Soon after the healthy men left, disgusting sounds came from Mr. Taylor’s and William’s tents. The contents of Nora’s stomach threatened to spill into her throat. She was grateful that in all the years she’d tended her mother, vomit had rarely appeared.
“So,” Nora said to Sita, switching to Owen’s vacant chair and forcing cheer into her voice, “where did you learn to draw like that?”
Sita tipped her head. “Learn? I learned English and maths at the mission school. My father is a clerk for a British family. They sent me to school. But this”—she waved her hand toward the canvas—“I just see in my head and draw it. It’s easy.”
Nora wouldn’t call art easy. It took her intense concentration to flesh out what she saw before her. God had given the child a gift, of that Nora was certain. What a shame to waste it. “How would you like me to teach you about insects and methods for illustrating them?”
Sita nodded, the little gold bells dangling from her earlobes tinkling as they struck her jaw. “I want to learn to write better too. My spelling of English words is poor.”
“Good. You can transcribe my notes. That will help with your spelling and handwriting, and you’ll learn about insects in the process. Do you have school?”
Sita’s lips and eyes drooped. “No. I finished last year. There isn’t any point in continuing when I’m destined to die.”
“Die? Surely you’re being dramatic.”
Sita picked up a blue pastel and mushed it against the table. Pushing her finger through the powder, she drew whirls and curls. She scratched her chin, leaving a chalky smudge, and heaved a sigh too great for one so young. “When my father brings me to the temple to begin my duties, I will refuse. He might not let me live if I humiliate him. If I don’t honor his promise to Yellamma.”
Nora had no concept of what it would be like to serve in a Hindu temple. No idea, even, what Hindus believed except that they had a thousand gods and most of them lived in the lavishly decorated shrines that peppered the countryside. “Do you want me to talk to your father?”
Sita laughed. Hard laughter that sent tears rolling down her cheeks. Laughter that turned to sobs before Nora could even react to the unexpected mirth. Sita leaned toward her, forcing Nora to wrap the little girl in her arms. To rub her hand down Sita’s thick braid and whisper comforting sounds against her temple.
When Sita’s tears turned to hiccups, Nora pulled away and gazed at her. “Now, tell me what’s wrong.” She rested her elbows on her knees and perched her chin against her fists.
Sita gave her a sad smile, and in the girl’s eyes, Nora thought she saw an understanding—knowledge—of something Nora couldn’t fathom. Something Sita tried to hide from her when her lids fell and her lashes brushed against the youthful swell of her cheek.
But that was ridiculous, because Nora had benefited from a Western education, and Sita had only spent a few years in a mission school.
Sita patted Nora’s cheek, her dusty fingers trailing Nora’s jaw. “You are very different from Indians. You don’t understand our customs.”
“I want to understand.”
“One of my duties, should I obey my father, will be servicing men who come to worship.”
“Servicing?” Nora shook her head.
Sita remained silent. She only watched, waiting for understanding to dawn, and when it did, Nora’s chest tightened as though the weight of the world rested on her lungs. The same weight Sita must carry upon her small shoulders.
“Your father has consigned you to prostitution?” Nora tried to keep the horror from coloring her words, tried to speak in a calm and modulated tone so judgment didn’t sharpen her voice and shut down Sita’s trust in her.
She didn’t know if she succeeded, but Sita lifted wet eyes toward her, and her chin trembled. “It is considered a great honor. Especially since the girls are usually from poor families. But we are not poor. Not in money, at least. We were only poor in boys. And Indian families need boys. My father had four daughters, and he promised Yellamma one of them if she gave him a boy. My brother was born after me.”
“And in that dedication, you must . . . service men?” Nora couldn’t keep the squeak from her voice. How horrifying. How unfair that a child would be sacrificed on the altar of misogyny. She would spend the rest of her life a slave to the depraved appetite of grown men.
Nora knew Sita’s fate was far worse than anything she would ever experience. Even if she never attained her career goals, even if every man she worked with treated her like Mr. Alford did, it wouldn’t compare.
“I will become a sacred prostitute.” Sita, looking so tiny curled up beside her, shrank even smaller. She lifted her feet to the chair and rested her head against her knees. “You see my plight? I cannot serve that way and honor my faith. I cannot tell my father I’m a Christian and refuse because he will send me away, alone. Maybe even kill me. Especially after the dishonor of my—” Her eyes darted around before landing on her lap. “What should I do?”
The air between them grew thick with Sita’s expectation and hope. No one except for her mother had ever relied on Nora. No one needed her. Certainly no one had ever thought Nora could save them from a terrible fate.
Dryness filled her mouth, and her heart—which had spent the previous six years sheltered beneath a barely-there veneer of phlegmatic constraint—twisted so violently, she thought the pain must rival being stung by a thousand fire ants.
For a moment, she couldn’t tear her gaze from Sita’s imploring one. The child held her captive. How could Nora have fallen in love with her so quickly, so completely, that Sita had reached a place she’d kept sealed from touch since her father’s death?
A hacking, retching noise slid from Mr. Taylor’s tent, and his desperate plea drew their attention. “Help me.”
Nora allowed the call to distract her from Sita’s small, tear-stained face. She pushed away the choking sense of almost-certain failure. How could she bear that? Failing Sita would be far worse than most any other failure. And Nora was only one person, standing in the gap for a child who shouldered a burden heavier than she’d ever faced.
Nora turned to Sita. “I’m being summoned.”
As Sita left the camp with silent steps, swaying her hips and arms in a dance to music only she could hear, Nora realized that even though she sometimes had as little control over her own choices as Sita, the end result didn’t look at all the same. Society would relegate Nora to parlors and quilting parties. Sita, though, would end up warming the bed of men twice her age.
Nora blinked at the sudden prick of unwanted tears and stood with resolution. She couldn’t help the situation, so she wouldn’t think about it. She forced her thoughts to nursing, something she had a good deal of experience in. It meant little in light of Sita’s plight, but the work would distract her from the strange emotions churning in her belly.
She strode toward the pot of watery yogurt that fermented in the shade of an acacia tree. She filled a tin bowl, wrinkling her nose at the tangy scent. She’d not yet developed a taste for it, but Pallavi had insisted it would help settle the ill men’s stomachs. She carried it into Mr. Taylor’s tent and set it on the metal table beside his cot. Whey sloshed out, and he turned bleary eyes toward her.
“I’m so very sorry.” His normally placid expression was twisted into one of misery. Sweat beaded his hairline, and his skin had taken on the pallor of someone who had released all body fluids in a short amount of time.
The poor man. He was the bedrock of their team. Reliable and unflappable. Always willing to share his findings with her and listen to the bits of things she’d gleaned on her lonely excursions into the shola. He raised a trembling hand for his cup, and Nora easily fell into her much-practiced role as nursemaid.
She slipped her arm behind him and tipped the bowl against his lips. When yogurt dribbled down his chin, she wiped it with the handkerchief tucked into her waistband. She snugged his blanket around him, made sure the bowl was within reach, and left him with the handkerchief, then stepped back into the sunshine.
Pallavi sat on her heels near the ever-lit fire, pounding a rainbow of spices together against a smooth rock. Her limp braid gently swung against her back as she dumped a small pot of coriander seeds atop the already ground cumin and pepper. Nora’s mouth watered. Pallavi prepared some of the most flavorful food she’d ever tasted.
And she was Sita’s aunt.
Nora strode toward her, kicking up dust in her haste to ferret out the truth. To understand the motive.
Pallavi glanced up at her approach, continuing to grind the pestle as she stared at Nora, censure in her expression. “You should not let Sita come.”
Nora ignored the comment and knelt beside her. “That smells lovely. You are a wonderful cook. Much better than our housemaid at home.” Certainly a little flattery wouldn’t hurt.
Pallavi narrowed her eyes. “Sita is to stay away.”
Nora drew in a slow, steadying breath. Then she smiled. She’d been told on a few occasions that she had a nice smile—straight white teeth and pretty lips. She’d never attempted to use her smile, or any other part of her person, to get what she wanted, but she knew most women did. Rose did so without pretense or thought. Bitsy, with her languid stretches and sideways glances, knew exactly what she was about.
By the tight line of Pallavi’s mouth and the way she rolled her shoulders inward, Nora could tell her attempts had fallen flat.
She was being ridiculous. And completely uncharacteristic. Directness had never failed anyone. “Is it true that Sita was dedicated to a goddess and will be prostituted?”
Pallavi stopped pounding the spices. Her fingers twitched against the smooth acacia pestle, and the line of her shoulders went rigid. “It is the custom.”
“She is a child.”
“She won’t work until she bleeds, so she will be a woman.”
“But it will still be against her will.”
Pallavi’s head snapped up, and her eyes flashed. “How many things are in our will? We are women. We do nothing we want.” Her sneer dripped with disdain. “You do nothing you want, even though you are a foreign woman. You are white, but you have breasts.” She shrugged as though she’d just diagnosed all the world’s injustice. “And if Yellamma smiles on Sita, a rich man will make her his own.”
“He will marry her?”
“No, but he will take care of her, and it will honor her family.” Pallavi turned back to her spices and began singing in her high, warbling voice. Nora didn’t know any Tamil, but she knew a love song when she heard one. In any language, they sounded of yearning and desire.
And helplessness.