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straight for her flat.
straight for her room.
straight for her arms.
My eyes well up like clouds
on the precipice of a monsoon.
Asha remains the stoic mountain.
Unmoving.
Unchanging.
“How did you do it?” I ask her
when I find my voice.
“How did you choose a stranger
when the boy you love
must compete for someone else?”
She sits on her bed.
Pats the silk cover.
I sit, too.
“My choice was easy,” she says.
“The boys in my Tests were all strangers.
I concentrated on the game and
awarded the winner.”
“But this is not like when we used
to play Tests with our dolls,” I say.
“You must marry this winner
in ten days.
Does it not break your heart
to walk away
from what might have been?”
She twirls the end of her braid
around her fingers,
the way she used to twirl the boy she loves
around her life.
“I always knew he wouldn’t be on my stage.
Maybe that made it easier?
He had my heart,
and you can’t break
what you don’t have.”
“But my heart’s still mine,”
I say, shaking my head.
Wondering if it’s true.
If, like the other women in my family,
I don’t even have one.
“And if my Nani makes me
marry my cousin—”
Asha’s mouth opens
before her words
have the chance to fill it.
“Your cousin’s in your Tests?
But that’s statistically—”
“Impossible?”
I say with a head tilt.
“Apparently, anything’s possible
if you’re my nani.”
She pauses to do the math—
something she’s better at than me.
Her eyes get clear
when she sums up the reality:
statistics don’t matter
to people who cheat.
With her chin held high,
Asha gives her decree.
“You’ll pick someone else.
Your nani may be
the Puppet Master of State,
but she’s not yours and
she can’t make you
marry that louse.”
I drop my gaze.
Say, “Nai. She can’t,
and I would defy her if…”
When I don’t finish,
Asha leans in
as if she can smell the
rest of my words
on my breath.
“If what?” she says.
I exhale like a punctured balloon.
“Two of my boys were disqualified,
which leaves my cousin
and two others:
one who’s desperate to be chosen
but doesn’t stand a chance,
and another who could win
but is desperate to lose.”
I pause.
Consider my options.
Provide my own response.
“I know what you’re thinking.
I must pick him anyway.
Must show him how good his life will be
with me.
Then he’ll be happy.
Right?”
Asha frowns.
“You sound like your nani
at the dinner table.
Always telling people
they need more food
even if their stomachs are full.”
I shake my head.
“Nai.
It’s not like that.”
I’m not like that.
Am I?
No.
Five’s life would be better with me.
I’m sure of it.
Asha goes to the window,
staring through the bars
at the brick building
a few feet away.
“You have another choice, Susa,”
she says so low I wonder
if she’s talking to the windowpane.
“You can choose not to marry.
Choose to leave Koyanagar
for good.”
Her suggestion is a rabbit
magically pulled from a hat.
I want to believe it’s possible,
but reason tells me
it’s not.
I tell her, “There’s no way.
Even if I could escape,
I can’t leap across the sea.
And the wall—
even if I could leap over that,
it’s a jungle on the other side.
I’d be food for sharks
of one kind
or another.”
She turns back to me with a torque
so powerful
it whips her braid off her shoulder.
For the first time in our lives,
I see Asha
clench her teeth.
narrow her eyes.
spit her words.
“That’s a lie
your nani puts on your spoon
so you’ll think you stay here
by choice.
“The wall’s a bunch of rocks,
and the people on the other side are
neither
sharks nor fools
like us.
“Traffic goes one way,
and it’s out.
That’s why they keep sending
more boys to the wall.
They’re escaping,
and no one cares.”
“But I’m not a boy,”
I say, pulling at my sheer dupatta
as if she’ll be surprised to see it.
“They’ll care if I leave.
And when my nani finds out—”
Asha glances at an old canvas bag tucked
between
her bed
and side table.
“What if you weren’t
a girl when you crossed?” she says,
returning her braid to her fingers.
“What if you had scissors? Clothes?
Papers that said you were a boy
and had permission to leave?”
When she looks at the bag again,
I realize we’re not
talking about me
anymore.
I glance toward the hall,
lowering my voice.
“Have you forgotten what happened
to that girl
who ran away four years ago?
The one whose boyfriend
refused to participate in the Tests?
Who refused to tell where
she was hiding unless State
promised they could marry?
“They didn’t punish only him.
They punished his parents
and hers.
They took away their endowment.
Threw them out on the street.”
Asha shakes her head.
Says, “My parents don’t care.
They didn’t have
an arranged marriage like yours.
They married for love.
Don’t believe there’s any other way.
“They gave me hope in my name.
They took the yira for my wedding
and told me to use it
to buy my own happiness.”
I want to believe
in her magic,
and yet something about it
still smells like an empty hat.
“But what if you’re wrong?”
I say cautiously,
because Asha’s
; not the kind of girl
who gets things wrong.
And yet, she’s also
not the kind of girl
who takes risks—
is she?
“What if life on the outside
is worse than it is here?”
I ask her.
She returns to her place next to me.
“Then I’ll still be unhappy,
but I’ll have chosen that misery,
and that’s the only way
I can win.”
I want to tell her not to go.
Not to take the risk.
Not to leave me the lone bird
in a field of cats.
But I can’t.
She has love
and she has hope and
I can’t take that away.
Can’t ask her to abandon it
so she can stay in a nation
that breaks its own laws.
Its own people.
She takes my hand.
“You could come with me,” she says.
“We’ll ask my baaba to buy more papers.
Cut your hair like mine.
We’ll share my money until we’re settled.
Then we’ll find jobs.
Maybe even a boy for you, too?”
I give her a hug,
but I say, “Nai.
I will miss you”—
so, so much—
“but this is
your plan,
your money,
your future”—
your choice—
“and it’s about time
I find one of my own.”
24
I’m back in my cement cell. Alone again. Probably a good thing. I have always had Appa around. At home. In the fields. At the market. But after tomorrow, I’m on my own. No one to work with or eat with or laugh with or be silent with. Not until I find Amma. If I find Amma. Appa drew me a map of the old country. Who knows if it’s still the same. The only things we hear about it are what we’re told in the Koyanagar newspaper, and it portrays everyone there as miserable. It says they’re starving to death on the street, killing each other so they can stay alive. It says they would do anything—risk anything—to find a better place to call home. As far as I can tell, the only difference between them and us is they admit their country is falling apart, while our leaders honestly believe they’ve created some kind of utopia. It’s like Appa says, the people at the top of the pyramid always think the sun shines the brightest.
I take the rocks out of my pocket and toss them on the young boy’s cot. Former cot. Five more rocks. How can I have five more rocks? This was not part of the plan. I pace back and forth from the door to the wall. Door to the wall. Door to the— No, no, no, no, no. I can’t have these rocks. I can’t be in second place, two days in and with only two other boys left, one of whom has zero chance of beating the boy in blue. Worse, I can’t let this girl believe that giving me these rocks is somehow helping me. She probably believes she can solve all my problems by giving me a luxurious life, but it’s her life and I want my own. How can I tell her that? How can I make her see that she needs to be with that disgusting boy who touched her neck like he’d already won and then said her name as if it was forty years ago and he was the one with the money and the power and the influence?
Sudasa. It means obedience. Being obedient would mean picking the boy in blue—the one her family clearly wants. I saw the way her grandmother shot ocular daggers at her when she awarded me the five rocks. She doesn’t want someone like me in her home, looking at her expensive art and touching her silk cushions. Not to mention living with the poster girl for Koyanagar. How would that look? The girl everyone idolizes with a brother-in-law whose own mother didn’t love him enough to stay.
Surely, they will make Sudasa see this tonight. They will tell her I won’t fit in. Then they will remind her of her duty as a girl. They will think for her, as they always do, because that’s the point of these tests. If they could trust the girls to choose wisely on their own, we wouldn’t have to be here. Would we? Or is it the opposite? Perhaps the families have always chosen for them and the key is to let the girls decide for themselves?
No. No. No. That’s exactly what she did when she gave me the five rocks.
I sit on my cot, placing my head in my hands. If only I could talk to Appa. He’d know what to do. He’d remind me why his plan is the only option. Why becoming the husband of a rich girl is a bad thing, even if it would guarantee that he would always have food and water and the kind of medicine that might finally make his stomach better. Not that he wants these things. We talked about this before—when I asked him if he would prefer it if I married—and he said it was my turn to be happy. If he can deplete his savings and break the law for me, the least I can do is trust that he knows best.
No, I cannot let him down. Not for a pretty girl whose gaze is like Tagore’s sad depth of the sky. It’s not even like she has lost hope. I see that in the market all the time, mostly with the older men who come to talk to Appa about what life was like before everything changed. For her, it’s almost like she doesn’t know what hope is. Like she has accepted that this life in Koyanagar is the only option.
I jump to my feet and pace again. Door, cot, wall, cot, door. Why can’t she see that accepting this way of life is not the only option? Why can’t she think for herself for once? Wait. No, we’re back at the same problem. She can’t do that. Thinking for herself is what made her pick me, and she can’t pick me.
I sit back down. I must stop thinking about her and her eyes and her delicate painted wrists. I must stick to the plan. Amma is out there somewhere. Could I live with myself if I never tried to find her. If I never got the chance to ask her why she left? Could I drink from crystal goblets knowing that Appa gave up everything in order to give me the chance for a better life? And could I ever look him in the eyes again if I did?
I tear off my dirty red kurta, replacing it with the T-shirt I was wearing when the guards took me from my home. I inhale as it brushes over my cheeks. Salt. It smells of sea salt, and the sea means freedom for me. But it also means home and comfort and a life of not being alone. No. I must forget about that. I must focus on the plan.
I lie down and close my eyes. The lightbulb buzzes, although not nearly as loud as my head. Pictures whir around my skull like a nest of angry bees. The farm. Her eyes. The wall. The sea. Appa. Amma. Me. The girl.
I take a long, deep breath. Tomorrow. I will find a way to stop her from choosing me. I will fail every test. I won’t give her a choice. She may not like it, but she will learn to. And perhaps the boy in blue won’t be so bad once he has won. Perhaps her family will keep him in his place. Yes, it will work. She will pick him, and I will lose in the final test, exactly like Appa planned.
But if it doesn’t work—if she still tries to pick me—I’ll beg her not to. I’ll find a way to bribe her, to persuade her.
And if that doesn’t work, I’ll forget what Appa said about the dangers of trying to get away while the tests are still going and everyone is looking at me. I’ll start the plan early.
I’ll run.
25
The final day.
Two Tests left.
Next up:
practical skills.
Skills like Papa has needed
since he was deemed
not good enough—
not female enough—
to teach literature.
They’d rather give the job
to a middle-aged woman—
one who has barely skimmed Tagore—
than let a man mold our minds.
When we arrive at the venue,
we’re ushered down the stone path.
Told to step around
the hundreds of bikes
bleeding from rust.
piled like bones in a mass grave.
We’re told to plug our noses
to escape the smells.
Rot.
Poverty?
Reality.
We enter an old building
crammed
between two modern towers.
Nani says it used to be a
men’s club.
A place her husband
came home from smelling of
Scotch.
paan.
lavender perfume.
Now they use it for the final Tests.
Give the ties that bind
in the place that used to
set them free.
My family sits at a round table
declared to be mine
by the embossed center card:
Miss Sudasa Bala
Keeper of the Rocks?
More like
Ambassador of the Deaths.
Sitting straight in her seat,
Nani keeps her neck taut
like a rooster on its perch.
I let my neck recoil
into my feathers
as eyes
drip down its side.
The eyes are from the boys’ families.
Their fingertips are
pressed against the windows.
Their hope
diminishing as the clock ticks by.
There’s silence when the director enters.
A different woman, yet
still unadorned in white.
still sporting a smile for Nani.
The boys—
what’s left of the boys…
twenty, maybe twenty-five in total?—
huddle in eight small groups
at the front of the room.
They keep their chins at attention as
the director reads off the assignments.
The lucky ones, like group #2,
are sent down the hall
to clean.
The less fortunate, like group #5,
are sent out back
to do repairs.
My boys are assigned cooking,
so my choice is not
transparent glass
like it is for the other girls.
I must decide.
Must pretend I didn’t spend the
W H O L E N I G H T
tossing.
turning.
waking to and smear.
When my boys are sent to the kitchen
to prepare their offering,
I’m left to
w