The Bandit Queens (34)

Farah kneeled, and her cold fingers tugged Geeta’s wrists, prying them away from her face. Geeta resisted, but Farah won. She seized Geeta’s gaze and held fast. The cuts on her cheekbone and lip still bore seams of dried blood, but her eye was now chartreuse. Farah was on the mend. “No, we’re not. Everything went perfectly. It’s over.”

Farah stood, her mourning clothes whispering. She paced, much like Geeta had most of this horrid day, but Farah’s mind had flown to more prosaic matters. “They took the body today.”

“Who?”

She waved a hand. “Some Dom. It just looks like alcohol poisoning since Samir puked before he died, but I’m going to cremate him as soon as possible, just in case.”

Geeta blinked. It had not occurred to her before, but now she said, “But you’re Muslim.”

Farah shrugged. “So what? You think that drunk was a strict Muslim? Trust me, if he doesn’t get into Jannah, it won’t be on that technicality. Besides, he deserves to burn.”

Geeta herself wasn’t a religious enthusiast. She made temple rounds on the big-ticket holidays and festivals, but there was no puja corner in her home and, more important, no guests to judge her for not having said corner. Her mother, however, had believed. Or maybe it was only habit that led her to light ghee-soaked cotton every day and recite god’s myriad of names on her japamala, one name for each bead.

But now, worry pricked Geeta. Not at aggravating whatever higher power waited to smite her, but fear of overstepping. For thinking she was more than she was. Not only had they played God, now they were tampering with last rites? The latter somehow seemed worse than the former, which was, with some light moral gymnastics, justifiable given Samir’s threats, vices and abuse.

“But what will people think—”

“We can’t risk the body being dug up if people get suspicious later.” Farah picked lint from her top. “You see it all the time on that C.I.D. show, where they realize the spouse is up to some dhokhebaazi and they’re all, ‘Oh no, the evidence is gone!’ But there’s a twist! The victim’s Muslim so they’re able to catch the spouse after all by digging it up—”

“Exhuming,” Geeta offered on autopilot.

“Yeah, that. Whatever. And anyway, he’s got no family left and there’re, what, like, three Muslims in this village? I doubt Karem is gonna holler at me for messing up Samir’s burial— Oh!” She snapped her fingers. “I can always say there was a paperwork mix-up, or that the Dom messed up. See, this is the easy part, Geetaben. You did the hard part already.”

“We shouldn’t have done it.”

Geeta noticed grey hairs near Farah’s temple and realized that she may not have been as young as Geeta’d assumed.

“We had to.” Farah’s brows drew together. “Listen, it’s done now. ‘What’s the use of crying when birds ate the whole farm?’?”

“But your children,” Geeta said. “They’re—”

“Sad now, but they’ll be happier for it. We all will be.” She patted Geeta’s head. “Don’t forget: now that he’s gone, we both get to keep our money.”

“It’s not about the money,” Geeta said. The back of her neck pleated as she looked up at Farah, blazing in white like a deity. Geeta was not crying, but her eyes watered. “What good is money if we spend our lives in jail?”

Looming above Geeta, Farah gave her an odd look. Strange and quizzical. “Of course it’s about the money, Geetaben; it was always about the money. Get some rest and you’ll see that.” She let herself out, stepping over Bandit, while Geeta remained frozen on her bed.





The authorities arrived soon enough, faster than Geeta’d expected, slower than she’d hoped. The anticipation was gnawing and persistent, like hundreds of mosquitos after a monsoon rain. Farah, she’d heard through water pump gossip, had declined a medical report but requested that Samir be “returned” within twenty-four hours for his burial, per Islamic ritual. However, the Dalit corpse handler, somehow both outcaste and lower caste and thereby the only one who’d go near the pollution of a dead body, had apparently confused Samir with a Hindu man (despite the circumcision) and Samir was ultimately buried in an urn under three clumps of dirt that a brave Farah, sans nose ring, had lovingly tossed.

The cop arrived in the middle of the weekly loan meeting, his presence sparking the women’s tittered curiosity. He waited, respectfully, outside Saloni’s packed house, where they now held their meetings. Before poor Runi’s death, she’d hosted them on her porch. Even with the swing in the center, Saloni’s front porch was spacious with good acoustics, conducive to large gatherings.

The loan officer, Varun, perched on the thick parapet lining Saloni’s porch, collection box to his side, while the women sat cross-legged in a sloppy circle. Varun began the meeting and everyone quieted.

Geeta crushed her group’s money in her hands, then remembered herself and smoothed the bills. She tried not to look at Farah, still clad in her mourning whites, or the cop, but her eyes sought them time and time again. Fear tethered her like a yoke. Certainly the officer could smell her guilt from her copious sweat alone.

That all six of the smaller loan groups were gathered together again signaled one week, just one week since Farah’s timid shuffle and swollen eye had come begging. To Geeta, it felt more like months. Back then, Farah’s imploring had been morbid, yet somehow sweet. That Farah, Geeta had not seen lately. The Farah now sitting in the circle, subdued but confident, had a healing face and a perfectly centered bindi. Geeta looked down; she was wringing the money again. How was it that Farah—arguably the more culpable between the two of them—exhibited no fear of reprisal?