by Holly Bodger
My cousin presses his buzzer
three times.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
The director holds her palm
up to my cousin.
“Do you have an answer?”
she asks the young boy.
He turns to her.
“N-neither,” he says.
“I m-mean. Whichever
sh-she wants.”
The audience unites
in an exhale.
My lungs deflate, too.
No boy who values his neck
would dare feed a banana
to a girl older than seventeen.
Bananas were the food
believed to produce baby boys
in the old country.
Everyone knows that.
Don’t they?
As for cheese, we all know
it’s supposed to produce girls.
We also know we should
never
admit this.
We’ll eat it all right.
Eat it in droves. But we’ll say
it’s a craving.
(A craving to have yira in our safes.)
The director returns her focus
to her page of questions
about food. About
what to feed me
so I produce a healthy baby girl.
My cousin’s face grows red
as he struggles to find
answers
to questions he can’t understand.
(Or maybe, questions he Nani didn’t prepare for.)
The second boy struggles with his buzzer,
his left hand smacking it
like it’s a toy
that won’t move.
I clench the bag of rocks
in my hand. Resist the urge
to stand up.
to help him.
to take the steps Papa would,
if he could.
I focus on the third boy instead.
He has mastered the buzzer.
Is keen to play the game,
but lacks the answers to win.
Only the young boy has those
and he acquires them only
after
he turns to Five
first.
Four questions later,
my cousin rouses
the director with a
SLAM
of his buzzer.
“He’s cheating!” he yells.
“Contestant Five’s
telling him the answers.”
The director turns to Five.
She almost looks
annoyed?
that she has to pay attention
to her mundane routine.
“Is this true?” she says
over her half-moon glasses.
When he gives a polite nod,
I wonder if
he misunderstood the question.
But he adds a smile and
says, “There are no rules
that say I cannot.”
My cousin argues,
“There are, so!
We’re not allowed
to get help from anyone.”
Five shakes his head.
“I think you’ll find the words are clear.
We cannot get help from the audience.
From each other, it does not say.”
Mummy gasps. Papa laughs.
I suck in my lips,
trapping a smile
in my cheeks
like a firefly in a jar.
Five’s words remind me
of the ones I use
whenever I question
the rules of our household.
Rules about
who I can talk to.
where I can go.
what I can do.
What Papa can do.
Nani says I’m
testing the fence,
whereas Papa—
he always adds a wry little grin
and says it’s more like I’m
trying to burn it down.
After flipping through a large rule book,
the director gives her decree.
“I haven’t seen a contestant
try to help another before;
however, Contestant Five is
correct. There are no rules
prohibiting it.”
My cousin’s eyes
shoot daggers
across the stage.
They hit Five like
glass on brick.
Shattering
into a million
T I N Y
L I T T L E
p i e c e s.
Leaving him unchanged.
Taking another sip of her tea,
the director flips
to the last
sheet of questions—
the five questions that will decide
if my cousin’s
nine-point lead
is enough
to secure a win.
For these,
I cannot hide in the
I
am judge.
I
am jury.
I
must write down my answer
to each question,
then present my verdict
after each guess.
“Question number sixteen:
Who would the honorable girl
consider the best artist?”
That’s what the director asks.
Not a surprise.
These questions are supposed to be
tailored for each girl,
and Nani is Koyanagar’s
largest collector of the old country’s art.
Her paintings were gifts.
Thank-yous from the families
who are grateful
for what she has done
for Koyanagar.
In retrospect,
I wonder if
what she has done
has a lot more to do
with their daughters’ Tests
than their nation.
I scribble my answer
on the card on my lap.
The young boy buzzes.
“B-B-Bawa?” he says,
his voice cracking
as he stutters out the second syllable.
I shake my head.
What use do I have
for animals?
The third boy buzzes,
wiping his glistening forehead
with the back of his hand
before he says, “R…a…z…a?”
He pauses between each letter
as if he’s not sure
he wants to say it.
as if he’s not sure
Raza is even an artist.
He’s an artist all right.
Still, I shake my head.
Too
many triangles.
My cousin buzzes
and a sneer creeps toward
his mask.
“Menon,” he says,
his response not a question.
“I bet she loves the colors.”
I scrunch up my card with a dull nod.
Wish I only saw gray.
Next question:
“Who is her favorite poet?”
I scribble a response.
Know it’s written on my face.
Papa started reading me
his beloved Blake
before I could talk.
I was probably the only girl
in Koyanagar
who went to her first day at
the Koyanagar Girls’ Academy
with “The Tiger”
tucked inside her roti.
I’ve kept these poems—
these sinews of Papa’s heart—
stuffed inside a bear on my bed.
They help me remember
not only who Pa
pa once was
but also who he could be,
if the laws changed again.
The young boy buzzes.
He doesn’t look at Five
before he yells,
“T-Tagore!”
He sounds proud
that he can name
a poet at all.
No matter what the school—
assuming they show up—
boys are taught only
useful things.
Things that will help them
serve
the women in Koyanagar.
It pains me to do it,
but I shake my head.
Tagore?
No.
Too much life.
Too much death.
Too much reality.
My cousin laughs as he buzzes in.
He says “William Blake”
like it’s the wind.
Something any fool
could sense
with a lick of his finger.
With the spirit of
my beloved Blake,
I nod at my cousin’s truth.
Wish I could growl at his intent.
Two more questions of this type.
My cousin right each time.
My blood bubbling
like curry
forgotten on the cooktop.
The final question
from the director:
“Which does she think better—
riding or cricket?”
My answer is as obvious
as the nose on my face.
I ride every day.
Play sports?
Not if I can help it.
But that’s not what I write.
My cousin may have won this round,
but that doesn’t mean
I can’t show him that
he
won’t
win
me.
He moves for his buzzer,
but Five beats him to it.
“Cricket,” he says,
his voice strong and low.
His eyes
imploring me
to prove him wrong.
Wrong?
Why would he want to be
wrong?
Why would he come here with
all the right answers?
Why would he hand them to the young boy
on a brass tray?
Keep only the wrong one
for himself?
My cousin interrupts my thoughts
with a laugh.
He knows I couldn’t hit a ball
if I tried.
Knows Nani
wouldn’t let me
try.
She made Papa give up cricket
when Koyanagar was formed.
It was not a game like these Tests.
No. It was a game he loved.
A game that
snatched him from Mannipudi.
paid for him to read literature at Cambridge.
A game that made him
smart enough,
famous enough,
rich enough,
to land buy a wife in the first place.
Even if Nani let me play,
I couldn’t do that to Papa.
That would be like the thief
who wears the necklace
in front of the woman
he stole it from.
Dangling
it in front of her outstretched hand.
Daring
her to ask for it back.
Before I can respond to Five,
my cousin speaks
without buzzing first.
“Riding,” he snaps,
his tone glowering down
from the spotlights above the stage.
“I bet she loves riding.”
All turn to me,
Nani smiling
like a cat
with whiskers
drenched in cream.
I shake my head.
Hold up my card.
Flash my untruth.
It’s not quite a lie.
She asked which was better,
not which I prefer.
And I might
prefer it…
if I played.
Still, Nani gasps,
Papa coughs,
and my cousin yells,
“She lies.
She hates cricket!”
His words are Nani’s
but they fail to impress her
nevertheless.
She clears her throat
and he gets
a glare—and
a warning
from the director.
“You will not insult
a woman
ever.
Do it again
and you’ll get assigned
to the wall.”
My cousin drops his gaze,
his nostrils flaring like a bull’s.
But angry or not,
this round
is his.
10
I’m brought to the stage.
a golden statue,
paraded
in front of hungry hands.
I keep my own
wrapped around
the bag of rocks
I must give as rewards.
Five for first place.
Two for second.
One for third.
They’re supposed to symbolize
the winner’s ability
to build a wall of his own.
A wall around
his guarantee.
his life.
I mean, wife.
As I take the first rock
in my hand—
its surface sandpaper
on the smooth skin of my palm—
what I see is not
the symbol
but
the reality.
The stones of Law
that bring us to this trial,
that may order
sacrifice—
death?—
for four boys on this stage.
When I place the rock
on the podium
next to Five’s rough hands,
I want to cloak it in
an apology.
It’s cruel—
the way I’m giving him
a piece of his future.
a crystal ball of his own.
I lift my gaze. Try to see
beyond the mask,
into the abyss that are his eyes.
Try to tell him
I’m sorry
with my silence.
He turns away
as if he doesn’t hear me.
as if he doesn’t want to.
as if he doesn’t care?
No.
He must.
I am his lifeline. His ladder. His only chance.
I may not want him
but he must want me.
Mustn’t he?
The director clears her throat,
so I move on,
giving two rocks
to the young boy.
He smiles,
his soft face marked with a dimple.
his pride as bright as his kurta.
his innocence equally as green.
I pass the third boy next.
He’s as eager as
a newborn goat,
keen to prove himself. Too
keen to see that
he won’t need to walk
in the slaughterhouse.
I stop at the second boy with a
jerk!
Can’t not notice
the way his right shoulder
tilts
toward the floor.
The way his right hand lies
limp
by his side.
Like a glove that’s
deflated?
discarded?
He made it through today—
the intellectual part of the Tests—
but what will happen tomorrow
during the physical?
Or Wednesday
during the practical?
Will he be
deflated?
discarded?
too?
I move on to my cousin,
the five rocks
weighing down my hand.
Their future
suffocating my hope.
I wish I could keep them.
Wish I could turn around.
Go back home.
Go somewhere else?
I can’t.
These may be my Tests
but I’m not really in charge.
Am I?
I place the rocks on the podium.
When my cousin reaches for them,
he
runs his fingertips
over my thumb.
Crosses the line.
I snap back my hand.
See him grin like a wolf.
Suddenly feel
like covering my wool.
I know at the moment
one thing for sure:
there’s no question
these Tests aren’t fair.
Also no question
he knows it.
11
On the way home,
I get the usual silence from Papa.
Not because he has no words.
(Papa has a PhD in words.)
But here, in Koyanagar, he has
no right
to use them.
Not in front of Nani.
At least he’s allowed
to sit with us now that
Surina’s husband has been
relegated
to the spot by the coachman.
Sliding closer to me,
Mummy squeezes my hand.
Her words come out with the strength
of a puff of rice.
“I know that was hard, beti,
and I wish—
Well—
I think you handled it
the best you could.”
Nani hisses,
gripping my other arm
tight.
“She did not!
She will not do that again.”
“Do what?” I say,
pulling my arm from her claws.
Ignoring the way Surina
glares at my gall.
“Lie,” Nani snaps,
the word as revolting to her
as a cotton-blend sari.
“Embarrass my family.”
“Do you mean my cousin?”
I speak with a clearly directed stare.
A stare she avoids
as she turns to the view
of nothing.
“What cousin?” she says,
her tone a fluffy kitten.