by Avni Doshi
Sometimes we took her cigarette downstairs. We walked past the dilapidated hotel, the one Nana owned and ran, with its art deco facade and peeling paint job. Families sat on straw mats on the ground. Once, we saw a drunk man stretched out in his sleep, muttering to himself, and we lingered nearby, trying to make out what he said. The chai-wallahs carried their wares away or dozed against steel posts, waiting for the crowds to arrive. Damp faces, clenched jaws and bloodshot eyes, they all looked past us, and we were dulled by the warm night. A steady flow of bloated rats hurried along the tracks, sniffing what had been left behind after the long day. Smoke and the smell of hashish wafted up to our noses, courtesy of a barefoot junkie who groped his testicles as he looked at my mother. A solitary hijra wandering through the train station tapped her shoulder and held out an ornamented hand. Ma gnawed on her dry lips. She wasn’t usually superstitious, but the hijras were said to have inexplicable powers. Money could be traded for protection, but we had none. Ma fished out a red lipstick that happened to be in her kurta and handed it over. The hijra took the tube, said a word of blessing and moved on. The large board where the daily schedule of trains clattered across, a flurry of changing symbols, was illegible to me.
I cannot remember what I felt for Ma during that time because the feeling lacked a familiar name. At the ashram, I had lived without her and longed for her at the same time, but now that we were together I would turn corners towards dread, to feeling I had been mistaken, that maybe I did not want her or need her, only to return to the notion I had lived with all my life, that being without her was hell, misery. And even now, when I am without her, when I want to be without her, when I know her presence is the source of my unhappiness – that learned longing still rises, that craving for soft, white cotton that has frayed at the edge.
Ma wasn’t well after the ashram. No one could deny it, but no one could tell me what this meant. Her eyes remained on the ceiling, in conversation with it, when she was awake, but most of the day, she slept. She slept as though she hadn’t slept in years.
We later found out that this was because Ma was staying awake to contact my father late at night. He was going to be remarried, she had heard, and Ma would call his residence to abuse him. On the occasions that someone else picked up, Ma disconnected the line and called back. Sometimes I sat on her lap as she did this, and eventually she let me dial the number while she held the receiver to her ear. I still remember that number by heart, though I have rarely called him myself. When Nani found out, she pulled me away and told me to come to her room when my mother was behaving strangely. I asked my grandmother what constituted strange.
Nani sighed. ‘I don’t know what she is hoping to achieve.’
She received her answer two days later, when my father came to the flat and gave my mother a thick envelope of money. Whether he had done this out of a sense of responsibility or whether she had found a way to extort him, I will never know, but it was the first time I wanted to go with my father and leave Ma behind. I watched him, a tall, lanky figure with fuzzy hair, who made brief eye contact with me from the shadow of the doorway. He didn’t smile, and his eyes looked troubled when they beheld me.
I asked Nani if Ma and I would be going to the house that belonged to my father.
‘Your mother was gone from that house for a long time,’ she said. ‘Things change as time passes. A new woman is coming into that house now.’
Though the proceedings made little sense to me at the time, I could discern two facts: my parents were no longer married, and my father had found a new wife. Just like Baba had. I remembered how Kali Mata had told Ma to stay, had explained to her that she was a part of the family. I understood that Ma could remain and be like Kali Mata, discarded and respected. I wondered if that option was there for her now, with my father, but as I recalled her face on the day we left the ashram, the sadness and disgust, I knew Ma did not like new wives coming in.
I began to recognize the chaos inside my mother, to see how unlike her I was. Yes, I dripped on occasion, too, but I was always able to seal myself up again.
I asked Nani what divorce was. She was inarticulate when it came to such matters, but tried to explain.
‘When a husband and wife are not husband and wife any more,’ I said, ‘does that mean that a father is no longer a father?’
Nani held my gaze for a long time before allowing her lips to curve into a smile. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, it does not.’
I waited below my grandparents’ flat with a blue suitcase. My hair was braided in a neat plait that pulled at the skin beneath my sideburns. Nani had flattened my delinquent eyebrows with petroleum jelly. As she stood beside me downstairs, Nani told me to be a good girl.
‘Make him love you,’ she said. Her words seemed like a warning that I only had a single chance.
Ma had barely said goodbye.
My father arrived in his usual Contessa. He was a clean man, and prudent with money. His car, though old, was spotless and well maintained. ‘I hope you packed enough for a week,’ he said. I had packed a little extra, the things that I didn’t want to leave behind.
I don’t remember how many steps we took to the house, but I dragged the blue suitcase up behind my father. The door was black and the handle was a gold bar carved like a column in a temple where the relief had been rubbed away by hands over many years. The doorbell was so faint I was tempted to press it again after my father, but I stood back and waited, surprised when the door flew open. She was waiting there, wearing the bangles from her recent wedding on both wrists. They were too large for her and must have belonged to my grandmother. The glass in her frames was bisected and smudged with fingerprints. My father did not seem to notice. He stepped into the house to greet her while I watched them from the outside. I touched the wall of the house, shuffling my foot until they both looked at me. A manservant came and prised the suitcase from my clenched hand.
The new wife bent down and embraced me, pulling my face into her hair. I smiled in the fog of frizz. It was woolly and smelled of coconut oil. In the antechamber behind her, I could see the maids peeking in on our moment.
They showed me to a room that was usually occupied by my grandmother. I would stay there because she was in Delhi, visiting one of her daughters. The room was damp and smelled of sweat and skin, but they didn’t seem to notice. My suitcase was already there, open, and the manservant was separating my underwear into piles and placing them inside the dark cupboard. I leaned against the foot of the bed and looked into the face of the fan that stood in front of me like an open mouth.
In the morning, my father left for work after eating a banana in two mouthfuls and drinking a tall glass of milk. I set an alarm like Nani showed me so I could wake up when he did. I ate like him and tried to say something, but had to lie down with a stomach ache as soon as he left. I stayed at home for the rest of the day, with the servants and the guard dog, who rushed to the gate, barking, any time a car or cyclist passed.
I had carried only my best clothes to their house, finished all the food the cook served me and didn’t ask for sweet shakkar-roti at the end of the meal. After my bath, I tried to comb my hair myself, plait it, even though I couldn’t see the back, and I didn’t ask for help when I could not find the switch for the geyser. There was no soap in the bathroom and the toothpaste burned my tongue, but I didn’t say a word about it. I was resourceful after the ashram; I knew how to do things that no one else did.
I sat at the top of the stairs looking down for most of the week. The staircase curved around twice and reminded me of a snake that had been captured in the ashram. The smell of garlic always wafted up from the kitchen downstairs. The floor was a dark, cold marble, and when my bottom began to numb I walked up and down the corridor until I felt it thaw. I had forgotten to bring house slippers with me and kept my socks on all day to warm my feet, but the floor was as slippery as it was cold, and I took little steps until I found there was more pleasure in sliding back and forth. I imagined skating
on ice was something like this. Once skating grew tiresome, I returned to the step, where my frame of vision consisted only of the landing, where I saw the occasional tops of heads rushing by – maids, the manservant, and sometimes the new wife, who moved around quickly, often disappearing for most of the day.
I wanted to please her. I made my bed and killed the cockroaches in the medicine cabinet for her.
My fifth day in the house, I saw the top of the new wife’s head, her thin arms straining as she dragged three large suitcases across the corridor. Breathless, she called up to the servants, only to observe me in her line of sight. Her eyes widened, as though she had forgotten I was in the house.
‘Your papa and I are going to America,’ she said. ‘For at least three years. He wanted me to tell you.’
My father’s crystal decanter, full of amber-coloured Scotch, sat on a small trolley bar against the wall behind her. Light passed through it and adorned her like a crown.
In the evening, my father’s friend came home to meet the new wife and the daughter. His name was Kaushal Uncle, and he looked between us, the two females in the room, unsure of whom to greet first. He settled on the wife, bringing his hands together and telling her how happy he was to meet her. He hugged me next, pinching my cheek and the point of my chin.
We sat in the hall, and my father brought out the Scotch and glasses. The table was covered in silver bowls and objects that glittered like jewellery. The men toasted each other while the new wife and I drank tutti-frutti punch. The glass looked odd in my father’s hand. His wrists were limp, thin, and seemed strained by the weight of the beverage.
Fried pakoras and samosas and koftas came out of the kitchen. The servant held out a tray to Kaushal Uncle, but my father motioned to me. ‘Offer the food to everyone,’ he said.
The tray was heavier than the servant made it look, and my hands shook a little. I held it towards Kaushal Uncle. He laughed and nodded at me. Taking the tray, he placed it on the table near his drink and enveloped me in another hug. His shoulder smelled of perspiration and phenyl. He tapped the back of my head and said, ‘What a lovely child you have!’
He turned me around and sat me on his lap. His arm slid around my waist. I stayed there for the rest of the evening, while my father spoke about his plans for America, the flat they were planning to rent, jokes about adjusting to the intemperate weather.
I wonder now why my father didn’t tell me they were leaving, why he had his wife do it. Did Nani and Ma know he was going? In my notebook, I have grouped it with not knowing the details of my parents’ divorce, and never discussing their marriage. It must have stemmed from the same impulse. Perhaps, married to an American, I have forgotten that certain subjects are not discussed. But at the time, I didn’t wonder about any of these things. I was sad, but it seemed proper that my father would not tell me. It seemed acceptable that he was leaving.
Exactly a week after I arrived my nana came to pick me up. That was the day I shut all thoughts of my father into a peripheral space, one that takes little room, one that needs no attention.
‘Do you really put your bra on like that?’
Purvi watches me dress. She arrived before I was ready and let herself into my bedroom.
It’s early in the evening and the sky is a faint purple. I turn away from her. I am tired and the muscles in my face can’t conceal my thoughts.
When I’m dressed, we join our husbands in the living room.
Her husband is polite when he meets me, and we side-hug as he pats me on the back. He likes whisky with his cricket, which he has turned on, and he carries the scent of hand sanitizer with him when he walks into the house.
We move to the dinner table. I’ve made sure there are many things to eat – Purvi’s husband likes choices at dinnertime. Papdi, kantola, drumsticks, cabbage. In the centre of the table are plump legs of chicken, charred and steaming, that have been marinated in coriander, garlic and chilli. Beside Dilip is a mountain of dahi aloo. He turns away from the dish and from me.
Purvi’s husband grew up in Pune, went to college in Bombay and returned to join his father’s business. Their company designed the first mall in the city, a bright red building – their signature colour. Now they have malls all over India, all part of the same brand, housing some of the best retail outlets in the country. This is the way he introduces himself, with a story of his background, his family and their estimable wealth. He sets the scene for how he wants to be judged and remembered, clinking a large cube of ice in his glass at the end of every sentence.
He asks Dilip if we have ever noticed the locking mechanism in his car. When Dilip says he hasn’t, Purvi’s husband insists we look after dinner.
‘They had diamonds in them,’ he says. ‘They were real, you know. But that turned out to be a little unsafe. We have so many drivers.’
Purvi breaks her chapati into small pieces and scatters them around her plate.
Purvi’s husband suggests that one night next week we all go to a new five-star hotel for dinner. ‘The food there is excellent,’ he says.
‘We have been there together before,’ I remind him.
He raises his glass to me and compliments the chicken. I tell him I didn’t cook it.
Then he tells me about his father’s latest property purchase. It’s on a road not too far from my grandparents’ house. His father bought a plot in a lovely little society and started building his dream home. But the society complained about the height and size of the structure, saying that it blocked the light for the other homes. His father had to halt construction.
‘My father,’ he says, ‘was heartbroken.’ He lets his head hang. Purvi coughs.
I say I hope he will eventually build something else he loves.
Purvi’s husband laughs and hands his glass to Dilip, signalling a refill. ‘You shouldn’t worry about my father,’ he says.
I want to explain that I was just being polite, that my concern for his father is a learned social nicety, a smile on the mouth that doesn’t reach the eyes. But I sense he doesn’t care much about these details, that he is using me to move along with this story.
He says his father is close to local politicians and permission boards. The clerks call him sir. The police chief is a regular at their home for dinner. The building society that dared to stop him has already been made to pay. He doesn’t divulge the punishment but smiles at his father’s ingenuity, musing that it is something he hopes to learn.
I don’t say anything more but see that I was right, that my input was just a bump in the narrative.
I have a striking sensation that life is short, that I can feel the minutes ticking by, that I don’t have much time left. I am tired of them, of Purvi and her husband. Not tired exactly, but something else, something nervous and frantic. I want them gone, want their stench out of my house, want their multiplied bodies to disappear from my mirrors. A year ago, we argued after drinking too much gin and the evening ended with Purvi’s husband threatening to put a cigar out on my face. The next day we pretended it didn’t happen.
I wonder what would happen if I asked them to leave, what new plot line would emerge from that? How would they reply? Would they look to Dilip to intercede on their behalf? What conversations would ensue on the car ride home? And how would the story be repeated at other dinner parties?
A hysterical laugh bubbles in me, but I swallow it and sputter. They look at me with wide, worried eyes, nervous that I may throw up, afraid that they will see the food we are eating chewed up and partially digested.
After dinner, the men turn the cricket on again. Purvi lingers in front of the television and cheers when an Indian batsman makes a century. She pumps her fist and turns, her eyes on her husband, and I see the deep thing they share, the skeleton underneath.
Purvi’s husband pours himself another whisky and pats Dilip on the arm. ‘There’s a new business I want to get into.’
He leans close to my husband and speaks in a low voice. He says he believes t
hat pharmaceutical companies are on the way out. New studies are showing that everything can be cured with turmeric or, otherwise, cannabis. He travelled recently to China and visited labs where they produce medicinal mushrooms. ‘I think it’s going to be a big business.’
He leans over and asks me if I have ever been to Bhutan. I say I haven’t.
He says I must go, that there are mysterious things that happen there, miracles that take place in the mountains, above the treeline, where oxygen is rarefied and the plants are the heartiest on Earth.
He says he will take us, that he has been invited by a tribe of nomads that live there. Men, smaller than midgets, who herd yaks. If we are lucky, they will take us through the mountains in search of a fungus, a wily creature that latches on to caterpillars. The caterpillars, once infected, eat insatiably, feeding on everything in their path, feeding the fungus, building and disappearing into cocoons. But the fungus eventually wins, taking over the body of its prey. What is left is the most elusive mushroom of all, the cordyceps.
He smiles at Purvi and looks back to Dilip.
The Chinese have figured out a way of making them in labs, creating the effects of altitude in tanks, making super cordyceps, the likes of which you could find only on Mount Kailash, nay, the moon. He says we can make a lot of money together.
Purvi claps her hands. ‘What do you think, Dilip?’
Dilip nods and shakes his head at once. ‘I’m not sure. It doesn’t sound vegetarian to me.’
Purvi’s husband stumbles as he crosses the room. He leans towards me. I turn my face away from the onslaught of his breath. ‘There is a species of trout,’ he begins, ‘found in America, with a red belly, that swims in deep waters. When that fish becomes a host for a certain parasite, it leaves its dark home and comes to the surface. There, it bobs around in the sun, and the light catches its red scales, attracting birds. The fish becomes the bird’s lunch, and the clever parasite is excreted in bird droppings on land, where it can reproduce and begin its cycle once again. Parasites could be the greatest weapon on Earth. Genetically modify them and they could turn their hosts into zombies.’