CHAPTER 18

Before first light, Arthur walked with Jaya to Midnapore where she would catch a bullock cart from there to Calcutta.

They walked in silence along the road, and despite everything, Arthur could feel an easiness between them that was real and true as sunlight. In another life, he could imagine them walking this road together just because, not to run away from something like they were now. If he could forget the goodbye coming at the end of the road and just focus on the sweetness of her sari brushing against his leg with each step, the sap-dampened air in his throat, the hazy light he could see on the horizon—if he could just stay in this moment for the rest of his life, then he could be happy.

But that wasn’t how life worked.

They stopped at the farmers’ carts that lined the road on the other side of town, ready to take their crops into Calcutta for better prices than could be had in Midnapore. They found a cart that wasn’t too laden with jute and sugarcane and watched other laborers climb aboard. Arthur eyed the men warily and gestured at them to make room. When Jaya squeezed in between two ancient women who seemed only half awake, Arthur slipped her some rupees he’d been saving in an old ghee tin, plus the food he’d hidden in the laundry pile. There was no goodbye they could say that would make him feel better about seeing her go. Instead, he touched her face, only for a moment, before she pulled her sari over her head and the cart driver jolted the oxen forward. Arthur watched her go until the back of her head was just a dot lost in the traffic. He waited for her to look back, to show her face one more time, but she kept forward, floating away from him like a cloud on some unchangeable wind.

When he could finally will his feet to move from the spot, he turned and walked back through town. Kicking rocks and biting his lip into a pulp, he thought about what he should do next. She was saved from the judge for now, but where to go after this? She had made him believe in the possibility of life beyond the Big House, an identity other than as a lonely servant to a tiresome family. But what could they possibly build together? He thought of his childhood, the little shack nestled in the fields, waking up to impatient chickens and the plow waiting every day in the green, green farmland. Until it all turned brown in the famine.

He shook his head and let the vision fade. He took a few turns down alleys wet with wash water before he let himself think the question that had gnawed at him ever since he had made love to Jaya the night before. Could a life together even be possible?

The morning air bit at the edges of his mind, and he was brought back from his thoughts by the sharp cries of children spilling out into the streets to play. Smoke from simmering coals wafted from glowing doorways, and Arthur caught the scent of bubbling ghee in the air. He tucked his hands in the pockets of his dhoti. His fingers closed around folded paper. His first thought was that it must be an old grocery list from memsahib, but when he pulled it out, he saw Neer’s handwriting.

It was the note from Soni, and the drawing of them both. He looked at it, held it with a dull dread in his limbs. There was a delicate devotion that came with a drawing of oneself, the understanding that Soni had spent time, perhaps hours, recalling his face and trying to draw it. His breath was thick as he stuffed the paper back in his pocket. He didn’t want to deal with it, but he knew it was the right thing to do, to tell her that this wasn’t what he wanted. After what had just happened with Jaya, he couldn’t possibly entertain Soni anymore.

Yet he couldn’t shake the creeping suspicion that he had felt the last few weeks. Why had he never seen this cousin Soni, let alone heard of her at all? He thought he knew his friend Neer quite well, well enough to know his whole extended family by now. But Neer hadn’t had a sensible answer for it. Perhaps Arthur could find out more about this mysterious Soni himself.

He remembered the way to the courtyard where he had first met her. The scent of burning jaggery confirmed it was the house of the sweets sellers, her parents. Arthur crept to the wall, thankful it was a quiet street with no passersby. He looked up at the windows, but they were all dark. He realized that this house, squeezed among the others on the narrow street, was nothing like the Big House. There was no space, no openness, no interaction with the nature that was just outside the door. There were only cold walls, packed dirt, and the square of lightening sky above.

He couldn’t linger much longer, and he was about to turn away in disappointment when he heard an odd scratching sound coming from the courtyard. It wasn’t just the pecking of chickens or scraping of hooves. It sounded deliberate, careful. In the far corner of the courtyard, he saw a figure bent over the ground, a thin stick in her hand, tracing a design in the dirt. He remembered the drawings from the first time he had met Soni—well, the only time—and was mesmerized by the smooth, wide strokes she created now.

There was something preposterous about it. The too-crowded city would be chaos by midday; the rickshaws would be cranking down streets, cows mucking up pathways, children scrambling underfoot. Everyone would be busy, busy, busy. He himself would be rushing to be here or there, always at someone’s beck and call. And yet in this darkened corner, someone was making a drawing. Someone was doing something . . . slowly. Someone was taking her time. Arthur tried to remember the last time he had ever focused so much or had used such care for anything that wasn’t a part of his employment. And he couldn’t.

Without realizing it, he had begun to move toward her. Like a boy leaning over a well to see his face, he was being pulled forward by his desire to see what she was drawing. Step by step he approached, his bare feet landing softly in the dirt, his movements so gentle they were almost imperceptible. He did not wish to disturb her, only to witness.

Soni continued drawing, her sari covering her head like a hood concealing her face. She appeared not to notice Arthur, for he came to a stop about five paces away and examined the drawing. It was unfinished of course, but it was clearly a woman’s face, just like the one he had seen here before. A luscious braid curved around one shoulder, long eyebrows framed wide eyes, and a perfectly drawn pair of lips hinted at happiness.

He watched and listened to the cheerful sound of her bangles tinkling up and down her wrists as she moved. She seemed content drawing in the feeble light, and there was something undeniably alluring about her grace that tugged at Arthur. His heart faltered, and for a moment his feelings for Jaya were suspended.

He knew Soni had been the one who made these drawings, and yet, why had she lied about it when he had asked then? Suddenly, he felt emboldened. Well, why not ask her right now?

With a new heat in his chest, he stepped forward and knelt so that he was even with her. He must have still been out of her range of vision, for she continued as though she hadn’t noticed his presence. He cleared his throat.

“I knew it was you who made these drawings,” he said lowly.

As soon as he said the words, he felt a sudden pang of fear that he might scare her off like a feral animal. But she froze.

“Yes,” she whispered. And then, perhaps sensing that she should explain, “Neer didn’t think it was proper for a wife. It’s a waste of time, he thinks.”

“I don’t think that,” Arthur said.

“Besides cooking, it’s the only thing I do very well,” she said.

Arthur considered her words. He laughed to break the silence. “At least you do something well at all. I do everything only passably.” Am I flirting with her? Then he grew serious. “Why haven’t I ever seen you before? I’ve known Neer ever since I came to Midnapore, and I thought I knew his whole family. In fact, I’m sure I’ve seen your parents at their sweets stall before, but never you. Are they hiding you?”

He said that last part as a joke, returning to the playful tone again. But he saw her stiffen at it. She set the stick down in the dirt to the side so as not to disturb her work and rose to her full height. She came to about Arthur’s shoulders, and though the folds of her clothing concealed her body, he could still sense its slightness.

“Wouldn’t you hide me?” she whispered.

Before he could ask what she meant, she pulled the sari back from her head and lifted her chin so that the light of morning fell across her face.

Above the nose, it was a simple face. Nothing particularly beautiful, but everything in its right place. The same too-wide eyes he had seen before. The dark, dark skin he had noticed on first meeting. But Arthur didn’t register all that this time. His gaze was locked on the rupture of skin where her lips should be. It was as if her upper lip were snagged on her nose, revealing the violent red flesh of her gums. Her nostrils were fused into one wide opening, and the end of her nose stretched as wide as her mouth to accommodate it.

“Oh.” That single, stupid syllable was all Arthur could think to say.

Soni’s eyes hardened, as though daring him to look away. And he knew it was wrong, but he felt ill at the sight. It wasn’t so much that he’d never seen deformities or birth defects or red flesh or even missing limbs before, but it was the unexpectedness of it all. And what made it worse was finding out in this moment that he was the kind of person who would care about appearances.

“I tried to show you before,” she whispered. “In the drawing I gave to you. I drew myself exactly as you see me now. But Neer discovered it and forced me to smudge out my face. I tried to show you.”

Arthur’s mouth opened and closed as he grasped for something more to say. When the words didn’t come, Soni reached a hand to his face. He expected it to land softly on his cheek, like the way Jaya had caressed him, but the firm grip with which she caught his jaw shocked him. She held him there, forcing him to look at her face. And because he couldn’t bring himself to look at her lips, he locked his gaze on her eyes. In them he saw all the years of pain and sadness she had endured, the grief of loneliness, the ghostly existence she had been forced into.

Panic mobilized him. He slipped from her grasp and backed away, trying and failing again to utter words—an apology, an excuse, anything. He turned with burning cheeks and walked swiftly out of the courtyard.

Immediately, he felt shame run down his whole body, like he had just been doused with it. By his age, he shouldn’t be this shallow. And even if he did believe in superstitions like he once had, the bad luck of his past was far worse than whatever misfortune a birth defect could bring. He should have been kind enough to at least pretend that her face was the most unremarkable thing he’d ever seen, even if just long enough to think of a more graceful exit.

But the truth was, it wasn’t the sight of Soni’s deformity that caused this reaction in Arthur. It was the knowledge that his friend Neer had deceived him.

He took a deep breath. As he inhaled, he felt a heat fill his lungs. Closing his fist, he fought the urge to growl. He had to find Neer.

Neer’s green bike was tied to the banyan tree at their usual meeting place by the river, just as Arthur suspected. He walked right up to it and flicked the bell.

“Are!” he shouted. “Hey, Neer! Where are you?”

Arthur stalked down the bank toward the river, scanning the shore for his friend. The calm waters reflected the clear morning sky, and there were several men scattered around, some sharing a smoke or standing in the shallow water to cool their feet. He didn’t care if they all thought him deranged. He needed to find Neer. He needed answers.

“Oh, are you hiding from me now?” Arthur laughed. “Figured out what this is about, na?”

“Arthur!” Neer called from behind him. He was sitting on a log, smoking a bidi by himself. He rose to his feet as Arthur turned and started for him. Guilt was written on his friend’s face, and Arthur couldn’t deny the satisfaction in seeing it there.

“Neer, my dear friend Neer, my best friend, Neer,” Arthur spat. “I hate to disturb your morning, but there’s been a development in your plan to trick me into marrying Soni. Surprise! I stopped by her home this morning and saw her face—her whole face—and the little detail you forgot to mention.”

As he said the words out loud, he felt that stab of shame again that he should care so much about physicality. But his rage could not be stifled.

“Oh no,” Neer whispered. His shoulders sunk inward in defeat, and he clasped his hands together in front of him, ready to plead forgiveness. “It’s not like that,” he said.

“What, did you think I wouldn’t find out eventually?” Arthur said. “Or did you think I would marry her and go years without seeing her face?”

“Of course you would see her face, but I hoped you would at least get to know her and come to like her first, enough so that it wouldn’t matter to you by the time you found out!”

Arthur huffed. “I cannot believe you would try to fool me like this. My own friend. My oldest friend.”

Neer put out his hands. “Don’t you see, it’s because you’re my friend. I know your heart, I know you could come to see past it. Another man would—”

“Another man would have higher standards, is that it? Another man would be smarter than to fall into this trap? You really thought I was this simple, na?”

“No, but I didn’t think you were this heartless.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault. Poor, stupid Arthur found out your genius plan to marry off your undesirable cousin. Whom you had to hide from the world her whole life, but yes, I’m the heartless one!”

“It wasn’t my idea to hide her! Her parents are very traditional! And Soni was resigned to never marrying, but I told them about you, and all your good qualities, and they really believed you would see past it. So we tried. It was foolish, I admit, to deceive you, but I meant to tell you eventually.”

“Funny. I was resigned to never marrying either. I was perfectly happy living my life before all this. I have my own problems, but at least they are mine alone. I cannot believe I let you convince me that being alone was so horrible. It certainly beats this . . . whatever this deception was.”

“Please, Arthur, be reasonable! Yes, the plan was idiotic, but Soni would still make a good wife! Just calm down and think about—”

“No, there’s nothing to think about. That’s the sad thing. She probably would make a perfectly fine wife. In fact, give my regards to Soni. She didn’t do anything wrong. You—you were the one who tainted it.”

As he turned away, Neer grasped for his sleeve. “Arthur—”

“Don’t!” Arthur jerked his arm away. For a moment, he was reminded of Jaya, the passion of last night, and the easy way they walked together that morning, the heartache at seeing her go, and the impossibility that that had all happened barely hours ago. He had the mind to throw this in Neer’s face, to boast that a far more beautiful woman knew him more intimately than, well, anyone—and that he didn’t need Neer’s insulting plan. But all he wanted was to get out of there. He spun backward and was struck by the barefaced curiosity of the other men around them who had witnessed everything.

“I have work to do,” he spat as he walked back up the riverbank.