Saintezera

They call me the “saint”, not because I'm an altruist, not because I look like one, but simply because they couldn’t pronounce my real name, Saintezera. I’ve always predicted minute bits of my future in the past, and now I’ve made one last prediction. I’m going to die. I know this not because I’m psychic or anything, but simply because they put a bullet in my torso. Those men have more bullets and now more than ever they want to use them. I don’t really blame them, Ranjith and his men. If I were them I’d kill me too. Death is alright, its something that I’ve come to terms with, and its not like any of us have a choice. But to me there is something much worse than death, and its being tied down, being forced to do something.

‘ Your the cutest thing in the world ‘, the last thing my mother told me. I was seven, seated on her lap at the railway station, bored and restless. In a few years I would love diamonds, but until then Chocolate ice cream would be the addiction . A mobile vendor selling ice cream pushed his cart and chanted his eternal sales cry. As always mother said ‘no’, for once I wish she hadn’t. I jumped off her lap and dove into the crowds in pursuit of the vendor. My mother who was pregnant couldn’t keep up. Suddenly a pair of strong hands picked me up, I turned around to find a dirty teenager built like a tank. The fifteen year old version of Ranjith. I was slapped unconscious.

An hour later I woke up in a shady little room. There were four other men and six children. ‘ You know I deserve more for the work, your driver makes more money Amir !” said Ranjith. He spoke to the man in the middle of the room, who looked nothing like the others around him. He was clean, well dressed and wore more jewelry than a newlywed bride.“ One more word and you will bathe in your own blood” he threatened. His eyes searched the room and stopped when they met mine. “ I want that one in my room in half an hour, dress her up like a bride, it’s been a while since we’ve played marriage”. His men burst into a fit of artificial laughter. Smiling he walked out of the room.

Ranjith took me upstairs. He swore under his breath profusely and started picking my little clothes off. A fit of rage ran through my little head, I slashed him in the face. My little nails that were painted green now had drops of red. My actions had left a small scar below his eye. I expected a beating , but instead he smiled “ you don’t like being touched , do you ? “, I said nothing.
“ That man down there will touch you in some very dirty places, he’s not nice. Do you want to go back home ? .

Twenty minutes later I stood outside the lions den, holding milk and fruit in a tray, dressed in a shiny pink silk saree. A round man stood at the door.“So you’ve played marriage before with your friends at school ? “ I nodded. “Well this is going to be a modification of that game. Its more fun than the actual game, more action. Now the boss is a very good player, so he expects all other players to be just like him. He now knelt down and came closer to my face. “If you play well, you can go home tomorrow morning. Now listen carefully ,when you go inside you will look at the boss for a second ,smile and then turn away. Walk towards the bed and give him the milk. Start smiling , but don’t look at him. When he puts the glass down, tell him he looks very handsome. Next he will welcome you to his bed, and you must go and sit next to him, with a very big smile of course. Do all this very slowly, this will prepare the boss mentally. He will guide you through the rest of the game. You understand ?.

I walked into the room. Amir sat back on the bed. As per instruction I smiled and turned away. This in turn widened his smile, he blushed like a child. He picked up the glass and a few grapes. My smile got widened. He put his glass down and I delivered my line, this in turn made him blush even more. He moved over and made space for me. I climbed onto the bed and sat right next to him. He moved close to my face to kiss me, his eyes closed. He fell back suddenly and gasped. The white sheets were stained with blood. There was a green fountain pen sticking out of his neck. Pencils bored me, for months I’ve wanted to use daddy’s fountain pen. But I never for a second imagined it would be used like this.

Ranjith was right, stab him when he closes his eyes, and his body would roll off the bed bleeding. There was no regret, no hesitation. There was a small yell outside,the door opened. Ranjith entered. “ Your special little one, very special indeed. “. He held his hand out , like my father always did. And I held his hand. “Now what's your name ? “ . “ Saintezera” I replied. “ Saint”, that's what we’ll call you. Your safe now”. For a moment there I believed him, but it turned out to be otherwise. In three hours, I had three different owners.

1042. The number of my room in the Hallmark Hotel, It was ironic that today will also be my One thousand four hundred and forty second time. I’ve been in the business for seven years now, and Ranjith had turned out to be anything but a father. He put me to work in Tea shops, sweatshops, factories . A few months later a client wanted to use me, initially Ranjith refused, but then the client threw a number so high that no one in the room spoke. There were a few nods and I was packed off. I was returned after a week , emotionally destroyed, a hollow being. That one week repeated itself everyday for the next seven years, but I didn’t care, because there was something worse than forced prostitution. It was the fact that I couldn’t cry, even when I wanted to. It was like eternal emotional constipation. Matter what, I could never cry. I could never react. I would just look at them and obey. After a point they stopped caging me like the others.

Ranjith now realized that I was in a prison , more mental than physical, he knew that I would never feel the need to escape. The door of room number 1042 opened. A clean young man sat on the bed watching TV. My handler walked in with me. “ Twenty thousand for the night”. Instantly a cut of currency came out of the young man’s pocket. The handler took it and left. Meanwhile I stood there playing a little game in my head. I could deduct the personality of the client based on his first move. If he was nice to me, it meant that it was his first time with a prostitute. If he asked me to join him in bed right away, it meant that he was used to the company of my colleagues occasionally. If it was all action, it meant that he had been living off prostitutes. This one was different, he asked me to jump out the window.

We were on the first floor, and a pick up truck waited outside the window. Startled I looked back at him, “ Are you serious ? I work with some very nasty people, you should just leave”. “ Let’s go now, its alright, I’m a journalist and I’m here to save you, you can testify on live tv and in court, . “ Now move it lets go ! “. I stood there frozen “. He dragged me to the window, and threw me over. I landed on tight cushioned surface, the journalist jumped in right next to me. The driver started the car and headed for the gate. “ It’s safe now, I’m Ram” he said with a gentle smile.

But then every time I hear those words ‘I’m safe’, things go wary. The tires screeched and the truck halted to a stop. My handler stood in front of the car, gun in hand. “ Get out of the car and walk away”. The Driver hit the gas and sped on, a few shots were fired. The handler jumped out of the way and sent three more shots at us from behind. One of them caught Ram in the back. The smile was gone, it was replaced by a cold look. The exact same look that Amir had years ago. I sat there and watched him die a few minutes later. After an hour or so, the car slowed down, we were out of the city. The driver parked clumsily on the road side. He never got out of the car, I laid back and fell asleep.

I heard children running about, screaming and playing when I woke up in the morning. We had stopped outside a school in the outskirts. We were parked across the street, hence no one came over to investigate. The corpse next to me had started to smell a bit. I jumped off the back and walked over to the drivers seat. He lay there dead, his shirt stained with a sea of blood. A bullet had caught him in the chest. He wore an ID card. “CNCC TV“ it read. There were children walking into the entrance, most of them were about my age. Like a zombie I walked in mindlessly. My mind was hazy, and I flowed the crowd. We reached a large building and walked up the stairs. In a few minutes I found myself sitting in a classroom. No one wore uniforms and hence I gelled in seamlessly. I found and occupied an empty seat beside another girl.

‘ Are you new ‘ she asked me in her sweet sing song voice. I replied with a nod. ‘I’m Jyothi, I’m new here too, I’m from....’ She wouldn’t shut up, but I slowly began to like it. As strange as it sounds, I felt human again. A person was talking to me, telling me things, and this time it wasn’t to enquire my hourly rate or to make me move faster. It was because she cared, she genuinely cared. I stared at her for an entire hour and listened to everything she had to say. She spoke about her parents, about her dog, her favorite music artist, her old school, her new boyfriend, who told her he loved her. ‘ That's nonsense ‘ I spat. ‘ What ? ‘. “ I said , its nonsense, he wants your body . Once you give it to him, he will love someone else’. She stared back puzzled, ‘ are you sure ? Have you had a boy friend before ? ‘. “ Yes sort of, but all men want one thing, and they’d say or do anything to get it. Stay away from him, ok ? Promise me you’ll stay away from him! ‘Yeah.... I will, she still looked puzzled. “”Saintezera” that's my name, you can all me “Saint”, now go on keep blabbering, I think I like it.”

A teacher popped into the class, and everyone fell automatically. She called out names and people answered “ present “. Classes went on all morning and I listened carefully. Most of the learning didn’t make sense to me, I understood minutes portions. I did understand one a lesson in class, it was biology. The teacher was young, in her early twenties. She spoke about Sex Education and STD’s. By the end of the class she revealed to me that she was a virgin. For the first time in years I smiled. I followed Jyothi to the canteen and she bought me lunch. Again, no one had ever bought me anything, with the exception of condoms, though they weren’t for my use.

Jyothi started talking again and I listened. She now talked about things like the weather, the boys and girls in class, her new house,.... After a while she went over to get desert, it was chocolate ice cream. I pulled of the cover and stared at it. It melted and dripped of milk and water. “ Don’t take it in the wrong sense, but your strange Saint, very strange”. “ It happens when you have a thousand boy friends, trust me you don’t want to go there “.” Oh , ok”. I tasted the ice cream. A strange sensation ran through my body, I started devouring it, eating like an animal. And there it came, my happiest moment. I cried.

Jyothi was lost again. I assured her that I was fine. After an awkward hug I sent her off to class, promising her that I would be there in ten minutes. There was a piece of empty land behind the school. I sat there and did what I’d always wanted to do. I cried. For an hour, and for five more hours. It was the happiest day of my life, a single lone lotus in the gutter.

It was almost dark when I got back to Ranjith’s place that evening. I walked in through the front door past the guards, as if I owned them. The house was quiet, dark and dirty as always. No one noticed my presence. “ Trouble Free” as Ranjith branded me, all that will change in a few minutes I thought. I walked into his bedroom and pulled his pistol out of the drawer. Ranjith was a James Bond fan, so he always used silencers on his pistols. I also found a few magazines. In the corner of the drawer was a small green object, I picked it up. It was my old fountain pen, the one that I had used ages ago. I pocketed it, concealed the gun in a small bag and walked out of the room.

They kept the children in the basement. New ones were gagged, the old ones were just tied up. It was dark, a small bulb was the only source of light. Behind a desk sat my old handler. I walked in and smiled at him as he sat reading the paper. He froze in shock. I pulled out the gun and put it to use. He fell off the chair dead. I moved into the room after taking the keys from his corpse. Some of the children began to cry, while others started whispering in excitement. ‘I’m here to set your free, so shut up ‘, and they did just that. There were almost forty of them. We marched up the stairs unchallenged until we reached the hall. I ordered the children to wait at the staircase. There were four men in the hall, none of them armed, but they didn’t need weapons to take me down. The element of surprise was all that I had, apart from the pistol. Two of them were asleep on beds, one was walking around the hall talking over the phone, the last one was watching tv at the other end of the room.

I walked upto the man watching tv. I pulled the gun out and shot him in the head. The man on the phone was still lost in an animated conversation, unaware of the demise his friend. I walked over to the men in the beds and put them to a more peaceful state of sleep. At last the man with the phone was hit with realization, but it was a bit too late ,I was only a few feet away from him. He fell dead like the others.

We moved out of the house taking out guards every now and then. Finally we reached the street. “ It’s safe now” a little boy whispered. And as always, that phrase set off chaos. A car stopped right in front of the house and Ranjith got out with six other men. “What’s happening here ?” he screamed. I fired a few shots in their direction killing one of them, missing Ranjith by an inch. They jumped behind the car for cover. That gave the children enough time to flee, and I followed suit.

The altruist always gets shot, a bullet caught me in the torso as I turned around the corner. I had now made my last prediction. I ran down the street and turned into the construction site. I hid behind the first wall that I came across. Seconds later Ranjith and his men walked into the site, they were close.

I couldn’t help but smile at death, any moment now. I wanted death more than anything. ‘ Welcome back little one, its time to send you away now, come to me’. He said with arms wide open, as id her were my savior. I embraced him. He bent down to my face, “ You’ve earned your name now my little saint. Goodbye”. The silencer touched my forehead.” Your coming with me”. I plunged the fountain pen into his neck. Three bullets entered my back. I fell back to the ground smiling.