Where I Was When (Historical Fiction)

Where I Was When

“Karma! Arey Karma, are you listening?” Mataji came rushing around the corner, the front of her apron filled with small potatoes. “I’ll give you a good thrashing, you son of a donkey!” she yelled, spotting him in the field.

Karma kicked at the scratchy buckwheat stalks. When he had come to work at the camp—along with 34 other Tibetans—he had been an obedient boy of five. Three years later, he chafed at the work and Mataji’s beatings. A member of the local Gond tribe, she was dark as night and wore a massive gold stud in her left nostril. She never tired of telling Karma that she was descended from Durgawati, the warrior queen.

Mataji yelled again. “Go inside, Lata has some dipped rice for you.” That got his attention. He ran to Mataji’s hut, his worn sandals smacking the rust-red ground as he went.

Inside, Karma took the bowl and bent metal spoon from Lata and sank to the floor. He sat cross-legged in the corner, watching the hem of her sari sway this way and that as she made rotis. The food was good…yesterday’s rice, doused in buttermilk, with fiery mango pickle and raw onion on top.

Mataji soon joined him. “My mother wasn’t a donkey,” he said after a while. Mataji grunted, unconcernedly sucking on a piece of pickle.

“Lata, give him one of those rotis with some eggplant,” was all she said.

Karma’s mother had died a year ago, in childbirth. The scrawny babe—another boy—had died the next morning. “Your brother’s in heaven now,” Doctor Treadway had said. Then his face had turned red. Karma had wondered why. The American doctor was an enigma. But then, all adults were.

Mataji alternated between slapping Karma and force-feeding him. Karma thought she loved and hated him at the same time. “Does that make any sense?” he asked his mirror twin. But the apparition had no answers.

The doctor, on the other hand, was gentle and kind. He had come to the camps at Mainpat as a volunteer medic in May of 1963. It was supposed to be a weeklong trip, but a year later, the doctor was still there.

Tibetan refugees were still arriving by the hundreds, many after walking for two or three months. They were skeletal beings, their hands and feet wrapped in white bandages.

“It’s frostbite,” the doctor had explained to Karma. “Extreme cold has damaged their fingers and toes.”

The doctor tended to the refugees as best he could without modern equipment or even antibiotics. When he was off duty, he drank. He could down a bottle of whisky in a single evening. In the mornings, there was a sour stench about him. But Karma didn’t mind. When the doctor was drunk, he played guitar and sang songs in English.

***

It was nearly nightfall when Karma left Mataji’s hut for the community center. She had given him a rupee to buy a sack of rice from the vendors that had stalls outside. The road that wound up the hill used to overlook the steppes and deep green jungle growth. In the past two years, ugly concrete houses had been erected for the refugees and aid workers that came and went. Now there was always a faint smell of latrines mixed in with strong cooking spices like cumin, coriander, and mustard seeds.

As he neared the doctor’s house, Karma heard the familiar twang of the guitar. He neared and heard the doctor sing, “I fell into a burning ring of fire, I went down, down, down as the flames went...”

But Karma never got to hear where the flames went. The doctor spotted Karma and interrupted his singing to say: “Hey kid,” though he continued to strum the guitar.

“Namaste Doctor-sir,” said Karma. “Nice song. Very nice,” he added, rolling his head from side to side to show his pleasure.

“I can’t seem to remember the words all that well,” said the doctor. He set down the guitar, pulled out a ten rupee note, and waved it at Karma. “Hey, want to buy me some cigarettes?”

“One packet, Doctor-sir?” Karma asked, taking the bill.

“Yeah…and buy yourself a sweet paan.”

Karma ran off, yelling his thank-you-sirs as he went. He bought the rice and cigarettes first. Then he went to the paanwalla’s stall.

A couple of men stood chewing their paan and spitting reddish juice at the grimy community center wall. Behind the paanwalla, an oscillating fan stopped whirring. There was only electricity during the day. 

The paanwalla’s voice pierced the sudden silence. “They’re saying the pundit is dead.”

“Good!” spat a man in a dhoti. “About time.”

“You! You’re a horse’s ass!” the paanwalla shot back. “Nehru was the architect of modern India! Now who will take over?”

The dhoti-man pointed a finger at the paanwalla. “If he hadn’t bungled the Chinese invasion maybe we wouldn’t be overrun by these Tibetans, eh? They get all the best land, and for the rest of us…what?”

The paanwalla raised his voice. “Gondi idiot! What did we have before the refugees started arriving? Thanks to them the government is building a school and a monastery here.”

“Shouldn’t the government build those things for us Chhattisgarhis?”

***

Karma handed a pack of Wills Filter cigarettes to the doctor. “Doctor-sir, people are saying Chacha Nehru has died,” Karma said. “Did he went to heaven?”

Doctor Treadway took a breath and looked down. Finally he looked back up. “Did you know, Karma, that I’m half-Tibetan?”

Karma didn’t answer. Who ever heard of a half-Tibetan?

“Jawaharlal Nehru has done more for our people than perhaps any man on earth.” The doctor smiled. “I know you don’t get it…the loss of a great man is…” He sighed and shook his head. “You will get it, some day. You’ll remember, when you’re older, what you were doing the day they told you Nehru died.”

He picked up his guitar and sang:

“I'm out here a thousand miles from my home,
walkin' a road other men have gone down.
I'm seein' a world of people and things…
hear paupers and peasants and princes and kings.”

Then he got up and went inside.

Karma walked back by the light of the moon, thinking that grown-ups were, indeed, very strange.

Measure (short story, drama at a war memorial)

For NYCMidnight's Flash Fiction Challenge, I had to come up with a short dramatic story (really short...max. 1000 words) that took place at a war memorial and mentioned a measuring tape. Odd prompts indeed! But you know, I had a lot of fun with it.

We were given the prompts on Friday (well...Saturday, as it was just past midnight) and had till almost midnight Sunday to turn in our submissions. Here's what I came up with (after a lot of procrastinating and starting over). I literally started this story at 5pm that Sunday, and turned it in with minutes to spare. So here it is, unedited, warts and all! Thanks for reading!

Synopsis

Fleur's life is the size of her waist, the length of her arms, and the steps she takes toward her fate. In the shadows of St. Petersburg's Narva memorial, she struggles against a life-altering decision.

Measure

“You’re so tiny,” he whispered. “How small is your waist?” He was getting excited, breathing fast. He smelled like blini and red caviar.

“Wait!” She spoke loudly, squirming underneath him.

“Quiet, they’ll hear us!”

She was terrified at what was about to happen. There was sweat under her breasts. She turned her head. Could see the Narva arch through the window. Dust on the shoe boxes above. Size thirty-five…size thirty-six…a pink ribbon hanging out of a size thirty-seven.

One hand, he slid from just above her knee to her inner thigh. The other hand, he held over her mouth.

***

A sleek limousine and a heavy GAZ Pobeda motored by. Debris danced across the flagstones. January winds. A soft wail.

It was a particularly frigid day, and the arch was cold. Fleur caressed it, alabaster hands on icy stone. Circling round, she launched into a double turn. She attempted an arabesque, going up on one toe, extending her long arms. She felt powerful for an instant. But her leg trembled. Her knee was weak. Panting, she crouched down, then rocked back onto her cushiony bottom.

She still bled now and then. Her piss burned, and she would find red smears on her inner thighs. “It’s not his fault,” she said to the dirty bathhouse walls.

She never spoke of it outside those cold, stinking rooms. Especially not to Rusinov, who was hard to handle as it was. Who wanted to control every inch of Fleur’s body. Measure it with that dreaded tape. Pinch and prod and prescribe illegal thyroid medication so she’d lose more weight.

“Your bust is too big. And you need to get your waist down to 23 inches.”

Fleur had refused to take any pills, but it was a battle she would eventually lose. Like the one she was waging today. How appropriate that her final stand should take place here in Stachek.

Once majestic, the “triumphal” Narva monument had begun to crumble after repeated bombardment. It cast a dark shadow over the square. A goddess flanked by horses was missing a wing tip. Looking up, Fleur could see the horses were all male. Their enormous testicles hung over inscriptions in Russian and Latin.  

She lowered her gaze. She could just see him through the memorial arch. Madame Rusinov was next to him, smoking. Probably giving him dirty looks.

“I’ll talk to her,” Fleur had said to him yesterday. “Tell her we’re fine. It’s my life, not hers.” He had done nothing to indicate he’d heard. 

Anton had been deep in slumber when she’d said her last words to him. “I want you. Despite everything.” No tears—she was delicate in appearance only. “Antosha moya,” she’d whispered. Soon she too had been asleep.

In the morning there had been no time for chatter. They were heading to the square early, and it was a long walk. He’d been unusually quiet as Fleur put on the drab gray dress that pinched at the waist. But his slate-gray eyes had followed her possessively.

They’d arrived at the square red-cheeked and sweaty despite the cold. Rusinov had been waiting, ready to argue with her headstrong charge. Pulling Fleur away from Anton.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Fleur had said. “I don’t want to dance. I can’t push my body anymore. I just want to live a normal life…with Anton.” She’d looked fearfully at Rusinov. “You could find another student. Someone even younger and better.”

“And you’ll be happy supporting Anton? Doing thankless work while he sucks the life out of you?” Rusinov had glanced over at him, but just for an instant. Her eyes had locked on Fleur’s. “You were so close to success—the best Nikya since Anna Pavlova—and you threw it all away.”

“I need him.” Fleur had spoken quietly, so quietly. She’d felt something like hysteria tightening her throat, but she’d swallowed and taken a breath. Rusinov did not respond to emotional displays.

“You came to me, remember? Asked for my help. Begged. Said you would do anything for another chance.” Ah, an irate Rusinov. Truly magnificent when the anger wasn’t directed at you.

Fleur had searched for understanding in the hard, lined face. The old endearment had slipped from her lips: “Tetya….” But Fleur wasn’t a child anymore, and Rusinov was far from being an auntie.

“Go. Wait for me over there.”

And as always, Fleur had obeyed. Counting flagstones as she went. One, two, three flagstones away from Anton. “Four, five…”

Rusinov had turned around, taking a few brisk steps back toward Anton.

Now Fleur watched Rusinov hail over a man in an expensive coat. Fleur stood up, her hands on the rough stone. She strained to see. Was that Doctor Beria?

Rusinov’s hands dropped off the buggy, but the Madame didn’t move away. Awkwardly, the man stepped in and maneuvered it toward the street.

Fleur watched man and buggy move away, crossing the grayish stone that ringed the memorial and reaching the rust-colored road.

A tram blocked her view. Fleur took off running, ignoring a shout from Rusinov. Once the buggy was in her sight again, she followed at a distance. Was Anton asleep? Whose breast would he feed from tonight?

Images from the past year flooded her brain. Her swollen belly, about 30 centimeters at 30 weeks. Pinkish, slug-shaped bumps had appeared all over it in the final month. Anton’s purplish, mottled skin the first time she held him. How he tried to fit his little mouth around her enlarged nipples.

The man headed east toward the river, pushing the buggy with care. She got closer. She was just two or three yards away. Then she began to fall back. She was leagues and leagues from them. On a stage, leaping and pirouetting away from everything she’d ever wanted, until the distance was too far to measure.

  

Watch Me Burn

Watch Me Burn

I walk toward the pyre and halt when the priest holds out his arm, barring me from moving any further. He is a toothless man in little more than a diaper—rougher and less educated than me. But by virtue of his birth, his brown “not too dark” skin, and his gender, he is above me in all things. 

I hate him. It's an ugly feeling rooted in my solar plexus. A burning. I contain it, keep it at a smolder. I keep my head down like a good wife. Perfect. Submissive. But I can feel a hint of a smile coming on. Or maybe it's a grimace that stretches my cracked, dry lips. I begin to bite at them, tearing off a longish strip of skin, reaching up with my red-tipped fingers to finish yanking it free. A whisper of blood seeps from the raw skin underneath. No one is looking at me, and the chanting continues.

The toothless priest is chanting. My husband is on the pyre.

His mortal remains, I should say. His life spark is gone. Inhabiting a new body. We will meet again…play roles of mother, daughter, captor, slave, student, babe…connected to each other through time and space until all meaning falls away and we melt into nothing. Or everything.

I hated him, too. Hate him even now. He was never anything more than a coddled brat. Given everything—love from his parents, a dowry from mine. (Please, please take this useless female from our home. We will pay you well.) Respect, power, education. I got only pain and fear. Yelled at and pushed around with less consideration than he showed for our cow.

It is a cosmic joke that even now, in death, I am not free. I am yoked to this soul and will be for many ages to come, far as I am from attaining the kind of perfection that leads to freedom.

Crying is pointless. Caring, my children, my gold-embroidered silk and the heavy silver around my feet like shackles…all of it without meaning. The sun the moon and the stars, human existence, the universe and cosmic planes. So much shit streaming from the mangy dog’s anus on the side of the road.

The priest gives me a little shove. My final shove. Why can’t I see? I blink and blink. Tears and smoke. I climb the steps, splintery wood beneath my toes, and I stumble onto the pyre. Am I screaming? Is this what the gods want? My skin crackles and I am the flame. I am Sati, watch me burn.