The Fire Escape

Asha wandered through rows of huge, vibrating washers and whirling dryers. She loved the constant hum in the basement. It was the next best thing to silence.

Her mother hated the basement. An incinerator swallowed trash that people tossed from their apartments above. The laundry room was full of unfamiliar knobs, and coin slots with complicated instructions. Ma and the other Indian women in the building washed their laundry by hand and hung it to dry on the roof. "Machines don't get the dirt out," they told their children. "Sunshine makes clothes smell cleaner."

Asha found what she was looking for in a pile marked "Give-Aways." It was a quilt, twin-sized, smelling faintly of lemons and soap. The colors might have been bright once, but they had faded into a soft pattern of pastels.

The apartment upstairs smelled like yesterday's cooking oil. In the room she shared with her sister, Asha threw open the window and climbed over the sill, closing the curtains behind her.

A small balcony waited for her. It was an airy, open place, made of red railings and blue sky. One ladder led down to the next floor and the next, and another led up and up, as high as the roof, where her mother and sister were collecting laundry.

Asha sat on the folded quilt. She took a deep breath like a swimmer who had been underwater a long time. The autumn afternoon was fading quickly. Wispy, rose-colored clouds floated behind tall buildings, and sparrows swooped and called to each other. Far below, children screamed as they played tag.

Asha pulled out the pen and small notebook tucked inside her pocket. Words were springing up inside of her, and she had been waiting all day to spill them across the page.

"Osh!" a voice called from inside. "Ma wants you!"

Asha sighed. "Coming!" she answered, and closed the book.

"Were you out on that fire escape again?" her sister asked, when Asha climbed back in. "It's so dangerous, Osh."

"It is not. It's wonderful."

"She'll find you sooner or later. She always does."

"No," Asha answered, lifting her chin. "Not this time."

Rita shrugged. "I'll cover for you," she said. "But be careful."

On the roof, Ma was removing clothespins from the line. "Where were you?" she asked, frowning. Ma always spoke in Hindi, even though she understood most of the English the girls used.

Asha was an expert at handling her mother's questions. "Rita found me," she said.

Ma shook her head and went back to work. The girls began to fold a sheet, stepping together to make the corners meet, backing away to stretch it taut again.

A neighbor approached them, an Indian woman who lived down the hall. Asha nudged Rita, and the sisters ducked behind the one sari still floating on the line. This woman liked to pull them aside and ask quietly what all the fighting had been about the night before.

Flinging the sari out of her way, she appraised the girls as if they were mangoes that she had to check for bruises. First, she held Rita's chin and turned her face from side to side. "This one's a good girl," she told Ma. "You'll have no trouble with her." Then she pinched Asha's cheek. Hard. "But this one ...? Very secretive. How will you raise a sly girl like this in such a dangerous country?"

Asha pulled back from the woman's touch. With one quick tug, Ma emptied the line and handed an end of the sari to Rita. The woman began to offer instruction on how to pleat a sari, and Asha slipped away.

It was chilly on the fire escape. She wrapped the quilt around her shoulders and watched the sparrows dance against the darkening sky. There was enough light left to write a sentence or two, but she knew she couldn't do it. The words wouldn't come if she was too angry; she'd tried it before.

Inside the apartment, a door slammed shut. "Where's Asha?" she heard Ma ask. "She leaves so suddenly. One moment there, the next gone. As usual."

"She had to, Ma," Rita answered. "To get away from that woman."

Ma's sigh drifted out to the fire escape. "That woman speaks the truth, Rita. Your sister is secretive. She's always been like that."

Asha didn't expect her sister to defend her. Besides, their mother wasn't really being unfair this time. Asha did pursue solitude with a measured desperation, like a hungry tiger stalking a rare delicacy.

When she was six, she'd crawled behind a sofa with her books and crayons. Her grandmother had pulled her out, dusted her off, and scolded her. Next she'd escaped to the flat, low-walled roof, but her aunts had convinced Ma that she would fall. The servants were instructed to padlock the door.

When they came to America, she discovered the park, studded with shady, empty benches in quiet corners. She'd struggled to put together four or five Hindi words to explain what she meant by "privacy." But it hadn't worked. Going out alone was strictly forbidden. Then, about two weeks before, she'd discovered the fire escape.

Her sister's frantic whisper found her in the darkness. "Dinnertime, Osh! Hurry!"

Baba was already eating, and the girls joined him. Ma heaped rice and curry on their plates. She would eat after the girls were asleep, when Baba went down to the lobby to play cards with the other men. In India, she'd eaten with the other women, gossipping and laughing. In America, she ate alone.

Now she was mumbling as she stirred the curry. "Sending half his paycheck to his mother. What does that leave for us?"

"We have enough!" shouted Baba. "That fellow on the eighth floor can't even find a job - I found one as soon as we came to this godforsaken country."

Ma whirled around, waving the wooden spoon in the air. "Some job! Hardly pays enough to put food on the table."

Baba slammed his hand on the table. "Enough! Money, money, money. That's all you ever talk about. YOU wanted to come to America, remember? I have a good mind to take the girls and go home. With or without you."

Ma put one hand to her throat, and Asha saw her fingers tremble. "Did you girls hear that? Tell him, Rita, to stop talking like this. Tell him how much it upsets you. Go on, tell him."

Rita glanced at her father, who sat glowering at the head of the table. "Baba -" she whispered, and stopped.

With one last swig of water, Asha stood up. "I'm done," she announced. She had mastered the skill of gulping balls of rice after only one or two chews. She could even swallow a chili pepper without flinching.

"Take a hot shower," Ma ordered automatically, just as she did every night.

Asha glanced back and saw the steam rising from the rice, the spices sizzling on the fire, the red chili peppers her sister was systematically removing from her plate. Quickly, quietly, she tiptoed to the bedroom and climbed out the window.

Cold, still air greeted her. She sat cross-legged and let it cool her cheeks. A neon sign across the street made the colors of the quilt glow across her lap. Asha pulled out her pencil and notebook and began to write.

______________

It rained the next day, and Asha hurried home after school. She'd left her notebook out on the fire escape by accident. It was tucked under the quilt, and she was hoping it had stayed dry.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Asha dropped the window with a bang. Turning, she saw Ma standing in the door, holding the notebook in one hand. At her feet was the quilt, damp and stained by the rain.

"Get back in here this minute!" Ma said. "You are NEVER to go out there again!" With one finger and thumb, she picked up a corner of the quilt. Her face was scrunched up, as if she smelled something foul. "Where did you get this ... thing?"

"It's mine," Asha said. "Give it back."

"How dare you talk to me like that! Is this what you're learning in America? How to dishonor your mother with crooked answers? I asked you where you got this. Answer me!"

Asha took a step forward, and then stopped. "In the laundry room," she muttered.

"And you brought it here? This dirty thing? I'm getting rid of it right now." Ma gathered up the quilt, marched into the kitchen, and opened a small door in the wall.

"No!" Asha cried. She ran after her mother and tried to grab the quilt away.

Rita joined her. "Stop, Ma!" she yelled.

Ma's wail echoed down the chute. "Aaaahhh! The gods are punishing me. My daughters, my husband. They're all turning against me."

The tug-of-war continued. Then, with a sudden burst of strength, Ma yanked the quilt out of the girls' hands and stuffed it down the chute. Asha groped for it, but it was too late. Below, the incinerator waited greedily for another offering.

Rita took Asha's notebook from Ma and handed it to her sister.

Asha clutched it tightly. "Did you read this?" she asked her mother.

Ma didn't answer, and Asha slowly loosened her grip on the book. It was full of words she had woven together, words that made pictures glow in her mind each time she read them. "I asked if you read this," she said again.

Something in her voice made Ma take a step back and glance quickly around the room. Her eyes settled on her older daughter. "Of course I read it," she told Rita. "I have to find out why she's becoming so sly, don't I? It's a mother's duty."

"You shouldn't have read it," Rita said quietly. Then she turned and left.

For a moment, Ma seemed confused, like a child who suddenly notices that the familiar faces have disappeared. Then she sat down, fumbled for one end of her sari, and pulled it across her face.

Asha left her mother alone. She ran one fingertip across her name on the cover of the notebook. It was too late to save it - the words inside were already captured. There was no escape for them now. But in the top drawer of her desk a new notebook waited, full of blank pages that would shelter her sentences. And two others were stacked beneath it.

Opening the door in the wall, Asha tossed the book inside. It tumbled and banged down the sides of the chute. Leaning forward, she could almost hear her words shout their last defiance, like zealots who refused to recant. I'll remember you, she promised, and then the fire took them.