Goddesses Part 8

"A local troublemaker, that's all." He beckoned to Rajban.

They went inside, and the doors swung shut behind them.

"Hark, give me a street view," Michael said.

A window opened in his shades. He looked out on the lane, and saw Gharia approaching in the company of a portly older man with salt-and-pepper hair neatly combed about a face so dignified it was almost comical, as if he were possessed by dignity, as if it held him together, so that if he ever let it go his body would crumble to helpless dust. A Traditional Elder? Michael wondered.

A link came in from Sankar. "Security forces are on their way, Mr. Fielding. Please stay inside." "Sankar, I trust you won't be sending helicopter shock troops this time?"

"Uh, no sir. As per our discussion, we will be striving for an appropriate response."

"Thank you." In their discussion, he had also insisted he have voice override on any house functions. He wasn't going to be locked up again.

The house announced visitors. "A Mr. Gharia and Mr. Rao to see you, Mr. Fielding." Michael glanced at Rajban. Her chest fluttered in short little pants. Her eyes were wide.

"Hark. Ask her if she knows this Mr. Rao."

The house translated his question to Hindi. Rajban closed her eyes, and nodded.

Michael strode toward the door.

"Michael, what are you doing?" Cody's voice was sharp and high, reminding him of another time. It's all gone. Can't you see that?

"Mr. Fielding," Sankar objected. "Perhaps you have not seen my report. These two men are deeply involved-"

"I only want to have a civil discussion with them." And learn what it would take to get them to leave Rajban alone. "Hark, open the door."

The door swung open to reveal Gharia and Rao, shoulder to shoulder in the alcove. Gharia looked up in surprise, then, "Namaste," he muttered. Rao echoed it, and introduced himself. Michael was unsurprised to learn that this was Rajban's brother-in-law, the head of the household, the one who had rejected her after her husband died.

"You look at me with anger," Rao said, his voice deep, his dignity so heavy it seemed to suck the heat out of the air, "when I am the one who has been shamed. Return the woman you hold, pay a dowry for her shame, and I will not involve the police."

Behind his back, Michael could hear the house whispering a string of Hindi as it translated Rao's words for Rajban. He drew himself up a little straighter. "She is not my prisoner."

The house uttered a brief line in Hindi. Rao waited for it to finish, then: "She is my brother's widow.

Perhaps you don't understand what that means, Mr. Fielding. You are a foreigner, and your modern culture holds little respect for a woman's dignity. Upon my brother's death, I was prepared to allow his wife to live in my household for the rest of her life, despite the burden this would place on me. Rajban rejected my generosity. She desired to marry again. My wife also counseled this would be best, but I am an old man, and I believe in the old ways. A widow should be given respect!" He sighed. "Sometimes, though, a woman will not have respect. The immorality of the world infected this woman. Carnal desire drove her into the street."

Michael felt his body grow hard with a barely contained fury. "That's not how she told the story." Rajban hadn't even known her husband was dead until Gharia's visit.

Gharia glared at him. Michael watched his hands. Rao alone remained unruffled, glued together by dignity. "I am learning we must all bend with the times,"

he announced. "I have found a new husband for Rajban. If you will pay the dowry and the medical expenses of her rehabilitation as the penalty of your shame, I will allow this marriage to go forward."

"What an evil old mercenary," Cody growled, while Michael traded stares with Gharia. It was quite obvious who the intended husband was to be. "Tell him to shove off, Michael. She's just a little girl."

Rao could not hear her, and so he continued laying out his terms. "If you do not pay the dowry, I will return the woman to my household. With the help of my wife and son, we may yet protect her from the weakness of the flesh, for as long as she is living."

"Which won't be long," Cody said savagely, "when Rao refuses to buy treatment for her AIDS."

"She's staying here," Michael said.

"Then I will summon the police."

"She's staying here! It's what she wants."

"Have you asked her that?" Gharia demanded. "No woman wants to be a childless wh.o.r.e."

"You dirty son of a-"

Michael broke off, startled by a wash of cold air at his back. He turned to see Rajban, her face veiled by the hem of the sari m.u.t.h.aye had given her. Her eyes were wide and frightened as she squeezed past Michael. "Rajban, wait!" She slipped past Rao too, out of the alcove and into the street. Michael stared after her in astonishment, but Rao, he didn't evenlook at her. She might have been a shadow.

"Jesus, Michael!" Cody shouted. "Don't let her go."

Rao nodded in satisfaction. "I will send a servant with the bride price."

Gharia was smiling. His gaze slid past Michael on a film of oily satisfaction. As if to himself, he murmured, "Every woman desires respect."

"Michael, stop her!"

"Rajban! Don't go." She would not understand his words, but surely she would ken the meaning?

Rajban looked at him, with doubt in her eyes, and fear, and a deep sadness that seemed to resonate through millennia of suffering.

"Rajban, please stay."

Her gaze fell, and docilely she turned to follow Rao, who had not even bothered to look behind him.

"Michael! d.a.m.n you. Go after her. Stop her."

"Cody, she's made her own decision. I can't grab her and force her back into the house." "For G.o.d's sake, Michael, why not? For once in your life, go out and grab somebody. Stop her. Don't let her make the decision that will wreck her life. Michael, she's hurting so badly, she's in no condition to decide." To his astonishment, he could hear her weeping. "Cody?" Her glyph winked out, as she cut the link.

XIV.

Something had changed in the house, though Michael couldn't decide exactly what. All the furniture remained in place; the lighting was just the same. Mrs. Nandy had not been by, so the mud stains remained on the couch, and Rajban's bag of soil-half empty now-still sat by the gla.s.s doors. Maybe the house was colder.

He sent a call to Cody, but she didn't answer, and he declined to leave a message on the server.

So Rajban had left! So what? Why did Cody have to act like it was the end of the world? Rajban had chosen to leave. She had walked freely out the door.

Michael wished she had not, but wishing couldn't change the decision she had made.

He wondered what her reasoning had been. Perhaps she preferred whatever small life Rao might offer her to the strangeness she had glimpsed here. Illiteracy was a barrier that kept her from a knowledge of the wider world. Access to information was another hurdle. So she had returned to the life she knew. It was probably as simple as that. Rao's messenger arrived at the door after only a few minutes. Michael listened to the price he quoted, then he put a call through to his bank, adjusted the worth on a cash card, and handed it over, letting the house record the transaction. He had promised to pay for Rajban's AIDS treatment, after all. And she was better off with her family, wasn't she?

He told himself it had all been a misunderstanding.

On the long walk back to the house of her brother-in-law, Rajban could feel the sickness growing inside her. It was a debilitating weakness, a pollution in her muscles, dirt in her joints. By the time she reached the house she was dazed and exhausted, with a thirst that made her tongue swell. As she crossed the threshold behind the men, Mother-in-Law glared, first at Gharia, then at Rajban. She asked Rao if it had been agreed that a dowry should be paid. Rao shrugged. He sat at a table, ignoring everyone, even Gharia, who stood by looking confused and a little angry. "We wait," Rao said.

Inside the house the air was very still, a puddle of heat trapped under the ancient, seeping walls.

Mother-in-law turned on Rajban. "No water. No!" she said, cutting her off from the plastic cube with its spigot, that sat upon hollow concrete blocks and held the day's supply of water. "Out! You have work.

There is work, you stupid girl."

Rajban felt dizzied by the swirling motion of Mother-in-Law's hands. She stumbled back a step.

"Won't you let her drink?" Gharia asked softly. Rajban cast him a resentful glance. Oh yes. He had an interest in her now. Or he imagined he did.

Michael's house had told her what was said on the doorstep. She blushed in shame again, remembering the words Rao had spoken.

He had painted her with those words. He had painted her past. Dirty wh.o.r.e. Her polluted body testified to it. And why else would all this have happened to her? What Rao said had felt just like the truth.

Michael would not want to look at her now that he knew, and m.u.t.h.aye could never come to visit her again-but Rao had offered her sanctuary.

Of course there would be no dowry. She thought it strange that Gharia didn't understand this. Rao scowled at him. Then he scowled at Mother-in-Law, standing guard by the water cube. "Women's business," he growled.

"Get out!" the old woman screeched at Rajban, now that she was sure she had permission. "No one has done your work for you, foolish girl." Under the a.s.sault of her flailing hands, Rajban stumbled into the courtyard. She looked around. The courtyard seemed strange, as if she had dreamed this place and the life she had lived here.

Heat steamed from the moist ground. The plants were wilted in their containers. She shared their thirst, and, using the dirty wash water stored in a small barrel by the door, she set out to allay it.

Michael took a zip to the office to find Pallava Sen waiting for him in the lobby. "Good morning, Michael!

Our bioremediation consultant called a few minutes ago to say she will not be able to attend today."

"Cody called?" Michael's voice cracked with the force of his surprise.

"Yes. Of course I've been consulting with her throughout the night, so I'll have no problem directing the media gig."

They matched strides through the security sensors. Armored doors opened for them. An elevator stood waiting on the other side. "Be a.s.sured, everything is in place," Pallava continued, as the doors closed and the elevator rose. "We have technicians from New Delhi to handle the bacterial cultures. Several media teams are already at the airport, and within a few hours an international task force will be here to examine the complaints against us, and our countercharges of fraud against the local water commission."

They stepped out into the carpeted hallway on the top floor, greeted by the scent of fresh coffee. "When will the water purification units be here?" Michael asked.

"The first shipment is due to arrive within the hour. They'll be set up in stations throughout the district.

People will be able to withdraw five gallons at a time-enough for drinking, anyway."

"Excellent." At least people could start drinking clean water now, today, for the first time since ...

He sighed. Probably for the first time ever. Someone had left a steaming cup of coffee on the desk. "Pallava, thank you. I know you've been up most of the night with this situation. It sounds as if you have things well under control." Then, because he couldn't help himself, he added, "When you talked to Cody just now, did she ... sound all right?"

Pallava frowned, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "She sounded tired, but then she has worked through the night as well. There's no need to worry, Michael. Let her rest. I can handle the gig."

"That's not what I meant. Pallava, I know you can do it. I want you to handle the press conference, too.

It's your scene now."

Rajban crouched in the shade just outside the kitchen door, patting dirty water on her cheeks and breast.

Inside, Gharia and Rao were talking heatedly. Gharia was saying, "Fielding will pay. You'll see. He wants the woman to have medicine so that-"

Gharia broke off in mid-sentence. Startled, Rajban glanced over her shoulder to see if someone had spied her, resting in the shade. No one looked out the door. Instead, she heard a stranger speaking from inside the house, crowing about the cleverness of Rao's demands. This was the messenger sent to collect the dowry.

"Give the money to my son," Mother-in-Law interrupted, her old voice tight and frightened, as if she feared a rebuke for her boldness, but couldn't help herself nonetheless.

Rajban peeked around the edge of the doorway, to see Rao still seated at the table, Gharia still standing.

Both he and the messenger stared hungrily at the cash card Rao twirled in his hands. Then Rao's long fingers closed over the card, hiding it from sight. His face was fleshy, and yet it was the hardest face Rajban had ever seen. "You may both go now." Gharia looked confused. "We need to discuss the finances, the wedding, and-"

"There will be no wedding," Rao announced. "My brother's widow must be subjected to no further shame."

Rajban slipped back behind the wall. The garden looked so queer, as if she had never seen it quite so clearly before. Inside, Gharia's voice was rising in indignant anger, but Rajban did not listen to the words, knowing that nothing he might say could change her fate.

Pallava Sen had hardly left when m.u.t.h.aye's glyph winked on in the corner of Michael's shades. He tapped his glove, transferring the call to a wall screen. m.u.t.h.aye snapped into existence. She stood in Michael's living room, her stern face framed by a printed sari, which she had pulled over her head like a scarf. In her hand, she held Rajban's half-empty bag of soil.

Michael's gaze caught on it. "Rajban has gone." m.u.t.h.aye's lips pursed petulantly. "I am at the house, Michael. I can see that. Where has she gone?"

Michael felt inexplicably guilty as he made his explanation. He did not feel any better as he watched m.u.t.h.aye's expression darken. Her eyes rolled up, beseeching the heavens for patience, perhaps. Then she spoke: "Mr. Fielding, I would be interested to someday engage you in a discussion of free will. What does it really mean? You tell me that Rajban chose to leave with this Rao character, her brother-in-law who treated her as less than human even as you looked on. Mr. Fielding, can you tell me why she freely chose to go with him?"

Michael scowled, feeling unfairly impeached, by m.u.t.h.aye and by Cody, too. "I suppose she felt torn from her roots. Most people are, by nature, afraid of change."

m.u.t.h.aye's scowl deepened. "Rajban did not suffer a failure of nerve, Mr. Fielding."

"I didn't say-"

"No, of course. You wouldn't say such a thing. You are a kind person, Michael, and obviously you've done well in life. It's only natural that you believe opportunity is omnipresent, that we all rise or sink according to our talents and our drive-but the world is more complex than that. Talent is meaningless when we are schooled in the belief that change is wrong, when we are taught that we are worthy of nothing more than the ironbound existence fate has given us. Believe me, Rajban has been well-schooled in her worthlessness. She knows that she lives at the sufferance of her husband's family. Obedience and acceptance have been drilled into her from babyhood. To expect her to freely decide to defy her brother-in-law would be like expecting a drug addict to freely decide to stay sober at a crack party.

There is no difference.

"And it is partly my fault, too, for I laughed yesterday when she suggested this soil had a magic." m.u.t.h.aye lifted the stained cloth bag. "Perhaps it does. I have talked to a horticultural specialist and he is intrigued.

He tells me there may be valuable microorganisms in this dirt. I will have it tested, and I will not laugh at naive optimism ever again."

"m.u.t.h.aye-"

She raised her palm. "Michael, I apologize for lecturing you, but you must begin to see that to dream is itself a learned skill."

Stop her! For once in your life ...

Michael sighed. "I gave Rao money to pay for the AIDS treatment." That was something, at least.

Although from the way m.u.t.h.aye glared at him, it might have been worse than nothing. He scowled, irritated now. "Was that wrong too?"

"There will be no treatment."

Michael felt his patience snap. Really, he'd had enough. "You don't know that. She was to be married again-"