when we left, Grandma didn’t walk us to the main road, where we waited in silence for a bus. Ma hadn’t spoken of Grandma since. I never asked, but I missed those visits. For those few days, I could laugh as loudly as I wanted and run far and fast. No one shouted at me, or beat me. I risked a beating now, asking Ma about these visits, but she was far less likely to let her anger loose with Aamaal beside her. I didn’t begrudge Aamaal her favored status. With her golden skin and thickly fringed eyes, anyone could see she was going to be a beauty. She was my mother’s child in a way I could never be.
“You should not waste your time thinking about the past, Noor.”
“Please, Ma.”
She frowned.
“Please, Ma,” Aamaal echoed. For once I was happy that she always copied me.
“They only wanted our money, Noor. In my village the elders pretended it was something else, a sacred duty. Maybe there was a time when that was true but it was many years ago. When my mother dedicated me to the temple, it was for money, not religion, not even tradition.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Grandma felt it was time for you to learn your history, your calling. We didn’t agree. She’s a devadasi, as am I.”
It was the first time I’d heard the word that dropped like a stone from my mother’s lips. I understood it was significant. “Am I also a Devadasi?”
Ma laughed mirthlessly. “The foolish hen tells you life is a twisting river like the one in her mountain homeland. Do you see such a river flowing past our house? There is only the open sewer carrying foul waste discharged from bodies too numerous and worthless to count. Perhaps it goes underground when it passes the great mansions of South Bombay, or slinks, like a thief carrying treasures, when it courses through the sleek neighborhoods to our north. It makes no difference. When it empties into the sea it’s still shit, and the destination was never in question. You were born into your fate, Noor. I may forestall it but you can’t escape it. We can only hope your next incarnation will be more forgiving.”
She stroked her belly where another child was already growing inside her, though the bump barely showed. “I’m going to lie down. Look after your sister.” She pushed Aamaal through the doorway and closed it behind her.
“What’s a Devadasi?” I asked Deepa-Auntie.
“I’m not sure, though I know several women here are also devadasis and they all speak Kannada, like your ma. I don’t think we had Devadasis in Nepal.”
“If Ma and Grandma were devadasis, am I also one?”
“You are whatever you choose to be, Noor-baby. Someday we’ll leave this place. I’ll pay off my debt to the fat one and her pig-faced son and we’ll go back to my village. We’ll climb the hills of my homeland, follow the egret’s flight to my father’s herd. We’ll see him first as we crest the hill overlooking my home. He will be watching for me, as he’s done every day since I left, and will run to greet us, shouting the news of my return. Even my worthless brothers will laugh with joy. We’ll take them presents like they’ve never seen—a cooking pot made of the strongest iron for my mother, and bells for each of our goats, so my father will never have to search long for them when they stray. But the greatest gift will be for Yangani.”
“What will that be?” I asked. I already knew the answer.
“It will be you, of course. A new sister for her to play with and love. She will follow you as she once followed me, or perhaps she will be grown and you will walk side by side, sharing secrets as sisters do.”
I wanted to ask her how she could have such optimism. We knew not one woman who had escaped the trade. The few who had managed to buy their freedom continued to work alongside us. Rejected by their families, who were ashamed of what they’d become, regardless of the circumstances, they survived in the only profession they knew, among the only community that would accept them.
“Do you want me to check if Pran has gone out?” I asked. “Perhaps we could sit out in the window box for a while. Men won’t bother with us on such a hot day.”
“Thank you, my love. I’d like that.”
The window box was the only outdoor freedom