The Widows of Malabar Hill

by Sujata Massey

  Alice brightened. “Oh, I’ve heard about it! But does it really star an American woman playing an Indian maharani?”

  “Due to a labor shortage.” Perveen rolled her eyes. “No Indian family would allow their daughter to be ogled onscreen.”

  “Really? Your family’s allowing you to work in a men’s world,” Alice pointed out.

  “Yes, but I’m still not allowed to present myself before a judge.” Perveen stood up to go, smoothing her sari. “Whether in the cinema or real life, we ladies have a very long road ahead.”

  Perveen left her friend’s hideout with the strains of the warped record accompanying her down the stairs. Tonight the recording of “Swanee” seemed a distant, distorted version of the one they’d played at St. Hilda’s Hall.

  Although she could strive to keep her old college friendship going, just like the record, it would play differently in Bombay.

  The police car was no longer in the driveway when she went to stand by the gate. She didn’t see the Daimler, which was initially a relief, because it meant that she couldn’t be considered the late one. But when no cars drove by, and her watch read nine-fifteen, she began to worry. She stood at the gate, peering down Mount Pleasant Road. At last, the Scottish lance corporal lumbered out from the driveway to address her.

  “You going or staying?” he asked in an accusatory manner.

  “I’m hoping to go home in my family car,” she answered sharply. “Have you seen that Daimler that brought me?”

  He shrugged. “I stay inside the wall supervising. But I can tell you no cars are allowed to wait on the block.”

  Perveen suppressed her irritation and said, “What about the guards standing along the wall? Might they have seen a car?”

  “Can’t tell you. Ask yourself.”

  The first guard, an English soldier with a West country accent, was politer than the Scot. He confirmed that a Daimler with an Indian driver and Indian gentleman had arrived fifteen minutes earlier but had not been permitted to wait at the gate.

  “Was there a message for me? Did you hear whether they intended to continue home or wait nearby?” Perveen asked the private. She could imagine her hot-tempered father going home and sending Arman back for her.

  “Don’t know. They could be farther along or around the corner on Sea View Road. That’s where I’d wait, because it’s closer,” the private said, pointing in the blackness to where she imagined the cross street was.

  “I’ll walk there to see. Very likely, I’ll come back.” She didn’t like the idea of lingering in an isolated neighborhood after dark.

  “Apologies that I cannot escort you, madam, but I am on duty.”

  Perveen sighed and began her walk. Alice’s street was darker than she liked, with the only lights coming from the gas lamps at household gates and the many stars above. There were no strolling people at all, but she imagined animals were afoot. Owls hooted ominously, and she wondered if they had their eyes out for mongooses and snakes.

  She’d been listening carefully for footsteps, lest a stranger come up behind her. The sound that she heard, though, was the purr of a car. She stepped back, drawing herself close to a bungalow wall so she wouldn’t get hit by the car. No driver could see her in such darkness.

  And then she realized how strange it was that a car was coming up the road without lights on. It was as if the car didn’t want to be seen.

  The Bengali stranger and Cyrus collided in her imagination; and she saw Mukri’s bloody body, too. Perveen felt panic rise within her. Where could she go? All the bungalows around her had their gates locked. She saw the sheltering bulk of a tree about five feet away and was in the process of running toward it when the car came upon her.

  Its lights flashed on, illuminating her as she tried to climb the tree.

  “Perveen, what in hell are you doing?” Jamshedji roared through a rolled-down window.

  “Getting to safety. Why were you driving like that—no lights, no warning?” she shouted back. Her heart thumped from the sudden release from fear, and she slid down the three feet of tree trunk that she’d climbed.

  Arman had already stopped and jumped out to open the car door. “So very sorry, memsahib. We were driving without lights to avoid the harassment of those ghelsappas guarding your friend’s bungalow. They would not even let us wait!”

  “There would have been no need to wait if Perveen had been outside looking for us,” Jamshedji said tightly. “All because these English think themselves better than us.”

  “It’s not like that with Alice,” Perveen said.

  “I don’t want to hear another word about her,” Jamshedji said curtly. “I’ve got a headache, and it’s high time we get home.”

  22

  Bird on the Veranda

  Bombay, February 1921

  Jamshedji’s temper improved once the two of them arrived home. He answered Rustom’s call to come into the parlor for a sherry. Soon the two men were laughing.

  Perveen went to the kitchen and saw Gulnaz at the stove. She was tempering cumin seeds and onion, making the tadka that would top a pot of yellow dal Perveen’s mother was stirring. “It smells good, but where’s John?” Perveen asked.

  “Since it’s so late, we said to him, go, and we’ll make the finishing touches,” Camellia told her.

  “I like cooking anyway,” Gulnaz said with a shrug. “Why are you so late?”

  “I was out at the Farid bungalow and then my friend Alice’s house,” Perveen said, pouring herself a glass of water. “Pappa came for me at nine, but we had a mix-up getting home. Sorry.”

  “You are spending all of your time with the English now!” Gulnaz spoke in a teasing tone, but it raised Perveen’s hackles. Her relationship with Gulnaz had changed after the surprise of finding out Perveen’s old schoolmate had been matched up with Rustom. Perveen was resentful that Gulnaz had such an easy, happy arranged marriage. Perveen imagined that Gulnaz might sometimes envy her three years in England followed by a career that took her out of the house daily. In any case, they chatted but never confided in each other the way they had during their time in the Elphinstone College ladies’ lounge.

  She knew it wasn’t right—so she pushed herself to say something. “Alice and I want to go to the cinema tomorrow evening. Will you come?”

  Gulnaz was silent for a spell. “I’m not sure. How can we sit with an English person? They’ve got their own section of the theater.”

  “Alice isn’t that type. She will insist on sitting with us.” Perveen paused. “Besides, weren’t you the one who thought she’d be useful to know?”

  “Yes, but . . .” Gulnaz didn’t finish. Perveen knew her sister-in-law wasn’t happy with the plan, but so be it.

  Hanging up her apron, Camellia said, “No matter what you might do tomorrow, now is the time for washing hands. Supper is ready.”

  The meal was a good one: lamb curry with fenugreek and potatoes, coconut dal, a chicken and tomato curry, and a savory rice pulao. Perveen ate, keeping an eye on her father. She had a slight worry that he hadn’t spoken to her in the car because he’d decided to take her off the case. He might have been counting up all the errors she’d made. The fact that she’d gone off walking Malabar Hill in the night could have tipped him over the edge.

  But then, after supper was cleared, and Perveen was in the kitchen assembling a bowl of fruit and vegetable scraps for Lillian, he said he would join her on her balcony.

  “God save the Queen!” Lillian squawked when they came out together. “Mataram!”

  “You’re hitting both sides of politics, aren’t you?” Perveen said, smiling as she opened the cage.

  “A clever bird indeed.” Jamshedji settled down in one of the rattan lounge chairs and balanced a snifter of port on the wide armrest. “Tell me everything.”

  “All right. It’s a long story.”

&nb
sp; Perveen explained how, after learning the facts, all three women had become hesitant to sign away their mahr, and then she recounted the terrible interruption of her talk with Mumtaz by Mukri. Hoping her father didn’t think she’d been too naïve, she confided, “It was such a shock. I hadn’t thought anyone could listen to us, and Mr. Mukri had told me he’d be away at work.”

  “Households with two sections might appear to have privacy, but it could be that they have the fewest secrets.” Jamshedji sipped his port. “Precisely because of their walls and screens, people are curious to know everything.”

  Lillian flew the short distance from her cage to the back of Jamshedji’s chair and pecked at his hair. He winced and batted at her until she flew off into the garden.

  “Razia-begum managed to keep her role as the wakf’s mutawalli secret from Sakina-begum,” Perveen said. “That must have taken some doing. She said that she and her husband had agreed it was best.”

  Her father sighed. “Farid-sahib was a considerate man. It seems he was seeking balance, so each wife had something with which to occupy herself.”

  “I mentioned to you earlier that I talked with Razia-begum in the Daimler.” Perveen detailed how the murder confession broke down after the direct questions about her clothing.

  “You could be wrong. Might you be advocating for Razia-begum a bit too strongly?” Jamshedji asked, studying her.

  “I think it’s a classic case of a mother taking blame because she fears for her child. I must keep her away from the police until we know more. Right now, she’s panicked.”

  Jamshedji nodded. “The need to defend Razia-begum may turn out to be moot, given the police have seized the durwan. Perhaps there will be evidence pointing to him.”

  “Actually, Commissioner Griffith would like to investigate the women.”

  At her father’s raised eyebrows, Perveen said, “I learned from Alice that the police commissioner called on her father to discuss Mr. Mukri’s death. The commissioner was interested in fingerprinting the women and searching the zenana.”

  Jamshedji looked at her intently. “What did the men decide?”

  “Sir David told the commissioner not to do it. Instead he advised the police to round up men recently released from prison.” Seeing her father’s dubious expression, Perveen added, “I don’t want to make life any harder on the widows, but I feel it would be dreadful if the police pinned the crime on an innocent. Certainly, if there is a homicidal person living at twenty-two Sea View Road, everyone is at risk. I’d want that individual to be caught.”

  “To be apprehended and have a fair treatment according to the law,” Jamshedji corrected.

  “Yes,” Perveen said, taking in her father’s serious expression.

  “All right, then, I’ll tell you what I learned tonight,” Jamshedji said, taking another sip of his drink. “I went to Farid Fabrics’ mills and was fortunate to find the acting director, Mr. Farid’s cousin Muhammed, was still there. I told him about the demise of Faisal Mukri.”

  “What was his reaction?”

  “He said all the right things, but it didn’t seem as if he was heartbroken.” Jamshedji gave her a sardonic look.

  Just as there wasn’t grief at 22 Sea View Road—just shock and fear that a savage act had taken place in the bungalow. Perveen asked, “Does he know where Mukri lived before the Farid home?”

  “Apparently he had a rented room near the mill district, which he gave up when he had the chance to become household agent. But the office files had a record of his mother’s address in Poona. Muhammed Farid was relieved I planned to go in person to tell them the bad news.”

  “I’m also glad you’re going,” Perveen said. “Did you ask him if there were any problems for Mukri within the company?”

  “Muhammed said there was tremendous jealousy within the company about Farid-sahib giving such a perk to a minor accountant. Of course, I asked him why Farid-sahib hadn’t asked him, a relative living in town, to do it. He answered that Farid-sahib was worried about the company’s future and believed that for his cousin to do both jobs would be too much.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if Mukri poisoned the relationship,” Perveen cut in.

  Jamshedji pointed a finger at her. “That is an ungrounded supposition. However, when I asked more questions about Mukri, Muhammed brought in the accounting supervisor, Mr. Sharma. Sharma was surprised to hear of the death and offered condolences. When I pressed him, he said he regretted to speak ill of the dead, but in truth, Mukri was only a fair worker. Much of his work was done by underlings.”

  “Yet he managed to keep his job?”

  “Mr. Sharma had heard a rumor that Mukri was a distant relative of Mr. Farid’s. That’s what Mukri told people all the time—that he was so close to Farid-sahib he’d surely become the mill director one day. It turned out he did get selected to be the household agent. Then he played this card to the greatest extent. When Mr. Farid fell ill, Mukri began going to work only two or three days a week, living in the bungalow and using the telephone and the occasional visit to connect with the company. Recently he ’d been coming to work just once a week.”

  “Were you able to obtain information on the mill’s financial state? I hear most of Bombay’s mills aren’t doing so well these days.”

  “True. In this case, Muhammed Farid blames the company’s decline on a string of poor decisions pushed by Mukri during Omar Farid’s illness. Apparently Mr. Mukri told management that Mr. Farid wished to produce new kinds of cloth now that khaki was in decline. The company began experimenting and invested in creating fabrics that haven’t sold well.”

  “If Mr. Mukri was such a drain on the company and wasn’t being fired, isn’t there a chance one of his coworkers might have done him in?” She paused. “Perhaps Cousin Muhammed wished him ill.”

  Jamshedji shook his head. “Muhammed Farid confirmed he was at work all day. I did not cross-examine him because his behavior isn’t for us to investigate. I went to him to get an address, and now I’m able to visit Mrs. Mukri to communicate my regrets, and to let her begin preparations for the funeral. I shall travel to Poona tomorrow.”

  “One of Mr. Farid’s wives is from Poona,” Perveen said. “Sakina Chivne. Do you have time to call on them? Sakina-begum might have concerned relatives who would hurry in to help her, despite what she thinks.”

  “Who would have thought, when I brought on my daughter, she’d be the one to direct my daily program?” Jamshedji said with a chuckle.

  “If you can take care of two issues in one trip, isn’t it better?” she answered with a smile. “Tomorrow I’ll return to the Farids and see what other help they need.”

  Now that she and her father had talked and a plan was in place, it should have been easy to sleep. But Perveen was haunted by the thought that she had overstepped with Razia. And it was unjust that the family’s durwan was in prison and could very likely be convicted through no fault of his own.

  When she finally drifted off, she saw the Farids’ house in her mind—not the cream-colored miniature palace of daylight, but at night, with a light burning in just one window. Whose room was it? As Perveen hastened toward the bungalow, the light went out, and she had an overpowering fear that someone else was in mortal danger.

  23

  A Missing Child

  Bombay, February 1921

  “‘Death Returns to Malabar Hill Family.’ This seems somehow familiar.” Rustom put down the copy of the Times of India and turned his attention on Perveen. “Well, Perveen? Isn’t this Farid family known to us?”

  If Rustom had been an employee of Mistry Law, she could have told him plenty. But he was merely an annoying brother, so she would reveal the minimum. Yawning, she said, “Father represented Mr. Farid, who passed away in December.”

  “Of course!” Rustom said, spearing a piece of bacon. “Father asked me to come to Mr. Fari
d’s funeral with him, but we were breaking ground on the flat building that morning. It says here in the paper that a household agent died on the premises.”

  “Will you go to this other man’s funeral?” Gulnaz asked, taking the paper out of her husband’s hands. She’d just come fresh from her bath, her damp hair hanging in a braid, although she was already dressed to go out in a yellow silk sari over a Chantilly lace blouse. She was the picture of youthful beauty; Perveen envied her.

  “There can’t be a funeral until the police are finished with their examination of his body,” Perveen snapped. She was exhausted from bad dreams and long periods of being awake and worrying over the night. When she’d awoken, it had been late, and she’d learned her father had already gone off to the train station and Poona.

  “I’ve always been interested in the spot where the Farid bungalow stands. I came across the plans some time ago in one of the office storage cabinets. We built that house in 1880.” Rustom spoke in a manner that seemed both wistful and knowledgeable.

  “You weren’t born yet! It was your grandfather’s doing,” Camellia corrected with a gentle smile.

  “All right, then, Mistry Construction built it,” he acknowledged with an eye roll. “Father introduced me to Mr. Farid once when he’d come to sign papers at Mistry House. I advised the gentleman to consider taking down the old house and putting up a modern mansion block. If he had five floors, he could have lived on one with his family and taken revenue from the other four.”

  “The house is still standing, so he must have declined,” Perveen said.

  Rustom chuckled. “He declared, ‘I have two wives and four children at present. There’s a chance more will join. There would be no peace in one flat. For all of us to live in one flat would surely bring about suicide, if not murder.’”

  “He must have been joking,” Gulnaz said.

  “Of course. Everybody laughed. I said that Grandfather built the house very well, so I could understand his continuing enjoyment.”

  “Good answer,” Camellia said. “But now times have changed: will three secluded women do well staying on without a husband? Do they have friends and relatives nearby visiting them daily?” She looked across the snowy lace tablecloth toward Perveen. “And why are you so quiet about this?”