If Today Be Sweet

by Thrity Umrigar

  Tehmina’s laugh was the flavor of sour apples. “Yah, remember the day they were taken away from their mother.”

  “No. The day someone stood up for them. The day someone said what was happening to them was wrong.”

  Suddenly Tara’s tired, dirty face rose before Tehmina’s eyes and she felt a pang of pity. All of her murderous rage against the woman had vanished now, leaving a melancholy weariness in its place. “She’s so young—the mother. And poor. And not so educated, you know?” She wanted this young man, so clean and clear in his judgments, in his righteousness, she wanted him to understand something about life—about its grayness, its murkiness.

  “I see,” he said. “So you feel sorry for her?”

  He was writing everything down, and suddenly she was cautious. Hadn’t she heard about the good-cop, bad-cop routine? Maybe this was a trap and his sympathy, his flattery, an act. Maybe he was trying to make her say that she felt sorry for Tara so that they could charge her with a crime, also. Tehmina felt old and confused and disoriented. “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

  She glanced out into the yard, where Bruce was pacing the deck, rubbing his hands against the chill. “Your partner will catch a cold. He can come in and wait,” she said.

  The young man stared at her. “My partner? He’s not my partner, Miss Tammy. That is, I’m not a cop. I’m a reporter, with the Daily Mirror. I’m just following the guys around for the day, you know, doing a day-in-the-life piece. Sorry. I—I thought Bruce had introduced me when we came in.” He stuck his hand out. “I’m Luke Johnson.”

  “Oh.” Tehmina was flustered. Why had she assumed that the boy was a policeman? Up close, she could see how young he was. And what was day-in-the-life-peace? Must be some Christmas thing, she decided. “We get both newspapers,” she said vaguely. “My son…he likes to read. Also, the New York Times, on Sunday.”

  Luke grimaced. “Glad to know someone still reads,” he said. He was quiet for a moment and then resumed the conversation as if they were at a cocktail party. “Yeah, we’re the smaller of the two dailies. I’m surprised the big, bad Goliath hasn’t swallowed us up completely. So few towns even have two newspapers, you know? But we still beat their ass on stories every day.”

  “I see,” Tehmina said, trying to stifle a yawn. She still didn’t understand what this young man was doing in her kitchen. Then, to be polite, “In Bombay we have hundreds of newspapers. Seems like someone starts a new one every day.”

  “Sounds like paradise.” The young man sighed. “Bombay.” He played with the word in his mouth, rolling it around like a piece of rich dark chocolate. “They call it Mumbai now, right? That’s my goal, you know—to be a foreign correspondent. I mean, the Mirror is a feisty little paper, but I want to travel the world.”

  Tehmina smiled. “So why are you wasting your time talking to a silly old lady, dearie?” she said. Reared on the serious, dignified Times of India, Tehmina thought of news as important stories that dealt with politics, inflation, government corruption, foreign policy. Talking to a mad Indian woman who had jumped over a fence to rescue two boys and instead gambled with their futures would never make her definition of news.

  Luke set his pen down for emphasis. “Are you kidding? This is—”

  The rest of his sentence was cut off by the familiar sound of Tara’s muffler. They both heard it despite the closed glass door and they both tensed and looked at Officer Bruce. The man was now sitting on the chair that Tehmina had propped against the fence so that he could look down on Tara pulling into her driveway, but she couldn’t see him. He signaled to Tehmina and Luke to stay in the house. A few seconds went by and then they heard the slamming of the car door. Another few seconds and then Bruce stood up and came into the house. “Right,” he said. “The mother’s home. From what you told us”—he consulted his watch—“she’s been gone for over two hours.” He turned to face Tehmina. “Time to go have a chat with Mom,” he said lightly, but Tehmina could hear the iron in his voice. “And, ma’am, I just wanted to thank you for doing your duty. I just wish we had more good citizens like you.” He glanced at Luke. “This enough excitement for you? You coming next door?”

  “Of course,” Luke said, shutting his notebook. “But if you’d just give me a moment.” He pulled a small digital camera out of his pants pocket and took a picture of Tehmina, who was too stunned and blinded by the camera’s flash to protest. Luke flashed her a grin as bright as the camera’s light. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Tammy. Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas,” she repeated by rote. The irony stuck in her throat like a pit from a bitter fruit.

  Fifteen minutes later she watched from the picture window in the living room as Officer Bruce led Tara into the police cruiser. In the weak midafternoon sun Tara looked small, diminished. Tehmina tried to muster up the rage she’d felt at the woman only a few hours ago and found that the effort already felt like a memory or a dream. Now all she felt was a deep, suffocating pity for Tara, for Josh, for Jerome, for all of them. So much for my good intentions, she thought. Unbidden, an Omar Khayyám poem came to her:

  The moving finger writes and having writ

  Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

  Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

  Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

  She went upstairs to find Cookie, unsure of what kind of mood he would be in. She realized that she was going to have to tell her grandson that this afternoon’s incident had to remain yet another secret between him and her. There was no reason why she should upset Sorab and Susan with this, and that, too, on Christmas Eve. Like a wet rag stuffed down her throat, this secret would be her punishment for poking her nose where it didn’t belong.

  But then she caught herself. There was no possible way that she could keep the events of this afternoon a secret from Sorab and Susan. After all, two police cars had been parked in front of her house. Two uniformed police officers had entered her house. Surely some of their neighbors had noted all the commotion. If this had been Bombay, of course, at least twenty neighbors would have alerted Sorab by now. Despite her grim mood, Tehmina smiled at the memory of the time when their neighbor Mani Poonawalla had squealed on an indignant Rustom. Her husband had been home from work for a few days after having suffered from chest pains. Although the doctor had ultimately decided it was merely indigestion, blood tests had revealed that Rustom had high cholesterol levels, a fact that Tehmina had unwittingly shared with their sixth-floor neighbor, Mani, who immediately appointed herself the custodian of Rustom’s health. On the fourth day of Rustom’s confinement, Tehmina finally left him home alone for a few hours to go shopping with one of her friends. Three hours after she had left home, her cell phone rang. It was a breathless Mani calling to inform Tehmina that in her absence, Rustom had ordered two malai na khajas from Parsi Dairy Farm to be delivered to their apartment. As luck would have it, the delivery boy had accidentally rung Mani’s doorbell instead of Rustom’s. The woman had promptly confiscated the sweetmeat and then phoned Rustom to chastise him for his sneaky ways. And despite his pleadings, she was now calling Tehmina to tell her what her husband—who, according to Mani, obviously had a death wish—had done. At the time, Tehmina had not known how to respond to the tattletale Mani—she was at once grateful and appalled by the woman’s nosiness. But Rustom had not been so conflicted. For days, he railed and ranted about the shocking manners of their neighbors, of how nobody in Bombay ever minded their own business, of what he would do to that damn busybody Mani once he was well enough. And what the hell had the blasted woman done with his khajas, anyway? he wanted to know. Most likely stuffed her own loud mouth with them.

  Smiling at the memory, Tehmina made her way up the stairs to Cookie’s room when a thought stopped her. Old man Henderson. Their neighbor across the street. Rosemont Heights’ own version of Mani Poonawalla. Rain or shine, Henderson, who appeared to be in his late seventies, was out in his front yard, raking leaves, blowing snow
, washing his driveway. During a visit a few summers ago, Tehmina had seen the old man climb on a tall metal ladder and scrub and rinse the roof of his house. She had assumed this was just another strange American custom, but Susan had assured her that nobody but nobody washed his or her roof and you’d have to have a really strong obsessive-compulsive gene to do that. Even in the winter months, the old man was always outdoors, even if he did nothing but walk up and down his driveway. In the Sethna household, Henderson had become a kind of shorthand. “Hey, hon, would you like to do a Henderson?” Susan would ask Sorab if she wanted him to do something outrageous, such as rearranging the spices in the kitchen cabinet in alphabetical order. Or, Sorab would say, in response to a request by his wife, “Who do you think I am? Old man Henderson?”

  Now Tehmina tried to remember if she’d seen Henderson lurking around this morning. Had his car been in the driveway today? Or, was it possible that the old man had actually left his house and gone somewhere? But she knew with a sinking heart that Henderson had probably witnessed the excitement across the street. What would he do? Would he phone Sorab or Susan, à la Mani? Or would he wait until he encountered one of them on the street a few days later; would he flag Sorab’s car down on his way home from work?

  Tehmina felt a faint glimmer of hope at the last thought. It was inevitable, she knew, that the children be told about the events of this afternoon, inevitable that she would have to face Susan’s thin-lipped displeasure when her daughter-in-law found out how flagrantly Tehmina had violated her wishes. But…maybe she could delay the inevitable, postpone the excruciating moment when she would see the children’s appalled reactions reflected in their eyes. If only she could put off their knowing until after Christmas, she thought, and allowed her heart to lift a tad bit at the possibility.

  But this meant asking Cookie to keep another secret from his parents. Yet another secret, along with the gift they’d bought for the boys next door. Not fair to burden a poor child in this way. So much for trying to help others, she scolded herself as she reached Cookie’s room. You better start by making sure your own grandson doesn’t become a liar and a thief because of your bad influence.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Christmas morn. How little those words had meant to him as a child in hot, steamy Bombay, Sorab thought. But now, with a son of his own who he knew would be awake any minute now and running down the stairs as light as rainfall, Sorab had come to cherish this morning more than any other of the year. It was hard not to be a romantic when one was a father, he mused. Children had a way of making you see past the groaning dullness of daily living to the red, beating heart of the universe.

  With one ear cocked for the sound of Cookie’s footsteps, Sorab put on the kettle to boil water for three cups of tea. He would surprise the two women sleeping upstairs by taking them tea in bed. He tore some mint leaves from the plant in the dining room, crushed them in his hand, and threw them into the water. Next, he added sugar to the three yellow pottery mugs sitting in a row on the kitchen counter. He knew the routine—one teaspoon for Mamma, two for himself, and a half for Susan. He was tempted to add more sugar to his wife’s cup, it being Christmas morning and all, but he resisted the urge. For a woman who drank her coffee black, it was amazing that Susan could even tolerate the milky, sweet tea that his mother made for both of them when they came home from work every evening.

  The water was close to a boil—Sorab was watching it intently so that he could add the black tea leaves as soon as it came to an aggressive boil—when the phone rang. Damn, he whispered to himself. The ring was sure to disturb Susan and Mamma. What idiot was calling this early in the morning? He eyed the boiling water, unsure of what to do, and then, with an angry sigh, he turned the stove down to low. Thank God he hadn’t added the tea yet. “Hello?” he spoke into the phone, sure it was a wrong number.

  He heard a sharp gasp at the other end. “Well, I’m glad you’re up,” said a male voice he didn’t recognize. “Probably plotting how to ruin someone else’s Christmas, too. Shit, after everything I’ve done for you and your missus…” So it was a wrong number.

  “I’m sorry,” Sorab said calmly. “I’m afraid you have a wrong number.” He hung up.

  He had barely crossed the kitchen when the phone rang again. This time, he didn’t try to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “Listen here,” he said, but his words were drowned by the torrent of words that came down the phone line. “Don’t you listen-here me, Sorab,” the voice said. “I know you too damn well for this display of innocence. I can’t believe…”

  The man had said his name. And the voice, the slight trace of an accent was familiar, too. “Antonio?” he said cautiously.

  “Ah, good, so you’re not such a hotshot that you’ve forgotten your old neighbor. I was thinking your backstabbing mother had fucked you up, too.”

  His mother? What the hell was Antonio talking about? Sorab tried to recall the last time he had seen his former neighbor. Antonio was getting up in the years, he knew. But could he be suffering from dementia or something? But even so, why would he choose to call Sorab and that, too, on Christmas morning, for Pete’s sake? And where was his wife? Why was he unsupervised? “Antonio, can I speak to Marita, please?” he said.

  The voice at the other end roared. “Speak to Marita? Why, you son of a gun, my missus is so distraught, I can’t get her to stop crying. Her half sister sitting in jail and her nephews miserable being with us. We don’t even have a lousy gift in the house for them. And all because your goddamn mother doesn’t know how to mind her own beeswax. And here I am, blasphamizing the Lord on Christmas Day. Heaven help me—and God help you when—” Antonio’s voice suddenly cracked. “Ah, Sorab, how could you? I was the one who told you about your house, remember? And this is how you repay me?”

  A long string of panic, like the thin note of a flute, began to wind its way in Sorab’s gut. He fought to keep himself from getting entangled into it. “Antonio, please. Calm down, man. What are you saying? Is Tara really in jail? Why? What happened?”

  The hysterical voice was quieted at last. “You tellin’ me you don’t know?” Then, with high-pitched fury, “Or are you lying like a rug? ’Cause if you are, Sorab, I swear I’ll choke you with my—”

  “Antonio. What are you saying? Know what? I was at work all day yesterday and by the time I got home, I only had time to change and then we met our friends for dinner. We were all gone until at least eleven o’clock—”

  “Yeah, I know. I tried calling you last night but—”

  “So how could we know what was going on next door?” Sorab continued. He didn’t try to keep the indignation out of his voice. “And besides, we’ve been neighbors for how many years? You know my family doesn’t believe in being nosy or interfering in other people’s business. We’re not gossipy folks, Antonio. You know that.”

  His caller laughed, a dry, metallic sound. “Not nosy…don’t believe in…why, that’s rich, Sorab. That’s priceless. Maybe you should give your mother some lessons in good manners.”

  Okay, you bastard, Sorab thought. One more dig about Mamma and you’re history. “Please leave my mother out of whatever this is,” he said coldly. “You’ve got no right to talk about her in this manner.”

  He heard a choking sound. “No right…You know, you thank your lucky stars I don’t live next door to you anymore. If I did, there’s no telling what I’d do to you. Though of course, if I did live next door, none of yesterday’s fracas would’ve happened, right?”

  Sorab eyed the simmering water across the kitchen. He’s an old man, he told himself. Don’t lose your temper with him. “I’m telling you for the last time, Antonio. I don’t have a clue what—”

  “Go get your hands on today’s Daily Mirror,” Antonio yelled. “Then we’ll talk.” And Sorab was left holding a dead receiver in his hand.

  So much for surprising the two women with tea in bed. It was a miracle the phone and his yelling had not woken anyone up, not even Cookie. He list
ened for the sound of footsteps in the rooms above him but heard nothing. With a sigh, he turned off the stove and headed for the front door. Better to see what was in the paper that had Antonio so riled up before the others woke up. Though he didn’t see why, even if that horrible woman next door had been arrested, that should ruin his family’s Christmas. He grabbed a Christmas cookie from the counter on his way out of the kitchen.

  He picked up the paper from the front step, brushing off the dew from the plastic wrap. Unfolding it, he scanned it quickly. The top story of the day was about how the troops were celebrating Christmas in hostile Iraq. Nothing new there. Next, his eyes scanned the bottom half of the paper below the fold and he froze. There was a large color picture of Mamma. His mother. A picture of her in his hometown paper. Was it a case of mistaken identity? A bold black headline read A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE.

  He walked backward in his living room, running into the coffee table and then collapsing on the couch. He read the article fast, scanning it quickly to understand the gist of the story, to understand what rational reason there could be for his mother to have her picture in the newspaper. His eyes narrowed when he saw his own name in print. His jaw dropped when he came to the bit about her leaping over the fence, like she was some goddamn comic-book hero. Now he was sure the reporter had her mixed up with someone else. Mamma, who refused to even go to the gym in the housing complex, Mamma, who had to rest if they walked too fast in the park, yeah, he could just see his mother jumping over the fence. She might as well jump over the moon. But then he read the bit about how she did it and his heart began to thud. The crazy woman. And to think she brought—kidnapped—the children into this house. What if one of them had fallen and broken his nose? Had she ever heard about liability insurance? About being sued? What did she think this was, India, where interfering in other people’s business was a national pastime? And where had Cookie been when all this tamasha was unfolding? Why had she phoned the cops? Was she nuts? And why hadn’t she said a word about it last night, when they were having dinner with the Vakils at Tanjore Palace? And what on earth possessed her to talk to the newspaper reporter? He flipped back to the front page and stared at her picture, took in the disheveled hair, the uneasy smile. It was a terrible picture of her, he decided. Nothing like the dignified, sober woman he knew and loved.