The Space Between Us (11 page)

D
r. Mehta is a tall, stooped man with droopy, sad eyes and a disconcerting habit of not making eye contact with Maya when he speaks about her. Instead, he addresses his questions to Sera.

“So how is she feeling?” he asks.

Sera glances at Maya, who seems intent on gazing at a particular spot on her feet. “Fine,” she says at last. “I mean, all of us will feel better when—”

“I know, I know,” the doctor says hurriedly. He rises to his feet. “Well, not to worry, Mrs. Dubash. We’ll have this little matter resolved in no time.” He turns to face Maya for the first time since they have been in his office. “Um, follow me, please,” he says, as he rises from his chair. “The clinic is this way.”

The girl gets up also and looks at Sera. For the first time this morning, Maya looks scared. Her eyes are wide, and there is a film of sweat on her upper lip. Sera’s heart lurches in sympathy. She reaches out to comfort the girl, but Maya takes her hand and holds on tight to it. “You come with me,” she whispers fiercely. “I don’t want to be in there all alone.”

Sera stares at her in horror. Being in the room when the fetus is removed is the last thing she wants to do. She feels revulsion rising in the back of her throat. Don’t put me in this position, she thinks. This is much more than what I bargained for.

Before she can speak, Dr. Mehta sails to her rescue. “Nonsense, girl,” he says. “Nobody is allowed back there except the staff and the patient. Relatives have to wait in the waiting room. And why uselessly you’re getting scared and all? We’ll extract this baby faster than you can extract a tooth.”

Both Sera and Maya flinch at this comparison. As the two women exchange a look, Sera pats Maya on her right arm. “Don’t be scared,” she says. “I’ll be waiting right here for you.”

Sera sits in the waiting room, reading an old issue of
Eve’s Weekly
. There are only two other women in the room, and neither of them tries to make eye contact with her. Both appear to be in their late forties, and their fine saris and gold jewelry tell Sera that they come from money. She wonders what their stories are. Probably here to take care of their college-age daughters. There is no limit to what money can buy, she thinks. Everything from silk sheets to an abortion in a beautiful, sunlit private clinic. Then she catches herself. You, too, are here because you have money, she reminds herself. And she is grateful to Viraf’s friend for arranging this appointment. How different things would’ve been if Maya had had to go to a government hospital. Sera has heard stories about doctors making lewd jokes about fallen women, slipping their hands up women’s private parts for their own gratification under the guise of a medical exam. And most of those women, too ignorant to know what was happening and too poor to protest even if they did. She shudders at the thought of Maya in one of those places.

Sera glances at her watch and realizes she’d forgotten to see what time they took Maya in. She has no idea how long the procedure will take or—and here she feels a jolt of apprehension—what condition Maya will be in when they’re done. Should’ve asked more questions, she chastises herself. But then she remembers Dr. Mehta’s long, sad-eyed face. Not the kind of man you can chitchat with.

Conjuring up Dr. Mehta makes her remember the expression on Maya’s face as the doctor escorted her into the back room. How tiny, how scared the girl looked. Not so different from the orphan who had arrived at her doorstep with Bhima almost ten years earlier. Children today, Sera sighs. Still a child herself and here was Maya, pregnant with another. Well, at least it would all be over soon. Despite her unease at being here, Sera has no doubt that what they are doing is the right thing. If Maya is to have a chance, this is where her baby’s story must end, here in this elegant clinic.

She must’ve dozed off, because now a nurse in a starched uniform is standing over her, softly saying her name. “Mrs. Dubash?” the nurse says. “Your patient is ready to see you.”

Maya looks pale and small in her hospital bed. Her eyes glitter with tears when Sera approaches. “Well,” she says before Sera can say anything, “all of you will be satisfied now. My baby is dead.”

Sera flinches. She feels her temper flare and tries to check it before it turns into words she will regret. The girl has just been through a trauma, she reminds herself. Be gentle with her. When she speaks, her voice is empty of anger. “Unfortunately, there was no other option, Maya,” she says. “But I can imagine that you feel sad. How are you feeling physically, girlie?”

Maya begins to sob. “I don’t know,” she says. “I’m hurting a lot. But the nurse said they will give me some pills for the pain. She said I will be fine in two-three days.”

Dr. Mehta approaches the bed and signals for Sera to follow him out of the room. His eyes look even more droopy and sad than before. “There was a lot of blood,” he says. “Happens sometimes. So there may be some cramping. And the girl may feel weak for a few days. If you think the family can afford it, I’ll order a tonic.”

“Please do,” Sera says promptly. “Don’t worry about the cost, Doctor. I want this child to have the best of everything.”

Dr. Mehta smiles slightly, and Sera is amazed at how much it transforms his face. “Good,” he says. “Good. Listen, Mrs. Dubash, I’m going to keep the girl here for a few more hours before I send her home. If you would like to—That is, if you have shopping to do or something, you can come back for her in a few hours. Get some lunch for yourself, also.”

When Sera returns a few hours later, she has purchased a new salwar khamez for Maya. She has also picked up the tonic that Dr. Mehta prescribed and bought a pineapple and some bananas and oranges. The girl will need to eat right for the next few days. And she will give Bhima money to buy coconut water daily to help Maya’s insides heal.

Maya is sitting up and waiting for Sera. Her hair is combed, and perched on her hospital bed, she reminds Sera of a neatly tied brown paper package waiting for someone to claim it. “Ready?” she asks, and Maya drops off the bed with a soft grunt.

Outside, Sera notices how gingerly Maya walks and feels a twinge of sympathy. “How is the pain?” she asks, but the girl simply shrugs, her face impassive.

They look around for a taxi. “Let’s go back to my place, okay?” Sera says. “I’ll let Bhima out early to take you home.”

Maya’s blank face is suddenly animated. “No, Serabai,” she says. “I would—I—that is, just drop me off at the bus stop near the basti. I’m tired. I’d rather go home and rest and wait for Ma-ma to get home.”

“Maya, be reasonable. How are you going to walk from the bus stop to the basti? I can tell you’re in pain.” Please don’t ask me to escort you inside the slum, she thinks.

“I’ll be okay, Serabai. Really. I…I’m just anxious to go home and lie down. Please.”

Sera feels something tight within her suddenly give way. She exhales. She is tired of assuming responsibility for this stubborn girl. She is tired of fighting, of holding herself against Maya’s obstinacies and rudeness. Surrender feels so much lighter and lovelier.

“Okay,” she says. “If that’s what you want. I’ll let Bhima out early, as soon as I get home.”

A cab slows down near them, and Sera flags it. Maya leans against the door and stares resolutely out the window. They ride the rest of the way in utter silence.

T
wo months have gone by, Bhima thinks, and still the girl won’t come to life. Maya sits in their mud hut day after day, like a big stone statue of a god. But unlike a god, Maya doesn’t look wrathful or vengeful or joyous. She does not scowl like Kali or smile sweetly like Krishna. Rather, she sits stone-faced, as if the abortion doctor has killed more than her baby, as if he has also cleaned out her insides, has scooped out her beating heart just as Bhima scoops the fibrous innards of the red pumpkin that Serabai puts in her daal. Whatever it is that makes human beings laugh and dance and hope and love and pray, whatever it is that separates youth from old age, life from death, Maya has lost that. And Bhima, unable to steal, purchase, or borrow it for her granddaughter, feels strongly the weight of her poverty and age and illiteracy. If I were educated, she thinks, I would know what to do. I would find the cure in a book; I would know who to consult—a doctor or a priest or a teacher. But how can I cure a disease that I can’t name?

Soon after the abortion, Bhima had urged Maya to resume her education, but the girl had turned on her with such ferocity that Bhima’s words had become dry leaves in her mouth. Same thing when she broached the subject of Maya’s finding part-time employment. And truth to tell, Bhima didn’t pursue that with the same urgency with which she asked her grandchild to consider returning to college. It was too late to get the job at Banubai’s place anyway.
The new day nurse, Edna, was able to work longer hours than the previous one, and Serabai had hired Edna shortly after Maya had stopped showing up for work. And the thought of Maya working in the homes of strangers made the muscles in Bhima’s stomach clench. Working for Serabai, it was easy to pretend that they were simply helping out a family member in need. But the thought of her granddaughter doing the backbreaking work that she did was painful for Bhima. That had been the whole point of sending Maya to college—that she could build a different destiny for herself.

Tonight, the atmosphere in the darkened house, made oppressive by Maya’s dreary presence, is too much for Bhima to take. “Did you bathe today?” she asks and is gratified to see the insulted look on her granddaughter’s face as she nods yes. There is hope, she thinks. The girl is not so far gone that her vanity is crushed.

That faint hope propels her to action. She turns off the stove she had lit just a second ago. “Get dressed,” she says. “We’re going to the seaside. We’ll eat some panipuri or bhel there. No dinner at home tonight.”

Maya stares at her for a second, and then a light comes into her eyes. Watching her granddaughter scramble to her feet, Bhima feels a pang of guilt. She should’ve thought of this a long time ago. Sitting alone all day in this miserable place—no wonder Maya has turned to stone. Bhima curses herself for being so old that she has forgotten what a teenage girl needs—fresh air, a change of venue, the company of others, the opportunity to wear new clothes and put some kaajal on her eyes. She herself has become a machine, existing only to work and earn a salary, needing only enough food and water to keep her parts oiled and functioning. And how can a machine know the thoughts and needs of a young woman? she chastises herself. How can you know what a young, red heart, throbbing with life and desire, feels like? No wonder the poor girl sits at home like a shriveled raisin all day.

They walk to the seaside in a companionable silence. As they approach the water, they can hear the ocean pounding the rocks, and as a faint mist rises from the rocks, it kisses their faces in welcome. Maya grins, a sudden, effortless grin that reminds Bhima of the seven-year-old she had brought back from Delhi. “The sea is talking,” Maya says, and watching her granddaughter’s happy, guileless face, Bhima feels hope rising in her like sea mist.

“That’s what your grandfather used to say,” she replies. “We used to love coming here with your ma and your uncle Amit when they were children.”

Maya’s face turns wistful as it does every time Bhima mentions another member of their vanished family. “Tell me,” she says. “Tell me about those days.”

Bhima frowns, as she reflexively does when she remembers the past. She sifts through her memories, as if she is sifting through the rice at Serabai’s house, removing the stones and the hard pieces, leaving behind what’s good and shiny. “We came here every Saturday,” she says. “All four of us. When your ma was little, Gopal would carry her. Not like the other mens—expecting their women to do all the work. Your da-da was not like those men.”

“What was Ma like? When she was little, I mean.” Maya’s voice is breathless, and hearing her eagerness, Bhima’s heart wobbles a bit.

“Your ma?” She laughs. “Your ma was like you when you were little—thin as a stick but as strong as one. Intelligent, too. Knew her mind from the day she was born. I remember, after I’d finish feeding her my milk, if I didn’t pull her off my titties right away, she’d bite me. Even with no teeth, with those little gums, ae Bhagwan, she could bite. She was a little fighter from the day she was born, that one.”

They laugh. But Bhima notices that the girl is panting a bit from the walk, and she pulls her to the cement ledge that runs along the sea. “Let’s sit for a minute,” she says. “My legs are getting tired.”
But inwardly she worries about Maya. It is not right that a girl of seventeen should be breathless after such a short walk. It is a sign that all is not right with Maya, and Bhima resolves to ask Serabai for the name of some strength tonic for the girl. No matter how much it costs, she will give it to Maya for at least a month. No amount of money is too much for this girl, Bhima thinks, and the gust of love she feels at that moment is strong enough to knock her off this cement ledge and into the sea.

Suddenly, she feels the desire to share the past with Maya. This is her inheritance after all, this currency of memories that Bhima carries around with her in an invisible sack. Perhaps the moment has come to share the inheritance with the girl, before the passage of time devalues it completely.

“There used to be a balloon seller here,” she says. “An old Afghani, a Pathan. A tall, dignified man. The children loved him. He used to make the most wonderful designs out of his balloons for them. Gopal would make chitchat with him—ask him how business was, where he lived in Bombay—but, but I never did. I don’t know why I never spoke to him, but I didn’t. I wish now that I had. I wanted so much to ask him—things.”

“What things?” Maya whispers. Her face glistens with anticipation, like it does each time Bhima throws morsels of memory at her.

“Things like how he could bear to be so far away from his homeland, whether he missed his family, where his wife was. Because I knew he was all alone here in Bombay town. It was in his eyes, you see. Lonely as this sea, they were. I could see that in his eyes but still I didn’t say anything.”

Maya misunderstands. She puts one hand around her grandmother. “That’s okay, Ma-ma,” she says. “I’m sure the Pathani man was all right.”

Bhima shakes her head impatiently. “No, that’s not why. I mean, I was concerned about him, but that’s not why I regret not asking.”
She lowers her voice until she is whispering. “You see, I think he could’ve helped me …face what was to come later in my own life. He had the secret, see? The secret of loneliness. How to live with it, how to wrap it around your body and still be able to make beautiful, colorful things, like he did with those balloons. And he could’ve taught it to me, if only I’d asked.”

They stare at each other for a moment, their faces naked and hungry. Then Maya begins to weep. “I’m sorry, Ma,” she says. “I’m sorry to be one more burden in your life. I know what your life has been like, and I never wanted…”

The other people sitting on the wall are looking at them, openly curious, shamelessly eavesdropping. Bhima glares at a young man sitting next to Maya and then pulls her granddaughter to her feet. “Let’s walk,” she mutters. “Too many people with elephant ears here.”

As they walk, Bhima takes Maya’s hand in hers. The softness of her granddaughter’s hand never fails to thrill her. It is a source of pride to her, this hand, because Bhima has paid for this softness with her own sweat. She remembers her own hands at seventeen—hard and callused from working as a servant from the time she was a child. Ruined from a lifetime of handling the sharp, pointed bristles of the broom, of dipping her hands in ash to scour pots and pans until they sparkled. Maya has escaped that fate. So far. Bhima rubs her thumb on the back of Maya’s hand as if she is fondling a piece of velvet.

“Ma-ma, don’t.” Maya giggles through her tears. “It tickles.”

“Always ticklish, you were.” Bhima smiles. “Always. I just had to look at you and you’d wriggle like a fish. When I first got you back from Delhi, I used to take you to Serabai’s with me all day while I worked. As shy and scared as you were then, it was the only way to make you smile. Serabai would tickle you and you would laugh.”

“Ma,” Maya says suddenly. “You never really told me. What was it like when you got to Delhi?”

Bhima tenses. A closed, guarded look falls like a trapdoor on her face. “No point in bringing up the past,” she says in a choked voice. “Bad enough to have lived through it, without remembering it all over again. Anyway, it’s nothing a young girl like you needs to know.”

“You can’t protect me forever, Ma-ma,” Maya replies. “I need to know. After all, this concerns me. These were my own parents—my baba and my ma.” Seeing the stubborn look on her grandmother’s face, Maya adds, “This is not just your property, Ma. This belongs to me, too. Just because it’s in your possession doesn’t mean it’s yours alone. By not telling, you’re stealing something from me.”

Bhima’s face is set in stone. Seeing this, Maya’s own face turns crafty. “I know how they died, Ma-ma,” she whispers. “I know they died of AIDS.”

Bhima wishes they had just stayed at home tonight. This night air, this whispering sea, this anonymity as they walk among thousands of strangers are making Maya ask questions she would normally not ask. She looks around for a food vendor, hoping the girl will be distracted by the smell of roasted peanuts or battatawadas being fried.

“You hungry?” she asks, but the girl doesn’t answer. Maya’s lower chin is jutting out, and she has the look she used to get while working on a tough accounting problem. Suddenly, she asks, “Why did Ma and Baba leave you here and move to Delhi?”

“Because your baba was the best truck driver at his company. When his boss retired to Delhi, he took your baba with him to be his private car driver.”

Maya considers this. “Maybe if they hadn’t moved to Delhi, they wouldn’t have gotten…sick.”

Bhima is unsure how to respond to this. “God’s will,” she says
feebly. Then, feeling the need to defend her son-in-law, “Raju was a good man. He loved you and Pooja very much.”

Maya is not appeased. “I’m glad I was born in Bombay,” she declares suddenly. “I’m a Bombay girl at heart. Ma missed the city, too, I remember.”

Bhima nods warily, bracing herself for more questions. She doesn’t wait long.

“Did Grandpa and Amit come for the wedding?” Maya now asks and, when Bhima shakes her head no, “Why not?”

“Because your mother didn’t invite them,” Bhima says shortly.

She skips past that long-ago argument with Pooja. “It’s not as if your father is dead,” she’d pleaded. “Can you imagine what people will say—a girl whose father is alive prefers to get married without him present at the wedding?”

But Pooja would not budge. “Let those same people also remember how he crept out on us,” she cried. “You forget, Ma—we didn’t leave him; he left us. Why should he come back now, to do all his fake herogiri for one day and charm everyone? What will he do for us besides dress like a film hero and eat our food? Besides, you yourself said—you’re my mother and my father.”

Remembering, Bhima picks up her pace, and Maya scampers to keep up with her. Bhima feels the girl’s eyes on her, assessing her, gauging her mood. She struggles to swallow the taste of sour curds that suddenly fills her mouth. “She should’ve,” Maya now says. “Ma should’ve invited Grandfather to her wedding. If I ever got married, I’d invite Grandfather. And Uncle Amit,” she adds, in an appeasing voice.

Bhima hears the appeasement and knows that the girl means well. But Maya’s reference to marriage reminds her again that the girl is damaged goods, and she can’t keep the irritation out of her voice. “Forget about marriage,” she says harshly. “You just think of college, nothing else.”

Maya flinches. Bhima hates herself for hurting the girl in this manner, but she is also relieved that her words have snuffed out her granddaughter’s questions. They walk in a guarded silence for a few minutes.

“Let’s get some bhel,” Bhima says finally. “You need to eat some food.” They both know this is her way of calling for a truce.

Maya’s soft hand reaches out for Bhima’s. “I’m just glad you took me in, when Ma and Baba died,” she says unexpectedly. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if it wasn’t for you.”

This girl is like her grandfather, Bhima thinks. She can pierce my heart with words the size of a mosquito. To cover up her emotions, Bhima smacks Maya lightly on the arm. “Silly girl,” she says gruffly. “Of course, I took you in. You’re my blood, aren’t you? What did you think I was going to do with you—sell you to the junk man? Or donate you to the circus?”

Maya smiles. “Wonder what the junk man would’ve paid for me.”

“Five paise. And even that would’ve been too much for a silly girl like you.”

They walk along the crowded footpath, their fingers loosely linked together. After a few minutes, Maya tilts her head and rests it on her grandmother’s shoulder. “Ma-ma,” she says, in her most beguiling tone, and Bhima tenses, bracing herself for another round of questioning.

But Maya says only, “Ma-ma. I’m hungry. But can we get panipuri instead of bhel?”