Veiled Vows

The hotel bathroom was the size of my entire flat back in Delhi, and the marble floor was so polished I could see my own reflection staring back at me, skeptical and barefoot. I turned on the tap. Water rushed out in a perfect arc, hot, then hotter. I let it run.

Through the door, I heard Ashok unpacking. The sound of a zipper, the thud of a bag hitting the floor. He hadn't said a word to me since the airport, and that suited me fine. We'd been married for six days. I still didn't know how he took his tea.

I stepped into the shower and let the water hit the back of my neck. The pressure was obscene. This was what my mother had meant, I suppose, when she'd said, "Beta, he's not a romantic, but he's solid." Solid. Like a wall. Like something you could lean against without it moving.

I laughed, just a little, and the sound bounced off the tiles.

When I came out, wrapped in a towel that cost more than my monthly grocery budget, he was standing by the window. His back was to me. The scar on his cheek caught the light, a pale line against the brown of his skin. He was looking at the sea. We were in Goa. A honeymoon, apparently. My aunt had insisted. "You need to start right," she'd said, as if marriage were a race and the first mile determined everything.

"You're dripping on the floor," he said. Not turning around.

"It's water. It dries."

He turned then. His eyes moved over me once, quick and clinical, the way a man checks a lock or a loaded gun. Not desire. Assessment. I'd seen that look before, from men who thought they could figure me out in a single glance. They never could.

"The manager said there's a restaurant downstairs," he said. "We should eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"You should eat anyway."

I tightened the towel. "Why?"

"Because you didn't eat on the flight. You didn't eat at the airport. At this rate, you'll faint, and then I'll have to carry you, and I don't like carrying things."

I stared at him. He stared back. There was no humor in his face, no softness. Just the flat truth of a man who'd decided that feeding me was a logistical problem to be solved.

"Fine," I said. "Give me ten minutes."

He nodded and left the room. The door clicked shut behind him, and I sat down on the edge of the bed, suddenly exhausted. The bed was huge, white, untouched. We hadn't touched it. Not the way married couples were supposed to. The first night, in the hotel in Mumbai, he'd taken the sofa. The second night, same. On the third, I'd said, "You can sleep here. I won't bite." He'd looked at me for a long moment, then said, "I know." And he'd still taken the sofa.

I didn't understand him. That bothered me more than I wanted to admit.

At dinner, he ordered for both of us without asking. Fish curry, rice, some kind of greens I didn't recognize. The waiter hovered. Ashok waved him off with two fingers, a gesture so casual and commanding that the man practically bowed.

"You do that a lot," I said.

"Do what?"

"Act like you own the place."

He picked up his fork. "Habit."

"From what? Smuggling?"

His eyes flicked up. Held mine. "Who told you that?"

"My mother. She said you 'import and export.' She said it the way people say 'he has a gambling problem.'"

He chewed. Swallowed. "Your mother's not wrong."

"So it's true."

"It's a living."

I leaned back in my chair. The restaurant was half-empty, the kind of place that served overpriced seafood to tourists who didn't know better. A ceiling fan turned slowly overhead, doing nothing. The air was thick and wet.

"I'm not going to pretend I don't know what you do," I said. "But I want to be clear about something. I didn't marry you because I was in love. I married you because my family needed the money, and you needed a wife who wouldn't ask questions. That was the deal."

He set down his fork. For a moment, he just looked at me, and I felt something shift in the air, some pressure change I couldn't name.

"Good," he said. "Then we understand each other."

"I think we do."

"One thing, though."

"What?"

"You said you wouldn't ask questions. But you just did."

I opened my mouth. Closed it. He was right. I'd asked about the smuggling. I'd broken my own rule before the rice had even gone cold.

He went back to eating. I watched him. The scar, the messy hair, the way he held his fork like a tool, not a utensil. He wasn't handsome, not in the way my friends would have swooned over. But there was something there. Something hard and real. A man who'd been through things I couldn't imagine, and who'd come out the other side with his edges sharp.

I took a bite of the fish. It was good. I hated that it was good.

Later, back in the room, I sat on the balcony and smoked a cigarette I'd stolen from his pack. He didn't smoke. Or he did, but not in front of me. The pack was in his jacket pocket, and I'd lifted it while he was in the shower. Old habits.

The sea was a black smear under a black sky. No stars. Just the sound of waves and the distant thump of music from a beach shack down the road.

He came out and stood beside me. He didn't ask for the cigarette. He just stood there, looking at the water.

"I didn't know you smoked," he said.

"There's a lot you don't know."

"Fair."

I passed him the cigarette. He took it, dragged once, handed it back. The tip was wet from his mouth. I put it to my lips anyway.

"Why did you agree to this?" I asked. "The marriage. You could have found someone else. Someone easier."

"Easier isn't always better."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting."

I turned to face him. The balcony light was off, and I could barely make out his features. Just the shape of him, lean and still.

"I'm going to figure you out," I said.

"Why?"

"Because I don't like not knowing things."

He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, "You might not like what you find."

"I'll take my chances."

He nodded, slow, like he was agreeing to something bigger than the conversation. Then he went back inside. I stayed on the balcony until the cigarette burned down to my fingers, and I stubbed it out on the railing, leaving a small gray mark on the white paint.

When I finally went in, he was on the sofa. Eyes closed. Breathing even. Or pretending to.

I stood there for a minute, watching him. The scar. The messy hair. The way his hand rested on his stomach, loose and ready, even in sleep.

I got into the bed and pulled the sheet up to my chin. The ceiling fan turned. The waves crashed. And somewhere in the dark, I felt the first real thing I'd felt since the wedding: curiosity. Sharp and dangerous and completely unwelcome.

I was going to figure him out. Even if it ruined me.