“Ah, yes and no,” Mohan said evasively, his smile filtering any insult.
“I see,” the clerk said. He pulled out a pen and pushed a sheet of yellowing paper toward their end of the table. “You please fill out these forms.”
Smita reached for the offered pen. The clerk froze. He stared intently at Mohan. “Sir,” he said, “only your signature is valid.”
There was a short, painful silence. Then, Mohan mustered a strangled laugh. “Oh yes, of course,” he said. “Forgive my fiancée. She’s a city girl and . . .”
The clerk appraised Smita gravely. “Madam is a foreigner,” he said softly. “Not familiar with our customs.”
Smita flushed, then walked away as Mohan filled out the form. A foreigner. That was exactly what she was. In this moment, she wanted nothing to do with this provincial country in which she found herself trapped.
Even as she fumed at the clerk’s casual misogyny, her thoughts turned to Meena. The damage done to Meena was far too grievous for comparison, of course, but it stemmed from a similar mindset, one that saw women as the property of men. She would get out of India in a few days, but someone like Meena probably never would.
A heavy feeling gripped Smita. This was the real India, revealing itself to her in small slights and grave tragedies. She turned her head slightly to give Mohan a sidelong glance, thankful for his presence but also envious of his male privilege. She looked out the window into the parking lot. It was getting late in the day. They would have to wait until the next morning to meet Meena.
“Come,” Mohan said quietly. He was at her side, holding a suitcase in each hand. Without thinking, she reached for hers. But he threw her a cautioning look, and she retracted her hand and lowered her eyes, for the benefit of the clerk. She bristled inwardly as she followed Mohan down the long hallway to their side-by-side rooms. He unlocked her door and motioned for her to enter. They looked around the sparse room with whitewashed walls. “It will do?” Mohan asked, and she heard the anxiety in his voice.
“Yes, of course,” Smita said. “It’s fine.” She poked her head into the bathroom and was relieved to see the Western-style toilet. To the right was a shower, with a plastic bucket and mug nearby on the tiled floor. The wall tile looked reasonably clean. “The bathroom is nice,” she added.
“Good,” Mohan said. He covered his mouth and yawned. “Sorry,” he said. “Do you want to go see Meena today? It will be—”
“No. There’s no point. We’ll go in the morning.”
Smita saw the relief on his face.
“Listen, the manager said they have a kitchen and dining room here,” Mohan said. “He said they can prepare us any meal we want. Do you know what . . . ?”
“I don’t care,” Smita said. “You order whatever you want. I’m not even that hungry. All I really want is an ice-cold beer.”
Mohan looked pained, and she immediately realized her gaffe. Of course. In a place like this, they probably would frown on a woman drinking alcohol in public. “It’s okay,” she said hastily. “I don’t have to drink.”
“No, no,” he said, frowning. “Tell you what. Let me go place our dinner order. And then, I’ll have him deliver two bottles of beer to my room. You can come drink it there. Or . . . I can just drop off a bottle for you?”
It was Mohan’s hesitancy, his thoughtfulness in not foisting his company on her, that helped her decide. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’ll come have a beer with you, okay?”
He nodded.
“Hey, Mohan? If they don’t allow women to sign here, what did Shannon and Nandini do when they stayed here?”
He shrugged. “Shannon’s an American. Different rules, I’m sure. And even then . . . If she’d come with a man, they would’ve asked for his signature.”
She shook her head.
“This is not Mumbai, Smita. It’s a small, isolated place. You saw. Nothing much around.”
“It’s like they’re living fifty years in the past.”
Something flickered in Mohan’s eyes. “Fifty?” he said. “Wait till we go to Birwad. It’s more like two hundred years behind.”
Book Two
Chapter Nine
At night, I see my husband burn.
In my dreams, I smell the gasoline and see the fire climb like a vine over his body. Over and over again, I watch him turn into smoke before my unfortunate eyes, flames leaping from his hair like from the head of the god Agni.
My husband’s name was Abdul. It is a Muslim name meaning “servant.” And all his life that’s what he did, serve someone. Why did Ammi not name her son after a king? Then, maybe Abdul could have been rich and powerful, like Rupal, the chief of my old village. Rupal is a magic man, strong as a bull, with dark powers. People in my village still remember how Rupal once pulled a live snake out of a woman’s mouth and turned it into a bird. With my own eyes, I have seen him walk on hot coals and not burn his feet. No, the burning is reserved for poor people like us.
In the First Information Report, made while Ammi was burying her oldest son and I was still fighting for my life in the hospital, the police wrote Unknown Persons, even though everybody knew who killed Abdul. But I demanded that the police register a fresh report and name my brothers as the suspects. In those dark days, Anjali was the only one who insisted that justice must be served.
Anjali was the one who came to the hospital to give me the news that Abdul was dead. She was the one who ran to get the doctor when I screamed and tried to pull the IV out of my arm. She was the one who raised the money to pay for my three surgeries so that I can now speak and hold a spoon in my melted hand. She was the one who told me she would take my case for free to show the world that I belonged to myself and not to my brothers. And Anjali was the first and last person who said that loving Abdul was not a sin that I should be punished for.
But I will tell you the truth—I was scared. I had never before entered the police chowki. I had never sat across from the big police inspector–sahib, much less looked at his face. The custom in my village says that inferiors must always sit at a level below their superiors—low-caste people must sit below the high caste, the young must always sit below the old, and women must sit below the men. At home, if my brothers rested on the bed, my younger sister, Radha, and I would squat on the floor. It was always thus. But at the police chowki, Anjali insisted that I sit on a chair across from the inspector.
Everyone was against reopening the case. My mother-in-law asked hadn’t I already brought enough misfortune on her head by marrying her son? My Muslim neighbors complained that I was inviting more danger upon our little village. All of them agreed that my Hindu brothers were correct for avenging the dishonor I had brought to my family by marrying Abdul. Even Abdul’s old neighbors and friends, those who loved him, felt he had committed an unnatural act, bringing a Hindu bride into his home. In Birwad, we have a saying: “A mongoose cannot lay down next to a snake.” Thus it is between the Hindu and the Muslim. Besides, my neighbors said, how could I win against my brothers when nature had made it so that no woman can prevail against the might of a man?
Rupal himself sent word that God had visited him and warned that I would be reincarnated one thousand and one times in lesser forms if I went ahead with the complaint against my brothers. That in my next life, I would come back as a lowly worm to be stepped upon by men. This is the Hindu law of reincarnation and karma, he said. If I stayed on this wicked path, I would endlessly repeat the cycles of life, being born as lower and lower life forms. It was my karmic duty to forgive my brothers and repent for my sins. He warned me to not listen to Anjali. She was a creation of the devil, sent to corrupt me.