The Bandit Queens (70)



Geeta closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. The remainder of her adrenaline was subsiding. Karem’s voice rumbled near her, a balm: “I think when we’re kids, we just accept things. We don’t think to question until later, sometimes not even then.”

Her head rested against the wall, and she let it tip sideways until it met Karem’s shoulder. Her defenses were lowered just enough for the images of Darshan’s spite-ridden face to loom. You’re so starved for a fuck that you invited yourself into my house…to throw yourself at me. Her body jerked, her head whipping up.

“Geeta,” Karem began, squeezing her hand once, twice. He didn’t continue speaking until she looked at him. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she lied.

“Okay. But you’d tell me if you needed my help, right? Like with what happened to your neck, for instance?”

Geeta’s free hand flew to span her clavicle. Across the room, in the armoire mirror, she saw the darkening skin. “If I thought you could help, yes, I’d tell you.”

“So, no, then.” His laugh was humorless.

“You’re helping me now,” she said, letting her head return to the shelter of his shoulder.





TWENTY


Farah stood, gourd in hand. Geeta stared, unsure of whether this was merely another febrile dream. After Karem had left late last night, Geeta slept fitfully, waking every ninety minutes or so, her clothes damp, cramps crawling in her belly. Sometimes she collapsed back into sleep, the scent of Karem either on her bedsheets or conjured by her hyper brain. Other times, she felt like she’d drown in bile if she remained horizontal, so she stepped over Bandit’s sleeping form into the kitchen. She drew water from her clay pot and parsed through her dreams.

They usually began with her and Karem on her bed, echoing what they’d shared before he’d left. But invariably the face she kissed would morph. Or she’d look down and it’d be Darshan’s head between her thighs. When she’d try to kick him away, he’d only laugh and tell her to be a good girl.

Her other nightmares began with the reverse: Darshan, his vile hands clawing. She’d grip the statue, cold as salve, and crash it into Karem’s unsuspecting head. She’d realize her mistake a fraction too late, and see stunned betrayal occupy his eyes before death did.

Her hands had performed an act her mind couldn’t yet accept. Geeta looked at them, distorted with fading orange henna. In the moonlight, the patterns looked like the faint breath of a dragon.

She did not regret her actions, but Darshan’s. She resented being put in a position where those were her choices: violence or violation. She didn’t want to be built to endure, a long-suffering saint tossed by the whims of men. She wanted, for once, not to be handed the short end of the stick by a system that expected gratitude in return.

As she sipped water in her moon-drenched kitchen, all quiet but the crickets, she submitted to the slow conclusion that, at least for her near future, there would be a difference between her waking and unconscious. The former had walls, mantras she could stack to protect her from her culpability; as Saloni had said: Darshan killed himself. He broke the contract first. When someone threatens your body, you have every right to protect yourself. He had hurt her, he had hurt others, and he would’ve hurt more.

Nonetheless, when she slept, her guilt roamed free, sans warden, loosed prisoners bent on havoc. They’d terrorize her, but she knew it wouldn’t be permanent. She’d survived other awful things; this, too, would pass. Morning would come and with it, the safety of her mantras, but for the time being, Geeta felt small and naked, trembling in her kitchen nook, stomach and heart roiling. She was bathed in a light she felt unfit to accept. Her traitorous lungs trapped air, she gripped the lip of a shelf and kneeled. “Kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi,” she exhaled until the knot unraveled. Bandit was awake, keening his concern. She couldn’t release the ledge to pet him. She looked at him as she breathed. “Kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi.” Her distress was his; he roamed for a way to help her, as restless and impotent as she was.

When next she awoke, it was at Bandit’s behest. He whined his need until she stumbled to the door in the early morning hours, bleary-eyed, to let him outside to su-su. The two temples played competing bhajans to rouse the villagers. The morning air was cool, untouched by the day’s inevitable wet heat. It felt delicious to her hot skin. She fell back into a kind of sleep that was more escape than rest, until Farah disturbed her by knocking, looking as fresh as Geeta did fuzzy.

From the doorstep, Farah absorbed Geeta’s tangled hair and house gown. “You’re still sleeping? It’s ten,” she said with the tacit superiority early risers felt toward night owls. “Did you hear about Darshan? The whole village is buzzing.”

“What?” Geeta’s tongue was thick, her mouth sour. Punitive sunlight stabbed her eyes and she gestured Farah inside so she could shut the door.

“Darshan’s dead! His wife killed him!”

“No,” she corrected automatically before catching herself. “That’s, uh, unbelievable.”

“The police came. Took everyone to Kohra.”

“Insane.”

“I know. Lately we’ve seen more action here than Delhi even—Arre, what happened to your throat?” Farah pointed to the necklace of bruises that had stained Geeta’s skin deeper overnight.

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