As much to keep up her own spirits as to ease her husband's suffering, Deeti exerted herself to find a cure. First she brought in an ojha to exorcize the house and when this produced no effect, she consulted a hakim, who purveyed Yunani medicines, and a vaid who practised Ayurveda. The doctors spent long hours sitting at Hukam Singh's bedside and consumed great quantities of satua and dalpuris; they dug their fingertips into the patient's stick-like wrists and exclaimed over his pallid skin; they prescribed expensive medicines, made with gold foil and shavings of ivory, to obtain which Deeti had to sell several of her bangles and nose-rings. When the treatments failed, they confided secretly that Hukam Singh was not long for this world, one way or another – why not ease his passage by allowing him a taste of the drug his body craved? Deeti had decided never to return her husband's pipe and she was true to her resolve; but she relented to the point where she allowed him a few mouthfuls of akbari opium to chew on every day. These doses were not enough to bring him to his feet, but they did ease his suffering and for Deeti, it was a relief to look into his eyes and know that he had slipped away from the mundane pains of the world and escaped into that other, more vivid reality where Holi never ceased and spring arrived afresh every day. If that was what was necessary to postpone the prospect of widowhood, then she was not the woman to flinch from it.
In the meanwhile there was the harvest to attend to: within a short frame of time each poppy would have to be individually incised and bled of its sap; the coagulated gum would then have to be scraped off and collected in earthenware gharas, to be taken to the factory. It was slow, painstaking work, impossible for a woman and child to undertake on their own. Being unwilling to ask for her brother-in-law's help, Deeti was forced to hire a half-dozen hands, agreeing to pay them in kind when the harvest was done. While they were at work she had often to be away, to attend to her husband, and thus could not keep as close a watch as she would have liked: the result, predictably, was that her tally of sap-filled jars was a third less than she had expected. After paying the workers, she decided it wouldn't be wise to entrust the delivery of her jars to anyone else: she sent word to Kalua to come around with his oxcart.
By this time Deeti had abandoned the thought of paying for a new roof with the proceeds of her poppies: she would have been content to earn enough to provide provisions for the season, with perhaps a handful or two of cowries for other expenses. The best she could hope for, she knew, was to come away from the factory with a couple of silver rupees; with luck, depending on the prices in the bazar, she might then have two or three copper dumrees left – maybe even as much as an adhela, to spend on a new sari for Kabutri.
But a rude surprise was waiting at the Carcanna: after her gharas of opium had been weighed, counted and tested, Deeti was shown the account book for Hukam Singh's plot of land. It turned out that at the start of the season, her husband had taken a much larger advance than she had thought: now, the meagre proceeds were barely enough to cover his debt. She looked disbelievingly at the discoloured coins that were laid before her: Aho se ka karwat? she cried. Just six dams for the whole harvest? It's not enough to feed a child, let alone a family.
The muharir behind the counter was a Bengali, with heavy jowls and a cataract of a frown. He answered her not in her native Bhojpuri, but in a mincing, citified Hindi: Do what others are doing, he snapped. Go to the moneylender. Sell your sons. Send them off to Mareech. It's not as if you don't have any choices.
I have no sons to sell, said Deeti.
Then sell your land, said the clerk, growing peevish. You people always come here and talk about being hungry, but tell me, who's ever seen a peasant starve? You just like to complain, all the time khichir-michir…
On the way home, Deeti decided to stop at the bazar anyway: having hired Kalua's cart, it made no sense now to return without any provisions. As it turned out, she was able to afford no more than a two-maund sack of broken rice, thirty seers of the cheapest arhar dal, a couple of tolas of mustard oil and a few chittacks of salt. Her frugality was not lost on the shopkeeper who happened to be also a prominent seth and moneylender. What's happened-ji, O my sister-in-law? he said, with a show of concern. Do you need a few nice bright Benarsi rupees to see you through till the shravan harvest?
Deeti resisted the offer till she thought of Kabutri: after all, the girl had just a few years left at home – why make her live through them in hunger? She gave in and agreed to place the impression of her thumb on the seth's account book in exchange for six months' worth of wheat, oil and gurh. Only as she was leaving did it occur to her to ask how much she owed and what the interest was. The seth's answers took her breath away: his rates were such that her debt would double every six months; in a few years, all the land would be forfeit. Better to eat weeds than to take such a loan: she tried to return the goods but it was too late. I have your thumbprint now, said the seth, gloating. There's nothing to be done.
On the way home Deeti sat bowed with worry and forgot about Kalua's fare. By the time she remembered he was long gone. But why hadn't he reminded her? Had things come to the point where she had become an object of pity for a carrion-eating keeper of oxen?
Inevitably, word of Deeti's plight filtered across the fields to Chandan Singh, who appeared at her door with a sackful of nourishing satua. For her daughter's sake, if not her own, Deeti could not refuse, but once having accepted, nor could she shut the door on her brother-in-law with the same finality as before. After this, on the pretext of visiting his brother, Chandan Singh took to invading her home with increasing frequency. Although he had never before shown any interest in Hukam Singh's condition, he now began to insist on his right to enter the house in order to sit beside his brother's bed. But once past the door, he paid no attention to his brother and had eyes only for Deeti: even as he was entering he would brush his hand against her thigh. Sitting on his brother's bed, he would look at her and fondle himself through the folds of his dhoti; when Deeti knelt to feed Hukam Singh, he would lean so close as to brush her breasts with his knees and elbows. His advances became so aggressive that Deeti took to hiding a small knife in the folds of her sari, fearing that he might attack her, right on her husband's bed.
The assault, when it came, was not physical, but rather an admission and an argument. He cornered her inside the very room where her husband was lying supine on his bed. Listen to me, Kabutri-ki-ma, he said. You know very well how your daughter was conceived – why pretend? You know that you would be childless today if not for me.
Be quiet, she cried. I won't listen to another word.
It's only the truth. He nodded dismissively at his brother's bed. He couldn't have done it then any more than he can now. It was me; no one else. And that is why I say to you: wouldn't it be best for you to do willingly now what you did before without your knowledge? Your husband and I are brothers after all, of the same flesh and blood. Where is the shame? Why should you waste your looks and your youth on a man who cannot enjoy them? Besides, the time is short while your husband is still alive – if you conceive a son while he is still living, he will be his father's rightful heir. Hukam Singh's land will pass to him and no one will have the right to dispute it. But you know yourself that as things stand now, my brother's land and his house will become mine on his death. Jekar khet, tekar dhán – he who owns the land, owns the rice. When I become master of this house, how will you get by except at my pleasure?