The Widows of Malabar Hill

by Sujata Massey

  Instead of explaining, Gita said, “This way. You must follow me.”

  Perveen halted in surprise. The three-story house was built in a square with an open-air courtyard in the middle; Gita was taking her to the side that was farthest away, with doors she’d never opened.

  “What do you mean?” Perveen asked. “I’m going to my room now to take a bath.”

  Nervously, Gita said, “Your Behnoush-mummy doesn’t want you to.”

  “What nonsense!” Perveen said, her irritation rising. “If she wants to speak with me, she can find me in my quarters.”

  Gita winced. “But memsahib, you cannot do that there. Not now.”

  Perveen put her hands on her hips and addressed her ayah in slow Bengali. “I must bathe. I’ve been outside, and it’s my monthly time as well.”

  Gita’s eyes flared. “That is the reason why! Behnoush-mummy knows what happened—that it started today. She says you must go to that room.”

  “What room?”

  “Here.” Gita opened a metal door that was just slightly taller than Perveen. The cloying smell of urine hit her first. Was it a latrine?

  Perveen held her nose, trying to adjust her eyes to the dark room, which she saw had one long window shielded by a patterned iron screen. Gita covered her hand with a cloth before pulling the string for the light in the room’s center.

  Perveen blinked, trying to make sense of the place. It was a small room, about twelve by eight feet, with the same red-oxide flooring as the rest of the home. The room held a narrow iron cot; there were two sheets folded at the bottom and a worn-looking pillow in a yellowed case at the top. The only other pieces of furniture were a straight-backed chair and small table, both made of iron.

  On the table were three small piles. One contained folded rough cotton saris; another, clean but worn-looking menstrual cloths; and the last, a few stained towels. There were also a few moldering Gujarati novels. A door in the back led to a small space with a toilet.

  These quarters were too bleak for even the lowest servant. Feeling indignant, Perveen asked, “Whose room is this?”

  Gita was standing at the door’s edge, looking nervous. “It’s the place for Parsi women’s resting during binamazi. Don’t you know it from home?”

  Perveen swallowed hard. The literal meaning of binamazi was “being without prayer.” It was the term used for menstruation. Parsi women were not supposed to wear their religious garments nor pray at the agiary during binamazi. But those were the only rules Perveen had been taught by her mother.

  “Gita—I don’t understand. Does this room have something to do with menstruation?”

  “Yes, you must stay here because of that.” Gita shot her a sympathetic look. “The tall pitcher is water in case you need a drink—you can ring the bell anytime, and I’ll come to the door and bring more water and your daily meals. The smaller pitcher contains taro. I think you know what to do with it.”

  “Taro,” she repeated. She knew the urine from a white bull was collected for use as an antiseptic, a Zoroastrian tradition dating from the faith’s origins in Persia. Was that what made the room smell so fiercely?

  “Mummy says it’s for cleaning yourself.”

  “It makes no sense not to wash one’s body with water when it’s very much needed. I didn’t see a sink or bath in the back. I shall be coming out for that—”

  “No, you must not,” Gita said anxiously. “She believes everyone should stay three paces from a bleeding woman, so do not get too close to the door.”

  “How many hours must I stay here? Just the first day, surely?”

  “No. It’s the whole time and one extra day past the time you stop bleeding.” Gita shifted uneasily in the doorway. “That is how she did it.”

  “Do you mean Behnoush-mummy?”

  Gita lowered her voice. “Yes, before her bleeding ceased. But Azara was in binamazi before she died.”

  Perveen shivered at the mention of the lost family member, whom she’d tried to speak about with Cyrus a few more times to no avail. To think that a child had had to stay in such conditions made her sick. “When she had cholera, they still told her to stay here?”

  “Not cholera.” Gita shook her head.

  Looking at Gita’s anxious face, Perveen realized she shouldn’t keep interrogating the poor servant. Perveen needed to make a compromise with Behnoush—perhaps staying away from the kitchen, prayer room, and so on.

  Gita closed the door, and her footsteps faded down the hall.

  Now that Perveen was alone in the little room, she realized the full horror of it. This was a stinking prison; she would not tolerate it. As she stepped toward the threshold and opened the door, it smashed back into her face, sending her a few steps back.

  “What? Who’s there?” Perveen called out crossly. “You hit my nose!”

  “Don’t come out!” Behnoush shouted.

  Perveen tried to recall everything she had said since coming upstairs. How much might Behnoush have overheard? She didn’t want her mother-in-law to know the extent of her annoyance.

  “Oh, sorry! Is your guest still here?” Perveen asked, striving to sound conversational.

  “No!” Behnoush maintained her angry tone. “I sent her off straightaway, for fear of illness.”

  “But—but I’m not ill,” Perveen protested.

  “It is your time. You will bring disease if you come into contact with others. Gita, tell her! Are you allowed to come to work when you are bleeding?”

  “No,” Gita mumbled dutifully from somewhere along the hallway. “I cannot come. And I shall wash carefully after having been near Bhabhi.”

  Perveen knew this was going to be a serious argument—a litigator’s opening statement. She swallowed hard. “Behnoush-mummy, people practiced seclusion a very long time ago. But the Parsis are the most progressive people in Asia. My mother didn’t seclude herself, nor did any of my aunts and cousins.”

  A silence fell. Behnoush was on the other side of the door, so Perveen could not see her face. She had no idea if Behnoush was listening thoughtfully or spinning into the kind of anger she’d shown in the kitchen.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was choked. “This is your house now. And I love my son enough to wish him to stay in good health. Don’t you understand about your dirty condition?”

  “It is called menstruation,” Perveen answered, using the English word. “I don’t enjoy it. But it is natural and my own business. That’s why I’d like you to allow me to return to my room.”

  Behnoush’s voice was low and fearful-sounding when she spoke. “I don’t know that word you use. Your body is shedding the dirtiest blood and dead eggs. This attracts Ahriman.”

  Perveen’s heart felt like it was jumping out of her chest. “Good Zoroastrians live on a path—we choose the direction of good or evil through our thoughts, words, and actions. That is why I don’t fear the devil.”

  From the other side of the door, Behnoush snapped, “I’m telling you. If you leave this room—you leave this house forever.”

  Perveen was alarmed. “Mamma, no! I don’t wish to go away. I dearly love Cyrus, and he loves me.”

  “I know you want this marriage. You will do the necessary and remain here while you are in bleeding.” Behnoush’s voice softened. “And just think, if you fall pregnant, you will have plenty of time outside of this room.”

  Behnoush’s voice was so intimate that Perveen thought her mother-in-law was about to come inside to console her.

  But she only shoved the door more firmly so that it latched.

  1917

  15

  A Matter of Testing

  Calcutta, January 1917

  My dearest Perveen,

  My very best love to you and the Sodawalla family. How is the weather in Calcutta in January? You must be looking forward to your first Nowruz
celebration there!

  We are all well here in Bombay. Your father has taken on three new clients who are keeping him busy. Rustom is over the moon to learn that Mistry Construction has approval to build several office blocks in Ballard Estate, a neighborhood coming up between Fort and Ballard Pier. With luck, the project will be underway by your visit this May.

  It’s a shame your in-laws did not agree to your enrolling at Bethune. However, the college is located in the north, and if nobody can escort you, they would naturally worry. Also, if you’d have to miss a week every month, you would hardly make progress. My suggestion to you is to investigate Loreto College, which is closer, and inquire whether you might be allowed to do classwork from home five days per month. You might learn of other orthodox female students in similar situations.

  I’m sorry that the Sodawallas are insisting on the practice of your monthly seclusion. They should have mentioned their commitment to this antiquated custom when we met in Bombay. I’m enclosing an edition of the Gujarati women’s magazine Stree Bodh that contains a good article explaining the folly of feminine seclusion. I suggest you give Behnoush-mummy the entire magazine in order for her to discover this gem of knowledge herself, rather than to feel you are challenging her any more than you already have.

  I continue to urge caution in your behavior. The mother-daughter bond is a delicate one that can be ruined with hasty action. Have you spoken to a doctor? Perhaps one could recommend that it is better for you to avoid this practice. A doctor is a more acceptable figure of authority than a daughter-in-law.

  I have not told you this before, because I never wanted you to think ill of your father’s parents. When I entered Mistry House as a young bride in 1890, there was a seclusion room. Both Grandfather and Grandmother Mistry believed it was essential for the household’s health that I confine myself to this tiny room on the third floor for the heaviest part of my cycle. I didn’t enjoy it, but I used the time to read and sleep. After giving birth to you, I convinced your father to move out of Mistry House to Byculla, where people were building modern bungalows without those dreadful little rooms.

  In the event that you and Cyrus decide to move to your own home in Calcutta, we are very happy to help with the purchase.

  I remain,

  Your ever-loving Mamma

  Perveen folded the letter and put it into the desk. This was startling information about her family’s life inside Mistry House. A barrier had risen between her and Grandfather Mistry ever since his avoidance of all her engagement and wedding activities. Because she now understood he’d enforced her own mother’s seclusion, her discomfort with him had turned to anger.

  Staring out of the lounge’s long windows onto the street, Perveen thought about her parents’ generous offer to fund a new home. Her mother was trying to cheer her up, just as Cyrus did on the twenty days each month that she lived freely. But Cyrus had just finished paying for their suite’s modern porcelain bath, toilet, and sink. Furthermore, he was the only Sodawalla child living in Calcutta. If he left his parents alone, it would seem uncaring—especially as they were heading into old age.

  Cyrus had come several times to the door of the little room when she was secluded, knocking only in the early hours of the morning when he was sure his parents were asleep. Perveen had rushed up to open the door to him, maintaining three feet distance between them after his twitching nose had revealed to her that she’d acquired a stench. It couldn’t really be that he believed she was tainted and capable of transmitting disease.

  Cyrus had explained that it wasn’t Bahram who cared for tradition as much as Behnoush, who’d been born in a priestly family. “They were poor, so this is her only point of pride. It is why she takes you with her to agiary so often. You must see her customs as a matter of faith, not any kind of dominance.”

  “But I don’t think God wants women to lie in filth,” Perveen insisted. “And I’m your wife, Cyrus, not hers—can’t you be the one who insists on my well-being?”

  He sighed heavily, exuding a whiff of sweet bourbon. “I’ve tried, but they don’t listen. And better not come out to the hall again! She knows you did earlier this week.”

  Perveen was indignant. “I needed water. I had to call out for one of the servants—”

  “Yes, yes. She was worried if you had too much water, you’d break the rule and use it for cleaning yourself.”

  Perveen was on the verge of telling Cyrus she had done just that when there was a banging sound down the hallway.

  “Someone’s up,” Cyrus whispered, putting a finger to his lips.

  Panic mixed with defiance. “Now’s the time. Take me back to our room, and I’ll take a bath. It will all be over if we stand up to her. I’m not going back in!”

  “Soon enough, you will be pregnant.” His voice sounded almost merry. “I must go!”

  Cyrus pressed her hand one last time and swayed off toward their bedroom.

  Remembering this, Perveen thought that asking for a new home would make her parents-in-law think of her as even more of a spoiled, wealthy girl. However—if she were carrying a baby, safety for the baby’s health could be used as the reason. She wouldn’t mention the death of Azara, because it was painful for Cyrus and his parents. But surely they would realize that moving to Alipore’s fresh air made sense for a baby.

  Then again, having a baby would quash any chance of her studying. And that filled her with regret. She’d so enjoyed meeting Kamini Roy and had written her a letter of thanks, which had been answered by one from the scholar herself, asking whether Perveen’s family was amenable to coming in for the interview.

  Which did she want more—a life of the mind or one devoted to heartfelt caring? It was frustrating to have neither choice assert itself. After four months of married life, she had not conceived. Perhaps it was anxiety. Whenever Cyrus lifted her nightgown, all she could think about was whether that night would be the start of her salvation. As the thought remained in mind, her other body parts lost their sensitivity, and she now couldn’t always reach the thrilling peaks. Her body was losing its powers, just as her spirit was.

  Not long after, Behnoush suggested Perveen see a doctor.

  “Dr. Bhattacharya is highly respected. He is a specialist in women’s health; many ladies from the agiary have sent their daughters-in-law. Although he is a Bengali, he’s familiar with our culture.”

  “What happens in an examination?” Perveen knew seeing a doctor was exactly what Camellia had recommended, but she still felt nervous about the prospect of a physician looking at her private parts.

  “I’ve never had one,” Behnoush said, patting Perveen’s hand. “I hear from my friends’ daughters that it is embarrassing, but there should not be pain. Nothing like childbirth.”

  Dr. Bhattacharya’s office was on the second floor of a stately white building on Theater Road. The waiting room did not have the typical wooden benches crowded with the ill but plush velvet chairs and couches, so the waiting patients could separate themselves. Several other flat-stomached women were waiting with older women she guessed were their mothers-in-law. One pregnant woman was seated on a small sofa, reading a book, while her husband looked around the room smiling. Perveen nodded approvingly at the man, thinking this would be the ideal way for Cyrus to be, accompanying her and giving loving care throughout pregnancy.

  Behnoush pinched Perveen’s arm. “Don’t look at another woman’s husband!”

  “I didn’t.” Perveen flushed at her mother-in-law’s supposition. She wished she’d thought to bring a book to read. She had paper and pen, but she could hardly write a letter complaining about Behnoush when the woman was right beside her.

  After almost an hour’s wait, a nurse called for Perveen to come along and meet the doctor.

  “No, madam,” the nurse said when Behnoush rose to accompany Perveen in. “I’m sorry, but Doctor prefers only the patient in the examination r
oom. He shall speak with you afterward.”

  Perveen was relieved for a few moments, but when she entered the examination room, she felt faint. A table draped with a sheet stood before her, and on a tray table nearby lay an array of long metal instruments and a mirror. There were glass vials and syringes and so much more she could not identify. She felt dread and almost wished Behnoush were with her.

  “The first thing is obtaining a specimen.” Dr. Bhattacharya, a man about Perveen’s father’s age, had silver hair and thick glasses. He spoke English with a heavy Bengali accent. “This allows us to know if you are with child.”

  Could she be?

  Perveen supposed there was a chance. She went into the modern lavatory and managed to urinate a tiny stream into the little cup. When she came out, she marveled at the nurse taking the cup in her gloved hand, behaving as if this was absolutely natural and not an abominable task.

  The nurse instructed her to remove her clothing below the waist, including her petticoat and pantalettes. A rough sheet was given as covering after these clothes were gone.

  Perveen stared at the ceiling, thinking of Cyrus. She’d asked him to come on the doctor’s visit, but he’d joked that it was not his body under examination. She wondered what he was doing at the factory. Perhaps he was making rounds of the workers—or sampling the wares. Whiskey was always on his breath when he came home every evening; the only comfort she had was a chauffeur was driving.

  The doctor and nurse came in together. The doctor asked Perveen the date of her marriage and the estimated number of times of marital congress. Had the frequency fallen off since the marriage?

  “Yes,” she said, seizing the opportunity he’d given her. “My in-laws have insisted that I seclude myself eight days per month. I have to stay one day longer than the first day there’s no blood. It’s a very long time.”

  “Orthodox Parsis observe this custom of menstrual seclusion,” he said with a nod. “It would be quite unlikely for you to conceive during that time.”