“What a stupid question, Smita,” he said. “You have a brother, no? Would he ever do such a thing?”
A sudden flash of memory. Rohit’s distraught face. Rohit protecting her with his body. “My brother would die rather than do what Meena’s brothers did,” she said.
Mohan nodded. “Exactly.”
“You’re very much like Rohit, you know. Decent.”
He took his eyes off the road briefly, a teasing expression on his face that she was beginning to recognize. “But you are nothing like my sister,” he said. He tapped on his brakes as a small animal scuttled in front of their car, then picked up speed again. “My sister is sweet. Simple. Uncomplicated.”
She laughed, understanding why Shannon had become close to Mohan. He was good company, and there was a lightness to him that Smita appreciated. Plus, any other guy would have hit on her already, and she was so utterly grateful that Mohan hadn’t. Ever since she’d left home at eighteen, Smita had been unapologetically sexual, a reaction to her traditional upbringing. But she had not slept with a man since Mummy had died. Smita took in Mohan’s profile and was relieved not to feel the slightest spark of interest.
Life is easier this way, she thought. Just ask Meena.
Thirteen
The noise of the sewing machines in the factory where Radha and I worked was so loud that I would get a headache after every shift. As we walked home at the end of each ten-hour day, Radha would carry our tiffin box. But if I made the smallest complaint to Govind, he would pounce on me. “This is what happens when women do the men’s job,” he’d say. “You have fallen so low, no respectable man will ever marry you. And how will we ever find a match for Arvind after the shame you and Radha have brought on us by working? The whole village is spitting on us because our sisters have turned their own brothers into eunuchs.”
In the beginning, I believed that Govind was right. Our village was hundreds of years old. In all that time, Radha and I were the only two women who had defied its tradition and worked outside our home. Govind complained that even small children laughed behind his back. As for the old men who sat around all day drinking chai and gossiping? They advised him to take the whips used on the farm animals and beat us until we obeyed him. “A woman and an ox must be thrashed often,” they said.
Rupal also came over to warn us that sewing men’s jeans all day would turn Radha and me into males. I believed him, but Radha shook her head. “Didi, don’t listen to that bevakoof,” she said. “He’s just jealous because we are earning more money than he does doing all his witchery.”
But I was not sure. Everybody in the village said that Rupal had magic powers, and a special mobile phone that allowed him to talk straight to God. Whatever God would tell him, he would repeat to us. “What if he’s correct?” I asked my sister.
Radha took my hand and held it to my breasts. “Feel those two mangoes,” she said. “Do these grow on a man’s body?”
The day Abdul started work at the factory, I knew for sure that I was a woman. When he smiled and said, “Namaste. My name is Abdul,” and looked at me with eyes the color of light tea, I felt something tremble in my body. He looked at me as if he knew the heart inside my heart, the one not even Radha could see. I felt myself shiver with happiness, but the next minute I cursed my destiny because God was playing a cruel trick on me. From his name and from the white skull cap on his head, I guessed Abdul’s religion. A Hindu and Muslim could never be together—everybody knew that timeless truth.
On his first day, I had to show Abdul how we hemmed the shirts. Before I could even finish telling him, he said, “I know. No problem. I am an expert tailor.” He took the pile of shirts from me, and I noticed his fingers, long and thin, as if they were designed to play the shennai. Or to touch a woman’s body. My cheeks burned, and I pinched myself to keep such evil thoughts out of my mind. Maybe my brothers were correct—by working side by side with strange men, I had become a wicked woman.
I rushed back to my own sewing machine. But after a few minutes, I looked to my left, where Abdul was sitting one row ahead of me. When he turned his head to talk to the man next to him, I took a long drink of his features. His hair was black and shiny as a crow’s. His skin was smooth and dark as a stone. And as he worked, he bent from his neck, so that his back remained straight as a wall. Within half a day, Abdul was already making friends left and right. He was fast at his job—even from one row behind, I could see how expertly he hemmed—but as he worked, he would say funny-funny things that made everybody shake with laughter. Nobody could believe it was his first day. With Abdul’s arrival, it felt as if God had dropped a rainbow inside that dark factory. Once, he heard my laughter and turned around to give me a quick wink. No one else saw. A little later, I noticed the foreman walking toward us, and I coughed loudly to warn Abdul. In my heart, I felt the same feeling I had for Radha—protectiveness. I wanted to protect this man I had just met in the same way I wanted to protect my sister. For the first time since we started working, I gave thanks to Radha for forcing me to take this job. It was as if a gust of wind had blown open a window in my heart and a sweet bird had flown in and made a nest. I knew I must shoo it away, but what to do? For the first time in my life, I wanted something to stay.