Geeta snorted. “The only thing your mother is allergic to is brains.”
The boy craned to peek inside her home. “D’ya have any snacks?”
Appalling. Would that she had helped raise this heathen in short pants. “No, I do not have any snacks, you rude boy. You have your mother’s manners. Go home.” She slammed the door.
He knocked again. “Please come, Aunty. She’ll be angry if I don’t come back with you.”
Geeta paused in shutting the door again. “Will she hit you?”
The boy looked at her strangely. “No.”
“Pity.”
“She said if you refused, I should tell you…” As he strained to remember, his eyes and lips bunched toward his nose, as though trying to overcome a prolonged constipation. The boy’s body relaxed in defeat. “I dunno. Something about Farah-aunty and samosas and—”
“Let’s go.”
They shared about three peaceful steps before the boy started again, his voice helium high with hope: “Does Farah-aunty have samosas? I love samosas.”
Geeta muttered, “Well, I’d stay away from hers.”
“Why?” But he paused for neither an answer nor air. “My mother never keeps snacks around the house. She’s always on some diet or the other. My father says it’s why she’s so cranky. Hey! Like you. Are you dieting, too?”
“No.”
“Then what’s your excuse?”
“Let’s play a game.”
“Okay!” He stopped near the Amin home. “Ram Ram!” he greeted Mrs. Amin. Outside their shanty lay a bedsheet of desiccated chilis, the skins bright but shriveled. Mrs. Amin nodded, then squatted to sift the peppers. “It’s not the quiet game, is it? Adults always wanna play the quiet game with me.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“I love all kinds of snacks, but sweets are my favorite.”
“How unusual.”
He gave her a peculiar sideways look. “Not really. You must not know many children.”
“I do not.”
“That’s okay,” he said graciously.
The town’s bustle held a different timbre today on account of the festival. Many women were fasting and therefore exempt from the usual chores, so younger, unmarried girls were outside. Geeta and her ward turned onto a lane and a girl passed them, two steel pots balanced on her head, cushioned by a sequined round pad. Behind her, two teenagers carried the opposite ends of a thick stick, buckets of water hanging from the log.
Men decorated houses for the night’s festivities, some on bamboo ladders to reach second-story balconies. Marigold garlands and gold tinsel framed doorways and windows. Nearly every house had an auspicious Hindu swastika painted with four red dots. Vegetable carts rolled alongside snack vendors, calling out wares.
“Ooh! Ooh! Let’s get pakoras!” Saloni’s son looked at her plain clothes. “You’re not fasting today, right? ’Cause you don’t got no husband—or you did, but then you went all crazy and fed him to the—”
“Dogs?”
His brow furrowed. “I heard it was leopards. You fed him to your dog? The one at your house?”
Geeta sighed.
“Hey, how’d you become a churel? I think it’d be cool to turn people into cockroaches, or cover them in boils or make them eat worms.”
“That would be pretty cool.”
“What’d he do to get you so mad, anyway?”
“Asked too many annoying questions.”
His nod was sympathetic. “I totally get it; I have a sister. So you’re not fasting?”
“No.”
“Great! Mummy won’t let us bring pakoras inside, but we’ll just eat quickly.”
“Do you have money?”
His brow creased. “Well, not exactly.”
“Then?”
“Couldn’t you give me money?”
She was getting pretty sick of people asking her that.
“Well on your way to becoming a man, I see.”
He shuffled his weight. “So…pakoras?”
Geeta thought for a moment. “I’ll buy the pakoras if you give my dog a bath.”
“Deal.”
They shook hands and Geeta purchased the fritters. The boy did not wait and ho-ha’d around the hot food. Steam floated across his face.
“You have your mother’s appetite, eh?”
“Yeah,” he said, his mouth chockablock full, gracing Geeta with an unobstructed view of a half-masticated pakora. “But I’m never gonna get fat like her.”
“Things change. You don’t remember, but before your sister was born, your mother used to be thin.” At his slack jaw, she said, “It’s true. Back in school, if she turned sideways, she disappeared.”
“You knew my mother? When she was a kid?”
“Of course. We were born and raised here. Like you.”
“Wait,” he said, his steps halting. “So you were a kid once? Were you a churel then, too? A mini churel?”
“Yes and no and no.”
“What was Mummy like back then?”
“Bossy.”
He rolled his eyes. “So the same then. Hey, how come you’ve never been to our house?”
“I have. I come for the loan meetings every week.”
“I mean to visit Mummy.”
“We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“Maybe you would if you visited.”
They approached his home, where Saloni was hosting a henna circle. Women chatted, waiting their turn with the two artists Saloni had hired. Preity was on the swing, an artist painting her hand, which rested on a throw pillow. She waved her free arm at Geeta and greeted, “Ram Ram!”， which Geeta found strange since they weren’t friends. Farah was not present; it would have been inauspicious to have a widow casting a pall over women fasting to ward off that very misfortune.
But no one seemed to find it odd that Geeta was joining the festivities for the first time. Even though she’d been expressly summoned, part of her had expected to be banished; similar to Mrs. Amin, who’d been widowed by the time her daughter wed and was banned by the other guests （Inauspicious, na? Why invite the evil eye?）。 The woman ran a business, she alone fed her kids and paid for her daughter’s dowry and the wedding to which she’d been denied entry. It was, Geeta felt, just another example of women living within the spaces that others defined. She was reminded of Farah’s words: They don’t get to make all the choices. We get to make some, too.
It was stirring, but it just wasn’t true.
“Go get your mummy.” The boy moved to obey, but Geeta stopped him. “What’s your name?”
“Arhaan.”
“Arhaan, you have some crumbs. Right here.” She pointed to her lower lip.
His tongue darted. “Thanks, Geeta-aunty.”
Perhaps the heathen wasn’t totally beyond redemption.
Saloni appeared in the double doorway. Now sun-soaked and teeming with chattering women, it was hard to believe this was the same porch upon which they’d bickered hours prior. It was made even harder by the fact that Saloni seemed chuffed to see Geeta.
“Finally!” she crowed, grabbing Geeta’s upper arm and leading her inside. Excitement transformed her face and Geeta saw that her former friend was still lovely. “I’ve been thinking about last night.”