her legs no longer trembled as much. She walked, feeling the wind touch her face and stroke her cheeks, saying that she was alive. She breathed the air with full lungs, sensing the birth of a new part of her fate. When she entered the yard, Uncle Naresh was stunned, seeing her face swollen from beatings with traces of dried blood. “Meera! What happened, daughter?! You are beaten and in someone else’s clothes! Who did this?” he asked loudly. “It was Mr. Raj,” she said in a voice tired from screaming and tears. “He locked me in and wanted to rape me…” She stopped mid-word and again cried inconsolably like a little child. Naresh carefully examined her broken lip and swollen cheekbone, gently touching the bruises on her neck and shoulders, and then, unable to bear it, growled like a beast: “That bastard, that rotten, cursed creature! That scum dared to touch you!” “I’ll kill him. I’ll find him and kill him. I’ll take him and strangle him, and I’ll watch his eyes pop out of their sockets as I squeeze them out with my own hands.” And Naresh resolutely headed for the front door, and Meera desperately rushed after him, grabbing his arms as she went. “No, uncle! Uncle, don’t do this! You won’t do this! You won’t become the same as him!” Naresh froze. “Do you understand that I am obliged to punish him? I want to tear out his hands with which he touched you, and the tongue with which he said those vile things to you. I want to break his legs so that he can never walk again, and make it so that he cannot look at people with his dirty eyes. And also — so that he suffers the same way you suffered.” Meera looked at her uncle and saw in him not an old baker but one who was ready to kill another person for her sake. Naresh stopped, clasping his head with his hands, and said: “You are right, daughter. Because if I do this, I will become the same as him — a monster.” Then he embraced Meera fatherly, pressing her tightly to himself, and quietly whispered in her ear: “Everything is fine. But you will not go to work for anyone else. I forbid you, daughter, as a father. And also — not a step outside without my escort.” “All right, Uncle Naresh! I fully obey your orders.” And Meera, bowing, touched her uncle’s feet with her hands. Then they approached the oven. Closing her eyes, she felt the warmth of her native place warming her, filling her lungs with the smell of bread, at the moment when Uncle Naresh gently stroked her head. “Uncle Naresh, forgive me for my foolishness!” “You must not apologize. The main thing is that everything turned out all right.”

Chapter 5. The Return