I’d reached a dead end. I had little chance of finding Sona without questioning every woman in the Cammattipoora kothas. Then again, was Sona a private name for a favorite girl, or her given name? Did these women remember their names, or shed them when their families discarded them? Were they bitter or reconciled to their fate? Each likely hid a tragic tale, I thought. Eroded by the years, did they take new, exciting names to render them desirable? The name Sona—gold—in this light, it seemed a dismal means to gain value.
At Framji Mansion, Diana cried, “Jim! Where have you been?”
Her cry brought the rest of the family. I’d greeted them with a brief explanation, when five-year-old Shirin glowered at me.
Gosh, did I look that bad? Brushing a hand through my hair, I asked, “Is something wrong, rajkumari?”
The princess pouted and said, “Tu maneh malyo bhi nai!” You didn’t even greet me.
I crouched before her in abject remorse. “Oh, princess! Forgive me. Will you not say hello?”
She softened, then reached out. “Hello.”
Her tiny hands felt cool against my skin, still raw from the blaze at Satya’s home. Little arms went around my neck and squeezed as she said, sotto voce, “You must take a bath soon!”
Burjor bellowed a laugh, while Diana doubled over, shaking.
Before I could dash upstairs, Mrs. Framji called, “Beta, wait.”
She took in my rumpled state and asked, “You did not come home for dinner. Where were you last night?” It was the first time she’d called me to account.
“Ah…” I glanced at Burjor, and thought, what the heck, his son’s in jail too.
I shrugged. “In the nick. Next door to Adi.”
She drew back, astonished. Burjor’s mouth opened, then he chortled. “Got yourself locked up to speak with Adi? Brilliant!”
Much as I enjoyed this interpretation, I couldn’t have him gaze at me with such delight, not for an untruth. “N-no. I couldn’t tell McIntyre much, so he tossed me in the clink. But yes, Adi and I did speak at length.”
Diana asked, “Any leads?”
“Satya used to visit a house in Cammattipoora.”
Diana made an O with her lips. “Is Satya’s sweetheart a nautch girl, a dancer? It would explain why he was ashamed.”
He had more cause than that, I thought, if Sona was in a kotha. “Sona may be on the verge of being sold—possibly to someone in another city. Satya must have been desperate. The poor sod was trying to buy his girl’s freedom.”
Diana’s eyes clouded. “Oh, Khodai! Now that he’s dead … Jim, we’ve got to help her. It’s what Adi would do. Satya was his friend!”
“Easier said, my dear,” I grumbled, dropping into a chair. “The place is rough and self-contained. How do we find her without checking every house?”
“Every house?” A curious look crept over Diana’s face as she tilted her head. Her eyes narrowed, then dimples deepened in her cheeks. “What if there is a way to search every house?”
I glanced over in surprise. “As a gas meter man? Would take too long…”
“Not that way.” Her gurgling laugh spilled over and found a place inside me. “Go see Jameson, will you? I’ve got an idea.”
Dr. Patrick Jameson welcomed me with a wave of his hand. “Sit, sit!” and then finished giving instructions to a pair of orderlies.
Setting his stethoscope on his desk, he pulled out a bottle and two small glasses. “Drink,” he said, handing it to me. “You look like you need it.”
I pawed at my hair, remembered that I’d spent the night in the clink and barely washed my face and hands at Framji Mansion. Once Diana explained her proposal, I could not wait to put it into motion.
“Need your help,” I said, and downed the fiery liquid.
“Certainly, my boy! What can I do for you?”
I blinked, trying to clear my head. His brandy was potent stuff.
“Help me get into a brothel.”
I should have waited. Jameson had raised his glass to his lips and now he choked and coughed violently. It was some time before I could explain Diana’s plan.
“And she’ll come too?” he said, rubbing his eyebrow. He poured some water and sipped it, then cleared his throat. “To the—red-light district. Miss Framji. In the…” He shook his head as though questioning my sanity, but it was Diana’s idea and she’d have a conniption if I excluded her.
I used her trump card. “Half a million died from cholera in 1891.”
That carried the round. It took longer to convince him to act immediately. Many phone calls later, he persuaded the necessary municipal authorities and called in favors at the Public Health Department. I returned to tell Diana that her faith in him was vindicated, and to prepare for our expedition.
It was late morning by the time we’d marshaled the necessary troops. Diana wore a neat grey sari, wrapped modestly and tucked in at the waist. A white triangle over her head was vaguely reminiscent of army nurses I’d seen in Poona. Then it came to me. Of course!—Diana had visited the Florence Nightingale school in London. She’d imitated their uniform, albeit in a modified form for the tropics.
Our plan was simple. Jameson would conduct the usual “health checks”—weeks early, this time. He’d collected a motley group of orderlies to batten down the inmates and measure temperatures. Jameson had raided every hospital ward to equip each of us with a stoppered vial of alcohol and a thermometer. Between “patients” we were to clean the thermometers by inserting them into these vials. Once fouled, I only hoped that our public health conscripts would not imbibe the potent stuff!
Face grave, Diana asked Jameson, “Are we looking for cholera, or typhoid?”
He blushed for the umpteenth time. “And ah, other, ailments.”
“Diseases of the flesh trade?” Diana inquired, which set him off into a paroxysm of coughing. She went on, “Originally, nautch girls were dancers and singers, you know. The ban on public performances forced them into kothas to make a living. The result of Victorian morality!”
“Are you quite certain you wish to—” He motioned to the street where he’d marshaled orderlies at every door.
“Quite. Wouldn’t dream of letting Jim in there without me.” She smiled. “His reputation, you see. Mine’s shot already, but I shall do my best by his.”
Leaving us gents to absorb this convoluted logic, she trotted up the steps and knocked, setting our plan into motion. When the door opened, she made her announcement. “Health department check!”
It caused a tumult. A wave of customers exited in all manner of dress and undress, brushing past in an ignoble hurry. Jameson had mustered twenty men from nearby hospitals, but they weren’t nearly enough to stem the tide. A dozen got away in the very first rush. These were not our quarry, so a troop of havildars securing the street, we stepped through an archway.
In the courtyard, a half dozen women sat around a pile of blooms, tying them into strings. Some in small choli blouses or dupattas flung over bare chests sat up with startled questions. Nose rings and hair ornaments. Multicolored skirts crowded scalloped archways in walls so faded one could not tell what color they had once been. Heavily garlanded frames, in which buxom goddesses held petals and weapons. The main chamber had the air of a durbar hall gone to seed.
“Yes, I mean everyone,” Diana said to a large protesting woman in an orange kaftan. “What is your name?”
Now I saw the virtue of heading the expedition with a female vanguard. Diana wrote down the woman’s name, drew the attention of an orderly to check for fever and went on to the next, a youngish creature, no more than twelve.
“Where is Sona? Is she around today?” Diana asked casually as she cleaned off the thermometer.
I paused to hear the girl’s puzzled answer, then went on to the next room.
Here, an irate, thick-waisted madam was arguing with Jameson, who had run out of Hindustani and was exhorting her in English.
After assisting him as translator, I continued to an inner chamber piled with pillows and bolsters in a riot of color. At night, lanterns might have cast a mysterious glow, but now the place had all the allure of laundry ravaged by tipsy monkeys.
A shriek stopped me in my tracks. Swearing bitterly, a young fellow dashed past me in a state of undress, while a pair of young things snatched up their clothing and berated me.
“Health department,” I repeated, brandishing my thermometer. Loud protests ensued.
When they perceived the instrument was to be placed under their armpits, they quieted. Inventing quickly, I said, “Sona wanted medicine for a wart. Do you know her?”
They did not, but showed their elbows and knees, complaining of boils, calluses, and an ingrown toenail. Sending them back to Jameson, I made the notations required and continued through the house.
As I emerged through a gaudy curtained doorway, Diana said, “Have you checked the cupboards?”
“Hmm?”
She floated past and pulled open the largest almirah. Crowded together inside were two little boys, barely six years old. Shrugging at my dismay, she said, “Check cabinet drawers and almirahs—we don’t want babies to suffocate!” She crouched to help the boys out, saying in Hindustani, “Hello, and who are you?”
Giggling happily, they gave their names. After writing these down, she sent the lads downstairs to their mothers.
Since our health department conscripts did not know the raid was a subterfuge, they proceeded at the usual plodding pace, which served me well. I went through, asking my question, “Have you seen Sona?” but it brought forth only shrugs.
The next building was a chawl where rooms led off the front-facing balconies. Alerted by the hubbub, the occupants peered downward, murmuring.
The tenement had an inner courtyard. Stepping through the main archway, I glanced up at a cluster of girls in brightly colored clothing, yellow and orange skirts twinkling with tiny mirrors. A man at the entrance gave a wordless shout that thrust them out of sight. There were women in the courtyard too, sweeping, tending a meager garden and hanging clothes on a line. Faces inscrutable, they watched as I shooed in the health department conscripts.
In the courtyard a woman sat cross-legged on the floor. She rose, scowling, her hair in an untidy bun. Her round face must once have been handsome, but now bore an expression of distaste.
Her lips oranged by betel leaf, she demanded, “What do you want?” and spat at my feet.
I’d seldom seen a more disgusting exhibition. Yet here I might find the elusive Sona, so I folded my hands in greeting. “Pranam.”
Her eyebrows shot up at this politeness. Squeezing her eyes she asked, “Angrez ho?” Are you an Englishman?
I chuckled in reply. This puzzled her even more.
“Health department,” I said, showing Jameson’s document.
She glowered and stalked off, so I hailed the people at windows and balconies. “Come down. The health department is here!”
Women turned to each other in consternation. Were they captives? I saw no sign of chains but that did not mean they were here by choice. Some pressed their foreheads to balcony grilles, faces hidden. It reminded me of a squad of soldiers, waiting out the hottest part of the day, attempting to sleep. Ah, I thought, this market functioned at night, we had arrived during their afternoon nap.
The madam returned to puncturing blooms for her garland as the hospital folk took down clotheslines to set up their table. This caused the madam of the kotha to holler at them, “My clothes! Hai hai!” as she was beating her palms against her head.
Once the place was secure, I climbed the stairs with an orderly and began the usual drill, sending the complicated cases out to Jameson, who’d set up shop in the street. The afternoon wore on. As we flung open windows in the small, unaired rooms, I began to fear our efforts were misguided. Were we too late? Was Sona already on her way to some other house of ill repute?
Diana proceeded to the next chamber, and stooped before a small door. It seemed to lead to a small, windowless cubby. Stooping, she called, “It’s all right, come out.”
A girl, about twelve years old, came crouching through the opening.
I hunkered down and asked in Hindustani, “What’s your name?”
Her kohled eyes were enormous in a pointed face. “Sona.”
Cold shock ran through me. My God, Satya wasn’t trying to save his wife or lover, but his child! Skin tingling, I said, “Did you say Sona? That’s your name?”
She nodded with a grave expression, so I added, “We are friends of Satya.”
Her gaze flashed to me, then her face crumpled.
Casting a look of rebuke at me, Diana comforted her. “We’ve been looking for you, Sona. Hush, child.”
As I retreated to negotiate her release from the madam, my feet faltered, for Sona looked as bereft as my little sister Chutki, who had given her life for me two years ago.