Bombay Time (26 page)

Out of the corner of her eye, Tehmi saw Jimmy Kanga approaching her. Her finger froze where it had been feeling the lump under her armpit. Casually, she let her right hand drop to her side. With a practiced eye, Tehmi noticed that Jimmy was standing as far away from her as he could and still be heard. She felt a rush of sympathy for him. Poor man, she thought. Of course he doesn’t want to be showered with my dragon’s breath. Not on his son’s wedding day. One whiff of my breath will turn the expensive foreign perfume he’s wearing into cheap
attar.
She giggled, and the realization that she was pleasantly drunk made her giggle some more. She never should have accepted that glass of whiskey Bomi had thrust into her hand. She tried to concentrate on what Jimmy was saying to her.

“Tehmi, just wanted to let you know. Zarin and I are asking some of our guests, mostly people from Wadia Baug, to stay on a little while longer, after the other guests leave. We have a little surprise for our special friends. And don’t worry about getting back. We’ve rented a bus to take the Wadia Baug gang back home.”

Jimmy saw her surprise at being included in this select group and felt a rush of guilt. Of course she was surprised. After all, she had only been invited to the wedding because they had invited the whole building. And now he was asking her to stay behind, presuming a friendship where none existed. He felt he owed her an explanation. “Tehmi, when you see our little surprise, you will understand. But, on this happy day, let me please just say what I have said to many others and what I should have said to you years ago. I am what I am today because of your Cyrus. It was he who directed my life at a very crucial stage. He was a great man, Cyrus. Hard to imagine that my Mehernosh is now older than Cyrus was when he … when he … well, you know. One more thing: Although I didn’t know Cyrus well, I’m glad I knew him even a little bit.”

He saw the tears well up in her eyes and panicked. “No, no, I didn’t mean to upset you, Tehmi. No tears on this auspicious occasion, please. Let’s all just have a nice time, okay?”

She forced the tears back and smiled. “Okay, Jimmy. Okay. No sadness today. But just one thing. Your Mehernosh reminds me a lot of my Cyrus. You and Zarin, you are good parents and good people. I may not say much, but I notice things, you know.”

She saw the look of startled pleasure on Jimmy’s face and was glad she had said what she did. She watched as Jimmy approached some of the others and wondered what the surprise was about. For a moment, she wondered if she could confide the news of the lump growing in her body to Jimmy and Zarin. She knew that if she asked Zarin to go with her to the doctor, Zarin would not refuse.

Then she remembered her earlier resolution to wait and watch. She would do nothing—yet. Nobody will pluck the strange fruit growing inside my body, she said to herself. The words sounded vaguely dirty and made her giggle. She had a sudden clear picture of herself; an old snowy-haired woman standing alone, holding an almost empty glass of whiskey and giggling to herself. The picture made her giggle even more.

People were staring at her. But she was used to that.

No matter how often it happened, the residents of Wadia Baug still got irritated at Adi Patel for his theatrics. Halfway through dinner, it happened again. A dark-skinned woman in a lime green sari was serving the guests
pallao-daar
from a large platter when her eye caught Adi’s. You would’ve thought the woman had zapped him with electricity. Adi’s head jerked backed and he let out a soft, strangling cry. For a long moment, he grabbed himself around the waist and rocked back and forth as the other guests watched, transfixed. Then, abruptly, he pushed back his chair, accidentally knocking over Katy’s glass filled with Gold Spot, and walked rapidly away from the long row of seated guests. The wild, haunted look in his eyes so scared three-year-old Malcolm that the boy burst into tears.
“Mooa,
Adi,” the boy’s mother muttered. “Looking white as a
bhoot
and scaring my poor Malcolm. What for he drinks so much if he can’t control himself?”

Adi walked rapidly to the large room inside the reception hall. He sat on one of the large leather armchairs, running his fingers through his thick, wiry hair. He should’ve known better than to attend Me-hernosh’s wedding. Any gathering of happy people depressed Adi, and weddings were the worst. To him, they were torture devices to remind him of how different his life was from that of normal men, how far removed he was from the ordinary dreams of wife, children, and home. Tonight, at least three of the women from the building had said to him, “Now, Adi, it has to be your turn next. You’re not getting any younger, you know.” But the pity in their eyes told him that they did not believe their own words, that they had no expectations that he would ever take a bride.

And they were right. Although he was only twenty-nine years old, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was doomed to remain single. Saraswati had seen to that. Philomena had revived some long-buried hope, had made him briefly dream of new possibilities, but all that was over now. It had been a year since he had broken up with Philomena and he still missed her terribly. And yet, even in the depths of his longing for her, he couldn’t see how they could have continued.

Saraswati.

At the thought of her, the old nauseous feeling rose like a wave within him. After ten years of living with the thought of Saraswati, he knew that he would never be free of the dark-skinned woman who continued to haunt him after all this time. When he was younger, he had wrestled with her memory, telling himself that each thought of her was like taking a razor blade to his face. But it was no use. Sara swati stayed in his life. He felt as if some part of him were broken, that part that made other men brazen and nonchalant and unapolo getic for their deeds. After all, most of his friends had done exactly what he had done and hadn’t given it a second thought, joked about it even.

But tonight, Adi accepted that Saraswati was very much alive where it mattered—in his memory. He still remembered the musky smell of her and how her dark body, smooth as polished granite, had felt under him. Better than his own voice, he remembered the single sound she made in the back of her throat, a sharp, stifled sound, after he had finished making love—but no, he could not call it love; it had been more like the mad, demented thrashing of a large bird with a broken wing. She’d held still until he finished, the last convulsed spasm of delight drawn out from his tired body, until he was free from the blinding lust that had consumed him so briefly but completely. But as he lay on top of her, his breath still ragged and irregular, his mind already trying to process the experience, with half of him feeling a sad, bitter sense of letdown while the other half of him gloated and sang, she made that strange sound, that half sob. And when he raised his head at last to look at her, he expected to see—what? love? hate?— anything but the deadness, the passive muteness of a broken animal, that he saw in her face. Those large black eyes as blank as a wall.

He’d gotten away from her as soon as he could. He mopped his sweaty body with his shirt and pulled up his pants. Before he left the small hovel with the single cot, he glanced back at her. To his horror and revulsion, he felt his lust rise again. A nauseous blend of pity and self-loathing gripped him. He groped in his pocket and threw a coin on the bed, near where she was pulling her sari below her knees. “There,” he said. “Buy something sweet for yourself. And now, get going. Come on,
jaao.
” He waited at the door, and when she walked past him on her way out, he smelled her musky scent again. He wanted to throw up.

He was nineteen at the time of the incident and she was probably a few years younger. It was Nari Uncle’s idea, the episode with Saraswati. Nari was a neighbor who owned the largest
chikoo
farm in the village. Adi’s father, whose farm was adjacent to Nari’s, was flattered that the most powerful man in the village considered himself a family friend. Nari was a bachelor, and every Friday evening he would visit Adi’s father and the two men would sit out on the front porch, drinking toddy and talking about the price of
chikoos.
Adi’s mother, however, disliked Nari and privately called him a dirty old man, the kind of man who made a woman feel naked by just looking at her. Whenever Nari was over for dinner, Pillamai made it a point to send the young women servants away, in an attempt to protect them from Nari’s lecherous eye. Despite her husband’s protestations, she would serve dinner herself. Nari, in turn, was exaggeratedly polite and formal with her. “Hello, Pillamai,” he would greet her.
“Tabeyet kem che?
How are you keeping these days? The asthma better?”

Nari was a tall, beady-eyed man in his fifties, with scanty hair and a slight stoop. His breath stank from the toddy and the cheap
bidis
that he smoked instead of cigarettes. Although he was the wealthiest man in the village, he dressed poorly, wearing the same half-sleeved shirts and khaki pants over and over again.
“Saala kanjoos,
” Adi’s father would tease him. “No
bairi,
no children, nothing. Who are you saving your money for, a mistress? What, would it bankrupt you to be nicely suited-booted sometimes?”

But everybody knew that Nari did not have to save money to pay for a mistress. Like a predatory animal, Nari rode around his vast kingdom and eyed the wives of the impoverished, gaunt men who worked for him. When a certain woman caught his eye, he merely approached the hapless husband and told him to deliver his wife that evening to the small hovel with the single cot that stood at the south end of his property. Because even Nari had his standards. These women were good enough for him to sleep with, but the thought of having them inside his house, lying on his clean sheets, made him sick. The hovel did nicely for these expeditions.

On occasion, a hotheaded young laborer would balk at the thought of the slimy old man touching his young bride. In such cases, Nari merely smiled and walked on. But that evening, there would be a visit by three or four of the local
goondas
to that young man’s hut. They would explain to him the customs of the place; they would educate him about the terms of employment; they would explain to him that fucking any woman Nari chose were the perks of being a
zamindar,
a landowner. If the young man still did not understand, they would let their fists and chains explain to him what their mouths could not. Sometimes, they would casually, disinterestedly, rape his young wife before leaving, just to emphasize their point. To make sure that the young man really understood that his employment had been terminated.

Once, a badly beaten young man named Rahul dragged himself to the local police station to file a complaint against Nari. A dumbstruck constable rushed in to tell the police chief about their unexpected visitor. The great police chief himself left his office to greet the young man. He personally escorted Rahul into the police station, whereupon he proceeded to have the reckless young man seized by his constables, hung upside down from his ankles, and beaten with rubber strips. They left him dangling there for almost twenty-four hours. The story was told with great merriment the next day, when the police chief was having dinner and drinks at Nari
sahib’s
home.

It was Nari who procured Saraswati for Adi. He had run into Adi one evening while the young man was working in his father’s fields.
“Wah wah,”
Nari said.
“Deekra,
you’re growing into a regular Tarzan. Look at those biceps. The girls around here must be mad about you, uh? Showing them a good time or what?” he asked, making a lewd gesture with his hands.

Adi blushed. It was one thing to talk about such things with the boys with whom he hung around. He was not used to such conversations with his father’s friends. “No, Nari Uncle,” he stammered. “It’s … it’s not like that.”

Nari looked offended.
“Arre,
‘it’s not like that’ means what? What, are you a man or a
hijra?
A bleddy eunuch you are becoming.
Saala,
is that old father of yours teaching you anything except how to count
chikoos?
Did you not learn anything from all the animals around the farm? My God, when I was your age, I had more women than there are
chikoos
in these fields. What’s the use of being a landowner’s son if you don’t take advantage of all the natural resources around you? I’ll tell you what. Do this. Come by the house tomorrow evening at seven. I’ll have a nice present for you.” And with a wink, Nari walked away.

Adi decided immediately that he would stay away from Nari Uncle’s house the next evening. The next day, he had almost forgotten the conversation. But at about five that evening, he remembered, and a strange, slow feeling rose in him. He felt anxious and excited and guilty. Besides, Nari Uncle would be angry if he didn’t show up. He’d go visit the old man for five minutes and then leave, he decided. Even as he told himself that he would not stay, he knew that he was lying to himself.

Nari was waiting for him as if it had never occurred to him that Adi would not come. “Ah, there you are. Want a glass of whiskey or toddy before we go? No? You don’t drink? That father of yours is raising a girl, not a boy. At your age, I could put down half a pint of brandy easy, straight from the bottle. Anyway, come on, that present of yours is waiting. Name of the present is Saraswati. Fat and juicy, she is,” he added with a wink.

Adi followed the old man through the darkening fields as if in a dream. He felt possessed, as if something of Nari’s foulness had entered his soul, gripping him like a vise. Nari was right, he decided. He was getting to be a sissy. Besides, he hated being the only boy in his group of friends who was still a virgin. He hated the loneliness of jerking off by himself in the fields at dusk while all his friends spoke about visiting prostitutes and finding women to have sex with, as if it was as effortless as dipping a cup into a pond. What was he waiting for anyway? His mother had told him never to sleep with a woman he didn’t love. But what does she know? he asked himself. She was just a simple old woman who had spent too many years on a
chikoo
farm. Just look at Nari. He lived his life any way he wished, and there had been no bad consequences. No bolt of lightning had struck him down; no punishing God had put a pox upon his house. Mamma is wrong, Adi told himself. There was more to life than the strict, narrow way in which she had raised him. By the time Nari stood with him at the entrance of the hovel, Adi had worked himself up to a frenzy. And when he looked in and saw Saraswati lying on the cot, her green sari lifted to her knees, the madness fell upon him like a black rain, washing away his natural compassion and kindness. He forgot to ask himself whether he liked the woman before him, if he even found her attractive. All he had known in his life were the polite, clean, virginal Parsi girls. Despite all the macho talk among his friends, he had always supposed that when he first made love, preferably after marriage, it would be to one of these girls. But the woman before him was dark as the fields around them and smelled as rich and loamy. Everything about her was alien to him, as if a shadow had moved out of the background and was suddenly at center stage. Her unfamiliarity excited him.

Nari gave him a thump on the back. “Now we’ll see if you’re a girl or a boy,” he said, grinning, his stained teeth glistening in the dark. “Enjoy your present.” And Adi felt another push on his back. Then he was alone with the strange woman.

A nasty brew of grief and anger rose like bile inside the boy. For a moment, he hated the woman before him, as if she were his oppressor. Then the revulsion gave way to a chattering excitement. Or more accurately, his revulsion itself excited him. He was not used to thinking of women in such antagonistic ways. Approaching the cot, Adi fell upon Saraswati in a frenzy, like a hungry bird of prey descending on a small mouse in a field.

And when it was all over, she had made that one sound. And looked at him in that dead, lifeless way. He hurried away from her as quickly as he could, as if she were a fever he was in danger of contracting the longer he was near her. As he made his way home through the moonlit fields, his gait was slow and unsure, a stark contrast to the frenzied walk he had taken an hour earlier. His heart felt heavy and dull, as if all the blood had been drained out of it. He was not exactly sure what he had expected from the encountet with Saraswati but it was not this pitiful, lonely feeling that he was now experiencing. He was angry with himself, feeling that his sheltered, puritanical upbringing was interfering with what he fancied should be a triumphant moment, but the anger didn’t change the fact that he felt as if he had made a mistake.

“How was she?” Nari asked Adi the next evening. “Should I try her out also, or do you want me to reserve her for you only? Or would you like to sample her younger sister?” he added with a wink. Adi did not know whether to burst into tears or strangle the salivating old man who stood before him.

In the weeks that followed, running into Nari became a torture. Adi felt as though he and the dirty old man he despised were now eternally linked, as if, in some perverse way, Nari knew him better than his own parents did. His mother still treated him the same way, asking him whether he had brushed his teeth before going to bed, and suddenly he despised and envied her innocence and goodness, her belief in God. Can’t you see that I have changed? he wanted to scream at her. Can’t you smell the foul air around me, the new scent of sweat and blood and semen that follows me everywhere? At the same time, he was terrified about her finding out. Nothing would break her heart more, he knew. Unlike his father, Pillamai was a city woman, and although she had little formal education, she had a stern sense of right and wrong. As a young bride leaving her beloved Bombay for her husband’s
chikoo
farm, Piliamai had been horrified by how casually the male landowners slept with the female laborers and how carefully their wives looked the other way. “Don’t know what you did before marriage,” she told her husband soon after their wedding, “don’t even want to know. But I promise you, if you ever look at one of those poor
ghaati
women wrong, I will be back in Bombay before you can finish saying my name.” Having married into a social order where most human beings were either predators or prey, Piliamai was determined that her son would be neither. Mostly, she taught him by example. Ever since Adi could remember, Piliamai had treated the farmworkers with respect and they, in turn, trusted her. The women would often bring in their meager savings to Piliamai for safekeeping, because if they kept the money at home, their husbands would likely hand the cash to the local bootlegger.