Happy Birthday!: And Other Stories (7 page)

Nadia stared at Baman, not wanting any silences out of which ugly truths might tumble out. Danesh had a horror of any kind of negative talk about them, however remote. Quietly, Nadia shared the same fear, often dreaming of huddles of women gathered around a dark sticky centre of deception, shutting her out with their lowered voices and smouldering glances. What if Nadia told this strange man the truth? What then?

She bent down to pick up the vase. He kneeled down next to her, staring into her eyes: ‘You are really quite beautiful.'

Then his fingers were on her face, coursing lightly over it. Her skin tingled under the trace of his touch, bursting to life. Her face, which she had forgotten, came back into focus, emerging like a butterfly from an extended cocoon.

‘Beautiful in such a simple, earthy way. Like a lotus.'

Nadia saw his lips pucker. Baman Tata was leaning over to kiss her. For a moment she almost relented, curious to know what it'd feel like to be kissed—really kissed—after years, to have her lips meet another's, to communicate what words couldn't. But her legs resisted, making her stand up straight, and she walked off, leaving Baman on the floor with the vase.

~

It was Nadia's first victory over a man in many years. She imagined Baman chewing on his words, his actions, as she often did after meeting a person. He'd follow her, she knew, to apologize for his impudence—impudence being his habit, and apology his way of sustaining that habit.

Nadia walked to her husband, noticing from afar what a good-looking man he was: a tall man with an upright, square face, tidy dark hair springing straight up from his forehead and strong hands with fingernails as clean as soap. A man like that would never have looked at her, even in her heyday, which she believed was in her early twenties. She had him because his mother had liked her plain looks, her yielding manner, her soft chapattis and misleading childbearing hips.

But in the early days of their marriage he had told her otherwise. In warm whispers he'd said he loved her, her simplicity, her stillness, her strength, speaking to her like a boy who'd caught a luminous butterfly. Nadia held on to the memory of these compliments the way a rock climber holds on to a sturdy ledge.

Now as she stood beside Danesh, he glanced at her for only a moment before turning back to the man he was talking to.

Nadia tried not to focus on the way her stomach curled. After all, Danesh had lost his way with her a long time back; twenty-one years of marriage had rid him of any interest in his lightweight and easy-to-brush-aside wife. Now whenever they met someone, he'd direct his attention resolutely towards that person, as if he was a ball facing the front wall of a squash court.

It wasn't his fault though, but Nadia's. She had drawn a false picture of marriage, despite being told several times that the real thing could never live up to the expectation. It was nothing unusual, her psychiatrist had convinced her, later asking if Danesh made her feel like the furniture at home, an oft-used term Nadia took to mean someone essential who went unnoticed. She'd said no, she was not like furniture but like the air Danesh breathed, something he needed all the time without being aware of it.

She heard trolleys being wheeled forth and knew, without turning around, that dinner was being set: platters of shrimp, sushi, slices of roast beef, duck a l'orange, and a sculpted pyramid of caviar on a salver with points of toast. Various finely cut vegetables would be fanned out on a platter, preserving their colour more faithfully than the vegetables she regularly saw.

An hour later, the dessert tray would come: a tall meringue cake dwarfing the coconut lime tarts topped with kiwi—even if it was out of season—and chocolatecoated pastry horns stuffed with whipped cream, none of which would be touched by the calorie-conscious guests. Then, among much cheering and toasting, two servants wearing chef caps and white gloves would wheel in another silver trolley with champagne glasses.

Indulgences were served like clockwork to the exacting stomachs of the rich.

Sometimes Nadia wondered if things would be shuffled around—the champagne glasses coming out before dessert or not at all—but it was a game, and the routine worked with the predictability of a dull old spinster.

Her roving eyes caught Baman's. She realized how disconnected Danesh and she appeared from each other. Danesh engrossed in someone else, Nadia shifting in awkwardness as though lacking something essential, both of them facing each other at an angle that suggested a quarrel. She could cry for her humiliation.

No, she scolded herself. She would not let herself be this way. Especially not when Baman Tata was staring at her with a peculiar gentleness, like she was some kind of nourishment.

Glad for his stubbornness, glad that at least someone knew what to do, she walked over to him, firm, smiling. He was picking up sushi rolls with his fingers, tossing them straight into his mouth, sipping white wine from a full glass. Danesh would never be caught indulging like this in someone else's home, barely touching the food or drinks, to make it known to the host that he was there for nothing else save their company.

‘So you must be planning to be very
very
happily married sometime in the future?' Baman said, grinning, teeth bared.

The possibility of a smile brushed Nadia's lips. Baman Tata was disarming in a way that she hadn't first recognized.

‘I can only account for what I did in the past, and present, not in the future,' Nadia replied, finding it a rather clever phrase.

‘Do you talk to him about that, really talk about your past, future?'

Nadia looked at him to see if he was still mocking her, but she saw a rare sincerity in his eyes, as if his question had been spawned from the slime of some long-nurtured realization.

‘We communicate,' she said evenly, not to betray her hurt at the truth.

‘Shame,' he said, in a way that made the word sound more shameful. ‘If I had the chance, I would listen to your voice all the time, hear every thought you have, every experience, till I could turn you inside out and nothing new would fall out.'

Laughter flexed Nadia's throat, as she envisioned Baman turning her inside out, as she did with Danesh's trousers when checking for loose change.

She leaned in and whispered shyly, ‘It's my birthday today.' She said it as if telling him that she loved him.

‘That is wonderful! Now we can tell our grandchildren that we met on your birthday.'

Nadia had such a fit of laughter that she nearly choked. She rarely laughed at Dolly's or any of Danesh's friends' parties, for if she stepped out of their highly strung amiability, Danesh would want to leave.

The more money he made, the less he laughed.

And then Baman said, ‘I don't understand why your husband would ever look at another woman.' He said it so quietly that for a moment Nadia thought it was her own voice speaking. She looked into his eyes and realized that this was not random flirtation. He had not picked her out for her gold sari or pleasing looks. He thought that she was in the same boat as him. That she would help him piece together why his wife had abandoned him the way others abandon clothes. Empathize with why he'd become a Batata.

‘Is that what you thought of your wife? That she would never look at another man?' she said angrily.

Baman started, shuffled his feet and took a long sip of his drink, so long that he emptied out the glass.

‘Is that what men still expect of women?' she continued. ‘That they'll choose a man they no longer love over happiness? Wake up and look around you. Look at these women; they have choices.'

‘And you?' he asked softly. ‘Do you have a choice?'

~

Nadia looked at Dolly; it was difficult not to spot her even from afar. She was standing alone, instructing one of her many servants. Dolly was taller than Nadia, but with narrower shoulders and hips, long legs and a stubborn chin. She wore pale green lenses, a surprising colour against her olive skin, and hard to look into. She held her head slightly lowered, slightly tilted, a wariness hardened and deliberate, her attitude indifferent but uncompromising, like a cat's.

Nadia could detect nothing of herself in Dolly.

Odd choices are easier for men to make, her psychiatrist had said.

‘Are you okay?' Baman asked.

No, she thought silently, she was not okay. She'd existed too cautiously within her marriage, Nadia had, as if there were shards of glass all around her. She had to realize that Danesh and her life together was a misstep, not a car crash. Something could change.

She grabbed a drink from one of the trays passing by, took a long swig, and walked over to Dolly.

‘I don't think we've met. I am Mrs Shroff,' Nadia said, extending her hand towards Dolly.

Dolly spun around with a smile that disappeared when she saw that it was Nadia. She pursed her thin lips firmly and said, ‘I know,' turning back to a nervous servant, treating Nadia the way Danesh did: as invisible.

Nadia pictured their legs wrapped together, Dolly's legs bent with the muscular grit of a tree's boughs, her interest severe, something he'd desire. She imagined him setting down his glass of sour, which he enjoyed after sex, the tip of his little finger muffling the impact of the glass.

‘Are you sure you know me?' Nadia said.

Dolly's eyes hovered over the room, indirect but measuring looks, probably seeking Danesh. He must have been talking to someone, for Dolly returned her confused eyes to Nadia. A shroud of unspoken thoughts hung between them. Nadia didn't yield.

‘Of course I'm sure who you are, Nadia,' Dolly replied, arching her rather hostile black eyebrows.

‘Not Nadia, I am Mrs Shroff.'

‘Is this some kind of a joke?'

Nadia sensed Dolly's stony energy, full of contempt.

‘Is it? Tell me, who are you?'

‘You, my dear, have clearly had too much to drink.'

Her ‘my dear' was cold and patronizing.

‘Who. Are. You?' Nadia repeated.

‘I am Dolly. This is my house. We are having a party. And you are a guest here.'

‘You are not Dolly. You are Mrs
Makhija
. And I am Mrs
Shroff
. Do you understand me, Mrs Makhija?'

For the first time there was comprehension in Dolly's eyes. Her powdered face turned pale. Anxiety made her eyes blink.

‘So, Mrs Makhija, how well do you know my husband, Mr Shroff?'

To her credit Dolly didn't flinch. The only outward sign she showed of any distress was an endless guzzle she took from her wine glass.

Nadia imitated her, but couldn't be as controlled. Her hand jerked and she spilled her drink onto the marble floor. She watched Dolly's petite feet step back and by the time she looked up Dolly was gone, hidden in one of the many rooms.

‘So the hand has found a glove, eh?' she heard Baman's voice behind her.

Nadia winced. If she turned around, she could spend her night with Baman, a stranger who'd bring his life story to her like a gift she could gracefully unwrap. They would laugh, more than necessary, ask questions no one else had in a long time, and do what had been done to them.

Or she could confront Danesh; tell him that she knew. She could begin to exact his attention under the pretences of hurt and betrayal, claim latitude, some indulgence, in return for what she had undergone, and lost, love that could never be repaired. And he would come back to her, burdened by his guilt, her sadness, their emptiness. He'd promise never to talk to Dolly again or attend her parties.

But either recourse seemed like a huge effort, when all Nadia wanted to do was return to her house, her room, her bed and her pillow, where the hollow she'd created was at least her own. She was too tired to care that Danesh and she stayed in a marriage that had run its course, become a habit more than a necessity, and had taken so much out of her that she felt nothing but numbness for any other emotion, any other activity, any other man.

So she walked away from the loss of her actions, without another thought.

~

In the weeks after her mother died, Nadia had treated Danesh in the same way that he treated her now. But he was not deterred. Every night he scrambled into the cold cleft of mattress between them, lying perfectly still, holding her, till she rolled over and went to sleep. If she opened her eyes during the night, he was there, looking at her through the darkness that was never really black but diluted by the stubborn light of the city. Knowing she was safe, she'd drift back into another wretched sleep, his presence a gentle rope that kept her from falling too far.

Nadia looked at Danesh, who turned to face her for the first time that night. It seemed as if he was suddenly standing a long distance away. She considered the gap and whether it was wise to cross it.

Then he was by her side, smelling of cigarettes, of other people.

He leaned over and whispered, ‘Happy birthday, my love.'

THE GECKO ON THE WALL

I stare in confusion at Dipti and Choti standing outside my front door until Dipti says, ‘Hi Papa,' carrying me into the centrefolds of our relationship.

‘Hello beta,' I reply, straightening my back like a superintendent on duty.

I smile to let it be known that I'm happy to see them.

‘How've you been?' Dipti continues in a tired tone, wafting in with the smell of the neighbour's curry that, for the first time, curls my nose. She crosses the threshold with her leather suitcases, her clothes buttered by fabric softener and a beefiness that visits, as she does, every second year from America. Immediately, my living room—a luxury in Mumbai—becomes smaller.

‘Hi Nanu!' says Choti, the little one. She flings her arms around my waist with such force that I stumble backward, almost slipping on my dead wife's rug. In my old house with the grainy floors the rug was a solid thing, but this shiny new house with its slick flooring has made it dangerous, an accident waiting to happen. I catch my balance at the same moment that my eyes fall on my granddaughter's face, and I'm falling again. Choti looks so much like Sheila—her features that of a child, but the same triangular face, the black-bean eyes held close together, hair sprouting from the rim of the face as if her scalp is not large enough.