5 to 1
Page 1
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Holly Bodger
Cover design and interior illustrations by Jennifer Heuer
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bodger, Holly.
5 to 1 / Holly Bodger. — First edition.
p. cm.
Summary: “In a dystopian future where gender selection has led to boys outnumbering girls 5 to 1, marriage is arranged based on a series of tests. It’s Sudasa’s turn to pick a husband through this ‘fair’ method, but she’s not sure she wants to be a part of it.” —Provided by publisher
ISBN 978-0-385-39153-5 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-385-39154-2 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-385-39155-9 (ebook)
[1. Novels in verse. 2. Arranged marriage—Fiction. 3. Obedience—Fiction. 4. Women’s rights—Fiction. 5. Family life—India—Fiction. 6. India—Fiction. 7. Science fiction.]
I. Title. II. Title: Five to one.
PZ7.5.B63Aaf 2015
[Fic]—dc23
2014023541
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v4.1
a
For those not chosen
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Day One Sudasa
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Contestant Five
Chapter 4
Sudasa
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Contestant Five
Chapter 8
Sudasa
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Contestant Five
Chapter 12
Day Two Sudasa
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Contestant Five
Chapter 16
Sudasa
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Contestant Five
Chapter 19
Sudasa
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Contestant Five
Chapter 24
Day Three Sudasa
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Contestant Five
Chapter 28
Sudasa
Chapter 29
Contestant Five
Chapter 30
Sudasa
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1
One month from today,
I’ll wake to a team of
makeup artists—
hairstylists—
buzzing outside my door.
At Nani’s command, they’ll
swarm.
They’ll
poke
me with their glittery swords,
paint
me with their honey.
I’ll fight the urge to scratch it away,
because I’m
Sudasa the Obedient
and I must keep my fingers
gluedtogether
like the dolls
Asha and I
left buried under my bed.
When the artists flee,
the designers will inch into place.
They’ll
spin
me in their silks.
garnish
me with their golds.
They’ll lift me onto an easel.
Wait for Nani
to stamp me
DONE!
After that, I’ll be placed upon
an elephant—
the only creature who’ll appear
more ridiculous than me.
She’ll deliver me
to a temple with
no god.
Then Nani will send me
down the aisle with
strict
instructions
to keep my
gaze
off my
beaded shoes.
The people of Koyanagar will
watch me.
Question me.
Love me?
Hate me.
Hate me for not marrying
their son.
For not bearing
his children daughters.
For not guaranteeing
his future.
At the end of the aisle,
a boy—
squeezed into a black sherwani—
will sit on a chair,
his spine as rigid as its spindles.
He won’t look at me;
won’t dare.
I won’t look at him, either.
Will look at the woman
in front of him.
The one with the stole of
red.
The color of love?
No.
The color of blood.
Blood of birth. Blood of death.
The only things that matter
in Koyanagar.
When I stop in front of the woman—
Koyanagar’s only marriage officiant—
she’ll scan the papers in her hand.
Commence the same speech
she must utter for the
two hundred girls
who turn seventeen this year.
Her first words today—
they won’t be for Papa.
He doesn’t have a say. Can’t give me away.
How could he?
You can only give away
that
which is yours to lose.
No. Instead, she’ll tell me to
↓ sit ↓
and then motion
for the flowers to come.
Long garlands of lilies.
Orange lilies.
The flower of purity.
(Or, some say, pride.)
She’ll ignite the fire
of butter and wool.
Tell the boy and me to
stand.
link our hands.
She’ll tell us to take
seven steps. Accept
seven blessings. Spend
seven seconds
circling around the fire.
When we’re done,
she’ll present us to the audience.
Me
and my husband:
the boy.
Only she won’t call him that.
She’ll call him a name.
A name I will not know.
Until then, he’ll be a
n#mber
from the Koyanagar Registry.
Not a boy named
Ravi.
Jamal.
Shahid.
Not a fiancé.
Or a friend.
A n#mber.
Today,
<
br /> before any of this can happen,
I have to get out of bed.
Have to put on my sari.
Have to open my door.
Have to accept Nani’s advice.
Have to pretend Mummy gives some, too.
Have to get in our carriage.
Have to ride through the crowds.
Have to sit in the theater.
Have to wait for my turn.
Have to follow the rules.
Have to smile like I agree.
Have to
Have to
Have to
Have to
Choose him.
2
I’m a puppet
strung up in a box
hanging over a theater
of heads.
of faceless people.
The light in my box—
a dimmed chandelier—
ensures no one will see me
until it’s time for my scene.
Until then, I fade into a
gilded armchair with
Mummy and Nani
confining me
like lopsided bookends.
A mouse to my right.
A rhinoceros to my left.
From behind me, Surina groans
as if she’s been forced
to sit on pins.
Her problem is not the
second-class chair. It’s that
she has always played
Older Sister.
Poster Girl.
Know-It-All.
And not
Understudy.
Before we left the penthouse this morning,
I told her to stay home.
Said I’d bring Asha in her place.
At least then I’d have
help.
support.
friendship.
(Best friendship.)
But Nani had
snipped away my suggestion
like a lotus with a wilted bloom.
“The box has only five seats
and your sister must attend.
If you want to bring that Asha girl,
tell your father not to come.
It’s not like he can help you.”
Nani doesn’t see
the difference between
what Papa
can
do and what he’s
allowed
to do.
Well, I see the difference and
so I flash a smile over my shoulder.
Show Papa I’m happy
he came.
Nani is not so pleased
with her ghar jamai:
her ever-present
son-in-law.
She hisses, “Sudasa, turn around.”
And so I do.
I face forward, with glassy eyes.
See blurs of orange, yellow, and green
as two thousand people
cram
into rows of fold-down seats.
Once rosy and plush,
twelve years of Tests
has turned them
tired.
tattered.
torn.
These people have been here before.
Those over> thirty as audience.
Those under< as players.
(Women in my place.
Men on the stage.)
The men played a game.
Put on a show. Won
a contest.
a wife.
a life.
Life sentence, if you ask me.
3
They
dim the lights.
I
dim my eyes.
I imagine a time when this stage was used
for real shows:
Dattani.
Bhāsa.
Kālidāsa.
A time when this entire theater
was drenched in
music.
laughter.
song.
Not anymore.
No time for plays.
No need for plays.
We have the Tests
to fill the women’s cups
with entertainment.
We have the wall
to heap their plates
with victory.
With revenge.
A spotlight illuminates. All
eyes follow it to the right
of the stage.
All but mine.
I don’t need
to watch,
to listen,
to know
what’s coming.
Nani already warned me this would be
“a very auspicious moment”
for the eight girls here today.
Our president attends only
a handful of the twenty-five
annual Tests.
The others get a recording
of her never-changing speech.
Before this speech can pass her lips,
her words
repeat in my head
like the notes from the first sitar melody
I tried to learn.
They’re the notes I’ve heard
from Nani
these last twelve years.
The ones played
for Asha
two weeks ago;
for Surina
two years ago.
I should be thankful. Thankful my sex
guarantees me the life of a bird.
Food.
Safety.
A home?
More like a cage.
I should be thankful that women—
like our president;
like Nani—
were able to
lead a revolution.
form a country.
facilitate change.
And I am thankful.
A bit thankful.
But this change—although it may be
the reason life is comfortable for a girl like me,
it’s also
the reason I’m in this theater.
the reason my freedom comes with a $price.tag.
It’s
the reason I
must wear the gold sari.
must march down the aisle.
must marry at seventeen.
It’s
the reason I
must wed a stranger.
The reason a stranger must
compete
to marry me. Risk
death
to marry me.
For that, I’m not thankful.
4
Appa didn’t try to stop the guards when they came for me yesterday. He didn’t kick up a fuss like some of the parents do, crying and begging for more time. He didn’t offer a bribe—one the guards would have slipped into their pockets before they proceeded to drag me to the cart like nothing had happened. No, he simply stood at the door in his threadbare robe, waggling his bony finger as he said, “Remember, boy, the seed grows at the same speed, even in the wind.”
The guards frowned at Appa’s words as if they thought he was trying to trick them by talking in code. That’s not what he was doing. This is simply his way. He speaks using only the best words. He tends only the strongest crops. He has saved everything to give me one shot, and one shot only, at a new life.
This advice about the seed—this was him reminding me to be patient because he knows I’m not good at patience. Not normally. But today, with these tests—I’ve been waiting for the State to select my name from the registry since the day I turned fifteen, and I’d been waiting to turn fifteen since Amma took me aside and told me that our new nation had declared me, and almost all other boys, worthless. That’s a whole lifetime of waiting. I can certainly handle another three days.
The other boys in my group clearly got different advice. When they brought us to the theater this morning, the guard pointed at a jumble of chairs marked with a Group #8 sign and said, “You got a while. Get change
d and try to relax.” And yet, the pretty boy pulled on his navy kurta and then immediately started pacing like a lion trapped in a two-foot cage. The crippled boy slumped down, putting his head on his hands as if he needed to force it to stay still. The tall boy carefully exchanged his wet shirt for a fresh one and then proceeded to drench it with sweat. As for the young boy—he started sobbing the moment he walked in the back door. Sitting down made him upgrade to loud, shuddering moans. Poor kid. He has probably just turned fifteen and is still in shock that his name was chosen so soon. I suppose I should be grateful that Chance gave me until two weeks before my eighteenth birthday before I was picked. Otherwise, I would have had to leave Appa sooner. Before I was big and strong. Before Appa’s plan was perfect. Before I was sure it was the right choice for me.
For now, my only choice is to change into the red kurta the guards tossed at my feet and then sit in the chair they left for me. It’s not bad. I have a perfect view of the stage. The woman standing in the middle introduces herself as the director of today’s tests. She says we’re in for a great honor, and the audience erupts with bubbles of whispers. When she adds, “And here she is, the president of Koyanagar,” the bubbles are popped by gasps and claps. I’m pretty shocked as well. I’ve heard the president on the State-assigned radio many times, but I never even imagined she’d actually be here—in person. There must be someone important at the tests today.
The president is not at all like the powerful icon I imagined her to be. She’s more like I remember Amma: small and delicate, with a sari that dances behind her as she walks. Of course, the president is clad in white, the color that shows eternal mourning of a lost child, while Amma never wore white. She wore reds and oranges and deep greens. Colors of celebration and happiness. Perhaps she wears white now. Now that I am dead to her.
The audience goes silent when the president lifts her hand, as if she’s about to speak words they haven’t heard before. They have. We all have. The tests are open to the public, and for those who can’t attend (because they have to actually work if they don’t want to starve), they’re broadcast on the only radio station in Koyanagar. When I was about to turn fifteen, I got up extra early so I could finish my chores and then listen to every minute of the tests. But after a few months, they all sounded the same. Different girl, different boys, but the rest: same same same. And still, the people here today have swarmed like flies to a rotting corpse. Someone should tell them they’re a bit early. The corpses come after the tests.
Standing behind a wooden podium, the president begins the same monologue used every second Monday, when they start a new round of tests. “Fifty-four years ago, at the dawn of the new millennium, my country was a burlap sack bursting at its seams. It had two percent of the world’s land but seventeen percent of its people. Our water was poison, and more than half of our people were starving in the garbage-filled slums. A new prime minister was elected who promised to fix everything. He told his citizens they must limit their families to one child. He said he would fine anyone who didn’t obey and jail anyone who didn’t pay the fines. His citizens obeyed, but not in the way he expected. The citizens didn’t want any one child. They wanted a child who could help support the family, especially when the elders were too weak to do so themselves. They wanted a child who could carry the family name, inherit the family land. They wanted a child who could attend their funeral pyres and release their souls to heaven. They didn’t want a child whose dowry would empty their safes to fill the pockets of another. They wanted a male child.