Honor: A Novel(50)

I applied for the overtime shift the same day.

Only a few of us were working that Sunday, so the foreman shuttered half the room and made us crowd together in the other half. As we looked for a seat, Abdul took the spot at the machine next to mine. Nobody noticed but me.

At first, we were so excited to sit next to each other that we stole glances every few minutes. But then the work picked up, and we had to concentrate on our consignment. Sweat ran down our faces, but we couldn’t stop to wipe it off. For six hours I worked, my body stiff with heat and fear. My heart was singing like a transistor radio, and I was afraid that everyone there would hear it play Abdul’s name. But when I looked up, no one was watching. Everyone was busy meeting their quota.

I left work that evening with a small group of women, but one by one, they got off the main road and went toward their home village. When it was only me, I stopped and looked over my shoulder. Abdul was alone, also. He hurried to catch up with me, but walked on the other side of the narrow road, close to the ditch. From there, he called out, “Your name is Meena! I know.”

My heart was fluttering. I pulled my dupatta closer to my face.

“My name is Abdul. You must be remembering?”

I didn’t reply.

“I am from Birwad. My father is dead. I live with my ammi and my younger brother.”

A man came toward us on his bicycle, and Abdul stopped talking. After he had passed, Abdul said, “Please don’t take this the wrong way. I want to tell you, you are very beautiful.”

I turned my head away.

“I don’t mean any insult. I have great respect for you. I see how kind you are, how you help other people at work. Please. I am not like other men.”

I said nothing.

“Who is in your family? Other than your sister? Radha, isn’t it?”

I kept quiet. Then, like the rains during the monsoon, the angry words poured out of my mouth. “I have two brothers. Who will give me a thrashing if they find out I am talking to a Muslim man.”

He kept quiet for so long, I thought that maybe he had disappeared into the fields on either side of us. I turned my head slightly to take a look. He was still walking, with his head bowed. Then, he looked up and our eyes met. His eyes burned hot, like the earth beneath our feet. “What difference does that make?” he demanded. “We are both Hindustani, no? The same Mother India has given birth to all of us, isn’t it?”

His voice was not angry. Rather, it was sad, like the music from a flute playing alone at night. But in that one minute, my whole life changed. His words cut open a belief I had held my whole life, but when I looked inside, there was nothing there. “This is not what I think,” I said. “It is what my brothers believe.”

A man and a little boy came toward us from the opposite direction, and we stopped talking again. “Salaam, how are you?” Abdul said to them as they passed, and the father nodded. I knew we were getting nearer to the side road that led to his village, and I slowed down. When the man and child were a good distance away, Abdul said, “Look to your right. There is a little road there and it leads to the river. If you wish, we can go there for a few minutes and talk in peace. No one will see us there.”

My heart was tight with fear. What had I done, to let this man think that I was the kind of woman who would go to the river with a stranger? I prayed for the earth to swallow me whole then and there.

“Meena ji,” Abdul said, “please don’t take offense. I know your good character. I am only asking this because I wish to share what is in my heart.”

I walked faster, wanting to get away.

“Please. Even if you refuse my request, please don’t be angry at me. I mean no disrespect. I would sooner disrespect my ammi than to disrespect you. Please believe me.”

I held my silence and kept walking. I walked past the little road where he had asked me to turn right. Soon, I thought, he would give up and I would make my way home alone.

Home. I saw the four of us at dinner later that night: Radha, angry because she had been stuck at home all day. Arvind, drunk as always. Govind, complaining nonstop about this and that. I saw us in that sad house, eating food that Radha and I provided, having to endure Govind’s insults and abuse. Govind, who would never forgive Radha and me for defying his orders. I felt the full weight of his darkness.

I stopped. I turned around and walked back until I reached the small side road that led to the river. Abdul made a small, joyful noise, but I ignored him.

And then, without looking at him, I turned onto that dusty road and walked into my rise and fall.





Chapter Twenty-One





Mohan had suggested that they drive to the seaside. Walking barefoot in the sand, the wind steady in her face, Smita felt free, as though she had more in common with the birds on this beach than with the woman who had sobbed in her bathroom a couple of hours earlier. “Thank you for this,” she said.

“Of course,” Mohan said.

“How come it’s so quiet here?” Smita asked, looking around the beach. “I thought it would be teeming with people, like every other place in India.”

“Oh, they will come when it gets dark,” Mohan said. “All the couples wanting to do hanky-panky.”

She laughed, watching Mohan’s face, translucent in the orange light. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and his feet were as brown as the sand. “Can we sit for a moment?” she said.