Govind opened his mouth to answer, but Mohan was staring directly at him, holding his gaze, and after a moment, Govind looked away and stared at the floor. “Your ways of life are different than ours, sir,” he said at last.
Smita felt Mohan tense and spoke before he could. “What about you, Arvind?” she said quickly. “Do you feel the same way?”
Arvind looked from her to his brother and then back at her. “Whatever my older brother thinks is best,” he said.
“But I thought you were close to Meena,” Smita said, although in that moment she couldn’t recall how she knew this, whether Meena had mentioned the detail to her or she’d read it in one of Shannon’s stories.
For a split second Arvind’s face softened, but then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. This my brother’s house. He is my elder.”
“And yet, this entire house was built from your sisters’ earnings, wasn’t it?” Mohan said. As the affront registered on Govind’s face, Smita wanted to smack Mohan.
“Arre, wah, seth,” Govind said, his eyes glimmering with malice. “You are a guest in my home, but you are so free with your insults. Yes, you are correct. Our sisters paid for this house out of their ill-gotten wealth.”
He turned to Smita, as if he expected a more sympathetic ear. “I had a bride picked out for Arvind. She came from a good family from a nearby village, and they were willing to pay a big dowry. But after word got around about my sisters working at that factory, they called off the wedding.”
Arvind was staring straight ahead, his face expressionless.
“Were you upset about this?” Smita asked him.
Arvind laughed dismissively. “They dug their own grave,” he said. “From the dowry my bride would’ve brought, we would have paid Meena and Radha’s dowries. That’s why only Govind bhai was so anxious to get me married off first. Then, he could get rid of our sisters. Two less mouths for us to feed once they became their husband’s responsibility. But as it turned out, we didn’t have to pay any dowry to that old cripple who married Radha.”
Smita had thought that Arvind was the gentler of the two brothers. But she found herself disliking him as much as she did the older one. It was as if Meena’s transgressions had destroyed all familial feeling.
“So, tell me something,” Mohan said. “Who put up the bail money to get you out of the lockup? Did you have to borrow from the money lender?”
“No, seth,” Govind said. “We used our own money.”
“Your sisters’ money? Their savings?”
Govind scowled. “No female has any right to her savings. All their money belonged to me as the head of the household. This is our custom.”
“I see.” Mohan smiled pleasantly. “Is it also your custom to try and murder your sister because you are angry that she ran away to another man and that her salary had stopped coming to you? Because that’s what your neighbors are saying.”
“Mohan!” Smita said, knowing he’d gone too far.
But she was too late. Govind was already on his feet, his big, peasant hands clenched in fists. “Please, both of you, leave my house right now. Before something untoward happens.”
Mohan rose to his feet, too, and stepped in front of Smita. “You keep your threats for poor women like your sister,” he said evenly. “If you so much as look in the direction of my . . . my wife . . . I’ll have you hung upside-down and beaten at the police station. You hear me?”
Govind’s eyes went flat, opaque. “Yes, sahib,” he said dully. “We know the power that you people possess. You can crush ordinary men like me under the soles of your shoes. We know your kind.”
“That’s right.”
“Mohan, stop,” Smita said. “This is getting out of hand.” She turned toward Govind. “Listen, I’m sorry . . .”
“Don’t you apologize,” Mohan said. “Don’t you dare say ‘I’m sorry’ to this, this bastard.”
“Arre, bas!” A shout rang out and they all jumped. It was Arvind, his eyes teary, his chest heaving. “Everybody, stop. And you people . . . Go. Just go.”
Smita and Mohan were in the car and pulling away when Govind strode toward them. “Even if they give me the death penalty, it will be worth it.” He grinned humorlessly, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “Just to have watched that fucker dance as he burned.”
“Are you saying you murdered him?” Smita said.
He spat on the ground. “I am confessing to nothing. Every witness in Birwad has changed their story. Nobody is believing what that whore has to say.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Smita said. “I can’t hear another word of this.”
They didn’t speak until the house was a speck from the rearview mirror. Then, a livid Smita turned on Mohan. “What the hell was that about? You actually got in the way of my doing my job. What gave you the right to bulldoze your way into my interview?”
Mohan raised one hand, as if to fend off a blow. “I’m sorry. I lost my temper. Forgive me.”
She glared at him and turned away. She looked out of the window even as Mohan spoke. “I don’t know how you do this job, yaar. I . . . I just wanted to choke him. After seeing how they’d ruined that poor girl.”
Nandini wouldn’t have interfered like this, Smita thought. She would’ve known the importance of dispassion, of allowing sources to reveal themselves in their own time, in their own words. But Mohan was not a professional. He was merely an acquaintance who had given up his own vacation to help her. He had reacted in the way any sentient human being would. And she needed him for his male presence. It grated on Smita to admit it, but if Govind had not believed that Mohan was her husband, he wouldn’t have allowed her to enter his home.
“I want to make one more stop,” Smita said. “Let’s head back to the main village. I need to talk to that fucking village chief.”
Chapter Seventeen
When Radha and I were children, we used to play a game. She would ask, “What is the true color of the world, Didi?”
And I would say, “Green.”
“Why green?”
“Because the trees are green. Grass is green. The new buds on the plants are green. Even the parrots are green. Green is the color of the world.”
“But, Didi,” Radha would argue, “the wheat stalks are brown. My body is brown. The field mice are brown. No, the world is brown.”
“What about blue?” I would say. “The sky is blue. And it covers the whole world, like a mother who loves and embraces all her children.”
Radha would fall silent, and I would remember that she had known our mother’s love for even fewer years than I did. So I would take her in my arms and hold her, to make her know what it feels like to be loved.
Today I know the truth: The true color of the world is black.
Anger is black.
Shame and scandal are black.
Betrayal is black.
Hatred is black.
And a roasted, smoking body is Black, Black, Black.
The world, after witnessing such cruelty, goes black.
The waking up to a changed world is black.
He comes to me at night, when it is only me and Abru, sleeping in our hut. Sometimes, he smells like the last time, smoky, like burnt hair. Like the taste that is forever in my mouth. But most of the time, he smells like he used to—like the river, like the grass, like the smell of our land after the first rain.
Ammi complained loudly when I first began to visit our old hut, but I think she is now happy to have her own house at night. Every time she sees my face, she is reminded of the night when two of the goondas held her back as she screamed and screamed, watching her oldest son ablaze. Of how she cried as she watched me trying to beat the flames off Abdul’s body until the heat melted my hands and I passed out from the pain.