The Delhi Deception (2 page)

Later, when they had finished their dinner of goat biryani, thick curd, and onions, Nazeema listened to her father and brother discussing an IT College in Bangalore, where they were hoping to get admission for him. It was expensive and one of the reasons Nazeema’s own education had been halted indefinitely. She had been taken out of school at fourteen and put to work with her parents instead, embroidering fine cotton muslin and silk in the Chikankari method, an ancient and traditional handicraft from Lucknow. That day, her dream of becoming an English teacher was crushed. It was pointless trying to argue; boys were still the hope of their families’ future in the new India. Its economy was growing, along with its strong, up-and-coming middle class, but for many girls in poor families, little had changed.

After cleaning the kitchen and packing away the worn pots and cooking utensils, Nazeema said good night and went to bed with a copy of her brother’s English homework.

The following morning Nazeema was sent to buyers with a bundle of their embroidered cloth. They bought the best pieces for export, while some were discarded or bought for a bargain price. She placed the folded rupees in a red plastic wallet decorated with pink crystals and worried about the low prices their work had fetched that morning. She walked slowly, trying to delay the inevitable scolding she knew she’d get from her father.

Passing an ice cream wallah, she stopped and studied the pictures on the side of the fridge. She licked her lips and, with a rebellious flick of her long dark hair, bought herself mango ice cream in a plastic cup. Eating it with closed eyes and abandoned pleasure, she didn’t notice the middle-aged man watching her in the doorway of the barbershop.

When she arrived home, she was relieved to find that her father had gone out. Her mother was quiet and didn’t volunteer to fill her in on her father’s whereabouts. He returned much later, singing an old Bollywood love song, gave his wife an uncustomary kiss on the cheek, and announced that he would take them out for tandoori chicken and roomali roti at a dhaba not far from their house. Nazeema was surprised at this generous gesture, but excitedly changed her clothes and braided her hair.

Nazeema felt a glow of pleasure, sitting on the white plastic chairs of the bustling street restaurant and watching her mother laugh loudly for what felt like the first time in a long time. Her eyes shone on her father as she listened to him tell stories about his childhood in a small village on the border of the Punjab. They were licking their fingers, mopping up bits of masala with the last of the roti.

While they were drinking hot, milky masala chai, her father looked at her and said, “Beti, I am so happy to be telling you that I have found a very good husband for you.”

Nazeema choked on the hot liquid and looked up at her mother. Her mother seemed to be just as surprised as she was.
She doesn’t know
. Her mother avoided looking at her, pretending to clean an invisible spot on the sleeve of her kameez. Nazeema eventually found her voice. “But, Baba, I’m only fifteen. I’m not ready for marriage…”

“Nonsense! You will do as I say and be bloody grateful. Your mother will prepare you for the marriage, which will take place the day after tomorrow.” His voice was cold…final. Paying the bill, he glared at Nazeema and then got up heavily, burping as he walked away. Her mother followed him, but her brother, with a sympathetic gesture, helped her up, gently supporting her by the arm as they walked back to the apartment. Nazeema asked him if he knew the prospective groom, but he shook his head and avoided looking into her eyes.

She cried herself to sleep and in the morning rose from bed with swollen, red eyes. Her father looked perturbed, and then barked an order to his wife as he left the apartment. Nazeema’s mother tried her best to be cheerful while removing a vermillion silk sari from a wooden chest. She held it against Nazeema’s face and smiled. “You look beautiful, Nazeema. This was my mother’s sari, and I have kept it all these years for you. You will make your father proud, and I know you’ll be a wonderful wife.”

They embraced, tears streaming down her mother’s face. But Nazeema’s eyes were dry; her fate was sealed.

The day and night passed like a movie being fast-forwarded. The henna artist painted an intricate pattern on her hands and feet. The initials of her groom were also painted on the soft flesh of her palm. Her mother oiled and braided her hair. A cousin outlined her large, liquid brown eyes with kohl, and then it was time.

Her family took her to a small hotel on the outskirts of Hyderabad. They were shown into a dark room stinking of old cigarettes. Someone had tried to decorate it with gladioli, but the stems were bent and the flowers were wilting in the heat. Two metal chairs adorned with strings of marigold were set slightly apart. On one of the chairs sat a man, tall and still. His face was covered with tinsel, his features dark and indiscernible in the gloom of the room. Nazeema was seated next to him, and then the ceremony began.

From under her veil, she tried to look at her groom, but his face was turned away from her. She started feeling faint and hot under the layers of silk. The room was spinning, and if it weren’t for her mother supporting her by the arm she would have collapsed. The cheers and laughter shocked her out of her daze, and the rich, milky sweet her groom fed her made her nauseous. She was weighed down under the garlands of flowers well-wishers had placed around her shoulders before she was led away by her cousin, upstairs to an airless room in the hotel. The bed was covered in red rose petals. Sticks of strong-smelling incense on the windowsill burned dangerously close to the tattered curtains.

Her cousin left her sitting alone on the bed, and then Nazeema’s husband came into the room. He offered her a glass of tea, pouring it from a brass samovar. She accepted with shaking hands and looked up at him as he sat down next to her. He lifted her veil and studied her features intently. With what sounded like a grunt of satisfaction, he stood up and removed his headdress.

Nazeema’s eyes widened in horror. It was the face of an old man. A deep scar ran down the center of his face, disfiguring his hawklike nose. His eyes were small and very dark, unreadable, and his mouth was thin and pale, twisted by the scar into a cruel expression. He tried to say something to her in heavily accented Hindi, but she didn’t understand. His smile, revealing gaps in his uneven, stained teeth, was repulsive.

Instinctively, Nazeema shrank back and covered her face with her hands, but this angered him. He hit her in the face with the back of his hand, sending her sprawling. She tried to reach the door, but he was remarkably agile. He picked her up easily and continued beating her. Blood was flowing into her eyes, and in the red haze of pain and disbelief, he tore the precious wedding sari off her young body and forced himself onto her.

Nazeema felt her adolescent body being violated and ripped apart. She tried screaming, begged him to stop, but his eyes were dead.

Eventually, in agony and shock, Nazeema passed out, but her blessed stupor was short-lived. In the early hours of the morning, he started raping her again. Exhausted and with no will left to fight him off, she lay still like a rag doll, battered, damaged, and soon to be discarded.

As the bleak dawn light crept silently though the holes of the threadbare curtains, Nazeema’s husband got up, groaning slightly as he walked to the bathroom. Noticing her naked body smeared with blood and semen, she pulled the floral cotton sheet across herself, shivering. Her mind was dull, and she concentrated on her breathing, listening to the odd whistling sound of air through her swollen, blood-caked nose.

The bathroom door opened, and she watched him return. He had changed into clean clothing. Picking up a small suitcase, he sauntered over to the bed. He leaned across her leeringly and then licked her face. In halting Hindi he told her he was divorcing her. She closed her eyes, past feeling anything. When she opened them a few moments later, he was gone.

Nazeema stood in front of her family’s apartment for a long time. Her face was bruised, and her head hurt each time she moved it. She was dressed in a faded yellow salwar kameez a size too big, lent to her by the appalled young servant girl who found her unconscious on her wedding bed. She had bathed her gently and disinfected her wounds with carbolic soap. Stung by the soap, Nazeema had regained consciousness. She had survived this unthinkable ordeal.

It seemed natural to return to her father’s house, yet she was afraid; she opened the door and slipped in. Her mother was standing in the kitchen with her back toward Nazeema. From the bedroom she could hear her father snore. She walked quietly to his room and sat at the end of the charpoy, watching him sleep. An empty bottle of local whisky was discarded on the floor, and the room smelled sour. A loud, spluttering snore made her father move his head off the pillow.

Nazeema saw the wad of rupee notes stick out from under him. She pushed him aside and gaped at the money. It was more than she had ever seen, and she picked up a handful. Hearing her mother gasp behind her, she let go of the notes, and they fluttered down, covering her father’s torso.

Her mother’s eyes were wide and shiny with unshed tears. “Beti, please try to understand. Your brother has to go to college; there was no other way.”

“So you sold me?”

“No, it wasn’t meant to be like this. They promised your father that the man would take good care of you; you’d have a future.”

A loud ringing noise in her ears made her dizzy, and she sat down heavily on the charpoy. Her father sat up and watched her with guilty, shifty eyes.

“Are you sorry for what you’ve done?” Nazeema was sobbing. “I’m soiled; no one will marry me now. What will I do?” She fell down and held her mother’s feet. “Do something, Ma, please.”

Her mother looked at her father, and then turned around and walked back to the kitchen. Her father then shifted his gaze to stare out the window. When Nazeema eventually pulled herself to her feet and walked out the room, she did not see the tears of remorse rolling down his cheeks, chin, and onto his chest.

Nazeema spent the rest of the day in stunned silence. Her home was no longer a place of safety; betrayal seeped from its walls. She didn’t know where to go and walked the streets aimlessly. At the ice cream wallah’s fridge, she dropped to her haunches and leaned against it. She had no idea for how long she sat there, but when a middle-aged man with a kind face asked her if she’d like some tea, she followed him through a dark alley and into a room reeking of sex.