Chapter 3: The Three Refusals

The three refusals were already done. The begging was already done. Yogini had agreed. The rite was set for noon.

What remained was the night.

Tiju sat in his study with the door locked. The brandy decanter was on the shelf. He had not touched it in three days. He sat with his hands on his knees and he stared at the decanter and he thought about the grove.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow the toe. Tomorrow the paste. Tomorrow the cure.

He thought about what the body would do. The book had said: the body that was incomplete shall be made complete. Incomplete meant small. Complete meant — he did not know what complete meant. He hoped it meant eight inches. He hoped it meant nine. He hoped the cure would not only make the body rise but make the body grow, the way a dry sponge grows when water hits it, the way a closed fist opens when the hand relaxes. The body had been clenched for eight years. The cure would unclench it. The cure would make the body what it should have been — what it would have been, if not for the shame, if not for the brandy, if not for the terror, if not for the face that was too beautiful and the body that was too intimidated and the three inches that were too small. The cure would fix all of it. The cure would give him the body of a man who could take a woman and satisfy her and silence the smallness forever.

He thought about Yogini's foot. The book said the paste was applied from the underside of the woman's big toe to the man's forehead. Her toe. He had seen her feet — bare, at the wedding, the soles stained with alta. Small feet. Narrow. He had not thought of her feet as anything other than feet. He pushed the thought away. The feet were the mechanism of the cure, nothing more. The toe was the delivery vehicle for the paste. The paste was the cure. The cure was the goal.

He stared at the decanter. He did not drink.

Across the house, Yogini sat in her dressing room. The book was in her lap. The eight ingredients were in their row. She had not touched them.

She read the book again. The edited book. She read the passage about the ego dissolving. She read the passage about the man becoming the slave. She read the passage about the residue. She read the margin notes — the story of Queen Mallika.

She did not know that twelve pages were missing. She did not know that a passage about the cage opening had been cut. She did not know that a fine print about the slave's endowment existed — a fine print so small she would have needed a magnifying glass, a fine print that said the slave shall be endowed befitting his station, a fine print that meant the cure would give with one hand and take with the other, a fine print that would turn the husband's fantasy into the slave's punchline.

She had read the full book, three weeks before. She had read Section 1 — the cure. She had read it and she had thought: this would cure him. And she had closed the book and put it back, because the cure was not worth the cost. She did not want a slave. She wanted a husband.

But the man who had knelt beneath the banyan tree was not real. She did not know this. She would not know it for forty-seven years. She would die believing the man was real, that the love was real, that the rite had been an act of mercy performed on a man who had begged for it with a broken heart.

She sat in the dressing room and she read the edited book and she thought: he has gathered every ingredient himself. He has waited three days without touching a drop of brandy, which is more than he has managed in ten months. That tells me the man who loves me is not a fantasy. He is real.

She was wrong. But the wrongness was not her fault. The wrongness was the lie. The lie was twelve torn pages and a rehearsed face and a script that worked on women who read poetry.

She rose. She knelt on the rug. She lifted the obsidian mortar. She began.

Saffron. Fossilized leaf dust. Crushed blue lotus. Sacred Nile water. Wild mountain cardamom. Black cumin. Cremation ash.

She took up the pestle. The tears came. Two bitter drops fell into the black stone bowl. She chanted.

"Om Namo... Om Bhairavi..."

The mixture turned golden-red. She scraped it into a brass bowl, wrapped it in silk.

She dressed in a heavy blue and gold silk saree, the kind a priestess would wear.

She did not sleep.

At noon, the grand mahogany carriage pulled up to the stone courtyard.

The carriage rolled through the iron gates and turned onto a dirt track into the protected jungle. The ancient trees closed around them. Daylight reduced to emerald-filtered twilight.

Tiju sat opposite Yogini. He did not speak. He wore his finest tailored coat, his silk cravat, his leather boots. He was dressed as the man he was about to cease to be — or rather, as the man he was pretending to cease to be.

The calculation was running. The calculation never stopped.

She believes the love is real. She does not know about the cure. She does not know about the residue. She does not know that I will be inside. She does not know that I will feel everything. She does not know that I will find a way out.

The book says the residue is conscious. The book says the residue feels emotions. The book does not say the residue cannot think. The book does not say the residue cannot plan. The mind is mine. The mind will remain mine. The mind will find the loophole. The mind will break the cage.

*And then — then the body is cured, and the body is mine, and the mind is mine, and I take her, and I take the province, and I take every woman who ever — *

He thought about the eight inches. He thought about the nine. The fantasy was close. The fantasy was hours away. The fantasy was about to become flesh.

He looked at her face. The face that had made him impotent. The face he had struck. The face he would — once the cure took, once the body grew — take. The face would be his. The body beneath the face would be his. She would know what the cured body could do. She would know what eight inches felt like. She would know.

The carriage halted.

They had arrived at the grove.