Free Bodies in Motion by Mary Anne Mohanraj

was, but she knew when it started, and when it ended. Months of carrying on, and Shanthi never said a word, to anyone. If she had written to her mother in Colombo, she knows what would have come back—written in a pale hand on fragile onionskin paper, instructions to be patient, be understanding, and perhaps to take a little more trouble with her appearance. Instead Shanthi cooked with abandoned fury, dissolving entire sticks of butter into the uppuma, tossing the rice with toasted almond oil, heaping her plate high with spicy potatoes. Ate bite after bite until her stomach felt swollen, painful, and the sweat rolled down her face. When the affair ended, she almost relented, almost gave in. Almost.
    â€œSoon. When the news is finished, I’ll come.” Let him toss and turn in the bed, hungry for relief that will not come from her. A brief, warm pleasure kindles in her stomach at the thought. Perhaps this is why she hates Aravindan most of all—because he has turned her mean and spiteful, bitter and old. When they met, Shanthi placed her hand in his, let herself be drawn down, down to the sweet green grass. She listened to his words of love and thought she had found her prince, her Rama. Later, she felt herself betrayed; she comforted herself with bitterness, thought herself trapped with an uncaring demon, a Ravana. But she finds it harder these days to disappear into either fairy tale, either fantasy.
    When Shanthi is feeling particularly fair, she doesn’t hate Aravindan at all. Sometimes, she only hates herself.
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    At the end of the story, Sita is rescued, the demon is killed, the monkey king dances in triumph. But the people demand that she die, for she is only a woman, and undoubtedly she has betrayed her husband by now. She could not live so long in a barbarian land and not open her thighs for the demon. They know that all women are faithless, in the end.
    She is lost, alone, and when Sita turns to her prince, he does not stand by her, he does not hold her up, exhausted as she is by all of these difficulties, more than any princess should bear. Rama claims to love her, to believe her—yet he gestures to the screaming crowds and says sadly that he cannot defy them. He is not an evil man, but he is, in the final analysis, weak.
    What should happen now? Should Sita walk away from her prince?
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    EVENTUALLY, SHANTHI CANNOT KEEP HER EYES OPEN ANY LONGER; she checks on the sleeping girls, then goes to her bedroom, to her marriage bed. Aravindan is long asleep, turned toward her half of the bed. She stands there, watching him sleep—then climbs under the covers and lies down with her back to him. Shanthi closes her eyes, feels the heat of Aravindan’s body beside her, slowly warming the chilled sheets. She wishes she knew how to open to him again, wonders if he could warm her. Or, if it is too late for them, wonders if there might be another path for her.
    But what would she do, without her husband, her children? Whatever else she might have been is long gone; the paths are barred by walls of thorns.
    It is late, and Shanthi knows how this story ends.
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    Sita volunteers to undergo the trial by fire, to have her virtue tested; what else can she do to keep Rama by her side? She is nothing without her husband, so what can she do, alone in a strange forest, with the sun going down?
    Sita walks into the flames, her body consumed, her spirit rising up, up, up. The princess flees home, to her sisters’ bedrooms, her mother’s arms. But they do not know her, they shriek in horror at this ghost, this pale monster. Her father might have known her, but he is long since dead. So she returns, weeping salt tears in the night, her spirit crossing the bitter sea once more. Sita returns to her burning body, walks out of the fire, cooling so quickly as she goes, untilshe is solid again, composed of ice and snow. She never knew ice until her exile began. Sita walks out of the fire, her body