“Accha?” Meena said, wonder in her voice. “Then I pray that God will help you to rise even higher and higher, memsahib.”
Smita tapped Meena’s bony wrist with her index finger. “Enough about me,” she said. “What about you? How are you feeling? Anjali expects the verdict any day now. Are you nervous?”
The young woman stared at the spot where Smita had touched her. “Yes, very much nervous. Even if the judge finds my brothers guilty . . .”
“Yes?” Smita prompted.
Meena raised her head and looked Smita in the eye. “If they are found guilty, there are many who still wish me harm. People in my old village think I have brought shame upon them. Everyone here in Birwad blames me for Abdul’s death. My husband and his brother, Kabir, were the backbone of this community. Always joking-laughing with friend and stranger alike. And of course, the Hindu families in the surrounding villages are angry at me for filing the lawsuit against my brothers. I cannot even go to their markets because they are spitting in my face, memsahib.”
Surely, Meena meant the last part as a figure of speech? Smita couldn’t tell. “Meena,” she said gently. “Do you think you could call me by my name instead of memsahib? After all, you called Shannon by hers, correct?”
“That was different,” Meena said with a bashful smile. “Shannon was a foreigner.”
“Well, if you insist on calling me memsahib, I will have to do the same.”
Meena’s hand flew to her mouth as she choked back a scandalized laugh. “Memsahib . . . sorry, Smita. Ammi will faint if she hears you call me memsahib.”
Even though only one half of her face moved, Meena looked much younger when she laughed.
“So how do you spend your days?” Smita said. “What do you do all day?”
Meena’s face went blank. “Nothing. I just cook and clean for my mother-in-law and my little one.”
“You don’t work at all?”
Meena pointed to her face. “In this condition, Didi?” Smita noticed that Meena had switched to calling her Didi, for “older sister.” “Tell me, who will hire me? Also, nobody knows what to think of me. After my marriage, the Hindus treat me like I am a Muslim. But the Muslims in this village still consider me Hindu.” She swallowed, then said something in a dialect that Smita didn’t understand.
“I’m sorry?” Smita said. “The last thing you said—I couldn’t follow?”
Meena brushed away the single tear on her cheek with the back of her hand. “I said, ‘I’m the dog who belongs neither in the house nor on the streets,’ ” she repeated in Hindi. “You understand?”
“I do.”
“You see that hovel down there, Didi?” Meena said. “To your left? That’s the only place on this sad earth where I am still at home.”
Smita followed the line of Meena’s pointing finger, squinting in the sun to see better. All she could see were the blackened remains of a straw hut that stood diagonally across from where they sat, a good distance away from Ammi’s shack. Piles of rubbish were strewn around it. It took Smita a moment to realize what it was. “Is that your . . . is that where it . . . happened?” she asked.
Meena nodded. “That was our home. It was even more modest than my mother-in-law’s home, Didi, but I tell you the truth—I was never happier than the four months I lived there with Abdul. Every morning he would wake up before me and make me a cup of tea. Cooking beside my husband, walking to the factory together, made me feel like the richest woman in Hindustan.”
Smita looked around. “May I ask you something? Why do you and Ammi live on the outskirts, so far from the main village?”
Meena bit down on her lip as her nose turned red. “Abdul bought this land when it came up for sale Didi,” she said at last. “His plan was to build his mother a pucca house here, out of his factory earnings. As for our little shack? He and Kabir built that in a few days after I ran away from my brothers’ house. With both boys and myself all working, we were planning on giving poor Ammi a restful old age.”
“Man plans and God laughs.” Papa used to say this all the time. Smita wanted to translate this for Meena but she wasn’t sure she was up to the task. She was doing well without Mohan’s help so far; she didn’t want to push her luck. “Your husband sounds like a very good man,” she murmured.
Meena didn’t answer. After a few minutes she said, “May I ask? What is your earliest memory, Didi?”