A House for Happy Mothers: A Novel (25 page)

Priya smiled. “That will be the hard part. But I want to spend some time with Madhu’s—that’s my husband—his parents and the surrogate mother. I’m going to go and stay with Madhu’s parents once I leave here next week.”

“You
really
are welcome to stay here,” Mona said.

“I know, but Madhu’s parents are expecting me,” Priya said. “And his sister is going to be back from London this weekend as well. I haven’t seen her in months.”

“Isn’t family wonderful?” Mona said.

It certainly was, Priya thought. And she was going to have one of her own soon. But she knew what Mona meant. Parents, sisters, parent-in-laws . . . all these people who were part of your life and were there for you when you needed them. Madhu’s parents had been ecstatic to have Priya stay with them. Sush, well,
this
Sush—the new one—hadn’t said one vile thing about surrogacy throughout the flight and had brought her here, was going to come with her to see Asha.

When Priya didn’t respond and had a faraway look, Mona came up to her and put her hand on Priya’s. “Congratulations on your baby.”

“Thank you,” Priya said.

“Will you be visiting your surrogate?” Mona asked.

“That’s the plan,” Priya said. “Vikas has been nice to give us a car and driver for tomorrow.”

“Of course,” Mona said. “May I come along? Or would that be too weird?”

That would be too weird,
Priya thought.

“Maybe the next time we go,” Priya suggested. “It’s just that this is my first time visiting her like this, and my mother is coming along. I don’t want to upset her by bringing too many people over.”

“Oh yes, yes,” Mona said. “I understand.”

But she sounded disappointed.

“I intend to go again before I leave here. You can come along then,” Priya said. “It’s a two-hour drive, but if you’re up for it, I’d love the company.”

“I’d love to,” Mona said, and left.

Priya didn’t know what to make of Mona. She wasn’t like Romila; she didn’t seem fake, but was genuinely interested. When she said she wanted to see Asha, she wasn’t being polite but sincere, without vulgar curiosity.

She knew Indians demanded immediate intimacy. Like Madhu’s friends’ wives—they expected Priya to open up to them because their husbands were friends. Madhu’s parents who wanted her to immediately become close to them. Priya had found it unsettling but had learned to create boundaries. Madhu’s parents, no problems. The wives of friends, well, within limits.

Mona seemed different, and Priya was curious to find out why. Yes, she would take Mona with her. She’d like to get to know her better.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

They came after lunch in a big black car with a driver dressed in white clothes.

The mother wore blue pants with a white shirt. The mother’s mother wore a yellow
salwar kameez
. They looked even wealthier than she remembered.

Asha couldn’t help but envy the mother’s mother’s shoes. They were white, strappy
chappals
with silver designs on them. The mother’s mother’s toes were painted red, and her feet looked smooth and soft, unlike Asha’s, which were always dry and hard, cracked at the heels.

Asha couldn’t see the mother’s feet. She was wearing brown shoes that covered her feet completely. They were pretty shoes, too. She’d never seen shoes like that. She had only slippers, two pairs, one for inside the house and one for outside, no more. Pratap had bought the outside slippers for her two years ago when he’d gotten a bonus from a contractor for finishing a painting job quickly. Asha wondered how many slippers and shoes these women had, probably a pair for each dress they wore. The things some people could spend their money on.

Asha watched them from the window in the TV room, the one that had two panes covered in thick plastic. The windowpanes had broken when the TV people had come and were moving their equipment around. Revati had put the plastic sheets up in their place. No one was going to replace those windows, according to her, and this was the best they could expect. It wasn’t that the house was falling apart—it wasn’t. It was one of the nicest houses Asha had ever lived in, but as the mother and her mother arrived, Asha looked around and saw that it was actually quite shabby. Thin cotton sheets, faded and even torn in some places, were draped over the charpoys in the TV room. There were straw mats spread around the floor, which was where the women got together to play cards. Pillows covered in lightly stained pillowcases were spread over the mats.

The ceiling fan buzzed away while a floor fan swiveled around, its blades moving at dizzying speed. The floor fan had become a necessity as the summer months had progressed. It was always hot in July, but this had been the hottest of them all. Almost all the women had received miniature portable fans that they could put near their faces and necks when the heat was at its worst and they cut out the electricity. The clinic had a generator that came on during power cuts, but the surrogate house didn’t have such luxuries. When the current went out, everyone came out of their rooms like ants scurrying out of the walls, into the TV room or onto the veranda, which were cooler.

“Are they here?” Keertana asked. She, Gangamma, Gita, and Urmila were playing cards. The television was turned on, and a few women sat on charpoys, half lying down with their hands on their swollen bellies. Before long they would start snoring softly, sleeping.

That’s all the women really did in the house, Asha thought bitterly. They ate, they stretched a little, and then they slept. When Asha first came to the house, she thought how nice it was that they could learn how to use the computer and learn English and get some job training. But as the days had passed, she realized that the English classes were canceled most of the time, and they really didn’t learn anything about computers except how to read the tabloids and listen to songs. Even the exercises they were made to do didn’t take place every day. If Divya wasn’t feeling well or had other appointments, she wouldn’t lead the daily yoga. Nor would she teach the English class or open the computer room.

The only guarantee the women really had was that if they had a backache, Revati would give them a good and thorough massage. Even Asha had had a massage when her back was especially bad, and she had to admit she felt much better after it.

She saw the mother and her mother open the gate to the house, and she turned to face the women in the TV room. “They’re here,” Asha said.

Divya received them on the veranda, where she usually sat with her mobile phone stuck to her ear, talking in a mixture of English and Telugu to her friends. The women at the house suspected that Divya had a boyfriend, and that’s what the giggling on the phone was all about.

Asha heard Divya chat animatedly with the mother and her mother while her heart thumped. What was she supposed to do now? What on earth were they expecting from her?

“It’s after lunch so they’re all lazing around,” Divya said as she led the women in. “And soon enough they will cut the current so there will be no TV to watch. And when the fans stop working, it’s ridiculously hot—nothing more to do than take a nap.”

“Asha,” the mother called out when she saw Asha, and moved toward her, sidestepping the unoccupied mats on the floor. She took a step forward and hugged her. Asha stood stiff for a moment, then softened.

“How wonderful to see you,” the mother said, and looked at her belly, bulging out of her blue-and-white cotton sari. “Oh, your belly has grown so.”

There were tears in the mother’s eyes, and that irritated Asha. What was there to be so emotional about? Why all the drama?

“How are you feeling?” the mother asked.

“Fine,” Asha said.

“Namaskaram,”
the mother’s mother said, folding her hands and prompting Asha to do the same. “I’m Sushila; I’m Priya’s mother.” She spoke in Telugu. No accent.

“Namaskaram,”
Asha said, now very uncomfortable. All the other mothers were looking at them.

“Why don’t you sit on the veranda,” Divya suggested. “It’s always cooler there because of the trees.”

Asha walked with the mother and Sushila to the veranda, and they all sat down. This was where Asha spent every evening with her children and Pratap. She and Pratap would watch Mohini and Manoj run around the tulasi plant in the center of the yard or the small bushes. Sometimes they would go around the side of the house and look wistfully up at the tall mango trees that surrounded the house, which they couldn’t yet climb. Visiting hours were the best time of Asha’s day, and every time she looked at the veranda, it was with joy, a feeling of remembered pleasure. But now she was here with these women and she felt no pleasure whatsoever, just a heavy sense of burden.

The mother opened her bag quickly and brought out a small box. “This is for you,” she said. “I didn’t know what else to get you, but . . . I thought . . . maybe you’ll like it.”

Asha saw the small blue box and frowned. She opened it and gasped; there were little pearl earrings inside: a big pearl, and from there hung three smaller ones.

“Do you like them?” the mother asked.

“I can’t take this,” Asha said in shock. These were real pearls; even she could see that. These things cost money.

“You don’t like them?” the mother asked.

“No, they’re beautiful,” Asha said. “But so expensive and—”

“Please, they’re nothing,” the mother said, as if buying jewelry was like buying mangoes at the fruit stall. “You must take them.”

Asha reluctantly accepted the gift, a part of her admittedly giddy to own something so beautiful.

“How are you feeling?” Sushila asked.

“I’m fine,” Asha said. “Doctor Swati takes good care of me.” She felt like a puppet, still speaking to the TV people.

“We saw the clinic,” Sushila said. “It’s nice.”

“Swati Atha has worked so hard to make all this happen,” Divya said.

Asha had expected Divya to leave them alone, but she sat with them, keeping watch just as she had done when they’d made the TV show, as if making sure Asha didn’t say anything untoward.

“Maybe in a bit you can give us a tour of the house, Asha,” Sushila said, as if ignoring Divya, and Asha liked her for that.

“And we were hoping we would have a chance to meet your family,” the mother said.

“Why?” Asha asked before she could stop herself.

The mother looked flustered.

But Sushila just smiled. “We have some presents for your children and husband, and we just wanted to see them and say hello. Will that be OK?”

She seemed so nice, Asha thought, the mother’s mother. Compared to the mother, Sushila was definitely more Indian and spoke Telugu so well.

“If it’s OK with you, that is,” the mother tacked on, as if suddenly realizing that Asha might take issue with their meeting her family.

That was it, Asha understood; the mother was completely fake, and this was why she had never liked her. Sushila, on the other hand, seemed genuine.

“No, no,” Asha said. “They will come at four. That’s when they can visit. You can visit anytime, but they can only come at four, and for just one hour. That’s the visiting time.”

She didn’t want it to sound like an accusation, like they were getting preferential treatment, but that’s how it came out.

“Well, it’s nearly three,” Sushila said, looking at her wristwatch. “We can wait. Do you want to try on the earrings and see how they look?”

Asha was the one who felt flustered now, but she removed her small gold studs, the ones that her parents have given her when she got married. They were quite small and had more copper than gold, but they were her only pieces of jewelry, besides her two gold bangles and
mangalsutra
, the necklace that a husband ties around a woman’s neck to make her his wife, and she treasured them.

She put her gold studs inside the box with the pearl earrings and put the other earrings on, slowly, savoring the smooth, cool feel of the pearls as she closed the gold clasp.

“They look lovely,” Divya said with a loud clap.

“Here,” Sushila said, and pulled out a small mirror from her purse.

Asha saw that her face was slightly pinched, as it was when she was irritated, but the pearl earrings brightened her appearance nonetheless.

“They’re beautiful,” Asha said, breathless at the sight of such lovely jewelry on her ears. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” the mother said, sounding very pleased with herself. Her voice grated on Asha’s nerves.

“You should keep them on,” Sushila said. “They look good on you.”

Asha closed the box with her studs, holding it close to her swollen belly.

“Maybe you can show us where you sleep,” the mother suggested. “And then you can put your earrings away as well.”

They all walked through the TV room to the hallway that took them to the seven small rooms that lined up one after the other. Six of the rooms were on either side of the hallway, and the seventh room, which was big enough for four women, was at the end of the hallway.

“We saw other surrogate houses before we built this,” Divya told Sushila and the mother. “And there, all the women stay in one big room, which is just full of beds and nothing else. We didn’t want that. We wanted to keep the women comfortable. We think privacy is very important; these women are away from their home and families, and they need some space for themselves.”

“When was this house built?” Sushila asked when they came to Asha’s room.

Asha wished she could open the small, rickety window because the room smelled. She put the box with her studs inside the trunk that was under her bed and then stood uncomfortably, her hands twisting her
pallu
nervously. What did they want from her? she thought in near desperation.

“Seven years ago,” Divya said.

Sushila looked around the room. “Just seven years? It looks much older.”

“Oh, we haven’t had time to . . . you know . . . spruce it up. We have so many women here all the time that we just haven’t had time,” Divya said while she worried her lower lip.

Divya was embarrassed, Asha thought with a little glee.

“Still,” Sushila said. “It doesn’t have to look like a refugee camp, you know. Maybe we’ll get a chance to talk to your aunt about it.”

The mother said something to her mother in English. She called her Mummy, Asha noticed.

“No, no, it’s OK,” Divya said in English as well.

Asha felt left out and relieved. Maybe they’d just talk to one another in English the rest of the day and keep her out of it.

“We have a computer room next to the kitchen,” Divya said, as if to make up for the dirty walls and ill-kempt house, and took them for a tour of the computer room. But the mother was not impressed, it seemed.

“This is nice, but just two computers?” she asked.

“Well, we don’t need more than that,” Divya said defensively.

“Can we sit outside again?” Sush said in Telugu, her displeasure evident.

They all walked out again, going through the television room, with all the pregnant women in the room looking at them.

“Does the baby kick a lot?” the mother asked when they settled back in the chairs and charpoys on the veranda.

“Yes,” Asha said. She paused for a moment, and then said, “Would you like to feel?”

The mother nodded.

“OK, next time she kicks, I’ll let you know,” Asha said. She hadn’t wanted to offer this, but the mother seemed so pathetic that she couldn’t help but feel some pity for the woman.

She might have money and she could buy Asha earrings, but she could never have a baby. She would never know how this felt, never feel that closeness to a baby when you gave birth to it, never hold it as soon as it was born. It made Asha feel a little sympathy for the mother, even as it made her feel like a better woman for knowing what it meant to be a
real
mother.