Poornima asked her father later that evening, and he said, “Fine, fine,” hardly hearing her as he rolled his evening tobacco.
And so Savitha began spending nights. They slept together on the same mat—they had none to spare. Despite the sweltering nights, Poornima liked the feel of Savitha’s body close to hers. She liked how Savitha seemed to savor everything, even the most mundane. “Look at the sky!” she would exclaim. “Have you ever seen so many stars?”
“It’s too hot to look at the sky.”
Savitha would then take Poornima’s hand and squeeze it. “My amma said we might have enough money by next year. For my sister’s dowry. Two more after her, but that’s something, don’t you think?”
Poornima nodded into the dark. She thought then she might tell Savitha about her mother, and the chiming clock with the blue face, but she didn’t. Her father might hear. She lay still and listened to the breathing of her brothers and sister, and it occurred to her that she might’ve never met Savitha had her mother been alive. She saw no betrayal in it: her mother had died, and here was Savitha. But what she did wonder about was Kishore, her future husband. They had sent a photograph. Ramayya had brought it and showed it to them. But it was of him as a boy, maybe eight or nine. He was standing in a row with his sisters, one on either side. They were posed in front of a photographer’s canvas of a glowing white palace and fountains and gardens. Above them was a crescent moon. Clouds approached the moon, wispy and romantic. Poornima stared intently at the little boy’s face. It was a perfect oval. The mouth a small almond. One of his hands hung listlessly at his side, as if his fingers ached for the toys or the marbles or the toffee he’d been forced to set aside. The other hand was behind his back. His face was the most childlike. Soft, with the features of a baby still clinging to it. Poornima liked that. She then studied his eyes, trying to see into them, or at least see something in them, but they were empty. Barren. As if he were looking into an abyss. A strange land. “It’s a photo,” Savitha scolded. “What do you expect to see? His heart?”
Yes, Poornima wanted to reply. I want to see his heart.
*
This time, during the viewing, Poornima was allowed no mistakes. She understood—dressed again in the same silk sari belonging to her mother, though the blooms of jasmine were different, garlanded this time with an alternating row of orange kankabaram—that she was absolutely being monitored. Her aunt sat closer to her. Instead of being led out by the elbow, like the previous viewing, her aunt placed one hand on her braid, as if prepared to yank it at any moment. When she sat down on the mat, her father smiled at her. Smiled. But it was not a smile of encouragement or love or paternal feeling. The smile said only one thing: I’m watching. I’m watching, and the first sign of defiance—the first glimmer in your eyes leading to defiance—will be acted upon. Acted upon how? Poornima bent her head and shuddered to think.
Still, she had no plans of ruining this viewing. The groom wasn’t there—studying for exams, his father said—but his parents, the middle sister, and a distant cousin who lived in Indravalli were there. Poornima raised her eyes just enough, after looking at her father, to see that his father seemed small next to hers, shy and hesitant. The mother, seated across from Poornima, was fat and boorish, maybe from the heat or the bus ride from Namburu to Indravalli, though her eyes were flinty and exacting. The sister, who sat to Poornima’s side, looked at her askance and hardly said a word. Her gaze was like her mother’s: scrutinizing, vain and impatient, cold. But they were both plump, and Poornima liked that; fatness indicated to her a certain jolliness or abandon, certainly a richness. The sister reached out and took Poornima’s hand and rubbed the fingers roughly, one after another, as if counting them. Then she let go and smiled coolly. The men continued to chat, and Poornima, silent and awkward for the remainder of the viewing, nearly embraced her future mother-in-law when, just before they were to leave, she took Poornima’s chin in her hand—not gently; no, she couldn’t say it was gentle, but it was with what Poornima thought was genuine feeling—and said, “No, you’re not nearly as dark as they said.”
The sister snorted, or was it a guffaw? Then they left.
She told Savitha about the viewing that night. Savitha had gone home to help her mother with the cooking and had returned before dark. She sat at the loom for another hour, and when she came in for her dinner, Poornima already had her plate ready. She’d made roti, with potato curry. There was a bit of yogurt and leftover rice from lunch. “But they didn’t ask you to sing,” Savitha said. “I like them already. Is there any pickle?” When Poornima rose to get it, she said, “And what about the groom? What about him?”
“Exams,” Poornima said. Then she grew quiet. “What if we have nothing to talk about? I mean, he’s in college, after all. He’ll think I’m stupid, won’t he? He’ll think I’m just a villager. A bumpkin. And what is accounting? That thing he’s studying?”
“Numbers,” Savitha said. “It’s numbers. Your father gives you money, doesn’t he? To buy food. And you go to the market, don’t you, and get change. And you keep a log. I’ve seen it. A log of all the expenses, so you can show them to your father every week? That’s accounting. That’s all it is. Besides, Namburu is smaller than Indravalli. He’s more of a villager than we are.”
Poornima was unconvinced. That couldn’t be all it was.
*
The wedding preparations began. There were still details of the dowry and wedding gifts to work out, but Ramayya was confident he could convince them to lower their demands. Savitha raced to finish the sari orders so she would have enough time to make Poornima’s. Kishore, her groom, was scheduled to take his exams at the end of the month. But first, there was Poornima’s mother’s one-year death ceremony. It was set for the beginning of June. It included a day of feasting. A goat would be slaughtered, and the priest would conduct a puja. Her father would perform a ritualistic lighting of a funeral pyre. During the days that followed, Poornima watched her father anxiously: his mood darkened. She guessed it was from the memory of her mother’s death, or the dowry demands. He said it was because they were falling behind on the sari orders. “Doesn’t she know we have work to do?” he’d say if Savitha went home for even an hour or two in the evenings. “Tell her I’ll pay her extra for staying longer. I can’t afford much. Hardly any to spare. But some,” he said.
The day of the ceremony, when it arrived, brought a drop in temperature along the entire coast of Andhra Pradesh. Poornima woke that morning and realized there was a breeze. Not a cool breeze, not really, but she rejoiced. Her mother must be watching. She must be speaking. She must be saying, Poornima, I’m happy. Your marriage will be a good one. She must be saying, I miss you, too. And that comb, she must be saying, I hold it still.