Despondency clung to her like a shroud as she picked up the receiver and punched in the US number.
‘Hi, Wayne.’
‘Sweetheart! At last! How are you? Where are you? What’s going on? Is she OK?’
‘Sorry to call you at the office. The time difference makes things difficult – that’s why I didn’t call sooner.’
‘Honey – you can call me any time. Middle of the night, any time. So tell me? Have you found her? How is she? When are you coming home?’
‘Oh Wayne – she’s – she’s… No, I haven’t found her. Wayne, I’ve lost her. She’s lost. I’m in Bombay, trying to find her, but, but… Oh Wayne!’ And she burst into tears.
‘She’s been abducted! Stolen! She’s here in Bombay and they want to sell her as a child prostitute! Oh Wayne! What am I going to do!’
‘Damn! Honey! Look, we need to talk. You need to tell me but, damn, this is the wrong time – I’m due in court in half an hour and…’
‘It’s all right. I’ll be all right. I’m sorry. I’ll call again and tell you everything. Or write an email. Yes, I’ll do that. It’ll calm me down.’
‘Honey – are they demanding a ransom? Listen – you still have your HSBC account in India, right? I’ll put some money on there – a few hundred grand. Whatever they ask, you pay it. I will make arrangements – I have contacts to the US ambassador to India. And Dad knows the CEO of HSBC. We’ll work it out. Send me an email to let me know the details. I’ll arrange everything. We will get her back. Don’t worry. Honey, I have to rush now but I’ll get my secretary to wire over the money. Bye honey.’
And he was gone. That was Wayne all over. Always too busy. Never time for her. Thinking that money and contacts and pulling strings were all that was needed to get through life. But it wasn’t. If only he would actually come, join her here, help search for Asha… but he never would. Too busy.
And what would happen when this was over? If – no, when – they found Asha would Wayne accept her? Would he be a father to her? Did she even want Wayne as father to Asha? And what would she and Kamal do? Kamal would also want Asha. She wasn’t about to fight for custody. She was far too tired. She couldn’t handle it, and it certainly wouldn’t be good for Asha, who’d certainly come away from this with a trauma to be healed. But she was a therapist; that was her job. Asha would be fine with her. But what about Kamal? The best thing, Caroline thought, would be for her and Kamal to get back together again. Be a family again, in America.
Caroline went to the bathroom and splashed her face with cold water. She looked in the mirror. She looked terrible, terrible. But no wonder. After today, after this evening, walking the labyrinthine streets of Kamathipura yet again, this time with Gita, the futile interviews, the fake smiles, the wads of money handed out so that the women would talk, seeing those women, those girls, some so young, so very young, so resigned to their fate, the blank stares, the hardened faces, the dull eyes; knowing that Asha was lined up to join their ranks or maybe, maybe – she forced herself to think it – maybe already was one of them.
It didn’t bear thinking about. She wished she had someone to talk to. Janiki. Kamal. Where were they anyway? Kamal had checked out of the Raj early that morning, to look for a less fancy place, he said. Where was he? The three of them should be together, comforting and supporting each other. This city – it devoured strangers, and that’s what they all were. Here she was, facing the greatest challenge of her life, and she was all alone. Even Gita had disappeared, gone back home to her husband and children. There was no one to talk to.
And she needed desperately to talk. To confess her blistering sense of guilt. Because she was guilty. Completely guilty. This was all her fault. She had abandoned Asha when she was still a toddler; rushed back to America and never returned for her daughter. She remembered Kamal’s words: we will return to America. I will get a job there, no problem. We’ll take Asha and be a real family, anywhere you like. If you prefer to go to work, you can do that and I’ll look after her. I know it’s hard, but tough it out for a few months more, Caro. Just a few months more. But she had gone back and moved in with her parents and fallen in love with Wayne and had an affair and abandoned Asha. And this was the direct result of that abandonment. Of course she was guilty. And there was no one to confess to. No one to grant absolution. Maybe Kamal was angry with her still, and that’s why he had disappeared. Maybe Janiki blamed her. Both of them knew what she had done. Both of them must hate her. Because now the little girl they all adored was lost in the worst hellhole on earth.
Her very clothes stank of Kamathipura. It was in her hair, her skin. She tore the blue shalwar kameez from her body, shoved it into the rubbish bin. Maybe a maid would salvage it tomorrow; she didn’t care. Naked, she stepped into the shower. She stood under the gushing water for ages. Washed her hair, scrubbed her skin. The shower gel and shampoo on offer from the Taj smelt delicious. If only she could wash away her thoughts, make them smell sweet. Maybe she could. She would try to meditate afterwards. She was hungry, but didn’t think she could eat. Her stomach was churning; she’d probably throw up everything. She needed to talk!
After drying her hair and putting on a new shalwar kameez, she made her way down to the hotel lobby and asked for the Internet room. Found a computer, found her mail account and began typing. Telling Wayne the whole story might, perhaps, help. She began at the beginning, with the soul-destroying visit to Gingee. By the time she got to the discovery that Asha had been removed from the house in Madras, however, she began to lose control. Tears rolled down her cheek; she wiped them away with her dupatta and typed on. Now and then she sniffed as her nose began to run, but still she typed on.
Someone tapped her on her shoulder. She looked up; it was a man, an Indian man, late thirties, smiling at her. He brandished a handkerchief.
‘I’m at the next computer,’ he said. His accent was British, cut glass. ‘I hope I’m not being interfering, but I thought you could use this, instead of that lovely shawl.’
She looked up at him with anguish spilling from her eyes, still immersed in her story, not quite hearing.
‘What did you say?’
‘I thought you might like a hanky,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t help but hear you crying. I’m sorry if…’
‘Oh. Thanks.’ She took the handkerchief and snorted loudly into it.
‘Keep it,’ he said, stepping away, and Caroline turned back to the keyboard and her typing, now crying openly, sniffing and snorting and blowing into the handkerchief, and somehow it all helped, telling Wayne everything and crying and blowing her nose, and she stood up just a little bit unburdened. Maybe she could, after all, eat now. Just a snack.
She left the computer room. The handkerchief man was waiting for her outside, sitting in a chair beside the door and reading a newspaper.
‘Hello again,’ he said, smiling. ‘I was worried about you. You seem so distressed – is there anything I can do to help?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Nobody can help me.’
‘But it’s not good to be alone with one’s distress. Would you join me for a drink? A glass of good wine can work wonders.’
‘No,’ she said again. ‘No thank you. I’m heading for the restaurant, for a snack.’
‘Well, may I join you there? I don’t like the idea of a lady being alone with so much sorrow.’
Caroline thought for a moment. Why not? All that lay in front of her was food and drink and then bed with some novel or other and the anguish gnawing away at her mind preventing her from understanding a word. Maybe a little distraction would help.
‘OK,’ she said.
She had an omelette and a glass of wine, and then another glass, and learned that his name was Hiran and he was a businessman in Mumbai on business and flying home to London a few days later. And he was nice and ready to listen, so she told him the whole story and he commiserated and comforted and supported her and reassured her that of course she would find Asha, of course she would, and if he could help in any way he would, but in the meantime she needed to take care of herself, seek relief, release the tension. He slipped his business card across the table, gold-rimmed. Hiran Kapur was his full name.
‘I have the day off tomorrow, doing some sightseeing,’ he said. ‘It’s my first time in Mumbai. I was born and bred in England. Why don’t you come with me, relax a bit?’
‘No,’ said Caroline. ‘I’ve got to look for Asha.’
‘You have to think of yourself as well,’ he said. ‘Take care of yourself. You’re a wreck. You need to relax.’
‘It’s all my fault. That’s why I’m a wreck,’ mumbled Caroline, sipping her wine. She told him that part of the story, how she had abandoned Asha. She confessed her guilt. It felt good to talk about it but it wasn’t enough. She needed absolution.
‘It’s not your fault,’ said Hiran, but the words sounded hollow, repeated from a thousand pseudo-psychological movies. People could repeat a thousand times that it wasn’t your fault, but if you knew what you’d done, the words couldn’t undo it.
‘I need to go to bed,’ she said, standing up, swaying slightly.
‘Why not come to my room, and enjoy a bit more wine and some music? It will help release the tension.’
‘So that’s what this was all about,’ she said, turned her back and walked off.
Hiram grabbed her elbow. ‘Wait!’ he cried. ‘I didn’t mean—’
Caroline shook him off, turned to face him. ‘Yes, you did!’ she spat. ‘Everything else, all that friendliness, was just a run-up to this, wasn’t it? Poor needy American lady needs man, right? Easy Western woman, right? Well: not this one!’
She marched off. Men! she thought. That’s all they ever think about. She would have liked to give him a slap, but what remained of her dignity would not allow it.
She went back to her room, stripped again and dived between the sheets. No book. No TV. Just sleep, and forgetting. Tomorrow Gita was picking her up early. Tomorrow she’d be that fake journalist again. She’d have to get some more cash. Bribing those brothel women was expensive. She fell asleep the moment her head touched the pillow.
The next day dawned. Gita picked her up as promised and, just as Kamathipura began to come to life, they began the same old routine: stopping at the brothels, introducing Caroline as a journalist, talking to the women, Caroline asking the questions in English and Gita translating into Hindi, and then, when the women talked, the same in reverse.
The questions were always the same. First the general introduction and enquiries. How many girls work here? What ages are they? Where do they come from? How long have they been here? And then the specifics. Any Tamil-speaking girls? English-speaking? Educated girls? High-class girls? Could Caroline interview any of them? For more cash, of course.
Always cash. One thing Caroline had learned by the end of the day: money talked. The cliché was quite true. But in this case, the talk was invariably empty.
She returned to her hotel more despondent than ever, and alone as ever. A shower, a meal, a siesta. And then the phone rang. Wayne, perhaps; it would be his lunch break now. He’d have read her email and was calling to commiserate.
But it wasn’t Wayne.
It was Janiki, breathless.