Behind the Beautiful Forevers_ Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity - Katherine Boo [47]
No autorickshaw driver had wanted to transport a woman in such a state as she, given the potential damage to seat covers. But three young men had intervened, getting her to the hospital by threatening a driver with his life.
And here at Cooper, where fluorescent lights buzzed like horseflies, she continued to feel like a person who counted. Though the small burn ward stank of fetid gauze, it was a fine place compared to the general wards, where many patients lay on the floor. She was sharing a room with only one other woman, whose husband swore he hadn’t lit the fateful match. She had her first foam mattress, now sopping with urine. She had a plastic tube in her nostrils, attached to nothing. She had an IV bag with a used syringe sticking out of it, since the nurse said it was a waste to use a fresh syringe every time. She had a rusty metal contraption over her torso, to keep the stained sheet from sticking to her skin. But of all the new experiences Fatima was having in the burn ward, the most unexpected was the stream of respectable female visitors from Annawadi.
The first to come had been her former best friend, Cynthia, whom Fatima blamed for her current situation. Cynthia’s husband had run a garbage-trading business that failed as the Husains’ business prospered, and Cynthia had encouraged Fatima to do something dramatic to prompt a police case against the family that had bested her own. This had been terrible advice, Fatima saw belatedly, though the banana lassi Cynthia brought had been good.
Zehrunisa came, too; Fatima caught a glimpse of her one morning, cowering just outside the room. Then four other neighbors appeared, led by Asha. Fatima felt honored that Asha had come. At Annawadi, the Shiv Sena woman looked right through her. Now, proffering sweet lime juice and coconut water, Asha whispered into Fatima’s blackened ear.
She reminded Fatima that what had happened between her and the Husains had been seen by hundreds of people on the maidan, and that Fatima ought not to tell lies about being beaten or set on fire. “What’s the point of having such ghamand, such ego?” Asha wanted to know. “Your skin is burned, you’ve done this stupid thing, and still your heart is full of vengeance?”
Asha was trying to broker a truce that would avoid a police case. If Fatima would admit that the Husains hadn’t attacked her, Zehrunisa would pay for a bed in a private hospital and settle some money on Fatima’s daughters. Fatima understood that Asha intended to take a commission from Zehrunisa for this settlement. She was burned, not mental. But it was too late to tell the truth. She’s already made her accusations to the police.
On arrival at Cooper, Fatima had said that Karam, Abdul, and Kehkashan had set her on fire—the account that had propelled officers into Annawadi after midnight to arrest Karam, as Abdul hid in his garbage. But by the next morning, the Sahar police had learned that Fatima’s statement was untrue. Her eight-year-old daughter, Noori, had been especially clear in her account: that she’d watched through a hole in the family hut as her mother set herself on fire.
If a charge against the Husains was going to stick, and money from the family extracted, a more plausible victim statement was required. In order to help Fatima make such a statement, the police had dispatched a pretty, plump government official to Cooper—a woman with gold-rimmed designer eyeglasses who had left Fatima’s bedside shortly before Asha arrived.
Poornima Paikrao, a special executive officer of the government of Maharashtra, was commissioned to take the hospital-bed statements of victims. Gently, she helped Fatima construct a new account of the events that led to her burning. Even when Fatima had admitted that she couldn’t read over what the officer had written, nor sign her own name at the bottom, the woman in the gold-rimmed glasses had remained respectful. A thumbprint would be fine.
As the special executive officer understood, inciting a person to attempt suicide is a serious crime in India. The British