If Today Be Sweet

by Thrity Umrigar

  She felt Percy shift beside her. The others were moving into the next bedroom, with Homi holding forth on the technique the painters had used for texturing the walls. “Penny for your thoughts?” Percy whispered, and she smiled and shook her head. “Just thinking…about the years gone by,” she answered.

  “Don’t. Don’t think of the past, Mamma. You should be thinking about the future.”

  She wondered when he had started calling her Mamma. Best she remembered, he had called her Tehmina auntie all the years he’d been in India. She liked the new name, liked the closeness and intimacy it conveyed, but wondered briefly if Sorab minded. When they had taken Percy in, she had been very careful to watch Sorab’s behavior for any signs of resentment or jealousy. But Sorab seemed to accept Percy’s presence in their lives as calmly as he accepted the presence of the moon in the night sky. In fact, after years of being an only child, it was probably good for Sorab to have had his parents focus their energies on someone other than him.

  “You’re not hearing a word I’m saying, are you?” she heard Percy say, and she started. “Sorry, deekra, sorry. I wasn’t trying to ignore you.”

  Percy rolled his eyes. “Arre, Mamma, all the women in my life ignore me. Why should you be an exception to that rule?” He took her hand and tugged her toward the edge of the bed. “Sit down for a minute. I need to talk to you.”

  She felt a sudden apprehension at the abrupt seriousness of his tone. She knew exactly what Percy wanted to talk about—the immigration stuff—and she felt a dread at having to think about the matter tonight.

  “Good God, Mamma.” Percy laughed. “You look like this bed is a guillotine.”

  She smiled weakly. “I know you need to know,” she said. “But it’s just that—”

  “Mamma,” Percy interrupted. “What is the problem, may I ask? Your only son is here in America, your grandson is here. And now, with Rustom uncle…I mean, with all that has happened last year, you have no one in Bombay. Your whole family is here. Doesn’t it make sense for you to be where you have people who love you?”

  Put that way, she saw the logic of what he was saying. But she also knew that her reality was more complicated than that. Deekra, a life is made up of more than your immediate family, she wanted to say to him. It is made up of all the people around you—your neighbors, even the ones you can’t stand; your friends, whom you’ve known longer than you had known your husband; Sunil, the milkman who cheats by adding water to the milk he delivers to your doorstep; Krishna and Parvati, the homeless couple across the street; Shiva, the legless beggar who frantically wheels the skateboard he sits upon toward you to greet you with a smile; Rohit, the bhaiya who sells the freshest bhelpuri in town; Hansu, the servant who has worked in your home for the last seventeen years. It is made up of all your routines—getting up each morning at five to answer the door for the butcher, the baker, the milkman, the newspaper boy; opening the door at seven for Krishna to come fill his bucket with warm water so his family can bathe on the street; meeting with Sheroo and the other girls for lunch every few weeks; watching the Hindi version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? every Thursday evening; volunteering at the Shanti Center every Thursday. And yes, with Rustom gone, her routine had been greatly impacted—she no longer had a companion to go to the fire temple with every day, or to offer their prayers at the Bhika Behram well in Flora Fountain every Friday. Nor did she go to Paradise for dinner every Sunday. But still, Bombay was her home, the city she had come to as a young bride. She had ridden in a thousand of its cabs, she had lived through riots and holiday celebrations, she had witnessed hundreds of its thunderstorms. She gazed at Percy, the boy she had helped raise into a man, a boy who had once shared his innermost secrets and fears with her, and she wondered how to reach him, how to make him understand the simple complexity of her life.

  “It’s not that easy,” she tried, and he interrupted her with a shake of his head. “Mamma. Of course. Of course. I know that. You don’t have to tell me that. God, I still remember my first year in this country. If Sorab had not been here, I don’t know what I would’ve done. But God, that’s the whole point—you have your whole family here. Whereas I—”

  She stared at him, unsure of what to say. Percy spoke into the silence. “Look, Mamma, here’s the thing. What with the holidays and all, nothing would’ve been done by the bloody folks at the INS anyway. But after the first of the year we need to act on this jaldijaldi. Because you’re going to have what—two, three months left on your tourist visa? And since 9/11 even the most routine thing seems to take twice as long. Not that the INS was a paragon of punctuality even before that, mind you. But I need a decision from you soon, okay? This is not something I want to leave until the last minute.”

  Tehmina swallowed hard and nodded. Suddenly Percy laughed. “Arre, Mamma, I’m asking you to consider living in the greatest country on earth, yaar. And you look as if I’ve asked you to spend the rest of your days in bloody Ethiopia or something.” His face softened. “Chalo ne, Mamma. Why are you playing so hard to get? Making me chase after you just like every other woman ever has. We need you here, yaar, Sorab and me. Heck, if for no other reason you should stay so I can eat your cooking at least once a week. You should see the anemic shrimp curry my beloved Julie makes. I tell you, any self-respecting Indian would file for divorce immediately. But what to do? The poor dear is so proud of herself for learning Indian cooking that I don’t have the heart to tell her the truth. But that’s why I need you here, Mamma—so that I don’t waste away to nothing from Julie’s so-called Indian cooking.” He patted his ample belly and they both laughed. Percy put his arm around Tehmina. “But jokes aside, we do need you here. You are—I dunno—a reminder to us of something that we shouldn’t forget. I can’t explain it. All I know is, it’s so easy here in America to get swept up with jobs and cars and houses and money. And every time I see you, I’m reminded that life is more than that. Remember how you and Rustom uncle took me in after my mother died? As long as I live I won’t forget what you said to me at Mummy’s funeral. I was crying so hard—not just because I was missing her but because I dreaded the thought of living alone with my daddy. I had never known such a feeling before, like I was alone in a city and all the streets were deserted. And out of all the people gathered there, all the wailing old women who were beating their breasts and shedding their crocodile tears, you were the only one who understood what I was feeling. Remember? ‘You will never be alone, Percy,’ you said to me. ‘From today, we are your family.’ You have no idea what those words did for me. It was like someone had shone a flashlight in a coal mine—I now had a path to follow to get out of the coal mine.”

  “Deekra, that is all ancient history,” an embarrassed Tehmina murmured. “You should forget all that now.”

  “But that’s just it,” Percy replied fiercely. “You see, I don’t want to forget that. In fact, remembering it is the most important thing. And that’s why it will be so good for all of us to have you here permanently.”

  Tehmina smiled. “Now I see why you’re such a good lawyer. What a golden tongue you have.”

  To her surprise and dismay, Percy’s face flushed and his nose turned red. How well she knew that look, knew that it meant that his feelings were hurt and he was trying hard to keep his tears at bay. “I wasn’t trying to trick you, Mamma,” she heard him say. “I meant what I said.”

  Hastily, she took his hand in hers. “Of course, of course, deekra. I didn’t mean to suggest—” She paused. “Okay, give me a few more days to decide. I’ll let you know soon, I promise. I know this hasn’t been easy for all you children. I’m sorry, I’m doing my best, but this is not an easy decision for me, you know?” To her embarrassment, she could hear the tears in her own voice. Still, she forced herself to continue. “To give up the city of one’s birth, old friends whom you grew up with, an apartment that you’ve decorated and cleaned and furnished, all this is very hard, beta. I’m not so stupid that I don’t realize what a strain this
has put on Sorab and Susan, believe me. Quite the contrary. But I also—I need time. Or maybe I need a sign.”

  “I understand. I really do. And I wish…But Sorab and Susan have some decisions to make, also. If they’re going to move into a bigger house, they need to start planning for that, you know?”

  She stared at him. “Move into a bigger house?”

  Percy looked startled. “Didn’t they talk to you about it? If you decide to stay, they’re going to buy a bigger house. So that you can have your own bathroom and so that—so that they can have more, y’know, privacy and stuff. Preferably a house with a bedroom and bath on the first floor.”

  Although she knew this was not what he’d intended, she felt a chill in her heart. So the children felt the need for a bigger house. What that meant was that her presence was an imposition, an inconvenience to them. Whose idea was it to move? Susan’s probably. She remembered now her daughter-in-law’s pencil-thin lips and tight voice the day she had told her to please remember to take the hair out of the bathtub when she got done with her shower. At that time she hadn’t thought much about it. Now she wondered which other of her thoughtless habits and behaviors affected Susan and possibly created friction between her and Sorab. She had tried to live unobtrusively in their house, tiptoeing around when she had to use the bathroom at night so as not to wake them, staying in bed later than usual so as to give them some time with each other every morning, not volunteering to do anything for Cookie unless Susan asked her to. She had tried to live in their home like a friendly spirit, eager to help in any way she could but also ready to disappear in the shadows when necessary. And all of it had been for nothing. Hadn’t Percy told her as much? That the children still felt they needed distance and privacy? She imagined them talking in whispers, Susan voicing her frustrations, Sorab trying to appease his wife without insulting his mother. The thought of her son being placed in such an awkward situation made Tehmina feel nauseous.

  “Mamma. What’s wrong?” Percy was saying. “What did I say that’s making you look like this?”

  She looked at him, not bothering to keep the tears out of her eyes. “I didn’t know the children felt the need for a bigger house. I have tried so hard these past few months to give them their privacy.”

  Percy took in a sharp intake of breath. “Oh God, Mamma. Don’t take this the wrong way. Please. Look, it’s different in this country. People aren’t used to living with their parents and so—so they need more space and privacy, okay? It’s nothing against you, honest. God, I’ve heard Susan say that she’d rather live with you than any of her own relatives. And anyway, Sorab was planning on buying a bigger house regardless of whether you moved here or not.” She heard the wobble in his voice at this obvious untruth. Percy doesn’t know how to lie, she thought. Not a good quality in a lawyer.

  Tehmina rose from the bed. “Let’s join the party, shall we?” she said. She tried to make her voice sound light. But her heart was cold.

  “How’d it go?” Sorab whispered to Percy. The two of them were at the bar fixing drinks for themselves and their wives.

  Percy shook his head. “I don’t know. I made a faux pas, I think.” He turned toward his friend angrily. “Saala, why didn’t you tell me that you hadn’t mentioned your plans to buy a new home to her?”

  Sorab stared at him. “You told her that?”

  “Well, yes. How the fuck was I to know you’d kept it a goddamn secret? I just thought it would help her realize that time was running short.”

  “Great. From the frying pan into the fire. Nice going, Percy. I know what she’s going to think—that we are tired of her presence or something.”

  “That’s exactly what she thinks. I mean, I think so, anyway. Who the fuck knows what goes through the minds of women? If they’re twelve or eighty, it’s the same thing.”

  “Oh, spare me your usual rant about the wily ways of women. Can we come back to the topic of my mother, please?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Except I don’t know what to tell you.” Percy sighed. “Any red-blooded American woman would jump at the chance to move into a new home. But not our Indian women, oh no. They have to bring enough melodrama and psychological intrigue into the situation to make bloody Freud and Jung both spin in their graves.”

  Despite himself, Sorab laughed. “Fuck you, Percy. First you spill the beans to my mom and now you’re trying to cover up your damn mistake with a broadsided attack on all Indian women.”

  “Guilty as charged. Listen, let’s just get through the next few weeks, achcha? I’ll talk to her again after the first of the year.”

  They walked back to where Susan and Julie were standing. Sorab glanced around the room to search for his mother and found her sitting on the couch next to another elderly woman from India who was visiting her daughter. “Here you go, hon,” he said, handing Susan a glass of red wine.

  Julie and Percy sipped their drinks. “Aha.” Julie sighed. “Nobody makes a more perfect gin and tonic than my husband.” Like Percy’s three previous wives, Julie was also blond and petite. She reminded Sorab of Patti Boyd, the model who had married George Harrison. He idly wondered where Percy found all these wives—they looked as if they came out of a factory that produced blond and petite women. But Julie had a tough streak that belied her tiny presence. And for the first time Percy had indicated that he was open to the possibility of having children. With his first three wives, Percy had been firm about the fact that he had no desire to be a father. Sorab had often thought that it was the only area in which he could observe the scars his abusive childhood had left on Percy. In every other way, Percy truly seemed to have left his past behind him, going so far as to visit his father once a year in the small flat that he had purchased for him a few years ago. But his adamant refusal to father a child had always struck Sorab as telling, especially given the fact that Percy doted on Cookie and lavished gifts on him. It had always filled Sorab with sadness, knowing that his best friend had shut the door on the possibility of his greatest happiness.

  Now, feeling happily drunk on his second beer, he turned toward Julie. “You’ve been such a civilizing influence on this barbarian.” He grinned. “For this, we are all grateful to you.”

  “Oh, give me a few more years,” Julie said. “You’ll think he went to finishing school or something.” She was smiling, but something in her voice made Sorab believe her and he felt a twinge of panic. He didn’t really want Percy to change or anything. His friend was pretty damn perfect the way he was.

  “Thanks a bloody lot, yaar,” Percy said. “Even my best friend turns out to be a traitor.”

  “And here’s another thing,” Julie said, and from her tone Sorab realized that she was a bit tipsy also. “One thing I’ve made clear to Percy—no more divorce. I’m not the divorce type, you know? I play for keeps. So I’m here to stay, baby.”

  Sorab suddenly realized that he didn’t like Julie very much and his heart sank with that knowledge. There was something a little brittle and hard about her, like the cashew chikki they used to eat as schoolboys. To console himself, he reached for Susan’s hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back, and in an electrifying instant, he knew that she had just read his mind and told him that she agreed with his assessment. After all these years of marriage, he was still stunned by Susan’s perceptiveness and the shorthand that worked between them. It made all the less savory aspects of their marriage so much easier to take, this connection that they shared. No one on earth could read him the way Susan did. At times he hated this about her because it made him feel as naked as an X-ray. But right now his heart filled with love for the smart, perceptive woman standing next to him.