Harry Bilinsky



  Harry Bilinsky

  A collection of short stories

  By Jeff Tikari

  Copyright Jeff Tikari 2011

  The Double Whammy

  She loved gardening; it was the love of her life. She never imagined that her love for plants would be her undoing.

  Shamim was a young widowed mother - cancer had taken her husband the previous year leaving her hollow eyed and in debt. The burden of bringing up her grade six daughter lay squarely on her shoulders. Spending money to buy plants from the nursery was now out of the question – she had to count every penny. She still collected wild flowering plants, though, from the forest situated at the far end of town. A lonely pretty road ran through part of the forest where she would often stop to search for wild shrubs and climbers.

  She reminisced with bitterness of that fate-less day when whilst digging out a sapling with a stout stick at the edge of the forest, she sensed two men closing in on her. Trained in self-defense, she faced the men defiantly, stake on the ready. When one of them attempted to grab her, a scuffle ensued. She wielded the stick well, inflicting telling blows to both men who retreated defeated.

  She should have fled home then, but the plant needed a few more strokes to release it from the soil.

  The men returned, armed with stout staves from the forest. She put up a great fight; but two armed men were too many. They beat her, kicked her repeatedly when she fell down, and left her broken body by the roadside. She had hurt their pride and they taught her a brutal lesson.

  A passing car spotted her blood-splattered body and took her to the local hospital where she spent three months. She recovered but her face healed lob-sided from the merciless beating. She suffered a broken nose, lost her left eye and all her earnings to pay for the treatment.

  Now, two years later, people stared at her and quickly averted their gaze. Her face was not a pretty sight.

  She had no job and had sold her car to pay for the burgeoning medical bills. She was destitute, starving, and lived on the streets and slept in doorways. A relative took in her daughter to work as a domestic in return for food and keep.

  Tears rolled down the young mother’s face as she sat huddled on a bench outside a tea stall. She rued the day she so valiantly fought off the two men. If only she had allowed the two to have their way.

  The men were arrested and sentenced, but set free after completing a term of eight months. They walked free and ironically, had on occasion paid for her cup of tea…seeing her inability to do so.

  If she had not fought so heroically and had allowed the men to overpower her, she would today have her job, her car, her home, and her daughter would be in school. Her assailants would be in jail for a long time for rape, instead of the lighter sentence of assault and battery. Fate had twisted her kismet and she was suffering the consequences of saving herself from rape.

  “You look like you could do with some food,” said one of the two assailants. He had summed up her situation and felt a pang of guilt. “If you like, go down the lane and on the left there is a house with a red door. Knock on it and my mother will give you a meal.” he turned to leave.

  “What’s your name?” she blurted, still huddled on the narrow bench, her not too clean sari tucked around her.

  He hesitated, “Charan,” he said looking closely at the woman “And tell mother to let you have a bath as well. Go now and get something into your stomach. I’ll ring and tell her to expect you.”

  She was eating meals at Charan’s house quite regularly after that. She got along well with Charan’s mother, who treated her with sympathy and concern. Shamim was obviously an educated woman who had fallen on bad times. The mother did not probe; she would let the unfortunate woman tell her story when she was good and ready.

  Shamim ran into Charan a number of times and he treated her civilly.

  “Will you be my mistress?” he asked her one day. “I will put you up and give you money for the plastic surgery you so badly want.”

  She screened her face behind the pallow of her sari in embarrassment; her ears burned in humiliation, but what was she to do? This was a fait accompli; in a small quivering voice she said, “Yes, I don’t have a choice.”

  “Of course you do. You can say no.”

  “That’s not a choice. I will do anything to get my face fixed. Will you give me money to send my girl to school?” she took a quick look at his face, choking with shame.

  Charan smiled and expanded his chest. He had won!

  He visited her three or four times a week in the accommodation he arranged: the first floor of an old house the access to which was via a steep uncovered cement and brick stairs from the outside.

  She was comparatively happy now…her daughter was going to school. She paid for this with ‘sex on demand’ and stoically endured the humiliation of crude, frenetic sex which left her soiled and disgusted.

  After a longish wait, a hospital bed was secured and plastic surgery on her face was performed. Fifteen days later the bandage was taken off and she looked in the mirror with some satisfaction. The swelling was subsiding and she was beginning to look quite attractive again. It was not easy to tell she had a glass left eye.

  Soon the monsoon was upon them: drenching wet, gray, and windless days. Rain continued relentlessly, filling the fields around with sheets of water that lay reflecting the trees, shrubs and the motionless heavy clouds above. The house was old and the walls oozed moisture. Every article in the room became damp. Clothes washed stayed damp and smelled of mould. A sunny day was one Shamim looked forward to and hung all the clothes on a line to dry. Pillows, sheets, and mattresses were taken up to the terrace and aired; she washed her hair and sat in the sun. Birds too perched on exposed places and spread their wings to the sun.

  In time the rice planted in the fields began to throw new shoots and the force of the downpour slowly abated. Rain still came, but it was light and the clouds allowed the sun to shine through.

  Shamim wore a bright red sari and stood at the window, idly gazing at the light drizzle that had fallen since morning and would likely continue through the night. She screwed up her face in disgust when she saw Charan approach weaving drunkenly on the narrow muddy path. He was, obviously coming to extract his due. When he was drunk, he appeared like clockwork…eyes bleary, speech slurry, and hands that groped for her breasts.

  He lurched up the steps, swayed into the room, and looked drunkenly at her. He had tracked muddy shoes across the floor and stood tottering with a belligerent look.

  ‘Come here, bitch. You bloody saw me coming – you should have had your clothes off by now.’

  He grabbed her and threw her on the bed; roughly ripped the sari off her body and attempted entry; but he was too drunk. He couldn’t manage an erection. She told him disdainfully to sleep it off.

  “Crap!” he shouted. “So…what if I am drunk? It’s you, you bitch. You never help me.” He got up in a rage, kicked her and pulled her off the bed by her hair. She fell exposed, naked, in a corner, where she huddled sobbing with deep retches. Charan stood over her, glaring and swaying. “Bitch!” he said again and stomped through the door and down the wet moss encrusted stairs, leaving a trail of stale booze smell in his wake.

  She heard him fall, all the way down to the bottom. He made no sound but lay there…still. Blood oozed from a gash in his head and gushed from his nose making a bright red pool.

  She stood trembling at the top of the stairs, naked and stunned her fist in her mouth. She didn’t know what to think. Should she be happy? The person who had destroyed her life lay crumpled – perhaps dead. Hadn’t she secretly desired a horrible death for him to avenge what he had done to her, and was still doing to her? But…but…he was paying her keep; and her child was again
in school. A large tear stole down her cheek. She screamed and sank to the floor tearing at her hair.

  Charan’s family sat grim faced in the visiting area. The doctors put Charan through tests and investigations. They now awaited the verdict.

  “I’m afraid,” the doctor said, when he got the results, “Charan is a paraplegic and will require nursing and care all his life. I’ll be frank with you, I don’t know if he’ll get better – not in a long time anyway.”

  The air was tense with shock. Slowly every one of Charan’s relatives looked around at Charan’s young mistress. Their look clearly said – this is your duty now.

  She panicked; fate was delivering a cruel blow again! She would now have to take care of the person who had destroyed her life. What was she to do? If she refused, she would be on the streets – begging alms with her daughter by her side.

  In one stroke, her life was chained firmly to his. She looked desperate and on the verge of panic.

  They wanted an answer.

  They wanted it now.

  There was no escape.

  Tears flowed freely down her face. Her nod was imperceptible.

  “Poor girl,” they whispered, “perhaps she loves him more than we imagined!