Just as when preparing a case, she sketched the broad outline of her attack. She would say nothing to anyone. No one at work must find out. The news would be a bombshell to the team and, worse still, the clients. It would provoke needless anxiety. Sarah was a pillar of the practice, she was built into its foundations, she must stand strong, or the whole edifice would subside. And nor did she want their pity, their compassion. Yes, she was ill, but that was no reason for her life to change. She would be highly organized, no one would suspect a thing. She would invent a secret code in her diary, to cover her hospital appointments; she would justify her absences. She would need to be creative, methodical, sly. Like the heroine of a spy novel, Sarah would wage war underground. Like a secret extra-marital affair, she would arrange to keep her illness out of sight. She knew how to do that, how to compartmentalize her life, she’d had years of practice. She would build the wall higher still, and higher again. She had kept her pregnancies hidden, she would do the same for her cancer. It would be her secret baby, her illegitimate child, its existence utterly unsuspected. Invisible, inadmissible.

Sarah returned to the office and got straight back to work. Imperceptibly, she watched for her colleagues’ reactions, their looks, their tone of voice. No one had noticed a thing, she saw with relief.

No: she did not have the word ‘cancer’ branded across her forehead, no one could see she was ill.

Inside, she was in pieces, but she would never let it show.

Smita

Badlapur, Uttar Pradesh, India

Leave.

The thought had come to Smita like a command from heaven. They must leave Badlapur.

Lalita would not go back to school. The teacher had beaten her because she had refused to sweep the floor in front of her classmates. Later, the same children would be farmers, and her daughter would empty their latrines. There could be no question of that. Smita would not allow it. She remembers what Mahatma Gandhi said once, a doctor at the dispensary in the next village had told her about it one time: no one should have to clear away human excreta bare-handed.

It seemed that the Mahatma had declared the status of ‘Untouchable’ illegal, unconstitutional, a violation of human rights, but nothing had changed since. Most of the Dalits accepted their lot without protest. Others converted to Buddhism to escape the caste system, like Babasaheb, the spiritual leader of the Dalits. Smita has heard of the huge ceremonies at which thousands of people change their religion. The movement was seen as a threat to authority, and anti-conversion laws had even been introduced. Candidates for conversion must obtain a permit or be prosecuted. A cruel irony: you might as well ask your gaoler for permission to escape.