Girls Burn Brighter

by Shobha Rao

  “When the elephant returned, he saw that the lagoon had dried up. ‘Crow,’ he said, ‘Where is the water?’ The old crow looked down sadly and said, ‘Lion drank it.’ The elephant was enraged. He said angrily, ‘I told you not to let anybody else drink from the lagoon. As punishment, shall I chew you up, or simply swallow you whole?’

  “‘Swallow me whole, if you please,’ the crow said.

  “So the elephant swallowed the crow. But once the crow entered the elephant’s body, the crow—our little crow—tore at the elephant’s liver and kidneys and heart until the elephant died, writhing in pain. Then the crow simply emerged from the elephant’s body and walked away.”

  Savitha was silent.

  Poornima looked at her. “What about the rain?” she said.

  “The rain?”

  “Did it come back? Did it fill the lagoon again?”

  “The rain doesn’t matter.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “But what about—”

  “That doesn’t matter either.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “No,” Savitha said. “Here’s what matters. Understand this, Poornima: that it’s better to be swallowed whole than in pieces. Only then can you win. No elephant can be too big. Only then no elephant can do you harm.”

  They grew silent.

  Savitha went back to her loom, and Poornima, washing up after lunch, looked at the wound on her hand, open again now from scrubbing dishes, and she thought about her father, she thought about the old crow, and then she thought, Please, Nanna. If you swallow me, swallow me whole.

  6

  Savitha began working longer hours. She was fast, but orders for the wedding season were even larger than expected. She came in early in the morning and left late at night, working harder than any man Poornima’s father had known. Sometimes, Savitha caught him eyeing her greedily—as if he were already counting the coins she was minting for him. She didn’t mind. “He’s paying me extra,” she said to Poornima. “Besides, once the rush ends, I’ll be able to make yours.” She was trying to cheer her, but Poornima only looked back at her sadly. Ramayya arrived every evening at teatime and proclaimed defeat. One night, she told Savitha, she’d stood behind the door of the hut and listened. “No one will have her. No one,” he declared to her father. “They’ve all heard. The minute they hear her name, your name, they shake their heads and say they’re not interested. And dark, on top of it. Word travels, after all. No, we might have to increase the dowry. Some poor fool will need the money.”

  Savitha said to her, “Come over tomorrow. I want to show you something.” When she did, Savitha showed her the bales of indigo thread for her sari. “It’s not completely paid for, but the collective gave me credit.” She held it against Poornima’s skin. “Like the night sky,” she said, smiling. “And you the full moon.” Poornima, too, managed a smile. She offered her tea, and when Poornima refused, Savitha turned to a corner of the hut and said, “Nanna, do you want some?”

  Poornima swung around. There was an old man sitting in the corner of the room. Huddled. He’d been quiet all this time, invisible. There seemed to be movement, and Poornima thought to say, No, please don’t get up on my account, but then she saw that he was trembling. Then there came a grunt, maybe the broken half of a word, and, as if in response, Savitha poured out some tea into a steel cup. She went over to her father and cradled his head as she held the cup to his lips. He caught Poornima’s eye. He said, in a hoarse whisper, but strong, stronger than Poornima would’ve thought possible in a man who looked so weak, “You see that? You see the temple?” He was pointing out of the small window, at Indravalli Konda. “They can see us, just as we can see them. I’ve looked. I’ve stood on the steps of the temple and looked. The door of this shithole looks just as mysterious, just as inviting as that door does from here.”

  “Drink,” Savitha said.

  The old man—too old to be Savitha’s father; he looked more like her grandfather—said, “I did too much of that. Too much, don’t you think?”

  Savitha tipped the glass. A drop of tea dribbled out. He pulled his hand out from under the blanket, instinctively, and Poornima stepped back in horror. It was a bundle of broken twigs, the fingers smooth but twisted. Savitha saw the look on Poornima’s face. “Joint disease,” she said.

  “That’s not right. Not joint disease. That’s too easy. You see this here?” He raised his hand into the air and sunlight touched its very tip, like the top branches of a tree. “This is freedom. This is the human spirit, perfected. If we were all born like this there would be no war. We would live like brothers, afraid to touch each other. Do you know, Savitha, what I saw the other day? And what is your name?” When Poornima told him, he said, “Do you know there are some places in the world where people’s names have no meanings? It’s true. Can you imagine? What kind of places are they? Empty, that’s what I say. Empty and sad. A name without meaning, it’s like having night without day. There are places like that, too, I’ve heard. Now, what was I saying? Savitha, the tea’s cold,” he said, laughing. “You see. I talk too much. Far too much. Mondhoo kept me quiet. Mondhoo kept the words quiet, chained to a tree. Oh, yes! What I saw the other day. Why, now I can’t remember.” He laughed, copiously and happily, like a child.

  Poornima liked him. She didn’t care what he’d meant to say, nor did she have any idea what he meant by words being chained to a tree, but she liked him because he was so unlike her own father. Unlike Ramayya, unlike any man she’d ever met. She forgot, then, and for the entire walk home, that she was dark, that she was unmarriageable, that there was not enough money for her dowry, that there was a poverty even greater than her own.

  * * *

  Ramayya was jubilant when he came over the following week. He nearly danced through the door. It was the beginning of May. The wells were dry. The streams were choked with dust. The level of the Krishna was so low that laundresses from either shore walked to the middle of the river to share gossip. After two weeks, and after a few children had died of dysentery, the municipal government brought in water in massive tanks. Lines formed around the tanks—sometimes a hundred, two hundred people long. People watched the sky for the slightest hint of a cloud. Even a thin one, the most trivial strip, would have them holding their breath, waiting for rain. Everyone knew the monsoons wouldn’t come until June or July, but someone had heard of a bit of rainfall in Vizag, just enough to fill the streams. Maybe it would come down the coast.

  But Ramayya seemed unconcerned. “Poornima,” he yelled out as soon as he was within earshot, “bring me a glass of water, would you? My throat is parched. And for my feet. Enough to wash my feet. Look at all this dust. I practically ran here.”

  Water? Poornima wondered. She looked into each of the empty clay water pots and scraped the bottom of one to fill a small glass. When she took it to him, he was already engrossed in conversation with her father. “He’s perfect. I haven’t talked to the family yet, but he’s perfect.”

  “Who’s perfect?” Poornima asked.

  “Who do you think? Go do something. Go find something to do.”

  Poornima walked back into the hut and stood just inside the door.

  “Would you believe it? I didn’t even have to go very far. Just to Namburu. The boy’s grandparents were weavers. Did well, it seems. Bought up a sizable chunk of land around Namburu. They were farmers, before independence, but now they’ve sold most of it. Made plenty, too. He has two younger sisters. They’re looking for matches for the older one, our Poornima’s age, but seems she’s a bit picky. Well, they can afford it.”

  Poornima heard her father say, “What does the boy do?”

  “An accountant!” Ramayya said jubilantly. “He studied. There’s no money in weaving. You know that. None at all.”

  “How much do they want?”

  “That’s just it—they’re within our range. Well, almost. But I’ve heard we might be able to talk them down.”

 
“Talk them down?”

  Here, Poornima heard shuffling. When Ramayya finally spoke, his voice was lowered. “There’s nothing wrong with him. Nothing like that.” More shuffling, a further drop.

  “But what is it?” Poornima’s father’s voice rose with suspicion.

  “Our girl’s no catch, you know. So no need to be so dubious. Just a small affectation. An idiosyncrasy. Nothing to worry about. That’s just what I heard, mind you, and really, who knows.”

  * * *

  Savitha squealed with delight. She took Poornima in her arms. “So you’re getting married! And he lives in Namburu. That’s not far at all. It’s right here. I could walk there.”

  “Yes,” Poornima said. “Maybe.” Then she was silent. Then she asked, “What does idiosyncrasy mean?”

  * * *

  Poornima stood outside her hut and looked at the palm trees. They caught the breeze, a slight one, just enough to rustle the topmost fronds. The other plants that surrounded the hut—a neem tree, a struggling guava, a vine of winter squash—all looked exhausted. They drooped. They sulked hopelessly in the heat. There had been no rain—it was absurd to think there would be. It was only mid-May. The temperature hovered somewhere near thirty-nine degrees Celsius in the mornings, rising to forty-one or forty-two in the afternoons. Shade—that elusive place—was without meaning. The hut broiled like it was set on a frying pan.

  Information, as Ramayya learned of it, trickled in. He’d talked to the parents and they had said their son would not be ready to marry for another two months; exams, they’d said. The timing was perfect. That would be just after Poornima’s mother’s one-year death ceremony. The son’s name was Kishore. He was twenty-two years old. “I haven’t met him yet,” Ramayya said, “but there’s no condition that they mentioned. He seemed perfectly fine. College. An accountant. What else could our Poornima possibly hope for?”

  “Do they want to see the girl? They must. Don’t they?” Poornima’s father asked.

  “Of course. Of course,” Ramayya assured him. “No telling when the boy will be able to come, though. Like I said, exams.”

  “And the dowry?”

  “Settled.”

  It was decided that they—the parents, at least—would come at the end of May. If the visit went smoothly, there would be a full month to plan the wedding, and then, at the end of June, would be the ceremony. June! “But it’s so soon,” Poornima said.

  Savitha was already busy with plans. “Exactly. That’s just it. I hardly have time to finish all the saris. And I still have to make yours. What do you think of a red border? I think red would be nice with the indigo. I can hardly wait! You. Married. Do you mind if I spend the night sometimes? That would make things easier. I could stay at the loom as long as I wanted.”

  Poornima asked her father later that evening, and he said, “Fine, fine,” hardly hearing her as he rolled his evening tobacco.

  And so Savitha began spending nights. They slept together on the same mat—they had none to spare. Despite the sweltering nights, Poornima liked the feel of Savitha’s body close to hers. She liked how Savitha seemed to savor everything, even the most mundane. “Look at the sky!” she would exclaim. “Have you ever seen so many stars?”

  “It’s too hot to look at the sky.”

  Savitha would then take Poornima’s hand and squeeze it. “My amma said we might have enough money by next year. For my sister’s dowry. Two more after her, but that’s something, don’t you think?”

  Poornima nodded into the dark. She thought then she might tell Savitha about her mother, and the chiming clock with the blue face, but she didn’t. Her father might hear. She lay still and listened to the breathing of her brothers and sister, and it occurred to her that she might’ve never met Savitha had her mother been alive. She saw no betrayal in it: her mother had died, and here was Savitha. But what she did wonder about was Kishore, her future husband. They had sent a photograph. Ramayya had brought it and showed it to them. But it was of him as a boy, maybe eight or nine. He was standing in a row with his sisters, one on either side. They were posed in front of a photographer’s canvas of a glowing white palace and fountains and gardens. Above them was a crescent moon. Clouds approached the moon, wispy and romantic. Poornima stared intently at the little boy’s face. It was a perfect oval. The mouth a small almond. One of his hands hung listlessly at his side, as if his fingers ached for the toys or the marbles or the toffee he’d been forced to set aside. The other hand was behind his back. His face was the most childlike. Soft, with the features of a baby still clinging to it. Poornima liked that. She then studied his eyes, trying to see into them, or at least see something in them, but they were empty. Barren. As if he were looking into an abyss. A strange land. “It’s a photo,” Savitha scolded. “What do you expect to see? His heart?”

  Yes, Poornima wanted to reply. I want to see his heart.

  * * *

  This time, during the viewing, Poornima was allowed no mistakes. She understood—dressed again in the same silk sari belonging to her mother, though the blooms of jasmine were different, garlanded this time with an alternating row of orange kankabaram—that she was absolutely being monitored. Her aunt sat closer to her. Instead of being led out by the elbow, like the previous viewing, her aunt placed one hand on her braid, as if prepared to yank it at any moment. When she sat down on the mat, her father smiled at her. Smiled. But it was not a smile of encouragement or love or paternal feeling. The smile said only one thing: I’m watching. I’m watching, and the first sign of defiance—the first glimmer in your eyes leading to defiance—will be acted upon. Acted upon how? Poornima bent her head and shuddered to think.

  Still, she had no plans of ruining this viewing. The groom wasn’t there—studying for exams, his father said—but his parents, the middle sister, and a distant cousin who lived in Indravalli were there. Poornima raised her eyes just enough, after looking at her father, to see that his father seemed small next to hers, shy and hesitant. The mother, seated across from Poornima, was fat and boorish, maybe from the heat or the bus ride from Namburu to Indravalli, though her eyes were flinty and exacting. The sister, who sat to Poornima’s side, looked at her askance and hardly said a word. Her gaze was like her mother’s: scrutinizing, vain and impatient, cold. But they were both plump, and Poornima liked that; fatness indicated to her a certain jolliness or abandon, certainly a richness. The sister reached out and took Poornima’s hand and rubbed the fingers roughly, one after another, as if counting them. Then she let go and smiled coolly. The men continued to chat, and Poornima, silent and awkward for the remainder of the viewing, nearly embraced her future mother-in-law when, just before they were to leave, she took Poornima’s chin in her hand—not gently; no, she couldn’t say it was gentle, but it was with what Poornima thought was genuine feeling—and said, “No, you’re not nearly as dark as they said.”

  The sister snorted, or was it a guffaw? Then they left.

  She told Savitha about the viewing that night. Savitha had gone home to help her mother with the cooking and had returned before dark. She sat at the loom for another hour, and when she came in for her dinner, Poornima already had her plate ready. She’d made roti, with potato curry. There was a bit of yogurt and leftover rice from lunch. “But they didn’t ask you to sing,” Savitha said. “I like them already. Is there any pickle?” When Poornima rose to get it, she said, “And what about the groom? What about him?”

  “Exams,” Poornima said. Then she grew quiet. “What if we have nothing to talk about? I mean, he’s in college, after all. He’ll think I’m stupid, won’t he? He’ll think I’m just a villager. A bumpkin. And what is accounting? That thing he’s studying?”

  “Numbers,” Savitha said. “It’s numbers. Your father gives you money, doesn’t he? To buy food. And you go to the market, don’t you, and get change. And you keep a log. I’ve seen it. A log of all the expenses, so you can show them to your father every week? That’s accounting. That’s all it is. Besides, Namb
uru is smaller than Indravalli. He’s more of a villager than we are.”

  Poornima was unconvinced. That couldn’t be all it was.

  * * *

  The wedding preparations began. There were still details of the dowry and wedding gifts to work out, but Ramayya was confident he could convince them to lower their demands. Savitha raced to finish the sari orders so she would have enough time to make Poornima’s. Kishore, her groom, was scheduled to take his exams at the end of the month. But first, there was Poornima’s mother’s one-year death ceremony. It was set for the beginning of June. It included a day of feasting. A goat would be slaughtered, and the priest would conduct a puja. Her father would perform a ritualistic lighting of a funeral pyre. During the days that followed, Poornima watched her father anxiously: his mood darkened. She guessed it was from the memory of her mother’s death, or the dowry demands. He said it was because they were falling behind on the sari orders. “Doesn’t she know we have work to do?” he’d say if Savitha went home for even an hour or two in the evenings. “Tell her I’ll pay her extra for staying longer. I can’t afford much. Hardly any to spare. But some,” he said.

  The day of the ceremony, when it arrived, brought a drop in temperature along the entire coast of Andhra Pradesh. Poornima woke that morning and realized there was a breeze. Not a cool breeze, not really, but she rejoiced. Her mother must be watching. She must be speaking. She must be saying, Poornima, I’m happy. Your marriage will be a good one. She must be saying, I miss you, too. And that comb, she must be saying, I hold it still.

  The young goat to be slaughtered was tethered to a pole outside the hut. It was brown and white; the white in bands, one around its midsection, around each hoof, and another patch dropping down its head and between its eyes. Poornima tried to feed it some dry, dead grass she’d plucked outside the hut. The goat sniffed it and then looked at her. Its eyes were dark globes, and its gaze curious—to see if she had any other food—but when it saw that she didn’t, it looked away. Poornima knew she shouldn’t look at it for too long, that looking would only increase her sympathy for the doomed goat, but its smell was what kept her there: urine and wilderness and hay.