“I can come with you. With Bada-Bhai looking for you, you shouldn’t be wandering alone at night, right?”
“No, I’ll take Ramesh,” she lied. It was true Karem might be able to help the situation she now realized she’d spectacularly misread, but he had already helped her plenty. And she didn’t want to repay him by dragging him further into danger. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you later, okay? And thanks—for everything.”
She sprinted home, or tried to. Her party sari was stiff silk rather than her usual cotton, and it impeded her until she hefted her skirts. How had it taken her so long, especially in light of all the other lies? He’d recognized her footsteps, he’d identified the alcohol, he hadn’t burned the papadam—Geeta had heard that upon losing sight, other senses heightened. Fine. But he’d known to use plastic cups with the two Dalit men at the tea stand before they’d even said a word.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she chanted as she ran. She passed a family unrolling firecrackers. “Ram Ram!” she greeted before resuming her “fuck, fuck, fuck” mantra. Couldn’t one damn thing go correctly? How was it that everyone’s husband was killable except hers?
She raced past some skittish cattle. Firecrackers boomed behind her. Many villagers were at Saloni’s, but a few others hosted their own card parties or preferred to celebrate with immediate family. Now, after dinner, they all took to their yards or clear fields to unfurl and light the leftover patakas that hadn’t been used the night before. Geeta’s bun loosened in its jeweled net, the decorative pin she’d placed earlier sagged. The powder she’d patted under her arms forfeited, and her sweat prickled. The winter chill had teeth but was no match for this level of exertion. Her mouth was dry and she felt queasy. She’d been so busy assaulting everyone with unwanted eye contact, she hadn’t eaten. Finally, she saw her home, the overhead bulb shining inside. She sprinted up the two steps and burst through her front door shouting, “He’s not blind!”
“Yeah,” Saloni mumbled around the gag peeling back the corners of her mouth. “I kinda figured that out.”
TWENTY-NINE
The provenance of a churel is a woman wronged. A pregnant woman’s demise. Death at the hands of vicious in-laws or a violent husband. Dying during childbirth or within the twelve-day period of impurity afterward. Whenever a woman died grossly unfulfilled, she’d return as a churel. Those surviving her could attempt to stymie her transformation: bury rather than burn her, weigh her down with stones, dress her grave with thorns, set her in the ground facedown so as to disorient her. Were that she’d been given such healthy regard in life, rendering such measures moot. Nevertheless, if her revenge-lust was potent enough, she’d find her way home and so it would begin.
Men were to fear her, but their stories varied. She’d lure them to a hillside lair where her fangs drained them of all bodily fluid, semen included. She’d hold them prisoner, demanding repeated coitus until they withered. Some died, some stumbled home, grey and wrinkled, suffering a strange and sudden dotage.
A witch. A banshee. A succubus. Men who’d survived an encounter with her shared consistent details as to her appearance. On this point, the stories no longer varied: her true form was always hideous. Long black tongue, sagging breasts leading to a potbelly, matted hair—both of head and pubic variety—and feet twisted backward.
Seeing as how this image was not conducive to sirening prey, the churel disguised herself. She could transform into a young and comely woman, but was unable to hide her deformed feet, the telltale mark of a virago.
Geeta and Saloni had always assumed this was a cautionary tale written by men for men. Only a man would imagine retribution wrapped in lust rather than just painful death. Only a man would morph a wounded woman into a hideous monster. Only a man would then, for the sake of phallic pride, attribute her with shape-shifting powers, so that the creature he’d lain down with over and over again was deceptively gorgeous.
But what if, Geeta thought as she stood frozen near her front door, desperately trying to think of a plan, the churel was a cautionary tale created by women for women? If the natural world afforded them no protection, then a supernatural story might. A way of terrifying men into considering a woman’s well-being from time to time.
Geeta looked around her home: Saloni, muted and bound to a plastic chair, green eyes dark with fear; Bada-Bhai leaning in the doorway of her kitchen alcove; Ramesh lurking in another corner. Geeta would’ve held some hope of talking their way out of this, if not for the gun in Bada-Bhai’s hand. Geeta lifted her hands in surrender, training her eyes on the revolver rather than Ramesh. She knew he must be salivating for a chance to gloat about outmaneuvering her. Idiots always expected a parade when they finally managed to be clever.
Whatever the churel tale’s source, the bitter point was that the story simply didn’t work. It hadn’t stayed Ramesh’s hand, nor Samir’s, nor Bada-Bhai’s. Men could wield the churel label to rob a woman of her femininity, and they could dismiss it to rob her of power. But, like everything else, it was their choice.
“Welcome, Geeta of Geeta’s Designs,” Bada-Bhai said with cold congeniality. “We’ve been waiting. Sit.” He signaled to Ramesh, who sifted through Geeta’s armoire and withdrew a sari—the orange one he’d given her. He set to work winding the nine yards around Geeta’s torso and her spare chair. He walked four circles around her—like wedding pheras—before knotting the two free ends so tightly, Geeta and the chair jerked with each tie. Three knots to tie her to the chair now, three knots when he’d tied her wedding necklace all those years ago: the first knot representing her obedience to her husband, the second signifying her commitment to her in-laws, and the third—Well, the third escaped her distracted mind at the moment.
“No.” Bada-Bhai stopped Ramesh when he moved to gag Geeta with a sari blouse as he had Saloni. “I wanna talk to her.”
Geeta looked at Bada-Bhai, who was conspicuous in not having dressed for the holiday, wearing only a simple polo and jeans. He leaned against her wall in an affected air of nonchalance, arms crossed above his rice belly, one hand holding the revolver. Though his arms and legs were slim, he had the abdomen of a man who hadn’t yet learned to recalibrate his diet with age. He was still in his sandals—they all were—a rare event in an Indian home. It was as alien as the rest of this interaction.
“Are you okay?” Geeta asked Saloni. A stupid question, but Saloni nodded. To Bada-Bhai, she asked, “What do you want? Money?”
“I doubt you have any. Look at this place, you don’t even have a TV. Is that a radio? God.” Bada-Bhai’s mustached mouth pulled down in a sneer. “These villages are so backward. How do you people live like this?”
“Oi, I hab two TBs, okay?” Saloni said around her gag. “We aren’t so behind. We eben habe sober thighs.”
“What?”
“Solar lights,” Geeta translated.
“Listen, you halkat randi, you screwed me. You took my best tharra supplier. You stole my dogs, my testers. And worst of all, you made a fool out of me.”