The Selector of Souls by Shauna Singh Baldwin Read Free Book Online

tortured bleeding body straddles a white steed. Her lips move, soundless, before the martyrs’ images, repeating her one god’s name: “Vaheguru, Vaheguru …”
    Images and idols may be forbidden to Sikhs, but even they sometimes need a photo to witness their tears
.
    “You have Dipreyshun,” says Damini.
    “No, my chest is hurting.”
    “We should have gone to Gurkot for the summer.”
    “Maybe next year.”
    “Every year you say, ‘next year.’ It’s been five years since we were in the cool mountain air.”
    “I said next year! Don’t you think I too yearn to be home in the Big House? But Aman doesn’t want me to go.”
    Damini drops her gaze to the marble floor to show respect. After a minute, she says, “Shall I bring oil for your massage?” It’s all she has to offer.
    “Not today, Amma.”
    And not the next day or the next.
    When Kiran breaks a glass bangle, Amanjit buys her a new gold one, saying, “Don’t bring me bad luck by breaking bangles.”
    A carved ivory tusk disappears and a leopard skin is removed for reasons of ‘Feng Shooey.’ Fine vases find their way to ‘their’ room; a china rose Sardar-saab brought Mem-saab from abroad is no longer in the sideboard. A set of silver candlesticks vanishes. A mirror with a golden frame is replaced by a Rajasthani silk painting smelling of the street-hawker’s bundle.
    Around the first week of June, an ivory miniature departs in a gift-wrapped box for a buyer. Mem-saab says it must be Khansama, stealing again. Then she turns her head away so she cannot read Damini’s answer.
    “Go away, Damini-amma,” she says. “I am going to write to Timcu.”

ANU
    A FEW KILOMETRES AWAY ON THE GROUND FLOOR OF Kohli House, a three-storey mansion in the Lutyens-designed area of New Delhi, Anupam Kohli is standing in her daughter’s room, fists clenched at her sides, gazing at Chetna’s neatly made bed, Chetna’s little white desk and chair under the window framed with pink polka-dot curtains.
    Only fatherhood has saved her husband, Vikas, from being murdered by his wife many times over. Chetna is the sweetest little daughter in the world.
    A Punjabi bride doll Vikas bought for his daughter sits on the windowsill. A red silk salwar covers the doll’s legs, her kameez cascades over bulbous breasts. A transparent red gold-fringed dupatta covers her long black hair. Anu looked like that doll, even to the shade of her lipsticked smile, the day she was married off to a man wearing a diamond tie pin and a Gucci charcoal pinstripe suit to whom she had spoken ten words at most.
    Now Anu lives in this Taj Mahal of a home with her husband and in-laws. With a cook to help her, with servants to clean, to wash her clothes and tidy her cupboards. She’s wearing a muslin salwar-kameez and has many saris bordered in gold. She can get a facial and have her makeup done at the Taj Palace Hotel whenever sheneeds to cover up a swollen or purpling eye. She has pants and matching shirts, embroidered kurtas, pashmina shawls, embellished slippers, and many pairs of high-heeled sandals. She has 24-karat gold and diamond bangles, an array of earrings and necklaces that cost Vikas a fortune. If no one else needs them, she can use the family cars and drivers. She is a Hindu-Christian who has accepted Lord Jesus as her saviour and propitiated god, and all the gods and goddesses as well.
    But right now, breathing hurts.
    Anu sits on the bed. She has been awake all night, afraid to move in case she woke Vikas.
    Nancy Drew … Malory Towers … the
Mahabharat …
the
Iliad
 … the
Ramayan
say the rainbow of titles on the bookshelves. A cricket bat stands in the corner.
    Anu stands, grabs the bat, raises it overhead.
Thwack!
She smacks it on the bed.
    That’s the sound it would make coming down on Vikas’s head.
    She’s trembling, and has to sit down, holding her ribs.
    Sitting hurts. She holds her ribs, takes a deep breath, stands.
    A bulldozer seems to have crushed her