THENEWYORKER,AUGUST17, 2020 57
period; she would have succeeded; they
would have won.
After the incident with the knife,
Rani was subdued. She woke early and
made her bed. She folded her few
clothes and kept them in the cupboard.
She never left her wet towel on the
bathroom floor, as Srikanth did. She
ate whatever breakfast Geeta gave her,
then walked out to the long concrete
driveway, which had once been gravel
raked every morning, according to Sri
kanth, by a man in a white uniform.
The first time, Geeta worried that Rani
might climb the gate and disappear.
At noon, she pretended to wander by
the front door. She saw Rani march
ing from one gatepost to the other,
then back again, a dark shape cross
ing a river of concrete. Geeta shouted
that lunch was ready and Rani re
sponded immediately. From that day
on, she was inside before Geeta had
to call.
Until the day she wasn’t. Geeta put
the food on the table and waited for
ten minutes. Then she went to the
door. Rani was speaking with a man
who stood on the other side of the
gate. He had a wispy mustache and
his hair was locked in place by glint
ing gel. He was dressed in the uniform
of youth—a red shirt tucked into tight
jeans. As Geeta walked toward them,
his eyes flickered to her; he said some
thing to Rani, ducking his head. Then
he strode off, tipping an invisible hat
to Geeta.
“Who was that?” Geeta asked. “Rani,
who was that?”
Rani turned with a radiant smile.
“My father is not in jail anymore.”
“What?”
“He said my father sent him. He’s
going to take me back to my father.”
“Rani, listen to me. What did he
say? Did he tell you his name?”
Rani shook her head. Her smile grew
still more radiant. Geeta thought of the
man’s insolent hat tip and felt weak
with fear.
“Rani, does he come every day? Has
he talked to you before?”
“He told me my father has come
out of jail. My mother is calling for me.
He said if I go with him he will take
me back to my village.”
In one swift motion, Geeta leaped
at the gate and flung it open. She ran
out into the street and saw the red shirt,
as small as a stamp.
“I’ll kill you!” she screamed. “Don’t
come back again! Are you listening?
I’ll kill you if you come back! I’ll kill
you!”W
hen Srikanth came home, she
described the young man to him,
the terrifying promises he’d made to
Rani. This time, Srikanth stood up and
came unnecessarily close to her.
“She’s too much for you,” he said.
His breath smelled of onions and fil
ter coffee. “Admit it,” he pressed her.
“You can’t do this. You are not capa
ble. Look at you. Your hair is a mess.
You don’t take care of the house any
more. You hardly look at me. You only
think of her.”
A month ago, she might have pro
tested, but it no longer mattered what
was and wasn’t true. The threats had
become too many, too nebulous. Later,
she would think of this as her final fail
ure. The first and the last, the only two
clear in her mind.
“You may have been an au pair,” he
said, drawing himself up, “but I am the
one who has actually raised a child.”
“Please,” she whispered. “Talk to her.”
Rani was in her room, where Geeta
had instructed her to stay. She had not
told Srikanth what had happened after
she screamed at the young man: the
way Rani had attacked her, the scratcheseven now blossoming on her neck, the
girl’s terrible moans.
Rani was, Geeta noticed with a pang,
sitting by the window, on the chair
Geeta had placed there months before,
looking at the garden. She did not turn
around when they came in.
“Young lady, you are not allowed
to go near the gate again, do you un
derstand?” Srikanth said in a sono
rous voice, and Geeta wondered for
whom he was performing. Partly for
her, but partly, she suspected, for hisvanished first wife. “I give you the
money for your food. I paid for that
chair you’re sitting on. As long as you
are under my roof, you will listen to
me. And you are not allowed to speak
to strangers.”
Rani turned her head and smiled.
It was a smile that Geeta had never
seen before. Beautiful and powerless,
it robbed Geeta of breath. She wanted
to run over and hug the girl, but she
could feel Srikanth puffing up beside
her, working himself into a fury with
all the mechanical purpose of the clock
in the hall.
“Are you laughing at me?” he asked
softly.
At that, the girl’s smile became even
more helpless. Geeta closed her eyes,
and at the moment she opened them
she saw a strange thing—a graygreen
blur shooting down outside the win
dow. It took her a moment to realize
that it was a jackfruit.
“You think you can disrespect me?”
Srikanth was saying. “Just because my
wife lets you disrespect her,” he con
tinued grandly, “you think you can
disrespect me? Eh? I know how girls
like you think. Sly, that’s what you are,
sly. Fine, if my wife can’t do it, I’ll teach
you to behave. I’ll teach you to be
scared.”
He lifted a finger in Rani’s direction.
“Pack your clothes,” he ordered.F
ather, mother, child, suitcase. It was
a parody of the family trip Geeta
had suggested months ago. Srikanth,
still swept up in his own theatre of pun
ishment, carried Rani’s battered bag all
the way to the gate, then set it down
in the dust. Rani and Geeta followed,
walking a foot apart, not touching.
“Go,” he told Rani, holding the gate
open. “Pick it up and go.”
Rani picked up the bag. She slipped
under his outstretched arm and past
the gate. On the other side, she rolled
her shoulders back, as if warming up
for a marathon. She was much health
ier than when she had first arrived,
her face and figure fuller, her hair more
lustrous, long enough now to touch
her neck.
“You want to find your father and
mother?” Srikanth demanded. “Go find
them and don’t come back here.”
Rani began to walk. She walked in