The Secrets Between Us

by Thrity Umrigar

  Maya frowns, puzzled. “Touch me?”

  Bhima flushes, unable to give voice to the unpleasantness sloshing around her brain. “Did they . . . you know, like that badmash Viraf?”

  There is a strange sound, and it takes her a minute to realize that Maya is shaking with laughter. “Ma-ma,” she splutters. “Don’t take this tension, na. They were nothing but good to me. Treated me like an honored guest. Like a friend.”

  It is the word friend that makes Bhima rush up to Maya and slap her. That, and the backwash of fear at the realization that the world is fraught with dangers she has no name for, that the future she imagines for Maya—graduation from college, a good job, a decent husband, a home far removed from the squalor of their present life—can be toppled over as easily as she had toppled her plate. That everything is an ambush, that there’s no one to trust, not even a young woman who spoke with a strange accent but who, with her kind words, had wormed her way into Bhima’s heart.

  Maya holds her cheek, her mouth slack with shock. “What did I do wrong?” she gasps.

  Her stricken grandmother looks back at her, unable to answer the question. It is Chitra she has wanted to strike, she realizes, Chitra with her playfulness, her casual informality, her ever-ready willingness to help in the kitchen. She turns away from the confusion in Maya’s eyes. Once again, history has repeated itself. Once again, instead of striking out at the rich who have betrayed her, she has lashed out at her own blood, for no other reason than proximity. She remembers the bitterness with which Maya used to blame her for valuing the Dubash family over her own.

  Bhima sighs. The biggest curse of old age is not the pain in her hips or the shedding of her once-full head of hair, she thinks. The true curse is the awareness of how large and sinister and complicated the world truly is. That, and the knowledge of her own ignorance and insignificance in that world. Oftentimes, when she is on the street she looks at the crowd around her and thinks: If she stopped walking, she would still be towed along, like a twig in stormy waters. Everybody in this city seems to have purpose, clarity, a destination. But more and more she feels sluggish and lost. Now there is a new piece of information to digest, to insert into the puzzle of the world, but this one refuses to click into place, unable as she is to reconcile her affection for Chitra baby with the new knowledge of her unnaturalness. Not for the first time, she longs for Gopal to interpret the world for her. Or even Amit, her now-grown son, with his quicksilver intelligence and sharpness. Instead, here she is, left with this trusting girl, who is still a child even though she has expelled a child from her own womb.

  Bhima’s eyes are wet with tears of contrition. “Forgive me,” she says to Maya. “For no reason, I take my gussa out on you. You do nothing wrong, my child.” She cradles Maya in her arms.

  “It’s okay, Ma-ma.” Maya’s voice is muffled. “I know you are trying to protect me. But Chitra and Sunita are very good people. They don’t make me feel stupid, like your Serabai did.”

  She swallows the immediate retort that gathers on her lips: It is Serabai’s charity that paid for your early college, you ungrateful girl. And it is Dinaz’s benevolence that continues to pay for it. She remains silent. Let Maya have her bitterness against the Dubash family. It is hard-earned. Her own ambivalence toward the Dubash family is part of the confusion that hovers like fog over her head.

  She yawns, and Maya pulls herself away from her and eyes her with concern. “Go to bed, Ma-ma. You look so tired.”

  She yawns again. “That I am.” She crosses the tiny room to her own mattress, then turns back. “But what about your homework, beti? You keep the lantern on, accha? It won’t disturb me.”

  Maya nods. “Okay, Ma-ma.”

  Bhima has just lain down and is about to roll over to her side when Maya asks, “How was the marketplace today, Ma-ma? You said about the money but not how the day went.”

  The older woman’s mind skips over the entire day—the frustration of the morning, the unexpected rescue by that woman Parvati, her shock when she realized that Parvati was literate. The gratification of earning back Ram’s investment and the stunning realization that she herself had earned a profit in doing so. She realizes that Maya is waiting for an answer. “It was good,” she says. “Tiring but good.”

  But the last thing she remembers before falling asleep was that feeling when the sales picked up and the money flew into her hands. She has no name for that feeling, so new and terrible, like a bird beating its wings inside her chest. And then she knows—it was exhilaration.

  11

  One day. What a difference one day has made, Bhima marvels. It is only noon and they have already sold more than half of the remaining fruit. She feels a grudging gratitude toward the woman squatting beside her, for the gift of this space, for her kindness in explaining the concept of profit to her. Filled with goodwill, she turns her head to glance at the face that within the span of a day has gone from looking grotesque to ordinary. “Chai peyange?” she asks. Will you take a cup of tea?

  Parvati’s lip curls with disdain. “No thanks. I don’t want to be in your obligation.”

  Although she knows it is unreasonable of her, Bhima is stung by the hostility she hears in the older woman’s voice. Instinctively, she looks around for Rajeev, simple, open-hearted Rajeev, who over the years has happily accepted all her invitations to tea or a plate of vada pav, without pride or reservation. This woman here is a different sort—one step above having to beg for a living, but bristling with pride and prickliness, full of secrets and surprises and sharp corners.

  Bhima is about to shrug when she hears herself say, “On the contrary. It is I who am in your obligation.”

  For the first time today, Parvati looks her in the face. The older woman allows herself a smile so thin it looks like a mere incision. But even this is enough to transform her, and Bhima has a sudden, startling revelation—Parvati must have been beautiful in her youth. Now, she notices the straight nose, the arch of the eyebrow, and below that, the large, beautiful eyes. Her lips part with surprise, and she hears Parvati say sharply, “What are you staring at?”

  In response, Bhima reaches for the largest, ripest custard apple and splits it in half. The creamy white pulp on the inside twinkles in the sunlight as she offers half of it to the older woman, who hesitates and then accepts. “This comes out of your share, not mine,” Parvati grumbles, even as she scoops a piece inside her mouth, sucking against the black pit to get at the fruit.

  “Of course.” Bhima smiles. She splits her half again before turning toward Reshma. “Have some,” she says, and even though Reshma looks at her with suspicion, she readily accepts.

  “Oi, ladies, are you going to enjoy your own produce or sell me some, also?” a male customer complains, and Bhima puts her own share down on a piece of newspaper to tend to him.

  “You bargain well,” Parvati says after he leaves.

  “I learned. The mistress I used to work for, I guarded her money as carefully as if it was mine.”

  Parvati looks at her curiously. “You no longer work for her, then?”

  Bhima feels the familiar shame at the memory. “No,” she says.

  “Let go, were you?” She says it softly, but Bhima jumps as if she has been prodded.

  “Did that Rajeev open his big mouth to you?” she says. “Just wait till he comes back. Poking his nose in . . .”

  “Behenji. Please stop. Rajeev has said nothing.”

  “Then who?”

  Parvati sighs. “Look around you, sister. What do you see? A market of nawabs and princesses? No. We are all discarded people. Husbands, children, parents, bosses—someone or the other has betrayed us. Do I speak the truth or not?”

  Yes, but in my case it is person after person, Bhima thinks. Have all these people here endured as much loss as I have?

  “I take your silence as assent,” Parvati says, and Bhima hates her for her astuteness.

  “Where did you learn to read and write?” she asks, wanting to chan
ge the subject.

  Parvati looks at her for a long time. Then she says, “A woman taught me. We used to call her Principal.”

  “You went to school?”

  “You could say that. But it was the kind of school no parent should agree to place their child in.”

  Bhima frowns, frustrated with Parvati’s habit of talking in riddles. She is about to ask another question when one of Parvati’s usual customers shows up to buy a cauliflower. She is a homeless woman who lives on the street with her three children, all of whom beg for a living. Parvati raises her hand in greeting. “Kaise hai?” she asks, and the woman replies with a weary, “Still alive, sister.”

  Unable to bear the pathetic sight of the few coins dropping from the woman’s hand into Parvati’s, Bhima turns away. In any case, she has two new customers, one of whom buys half a dozen custard apples from her, after much haggling over the price.

  “I know her,” Parvati says after the woman leaves. “Works for a rich woman who lives in one of those new buildings on Forest Road. Acts like it is her own money she’s spending, instead of her owner’s.”

  “I told you. I used to do the same.”

  Parvati spits her contempt onto the pavement. “Then you were as big a fool as she.” She raises her hand to prevent Bhima from protesting. “We poor people? We should have only one loyalty in the world. And that’s to other poor people. Anything else is foolishness. Anything else is suicide.”

  Bhima stares at her, unable to muster a counterargument. “Serabai was good to me,” she finally mutters.

  “Good to you? Didn’t you just say she discarded you like a flat tire?”

  “My granddaughter feels the same way you do,” Bhima says. “Always berating me for my loyalty to Serabai’s family.”

  “Then your granddaughter is smarter than you.”

  For the first time, Bhima smiles a genuine smile. “That she is. Going to college, she is. Top student.”

  Parvati’s eyes light up with interest. “Accha? Really? Then may all your hard work be fruitful, sister.”

  Bhima nods, too overcome to speak.

  “What is her name? Your granddaughter?”

  “Maya.”

  “That is a fine name. And where is her grandfather, may I ask?”

  The question grazes at Bhima’s skin. “Gone,” she says shortly. “All gone. Maya’s parents, too.”

  She expects sympathy, a tsk-tsk, a clucking of the tongue. Instead she gets, “Just as well. The less people to love, the better off you are.”

  Bhima’s face flushes with anger. “What kind of a woman are you?” she says. “Are you a woman at all, that you talk in this manner?”

  Parvati smiles. “You’re right, sister. I’m not a woman at all.” She tears a small piece of the newspaper that the custard apples are piled onto and holds it up. “I am like this paper. People can write on me, spit on me, tear me up, it makes no difference. One strong gust of wind and—” she releases the scrap of paper—“bas, I’m gone. And no one will even know that I was here.”

  A lonely, reciprocal feeling rises within Bhima. Harsh as Parvati’s words are, they join hands with her own thoughts. What had the older woman called them? Discarded people. Parvati has simply given words to the melody that Bhima has hummed for a long time.

  “Mausi, I’m hungry.” Rajeev’s plaintive voice startles both women. The man bends his knees into a squat and lowers the basket onto the sidewalk. “Jafferbhai says this is the last of the consignment.”

  Bhima stares at him in wonder. “After this lot we have recovered what Ram paid? This is the entire stock?”

  “Yes, mausi.”

  Bhima raises her eyes to the sky. “Thank God. I will fulfill my promise to Bibi.”

  Rajeev beams. “Shall we get some lunch, mausi?” he says after a moment.

  Bhima peels off a few notes. “Buy what you want,” she tells him. “Bring back something for me. And for this one here, also.”

  “You will still owe me my rent money, lunch or no lunch,” Parvati says promptly, and Bhima and Rajeev exchange an amused glance.

  “Yes, yes, bhenji,” Bhima says, still reveling in her good fortune. “Nobody is cutting your share, don’t worry.”

  From the manner in which Parvati’s hands shake as she unwraps the newspaper bag that holds the two samosas, Bhima realizes that the woman is starving. The afternoon sun beats relentlessly on their heads as they eat, and she shudders at the thought of Parvati sitting below it day after day. Unlike Rajeev, who wolfs down his food, Parvati tries to refrain from doing so, and for the second time in two days, the word swamani, honorable, forms in Bhima’s mind.

  By two in the afternoon, they have sold out almost their entire stock. This time, Bhima holds back six of the fruit and divides it equally among the three of them. And when she hands Parvati her day’s rent, she is surprised at the feeling of regret that wells up within her at the thought of not seeing the old woman again. “Thank you,” she says. “You have earned a young widow’s blessings with your generosity.”

  “People’s blessings have never helped me,” Parvati says. “It is only their curses that have come true.” She lets out a mirthless cackle.

  As Bhima stares at the woman, puzzled by her incessant need to be disagreeable, Rajeev comes up and takes her by the elbow. “Come on, mausi,” he says. “I will walk you to the corner.”

  Bhima shakes her head as they walk, her earlier goodwill toward Parvati’s self-respect curdling into irritation at her false pride. “Not two paise to her name but too much gamand,” she mutters to Rajeev.

  “It’s all she has, mausi,” Rajeev says quietly. “Don’t you see? Her pride is what is holding her together.”

  Bhima peers up at Rajeev’s guileless face. Where does it come from, this ability to see the best in others? she wonders. Could it be that like Parvati, this Rajeev, too, has depths to him of which she is unaware? Bhima looks around the crowded street, and for a moment she sees it—each human body a mystery, cradling a thousand secrets, like the wiring that is hidden behind plastered walls. She feels dizzy at the thought.

  When they reach the corner, Bhima smiles at Rajeev. “You have worked hard these past two days,” she says. “For this, I am in your debt.”

  Rajeev grins broadly, and Bhima has a quick sense of what he must’ve looked like at age seven. “For you, Bhima mausi, I will drop everything to help,” he says, and Bhima basks in the warmth of his words. “Besides, it was fun, eh, mausi? It made me feel like—like, I was more than just a donkey, carrying other people’s loads.”

  She nods. “I know. It was hard work, but it was good.” Then, to lighten the mood, she adds, “Perhaps we can both get jobs working at that new mall when it opens.”

  Rajeev scratches the back of his neck. “And what would we do there, mausi? Such places are not meant for people like us.”

  She feels a sudden urge to show off, to tell him that she’s been inside expensive hotels and stores with Serabai, but she resists. “Chalo,” she says, after a minute. “I must be off to my afternoon job.”

  “And I must go back to being a donkey again.”

  Bhima is halfway to Sunitabai’s house before she remembers the entire conversation from the night before. A feeling of revulsion rises in her again. There is no way she can face Chitra baby, with her incessant prattle, her questions about Maya, her offers to make tea for Bhima while she cooks, not after what Maya has revealed to her. A lethargy comes over her. She has already cancelled on Mrs. Motorcyclewalla today. She will not go to her second job either. Maybe by tomorrow she will be able to face Chitra again. Yes, tomorrow she will go, but she also will look for another job, working for a decent family with a proper husband and wife. Today, she will instead go home and prepare an extra something for Maya out of the day’s earnings.

  The loose change jingles inside Bhima’s sari as she walks toward the slum. It is only as she is entering the basti that the thought comes to her: the money she has earned yesterday and t
oday are the first wages she has ever earned doing anything besides domestic work. With a lift in her step, she walks down the dank by-lane that leads to her hut.

  12

  The music of the dancing girls is exceptionally loud tonight, and Parvati twists and turns in her cot, unable to sleep. When she had first arrived at the Old Place as a terrified twelve-year-old, the woman they called Principal had tested her ability to sing and dance. But Parvati was the daughter of peasants, and after a few sessions, Masterji had shaken his head and declared that the new girl had no discernable talent. Principal’s lips had thinned then, in that disapproving manner that Parvati was already beginning to recognize, but the woman had recovered soon enough.

  “This little calf will yet yield milk,” she had whispered, cupping her hand under the young girl’s chin to raise her face.

  For two years, she had used Parvati as bait. Every evening she would dress the young girl up, put kohl to her eyelashes to accentuate the shape of her eyes, color her pubescent lips with red lipstick, fit her into a tight-fitting blouse and choli that displayed her growing breasts and narrow hips. Parvati would line up on the balcony of the three-story house that Principal ran, along with the brightly painted older women, and cower inwardly as the hungry, lustful eyes of the men would ravage her. But if one of those men so much as touched her face or arm, there was Principal, spitting her rage, banishing them from the house for a week, until they had learned their punishment. Soon, the men learned that Parvati was for display only. Many of them, longing for the day the young virginal girl would be placed on the market, would wonder how much it would cost for them to be the one to break her in. They would take out their pent-up frustrations by fucking the older prostitutes, but in the meantime, the price for Parvati kept rising. And since the girl was consuming milk and rice and meat and wearing the good clothes that Principal bought for her, and since she had shown no ability to be a dancing girl, there had to be other ways in which she earned her keep while being groomed for the right man. The girl was adept at housework, but soon Principal discovered that the beautiful face hid an intelligent mind. Any dumb cow could scour the pots and pans and sweep the rooms; Principal needed a sidekick in managing the accounts of an increasingly prosperous business. She nurtured Parvati’s aptitude for numbers, and began to teach her to read and write. The girl worked hard, in the dim hope that her bookkeeping services would prove indispensable enough to spare her the fate that had befallen the other women in the house.