Unbidden, Geeta tried to imagine him drunk—giggly or slurring or violent or amorous. The last of the list startled her and she turned, squinting into the sun because she couldn’t look at him as he picked a stray cane filament from his tongue. And it was the sun, obviously, that heated her cheeks. Hers wasn’t the kind of skin that blushed, unlike Saloni’s, and it was perhaps the only time in the annals of Indian history that a woman felt gratitude for a dusky complexion.
When they arrived in Kohra, Geeta turned to Karem, intending to pick a meeting point in a few hours. But he had other ideas.
“Let’s go.”
“What? No. I have my own errands.”
“This’ll be quick. We’ll do your errands right after.”
“It’ll save time if I just go alone.”
“What time needs saving? That guy’s not coming back for us until five-thirty.”
When she opened her mouth to protest, he sighed. “Geetaben, if you want to be alone, that’s fine. But first let me show you something. Then you can do whatever you’d like.” He pinched the skin of his throat. “Promise.”
She capitulated with a sigh. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”
They walked toward residences rather than the bazaar nearby, which unsettled Geeta, and stopped before a large two-story home with an intricate parapet delineating the terrace. Children played near a low gate that blocked a short, flower-lined pathway to bright blue double doors. She heard dogs barking but saw none.
As they opened the gate latch, a man in his midforties came outside to greet Karem with widespread arms. A swing with rusted hinges but polished chains sat on the porch, flanked by large plants. “Karembhai!” The two embraced while Geeta lingered behind. Over Karem’s shoulder, she saw the pale, blank island of the man’s crown. They were about the same height, but the older man bore a stomach that was testing the limits of his polo shirt.
“Geetaben, this is Bada-Bhai.”
Bada-Bhai pressed his palms together in a namaste, which Geeta returned. “Your elder sister?”
“No, just a friend,” Karem said, while Geeta felt every one of her wrinkles and grey hairs. “She’s come to Kohra for business only.”
“Does she also have a first-class secret tharra recipe?” Bada-Bhai joked, leading them inside. As they shed their shoes, she noticed the lemon and green chilies strung near the doorway. Ramesh had had her keep a similar decoration under their bed to ward off the buri nazar—evil eye. As though he weren’t its very incarnate. “If it’s as good as yours, Karembhai, I may have to switch suppliers.”
“No, no.” Karem laughed as Bada-Bhai shepherded them into a sitting room with three sofas and a television. A woman in long sleeves and house slippers approached with a tray of water glasses. After Geeta drained hers and returned it to the tray, she noticed the tribal tattoos of the Rabari decorating the woman’s hands. Geeta tried to establish eye contact so she could mention that her village housed Rabari herders every winter—was the woman from Rajasthan or Kutch? But her gaze was fixed on the floor, and Geeta realized with growing unease that something was amiss. It was peculiar that any member, let alone a woman, of a nomadic tribe would have a city job as a helper.
Karem took a glass of water. “Geetaben makes jewelry.”
“Oh, like Sarita-bhabhi.”
Geeta’s scalp itched at the slight, piled atop the recent one about her age. To say her jewelry was like Sarita’s was a conflation of art and carpentry. But Karem’s poor wife was dead, this duffer a stranger, and it was a pedantic waste of breath and ego to correct him.
Karem shook his head. “High-end jewelry, I mean, not a hobby. She has her own business: Geeta’s Designs. I wanted to show her your shop. Depending on how the microloans fare, she’s looking to expand Geeta’s Designs beyond the village.”
Which was news to Geeta’s Designs.
“Shabash! If Kohra’s not careful, your little town will soon exceed ours.”
It was a compliment, surely, albeit a condescending one, but hard reservation lined its edges, and Geeta felt as though they’d been warned rather than flattered. Bada-Bhai clapped his hands.
“Karem has the best tharra I’ve ever tasted. I’m not sure what he does with those sugarcanes, but his could be actual rum.”
“Oh,” Karem said, dismissing the praise with a wave. “Hardly. Bada-Bhai here took a chance on me a few years back, after Sarita expired. I didn’t have any contacts or seed money. But he said there was a market for my tharra recipe and the next thing you know, we’re a hit!”
Bada-Bhai clapped Karem’s back. “He makes it sound like I sold gobar to a cowherd—try not selling moonshine in this state! It’s impossible. Speaking of, do you have something for me?”
Karem nodded. “Ji.” He offered his jute bag to Bada-Bhai, who peered at the contents before summoning a man Geeta hadn’t noticed waiting in the corner. The man took Karem’s bag and gave Bada-Bhai an envelope before leaving the room.
“Can’t forget this,” Bada-Bhai said, fishing in his pocket for a one-rupee coin, which he slid into the envelope. “For luck.”
It was considered auspicious to add one rupee to any gifted amount, though Geeta never attributed the practice to business, just birthdays and weddings.
“Count it.”
Karem pocketed it instead. “I trust you.”
“Where there is business, there is always room for doubt.”
Karem smiled. “But where there is friendship, there is none.”
Geeta, still curious about the Rabari woman, asked to use the toilet. She was pointed in a direction near the open mouth of the kitchen, where she overheard snatches of an argument.
“—entirely inappropriate, Lakha, entirely, for a servant’s son to eat the—”
“But he’s not the son of a servant, is he?”
As Geeta hurried past, she saw a well-dressed woman her own age slap the Rabari woman.
Burning with vicarious indignation for Lakha, Geeta grew distracted and found herself outside. A chain-link fence cordoned a dirt patch of nothing. It was as ugly as the front yard was lovely. There was no outhouse, so Geeta turned to walk back inside. She’d forgotten herself; in larger places like Kohra, indoor plumbing was ubiquitous. Dogs barked, the cacophony so proximate that Geeta startled.
She hadn’t noticed the four dogs chained to the fence. Their leashes were short enough to ensure their paws didn’t comfortably rest on the dirt. Rather than tied under the tree in the far corner, they were clustered in the sun and Geeta didn’t see any water vessel in the barren yard. She was about to go inside and remind Bada-Bhai that it was meant to rocket up to forty-one degrees that afternoon when she noticed the smallest dog curving and straightening his spine in a strange dance that resembled yoga’s marjariasana and bitilasana poses. She thought perhaps he was just stretching, but then his jaw opened to release gagging noises that sounded more human than canine. He was going to vomit, she realized a moment before liquid spewed into the dirt. His compatriots attempted to avoid the waste, but they were tied to the same link on the fence, and it was impossible.