She waited for her husband in the dark room of her new house that contained many rooms on a farm that contained much land. He turned on some music—an act meant to comfort her as well as drown out the noises of what was to commence. In her mother’s absence, the village women had taken it upon themselves to educate the fifteen-year-old in the intimate duties required of all brides. Some told jokes, which made Asha laugh. Others frightened her with their stories of not being able to breath and screaming out in pain. In the end, she was more confused than ever. She missed her mother, feeling incomplete and alone without her guidance. She closed her eyes, pulling her legs up to her chest, and leaned her head against her knees.
He sat next to her on the thick mat made of woven straw, their marital bed. She wondered what he was thinking. Truthfully, she wondered who he was. They’d barely conversed, and the few times they did was in the presence of others. Now he was her husband for eternity.
“I wish to speak with you, Asha.”
She nodded, unsure if he required her confirmation. Surely, he didn’t have to ask for permission.
He continued after the uncomfortable pause. “There were many girls interested in marrying me with larger dowries than your father offered. Enough so we could buy more land and equipment.”
Asha wondered if he expected her to apologize for the lack of funds she brought into the marriage.
“I chose you out of all of them. My mother did not approve. People in my own village laughed at my choice, but I didn’t listen. I desired you as my bride.”
She slowly nodded her head. “Yes, husband.”
“I don’t ever want to hear you are the source of trouble in our house or you are disrespecting my mother. You will be a perfect wife and prove everyone wrong. Am I clear?”
“Yes, husband,” she said again, wondering if this might be the answer to all his questions.
“You will have a good life here. You will work hard and produce many heirs for me.”
“Yes, husband.”
He appeared satisfied with her docile answers.
“Good.” His expression shifted, and his eyes traveled down her body. “Now lay back.”
* * * *
Asha had done chores all her life, but never like this. Her mother-in-law woke her before the sun rose and instructed her to feed the animals. She had no idea how to carry out the task. Never having seen them up close, animals frightened her. Aditi left for town without saying good-bye. She didn’t mind, though. Her body was still sore from his callous hands and forceful manner.
She cursed the heavy bucket she carried, the handle digging into the creases of her fingers as she staggered across the stretch of land, throwing feed in her path. A goat nudged the back of her knees with such force she fell forward into some mud…only, it wasn’t mud. She forced herself not to retch as she washed it off. The sun scorched her skin, causing a thirst she’d never experienced. All the while, her mother-in-law followed her, griping commands and criticizing her every action.
“You are frail. I told Aditi you’d never survive this life. Your parents have spoiled you. He chose with his eyes and not his brain,” her mother-in-law mocked when she dropped the bucked.
“You need to move faster,” her mother-in-law demanded when she rested her body against a stone pillar. “When I was your age, all the animals were fed by mid morning.”
“If your father had paid a decent dowry, we could have hired more workers, but now we have only you. We have nothing,” her mother-in-law lamented when she picked the vegetables.
Asha ignored all the comments, her posture demure and accepting. She knew enough to understand you didn’t disrespect your elders…ever.
“Mother, I haven’t eaten yet. I’ll have more energy after lunch.”
“Why should we feed you? You haven’t even worked enough to earn a decent meal.”
It was only when Mukash, Aditi’s brother, came home that she found reprieve.
“Bhabhi,” he said to her.
Asha did a double take when Mukash called her the term for older sister-in-law. “Yes?”
“Bhabhi, you’re doing it wrong. Let me show you.” He took the bucket from her and placed it on the ground. Asha rubbed her arms, trying to get the circulation to work again. The ache settled into her limbs, burning her insides just as the sweltering sun crisped her skin. Mukash ran to the side of a building. When he returned, he had a cart with him. The boy placed the bucket in the rolling cart. “Like this.”
Asha wondered why her mother-in-law hadn’t shown her the small piece of equipment that would have made her life so much easier. Then again, she most likely had other motives in mind. It didn’t take any mental acuteness to realize the woman hated her passionately. She was angry at her son’s choice. Of course, she couldn’t take it out on him. Asha made the perfect victim for the woman’s malice.
“Sister Sarah asked about you,” Mukash said, breaking into her thoughts.
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her we’d take care of you. I’ve always wanted a sister.”
She combed through his hair. “I’ve always wanted a brother.”
“She gave me this for you,” he said, holding out an envelope. “It’s a letter. Don’t worry, I didn’t read it. I can’t.”
“Thank you.” Asha took it, a fierce cry building inside her when she saw Sarah’s neat handwriting.
He scanned the empty field before letting it go. “Hide it, bhabhi. My mother will not like it.”
Asha nodded, stuffing the envelope into the folds of her sari. “Don’t worry, my mother stays in the house in the afternoons. The sun hurts her eyes.” Asha made a mental note of the information. Mukash went to his lunch pail and handed her a thermos of water. She drank the lukewarm liquid so fast she almost retched again. Then he held out his half-eaten lunch. She shook her head.
“Take it, bhabhi. I’m full.”
She took the bread and vegetables he offered, finishing them off with the last of the water. She’d never been so hungry in her life. Finally, when her head felt anchored to her shoulders again, she kissed him on the forehead.
“Thank you, brother.”
He beamed proudly at the moniker. “Most welcome, sister.”
“Now tell me what you mean you can’t read the letter?”
“I can’t read at all. The teachers have tried, but I don’t understand.”
“You can’t read Gujarthi, Hindi, or English?”
“All three,” he replied, plucking a weed next to him.
“Would you like to learn?”
He shook his head. “I can’t learn. That’s what the kids at school say. I’m simple.”
“I doubt that.”
“I don’t need it, anyway. Ma would take me out of school except she promised my father before he died. I don’t really need to be smart like my brother.”
“Why does he need to be smart, and not you?”
“He runs the farm. After him will come his son.” He looked up at her. “Your son, and so on. I’ll just always be a helper.”
Asha looked across the fields, saddened by his acceptance of his fate. This boy’s whole life was mapped out as a lackey, and he’d never achieve anything more. Then again, wasn’t her life also mapped out? “Mukash, you are already smart.”
He gave her a suspicious glance as if she was joking. “What are you talking?”
“You brought me the cart.” She crouched and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We can help each other.”
“How bhabhi?”
“You can teach me about the farm.”
His face wrinkled in confusion. “Teach you what?”
“How to feed the animals, do the chores, get the goat to stop kicking me.”
Mukash laughed loudly before cupping his hands over his mouth, as if the sound was surprising to him. “The goat’s cranky. If you feed him first, it helps.”
“See, that’s what I mean. Look at what a bright boy you are. I am ignorant when it comes
to this,” she said, gesturing to the fields. “But I am knowledgeable about other things…like how to read in all three languages. I can teach you.”
“Where is the time? I’m at school or working here.”
“We can teach each other and learn at the same time.”
Asha picked up a stick and wrote the letter A on the ground. “That’s the letter A.”
The days following became routine. Her arms grew muscular, her skin didn’t scorch, and she learned to control her hunger and thirst for long periods. She could balance baskets on her head. She laundered all their clothes and prepared the evening meal. The exhaustion set in her bones, but she fought against it. It was the only thing she could fight.
Mukash showed her many ways to make her life easier. No matter how much she accomplished, though, it was never enough to please her mother-in-law, but the woman’s berating only lasted two hours in the mornings and at dinner where she invariably found something to complain about. Sometimes Aditi stood up for Asha. Most of the time, he agreed with his mother.
Giving her a sense of purpose, Mukash became the lone bright spot in her routine life.
Sarah wrote her secret notes, asking if she needed anything. Asha never told Sarah of her troubles, but she was sure the nun suspected. Sarah couldn’t cure of her being a Choice Less, so Asha kept her burdens locked away. In reality, it could have been worse. Aditi didn’t beat her or force himself on her. Then again, she would never refuse him either.
After a few weeks, she did find the courage to ask Sarah for books. And Sarah, being the voracious reader she was, sent them through the metal tin that was Mukash’s lunch pail. Sometimes, she’d send fruit or even candy. Asha would always split the sweet treat with her new brother, and they’d work together for a few hours while she taught him the alphabet. The boy had trouble at first, but he caught on, proud of his accomplishments. His mother even commented on his improved grades. Mukash and Asha shared a conspiratorial smile. Then she said the vegetables were too soggy, and it was unfortunate God had blessed her with a daughter-in-law who was incapable of cooking a simple meal.
Asha worked through her chores, getting faster every day, so she could sneak off and enter someone else’s world, if only for bits of time. She’d often read to Mukash. The boy would sit and listen with rapt attention, often telling her, although he didn’t always understand, those were the best times of his day.
Asha understood, though. The books helped her avoid the melancholy of her life. In the stolen hours she read, she imagined another existence. She was the beautiful but impetuous Elizabeth Bennett, verbally sparing with the dashing Mr. Darcy in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. She freed a slave on a harrowing journey down the Mississippi River in Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. She escaped a prison and set about to avenge those responsible in Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo. Then she read Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. She put in a new request in the lunch pail. No more books like this one.
Sarah wrote. I’m sending you every book I own in order, but I will edit my selections from now on. It’s acceptable to be miserable. You can ask for help.
Asha wrote back. The fruit makes me strong. The books keep me occupied. That is more help than I need and far more than I deserve.
What did Sarah think she was going to do? Pray for her? Any act of interference on Sarah’s part would cause an outrage in the village. There were rules here. You didn’t meddle in other people’s lives, especially their marriages. And in Asha’s mind, she was one of the lucky Choice Less.
Sure, there were women whose husbands treated them like spun gold. But there were other stories. Asha knew them because her mother-in-law always brought them up at dinner. Stories about girls beaten like animals, or worse, murdered because they brought a low dowry into a marriage. Asha was smart enough to recognize those conversations were meant as warnings to her and potential advice for Aditi. Each time her mother-in-law relayed a horrible tale, conveniently cloaked as village gossip, Asha’s spine went rigid and a trickle of cold sweat formed on her brow.
One night, Aditi came home early. He looked as if he’d aged five years in one day.
“What’s wrong, beta?” his mother asked.
“The man I sold the birds to disappeared without paying me.”
Asha knew the mistake would cause a great deal of strife in their household. The evening meal that night was especially sullen. No one spoke. Even her mother-in-law didn’t comment on the poor quality of the food.
Asha snuck out with a new book when the others went to sleep. If the moon was bright enough and the lamp was on in the house, she could just make out the words. Her husband and his mother were heavy sleepers. She’d gotten braver as the months had passed.
She’d made it through the first two chapters of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird when his voice sliced through the air.
“What are you doing out here, wife?”
She snapped the book shut.
“You don’t have to hide from me.”
She took a deep breath. “I was reading.”
He chuckled, turning on the large aluminum flashlight. She squinted as the bright flash hit her eyes. “You read a lot, don’t you?”
Her back straightened so fast her spine ached. He knew.
“It’s all right. I’ve seen you. Is it the nun who gives you the books?”
“She lets me borrow them. I’ll come inside now.”
“Why don’t you stay out here?”
She smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”
He held out the flashlight. “Take the torch so you won’t hurt your eyes. I can’t have a blind wife now, can I?”
She nodded, a pinch of guilt eating away at her. Why had she never felt any affection for this man? Perhaps she’d misjudged him, basing her selfish feelings on his mother and her own lack of choices.
He turned off the light and held it out to her, the long metal handle gleaming against the night. Asha reached for it just as he swung back. Its forward motion so swift her eyes didn’t recognize the torch coming at her, but her open palm seared with pain as the heavy lens crashed against it.
Shocked and confused, she gasped against the pain. The burning intensity in her palm stole all her senses. She had crouched lower, covering her injured hand, when the heavy torch collided against her head. Before she could regain her breath, the object hit her face again. Warm liquid oozed from her nose. A wounded cry escaped her body, echoing around them.
“Shut up.” His voice wasn’t controlled like she was used to. He was crying, not sadly, but with a crazy rage she’d never heard. He dropped to his knees and pulled her hair with such force her head flung back. “Everyone is laughing at me. You disgrace me every chance you get. This is your fault. If I had chosen another girl, I’d have money now, but instead I only have you. You are useless.” He kicked the book next to her. “What good is this going to do us? Is it going to bring money into our house?”
A pounding ache hit her temples. She considered screaming but knew it would do no good. No one was going to help her. She thought of answering him, but she had no voice and no words. She had nothing.
He stood. Then he kicked her once in the ribs. A cry of an injured animal rose from somewhere deep within her.
“Clean up and come inside.” His voice was calm again as if his act of violence had provided a release.
Asha pulled her legs against her stomach. She laid there for a while, whimpering, praying, begging—for what, she didn’t know. The taste of metal filled her mouth. A tiny white sliver gleamed brightly on the ground next to her. She gently pressed her tongue against her teeth until she found the vacant spot in her mouth.
Footsteps approached her, and her body went rigid with fear. The boy crouched down beside her. He was crying, too, but his tears, unlike his brother’s, only contained sympathy and grief.
“Please, bhabhi, please get up. He’ll come back if you don’t go inside.”
Somehow, with the boy’s help, she was able to make the
walk to the riverbank, clean her face, and lay beside her husband.
“I will kill you if you ever disrespect me again,” he said.
She had no doubt he would.
* * * *
The next afternoon, Sarah arrived bringing a tin of English biscuits on the premise of discussing Mukash’s schoolwork.
“Why is she here?” Asha asked Mukash after dragging him into a quiet corner.
“She asked me how you were, bhabhi.”
“You shouldn’t have told her the truth, brother.”
The boy swallowed, his face contorting with frustration. “She’s a nun. I can’t lie to a nun. It’s a sin.”
Despite the bruise on her face, her aching hand, and the pain in her heart, his purity made her smile. She hugged him tightly. “She can’t help. She’ll only make it worse for me and herself.”
“Have faith. Sister Sarah is a smart woman.”
Hope was reserved for the innocent, Asha decided.
Hand in hand, they entered the villa. She took her place on the floor and tried covering her face with her sari, but judging from Sarah’s wince, hiding the damage was futile. Her mother-in-law spoke decent English. There were no struggles in communication, at least not overtly.
“Sister, I know Mukash isn’t a good student. Nevertheless, my late husband made me promise to pay his tuitions. It was his dying wish.”
“I understand, Niti. I actually think he’s improving in some areas. We’ll work with him. I just wanted to bring by these books.” Sarah turned toward Asha. “Hello, Asha, I haven’t seen you in so long. How is married life?”
“Fine, Sister. Thank you for asking,” Asha replied.
Her mother-in-law twitched, no doubt embarrassed the nun should see the physical evidence of the abuse sustained by her son’s hands. “The goat hit her in the face,” she explained. “She’s not good with the animals.”
Remarkably, the goat held a heavy metal flashlight.
“Actually, we need a new maid at the school. Do you think you might want to spare her?” The word spare had many meanings in that sentence.
Unwanted Girl Page 15
