‘Your honour is very anxious to get rid of me.’
‘Not at all! But won’t your people be worried?’
‘Nobody worries about me!’ she replied. ‘I come and go as I please. All my husband asks me is how much have you brought?’
‘You have a husband?’
‘What sin have I committed that I should not have a husband? When I am old and of no use to men, he will look after me.’
She sensed I was one of the types who liked to hear about sex. ‘Has
huzoor
never honoured our habitations with his blessed feet?’
‘Never.’
‘Inshallah
! Your maidservant may have the honour of turning your steps in that direction.’
I was not used to being propositioned by women–much less a
hijda.
‘Your clothes must be dry,’ I blurted. ‘Let’s go.’ She came across the room, sank down on the coir mattress and put her head on my feet.
‘In the name of Rama! Do not throw me out! I am too sick to go back to work. If you let me spend this one night here, I swear by Allah I will cause you no further embarrassment. For the sake of your Guru, please!’ (How she mouthed the names of Gods–Hindu, Muslim, Sikh!). She looked up at me with tears in her eyes.
Women had spent nights in my apartment. But they had been Europeans or westernized Indian memsahibs aping English mannerisms; never a low-born, Hindustani-speaking,
hijda
whore, who obviously catered to perverts of the working-classes: domestic-servants, soldiers, policemen—at a couple of rupees a shot. I thought to myself that I would not know what to say to her. And she was not very appetizing. ‘All right,’ I said without much enthusiasm. ‘But we must leave the house before my servant comes back. And while you can stay here after he has left for the night you must leave early in the morning. Go and get dressed, your clothes must be dry by now.’
She bent down and kissed my feet. She brushed her tears with the hem of my shirt. She got up and turned her back towards me. The trousers slid down baring her from her waist to her ankles. Whatever other ravages her body might have suffered at the calloused hands of the working-classes, her behind was like that of a schoolboy athlete: taut, dimpled. She looked back over her shoulder and smiled an embarrassed smile. Then bent down, pulled the trousers up to her waist and shuffled back to the bathroom.
While she was changing I made plans for the night. I put two candles on the dining-table. This was my way of communicating with my unlettered cook-bearer. One candle for ‘out-for-dinner’; two candles for ‘also do not come in with the bed-tea in the morning.’
We left the apartment unnoticed. ‘If you would be so kind as to take me for a drive! I would like to eat some fresh air,’ she said as she got into the car. ‘There are not many car rides written in your slave’s
kismet.
’ She tapped her forehead.
‘Where would you like to go?’
‘Wherever
huzoor’s
heart desires to take his maidservant.’
This was a different Bhagmati—relaxed and self-assured. She began to hum and tap a
tabla
drumbeat on the dashboard when we set off. As we drove past the Ashoka Hotel into the Diplomatic Enclave she began to chant the names of the embassies we passed:
‘Amreekee ambassee...
and the
Roosi,
Pakistani,
Japanee, Germanee.
’
‘How do you know all these embassies?’
‘Your slave has had the privilege of serving many foreign gentlemen.’ She looked sideways at me to watch my reaction.
‘They must give you a lot of money.’
‘They probably do. But after the pimps and the embassy chauffeurs have taken their share, a couple of rupees is all that falls into your maidservant’s apron. Then there is my husband. Allah be thanked! I have enough for a cupful of lentil soup and a
chappati
to fill this belly.’ She slapped her paunch.
‘How do you talk to them?’
‘Ajee wah
!’ she exclaimed animatedly waggling her head. ‘What kind of question is that? They don’t need to talk to me. They drink their whisky; they carry on their
git mit
in their own language till they need my services.’ She paused, looked sideways at me and added, ‘These foreigners have some very curious habits.’
‘What do they do?’
‘Not all in one session,’ she admonished. ‘A little today, a little tomorrow. But it will astonish you. They take their pleasure in strange ways. It makes me sick to think of it.’ She spat out of the window.
‘Will
huzoor
kill me with hunger? Take me to a nice hotel and give me some saffron
pilaf
, some oven-baked chicken and
kulfi
(ice-cream) and I may tell you more.’
‘And be seen with you in public? You want me to cut off my own nose?’
She was squashed. I felt mean. But I was determined not to give in. I turned towards the old city. We went through Delhi Gate and entered Faiz Bazaar. I pulled up outside Moti Mahal. I left her in the car and went to order a packed meal for two. I brought it back to the car: ‘All you desire: saffron
pilaf
and
nan
, chicken and baked fish and
rabdee
of thick clotted cream.’ She turned her face away from me.
We drove out of the city along the old wall. Her silence began to irritate me. ‘If you are going to sulk, I will put you out of the car right here.’ I turned to look at her. She turned away and blew her nose into the hem of her shirt.
‘Accha,
if you are going to behave like this, I will drop you at Lal Kuan.’
At Kashmiri Gate I turned into the city. We drove along Chandni Chowk to where it ended at Fatehpuri Mosque. I turned left towards Lal Kuan. I could sense her nervousness. ‘You gave me your word...’
‘I take it back. You go home.’
‘Hai Ram
!’ she exclaimed as we approached the hermaphrodites’ quarters. She slid down the seat and grabbed my left foot rest on the clutch. ‘I’ll do anything you want, but in the name of Rama, don’t throw me out here.’
‘You promise to behave?’
‘I’ll be your slave for life.’
I slowed down. Pimps darted across from the pavement. ‘Nice new goods, just unpacked...collegegirl...virgin of thirteen....you no jiggee-jig?’ Bhagmati remained hidden where she was calling upon Hindu and Muslim gods.
‘Hai
Ramji...Ya Allah.’
We came out of Lal Kuan to Qazi-ka-Hauz and out of the city wall. ‘We are out of Ajmeri Gate,’ I announced.
She peered over the rim of the window to make sure before she sat up.
‘Huzoor
has a strange sense of humour!’ she complained. ‘If they had found your maidservant in your car, her throat would have been slit.’
‘If you sulk again, I’ll take you back.’
At Connaught Circus I pulled up at a drug-store. When I came back she remarked: ‘May our enemies be stricken with disease! I trust your honour is in good health?’
‘Just the compulsions of age!’ I answered. ‘A pill to whip up the appetite; another to digest what has been eaten. A third for sound sleep, a fourth to be more wide awake and a fifth to tone up the system.’ From the look on her face I could tell she had not bought my story.
Budh Singh, the night-watchman, had got used to seeing me bring women to my apartment. I gave him a tip every month. Although he was crazy, he never created trouble for me. In the dark, he could not tell what I was bringing home. Although it was a common bazaar
hijda
prostitute I felt as awkward as a young groom bringing home his bride. Bhagmati walked with a self-conscious gait.
Few words passed between us while we ate.
‘It would be too much to ask a Sikh gentleman for a cigarette,’ she exclaimed as she belched. I brought her the cigarette-box. She took two and stuck one behind her ear and waited for me to light the other. As I lit the cigarette she looked me boldly in the eye and blew a jet of smoke in my face; then fanned it away with her hand.
I switched on the fan in the sitting-room and asked her to make herself comfortable on the sofa. ‘If you need anything just knock on the door.’ I retired to my bedroom.
The hum of the air-conditioner cut out the other sounds in the apartment. I wondered what she was doing? Had I insulted her? Surely living in a brothel she must have got used to being turned down in favour of other inmates! In any case I did not know what one did to a
hijda.
And she had had an epileptic fit that afternoon. What would she sleep in? I had not given her a change of clothes. Naked? She wasn’t very beautiful. But what did a
hijda
look like with nothing on?
I felt a desire for sex. I tried to put it out of my mind. A sick, scruffy
hijda
—how could I? I picked up a journal. Her naked figure kept coming over the print. What kind of breasts did a
hijda
have? What shape were her genitals? Did she shave her pubis? I put away the journal and switched off the lamp.
It did not help. I could not put out the notion that I had a strange creature in my apartment; I might never again have the opportunity to add to my knowledge. I switched on the bed-lamp and once again began to turn over the pages of the journal.
The bedroom door was pushed open. The light of the table-lamp sliced Bhagmati’s figure in two. She had nothing on. As I had suspected—not real breasts, just protrusions. And she had her hands between her thighs. ‘Have I permission to enter?’ she asked as she entered. ‘This poor wretch has nothing else to offer in return for your kindness.’
I made room for her beside me. She sat down with her face turned away. For a while I stroked her navel and her underbelly. I was roused. I pulled her beside me, fished out a contraceptive from under my pillow and mounted her. She directed me inside her. It was no different from a woman’s. She smelt of sweat; I avoided her mouth. She pretended to breathe heavily as if she were getting worked up. Then sensing my coming to a climax she crossed her legs behind my back and began to moan. I dismounted. I felt unclean.
I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth a second time. I was under the shower when she came in. Without asking for permission she squeezed paste out of my tube and began to massage her gums with her forefinger. As I turned off the shower to dry myself, she turned it on to wash herself. I could not bring myself to see what she really looked like in the middle.
I left her in the bathroom and returned to my bed. I did not want any more of her. To make my intentions clear I switched off my bed-lamp. I heard the shower turned off and after a while the click of the bathroom switch. Once again she came and sat on the edge of my bed. She had daubed herself with my cologne. I felt mean and made room for her.
For a while she lay still with her head tucked beneath my armpit. She began to play with my nipples—first with her fingers, then with her tongue. She placed her head on my chest and began to stroke my paunch—first with her fingers, then with her tongue. She went on till my reluctance was overcome. I rolled over and felt under my pillow. She held my hand and murmured, ‘No need of that; I am clean.’ Once again she directed me inside her and held me in a vice between her legs. Her tongue darted into my ears; a shiver of a thrill ran down my spine. Then she glued her mouth on mine. This time there was no faking. With a series of violent heaves she sucked my seed into her in a frenzy of abandon.
I lay on top of her—exhausted.
We had another shower together. She was the plainest creature I’d ever made love to. Her pock-marks showed darker than before. Her teeth were stained red with
betel
-leaf and tobacco. ‘What are you staring at?’she demanded looking up through the shower and coyly hiding her nakedness.
‘You, who else?’ And though I had not the slightest desire for sex left in me I escorted her back to my bed and let her sleep beside me.
I slept as if I had been drugged. It must have been some time in the early hours that I began to dream. It was a mixture of fact and fantasy. Bhagmati lying on the road in a puddle of urine beckoning to me. Bhagmati grabbing me by the neck and pinning me down as a wrestler puts down his adversary. I realized that it was not all a dream and that Bhagmati was in fact lying on top of me. She nibbled my earlobes and gently led me out of my dreamland into her dusky, lusty world. She was taking me as a man takes a woman: clawing my scalp, biting my neck, heaving into my middle with a violence I had not known. I submitted to her lust with supine abandon. I felt the room go in a whirl, all my life-force from the top of the crown to the soles of my feet sucked into my middle and erupt like lava out of a volcano. The three acts of sex were like the
scala menti
of a mystic’s ascent to union with the Divine. The first rung in the ladder was the purgatory; the second, the seeking; the third, the final act of destruction of the individual self (
fana
) and the merging of two lights into one. In simpler terms—that of my relationship with Bhagmati—the process was masturbation, fucking and the body’s rapture. But I still did not know how a
hijda
like Bhagmati was different from a breastless woman.
It was 5 a.m.
While Bhagmati was getting into her sari I opened the safe hidden behind my bookshelf and took out a wad of ten rupee notes.
‘What is this?’ she asked with feigned surprise when I pressed the money into her hands. She counted the money. ‘One hundred! You do not have to give me money,’ she said. Then she quickly changed her mind. ‘I can’t refuse to take what my husband gives me, can I?’
‘One hundred thousand husbands!’
She put her arms about my neck. ‘As Allah is my witness, hereafter you will be the only one. You have been kind to me. I will be forever indebted to you.’
‘Let’s go,’ I said unlocking her arms.
‘You don’t believe me?’ she demanded. She re-counted the notes and handed them back to me. ‘All right, I’ll take ten to give to my husband,’ she said plucking out one of the notes from my hand. ‘Keep the rest for me. I will come for them another day.’
I looked out to see if it was clear. Budh Singh was fast asleep on his
charpoy.
We tiptoed past him and slipped into my car. Even the starter didn’t rouse the watchman from his slumber. It was a clean getaway. We went through a deserted Connaught Circus under Minto Bridge and then onto Ajmeri Gate. ‘Drop me here,’ said Bhagmati putting her hand on the steering wheel. I pulled up and opened the door. She pressed my hand. ‘Your maidservant thanks you a hundred thousand times. Don’t forget her.’ Then she walked away, barefooted, in the middle of the deserted road.