Maple and Spice

by Moushmi Biswas

  A hundred floors.

  A pain struck her heart. She broke down.

  “It’s to do with America’s policy in the Middle East,” said Shailesh, shaking his head.

  But she wasn’t listening. She’d seen the jumping man.

  Monisha ran to the phone and dialled. She knew the Dases were staying over. Her mother picked up. In a trembling voice she answered. They were supposed to be flying out in the morning. But no flights were running. She asked to speak to Uncle Saurav.

  It was carnage, he said. Carnage! He’d rang his friend in New York. Doctors were gloved up, waiting, but the casualties weren’t coming in.

  “They’re lying dead,” he sobbed, “in the rubble. There’s just a smell of burning… of burning flesh.”

  She cried with him.

  Behind her Mrs Kulkarni was hovering. Pointing at a cup of tea. Cheap, wood-smelling, Kulkarni tea.

  She had to do it. It was now or never.

  “Uncle. SALIR… MATRIMONIO.”

  “What?”

  “SALIR MATRIMONIO. Will you help me?”

  He told her, he’d phone her later. She knew darn well he’d understood.

  They all spoke bitty Spanish.

  29

  The breakfast table had been laid out. Soft, brown chapattis were being kept warm in a steel-lined dish, beside a steaming pot of cauliflower curry. Mrs Kulkarni walked out of the prayer room smelling of incense and coconut oil. On the chair closest to the door, Monisha sat waiting.

  It had been a night of nightmares. AK forty-sevens and Kalashnikovs. Bearded terrorists running wild. Maiming. Killing. Drilling bloody holes into innocent bodies. Then she’d been woken by Shailesh’s snoring. She managed to fall back to sleep and found herself wandering through a desert, battling a harsh sandstorm, alone. A kick from one of his tree-like legs ended that dream.

  Mrs Kulkarni opened the steel-lined dish, took out a chapatti and waved it in front of her. She called Shailesh. Sleepy-eyed he wandered in from the bedroom.

  “I won’t be eating,” said Monisha.

  Mrs Kulkarni looked puzzled.

  “Why?”

  Monisha stared them square in the eyes. The panic and fear had subsided.

  Only numbness now. She took a breath.

  “I’m leaving this marriage.”

  Shailesh crashed down onto the chair and looked up, puppy–eyed, at his mother. Mrs Kulkarni’s mouth widened like a cave.

  “But why? I’ve got a job now… Things are looking up!”

  Monisha shook her head. No ‘perhapses’ this time.

  “You never really wanted to marry me Shailesh, or live in America.”

  Mrs Kulkarni interjected. “But what is done is done…”

  Monisha held out her hand like a stop sign. No one would interrupt her now.

  “You love your family. You love surgery and you love Mumbai.”

  She picked up her handbag and slung it over her shoulder.

  “You don’t love me.”

  There was silence. For a few seconds. Stone cold, but afterwards, no longer hurtful. Calming and freeing, like the truth had found its voice.

  Shailesh flopped down. His shoulders and head limp on the table. Mrs Kulkarni shot up, placed both arms round his neck and hugged him tight.

  Underneath her suffocating grip he forced out the words.

  “But, how do you know that things won’t get better?”

  The jumping man flashed before her. Monisha wasn’t listening now. She picked up her suitcase and walked into the reception room, shaking her head and muttering as she went.

  “Lies… Too many lies… Too many lies.”

  Mrs Kulkarni sighed deeply. Tears rolled down her face.

  “Our luck has been very bad, son” she said, her voice breaking.

  This time Monisha didn’t have to run.

  She was free. From the land of the free.

  Free as a butterfly… as a bee.

  From her cab, she watched bitchy, busty schoolgirls clambering onto rickety buses. Text books spilling out of over-filled schoolbags. Physics. Chemistry. Biology.

  How would they all end up?

  With matchmakers, mothers-in-law and dowries. Their fresh-faced, youthful days wasted waiting. In the hope that, little by little, love would grow. When it mightn’t. Thinking that they had seven lives, when they didn’t. In front of her flashed the sign for Sitara Road.

  The courtyard of the house was now strewn with plants. In amongst them stood Saurav Das. Barefoot, with his trousers hitched up above his ankles. Keeping himself busy. Weeding. Repotting. He stared solemnly at the cab.

  With a swing and a jerk, they pulled up. The driver jumped out, leaving behind her suitcase and a waft of diesel fumes.

  Monisha walked towards Saurav Das.

  “You’ve made up your mind then?”

  A queasiness was starting. Her throat was dry and still scratchy when she cleared it. She sat down on the front step.

  “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

  He poured water on his muddied hands and began rolling down his trousers. He shrugged his shoulders. It was a matter of choice.

  Monisha folded her arms. The usual non-judgemental, non-committal, physician-like answer. She looked at him imploringly. What did he think?

  Saurav Das stared out at the passing road, at the people walking. Then he remembered his wife and sighed.

  “Chronic unhappiness is like chronic pain, wrenching away at you, bit by bit till there’s nothing left.”

  Thoughts bubbled away in his head as he put on his shoes. He scooped up her suitcase and smiled.

  “You’re young, beautiful. You may meet someone better.”

  He took hold of her arm as they made their way to the side door. Swiftly his smile disappeared.

  “But there are no guarantees in life, Monisha … No guarantees.”

  The door creaked open. Professor Bastikar and Mrs Bastikar were seated at opposite ends of the table sifting through bank statements and doing the sums, hoping to escape the cold in Vermont and retire to Mumbai. Each wore reading glasses. Professor Bastikar noticed Monisha and lifted up the newspaper.

  “This is going to change everything. There’ll be a nasty, messy war,” he said, pointing to a picture of the crashing planes.

  Monisha’s heart pounded loudly. Saurav Das dragged her suitcase along the swirly marble floor. She waited for the scraping noise to stop.

  “That’s not why I’m here though, Daddy.”

  Leela Bastikar took off her reading glasses. Her eyebrows arched into two distinct question marks. She shifted uneasily in her chair when she noticed that the Samsonite suitcase had reappeared. Just one day after being packed into the car. Along with her daughter.

  Monisha’s head swung like a pendulum between both her parents.

  “I’m here because I want to end this marriage.”

  Now her heart was pounding so loudly, she could barely hear herself.

  “The world has gone MAD!” screeched Leela Bastikar. “AND YOU WITH IT.”

  “Mom will you just hear me out… please?”

  Leela Bastikar got up from the table. She commanded the two helpers to take more houseplants out to the garden and not to return until each one had been repotted. The men walked out into the harsh midday sun. Heads down. Shoulders drooping.

  Professor Bastikar buried his head in his hands.

  “But why Monisha? Has Shailesh beaten you… found another woman?”

  Monisha shook her head. Tears rolled down.

  “Because she’s SPOILED!” sniggered Leela Bastikar. “Because you’ve spoiled her! She hasn’t learned to compromise. Vinal Verma has done far worse things than Shailesh and his wife doesn’t want to leave!”

  Saurav Das interjecte
d. Monisha’s case was different, he said and Shailesh had lied.

  “And he’ll keep on lying, Mom. He’ll never change.”

  Leela Bastikar stared glumly at her daughter.

  “Forgiveness changes people. Giving them a chance… Having children.”

  She flung her arm across the table. “But you’re just selfish… like the Americans. You use and throw away! Use and throw away!”

  Monisha recoiled in horror. Her mother could not possibly be on his side.

  “But Shailesh has used me! He only married me because he needed the money!”

  The doorbell rang. Professor Bastikar buzzed it open. Hesitantly.

  Aunt Romila sauntered in wearing aviator glasses and clutching a giant shopping bag. “Where are the helpers?” she asked, fanning her face with an imaginary fan. “I need some water.”

  Leela Bastikar burst out sobbing. “Oh Romi, please talk some sense into this girl. She wants to leave Shailesh.”

  “Why?” asked Romila. “Has he got another woman?”

  Monisha held her hands up to her face. It was because he was a liar. He’d lied about his exam scores.

  Aunt Romila whipped off her glasses and stared icily.

  “Well, you’re the one who stopped us from finding out! If you’d let Uncle Shyam make those phone calls, this marriage would never have gone ahead!”

  Monisha gulped. She remembered it now. The night at the Palamo. The walk to the toilets. When Uncle Shyam asked her if he should speak to one of his professors.

  And she had stupidly, stupidly, stupidly said NO. But, surely, she hadn’t been completely idiotic.

  “I’d seen him operate, Aunty… Heard his juniors tell me how great he was as well as the nurses!

  Aunt Romila made her way over to the dining table and helped herself to water from the jug. She sipped slowly. After her parched throat became fully moistened, she spoke, shaking her head.

  “That’s not how it works around here. Talking to cronies and ‘yes men’.”

  Amit Bastikar shuddered. After thirty years of living in the US, he’d been clueless as well. And, like the others, he’d trusted Monisha’s judgement.

  “We’ll get a marriage counsellor, have some sessions before—”

  The jumping man flashed before her; Monisha cut in.

  “He won’t change, Daddy. His mother is the only woman in his life.”

  Aunt Romila hissed angrily. She couldn’t believe it. Monisha was the first doctor in the family and now she’d be the first divorcee.

  “What’s the point of leaving now? Three years into it, when he has a job nearby. You’re setting a bad example to the younger ones.”

  Saurav Das winced. “Now, now, Romila. Monisha hasn’t done anything wrong. Shailesh is the one who lied.”

  Amit Bastikar rubbed his eyes. Everything was becoming so tiresome. And now an argument was about to erupt between his best friend and his sister-in-law.

  “I can’t listen to any more of this,” he said feebly. “You’re all making me ill.”

  “Amit… we’re Americans. Monisha lives in a society where she is free to make her own choices,” said Saurav Das.

  Leela Bastikar paced slowly towards the photographs she’d framed in gold. There it was. Frozen in time. The moment her daughter took seven steps round the holy fire beside her husband. And now what to do? Take it off the wall? Erase it from memory all together?

  She turned to Saurav Das and began sobbing. This time, hysterically.

  “You don’t know what it feels like… To watch your child make the biggest mistake of her life… and bear the scar forever.”

  Now Romila began to cry.

  The rest of the day passed in hollow silence. There was not one phone call from Shailesh. No sudden arrivals. No grovelling apology.

  At five o’clock, the phone rang. Everyone leapt up.

  But it was Swati Das. She’d been to every travel agent in town. There was a plane leaving for Chicago at ten o’clock. If Monisha said yes, she would get three tickets. But they were being strict now. No cabin luggage.

  “And if she says no?” asked Leela Bastikar.

  “She’ll be stuck here.”

  Monisha nodded. There was a job to go back to. Calls to cover. Bosses to please. Leela Bastikar clutched her chest and clunked down the receiver. Swati Das was on her way, she said. The same cab would take them to the airport.

  Seconds later the doorbell rang. Again, everyone leapt up. This time it was Riya. As soon as she came in, Leela Bastikar doubled over, put her head in her hands and began to cry.

  “What have I done? Why are you all crying?” asked Riya dumping her schoolbag on the floor.

  Aunt Romila wiped away tears and rushed over to her daughter’s side to explain things. Everyone was upset because Monisha wanted a divorce.

  “Well, amen,” said Riya, making the sign of the cross and blessing herself.

  “Riya!” shouted Aunt Romila. “Please.”

  Monisha pretended not to have heard. She picked up her suitcase and walked towards the door. Saurav Das followed closely behind. They would have to leave as soon as Swati arrived with the tickets. The airport would be chaotic.

  Suddenly a tap on her shoulder made her turn round. Riya’s kohl-lined eyes flashed before her like headlights.

  “You should try internet dating,” she said. “It’s the new big thing.”

  30

  Café Uno looked different now that it was festooned with American flags. On the front counter was a fireman’s hat and a donation box. The mood was sombre, the Baristas not as jokey or smiley. They took orders and cast their eyes forlornly at the box until customers dropped money in it. After five o’clock, the office workers would arrive and there’d be only one topic on everyone’s lips.

  From her usual table by the window Monisha stared at the men and women at the counter, inhaling the scent of cinnamon doughnuts and freshly ground coffee as she watched them. Funny that she was sitting here now, waiting for Tina. To think, just one week ago she’d been with the Kulkarnis at the Highgate Golf Club, forcing down mouthfuls of Peking duck.

  Each day had spun away in a whirlwind. Blurry images flashed through her brain. George W. Bush standing in rubble and speaking through a megaphone. Shailesh sobbing. Mrs Kulkarni hugging him. Her parents’ tear-stained faces. Aunt Romila whipping off her aviator glasses and casting her the most accusatory glare.

  In a frantic escape, she’d jumped on that plane to Chicago. Two days later they were stranded at O’Hare. Tired. Thirsty. Dripping with perspiration. The airport was jam-packed with desperate travellers. There were no flights to Boston. Panic-stricken, she’d burst out crying. Would the other medical residents accuse her of playing hooky? It was Saurav Das who’d talked sense into her. The situation was beyond the control of the US government. The people at St Anthony’s could not possibly point a finger at her for missing work.

  Eventually the Dases found a flight to Vermont and she’d tagged along like a lost lamb.

  A whoosh of wind and the scrape of stiletto heels brought her swiftly back to the present. In came Tina. Her sweeping red curls were now strawberry blonde and shoulder length. She carried an expensive looking briefcase of tan crocodile leather. A little overstated, when her office was a cubby hole in the basement of the mall. She smiled, a sad, conciliatory smile.

  The last time they were here, they’d had that dreadful argument, then stormed off on their separate journeys. She to Mumbai and Tina with no specific destination in mind. Three years later, the wide-open doors of the world slammed shut in their faces. America had been attacked by terrorists. And they were back where they’d started.

  “Tell me from the beginning,” she said, after they’d discussed 9-11.

  Monisha squirmed. She ordered another coffee and two doughnuts. Her throat tightened as she recoun
ted their first meeting. Shailesh, the successful surgeon, with excellent prospects, a mother who wouldn’t cause trouble and a sister heading for Dubai.

  All of it lies.

  When she got to the pregnancy and the miscarriage, Tina shuddered.

  “Strange, he didn’t want the child…”

  Monisha clasped her ears, she could almost hear his voice.

  “Finish it. Finish it! I have a daughter.”

  “You were right, I knew so little about him, and what I found out I didn’t like.”

  Tina took a bite of her doughnut and wiped the sugar off her lips. She looked around and smiled once more. Every person in the café was a potential client. She handed the waitress her business card.

  “How are your parents?” she asked, solemnly.

  “My father is very upset. My mother isn’t speaking to me.”

  Tina nodded. She knew the Bastikars and their community, with its neat little models of perfection. This would destroy them.

  “They’ll come around… eventually.”

  Suddenly she began giggling. A sinister, inappropriate chuckle.

  “So… what was he like in bed?”

  Monisha rolled her eyes. Americans did only care about one thing. She played along, launching into a description of her visits to Hutchinson. Shailesh with his red cheeks and swollen belly. The array of exotic liquor at his bedside. Single malt and raw onions on his breath. His drunken snoring.

  Tina squealed, like a pig.

  Funny how just a week ago, there were no terrorists. And she had a husband, a mother-in-law, a sister-in-law. What would happen now?

  A pain took hold of her. Cutting, tearing. Tina saw it on her face.

  “Come on. I’ll help you get this over with, so you can start again.”

  That was it?

  She shook herself and tried to think of something else. What was internet dating like? Tina gulped down her coffee and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Well, you can’t tell them your address or phone number. It’s better to meet in a public place in daylight hours. You should take a cab so he doesn’t know your car. Oh and no one looks like their picture!”

  Monisha’s head sank onto the table. That good, huh?