Thrity Umrigar Read online

  Kamala, she replied and a whole universe opened up before my eyes—a human being with a name and suddenly there were other trails to follow—family, marital status, children, where she lived, where she disappeared to when she left us in the evening…and then, likes, dislikes, preferences, allergies, past illnesses, what made her laugh…

  It is the nature of revolutions that one change follows another and soon, another cataclysmic event: I hugged Kamala. First, an arm around the shoulder, then, a quick, sideways hug, pulling her closer toward me and then, finally, a full, frontal hug, the same way I would hug Mehroo or one of my friends at school. Physical space, not to be violated because of the invisible walls of class, religion, tribe, language, education, all the things that divided us, that

  physical space suddenly, effortlessly, trampled over—and nothing happened. The heavens didn’t open up, the Gods didn’t send their lightning bolts of wrath. Just…the adults raising their eyebrows and looking silently at each other for guidance. Just…Kamala giving a short, embarrassed laugh if I hugged her in front of one of the adults and then quickly moving out of my embrace. Just…the sharp, pungent smell of Kamala’s hard-working sweat, unfamiliar, new. But other than that, nothing.

  And so I excavate Kamala, bit by bit, coax her out of the mask of silence she usually assumes in front of the adults (unless she is angry and then she rattles off indignant words like the rat-a-tat of a machine gun, her flat chest heaving), make her laugh, have her tell me stories, have her describe her nieces and nephews to me. Filling in the blanks, drawing a picture of this mystery woman who shows up at our house at seven a.m. each morning and then disappears into the evening shadows until the following day.

  Most days, it is like moving mountains because the very presence of the adults makes her freeze, withdraw into silence.

  When they are around, her movements are stiff, her speech stilted and self-conscious. Even while she is talking to me, I notice her looking at them out of the corner of her eye. But when we are at home alone, her face gets animated when she talks, her light brown eyes grow round and wide, her hands gesturing wildly. But along the way to getting her to trust me, there are many missteps on my part. In the beginning, I take my lunch plate and set it beside hers on the floor, my silent, ineffectual protest against a social system that allows Kamala to cook our food but not sit at the dining table with us while we eat it. Roshan giggles, dad is torn between thinking it’s a silly gesture and wanting me to stop, mum is annoyed and Kamala is embarrassed—and pissed. She scolds me, making sure the adults understand she wants no part of this.

  Finally, after several days of sitting on my haunches like she does and eating my food, I give up.

  My next mission is to get Kamala to sit at the dining table with me though even I know better than to try this in the presence of the adults. But when we are alone, I refuse to eat my lunch until she comes and joins me at the table and there is much eye-rolling and head-shaking but finally she does. But she looks so damn uncomfortable sitting on the brown chair, that there is no pleasure in this for either her or me. If I don’t insist on it, she automatically squats on the floor in front of me when we are talking. Until…

  Until that glorious day the summer that I am fifteen. I am in the living room playingLet It Be on the stereo and Kamala comes sailing into the room and asks me to change the music, to stop playing this record in a language she doesn’t understand, to instead play the record I had brought home two days earlier. It is an old fishermen’s folk song, sung in Marathi, which is Kamala’s language and she knows the song and now she is demanding that I play it. And I am leaping off the couch before she can even finish her request, my heart singing at the maternal, authoritative manner in which Kamala is ordering me about. Success, I think, at last. And it gets even better: she comes and sits on the couch next to me and we listen to the record in silence. She looks straight ahead and her face is ex-pressionless. If she knows the words of this song she doesn’t let on. I have no idea what she’s thinking but I don’t care. I am enjoying sitting on the couch with this woman I have come to love and respect so much, this quiet, hard-working, decent, dignified woman who, I think, deserves to inherit the earth. I wonder about a system that considers this woman ignorant and illiterate when she is clearly wise; that allows her to work for people who do not even call her by her own name. Usually, these thoughts

  would depress and anger me but today is a day of celebration.

  Even as I realize that this brief moment of spontaneity will not change anything, I still feel a rush of hope, a tantalizing glimpse of possibility. I allow myself to romanticize and sentimentalize the moment even while I realize that this sentimentality is something I can afford but Kamala can’t. And so I savour this unguarded sweetness between us, even after the doorbell rings and Kamala jumps guiltily off the couch and hurries to the door to let the others in.

  Two days after this incident she comes to me and asks in an off-hand way whether I’d like to go with her to her nephew’s engagement party. Before I can express my pleasure at the invitation she begins to recite all the reasons why I probably shouldn’t go: We would have to leave very early in the morning and change two buses, her nephew lives in an old, rickety building with a common bathroom and I probably have to study for my exams anyway. ‘Kamala,’ I say. ‘I really, really want to go. I’ve always wanted to meet your family, especially your nephew. I know he’s your favourite.’

  So Kamala broaches the subject to Mehroo, who, she knows, is in charge of these decisions. And to my surprise, Mehroo says yes.

  Kamala breaks into a wide, surprised grin when she comes to pick me up on that Saturday. I look clumsy in my a green and gold cotton sari and the sight of me in clothes other than my usual shirt and jeans makes her laugh. She smiles even more broadly as we walk toward the bus-stop and I awkwardly navigate the folds of the sari and try to make sure I don’t trip.

  ‘Baby, why did you bother with all this?’ she asks. But I can tell that she is happy I made the effort.

  It is a wonderful day. Kamala’s family is warm, welcoming and friendly toward me. For the first hour or two they fawn over me, give me a chair to sit on while the rest of them sit on mattresses on the floor but after a while I tell them that this attention is making me uncomfortable and to my great surprise, they get it and stop their fussing. Still, I can tell that Kamala is keeping a protective eye on me, pulling me away when one of the neighbourhood boys gives me an in-solent, knowing smile and escorting me to the community bathroom that’s down the hall from her nephew’s apartment, muttering all the way about the dirty habits of some of the people who live in this chawl. But she is also glad to be among family she doesn’t see too often and I see a side of her I’ve never seen before. The controlled, silent woman who moves like a ghost through our house, has disappeared. In her place is a colourful, boisterous woman with a sharp tongue and a hearty laugh. I thrill each time Kamala laughs, knowing it may be years before I ever see her this free again. Kamala’s nieces and nephews call her ‘Kaku,’ and they all laugh when I start calling her by that name.

  ‘Better not call me Kaku at home,’ she says on the way back.

  ‘What will your mummy-daddy think, if you call me aunt?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I say. ‘Youare my aunt.’

  And so the woman who was once Ganga and later became Kamala, now becomes Kaku. And I suppose it is a good thing, this progression from the anonymous to the familial but I can’t help but know that even this power to name, is a sign of privilege. What does it mean that a fifteen-year-old teenager has the power to give a woman at least three times her age her name back? And if a name can be given, can it also be taken away?

  And then there’s this: After that time on the couch, after the adults came back home and Kaku jumped off the couch to answer the door, she went back to resume her kitchen duties.

  And I, I stayed in the living room, listening to the Marathi folk song one more time. Then, when the song ended, I lifted the
stylus and changed the record.

  And Let It Be played through the house once again.

  Eighteen

  BABU IS DEAD.

  The man who has been a second father to me all my life, who saw me seconds after I was born, who has loved me as proudly and steadfastly as he did his own daughter, is dead—suddenly, shockingly, at the age of fifty-four.

  The doorbell rings at seven p.m. The whole family is at the dinner table except for my aunt Freny, who is spending the night by her husband’s side at the hospital. We have come home from the hospital a few hours earlier, relieved to find Babu in such good spirits a day after his kidney stone surgery.

  Now, we are almost done with dinner when the doorbell rings.

  Mehroo looks startled as she pushes back her chair to answer the door. We are not expecting any more visitors tonight.

  From the dining room, I hear Sam uncle’s voice. He is out of breath and talking fast, which makes his voice sound even more high-pitched than always. ‘Mehroo, come quick,’ he says.

  ‘Pesi is not doing well. I just went to the hospital to see him for a few minutes and Freny sent me to fetch all of you. Dr Sethna is on his way in also.’

  Dad is already on his feet and toward the door. My mom, too, rushes out of the room, leaving me and my cousin Roshan all alone in the suddenly empty room. I stare at Roshan, not knowing what to say and she stares back, her nose and eyes getting red. Then, she gets up and I hear the flip-flop of her rubber slippers on the floor of the hallway. I gaze at all the abandoned dinner plates on the table and look down at mine. It is almost empty—just a few more morsels to go. And then it happens: A quiet, cold voice says to me,

  ‘Finish your dinner. You will need all your strength to run around if Babu is sick.’ So I continue eating, the only one in my family to do so. I eat fast and guiltily, afraid that someone will enter the room and catch me in the act. It is the first time I have encountered the hidden ruthlessness in myself, that cold-eyed practicality that will surface whenever I face a situation of crisis. This is a side of myself I have not yet experienced and I feel like a mercenary, a soldier of fortune, as I gulp the food down.

  The potential seriousness of the situation hits me as I notice how furiously my dad drives us to the hospital. Dr Sethna has reached the hospital before we get there and is in the room examining Babu. We wait outside the room. Freny is in the room with Babu so we have no idea what is going on. Finally, Mehroo grabs one of the nurses coming out of the room but the woman only says, ‘Doctor should be out soon. Then you can ask him everything.’

  Finally, Dr Sethna steps out. He is a handsome man in his fifties with greying temples and a calm manner honed from years of serving in the army. He had removed my appendix six months earlier and now he smiles at me and murmurs, ‘Hi, girlie.’

  Without waiting for me to respond, he turns to the adults.

  His brow creases as he sees the worried look on their faces and he exhales loudly. ‘His stomach is filling up with gas,’ he says without preamble. ‘We don’t know why. I’ve written a new prescription and we’ll watch how he does all night. Beyond this, there’s nothing I can tell you right now.’

  Dad steps forward. ‘But doctor, is it…serious?’

  Sethna sighs again. He has known my dad and uncle for years, ever since they were all young men. ‘I don’t know, Burjor. It could be. I’ll do everything that I can. Pesi is my patient but first of all, he’s my friend.’

  His words fail to reassure Mehroo. ‘Just this afternoon when we were all here, he was fine,’ she says. ‘Talking, making jokes.

  We were all marvelling at how well he was doing, touchwood.’

  ‘Yes, well. Well, I know you’re anxious to see him. But please, I must warn you—don’t be shocked by his appearance.

  As soon as the medication works, things should be better.’

  But we are shocked. Shocked speechless. The gas has filled up Babu’s belly to the point where we cannot see his face from the foot of his bed. The white sheet covering him is like a giant tent over him. And what’s really upsetting is that it seems to us that his belly is growing larger even as we watch.

  Freny’s eyes are red and I go up behind her and give her a quick hug. ‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘We’re all here now. He will be fine in a few hours.’

  My dad and Mehroo are on either side of their brother’s bed.

  ‘Pesi? How are you, brother?’ my dad asks. ‘You don’t worry at all, okay? Whatever has to be done, you know we will do.

  I will be by your side, night and day. I will take you home myself in a few days.’

  Babu’s eyes flutter awake. He looks as if he’s trying to respond but all we can see is a wave of emotion cross his face, like the sun’s shadow across a field.

  I am sitting by the foot of Babu’s bed and decide to rub his feet because he’s forever asking me to massage his feet. I reach under the blankets and my heart stops. His feet are freezing cold, colder than ice, colder than the coldest object on earth. I am fifteen years old and not acquainted with death but even I can sense that there is something alien and dangerous about this kind of coldness. It feels to me as if I’m touching death itself, as if death is creeping up Babu’s body. I tip over the edge of the blanket to look at his feet and they are a hideous shade of white. For the first time,

  I am really afraid. Leaning over, I touch his hands and they are cold, also. I take Babu’s feet in my hands and start rubbing furiously. In a few seconds, I’m in a trance. If I can just keep this pace up, I think, I can make him well. My hands move as fast as those of the shoeshine boys who polish my father’s shoes each morning.

  A nurse comes into the room and says Freny’s younger sister, Mani, has just called the nurse’s station to ask one of us to stop by the house and pick up an ointment for Babu. Freny mentions that Mani had been at the hospital earlier, just as Babu was beginning to get bloated and had remembered an ayurvedic ointment that apparently worked wonders with stomach pain.

  I volunteer to make the short trip to Mani aunty’s house, anxious to get away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the small hospital room. To my surprise, none of the adults protest. By now it is 9:30 p.m. and although the Bombay streets are crowded and well-lit, somebody would’ve normally stopped me from going out alone at night. But tonight, nobody is paying me any attention. All eyes are focused on Babu’s stomach; all of our breathing follows his rasping breath.

  I half-run the few blocks from the hospital to Mani aunty’s house. She is waiting for me and answers the door on the first ring. Mani aunty goes to the bathroom to get the small tube of ointment and gives me instructions on how often to apply it.

  ‘How is he?’ she asks and I start to reply but suddenly I can’t speak because I am heaving with sobs. I want to tell her about how cold Babu’s feet are and how, touching them, I felt as if he were already dead. But no words emerge. Mani watches me cry for a minute and then she speaks: ‘Stop it. Stop your crying. This is not the time for tears. This is the time to fight with God, to wrestle with Him for Pesi’s sake. Now come on, be brave. This is the time to be strong, not weak. If you fall apart like this, who is going to take care of my Freny?’

  Mani’s words greet me like a slap in the face. I stare at her open-mouthed, knowing instinctively that she has said exactly the words I need to hear, realizing dimly that she has selected for me, like a black woollen coat, the role that I must wear. All I have to do now, is slip into this role of guardian and protector.

  Mani is absolutely right. This is the time to wrestle with God, to use my youth and vitality to thaw the iciness that is creeping up Babu’s limbs, to combat the cold fear that is growing in my own heart.

  I feel myself straighten up. ‘I’m sorry, Mani aunty,’ I say, and my voice is firm. ‘I’ll take care of everybody, don’t worry.

  Thanks for the balm.’ She pulls me toward her in a quick, tight hug and then I’m running down the stairs and into the night.

  There is a moon in the
sky and it follows me like a dribbling basketball as I walk fast toward the hospital. I look at the moon and begin my quarrel with God, fighting so desperately for Babu’s life, talking to the moon with such intensity, that I feel the sweat running down my face. People look at me strangely and I realize I’m talking out loud but I don’t stop. ‘I’m not giving in to You,’ I say to the moon. ‘We need Babu in our family—you know the role he plays. We need him more than you do, God. Please, please, please God. I’ll give up drinking beer for six months—for a year—if you let him live.’

  Later that night, Roshan and I are standing in the hallway of the hospital, looking out over the gardens. I tell her what Mani aunty had said to me and urge her to do the same. She looks at me and nods but doesn’t say anything. Instead, we both look up at the moon, so serene, so aloof, it seems to mock our desperation. We stand there, utterly alone and yet silently leaning into each other, first cousins who are more like sisters, thanks to the generosity and love of the man who, across the hallway from us, is battling for his very life.

  I am back at the hospital by ten a.m. the next day. Mummy has made omelette sandwiches for dad, Mehroo and Freny, all of whom have spent the night at the hospital. I hand each of them a sandwich but they just glance at it and put it away.

  I quickly figure out why.

  Babu’s stomach has grown even more than last night. It is hard to believe and for a second I’m tempted to think that this is just another of Babu’s many practical jokes, like the way he wriggles his ears and turns his eyelids upside down. But this is no joke. Babu’s face is pale and puffy and his fingers and toes are a greyish white. Dr Sethna has already been by earlier this morning and pronounced that my uncle has kidney failure though he has no idea why.