The Bandit Queens (107)
Rather than rejuvenating BB, the sugar made him anxious. He paced, pausing to kick the leg of the charpoy. Farah flinched. “Shit! I never should’ve come here. I only wanted Geeta and now I have an entire cricket team of aunties. Not fucking worth it.” He tamed his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. More crumbs fell to his shirt.
“So let us go,” Geeta said. “Before anyone else comes looking for us.”
“Who?” BB shouted, his voice caustic and furious. “Who else could possibly come when the entire goddamn village is already here?”
Geeta sighed, prevaricating as though grappling with an embarrassing confession, while her mind raced. She needed insurance without dragging Karem into this chaos. “My…boyfriend may come over to check on me. I was with him at Saloni’s party and since I never returned, he’ll be worried.”
“He’ll definitely come,” Saloni quickly added. “They’re, like, together-together.”
“What!” Ramesh turned, imbalanced by his injured leg. “What’s she talking about?”
“Boyfriend? Really?” Farah muttered to herself. “I guess Geetaben really is a halkat randi.”
“If I release you, you’ll run to the police and then I’ll be really screwed.” BB walked to where Khushi sat on Geeta’s bed and, with a desultory wave of his hand, barked, “Side!” She complied, scooting, and he sat down, resting his head in his hands. The women tried to appear as though they were not watching the gun, which had been set down on the mattress between BB and Khushi. Even Farah stopped slumping.
“We won’t,” Geeta said. “We promise. Look around: you have all the power here. Why would we cross you ever again?”
“This—right here—is why you have no peace at home, BB,” Ramesh said. Rather than restrain Khushi as instructed, he sat on the floor to staunch his bleeding calf with a petticoat from Geeta’s armoire. “You let women walk all over you. Your mother, your wife, your mistress, even three random bitches. Be a mard for once.”
Khushi’s pinky had crept toward the gun, but she froze when BB’s spine straightened with umbrage. His face twisted with what Geeta recognized as fomented temper. She wished Ramesh would shut up. “Who the fuck do you think you are, talking to me like that?” he demanded of Ramesh. “I’m twice the man you are.”
“I know that,” Ramesh said. “I’m not trying to disrespect you. I’m trying to help you.”
Khushi’s steady hand was six inches from the gun.
“Help me?” BB said, his voice cold. His body had grown very still. After all his fumbling and indecision, this purposeful transition spilled dread down Geeta’s neck. Questioned masculinity, she’d learned, was a dangerous gauntlet. And the resulting destruction was usually borne by her kind, not theirs. “You’re nothing but a useless drunk.”
“See? You’ve been getting angry with me all night, instead of with the bitches manipulating you. They’re just like your mistress and wife. You let them fuck with your head and instead of doing what a man would do, you hide in the toilet.”
Four inches.
BB’s eyes glittered as he narrowed them at Ramesh. Menace hardened his features. Geeta heard his rapid breathing, an animal poised for attack. She willed Khushi to hurry. “No one fucks with Bada-Bhai.”
“They have.” Ramesh jerked his chin toward the women. “Remind them you’re a man.”
Two inches. Geeta was sweating so profusely she didn’t think she’d ever need to urinate again. Her thighs were slick under her petticoat and she could smell her own underarms. BB’s chest heaved with a fury that threatened to erupt.
“Cut them and—”
“Oi!” BB leapt to his feet, snatching the gun from Khushi’s fingertips. The women wilted. Farah moaned aloud. “Traitorous bitches,” he seethed. When he crashed the butt of his gun against Khushi’s temple, she splayed across the bed so quickly, Geeta thought she’d simply fainted. Then the blood dripped through the springs, the soft plops the only sound in the room.
THIRTY
“Is she dead?” BB’s breathing was labored as he stood over Khushi’s still body. Her cheek was pressed against the cot; blood continued to pool.
Farah was crying again, her sniffles wet. Saloni had paled, her eyes trained on Khushi’s blood.
“You better pray not,” Geeta told him, feigning bravado. The muscles in her thighs trembled, she hoped it was not obvious. Self-loathing joined her fear. This was her mess alone, but she’d dragged three others down with her, including Khushi, whose life she’d na?vely prattled on about improving. Instead, she might’ve left Khushi’s boys orphaned. Saloni had been right: there are consequences to your ideas that don’t land on your head.
“Meaning?”
As her pulse hammered, Geeta aimed for nonchalance. “It’s inauspicious to kill a woman during Diwali because she’ll return as—”
“A churel,” Bada-Bhai finished with a shudder. Geeta imagined a lightbulb dinging above his head. He surveyed Khushi in horror.
“That’s only for women who die pregnant,” Ramesh said. He’d bled through another cloth and tossed it aside with a curse.