Honor: A Novel(55)
“You’ve been in touch with her?” Smita asked sharply.
“No, no, no, Didi. How could I? Radha didn’t leave a number. Bas, there was just that one phone call.”
Smita nodded, then ducked to prevent Abru from tugging at her hair. The child lurched silently toward Mohan. “I think she wants you,” Smita called, and Mohan hurried back to them, taking Abru from her arms. The girl grabbed Mohan’s sunglasses and twirled them in her hand.
Smita turned laughingly toward Meena but was horrified to see that the younger woman was crying. “Forgive me, Didi.” Meena brushed away her tears. “What to do? These tears are traitors. They fall in times of sorrow and of happiness. Today, they come from happiness. Your husband has drawn laughter from my daughter’s lips. May God bless both of you with many children of your own.”
“What else did your sister say?” Smita asked.
“Mostly she was calling to let me know she was sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“For dragging me to the factory job against my wishes. Because I only went to protect her.”
“Because that’s where you met Abdul?”
“Yes. At first, we managed to hide it from Radha. But once she found out, she begged me to stop my romance.” Meena looked into the distance. “Then, it was my turn to be defiant.”
“Did she . . . was she the one who told your brothers?”
Meena shook her head. “She would never betray me. My Radha.” Suddenly, she slapped herself on the cheek. “No, I was stupid enough to tell my brothers myself. Because once love blossomed between Abdul and me, we did not want to hide it, Didi. We were so proud of our love. That is how unworldly we were. Abdul begged me to inform them myself, before the news reached them.”
“Do you mind if we sit?” Smita gestured toward the rope cot outside Ammi’s hut. “And I will take some notes?” Mohan, she saw, had gone back inside Ammi’s hovel.
The two women sat side by side. “So many times I wonder, did I make a mistake telling Govind about Abdul?” Meena said.
“Why did you? Since he hated Muslims so much?”
Meena’s eye was cloudy as she stared ahead. “Because love had softened my heart, Didi. Abdul’s kind nature made me kind. I was happy, so I wanted to share my happy with others. At night, I would look at Govind’s tired face, and my heart would ache at how miserable he looked. I would remember how much he had loved me when we were young. It was as if my love for Abdul made me see other people’s pain. But it also made me blind to the evil in the world. Do you understand my meaning?”
“I’m not sure,” Smita said.
“Radha begged me not to tell. But I said, ‘Little sister, Abdul and I wish to marry. How long can I keep this secret? Better he hears it from my lips than from someone else.’ ”
“So what happened?”
“Govind went to Rupal for advice. And Rupal called a village council meeting.” Meena spoke in a monotone, her face immobile. “He had already punished Radha and me by forbidding all our neighbors from talking to us. Think of that, Didi. Friends we had grown up with, grandmothers who had known us from the moment of our birth, people we had celebrated and mourned with—none of them speaking to us. With a snap of his fingers, Rupal had turned us into ghosts.”
“Everybody listened to the council?” Smita asked. “No one defied it?”
Meena looked shocked. “How can they do this? Anyone breaking his order would be punished themselves. Even if we went to the market, the shopkeepers wouldn’t talk to us. Bas, we had to put the money down on the counter. They took whatever amount they wished. No bargaining, nothing. Oh, and we could not touch the fruits or vegetables. We must take whatever they gave us.”
A long-forgotten memory sliced through Smita, its edges sharp. Her thirteenth birthday. Mummy and she coming home carrying a cake from the Taj and noticing Pushpa Patel coming from the opposite direction. Pushpa crossed the street to avoid talking to them. She forced herself to focus on Meena instead. “What did the council decide? About you and Abdul, I mean.”
Meena stared at the ground for a long time. “They decided to test me,” she said at last. “To examine if . . . if Abdul had defiled me.” She swallowed. “Rupal wanted to do . . . a private test. An inspection. To. . . find out.”
“Meena, if this is too hard . . .”
“No. It’s okay, Didi. You put this in your newspaper. So that the world will know what is this Hindustan.” She made an effort to look Smita in the eye. “I refused. I told Govind that if he allowed such shamelessness in his own home, I would walk into the river and drown myself.”
“Did Rupal let up after that?”
“They had to come up with another test to check my purity. They ordered me to walk over hot coals. If my feet got burned, it meant I was not . . . a virgin.”
Smita’s mouth went dry. She longed for the water bottle she had left in Mohan’s car. But there was no way to interrupt this interview to walk back to the vehicle. And unless she wanted to be laid up with dysentery for days, it was unthinkable to ask Meena for a drink of the dirty, unfiltered water in her home. She wished Mohan were around, but he was inside Ammi’s house. She could hear the older woman’s soft laughter in response something he was saying. “That’s absurd,” Smita said. “I mean, how could you possibly?”