“Damn straight. I’m out there interviewing that poor girl about the brutal murder of her husband, and we come back in to find you two laughing and joking.”
“I was trying to distract her,” Mohan said loudly. “So that you could talk to Meena and get your story. I thought I was helping you, but instead you are . . . I don’t even know what you’re saying.”
Mohan’s anger was so unexpected that Smita felt chastised and immediately regretful of her behavior. “Mohan,” she said, “I’m sorry.”
“I honestly don’t know how to help you,” Mohan said. “It’s like I have to apologize to you for everything in this country. Everything I see is now filtered through your eyes. And it all looks ugly and backward and—”
“Mohan, no. Please. I . . . I’m just frustrated, you know? But it was wrong of me to take it out on you.”
He took his eyes off the road to look at her. “Why do you hate India so much?”
Smita sighed. “I don’t,” she said at last. “I . . . there are many things I love about the country. And I know that what happened to Meena happens all over the world. Even in America, of course. I know that. I mean, trust me—I cover stories like these all the time.”
He nodded, and as suddenly as his temper had flared, the anger left his body. The change was so dramatic that Smita imagined that she’d heard a silent whoosh. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s drop it.”
She looked out the car window as they cut through the main village, shocked by how shabby everything looked. Small houses with corrugated metal roofs squatted next to ones covered merely with blue tarp. Flies hovered above the open drain that ran past some of the houses. They drove past a giant pit filled with refuse. A couple of young boys played desultorily near the pit, even as a strange, moldy smell seeped into the car. Smita thought that these huts looked even more ragged than the slums she’d passed on her way from the airport a few nights before. Then, she remembered: This was a Muslim village, which meant that it was even poorer than a typical one. A few old men, their faces dark against the white of their beards and skullcaps, stared expressionlessly as they drove by. There were no women around.
“Do you want to stop?” Mohan asked. “Talk to anyone?”
Smita considered for a moment, then shook her head no.
“I wanted to ask you,” Smita said when they were back on the main road, “do you understand the dialect Ammi speaks?”
He shrugged. “More or less. Some of the people who worked for my family came from villages near Birwad. I think the old security guard at my school was from around here.”
“Oh yeah? What school was that?”
“The Anand School for Boys.”
“Where’s that?”
“What?” Mohan said, his voice heavy with irony. “You haven’t heard of the world-famous Anand School for Boys?”
“No. Sorry.” A beat. “But I’m sure it was great, seeing how it produced a prodigy like you.”
“Nicely played.” Mohan smiled. “What about you? Where did you do your schooling?”
Smita stiffened, uneasy about sharing any details. But the last thing she wanted to do was offend Mohan again. “I went to Cathedral,” she said.
“Ah. Great school. I should’ve known.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning many of the posh Mumbaikars I work with went to Cathedral.”
“We weren’t posh.”
“No?”
“No,” she said. “I told you—my father is a professor.” The truth was they could have never afforded their flat in Colaba or any of the other luxuries they enjoyed if it weren’t for Papa’s inheritance. As much as Papa valued education, he couldn’t have sent her and Rohit to Cathedral on his salary.
“What did your parents do?” she asked.
“Well, my mother is a housewife.”
“And your dad?”
“My papa?” Mohan cleared his throat. For the first time since Smita had met him, he seemed evasive. “Well, my papa was a diamond merchant. You know, Surat is famous for—”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Your dad is a diamond merchant?”
“Ae, Smita. Relax, yaar. He was just a small-time guy.”
“I see,” Smita said. “You know what they call a small-time diamond merchant, right?” She waited for him to ask and, when he didn’t, she said, “A diamond merchant.”
“Very funny.”
“You know what’s really funny?”
“What?”
“That you’ve asked me so many questions about my life and you failed to mention that your father is a diamond merchant.”
“Yah, okay, you’re right. I should’ve told you what my father did right at the airport the night I picked you up. Before you mistook me for Shannon’s driver.”
“Touché,” she said with a laugh. But then something went wrong because she kept laughing, unable to stop. She was aware that she was being ridiculous, that Mohan was throwing her a worried look. But something was fueling this hysteria—a combination of fatigue and sadness and anger and . . . the blank looks on the faces of those elderly Muslim men a few moments before. Ammi’s harsh voice as she had berated Meena. The image of Meena stroking her daughter with her melted hand. The land outside this car bore so much suffering. This land is your land . . . The words of the Woody Guthrie song she’d always loved came into her head, but somehow the lyrics seemed ironic, malicious even. Like it or not, this, too, was her land and she felt implicated and ensnared in its twisted morality and contradictions.
She pursed her lips, wanting to apologize for her hysterical laughter. But before she could explain, her phone rang. “Excuse me,” she murmured, searching her purse, hoping it wasn’t Papa calling. “It’s the lawyer,” she whispered to Mohan.
“Hello? Smita? Anjali here.” The voice was as brisk as ever.
“Hi. Have they announced the date?”
“The verdict should come day after tomorrow,” Anjali said. “That’s what the clerk told my office today. And they will give us enough notice to get to the courthouse. Are you checked in at the motel?”
“Yes. Since yesterday. But—”
“Good. That’s perfect. It’s a little over an hour from there to the courthouse. We will call you as soon as we know what time you should be there.” Anjali cleared her throat. “Have you met Meena yet?”
“We just left her place a short time ago.”
“Sad case, eh?”
“Yes. Very.” Smita made a quick calculation. “Since we have a day in between, I’ll probably go meet with the brothers tomorrow. And then . . .”
“Excellent idea. Okay, well, see you the day after.”
“Wait—”
But Anjali had already hung up.
Smita shook her head as she put the phone away. “What’s this woman’s problem?” she muttered.
“You can’t imagine how busy she must be, yaar,” Mohan said.
“Do you always do this?”
“Do what?”
“Leap to every stranger’s defense?”
He shrugged.
“So, we’re going to meet the brothers tomorrow?” Mohan asked after a moment.
“Yes. And the village chief. Anjali thinks he’s the one who instigated the brothers.” The heaviness was back; she felt its weight. “Mohan,” she said, “you have a sister. Is there anything she could do, do you suppose, that would make you disown her? Much less, injure her?”
“What a stupid question, Smita,” he said. “You have a brother, no? Would he ever do such a thing?”
A sudden flash of memory. Rohit’s distraught face. Rohit protecting her with his body. “My brother would die rather than do what Meena’s brothers did,” she said.
Mohan nodded. “Exactly.”
“You’re very much like Rohit, you know. Decent.”