Behind the Beautiful Forevers_ Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity - Katherine Boo [44]
But Zehrunisa distrusted Asha as much as Asha distrusted her. Asha was Shiv Sena, anti-Muslim, like many of the officers in the station.
“We’ll work it out with Fatima’s husband,” Zehrunisa told Asha, concluding the conversation. “Thank you, but it will be fine.”
An hour later, she started to believe it would be fine when Officer Kulkarni offered her a cup of tea and advice: “You need to really beat the crap out of this One Leg, finish the matter once and for all.”
“Oh, but how can I beat her when she is a cripple?”
“But if you don’t beat people like that, you will have to deal with them over and over again. Just whack her, and I will handle it if she complains. Don’t worry.”
Zehrunisa thought the officer’s friendliness might also be a request for payment. A male officer named Thokale was less subtle. He regularly demanded bribes from the family, since people squatting on airport land were not allowed to run businesses. “You owe me for so many months,” he said when he saw her. “Have you been hiding from me? Now that you’re here, we can settle your account.”
Zehrunisa had more money than Fatima. Extracting some of that money was probably why she, not Fatima, had been kept in the station. She would have to pay Thokale; he would shut down their business otherwise. But she decided to give Officer Kulkarni a wet-eyed look that conveyed enormous gratitude for the advice about beating her neighbor. Then she turned her attention to a cup of milky tea.
It was dusk, and, in Annawadi, Kehkashan was fuming. Sitting in the clearing guarding the family’s things, she could see her panicked brothers spading cement, trying to finish before the police showed up and asked for money. Kehkashan could also see through Fatima’s open door, where she was swaying on crutches to a cassette tape of Hindi film songs, turned up loud. Upon returning from the police station, Fatima had painted her face more extravagantly than usual: a shining bindi on her forehead, black kajal around her eyes, red lipstick. She looked as if she were about to step onto a stage.
Kehkashan couldn’t hold her tongue. “The police are keeping my mother because of the lies that you told, and you’re dressing up and dancing like some film heroine?”
A fresh fight began on the maidan.
“Bitch, I can put you in the police station, too,” Fatima shouted. “I won’t leave it—I will put your family in a trap!”
“Isn’t what you’ve done enough? Getting my mother arrested! I should twist off your other leg for that!”
The audience of neighbors re-formed for this lively tamasha. No one had ever seen Kehkashan angry; she was usually a mediator among Annawadi women. Now, with her flashing, tear-spangled eyes, she looked like Parvati in that soap opera, Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki.
“You may twist my leg, but I’ll do worse to you,” Fatima said. “You say you are married, but where’s your husband? Did he find out you prostitute yourself to other men?”
Hearing his daughter’s virtue disparaged, Karam came outside. Being called a whore was not Kehkashan’s central worry. She said to her father, “Have you lost track of the hour? It’s almost night, and Mother is still in the station.”
“Run and see if your mother is okay,” Karam instructed Mirchi. To Fatima he said, “Listen, beggar. We’ll finish this work, then we stay out of each other’s business forever.”
Inside the hut, Abdul was bagging up shards of brick; the cooking shelf was now installed. For some days, Abdul had imagined his mother’s pleasure at seeing it done. Instead, she was being held by the police. The floor was half rubble, half wet cement, awaiting tiles his father had not yet bought. The installment-plan television, stored in the brothelkeeper’s house, had been broken by the man’s son. Abdul’s little brothers and sisters had been frightened by