Mani and I arrive at the market late the next morning. His eyes are wide with wonder. I try to avoid bringing him here when I can—it’s a place too full of painful memories—but this time I had no choice. After yesterday I don’t dare leave him alone in the flat even for a few hours. Gita’s voice pops into my mind. Sometimes none of the options are good ones, Marinda. You just have to make the least bad choice. I hate that her wisdom is following me today, when I am so angry with her. It’s hard for me to reconcile the woman who told me bedtime stories and who taught me to read with the woman who helps Gopal control me. There are two versions of Gita, and my feelings about her are all tangled up.
Mani tugs on my sleeve. “Look at that!” I turn to see a small monkey on a leash juggling plums. He looks at Mani and smiles with sharp teeth. We keep walking past vendors selling pottery painted in bright colors, herbs meant to cure illness, gems to keep evil spirits away. But we don’t stop until we get to the snake charmer. He sits on a faded brown carpet playing a lively tune on his pungi. A large cobra is coiled in a basket in front of him. The top half of its body protrudes from the basket taut and alert, hood flared. The snake’s bright scales glint in the sunlight as it moves in response to the music. At least that’s how it seems. But most snake charmers are frauds. This snake isn’t mesmerized, only agitated. It lacks the outer ear to hear the music and is simply following the movement of the pungi as if it were a predator. The snake is ready to strike, but the charmer knows he’s in no danger—he has stitched his serpent’s mouth shut, except for a tiny opening just large enough for the tongue to flick in and out. The forked tongue is good for show but harmless. The real danger is in the fangs. I would know.
I guide Mani past the crowd that has gathered to watch the snake dance. I’m looking for the one snake charmer I know is not a fraud. Her tent is a short walk off the main path, and as it comes into view, my mouth goes dry. The tent is large and dull brown. Flashy colors would attract the attention of the market goers, and Kadru isn’t interested in customers.
I was four years old the first time Gopal brought me here. The toxin from the droppers had only served to make me immune. It would take something far stronger to make me poisonous. Kadru seemed kind at first. She had big eyes, elaborate hair piled on top of her head, and rings on every finger. She was gentle as she lifted me onto her lap. “Hello, Marinda,” she said. Her voice was almost a purr. “This is a special day and you are a very lucky girl.” She traced a finger along the inside of my arm, down the blue-green vein that curved toward my hand. “Hold very still,” she said, her breath hot against my ear. Her grip on me tightened, and without warning a white snake dropped from somewhere behind her and sank its fangs into my wrist. Hot pain shot through my arm and I screamed, flailed, cried. But her grip on me didn’t loosen until the snake had released me and slithered away. “Shh,” she cooed. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”
After that I wasn’t so stupid. The next time we visited, Kadru had to hold me down.
A few years later, when I understood what Gopal was trying to accomplish, I begged him to find another way. “What about poison lip balm?” I asked. I knew it existed. I had worn it as a backup in the early days, when the toxin was still weak inside me. “Couldn’t we just use that?”
He shook his head. “No, rajakumari, the most effective poisons—the deadliest ones—always come from the inside.”
And so we made ten trips a year for ten years, until I was finally lethal enough to satisfy Gopal. The night before every visit, Iyla and I would sleep in the same bed, our foreheads pressed together, our hands entwined and clasped between us, prayer-like. “You’re not afraid,” she would say, over and over. “You’re not afraid.”
But I always was.
The snakes got bigger with each visit, and then they multiplied—two snakes at a time and then three. The last time, four huge white snakes feasted on my wrists and ankles while I screamed until I blacked out.
It’s been years since I’ve been here, but the visceral reaction in my gut is so familiar that it feels like yesterday. I’m not sure I can do this. But Deven won’t survive if I don’t.
I kneel in front of Mani. “I want you to go sit underneath that tree,” I tell him. “Don’t move until I come back for you.”
Mani folds his arms across his chest. “I want to come with you.”
“No, you really don’t,” I tell him. My voice comes out with a tremble and Mani’s eyes go wide. He doesn’t argue.
“Will you be very long?”
“I don’t think so, monkey.” I ruffle his hair and try to pretend a calm that I don’t feel. Mani plops underneath the tree with a book and an apple. I’ve been trying to add more fruit to his diet—I’ve plied him with grapes, mangoes and pears—but it hasn’t given him as much energy as the day Deven gave him the maraka fruit. Gita always says that just because two things happen at the same time doesn’t mean that they’re connected. It was probably just a coincidence that he felt better, and it had nothing to do with eating fruit. But where Mani is concerned, I specialize in false hope.