Honor: A Novel(30)



“Kya hai, Didi?” Meena was looking at her, concerned. “Did I say something wrong?”

Smita snapped out of her reverie, focusing again on the charred hut and, behind it, the overgrown field. She rose to her feet, mopping her brow with her shirt sleeve. “Nahi,” she said. “I . . . I just need to go indoors for a minute.” She saw the aversion on Meena’s face at the thought of facing her mother-in-law and added, “But I’ll be right back.”

Meena smiled, and Smita marveled anew at the transformation.

“Hah,” Meena said. “You must go check on your husband.”

Smita opened her mouth to correct her, then thought better of it. “I’ll be right back,” she repeated. “I just need to get out of the sun.”

What the hell is wrong with you? Smita chastised herself as she walked toward the hovel. She had interviewed refugees, displaced people, and war victims over the years, and despite the grievous injuries and trauma she had witnessed, had always managed to keep her composure. But it was impossible to keep the same emotional distance here. There was a reason she didn’t cover stories in India, a reason why she’d asked her editors for that exemption. Her feelings were too biased, too complicated, for her to maintain objectivity. And yet, despite her earlier reservations, she was glad to be here in Birwad and to have met Meena. Already, she was composing the lede to her story in her head. Shannon’s stories about Meena had been well written. Her reporting was impersonal and factual, and she had expertly situated Meena’s story within the larger story of the treatment of women in India. In fact, Shannon’s reporting was like Shannon herself—dispassionate, tough, no-nonsense. But she had not quite brought Meena to life, had not conveyed that combination of vulnerability and courage. Smita knew she could, would, be able to do fuller justice to Meena. She understood Meena’s plight in her bones, felt that sense of kinship like connective tissue. Her fingers itched at the thought of going back to the motel and getting to work on her laptop.

She bent and entered through the low doorway, then waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark. As soon as they did, she gave a start of surprise—Mohan was sitting cross-legged on a floor mat in front of Meena’s erstwhile sulky mother-in-law, who was giggling at whatever he was saying. They both looked up guiltily, conspirators, as she entered. “Will you also take a cup of tea?” the woman asked, and Smita noticed the tea glasses in front of them.

She was about to say no when she thought better of it. “Many thanks,” she said. “I would love some.” She paused for a beat and added, “And so will Meena.”

The old woman scowled. “I cannot waste precious sugar and milk on that cow,” she said. “I work like a dog seven days a week in my mistress’s home to feed this family. I’m only home today because my mistress is out of town. As it is, she is not paying me while she is gone.”

“Then it’s okay, ji,” Smita said as politely as she could. “I don’t need any chai pani. I am fine.”

Ammi looked conflicted, torn between the ancient impulse toward hospitality and her animosity toward her daughter-in-law. Finally, she rose with a grunt and went to relight the stove, grumbling under her breath. As she watched the woman put the pot on the stove, Smita remembered that it was customary for many rural and tribal women to nurse their children well past infancy. “Is Meena still breastfeeding your grandchild?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” Ammi replied as she added the tea to the water. “That was all the heifer was good for, but now she claims her milk is drying up. So yet another mouth to feed.”

Her journalistic ethics forbade it, but Smita longed to slip a few hundred-rupee bills into this querulous woman’s hands. Who, she wondered, would Ammi be if one could remove the financial stressors from her life? Would the better angels of her nature prevail, would she be able to set the grievous loss of her son alongside Meena’s loss of her husband, and realize their common pain? Or would she still resent her daughter-in-law for the calamitous event that had been visited upon her household?

As if he’d read her mind, Mohan opened his wallet. Smita pretended not to see as he pulled out several hundred rupees and set the bundle on the floor. “This is for you, Ammi,” he said. “To help with the upkeep of your young charges.”

Ammi rolled up the money and slipped it into her blouse. “A million thanks, beta,” she said, placing her hand on Mohan’s head. “A thousand blessings to you. When you call me Ammi, it is as if I hear my Abdul and Kabir’s voices in my ear.”

Cliff or Shannon would have been aghast at this breach of professional ethics. But Mohan is not here on assignment, Smita imagined arguing with them, as if they were here in this tiny room. What am I supposed to do, scold him in the old woman’s presence? She’d kick me out of her home and cut off our access to Meena, who is in no position to defy her orders.

Mohan looked at her, one eyebrow raised inquiringly. Smita gazed at him impassively, neither endorsing nor chastising him for his generosity. “I still need another half hour or so,” she whispered as Ammi poured the tea into thick glasses.

“Take as much time as you need,” he said. “We are having a good time here.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate this.”

Smita carried out two glasses of tea. “For me?” Meena said. “She allowed it?”

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