The City of Good Death

by Priyanka Champaneri

  “None asked us even once for the truth about her. I would have told them of a girl who was shy and quiet, and her mother would have spoken of a girl who finished all the housework while everyone else slept, who nursed both parents and neighbors when they fell ill with summer fever. Yes, this girl would often disappear, would go for long walks and sit on her own, but her mind was sound and her heart was patient.

  “Around that time, we had some bad luck. Some land that I had been farming for decades from a neighboring family produced a poor harvest. When that patriarch came to visit me, I thought he wanted to discuss the fields. Instead, he wished to discuss my daughter. Like everyone else in the village, it seems, he had heard some story about her. But he wanted to take that worry away from me, he said. He was coming to ask for my daughter’s hand for his son. The son, it turned out, had come upon her during one of her walks. He’d fallen in love with her and could not be dissuaded.

  “I’m ashamed to admit that I was happy with this news. I thought she would be comfortable there, that the stories about her would stop once she was married into a powerful family who could control gossip as well as they controlled their land. But my daughter refused to marry him. I was angry; I felt she’d taken advantage of the freedom she enjoyed for so many years. I declared that she would marry him regardless.

  “She diminished in the days that followed. The boy and his mother visited a few times, and she sat still and lifeless as a bit of wood. During the last visit, she would not leave the back room, and I …” Om paused. “I told her if she did not come, I would drag her there. So she came.” He was silent for a long while. Pramesh realized the old man was trying to compose himself. Wetness shone in his eyes.

  “Her mother was the one who pulled it out of her. That man … that man I’d made her sit next to … he hadn’t just followed her around.” The words stuck in Om’s throat. His jaw worked. He looked away and wiped his palm across his eyes.

  Pramesh felt his breath stop. He knew what Om could not say. “Rama,” he whispered, feeling anger pulse in his veins. “Oh, Rama.”

  Om took a deep breath. “I called off the marriage. They were furious. My daughter was no longer clean, they said; didn’t I realize that she would never get a chance like this again?

  “But I had heard stories of my own, by that time. My daughter wasn’t the only one, apparently, who had caught this boy’s eye. I went to every house in the village, every house with a daughter. I wanted them all to come with me, speak out against this family. Some of them agreed with me but were too afraid to do anything. Some of them simply called me a doddering old man. Some of them said it was nothing new, these things happen. Many of them refused to open the door to me.

  “The family heard what I was trying to do. And in revenge, they took back those acres of fields that my family had farmed for years. They used the excuse that I had been unable to reap a satisfactory crop that season and perhaps they needed to find a man with more industry than myself. I thought perhaps that was the end of it, but small-minded men think deep when they have an insult to avenge.

  “The stories spread slowly at first, but a month after the broken engagement, everyone had that family’s poison on their lips. My daughter, they said, had taken to chasing after men in her wanderings.” Om’s voice shook with anger. Pramesh tried to tell him he need not continue, but the old man held his hand up. “They said she’d bewitched the wealthy boy, and thankfully the family had made their son see the error of his ways, but the warning was out: my daughter was shameless and would be the misfortune of any man associated with her.

  “That was just the beginning. My wife could not even go to the well after that without some woman spitting in her water pots. Children chased after my daughter, throwing stones, pulling her sari, the boys betting who could pull it off. We had to leave—there was no other way.

  “In the beginning, when we settled in a new place we were left alone. But always the stories would float after us, carried by someone’s visiting relative, and then the jeering would start, the shunning, the refusal to sell us things in the market. We grew to recognize the signs. None of the people in any of the places we lived ever took the time to know us. For them, the stories were enough; they served as truth.

  “My wife decided that we had to find a husband for our daughter—that the stories would never stop until we did. But if we couldn’t find a place to live, how were we going to find a suitable boy? We spoke to a traveling matchmaker, and he was honest in naming our prospects. He told us of a family living in the next village over. Both I and the girl’s mother should have been happy for the chance for our daughter to live so close to us, but just as folk had told stories about our daughter, so had we heard stories about that prospective boy’s family. And the stories, which we believed as truth, were not good. You must know what I speak of.”

  “Yes. But tell me anyway.” The old man hesitated. Pramesh sensed that he was trying to be delicate. “I knew what was said from my own perspective. I want to hear what everyone else would have been thinking. Please.”

  And so the old man told the story of the Prasads: how the two brothers had been spendthrifts partial to drink, fortunate only in their choice of wives, who’d come with sizeable dowries; how they’d gambled away their land after those two women died and neglected their children; how the remaining money paid for liquor; how the two boys, the cousins, mere children, were always skinny, always decorated with bruises; how the men seemed to see their offspring as commodities or obstructions; how only the widowed aunt seemed to have a shred of feeling for the children. And how the saving virtue of those boys had been their devotion to each other until the older one abandoned his cousin and his family in a single impetuous step.

  “I had no idea if you and your cousin had also inherited that same dark character as your father and uncle, but there was no other choice. We had only the word of the matchmaker to go on, and while he spoke bluntly of the family, he felt the boys were different. I agreed only because I thought that Kashi was a place big enough, where she might make a life for herself that was free of haunting tales. But weeks went by, with no wedding date set. I knew something was wrong; your elders sent no answers to my letters; they refused to meet me. I didn’t know what to do. We were not in a position to ask or demand for things. You must know how it was; we were the family whom others told stories about. We were not allowed that privilege ourselves.”

  “There was a dowry, I thought,” Pramesh said slowly. He was so unsure of what was true and what was false, but the old man’s eyes prompted him to continue. “Sagar-bhai said that you all had received money to stay quiet from that wealthy family, and you gave it to us as part of the marriage contract. And the Elders spent it. He was so worried over the family name—what people would say if our family reneged on the agreement. What you would say about us.”

  “There was a dowry. But every penny of it had been saved by my wife. Each month since our marriage I gave her money for the household expenses, and she set aside a portion of it for our daughter. We never touched that money. It was not ours.” He shifted on the rope bed. “You may not believe me, but I never approached your cousin about my daughter. I had bid farewell to both the dowry and the marriage offer by then. Our future was precarious: I didn’t know how much longer we could stay in that village, or what would happen to my daughter when I was gone. I felt I had failed as a father. I had tried to make her happy by giving her one thing: freedom. And yet that very act seemed to guarantee that she would never be happy in adulthood. Still, I never asked your cousin to do what he did.

  “You grew up with him; there was a time when you knew him better than anyone, and perhaps in a way you still do. But there is one thing you still do not understand. That day he met with me and my wife, he sat as close to me as you sit now. We made a bargain—he would trade me an honest story of his life for an honest account of my daughter’s.

  “I heard from his li
ps that your departure was no premeditated selfish act. He made it plain that you left because of him and only because of him. I told him the story of my family in exchange. He did not take long to make his decision. He married her because he wanted to.” Here, the old man set his legs to the floor and left Pramesh for a moment. When he returned, he held the picture of Sagar that Pramesh had stared at for so long. “Look,” the old man said. “This was taken a year after their marriage. Look at his face, and tell me if you feel I’ve told a falsehood.”

  Pramesh looked at his cousin, at the relaxed pose, the smile, which he realized was the reason the photo transfixed him to begin with: the smile was genuine. He had not seen that expression on Sagar’s face in so long, neither in reality nor in memory. “He was happy with her,” Pramesh said, and as he spoke the words, he realized he believed them. “They were happy together.”

  “Yes. They were happy, despite their pasts. Despite every story told about my daughter, and every injury your cousin sustained.” He looked at Pramesh intently. “He said it was worse for you.” Pramesh’s breath caught. “He said you often took more beatings than he did. That you stood up for him and took his place many times when your elders focused their wrath on him.”

  Pramesh pressed his hands together, staring at his feet. He could not think. “I seem to remember him doing that for me more than the opposite.”

  “With his accident, perhaps.” The old man reached for his own wrinkled forehead. Pramesh nodded, surprised that the man knew the story. “He said you suffered over that wound more than he did. Tell me: do you remember the things he did for you?”

  “Always.”

  “And he, on the other hand, only remembered what you did for him. He spoke of you often—to my daughter, to me, and to the child. Do you not wonder how the child recognized you so quickly, when his mother and I were struck dumb in the field, thinking that a ghost had come to visit us? He knows you as more than just his uncle. You were his father’s brother, his best friend, his partner in every adventure. You are the hero in every story your cousin ever told, the cornerstone of his past.”

  “But he has never seen my face until today.”

  “That matters not. Don’t you understand? To the boy, you are proof that every story his father told him was true.”

  “What stories?” Pramesh could only remember the same scenes, the same horrors. He could not imagine Sagar passing down such a black inheritance to his son.

  “Ask him,” the old man said. He got up again, this time resting his hand on Pramesh’s shoulder as he passed. “He knows all the tales by heart. Not all the memories were bad. Ask the boy, and perhaps he will help you remember.”

  ***

  Shobha stole glances at Kamna as they pinched out balls of dough and rolled them out. She saw a woman of about her height, black hair coiled into bun at her neck, just two gold bangles on each wrist, a simple white sari without adornment. This was the woman she had feared for the last ten years—but also the same woman who had called her sister and friend.

  They did not speak at first and instead allowed the work of their hands to fill the silence: the rhythm of the knobby pin rolling over the uneven board, the slap of the dough round on the dry metal tava, the soft exhalation as the round puffed up on the fire.

  “Must you go in the morning?” Kamna asked.

  Shobha thought of Rani, sick and far from her, and felt the great aching lack that had pulsed within her since they’d left. “We came in a great hurry,” she said. “Our daughter was very ill when we left. I cannot be away from her for long.”

  Kamna listened as she described the illness, and then she got up and took a powder from a tin canister, twisted it up in a bit of cloth and handed it to Shobha.

  “Have her hold this to her nose. It will help her breathe better.”

  Shobha took the packet, murmuring her thanks, and looked at it, now thinking again of those insinuations of black magic, of witchcraft.

  Kamna laughed softly. “Roasted and crushed fennel seeds. Nothing more.”

  “I’m sorry,” Shobha stumbled. Kamna continued to roll balls of dough between her palms, going at a rate that far outpaced Shobha’s hand with the rolling pin. “I knew nothing of you. I still know nothing.”

  Kamna shifted to the side, procured another rolling pin and board, and began to flatten roti alongside Shobha. “My mother and I used to do this in the kitchen together. No matter where we lived. It made it seem like a home, wherever we went—for us to roll roti together.”

  Shobha thought of her own mother. She used to fry onion pakora, Shobha’s favorite, and she’d laugh as she fished the fritters out of hot oil, dodging Shobha’s fingers as she tried to steal one before it cooled. “Has it been long since she passed?”

  “Five years,” Kamna said, her rolling pin continuing its smooth back and forth.

  “Twelve,” Shobha said softly.

  Kamna looked up. “It’s difficult.” She slapped a round of dough on the tava. “Losing her made me terrified of losing them all. Especially when the sickness came. For a while, after Kavi’s father—your brother—became ill, Kavi also had the signs.”

  Shobha wondered at this sudden acquisition of a brother, a sister, all in a single day.

  “Even now,” Kamna continued, “when he wheezes or slows while playing, I worry that the sickness is still there, lingering. I cannot sleep at night sometimes.”

  “Does he talk of his father?”

  “At times.” Kamna wiped her forehead with the end of her sari and turned her attention back to the tava. “He knew his father was ill. They were very close. It hasn’t been easy. He is so young—they should have had many more years together. He talks to me, sometimes, when we go out for walks. When we ‘run away,’ as I call it.” A smile curled the edge of her mouth.

  “Do you do it often?”

  “Running away, you mean?” Kamna smiled. “I do. Kavi’s father sometimes came with me, you know. And now my son comes in his father’s place.”

  “And what do you think of?” Shobha could not bring herself to look at Kamna. The question was presumptuous; she was ashamed at her brashness. For a while, Kamna did not speak. “I’m sorry; I should not have.”

  “There is no need for an apology between sisters,” Kamna said. Again, Shobha marveled at the ease with which this woman had gathered herself and Pramesh into her speech. “In my first village—everything. I had questions about everything, the things I read in books, the life I saw in the village, the land that I walked over every day. So many questions, and not many to talk to, and so I walked alone and talked to myself. But then, something happened.”

  She turned suddenly, using her fingers to lift the roti from the hot tava and flip it, but she dropped it. She paused, took a deep breath, and tried again, this time flipping it perfectly.

  “I don’t want to speak of it. But after that, we left the village. And I did not walk on my own again for a very long time.”

  Shobha had been watching her carefully. She thought back to Pramesh telling her Sagar’s story, of how Kamna had apparently met a wealthy man’s son who wanted to marry her, and how they’d had to leave the village soon after. She watched the woman across from her, her hands betraying the slightest trembling. She quietly took up another ball of dough, as did Kamna, and they rolled together in silence, until that woman softly spoke again.

  “After I married, and especially after Kavi came, the world seemed a bit simpler. I had Kavi’s father to talk to. He told me so much about his cousin, his twin as he called him. And he told the same stories to Kavi as well—always about his uncle. But he and I mostly talked about you.”

  Shobha’s rolling pin slipped on the board. She looked up to meet Kamna’s eyes.

  “I’d heard all about my husband’s brother, you see. I could picture him in my mind; I knew exactly the kind of man he was. But we knew nothing of yo
u. And so we talked of what we thought you were like, the wife my husband wanted his brother to have.”

  The heat rose to Shobha’s face. She looked down at the rolling pin and saw it shaking slightly. And then a hand was on hers, and she looked up to see Kamna intent upon the ground, unable to meet Shobha’s eyes. “Shobha-behan, everything my husband said about what his brother needed most—there is no difference between that dream and you. Truly.”

  “You know me so little,” Shobha said after a time.

  “I know that you knew nothing of me, yet you took the time to write to ask about where I was and what had become of me. You called me your sister and your friend; you left your sick child in someone else’s care just so you could bring my brother here to see me, to meet his nephew.”

  “That was my husband’s choice,” Shobha protested.

  “Yes, but I know you must have persuaded him. You must not forget: I was married to his brother for almost ten years. I know those two men have a stubbornness and pride that even the great God cannot move. But a wife can. You and I.

  “I knew my husband’s brother would come, even if I was afraid of that moment. I know he did not approve of the match, of my family. I didn’t know if he cared about his cousin’s widow. But I knew you did, from your letters.” She said all of this with a tone that spoke of facts. She was so sure of herself, of the place that Shobha and Pramesh held in her family. Such thinking was not the work of days or even months: Kamna must have set aside a room in her heart for the two of them, and for any children they may have had, for a very long time.

  “I wanted so badly to meet him,” Shobha said. “I thought about nothing else for the entire train ride; I was so eager that he like me, because I know what he meant to my husband. And oh! I made pura for him—twice! I knew it was his favorite food; I wanted to impress him.” She stopped, looking at Kamna, who had suddenly covered her mouth with the back of her hand, looking like a schoolgirl who’d just heard a delicious new joke.