Rebel Queen Read Online Free PDF Page A

the match will not go forward, no matter how eager the couple or their parents are to proceed.
    When Avani came into my chamber to help me dress for the priest’s arrival, she sat at the edge of my bed and watched me read King Lear .
    “Do you understand all of those words?”
    I nodded, since I believed that I did. Before Father and I read any play together, he explained it to me, writing out the summary so that even if I did not understand every word in English, I would know what was happening and what to expect.
    “The king was betrayed by two of his children in this story. His own family,” I said, and I knew that Avani was clever enough to understand the point I was trying to make.
    “I know you are very angry,” she said, and before I could form a reply, she added, “but you should understand something about your grandmother’s life.”
    Then Avani told me something my own mother had kept secret from me.
    “Your grandmother came from a very wealthy family. She had more servants than she could count, and half a dozen womento help her dress. She was also very beautiful. They say that men would try to sneak into her garden just to steal a glimpse of her face.”
    This, I believed. Even though meanness had hardened her eyes into sharp pieces of onyx, Grandmother was a stunning woman.
    “When she married your grandfather, her family gave him the highest dowry ever paid in Barwa Sagar. Everyone expected it to be a successful marriage. And why not? They were young and wealthy with beauty and good health. Then your grandmother fell pregnant and gave birth to a girl. Over the next five years there were two more girls.”
    “But Father has no sisters.”
    She nodded quietly, letting the implication of this sink in. “I suspect the wolves took them,” she said finally.
    The answer was so terrible that I was silent for several moments. I couldn’t imagine looking into the perfect face of a child, then tainting its milk with opium. It seemed too cruel, even for Grandmother. “Does Father know this?”
    “Yes.”
    “So he was her fourth child?”
    “No. After giving birth to her third child, your grandmother’s sister died in childbirth with a boy. By then, your grandfather despaired of ever having an heir, so when your grandmother suggested they adopt her nephew, he agreed. Her sister’s husband preferred drink to work. So the adoption benefitted everyone.”
    I fell silent again, trying to absorb this. Grandmother wasn’t my grandmother, but my great-aunt. My real grandmother was dead! I fantasized about all the things my real grandmother must have been: beautiful and sweet and patient and kind. This was why Dadi-ji didn’t love me.
    “It was two months after the adoption,” Avani continued, “thatyour grandfather took sick and died. Your grandmother went from the most envied woman in Barwa Sagar to one of the most pitied.”
    “But she didn’t have to commit sati,” I pointed out. “Her father took her back.”
    Avani folded her hands in her lap. Her eyes looked very tired. “It’s a hard life, Sita, with no friends, or money, or anyone to love you.” She was speaking of her own experience.
    “But I love you.” I wrapped my arms around her as tightly as I could. She smelled like jasmine blossoms, the same as Mother, and I felt an overwhelming need to go on hugging her. Still I pulled away. If Grandmother saw us, there would be trouble. Avani was a maid.
    She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “I pray to Durga that you will never understand what it’s like to go from great wealth to poverty, Sita. It was very devastating for your grandmother.”
    “Buddha was a Hindu prince,” I said. “A Kshatriya, like us, and he found freedom in casting off his position and embracing poverty.”
    “Because he chose it. And—more important—he was a man.A man can change his life anytime he wishes. A woman can only change her appearance.” Avani stood and handed me a white sari. Now she and I