Bombay Time (17 page)

Rusi reached over and firmly clasped Soli’s cold, quivering hand. Absently, he remembered Miss Desai, his fourth-grade science teacher, saying in her prim, high-pitched voice, “Heat flows from bodies with high temperature to bodies with low temperature.” He hoped his warm hands could warm up the hand that shook like a rattle inside his. But he knew that it was more than just Soli’s hands that had to be warmed up, that some essential fire had gone out of his friend, that this shaking was the outer manifestation of something thin and icy that moaned like the wind inside Soli. He remembered how he had felt when his father died and bis heart ached at the memory.

Soli had seen the pity in Rusi’s eyes. “I must be catching a cold,” he said self-consciously, trying to explain away the wretched shaking. He started to say something but then stopped, a look of mortification on his face. He stared at the object of his shame, at the large silver tear that glistened on Rusi’s hands as they lay covering Soli’s. “It’s … something … water leaking … ceiling,” Soli stuttered.

“Soli.
Bossie,
You listen to me. Nothing wrong with how you are feeling. In your shoes, I would be the same way. That Mariam treated you badly. You are upset, that’s all. Better to cry than to keep it all inside. Tomorrow, it will be fifty percent bettet, you’ll see. My mamma says tears are the jewels of God.
Arre,
even a he-man like Bogart would cry if his girl were to leave him.”

His reward was the tiniest of smiles. “Rusi. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Thank you,
bossie.”
And without warning, Soli’s body heaved with sobs. A waiter rushed up to the table, but Rusi fixed a fierce gaze on him and nodded for him to leave them alone. “Cry away Soli,” he murmured. “Good for the soul. Clears those sinuses also. But don’t worry,
bossie.
Tomorrow, you will wake up feeling like a new man, you’ll see. No shame among friends, Soli, no one here to hear, keep crying.”

Rusi gazed at the bald old man standing next to him in his starched white
dagli
and wondered what had happened to the slender, grief-stricken man he consoled at that restaurant decades ago. Time had kidnapped that youth and the years disguised him, stolen his hair, bent his back, yellowed his teeth.

But as if that were not mischief enough, time left the inside of this old man intact, so that the mischievous gray eyes contradicted the yellow teeth; so that the constant jokes that bubbled like a hot spring inside Soli were at odds with the slow, careful way in which he walked. Most of the time, Rusi noticed only his friend’s irrepressible spirit, admired how time had not dulled the wit and the humor. But today, he noticed how much Soli had aged and realized with a start that the same criminal who had stolen Soli’s youth was beginning to steal his own. Despite the fact that Soli was older, Rusi suddenly and acutely felt his own years.

Rusi knew Soli was waiting for him to say something. “So what are you going to do, Soli?”

“I don’t know. Rusi, you won’t believe—years and years it took me to forget that girl. For God knows how long, I would be seeing her in my dreams night after night. When all those Arab-Israeli wars were going on, I would light a special
diva
and pray for her safety. Not only for Mariam but for Abe Uncle, the whole family.

“But then, bit by bit, I was forgetting her. Some days, I was trying to remember her nose or her mouth and nothing is coming before my eyes—just air. And I am happy. Dadaji, I say, you are hearing my prayers. Help me to forget this woman, who has gripped me worse than the devil.”

Suddenly, Rusi knew exactly what Soli should do. In his own life, he had left too much unsaid, had run away from too many ghosts. He hated to see his friend make the same mistake. “Soli, listen,” he said urgently. “Write to her. Or, if you like, come to my factory tomorrow and call her from there. But
bossie,
face this situation. Mariam ran away from you once; don’t you run away from her.” He wanted to tell Soli more about his own regretful life, the silences that populated his days, but this was not the appropriate time. So he simply said,
“Bossie,
not too many of us get a chance to enter the past. Yes, you cannot change the past, I agree. But at least you have a chance to understand it. Take it.

“Arre,
Soli, how can she hurt you any worse than the first time? And you lived to be an old
boodha,
didn’t you? Men can live with a broken heart, it just goes to show. Who knows why Mariam is writing to you? Who cares? The point is, you need to bury her ghost once and for all. And that can only happen if you meet her.”

Soli listened silently. “Maybe you have a point. I will think about it.” Suddenly, his demeanor changed. “She’s probably looking like an old
boodhi
now. May help to see her like that, with dentures and wrinkles. Whereas I’m still Prince Charming—and your own wife told me so, when we were in bed yesterday.”

They grinned at each other, now that Soli was once again in his familiar jostling element. Rusi felt relieved. Soli’s sense of humor would be his salvation.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rusi saw Jimmy Kanga headed their way. “Here comes Jimmy,” he said hastily. “We’ll talk more, okay? Stop by the factory tomorrow.”

Before Soli could reply, Jimmy Kanga had reached them. “Okay, you two lovebirds. Enough of your
guss-puss.
All of us are waiting for you two, to start dinner. Rusi, you disappeared for so long, poor Coomi thought she was a widow. She just agreed to marry Dolly Dingdong.” The three men chuckled. Dolly, who lived in a nearby building, was a tall man, thin as a wafer, who at some point had hit upon every woman in the neighborhood. Their responses to his overtures were identical: They laughed.

Rusi suspected that Jimmy was a little drunk. And why not? he thought. It’s not every day that a man is lucky enough to have a son getting married.

“Hey, Soli. To mark the historic occasion of your waiting until the third shift for dinner, I have arranged a special tribute.” Jimmy grinned. Soli immediately smelled a rat, but Jimmy would not say anything more except a cryptic “You’ll see.” As they passed the band, Jimmy winked at the musicians. Rusi and Soli had barely sat down to dinner when the band leader leaned into his microphone. “We have a special request from the father of the groom. This one is in honor of his good friend Soli.” With that, the band launched into “Here Comes the Bride.”

The diners roared. “You stupid swine, Jimmy …” Soli began. But Jimmy thumped him hard on his back, his face red with glee. “Come on, Soli, be sporting. It’s just that everybody in the third shift was eagerly awaiting your arrival, as if you were the damn bride. None of us can remember another day when you waited this long for dinner.”

“You see this?” Soli said to Rusi in mock anger. “This man is one of Bombay’s leading advocates, Oxford-returned and all, but his brain is still like a common
ghaati’s.
Oh God, save us from all these middle-aged clowns and their not-funny jokes, and God save the queen. And you, Rusi, you
bevakoof.
What for are you showing off the three teeth in your head? Only encouraging Jimmy’s stupidity, you.”

Bomi Mistry got unsteadily to his feet. “To Soli,” he said. “May he still get his beauty sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow transformed from the Ugly Duckling into the Golden Swan.”

Amin,
Rusi thought to himself.
Amin, amin, amin.
May my poor friend wake up tomorrow morning with a healed heart. He watched silently as Soli slipped effortlessly into his usual role of court jester. He wondered if any of the others saw past the banter and jokes to Soli’s cracked and hurting heart. Surely, Jimmy had wondered what they had been discussing so intently. But maybe not. Jimmy had other, happier things on his mind tonight. Rusi whispered a silent prayer for his friend, wished him a good night’s sleep after four nights of wrestling with Mariam’s memory.

After dinner, the waiters came out with aluminum bowls and a pitcher of warm water. Moments before, the gaunt-faced men had expertly folded the large banana leaves that the guests had dined on into a long roll and swept them from the table. Now the waiters poured warm water and liquid soap onto the diners’ hands. After drying them on their white linen napkins, they were ready for ice cream. “Hope it’s
pista
ice cream—my favorite. Or tutti-fruitti,” Soli said.

Immediately after dessert, the diners rose as one, as if commanded by some unseen hand signal. On the way out of the dining area and into the reception hall, the conversation revolved around the meal, as if scores of restaurant critics had all converged on the same spot.

“Chicken could’ve been little more tender.”

“Fish was good though—nice big pieces. Chutney was delicious.”

“Pallao-daar
was excellent, too. Nice-nice pieces of mutton in the rice. Very tasty.”

“Good
achaar,
also. Nothing like that carrot pickle to complete the
lagan-nu-bhonu.
”

“I tell you, that Jimmy knows how to celebrate a happy occasion with
dhoom-dham.
Rare to see such a lavish wedding in these tight times.”

“Yah, but he should’ve cut that Adi off when he reached his limit. That boy missed a great dinner. Serves him right for drinking so much. Misbehaves every time, that Adi. An embarrassment to Wadia Baug, that’s what he is.”

“Somebody said Soli’s gone to check on him. Hope he doesn’t throw up all over poor Soli’s
dagli.”

“Yah, that will make him regret waiting till the end for dinner, for sure.”

“Now, you men leave poor Soli alone. Enough
maasti
you all have done for one evening, at his expense.”

Outside the entrance of the reception hall, scores of dark, hungry eyes followed their every movement. The children on the street involuntarily licked their lips in anticipation of the leftovers they would soon be devouring. For today, at least, there would be no need to dive into the large city Dumpsters in search of pieces of bread or bits of bananas left inside the peel. Tonight, they would eat well.

As they left the dining area, the diners were oblivious to the wave of anticipation that went through the huddled crowd. The combination of food, drink, music, and companionship had momentarily transported most of them to a state of well-being and comfort. The reality of the hungry children a few feet away from them was the last thing they wanted to confront.

Jimmy Kanga had already cornered several of them and asked them to stay on after dinner. “Zarin and I have planned a surprise for a few of our special friends,” he whispered mysteriously.

With the dulled curiosity of the overfed, they wondered what the surprise was.

Soli had first met Mariam when he was twenty years old and she was seventeen. Soli and the other neighborhood boys used to hang out at Cream Cafe, where they would kill the hours ordering mutton cutlets,
samosas,
and chicken patties. One evening, Soli was holding court, entertaining the others with his jokes, when his eyes fell on a young girl sitting a few tables down. She had long brown hair, which she wore in two thick braids that came to rest just under her breasts. Soli thought she had the pinkest lips he had ever seen, and her skin was the color of butter. But what made Soli’s heart lurch so violently that for a moment he thought he had the hiccups were her eyes. They were the kindest eyes Soli had ever seen. He had seen such eyes on old, sweet-natured dogs, but never on a human being. Right now, those eyes were focused on the short gray-haired man sitting at the table across from her. Whatever he was saying to her in an urgent, emphatic whisper was making those brown eyes brim with tears. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” Soli heard the girl say. “I’ll try and do better, honest.” Soli felt a gush of anger at the middle-aged man for making such a pretty girl cry. Gazing at the girl, he felt as if he had been transported from the restaurant into a museum, where he was staring at a most beautiful portrait.

Reluctantly, he tore his eyes away from the other table and concentrated on what his friends were laughing about. Looking at their pimpled young faces, he noticed with a shudder, for the first time, their bushy eyebrows, their scraggly mustaches, their bad haircuts, their irregular teeth. Even the handsome ones among his male friends, he suddenly found ugly, compared to the smooth, regular lines of the girl sitting a few feet away. And at that moment, rough-and-tumble Soli Contractor, neighborhood clown, the boy who could spit farther and fart louder than any of his friends, felt an overpowering desire for something finer and smoother than the coarse life he had always known.

Easing back on his chair, he turned to the boy next to him and asked in a discreet whisper, “You know who that
chokri
is, the one in the green blouse?”

“That? That’s the new Jew girl. I’m thinking her name is Mariam or Maryann or something. Her family just moved into Norman Building from Bandra. Her brothers go to the same school as my brother Baman. Nice boys. Both were boxing champs at the school they went to in Bandra. Baman says they used to have a nice big bungalow in Bandra. But then Abe Uncle—that’s the father sitting over there— Abe Uncle’s business partner swindled him big-time. So they had to sell the bungalow and move into our area. See what a wonderful area we live in? Bankrupt people come here to enjoy the fine air.”

“Our area is any day as good as Bandra,” Soli answered automatically.

For the next fifteen minutes, Soli kept glancing at the other table. But the girl did not look up. Her eyes were now dry and she spoke to her father in low tones, much like his own. Soli strained to hear what they were saying but was unable to catch more than a few words. He was suddenly ashamed of the loud crackles of laughter, the mimicking sounds of farts, the competition to see who would belch the loudest, all of which were coming from his table. As he watched, Soli noticed that the girl frequently moved her hands in expansive, graceful gestures as she spoke. He thought it was the prettiest thing he had ever seen and wondered if it would look strange if a man moved his hands about when he spoke. He decided to try it when he got home.

At last, the man at the other table pushed back his chair, brought out his wallet, and stood up. With an affectionate arm around the girl, he walked out with her.

In that instant, Soli knew that this was the girl he would marry. He had a sudden picture of them walking at Chowpatty Beach at dawn, both of them barefoot in the sand, his one hand holding his shoes and the girl’s sandals while his other arm was draped around her neck. If there were not too many people around at that hour, he would give her an occasional kiss, just a quick peck on the cheek, just so that he could watch the slow rise of her smile, as beautiful as the movement of the sun as it rose from the waters of the Arabian Sea.

Soli had pushed his chair back and risen. As his friends looked up in surprise, he put a crumpled note on rhe table. “That’s my share, plus tip, I … I just remembered I have an appointment somewhere.” He ignored their howls of protest as he tan out of the restaurant.

Out on the street, he had a desperate moment when he thought he’d lost them. But there they were, a few yards ahead, walking in brisk steps, the man’s arm still around his daughter’s shoulder. Soli followed them at a distance. He felt as if the two strangers bad cast a spell over him and were pulling him along with an invisible leash, like the family dog. He had no idea what he would do if they were to stop suddenly and ask him why he was following them.

When they got to Norman Building and went up the stairs, Soli stood weakly outside, leaning against a lamppost. What to do next? He didn’t have a clue. Finally, he went inside the apartment building and gazed at the wooden board that displayed the names of the tenants. He scanned the board, looking for an unfamiliar name, different from the Christians and Parsis who occupied the building. At last, he found it, tucked between Patel and Verghese. Rubin. Surely that was a Jew’s name. Third floor. He felt a sudden burning desire to see the inside of their apartment, to see how they lived, to find out whether their surroundings were as refined and graceful as the occupants themselves.

There was a small
lassi
shop across the street. Soli went in and ordered a
lassi.
Holding a glass of the sweet yogurt drink in his hand, he gazed toward Norman Building, half-hoping that the mystery girl would appear at a window facing the street. But nothing stirred. Several times, the
lassiwalla
asked him if he was all right and several times Soli irritatedly brushed him off, not wanting the
lassiwalla,
with his enormous paunch and red
paan
-stained teeth, to intrude upon the sweet fantasy he found himself engulfed in. “Come on, come on,” he murmured, trying to will her to the window. He waited for an hour, slowing sipping the
lassi,
licking his upper lip to remove the milky white mustache that had formed. At last, he rose and went home, disappointed but strangely exhilarated.

A week later, the image of the girl rose before his eyes again. Soli was at home reading in bed after having had dinner with his widowed mother. But the lines on the page kept rearranging themselves into the shape of the girl’s slender face. Soli shut the book with a thud. “Mamma,” he said. “Too hot in here. Going out for a few minutes to get fresh air.”

When he arrived at Norman Building, the street was busy, as usual. Soli leaned against the same lamppost he had leaned against the day he had followed the Rubins home. For a second, he had a vision of himself as a bronzed statue, one hand in his pants pocket, leaning his right shoulder against the lamppost, a dull notch where his shoulder rubbed daily against the post. A bronzed Romeo, pining away for his Juliet to appear at the window. The vision made him feel very old and sad, and in order to get rid of that feeling, he shook his head swiftly from side to side, like a dog emerging from the ocean.

Then he heard it. From the third-floor window, music was floating down toward the street like a single feather, the plaintive notes of a violin sounding as sweet and lonely as the lullaby Soli’s father used to sing to him when he was a boy. He knew with absolute certainty that the music was coming out of the Rubin apartment. He also knew with terrifying certainty that he was about to make a fool of himself, that he would not return to his depressing, quiet apartment tonight without getting a glimpse of the people who played such holy, heart-piercing music. Like a man in a dream, he entered the building and walked up the stairs. At the door, his index finger trembled in the air for a moment but he rang the bell.

“Just a minute.” A patter of feet, and then Abe Rubin’s round gray-haired face peered at him blankly. “Yes? Can I help you?”

Soli suddenly realized that he was unable to speak. Abe was staring at him with a puzzled expression on his face, clearly waiting for him to say something, and
he could not speak.
His mouth was so dry that no words would emerge. He opened and shut his mouth a few times and tried to fight the urge to flee down the stairs two at a time.

To Soli’s mortification, Abe Rubin began to laugh. “What is it, son? Can I help you?” he repeated, a kindly expression on his face.

Soli gulped. And plunged. “That music?” he stammered. “I was just walking by—I told my mamma I was going on a short walk only, you know? And I am hearing this music, just walking by your building for no reason, you know. I … I … What record is playing, sir? It is quite … beautiful,” he said finally.

Abe gazed at the boy, trying to place where he had seen him and to discern the reason for his nervousness. “Do you live in the building?”

“Me? No, sir. That is, I live just around the corner, only. In Wadia Baug. The Contractors, you know? My daddy was a higher-up in the postal service, may God bless his soul. Good family, sir.”

“All right, all right.” Abe laughed. “I don’t mean to give you the third degree.”

“Third degree, sir?” Soli blinked. He wished he had never knocked on the door of this strange man. Although he had read about the Jews and how Hitler had killed them by the millions, he had never met a Jewish family before, and now he racked his brains to remember what he had heard about the Jews in Bombay. He had read
The Merchant of Venice
in school, but the man standing in front of him looked nothing like Shylock. He wondered if this man, who was using expressions he had never heard, was typical of other Bombay Jews.

“Abe, who is it?” An intelligent-looking woman, her hair tied up in a scarf, came to the door.

“Oh, just a boy from the neighborhood. He’s a regular musical aficionado. Says he heard the music on the street and was curious to know what it was.”

“Why, that’s lovely.” The woman’s face lit up. “Do come in,

Mr “

“Contractor. My name is Soli Contractor.” Although they were very dissimilar, something about this cultured woman with the big brown eyes reminded Soli of his mother and made him feel at ease. Compared to his robust, boisterous father, Abe Rubin seemed like a man from a different planet. But this woman felt familiar, and Soli gave her a warm, grateful smile.

“Well, Soli—may I call you that? You’re as young as my children, after all—Abe will be glad to have another classical music fan. You’re a Parsi, yes? In Bandra, we had many Parsi friends. In Bandra, we knew many families who were interested in the same things we are, but here—” She stopped abruptly.

Soli noticed a shadow cross Abe’s face. “Now, Emma. We have to stop thinking like that,” Abe said softly. She nodded, a beatific smile on her face. Standing on her toes, she gave her husband a quick peck on the cheek. Soli was startled. In his whole life, he had never seen a woman kiss a man in public. His own parents, for instance, had pulled away like guilty children the one time he had entered their bedroom and found his father resting his head in his wife’s lap. Emma’s gesture just added to his conviction that he had entered a new world, more dazzling and sophisticated than the one he lived in just a few streets away.

Soli followed Abe into the living room. For a moment, he was disappointed. In his imagination, he had pictured a fairy-tale apartment straight out of
Arabian Nights,
exotic and sensual, with velvet couches and silken drapes and Persian carpets. He had heard that the Jews were rich people, and he was ready to be dazzled by an apartment that he thought would be as foreign to him as the people living in it. The soulful music that wafted onto the street, the way Abe’s daughter spoke with her hands, these things had accentuated their strangeness, their difference. He thought of himself as cotton and of the girl as satin, and he expected an apartment that exaggerated those differences. But the Rubins’ apartment looked fairly similar to the apartments in Wadia Baug, other than the fact that it had more artwork on the walls and two built-in bookshelves that were filled with Abe’s record collection.

And there was one other vital, happy difference between this apartment and the ones in Wadia Baug. The woman he would marry lived in this one. She was in the living room, reading, her feet up on a coffee table. She had on a blue cotton dress and her thick hair was free from the braids he had first seen her in. She looked up when he came in, her face echoing the mildly curious expression on her mother’s face from a moment ago.

“Mariam, this is Soli Engineer. This is my daughter, Mariam.”

“Contractor. My surname is Contractor, sir. Soli Contractor.”

“Pardon me. I stand corrected,” Abe said, a slight, ironic smile on his face, which left Soli feeling flushed and confused. Should I not have corrected the man? he wondered. Was it some breach of etiquette he knew nothing about? He felt small and lost among these people. But then he thought to himself, If this girl is to marry me, she better learn my correct name right now. After all, that will be her name someday. Mrs. Mariam Contractor. He swirled the name in his mouth like rock candy.

Mariam had risen from the couch and was holding out her hand to him, a quizzical expression on her face. They shook hands. Mariana’s hand was smooth and small, and Soli was suddenly ashamed of his big coarse hands. He wished he knew what she was thinking, what impression he had made on her. He wished that Abe Uncle would disappear and leave the two of them alone to talk. He wished that he had met Mariam years ago. For a moment, he felt a pang of regret at the years spent with his pimply-faced school friends, playing aimless card games and holding spitting contests. And all that time, this girl had been alive, had lived in the same city. And he had not known her. Now, Soli searched her face for some sign of interest or friendliness, but he saw nothing there except a formal politeness. She was treating him as if he were her father’s friend, and his heart dropped at the realization. He stood there blinking at her, wishing he could make her laugh as easily as he could his friends, but after a second, Mariam turned her attention away from him and to her book. He was suddenly as jealous of the book as if it were a rival vying for Mariam’s attention. Soli came to life again when he saw Abe’s eclectic record collection. Hundreds of records. How did he find the time to listen to all this music? Soli did not even own a phonograph. All he had at home was an old radio. The idea of choosing what music one wanted to listen to at a particular moment was a new and wonderful one.