The Space Between Us (2 page)

S
era Dubash glances at the basket of onions hanging near the window and then at the large kitchen clock. Late again. Bhima is late again. She really needs to talk to Bhima about this daily tardiness. After all, she, Sera, is responsible for packing Dinaz’s and Viraf’s lunches on time each morning, and she needs Bhima here to help her. Yesterday, both children left for work ten minutes later than they should have because their lunches were not ready. Sera had to plead with Viraf not to speed, to drive with care, to remember that his wife was expecting their first baby. “Yah, yah, Mamma,” Viraf had smiled, giving Sera a quick peck on the cheek. “We all know that Dinaz’s tummy has the words Handle with Care tattooed on it.”

Remembering her daughter’s pregnancy makes Sera think of Maya, and she feels a wave of remorse at her earlier resolution to chastise Bhima. Poor Bhima, she thinks. As if life has not been hard enough, now even her granddaughter has to add to her woes. Who would have guessed that a good girl like Maya could be up to such mischief? She wonders what happened at Maya’s college yesterday, and her impatience to find out the latest news from Bhima makes her glance at the clock again.

Sera sighs. If there’s one thing she hates, it’s chopping onions, but if the children’s omelets are to be made in time, she’d better get down to the task. No telling when Bhima may show up today.
She reaches for a medium-sized onion, and by the time she has peeled the translucent skin, her eyes begin to water. She reaches for the biggest knife in the drawer. Better to get the task over with as quickly as possible. Years ago, Feroz had come up behind her as she worked in the kitchen and said, “My God, Sera. You chop onions like you’re chopping heads. Such vehemence.”

“I’d rather chop heads than onions,” she’d replied. “I’d probably cry less.” And Feroz had laughed. That was in the old days, before she lost her ability to make Feroz laugh.

Sera hears Viraf whistling tunelessly in his bedroom, and the sound makes her smile. She can imagine her young, handsome sonin-law standing before the full-length mirror, adjusting his tie, running a careless hand through his thick hair. There is something wonderful about the sound of a man getting ready to face the day, Sera thinks. Unlike Feroz, Viraf is noisy and makes his presence felt. He drops his hairbrush and murmurs a soft “Damn”; he sings old Beatles songs in the shower; he gargles vigorously while brushing his teeth; he yells to Dinaz for a new bottle of shampoo; he walks noisily into the kitchen with shaving cream on his face and a towel around his waist. Feroz had lived like a thief in his own house, getting fully dressed in the bathroom before he emerged and then walking out of the bedroom without a second look in the mirror.

Sera cracks two eggs, beats them in a bowl, and adds onions, garlic, cilantro, and a pinch of chili powder to the mix. The mixture sizzles as it touches the hot oil in the frying pan. One down, one more omelet to go. She wonders whether she should make two more omelets for herself and Bhima, but the thought of chopping more onions gives her pause. Maybe she will make garlic omelets for the two of them. She reaches for the bread box and then remembers: no starch. This all-protein diet that both Viraf and Dinaz are on makes planning lunch difficult. She looks in the fridge to see what else to pack for the children.

“God, Mummy, thanks so much. I wish you’d told me, though—I could’ve chopped the onions for you,” Dinaz says, walking into the kitchen.

“And gone to work smelling like a Parsi restaurant?” Sera smiles. “No, if you really want to help me, tell me what else to pack for you, deekra. One egg is just not enough…”

“It’s more than enough. Really.”

“Arre, Dinaz, one egg may be enough for you but not for your hubby, beta,” Sera says. “I mean, this is a grown man, who works hard at a demanding job.”

Dinaz makes a face. “Oh yah, only your beloved son-in-law works hard, the poor thing. Your useless daughter, on the other hand, kills flies all day at work.”

“Now, Dinaz, I only said…”

Sera hears Viraf’s footsteps and smells the Old Spice before she sees him. “Corrrect,” Viraf says as he enters the kitchen. “Mamma is cent percent correct. Chalo, at least there’s one person at home who appreciates me and how hard I work to support my family and my child to be.”

Dinaz hits him hard on his arm. “Shut up, yaar. A spoiled brat, that’s what Mummy’s made you, that’s all. Promotion time we’ll see who gets the bigger raise.” Her smile takes the sting out of her words.

Viraf shrugs and rolls his eyes. “That’s because she has an unfair advantage, Mamma. That poor Mr. Dalal is so bewitched by my lovely wife’s looks and figure, how can he refuse her anything? Turns into a pudding every time he has to address her. And next to these feminine wiles, what chance does a poor, decent, simple man like me—with a face like a custard apple—what chance do I stand?”

The two women laugh. “Look at him, Mummy. Fishing for more compliments,” Dinaz says.

Sera smiles as the couple head back into their bedroom to finish
dressing. She is so glad that the trouble that had flared like a match between them a few months ago seems to have died down. From the day Viraf and Dinaz moved in with her after Feroz’s death, she had vowed never to interfere in their marriage. After all, who knew better than she how poisonous an interfering mother-in-law can be to a marriage? But still, it had been hard to keep her mouth shut when she noticed the thin lines that had formed around Dinaz’s pale, narrow face. She had to bite down on her tongue when Viraf snapped at his pregnant wife at the dinner table or said something so sarcastic that it took Dinaz a moment to look up from her plate, needing that pause to collect her composure, to arrange her face into a blank mask. How well Sera knew that look. How many times had she willed her eyes not to fill with tears at one of Feroz’s snubs, not to allow her mother-in-law, Banu, the satisfaction of knowing that her son had drawn blood. At least Viraf doesn’t beat her, she would console herself and then hate herself for the weakness of that thought, for having lowered her standards so much that lack of physical abuse had become her definition of a good marriage. She wanted so much more than that for her only child.

Now, looking at Dinaz’s retreating form, Sera smiles in quiet satisfaction. Whatever trouble had blown between the children like a dark wind, they had resolved it. Viraf and Dinaz once again had the bantering, teasing relationship they’d always had, the one that told Sera they were friends first and husband and wife second. Even in the early days with Feroz, when he looked at her as if she were a star that had dropped from heaven, she had never known the casual, egalitarian spontaneity that her daughter shared with her husband. In the early days, Feroz had been gallant, courteous, loving even—but always formal. For instance, if she entered the room while he was brushing his teeth or cutting his toenails, he would shoo her away. “This is private business,” he’d say. “You don’t need to see me at my worst.”

When Dinaz yells at her from the other room, it takes Sera a minute to place her daughter’s voice. “Are the poras wrapped and ready, Mummy?” Dinaz asks.

“Almost,” she replies, reaching for the aluminum foil that Viraf had brought back from his last trip to America.

The doorbell rings, and Sera heaves a sigh of relief. Bhima.

Sera opens the door to Bhima, and one look at her wan, sallow face tells her that yesterday’s mission was a failure. She raises one eyebrow questioningly, and in answer, Bhima shakes her head slowly from side to side. This is what Sera appreciates most about Bhima—this unspoken language, this intimacy that has developed between them over the years. That same connection now makes her realize that Bhima wants to wait until the children have left for work before telling her what happened yesterday. And she is glad, because, truth be told, she does not want to involve her pregnant daughter in Maya’s trials, does not want the shadow of Maya’s unfortunate circumstances to fall over the happiness of Dinaz’s pregnancy.

“I’m sorry, Serabai,” Bhima is now saying. “The line at the water tap was longer than usual today.”

Despite herself, Sera can’t keep her earlier irritation from showing. “No great harm done,” she says in a voice that sounds tight even to herself. “I just had to make the children’s omelets myself. Can’t have them be late for work.”

Before Bhima can reply, they hear Viraf in the other room. “Dinaz,” he yells. “Have you seen my red tie? The one you got me for my birthday last year?”

“God, you’re such a baby,” Dinaz replies, but even at this distance the two older women can hear the smile in her voice. “It’s a wonder you even knew how to chew your food before you met me. How did you ever manage, I wonder?”

“Badly,” comes the prompt reply. “I wore mismatched socks to work. And as for feeding myself, didn’t you notice the bib I was wearing when you first met me?”

Bhima shakes her head. “That Viraf baba,” she says. “Always has something to say. Makes the house seem festive just by his presence, like every day is Holi or Diwali or something.”

Sera nods. And knows immediately what Bhima has left unsaid: Not like the old days, when Feroz was alive and she and Bhima had to tiptoe around, afraid of his explosive silences and his explosive temper. When the house felt tomblike, encased in silence, a silence that prevented her from reaching out to others, from sharing her darkest secret with even her closest friends. When Bhima was the only one who knew, the only one who felt the dampness of the pillowcase after long nights of shedding hot tears, the only one who heard the muffled sounds coming from her and Feroz’s bedroom…

Sera shakes her head impatiently, to clear out the cobwebs of the past. Here I am wallowing in ancient history while poor Bhima has her hands full with her current situation, she thinks. What a self-centered, foolish woman I’ve become.

“Come on,” she says to Bhima. “Your tea is ready. Drink that and then get started on the dishes.”

B
hima is in the kitchen, washing the dishes from last night’s dinner. Sera watches as her hands, thin and dark as the branches of a tree, fly over the pots and pans, scrubbing them until they sparkle like the noonday sun. Try as she might, she can never get the pots to shine the way Bhima does.

Viraf wanders in, adjusting his tie. “That’s it,” he says to no one in particular. “Next month, I’m buying a dishwasher. No point in poor Bhima slogging like this.”

Bhima looks up in gratitude, but before she can say a word, Sera speaks up. “Go, go,” she says. “My Bhima can put your fancy dishwashers to shame. Not even a foreign-made machine can leave dishes as clean as Bhima can. Save your money, deekra.”

…And give it to me instead, Bhima thinks to herself, and then, afraid that one of them will read her mind, she busies herself by concentrating on one particular food spot. Also, she needs a few seconds to fume. Sometimes she can’t figure Serabai out. On the one hand, it makes her flush with pride when Serabai calls her “my Bhima” and talks about her proprietarily. On the other hand, she always seems to be doing things that undercut Bhima’s interests. Like refusing Viraf baba’s offer to buy a dishwasher. How nice it would be not to run her arthritic hands in water all day long. Bending over the sink to scrub the dishes has also begun to hurt her back, so that, at the end of the day, it sometimes takes half the walk
home before she can straighten up. But how to tell Serabai all this? And this morning, making her feel guilty because she had to fix omelets for her own daughter and son-in-law. So what if she hates chopping onions? Does she, Bhima, enjoy squatting to shit in a communal room? But she does it because there is no other choice. Compared with that humiliation, chopping onions feels as easy as cutting a cake.

Her anger spent, Bhima’s sense of fair play and her stout affection for the Dubash family take over. Oh, you ungrateful woman, she chides herself. And who looked after you when you had malaria? Was it your ghost of a husband? Who gave you money just yesterday, so you could take a cab to Maya’s college? Was it your spread-her-legs granddaughter? No, it was this same woman whose salt you eat, who you are thinking ugly thoughts about. Shame on you.

Remembering her trip to Maya’s college makes Bhima glance involuntarily at the clock in the kitchen. A few more minutes and Viraf baba and Dinaz baby will be gone. Then she and Serabai can sip a cup of tea and talk. She knows that Sera is impatient to hear details about what transpired yesterday, and this realization makes Bhima’s throat tighten with emotion and gratitude. At least someone else cares about her pregnant brat of a granddaughter as much as she does. It is Serabai’s generosity that has made Maya’s education possible, and if Serabai now feels betrayed by Maya’s treachery, if she feels her investment in the girl’s future has come up dry, it is to her credit that she has never spoken of her disappointment to Bhima. From the first time that Bhima had confided the terrible, calamitous news, Sera had been concerned, anxious, and ready to help. “Of course she will have to have an abortion,” Sera had said immediately. “There’s no other way out. Maya is too bright, too intelligent to ruin her life by becoming a mother at seventeen. I’ll take care of the details, Bhima, you don’t have to worry about all
that stuff. You have your hands full with enough other troubles, I know.”

But for reasons she still didn’t understand, Bhima had hesitated. Perhaps she had unwittingly taken her cue from Maya, who had stiffened the first time Bhima mentioned an abortion. And then there was this: the unspoken, perhaps unacknowledged hope that the child’s father would step forward to assume his responsibility and do the right thing. That the curtain of anonymity, of secrecy, would part to reveal an anxious but honorable young man, frightened but eager to face up to this new challenge, to marry and build a life with the woman who would bear his first child. Yes, seventeen would be young for Maya to deliver a child, and marriage would certainly destroy her dreams of getting a B.Com. in accounting and becoming a bookkeeper at a good firm. The bright path that had rolled out before Maya when she became the first person in Bhima’s family to go to college—the good job that would inevitably await her, thanks to Dinaz’s and Viraf’s influence and business contacts, the escape from the menial, backbreaking labor that had marred the lives of her mother and her mother before her—that path would shrivel up, that much was certain. But—and here Bhima had allowed herself a freckle of hope—perhaps another path would open up. If only Maya would reveal the identity of the father of the baby. In her mind, Bhima saw her darling granddaughter fat and content, busy in a kitchen with sparkling stainless steel pots and pans, frying puris for a rambunctious, dark-haired son and a father who came home each evening from his white-collar job.

She had been so excited when, after weeks of cajoling, begging, and threats, Maya had finally revealed the identity of the father earlier this week. Ashok Malhotra. “I go to college with him,” she had sobbed. “He’s in my class. Are you satisfied, Ma? Now that you’ve beaten his name out of me? Now leave me alone, please.”

Bhima was satisfied. At last, she had a name to put on the shad
owy figure who haunted her dreams and nightmares. Ashok Malhotra. A fellow student, who attended the same college that Maya did. She had wanted to probe more, to find out when they’d had the opportunity to have sex. But here Maya froze up, stubbornly ignoring Bhima’s other questions, staring into the distance with the new, cowlike expression she had developed in her pregnancy. And suddenly Bhima had decided that she didn’t want to know too many of the sordid details. What difference did the how and where make now? At least she had gotten the girl to part with her biggest secret, to reveal the name of the young man who had brought so much worry into their lives. And she, Bhima, knew where to find him. It was up to her to do the rest. Maya was just a silly, immature girl, with no idea of how the yawning pit of fate would swallow her up if she went ahead and had this child without a father to support the two of them. It was up to Bhima to act as her advocate, to do what Maya was incapable of doing—to make this Ashok Malhotra take responsibility for what he had wrought, to appeal to his sense of honor. To make him understand that her Maya would be a garland around his neck and not a chain.

“I’ll pay the cab fare to her college,” Sera had said upon learning the identity of the child’s father. “You go meet with him, Bhima. See what his intentions are. See if this Ashok fellow is even worthy of our Maya or if he’s just some out-for-a-good-time lout. I pray for your sake that he has good moral character.”

It was the first time she had ever traveled to Maya’s college alone. The only other time Bhima had visited the building, Sera had accompanied her and Maya. The three of them had stood in the long line to complete the admission process, and it was Sera who had spoken to the rude clerk when he had barked an order to Maya; Sera who had pulled herself up to her full height and looked down
her long, straight, impervious Parsi nose and told the man, in her best clipped, convent-school accent, to kindly watch who he was speaking to, that this child he was treating so badly was probably the brightest student they would ever be lucky enough to have at this college. Under her haughty, upper-class gaze, the clerk had withered and offered a flurry of apologies. “Sorry, madam. No insult intended. What to do, madam, so much work we are burdened by. Please to forgive.”

Now, Bhima sought out the clerk’s office. Sure enough, the man was sitting at his desk, scowling at some forms in front of him. She approached him tentatively. “Excuse, please?”

The man did not look up. “What?” he said brusquely.

“I’m looking for a student, please? Can you help me find him?”

There was a second’s silence as the man finished scribbling on the piece of paper in front of him. Then, “And your relations with the student?”

Bhima was flustered. “Ah. I’m his…that is, no relations. I am just wanting to see him.”

The clerk must have caught her discomfort, because now he looked up at her with his small, gleaming, piglike eyes. “No relations, eh?” he said loudly, for the benefit of his co-workers. “Perhaps you are hoping to start some relations with a young college boy, hah?” His colleagues snickered while Bhima stared at the floor, unsure of what to do next. Remembering how Serabai had once put this impudent man in his place with a few well-chosen words, Bhima wished, not for the first time, that she had been educated herself. A white-hot fury burned in her. All night long she had braced herself for her encounter with Ashok Malhotra. She had lain awake, stiff with tension and anticipation. She had rehearsed her words, fought with herself about whether to threaten or cajole, attack or appeal. On the way here in the cab, she had been like a boiling pot on Serabai’s new Bajaj stove, her emotions ready to spill
over. And now this rude thug was blocking her from even finding Ashok, was batting her around idly, automatically, simply to amuse himself. He was toying with her in the same detached, half-bored way that the stray cats who prowled the slum did with the mice they got hold of. Bhima felt her resolution and determination trickle away from her.

Another clerk, a woman who appeared to be in her twenties, came to her defense. “Ignore these menfolks, mausi,” she said, leaving her desk and walking toward Bhima. “They have nothing better to do, obviously. Tell me, who are you looking for?”

Bhima smiled at her in gratitude. As always, she automatically covered her mouth as she smiled, to hide the two missing teeth. “Thank you, daughter. I’m looking for one Ashok Malhotra.”

At the mention of the name, a strange thing happened, Bhima noticed. The four clerks in the office all smiled. “Arre, mausi, why didn’t you say first only that you’re looking for our Prince Ashok?” asked the male clerk. “Wait, I’ll have someone personally escort you to him. He’s most likely in his palace, entertaining his court.”

Bhima looked confusedly from him to the woman clerk. Watching her face, the man grinned. “The canteen,” he explained happily. “That’s where Prince Ashok holds his darbar. You can pay your respects to him there.” He rang a bell on his desk, and seconds later, a surly-looking peon appeared. “Ae, Suresh,” the clerk said. “This fine lady is here to see our Ashok. Walk her to the canteen, would you?”

The canteen smelled of cigarettes and fried foods. It was a loud, cavernous room, filled with smoke and the din of students talking and arguing with each other. Young, dark-skinned boys in khaki pants ran around taking orders and serving steaming glasses of tea. The middle-class students barely looked up to acknowledge the presence of the boys who brought the plates of samosas and masala
dosas to their tables, except occasionally to complain that the tea had grown cold while they had waited for their food. The older male students, especially if there was a woman with them, frequently accompanied their complaints with a friendly but nevertheless hard whack on their young servers’ heads. In an age-old, timeless ritual, the boys grinned after getting hit, rubbing their heads and feebly protesting that they were bringing the food out as quickly as the cook prepared it. “What to do, sahib? So busy-busy it is today.” The reward for such endearing servility was a slightly larger tip.

“There he is,” Suresh said, pointing to a thin man in a dark blue kurta and faded blue jeans. “The one sitting on the right. That’s Ashok.” Although there were three other boys at the table, even at this distance Bhima could tell that Ashok was the leader of the group. She turned to say something to Suresh, but he was gone, leaving her to walk up to the boy by herself.

The four occupants of the table looked up curiously when she approached and stood silently staring at the father of her greatgrandchild. “Yes?” one of the boys said finally. “May we help you?” The others giggled.

Bhima decided she liked the young man sitting in front of her. Emboldened by this discovery, she said, “Are you Ashok? Ashok Malhotra?”

The boy half-rose from his seat. “Namaste,” he said. “And you are?”

“I am needing to talk with you.” Glancing at the others, “Privately.”

Ashok looked surprised. “Er, well, sure, sure.” He looked at his companions pointedly, and they reluctantly rose to relinquish their seats to the bony, severe-looking woman who stood in front of them. “Boy, Ashok, your harem of women just keeps growing,”
one of them said in a whisper, but Bhima heard him and winced. For the first time it occurred to her that this handsome, popular boy might have girlfriends other than Maya.

She shook her head fiercely to dismiss that treacherous thought. Seeing the gesture, Ashok smiled. “Too many flies in this canteen,” he said apologetically.

The gentleness of his smile emboldened Bhima, gave her voice. “I’m Maya Phedke’s grandmother,” she began.