Purse
Qala and Bakht are at it again. They’ve lived in their mother’s purse for as long as Qala can remember. Rattling keys and noisy charms shimmy inside the handbag as they touch upon the lavender and aurelia scents of Mother’s crimson-colored lipstick. The girls rattle with these belongings, but an eerie silence follows soon after. It’s the drill. They have become used to this. They must stand well on their feet each time their mother picks up the purse to look for her medications, and every time Mother leaves its clasp open, the sun’s rays touch the etched mirror inside, creating a blinding effect that pinches their eyes. That is another story altogether. This purse game has enabled the sisters to cope with their young lives and all the hardships that befall them. This game is a lifesaver. Mother’s constant drug abuse has forced Qala to be the leading force in the family. She is eleven and her sister is eight, but the baby sister would have been ruined without her. It would have been nobody’s fault, so she doesn’t always mind being the responsible adult, and though they know exactly where their father lives – away – they have no intention of physically going and meeting him, and Mother is always too busy sleeping.
“Mother, mother, mother,” Qala calls out, but Mother doesn’t respond and she eventually stops calling.
Around their mother’s neck is a little brown mark, a structural hint on the map of her olive skin that bothers Qala each time she looks at it. It also comforts her when she musters the strength to stare for long periods of time. The mark seems to resonate with her for reasons she often forgets. Her eyes are deep and curious. When her curiosities take over, Qala likes to see her reflection in the mirror in the master bedroom. She notices that her skin looks like her mother’s olive, and Bakht’s skin resembles her father’s white form. Sometimes, when Mother’s mouth runs dry from all the sobbing and the sleeping, Qala imagines she’s put shaving foam inside, and it flows down from one end of her lips. But as a grown child, she has a strong feeling that it isn’t shaving foam, froth, or white icing and that it could easily be a side-effect of many of her medications. Soon after this happens, a siren sound follows – a hospital-like sound, a known truck-like sound even. Qala has learned that it is the sound of an ambulance making its way to their home during an emergency. She doesn’t know who calls them, or whether they have a secret number, or not, but they always seem to come on time. When the ambulance approaches, Bakht always laughs, but Qala has never liked the high-pitched echoes of their red and blaring sirens. They sound dangerous and serious. Not a lot of fun. Because of these sirens, when their mother leaves for days at length to be at the hospital, there is only the baby sister to take care of. Bakht. And she isn’t a handful either, though the incessant screaming bothers Qala, and the smell of her oily crayons mixing with old, black graphite pencils creates this distinguished and disgusting stench that hangs in their room for hours. Her tantrums are tough to handle too. She tries to avoid thinking about all these things. The purse, in that sense, is a safe place. They do not leave it unless necessary, and the game continues for hours at a time, but Qala has cultured over the past few months that food and milk are a necessity for both sisters, so they must leave the purse at least once in twenty-four hours.
“I read it in a journal that food is nutritious, important, and…” Qala says, and Bakht immediately asks, “What’s a jou-r-nal?” Her tone is deep and serious, and it takes her a while to say the word properly. Qala explains that a journal is like a book, but many people have written in it, and it’s the collective display of thematic identities. “Like dolls?” Bakht asks in a sweet voice. It is the most annoying, weird voice she does, like an impersonation of those annoying dolls. Qala detests it. It reminds her of their mother’s voice when she’s pretending to be a young girl each time daddy is back home, and it is funny that Bakht has inherited this so-called quality to get what she wants, because somehow, Qala cannot resist the desires expressed with this disgusting tone of voice. Maybe it is because she’s her baby sister after all. Maybe it’s because she wants her to shut up. “How is that like a doll?” Qala asks. “So, like a doll house, then?” Bakht explains, “Like, a doll house has so many dolls, like Barbies and Kens are like mommy and daddy. And the teddies are like the milkman that comes with milk bottles every day. And the chubby dolls are like the boy from the superstore. And dolls with big lips are like Aunt Ruby. And the small dolls are like us. And dolls with flavored lip thingies. And dolls with new clothes. And dolls in pink. Dolls in blue. In red. Black…”
“Ok, stop!” Qala’s brain is a mish-mash at this point. “Yeah, like a doll house, but different.” Qala has already planned on leaving the purse game on pause around midnight to get food, raisins, milk – chocolate milk, and to pick food colors for Bakht to draw with since food colors smell like nothing, and they wouldn’t bother Qala so much because Bakht would definitely not stop drawing. Even when she contemplates this idea in her head, it bothers her. And to top it all, Bakht’s drawings are quite sinister. Qala is often left thinking about them for days. Sometimes, the shadows formed by her own body scare her at night, and the afternoons are even creepier. But Qala has promised Mother that she will not run after the shadows and ghosts in her head in the afternoons, making that dham dham dham sound. She wouldn’t soak herself in the rainwater and play in the puddles creating illusions of the cham cham cham sound. But at times, when leftover coffee drips from paper cups inside the purse as part of the game and soaks Qala in the bitter scent of this adult drink, she forgets everything good that Mother has ever taught her. The drink does not even have any sugar in it. Qala is drenched in bitterness, and Bakht is allowed to be so much more fun.
She looks at her sister, presses her hands tightly, and anticipates their midnight adventure, a time they would finally eat and drink with abandon after playing all day. It’s their illusion coming to life in the best way possible. Their adventures, even the ones that only live in their minds, often help in times of acute fear. Qala narrates tales of inspiration and hope and acts as a big sissie should, but the minute Bakht bothers her, she turns into a monster who has nothing to tell but tales about hunting knives piercing princesses’ hearts held by bears with giant horns.
By the time the story is over, they are in the kitchen, boiling full-fat milk in a small, black utensil. Over time, as always, the ends of the utensil become way too hot for Bakht to handle, but she insists on pouring the liquid into the mugs herself. Qala warns her but she doesn’t listen. The same thing happens again. The pot is hot and Bakht is waving it in all directions. She spills half the milk on the floor and splashes the other half on Qala’s neck without a chance for her to run. Bakht cries. Qala’s skin stings. She wails in agony, and Bakht just stands there, dumbfounded as a statue. The milk will leave an angry mark eventually, Qala knows, so they simply wash it away with cool water, but it still burns. As they sit on the floor under the countertops, Qala stuffs soft bites of bread roll in her salivating mouth. Bakht eats too, one eye fixed on Qala. She is not laughing now. Or saying anything.
The next day, in the afternoon, Qala is sitting inside the smallest pocket of the purse. Even though it is a game, and she’s the only one who is playing, Qala decides to stay in the pocket all day. Bakht keeps calling, but she doesn’t come out. The baby sister is in the mood to draw on the walls again, but this time, the art is dedicated to Qala and the mean mark on her neck. She isn’t sure if that is in honor of her mark, an apology, or a mean slapstick, and she doesn’t even bother asking. She peeps out the purse twice, but Bakht is hard at work. The smell of the crayons is the same, and Qala recalls the food colors she clearly didn’t remember to get from the kitchen the night before. Bakht draws two large, black cats on the wall. The cats are hiding in a bush, the entire forest waiting to be explored, but they don’t come out. They have shimmery, star-like spots along their bodies. They look on with orange eyes, revulsed with a mystic fury. Qala can understand that it is, in fact, their embodiment in the form of animals. She likes the art.
“Why are we cats, Bakht?” she questions, but Bakht doesn’t answer. Mother is back home, but she is fast asleep. Her eyes are half open, half closed, and Qala is more afraid of those eyes than she is of the ghosts lingering in the alleys, and the quiet afternoon and its dark shadows.
“Why am I a cat, oye?” Qala imagines how she appears in Bakht’s eyes, who herself is a slender shadow of her form, despite their many differences.
“You’re strange, you know?” she speaks to Bakht as though her experience and understanding of life are so much more developed than her sister. She truly believes it. In her mind, her identity may always exist from Bakht’s point of view, but she does not pay much heed to that idea.
“Shoo, you. And you’re weeeeird!” Bakht’s voice changes thrice within a sentence, and though Qala notices this, she doesn’t cut her off. She escapes the purse when her little one’s hands seem to tire, colored in orange and black paint. The afternoon doesn’t run to bite her back this time. Qala’s hassled, but she takes desperate attempts at resolution now. Bakht’s safety trumps her sanity. Mother’s shaving foam siren rings in her ears. Her sister laughs. She looks at her. Bakht keeps laughing. Qala is tired. She is hungry. Her eyes waver, eyelids falling into each other. She pulls Bakht in for a nice slumber and they fall asleep.
*
Qala wakes up. At twenty-eight, she looks like an exact adult replica of herself and has the same deep eyes and the same gestures. But a lot has changed, even though it doesn’t seem like life has changed at all. The mean mark moves when she cracks her neck, her hair is twirled into oblivion, and her big eyes are blurred with the effect of the medication. She wipes the ends of her lips, but they’re clean and dry. She notices she’s back home. Qala wanders around the apartment, the rays of the sun touching her half-open purse, and she rattles it to look for bottles with pills inside. She crosses her fingers in the hopes that she will but she doesn’t. “Urgh!” she yells, emptying her purse. She enters the walk-in closet where she keeps all her bags, purses, dresses, and make-up kits. They long for her to wear them, and she longs for them, but she doesn’t have the energy to use them anymore. Her phone has fifteen missed calls from her ex-husband, but she doesn’t return them. With eyes perched on the clean, salmon walls, she walks in circles and they give her a headache, even though Bakht’s disgusting drawings aren’t splattered across them anymore. It’s as if walls in general have a bone to pick with her, sometimes to the point where the bone seems to be stuck in her throat.
Your sister is coming in two days. Get your act together. She reads the blinking message on her phone, then deletes it.
“Fuck you,” she says, her eyes blinking more abruptly. “Fuck you more, Bakht.” She knows she looks prettier without the pills. She looks less harrowed, more dainty, less messy, more prudent, less direct, more approachable. She figures not taking the pills for two days might give her a chance to clean up before Bakht comes to stay over. Her two-day trip or the Big-Mac-Layover, as Bakht likes to call it is a nightmare, but at least, she visits her big sister from time to time. Qala doesn’t know what to feel anymore. She blames the pills and gets over it.
*
Bakht pulls her red suitcase in with one hand, “Wow, your house is a mess.” Her eyes are wide open, as though trying to remain open for long to recognize Qala’s life, trying to find her purpose in it. She walks into the house, leaving Qala behind, and gapes at the furniture, the ceiling, and all of Qala’s antiques. “The last time I was here, the walls were what, bluish?” she asks. Qala doesn’t answer. She pulls all the luggage into her room. Bakht’s rolled papers, her charcoal and graphite kit, her guitar, extra shoes, and a box of cake. Chocolate. Bakht’s favorite. “Of course,” she says, looking at it. “What?” Bakht asks, and Qala says, “No, I was wondering if they teach you interior design with architecture in Paris, too?”
“Oh, shut up, Qala!” she says. Her hands shiver a bit, but she rubs them together. It’s not cold inside the apartment. It is very warm and sunny, though the sun’s rays are waiting for the evening to dawn over. “You’re still scared of the afternoons, is that why you were sleeping,” Bakht says, not really as a question. “I wasn’t sleeping.” Qala adjusts her eyes, and her nails dig deep into her palms. “Let me show you the closet space,” she instructs, but Bakht has already made her way in and is going through all the stuff. Before she sits on the wooden floors of the walk-in closet, she looks at Qala, almost squints, and says, “You need to clean this out, you know.” Bakht sets her clothes inside her sister’s closet, and Qala notices that she wears the same shoe size as her and it’s the first time she’s ever noticed. Bakht changes into fresh clothes in front of her sister, throwing her pink bralette in the dry-cleaning bin, which Qala would have to fish out later, though she doesn’t remember her segregation schedule anymore. She blames the pills and gets over it.
By the time they start talking, it is nighttime. Bakht pulls a bottle of white wine from her suitcase and pours it into the paper cups she carried with her. “You have any noodles at home?” Bakht asks. Qala doesn’t know, so she goes on to check, but her sister follows with the purple purse in her hand. “Hey, mom gave this to you?” she asks. “Um, yeah,” Qala declares with confidence and looks at her sister with a wicked smile on her face. “It’s just, it is vintage,” Bakht continues, “Anyway, keep it.”
“I am keeping it.” Qala rolls her eyes.
“Dude, chill out, I am just saying. Ok, you are keeeeping it! Yay, you!” Bakht’s voice swiftly changes. She thinks for a while before speaking again. “You remember we would sit in the closet for hours when mom was asleep, and she had her sleep apnea mask on? And you used to call her mother, mother, mother. Yuck. And then we would pretend we lived in a tiny castle in the woods?”
“She didn’t have sleep apnea. She was an addict,” Qala says.
“Oh yeah,” her sister smacks a hand on her head, “That was a lie too, yeah! Like so many of those.”
Qala breathes heavily. “And we pretended we were living in her purse, like tiny organisms or little people or whatever.”
“No, eww. That is so dumb.”
“Well, that’s what we did.”
“No, it was a castle. Don’t you remember?”
“It. was. a. purse,” Qala says, “This one.” Bakht teases her with her tongue out, and her eyes squint again.
“You got your lips done?” Qala asks Bakht. Her sister’s voice returns to its normal tenor. “No, eww.” Bakht rattles different purses to find old coins, new lipsticks, old Polaroid pics, and new toys. “Why do you still keep these weird little dolls in your purse?” she asks Qala. They unfold the wooden adventure, one doll inside the other getting smaller as they peel into it. “They are figurines, not dolls. They’re collectibles. Learn something,” Qala says.
“Whatever. Just, we have to leave tomorrow evening to see Mom,” Bakht says, “And what’s this?” Bakht points at a medicine bottle that Qala completely forgot to hide. She blames the pills again. “It is a pain medicine,” she indulges in her excuse. Then Bakht changes the topic and asks Qala if they can make some more noodles. Qala boils water in a small pot. She breaks the noodle bars into smaller denominations, and cooks them on medium heat, sprinkling some random ramen powder in them as they bubble. “You do it,” Bakht asks Qala to pour the muddle for them. “Why, afraid you’d drop it again, and burn me? Only one of the two marks remains, so…”
“Just do it,” Bakht yells, “I’m going to eat and go to sleep. In my room.” She closes the door behind her as Qala looks on. She collects forkfuls of noodles and stuffs her mouth in anger, almost dropping the soupy noodles all over the kitchen counter. Qala carefully pops two pills into her mouth and gulps them with the slushy noodle soup. She gulps another with a glass of water and heads to her room.
*
Around midnight, Qala hears a thud thud thud sound. She wakes up thinking someone is in her house. A weird smell jars her out of her sleep, and she notices Bakht drawing a doll’s house on the pinkish walls of Mother’s room. “The dollies wanted a house, they told me,” Bakht says without turning. “Ugh,” Qala detests her antics but still calls out to her. Bakht does not answer. Qala skillfully steps out of Mother’s purse and goes to the kitchen alone. Mother is fast asleep. Qala isn’t as hungry as she usually is, and is in no mood to eat without Bakht by her side. But she’s too proud to call her sister again, so she walks around the kitchen, pops two round peanuts in her mouth, and then returns to her mother’s bedroom. On the sofa, she notices a lady whom she imagines is Aunt Ruby. Mother loves her sister so she always visits, but Qala doesn’t quite like her. Bakht looks at her sister and notices something eerie about her.
“Qala? What even?” Bakht says, but Qala continues imagining her as Aunt Ruby and runs to her room without saying anything. She doesn’t seem to recognize Bakht sitting on that couch. Bakht thinks she’s lost her mind, but doesn’t understand exactly what she’s dealing with. She follows her into the room where Qala is acting like a little girl, holding the crystal glass with two hands to be more careful. She jumps on the bed and looks at the purple purse with fixation in her eyes. She quickly falls on the floor next to the purse and holds her knees to her chest. Bakht runs around to the opposite end of the bed to hold her, but Qala imagines Bakht running into the purse to be with her.
“Bakht, hurry up kitten,” she says, “Aunt Ruby is here.”
Bakht looks at her, and her eyes water. She has a million memories to play in her head. She holds her sister’s head close to her chest.
Meanwhile, Qala imagines they are in the purse, talking and laughing, then fighting, and disagreeing with each other. Bakht, she imagines, is asking too many questions. Qala asks her sister to play with the wooden dolls so she can finally go to sleep, but Bakht keeps talking. “Is mother going to wake up tomorrow?” she asks. Qala doesn’t know for sure, but she tells her sister, “Yes.” They hold hands.
An hour later, when the sirens make their way to the house, Qala notices that Bakht is hanging over her, holding her, crying and screaming. She holds her arms around Bakht too, almost hugging her as the sirens get closer. Qala imagines holding her inside the purse to keep her safe. She even offers her a sweet.
Bakht weeps and hangs over her sister’s limp body, calling the ambulance again. Memories from their young lives flash in her mind. Mother is breathing heavily, Qala thinks. And Bakht is not laughing now.
Yukti Narang is an Indian writer whose work has appeared in Room, Mother Tongue, The Ex-Puritan, AAWW’s The Margins, MAP Academy, Ekstasis, and elsewhere. She has also published with Blaft, Rupa Publications, Renard Press. Her debut poetry collection is There Is a Home in All of Us (2023). Yukti is a Rocaberti Writers’ Retreat scholar, an SOA Author’s Foundation Grant winner, an Oxbelly Fiction Writers Program and SLF’s A.C. Bose Grant finalist, and her work has been listed for awards including the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, the Toto Award, and the Building Bridges Prize. Narang recently workshopped her book-in-progress with Tin House and is developing a screenplay to be presented at Rocaberti.
