by Sudha Balagopal
Our doorbell rings. Ma’s busy and opens the door with a huff.
A din of excitement floats up from our Kolkata street―workers shouting, tools clanging. They’re erecting the pandal, a pavilion that will house an idol of the goddess.
It’s Shokale―second time this week. He ignores Ma’s irritation, extends his palm. “Donate for Goddess Durga.”
Ma hates being interrupted while stirring turmeric into the dal for our dinner. “You think money grows on trees, han?”
From behind her, I watch him drop the ash from his cigarette outside our door.
“You’ve only given two hundred rupees for our community pujo,” he argues, one foot on our doorstep.
I don’t like his frog-like eyes.
Ma shuts the door on his words with her yellow-stained hands.
Next morning, Shokale returns. The front door trembles as he bangs his fists.
Ma is hanging washed clothes on the line in the balcony and can’t hear him.
I answer in my school uniform―white-collared shirt, pleated navy skirt, long socks―say, “Can you come later?”
“When’s later?” Shokale’s slimy eyes slide from my neck to my feet.
“Um . . . I don’t know. . .” I scratch my head.
In the breath of my hesitation, he thrusts out a ropy arm and rough-pulls my 12-year-old body against his adult strength. My heart panic-stops. I gasp as fear leaps up and down my spine; I want to vomit as the smell of cigarettes and the stink of his sweat attacks. When he lets go, I drop to the floor like a sack of mud-caked potatoes.
I keep my eyes open―at my bus stop, at the corner grocery store, at the top of our street, at the bottom of our street, in front of our apartment building, behind the building. I huddle-walk with friends, hold my school bag, like armor, across my chest and fix my gaze on my white canvas shoes as I scurry past the corner where Shokale lounges, cigarette dangling from his lips.
A week later, deep, echo-ey conch sounds lift toward our home from the decorated pavilion.
“Come,” Ma calls, “let’s go see the pandal.”
I mutter vague excuses: “I have so much reading. Actually, I think I have a headache.”
Ma yanks on my arm. “What nonsense is this?”
Inside the pandal, I glue my eyes on the forty-foot, ten-armed idol of Goddess Durga. She rides a golden lion, one foot resting on top of the demon she slayed.
I study the trident she holds high and raise my right arm overhead. I imagine growing eight more arms; I imagine being fearless.
Shokale holds court outside the pandal in gaudy orange kurta and dhoti. His voice carries. “I do this because I revere Goddess Durga. She represents the power of woman.”
“Tell Ma, tell Ma,” a voice in my head, as deep as the conch, repeats.
I stop, tug at Ma’s hand.
He watches us stop, he watches us approach. He drops his voice, drops his gaze.
Sudha Balagopal is honored to have her writing in many fine journals including CRAFT, Split Lip, and Smokelong Quarterly. Her novella-in-flash, Things I Can’t Tell Amma, was published by Ad Hoc fiction in 2021. She has stories included in both Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions, 2022. More at http://www.sudhabalagopal.com
Emerge Literary Journal 