Fifteen Lanes - S.J. Laidlaw Page 0,57

talents. Ma is not proud of being a sex worker but she is not ashamed.”

“So, let’s just recap, if I may,” said VJ, holding up his fingers as he itemized his points. “Noor has to join the program but can’t actually darken the door of this building as someone in the neighborhood is bound to see her and spill the beans. Gracie has to find a teen she can mentor, which isn’t going to be easy since the girls here aren’t keen on her.”

I started to object but he raised his hand and continued. “Sorry, darling, but you know it’s true. So, I have the solution.”

VJ stepped away from us and raised both hands in the air. “Ladies, attention, please,” he shouted over the babble of voices. “We’ve solved the problem.”

Shockingly, everyone actually did quiet down.

“Grace and Noor have discovered a budding kinship. They give true meaning to the idea of sisters helping sisters …”

“Get to the point,” I groused.

He gave me a wounded look before continuing. “They’re going to meet at least once a week, for the requisite bonding experiences, but they will never meet here, so there’s no need to get Noor’s mom’s permission. Should anyone ask, we say only that Grace is Noor’s new friend. Are we all in agreement? Can I have a show of hands?”

There were several minutes of stunned silence. VJ repeated his suggestion in Hindi.

“Is this what you want to do, Grace?” asked Mr. Donleavy.

I didn’t even have to think about it. “If Noor agrees.”

I looked down in surprise when I felt Noor slip her hand into mine.

Noor

The foreigners …

Parvati and I waited on the corner, at the end of our lane, for the foreigners. Shami was asleep in my arms. As usual he had a fever. It wasn’t too high, though his breathing was raspy and labored. I’d stolen some of Binti-Ma’am’s alcohol that morning. An alcohol-soaked rag was wrapped tightly around his chest.

Aamaal picked through a rubbish heap across the street from us. I scolded her whenever she accidentally picked up broken glass or syringes, though she rarely did. Aamaal had learned quickly how to avoid the dangers of our world. Most days she amassed a small bag of recyclables, carefully sorted, to sell to the rag picker when his cart rattled by. I let her keep what she earned. We could have used the money but she wouldn’t have stuck with it if she’d had to share. It was worth it just to keep her busy.

“Are you sure they can be trusted?” asked Parvati, for perhaps the tenth time.

A lot had changed in the months since Parvati’s rape, not the least of which was Parvati herself. She’d always been distrustful of strangers; that was just common sense in a community where most of the girls and women we knew had been forced into sex work. But her spark of mischief had withered.

“You can’t count on them to help you. Foreigners are as different from us as elephants.” Parvati rhythmically thumped Shami’s back as she talked. She was as familiar with the tricks for loosening the mucus in his lungs as I was. “Elephants act tame for years and then one day they crush their masters to death. People think the attacks are unprovoked but elephants have long memories. They take revenge for things that happened long ago, sometimes in a previous life. Foreigners are like that—unpredictable.”

I squeezed Parvati’s shoulder. I knew what was really troubling her. “We’ll find a way to get you away from Suresh. We don’t need the foreigners for that.”

Parvati self-consciously put her left arm behind her back, as if I hadn’t already noticed the fresh cuts. I had tried to talk Parvati into asking Chanda-Teacher for help but I couldn’t convince her she wouldn’t be arrested for prostitution. We’d both heard stories about the prisons where they incarcerated underage sex workers who’d been “rescued.” The conditions were so bad that only last year a group of girls had scaled the thirty-foot fence surrounding their “rescue home” and broken their legs in the long, desperate drop to freedom.

“What if the foreigners try to kidnap you?” asked Parvati.

I had explained the deal I’d struck with the NGO, but Parvati refused to believe that friendship with a foreigner was necessary to prevent my being expelled from my own school. I still felt raw when I thought of the teachers I’d loved who’d tried to get rid of me. I wondered if any of them had argued to let me