The blizzard

Tilo had became pregnant not long before Bhrigu’s death, which mellowed her shrewish mother-in-law and gave her more freedom. As often as she could, she would make the walk from the fine house of Prem’s family down the path to Sakhi’s. It reminded Sakhi how far away were her dreams of the laughing husband with his mustache and green eyes and the houseful of sons. Sakhi would send Tilo away almost as soon as she arrived, ignoring the hurt in her eyes, and then wish her back as soon as she was gone.

All day Agastya would lie on the straw-filled pallet she once shared with Bhrigu. Sakhi dragged her along to get water from the river, or to gather herbs for the shaman’s wife. In return, Ghosha plied her with potions to heal her grief, to no avail. Sakhi yearned to sit next to the moon goddess Rohini’s rushing waters by herself, just for an hour, but feared what her mother might do in her absence.

Her mother muttered one day that she would take her own life, throw herself off the cliff overhanging the charnel grounds, where for generations the clan threw the corpses of dead enemies, dead animals, and those who were too poor for cremation, as offerings for the vultures. This horrified Sakhi. Such a death would bar her from joining Bhrigu in Indra’s heavenly city.

Their poverty increased. The villagers had never given Bhrigu large gifts for casting their horoscopes or presiding over births, marriages, and deaths, but it had been enough. Without him, Sakhi and her mother were forgotten. There was an occasional brace of pheasants, plucked and gutted, sent by a hunter, or eggs from the chickens kept by the warrior Karna’s wife. Tilo spirited away a bag of exotic dried fruits from the store her mother-in-law had bought off a trader who came over the high pass in late summer. She also brought table scraps from their large meals, if she could save them from the dogs. Prem and his father were hunters. Their dogs ate better than Bhrigu’s family ever had.

The gifts of the poor were far greater in relation to what they had to give. Yet Agastya would eat none of the millet bubbling in the kettle over the little iron brazier, a gift from the tanner Rama, or the pine nuts that Mitu, the outcaste woman who took the night soil from the chief’s hall, had gathered. “It is impure. I will be reborn as a maggot,” Agastya said.

Sakhi quickly tossed aside qualms about whose hands offered food. At first, she felt disloyal to Bhrigu, but she decided to ask his forgiveness. One night when Agastya went to sleep early, she offered some of Mitu’s pine nuts to her father at evening puja. She broke off a tiny piece of sandalwood incense from the chunk he had kept in a little chest along with a small brass singing bowl and a teak mallet that had belonged to his father and his father’s father, Bhrigu’s most treasured possession. It rang soft and sweet when he struck it, and he would chant the sacred om to its vibrant note.

“If it is tainted, Father, leave this offering,” Sakhi whispered, lighting the incense. “But if you take it, I will know that your blessing will purify any food we receive.”

The next morning she rushed to the family altar. The nuts were gone.

Her father’s blessing didn’t make the food any more abundant. They had one goat to give milk, but when winter came she would need fodder, and the gods alone knew where Sakhi would get enough to feed her mother, much less the goat, for four long months. She was hurt that Dandapani did not help more.

One day, Nara the woodcutter arrived with his handcart loaded with firewood from the chief. Dandapani had sent a supply to Bhrigu every year as long as Sakhi could remember. Wrapped in an old shawl, she watched while Nara unloaded barely enough to cover the bottom of the wood crib. It wouldn’t last through the first few snows.

“Thank Dandapani for his gift, Nara,” she said as he finished unloading and turned to leave. Dandapani was father to her heart’s sister, and this is all he gave. Nara gave her a short nod. He would have given her father a deep bow. He seemed in a hurry to get away.

“But… but for my father, Dandapani always had the crib filled full… ”

“Just two of you. Don’t need as much.”

“It won’t last.” She clamped her hands together to keep them from shaking. “We always used a full load. Sometimes the chief sent more if there were late storms.”

His face was impassive. “Takes less to cook and heat for two.”

“Very well, then.” She wouldn’t cry in front of the woodcutter. “I will ask Dandapani for more when he returns.”

“No need to do that,” Nara said quickly. “Shouldn’t disturb the chief with your complaints.”

Why would Nara care if she asked Dandapani for more?

He put the handles of the cart down and rubbed his chin, looking her up and down. “If you want more.” His meaning was clear. He leered, showing a few jagged, yellow teeth.

She felt naked under that leer and tightened her shawl. It was unthinkable that it would come to giving herself to Nara. Unthinkable.

He laughed and pushed his cart up the path to the chief’s hall, humming tunelessly.

Nara had stolen wood meant for her and her mother, Sakhi felt sure. Dandapani couldn’t know. He was away, patrolling the borders; times were dangerous. Both Sakyans and Kosalas had been sighted in Koli territory. In the meantime, Sakhi would have to get more fuel somehow.

The next day she dragged Agastya to the pasture to gather dung. Someone had always brought it for them, and it made Sakhi feel dirty and ashamed. In silence, Agastya sat on a rock, not making any attempt to help. The pasture had been picked clean, and Sakhi found very little to take back.

During an early snow that kept them indoors for several days, they used a large part of the wood and all the dung to keep a small fire burning. The weather turned fine for a spell afterwards. To replenish their depleted crib, Sakhi took her mother into the forest to gather fallen branches and small logs. The snow was wet and melting; more like a spring thaw than winter’s onset, the sky was so blue and the air so fresh. Squirrels whose cheeks were fat with seeds watched from the dripping branches. Birds that had not fled for warmer places sang with mad abandon, knowing the cold that was coming.

Necessity overcame Sakhi’s reluctance to leave her mother, and she went out alone for a whole day to bring as much as she could to fill the crib. Several of Mitu’s children came to help, and Mitu herself when she had taken away the bucket of soil left outside their door.

By dark, the crib was half full of poorly stacked, wet wood. Sakhi was grateful to Mitu and her children, but she needed more. To get the wet fuel going, she needed fallen cedar and pine boughs. She gathered armfuls, broke them so they would fit in the brazier, and brought them inside. They filled the hut with a wonderful scent, like Dhara’s room in the chief’s hall. Sakhi almost cried.

Soon the deep snows would come, and when they did, the gods alone knew whether they would starve first or freeze.

The night Dandapani and his patrol arrived back in the village, Sakhi had no chance to go to him. A blizzard struck. In the morning, the snow was falling so thick and fast she couldn’t see the next house up the road.

Sakhi and her mother put on every article of clothing they had and huddled in the loft under a meager pile of blankets. The goat was stabled below next to a pile of wet straw. Sakhi wished she could bring the beast up to share her warmth. The only way to tell day from night was the dim light admitted by the smoke hole in the roof and by cracks the wind whistled through. At least the wet wood stacked near the straw-filled pallet that was their bed was dry. The small fire gave off little heat but much smoke that swirled on frigid drafts until it escaped through the roof.

Sakhi dozed. Whenever she woke, her mother was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Sometimes she was whispering something Sakhi couldn’t understand. Everything was like a dream, and often she didn’t know if she was awake or asleep.

The water jug froze solid and cracked. There was no point in getting out from under the blankets to get the iron kettle. The fire was so low, the ice wouldn’t melt.

The shrieking wind pulled Sakhi into a timeless dark vortex. She drifted. Strangely, the cold receded. Things grew lovely and warm, but somehow she knew it wasn’t real. She was watching from somewhere outside herself.

Then she floated down into her body again. She was not warm at all. They were freezing to death.