Maybe even the son of a diamond merchant can be made to face the truth, she thought grimly.
Smita filled the bucket in her bathroom with hot water, then used the plastic mug to pour water over her body. She thought with longing about her hotel room at the Taj, with its powerful shower and marbled bathroom, then felt guilty about such a bourgeois desire. But who was she kidding? Soon, she would be back in her luxurious condo in Brooklyn, with its granite countertops and the rain shower in the bathroom. Papa had forced Rohit and Smita to take their share of their mother’s inheritance soon after Mummy had died. They had declined, but Papa had been insistent. Rohit had bought a car and put away the rest in Alex’s college fund; Smita had had her bathroom and kitchen remodeled.
What would little Abru’s inheritance be? The gravesite of a father she would never know, but whose specter would haunt her entire life. The ashes of her mother’s dreams, which she would taste in her own mouth. Her grandmother’s grief, which could manifest itself only as anger, in a harsh word or a quick slap whenever the little girl did something that reminded Ammi of her dead son. Abru’s life would be marked by hunger—an emotional hunger never sated, its roots in a time before her birth. And the physical hunger, the emptiness in her stomach that would feel as real to her as a shoe or a stone. Poor Abdul had thought that his daughter would be the heir to a new, modern India. Instead, she had become a symbol of the old, timeless India, a country scarred by ignorance, illiteracy, and superstition, governed by men who dropped the poison pellets of communal hatred onto a people who mistook revenge for honor, and blood lust for tradition.
Smita made a sound, sorrow bubbling up from her lips. The bathroom went blurry, and she dropped the mug into the bucket, the water splashing onto her feet. She rested her forehead against the bathroom wall and sobbed. She cried for so long that after a while, her outrage at Meena’s fate tipped over into the deep sorrow for the confused, fearful twelve-year-old child Smita herself had once been, the resurrection of a sorrow that she had spent years beating back.
She felt lighter when she emerged from the shower, as if her tears had washed away some of the pain she had been carrying around. She dressed and, with a quick glance in the mirror, left her room. She walked swiftly down the hallway and knocked on Mohan’s door before she could change her mind.
“Hi,” she said, when he answered. “Can I come in?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, letting her in and closing the door behind them.
Chapter Twenty
Two days after Abdul gifted me the mangoes, I packed a ladoo for him. I didn’t place it in our tiffin box. Instead, I wrapped it in newspaper and carried it separately. At lunchtime, I put the sweet in my pocket and walked to my usual spot under the tree. Radha was still sick, so I ate alone. I sat with my back to Abdul, but still my neck got hot as I felt his eyes on me. After I finished my lunch, I walked to where Abdul was sitting. He rose to his feet immediately. I placed the wrapped ladoo on the ground near his tree. “For your kindness,” I said to the tree trunk, my back to him. “The mangoes were very sweet.”
He replied, but the blood was rushing to my head and it drowned out his words. I walked quickly back into the factory. The old woman sitting at the machine next to me saw the sweat on my face. “Ae, chokri,” she said to me. “Are you taking sick?”
She did not know how correct she was. I was sick, but this was a sickness of the heart.
Every day after I gifted him the ladoo, Abdul and I began to find a way to talk without words. Sometimes, he would sing a love song while working that I knew was meant for my ears. Sometimes, I dropped a chocolate on the ground between our two trees on our way back from lunch. When Abdul returned to his seat, he would open the wrapper and pop the candy into his mouth, his eyes briefly meeting mine. And every evening, he would walk home behind me, remembering to stay a good distance away.
Then, one day as I finished using the outdoor latrine, he was waiting for me. He pretended to tie his shoelaces as I passed by. “I am working overtime next Sunday,” he whispered. “Maybe you can apply, too?”
I applied for the overtime shift the same day.
Only a few of us were working that Sunday, so the foreman shuttered half the room and made us crowd together in the other half. As we looked for a seat, Abdul took the spot at the machine next to mine. Nobody noticed but me.
At first, we were so excited to sit next to each other that we stole glances every few minutes. But then the work picked up, and we had to concentrate on our consignment. Sweat ran down our faces, but we couldn’t stop to wipe it off. For six hours I worked, my body stiff with heat and fear. My heart was singing like a transistor radio, and I was afraid that everyone there would hear it play Abdul’s name. But when I looked up, no one was watching. Everyone was busy meeting their quota.
I left work that evening with a small group of women, but one by one, they got off the main road and went toward their home village. When it was only me, I stopped and looked over my shoulder. Abdul was alone, also. He hurried to catch up with me, but walked on the other side of the narrow road, close to the ditch. From there, he called out, “Your name is Meena! I know.”
My heart was fluttering. I pulled my dupatta closer to my face.
“My name is Abdul. You must be remembering?”
I didn’t reply.
“I am from Birwad. My father is dead. I live with my ammi and my younger brother.”
A man came toward us on his bicycle, and Abdul stopped talking. After he had passed, Abdul said, “Please don’t take this the wrong way. I want to tell you, you are very beautiful.”
I turned my head away.
“I don’t mean any insult. I have great respect for you. I see how kind you are, how you help other people at work. Please. I am not like other men.”
I said nothing.
“Who is in your family? Other than your sister? Radha, isn’t it?”
I kept quiet. Then, like the rains during the monsoon, the angry words poured out of my mouth. “I have two brothers. Who will give me a thrashing if they find out I am talking to a Muslim man.”
He kept quiet for so long, I thought that maybe he had disappeared into the fields on either side of us. I turned my head slightly to take a look. He was still walking, with his head bowed. Then, he looked up and our eyes met. His eyes burned hot, like the earth beneath our feet. “What difference does that make?” he demanded. “We are both Hindustani, no? The same Mother India has given birth to all of us, isn’t it?”
His voice was not angry. Rather, it was sad, like the music from a flute playing alone at night. But in that one minute, my whole life changed. His words cut open a belief I had held my whole life, but when I looked inside, there was nothing there. “This is not what I think,” I said. “It is what my brothers believe.”
A man and a little boy came toward us from the opposite direction, and we stopped talking again. “Salaam, how are you?” Abdul said to them as they passed, and the father nodded. I knew we were getting nearer to the side road that led to his village, and I slowed down. When the man and child were a good distance away, Abdul said, “Look to your right. There is a little road there and it leads to the river. If you wish, we can go there for a few minutes and talk in peace. No one will see us there.”
My heart was tight with fear. What had I done, to let this man think that I was the kind of woman who would go to the river with a stranger? I prayed for the earth to swallow me whole then and there.
“Meena ji,” Abdul said, “please don’t take offense. I know your good character. I am only asking this because I wish to share what is in my heart.”
I walked faster, wanting to get away.