All the Tomorrows

by Nillu Nasser

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is. He hates me. His mother wants us to repair our relationship, but I don’t know where to start.” Akash slumped on the bench, and shredded a leaf from a bush next to him. Movement helped him think. “I have everything I ever wanted. A roof over my head, food, a family. My wife is alive. It all seemed so unattainable. Still, all I feel is a deep sense of foreboding about the future, Tariq. I don’t know what to do.”

  “You prove you can be the rock, Akash, when your family needs you.” Tariq’s earnest words cut through the muggy city air. He coughed. “You might have abandoned them once, but this is your chance to make good. You may not get your happy ending, but maybe you’ll win your self-respect back.” Tariq rose to clear away the remnants of his meal. “What about Jaya? What will she think when she finds out about the boy? Are you going to tell her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You can’t keep this a secret, Akash. Secrets destroy.”

  “Sometimes they save us. If she knew I was writing to her, do you think she would want to speak with me?” Do you want me in your life again, Jaya? Do you need me like I need you?

  “Not if you are going to go behind her back again. You have to tell her,” said Tariq.

  “What if she can’t forgive me for not coming back?”

  “You‘re back now though, aren’t you? It takes courage to correct mistakes.”

  Akash could not allow hope to bloom only to have it crushed. He kept the fantasy of a life with Jaya locked up tight in a box. No fingers of light would thread their way into the box until he could be sure he was worthy of her. He turned to Tariq, replacing emotion with brusque practicality, feeling stronger for it.

  “For now, Soraya and Arjun have to come first.” He hesitated. “After that, it will be Jaya’s turn.” Wait for me.

  Akash had passed Soraya’s Juhu restaurant on many occasions and never once imagined she owned it. The sign on the restaurant door read Closed when he arrived there. Akash ignored it and pushed open the newly washed glass, smoothing down his too large trousers as he crossed the threshold, setting back his shoulders with determination. He could understand Arjun’s wrath, but with Soraya so ill, they could not continue this dance of bull and matador. He needed to find a way to pierce through Arjun’s anger, to find a way to reconcile. Perhaps he and Arjun could talk more openly away from Soraya, away from the confinement of the bungalow.

  The tables had been arranged for the evening meal, but with service an hour away, the chefs were in the kitchen preparing over hot stoves. Spices drifted into Akash’s nose. He heard Arjun before he saw him.

  “What on earth are you doing here?” A hand grabbed his arm, clawing into the skin beneath his shirt, man-handling him to the door before Akash had uttered a word. “You ambush me at my place of work? I have to put up with you at home, but not here.”

  “Wait! Arjun. Listen.” Akash spun to look at his son. It had been a mistake to come. Fury had carved grim lines into the younger man’s face. His jaw was locked, his body driving Akash forward so his sandals slipped on the velvet carpet. A glass crashed to the floor from a table adjacent to them.

  Arjun swore.

  “Don’t you dare command me to do anything. You lost that right twenty-two years ago.” The whites of his eyes widened in rage.

  “That’s why I’m here, Arjun. I don’t want to lose any more time.” Even to his own ears the words sounded pathetic, not enough after the years without a father. A grown man did not need a stranger to father him, especially when the father had failed at life.

  “What do you have to offer me?”

  “I don’t have a lot, Arjun, only what you see. But I will stand by you. Now I know I have a son, I will stand by you. Whatever I can give, I will.”

  Arjun laughed scathingly. “You are a man who always runs. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “There may come a time when you do need me.”

  “I have my mother. I have Muna and Leela. I have the business. I don’t need you hanging onto our coat-tails, leeching off our success.”

  “I promise you this is not about me,” said Akash. Soraya’s secret tingled on the edge of his tongue. The boy deserved to know how unwell she was, how little time he had.

  Arjun looked past him onto the street. “Go.”

  Akash considered betraying Soraya’s confidence for a fleeting moment, but he could not thwart a dying woman’s wishes. “Okay. As you wish.” He placed a hand on his son’s face, a moment of tenderness amongst chaos. Arjun’s mask relaxed, and beneath it Akash glimpsed the hurt before the mask fortified once more. Akash freed himself from his son’s grip and shook himself off.

  “See you at home, Papa,” said Arjun, his face contorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm as Akash retreated.

  The bungalow stood a mile from the restaurant. Akash set off, engulfed by sadness at the broken relationships around him. He realised that Soraya had but one regret, and that was to leave her son without a parent. If only he could mend that bond before she died, it would bring her peace. Akash trod the streets, listening to the rhythmic beat of his sandals against the concrete. He walked on autopilot, as was his habit, a way to bring stillness to his churning thoughts. Only when he stood directly before it did he realise where his subconscious had brought him. There, as the sun fell in the sky, in the gleaming window of Tara Theatre, tucked behind a glossy film advertisement, was a red cotton rag.

  Chapter 26

  Soraya sat in the corner of the kitchen tracing a finger from her elbow to the translucent skin of her fingers. How thin her skin had become. She grimaced and shook her head to dispel morbid thoughts. Silence filled the house and echoed in her ears. Muna and the child slept after a fretful day during which the baby had either clamoured for her mother’s milk or been attached to her breast. Soraya wished she could talk to her own mother about her illness; a mother’s love always helped. Instead, she had polished the kitchen worktops to a shine, as if cleaning were a tonic for anxiety, though the maid had only just left for the night. Then she had turned off the lights and pulled up a chair to wait for her son.

  The decision to wait in the dark was deliberate, driven by Arjun’s wilful avoidance of her. They had lived together for so long that his habits had become as familiar as her own. The kitchen remained his first stop when he came in from the restaurant. He often brought food home for the family. Even if he returned empty-handed, he stopped by the fridge for a cool drink to recover after the bustle of the restaurant. Not so since their conversation. Yesterday, for the second day running, with the kitchen occupied, he deposited the take-away in the hallway.

  She accosted him there, determined to have her say. “Arjun? Long day?”

  “Not now, Maa. I’m tired. I need to see Leela, and then bed.”

  “Can we talk? It’s important.”

  He paused to look at the long winding corridor ahead, which led to Akash’s bedroom, displeasure marring his face. Their eyes met: a cool stare and a penitent one. “Tomorrow, maybe,” he had said, before walking heavily upstairs.

  Arjun’s recent spate of late nights at the restaurant were tied to her revelation rather than work, Soraya had no doubt. With a manager installed at each, the restaurants ran themselves. She did not blame him for his anger. She and her now dead parents had been complicit in a lie about Arjun’s paternity, and now he had uncovered the ugly truth.

  Initially her parents had not mentioned Akash, as if hers was a phantom pregnancy without male input. As Soraya’s stomach expanded, her parents urged her to find Akash and marry him. They did not know he had a wife, or that he was Hindu. It seemed easier that way. They knew only Akash had fled. It did not occur to them she was as much to blame as he. Once Arjun arrived, her parents loved him with such abandon that his parentage became irrelevant, especially when paired with Soraya’s success. Eventually, they claimed Arjun as their own with the same passion as they ignored Akash’s existence.

  She could alm
ost see it now: six-year-old Arjun, long eyelashes, with ears too big for his head, burying himself in the folds of her sari and asking with muffled voice about his father. His school education had been mostly uneventful, but on that particular day, a father and son cricket match had taken place. Soraya’s father attended in lieu of his own, but a seventy-year-old man had not provided enough protection against the curiosity of the other children about the absence of Arjun’s father. When awareness dawned, the tears had come.

  Soraya had expected the question eventually, of course, but it still winded her. She had bent down to take her son’s hands in her own, looked him in the eye, and told him “Beta, your father died before you were born, but don’t be sad. We have each other, and you’ll never lack for anything. I’ll be both Maa and Papa to you.”

  “But you can’t play cricket.”

  “You can teach me.”

  That afternoon Soraya bought a large cricket bat and a small one, and a ball that gleamed like an apple. She and Arjun played in the garden until the light dimmed, even though she was wrapped in seven yards of sari and the dinner menu for the following day required approval. This is what it means to be a mother, she thought. Arjun did not speak of his father again until the eve of his ninth birthday.

  “Maa?”

  “Yes, beta?” said Soraya, breathless from blowing up balloons.

  “You said Papa died.”

  “Yes.” She looped the rubber end of the balloon around her finger and tied it before pushing it away.

  “How? How did he die?”

  She gulped. “He was caught under the wheels of a car.” The lie tumbled out before she could call it back.

  “Oh. Did it hurt?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Good.” A moment of quiet followed. “Can we have ice cream at the party?”

  “Would you like that?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then of course we can.” Soraya pulled him into her lap and breathed in the smell of his hair as she held him, her regret at odds with the bright party decorations littering the floor around them.

  The years passed and Arjun’s childhood fled. As her son grew into adulthood, Soraya’s lie grew more truthful, fortified by the passage of time and lack of scrutiny, until she almost believed it herself. The lie suited Soraya. That was, until Akash lurched into her life once more.

  Soraya could have been angry at the intrusion, her forced hand. She feared the repercussions for her relationship with Arjun, but she couldn’t help but consider the timing to be serendipitous. With her parents no longer alive and her own impending needs, luck had presented her with an opportunity to make amends to both father and son for keeping them from one another.

  She wouldn’t give Arjun the chance to escape her a third time. She waited in the dark for him, raking over the past, eager to begin the process of renewal. The minutes became an hour, and suddenly headlights swept across the facade of the house. Soraya steeled herself as a car door slammed, the front door clicked open and footfalls sounded her way. Moments later her son traipsed into the kitchen, set a brown paper bag onto the worktop and opened the fridge door. He poured some mango juice into a tall glass and tipped it into his mouth. A moment later he spluttered to see his mother, still and serene in the half-light of the still open refrigerator. He slammed it shut.

  “Maa, what are you doing here?” He flicked on the spotlights above Soraya’s head and she blinked. “It’s nearly half eleven. I thought you’d be in bed.”

  “Who did you think was going to eat that then?” She nodded towards the food on the counter. Oil seeped out of the paper bag and smeared the newly-washed surface. The smell of curry dispersed in the air around them.

  “Oh, it’ll keep ‘til tomorrow.”

  “It’s time to talk.”

  “You’ve been waiting here to ambush me?” Arjun raised a bushy eyebrow that reminded Soraya of his father. “I’ve had my fair share of surprises today.”

  “What’s that’s supposed to mean?” She couldn’t bear to fight again. Not when the cancer stole from her energy reserves, when all she wanted to do was lie down.

  “Akash came to the restaurant.”

  “I didn’t know. What did he say?”

  “I threw him out.”

  “Your anger isn’t helping anyone. Let’s talk. Please.”

  “Fine. Let’s do this.” He emptied the rest of the glass and drew up a chair into the shadows.

  The spotlights above Soraya exposed her and left white spots swimming in the periphery of her eyes.

  “You told me he was dead,” said Arjun.

  “I lied. I’m sorry.”

  “Why? Why did you lie for so long, Maa? Why did you lie at all?”

  “I didn’t have a better truth. I didn’t know where he was. I thought you didn’t need him.”

  “You were wrong.” Bitterness rang out, giving an odd note to the usual timbre of his voice. “I dreamt of a father as a boy. I built him up in my head.”

  “You never told me.”

  “Why would I? You were doing your best. I was happy, but I lacked something everyone else had. And now, after all these years, you reveal your dirty secret. I missed out on a father. I missed out on siblings, cousins, grandparents. You kept that all from me. It’s your fault. And what’s more, he’s a disappointment. Not the hero I dreamt about as a child. He’s ghost of a man. Someone who peers through the windows of unsuspecting families.” He shuddered. “To think, I beat my own father with these hands.”

  Soraya felt her powerlessness keenly, the arguments spiralling out of her grasp. “There is nothing I can do to make this better, Arjun. But believe me, even grown men need their parents.”

  “I think I’ll take my chances.”

  “Arjun.” Her voice delivered a low warning.

  “The only way we’re going to fix this, Maa, is if he goes.”

  “He stays.”

  “Then I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

  Soraya gripped her armrests and leaned forward, struggling to keep her composure.

  “You might be the heir to my fortune, but while I am still here, this is my house, not yours.”

  “So I’m supposed to accept all of this?” Sadness filled his eyes.

  “You know I didn’t mean that,” said Soraya.

  “I know exactly what you meant.”

  The chair clattered to the floor as he left. Soraya’s face crumpled, then she rose to put the food away.

  Chapter 27

  A breeze blew stale air into the small room. Jaya sat on her bed, rereading the letter. She had read it so often that it had frayed along its folds. Twice, she had replaced the red cotton in the window at Tara when the cleaners had removed it. Despite her signal that she was willing to accept a second letter, one had not come. Perhaps the correspondent had missed the signal or was playing a cruel joke. Perhaps he had lost interest, had somehow seen her up close—her limp, the hips that had widened with age, the wrinkles that lined her skin—and decided otherwise.

  Even as a young girl, long before marriage, she had found her beauty to be lacking. She had thought of herself as a wallflower rather than a rose. She was neither siren nor virginal, but somewhere unhappily in between, with thick ankles, a too big nose, unruly hair. After the fire, she had longed for the body she once had. The irony was that with each passing day her beauty faded even further. Her wallflower days were the apex. If only she had appreciated herself more then.

  Unfortunate that her self-loathing had chosen tonight to resurface. She hadn’t slept well either. Her old nightmares had returned, where Akash stood, unmoving while she burned. She had woken with the taste of smoke in her mouth, her tongue like sandpaper. Her exhaustion had followed her to work. After the day was over, she would have liked nothing better than to complete her chores at home and then undress and crawl underneath her bedsheets and escape into the oblivion of sleep.

  Instead, she was expected at a wrap party for the latest pr
oduction at Tara, a play about a broken family that had been filmed for television. The director brimmed with excitement and a black mark would appear against the name of any staff members who didn’t show up. She would have to attend and mingle with the guests, regardless of how tired she felt and how little she wanted to play cat and mouse with Ravi. She consoled herself that showing her face would be enough. An hour at the party, a quick change of clothes, and she could unwind at Firoz’s art class. She could check for another letter while she was there.

  She stood wearily and crossed from the bedroom to the only bathroom in the house—a shoebox tiled in olive green ceramic squares that contained a small basin, toilet and wet-room style shower enclosed by a flimsy curtain dotted with mauve shells. The bathroom’s saving grace was the lack of a full-length mirror. Jaya slid the lock into place and unpeeled her clothes. She tied her hair on top of her head with a scarf and stood under the shower head, ignoring the voice inside her head, which crowed about how ugly she was. The pipes squeaked as they released scalding water onto her skin. She watched as the streams of water took different routes down her body, around her breasts, over her pubic hair and then dispersed over her scarred legs. The water provided a barrier, and if she semi-closed her eyes, the effect of her scarring blurred and she appeared almost normal again. She reached for a bar of soap and scrubbed her body, taking extra time underneath her armpits and in between her legs, just as her mother had taught her.

  When she finished, she turned off the faucet and reached for the largest towel. She bent to rub the water droplets from every inch of her body. The fire had irreparably damaged hair follicles where she had been disfigured. Still, she maintained a brisk towelling technique. Everyone knew that Indian women who didn’t rub between their eyebrows were prone to monobrows, and an Indian who did not take pre-emptive measures against hair could quickly leap into ape territory. Jaya had seen it in some of her classmates who had to decide between merciless mockery by their peers or paying a small fortune for frequent and arduous hair removal.