“Well, look at you. Who’d have thought you’d be such a handsome devil?”
She changed and hung the wash on her clothesline. When there was still no Farah wailing over some fresh misstep, Geeta grew anxious. Either Farah had changed her mind about the entire plan, or she’d actually managed it. Each theory lent a bit of relief and a bit of terror. Unless, Geeta thought with a start, Samir had caught Farah mid-attempt and punished her.
Bandit succumbed to a happy nap in a sun-warmed corner, nose buried in his clean paws, his luxurious tail alongside him. She couldn’t concentrate at her desk, so Geeta decided to investigate under the guise of fetching more water; all important matters were discussed over the pump. Saloni had a private hand pump in her courtyard, but even she habitually drew from the communal well, lest she miss any valuable scuttlebutt.
As insurance, Geeta took a circuitous route that passed Farah’s house. A bucket in each hand, Geeta saw the mourners from meters away. A few were already in white, some cried, others comforted, some shared urgent whispers. As she approached, she did not see Farah but she did see her children, huddled in a nucleus of grief. Farah’s eldest daughter carried her baby brother, her nonexistent hip jutting to create a shelf for his small body. Her two younger sisters were crying, but she remained dry-eyed, her face a blank slate, and this was how Geeta recognized her from the playground. She wore the same vacant expression now as she had when she’d shoved Karem’s son.
After Geeta absorbed the tableau, their island of the recently fatherless, she hurried away. The empty buckets jangled against her calves, and she dropped them. She barely made it to a neem tree in time, vomiting over its dry roots, one palm against the trunk. Hinged at the waist, she stared at her sick, her breathing ragged. Vinegar and bile coated her mouth.
By the time she straightened, she’d accepted two salient truths: they were murderers, and if she herself felt this shocked, Farah must be demented. There was no way Geeta could join those mourners, feign horror at the news, face the children she’d robbed of a father.
Geeta collected her buckets with clumsy hands and stumbled home, inner ears and throat burning.
Bandit immediately sensed her distress and licked her face in comfort. She allowed it for a moment, but then pressed him away to pace, trying in vain to properly breathe—“Kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi”—until she felt dizzy when pivoting within the confines of her cell. She should get accustomed to it, she thought with climbing hysteria, this was her future. She’d been so preoccupied with finding a way for Farah to remove her nose ring that Geeta hadn’t realized how much of her own future she’d put in Farah’s inept hands. Farah was neither thorough nor cautious; she’d probably left a hundred clues that pointed back to them.
The day dragged, consuming Geeta in a maw of anxiety. Her condition was contagious; Bandit roamed underfoot, needy and dissatisfied. She flicked on the radio, tried to listen to the hyena segment of the Gyan Vani program but was too distracted. There was only one person in the world Geeta wished to see, only one who could understand her plight. The irony did not escape her; the woman she’d shooed like a pesky mosquito, she now craved like a cold drink.
Farah came that evening, bearing her usual gourd. She wore a white salwar-kameez and no jewelry. A white scarf covered her crown, but her dark hair was visible through the diaphanous cloth. She was smiling. Once inside, she pushed the scarf down to her shoulders and twirled. “Grieving widow is a good look for me, don’t ya think?” She shimmied in a dance, singing an impromptu song: “I got no nose ring, I got no nose ring.” Her spirits were high enough to tolerate Bandit. She bent to scratch his neck. “Hello, doggy woggy.” Bandit did not growl, but neither did he fall into her touch with his typical shameless solicitation. “Hey, it can see!”
When Farah registered Geeta’s stricken face, her blithe manner changed. “What is it? Is your stomach paining? Sit down, Geetaben.” She took Geeta’s hand and led her to her own bed.
“We’re screwed,” Geeta said. “We’re really screwed.” She let her hands catch her head, one heel pressed against each temple. With everyone else thinking of her as a murderess for so long, she, too, had forgotten that she wasn’t. There was no way they’d get away with this; two village women were no match for actual authorities with resources.
Farah kneeled, and her cold fingers tugged Geeta’s wrists, prying them away from her face. Geeta resisted, but Farah won. She seized Geeta’s gaze and held fast. The cuts on her cheekbone and lip still bore seams of dried blood, but her eye was now chartreuse. Farah was on the mend. “No, we’re not. Everything went perfectly. It’s over.”
Farah stood, her mourning clothes whispering. She paced, much like Geeta had most of this horrid day, but Farah’s mind had flown to more prosaic matters. “They took the body today.”
“Who?”
She waved a hand. “Some Dom. It just looks like alcohol poisoning since Samir puked before he died, but I’m going to cremate him as soon as possible, just in case.”
Geeta blinked. It had not occurred to her before, but now she said, “But you’re Muslim.”
Farah shrugged. “So what? You think that drunk was a strict Muslim? Trust me, if he doesn’t get into Jannah, it won’t be on that technicality. Besides, he deserves to burn.”
Geeta herself wasn’t a religious enthusiast. She made temple rounds on the big-ticket holidays and festivals, but there was no puja corner in her home and, more important, no guests to judge her for not having said corner. Her mother, however, had believed. Or maybe it was only habit that led her to light ghee-soaked cotton every day and recite god’s myriad of names on her japamala, one name for each bead.
But now, worry pricked Geeta. Not at aggravating whatever higher power waited to smite her, but fear of overstepping. For thinking she was more than she was. Not only had they played God, now they were tampering with last rites? The latter somehow seemed worse than the former, which was, with some light moral gymnastics, justifiable given Samir’s threats, vices and abuse.
“But what will people think—”
“We can’t risk the body being dug up if people get suspicious later.” Farah picked lint from her top. “You see it all the time on that C.I.D. show, where they realize the spouse is up to some dhokhebaazi and they’re all, ‘Oh no, the evidence is gone!’ But there’s a twist! The victim’s Muslim so they’re able to catch the spouse after all by digging it up—”
“Exhuming,” Geeta offered on autopilot.
“Yeah, that. Whatever. And anyway, he’s got no family left and there’re, what, like, three Muslims in this village? I doubt Karem is gonna holler at me for messing up Samir’s burial— Oh!” She snapped her fingers. “I can always say there was a paperwork mix-up, or that the Dom messed up. See, this is the easy part, Geetaben. You did the hard part already.”
“We shouldn’t have done it.”
Geeta noticed grey hairs near Farah’s temple and realized that she may not have been as young as Geeta’d assumed.
“We had to.” Farah’s brows drew together. “Listen, it’s done now. ‘What’s the use of crying when birds ate the whole farm?’？”