“At night,” she whispered, “I can hear him crying. And in the baths.” Her tears came harder. She took a staggered breath before finishing her sentence. “I can hear him making little sounds. While the water is running, I can hear him.”
She was making me cry, so I looked out the window. Below, the city of Jhansi sat gray and still, like an old man hunched over against the cold. “Do you think we did terrible things in our past lives?” I asked. “To come back as women . . . perhaps it’s a punishment for some previous misdeed?”
The rani sucked in her breath. Then she exhaled it with great force. “Do you think Damodar did something terrible in his past life to have died in infancy?”
“Of course not.”
“I must be the one being punished then.”
I didn’t have any answer for her.
“Shri Rama says we’re all in a constant state of evolution, that pain moves us forward, changing us into something else, something we need to be.”
We sat together in silence for some time. Finally I said, “Shall I finish the letter?”
The rani shook her head. “No.”
So d id you tell the rani we’re waiting for her?” Kahini asked when I returned. “Did you suggest she join us tomorrow on the maidan?”
The other women in the Durgavas turned to follow our conversation.
“It was not the time,” I said.
“Her mourning will stop,” she warned me. “And when it does, she’ll associate you with the darkest time of her life.”
“That’s a vile thing to say,” Sundari said. “No wonder the rani doesn’t call for you.”
“And how many times has the raja called for Sita? He rules this kingdom. Not the rani, however powerful she may think she is.”
I tried to ignore their bickering. There was already enough grief in the palace.
By the time Diwali arrived in October, I had enough not only to pay for Anu’s dowry fortune, but to buy a year’s worth of new kurtas for her trousseau. But planning for my sister’s happy future and preparing her elaborate bridal chest felt like a betrayal to the rani’s grief. So it was doubly astonishing when the rani called me to her chamber to give me a gift for Anu.
“Give my blessings to your sister,” she said, and reached behind her braid to unfasten her necklace. “I’d like you to ask her to wear this on her wedding day.”
“Your Highness—”
“She may keep it or sell as she wishes. But I’d like her to have it.”
When the sun broke through the clouds the next morning, I made my way back to Barwa Sagar with a retinue of seventeen men.
Chapter Seventeen
My father’s eyes filled with tears when he saw the gift the rani had given to me for Anu’s wedding day. He took my palm and wrote swiftly, “How?”
The rani’s gift would change my family’s fortunes in Barwa Sagar. My place in the Durga Dal had already made my family famous. But now we would be considered wealthy as well, and Shivaji’s family would be looked upon with even greater respect, since the rani’s gift was ultimately destined for his house.
It may seem strange that a good friend like Shivaji would demand a dowry fortune from us, particularly since my father had saved his life in Burma. But in India, these things are not matters of friendship; they’re matters of esteem: your family will only be held in high regard if they’ve managed to procure a good dowry fortune. Every neighbor who comes to your house, and all of their children, and even their children’s children, will know what your son received with his bride. If she came with only a chest full of silk, no one is going to say, “Did you hear what so-and-so brought to her father-in-law’s house?” Instead, they will let the conversation pass, since what is there to say about a bride who only arrives with clothes?
When my sister heard what she’d been gifted, she buried her face in her hands and wept. “Thank you,” she kept saying.
“I haven’t done anything. The rani gave it to you.”
“But the rani doesn’t even know me.”
“Yes she does. I talk about you all the time.”
She looked up, and her eyes were giant pools. “You do?”
It hurt me that her question was in earnest. I sat down on the bed next to her and said, “Anu, I never stop thinking about you. Just because I’m in Jhansi doesn’t mean that my heart isn’t here with you. And Pita-ji.”
I could see she wasn’t convinced. “And you’ll be with me tomorrow, right?”
“At every step of your wedding,” I promised.
“What about tomorrow night?” she worried. “I’m going to miss Pita-ji.”
“I know. I miss Pita-ji, too. But what happens tomorrow is going to be very special, and it’s something that both Pita-ji and I have been looking forward to for a long time. You’ll see,” I promised. “You’re going to make a beautiful bride.”