The Other Inquiry

Rao answered the slap in the hall, not at the pump. Morning. Same fan. More men than a clerk. Inquiry table. The contractor under sweat. Shankar on one side. A register already open that Anasuya had not opened. Karthik sat two benches back with the date in his bag and the wet mark dry now. Rangaiah stood in the strip outside with other men who were not allowed in. He could see her shoulder. When she sat he could not see the rest. He hated that. He stayed. Rao smiled at the room. “We inquire everything. Channel. Names. Also who keeps government paper in a woman’s blouse.” The laugh was small and dirty. Fifty eyes went to her breasts as if the missing list would show through cotton. Anasuya sat. The bench took her ass. She kept the hook done. It did not matter. Rao set the stolen sheet on the table. Children’s names. Crease from her tin. Crease from his drawer. “Found wandering,” he said. “Careless. Dangerous. We will ask why the wife of a man in Dubai is hiding birth lists in a house with no latch.” Shankar’s jaw moved. He had not been given this photograph. Anasuya looked at the sheet. “Ask why your contractor moved them. Ask the date that is not a birthday.” Karthik stood before his courage left. He put the date on the table like a man putting a glass down too hard. “The same week the names moved,” he said. “Not a festival. Not a birth.” The room turned. Rao’s smile did not touch his eyes. “Sit down, boy.” Karthik sat. His ears were red. He had looked at her wet blouse yesterday and today he had spent that look on a date. That was the only clean thing he had. They asked her. Where the tin was. Who came at night. Why oil. Why a boy with a wrench. Each question had a look attached — mouth, breasts, the way she sat. She answered the file. When the men broke for water, Rao did not break. Inner room. Door closer than almost. Rangaiah’s jug in the strip. “You used the bottle on the wrong mouth,” Rao said, low. “I heard the cot. The whole yard heard the cot. You think a dead tap is the price. The price is this room.” His eyes on her breasts. The wet map from yesterday was gone. He looked for it anyway. “Ravi is a story you tell the pillow,” he said. “I am the house. Come.” She did not come. He stepped in anyway. Fingers at the hook. Not open. The threat of open. From the strip Rangaiah set the jug down hard. The sound was a man. Rao’s hand left the hook. “Later,” he said. “The hall still has ears.” She went back to the bench. Karthik did not look at her chest. He looked at the date as if the date could grow a door. After, in the courtyard, he said, “I will not ask about the cot.” “Good.” “I will ask about the names.” “Better.” Rangaiah walked her home. He did not say he had heard the cot. He said, “The inner room wanted the hook.” “The inner room did not get it.” In the house she sat on the slat where the page lived. Ravi’s night was still in the wood. Rao’s hall was still on the blouse. Karthik’s date was still in the bag. She put her palm on the slat. He had inquired her. She was still in the inquiry. The village had seen her come out of his door with her cloth not thanking him. That was enough daylight for one part.