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the director her friend
on the stage.
That’s when I know.
Know Nani
didn’t randomly select
my cousin’s name
from the Registry.
No. She
chose him
to perform on this stage.
Handed him
a leading role in the play called
Me.
7
I want to
stand. To
break free from these strings.
from this box.
from this life?
I want to
tell everyone it’s a scam.
The Tests aren’t fair after all.
I don’t.
No one would believe me.
Fair is the first law of Koyanagar.
It’s the reason our country exists;
the foundation of its tower.
And how could I escape?
Where could I go?
In Koyanagar, a girl on her own
would stick out
like a poppy
in a field of mud.
I know. A girl from my school
tried to hide four years ago.
Only her boyfriend
knew where she was and
he refused to reveal
her location.
That was his mistake.
One of his mistakes.
The State didn’t need him.
They knew they’d find her
…eventually.
They knew she couldn’t get
to the other side of the wall—
not without written permission.
It would be no different for me.
And even if it was—
even if I could get through—
I wouldn’t survive on the outside.
We’re reminded every day:
the people from the old country are
savages.
They would fight for my petals,
ripping them piece by piece
until I’m left but a stem
under their heels.
They see Koyanagar
as the land of peace and plenty. The land
that found the secret to happiness
and then locked it within its own safe.
Their leader wasn’t smart like Nani
and her friends. He didn’t
change their laws.
learn to value their girls.
And now?
They have none left.
That’s why
their people claw at our wall.
That’s why
our noble boys must
die
trying to stop them.
I glance at my cousin,
his shoulders
a w i d e mountain.
his chin
the unattainable peak.
It’s like he knows he won’t become
one of the boys
at the wall.
in the jobs.
on the street.
Like the arrogance he carries is not
an act.
More like
a guarantee.
I should have seen it before—
the way Nani
tried to make us two sides
of a sandwich.
Sitar lessons?
“Your cousin should come.
He has an ear for music
and he loves to hear you play.”
Riding?
“We must ask your cousin.
He has a way with horses
and he loves the outdoors.”
Pottery.
Poetry.
Painting.
All the same.
All with my cousin.
All part of the plan.
The plan that started
when I was born?
Back before Koyanagar?
Back when marriages
were still arranged?
I would have been
the perfect payback
for Nani to give
Mota Masi—her older sister.
After Nani’s husband had
crawled into a bottle of McDowell’s
and died, Mota Masi
helped get Nani and Mummy
off the street.
She moved them to her new city.
Gave them a place to live.
Introduced them to rich prospects
like Papa.
A marriage between me and my cousin—
Mota Masi’s grandson—
would have been a debt marked
PAID
for Nani.
But then Koyanagar was formed,
as were its Tests.
The Tests were supposed to
make marriage
just.
equal.
fair.
The Tests were supposed
to make life better
for the people of Koyanagar.
All but one.
For Nani, the Tests
would have marked her debt
PAST DUE!!!
That is, unless she could
find a way
around the laws she forces others
to uphold.
Find a way to rig my Tests.
No.
No.
No!
I won’t allow it.
Although Nani can give my cousin
a place on this stage,
that doesn’t
dry the ink on the page.
Even if he has
been well trained—
I
give the rocks.
I
pick the winners.
I
am in charge.
Aren’t I?
8
They introduce me as Five and that’s who I am, as far as the “honorable girl” is concerned. A number. An option. And not one she’ll pick.
They don’t tell us her name, and I don’t give in to the temptation to follow the audience’s stares to the gold-trimmed box with the velvet curtains. I bet she’s up there with her family, examining us boys as if we’re mangoes laid out on a brass platter, our flesh sliced open for them to dissect. Their glares burn my skin almost as much as the spotlights above the stage. I rub my hand along the back of my neck. The skin is hot and raw. After the guards brought me to the city yesterday, they made me shower with a wire brush and then they cropped my hair with a knife. They said I needed to look like the rest of the boys so “it will be fair.” Ha! I’m not sure what difference it makes. These girls don’t care how we look. They’re here to choose the best slave. Might as well get a dog. Something that knows how to heel and obey.
I step forward, positioning myself behind the fifth podium as instructed. For the next three days, I suppose I am a dog. A patient dog. I’ll do what they say. Play the game I’m supposed to play. I don’t have much choice. I need to make it to the end of the third day—to the final test—and any boy who refuses to participate is immediately sent to the wall. I wouldn’t be able to follow Appa’s plan if that happened. I wouldn’t be able to do anything. The guards at the wall treat radicals like most people treats roaches. Stomp. Squish. Repeat.
I’ve had the better part of a day to observe the other boys in my group, and a few things are clear. The first is that most of them are scared out of their minds. They don’t see this experience as the honor that the director of the tests believes it is. “You have the honor of blah blah blah…” That’s what she keeps saying, as if the mere act of being invited to fight for one’s life is a gift from the gods we’re not supposed to believe in anymore. I don’t believe in them, but not because religion has been banned since they closed the gates to Koyanagar and said religion was the reason the old country was ripped into rags. I just don’t think a being that’s good and fair would let a place like Koyanagar exist. Fair means not treating eighty percent of your population like it’s wort
hless. Fair means not making those same worthless people pay for mistakes that were made before they were born. Fair means not giving godlike powers to a spoiled girl in a velvet box while five boys sweat on a wooden stage, wishing—hoping—that they’ll still be alive next week. Yes, Koyanagar is a lot of things, and fair is not one of them.
The next thing that’s clear is that the audience is getting bored. Nothing unusual happened in the seven tests before mine, and some people in the audience have actually fallen asleep. I suppose they expect it to get more exciting at the physical tests tomorrow. That’s when the number of competitors usually starts to dwindle. Or perhaps they’re hoping to witness a rare dissenter use his first time onstage to voice his refusal to submit to Koyanagar’s oppression. That hasn’t happened in four years, but it would happen today, with me, if I didn’t have Appa’s plan. I’d tell the leaders where they can stick their tests and then I’d tell the audience that they don’t have to obey because the State tells them to. The people of Koyanagar outnumber the leaders seven thousand to one. They could storm the State Council. Demand a change. Refuse to leave until they got one. That would be me if I stayed—standing at the front of the crowd with my hand raised in a fist. I would demand that the State give the people back control of the coal, water, and electricity. The State holds these things over our heads, forcing us to obey their laws so they won’t cut them off.
But no, Appa’s plan is better. Appa’s plan gives me the chance to search for Amma. Most of all, Appa’s plan allows me to live.
The final thing I’ve figured out today is that the boy in blue is here for one thing, and that’s to win. He stopped pacing hours ago, but only so he could jiggle his leg or crack his knuckles over and over again. I don’t think he’s nervous. Every time the guards have come by to check on us, he has flashed the kind of cocky smirk you only see on a boy with many sisters. He has probably trained for these tests his whole life. What else did he have to do? He didn’t have mouths to feed or a farm to tend, that’s for sure. And I bet his milky skin has never been exposed to eighteen hours in a Hun Market stall. No, that boy was born to marry a girl like her, and as far as I’m concerned, he can have her.
The director of the tests holds up her palm. “Our first Test for the eighth set of boys was dug up from history.”
From the way the audience comes alive, you’d think she’d unearthed a corpse. She doesn’t mean a corpse. She means television. Like the other electronics that once connected Koyanagar’s citizens to the rest of the supposedly broken world, televisions were banned after the gates were closed. I know all about them, though. When we’re working the land, Appa tells me stories about his childhood. He feels bad that I didn’t get much of one and thinks this is better than naught. He has told me—several times—about how he used to sneak into the city to watch the cricket games. His family was too poor for electronics—or even electricity—but he said there were shops that sold televisions, and on the days of the big matches, they’d turn them to face the street so the poor could watch. He said he would wake up at three in the morning so he could be one of the first people on the street and then would stand there for the entire day in the hot sun, without food or water or the chance to pee, all so he didn’t lose his spot. He wanted to be close so he could see his favorite player, the Mighty Bala. To Appa, seeing the Mighty Bala on television was like seeing a fresh spring in the Thar Desert. Appa said he would press his palm against the hot glass, knowing he couldn’t touch his idol and yet wishing he could all the same.
Appa continued to go to the city every day until the match was over, sometimes for three days or more. When he returned to Mannipudi, everyone would gather around him while he told them how he’d watched the Mighty Bala score ninety runs or, perhaps, even a first-class century. They’d hang on his every word as if he’d touched greatness, and Appa said he felt like perhaps he had.
The Mighty Bala was a legend in our village, and not just because of Appa’s stories. He’d been born there—almost a decade before Appa—but when he made it big in cricket, he moved to a fancy condo in the city. His amma refused to leave her home, so he bought her nice things like gold bangles and emerald rings. He was the son every mother prayed for. And he was more than a cricket player. He took a break from the game so he could go to university in England, and when he came back, he married a beautiful woman, which, with the ratio of boys to girls as it was, was as great a feat as any. He was an idol to the people of Mannipudi. A true example of what hard work could achieve. I sometimes wonder if he’s the reason Appa came up with the plan. The Mighty Bala was the dream Appa had for me, and Koyanagar is the last place I will get it.
According to the president, the years of Appa’s childhood were a time of great misery. Appa should have been the most miserable of all since he was as poor as they came. But he wasn’t. Appa says, happiness is like fruit on the vine: yours if you choose. His family chose to be happy despite their circumstances. They had nothing except a farm and three kids to feed, and they knew they would have lost everything if the authorities had found his sisters hiding in the barn on one of their routine checks. They didn’t care. Obeying broken laws was never an option. This was the part the president left out of her speech this morning. She said that everyone in the old country got rid of their baby girls, but this is a lie. The rich could afford to pay the steep fines, and the poor weren’t afraid to hide their daughters in places the officials didn’t want to look. The president doesn’t want to remind people of this. She wants them to believe that obedience is the only option. As is the case with all leaders, her reign depends on it.
I turn to my left as the director goes over the rules of this test. “More honor to have same same same.” The young boy is paying more attention to the crowd than to her words. He’s probably searching for his family. In the seven tests before mine, I saw some of the boys smile or wave at members of the audience. I bet it made them feel better to have some support. It would be nice, and I know Appa wanted to come. I didn’t let him. Didn’t see the point. With me gone, he has twice the work to tend the farm and mind the market stall. If he stopped both for three days, it would take him six more to catch up, and that’s if he didn’t get one of his stomach bouts. All so he could squeeze into a theater with a bunch of bloodthirsty strangers and watch me squirm on the stage. No, it’s best this way. We already said our goodbyes before the guards came yesterday, and nothing—and no one—will change what I have to do.
9
Five boys.
Five buzzers.
Twenty questions.
One winner.
The first ten questions are simple.
They’re a chance for my boys
to show they can
master the buzzers.
think on their feet.
In truth, I think they’re a chance
to show they can take
the truths that have been
shoved
↓
d
o
w
n
↓
their
throats
and regurgitate them
on command.
I listen.
Am supposed to judge.
But that’s only an expression.
For this part,
the answers are clear.
The director reads the first question.
Politics.
No surprise.
It was the same for the girls before me.
Will be the same
for the ones that follow.
“Question number one:
Why does Koyanagar need a wall?”
She asks this as if it’s a mystery.
Something we don’t all know.
But knowing the reason
and stating it in the correct way are
not
the same thing.
A high-pitched buzz sounds
from my cousin’s podium.
“To protect
its most precious commodities,”
he says,
and with his eyes lifted toward my box,
he adds, “Its girls.”
Although his words put me on a
his eyes make me
the stool he’d use
to ascend there himself.
I am a means
to his ends.
Someone to provide him with
a penthouse flat.
silk kurtas.
hair oils.
Lucky me.
Nine more questions follow.
All politics.
All answers but one
by my cousin.
The director takes a sip of tea,
flipping to another sheet
like she’s reading the
pale pink pages of
the Koyanagar News
(which everyone knows
contains nothing of the sort).
“Question number eleven,” she says,
not looking up from the page.
“Your wife is hungry.
Do you serve her cheese
or a banana?”
My cousin transforms into a
C A R D B O A R D
cutout,
his thoughts as empty
as his understanding
of the word “serve.”
The young boy buzzes in,
but when he opens his mouth,
it fills with
a i r.
Time ticks.
The air thickens.
His words
do not.
Nani glares at her watch
as if the delay
is a fault in its man-made cogs.
Papa shifts in the chair behind me.
I can feel his tension.
Can feel the way he itches
to stand.
to help.
to yell, It’s a trap!
The director looks up.
She leans forward.
Reaches for an answer
not yet spoken.
The entire theater goes silent.
At least it does until Five
coughs into his fist.
That’s when the young boy
turns his head,
pausing,
his mouth still open.