After the Aarti, Still Silk

The marigold garlands on the idol were still fresh — orange and gold, strung that morning by her mother's hands, fragrant in a way that made the small room feel sealed from the rest of the night. The dhak drums had gone quiet twenty minutes ago, maybe thirty. The last of the relatives had moved toward the street, toward tea and laughter and the long walk home. Priya had said she needed a moment. No one had asked why.

She sat on the stone floor with her back against the wooden cabinet that held the extra ghee lamps, and the cold of the stone came through the petticoat immediately — a clean shock against the backs of her thighs that the kanjeevaram's heavy silk could not prevent. The saree had been on her body for eleven hours. The zari border had stiffened with the day's humidity, and the pleats across her lap held their pressed shape even now, formal and obedient, as though the fabric had its own sense of occasion.

The oil lamp on the altar threw a low amber light across the idol's face. Durga's eyes were painted open, as they always were, as they would remain until visarjan. Priya looked at them directly. She had been looking at them, off and on, since she was seven years old, and she had never once felt watched in the way people described. She felt, if anything, seen. There was a difference.

The incense had burned to ash but the sandalwood was still in the air, caught in the silk of her saree, caught in her hair. She pressed the back of her right hand against the inside of her forearm and the skin there was damp, warm, and the contact made something low in her stomach pull tight in a way that had nothing to do with the ceremony and everything to do with the fact that she was finally, finally alone.

She had been carrying this since the afternoon. Since the priest's chanting had gone on and the crowd had pressed close and the heat had built under six yards of silk and she had stood very still with her knees together, breathing slowly, aware of the specific weight of the fabric across her thighs in a way that felt almost architectural. The wanting had no object. It was just a pressure, and the pressure had been building for hours, and now there was no one left to perform stillness for.

Her right hand moved to the edge of the pallu where it crossed her shoulder. She did not pull it yet. She held the fabric between her fingers — the silk dense and cool on one side, body-warm on the other — and she let herself sit in the moment before. The oil lamp. The marigolds. The idol's open eyes.

A sound came out of her that she had not planned — shorter than a breath, swallowed almost before it arrived, the kind of sound that meant her body had already made a decision her mind was still pretending to consider.

She exhaled slowly. The pleats across her thighs held their shape.

Her left hand pressed flat against the floor beside her, steadying. Her right hand was still.