The Secrets Between Us

by Thrity Umrigar

  Bhima is nervous to be carrying so much money, but Maya puts the hundred-rupee bundles in her bag as if she does this every day. Once again, Bhima marvels at the change—Maya in the world is different from the girl at home. It is now two p.m., and Bhima longs for a cup of tea. “Shall we sit?” she says, pointing to an Udupi restaurant.

  Maya glances at her watch. “You going to Sunita’s house soon, no?”

  Bhima falls silent, remembering her earlier indecision about whether to return to that job. But that was before she lost her morning job. She stares at a spot over Maya’s shoulder. “How often do I get to be out during the day with my granddaughter?” she says evasively. “No work for me today.”

  “Ma-ma.” Maya’s voice is worried. “What is it?”

  How to explain to this girl how ignorant she feels at not having guessed what the neighbor was hinting and what was under her nose? “They are indecent women,” she says at last. “I am not wanting to encourage their badness.”

  Maya laughs, a loose, public laugh that makes Bhima want to instinctively shush her. “Indecent? Why? Because they are loving each other?”

  “Chup re, chokri,” Bhima says crossly. “You are too young to understand these things.”

  Maya’s lips twist. “I aborted my own child. Do not tell me I’m too young to understand.”

  “Chokri. You . . . Don’t. It’s immoral.”

  Maya stops walking. “Was it immoral what that man did to me, Ma-ma?” she asks softly.

  “Of course. If you have to ask . . .”

  “Then why did you continue to work in that house, Ma-ma?” Maya asks.

  Bhima stares at her, stunned. “I don’t know,” she whispers at last. A sob rises in her throat as she remembers riding in Viraf’s air-conditioned car even after Maya had broken the news to her, how the words with which to confront him had died like burnt leaves on her lips, smoky and withered. She had once loved Viraf, but everything about him had also intimidated her—his soft-as-cream voice, his spotless clothes, his handsome, light-skinned face, the indecipherable English music that he played on the stereo. Bhima is struck by a thought—Chitra baby, too, is educated, but she treats Bhima as a respected aunt, rather than as a servant.

  Maya touches her wrist, shaking her out of her thoughts. “Go to work, Ma-ma,” she says.

  Bhima thinks for another moment, then makes up her mind. “I want to go to the market before Jafferbhai leaves,” she says. “But let’s find a phone and call Chitrabai first. I will tell her I will come to work tomorrow, for sure.”

  Maya accompanies her to the wholesale market, and Bhima is glad for her presence. Jafferbhai is openly skeptical as Bhima describes how she has managed to sell all of Ram’s inventory. “Arre, wah,” he says mockingly. “Here I have seasoned vendors who don’t sell out their entire supply. But you did?”

  Bhima flushes, but before she can speak, Maya does. “My Ma-ma never lies,” she snaps. “Anyway, believe her or don’t believe, makes no difference to us. If you’re not interested, she can take her business elsewhere.”

  “Maya,” Bhima exclaims, but Jafferbhai is smiling. “I hope when I am a grandfather someday, I will be lucky enough to have my grandchild defend me like this.” His eyes twinkle. “What do you say, little memsahib? How much inventory should I sell to your Ma-ma to begin with?”

  But here, Maya looks her age again, and turns uncertainly toward her grandmother. Bhima furrows her brow. Could she sell twice the amount of produce that she had sold in one day? And beyond custard apples, what else should she purchase? She has no idea. Suddenly, she longs for Parvati to be by her side. Then she scoffs at herself. How desperate she is, to wish for the help of a miserable old woman who herself sells only six cauliflowers a day. With her business acumen, why doesn’t she sell dozens more? Is there something that she, Bhima, is not thinking of, some large and dangerous pithole she is about to fall into? She shivers at the thought of making a fatal mistake, a mistake born out of illiteracy and unworldliness. What is she doing here, at all?

  “Bhimaji,” Jafferbhai says. “Maaf karo, but I don’t have all day to chitchat. Now, you buying something or what?”

  “Yes.” Bhima finds her voice. “Rajeev will come tomorrow morning for pickup.” She places an order, fighting the feeling of unreality that grips her. But when it’s time to pay, the moment is all too real, and Bhima watches with fear and regret as Maya opens her bag and counts the money. For a moment she wants to call the whole thing off, but then she remembers the dispiriting trudge down the flight of stairs from Mrs. Motorcyclewalla’s flat, and knows that she cannot return to such unpredictability. If she continues to sell fruit at the rate she did the past two days, and if Sunitabai doesn’t fire her tomorrow, she should be fine. Of course, she has made an awful assumption—that Rajeev will continue to work for her and that that sourpuss woman, whose tongue can scorch like a lick of fire, will continue renting them her precious space. After she and Maya take their leave, she turns toward her granddaughter. “One more stop,” she says. “To the marketplace. I have to set up things for tomorrow.”

  “Shouldn’t you have done that first?”

  Bhima smacks her hand into her forehead. “Yes. But I’m an ignorant woman. I’m doing everything back-to-front.”

  Maya squeezes her hand. “Ma-ma,” she says. “Why are you taking on all this headache? So many people are looking for servants. Why you don’t just get another job?”

  Bhima stands staring at her granddaughter, blinking in the sunlight. Suddenly, it is clear to her, the difference between herself and Parvati. It is not the woman’s utter impoverishment that distinguishes them. No, what separates them is that Parvati has no one to love. Whereas she has Maya.

  “You,” she says simply. “You are the reason. If my hard work puts an extra grain of sugar in your tea, an extra stitch of clothing on your body, if it buys you one more pen or textbook, then I will sacrifice my very heart for you.”

  Maya’s nose reddens. “Thank you, Ma-ma,” she whispers. “I love you, too.”

  It is a new thing, this saying of I love you out loud, Bhima knows. In her time, nobody said such vulgar things to each other. Movie stars did, of course, a chorus of catcalls and whistles erupting from the men in the cheap seats, after every such on-screen declaration. And rich people like Serabai said it, to Dinaz. But she would’ve jumped down a well before saying such embarrassing words to Gopal. And he would’ve looked at her as if she were running a fever if she had. Because there was no need. What tied her to Gopal, what ties her to Maya, is a rope built from muscle and bone, and not from a thin string of empty words. Maya is of her time and generation and needs this verbal comfort, but Bhima is unable to provide it to her. Instead, she puts her arm around the girl’s shoulder and gruffly draws her close. In this manner, they walk from the wholesale to the retail market.

  14

  Halfway through this busy selling day, Bhima looks over and sees a shadow of pain cross Parvati’s face. It lasts as long as the blink of an eye, but she catches it—the biting of the inner cheek, the furrowing of the brow, the action that causes it—the old woman is touching a spot at the base of her spine. “What is it?” Bhima asks, and Parvati scowls. “Nothing,” she says loudly, jerking her hand away from behind her.

  Bhima flushes at the woman’s unforgivable rudeness. She places a large pinch of chewing tobacco in her mouth, grinds down on it, and looks away. Her eyes search for another customer, and she forces herself to do what the other vendors do incessantly—call out to passersby to hawk her wares. Beside her, Parvati snorts. “First two days, I thought you’d never learn,” she says. “Now, you can yell with the best of them. Keep it up and they’ll mistake you for a fisherwoman.”

  “I have a young mouth to feed at home,” Bhima snaps, tired of this crabby woman at her side. “So I do whatever I have to do.”

  “Do, do,” Parvati says, shaking her head. “Whatever you have to do, you must do.”

  But her tone is so dismissi
ve that Bhima is irritated. “Some of us are blessed with children to look after,” she says.

  Parvati’s head jerks up at the insult. But she recovers immediately. “I never considered them blessings,” she says. The cloudy eyes search Bhima’s face, like a vulture looking for the softest place to peck. “Which is why I killed two, three, four of them. While they were still inside me.”

  Bhima’s hands tremble. She wishes to rise from this strip of pavement, fling the rent money into this monstrous woman’s lap, and leave without ever having to see her unfortunate face again. “May God strike you,” she breathes.

  Parvati laughs. “Sister, your wish is fifty years too late. God has already struck me—over and over again. But here I sit.”

  There is not a hint of self-pity in the woman’s voice. Instead, there is defiance, as if God is an adversary she has beaten. Bhima stares at her openmouthed. She has never met a man as strong as Parvati, let alone a woman.

  All morning long, whenever she is between customers, Bhima notices Parvati’s hand slipping absently to the spot at the bottom of her spine. The woman shifts from one buttock to another, and Bhima can tell that sitting on the hard pavement is making the pain worse. Finally, unable to bear it, she gets up abruptly. “Watch for me,” she says, and before Parvati can reply, she walks away. She heads directly to Mehta & Sons, a general store where she used to purchase cleaning supplies for the Dubash household, and buys a small plastic stool. “For you,” she says, when she returns to her spot. “Hard to sit on the ground all day long.”

  “You use it, old woman,” Parvati says promptly. “You need it more than I do.”

  Overhearing the exchange, Reshma cackles. “You can’t do anything nice for her,” she says to Bhima, as if Parvati is not present. “This one’s heart is as tough as leather.”

  “As is your pussy,” Parvati says, and the other two women gasp.

  “Bai,” Bhima cries. “Show some shame. It’s only out of respect for your age that I . . .”

  “Respect for my age? Or respect for this spot upon which you’re making your money?”

  Bhima looks away. She is gratified to see Rajeev huffing his way toward her, carrying another basket full of fruit to replenish her stock. “Is there more after this?” she asks, and the man shakes his head no. “Nahi, mausi,” he says. “Jafferbhai said this is the last. He even gave you a few extra, to fill out the basket.”

  “I should go to this Jafferbhai,” Parvati mutters. “My supplier will not even give me an extra fingernail.” Bhima and Rajeev exchange a look, both of them picturing a distributor like Jafferbhai dealing with someone like Parvati. Bhima knows the only reason the man is selling to her is because of the odd circumstances in which they had met.

  But now, Bhima is struck by another thought. “What is the time?” she asks.

  “Almost two in the afternoon, mausi. And today, I’ve not even taken lunch,” Rajeev says.

  Bhima stares at him, willing him to see what she is thinking. “And we are almost sold out?”

  But Rajeev’s immediate concern is food. “I can go get us something, mausi,” he says, waiting, until Bhima feels compelled to take out a note and hand it to him.

  The two women watch him bound away, and Parvati says, “He’s a bewakoof, that one. Good-natured but a fool. All he’s good for is working like a mule.”

  Eyeing the woman’s six unsold cauliflowers, Bhima bites down the sharp retort that has come to her lips. But Parvati follows her eyes and laughs. “Yes, yes, say what you’re thinking. Who am I to be judging Rajeev?”

  “Why you don’t buy more stock?” Bhima demands. “Since you are so good with the hisab-kitab, knowing how to keep track of money . . .”

  “And where from I get the money to buy more?” Parvati says, and for a split second Bhima sees it—the terror, the hand-to-mouth existence, the cuts sustained from living on the edge. But then, the usual hostility enters Parvati’s eyes. “And like you say, I have no mouths to feed. Bas, I can live a bindas, carefree life.”

  “Forgive me,” Bhima says quietly. “I was wrong to . . .”

  “No. You spoke the truth, sister. Why apologize for this?”

  Rajeev returns with six vada pavs. The three of them spread out the newspaper they are wrapped in and begin to eat. But before they can take a bite, Reshma sniffs, “Wah, mausi. Last two-three days you are eating rich-rich food.” She turns to Bhima. “Usually, one of us does charity and feeds her lunch.”

  Parvati stiffens at the word charity, but before Bhima can chastise Reshma, there is a shout. “Chal, chup,” Rajeev thunders. “This woman is needing nobody’s charity. If you lucky enough to feed her, it is a blessing on your head, only.”

  There is a stunned silence, and then Reshma emits a small giggle. “Pagal,” she says. “All three of you are having yogurt for brains. Good you found one another.”

  Bhima suddenly sees them as Reshma must—two old women in different stages of disrepair, and a valiant but foolish man, each of them trying to better their meager lives. Looking at the other two, she feels a new, astonishing sensation—responsibility. All her life, she has simply followed orders. Every day someone had told her what meals to prepare, what masalas to grind, which rooms to sweep first, which clothes to iron. She has never borne responsibility for anyone else’s livelihood. But Rajeev has thrown in his lot with hers, and she has to guarantee him a certain daily income. And Parvati has agreed to let Bhima rent her space for at least a month, which means she must get her money, too. How did this happen? Bhima marvels. Until recently, she had only one responsibility in the world—Maya. Now, she has two more mouths to feed. And God help her, she likes the feeling.

  Is it wrong, what she is doing, building her good fortune on Bibi’s misfortune? Guilt pokes her in the ribs. But then she thinks, how does it help Bibi, my unhappiness? Does it bring her husband back? Do my tears add a rupee to her income? Would my unemployment fill her belly? No, Bhima thinks, it is better this way. Menfolks like Rajeev can perhaps find their way in this world. But this proud woman beside her, as raw as shaved wood? Bhima senses that she desperately needs the money she gets from renting her spot to them. Although Parvati will die before admitting this.

  “Two-three days of earnings and she thinks she’s rich as a neta’s wife.” Reshma continues her mutterings. She glares at Parvati. “But wait until this woman cheats you out of your space. Then you will be an ordinary bhikhari again, begging for food.”

  Before either of the other two can speak, Bhima raises a placating hand. “Arre, sister, we are all trying to survive. Hai, na? Why unnecessarily you are saying these wicked things?” She reaches for one of the sandwiches, tightening her stomach to control its growling. “Please. Share this with us. It will be my honor.”

  Reshma’s lips thin into a smile. “Shukriya,” she says as she takes the sandwich. Noticing Rajeev’s eyes glittering with hatred for the woman, Bhima gives him a warning look. Between the heat of the boiling sun, the noise of the marketplace, and the quarreling Reshma, she cannot handle any more stress. The man chews silently, his jaw muscle working hard, as he swallows his food along with the unspoken words.

  Parvati saves one of her sandwiches for later. Bhima debates whether to set aside a banana for her, but just then a customer stops by and buys all eight of the remaining bananas, as well as a dozen oranges. The man, who is dressed in a beige polyester safari suit, turns to Rajeev. “You are knowing where Sunshine Apartments is located?” Rajeev nods. “Good, good,” the man continues. “If I buy the rest of the fruits and vegetables here, can you run them over to that address? Will it all fit in that topli of yours?”

  Bhima speaks before Rajeev can. “Yes,” she says. “We can make it all fit.”

  The man gives Rajeev directions. “My brother will be home,” he says. “Tell him I’ll be there within the hour.”

  But even after Rajeev leaves, the man lingers. “Good quality you have here,” he says. “Better than anyone else in the market. Where y
ou buy it from?”

  Bhima opens her mouth to answer but is intercepted by Parvati, who pinches her hard on the thigh, then turns to the customer. “We are honored you like our product, seth,” she says. “But where we get it from is our affair.”

  Bhima is horrified by Parvati’s rudeness, but to her surprise, the man laughs appreciatively. “I understand.” He pulls on his lower lip for a minute, making a demonstration of the fact that he is thinking. “Tell you what,” he says at last. “I am a caterer. I do catering from home for small parties. If I buy from you at least four to five times a week, how much discount you can give me?”

  Again, Parvati intercepts. “How much you buy?”

  The man shrugs. “Hard to say. It will depend on the size of my catering order.”

  Bhima looks from one to the other, glad to have Parvati’s expertise. But then she remembers—when she shopped for Serabai, she always got a discount when she bought a dozen of something. “We give discount if you buy a dozen,” she says.

  The man barely glances at her. “Yes, of course,” he says dismissively, before continuing to talk to Parvati. “But how much?”

  “We give five percent discount on every dozen,” Parvati says, without consulting with Bhima.

  “That’s not enough—”

  “Wait, seth. If you buy at least a dozen of four different items, we give you another two percent on the whole order. Theek hai?”

  The man shakes his head. “I will have to think about it.”

  “Well, don’t think too long, seth. Because every time you place a bulk order, you must let us know one day before, only. That way, we will get your merchandise for sure. And you must put twenty percent deposit to guarantee your order.”

  Bhima gasps, stunned by Parvati’s impudence. But to her astonishment, the man nods and pulls out his wallet again. “Theek hai. You have a piece of paper? I can tell you what I’m needing for tomorrow.”