The Bandit Queens (7)
Geeta sidestepped a sitting cow, whose jaw circled in a desultory rhythm. Its tail echoed similar circles, but did little to dissuade the flies communing on her rump. By the time Geeta reached the shops, it was too late. Gates of corrugated metal in various colors covered the entrances, sealed with padlocks near the ground. Fucking Farah, she thought as she turned back.
But voices paused her feet. Geeta closed her eyes to hear better. Two men were talking inside the last store of the strip, Karem’s shop. Geeta inched closer, instinct keeping her tread light. The entrance yawned wide. Despite a twilight breeze, an anxious heat prickled her underarms.
She held her breath as she listened to Karem. It took a moment, but she eventually recognized the second voice, low and burnt: Farah’s husband. Samir had the throat of a smoker.
“No more ’til you pay your tab,” Karem said. Even from outside, his impatience was audible. She pressed her back against the neighboring shop of sundries. “This isn’t your sister’s wedding where everyone can just drink for free. I have kids to feed, too.”
Geeta could not see either of them, but she imagined Karem, his thick hair, narrow forehead, the small hoop in his right ear. And Samir, his scalp fuzzy like a baby bird’s. “I gave you a hundred yesterday!”
“Bey yaar, but you owe five hundred.”
“I’ll get it to you soon. Just help me out tonight, na?”
“No.”
Samir cursed and a cracking sound made Geeta jump, her sandal tripping over the store’s padlock. A hand—Geeta guessed Samir’s—had slammed atop a table. Everything from her jaw to her anus clenched as she waited to see if she’d been heard.
“I’ll get you the money soon,” Samir said, calmer now.
“Yeah, right.”
“I mean it, I will. My wife has a friend who’s been helping her, she’ll help me, too.”
A thread of sweat wove a thin course down Geeta’s spine.
“Why would she do that?”
“Because if she doesn’t, I’ll make her regret it.”
“Whatever,” Karem said. “Just pay your tab and you can have the daru.”
“Make sure you have something decent ready for me. Your tharra could turn a horse cross-eyed.”
Geeta left then, her heart flapping as she tugged her earlobe. She walked in the littered alley behind the shops. It was not the most direct way home, but it provided cover. If Samir left Karem’s, he’d spot her immediately. That thought made her run, her empty bag bouncing against her like a numb limb. Geeta was not accustomed to running; with each step Samir’s threats slalomed in her head. Would he just beat and rob her, or kill her? Would he rape her? When shock gave way to anger somewhere around the Amin shanty, she changed her physical and mental path.
That drunk chutiya thought her hard work, her life of carefully preserved solitude, was an open treasure chest for his convenience. The Bandit Queen wouldn’t stand for it; she’d killed the various men who’d brutalized her, starting with her first husband. After she joined the gang, she returned to his village and beat him and his second wife, who’d harassed and humiliated Phoolan. Then she dragged him outside and either stabbed him or broke his hands and legs, Geeta had heard differing stories. Phoolan left his body with a note warning older men not to wed young girls. (That last bit might’ve been untrue, as Phoolan Mallah was illiterate and knew only how to sign her name, but it made for excellent lore, so no matter.) The point was: if the Bandit Queen caught wind of burgeoning betrayal, she wouldn’t wait to be wronged. A gram of prevention was worth a kilogram of revenge.
By the time Geeta reached Farah’s house, her throat was dry and she needed a cool bath. Still, she was certain she’d beaten Samir there and pounded on the door. While waiting, she cupped her knees with her hands and panted. Crickets chirred. Her pulse thrummed to the beat of, irritatingly enough: kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi.
“Geetaben?”
She had to suck in two gulps of air before she could manage to say: “I’m in.”
THREE
It was after ten when Geeta heard someone approach. Solar lantern in hand, she opened the door before Farah could knock. Without the lantern, it was as dark inside as it was outside. The scheduled power cuts (“power holidays” they called them, as if it were a rollicking party to grope in the dark and knock your knees on furniture) were increasingly longer and less scheduled. They’d all grown up with kerosene lamps and candles, but after many fires, NGOs came into their town with a rush of concern and gifts, like lanterns and the larger solar lights installed in the more trafficked portions of the village.
Farah stood in the dark, her thin elbow at a right angle, hand still lifted. “Oh, hi!” she chirped, as though they’d bumped into each other at the market. She had, Geeta noticed, a rather uncharming habit of finding amusement in everything, even premeditated murder.
Farah rubbed her hands together and a clean rasping sound filled Geeta’s home. “So what’s the plan?”
Which was exactly the question that had been squatting on Geeta’s head for the past few hours. Farah was counting on Geeta’s one-for-one score in the murder department, and Geeta had long ago stopped protesting her innocence. Telling someone the truth was asking them to believe her, and she was done asking for anything from this village. Because Geeta saw no reason to reveal the truth now—how hard could it actually be?—her voice was fairly confident when she said: “It should be done at night. It should look like he expired in his sleep. No blood—too messy.”