Bombay Time (14 page)

“You know that famous line from that movie: ‘We’ll always have Paris’?” Rusi said to his wife that night as they waited for their daughter to come home. “I feel like that about Binny. That no matter what happens, we’ll always have Binny. I’ll always love you as the woman who gave me Binny.”

“Bas.
that’s all? That’s the only reason to love me?” she asked playfully.

Rusi sighed. “No, Coomi. Many other reasons to love you. But darling, that temper. You must promise to control it better.”

“I promise, Rusi. I’ll try harder.”

“Sometimes, I look at our daughter, and although she’s almost a grown woman and all, I feel the same magic I did the day she was born. As if I still cannot believe that she’s here. That we made her. My one true, unqualified success.”

But then Binny grew up and went away. Then it was the original triad again—Coomi, Rusi, and Khorshed, older now and even more dependent on her son. Khorshed had tried to prevent her beloved granddaughter from leaving Bombay to go study in England, but Rusi understood that the old woman was working from a place of fear and need. “Let her go, Mamma,” he said to his mother. “Give her your blessings. No opportunities for her in this city. Let her go and explore her options.” He held back his own tears, wrestled with his own fears and needs while he said those words.

“All those years ago, everybody wanted the English out of India. Now we are willingly sending our children to England and America. What a strange world,” Khorshed whispered.

But under her son’s cajoling, Khorshed relented. Coomi was a different story. The thought of losing Binny, and of living in the Wadia Baug flat with only Rusi and Khorshed, was unbearable to her. “Why must Binny go abroad?” she asked Rusi. “Binny is like a plant we have watered and fed daily, and now, when it’s ready to bloom, it must be transplanted in someone else’s garden? She is our only child, Rusi, our own flesh and blood. It’s not like we have ten other children. You may be so hard-hearted,
baba,
but I cannot bear to be parted from my only daughter.”

She and Binny had not really been close since the time Binny had turned thirteen, but that inconvenient fact was now forgotten as Coomi rallied to persuade Binny that Bombay was good enough for her. “Millions of people live here, go to school, get Ph.D.s., become lawyers and doctors. Our colleges are second to none. Why do you need to go abroad to be successful? That father of yours has filled your ears with all his nonsense.”

Binny listened. She did not contradict her mother. She did not say: I am tired of being the glue that holds you and Daddy together. I have already given you my entire childhood. You do not have the right to expect more than that from me. I am afraid that as long as I live here, you will keep using me to patch your marriage together. Now it is time for you to find out if the two of you have a future without me. I will no longer be the third leg that holds your marriage up. And there’s more. I, too, have my own dreams and ambitions. You see, I love physics. After I stopped believing in God as a teenager, I would stand at the window at night and talk to the stars. Do you remember? I want to learn everything there is about the universe. And if I live here, in this house, with its walls dripping with your frustrations and Dad’s sorrow, I will never know another universe. Wadia Baug will consume me, be the only reality I know. And I must know more. Do you understand? I must, for the sake of my soul, for the sake of my life. My life. Do you understand?

Binny heard her mother out in silence. Then, when the time came, she fled.

Two years after Binny’s departure, Khorshed Bilimoria got sick with the flu. A week later, she died at Parsi General Hospital. Suddenly, there was a funeral to plan. Binny wanted to fly back, despite the fact that she had exams that week. Coomi agreed, glad for a chance to see her daughter, no matter what the circumstances. But Rusi put his foot down. “Your studies are the most important thing right now, Binny,” he said. “You loved Granny while she was alive, and she knew that. Take satisfaction from that. Nothing you can do for her now. I know she would want you to concentrate on your studies. Do well in your exams, for her sake.”

Khorshed’s funeral. The hunched men in their white
daglis,
the wailing women in their white saris, the mumbling, shuffling
dastoors
who prayed in their nasal twang, the moth-eaten, sunken pallbearers, the sandy-colored dog who was made to circle the dead body ritual-istically. It was all so heartbreaking.

But Rusi’s farewell to his departed mother was more heartbreaking than anything else that day.

An hour before the actual ceremony, Coomi followed Rusi as he walked aimlessly around the Tower of Silence, waiting for the funeral to start. She understood that Rusi had to get away from the wailing women, all of whom tsk-tsked and talked endlessly about poor Khor-shed and what a sad life she’d had, losing her beloved husband so young. Coomi followed her husband down the green trails. Located in the heart of Bombay, the green acres of the Tower of Silence were an oasis of tranquillity, an almost surreal contrast to the noise and snarling chaos that lay outside. Trees and wildflowers grew everywhere and muffled the distant sounds of traffic. As they walked, they spotted several of the wild peacocks that lived on the grounds. Coomi drank in the serenity of the place with the fierce, intense thirst of a city dweller whose landscape usually yielded only cement and plaster. She noticed the red cloud of dust that they made as they walked, noticed the deep blue of the cloudless Bombay sky. Despite the slight incline of the terrain, Coomi could feel herself breathing deeper, could sense her heart rate slowing down. “It’s peaceful here,” she murmured, and Rusi nodded. But even as the words left her mouth, Coomi heard a flutter of wings above them and looked up, to see the sinister wings of a large vulture as it flew overhead. She half-turned toward Rusi, knowing instinctively that her husband was thinking the same thought that had flashed through her mind—that this bird and its companions would soon feast on Khorshed’s shriveled flesh. Since only the professional pallbearers were allowed to approach the huge well into which the dead bodies were lowered, neither Coomi nor Rusi had actually seen the site. But they had heard enough stories to have a good mental picture of vultures greedily circling the well, and upon seeing one of those birds, she knew that Rusi, too, had felt the horror, the same sickening pit in the stomach. Coomi remembered that a few years ago, some of the non-Parsi tenants of the wealthy neighborhood that surrounded the Tower of Silence had complained about what they considered to be a barbaric custom. At a public meeting called by the Parsi Panchayat, these residents told horror stories about birds dropping off objects that looked suspiciously like a finger or a toe on the windowsills of their expensive high-rise apartments. Some of the younger Parsis had shared their revulsion, had argued that this ancient way of disposing of the dead might have worked on the open plains of Persia but was unsanitary and dangerous when practiced in the middle of a bustling city. But as usual, the doddering old men prevailed. As usual, custom and tradition triumphed over common sense.

But no time now for these thoughts, because upon seeing the vulture, Rusi had stopped abruptly and was gazing off into the distance. As Coomi watched, his face folded with grief and he began to cry in great heaving sobs. His anguish was so immense that Coomi knew that he was doing more than saying good-bye to his mother. Rusi was also crying for the father he had lost so unexpectedly, for the marital bliss he had barely experienced, for the daughter he had sacrificed, for the business that had nevet soared, for a life that was a litany of griefs and disappointments. The sound of his sobbing merged with the twitter of the birds. Coomi tried to say something kind and comforting, but her words shriveled under the force of his immense grief. Instead, she took the two steps that separated her from her husband and merely held him, held him tightly, as if to protect him from the intruding world. But this only made him cry even harder. “Oh my God,” Rusi sobbed. “Oh my God, this awful pain.” It had been a long time since Rusi had cried in Coomi’s presence, and the sound of his sobbing shocked her. As Rusi trembled in her arms, Coomi felt as if she were holding a proud but broken animal. But despite her sadness at seeing her usually remote husband so helpless in her arms, some part of Coomi sang. It’s not too late, she said to herself. All I have to do is reach for him and he comes. Still. And another, more fierce thought: I can help him. I can save him.

But the moment came and went. Seconds later, she felt Rusi’s heart hardening like cement as he realized that he was in the arms of the enemy. He strained against the arms that only a moment ago had provided such comfort, and when he detached himself, his face bore the distant look she had come to know so well. “Sorry, so sorry. Um, probably should go back,” he said stiffly. “People are waiting. The
dastoors
must have come by now.”

As they walked back, Coomi grew cold and afraid at the thought of attending her mother-in-law’s funeral. She was suddenly very aware of the long and terrible history she shared with Khorshed. About the many times she had wished for the old woman’s death, the numerous times she had told Rusi that his mother was a thorn in her side. She wondered if Rusi was remembering all this now. If so, he would not be the only one. Coomi had shared her bitterness with so many of the neighbors, friends, and relatives who were gathered for the funeral. Instinctively, her eyes searched for Dosamai, before she remembered that the old woman was at home nursing a cold. But many of the people gathered here knew about Coomi’s complaints. Just a week before Khorshed got ill, Coomi had complained about the old woman to Amy. “Old as the hills, she is, but still she pokes her nose into my business,” she’d fretted. For almost twenty-five years, the mourners at the funeral had been divided into two camps, hers or Khorshed’s. For decades, they’d heard her tearful stories about how Khorshed had stolen her husband from her, how she would not find any peace until one of them was dead. And now Khorshed was dead. And the eyes of all the relatives and the neighbors were upon her. To see how she mourned. And Rusi was leaning away from her, remote as a star, acting as if the woman beside him were a distant acquaintance. He would be no help at all.

Somehow, she got through the funeral. She sat in one of the middle rows, surrounded by members of her own family, trying to look as small and invisible as possible. It was easy, too, because all eyes were fixed upon Rusi.

Because throughout the ceremony, Rusi stood not too far away from his dead mother and prayed out loud for her soul, prayed the Avesta, the holy book of the Parsis, in that deep, beautiful, melodious voice of his. Somewhere between a song and a chant, Rusi’s hypnotic rhythm drowned out the petty, mumbling prayers of the hired priests and cast such a spell on those gathered that even the white-saried old women were too stunned to wail. It was beautiful. It was profound. And they had never seen anything quite like it. There stood Rusi, gray-haired, erect, proud and dignified as the stone lions at the entrance of Wadia Baug. An old warrior, praying out loud for the soul of his dead mother. Singing out his love, his ancient grief, not afraid of sharing this thick love with the world. Even Zenobia, the neighborhood atheist, was moved. This is the power of the true believer, she thought to herself. This is the power of love. And for a moment, she was envious.

Rusi’s loud singsong chant reached even the non-Parsi guests sitting on wooden benches outside the cabin where the ceremony was going on. Parsi custom did not allow them to witness the ceremony. Rusi apologized to them before the start of the ceremony, but they put their hands on his shoulder and said they understood. When Rusi’s eulogy for his mother reached them, they, too, felt the power of those mysterious ancient words that few knew the meaning of. “When I die, I also want somebody to pray over me like this,” Maniben whispered to her husband. “Khorshedben’s soul will go straight to heaven after this.”

Coomi was relieved that Rusi’s performance had taken the focus off of her. But now, with the ceremony over, she could feel everybody’s watchful eyes on her. She missed Binny dreadfully at that moment. The others waited as she and Rusi went up to pay their last respects, to bow before Khorshed’s body and put
lobaan,
frankincense and sandalwood, into the small fire that blazed in an urn before the body. “She looks peaceful,” she murmured to Rusi, and he nodded, his eyes filling with tears. As they got up in unison, she could feel all the narrow, penetrating eyes riveting back on Rusi, and she was grateful.

But Coomi was also embarrassed by the nakedness of her husband’s love for his mother. This was the final display of that love, and it had been for the world to see. Despite her death, Khorshed had once again managed to steal Rusi away from her, and this time in the most public of ways. Even in death, Khorshed had triumphed. She had had the last laugh. As Coomi bowed her head in respect before Khorshed’s sleeping form, she could not shake off the feeling that she was also bowing her head in submission and in defeat.

It was eerily quiet in the apartment in the days that followed the funeral. Rusi sat in his rocking chair and gazed out of the window for hours, never once initiating a conversation. Or he busied himself sorting his mother’s papers and going through her things. Coomi was at a loss as to how to help him through his grief. “Anything for me to do?” she asked as she stood at the entrance of Khorshed’s room. Without Rusi’s having said a word, Coomi got the strong impression that he did not want her to enter his mother’s bedroom, did not want her to defile it with her presence. He stared at her uncomprehendingly for a long moment. “No, nothing to do,” he answered at last.

Coomi suspected that Rusi was silently blaming her for his not being present when his mother died. She chaffed at the injustice of that unspoken accusation. I was not responsible for what happened on that last night at the hospital, she told herself. “It’s a pity, what happened in the hospital,” she ventured to say, still standing in the doorway. He sat still for so long that she thought he hadn’t heard her. But just as she was ready to repeat the sentence, he said, “Wasn’t meant to be. Just my
naseeb.”
Instead of reassuring her, the words made her feel defensive.