And I didn’t have to find out, because as much as I hated pretending to cry, I could do it. I could pinch the palm of my hand, hard, and think about how I didn’t have parents or any siblings, how I was all alone, except for Gopal and Gita, who only sometimes seemed to like me. It worked every time.
The man Gopal pointed out had salt-and-pepper hair, like a grandfather, and a kind face. When I let go of my balloon, I already had my tears ready, but he had fast reflexes. He jumped up and snatched my balloon right out of the air and handed it back to me. Only a few tears had escaped. I gave him a wobbly smile and threw my arms around his neck. I kissed the corner of his mouth. “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it, because now I got to keep my balloon with very little pretending.
He chuckled and said it was no problem and that I was such an affectionate child. I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded nice and it made me feel good.
Years later, when Gopal told me what I really was, when he explained to me (with a fair amount of glee) that my kisses killed, it was that man who popped into my mind and then haunted my nightmares for months.
“I don’t want to be a killer,” I told Gopal.
He laughed and laughed. “You already are, rajakumari. You already are.”
Gita shakes me awake the next morning before dawn. She presses a finger to her lips, but I don’t need to be told not to wake Mani. My nerves are already coming unraveled and I know I can’t handle a tearful goodbye.
I dress in the dark, fumbling with buttons and with shoes. With jewelry and perfume and thick bracelets to conceal my scars. I wear my hair down.
When it’s time to go, Gita steps outside with me.
“Take care of him,” I tell her, and even to my own ears my voice sounds hollow. Every part of me wants to run. If not for Mani, I think I would.
Gita nods. “He was so much better last night,” she says. “He was full of energy.”
For a half second I consider telling her that he had some fruit yesterday and that I suspect that’s what made him feel better. But then I swallow the temptation. I don’t need her help caring for Mani and I don’t want to open up to her about anything right now. “Tell him I love him,” I say. “Tell him I’ll be back soon.”
“I will,” Gita says. And then after a pause, “I’m sorry, Marinda.” She doesn’t say for what. She doesn’t have to. Seventeen years stretch between us, and sorry seems too feeble a word. I leave without replying.
Pale pink dawn creeps over the horizon as I walk toward Gali Street. The world is still asleep, and the slap of my sandals on the cobblestones sounds harsh against the backdrop of so much silence. I can hear myself breathing. Do I always breathe this conspicuously? It should be a comforting thing to hear your own breath, to have proof that you’re alive, but right now it’s disconcerting. I try to hold my breath, but then I can hear my pulse rushing in my ears, and that’s even worse.
The bookshop won’t be open yet, so I turn down a dirt path and make my way to a small wooded area in a park nearby. There’s a flat-topped rock in a copse of trees that serves as a nice bench. I sit on the rock under the canopy of a devil tree and put my head in my hands. There’s no escape.
I tried to run once when I was ten years old. I didn’t have much of a plan—just a bag filled with food and clothes and a guilt compelling enough to chase away my fear. I was living at the girls’ home then, though I wasn’t allowed anywhere near the other girls. My bedroom was the last room in a hallway full of empty rooms. There would be no one to hear the window creak open, no one to hear me drop to the ground below. I had one leg halfway into the night when the door flew wide. There was Gopal with a baby in his arms. The sight was so unexpected that I froze, hand splayed against the glass, bag slung over my arm, mouth agape.
“Are you going somewhere?” Gopal said. I didn’t answer him. I was too busy staring at the bundle wrapped tightly in the same tangerine-colored blanket Gita had described to me so many times. The baby must be a new visha kanya. Curly black hair sprouted from the top of her head. She had tiny rosebud lips and long lashes that brushed the tops of her cheeks.
“Who is she?” I asked.
Gopal laughed. “Not she, he. He is your brother, Marinda.”
My heart flip-flopped, and I climbed back into the room, set down my bag, closed the window.
“I have a brother?”
It didn’t occur to me then, as it would later, that Gopal could be lying, that Mani could be any baby—not really my brother, but a trick to keep me from leaving. But by the time this thought crossed my mind several months down the road, it was too late. Whether or not we shared the same set of horrible parents didn’t matter. He had become my brother and I wasn’t ever going to leave him.