to stay, and yet hadn’t found one. Nothing, not ever, would be emptier for Poornima than that thought. “I can do books,” she said.
The man looked at her.
“I can do books. Accounting. I’ve learned.”
The man laughed. He said, “Since when do village girls learn accounting? Where did you say you were from?”
“I can. I’ll show you.”
The man looked at Rishi and Rishi looked back at him. Then they both looked at Poornima. The man then turned the logbook around to face Poornima and said, “Go ahead.”
Poornima studied it. They just seemed a jumble of numbers at first, with letters heading most of the columns, with what had to be dates on the left-most column. But the longer she looked at them, the more she realized there was a pattern: the numbers under some of the letters were always bigger. And the dates, she saw, were the previous month’s dates. Then she realized what the letters were; they were initials. Three of them were S, followed by a number. Cold dripped down her spine. “Wouldn’t it be better if you knew more? Like, if it was the same man, over and over again? And what days he was coming. And whether for the same girl. If you tracked that, you could charge more.”
There was silence. A dog barked. “So you can,” the man said. He looked at her, as if for the first time. “What else can you do?”
“I can cook, and I can clean, and I can work on the charkha.”
Guru signaled with a wave of his hand for Rishi to leave the room. Once he’d gone, he looked at her with sudden interest, but interest laced with cruelty, with calculation.
“Guru,” he said. “That’s my name. We have more of these. Six others. You have to do all of them. Where are you staying?”
“At the train station.”
“There’s a room in back. You can stay there. Nothing in the room will belong to you, but we can try it for a few days. Are you willing to try it for a few days?” His tone sharpened, pointed at her like a dagger, and Poornima realized he was no longer talking about the books, or account keeping. She nodded.
Then he said, “What happened to your face?”
“Nothing,” Poornima said. “I had an accident.”
Guru smiled, horribly. Then he sat back in his chair and said, “Oil? Or acid?”
* * *
She was given a windowless room in the back, on the first floor. There was a cot on the floor, a framed picture of Ganesha over the door, and a small refrigerator in one corner. There was an attached bathroom with a latrine and a sink with running water and a high strip of window, which Poornima couldn’t reach. She stood and stared at the unreachable rectangle of light. Then she examined the bathroom; she’d never been in a room with an attached latrine or running water. She hid the money and jewelry under the cot and then went to take a bucket bath.
When she came out and tried to open the outer door, she found that it was locked. She pushed on it, banged and yelled, but there was no sound on the other side. She stepped back and stared at the door. Maybe it had locked by accident? But it couldn’t have; she’d seen the metal rod on the door handle, and how it had to be pushed into a set of grooves to lock. What did that mean? Were they imprisoning her? Were they? The thought pushed a scream out of her throat so loud that the frame of Ganesha fell off the wall. She flung herself at the door. She grew hoarse from yelling and crying; her hands stung from pounding on the door. Nothing. Not a sound from outside. She slumped against it and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she saw the refrigerator on the other side of the room. She rose unsteadily and looked inside. There were two bottles of water and a bowl of glistening fruit: guavas and apples and sapota and grapes. She closed the refrigerator and banged on the door again. Still, nothing. When she’d exhausted herself, she went and lay down on the cot and forced herself to sleep.
She had no idea how much time had passed when she woke up. For a moment, she was afraid. Afraid of what? she asked herself. Being locked in a room? The door never opening again? The door opening? Suddenly, none of it felt much different