Disowned Page 8

  “Like how I punched you?” I shot back.

  “Hrmp.” Fartybag turned back to his TV with a scowl.

  “Enough!” the man snapped. “What do you want?”

  “I want to leave this place,” I said, turning back to Fartybag’s father. “Can you help me?”

  “Okay, let me see what I have,” he said, thumbing through a book on his desk. “I have a first-class ticket to have tea with the queen of England. How about that? Ha! Or maybe you want to visit the president of America? Go and see the splendid White House?” His face broke into a broad smile.

  “Good one, Appa!” Fartybag said from his corner, slapping his thighs.

  “Ha-ha!” His father joined in.

  I waited until the laughter died down. The man picked up the newspaper again and Fartybag went back to his TV.

  “Please help me, sir,” I said, putting my hands together like I’d seen Aunty Shilpa and Preeti do whenever they talked to our school principal or a priest at the temple. “I want to get away before they make me marry Kristadasa.”

  “Ah!” The man’s eyebrows shot up. He sat up and gave me a keen look. “So you’re the foreign girl they’re giving to Kristadasa.”

  “No one’s going to give me to anybody,” I said, my voice steady.

  “She’s not from here, Appa,” Fartybag said from his corner, not taking his eyes off the TV. “That’s why she’s so weird.”

  “All I want are tickets and a visa,” I said to his father, ignoring Fartybag.

  “If you want to travel anywhere in this world, you also need lots of rupees,” the man said, brushing his suit. His face said stop bothering me.

  “Tons,” Fartybag said with a smirk. “Tons and tons of rupees.”

  “I have money, sir,” I said, smy mind whirling.

  Mr. Mudenda had handed me my parents’ bank account papers in a sealed envelope just before I’d got on the plane. I’d opened the envelope on the plane and looked through it. Though the papers were written in English, all I could make out were pages and pages of small print with difficult words, strange numbers, and convoluted sentences. I’d handed the documents over to Grandma, as Mr. Mudenda had instructed, but he hadn’t known she couldn’t read, let alone read in English. She’d thrust the papers back at me and said I should bury them under the sofa mattress with my passport, which was what I did, until the night the marriage broker visited us.

  That night, taking care to not wake Preeti up, I slipped my hand under the mattress and pulled out the papers. An outside street light and a conspiring moon had given me ample light to read them by the window. Though I hardly understood much of what I read, I was sure there was money in a bank in England left by my parents for me. Maybe I didn’t have any rupees, but what I had could be changed to rupees. I was sure.

  “I don’t take pocket change from useless little girls,” the man said, waving me away.

  “Yeah, get out,” Fartybag said. “We’re busy people.”

  “But I have money,” I said. “It’s in a bank. A foreign bank.”

  “A bank!” the man said, throwing his head back in laughter. “You think any bank will do business with you? What a jokester!”

  “Ha-ha-ha!” Fartybag joined in. “What a stupid girl.”

  “Oooh,” the man said, clutching his sides. “I haven’t laughed this hard since the day your uncle got hit by that cow on his scooter.”

  I waited for the laughter to subside.

  “I’m serious,” I said, standing my ground. “I’m serious about this.”

  The man leaned forward, his eyes sharp and unfriendly. “Enough of this nonsense. Stop wasting my time!” He banged on his desk, making me jump.

  “Yeah. Get out or I’ll bash your lights out!” Fartybag shouted from his corner.

  I looked at the man, who was glaring at me now. I was no match for both of them. I shook my head and walked out of their office, feeling like the hippo on my shoulders had just gained a hundred more pounds.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I stumbled home, my shoulders stooped and my heart heavy.

  The images of my parents floated to mind and I wished I could ask them for guidance. Is there such a place as heaven, and can they look down to see what’s happening? I wondered.

  I remembered how I’d had a real family at one point, where all I felt was warmth and love. I remembered how we’d spend every Sunday baking cakes and having fun. I remembered how we’d pile into our green Fiat every Saturday to go to the market to visit Chanda and sell my mother’s cakes. I stopped as an idea dawned on me. Maybe, just maybe….

  I didn’t wait a second more. I ran home as fast as I could.

  First, I wrote down my plan in my school notebook to make sure I wouldn’t forget the details. Then, I convinced Aunty Shilpa to lend me ten rupees to start my “biziness,” as she called it. It took almost a day, but she finally relented, to stop my begging.

  The next day, I walked to the market after school and bought two cups of flour, a small bottle of coconut oil, rice milk, some sugar, a can of baking soda, a tin of cocoa powder and a tiny but expensive stick of vanilla bean from a fancy shop I’d never stepped into before. These last two items were beyond my ten rupee budget, so I had to buy them on credit after much pleading with the shopkeeper. She gave them to me right away after I accidentally switched to English while beseeching her. For some reason, that seemed to give her reassurance.

  At the pawn shop at the street corner near the bus station, I found a rusty twelve-cup baking tray they were throwing away. I cleaned and scraped it for hours to get it back to cooking-ready status. That evening, I made my own cake wrappers using aluminum foil. At first, Aunty Shilpa watched me with curiosity, then she came over and squatted next to me, to help. She still didn’t say much, but her quiet companionship made me feel like I belonged again.

  That night, I made a dozen fairy cakes because that was all I had ingredients for. I didn’t have a recipe book to follow, so I baked from memory. I remembered my mother in her blue pants and floral shirt in our kitchen back in Dar es Salaam. I remembered how I’d measured ingredients as she’d instructed, handing her a cup of flour or a spatula. I’d watched carefully as she shifted and mixed while explaining, chatting, and telling me stories. I walked down memory lane, recalling feelings, details, movements, and brought my mama’s cakes to life.

  The next day at lunchtime, instead of hiding near the bookshelves in the corner of my classroom, I took my first batch of cakes and lined them up on a wooden bench at the back of the school canteen. I sat down behind my cakes and ate lunch by myself, as I always did. Every time someone walked by, I looked up and smiled. I even smiled at those girls who made fun of me and my accent.

  One by one, the girls came over after finishing their lunch to see what the foreign girl was up to. Preeti’s best friend bought my first cake, then her other friend bought my second, and soon I was sold out. The next day, with the money I made, I doubled to twenty-four. One teacher tried one of my cakes, and came back for one more. The following day, another teacher came by and bought two at once. After a month, I’d made enough money to add icing swirls on top. I baked late into the night after doing my homework, and brought in thirty-six cakes to school every day after that.

  Then one day, my classroom teacher asked me to bring fifty-five fairy cakes for the principal’s birthday party. With the money I’d made from the first two months of sales, I paid back Aunty Shilpa’s ten-rupee loan, paid off my credit at the fancy store and bought more baking supplies. After the principal’s birthday, I took fifty cakes to school every day. I had to. Everyone was asking for them.

  For the first time ever, a few girls started to talk to me. Some began sitting with me at the back of the canteen while I kept shop. They didn’t seem to care anymore that I’d been born in a strange land far away, that I spoke in a funny way, or the monitor picked on me often. Maybe it was because the teachers came to visit with purses in their hands and smiles on their faces. I made sure
to put an extra cake in the bag whenever the school principal or the senior teachers came along, a tip I’d learned from the market women back in Africa.

  Little by little, the school monitor stopped rapping on my knuckles in the morning. More and more often, I found her scrawny claw hovering over my cakes at lunchtime, trying to decide which flavor to pick that day.

  Best of all, Grandma approved. Kristadasa had gotten greedy and was asking for a dowry now and the marriage broker’s fees were higher than expected, which meant my wedding was postponed for twelve months, twelve months for Aunty Shilpa to make more money and twelve months for me to prepare for my future. Though Grandma grumbled about the foreign sweets, she said it was a sign I was becoming domesticated and that it would make me a good wife. She stopped blaming my mother or my background, and happily gave me time on the stove after supper every evening. And that was all I needed. I handed over a tiny portion of what I made to Aunty Shilpa to satisfy Grandma’s curiosity. What she didn’t know was after I paid for my baking supplies and ingredients, I squirreled everything away in my pillowcase.

  I did this every day for eleven months, until I had one month of freedom left—four weeks before they took me away to become the wife of Nuthead’s father.

  Part FOUR

  I walked a mile with Pleasure

  She chatted all the way

  But left me none the wiser

  For all she had to say.

  I walked a mile with Sorrow

  And ne’er a word said she

  But, oh! The things I learned from her

  When Sorrow walked with me.

  Robert Browning Hamilton

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Hello sir, I can pay for my ticket in rupees now.”

  I was back at the Good and Fast Immigration Broker’s office, the sole travel agent in my neighborhood. Fartybag was in his usual smelly corner watching a Rambo film. His father was at his desk, frowning at me over his newspaper. But this time, I had cold hard cash in my hands, not in some foreign bank with indecipherable words and numbers on paper that needed sorting out. There was no way he was going to refuse me now.

  “What do you want?” Fartybag’s father asked. He’d already forgotten me.

  “I want to get visas and tickets to go to Tanzania.”

  “What?” His frown deepened. “And who do you think you are?”

  “I’m Asha,” I said.

  He gave a blank look.

  “I came to see you last year about an airline ticket.” I opened my school satchel and took out a wad of Indian rupees. “See, I can buy it now.”

  He put the newspaper down slowly, his eyes not wavering from the money in my hands.

  “Where did you steal that from?”

  “I didn’t steal this! This is mine.”

  “Where did you find it then?”

  “I made it from selling fairy cakes at school.”

  “Fancy cakes?”

  “No, fairy cakes,” I said. “I have enough to go back to Dar es Salaam now.” I didn’t have enough cash to take Preeti and Aunty Shilpa with me, but I had a plan on how to get there.

  “Dar es Salaam?” the man asked, looking at me bewildered.

  “Don’t you remember her, Appa?” Fartybag piped up from his corner. “She’s crazy. I told you she’s nuts.”

  The man’s eyes cleared, and a smirk grew on his face. “And you also have passport now?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Really?” he said. “Where?”

  “Under my mattress.”

  “Under your—?” He paused. “Where did you get that from?”

  “Papa gave it to me. I’ve had it since I was a baby.”

  “Oh?” The man put his paper down and sat up. He looked at me silently with an interested glint in his eye. “So your parents, they travel?”

  “They traveled all over Africa. They even went to London.”

  “London, eh?” The man’s voice had softened. “What your parents do, pray tell? They work for big company?”

  “No, they don’t,” I stammered. “I mean they did, but they died when I was twelve,” I said, looking down at my shoes.

  “Where did they used to work?”

  I felt something stick in my throat. I swallowed it quickly and said, “At an NGO.” Unknowingly, I had switched to English.

  “NGO?”

  “Non-governmental organization,” I rattled off, recalling how my parents described their work.

  The man was silent for a long time.

  “Which NGO, miss?” he said, switching to English as well.

  “Environ Africa.”

  “Where exactly did your esteemed parents work, miss?”

  “Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, Lusaka, Gaborone, and some other places, but I’ve forgotten now.”

  “If your parents worked good jobs, why do you make fancy cakes?”

  “Fairy cakes.”

  “Didn’t your parents leave you anything when they passed away?”

  “Yes,” I said, shuffling my feet. “I’m not supposed to touch those papers until eighteen. Mr. Mudenda said that’s really important to remember. I tried to read them, but they’re a bit hard to understand. I want to use it to help my cousin and aunty join me in Dar es Salaam later.” I’d been scheming for a year now, and felt like I had a reasonably good plan in place.

  Silence from the man. He brushed his suit, cleared his throat and to my surprise, almost gave me a bow. “Come, come, sit down.” He rolled a leather chair toward me. “Sit, sit, miss.”

  I walked over to the offered chair and sat down, my feet barely touching the floor.

  “Normally, I don’t talk to anyone who come without appointment,” the man said, getting behind his desk. “I only take referral, miss, but I will make extra exception for you because you need of a lot of good help. Lots of good help.” He smiled.

  “Thank you,” I said in relief.

  “If I knew you were an orphan, I’d never have turned you away. Never say no to an orphan in need. That is what I say. I try my best to be most pious you see.” He pointed at the colorful Lord Vishnu picture behind him.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said with a nod, not knowing what else to say. I had expected to fight harder, and was pleasantly surprised at this good turn of events. He seemed rather cooperative, especially considering he was Fartybag’s father.

  “Now, now miss. No need to call me sir. My name is Fanibhusan Sardindhi.” Fartybag’s father smiled again, showing a row of crooked, yellow teeth. “But you call me Franky, miss. Much easier, no?”

  I nodded. Franky turned to his son. “Oy! Get up and make yourself useful, boy. Stop stinking this place like hell and get two sweet chais.”

  Fartybag got up with a scowl, walked out and slammed the door behind him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Have you gone completely mad in the head?” Preeti hissed at me.

  It was well past midnight. We were huddled under our thin blanket on the sofa bed. Grandma and Aunty Shilpa were sleeping on their shared mat in the bedroom, a few feet from us, but Grandma’s loud snores were reassuring, and I knew it would be safe to nudge Preeti awake.

  “Grandma’s right,” she said in a fierce whisper. “You make so much trouble, Asha.”

  I stared at her for several seconds before whispering back. “I can’t believe you want me to sit and wait for her to marry me off to Nuthead’s dad.”

  “It’s your destiny, Asha.”

  “How can you say that?” I said louder than I’d intended. “What kind of life will that be? I’d rather be dead.”

  If there was one lesson I’d learned recently, it was that nothing was predestined. I no longer relied on anyone else to take care of me, even the gods, though I had to admit the ones in Goa were impressive with their jeweled crowns and golden halos. My life was in my hands alone.

  “I thought you were on my side!” I said, looking at her accusingly.

  Preeti lowered her eyes. “You must think of your fa
mily’s honor. That is the most important thing.”

  “But you said it was wrong!” I said, throwing the blanket off me in exasperation. “You even said it was illegal!”

  With a loud sigh, she gently pulled the blanket back over me. “Asha, go back to sleep and stop this silliness.”

  “No!” I kicked the blanket away. “I’m getting out of here. And I want you and Aunty to come with me, so we can get away from these bad people.”

  She shook her head and gave another sigh. “It’s time for you to grow into a woman. You’re not a child any more. You can’t go around disrespecting our elders like this.”

  I ignored her. “Mama and Papa left me enough money,” I said. “He said he can help me, help all of us.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Franky.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Fartybag’s father.”

  “How can that man help?”

  “He owns the Good and Fast Immigration Broker shop over the bus station. He’s not as bad as you think—Franky I mean, not Fartybag. Fartybag’s still mean. Franky promised to help get me out of this wedding.”

  “You’ve been talking to Fartybag’s father about this? This is a private family affair! How can you trust him? He’s a disgusting man.”

  “And Nuthead’s father’s not? He’s a horrible pervert!” I whispered furiously back.

  Preeti gave me a look, a warning look that clearly said, “Respect your elders, for heaven’s sake.”

  I put my head in my hands. I had to tell her what happened the other day, but pulling those words out of my mouth meant tackling the colossal hippo that had made itself comfortable on my shoulders, draining my strength, my voice, my power.

  Aunty Shilpa had told me Nuthead’s father had had his eyes on me ever since I’d arrived, and this was not the first time he’d approached Grandma. I remembered seeing him staring from his doorway when we walked to school, even before we heard from the marriage broker. Preeti had noticed him watching and always lowered her eyes and walked away quickly when he was around. I shivered in disgust. Then in anger. Why can’t she see what’s going on?