As a child, Geeta had heard classmates saying the Rabari tattooed their women to make them unappealing and therefore safe from other, preying tribes and castes. When she’d asked her mother for verification, her mother had said the Rabari had no permanent home to store possessions; everything they valued or needed, they carried as they traveled. Tattoos were weightless jewelry that could never be left behind or stolen or misplaced. Geeta still did not know if either, both or neither of the explanations were true, but now the idea of certain jewelry—like a wedding necklace—being indelible disturbed her.
When Geeta greeted, “Ram Ram,” the woman nodded. Geeta requested milk and the woman asked which kind. “Goat? Camel?” Ramesh had not specified and Geeta did not care.
“Whichever,” she said.
Each corner of the woman’s eyes housed a tiny chevron tattoo. They wrinkled as the woman smiled, and Geeta got the feeling that she was being lightly mocked. And why shouldn’t she be? She was an idiot who’d learned little in the five years she’d spent scrabbling a life together. Even before Ramesh had left, her existence was a travesty: latched to a man who not only gobbled her birthright and beat her （the side effects of most marriages）， but who’d dressed his theft as love, worn the skin of a somewhat principled man. For so long she had categorized Ramesh’s love as ragged and defective, too late she realized it was no kind of love at all.
As the woman poured milk into a steel container, Geeta watched her strong, decorated hands work. The words flew from Geeta’s mouth like trapped birds: “Do you know a Lakha, by chance? She’s about our age, lives with her son in Kohra.”
The woman did not stop pouring, though her brows lifted. “Family name?”
“Er—” Geeta hazarded a guess. “Rabari?”
Taking no umbrage, the woman nodded. “Not sure, but I’ll ask around.”
After thanking her, Geeta left with a promise to return the vessel shortly.
To say Geeta was moving through these five days of Diwali on autopilot would not be strictly true. For the past week, bouts of rage toward Ramesh or regret over her parents’ sacrifices seized her at inopportune times. While Ramesh couldn’t see her hostility, he could certainly hear it in her voice. His puzzled response was to be unctuously kind, which only exacerbated Geeta’s fury. Then she’d check herself with a reminder that she was meant to feign ignorance, lest Ramesh get suspicious about their plan （what the plan was exactly, Geeta did not know; that was within Saloni’s purview）。 So she’d overcorrect, dousing Ramesh in abrupt sugar-kindness as he reeled from her labile mood. The result was that they were risibly generous with each other, dividing chores （No no, let me, I insist.） and sharing food （No no, you, please, I couldn’t possibly.） with a solicitousness that bordered on maniacal. Desperate for a reprieve, she suggested he visit his family; Diwali was, after all, a time to release resentment and forgive wrongs. Ramesh demurred, citing her forgiveness as an embarrassment of undeserved riches already.
The amount of bullshit that fell from that fucker’s mouth could fertilize half of India.
He was, she observed, comfortable. In his position in the community and in her home. So comfortable that now he was angling for a position in her bed. He’d made a few tentative comments about intimacy and being closer to her, which Geeta deflected. Last night, however, he’d grown frustrated, grumbling from his charpoy, “I’m getting tired of begging here.”
Soon, Geeta’d soothed herself, curling her body into a comma away from him. Soon this odious imbecile would be plucked from her life like a wiry chin hair.
Soon, she reminded herself now as she carried the container of milk. Soon she’d burn his charpoy and his clothes and cane. Soon Bandit would return indoors. Today was the second day of the festival. Tomorrow would be Diwali and the following night, Saloni’s annual New Year’s party. Then, they’d set to work disposing of Ramesh.
Perhaps Geeta should have studied the change in herself, marveled at how she went from protesting to promulgating murder, compared the woman who’d agonized over Darshan’s blood to the woman who now salivated for Ramesh’s. Perhaps she should have been, if not censorious, then at least curious as to the shift on her sliding morality scale. But instead, it simply felt long overdue.
Though Phoolan Devi stabbed her first husband, the one who’d raped her as a child bride, she hadn’t killed him. But at some point, her attitude changed and she began executing her rapists, others’ rapists. With each man Phoolan killed, the bounty for her head increased. As her crimes piled, so did her lore, until she was revered and reviled in equal measure. Previously Geeta had equated Phoolan’s lack of regret with stalwart courage. But now Geeta saw that her theories were based upon corrupt data. If Phoolan Devi didn’t feel regret for her crimes, perhaps it was because, to her, they weren’t crimes at all, simply justice.
In the village, marigolds and bunting again decorated homes, as they had for Karva Chauth, but now twinkle lights in assorted colors also latticed overhead. Many girls sat outside their front doors, outlining festive shapes in white chalk before filling them in with colored powder, to form rangolis. While walking, Geeta counted several floral patterns, a few Ganesh renderings, a lopsided dancing woman holding a dandiya stick in each hand, and one especially wonderful peacock.
Karem’s shop sold seasonal firecrackers and Geeta was positive his shelves were barren by now. The next two nights would be alive with smoke and noise pollution. Families would unfurl long strips of clay-colored firecrackers that, once lit, would fissure and sizzle for forty seconds or longer, each timed by giddy video recordings on mobile phones. Sky lanterns were also popular, though the following day the local papers were abuzz with fire incidents wherever the things landed, scorching yards and shanties and sleeping animals’ tails.
Geeta paused to switch arms, the milk more cumbersome now than when she’d left the Rabari camp. Children in costumes shrieked, chasing each other. Hanuman was always a popular choice with the boys because of his extraordinary strength. Some of them donned ape masks and wielded blunt maces wrapped in cheap gold paper. She waited until they ran past her, limp tails dragging in the dust. She didn’t realize she was checking to see if any of them were Raees until she knew none were. A man hopped off his ladder and nodded at her. “Ram Ram,” he said.
“Ram Ram.” Ever since Ramesh’s return, Geeta was no longer mixed with dirt, and the number of times she now had to say the greeting rivaled Saloni. It was, she found, tiresome.
As she neared the festooned tea stall, she paused, allowing herself a moment before she once again had to pretend that she did not wish to flense Ramesh’s face like halal meat on a spit.
Ramesh bustled with a confident economy of movement. He’d situated the stand to his liking, knew the tea, sugar and glasses would be exactly where he’d left them previously. He’d installed small statues of Ganesh and Lakshmi, offering them all the money he accepted from customers for blessings. By now Geeta knew that he sometimes held court, telling customers stories and explaining how he managed without sight. Two Dalit men, barefoot, approached for tea. Ramesh set to work immediately, pulling apart two plastic cups and pouring the tea. He fingered their coins, counting, while they squatted away from the unoccupied plastic chairs and sipped.