Mud Lilies Read online

  MUD

  LILIES

  MUD

  LILIES

  a novel by

  INDRA

  RAMAYAN

  Copyright © 2022 Indra Ramayan

  This edition copyright © 2022 Cormorant Books Inc.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1.800.893.5777.

  We acknowledge financial support for our publishing activities: the Government of Canada, through the Canada Book Fund and The Canada Council for the Arts; the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Creates, and the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit. We acknowledge additional funding provided by the Government of Ontario and the Ontario Arts Council to address the adverse effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

  library and archives canada cataloguing in publication

  Title: Mud lilies / Indra Ramayan.

  Names: Ramayan, Indra, author.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210362375 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210362391 |

  isbn 9781770866409 (softcover) | isbn 9781770866416 (html)

  Classification: lcc ps8635.a46145 m83 2022 | ddc c813/.6—dc23

  United States Library of Congress Control Number: 2022930281

  Cover photo and design: Angel Guerra / Archetype

  Interior text design: Tannice Goddard, tannicegdesigns.ca

  The interior of this book is printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper.

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  Manufactured by Houghton Boston in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada in March 2022.

  cormorant books inc.

  260 Spadina Avenue, Suite 502, Toronto, ON M5T 2E4

  www.cormorantbooks.com

  To all my heroes.

  Contents

  Cover

  Half Title Page

  Full Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Acknowledgements

  Land Acknowledgement

  Landmarks

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  Acknowledgements

  PageList

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  77

  78

  79

  80

  81

  82

  83

  84

  85

  86

  87

  88

  89

  90

  91

  92

  93

  94

  95

  96

  97

  98

  99

  100

  101

  102

  103

  104

  105

  106

  107

  108

  109

  110

  111

  112

  113

  114

  115

  116

  117

  118

  119

  120

  121

  122

  123

  124

  125

  126

  127

  128

  129

  130

  131

  132

  133

  134

  135

  136

  137

  138

  139

  140

  141

  142

  143

  144

  145

  146

  147

  148

  149

  150

  151

  152

  153

  154

  155

  156

  157

  158

  159

  160

  161

  162

  163

  164

  165

  166

  167

  168

  169

  170

  171

  172

  173

  174

  175

  176

  177

  178

  179

  180

  181

  182

  183

  184

  185

  186

  187

  188

  189

  190

  191

  192

  193

  194

  195

  196

  197

  198

  199

  200

  201

  202

  203

  204

  205

  2
06

  207

  208

  209

  210

  211

  212

  213

  214

  215

  216

  217

  218

  219

  220

  221

  222

  223

  224

  225

  226

  227

  228

  229

  230

  231

  232

  233

  234

  235

  236

  237

  238

  239

  240

  241

  242

  243

  244

  245

  246

  247

  248

  249

  250

  251

  252

  253

  254

  255

  256

  257

  258

  259

  260

  261

  262

  263

  264

  265

  266

  267

  268

  269

  270

  271

  272

  273

  274

  275

  276

  277

  278

  279

  280

  281

  282

  283

  284

  285

  286

  287

  288

  289

  290

  291

  292

  293

  294

  295

  296

  297

  298

  299

  300

  301

  302

  303

  304

  305

  306

  307

  308

  309

  310

  311

  312

  313

  314

  315

  316

  317

  318

  319

  320

  321

  322

  323

  324

  325

  326

  327

  328

  329

  330

  331

  332

  333

  334

  335

  336

  337

  338

  339

  340

  341

  342

  343

  344

  345

  346

  347

  348

  349

  350

  351

  352

  353

  354

  355

  356

  357

  358

  359

  360

  361

  362

  363

  364

  365

  366

  367

  368

  369

  370

  371

  372

  373

  374

  375

  376

  377

  378

  379

  380

  381

  382

  383

  384

  385

  386

  Chapter One

  Before my first rape, I thought I was pretty. I used to play with makeup and pretend to be a supermodel getting ready for a runway show. I’d cover the lamp with a pink pashmina, tune the radio to the Chill Channel, and imitate the starry-eyed, fish-lipped expressions of magazine models in the mirror. After the rape, I found my reflection revolting. I hated my face, my future, and my fate. I hated myself so much, I put my life up for sale.

  I sold the only thing I had for money.

  And then I got so tangled in the weeds of my trauma, I couldn’t touch my life anymore.

  So I gave the rest of it away.

  I didn’t even try to salvage the shreds of my being as they fell away and ripped open dangerous portals to the darkest of people. People disguised as friends, mothers, and lovers. People who fit my narrative that the world was evil, and I’d never be safe. That better was for everyone else, and mediocre was the best I could ever hope for. That I should never want for anything more than to survive for one more day — and often, I’d wish not to.

  That’s how Blue got in. He breezed in through one of those portals when I was broken wide open and bleeding my desperation into a world that didn’t care. He pulled me so close, I couldn’t see his darkness. All I felt was the frantic neediness of a ruined teenager clinging to the last pieces of herself. I had to hold onto something, so I held onto him, and it’s taken me five years to start letting go.

  I used to dream of Blue almost every night. It made me feel like a puppet dancing in random sideshows for the devil. In every dream, I was leaning against the countertop, and he was kissing me. But in my dreams our brains weren’t sick, and he wasn’t dead yet. And every single time, I’d wake up to screams — his or mine, I still don’t know.

  The screams have begun to fade, but now I hear a faraway weeping, like a lost child crying in a ravine. My childhood ghost is restless beneath the surface of the shallow grave where I buried her. She wants out. And I want to dig her out, but I’m still too scared to see her.

  I tell her that we’re fine, that I’ve made real progress, and I have a future. I’m in my fourth year of my Bachelor of Arts degree and on my way to graduating with distinction. But I cannot silence that broken little girl. She says she’s still in pain, and her cries have become constant. She’s been crying for years, and she won’t stop. She’s demanding to be heard. I keep telling her that I’m not ready, that my wings are still broken, and that I am deeply flawed. But I know there is shelter, even beneath imperfect wings, where I have found much of my own healing. She is getting louder and more restless. She tells me that I can fly with broken wings. I just have to try harder.

  This is my story.

  * * *

  I met Blue on a smoky summer night. British Columbia’s forests were on fire, and record-setting temperatures held people hostage inside air-conditioned malls and bars. The smoke had travelled over the Rockies and cloaked the city of Edmonton. The smog hung heavy; the city sweated ashes. The air was thick and disorienting and made me feel as though I’d been dropped onto the set of a Quentin Tarantino movie. My eyes burned; my throat ached. I was pissed off about having to go to an outdoor art show with Brenda, former hooker turned cleaning lady after what she’d called an “economic meltdown” had sent her to a mental institution for a few months. I guess that’s where Jesus showed up, and she claimed to have joined hands with the Lord. It’s also where Prozac, sobriety, and her new hippie Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, Penelope, came along. I think Brenda used her cleaning job as an attempt to offer reparation to God for all the blow jobs she’d sold over the previous thirty years. I wondered if someday Jesus would come and rescue me too.

  I should have known Brenda was no good when she’d “rescued” me four years earlier. What kind of person finds a teenage girl crouched down outside a truck stop in the wee hours of a cold spring morning and thinks, Opportunity! But I was a kid — a scared kid. I remember squinting up at her through raw, salty eyes, and despite her denim shorts, stiletto heels, and hot pink bikini top with devil’s pitchforks on each of her sagging breasts, she sounded like an angel
when she leaned over me and said, “Honey, I’m gonna take care of ya.”

  I got up from the curb and followed her into a cab. A few days before, I’d been a regular teenager: anxious, angry, and reclusive. I’d gone from hiding in my bedroom to riding in the back of a Yellow Cab with a stoned hooker and a pervy driver who stared in his rearview mirror as though we were the prelude to a porn flick. Brenda smiled at the driver. He smiled back and said, “Call me Mo!” She winked at him and lit up a joint. Mo winked back and took the joint out of her hand. He sucked it long and hard while waggling his eyebrows at me. I shook my head no. When we pulled up in front of an abandoned auto body shop, Brenda said, “Head on up them side stairs. I gotta pay the driver.”

  Them side stairs looked like they belonged to abandoned buildings I’d seen pictures of during my grade six field trip to the archives. I half-expected police tape on the door. Instead, a faded sign that read Office greeted me just above eye level. I turned the loose doorknob, and the biting smell of old slapped my senses sharp. Old carpet, old furniture, dirty dishes, and cigarette butts. Pungent. Rank. My new life. Two armchairs from the seventies leaned against each other in front of a rickety coffee table littered with porn magazines, beer cans, fast-food bags, and overflowing ashtrays. A hot plate sat askew on top of an old beer fridge, like it had been tossed there in a hurry. I thought, I should run! But where? Back to the truck stop? Besides, running would take guts, and I’d left my guts on the basement floor with him.

  I plopped onto a stinky armchair and squeezed my eyes closed. I knew I could never go home. There I was sitting in the middle of a trash pile, like a lone dog discarded at the dump, my future in the hands of the first taker. I’d run from one trash can to another. My childhood home, a 1950s red house shaped like a perfect box. Plain and practical. My dad had inherited it when my railroading granddaddy dropped dead on the basement floor with yellow eyes and a rock-hard liver. My grandma had died before I’d been born. My dad followed in his father’s footsteps. First the railway, then the house. And then the bad energy and trauma that lingered inside the walls.

  The house should have been a good thing for my dad. No mortgage and only steps away from the railyard. But he didn’t like the proximity of the Dover Hotel, right down our back alley. The hotel had been built in 1912 and stood two storeys high. It proudly advertised weekly and monthly rates and off-track betting in giant red letters. On the east side of the hotel was the tavern entrance where the barflies smoked and where drunken fights were settled. The west side of the bar wasn’t any better because it housed the Cold Beer Store, whose entrance was just as popular a hangout as the tavern doors. My dad had told me, “If I ever catch you anywhere near that hotel, it will be the first time I beat you.”

  My dad’s words had worked. No matter how brutal the weather, I’d always detour a couple of blocks to stay off the bar’s radar. But what I couldn’t avoid were the bar buddies my mom brought home to “keep her company” while my dad was out of town working on the railway. And then there was Clayton, the bar buddy who never left. The one who’d moved in so quickly, he personally had to pack my dad’s things to make room for his own.

  My mom had felt differently about the house. She didn’t have to work, and she could walk to the bar, where she’d made plenty of pub friends to keep her company. So I grew up with the sounds of sirens, train whistles, and traffic. Most nights, I’d hear drunken garbles, yelling, and whoops from the late-night bar stragglers. I’d awaken to the occasional drunk sleeping off too many pitchers on our lawn, and one time, I came home to a black Ford Tempo with a smashed-out windshield at the foot of our front steps.