Akhil Sharma

“It’s bad to hit children.” I felt silly for saying something this obvious, so I tried hiding my inanity with more words. “When I was in higher secondary, the untouchables sat in the back of the class. The teachers couldn’t slap the untouchables because then they would be touching them. The untouchables knew this and would always be talking. Sometimes the teachers became very angry, and to shut up the untouchables they threw pieces of chalk at them. And the untouchables, because all the students sat on the floor, would race around on their hands and knees, dodging the chalk.”

When I churned my arms to show how swiftly the untouchables crawled, Asha laughed and said, “My teachers only hit with rulers.”

For a week after the first murdered man, Muslim corpses began appearing everywhere. At the edge of the town I found a young woman and a boy of about eight lying a few feet apart next to a thorn fence. Both were naked and slashed all over. One of the blows had parted the skin and meat on the boy’s shoulder and I could see white, clean bone beneath. The woman’s pubic hair woke me periodically for years, because I imagined ants feeding on her. Scattered along the side of the only road which led out of town I saw the bodies of several men and one very old woman. The corpse of the midget who ran the town’s general store showed up in the back yard of an acquaintance.

Radha slapped me, and the heel of her hand struck my nose. I tasted the iron flavor of blood. She hit me again. “Dog, Disease,” she shouted. She kept slapping and cursing. “If people knew about you, they would kill you like a mad dog. They would break your head with bricks. If I told my brothers, they would cut you to pieces with a machete. Do you know what you’ve done?” I had so much adrenaline in me that I felt no emotion. Radha’s blows did not get weaker. I said nothing and did not try to protect myself. “Your own daughter, animal. What is going to happen to her now? Have you done this many times? Have you been doing this long?”