My brothers took my marriage and reduced it to kindling. Rupal tried to scare me by turning me into a worm. Perhaps it was always so: Thousands of years ago, even our Lord Rama tested his beloved wife Sita’s virtue with agni pariksha, forcing her to enter a burning pyre. Unlike me, Sita came out of the fire unharmed. But then, I was not the wife of a God, just the wife of a good man.
When I mentioned this to Anjali, she told me to forget these ancient stories. “Listen to me, Meena,” she said. “When you look at yourself, what do you see?”
I started to weep. “I see a face that makes babies cry,” I said. “I see the hands of a cripple.”
“Exactly,” Anjali said. “Which is why you have to learn to look inside yourself. It’s a new way of looking, to see the true you. The fire took away a lot, but it also left a lot behind. Do you understand?”
I didn’t.
So Anjali told me something I didn’t know before. She explained to me how steel is made.
Steel, she said, is forged from fire.
Chapter Ten
Meena’s good eye was doe-like and vulnerable, and it took everything in Smita’s power to keep her own eyes trained on Meena’s disfigured face and not look away. It was as if lava had flowed down the left side of her visage, destroying everything in its path. The lava ran from the middle of Meena’s forehead, shutting closed her left eye, and then melting away most of her cheek before stopping just below her lower lip. The surgeons had obviously done the best they could with what remained, but their handiwork was clumsy, as if they had simply given up. As she sat in Meena’s humble shack, Smita could sense Meena’s mother-in-law’s displeasure at having Mohan and her show up without advance notice. The only bright spot in the cramped, dark hut was Meena’s daughter, Abru, who sat quietly in the corner of the room and occasionally tottered over to her mother and climbed into her lap. Smita could see Meena’s good eye softening each time Abru grabbed a handful of her mother’s hair and put it into her mouth.
“How is Shannon?” Meena asked. Her voice was soft, low, and slightly difficult to understand.
“She is okay. She’s in less pain now. She sends you her regards.”
“I will pray for her.” Meena bit her lower lip. “She promised me she would be here,” she mumbled. “When the judge gives the ruling.”
“I’m sorry.” Smita discreetly pulled out her notebook. “So how do you feel?” she asked. “About the verdict?”
The mother-in-law spoke before Meena could. “Hah. That foreign reporter promised us five thousand rupees. For telling our story. Now, where’s the money?”
Smita kept her focus on Meena, who met her eyes and gave a quick, almost imperceptible shake of her head. Smita turned to face the mother-in-law. “We don’t pay for stories, ji,” she said, thankful that her Hindi was serviceable enough. “You must have misunderstood what my colleague said.”
“Arre, wah,” the older woman said belligerently. “You sit in my house and call me a liar?”
“Ammi,” Meena raised her voice a notch. “Stop this talk of money, na. It does not suit us.”
Smita couldn’t entirely understand the string of curses that the older woman let loose, but Ammi’s tone made her hair stand on end. “Besharam, shameless whore,” Ammi said. “First, she murders my poor son and now she disrespects me? Sits like a fat maharani all day long, feasting on my bones and then has the gall to talk back? I should’ve let you die in that hospital instead of fighting to save your life.”
The right side of Meena’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “You didn’t even come see me in the hospital, Ammi. Why are you telling these lies?”
The older woman picked up the broom from the corner of the room and struck Meena with it. “Hey!” Smita yelled, jumping to her feet.
“Bai,” Mohan said. “What are you doing? Stop this at once.”
The woman turned to Mohan. Her voice took on a sniveling quality. “What to do, seth?” she said. “With my own eyes I watched my son burn to death. Every day I ask God why He didn’t pluck my eyes out first before letting me witness such a heartbreaking sight. Then, my younger son fled the village after saving this ungrateful wretch’s life. So that income is also gone. We are poor people, seth. I swear on my dead husband’s grave, I had a financial arrangement with that American woman . . .”
Smita made a quick calculation. She wanted to talk to Meena outside, away from her mother-in-law. So far, her Hindi was up to the task. If Meena said something she didn’t understand, she could always write it down phonetically and check with Mohan later. Better to leave him inside the hut to fend off Ammi. She got to her feet. “Let’s get some air,” she said to Meena. “Shall we talk outside?”