by Sonali Dev
Laughter bubbled out of Ashna. Not anxious laughter, but mirth, because this was hilarious.
Shobi ignored her and barreled on, a bowler staring down the pitch at a batsman. “When you’re free and at home, we have some of this amazing chai and talk. That’s all I’m asking.”
She was good.
Did she know this was Ashna’s chai? Was her praise part of her strategy?
Ashna placed her hands on her father’s countertop, cold and hard against her palms. “Are you sure you’re not ill?”
Her mother shook her head. “I’m as healthy as a forty-nine-year-old who walks five kilometers on a polluted beach every day can be.” Now they were both standing with their palms on the granite, mirrors of each other, gauging, opaque, exposed. “There’s so much I need to tell you. It’s the kind of stuff daughters go in search of after their mothers die. Maybe we can do it now while we’re both still here?”
The lump in Ashna’s throat was painful, but she swallowed it down. If she’d ever had any doubts about how Shobi had gotten her nickname of Dragon-Raje, they were gone now.
“Okay. But know that I’m only doing this for Curried Dreams. And for Baba.”
Shobi bit her lip and nodded. Ashna had to be seeing things in her exhausted state, because for the first time in Ashna’s life she saw tears shimmer in her mother’s eyes.
Chapter Sixteen
Shoban had always found tears tiresome. The fact that she was crying in an ornate five-hundred-room palace made them mortifying. She was captive in a palace like some archaic fairy-tale princess—humiliating—and it was making her cry—beyond humiliating.
Her boarding school nickname was Heartless Shoban, because for some reason, the girls at her school equated having a heart with being a watering can. Her classmates cried when they watched movies; some even cried while watching ads. The last time Shoban remembered crying was when she said goodbye to her mother in the hospital, before her father had told them to take her off life support and then left the room before they did.
Shoban had cried incessantly then, the rivers flowing from her eyes obscuring her mother’s body. Then at the cremation, she had realized that crying didn’t ease the pain, it just displayed it for others to see, and she stopped, because it had felt wrong to do that to Ma’s memory.
Now, alone in this room with enough carved teak furniture to turn a forest barren, there was no one to display the pain to. So she let it out.
What she needed to do, instead of indulging herself with tears, was to contact Omar. But how?
She stopped pacing and jiggled the balcony door. It was open. She stepped onto the marble mosaic in her bare feet. The balcony made her feel like Rapunzel. She needed her hair to be long enough to make its way across the Arabian Sea, Western Asia, and Europe. Because across all that was Omar, entirely unaware of how much she needed him.
At home, every Sunday she made a trip to the long-distance calling booth across town in a neighborhood her father and his elitist posse of spies wouldn’t be caught dead in for fear of muddying their fancy shoes. It was an hour-long trip one way, but for five minutes of hearing Omar’s voice, Shoban would have done it a hundred times over.
The man who ran the booth was creepier than anyone Shoban had ever encountered. The entire time that Shoban talked to Omar, the man sat behind his rickety desk in his gauzy polyester kurta and undressed her with his eyes, his bony jaw rhythmically juicing the tobacco lumped in his cheek.
Shoban always took care to wear a loose-fitting salwar kameez that buttoned close around her neck, and wrapped her dupatta scarf all the way around herself. She tried to turn away when she spoke into the heavy black handpiece of the phone as she soaked up the gently melodic tones of Omar’s voice. But turning her back on the telephone man’s lecherous gaze only made the violation worse.
More than anything, she wanted to yell at him to stop, but that was the only place in town where she could go to make that call without letting her father find out. If the man threw her out, she wouldn’t get to hear Omar’s voice at all.
Another sniffle escaped her. Swiping her face with her sleeve, she went back into her sandalwood-scented jail. What she wouldn’t give to be in that creepy phone booth right now.
Omar knew she was visiting Sripore, so he would not be sitting by the phone in his landlady’s house waiting for her call this Sunday.
It is dark without your voice, jaan. But I’ve gathered the sparks of your laughter in my heart for centuries, and like constellations in the night they will be my light.
He had whispered the words into the hollow behind her ear, into the dip between her breasts, into the wetness of her lips. She missed his gentleness. It had always eased the cynicism from her heart, kept her from choking on her own anger.
“Oh, Omar,” she whispered into the empty room. “They want to steal our light. They want to use it to burn us away.”
Daddy’s lackey, Ramesh, was standing sentry outside the room. If Shoban found a way to escape, or to go the Rajes, she had no idea what her father would do. Without a doubt he was fully prepared to destroy Omar’s family to get his way.
She went to the locked door and pressed her ear to it. Someone was talking outside, but she couldn’t make out the words.
This was all so positively medieval—they didn’t live in some village in a feudal area. They were educated people. Her mother had a master’s degree in history. Shoban planned to get a PhD in women’s studies. How could she get a degree in women’s studies and be locked in a room so her father could force her into marriage? How was this happening?
The only solution she could think of was speaking to Bram. Yes, that was it. Bram would understand. He’d always been perfectly nice to her. When he’d visited her last month, he’d made her laugh and laugh with the stories of all the ways his parents and older brothers had tried to get him to toe the line.
Oh Lord, was that why he had visited? Because he had somehow decided that she was interested in him?
Her ear was still pressed to the door. The voices faded. Pulling away, she searched the room. There had to be a way. There was always a way. Her eyes fell on the ornate phone sitting on a console table. It had to have long-distance calling on it. This was a palace, after all. When she picked up the phone it made a strange long beeping sound. Pressing zero connected her to an operator.
“Hello, what number please?” the operator said, throwing Shoban.
“I wanted to make a call,” she said, and the woman on the other end took a second to process that. Evidently not many people were stupid enough to say that to her.
“Yes, what number, please?” she repeated, her tone even more deliberately flat than the first time she’d said it.
“It’s . . . it’s an international call. To . . . umm . . . the UK.”
“Yes, ma’am, what is the number?”
Omar’s number hovered on Shoban’s lips. The menace in her father’s eyes when he threatened Omar’s family flashed before her. What would happen if Daddy found out she had called Omar?
She touched her cheek. Her father had never hit her before. The flat-palmed slap stung afresh at the memory, making rage rise inside her. This was not like any of her previous rebellions. She had to keep her head for this one. This was war.
“Sorry, I can’t find the number. I’ll call back,” she said, and replaced the handset.
Just in time, because the door swung open and Flora entered with a trolley. “I was just bringing you tea, Tai-saheb,” she said, and looked discreetly away while Shoban wiped her eyes.
“Thanks. I do need some tea.” She settled herself in the wing chair, legs neatly crossed, and smiled at Flora as she poured. “Listen, do you know where Prince Bram is?”
Flora set the silver teapot down and handed Shoban her cup. “I believe he’s in his room. He just got home from riding, and I saw him head that way.”
Shoban accepted the cup. “Thanks.” She took a sip. “This is perfect.”
Flora bowed
her head in thanks but said nothing.
“Could you do me a favor and take a message to him for me?” Shoban said with all the casualness she could muster.
Flora waited, face passive, hands folded behind her back.
“Please tell him I was wanting to speak with him urgently. Actually, don’t say urgently. Just tell him that I want to speak with him.”
Flora nodded but stayed where she was.
Shoban forced the tea down and put her cup on the tray.
Instead of taking the trolley away, Flora nudged the silver plate with an assortment of biscuits toward Shoban.
When Shoban didn’t take one, Flora met her gaze with a strange sort of fierceness. “Tai-saheb should eat. You’re going to need your strength.”
“Thank you.” Shoban took the plate. She hadn’t eaten all day. Suddenly she was ravenous.
Only after Shoban had made her way through half the biscuits did Flora wheel the trolley away.
Shoban cleared her throat, stopping her. “Can you go to Prince Bram now, please? Before you do anything else?”
“As is Tai-saheb’s wish.” With that, Flora left.
EXACTLY FORTY MINUTES later, a knock sounded on Shoban’s door. It was too firm to be one of the servants, and Shoban braced herself, not knowing if it was her father or Bram.
“I believe I was summoned.” Bram swaggered into the room in a linen button-down and khakis, freshly washed shoulder-length hair blow-dried into waves.
Shoban sat up on the love seat and Bram flopped down next to her. She ignored her reflex to scoot back. He was a big man, over six feet tall and with a wide barrel chest, and it was a small couch. But she wasn’t about to shrink into herself like some sort of helpless waif.
“Come on in, Bram. Take a seat,” she said, and Bram grinned.
Flipping his hair off his face, he gave her the boyish smile the magazines loved so much. A lock of hair fell over one eye as he studied her with more than his usual amusement. The teasing in his smile was overly intimate and an ugly feeling skittered down Shoban’s spine.
Had he ever looked at her that way before? Why did she never pay attention to things like that?
Omar said she missed details. That she was too big-picture oriented. He was all about the details. She’d joked about never needing to develop that skill. He would be the one to take care of details for both of them and she would take care of the big picture.
“Should I call for some tea?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light.
“You’re already acting like you own the house, ha?” Bram said, infusing his words with all sorts of meaning as he leaned closer to her.
“No!” She jumped up. “I was just being polite. This is your house.” All yours. God, she wanted nothing to do with it.
There was an awkward beat of silence.
Bram sat up and Shoban tried to smile. Awkwardness could ruin everything. She had to remind him of their friendship. Friends helped each other.
She sat back down next to him. “You’re not going to believe what my father said today.”
Yes, this approach would work. If she turned it into a joke, he’d have no choice but to laugh it off too. The trick was to not hurt his ego. Bram was proud. He would never want to marry someone who wasn’t interested in him.
He grinned again and pressed a hand into his bulky chest where it pushed at his shirt buttons.
“Daddy said . . . well . . . he said you had said . . .”
He burst into laughter. “Who would have thought a firecracker like Shoban Gaikwad would be reduced to stuttering.” He reached out and took her hand. “Yes, darling, you can say it, we’re getting married.”
She snatched her hand away and stood. Her knees wobbled, but she locked them in place. “What are you talking about, Bram? What about Selma . . . your girlfriend? I thought you were with her.”
He stood too, and despite herself Shoban stepped back, because he really was so much larger than her.
“Don’t be absurd, Shobz. Why would I marry a woman who sleeps around?”
“But you’re the one she was sleeping with!” She spun around and went to the balcony. The sun was on its way to the horizon, ready to be swallowed up by the waves. The oncoming darkness made her desperate to cling to the leftover light.
This was good. Shoban hadn’t slept with Omar, but she was in love with him. If Bram didn’t want to marry a woman who had slept with other men, surely he wouldn’t want to marry a woman whose heart belonged to another man.
“Are you jealous?” he asked too close behind her, far too much glee in his voice.
Shoban felt like someone had thrown a bag over her head.
She tried to move, but her back hit his body and she froze. Maniacal laughter rose up her throat and she slammed it down.
“I don’t mind you being jealous, though. Your fieriness is what I love most about you.”
Somehow she maneuvered herself sideways and stepped away from him. “I’m not jealous at all, I promise you. And you don’t mean that. You don’t love me. I have nothing at all that someone like you would have any interest in. Truly. I can’t do one single thing that you enjoy doing. Remember how much I hated going hunting in Switzerland? I hated it.”
Her words seemed to shock him, and Shoban took advantage of his surprise to move across the balcony and tuck herself behind a rattan chair.
“So you don’t have to go hunting with me,” he said with a shrug. “Truth be told, I don’t really enjoy it that much anymore either. Too many rules for what’s endangered and what’s not. We’ll find other things to do together.” The suggestive smile started to bloom across his face again.
“No, no we won’t. Bram, God, I . . . You’ve been a good friend. I . . . really had no idea that—”
With a laugh he rested a knee into the chair she was hiding behind. “Oh, look at you, you’re actually blushing. I didn’t realize you were this bashful. It’s me, Shobz. You don’t have to pretend around me.”
There was a wall behind her. His overpowering cologne clawed at her. Sliding out from behind the chair, she went back inside. “Good. Because I don’t want to pretend around you. I knew you’d understand. I tried to tell Daddy that you would understand.” God, please let him understand.
He followed her into the room, his lazy stride not quite so lazy anymore. “Of course I understand that you have to appear bashful. It’s okay to do all that drama for the photographers and for my family. I know you girls love the blushing bahu shit. But I like you spunky, direct, unafraid to ask for things. We’re going to be perfect together.”
That might qualify as the world’s most tasteless proposal.
He walked up to her again, not stopping until he was too close, and she realized that he might be the world’s most tasteless man. Why had she laughed at his inappropriate jokes? Why had she put up with his obnoxious opinions?
This time, instead of backing down she put out her hand and held him back and out of her space. “You aren’t listening to what I’m saying.”
He looked down at her hand on his chest as though no one had ever stopped him from doing anything before, but he stayed put.
She pulled her hand back, wanting to wipe away the unpleasant sensation burning her palm. “We aren’t going to be together, Bram. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m eighteen. I want to go to college. I haven’t heard from Oxford yet, but I am really hoping they accept me.”
He fell heavily into the sofa, but his gaze stayed on her. “I have no idea why you want to do something as deadly dull as studying when there are a million more fun things to do. But hey, if that’s what you want, we can totally talk about you going to college after we’re married. I can even have my mother speak with someone about your application.” He winked. “A call from the maharani of Sripore should move things along.”
This was who he was. All this while she’d told herself that he was being ironic when
he said things like this. But he wasn’t.
“Please don’t speak to anyone. I want to get in on my own merit.” The way Omar had, fair and square.
Bram laughed again, in that patronizing way that hadn’t annoyed her before because she’d believed he wasn’t her problem. “Have it your way, my fiery darling. Ma-saheb is correct. You are so right for me.”
“You told Ma-saheb?” Shoban had the urge to start pacing again, but she was frozen in place.
“Of course. Naturally my mother was the one who spoke to your father. I’m not ill-bred, just ill-mannered sometimes.” He winked at her again, and she wished he would stop.
She loved Bram’s mother. If not for Maya Devi, Shoban would not have survived losing her own mother. She was the one who had helped Shoban see that life went on after the dark clouds of grief parted. Mortification burned inside her. How dare Bram have done this without giving her a clue. What was Maya Devi going to think of her?
“I can’t do this, Bram.” Clearly, there was no way to approach this other than honestly.
His patronizing smile didn’t budge. It didn’t even occur to him that her refusal might be real.
She folded her arms and for the first time since he’d walked into the room, she met his gaze squarely. “Listen to me.” She said each word slowly. “I can’t marry you.”
He laughed again. “Come on. Do we have to do this? I didn’t figure you for a woman who would exercise her privilege to say no just to get me to grovel.” He rose. “I’m sorry, I should have gone down on my knee, done the ring thing. But I figured you’d appreciate the traditional approach better with the parents speaking to each other. I was such an arse. Sorry. Wait here, I can set this straight. I’ll be back in a minute.” He made his way across the room.
“Bram, stop,” she said before he reached the door. “Where are you going?”
“To get your ring—my grandmother bequeathed her engagement ring to my wife. Ma-saheb gave it to me when I told her about us. I’ll get it and we can fix this.”
Shoban walked up to him. “I’m in love with someone else.”