The Bandit Queens (101)
Men were to fear her, but their stories varied. She’d lure them to a hillside lair where her fangs drained them of all bodily fluid, semen included. She’d hold them prisoner, demanding repeated coitus until they withered. Some died, some stumbled home, grey and wrinkled, suffering a strange and sudden dotage.
A witch. A banshee. A succubus. Men who’d survived an encounter with her shared consistent details as to her appearance. On this point, the stories no longer varied: her true form was always hideous. Long black tongue, sagging breasts leading to a potbelly, matted hair—both of head and pubic variety—and feet twisted backward.
Seeing as how this image was not conducive to sirening prey, the churel disguised herself. She could transform into a young and comely woman, but was unable to hide her deformed feet, the telltale mark of a virago.
Geeta and Saloni had always assumed this was a cautionary tale written by men for men. Only a man would imagine retribution wrapped in lust rather than just painful death. Only a man would morph a wounded woman into a hideous monster. Only a man would then, for the sake of phallic pride, attribute her with shape-shifting powers, so that the creature he’d lain down with over and over again was deceptively gorgeous.
But what if, Geeta thought as she stood frozen near her front door, desperately trying to think of a plan, the churel was a cautionary tale created by women for women? If the natural world afforded them no protection, then a supernatural story might. A way of terrifying men into considering a woman’s well-being from time to time.
Geeta looked around her home: Saloni, muted and bound to a plastic chair, green eyes dark with fear; Bada-Bhai leaning in the doorway of her kitchen alcove; Ramesh lurking in another corner. Geeta would’ve held some hope of talking their way out of this, if not for the gun in Bada-Bhai’s hand. Geeta lifted her hands in surrender, training her eyes on the revolver rather than Ramesh. She knew he must be salivating for a chance to gloat about outmaneuvering her. Idiots always expected a parade when they finally managed to be clever.
Whatever the churel tale’s source, the bitter point was that the story simply didn’t work. It hadn’t stayed Ramesh’s hand, nor Samir’s, nor Bada-Bhai’s. Men could wield the churel label to rob a woman of her femininity, and they could dismiss it to rob her of power. But, like everything else, it was their choice.
“Welcome, Geeta of Geeta’s Designs,” Bada-Bhai said with cold congeniality. “We’ve been waiting. Sit.” He signaled to Ramesh, who sifted through Geeta’s armoire and withdrew a sari—the orange one he’d given her. He set to work winding the nine yards around Geeta’s torso and her spare chair. He walked four circles around her—like wedding pheras—before knotting the two free ends so tightly, Geeta and the chair jerked with each tie. Three knots to tie her to the chair now, three knots when he’d tied her wedding necklace all those years ago: the first knot representing her obedience to her husband, the second signifying her commitment to her in-laws, and the third—Well, the third escaped her distracted mind at the moment.
“No.” Bada-Bhai stopped Ramesh when he moved to gag Geeta with a sari blouse as he had Saloni. “I wanna talk to her.”
Geeta looked at Bada-Bhai, who was conspicuous in not having dressed for the holiday, wearing only a simple polo and jeans. He leaned against her wall in an affected air of nonchalance, arms crossed above his rice belly, one hand holding the revolver. Though his arms and legs were slim, he had the abdomen of a man who hadn’t yet learned to recalibrate his diet with age. He was still in his sandals—they all were—a rare event in an Indian home. It was as alien as the rest of this interaction.
“Are you okay?” Geeta asked Saloni. A stupid question, but Saloni nodded. To Bada-Bhai, she asked, “What do you want? Money?”
“I doubt you have any. Look at this place, you don’t even have a TV. Is that a radio? God.” Bada-Bhai’s mustached mouth pulled down in a sneer. “These villages are so backward. How do you people live like this?”
“Oi, I hab two TBs, okay?” Saloni said around her gag. “We aren’t so behind. We eben habe sober thighs.”
“What?”
“Solar lights,” Geeta translated.
“Listen, you halkat randi, you screwed me. You took my best tharra supplier. You stole my dogs, my testers. And worst of all, you made a fool out of me.”
“Then take the damn dog and go,” Saloni garbled, spittle darkening the blouse.
“No!” Geeta shouted.
“Forget the dog. I can’t have people thinking Bada-Bhai doesn’t get revenge when he’s been wronged. You can’t be a don if you’re soft,” Bada-Bhai said, extracting two pouches of liquid. “So you two can be my new testers.”
“Oh,” Saloni said, perking up. “Is it vine? I vanna try vine! I’ll do it if it’s vine.”
“He said ‘testers,’ not ‘tasters.’?” Geeta shook her head. A rabid buffoonery pervaded the situation: Ramesh picked his nose in boredom, Bada-Bhai vacillated between waggling his gun with menace and completely forgetting what it was and using the barrel to scratch his chin or tap his temple. His carelessness was almost more terrifying than if he’d been competent. “It’s tharra. With methanol.”
Saloni’s nose wrinkled in distaste above her gag. “Oh. No thank you, then. Don’t want.”