The Space Between Us (24 page)

M
aya was in Banubai’s kitchen making tea for the old lady when the doorbell rang. She looked up, startled. It was 4:30
P.M
., and she wasn’t expecting anyone. The night nurse, Gita, would not be here until eight o’clock.

She opened the door to Viraf. “Hah, Viraf baba,” she exclaimed. “Here so early?” Viraf, she knew, usually stopped by on his way home from work to check on the old woman. Then, taking in the agitated look on his face, her stomach lurched. “Is everybody okay at home? Dinaz baby is not sick or anything?”

“Fine, fine, everybody is fine,” he said dismissively as he brushed past her into the dining room. Then, seeing the look of apprehension still on Maya’s face, “No, don’t worry. Dinaz is fine. The only thing wrong with her is her damn temper. Spoiled brat. By the looks of it, you’d think she was the first person in the history of the world to give birth.”

Maya blanched. She could not stand for anyone, even Viraf, to talk about Dinaz in this way. Seeing the appalled look on her face, he grinned maliciously. “Oh, sorry for criticizing your precious Dinaz baby,” he said. “I forgot how devoted you two are to each other. You know, I should’ve solicited your help in trying to take her to the movies tonight. I took a half day and came home early for that reason. But of course, she’s in one of her Durga moods. Lectures
me
instead on how she’d stayed home to do some work
around the house and how irresponsible I am to just come home and expect my own wife to spend a few hours with me. So of course, I’m the chootia here.”

Maya flinched at the crude slang. She’d never heard Viraf swear like this, as if he was one of the louts that hung around her slum. Something of her shocked disappointment must have shown on her face because Viraf’s manner softened and he looked chastised. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Guess I’m getting carried away.” He absently pulled Maya toward him and patted her lightly on the back. “Sweet Maya,” he murmured. “I forgot how loyal you are, like a cute little puppy.”

Maya was amazed, flattered, confused. After Dinaz baby, Viraf baba had always been her favorite member in Serabai’s family. Feroz seth had terrified her, and while Serabai was unfailingly kind to her, something about the tall, dignified woman intimidated Maya. But ever since she had first known Viraf, he had treated her playfully and teasingly, without the distance that Serabai always cultivated. And he was also capable of bursts of generosity toward Maya and her grandmother. Just last week Ma-ma had come home with a box of sweetmeats so large that they had to distribute some to the other residents in the slum. “Viraf baba gave us this,” a beaming Bhima had said. “A client of his gave him three such boxes of mithai. One of them he gave us.”

Still, Viraf had never touched her before, or spoken to her with such casual affection. In fact, she had never known him like this, so erratic, so agitated. So demonstrative and so obviously in need of comfort. Something softened and stirred in her, a moist, tender feeling in her chest. She felt shy and tongue-tied as she fought the urge to stare down at her bare feet. Instead, she forced herself to look at Viraf’s flushed face, trying to think of a way to soothe him back into his usual good cheer.

“Chai,” she said. “I’m making Banubai a nice cup of tea. I’ll make a cup for you, too, Viraf baba.”

He smiled, so that he looked like the old Viraf again. “Okay. I’ll go give my salaams to the old lady, and then I’ll be in the other room, working on her accounts. That’s what I came here to do anyway.” His face darkened again. “As depressing as this house is, at least there’s some peace and quiet here for a man to do his work. No nagging wife with raging hormones lording it over us poor males.” He flashed Maya a sudden grin. “No nagging wife. Just a mean, bedridden old lady who lords it over you instead.”

She had never seen him like this, so mercurial. The old Viraf, the Viraf she was used to, was flitting in and out, like the sun behind the clouds. She stared at him openmouthed, not knowing him well enough to tell whether he was joking or serious or how to respond to the blasphemous things he was saying about his family. She felt young and small and excruciatingly aware of her strange status within this family—how she was condemned to listen but not speak; how she could not rise to his bait and say what she really felt about Banubai—that she agreed with his characterization of her as a mean old woman who made everybody’s life miserable.

As if on cue, Banu’s gargling sounds reached them. “Urgghh, urgggh, urgghh,” she spluttered.

Viraf turned away from Maya with a wink. “Doesn’t miss a thing, does she?” he said. “Well, time to go pay my darshaan to Kali devi.” This time, Maya could not resist her scandalized gasp at his flagrant blasphemy. “Viraf baba,” she protested, but he was gone. “Kem, Banubai?” she heard him say. “How are you feeling today? You’re looking good, cheeks as red as Kashmiri apples. Keeping all the servants on their toes, I hope?”

In the kitchen Maya heard Banu make a choking sound that she recognized as laughter. That Viraf baba was too much. Maya smiled
to herself. When he turned on his charm, he could make even the dead laugh.

When she took him his cup of tea, he was sitting hunched over a pile of bills and Banu’s checkbook. He had removed his tie, placed it neatly on the bed, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up. “Thank you,” he said with a smile and then went back to his books. “A good cup of tea is exactly what I need.”

The memory of his smile warmed her as she fed Banubai her own cup of tea, holding a cloth napkin under the woman’s chin to catch the trail of liquid that dribbled from her flaccid, helpless mouth. As usual, she also dipped two glucose biscuits into the milky tea and then placed their soggy ghosts into the old woman’s mouth. Sometimes, when she was angry at Maya, Banu spat out her tea and the mushy bits of biscuit, so that the girl had to use the napkin to wipe her own face and clothes. But Banu was in a good mood today, cheered up by Viraf’s attention and flirtatious words.

“Okay, Mummy,” Maya said briskly after Banu had finished her tea. “Now go to sleep for a few hours like a good-good girl. Dinner will be coming in a few hours. You get some beauty rest.”

The gray, milky eyes followed her as she busied herself straightening Banu’s room. But when Maya glanced at her again, the old woman was asleep, her mouth lax.

When Maya entered the room where Viraf had been working, he was sprawled out on the bed. He stretched when he saw her. “That tea was so good it made me drowsy,” he said lazily. “Thought I’d take a quick nap. Dinaz is so restless at night because of the pregnancy, I hardly get a good night’s sleep anymore.”

She was about to leave the room with the empty cup when he spoke. “Oi, Maya. Look in the medicine cabinet and see if there’s a bottle of Iodex, would you? I have a bad crimp in my neck. Too many hours at my desk.”

She returned with the small, dark bottle and held it out to him,
but he smiled pleadingly. “It’s hard for me to reach the spot,” he said. “Can you apply it?”

She hesitated for a second and then dipped two fingers into the black ointment. Viraf loosened the first two buttons of his shirt and turned onto his stomach. When her fingers touched his skin, he let out a little cry. “Your hands are cold,” he scolded, but she could hear the smile in his voice.

Her fingers found the knot of muscle and worked deftly to untie it. “Dig deeper,” Viraf grunted. He turned slightly on his side and undid a couple more buttons to give her more room to work. “Oh, God bless you,” he sighed as the muscle released under the pressure of her hand. “I could barely move my neck earlier today. Probably another reason I was in such a bad mood.”

Something stirred in her. “My ma-ma gets these stiff necks also. But I can always fix her,” she said proudly. “Ma-ma says I give the best champi-malish.”

She could feel Viraf grin. “Bet you’re not as good as those massagewallas at Chowpatty Beach,” he teased.

“That’s not fair.” She laughed. “Those bhaiyas use almond oil with masalas and what all in it.”

“So go get some Johnson’s baby oil,” he replied, the smile still in his voice. “Then we’ll see how good you are.” She paused, unsure of whether he was joking or not. Sensing her hesitation, Viraf rose on one arm and gave her a little push with the other. “Go on,” he said. “I could really use a back massage.”

By the time she returned, he had removed his shirt. She was amazed to see how smooth and hairless his back was. And pale. So pale. The color and texture of the wheat atta that Ma-ma kneaded to make chappatis. Compared with the louts who strolled around the slum in their plaid lungis, with backs that looked as hairy as the bears in the circus, Viraf’s back looked as unthreatening as a loaf of bread.

She poured the oil, trying to focus on a spot on the wall instead of on Viraf’s smooth back. She had never touched a man’s back before and felt shy and tongue-tied. But her eyes kept wandering to the imprint of her dark hands on his buttery skin. “Um, um, um,” Viraf moaned. “Boy, you weren’t kidding. One massage from you and those massagewallas at Chowpatty would go into the narial pani trade.”

It felt good to be giving him so much pleasure. As her hands kneaded and caressed Viraf’s back, as she rubbed out the tension from his stringy muscles, Maya felt important and strong—and powerful. The earlier Viraf of the bad temper, the teasing, blaspheming Viraf was gone. Vanquished by her fast-moving, capable, wise hands. She could move him, mold him, and renew him with these hands. Perhaps being this relaxed would allow him to be nicer to Dinaz baby when he returned home. Maya had suspected that things were not peaceful between the couple, had occasionally overheard the angry murmurings that floated from their bedroom when she went over there to pick up her grandmother, but until this minute she had not suspected that there was anything she could do about it. Now, watching Viraf’s grateful muscles uncoil like snakes in the snake charmer’s basket, she knew better. Maya felt something like awe as she looked down at her dark hands moving like shadows across the placid waters of his back.

“Lower,” he whispered. “My lower back hurts like hell.” She worked on his lower back, making sure to keep her hands above the crack of his buttocks but allowing her eyes to stray there. She felt hypnotized by the rhythmic, circular movements of her own hands, and Viraf was so quiet for a few moments that she wondered if he’d fallen asleep.

But then he spun around so that for one confusing moment her hands strummed air, and then they were massaging the dark curls on his chest, feeling the poignant delicacy of his collarbone, feeling
the sad hollow of his rib cage, feeling the tension in his chest muscles, and somehow recognizing, with an ancient, primal wisdom, that she was the cause of that tension, that she was the reason for his shallow breathing. And her awe turning to pride and the pride turning to panic as Viraf half-rose from the bed and gently but firmly pushed her back on it, pinning her shoulders down, so that for one absurd moment her upper half was on the firm mattress while her legs still dangled above the floor. Her stomach dropped and then, as Viraf lowered his lips to her bosom, came a flood of other feelings, a flood that rushed into her thighs, breaking down the dam of resistance, making her legs feel heavy and weak at the same time.

She protested; she did not protest. It did not matter, because it was inevitable what was about to happen, what was happening, and they both knew it; they were like swimmers caught in the same current; they eyed each other gravely, wordlessly. The room, the world fell silent around them; they were the only two people in it, the last two people left standing, and there was nobody else, no thought of anyone else, there was no bedridden woman in the next room, there was no nurse who would soon be arriving to relieve Maya, there was no Bhima to disapprove of what was happening in this room, above all, there was no Dinaz with a baby growing in her belly.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Viraf was saying as he moved above her. She bit down on her lip to stop from giving in to the sharp pain that pierced her body when he entered her; she tried to grip his back as she arched her body toward his, but her hands slipped because of the oil. And then it was all friction and all movement, it was all slick and moist—the oil from Viraf’s back, the blood from biting down too hard on her lip, and a different, more ceremonial blood leaking from elsewhere, the tears welling in eyes squeezed tight from pleasure and pain, the sweat fusing their bod
ies together like glue, and finally, the burst of Viraf’s swollen, heated body into hers.

She came to her senses before he did. While she lay frozen, rigid with terror and shame, he was still glowing, still limp with warmth and release. “Been so long…,” she half-heard him say. “Dinaz’s pregnancy…so frigid…won’t let me near her…” But she could barely hear what he was saying above the clanging bells of her own fear.

The telephone rang. For a second they looked at each other, eyes wide with uncertainty. Then, “Go answer the phone,” he ordered. She leapt out of bed and into her salwar-khamez, mortified that he was staring at her naked body. But there was no lust in his eyes, just a blank expression she could not read. The telephone ring had ended his reverie, brought him back to reality.

It was Dinaz, asking for Viraf. “Hi, my Maya,” Dinaz said. “What took you so long to answer?” Maya could’ve wept at the affection and innocence in Dinaz’s voice. “Is Viraf there?”

He was standing behind her, ready to take the phone. “Just fell asleep for a few minutes, my dear,” she heard him tell Dinaz. “You know how boring your grandmother’s bookkeeping is. No, I’m okay. No apology needed. No hard feelings, honest. We can see the stupid movie any time. I’ll be home as soon as I finish these accounts. Bye, darling.”

Maya was in the kitchen when he got off the phone, and she had to force herself to look up at him. She felt tongue-tied, abashed, mortified. She wanted to say something, to explain that she wasn’t a bad girl, that she didn’t do the things she had done with him with any man, that, in fact, she had never done such things before. But the Viraf who towered over her looked as remote as a mountain.