Samina cleared her throat. She straightened her navy-blue uniform skirt.
“We’ve been taught to see this world in black and white. Some of you might think feminism means complete equality. But in The Second Sex, de Beauvoir actually thinks men and women are different. She says we should appreciate our different perspectives about the world. But we need to stop basing the woman’s perspective off the man’s. I can only show you this, not explain it to you.”
The class literally leaned in together. I tilted my own head, fascinated. She had no props with her. Samina put her hand to her chest, then moved it to her collar.
“For example, the female breast, created to feed and nurture a baby, has been used as an object of sexual pleasure by patriarchy. It makes me feel like my own body must play to the tune of what an attractive breast must be like, what it must look like, instead of the functional purpose it was meant to serve. That’s why I am going to ask you to try to look at me without your conditioning, just for a few seconds.”
I bit my lip, instinctively feeling a pressing need to tell her to sit down, but also wanting her to go on. The class was pin-drop silent.
“Now, if you’ll bear with me, imagine my breasts to be two sacks of flesh. Take away the hidden lust you might have; girls, resist the urge to compare them with yours or to judge them on the basis of what patriarchy has told you is acceptable.”
My heart was beating fast. I snuck a quick peek at the other students: their eyes were glazed, hypnotized by her words. The silence in the room was a vacuum, sucking us all toward the inevitable.
Samina opened her collar button. I moved my leg out from under the desk, my head telling me to leap out at her. But some other force had me pinned to my seat. The fact that it was my fault only pressed my thighs more firmly to my chair.
She opened her second and third buttons, her cleavage spilled; her breasts were large. Her black bra showed and her fingers quickly went toward the edge of her bra. In one swift second she pulled it down to reveal her left breast.
The class was silent. But I could hear the frenzy of the students’ minds.
I stood up. This would be enough for the class to report me. But before anything else could happen I heard a voice shrieking.
“Samina! What the hell are you doing?”
Mrs. Meena: my colleague was charging into the classroom and pulling the now yelling Samina, still exposed, out of the class.
“What exactly is happening in your classroom?” she spat as she hauled Samina off and away. My eyes filled with tears. I looked back at the class. They look at me helplessly, begging me for a response. The tears dried up and I started to giggle. The class joined in, a steady rising beat of uncontrollable laughter.
“I am not sure what to say, or what you all are thinking,” I said when the laughter died suddenly. “I am leaving the classroom now. Please just go back to your own notes for the rest of the class period.”
I trotted out of class like an animal freed from a cage, my heart pounding, both with exhilaration and mounting fear. I wondered how long Mrs. Meena had been watching. Had she been waiting to pounce? Or had she really just happened to walk by at the very moment Samina pulled her bra down?
I looked down at my phone. I had to do it now. I texted Rahil.
I am coming to your house. Back to you and Sara.
What I couldn’t say in months came easily now. Effortless. Why had I never had this confidence before? When I looked up, I saw Mrs. Meena standing outside the staff room, hands folded over her mustard sari. I scuttled toward her. “Mrs. Meena, listen, I can explain about Samina, but right now, there is an emergency, my father is in the hospital.”
Her mouth hung open in shock. The anger stayed thick on her face as I rushed past her and out the school gates. I felt reckless, heartless, idiotic, scampering toward the first auto-rickshaw I saw. The driver flicked his hands toward the back seat. I sat inside.
“So happy you look, madam?” the auto-driver lazily noted.
I beamed at him through his circular rearview mirror. My reflection, an ugly monster, stared back.
XIX
As the auto-rickshaw turned onto their lane, my head flushed with a kind of euphoria I suspect many would kill to feel again.
But even before we had come to a full stop, my eye had caught the lock on their gate and my heart sunk to the dusty tar of the road. The auto-rickshaw driver cleared his throat and looked at me from the rearview mirror again. I stumbled out, too embarrassed to tell him to take me home. For fifteen minutes, I paced from one side of the gate to the other, pretending this moment wasn’t happening. Panic was knotting up inside me, and my muscles with it. I awkwardly walked to the gate and fumbled with the lock to check if it was really secure. Of course it was. I could feel a pressure building in my head. They had gone. They had left. Forever. It was my body that responded first. It shuddered and let out a long ache. A fierce throb that radiated to the back of my calves, the length of my neck, the edges of my fingers. I couldn’t let the reality of it hit me. Yet. These were the thick seconds of non-thought I knew were vital for my preservation.
My phone buzzed. I’d forgotten it was even there. But the text had come in. A response to mine: Mira, Sara is in the hospital.
Sara lay like a sunken ship in the hospital bed. He hovered around her while whispering to a nurse. The staff must have applauded Rahil’s dedication to his wife. It was so easy for him to play the concerned husband for the world. So easy for him to shrug off my contributions, discarding the fact that they both had needed me once.
He turned and saw me by the door.
“Mira, come in, come in,” he said.
I went straight to Sara. Her hair was slick and pasted to the side of her left cheek. I traced the outline of her chin.
“Mira?” Her eyes opened in one smooth blink. “Oh, Mira. Are you okay?”
My heart leaped, and I had to control every muscle in my arms and fingers. I couldn’t overreact. Perhaps I really did look like shit.
“I don’t have a job anymore,” I admitted.
My eyes threatened tears. But I couldn’t look helpless. Or lovesick. I felt a buzzing power rising in my head as Sara gazed back, greedily, waiting for more, more of me. Rahil interjected: “She’s had three seizures in the last two months, now they are running tests. She’s fine now, just needs rest.”
I backed away from the bed. But I didn’t meet Rahil’s eye. I wouldn’t let him have the satisfaction of making this about her. Sara stuck out her arm in protest. “No, no, Mira, come here, don’t go, I am fine, I am sick of sleeping.”
I saw the hint of brightness in her eyes, but it died just as suddenly. She really was fatigued, but also at peace, finally in the place she thrived: the true center of attention, the specimen in the lab, the cause for concern. It felt good to let the words balloon in my mouth. Munchausen. Factitious. But as I kept looking at her those words shrunk and seemed silly. Nothing could define Sara.
“I missed you so much, but what you said hurt so much too. Maybe now you’ll see that it really is my body wasting away, not some mental issue. Just look at the tests, there’s been blood in my urine too, some sort of infection.”
Why had I been so scared all this time? So hesitant to take her completely for myself? She looked so tiny in bed. Beautiful. Helpless. Sara was nothing without me to validate her bizarre fragility. I pushed my head down to her chest and held her sides with my arms. I breathed her in, her rose-musk scent not as strong as I remembered, but still, it smelled like home. The nurse cleared her throat. “Madam, if you don’t mind, she just has had some sedatives, she needs to rest.”
“Go,” Sara said, “we will talk later. Let Rahil tell you all about it.” She closed her eyes rather dramatically.
Rahil and I walked to the hospital canteen in silence. At first Rahil charged ahead, expecting me to catch up. But I slowed him down, taking tiny, considered steps. It’s fascinating how you can get anyone to do anything by simply disrupting the m
ost basic expectation he has of you. In seconds his pace matched mine. The silence was starting to add up, but I wouldn’t let him win. After we had cups of juice in our hands, we found a corner table and sat down. Rahil combed his fingers through his shiny hair. He had three-day stubble. The urge to feel his tongue in my mouth surprised me.
He broke first: “Mira, I am sorry. Look, you brought up all this stuff—that fight—I mean, this is stuff I’ve gone through with her before, it’s not like you came in and brought it to my notice, but listen.” He reached for my hand. “Hey, hey, listen, you came in and you changed something, we all know that. But you have to understand, Sara is not like the rest of us, you can’t define her, you can’t just propose therapy for her, she doesn’t work like that.”
“She is a human being, Rahil, and some things can be defined. I know what she has. She has Munchausen, and you know it. In fact, I think you have it too, by proxy that is. You love this. You love taking her to doctors and hospitals and taking care of her sickly body.”
It felt good to say it out loud. It felt good looking at a very startled Rahil. His eyes twitched. I saw him consciously trying not to overreact. He was going to take control of this. I could see him negotiating a response in his head. His voice came back in that distant, icy tone. This time it failed to hurt me. It was his coping mechanism.
“Congratulations, you read a stupid psychology textbook. Are you happy now? You’re parroting the DSM from the American Psychiatric Association.”
“You don’t want to hear the truth, do you? You don’t want to accept that—whatever you call it. I am the only one who can accept it for what it is. And I am the only one you both need.”
Rahil looked like he had been stunned by a slap.
I was amazed my voice hadn’t broken and tears hadn’t flooded my face. A moment went by, and Rahil was back to his malleable self—the one that I had needed so desperately over the last few months. The friend who had pushed me to find love in ways I had never thought possible. The man who had allowed me to love his wife. People around us were looking. One bald man, eating his lunch idly, paused to stare blatantly.
I allowed a small grin to form. My new confidence had rewarded me with the Rahil I wanted. The Rahil I needed. I had to make him feel validated while remaining under my control. “Look, I know you didn’t do anything, you weren’t making her sick. I saw the way you looked at her. I was running myself crazy with the idea that you were probably both feeding each other with this sickness.”
Rahil held my hand. “Mira, I would never do anything to hurt Sara, or you.” He was looking into my eyes apologetically. “We love you.”
“Then give me the keys to your house right now.”
Rahil looked blankly at me, and my eyes blinked rapidly in surprise at my own words. He hadn’t expected that. He had expected needy Mira. Mira who would take any scrap of affection and cradle it for days.
“The house has always been yours, Mira,” Rahil said, trying to shrug.
I swirled my tongue in irritation. Whose house was it these last few months? But I couldn’t react with rage. I was controlled; I knew what I was doing. I was getting what I wanted. There was no time to have shame or second thoughts about it. Rahil broke my silence again, mostly because he had no choice. My resolve was too strong.
“It’s yours, I want nothing more.”
I didn’t say anything. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly.
“Mira, I need you to be okay with this. We’re caught up in a fucking mad situation, but we love you, Sara loves you, and I’ll be honest. I need you the most.” He paused. “I am taking her home today—our home.”
He fiddled in his pocket and brought out the metal key attached to a key chain shaped like an apple. He pushed his hand forward and let it dangle between us.
Like a child being coaxed by candy, I let my stringent resolve weaken just a little. “Okay,” I mumbled, taking the key, hating myself, loving this moment.
We finished off our juice as he continued to tell me about life over the last two months. Sara had pushed him away, spending hours at home, not wanting to go on their evening walks. He worked harder, won a major promotion. He’d wanted to call me, he said, but Sara was not ready. They needed time to examine what they meant to each other. But then one day Sara had started opening up to Rahil, asking him if he missed me.
“It was only a matter of time. Sara knew how much you meant to me, to the both of us.”
By the time we were done we had decided that I’d go home to pack some things and then leave for Sara and Rahil’s house. I would stay there and wait for them to come home that evening. I told Rahil that the blood in her urine was probably from her cutting herself and adding it to her samples. He shrugged his shoulders dismissively. “You’ve been researching the disease, I get it, but I am years ahead of you, Mir. She has her phases, and you coming home is going to make things better, I promise.”
The tiny cells in my brain that had managed to still hold fragments of sanity started to buzz. I was dizzy. For seconds I was even sane. With sanity came self-righteousness. With sanity came rationality. This was messed up. This was stupid. This situation made no sense. But it all faded in the shimmer of a second. The world was still and my heart spilled out of my chest.
An excited teenager who’d just had her first kiss—this is what I felt like. Hurrying away from the hospital, manically packing some things from my house, and, finally, swinging open the door of their home, our home. Home.
Their bed was made, but I made it again. My love went into dusting the TV table even though it was spotless. My dizzying excitement went into cutting up fruits from their fridge and decorating a platter with them. An hour later, after chamomile tea from a blue cup, I sat on their sofa imagining all the conversations we’d have, all the love we’d share in our twisted new family. Only after all this did I remember what had happened in school that afternoon. I checked my email. I was not surprised to see a message from Mr. Khan, subject line: URGENT. It didn’t matter. I had Sara and Rahil coming home to me. Nothing could shake me. I clicked on the email, scanning it quickly.
My gut zigzagged through my body, the feeling of shame and disappointment swirling at the bottom of my stomach, getting faster, thicker, until the entire lower half of my body cramped. I stared at the email, read it again. Finally, I tapped out my reply and quickly shut the laptop, going to the kitchen and starting very slowly, very pleasurably, to make a pot of khichadi with three different lentils. I added carrots, spinach, onions, and tomatoes. I substituted quinoa instead of rice. They knocked on the door around seven. Rahil had his arm around Sara. She wore a pair of baggy jeans and a white turtleneck. They both came toward me, their arms wrapped around me. I melted into them.
At dinner we didn’t discuss the hospital or the tests. I would do anything to avoid talking to Sara about Sara. I told them all about my job, and Sara was only too happy to listen, her head tilting sympathetically with every inflection in my voice.
“There’s always a risk when you teach outside the lines, I know Mr. Khan had warned me about this, and Samina, she had so much potential, she just took it too far.”
If there was a rock of guilt in my throat, I didn’t feel it. The monster had taken over; I could make amends only after I was sure I was going to be in Sara and Rahil’s life forever.
Rahil listened too, but not as actively, intent on the bowl of quinoa khichadi. He was the first to say something, though.
“You’re going to get fired, you know that, right? You’re lucky you aren’t in America, the parents would have sued you and the school.”
Sara elbowed him so hard his spoon fell onto the table. “She may well be fired, but what that girl did was wonderful, she facilitated something needed. Everybody in their little bubbles of school and life and boring shit, now there’s a girl with real soul trying to burst through life and cut through all our stupid hypocrisies.”
I shook my head. “What matters is small change, not going all the
way crazy radical—then we just get shut down.”
“No, Mira, you should be up front with the school. After all, you can’t be held responsible for her actions, although I’m inclined to say you should defend them.”
“What, be the official commie radical teacher of the Seeds school?”
Rahil burst out laughing, but no one followed him in that response.
“I will never teach again.”
I couldn’t admit to them that I had encouraged Samina to do something that would at the very least expel her temporarily. So I let them feel sorry for me and my convictions.
Sara sighed into her bowl. She had eaten half the serving and I knew she wouldn’t finish it. She looked up again and grinned.
“Figure it out tomorrow, and don’t worry, life has too many opportunities, this is nothing.”
I looked up at Sara’s hair muddled in a bun, shiny ends poking out toward the ceiling. What opportunities did she mean? The only opportunity I wanted was to be with them. Held together by the everyday—me, Sara, Rahil—as natural as sunlight beaming into the bedroom window in the morning.
In the middle of the night, I left the guest room and woke Rahil and Sara up. My urge to get everything straight had given me the confidence to risk everything. It was going to have to be a straight-up demand or nothing at all. Rahil patted the middle of the bed, Sara sleepily ushered me to the spot with her arm.
“I am always going to be the third wheel,” I said as I squeezed in between them. I felt the resolve of the monster fade. But wasn’t vulnerability also a tool to get what you needed? I continued: “And what we’re doing, it’s mostly going to be a secret. You have each other, but I don’t have that security. I don’t even have the words to say what the two of you mean to me.”
Sara held my hand. “Mira, the secrets are out, let’s not try to explain it. There is no such thing as security; we’re here now, feel us.”
Rahil pulled my cheek to him, pressed his lips to mine. But only for seconds, then he patted the pillow, indicating it was time to sleep again. “You’ll have to switch bedrooms early in the morning before Kamala comes in,” Rahil said, his voice gentle but firm.
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