The sky is overcast with clouds and the rain is ceaseless. I know not what this is that stirs in me—I know not its meaning.
—RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Paris, France
For Sita, Paris was a dungeon of suffocation and toil. The walls of the world closed in until nothing existed outside the restaurant and adjoining flat. Her work was endless and she was afforded no break. Navin’s aunt, who insisted Sita use the term of respect “Aunti-ji” for her, reminded Sita constantly of her debt and showed no sympathy when the girl exhibited signs of exhaustion. Aunti-ji’s commands were dictatorial: “Mop!” “Sweep!” “Scrub the floor!” “Scrub the stove!” “Clean the bathroom!” The quality of Sita’s work was never satisfactory, nor did she ever finish fast enough.
She slept each night on the floor of the kitchen closet beneath used tablecloths. For reasons she couldn’t understand, the heat that warmed the restaurant and the flat never seemed to reach the vent in the kitchen, and she was always cold. On occasion, she thought about escaping. But she was never left alone during the day, and at night Aunti-ji locked both doors to the kitchen using a key she kept on her necklace. Apart from the doors, the only exits from the kitchen were the heating vent and an exhaust vent over the stove, neither of which was large enough to accommodate her body.
One night the air in the closet grew so cold that Sita found it impossible to sleep. She shivered more violently by the hour and clenched her teeth against their incessant chattering. She kissed the little statue of Hanuman and bundled herself in tablecloths, praying for warmth, but by early morning she began to lose sensation in her toes. Reluctantly, she emerged from her cocoon to soak her feet in the sink.
The kitchen was as dark as the bottom of a well. She tripped over the mop she had left leaning against the refrigerator, and it fell clattering to the floor. She stood still, listening for the sound of footsteps. Auntiji had only slapped her once—when she spilled a bucket of cleaning solution in the bathroom—but she had threatened to beat Sita on countless occasions. Her heart raced when she heard a creak, but it came from upstairs.
She climbed softly onto the countertop and placed her feet in the sink. Feeling for the faucet, she twisted the knob slowly until water trickled from the tap. She turned it farther until the stream was steady and warming. The sound of the water flowing through the pipes petrified her. She was sure that Aunti-ji would appear, brandishing a broomstick.
Placing her feet in the water, she rubbed her toes to restore circulation. She wore the same churidaar that Navin had bought her in Bombay. Her undergarments had not been washed since she left India. Navin’s uncle, who she was forced to call “Uncle-ji,” allowed her to use the restroom in the restaurant, but only in early morning and late evening. Once, when she had the audacity to request a bath, Aunti-ji laughed cruelly and spat in Hindi, “You are not worth the price of the water.”
After warming her feet and hands in the sink, Sita left her perch on the countertop and returned to the darkness of the closet. She fell asleep only an hour before sunrise and didn’t stir until prodded with the handle of the fallen mop. She blinked her eyes and saw a fuzzy image of Aunti-ji standing over her. Her mind was a fog and her skin felt feverish. She tried to stand, but vertigo overcame her and she nearly collapsed.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Aunti-ji demanded. “We use these tablecloths for our customers. How dare you sleep in them!”
“But I’m cold at night,” Sita whispered.
Aunti-ji stared at her angrily. “You ungrateful girl. We feed you and provide you shelter, yet you complain.” Aunti-ji started sniffing the air. “What is that stench?” She leaned closer to Sita and wrinkled her nose. “You smell like an unwashed pig. Come with me.”
Sita followed her into the warmth of the flat. Her body felt prickly and unnatural. Her joints hurt and her throat was scratchy like sandpaper. She knew that she was getting sick. Aunti-ji threw open the door to the bathroom and gestured at the tub.
“Undress!”
Sita obeyed without thinking. Aunti-ji grabbed her churidaar and wadded it into a ball.
“Wash yourself! You have ten minutes. No more. I will clean this filthy rag of yours.”
Sita climbed into the bathtub and scrubbed her skin until it was nearly raw. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair and began to cry, the tears flowing like a river of lava down her cheeks. She had left Bombay, thinking that she would be strong like her sister. But she had never expected such loneliness, such privation. When her ten minutes were up, she tried to collect herself, but the tears would not stop.
Aunti-ji barged into the bathroom and threw a towel and faded purple sari on the floor.
“Dry off and dress yourself. You have work to do.”
For reasons Sita didn’t understand, Aunti-ji allowed her to prepare for the day in privacy. She sneezed once, then twice, and felt her illness gestating. When she could wait no longer, she left the bathroom and walked to the restaurant. The boy, Shyam, was in the kitchen holding a broom and dustpan. He looked at her and smiled shyly.
“My mother went to the market,” he said. “I am supposed to give you these.”
Sita stared at him, unsure whether she should take the broom and sweep the restaurant. It was one of her morning duties, but Aunti-ji had always supervised her.
At once Shyam placed the cleaning supplies on the floor. “Do you like cricket?” he asked, extracting a handful of dog-eared sports cards from his pocket. He held them out to Sita eagerly. “I have Ricky Ponting and Sandeep Patil. But I do not have Sachin Tendulkar. Do you know Sachin Tendulkar?”
Sita nodded.
“Here.” He thrust the cards toward her. “You may look at them.”
She took the cards out of his hand. With the exception of a high-gloss Ricky Ponting card, their design was spare—just a photograph of the player’s face rimmed by a white border.
“They’re nice,” she said, handing them back and managing a smile.
Shyam beamed with pride. “I will show you when I get Sachin Tendulkar.”
Soon they heard the bell above the door to the restaurant jingle. Shyam stuffed the cards in his pocket, and Sita scooped up the broom and dustpan from the floor. She entered the restaurant and saw Aunti-ji holding a paper bag from the market. The warmth she felt on account of Shyam’s kindness was short-lived. The woman glared at her and demanded to know why the floor hadn’t been swept.
“You worthless creature,” she said. “I let you bathe and you grow lazy. Get to work!”
The hours of toil turned into a millstone, grinding away at the last of her strength. She tried to stifle her sneezes, to stand upright and bear the burden of her illness invisibly. But her body failed her and sometime after noon she blacked out. She didn’t know who found her, but she awoke on the couch in the flat, a pillow beneath her head. One of the girls who helped in the kitchen sat in the chair beside her. She held out a glass of water.
“Here,” she said in Hindi. “You need to drink something.”
Sita took the glass and gulped down the water. She felt as if she were floating in a cloud.
“I’m Kareena,” the girl said. “I work in the restaurant.”
“I’m Sita,” she replied, beginning to shiver again.
Kareena covered her with a wool blanket. “Where are you from?”
“Chennai,” Sita responded, trying to sit up.
“Easy now. You’re not going anywhere today.”
Sita grimaced and fell back against the pillow. Chills raced through her body and her skin was hot to the touch.
“You need to rest,” Kareena said. “Uncle asked me to look after you.”
Sita closed her eyes and fell asleep again.
When she awoke, the window to the courtyard was dark and Kareena was gone. A glass of water sat on the floor beside the couch. She drank it thirstily and listened to the sounds of activity in the kitchen beyond the wall.
She thought about Kareena. It was obvious that the girl had nothing to do with her imprisonment. What story had Aunti-ji concocted to explain her presence in the household? Sita wondered if there were other girls like her in this city of endless winter—girls held against their will and forced to work until they collapsed from exhaustion or sickness. Navin had said there had been others before her. Where had they gone? And what had he done with the drugs she had carried from Bombay?
After a while, she lapsed into a dreamy state. She stirred only briefly when the family closed up the restaurant and retired for the night. Auntiji didn’t bother her, and Shyam kept his distance. To Sita’s surprise, it was Uncle-ji who replenished her water glass and asked if she was hungry. When she shook her head, he placed another blanket over her.
“Sleep well,” he said. “When you recover, we will take better care of your health.”
Winter deepened after Sita’s fever broke. In keeping with his promise, Uncle-ji reduced her workload and allowed her to sleep on the couch in the flat. She kept a grueling schedule during the day, but she was allowed a ten-minute bath before breakfast and she ate freely from the restaurant’s leftovers. Uncle-ji ordered his wife to buy Sita two saris, and Aunti-ji grudgingly allowed her to launder them with the family’s clothing.
Each morning when Aunti-ji went to the market, Shyam met Sita in the kitchen and showed her his possessions. Once he brought a handheld video game and introduced her to Tetris. Another time, he brought a Bollywood magazine with a full-page photograph of Amitabh Bachchan and launched into a long-winded narrative about the famous actor.
The next day, he brought Sita a yellow marigold. He sat down on the floor and explained that he had secretly picked the flower from a neighbor’s flowerpot. On impulse, she took a seat beside him and told him about her family’s gardens on the Coromandel Coast and Jaya’s kolam designs. Shyam listened carefully and then asked a question that took her aback.
“If you had such a nice home in India, why are you here?”
She looked at him for a long moment, realizing he had no idea of her predicament.
“Why do you think?” she asked.
Shyam furrowed his brows in puzzlement. “My mother said you needed work. She said you didn’t have a family.”
Sita took a sharp breath and folded her hands. “It is true about my family,” she admitted, her voice little more than a whisper. “Only my sister is still alive.”
“Where is she?” Shyam asked.
She thought of Ahayla in Suchir’s brothel. “In Bombay,” she said simply.
Shyam blinked. “I was born in Bombay,” he said brightly. Then his eyes turned sad. “I don’t like Paris. I miss India.”
They talked for a quarter of an hour until they heard the ringing of the bell and Aunti-ji’s footsteps. Sita scampered to her feet and hid the flower in her sari. Shyam, meanwhile, disappeared into the flat. Sita met Aunti-ji in the restaurant and endured her chastisement with a resurgence of poise.
Shyam was only a child, but for her his friendship was a ray of light.