Excerpt from Flash House by Aimee E. Liu, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I thought of Mira and the way she would sometimes spy me passing and smile while a customer was on top of her. We conversed with our eyes, Mira and I. Hers were heavy and brown, brimming with her kindness. She had not been brought to the brothel, but walked in alone, and Indrani had accepted her with tenderness as she had me in my time. Eventually I learned that Mira, like me, had no mother or father, and the uncle who raised her had spoiled her for marriage, so she chose the only path left. Her debt was lighter than my own, but often I felt Mira's load to be weightier. When I asked her to tell me the colors of her dreams, she could not answer. When I asked her to sing me a song, she told me that she knew none. Yet I knew her secret smile. I knew that even when a man as hairy as a pi dog or as cruel as the demon Ravana rode her, he could not touch her smile. But I could.

Fatya and Shahnaz spent no smiles on me. They abided by themselves, sometimes even taking customers together. But though they had each other they were a joyless pair. Fatya's husband had sold her to the flash house before he left for Pakistan during Partition. Shahnaz had been tricked by a girlfriend's mother who said she would take her to the cinema and instead brought her to the brothel. Both were from Bengal and did not speak Hindi, but they chattered continuously between themselves and seemed to need no one else. When I crossed behind their screen I could see how they, like Mira, turned their faces as their customers heaved on top of them and the beads that jeweled their skin would slide away like tears. I never saw any of my sisters actually cry, however, and now it was through their very silence that I felt myself disappearing. I realized that this was what Indrani intended. That she would take no chances until the last of my spirit was gone, and she could trade the body as she wished.

Then on the fifth morning I heard Mira calling softly outside the locked door. "Kamla," she whispered. "Indrani says she will release you tomorrow. She has bought a new charpoy, raised a new curtain. You will stay beside me."

This from Mira, my sister of smiles. Did she mean to warn, or reassure me? To this day I cannot say. But I knew from that instant, I must not allow Indrani to own my tomorrow.

I lay down to think, to make my plan. Instead, in the heat of the afternoon, I fell asleep. For the first time since my captivity, my dreams filled with color and song. I awoke clutching my own leg, but in my thoughts I was clinging to a hand that would lead me to safety. I had blamed Mrs. Shaw. Even now I understood that my freedom would have stretched another month, perhaps another year but for her intrusion. I knew in my heart that Indrani, not Mrs. Shaw, had called for Golba. Indrani had witnessed Mrs. Shaw's gesture, had seen her reaching for me. That pointed finger was not an accusation but an offer of safety. Surely Mrs. Shaw had not meant to harm me! No, it was Indrani who wanted to teach me a lesson, and the police were only too happy to oblige. I must be taught to keep quiet. And so my situation was caused by Mrs. Shaw and not Mrs. Shaw. And perhaps she would never come again. But if she had extended her hand to me once, would she not do so again, even now? I did not know, but the thought of Mrs. Shaw gave me strength. I remembered her bare hands against the white bandage, the sureness and quickness of her movements. I remembered the flashing amber of her eyes as they reached up and took me in. And I knew as suddenly as if she had spoken the words herself that my spirit was still intact.

Looking up I saw a crack of dusty light. Some days earlier, when I was still too weak to move, I had watched a rat nose through this seam in the roof. It was also a favorite passageway for lizards, and occasionally a pigeon would light here, pecking at the opening for bits of straw come loose from the mud brick. I was small, and the room was tall, but I thought if I could somehow climb up to that crack I might widen it enough to break through. I could not allow myself to wonder what I would do after that. I believed that Mrs. Shaw's world was far from any I had ever known, and I had no idea how I would go there. But I did know what lay ahead if I stayed. For the next hours, as the light through the crack changed from white to gold and finally dusky gray, I dragged the sturdiest sacks and boxes I could find into that back corner. All through the night, spurred on now by the same sounds of laughter and lust that days before had consoled me, I tested my ladder, climbing and tumbling, rising again until finally I succeeded in pressing my palm against the tin roofing.

Copyright © 2003 by Aimee E. Liu. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher.