The Story Hour (23 page)

Shilpa looked sharply at Lakshmi and then back at her father. “What you mean, no dowry? He not wanting dowry?”

Dada looked incredulous. “You not tell her that? Best part you not tell her?”

“No chance I'm having to say anything. She just—”

“So I am the bakri here? The goat who has to be killed so Lakshmi has money for dowry?”

Lakshmi shut her eyes, afraid that the hurt would leak out of them. In all her days, she had never heard Shilpa talk like this. She shook her head, trying to focus on what Shilpa was saying.

“Dada, listen. I am going with someone. I didn't want to say until. But his name is Dilip. And we having feelings for each other. We wanting to marry, Dada.”

The old man looked confused, then stricken. “Dada, come sit,” Lakshmi said, steering him to the cot. She ignored his accusatory “You were knowing?” and hurried into the kitchen to fetch him a glass of water.

“Now you telling me this?” Dada was saying when she returned. “After I invite that poor man into our house and welcome his proposal? Do your father's name and izzat mean nothing to you, beti?”

Shilpa was crying now. “I knows, Dada. I am sorry. Dilip was wanting to save some money before coming to you. His car repair business new, Dada. He supporting his whole family. We just trying to—”

“Wah, wah. So we spit on offer from rich businessman from Am'rica to wait on some fool mechanic to save money,” Dada said viciously. “One time God sending good luck to our house, and we telling God to please get out. Shabash, beti. Well done.”

“Dada. I loves Dilip. We wants to marry.” Shilpa shot an angry look at Lakshmi. “Didi. Why you not saying anything?”

Lakshmi felt slow, dim-witted, could feel the gears of her brain creaking and grinding to a halt. The girl who had flown in order to rescue a small boy from drowning in a well, the girl who had won a prize for reciting a poem, the young woman who had looked an elephant in the eye and seen the source of his pain, the woman whom the richest man in the village treated like a favored niece—that Lakshmi had disappeared, had been chased out by the man appearing like a nightmare earlier today. This Lakshmi, who sat mute as the two people she loved most dearly in the world talked over each other, couldn't figure out whose side to take, who had the better argument. Her heart ached for her baby sister, whom she had never been able to deny anything until now. But pitted against their father's claim, Shilpa's mewing, her declaration of her love for Dilip, felt childish. Dada was right—ignorant of his daughter's involvement with Dilip, he had given his word that he would take the other man's offer of marriage seriously. His reputation, his name, was at stake. Even if they could ignore that, it was impossible to ignore the compelling financial argument. Nothing changed the fact that a marriage proposal without dowry was the kind of blessing for which most families would give thanks forever. Blinded by his desire for Shilpa, the man had made this preposterous offer. Blinded by her love for Dilip, Shilpa was rejecting it without considering it.

There was yet another side. Her side. Was it her fault that she was born without much of the natural beauty that Shilpa possessed? That she was born to a poor father who couldn't afford two dowries? That her parents were cursed with no male offspring, which meant they had no way to offset the cost of marrying two daughters? Just finding out that Roshan had made inquiries about her had opened up a whole new vista. If Shilpa were to say yes, and if Roshan could look past the stigma of having her younger sister marrying first, there would be money for her to marry.

“No,” she said to herself, but the startled expressions on the other two faces told her she'd said it out loud. No. She would not put her desires ahead of her sister's. She was tin; Shilpa was gold. Shilpa was born beautiful; she was born ordinary. It had always been so, and she had never resented or challenged this hierarchy. She was happy to be the mule so that Shilpa could be the racehorse. She had dropped out of school, taken care of their mother, worked like a man beside her father in the fields, ingratiated herself into Menon sahib's life, all so Shilpa could finish school, not be burdened with the care of their mother, not have to toil in the fields. Even though she was only five years older, she felt as if she had given birth to Shilpa, felt that parental obligation to bear any burden, put up with any humiliation to ease Shilpa's way. And it had worked. It had worked. Shilpa was one of the few women in their village who had finished high school. She now had a good secretarial job in town and was also taking a computer science class. She was in love with a kind, cheerful fellow with dancing eyes. Her hands were soft and unbroken, a constant source of pride to Lakshmi.

“No,” she said out loud. “Dada, Shilpa already find someone to marry. Dilip is a good boy. She will be happy with him. Give her your blessings.”

“And what about you, beti?”

She managed a laugh. “What about me? I stay here, Dada. Same as always. Who going to take care of you in old age if I also leaf?”

Dada looked at her with his wise gray eyes as he pulled on his mustache. “You not give enough yet to this family, Lakshmi?” he said quietly. “You still wanting to give more?” He shook his head with a disgusted look. “Best student in the whole school, you were. That you give up to take care of your poor mother. It kill me, but nothing to do. Then you do the man's work in my fields so that this little one can go to school. Still I say nothing. Now your back is becoming crooked from bending over accounting books for a man who call you his niece but won't let you enter his house since his fat wife do puja to purify it after he force you to eat there.” Dada's eyes were red. “Enough. No more sacrifice. I will not allow it.” He turned to face his younger daughter. “Munni. It your turn. Your Didi has given enough. I's a poor man. I don't have luxury of let you make the love marriage. This is a good proposal. If your horoscope match, I getting you married in two weeks.”

“Dada, no,” Shilpa and Lakshmi said simultaneously, but Dada turned his head sharply away.

“Enough,” he said. “No more talking. I's your father. It my job to think about both my children. This is my decision.”

“But Dada,” Shilpa said.

Finally, their father raised his voice. “Munni, stop. Stop. Now go, both of you. I needs to rest. Tomorrow is busy day.”

As they walked out of the room, Shilpa turned toward Lakshmi. “This is your fault,” she hissed.

“But—”

“I'm telling you right now, Didi. I will kill myself before I marries anyone but Dilip.”

“Shilpa. Don't speak rubbish.”

“You see. You just see.”

“Think of Dada. Think of—”

Shilpa turned on her. “Why?” she said. There was a wildness in her voice that Lakshmi had never heard before. “Why I think of Dada? You saw how little he think of me.”

“He just wanting us to be happy . . .”

“Liar. He wanting you to be happy. He make sacrifice out of me to make sure you happy and settle in life.”

Lakshmi looked away to hide the horror and sadness on her face. This was the first real fight she'd ever had with Shilpa. Please don't let their horoscopes match, she thought. Or let Dada find out that Adit Patil is a drunkard. Or that he doesn't come from a respectable family. Please. This is our only chance.

The reports on Adit were good. No smoking. No excessive drinking. Sent money from Am'rica each month for family support. Older sister was respectably married but still looked after their elderly father. And the horoscopes matched.

The gifts began to arrive as soon as the wedding day was fixed. The wedding would be held in the groom's village, about fifteen kilometers from their own. They could invite some of their guests, of course, but since the groom was paying all expenses, please to kindly keep the numbers down—and oh, because of the groom's tight schedule, they would skip the usual pre-wedding rituals, like the mendi ceremony.

First came the red and gold sari that Shilpa was to wear on her wedding day. Then a plainer green sari for the elder sister and a white kurta-pajama set for Dada. Next, Adit's sister dropped off a set of two gold bangles, a gold necklace, and gold earrings to be worn on the wedding day. Oh, and what size shoes did the new bride wear? No, no, they would provide the shoes. Her younger brother was a businessman in Am'rica, he could afford a pair of wedding shoes. Along with the shoes arrived three pairs of shalwar-kameez suits and two pairs of Kolhapuri slippers. Oh, and a bottle of perfume that he had carried all the way from Am'rica. It was said that all of Am'rica smelled as sweet as this perfume.

My brother, he has more money than sense, the sister giggled during one of her visits. He's too generous for his own good. As if to prove her point, one week before the wedding, there arrived another gift: two lean, muscular goats, meant to be slaughtered and fed to those residents of the village who would not be invited to the wedding. Everybody knew what the gift meant: One goat would've been enough to feed the village, a generous enough gesture. Two was extravagance—a way of showing that this was not some ordinary marriage, and the groom was not some ordinary man from the village, like, say, a farmer's son or a cobbler or a schoolteacher. Or an ordinary car mechanic. This groom was a successful businessman from Am'rica. Even Menon sahib was impressed by the gesture. Went around shaking his head in disbelief the rest of the day. The second goat was sheer carelessness, which itself was a luxury only the rich could afford. It was a way of saying, Kill the second one also, or keep it as a pet for milk, it's up to you, makes no difference to us. That shrug of the shoulder which only the rich can afford.

With each gift, Shilpa got more subdued, as if cowering under the weight of the gold, vanishing under the spread of the red and gold sari, rendered mute by the scarlet blood that would soon flow in the dark fields after the Muslim butcher had expertly slit the goats' throats. Her objections to the upcoming nuptials became less vociferous, her insistence that Dada cancel the wedding less adamant. Lakshmi felt relief. The gifts proved how much Adit loved Shilpa. Maybe she was beginning to feel his love also? Shilpa was about to turn twenty-two, and it would be years before she could marry Dilip. Maybe she wanted to escape her older sister's fate? Despite her regret that her baby sister would be moving so far away, despite her shame that she was not earning enough money to allow Shilpa to marry the man she loved, Lakshmi felt a creeping sense of excitement as the day of the wedding drew near. There was so much to do. She had hired an air-conditioned taxi to drive them to Adit's village. Jyoti was to come over early that morning to do Shilpa's hair and to apply the mendi to her hands. Lakshmi herself had stitched the blouse that Shilpa would wear under her sari. She had packed a small suitcase for Shilpa's overnight honeymoon. In another break with tradition, Adit had insisted that they spend their wedding night not in his father's house but at a hotel that had sprung up on the outskirts of town. The next day, after taking lunch at her new in-laws' house, he would drive her back to Dada's house, where she would stay until her visa arrived.

Jyoti came to their house the afternoon before the wedding. Lakshmi opened the door and joked, “You's forgetting the date? Wedding not till tomorrow.”

The girl smiled. “I knows, Didi. But some of us friends wanting to take Shilpa out. We having surprise for her.”

Lakshmi nodded approvingly. “Good idea. I go tell her you here.”

She stood in the doorway, watching as the two younger women walked toward the main road, leaning in to each other, giggling as they whispered to each other. Despite her happiness at seeing Shilpa laugh for the first time in days, Lakshmi felt a twinge of sadness. She once was like this with her school friends, but that was so long ago. Years of responsibility had beaten the carefreeness out of her; lack of contact with those her own age had left her friendless. She had no close friends—the bearer of her whispered hopes and apprehensions happened to be an elephant. Once Shilpa flew to Am'rica, the last link with her own youth would be severed.

She turned away from the door, surprised at her uncharacteristic envy of Shilpa. And yet so much had been different between them these past two weeks, the lifelong closeness between them evaporating, as Shilpa spent more time with Jyoti and Lakshmi busied herself with wedding preparations.

It was to be a small wedding by the village's standards—only seventy guests, including the eight invited by Lakshmi's family—another of Adit's gestures toward modernity. But the distribution of goat meat, along with the sweets that Lakshmi had made, had gone a long way toward appeasing the bruised feelings of those not invited.

She had fed Dada his dinner an hour ago, but Shilpa was not yet home, and Lakshmi felt annoyed. Why didn't Jyoti say if their surprise included taking Shilpa out for dinner? With a sigh, she served herself some vegetables on Dada's used plate and took out a chapati from the bread tin. She would've preferred not to eat dinner alone on the last day her sister would be in this house as an unmarried woman. On the other hand, how could she begrudge Shilpa time with her friends?

She looked up, startled, when she heard the knock on the door a half hour later. Why was Shilpa knocking instead of walking in? When she answered, it was Jyoti, her eyes wide, her face drenched in sweat. “Kya hua? Where's my sister?”

In reply, Jyoti shoved a piece of paper into her hand. “Note for you, Didi,” she said. “It explain.”

“What?” she started, but Jyoti was already hurrying down the road, taking the same path that she and Shilpa had languidly walked down a few hours ago. Except this time the girl was almost trotting.

Lakshmi glanced at the piece of paper, read the first line, and felt her stomach drop with fear. “Wait,” she called after Jyoti, but when the girl didn't stop, she raced out of the house after her. Within a few seconds, she caught up with the younger woman and spun her around. “What? What is this? This note says . . . You foolish girl, what you done?”