The Secrets Between Us

by Thrity Umrigar

  37

  For two weeks, Parvati’s ashes sit in the urn in the corner of the room. Next to the urn lies the white canvas bag, which, Bhima knows, holds the mystery letter. A few times she has wondered whether to get Maya to read that letter, but she has refrained, out of respect for the promise she’d made to her friend. Also, she is afraid that reading Parvati’s words will open the stitches that are holding in her grief. Not to mention the anger that she feels, although it is an unfocused anger, one that darts this way and that, unsure of its target. Should she be angry at Parvati for keeping her illness a secret from her until it was too late? Or angry at the government hospital where conditions are so bad that people who go there choose to die rather than live? Or at the Gods, who created a woman as proud and strong as Parvati and then did everything in their power to break that pride and strength? Bhima’s lips curl in bitterness at that last thought. In her time, she has known the evil that men do. But nothing matches with the evil of the Gods, who, having created humanity, now spend their days teasing and testing it.

  Stop it, she chides herself. You are sounding as blasphemous as Parvati herself. Parvati, who is dead but whose absence feels as tangible as her presence once did. In the marketplace, customers still ask where the caustic old lady has gone, the woman who sold them oranges and bananas wrapped in an insult or a killer funny observation. They like Mukesh, his good humor and the glitter of his youth, but they miss the bawdy comment, the scowl, the casual cuss word, not to mention the occasional concern, startling in its rarity and sincerity, about a sick child or a bad-tempered boss.

  But it is at home where Bhima truly misses Parvati. Without Parvati to tend to, she has assumed her normal responsibilities at Chitra’s home—Mukesh will continue to relieve her in the afternoons even after his college starts again—and so she doesn’t get home until at least seven. As the shadows of the evening lengthen in their silent hovel, again, it is just Maya and her alone together, making desultory conversation. To their surprise, they both miss the intensity of caring for an ailing woman, even recall with nostalgia their bleary-eyed state, the sleepless nights punctured by Parvati’s moans. They are, both, traumatized by their memories of the woman’s suffering, and enriched by knowing that they had used every fiber of their beings to alleviate it.

  Tonight, Bhima gestures toward the urn and the bag. “We should go to her muluk,” she says, as she tears a piece of chapati and uses it to scoop up the spinach from her plate. “Sprinkle the ashes, like she ask. Before you begin college again.”

  Maya stretches. “It would be nice to get out of this city for a few days,” she says. “We never go anywhere.”

  Bhima feels the pinpricks of shame at what she hears as Maya’s criticism of her. “All these years there was no money,” she says defensively. “And now, when there’s some money, there’s no time.”

  “I know. But Mukesh can manage for a few days. You trust him, correct?”

  “That I do. He’s a good boy. Serious.”

  “Handsome, too,” Maya says dreamily, and Bhima is shocked.

  “Shameless,” she scolds. “You keep your eyes on your books, understand?”

  But Maya is unfazed. “Whatever you say, Ma-ma,” she grins. “But don’t you think he . . .”

  “Bas,” Bhima says. “Enough.” But there is a smile in her voice. It is as if the spirit of Parvati has infected them both.

  “I can go to the station tomorrow and make the booking for the train,” Maya says. “When should we go?”

  There was a time when Bhima would have never allowed Maya to go to the station by herself and talk to strangers. But that time, she knows, has passed. “We can go Saturday and Sunday,” she says. “Parvati said it’s a beautiful place. Perhaps we can stay and return on Monday.”

  The light in Maya’s eyes tells her it’s the right decision. For a moment she ponders how much nicer the trip could be for Maya if she had some young companions that she could laugh and joke with on the train, anyone other than her old grandmother. But she wants to be alone with Maya when they sprinkle the ashes. “She was here only for a short time, but I miss her,” she hears herself say out loud. A memory rises of Parvati’s deathbed confession about loving her father, but she snuffs it out. It is too painful, too confusing to think of love as being that complicated. It would require her to reassess everything she thinks she knows of Parvati, every defiant, designed-to-shock utterance, and Bhima knows that this she cannot do. To believe that Parvati, in the depths of her degradation, had continued to love her father would require her to reassess her own life and marriage to Gopal, to acknowledge that her own deceiving heart has continued to love her husband, even after his betrayal. Despite his betrayal. It would require her to hear again that song he used to sing to her—“Mere Sapno Ki Rani”—“The Queen of My Dreams”—not as the mocking taunt that she has turned it into but as she had originally heard it, a love song rendered by a man who was head over heels in love with his wife.

  Bhima gets up abruptly and picks up the two plates to take them outside to rinse. Even though it is dark, the crows on the overhead wires still caw, and their sound makes her head throb. She looks at the ragged, bleak assortment of makeshift huts all around her and her stomach turns. Trees. She longs to see trees. And hills. To hear the sound of birds other than the predatory crows who now darken Mumbai’s skies. To see a parakeet, maybe, or a bulbul. In the Mumbai of her youth, such sightings were common. But like the goondas and ruffians who now rule the city’s streets, the unruly crows rule the skies, having chased off the more timid birds.

  They will go, she and Maya. Stand before a riverbank in Parvati’s home village and watch the river gurgle past them. It will do them good, to get out of this place. And it is doubly good that it is Parvati who is leading them out.

  38

  It is the green that confuses them, shocks them, that makes bubbles of delighted laughter spurt involuntarily from their mouths. It is its lushness, its promiscuity, like a woman sitting with her legs splayed, that makes their city eyes blink in astonishment, as they contrast the browns and blacks of their lives with this lavish, fertile green. Bhima, especially, is stunned, because she has to reconcile the image of the parched, broken land of Parvati’s description with the extravagant spread before her. And there is also a knot of sadness in her heart because if this green earth was Parvati’s patrimony, the unjustness of her banishment is even more apparent. As if she’s read her mind, Maya turns from the train window to ask, “Why did Parvati mausi leave this paradise for our dirty Mumbai?”

  Bhima smiles. “It’s not dirty when you want to go to a cinema hall, hah?” she teases. “Or to Fashion Street.” She watches as Maya’s face flushes. “Chitra baby tell me. How the two of you go shopping, when you say you’re going to get the law books. I may be old, but I’m still your grandmother, don’t forget.”

  The railway platform at Lodpur is bigger, more crowded than Bhima has imagined. She suddenly is nervous about being here alone with Maya and is glad that she has not purchased a return ticket for Monday like Maya had wanted. “Perhaps we should perform our duty and return home tonight only, beti,” she mumbles as they walk down the station.

  Maya sets her suitcase down and puts her hand on her hip. “Now what’s the matter, Ma-ma?” she says. “Our train is still in the station and you’re thinking of going home.”

  “This is not our desh,” Bhima mutters. “We don’t know any of these people, their manner or ways.”

  “Oof, Ma-ma. You are a pucca Mumbaikar. Half a day out of the city and already you are missing it.” Maya picks up the suitcase and resumes walking. “No, we are going to stay. You need a holiday, no? Much too hard, you have been working.”

  “If someone is looking at us, they will think you are the grandmother and I am the grandchild,” Bhima grumbles as they walk.

  Maya looks at her sharply, eyes gleaming. “Look around you, Ma-ma. No one is paying any attention to us.”

  Before they exit the
station, Maya approaches a couple of well-dressed women and asks for a hotel recommendation. She comes back with a couple of names. “See?” she says. “How easy?”

  The girl continues to take charge, giving the auto rickshaw walla the name of the hotel. “Good choice, madam,” he says approvingly. “Brand-new hotel. One year old, only.”

  “Is it too expensive, bhai?” Bhima asks immediately. “We are poor people.” She turns a bewildered face toward Maya, who has just pinched her arm.

  “It’s okay, bhaiya,” the girl says. “You take us there only, accha?” She looks at her grandmother. “I have money,” she says quietly. “She—Parvati mausi leave me all her savings. She told me to spend it on this trip.”

  Bhima’s face darkens with anger. “And you took it? This was her hard-earned money,” she says. “She could’ve used it on her medicine. Instead, we are going to waste it on . . .”

  “Ma-ma, it’s settled. These were her wishes. She left the money to me.” Bhima hears the self-importance in Maya’s voice and doesn’t have the heart to tell her that Parvati had first offered it to her. Let the girl believe that she was the favored one.

  The hotel room is good enough for them to delight in but not ostentatious enough to make them feel uncomfortable. They eat the lunch Bhima had insisted on packing perched at the edge of the bed, then take a nap on a mattress so soft that Bhima has a hard time sleeping. She doesn’t mind, because the cool, clean, white sheets are compensation enough. Even though the room temperature is comfortable, Maya turns on the air-conditioning because they are paying for it and she wants to get her paisa vasool. After they wake up, Bhima wishes to freshen up at the bathroom sink, but Maya works the shower and demands that her grandmother get under it. The first few minutes, the flow of water assails her body like small pebbles and Bhima hates the sensation, but then her entire body sighs and softens under the heat and she thinks that she would sell a kidney to be able to experience such luxury every day.

  “How do you feel?” Maya asks when she steps back into the room, but Bhima doesn’t have to reply. She feels clean in a way that she hasn’t for years, as if she has washed the grime of the slum itself off her skin. Even the constant pain in her hip has been helped by the pressure of the water.

  “See?” Maya says. She crosses the room and stands before Bhima, placing a hand on each of her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Ma-ma. Once I become a lawyer, I will buy you a big house where you can take a shower every day. Accha?”

  “Accha,” Bhima says casually, as if Maya has promised to buy her a chocolate bar later today. She doesn’t say what she thinks: That as nice as this shower is, what matters more to her is the fierce love that shines in Maya’s eyes. But that is a lesson that Maya will learn for herself, as she gets older.

  “You go clean up, beti,” she now says. “I would like to fulfill our obligation to Parvati as soon as possible.”

  The hotel is situated at the outskirts of the village, and as they leave, Bhima wonders if anyone here knows the whereabouts of Parvati’s brothers. She sends Maya to ask the manager, but he is a nonlocal himself and directs them to speak to Karim dada, the old man who is the security guard.

  Bhima’s heart leaps when Karim dada shuffles up to them, because he is of an age to remember Parvati’s family. Perhaps the brothers still till the land that their father paid for with his own blood; perhaps they would like to keep some of their sister’s remains. But Karim dada’s runny, yellow eyes turn cloudy at the mention of the family name.

  “Are you she?” he whispers. “The girl? The one the father sent away?”

  Bhima takes an involuntary step back. “Nahi,” she says. “She’s dead. I am her friend. Come to find her family.”

  The old man sighs. “You have come too late, sister. Much too late.” He pauses, chews the wad of tobacco in his mouth. “They are all dead. He kill them all.”

  “Who killed them all?” Bhima asks sharply, wondering if this old man is pagal, gone in the head.

  “He did. The father. Two years after he send away the girl. He put poison in all their food. It was terrible. Terrible.” The old man shudders. “I was only thirteen at the time. My mother bought me a sweet that day. I remember. All the mothers held their children close after it happen. That poor man. What he suppose to do? We were all starving. No rains for two years. But he the only one who do this sin. God forgive his soul.”

  Bhima stands there, numb with shock, not even remembering to protect Maya from hearing such evil. She remembers what Parvati had once told her—that she was her father’s favorite. Could it be that he had sent her away to save her? That she was the only one he chose to keep alive? Even if it meant . . . But here, she stops, nauseous at what she has heard, wishing she’d never asked.

  “I am sorry to give such bad news. Forgive me,” Karim dada says softly. He waits for another minute, his head bent in respect, and when it is clear that Bhima has no more questions, he says, “Accha. I will take your leave.”

  He has shuffled away from them when Bhima calls out, “They all died? All of them?”

  He turns back slowly. “All of them,” he nods. “Except the family cow. He spared her.”

  The cow. Bhima remembers what Parvati had said—it was the cow she had hated because the cow was her rival, competing for her father’s affection. A sob gathers in her throat. “What happened to it?”

  Karim dada smiles a bitter smile. “The moneylender took it, of course. Seems the family owed him money.”

  Below them, the river gurgles like a baby. The two women hold on to each other as they descend the short clearing and step into it, its cool waters a blessing against their feet. All around them, the trees bend toward each other and whisper their daily gossip. There is a family picnicking across from them on the opposite bank, their dress and manner branding them as city folk, and despite the sound of the river as it breaks over rocks and rushes past them, they can hear the shouts and screams of children wading into the water, the cautioning voices of their mothers. “I wish there was no one else here,” Maya says. “I wish it was just the three of us here.”

  “Three?”

  Maya gives her a quizzical look. “Yes. You, me, and Parvati.”

  And then Bhima feels her, feels her with an intensity that takes her breath away. She hears the querulous voice, the cackling laugh, the witty quip. She sees the scowl, the defiant glare, and then, the softening gaze when Parvati knows she has gone too far and that Bhima is upset at her. The wheedling into Bhima’s good graces. But what she is experiencing here, in the woods, is more than memory. It is feeling, sensation. She feels Parvati in the tranquility of the blue sky. She feels her in the dancing treetops. In each of the submerged stones. In the mud under her feet. In her mind’s eye, she sees her—Parvati floating in this river, hands behind her back, eyes closed, feet drawn in together, a smile on her face. Parvati racing through these woods with her brothers, and shimming up these trees, laughing at their pet dog barking helplessly on the ground. Parvati sitting by herself at the riverbank, imagining the boy she will someday marry, the home they will build. Unaware of her pending execution, unaware of her executioner.

  “We should say something, Ma-ma.” Bhima hears Maya’s voice as if from a distance. “Say a prayer, before we sprinkle her ashes.”

  Bhima nods, snapping back into the present. She is about to start chanting when a queasy feeling rises in her stomach. “There is no need,” she says. “We . . . this place. It is enough. We—” She stops, unable to proceed. Instead, she reaches for the urn. With the waters still lapping at their feet, they turn, so that the ashes will not blow back into their faces. “Rest in peace, sister,” Bhima says out loud. “Here, in the birthplace of your ancestors.” She fights the memory of what Karim dada has told them a mere hour ago. “May you find the peace that escaped you in this life. Now all your suffering has ended. And may—may your father find his peace, also.”

  She turns to Maya, and hands the remainder of the ashes to her. “Thank
you, Parvati mausi,” the girl cries as she lowers the urn into the water. “I will never forget you.”

  And so they are done. They stand staring at the river for a few minutes, then look at one another. Maya nods. “Chalo, Ma-ma. Let’s go.”

  They climb back up the embankment and are about to walk toward the main road when Bhima remembers the letter. “Wait,” she says. “Parvati was wanting us to read her letter after we sprinkle her ashes. While we are here.”

  Maya reads the letter out loud. When she is finished, she raises her head up to the sky, a look of incredulity on her face. Then she begins to laugh. “That Parvati mausi,” she says. “Such a trickster, she is.”

  At that moment, the transistor radio on the opposite bank begins to play.

  39

  No.

  What Parvati is asking of her is impossible. No.

  This woman was too much, conniving and plotting even on her sickbed. Bhima is not even sure how much to believe the whole natak of wanting her ashes scattered in her home village. Was it all a ploy to get them here? And how did she even know how close Lodpur was to Tipubag, when she, Bhima, herself hadn’t made the connection?

  Tipubag.

  Gopal’s home muluk. Where his brother ran the family farm. The village Gopal had escaped to decades ago, taking Amit with him. Where, as far as she knew, they still lived. If Gopal was still alive.