What the Body Remembers

Satya's heart is black and dense as a stone within her. She tells herself she pities Roop, but hears laughter answering her how difficult it is to deceive yourself when you have known yourself a full forty-two years.

She has a servant summon Roop to her sitting room in the afternoon, when Sardarji has gone to a canal engineers' meeting. When she comes before her, Satya does not speak, but rises from the divan and takes Roop's chunni from her shoulders, as if in welcome, so she can study the girl. She takes Roop's chin and raises her face to the afternoon sun, willing it to blind her, but it will do her no such service. She studies Roop's features, her Pothwari skin, smooth as a new apricot beckoning from the limb of a tall tree, her wide, heavily lashed brown eyes. Unlike Satya's grey ones, they are demurely lowered, innocent.

From What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin 2000. Published by Vintage Canada.