She also noted the grandmother — the one hundred and three year old woman, which would make her born in approximately 1921. If accurate, she would have been twenty-six years old in 1947. She would have been in this village in August of 1947. She would have been here during whatever had happened that the historical reference note called "civil disturbance resulting in mass casualty."
Meera looked at the old woman. The old woman continued to look at nothing that was visible.
"Can I speak with her?" Meera said. "Your grandmother."
Birju was quiet for a moment. Then: "She doesn't speak much. In the ordinary way." He looked at his grandmother. "You can try."
Meera moved closer to the old woman. She sat on the ground near her and said, gently, in the dialect she could speak minimally but follow well enough: "Amma. You have lived here a long time."
The old woman turned her head. Slowly. The way very old people turned — the full engagement of the movement, the deliberateness of it. She looked at Meera with eyes that were still clear. Not rheumy, not clouded. Clear, and deep, and looking at something that was specifically Meera and not the space around her.
"You came to count," the old woman said. Her voice was very quiet. It required leaning in to hear. "They always came to count. The British came to count. Now you come to count."
"Yes," Meera said. "It's the census."
