Free Three Bargains: A Novel by Tania Malik Page B

question, but Madan couldn’t think of anything. “In a case like this I usually have to inform the police, but Avtaar Singh has stopped me.”
    “My girl, Doctor-saab. Her life is in your hands.” Madan’s mother attempted again to reach the doctor’s feet, but ended up hanging off his knees. Madan pulled his mother off the doctor, and she swayed limply in his grasp.
    “Go wait with your child,” said the doctor. “I’m going to check on an operating theater.”
    His mother went inside, but Madan couldn’t go in just yet. He ran down the corridor, catching up with the doctor by the doors. “Doctor-saab?” The doctor didn’t hear him, or ignored him, so he said a little louder, “Doctor-saab, please.”
    “What is it?”
    “Saab, what is wrong? Why the operation?”
    “What does it matter, boy? You won’t understand. But be assured we will do our best.”
    “No, Doctor.” Madan couldn’t let it go. “Please.” He wanted to know the details, know what the doctor had seen and construed and diagnosed. He needed to hear it, to understand what exactly she had forfeited, what she could not reclaim ever again.
    “I have to call for another doctor. I may need help.” The doctor made as if to move on, but Madan grabbed onto his sleeve.
    The doctor looked from his sleeve to Madan. “What do you people do for Avtaar Singh?”
    “My mother, she is the maidservant.” He willed the doctor to overlook his too-short pants reaching to his ankles and his faded checked shirt, and just tell him.
    “Well, listen carefully, boy,” the doctor said after a moment. “Whoever did this to her? This man? Because she is so small, everything is torn. You understand what I mean?” Madan could only nod.
    “This area”—he pointed to between Madan’s legs—“is like when you grind the meat for keema.”
    Orderlies rolled a stretcher past them, the patient in a nest of wires and tubes. They moved aside to let them pass, but the doctor continued without a break, as if anxious to unburden himself.
    “And you got the smell? That means an infection. There are rope marks on her wrists and ankles and she went to the bathroom on herself many times. It’s not so good for her wounds.” He paused, allowing Madan to take this in. “Do you know her blood type?”
    Madan shook his head.
    “Of course you don’t,” said the doctor. “She’s lost a lot of blood. I need to check if we have the type of blood she needs. If she is torn all the way to her stomach, it’s even more serious.”
    He patted Madan on the shoulder and left quickly. Madan returned to the room. Swati was now out of the old T-shirt and in a clean blue hospital shift. Their mother was sitting by the bed, her head resting by Swati’s hand. The nurse was applying an ointment to the bottom of Swati’s feet.
    She noticed Madan watching her. “Cigarette burns,” the nurse said. “Poor girl, maybe she tried to run.”

    The sky turned blue and gold by the time the doctors finished with Swati. They had stitched her up, trussed her in bandages and pumped her full of medicines and antibiotics. There were no damaging intrusions to her stomach or bowels. Lucky, the doctors claimed, she escaped the fate of other young girls like her who were doomed to defecating in a bag for the rest of their lives. Her luck, in Madan’s opinion, was probably because the man’s cock was too small.
    He brought his mother some bread and tea. She waited on the bench. Sitting beside her, he was glad to see she had washed her face and retied her hair.
    “Any word from Avtaar Singh?” she asked. They spoke quietly.
    “No. But he is not going to take your work away. He agreed to that.”
    “And what did you agree to?” Her cup clattered down on the plate. “You agreed to make me a widow?”
    Doubting he had heard her correctly, Madan opened his mouth to speak, but she said, “My one child is like this”—she gestured to Swati on the other side of the wall—“and the other one