Bombay Time (31 page)

But there was another person in the photograph: Coomi. Despite himself, he noticed how beautiful Coomi had been, took in the arched eyebrows, the sharp features, the strong white teeth, the long, dark hair that framed her face. But what took his breath away was the love and tenderness on Coomi’s face. She was gazing up at him, her face shiny with love and passion. Her right arm was at his waist, drawing him close to her as they stood with their upper bodies fused together. Rusi felt the sting of tears at the back of his eyes. He had not seen that look on Coomi’s face in so long. He felt a sudden urge to see that look just one more time, to feel loved and cared for one more time. He knew it was dangerous to think this way, but for a moment he gave in to that urge, permitted himself to think of what it would take for them ever to be that gentle with each other again. But nothing came to mind. Instead, he thought of the woman he had been chatting with earlier this evening. What was her name? Sharmila, that was it. Rusi had reservations about talking to an attractive woman at Mehernosh’s wedding, had known that he was donating his head on a silver platter to Dosamai’s gossip factory, but he didn’t care. He liked the way Sharmila paid attention to what he said, liked the assessing, curious look in her eyes. He had a feeling that if he told her he would like to see her again, she would say yes. This, despite the fact that he had told her that he was married. But he knew he would never see her again. He was too old and too tired to start an affair, had nothing to offer a woman except a laundry list of failures.

“It’s not fair,” he heard Coomi say, and for a guilty moment, he felt that she had read his thoughts. But Coomi was addressing the crowd. “It’s not fair that we were once so young and now all we have to deal with are heart problems, and hernia operations and arthritis. I tell you, I’ve visited three people at Parsi General in the last month alone. No, it’s not fair that we were once so young. I mean, look at us—we were actually beautiful once. Now it’s hard even to imagine that.”

“But we’re still beautiful,” Soli replied, so softly that the others were not sure if he’d spoken. “We’re just beautiful in a different way. It’s like … Beethoven was composing music even after he went deaf, you know? And some of his later work is so magnificent. … Abe Uncle used to say that the sorrow of his disease and old age just made his music even richer. … And so it is with us.”

“Who’s Abe Uncle?” Jimmy asked, ready to pounce on Soli for his uncharacteristic profundity. It was hard for Jimmy to take Soli seriously. “What are you blabbering about, old man?”

But Soli stayed serious, his gray eyes blurry.

And Rusi felt as if he understood both Coomi and Soli—understood the outrage of the one, the lashing out against time with the fury of the cheated; and understood the wisdom of the other, the acceptance of limitation, the transcendence of time. Both Coomi and Soli had said something true and from the heart, and he was grateful. All evening long, ever since he had heard that disturbing story about Kashmira, Rusi had felt restless, slashed by conflicting, contradictory emotions. The scotch had done its job and left him feeling expansive but desperate, as if the planet were a giant alarm clock and only Rusi could hear its relentless ticking. He wanted to save all of them, this entire collection of broken hearts and arthritic fingers and sagging skin that surrounded him, these men and women whom he loved and feared at the same time. And some of them old enough that every gathering like this was charged with poignancy, with menace. Nobody knew how many of them would be around the next time they met for a happy occasion. Nobody knew whether the next time they met would be for a happy occasion.

He caught himself. That’s morbid thinking, he told himself sternly. Everyone in this group is healthy and strong. This is what Binny always accuses you of doing, thinking negative thoughts. Stop it. Stop it now. But out of his swirling sentimentality, there arose one clear goal: He wanted to distill some of his thoughts until they were as pure as the scotch he was drinking and then present this gleaned truth like a bouquet of roses to Mehernosh. All the lessons he had learned, all the things he could not say to Binny on the phone, he now wanted to say to Mehernosh. Mehernosh was just a few months younger than his Binny, after all. Although Jimmy Kanga was younger than Rusi, Jimmy had wasted no time in marrying Zarin or in having their first and only child. Naturally, Rusi thought to himself with a sad smile. Men like Jimmy don’t ever wait for anything. They don’t need to. And now they were all here at Mehernosh’s wedding. Binny had married Jack in England, a small secular wedding, which he and Coomi had attended. He had wanted to throw a lavish reception for his daughter when she and Jack had visited Bombay the following year, but Binny wouldn’t hear of it. “You know how I am, Dad. I’d die if I had to play queen for a day. Never mind, that’s just an expression. Anyway, Jack’s mom would kill us if she heard we allowed you to throw us a party after we’d refused her pleas. No, if you like, the four of us can go someplace quiet and celebrate.” But Rusi knew that Binny’s refusal was at least in part because of his financial situation. She simply did not want him to spend his money on her. Faced with joint opposition from Binny and Jack, Rusi had given in. There would be no wedding reception in Bombay for his only child. He would fold up yet another dream.

And yet, the lingering feeling of shame and disappoinrment remained, like a fish bone in the throat. Every rime he attended a wedding, there was a moment when he saw Binny and Jack in the place of the bride and groom. Rusi knew that Parsi custom would not permit Binny to have a religious ceremony with a non-Parsi, but he would have liked to have had a reception. Binny and Jack could have sat up on a stage decked with flowers and Rusi could have strutted around like a proud peacock, slapping backs and shaking hands.

But none of this came to pass. Instead, there was this hollow feeling at Mehernosh’s wedding, the shame of envying a decent man like Jimmy and resenting him for his good fortune. But there was also an avuncular pride in Mehernosh, an excitement at the promise of his future. Mehetnosh was a sweet, intelligent boy and, like many Wadia Baug residents, Rusi was delighted when Mehernosh returned from America. It felt like a victory of sorts, a body snatched from the jaws of the monster that had swallowed up so many Parsi children. Mehernosh had been inside the belly of the beast but had remained unmoved by its glitter and promise. That alone was cause for celebration and wonderment. Suddenly, Rusi felt like celebrating.

He was not a man used to speaking in public; therefore, Rusi was surprised to hear his voice say Mehernosh’s name. “Mehernosh,” he said. “There’s something that I want to say to you and to your new bride. Some words of wisdom from an old man, if you will.” He ignored the good-natured groans and exaggerated cries of “Oh no” and “Cut off his drinking quota, right this minute.” He felt Coomi stiffen by his side, as if she was afraid that what he was about to say would implicate her in some way. Jimmy, too, had a guarded expression on his face and looked ready to pounce if Rusi said anything that would cast a shadow over the evening he had so carefully sculpted. But Rusi ignored them all and stared resolutely at Mehernosh.

“I am not an educated man, Mehernosh,” he began. “You already know more and have traveled farther and risen higher than I ever will. But I have one advantage over you. I’m older. Yes, looking at me with my loose skin and ugly face, it may be hard to believe that I’m calling old age an advantage. But although time takes away a lot, it also leaves you with something. I would not be bold enough to call that something wisdom. But the truth is, you can’t live as long as I have and not learn a few things.” Beside him, he felt Coomi relax. As he took a short sip of his scotch, his hand brushed up against hers and he felt a shot of warmth run through his body.

“Mehernosh, what I’ve learned is simple—that life moves faster than we do. During all the time that we while away by telling jokes, standing at street corners, going to dances, sleeping eight hours at night, life is still moving, like a river we cannot keep up with. That river does not wait for us to build a bridge across it; it just keeps doing what it must. That is the nature of rivers—to flow. So, it is important not to waste time, not to waste a day or a minute of a day. Important to put all the time we’ve been given to good use. That’s what I believed as a young man and what I still believe today.”

He paused for a minute, forcing his drunken brain to move down the labyrinth he had built for himself. “But here’s the paradox,” he continued. “If we don’t do any of the things that seem wasteful, that seem like we are squandering time, then life itself becomes meaningless. Telling jokes, walking the beach, falling in love—these are the things a man remembers at the end of his life. If he’s done enough of these, then he dies a rich man. If he hasn’t, he dies empty-handed, even though his bank account may be full. And this, Mehernosh, it took me a long time to learn. In some ways, I’m still learning this lesson.”

There was an embarrassed silence, born out of an unspoken consensus that Rusi had been too naked, had infused an occasion of gaiety with an ill-fitting solemnity. Sheroo spoke up to rescue Rusi.
“Wab, wah.
All these years I was thinking Rusi was a businessman, and actually he’s our philosopher-king. I’m calling you Mr. Aristotle from now on, Rusi.”

The others laughed. “Come, let’s finish looking at the rest of the album. Only two more pages left,” Jimmy said hurriedly.

Rusi knew he was on the verge of losing his audience. He had a feeling of great letdown, knowing that his words had revealed neither the expansiveness of his thoughts nor the pounding of his blood. He wanted to say so much more, wanted to describe to all of them this wonderful feeling of connection that was sweeping over him. How, as he sat here, he felt hooked up to the universe, how his blood felt as if it could flow directly into the Arabian Sea and his heart felt like a continent waiting to be discovered. He wanted to describe to them the seamless blending of his mind with the outside world—how sometimes he felt as if there were no boundaries between what happened on the outside and what went on inside his head. Some days, he felt as if his head were a globe. Every war ever fought and every peace waged; every heart broken and every flesh made whole; every child ever born, every man who ever died—all of history distilled into his own life. But how to say all this without it sounding absurd? Me-hernosh was already looking at him with an expression of grave concern. Soli had opened and shut his mouth several times, as if he were trying to rescue his friend from a burning building but didn’t know how. Zarin had a tight, embarrassed smile on her face, while Bomi was searching to catch someone’s eye so that he could let out a loud guffaw. Rusi looked at Coomi out of the corner of his eye, but her face was expressionless.

Suddenly, it came to him, what he wanted to say to Mehernosh, as clearly as if the words were typed on a sheet of paper. “Mehernosh,” he said. “I have already made enough of a fool of myself for one evening. But because you are like my son, I will try once again. What I want to say is very simple: Be happy. In many places, that is easy to do. In America, they tell me, they even have those words written in their Constitution. But not in India. Not in our Parsi
com.
Here, people are always telling you not to laugh too loudly, not to dream too big, not to fly too high. Pride comes before a fall, they tell us from the time we are children. But Mehernosh, a man who dives for fish catches fish. One who aims for the stars catches a star. So a man who owns fish can only share fish with others, not stars. Nobody can share what they don’t possess, you see? All these old folks—all our lives, they told us God does not like proud people, that God clips the wings of those who fly too high. But I say, nobody has seen the yardstick of God. Too many people in this community of ours who will try to pull you down, who will tell you you have no right to your own laughter. They will point out all the misery of the world to you, to make their point. But listen carefully to me: You have not only a right but a
responsibility
to be happy. What I’m saying to you, I would say to my own Binny. All of us gathered here are like your own family. Most of us saw you the day you were born. We need you to be happy,
beta.
For us. For all of us. It’s the only way to make sense of all this—this city that’s hell on earth, this life where we’ve all sacrificed so much, the losses and disappointments we’ve all suffered. Our chance has come and gone. Some of us fared better than others. But young ones, like you and Sharon and my Binny, you are our hope and promise. We wish all success and happiness to you. More important, we need this for you. And
from
you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He stopped abruptly, exhausted and suddenly mortified. A thick shyness descended on him, forcing his gaze to the ground. He prayed for someone to shatter the unbearable silence that gathered like smoke around him. He felt Coomi’s eyes on him but was afraid to look up, for fear of what he’d see on her face.

“I do.” The words rang out like a shot into the embarrassed silence. “I know what you mean, exactly.
Exactly.”

It was Coomi. He turned around to face her, slowly, like a sleep-walker waking up. Coomi’s face was shiny and there was a fierce, protective expression on her face that challenged the others not to destroy her fragile, sentimental husband with their words or laughter. Rusi dimly remembered that expression from years past. It was a look that used to make him feel omnipotent, that shielded him from his own weaknesses and made him feel capable of laying the world’s riches at Coomi’s feet. He did not know what he had said or done to resurrect that look, but he was grateful. Suddenly, he remembered how she had tried making up with him in the days after his mother’s death and how he had rebuffed her. Now he wondered if that had been a mistake, and he felt a piercing pain at the thought of the wasted, barren years that lay behind and ahead of them.

Then he heard the sound. They were cheering him. Strangely, inexplicably, they were cheering him. Clapping, slowly at first and then vigorously, as if they were at a concert. “Hear, hear,” one of them said. “Well said, laddie, well said,” another voice responded.