The Bandit Queens (24)

“Good for you, then. Doing what suits you rather than everyone else.”

“But still,” Geeta said. “?‘Parenthood is a privilege,’ right? With all the ‘joy and rewards’?”

Karem snorted. “What? No. I mean, okay, well, yes sometimes, but it’s also just thankless work. I love my kids, I can’t imagine not having them, but I also completely can imagine not having them.” He laughed. “It’s strange. But you have to really be sure you want them to make it worth it. Otherwise, don’t do it.”

“Well, it’s moot anyhow.”

“I dunno.” He shrugged. “I was the youngest of twelve. My mother was having children well into her forties.”

“Your father couldn’t leave her alone, eh?”

“Well, no televisions back then, right?”

Geeta laughed. “I don’t have that problem.”

“You could,” Karem said. “If you wanted that problem.”

And Geeta, ridiculously, grew warm.

“What about you? Any siblings?”

“Nope,” she said, grabbing the prosaic turn of conversation. “Just me.” Though Saloni had been like a sister. “I think my mother was pregnant once when I was six, but then she wasn’t.” Geeta shrugged. “We didn’t really talk about it.”

Just now, in once again oversharing with Karem, it struck her that her mother had probably endured miscarriages before Geeta as well, but outside the papadam story, it’d never occurred to her to imagine her mother’s premotherhood life. Even after her mother had passed, Geeta’s thoughts of her were caged by her own lifespan. Extrapolating those rules, all of Geeta’s childless life would evaporate upon her childless death. Perhaps that was a reason to have children: to be remembered.

And yet, the Bandit Queen hadn’t had any children, and she was remembered. While serving her prison term for killing twenty-two men in one day, she’d been rushed to the hospital for an emergency hysterectomy, where the doctor apparently joked, “We don’t want Phoolan Devi breeding more Phoolan Devis.” It didn’t escape Geeta that the “we” he meant was not civilians, not officers, but men.

Karem nodded. “No one does. Sarita went through it, too. I think most people don’t want to risk saying the wrong thing, so they say nothing instead. Not sure that’s any better.”

“I’m sorry,” she told him. It seemed, to her at least, that Karem never said the wrong thing. Or perhaps he did, from time to time, but his sincerity salvaged it, saved him from being trite or callous or, worse, placating.

“Me, too.”

It would be offensive to allow him to believe they shared this particular grief. “I didn’t— I mean, I haven’t. Had one, I mean.”

His nod was slow and gentle. “Good. That’s good.”

Geeta focused on the puppy in her arms. They’d been wandering the streets, neither of them following, neither of them leading.

“He’s kept the biscuits down. Does that mean he’s okay?”

“I think it means he’s going home with you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well,” Karem said, stroking the tangled fur behind the dog’s ears. “He trusts you. With some rest and food, he’ll make a good pet.”

“I don’t need a pet.”

Karem was cheerful. “Oh, sure you do. You live alone.”

“And that’s how I like it.”

“He’s the perfect company for you anyhow.”

“How do you figure.” Geeta wasn’t curious, she only said it because there was a proud punch line waiting behind Karem’s smug smile, and she was feeling generous.

“Handsome, but mute.”

Her face remained stoic. “Hilarious.”

“What’ll you name him?”

“Nothing.”

“?‘Nothing, nothing,’?” Karem tried it out like a new food. “Kuch nahin, kuch-nay.” He shook his head, apologetic. “I don’t think it suits him. Also, the poor guy probably already suffers from low self-esteem as it is.”

She glared at him. “Do your kids tell you you’re funny? Is that why you’re like this?”

He gave her a goofy shrug. “I am funny.”

“Listen, I’m not keeping him. I didn’t want him to die, that doesn’t mean I’m taking him in.”

Karem shrugged. “We’ll see.” He squinted at the sky. “We got another hour or so before we’re getting picked up. What were your other errands?”

She’d forgotten all about the rat poison. “Er—ah—I’ll be quick and then meet you?”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Ah, no, please. It’s a…woman thing.”

Rather than recoiling, his expression was earnest. “If you need to buy sanitary napkins, Geeta, there’s no shame in it. There’s a chemist to the left.”

Geeta prevaricated. She didn’t purchase pads, no one from their village did; they were prohibitively exorbitant. Even Geeta, who had few other expenses, couldn’t reconcile paying six rupees per napkin. She, like every other woman she knew, used and washed old cloths and handkerchiefs. Was she now going to have to buy napkins in front of Karem just to excuse her strange behavior?