It could have been worse.
Sardari kept telling herself this, because there was nothing else to say about it. Nothing else to do about it, beyond what she was doing at the moment.
She could have run from the flood. Gathered up her ephemera, moved it to higher ground. Of anyone she had the power.
But there had been people at the temple. Sheltering. Knowing if they ran for the border, towards higher ground – there would be consequences for that as well.
She was used to walking in the dark. Even as she walked now. Time dilatation, as the studied man might know it. Leaning into thick air as the last rays of sunset thankfully went over her head instead of burning on her skin. Carefully picking her footing so as not to mar the ground too much as she passed.
That night she had not minded so much, trying to guide people to safety one at a time, marveling as the caught their own reflection in raindrops.
The miracle would assure she had a following when she got back, regardless if anything more was recovered from the temple. But that miracle was observed by her own priests and the poor – neither which would be in a great position to provide funds for rebuilding a temple.
In truth, she had been going many times slower on those trips than on this one. They needed to see. They needed to breathe. To find their own footing. Although it had been many years, she had taken long trips like this before. At first merely to test herself, then to clear her head.
Intersection of… OK. Time to consult the map. Right here. The waterfall would better hold her weight than the bridge. She considered taking the river itself, but then considered that there might be fishing nets out at this hour. She was too close to wanting to eat again to deprive someone else of their food… so she couldn’t go too far on that path.
She was able to kick her sandals off before touching the water. It was an immediate relief to overheated feet, bowing like panes of glass – but now she could consider food. Folding the map over to the next section – there were no real sizable towns ahead – Bihar wasn’t too heavily populated. On top of that, she was catching up on the sun. She’d want a short break.
She rinsed her sandals off in the river beside her – somthing tore in one, she felt it – and slipped them back on as she was back to the roadside. The odd truck driver might notice her passing if he blinked the wrong moment, but otherwise she went unnoticed.
A dozen Samosa worked for calories. The white-haired woman in a dusty tied-down saree, appearing from nowhere, squinting like she had walked out of her house a noon, disappeared again from the sight of the roadside vendor as soon as she had paid.
Her muscles were starting to complain. Eat, sleep, continue. She found a good solid tree as she walked along the road, opening a temporary pocket in it, giving the air a moment to ooze in and equalize before climbing in herself, drawing the seam to the world of men almost, but not quite, closed.
Here she had more control. Even though time moved even faster than relative to the outside world, and it was darker, the air had none of that gelled consistency. She massaged her legs and ate, she pulled out her pillow from its own pocket in spacetime, and nodded off.
She languished after she woke up, much longer than she normally would. To the outside world, she might have disappeared a full 5 seconds, to return fully rested, ready to put in another long days’ walk under the setting sun.
~
One thing about these journeys – she had accepted her loss by the end of it. Making the last turn off the dirt highway, turning from the village that should exist to the one that shouldn’t, save for some very specific interference.
Sardari let time reconnect before she reached it. It was still monsoon season – late in it – but fireflies still wandered from the forest and to the edges of the fields, the odd group of children wandering along the edge trying to capture a speck of light.
“Hello!” Sardari called out. “Do any of you know where Meena Jadia lives? Meena Rupaka Jadia?”
”Yes! You want to see Mina Mashi? I will take you!”
The girl said a quick good-by to her presumed neighbors, coming to the road, she gave a little bow, ”Hello, I am Jyoti. Jyoti Tiyasa Ranjan.” The girl – speaking better than some adults, gave her supposed last name in an odd tone. It wasn’t immediately obvious if it were somehow false, or the girl was not sure if she were supposed to give it.
“Is that so? Well, I am called Sardari.”
“Sardari what?”
”Sardari Sardari Sardari.”
The child now peered back a her, trying to determine the truth if her statement.
“If you are Meena’s family… Then you are certainly not Hindu. Saying it once is fine.”
Jyoti accepted this, and offered a hand, as she was often offered when taken places. Sardari accepted, as was led to a house in the village – after learning who every other house housed.
Jyoti left her a few steps from the door. There was a rhythmic noise coming from the house – swishing back and forth. The girl rapped hard on the door, “Mina Mashi, you have a visitoooor.”
The whooshing stopped, a lit lantern’s shadows moved about the interior of house, and a fairly tall woman glanced out the door, and, seeing her niece, opened it wide.
She stared at Sardari for a moment. There was some sign of recognition, but not full recognition – she was still searching for a name.
“Thank you, Jyoti – you should go back to your mother now,” The girl gave another quick bow to the new acquaintance, and pattered away, “You should have sent a letter. Really.”
“Do you not remember Sardari?” She stepped closer to the door.
“Oh. I remember Sardari,” She did not move aside to invite her in quite yet, “Sardari, who has other places to be, among other things.”
“Normally true, normally true. But the local post office has, shall we say, suffered a relocation. As well as the foundations of my temple.”
“How horrible. You can tell me about it tomorrow. I have my own problems to deal with at the moment.” The door shut on her. Sardari heard the security bolt sliding into place.
Well. Either Meena didn’t remember, or she needed proof. Which was easy enough. Sardari easily pulled open the doorway – not at the center, where it normally opened, but along one hinge, warping it enough to give herself a space to stick in her head, looking her anticipated host in the eye.
“I realize this is rather sudden – my situation was not one I expected to be in. But would you rather know where I am tonight, or NOT know where I am?”
Meena slumped against the door, “Alright, alright, come in – you can sleep on the sofa. Or IN the sofa, or whatever you do. You will not touch my charpai.”
“Thank you,” She pushed the doorframe aside like a curtain, stepped inside over the lower hinge, and let it slap closed into it’s normal position.
Meena could not help but run her finger across her wall to test it’s solidity, not that there was much she could do if Sardari had left it any different – but it was solid, “Anyways. I have an order to finish.” She made her way back to a loom- a monster of a thing to have in any house, a new saree mid-weave running through it, “Someone left thread out where it molded – took me a week to get into town for more, the way the rain has been. If you are hungry-“
“You don’t need to do such things.”
“Oh,” The woman adjusted her clothing – a bit too British for Sardari’s tastes, especially as whe was making more traditional clothing – and when satisfied, Meena took her place sitting in front of the loom, reminding herself where in the pattern it had come to rest.
“You could live a life of luxury. Better than I could, certainly.”
“And that’s one life one boring life, and I’m back here. Rather have something to do.”
“And not someone?”
”I never seem to keep them long enough for you to meet them, do I? Perhaps if you saw fit to visit more often –” she wasn’t really paying attention to what she was saying as she prepared the loom, “Even if nobody seems to be courting me at the moment – I’m sure you have your pick of men with merely a statement.”
It wasn’t false. But it wasn’t a helpful statement either, “I can hardly leave my post. But you chosen both obscurity AND impoverishment. Chosen. Like you don’t want karma to be false.”
Sardari was drowned out by the loom spinning up again, as the last notes of light disappeared in the windows. She could offer to speed up the late order – Meena would refuse. She would rather deal with the consequences. The sofa Sardari sat down on was stiff, with no give – but all too easy to fall asleep on.
She could ask about the loan tomorrow.
Extra Notes
- This would have been about 1988
- Meena vs Mina: The first spelling is the more frequent transliteration. The later, in her case, indicates holding onto a British relation, rather than a Hindu one. Sardari is quite aware that Mina is Untouchable – Dalit – but certainly doesn’t have the same relation or aversion to Hindus at large.
- The Jadia name comes form her second husband, Efren Jadia.
- Sardari is a friend. But she’s also scheming and manipulative. Mina knows somthing she is not going to like is coming.
- Sardari didn’t learn “Bhramana” until after the loan was paid off
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