by Holly Bodger
“The people took their money and spent it on illegal ultrasounds. If they didn’t hear the words ‘It’s a boy,’ they spent more money on doctors who could quietly make the problem go away. If they couldn’t afford these luxuries, they waited nine months and then took care of things themselves. Some abandoned their baby girls in a park, knowing they would be sold to lands far away. Others used a towel. A pail. And a grave.”
The president takes a sharp breath and then reaches for a glass of ice water. This pause is partially for effect. She’s had one all right. The audience is completely silent, aside from the occasional sniffle or blowing of a nose. This is exactly what she wants. She wants the people to picture these unmarked graves filled with baby after baby after baby so they will long for what comes next. Appa says this is like putting hay in the goat’s mouth and then praising it for deciding to chew.
“Three decades later,” she continues, “the country found itself with more than six boys for every girl of marriageable age. These boys needed male heirs of their own, but there was only one way to get them. Suddenly a girl—any girl, even a poor, worthless one—could be sold to the highest bidder. And that’s if she was lucky. Some girls were stolen out of their childhood beds. Others were raped, fated for ruin.
“As for the poor boys, they were left without options and full of shame. That shame festered into resentment and anger. That anger spun into violence. That violence left blood. Boys’ blood. Sometimes, girls’ blood as well. We women of Koyanagar—we'd spent years trying to scrub the blood of our daughters’ ghosts from our fingernails. We’d had enough.
“We went to our capitol and told the prime minister that his policies needed to change. He laughed, asking us if we thought we could do a better job running the country. We said we could. He told us to return to our insignificant city—known for nothing but its mangoes and monkeys—and try. So we did. We put our angry boys to work building a wall around our city and its surrounding villages. We abolished the one-child laws, replacing them with those that protected our girls and rewarded their families. We got rid of the innovations that had been used against our sex.
“On 20 December 2041, we posted the eight governing laws of our new nation. We told anyone who didn’t like them that they were free to leave Koyanagar as long as it was before the start of the new year. At the stroke of midnight on 31 December 2041, we closed the gates for good.
“As a final reward for the boys who built our wall, we gave them jobs guarding the wall from sea to sea.”
She pauses again, this time for a different effect. She wants the audience to imagine these poor boys made happy because they had a purpose. She wants the audience to think of their own sons, or future sons, leaving these tests feeling the same. Not cheated out of a future. Privileged to serve. She doesn’t want to mention that the violence hasn’t stopped since the wall went up. The boys are guarding it for a reason: they’re supposed to kill anyone who tries to get through without permission. They’ve been promised a full stomach for their success, a noose for their failure.
The sheltered girls, who never actually see the wall, believe this ruse. They think the guards assigned there are these noble warriors willing to die for them, but they’re not. They’re still just as angry and resentful, and still just as covered in blood. And they’re not at the wall because of their loyalty to Koyanagar and its girls. They’re there because, like the forty boys who’ve come to this theater to compete for the eight girls here today, they have no choice. The State provides their food, their shelter, their shackles for life. It’s do or die—or, for many, do and die.
The president wraps up with the reason we’re here today. “After we closed the gates to Koyanagar, we started the Tests so marriage would no longer be a bidding war. The Tests ensure that every girl gets the best mango from the tree and that every boy—rich or poor—has an equal chance to be picked. As a final step to ensure that marriage will always be fair, we invite you, our people, to join us. We open our doors to your eyes. We open our radio station to your ears. But most important of all, we open our desire for a bright future to your hearts.
“And now,” she says, stepping aside with a flourish of her sari, “let the first Test begin!”
The audience breaks into excited applause, as if it’s some kind of honor to be chosen to be here, which it’s not since the tests are open to anyone with the time or inclination to attend. And despite what the president may think, the people who swarm here on a regular basis don’t do so in order to ensure that things are fair. Only the naive and blind girls, who believe in the noble warriors, would ever believe that. No, these people are here for the sport, and as with every sport, there are only a few possible outcomes for the boys who step onto the stage.
The first is victory. The winner gets a wife and a secure life and future. He gets a roof that doesn’t leak during the rains, clothes that don’t smell of sweat or mold, and enough food to fill his belly. If he gives his wife a daughter, he might be rewarded with hot baths every second day and a servant to help him with cleaning and meals. He is the epitome of winning. The happy ending everyone longs for.
The second outcome goes to those boys who lose or are not selected to compete before they turn eighteen but who have sisters and thus money. They are sent to the assignment center, where their families can bribe the officials into finding them the best occupation they can afford. For twenty thousand yira, a teaching position will suddenly open up. Five thousand yira, and the only opening might be sweeping the rice mill. It’s not a happy ending for these boys, but it’s also not a sad one. Many live long lives working these jobs. They do not get to feel the embrace of a girl or the joy of fatherhood, and they will never make enough money to live on their own. Still, they do not starve, and they get State-assigned uniforms and shelter. If they’re really lucky, they might even get to sleep on their employer’s kitchen floor and eat the food she discards.
The final outcome is the one awarded to the boys who are poor, like me. When they lose the tests or turn eighteen without being selected, they are sent to the assignment center, where there’s only one option available: joining the angry men at the wall. In the world of sport, they are the losers. In these tests, they lose as well. Lose freedom. Lose choice.
Lose life.
5
Seven hours.
Seven Tests.
Seven girls done
and it’s time for me.
As my chandelier becomes a
↓
→ spotlight ←
↑
I clench my bag of rocks.
Mummy puts her hand on top of mine
while Nani squishes her eyelids,
then wakens from her snores
and
slumber.
We follow the collective gaze
to stage right. To
my contestants.
my husband.
Future husband.
The five boys stop in
center stage,
positioning themselves
against the painted backdrop of jasmine.
A prop.
Like me.
Their identities are concealed
by black masks
as if they’re here to dance the chhau
and in the end
I’ll be pleasantly surprised
to learn my winner’s
a maharaja.
No.
There are no kings here
or anywhere in Koyanagar.
Behind the masks, there are
boys
and boys are
strangers
to me.
Until now,
the only one I’ve been permitted to
speak to,
listen to—
pretend to listen to—
is my cousin.
Sometimes,
if I take my time
returning from the schoolyard after lunch,
I see others:
&
nbsp; a sea of blue uniforms
undulating behind thick leaves.
Their voices come in whooshes—
waves—
and I’m always called inside
before their words become clear.
Their moods are clear.
They are the wealthy brothers of girls.
Happy.
Well fed.
Destined to stand on a stage
and perform for a girl like me.
The rest of the boys in Koyanagar—the
unhappy?
unfed?—
go to the army school.
A training ground for what
comes after the Tests.
The jobs.
The battles.
The deaths.
The director of today’s Tests
shuffles the papers on
her mahogany table.
Her white clothes of mourning are
grayed
in the dim light of the stage.
Her weathered skin is
lightened
with the powders we women buy
to show we’re not deprived.
Not anymore.
She presses her palms together.
Gives Nani a nod.
As one of Koyanagar’s founders
and the keeper of its
most precious gem—
the Registry—
Nani is well known.
By face?
Maybe.
By name?
Probably.
By reputation?
Absolutely.
But this exchange between
the director and Nani—
this isn’t polite respect.
There’s something about
the nod Nani returns—
the way her focus doesn’t
lower with her chin—
it’s like she has played this game before.
And while her cards on the table say,
How nice to meet you,
the ones in her hand add,
Once again.
Once again?
I squeeze my eyes tight.
Search for memories of Surina’s Tests.
The theater was hot that day,
two years ago.
The rains had not yet come,
but the air was ripe with their promise.
Heat or no heat,
nothing stopped thousands of people
from flocking to see Surina—
the famous face
from the Love Your Daughters poster.
She was the reason they wanted
a country like Koyanagar—
a perfect future for a perfect girl—
while I—a second child born
before second children were allowed—
I was the reason they needed one.
I try to focus,
but my memories of Surina’s Tests
are like watery milk.
I know Papa sat where he is now,
while I had the chair beside him.
We spent most of the day
taking turns with a
crossword puzzle.
I’d just gotten Shakespeare’s Philomel—
Nightingale—
when I heard Mummy say,
“What did you do?”
I tucked away the crossword.
Thought she was scolding
me.
Or
Papa?
No. She would never
confiscate
Nani’s greatest pleasure.
When I looked up at Mummy—
an apology lingering in my lungs—
I saw her glaring to her right.
At Nani? No.
She was busy looking at the audience.
But Surina—she was staring
straight ahead
with a bit too much effort.
I shrugged it off.
Figured it was simply
Surina
being
Surina.
Later, in the carriage,
I heard that the rich boy
from the penthouse next to ours—
the one Surina had
pretended not to love
for almost a decade—
had ended up in her Tests.
(And was in first place.)
I thought it was a coincidence.
Just another petal of
good luck
for the girl with the lotus
in her veins.
Is that all it was?
I squish my eyes harder.
Try to remember
how Mummy looked in the carriage.
Try to remember if she was
happy?
surprised?
upset?
But the director of my Test speaks,
and I must return to my own
reality.
6
The director introduces my cast of contestants
by n#mber:
One, Two, Three, Four, Five.
I’m not introduced.
Am the blue ribbon they need to win.
The prize of life for one lucky boy.
Disguised as they may be
in their uniforms of equality,
I can already tell them apart.
The first boy wears a navy kurta,
crisp
as a fresh banknote.
His cheeks are pale and smooth.
He has not seen
a hot day working the market.
Has not begged
for food.
Or garbage.
He’s like my cousin:
a boy born a decade
before three girls.
Once a burden in the old country.
Now an olive—
a luxury few can afford.
In orange and yellow,
Contestants Two and Three stand together.
Their necks as taut
as show horses.
Their bodies
ready
for the whip to strike.
The fourth boy drowns
in a bright green kurta.
His gaze
l
o
w
e
r
e
d
to the stage.
Inexperience
marked on his sleeve.
Next to him, Five
has a red kurta
pulled tight across his chest.
His skin is raw.
His raven hair bluntly shorn
so he will seem like the others.
I’ve seen poor boys like him before:
In these Tests.
On the way past Hun Market.
When Nani leans forward,
I wait for her to repeat
the words she says
when we pass them in our carriage:
“Those tanned boys
with the stained fingers—
those are market boys.
They belong at the wall, Sudasa,
not in your head.”
She doesn’t say this today.
Instead, she points
at the first boy, in navy.
“That one,” she whispers,
her manicured finger
pointing→
so everyone can see,
“that one will give you girls.”
The way she says this—
her words full of confidence;
her eyes full of the yira signs
that fill our safe when we give birth to a girl—
it’s like she knows.
Like she has a crystal ball
for my future.
One she can change with
but
a
tap.
I examine the first boy again.
The way his hair
is oiled into curls.
The hole in hi
s ear
where the black diamond should be.
That’s when I know;
when I’m sure.
He’s not like
my cousin.
He is
my cousin.
“It’s not possible,” I start to say,
trying to swallow my shock.
Feeling it get stuck in my throat
like an unchewed grape.
No.
It can’t be.
Asha always says I’m more equestrian
than mathematician,
but even I can see
that something
isn’t
right.
There were over three thousand boys
eligible
for the Tests this year.
for the two hundred girls
turning seventeen.
Eight of the two hundred girls
came here today.
That’s eight
for three thousand.
And only one of them
is me.
I could accept
a coincidence once.
Not twice.
And Surina definitely knew
one of the boys in her Tests.
I try to form
more words,
more arguments,
more questions,
but Nani’s tongue
strikes
like a viper.
“Anything is possible, Sudasa.”
She says this with a grin
playing on her upper lip
and a glance at