Perhaps it was this that made Shakuntala detach from the crowd and finally make her way through. She had a dish of mattar paneer in her hands; although the paneer had come out a bit tougher than she had hoped, she felt confident that the tang of the curry, mixed so gently with goat milk and cashews, would be enough to impress this strange pair. As Shakuntala took her first few steps, her father lunged forward, then caught himself with a hiccup of fear. Shakuntala knew he was struggling between keeping her safe and saving himself, and it came as no surprise to her that his own safety was the bigger consideration. After all, she was an aging, unmarried woman whom all the town’s men had dismissed. This was as good a situation as any in which she could find herself.
She walked up and presented her offering to Mr. M. H. Singh, closing her eyes, bowing her head, and holding the dish up as if it were a sword being presented to a knight. She heard Mr. M. H. Singh and his maid chuckle—their laughs could have been encased in glass—and then her chin went cold. It took her a moment to realize that her host was lifting it up with his hand. Shakuntala froze in fear. She looked into Mr. M. H. Singh’s eyes, and she could have sworn that their irises were made of silver.
“Thank you for your bravery,” Mr. M. H. Singh said, and—dare she think it?—Shakuntala thought that there was a tone of love in his voice. “Will you join me for a dance?”
Soon, she was being led to the middle of a giant room with tall curtains stretching from the bright floor to the ceiling. From somewhere came a strange, plunking sound like the extended chirping of crickets, an attempt at music. Mr. M. H. Singh moved her body across the floor, one arm raised in hers, the other around her back, the way that English people danced. She had no time to think of being scandalized—this strange man’s arm on her back, her body so close to his, the folds of her sari dangerously close to coming undone entirely. And soon enough, she looked around to see all of the villagers dancing in a similar manner. Her own parents moved with a grace that she could never have expected. Her mother looked serene, lovely, and her father, always so stern, had a smile on his face, rapture in his eyes.
Then they were all eating off copper plates, their various dishes piled high, the food hungrily shoved into their mouths as their host and his silent maid stood in the middle of the floor, watching them intently. Shakuntala felt at once invincible and ravenous for the food. Anytime that she made eye contact with Mr. M. H. Singh, she felt an odd flutter deep in her body, a feeling she thought at first to be a stomachache. But then she realized that it was coming from below her stomach, and she shivered.
There was more dancing, and even though so many of the people in attendance were old—in their fifties, sixties, even seventies—they never tired. Mr. Seth was more energetic than he had ever been. He detached himself from the group and danced by himself, a blend of kathak and an Irish jig. At one point, he climbed halfway up one of the curtains; a gaggle of women surrounded him and ordered him down, laughing all the same. Shakuntala looked at her host, thinking that he would find this amusing. After all, he had assembled them all and given rise to this madness. However, he gazed at Mr. Seth with a look of hardness, even disgust. Shakuntala, in spite of herself, found this alluring.
Shakuntala noticed that neither Mr. M. H. Singh nor Radha Mehta had partaken of the feast. Shakuntala peered over the rim of her glass at her host, her mouth half-sipping more wine, the other half grinning stupidly. She had never had wine before, had never thought she would enjoy it, but its oily sweetness appealed to her and made her feel warm and comfortable. She closed her eyes and felt in this moment that she had finally reached adulthood. Here, of all places, where the aunties and uncles with whom she’d grown up were darting about like little children. Here, where, for the first time in her almost thirty years on earth, her mother and father kissed in her presence.
“Have you ever been in love?”
It was her host. He was terrifying. Yes, his eyes really were silver, and his smile, like his laugh, seemed encased in glass. Shakuntala had never been so frightened, but she laughed. The whole situation was so peculiar.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Please pardon me, Singh Saheb, but do you not find this situation rather odd?”
His face looked the same as when Mr. Seth had climbed the curtain. “Odd? I do not find that word pleasing.”
She wanted to apologize but kept laughing. “Oh, Singh Saheb, surely you must know how odd this all is to us. This is a small town. We do not do such things.” She pointed to a corner where two women and two men were drinking bhang, increasingly intoxicated on the elixir.
“But clearly you do do such things, if you are doing them now. Just because you have not yet done them does not mean you do not do them. You have not had the chance to do them before. And yet—” And he gestured in the same manner to the same foursome of bhang drinkers.
Mr. M. H. Singh had a point—we could not know what we were capable of doing unless the opportunity to do such things was presented to us. So here she was, in an old, wooden mansion in which her family and friends became something other than themselves and where she, Shakuntala, could be something besides an unwanted daughter and sister. As much as this man scared her, she now saw in him salvation.
She continued to see salvation in him even as his true nature revealed itself, even when he kissed her behind one of those curtains, his mouth tasting of chilled water. Even when, the next day, Mr. Seth was said to be missing; and even when she attended another potluck dinner at Mr. M. H. Singh’s a week later and saw the faux-ruby of Mr. Seth’s ring gleaming from her companion’s pale pinky finger.
*
Ranjana looked up and saw that the room was silent, markedly different from when Stefanie had read. They looked confused, almost offended, but also gleeful. Ranjana, conditioned to look at Cassie for approval whenever anyone read, saw that she was perched on the edge of her seat, leaning far forward, squinting at the floor, as if trying to figure out an unusually difficult piece of trivia. Roberta had crossed her arms and was frowning, but this was something she did when a piece of writing moved her; it indicated that it was something beyond her own efforts or interests as a writer. Stefanie, oddly enough, appeared relaxed. She must have still been thinking of how her pages had been “well received.”
“That was your best writing yet,” Cassie said, still looking at the floor.
“Yes. It certainly was … intriguing,” Roberta said.
“The Force is with you,” Colin said.
Stefanie made a short humming noise.
“What’s it part of?” Roberta asked.
Ranjana didn’t know what to say. “I don’t even know, really. I haven’t quite figured out if it really is part of a novel or if it’s just a story.”
Their looks of approval shaded into looks of consternation. They were not in the habit of writing as an exercise and an exercise alone. Cassie, however, nodded her head.
Ranjana backed up and bent down, groping for her seat with one hand behind her. Once she found it, she felt some stress slip out of her body. She hadn’t realized how tense her body had become.