Happy Birthday!: And Other Stories by Meghna Pant Page B

streets, so they walked around aimlessly, holding each other’s hands, starting at any noise in the unexpected silence. Finally, they passed a dilapidated one-storey building with peeling paint, outside which sat a middleaged prostitute wearing a blouse and petticoat, gajra in her hair.
    They went up to her. The woman scowled at them, her leg up on a stool, breaking suparis with a nutcracker. The girls hesitantly told her their problem.
    â€˜What the hell should I do about that?’ she asked gruffly.
    Bhanu’s reply stopped in her throat, but Genevive answered, ‘Maybe you can give us the name of a cheap doctor?’ Her voice was laced with fear.
    â€˜Don’t know any,’ the woman said, and tossed three suparis into her mouth.
    â€˜Please, I have nowhere else to go,’ Genevive said.
    Moving her paan-stained lips in slow deliberation, the woman leered at the girls, her eyes hovering over their breasts, as if assessing how much they’d be worth in the market. Bhanu crossed her arms over her chest, while Genevive stared brazenly back at the woman.
    â€˜How much money you have?’ she finally asked.
    The girls looked at each other.
    â€˜I have six hundred rupees,’ Genevive said humbly. She’d been stealing money from her mother’s purse over the last few weeks to pay for her abortion.
    â€˜Not enough,’ said the woman.
    â€˜I have three hundred more,’ Bhanu said. ‘And some change.’
    â€˜Where did you get the money from?’ Genevive asked her.
    â€˜It’s the money I was saving to buy a guitar.’
    Genevive squeezed Bhanu’s hand in gratitude.
    They emptied their purses and gave the prostitute all their money. The woman shoved the notes into her lowcut blouse, next to a threadlike gold chain, and said, ‘Wait here.’ She got up and disappeared into the building.
    Genevive and Bhanu ducked behind a thin wall to avoid being seen, and waited. Thirty minutes passed, then an hour. They came out from their hiding place and looked around the road, not daring to talk to one another. Women were stepping out, dressed in flimsy saris, garish rouge, fake moles and big red bindis already smudged by the humidity. Men passed by on motorcycles and in cars, staring and honking at the two girls. The last of the sun’s rays began to disappear.
    A man with a mass of hair on his knuckles stopped his car in front of Genevive, rolled down his window and asked, ‘You, how much for one hour?’
    â€˜That’s it,’ Genevive shouted. ‘I’m going upstairs.’
    â€˜Are you crazy? You don’t know what kind of people are in there,’ Bhanu said, frightened.
    â€˜I don’t care,’ Genevive said. ‘She’s taken all our money and disappeared. And it’s my fault. I should’ve asked her name and followed her inside. Now I’ll never get rid of this baby and you’ll never get your guitar.’
    Genevive stormed into the building and started climbing the stairs. ‘Stop!’ Bhanu said, and used all her weight to pull Genevive back. Just then, the prostitute came walking down the stairs. She was dressed up luridly, with a silver paranda coiled around her large head and body glitter gleaming from the fat rolls beneath her arms.
    â€˜Oof! I’d forgotten about you,’ she said on seeing them. ‘Now which one of you is pregnant?’ Before they could reply, she looked at Genevive and added, ‘You’re the pretty one, so it must be you.’
    Bhanu didn’t know what came over her, but she said, ‘Me. It’s me.’
    â€˜Here,’ the woman said, pulling out a yellow plastic bag from her blouse that contained a few white pills. ‘Have two right now, and one every hour after that, till they’re all finished.’
    Bhanu extended her hand, but Genevive yelled, ‘These look like headache pills. You can’t cheat us like this!’
    In a