Fifteen Lanes

Copyright © 2016 by S.J. Laidlaw

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Laidlaw, S. J., author
      Fifteen lanes / S.J. Laidlaw.

ISBN 978-1-101-91780-0 (bound).–ISBN 978-1-101-91782-4 (epub)

      I. Title.

PS8623.A394F54 2016	jC813′.6	C2015-901054-3
		C2015-901055-1

Published simultaneously in the United States of America by Tundra Books of Northern New York, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015931503

Edited by Sue Tate

Tundra Books,
a division of Random House of Canada Limited,
a Penguin Random House Company

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

v3.1

What I remember …

I was asleep on the floor under Ma’s bed when I was awakened by the creaking of rusty springs straining under the weight of a heaving mattress. I feared it would break and crush me so I slithered out. This was not allowed. I was never to come out from under the bed until Ma said. I didn’t know why I had to stay quiet, or why I couldn’t sleep in the bed with her at night, like I sometimes did on hot afternoons. My heart pounded as I emerged.

The terror of being caught in the darkened room eclipsed my earlier fear. Too late, I realized the rashness of my disobedience. Without looking, I knew Ma was not alone. The deep grunting of her visitor punctuated her own soft mewling. I scuttled on all fours toward the curtain that separated our small section of the room from the other three occupants. I was not accustomed to seeing it closed, though it didn’t surprise me. Its soft rustle always accompanied the heavy footsteps of
her guests. I moved quickly, brushing against clothes that hung from a low peg on the wall next to the bed. They hadn’t been there when I fell asleep. I recognized Ma’s crimson skirt with the gold-sequined border. I resisted the urge to touch it, though the diaphanous fabric held endless fascination. I had no desire to touch the man’s clothes. Their smell of sweat and earth was trapped in the fetid air around the bed.

Only when I reached the curtain did it occur to me to worry about who might be with Deepa-Auntie on the other side. I went cold when I heard an unfamiliar male voice. If it had only been Deepa-Auntie I wouldn’t have hesitated. She was kind, not like the other two aunties who shared our room. Deepa-Auntie gave me sweets and never scolded me. She called me her beautiful baby, though my too-dark skin proved her a liar. Deepa-Auntie couldn’t have babies. That part of her was broken. I liked to pretend she was my real mother. I even called her Ma, but only when my own was not around.

I reached for the edge of the curtain, listening hard to the voices. Deepa-Auntie was using her sex-me voice. That’s what Ma called it when Deepa-Auntie shouted to the men who passed by under our window. I don’t know why Deepa-Auntie’s shouting made Ma angry. She got angrier still when the men came inside and went behind Deepa-Auntie’s curtain. Ma stood in the street, where Deepa-Auntie was not allowed to go, and cajoled the men to come inside. They often did, but when they saw Deepa-Auntie it was her they wanted.

The man with Deepa-Auntie sounded angry. He called her bad names and said he would bring police to arrest her if she didn’t let him do what he wanted. Her voice quavered. No one at Binti-Ma’am’s house talked to the cops. Not ever. Police were
wicked, even more wicked than Binti-Ma’am. They arrested mummies and put little girls in cages. Real cages, not like the barred window boxes the aunties sat in at Binti-Ma’am’s, which overlooked the street but were open to the bedroom. Police cages had bars on all sides.

Deepa-Auntie said she’d never let anyone put me in a cage. I asked if she meant a police cage or Binti-Ma’am’s cage. Ma said it made no difference because Deepa-Auntie couldn’t even keep herself out of a cage. Besides, she said, Deepa-Auntie, with her pale-pale skin and slanted eyes, was not “our kind.” I wasn’t sure what our kind was, but when Deepa-Auntie got a beating I was the only one who could make her smile again. Nothing I did made Ma smile, so I thought Deepa-Auntie may not have been Ma’s kind but maybe she was mine.

I held my breath and slid silently under the curtain. I did it so carefully I imagined the curtain barely stirred, but when I glanced up, Deepa-Auntie was looking right at me. Her eyes went wide and her lips pressed together. I think she wanted to say something but only her eyes told me to go back.

Deepa-Auntie wasn’t wearing any clothes; neither was the man who loomed over her. I felt embarrassed. I’d seen Deepa-Auntie without her clothes many times but not like this, never like this.

The man clutched a fistful of her hair and tried to kiss her. Deepa-Auntie’s face twisted away. The man yanked her hair so hard it stretched her neck back and I thought it might snap. Deepa-Auntie’s eyes rolled back in her head. She let out a sound like the whoosh of a sugarcane press. I wanted to shout at the man to let her go. Kissing wasn’t even allowed. Everyone knew that. But I kept silent. I would be in
far bigger trouble than him if I was caught roaming at night.

I crawled toward Deepa-Auntie’s bed. To get past them and reach the door, I had to slip under the bed and out the other side. I pretended I was invisible, a cockroach, just part of the landscape. If the man raised his head he would see me. I worried he could hear my thudding heart.

As I got closer I saw Deepa-Auntie’s cheeks were wet. I wasn’t sure if it was sweat or tears. I couldn’t think of anything I could do to make her smile. I mouthed the word
chootia
—stupid—it was the worst word I knew. I added a few threats. If words could pierce flesh, that man would have run from the room screaming.

I reached her bed and dropped flat on my stomach. The cold cement chilled my body through the thin fabric of my dress but its worn smoothness made it easy to slide. I was almost completely under when the mattress juddered and there was a loud exclamation of surprise. A huge hand wrapped round my ankle. Without thinking, I shrieked.

I was jerked backwards and my head cracked on the metal bed frame. The man let go of my ankle only to grab my arm and swing me up to his eye level. I dangled helplessly in his clutch and whimpered in fear as much as in pain. (The next day, when Ma took me to the hospital, we were told that I should have had stitches right away for the gash on my head. By then it was too late. To this day I have a bald patch under my hair.)

Ma appeared on Deepa-Auntie’s side of the curtain and slapped me hard across the face. This shocked me into silence. I still wanted to cry so I bit down on my lip to hold it in. A man stepped out behind Ma and shouted at her. He towered over her with his fist raised. His arm was as sinewy as a buzzard’s
neck. Ma would have got the better of him if he’d tried to hit her. He wanted her to give him his money back, which showed how little he knew. Only Binti-Ma’am had money. Ma couldn’t give him what she didn’t have. He shoved Ma back toward her bed. She got tangled in the curtain that was still half closed.

Ma looked angry rather than frightened as she scrabbled behind her to push the curtain aside. I didn’t want her to leave me but I knew enough not to call her back. Deepa-Auntie was sobbing now, much louder than I was before. I wanted her to stop because this would only make things worse.

Suddenly the lights came on. Seconds later, Binti-Ma’am and her son Pran pushed through the curtain nearest the door. The man holding me let go and I dropped to the floor. I tried to scoot back under the bed but I was grabbed again, this time by Pran. He smacked me, once on each cheek, even though I was no longer making noise and my head was already bleeding profusely. The last thing I saw, as he dragged me out the door, was Binti-Ma’am pummeling Deepa-Auntie with a mop handle. Ma was nowhere in sight.

Pran carried me down the hall. I realized immediately where he was taking me. I struggled and pleaded hysterically. As he threw open the door to the kitchen cupboard, I heard the rats scuttling behind the wall. They’d wait for him to lock me in before they crawled through the holes to attack me. I begged for mercy one last time. He laughed.

It was years of this before I finally understood it was what he wanted. He fed on fear like a mosquito feasts on blood. The more I fought, the more he enjoyed it. Eventually, I learned to submit quickly, but on that night, when I was five years old, I still had hope.