Then I was in the back of the police van, watching through the wire mesh a view of roads glowing orange under streetlamps. I exhausted myself appealing to the policewoman and group of policemen sitting in front of me: “Sister, what is happening? I am a working girl. I work at Pantaloons. I have nothing to do with police!”
They said nothing. Now and then a crackle came from the radio on the dashboard, far in front. At some point, a car filled with boys sped by, and I heard whooping and cheering. They were coming from a nightclub. The doddering police van meant nothing to those boys. They did not slow down. They were not afraid. Their fathers knew police commissioners and members of the legislature, figures who were capable of making all problems disappear. And me, how would I get out of this? Whom did I know?
LOVELY
AT NIGHT, AFTER THE acting class, I am lying in bed with Azad, my husband, my businessman who is buying and reselling Sansung electronics and Tony Hilfiger wristwatches from Chinese ships docking in Diamond Harbor. I am showing him my practice video from the day’s class, and now he is saying, “I have been telling you for hundred years! You have star material in you!”
He is pinching my cheek, and I am laughing even though it is hurting. I am feeling peaceful, like this thin mattress on the floor is our own luxury five-star hotel bed. In this room I am having everything I am needing. A jar of drinking water, some dishes, a small kerosene stove, and a shelf for my clothes and jewelry. On the wall, giving me their blessings every day, are Priyanka Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan. When I am looking around, I am seeing their beautiful faces, and some of their good fortune is sprinkling down on me.
* * *
*
“AZAD,” I AM SAYING this night. My face is close to his face, like we are in a romantic scene in a blockbuster. “Promise you will not get angry if I am telling you something?”
I am taking a moment to look at his face, dark and gray. Some long hairs in his eyebrows trying to escape. I am having difficulty looking eye to eye for these hard words.
“Aren’t you thinking,” I am saying finally, “about family and all? We are not so young—”
Azad is starting to talk over me, like always. “Again?” he is saying. I am knowing that he is annoyed. “Was my brother coming here?”
“No!”
“Was my brother putting this rubbish in your head?”
“No, I am telling you!”
Why Azad is always accusing me of such things?
“Everyone knows it is the way of the world, Azad,” I am telling him. “Yes, the world is backward, and yes, the world is stupid. But your family is wanting you to marry a proper woman, have children. And look at me—I can never give you a future like that.”
Immediately, I am regretting. This is a great big mistake. I am wishing to be with Azad always, so why I am pushing him away?
* * *
*
ACTUALLY, AZAD IS RIGHT. His brother was coming one night. He was coming before dawn, ringing the bell, banging his fist on the door. He was making such a racket the street dogs were barking gheu gheu.
When I was finally leaping out of bed and unlatching the door, Azad’s brother was immediately shouting at my face, “Whatever curse you have given him, let him go, witch!”
“Shhh!” I was saying. “Be quiet, it’s the middle of the night!”
“Don’t you tell me what to do, witch!” he was screaming, wagging a finger in the air. One man pissing in the gutter was looking at him, then at me, then at him, then at me. Otherwise, all was quiet and dark, but surely everybody was hearing everything.
“You have trapped him!” this brother was screaming. “Now you have to free him! Let him get married like a normal person!”
I was only standing, holding the open door. “Calm yourself,” I was saying quietly. “You will make yourself sick.”
I was wearing my nightie. My ears were burning. The whole neighborhood was learning my business. Now this was making me angry. Who was giving this good-for-nothing brother the right to shout at me in front of the whole locality? All these people were hardworking rickshaw pullers, fruit sellers, cotton fillers, maidservants, guards in the malls. They were needing sleep. Now what respect was I having left in their eyes?
So finally I was shouting back some rude things. I don’t like remembering them.
* * *
*
“OKAY,” I AM ADMITTING to Azad now. “Fine, your brother came. He was saying to me, ‘Lovely, I know your love is true. My brother refuses to even eat if you are not there. But please, I am begging, talk to him about marriage and children, for our old parents’ sake.’ ”
Azad is looking at me. “My brother? Said that?”
He is not believing his ears.
“Yes, your own brother,” I am saying. “So I am thinking about it.”
A spider with thin brown legs is crawling through the window. With all eight legs it is exploring the wall. Both of us are watching it. When Azad is getting up and about to slap the spider with his shoe, I am saying, “Leave it.”
Why to always ruin other creatures’ lives?
“No!” Azad is saying. “I am not going to follow such stupid rules! I will marry you!”
JIVAN
THE NEXT MORNING, AT the courthouse, a policewoman opens for me a path through a crowd moving like they are joyous, like they are celebrating at a cricket stadium. The sun blazes in my eyes. I look at the ground.
“Jivan! Jivan! Look here,” shout reporters with cameras mounted on their shoulders or raised high above their heads. Some reporters reach forward to push recorders toward my mouth, though policemen beat them back. I am jostled and shoved, my feet stepped on, my elbows knocked into my ribs. These men shout questions.
“How did the terrorists make contact with you?”
“When did you start planning the attack?”
I find my voice and shout, a brief cry which dies down like a rooster’s: “I am innocent! I don’t know anything about—”
I stand tall, though colors appear bright in my eyes, the greens of trees luminous as a mineral seam, the ground beneath my feet composed of distinct particles. My legs buckle, and the policewoman catches me. A shout goes up among the crowd. The policewoman’s grip on my arm is the kindest thing. Then indoors, where the noise recedes and I am allowed to slump in a chair.
A lawyer appointed to me appears. He is young, only a little older than me, though he has the potbelly of a wealthy man.