“But—they’re on their way. Gopi is out buying pakoras.”
She smiled again. “A few mornings ago, I was on my way to your house. I was crossing Old Tenali Road, you know, where all the lorries pass on their way to the highway. As I was crossing by the paan shop, I heard a thump. More like a quick thud. I didn’t think much of it. But I did turn around to look, and when I did, I saw an owl on the road. It had obviously been hit. One of its wings looked wrong, just wrong. Do you know what I mean? It looked dead. Or sleeping. But no, it was awake, Poori. Awake. More awake than anything I’ve ever seen. It was not making a sound. No calling, no whimpering. Do birds whimper? Anyway, none of that. It was just sitting there, fallen there, in the middle of the road. With all the bicycles and people and lorries whisking by it. One lorry even went right over it. But the owl just sat there. Its eye—the one facing me—like a marble. A perfect black-and-gold marble. Reflecting everything. I was now close, you see, bending over it, wondering what I could do to help it. But what could I do? Its shattered wing was awful. Like a lonesome day. Like hunger. But as I looked at it, I realized it was saying something to me. It was trying to tell me something. I swear. And you know what it was? What it was trying to say?”
Poornima said nothing.
“Owl things. Things I couldn’t possibly understand. They were dying words, the words of the dying, but spoken in an another language. A silent one. But it was also saying something else, something to me. It was saying, The man from Repalle doesn’t matter. You’ll be together. (He was talking about you and me, of course.) That’s the way it is: If two people want to be together, they’ll find a way. They’ll forge a way. It may seem ludicrous, even stupid, to work so hard at something that is, truly, a matter of chance, completely arbitrary, such as staying with someone—as if ‘with’ and ‘apart’ have meaning in and of themselves—but, the owl said (and by now, Savitha added, the owl was sighing, maybe wheezing, nearing death), But that’s the thing with you humans. You think too much, don’t you?”
“Wait,” Poornima said. “The owl said all this to you?”
“Yes.”
“So, it knows me? It knows you? It knows the man from Repalle?”
“Knew. It’s probably dead by now.”
“Okay. Knew.”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
Savitha returned her gaze, unblinking, and said, “Yes.”
*
The marriage viewing took place that evening. They arrived a little after six o’clock. There was the groom, who was apprenticed in the sari shop, along with his mother, father, Ramayya, and an uncle and aunt. Though the uncle and aunt could have been an older cousin and his wife. It was hard to tell, and Poornima never found out for sure. She was in the weaving hut, where the looms were located, when they arrived. Her father’s sister was helping her with her sari—cream-colored cotton with a green border, which had belonged to her mother—and tying a garland of jasmine to her hair. Poornima had oiled it that morning, the coconut still scenting her fingertips, and the kumkum leaving a thin film of powder on them as if she’d caught a red butterfly. Her aunt yanked at her hair as she braided it, pulling the strands with such force that Poornima squealed in pain.
“Shush,” her aunt scolded. “One boy already fallen through. The shame. How do you think it looks for a girl? Huh? Thank the Lord Vishnu he never laid eyes on you. That would’ve been the end. Your poor father. First he loses a wife, five kids on his own, and now this. Working his fingers to the bone. But this one will work out. You’ll see.” She lathered Poornima’s face with a thick coating of talcum powder. She reapplied the kumkum and kajal. And then she took the gold bangles off her own wrists and squeezed them onto Poornima’s. “There,” her aunt said, taking a step or two back. “Now, keep your eyes down, and only speak when spoken to. Don’t get frisky. Just answer their questions. And try to sing. If they ask you, sing something. A devotional ballad is good. Simple, so you don’t mess it up.”
Poornima nodded.
Her aunt then led her out of the weaving hut, around the back of the main hut, and into the front, where they were all seated. She nudged Poornima onto the straw mat, on which were also seated the groom’s mother and aunt or cousin. The groom’s father was seated in the chair, while all the other men were seated on the edge of the hemp-rope bed. Pleasantries were exchanged with Poornima’s aunt, whom the aunt or cousin seemed to be acquainted with. Then the groom’s mother reached over and touched the gold bangles. “Not very thick,” she said.
“Yes, well,” Ramayya said lightheartedly, “all that can be discussed later.”
The woman smiled, let go of the bangles reluctantly, and said, “What’s your name, dear?”
Poornima lifted her gaze to the woman she assumed would be her future mother-in-law. She was fat, well-fed, her stomach above the waistline of her sari rested as round and moist as a clay pot. Her nails and teeth were yellow. “Poornima,” she replied. She liked that she’d called her dear. But she disliked the timbre in her voice, was suspicious of it; it’d gone too easily between the thickness of the gold bangles and her name, as if they were one and the same, as if they were part of the same inquiry, the same pursuit.
“Ask her, Ravi,” the groom’s aunt or cousin said. “Ask her something.”
The groom was sitting on the edge of the bed; Poornima saw only his shoes (brown sandals) and the cuff of his pants (gray, with pinstripes). His ankles—the only part of his body that was in her view—were dark, the hair on them wiry and thick. “Can you sing?” he said.
She cleared her throat. A devotional song, she told herself. Think of a devotional song. But then her mind drew a blank. Not a blank, not exactly. What she thought of was the owl. The dying owl that had spoken to Savitha. What had it said? Something about finding a way, forging it. What would she do in Repalle, alone, without Savitha? That question seemed greater than any other question she’d ever been asked. Greater than all other questions put together. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t sing.”
Her aunt gasped. “Of course you can,” she said, laughing nervously. “Remember that one. That one we sing at the temple. About Rama and Sita and—”
“I remember it. I remember it perfectly. I just can’t sing it. Like I said, I can’t sing.”
Ramayya rose a little, his eyes wide. “Shy. That’s all. Such a shy girl.”
The groom cleared his throat. The aunt or the cousin said, “Well, that’s all right. Singing’s not all that important. She can cook, right? How many canisters can you spin on the charkha per day?”
“Four, five.”
“Now, see,” the woman said, “that’s not bad.”
“Swapna can spin eight,” the groom’s mother said. “And that’s with the baby.”
The conversation went on like that. They finished their tea, all the pakoras, and most of the jilebi, leaving only bits of sugar syrup on the plate. They talked about the lack of rain, and about how the trains from Repalle were always late, they talked about the price of peanuts and mangoes and rice, and then they talked about the new government, and how prices had been cheaper, and the quality of the produce better, when the Congress party had been in power. Her aunt then led Poornima out of the room. She was scolded, as she knew she would be. “You fool,” her aunt said. “Who’ll marry someone like you? Who’ll marry someone so wicked? Thank the Lord Vishnu your mother wasn’t here. It would’ve killed her. A daughter so terrible. Don’t you see? It has nothing to do with whether you can sing, you fool. They just want to make certain that you will listen. That you’ll be obedient. And now they know. They know you’re wicked.”
When Poornima told Savitha the next day, she laughed. “That’s it! That’s how we do it.” Then she pushed a strand of hair that had fallen across Poornima’s face and said, “That’s it. We’re safe.”