Three or four bighas of land—write that off too, and then go beg from door to door. Tell me, did you not have a tongue in your mouth to ask those panchayat elders, what makes you such great men of virtue, that you go around imposing fines on others? Even to look at your faces is a sin.

Hori scolded her, “Be quiet! Don’t talk so insolently. You haven’t yet been caught in the snare of the biradari, or you wouldn’t dare utter a word.”

Dhaniya grew more agitated. “What sin have we committed, that we should fear the biradari? Have we stolen from anyone, cut someone’s crop? To take a woman is not a sin. Yes, to take her and then abandon her, that is a sin. It is not good for a man to be too meek. The result of such meekness is that even dogs come to lick your face. Today, over there, they must be singing your praises—how well you have upheld the honor of the biradari! I must have been cursed to be saddled with a man like you. Never once have I known a day’s peace.”

“Did I go to fall at your father’s feet? He was the one who tied you to my neck.”

“A stone must have fallen on his wits—what can I say to him? Who knows what he saw in you to become so besotted? It’s not as if you were so very handsome.”

The quarrel drifted into banter. Eighty rupees were gone, but at least they had a child worth a hundred thousand. No one could take him away. If Gobar returned home, Dhaniya would be content even in her separate hut.

Hori asked, “Whose child is it?”

Dhaniya replied with a happy face, “It’s Gobar’s, truly.”

“Is he healthy and strong?”

“Yes, he is well.”

That night, as Gobar walked with Jhunia, he trembled as if he had been disgraced. The moment the villagers saw Jhunia, there would be an uproar, wailing from all sides, Dhaniya would hurl curses—these thoughts made his steps falter. He did not fear Hori; he would roar once, then fall silent. It was Dhaniya he feared—she might swallow poison, set the house on fire. No, he could not bring Jhunia home with him now.

But what if Dhaniya refused to let Jhunia enter, chased her with a broom? Where would the poor girl go then? She could not return to her own home. What if she jumped into a well or hanged herself? What then? He sighed deeply. Whose shelter could he seek?

But Amma was not so cruel as to run after her to beat her. In anger, she might hurl a few abuses, but when Jhunia clung to her feet and wept, surely she would feel pity. Until then, he would hide somewhere. When the commotion had died down, he would quietly return one day and persuade Amma. If, in the meantime, he found some work and came home with a