The Bandit Queens (80)

Geeta smiled. “Are you sure Trivedi didn’t invent that saying, too?”

Saloni barked out a genuine laugh. “What a butt boil. And people think I’m conceited. God.”

“When’s the next council meeting?”

She shrugged. “I dunno, but I’ll ask Saurabh.”

“Good. I think I have an idea. If we can get Khushi on the council, then—”

“Geeta, don’t get your hopes up, okay? This system is as old as India and we’re women, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“What happened to being ‘facilitators of karma’? You’re underestimating what villages can do. Like, every time they have those riots in the cities, Hindus and Muslims all killing each other, nothing ever happens here, na? If we can do that, we can do this.”

Saloni waggled her hips suggestively. “Ohhhh,” she sang. “Now I see why you’re banging this equality bhajan. We want peace so no one blinks when you and Karem…” She puckered her lips and kissed the air three times in rapid succession.

“Che! Don’t be gross.”

“Gross? Are you five, too? It’s not gross. It’s sexy,” she said, the English word sounding so pornographic that Geeta’s head swiveled to ensure no one had overheard.

“Okay, I’m going.”

“To Kar-eeem’s?”

“Shut up.”

“It was a joke.”

“?‘I don’t like jokes.’?”

“?‘I don’t like you.’?”

This dialogue was some of the only English Geeta knew, still famous years after the movie’s release. Before her wedding, Geeta had seen Kuch Kuch Hota Hai with Saloni over Ramesh’s protests. Things had been very tense between them and a film seemed like a stalemate; they couldn’t bicker in the curated peace of the movie hall. They’d enjoyed the movie—much of India had—and by tacit agreement neither of them had mentioned the wedding or Ramesh. They’d argued about films on the way home, however, something about the realism (or lack thereof) of a former lover returning just as the protagonist has moved on. After their squabble, they separated, mumbling something about “next time,” though there never was.

But now, she and Saloni had found each other again. Saloni and Karem were modest bolt-holes in a shitstorm of murder and mayhem and blackmail, and Geeta sank into that refuge with relief, if not happiness. Over the years, loneliness had become a dead arm, useless and heavy but nonetheless hers, so she’d lugged it around, her other appendages pumping harder to compensate for the burden. Now it was as though that arm was working in tandem, finally helping rather than hindering. She didn’t realize she was whistling until she stopped, her feet hiccuping as she saw the visitor on her doorstep.

He’d never been particularly handsome and now, as Ramesh stood up to greet her, Geeta found that though much else had changed in five years, this fact had not.





TWENTY-THREE


Ramesh smiled at her. His focus was off, a touch too far to the left, but he said, “Geeta? I knew it was you. It’s like that song you used to like: ‘Even if my eyes close, I’d still recognize your footsteps.’?”

They were butchered lyrics, but she was too busy denying what her very open eyes were seeing to correct him.

“You can’t be here.”

“No, it’s really me. In the flesh.” His arms rose at his sides, presenting himself as a dubious prize. He held a white cane in his right hand. He was, she realized as she cautiously approached her front door, blind.

“No,” she said. “I mean you can’t be here.” If word got to Farah that Ramesh was alive, that Geeta hadn’t removed her own nose ring, it would turn Geeta’s threats thinner than water. Meanwhile Geeta’s lofty aspirations for Bandit as a watchdog were clearly dead. Where was that mutt? “How long have you been here? Did anyone see you?”

He gestured to his cane with a rueful smile. “How would I know?”

But she had bigger concerns than his lack of sight. “Get inside!” she hissed.

He didn’t move. “Help me?” he asked, his voice so small and pathetic that Geeta’s palm itched to slap him. Still, she maneuvered him, her touch unkind, and shut the door behind them.

“Why are you here?”

“May I have a glass of water? It’s so very hot out,” he asked in the same meek manner. Geeta obliged with a grunt as deep as her reluctance. After a moment of him grasping and failing, she impatiently wrapped his hand around the steel cup.

She’d imagined this moment many times, especially in the first year of Ramesh’s absence. That he’d return, brimming with apologies and explanations, was consistent in each fantasy. The variable was her reaction, which changed as time passed. They’d fall into each other’s arms, crying; he’d give up the drink and she’d get pregnant. Or she’d initially refuse, make him suffer, and he’d slog for her trust like a film hero. Or she’d deliver a long, emotionally charged speech (which she rehearsed while washing her hair) about how she’d survived all by herself and no longer needed him so he might as well stay gone.

After drinking, Ramesh wiped his lips and she demanded again: “Why are you here?”

“You’re my wife.”