The Secrets Between Us

by Thrity Umrigar

  She settles down on her mattress, but sleep eludes her tonight. Finally, she gets up again and heads toward the trunk. She riffles through the chest until she finds the worn, blue aerogram. Even though she cannot read the words she had dictated to the professional letter writer who lives one lane away from them in the slum, she still recalls its content. She holds the letter to her body, smoothing its creases with her hand. It is the letter she had dictated to Gopal after Pooja’s death. At Pooja’s angry insistence, they had not informed him of her marriage. The girl had felt the sting of Gopal’s absconding even more deeply than she had and had never forgiven her father for his abandonment of them. But the day after she had returned home from Delhi, Bhima had gone to the letter writer and dictated the letter that informed Gopal that their sweet Pooja was no more. She had kept the letter short, both because the man charged her by the word and because she did not want the news to get around in the basti that little Maya’s parents had died of the AIDS. She had walked with the letter to the mailbox, but when the moment came to send it, found that she could not. She imagined Gopal opening the letter and asking Amit to read it to him. She imagined both of them, stricken, rendered mute by this news. Gopal would blame himself. She knew this as sure as she knew anything.

  For years she had believed that she would never be able to forgive Gopal for his cowardice, that her love for him had hardened into contempt. But as her hand hovered over the letter box, Bhima knew better. She did not blame Gopal for leaving them, after all; she blamed herself for being the reason why he had no choice but to leave. And without a desire for vengeance, there was no way to mail a letter containing such damning news, especially since it would be her Amit who would most likely read it first.

  Would it have changed anything, she now wonders, if she had? Gopal would have caught the first train back to the city. But then what? Could they have learned to be a family again, after all those years? He would’ve doted upon Maya, of that she is sure. But what if he was still drinking? Could she have borne it better, the second time around? Or had the nurturing soil of his village nursed him back to health? She doesn’t know.

  As she puts the letter back in the trunk, Bhima sighs. It will be morning in a few hours and here she is, trying to fan the flames of a dead past. “What use?” she says out loud. “What use?”

  She lowers herself onto her mattress again and closes her eyes. A melody plays in her head, a song Gopal used to sing to her a lifetime ago. She falls asleep to the song, once so alive and romantic, now mocking her in her dreams as it echoes through the years.

  31

  Maya is too exhausted after her last exam to celebrate. She staggers into Chitra’s house around four in the evening, and by the time Bhima arrives a half hour later, the girl has climbed into bed and is fast asleep. Chitra greets her at the door, holding a cautionary finger to her lips. “She’s sleeping,” she says. “The poor thing is dead tired. She was up half the night studying.” Bhima’s heart swells with gratitude at this thoughtfulness, this interest in Maya’s well-being.

  The girl is still sleeping when Sunita lets herself in a few hours later. “Hi,” she says, giving Chitra a light peck on the cheek. She smiles at Bhima as she lifts the lid of the pot simmering on the stove. “Papdi,” she smiles, sniffing the vegetable. “Yum. My favorite.”

  “And some Parsi-style pallao-daal,” Chitra says.

  Bhima grins self-consciously. “What to do? After so many years working for Serabai, I am used to making pallao on happy occasions.”

  “Oh, God, Bhima. Don’t apologize. We are lucky to benefit from your expertise.”

  They debate whether to let the sleeping girl lie, but Sunita insists that Maya eat something. “I’ve never seen anyone study around the clock as she has, Bhima,” she says. “I think she should get really top marks.”

  “Sugar in your mouth, baby,” Bhima intones. “I’ve already promised myself that I will buy two kilos of ghee for the temple if she gets good marks.” She catches the look that passes between the two women. “What is it?”

  “Nothing, Bhima. It’s just that . . . you know that the temple custodians just sell all the offerings and pocket the money, right?”

  Bhima stays silent.

  “Maybe, if you must make an offering, you can feed some beggars outside the temple?” Sunita suggests. “So much need in this city of ours.”

  “The need is always there,” Bhima says fiercely. “More poor people than flies. But to feed the Gods, there is real power in that.”

  There is a short, awkward silence, and then Chitra exhales. “Well. Let’s eat, shall we?” She turns to Su. “Sweetie, can you wake her up? I’ll set the table.”

  They toast the half-awake girl as she sits at the table, cupping her chin in her hand. Maya smiles weakly, trying to blink the sleep out of her eyes. “How’d you do?” Sunita asks.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Everything is jumbled in my head.” And with this, Maya bursts into tears.

  Bhima is stricken; instinctively, she looks to Chitra for help. “What is it? What’s wrong, beti?” she asks, rising to cradle Maya’s head.

  But Chitra gestures to her to sit back down. “It’s all right. It’s just the tension of the past week.” She looks at Maya. “You know, I was the same way after each exam. I always thought I’d done poorly. But I was always wrong.”

  Maya smiles weakly as she wipes away her tears. “Thanks,” she says. “I wish I could find out today how I did. This waiting will kill me.”

  “Nonsense,” Chitra says. “You’re going to sit for me this summer, yes? And Binny said you can help at the law office. We’re going to keep you busy.”

  Bhima looks from one to the other, not comprehending their conversation. “Sit? She is already sitting.”

  Chitra leans over and gives Bhima a quick hug. “You are so cute. I mean, Maya has agreed to pose for me. I’ll pay her, of course.”

  The heat rises in Bhima’s face. “You will be making the picture of her?”

  “Yes.” Chitra takes a sip of her wine. “I’m doing a series of portraits.” She pokes Bhima in the arm. “You’re going to be next.”

  Bhima scratches her head, thoroughly confused. She throws her granddaughter a helpless look, but Maya is not paying attention. They will have to talk when they get home. “Chokri,” she says sternly, rapping her knuckles on the table. “Are you all packed-pooked? Do you have all your things ready for home?”

  Maya looks at her shyly. “Ma-ma. Can I stay here one more night? I’m so tired. I just need to sleep. And the basti is so . . . noisy.”

  Bhima feels the words like a long, lingering cut of a knife. She has been counting the days for when Maya will fill up their little home again with her presence. Still, who can blame the girl for choosing this beautiful place with its plastered walls and high ceilings over a broken-down hut? She tries to hide her disappointment. “If Sunitabai allows,” she says, hoping none of them can hear the tremor in her voice.

  “Oh, we don’t care,” Sunita says with a shrug. “We love having Maya here.”

  The girl is wide awake now. “Thanks, Su,” she says.

  Bhima has always felt as if Maya is an extension of her body; now, watching the three of them chatting away, she experiences a new sensation—that Maya belongs with the other two women more than she does with her. It is not exactly jealousy that she feels. Rather, it’s the feeling of being the outsider, akin to what she used to feel when she and Gopal used to go to the seaside in the old days and they’d walk by the expensive bakeries and restaurants they knew they couldn’t afford. She has never felt as old as she does right this minute, listening to the three of them. How young Maya is. In this festive room, there is not a hint of the quiet girl who dwells with her in their silent hovel. Bhima has a sudden premonition—she will not choose a husband for Maya as she’d always supposed. Maya will forge her own path and select her own partner. Her role in the girl’s life is drawing to a close; all she now needs to do is kee
p earning enough money to allow Maya to grow wings, wings that will undoubtedly take her to places Bhima herself will never visit. Bhima has never known until now that joy can feel so much like pain.

  “Let’s go have ice cream at Chowpatty Beach,” Chitra says after they’re done with dinner, and without looking at her, Bhima can sense the tension in Maya’s body. They have not been back to the beach since the fateful day that they had run into Viraf there. In order to protect the girl from having to respond, she fakes a yawn. “Not tonight, baby,” she says. “I am too tired.” She is gratified by the look of thanks Maya casts her way. Maya may share her future with others, but their shared past will always glue them together.

  “You should go home, Ma-ma,” Maya says. “It’s getting late.”

  “I’ll drive you home,” Chitra says immediately, but Bhima shakes her head. “No, baby. I am needing to walk.” She rises and reaches for the dirty plates, but Chitra places her hand on her wrist. “We’ll clean up,” she says. “If you’re walking, you better get going.”

  There is a faint light in the sky as Bhima leaves the apartment building. She walks slowly, lingering in the crowded, busy streets. She wonders if she should’ve insisted that Maya come home with her tonight but knows that she cannot begrudge the girl one more night of cooled air, the soft, clean bed, the hot water shower. Most of all, she cannot deny her what Maya desperately needs—the company of young people. Maya deserves to enjoy this unexpected gift of Chitra and Sunitabai’s friendship. Bhima knows she was lucky to have had as kind and generous a mistress as Serabai; but what Serabai had given them was charity. What the two younger women have offered her and Maya is friendship.

  Bhima hopes she is not slandering poor Serabai with these ungenerous thoughts. An image of the Parsi woman from their chance encounter at the mall rises before her eyes. How Serabai had aged. What must it have been like for her during the last few months of Dinaz’s pregnancy, knowing that she herself had escorted Maya to the abortion clinic and presided over the killing of Darius’s half sibling? Bhima knows that Serabai has had two confidants—Dinaz and herself. The bitter irony was that during what should’ve been the happiest time in her life, she couldn’t turn to either one of them. And so the biggest secret of all—of Viraf’s perfidy—she had to carry inside her, even as its stench grew, like slowly rotting fruit.

  Is it the special curse of women, to keep other people’s secrets and carry their shame? What would happen, she wonders, if all of them—Parvati, Serabai, Sunitabai—simply put down their loads one day and refused to pick them up again? She remembers what Parvati had once said to her—it is our secrets that define us. Is she right? Bhima longs for this to not be true.

  Parvati is lying about her health. Every day, Bhima can see a change—in the way her eyes widen with pain more frequently, in the sweat that forms on her brow as she bends to pick up a basket of fruit, in the increasingly impatient manner in which she treats Rajeev. And yet. How fiercely she had fought yesterday when Malik’s nephew’s henchman had tried collecting their weekly hafta from them. All the other shopkeepers and vendors knew to pay the collection money each week to the nephew’s gang, in addition to the bribes they paid to the local police. No one else argued, and Bhima herself was willing to pay the amount, now that they could afford it. But Parvati had sprung up like a tiger, almost spitting in the man’s face. “I’ve known that boy since he was wetting his underpants,” she yelled. “You tell him his uncle had promised me lifelong protection.”

  “That was for when you sold less produce than a cockroach,” the man snarled. “Now, you’re having a big business . . .”

  “And what, it’s poking in your eye? You listen to me. Not only will we not pay a single rupee while I’m alive, but if you harass this woman even after I’m dead, I will come back as a bhoot and haunt you. And I will curse six generations of your offspring. You understand?”

  “Why unnecessarily you’re talking about cursing and all?” the man said uneasily. “This is a simple business matter.”

  “You go suck someone else’s blood,” Parvati replied. “Your boss has enough wealth that he can ignore two poor widows trying to earn an honest living.”

  The man had stared at her for a moment, then shook his head and gave up. “Jaane do,” he said to no one in particular. “You can’t argue with a pagal woman.”

  “Hah. And unless you wish your children’s children to be pagal, also, you don’t show your face here again. Saala chootia.”

  Bhima had blanched at Parvati’s use of an obscene word she had only heard men use. For a moment she saw Parvati in her old life—crude, bawdy, vulgar—and the image made her shudder. Age had whitewashed Parvati’s past. But occasionally, the Parvati that Bhima had come to like vanished and a stranger took her place. Without meaning to, she smiled at the goonda who stood glowering before them. “Maaf karo, bhaiya,” she said. “She doesn’t mean it.” The next second, she felt a sharp pain on her shoulder where Parvati had smacked her. “Arre, wah,” the older woman glared. “Who are you to say what I am meaning and not meaning?” She continued glaring at Bhima until the man muttered under his breath and departed. Then, she broke into a wide grin. “Sorry,” she said. “I hit you harder than I meant to. But this is good. This way, the ruffian will remember this moment when I am no longer here to protect you. It will make him feel more kindly toward you.”

  “And where are you going?” Bhima had said, even though she’d known at once what Parvati was insinuating.

  Parvati busied herself rearranging the tomatoes. “Who knows where any of us are going, sister?” she’d said cryptically.

  Now, Bhima feels anew the uneasy feeling she’d felt at that time. Just how sick is Parvati? Surely she would not cover up some serious illness? Is her sickness a lingering effect of her past in that ugly place? Bhima has heard that such places of disrepute harbor shameful, unmentionable diseases. Hai Ram, is that what is causing that pain in the lower back? She feels her face flush at the thought.

  Then, another thought: If something were to happen to Parvati, if she were to die, who would help keep the books? Rajeev is as dumb as a cabbage and illiterate like her. She could ask Maya’s help, but Chitra baby has already told her that studying the law will keep the girl very busy. Perhaps she has learned enough by now to deal with Jafferbhai at one end and her customers at the other? Will she be able to manage on her own? Or, will her illiteracy again ruin her life, at a time when Maya will need financial help?

  Bhima slows down her walking, pulling on her lower lip as she turns the corner into the slum. If I could remove fear from my life, uproot it, who would I be? she wonders. What would it feel like to live for today and let the future remain in the future? How much lighter her burdens would seem. The thought puts a lift in her step. She thinks of the dabbawalas of Mumbai, the army of men who deliver thousands of lunch boxes to offices and schools across the city every single day. Serabai had read an article about them to her one time as they sipped their afternoon tea together. It appeared that their failure rate of delivering to the wrong address was so low that men from a big college in America had come to study their system. But the part that had made Bhima’s mouth fall open with wonder was this: These deliverymen were illiterate like her. They had simply devised a system to compensate for their illiteracy. Perhaps that’s what she could do, Bhima thinks, as she enters the slum. If she ever needed to. Which she hoped she wouldn’t. Because she needs Parvati’s companionship as much as she needs her business sense. She has grown to care about the crazy, foul-mouthed, irascible woman who brightens her days at the market with her sharp-eyed observations and bawdy comments. As she lets herself into the dark and empty hut, Bhima resolves to question Parvati more thoroughly about the nature of her ailment. This time, she will not let the old woman slip out like an eel from under her questioning.

  III

  32

  Maya has passed with the highest marks in her college. Her friend Kajal had looked up the results on the com
puter and called with the great news. Bhima is home early today, since Chitra and Sunita are out of town in Lonavala, and so she is there when Maya screams on the cell phone that Chitra had gifted her as an early graduation present. For a moment, the girl cannot speak, and the expression on her face is such that Bhima cannot tell if the news is good or bad. Oh God, Oh God, the girl breathes, and just as Bhima is about to panic, Maya breaks into a smile. “Ma-ma,” she squeals. “I passed. At the top of my class.”

  Bhima crosses the floor to hug her granddaughter. “Ae, Bhagwan,” she mutters. “At last You have heard my prayers. I will put two kilos of ghee at Your feet tomorrow.” She hardly knows how to react to such enormous news, given how rarely she has had reason to celebrate. Maya, however, is young, and the girl jumps up and down in excitement, even while she’s still on the phone. When she finally hangs up, she spins toward Bhima, her face shiny. As she embraces her grandmother, Bhima senses a shift, as if Maya is already moving out of this wretched room, gliding along a new expanse of sky. Even two years ago, Bhima knows, Maya would’ve bent down and touched Bhima’s feet to ask for her blessings. But Maya has changed. It is a change Bhima can sense but not define. All she knows is that this change is rampant in the whole city. There is a loosening of mores and an old way of life—that of respecting your elders, knowing your station in life, knowing that women had to behave in a certain way—is coming to a close. This very education that Bhima has paid for with every drop of sweat, every tired and straining muscle in her body, will be the knife that someday will sever the ties between her and Maya. For a split second, Bhima sees this as clearly as she sees her own fingernails; the next minute, all she sees before her is an almost-grown girl jumping up and down with excitement.