To the Ends of the Earth

He swung the car around dangerously and sped in the opposite direction, babbling, “Good—nice girls—you like—little house—about two miles—five girls—”

“English girls?”

“English girls.”

The luminous certitude had gone out of his voice but still he nodded, perhaps trying to calm me.

We drove for twenty minutes. We went through streets where kerosene lamps burned at stalls, and past brightly lit textile shops in which clerks in striped pajamas shook out bolts of yellow cloth and sequined saris. I sat back and watched Madras go by, teeth and eyes in dark alleys, nighttime shoppers with full baskets, and endless doorways distinguished by memorable signboards, SANGADA LUNCH HOME, VISHNU SHOE CLINIC, and the dark, funereal THOUSAND LIGHTS RESTAURANT.

He turned corners, choosing the narrowest unlighted lanes, and then we stayed on dirt roads. I suspected he was going to rob me, and when we came to the darkest part of a bumpy track—we were in the country now—and he pulled over and switched off the lights, I was certain he was a con man: his next move would be to stick a knife in my ribs. How stupid I’d been to believe his fatuous story about the twenty-five-rupee English girl! We were far from Madras, on a deserted road, beside a faintly gleaming swamp where frogs whistled and gulped. The taxi driver jerked his head. I jumped. He blew his nose into his fingers and flung the result out the window.

I started to get out of the car.

“You sit down.”

I sat down.

He thumped his chest with his hand. “I’m coming.” He slid out and banged the door, and I saw him disappear down a path to the left.

I waited until he was gone, until the shush of his legs in the tall grass had died out, and then I carefully worked the door open. In the open air it was cool, and there was a mingled smell of swamp water and jasmine. I heard voices on the road, men chattering; like me they were in darkness. I could see the road around me, but a few feet away it vanished. I estimated that I was about a mile from the main road. I would head for that and find a bus.

There were puddles in the road. I blundered into one, and, trying to get out, plopped through the deepest part. I had been running; the puddle slowed me to a ponderous shamble.

“Mister! Sahib!”

I kept going, but he saw me and came closer. I was caught.

“Sit down, mister!” he said. I saw he was alone. “Where you going?”

“Where you going?”

“Checking up.”

“English girl?”

“No English girl.”

“What do you mean, no English girl?” I was frightened, and now it seemed clearer than ever.

He thought I was angry. He said, “English girl—forty, fifty. Like this.” He stepped close to me so that in the darkness I could see he was blowing out his cheeks; he clenched his fists and hunched his shoulders. I got the message: a fat English girl. “Indian girl—small, nice. Sit down, we go.”

I had no other choice. A mad dash down the road would have taken me nowhere—and he would have chased me. We walked back to the taxi. He started the engine angrily and we bumped along the grassy path he had taken earlier on foot. The taxi rolled from side to side in the potholes and strained up a grade. This was indeed the country. In all that darkness there was one lighted hut. A little boy crouched in the doorway with a sparkler, in anticipation of Diwali, the festival of lights: it illuminated his face, his skinny arm, and made his eyes shine. Ahead of us there was another hut, slightly larger, with a flat roof and two square windows. It was on its own, like a shop in a jungle clearing. Dark heads moved at the windows.

“You come,” said the taxi driver, parking in front of the door. I heard giggling and saw at the windows round black faces and gleaming hair. A man in a white turban leaned against the wall, just out of the light.

We went inside the dirty room. I found a chair and sat down. A dim electric bulb burned on a cord in the center of the low ceiling. I was sitting in the good chair—the others were broken or had burst cushions. Some girls were sitting on a long wooden bench. They watched me, while the rest gathered around me, pinching my arm and laughing. They were very small, and they looked awkward and a bit comic, too young to be wearing lipstick, nose jewels, earrings, and slipping bracelets. Sprigs of white jasmine plaited into their hair made them look appropriately girlish, but the smudged lipstick and large jewelry also exaggerated their youth. One stout, sulky girl held a buzzing transistor radio to the side of her head and looked me over. They gave the impression of schoolgirls in their mothers’ clothes. None could have been older than fifteen.

“Which one you like?” This was the man in the turban. He was stocky and looked tough in a rather grizzled way. His turban was a bath towel knotted on his head.

“Sorry,” I said.

A thin man walked in through the door. He had a sly, bony face and his hands were stuck into the top of his lungi. He nodded at one. “Take her—she good.”