The Space Between Us (6 page)

“You fool,” she hissed. “Do you want to get killed?”

In reply, he sang to her. “Mere sapono ke rani kab aayegi tu?” The queen of my dreams, when will you arrive? He had a strong, deep voice, and the more he pedaled alongside the bus, the louder it got.

In an effort to dissuade his mad cycling, Bhima moved away from the window and toward the aisle. But at the next stop, more people got in, and she was forced to shift back toward the window. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed how expertly Gopal weaved in and around the mad Bombay traffic, never once letting go his grip on the metal bar. If he was concerned about the bus lurching to a stop and throwing him off his bike, it was not apparent in his confident, loose grip on the bar.

Gopal was still singing the same song, and finally, the man sitting behind her spoke up. “Arre, yaar, don’t you know any other songs? If you’re going to serenade the lady, you better have more than one song on your hit list.”

Gopal obliged by launching into another song, this one filled with double meanings and innuendos. Now several of the passengers got into the fun, throwing out requests his way. Bhima gritted her teeth. This Gopal was just too much. Her fingers itched for the
broom that she used at Dinubai’s house. She would smack that stupid grin off his face if she had that jharoo with her.

Her irritation and embarrassment almost caused her to miss her stop. “Wait, wait,” she yelled to the conductor. “This is my stop.”

As she got off, she waited for the bus to leave so that she could confront Gopal and tell him these shenanigans had to stop. To her chagrin, she saw him pedaling away, alongside the bus. As if he knew she was watching, he raised his right hand in a wave. The coward, she thought. Knew I’d give him some vim-zim, so he takes off.

The next day, he was back. But this time he waited on his bicycle across the street from the bus stop, too far for her to give him a piece of her mind. She did her best to keep her eyes from straying toward him, but each time she did catch his eye, he clenched his heart dramatically. Idiot, she thought. I wish the next time he holds his chest he has a heart attack and falls off his cycle. The next minute, she stiffened with remorse at the wickedness of her thoughts.

She was thankful when the bus arrived. She took her usual seat, and five seconds later there was the familiar hand gripping the metal bar. This time, she did not jump out of her seat in shock but felt a mild tremor of surprise and irritation at his audacity. She had truly believed he would leave her alone today. The queen of my dreams, when will you arrive? The familiar tune started up again. And again, the skillful weaving and bobbing in and out of traffic. The other passengers, many of whom caught the same bus daily, tittered. “Arre, bhenji,” her would-be rescuer from yesterday called from across the aisle. “Why don’t you say yes to your man and put him out of his misery? Taking his life in his own hands, he is, for your sake.” Bhima fixed a baleful stare at him, and the man went back to reading his newspaper, muttering to himself about the wily ways of the fairer sex.

For the next three weeks, Gopal followed the same routine.
Some days he would wait for her on the other side of the street and pedal furiously across four lanes of traffic to catch up with her bus when it arrived. Other times, he would greet her with the tringtring of his bicycle bell and circle around the bus stop until she felt dizzy. The only difference between the first day of this strange courtship and the days that followed was that he no longer spoke to her. But the impudent grin, the daredevil tricks on the bike while they waited for the bus to arrive, and the joyful serenading remained unchanged. As did the fact that he rode off alongside the bus after it had deposited Bhima a few streets from her mistress’s house. Bhima longed to talk to him, to ask for some explanation for his mad behavior, but the presence of the other passengers silenced her.

One day during those three weeks, Bhima arrived at the bus stop and noticed immediately that Gopal was not there. Her mind told her to breathe a sigh of relief even as her body experienced a disappointed lurch and feeling of letdown. Apparently, her fellow travelers had experienced the same thing. “The young fellow’s missing today,” an elderly gentleman in a white kurta and dhoti said. “Wonder if he’s all right.”

A lethargic feeling came over Bhima as she entered the bus. The seven stops to Dinubai’s house will take forever without the distraction provided by Gopal, she thought, surprising herself. She looked at the empty, lonely metal bar with something approaching wistfulness, missing the brown hand with coarse dark hair that usually gripped that bar. As the bus lurched forward, she glanced backward—only to see Gopal pedaling furiously to catch up. The next minute the hand was resting triumphantly on the bar. “Hello, my queen,” the familiar voice said. “Almost missed you today by oversleeping.”

“Look, it’s our young hero,” the elderly gentleman cried, and there was a scattering of applause from the regulars. “By hook or by crook, he has made it.”

The applause irritated Bhima. Idiots, she thought. Encouraging him to be a fool. But she could not dislodge the small feeling of pleasure that settled in her bones at the sight of Gopal riding alongside her.

Then, at the end of the three weeks, Gopal disappeared. Every morning Bhima looked for him as she arrived at the bus stop, both dreading and anticipating the tinkle of his bicycle horn, the cheeky look on his face as he glanced at her while singing an everexpanding repertoire of songs. Each day she boarded the bus and—as much as she hated herself for doing it—looked back to see if she could spot the familiar cycle. At times, when she saw a boy on the streets who resembled Gopal, Bhima’s heart would lurch with joy, and on the inevitable downbeat, when her heart settled back into its usual rhythm, she would scold herself for her stupidity. Some days, when she was sure nobody was looking, she held the metal bar lightly with her own long fingers, pretending she could still feel the warmth from Gopal’s hand.

But Gopal was gone. She had scared him away with her stony demeanor, had turned his interest into indifference. Bhima imagined him in a different part of the city, wooing a different girl with a different song. The thought made her chop the onions with so much vigor that Dinubai looked at her with curiosity and asked her if she was feeling all right. She looked up to face her mistress with eyes brimming with tears. “Everything’s okay, bai,” she said. “These onions are garma-garam, that’s all. Making my eyes water.”

But Bhima needn’t have worried. Sujata and her new husband, Sushil, came over with a marriage proposal. Although Gopal was Sujata’s cousin, it was Sushil who did most of the talking. “Gopal does not have any immediate family in Bombay to speak for him,” Sushil explained to Prithviraj, Bhima’s father. “His mother lives in the village, and his father—may God grant him rest—is dead. So I bring this proposal on behalf of Gopal’s older brother. But we can
vouch for his character as well as his capacity for hard work. He has a good, steady factory job, makes good money. Your Bhima will not lack for anything, ji. Oh, and one other thing—Gopal has specifically told me to mention that he will neither expect nor want any dowry.”

Prithviraj tried to not let his delight show. “I will consult with my family and respond in a few days,” he said. “But I will say this—just having a proposal come from a family as good as this pleases me. After all, Sujata grew up before our eyes. I pray that my Bhima finds a husband as worthy as you, Sushil.”

They were married a month later in a simple ceremony in stark contrast to the glitter that had surrounded Sujata’s wedding a few months earlier. During the wedding ceremony, Gopal looked as subdued and terrified as Bhima felt. There was no trace of the smart-alecky youth who had pursued her with such intensity. But as soon as she was alone for the first time with her new husband, as soon as he had lifted the pallov of the sari from her face as they sat on their wedding bed, the old, irrepressible Gopal staged a comeback. Staring into her eyes, a crooked smile on his face, he began tunelessly to whistle the song with which he had first serenaded her. The queen of my dreams, when will you arrive? Encouraged by her giggles, the whistling grew louder, until it gave way to humming. She giggled some more as he nuzzled her chin and tickled her belly. “Stop it,” she whispered helplessly. “You crazy man.”

With a leap, Gopal sprang up and stood on the bed. He raised both hands above his head like a triumphant boxer. “Yes, I am a crazy man, the crazy head of the household,” he declared, modulating his voice, so that the relatives who were inevitably eavesdropping outside their bedroom door couldn’t hear him. “And you are a crazy woman for having married this crazy man. But oh, my Bhima, we are going to have so much fun the rest of our lives.
You just wait, woman, I am going to treat you like the queen that you are.”

Thinking of her wedding night, of Gopal’s broken promise, Bhima stirs restlessly. She knows she must try to sleep, but her mind feels feverish as it races through the crowded hallways of the past. Beside her, Maya snores softly and occasionally murmurs in her sleep. Instinctively, Bhima responds with this new emotion that she’s grown familiar with ever since she learned of Maya’s pregnancy—a combination of unbearable protectiveness and strong irritability. Hearing her grandchild’s snores and murmurs, Bhima wants to smother her with a pillow as well as take her in her arms and rock her all night. She wants to preserve the innocence that lets Maya sleep her childlike sleep; she wants to destroy that innocence much as the baby growing in Maya’s womb has destroyed Bhima’s peace of mind. It scares her sometimes, how effortlessly both feelings seem to reside inside her heart, how she has grown to love and hate Maya, how a singular strand of love now has fear weaved into it. How she has come to see her own flesh and blood as her betrayer.

But you should be used to betrayals by now, you old woman, she says to herself. You, of all people. Why should this wisp of a girl owe you more than your husband did? Look what he did to you. Stole your life away from you, didn’t he? And you’ve forgiven him, haven’t you? No, not forgiven, but you’ve made your peace with it, no? So why not do the same with this poor, stupid girl?

Straining her eyes to see Maya’s outline in the dark, Bhima answers her own question. The situation with Gopal belongs to the past, and like a used wedding sari, she can fold it and tuck it away in a dark corner. But Maya is the present (once, she had also been the
future, but no point in thinking about that now). A red-hot, pulsating dot is growing in her womb, throbbing with life and energy. Unsanctified by a priest, conceived under the veil of shame, unwanted by the world, that thing growing in Maya’s body has the power to destroy both of them. But before it can do that, before it can wail its grievances to the world, before it can wave its tiny fist at them, they have to destroy it.

A solitary crow caws, and Bhima groans. It is 3:00
A.M
., she guesses. In a few hours, it will be time to get up, and she has not even slept for a full hour yet. Soon it will be dawn.

I
t is Saturday morning and Bhima is late again. Despite her pregnancy, Dinaz has woken up early today to help Sera prepare breakfast. Dinaz knows how much her mother hates chopping onions and cilantro, and since both ingredients are necessary in making Viraf’s favorite breakfast dish of akuri—scrambled eggs with chili powder, onions, garlic, and other spices—she has taken on the unpleasant task. Sera glances at her daughter and, as always, feels a sense of awe at how wonderful Dinaz has turned out. If for no other reason, she cannot regret her marriage to Feroz because of what that marriage produced. It’s funny, she thinks, Feroz and I were both such flawed people. And yet look at what we made together—one of the nicest people I know, and I’d feel that way even if she wasn’t my only child. It makes you believe in evolution or God or miracles or something. The endurance of the human spirit, maybe.

Sera glances at the clock. She worries that this tardiness is becoming a habit with Bhima. I can’t have this, she says to herself. I know she’s burdened with Maya, but after all, she has obligations here also. Unbidden, Feroz’s voice plays in her head: “Treating that woman as if she’s a family member. Servants have to be kept in their place, I tell you. One of these days I’ll come home to find you waiting on Bhima.”

As if she has read her mother’s mind, Dinaz raises a hand to
block Sera’s view of the clock. “God, Mummy, stop looking at that clock. It’s Saturday; even if Bhima is late one day, so what? She’s a human being, too, you know.”

It always amuses Sera how, when it comes to Bhima, Dinaz instinctively plays the role that she, Sera, did with Feroz. And how she paradoxically takes on Feroz’s part. “One day would be okay,” she now says. “But this is getting to be too much. After all, there’s no point in having a servant if I’m going to end up doing all the work.”

If Sera expects sympathy, Dinaz’s words give that illusion a quick burial. She thumps her mother on the back. “A little housework never killed anybody,” she intones. “It’s good for your arthritis—keeps the joints limber. Anyway, Bhima is older than you—she needs her rest more than you do.”

Despite herself, Sera smiles. Sometimes she forgets that before Dinaz switched to management at her father’s insistence, she was studying to be a social worker. But no matter how successful Dinaz is becoming in her new profession, the old sense of fair play, the thirst for justice, is still ever-present. As for Bhima, she is Dinaz’s blind spot. From the time she was a little girl, Dinaz had never been able to tolerate one unkind word about Bhima. “That woman is brainwashing our only child under your very nose,” Feroz had once railed at Sera. “And you—you are too complacent and stupid to even notice. Dinaz talks nicer to Bhima then she does to her own daddy.” And Sera had bit her tongue and not stated the obvious—that Dinaz saw more of Bhima than she did of Feroz and was treated with more kindness by the servant than by her own father.

Viraf wanders into the kitchen, still in his pajamas. Without being asked, he removes three plates and sets them on the dining table. “Bhima, Bhima, Bhima, that’s all I hear these days,” he grumbles. “I swear, nobody else’s name comes up as much in our house anymore.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Dinaz asks immediately. “After all, the poor woman is in trouble.”

“Ouch. Didn’t think I was going to eat my own head for breakfast this morning,” Viraf says. “No, nothing wrong with talking about Bhima’s woe, my dear. What I have problems with is that, after all these endless conversations, nothing has been done.”

“And what do you propose we do, Mr. Management, sir?” Dinaz asks, the smile on her face softening her words.

Viraf does not smile back. “What has to be done is obvious,” he says. “Maya needs to have an abortion, and the sooner it is done, the better off she will be. I’m just surprised that we’ve waited all this time, actually.”

Although she knows that her son-in-law means well, that he has Bhima’s interests at heart, something inside Sera bristles at Viraf’s proprietarial use of
we,
and the casual way in which he mentions the abortion. Just like a man, she thinks. As if getting rid of a child is as easy as taking a shit. She flushes at the crudity of her own thoughts.

Viraf speaks into the vacuum his words have created. “Well, I can tell from the silence that I’ve taken a real popular position,” he says sarcastically. “But I’m afraid the time for delicacy and beating around the bush is over, ladies. Look, we have to be practical about this. Maya has gone and gotten herself pregnant. And if we sit by and do nothing, we’re just prolonging her misery. Seems to me an abortion is the only practical thing to do.”

“You’re right,” Dinaz says as she dishes out the akuri from the frying pan onto their plates. “I know you’re right, sweetu.” She interrupts herself. “Mummy, should I leave some of this for Bhima?”

“She fasts on Saturdays,” Sera reminds her. Seeing Viraf’s quizzical look, she adds, “Some saint’s day or the other.”

“Speaking of Bhima,” Viraf says. “She better show up soon if she wants a lift to the vegetable market. I’m not going to be late for my cricket game because of her.”

Dinaz and Sera smile. Viraf is crazy about cricket, they know. Every Saturday he doffs his white uniform and drives to a maidan to play a game with his old friends. He has been playing with this team since his first year in college. “You better give your teammates fair warning,” Dinaz now says. “After the baby is born, your cricket-playing days are over.”

Viraf looks so dismayed that both women burst out laughing. “My God, look at his face,” Dinaz says. “You’d think I’d told him he can never eat or drink again.”

“Cricket is the food of life,” Viraf says dramatically. “It is not a game, it’s a way of life. The most elegant, graceful sport there is. And anyway, who knows? If it is a son, I’ll take him with me as soon as he can walk.”

“Great, so we have another generation of sports fanatic to deal with. No thanks, baba. My son’s going to be a reader and a thinker.”

“You better be careful what you say, woman. I will not let you turn my boy into a sissy,” Viraf says playfully. “I tell you, if technology allowed, I would get the doctors to implant a chip in your belly so that my son would be born with a cricket ball in his hand.”

Dinaz turns to her mother. “See how wonderful your darling son-in-law is? Talks about implanting chips in my belly like I’m a damn cow or something.”

Sera rises from the table with a smile. “Children, children,” she says. “What nonsense you talk.”

“Wait, don’t get up yet,” Dinaz says. “We should resolve this Bhima mammala today.” She turns to Viraf. “Sweetu, can you call Rusi when you get back from the cricket game? I know he’s not a gyno, but he’ll be able to recommend someone, correct?”

“Bhima can take her to the government hospital,” Sera says automatically.

“Come on, Mummy. You know what butchers those doctors are
at those free hospitals. And seeing a young, unmarried girl who is pregnant…” Dinaz shudders.

Viraf grimaces. “Okay, okay, I’ll phone Rusi and get a recommendation. Now, can we change this sordid subject, please? This talk is making me lose my breakfast.”

The two women exchange a quick glance. “Viraf’s correct,” Sera says. “The breakfast table is not the place for such talk.” She smiles at her son-in-law appeasingly.

Viraf smiles back. “Besides, it’s so depressing talking about abortions and all when Dinaz is—when we are—pregnant. You know? It’s like every time I want to just be happy about our good fortune, I feel forced to think about Maya’s misfortune.”

Dinaz immediately sets down her fork and leans over to kiss her husband on the cheek. “I’m sorry, janu,” she says. “I feel the same way, too. Sorry for being so insensitive.”

Viraf reaches over to where Dinaz is sitting next to him and links his right index finger to her left. They hold hands through the rest of their breakfast, and seeing them, Sera feels a happiness so sharp and tight, it’s like a pain in her chest. It’s worth it, she thinks. All the misery with Feroz is worth it because it has brought me to this moment. My daughter has the marriage I never did. And I brought her to this point. I did. I. Screwed-up, flawed, stupid old me.

All her life, Sera has heard a million stories about how a tormented daughter-in-law turned into a shrewish mother-in-law when it was her turn. As if it is some kind of hazing ritual, she thinks. But even now, the scars of her time in Banu Dubash’s house are still too fresh for her ever to play such a role in her children’s lives. Ever since Viraf and Dinaz moved in with her after Feroz’s death, she has done her level best to give them all the privacy they need. What’s that strange word the Americans use? Space. She has given them space. And she has held her tongue. At times, it has not
been easy, especially when Viraf and Dinaz have had one of their fights. Then the urge to intervene, to say a reconciliatory word, has been great. Somehow, she finds it easy to forgive Viraf, to overlook his eccentricities. But the desire to pull Dinaz aside, to whisper to her that she is wrong, to remind her that an obedient wife rules her husband, to urge her to go back into their room and make up with Viraf, is so strong at such times that she practically has to sit on her hands and staple her mouth shut, to force herself to stay out of their business. That had been her promise to Dinaz when the children offered to move in with her. “I will make sure you two will not be saddled with an interfering mother-in-law.”

“Oh, Mummy, we’re not concerned about that,” Dinaz had replied.

Sera had shaken her head impatiently. “I know what I’m talking about, deekra,” she’d said. “The two of you have not been married for all that long. Your marriage is still developing. I know that everything sounds easy and possible now, but living with someone else, especially a person from another generation, is hard. Believe me. I know what I’m talking about.”

The first fight with Banu had occurred less than two weeks after Sera and Feroz had returned from their honeymoon. “Feroz, deekra, can you come in here for a minute?” Banu called from her bedroom when Feroz got in from work that evening. He made a face at Sera, who had come to the front door to greet him, squeezed her arm, and went to see his mother.

When he walked into their bedroom a half hour later, he looked embarrassed. “Er, ahem, Mummy wanted me to talk to you about something important,” he said.

“Is it my cooking?” she said immediately. “Did I not put enough salt in the chicken? My daddy always complains that I—”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that. You see, Mummy has noticed that you are in your time.”

“Time?” she said blankly.

He sighed. “Your menses. Period. That you are having your period. And er, um, in our house, women who have their menses sit separately. They do not touch the food in the kitchen, use separate utensils and all that.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “Feroz, you’re joking, correct?”

He looked annoyed. “I know it must sound old-fashioned to you, a modern-day girl.” His tone was strange, and Sera couldn’t help but feel that he was parroting his mother’s words. “But those are the rules of this house. My mother’s rules. And since we are living with her, we must follow her rules.” He looked at her pleadingly. “So for everybody’s peace of mind, Sera, just do as she asks. After all, it’s for your own good. When a woman is bleeding, she is weak. So this tradition is just a way of conserving her strength.”

This is my foreign-returned, modern husband, she marveled to herself. A big-shot executive at Tata’s. Suddenly she remembered what a colleague of hers used to say—“A Parsi man will turn into a mouse in front of his mother.”

“Feroz, please, this is ridiculous,” she said. “I mean, I thought only those poor, old-fashioned women in Udwada sat separately during their periods. This is Bombay, janu. And people do have to change with the times, after all.”

He sighed again, more heavily this time. “Look, Sera, I’m so tired today. Very long day at work and all that. Darling, just give in to Mamma about this, okay? She’s an old lady, set in her ways, you know? And it’s such a small point to upset her over. I want so much
for all of us to get along like one big, happy family. Please, just say yes.”

It was the vision of the one big, happy family that got her to swallow her reluctance and say yes. “What exactly does this entail?” she added, suspiciously.

“Oh, God, I don’t know,” he said, giving her a quick hug. “But really, probably all it means is you have your food served to you in your room and a few other things. Thank you, Sera, for not humiliating me in front of my family.”

It felt strange having her dinner brought to her in her room, but Sera forced herself to swallow the hurt feeling that rose in her when the voices of the other three floated toward her from the dining room. She turned on the radio in the bedroom to drown out their voices, eating her dinner without relish. Feroz soon came into the bedroom and whispered how sorry he was and how much he’d missed her at the dining table. That night, he held her in his arms till dawn. Sera marveled at the easy familiarity their bodies already had with each other. And getting to know Feroz’s body had allowed her to know her own body better—its desires and needs, its twitching muscles and electric nerves, its hollow places and sweet spots. “Don’t go to work today,” she whispered to him in the morning. “Let’s spend the day together, alone.”

He laughed and pulled away reluctantly from her embrace. “God, I wish I could. But I already took time off for the honeymoon, you know? And I have a big presentation this afternoon.”

She stood on the balcony to wave good-bye to him, aware of the fact that Banu was standing as far away from her as she could while she too waved to Feroz. Her feelings still bruised from last night’s conversation, Sera lingered on the balcony even after Feroz drove away and Banu returned indoors. She heard the thin cry of the banana vendor as he pushed his wooden cart; she noticed the two teenage boys on the terrace of the building across the street as they
flew their kites. As she stood, she debated whether to talk to Banu about her conversation with Feroz, asked herself whether it would do any good to try to make her mother-in-law change her mind. Many old Parsi women had this superstition about menses, Sera knew, but so far none of those women had interfered with her life. She was the daughter of a scientist, and it humiliated her to have to give in to such primitive ideas. This is not how I was brought up, Banu mamma, she wanted to say. And if this was the condition, you should’ve mentioned it to me before I came into this house.