The Widows of Malabar Hill

by Sujata Massey

  She’d expected Jamshedji to be shocked or angry. Instead, he had a knowing expression. “In all likelihood, you did see him.”

  “You knew he was here, and you kept it from me?” Perveen’s calm was disintegrating like the biscuit she’d left dangling in her tea.

  “Let me begin with the so-called Bengali stranger you were worried about. He’s not strange to me. His name is Purshottam Ghosh.”

  “Is he your client?” Perveen was confused.

  “He’s the private detective based in Calcutta I hired to gather the medical records we used in Sodawalla v. Sodawalla. Remember?”

  “I never met him. But of course I remember those files being used.” Perveen’s curiosity was mixed with irritation. Why hadn’t her father said this straight out?

  “I was pleased with Ghosh’s initiative and have employed him since the trial ended to keep tabs on Cyrus.”

  “Mamma, did you know?” Perveen turned to Camellia, who shook her head.

  “I had no idea,” she said. “But I’m sure your father had his reasons.”

  “Perveen’s safety comes first,” Jamshedji said simply. “And if we could ever find proof of infidelity, it would mean a chance for the separation to become a divorce.”

  Perveen put down her cup. She was stunned by the lengths to which her father had gone. And if Cyrus discovered the surveillance, he’d have a valid grudge to pursue against her family. “Did Cyrus learn about this?”

  “We’re not sure,” Jamshedji said after a disturbing pause. “But to recap the surveillance history, Ghosh wasn’t following him daily—it was part-time observation done in conjunction with his other jobs. He’s reported to me that Cyrus continued his activities, averaging twice a week with women of the professional variety, either in Sonagachi prostitution district or the slum near the bottling plant.”

  “Pappa, why didn’t you tell me Cyrus was here in Bombay?” Perveen demanded.

  Jamshedji raised a cautionary finger. “I didn’t want to worry you unduly. At first, we thought it was a business trip. Or he might have been calling on his relatives the Vachhas. And then we got a surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises.” Perveen felt sick with anxiety.

  “Ghosh followed him to Petit General Hospital, where he walked in with a valise late on Tuesday and did not come out.”

  Rustom was angrily pacing the veranda. “What do you mean, ‘didn’t come out’? The velgard might have slipped out the back!”

  “Or he is visiting a sick person or checked in himself as a patient,” Camellia pointed out.

  “The letter!” Perveen said, putting her teacup down so hard the saucer rattled. “This week I received a letter asking me to go to the hospital to see someone I didn’t know. This man who wrote the letter wanted me to make his will. I can’t recall the name, but it certainly wasn’t Cyrus!”

  “Why would Cyrus come to Bombay for medical treatment? Calcutta’s full of doctors, isn’t it?” Gulnaz asked.

  “But there’s no Parsi hospital in Calcutta,” Camellia said. “I learned that when I was visiting there. Petit is a top-drawer hospital offering free and subsidized care to any Parsi. Might he have come for that, rather than to harass Perveen?”

  Perveen took a deep breath. “I’d like to know. I’ll go to the hospital.”

  “Don’t let him speak to you!” Jamshedji said sharply. “A pitiful situation could be a ploy. I’ve seen this time and again with separated couples.”

  “Gulnaz and I are on the ladies’ voluntary committee at the hospital. We’ll find out whether he is a patient there before Perveen decides anything,” Camellia said, pouring more tea in Perveen’s cup. “Don’t act without forethought.”

  Perveen was exasperated. “Why won’t you let me go? It seems that I’ve escaped one prison to be kept in another.”

  “We are hardly imprisoning you,” Camellia soothed. “We are only giving you a bit of time to settle and recover from a terrible attack. You haven’t even had breakfast—and you’re already raring to go both to the hospital and Malabar Hill! Frankly, I don’t know which situation is more dangerous.”

  “I could tell you if I went. I’ll go mad sitting here all day,” Perveen said.

  “Why not ring Alice?” Gulnaz asked brightly. “Perhaps she can drop by for a visit.”

  The thought of Alice was a comfort. Nodding at Gulnaz, Perveen asked Camellia if her friend could come over for lunch. It was high time for a chat, and Perveen knew there was a chance Alice had overheard more gossip about the government’s interest in the Farids.

  “We’re happy to host Alice. I’ll ask John to make it a special ladies’ luncheon with a lot of sweets—unless you will also be staying, Rustom?”

  Rustom yawned, putting a hand over his mouth too late. “I’d like to sleep a few more hours, but I’m needed at the construction office.”

  This gave Perveen another idea. “If you’re going to your office, Rustom, may I ask you to do me a favor there?”

  He gave her a searching look. “What?”

  “You mentioned the architectural drawings for twenty-two Sea View Road are stored in a cabinet. I’d like to borrow them.”

  Rustom drank deeply from his coffee cup before answering. “I only saw the outside wrappings, and those plans are from Queen Victoria’s time. They probably have deteriorated.”

  “Or the plans might be perfectly fine because of the care Grandfather took with wrapping them,” Perveen said. “Will you please, please have one of the clerks look?”

  “Haven’t I done enough for you?” Rustom grumbled. “Why do you need them now? Too much is happening. I’m exhausted.”

  “Those plans offer a chance to understand the house’s twists and turns,” Jamshedji said. “It would be especially useful for me, as I can’t go inside the zenana.”

  “All right, Pappa. I’ll see what I can do,” Rustom said.

  Perveen smiled a silent thank you at Jamshedji. It often seemed she was in a contest with her father, but occasionally, they came to a draw.

  _

  Alice was pleased to get a call from Perveen. After hearing a summary of the events of the last day, including the rescue by stevedores, she accepted the invitation to join Perveen, Gulnaz, and Camellia for a Parsi lunch.

  Alice arrived at one-thirty in a dark blue Crossley, rather than the Rolls. Still, the neighborhood’s young cricketers stood gawking as the tall blonde Englishwoman strode up to the Mistrys’ gate. Catching sight of the group, Alice wound up her arm and bowled an imaginary cricket ball straight at them. They broke apart laughing.

  “Alice, come in!” Perveen said, coming outside when her friend didn’t approach the door.

  “It really is you!” Alice said, beaming at her. “I went to the wrong house first. They were too friendly—wanted me to come in for tea and started talking about wanting an English governess. I suppose it was my first job offer.”

  “Perveen, is that you?” Gwendolyn Hobson-Jones shielded her eyes from the sun with a hand as she peered from the car.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Hobson-Jones,” Perveen replied, her spirits sinking. She hadn’t thought Alice’s mother was coming.

  Lady Hobson-Jones marched up the path and into the house, where she swiveled her head to take in the hall, parlor, and dining room. “I drove with Alice to ensure she arrived safely, given all that’s happened in Bombay this week. Did you have some sort of trouble yesterday evening?”

  Alice shot Perveen a glance that she interpreted to mean she shouldn’t say much.

  “It was a mix-up about where I was. As you can expect, my parents worry about me being out past dark, even though I’m twenty-three!” Perveen kept her tone light. “Won’t you come in to meet my mother? And would you like to lunch with us?”

  “Sorry. I’m off to a luncheon at the Bombay Gymkhana. Sirjit will return fo
r Alice in about three hours.”

  “Sorry for the intrusion,” Alice murmured to Perveen as the two watched the departing car. “She had some fears about what a Parsi home would be like. I think all the silver and mahogany put her to ease.”

  “Really? I thought she was the modern type.” Perveen could never relax under Alice’s mother’s scrutiny. It was a good thing she hadn’t been free for lunch.

  “I like your neighborhood,” Alice said, going into the parlor to look out the window at the street. “So many tall houses with pretty ironwork balconies—I’m sure they will stand the test of time. And it’s practical to have so many small parks around for people to enjoy.”

  “My brother Rustom’s head would swell if he heard your review,” Perveen said with a chuckle. “He’s building many of these homes, and while the trees in the parks and on streets are still small, he thinks this could become Bombay’s greenest neighborhood in a few decades.”

  Camellia stepped into the hall to take Alice’s hat. “How do you do, Miss Hobson-Jones? I’m Perveen’s mother. She painted such a nice picture of you through all the letters she wrote from Oxford. I’m grateful that you were her first English friend.”

  “First and best friend,” Perveen added. “In England and in India.”

  Alice bent awkwardly from the shoulders to address the petite woman at eye level. Holding out her hand, she said, “Mrs. Mistry, please call me Alice. And thanks very much for asking me to lunch. It’s nice of you to have a guest when you are likely still getting over last evening’s trouble.”

  “I am a bit weary; it’s true,” Camellia said with a warm smile. “And in India, we usually call our friends’ mothers Aunty. I will be pleased to become your Camellia-aunty.”

  “Thank you, Camellia-aunty!” Alice said, beaming back at her.

  Gulnaz drifted into the hallway toward their cordial cluster. Sounding very reserved, she said, “Miss Hobson-Jones, I’m Gulnaz. I’m Perveen’s sister-in-law, but we’ve known each other since primary school.”

  “How intriguing that you married her brother,” Alice said with a wink. “Do call me Alice, Gulnaz! Tell me, did you know Rustom when he was in short pants?”

  Gulnaz blushed. “No. It was an arranged marriage.”

  “A blissful one,” Perveen said, smiling at Gulnaz, who she suspected might have overheard her description of Alice as her best friend. “I can’t tell you how much nicer my brother’s become since Gulnaz’s arrival. It’s a terrific deal for all of us.”

  The young women had a few more minutes of pleasant small talk before Camellia called them to the table to eat fish, potato curry, chapatis, dal pulao, and kachumber.

  “Do you eat like this every day?” Alice was already reaching for her fork and knife.

  “Of course. Will you eat pomfret?” Camellia asked.

  “Yes—but where is the fish?” Alice stared in amazement at the steaming banana-leaf package that John added to her plate.

  “It’s patra ni machhi, a Parsi specialty,” Gulnaz said. “You don’t eat the banana leaf. When you open it, you’ll find a lovely fillet with a coconut spice paste on top.”

  “It’s delicious,” Alice said after a bite. “But did you leave off the chilies for me?”

  “I thought chilies might hurt your stomach,” Camellia said. “Am I wrong?”

  “I was born in Madras and nursed by a Tamil. Bring the chilies!”

  After lunch, Gulnaz decided she would take a rest. Perveen suspected Alice had overwhelmed her. Gulnaz had asked about the latest trends in England, and instead of talking about fashion and films, Alice had soliloquized on the recent triumphs of the suffrage movement, the future of women in mathematics, and Irish freedom.

  The rich luncheon made Perveen slightly tired, too—but her mind was still reeling with thoughts about all that had happened over the last few days.

  Perveen took Alice upstairs and through her airy bedroom out to the large balcony. Lillian was having a midday nap but woke readily at the sight of the saucer of chopped cucumber and tomato Alice fed her. After eating her lunch, the parrot sat on the Englishwoman’s shoulder and stared at her blonde hair for a long time before making the first peck at it.

  “Lillian, you mustn’t bite people!” Perveen chided, and the parrot whooshed off to the garden. “You’d almost think she’s ashamed of her behavior.”

  “No need to anthropomorphize,” Alice said. “The bird is attracted to any source of light. She hoped that my hair was edible and went off because it wasn’t.”

  “Oh, Alice,” Perveen said with a sigh. “It’s all so unbelievable, sitting here joking like nothing happened.”

  Alice reached out and closed her big hand over Perveen’s small one. “When Gulnaz called, and I realized you weren’t in the office doing papers, my first thought was you’d done another bunk. I thought you had wanted to go to the pictures without me.”

  “I invited you. Why would you think that?”

  “I see the way people look at me as I go through the city. Yes, some of them are smiling and offering me namaste gestures, but I know they resent us. You probably had to lobby for me to be admitted to the lunch table!”

  “As you know, I’ve wanted you to come since the day you arrived, and today’s spontaneous luncheon was my sister-in-law’s idea.” Mischievously, she added, “I thoroughly enjoyed watching you sprinkle a few too many fresh green chilies on your fish.”

  “All the while your mother was explaining fish is called machhli, and chilies are called mirchi. Hindi is far too confusing.”

  Jaya, the housemaid, stepped onto the balcony with a long cedar box. “Memsahib, this was just delivered from Mistry Construction.”

  “Perfect timing.” Perveen took the box into her lap and realized she was almost afraid to open it. Would the box have kept its contents well preserved, or was she going to find a nest of weevils and a few scraps of architectural plans?

  “You’re holding that thing like a baby. What is it?” Alice teased.

  “I’ll let you see when I open it up on my desk in the bedroom. The document is old, and I don’t want anything to blow away in the wind.”

  “It’s not a top-secret legal document I must not see?” Alice asked, following her in.

  “Not at all. These are the architectural drawings for twenty-two Sea View Road.”

  Inside the box, a leather-bound folio held a series of drawings on thick stock that had yellowed and was brittle on the edges. But the plans hadn’t been affected by damp or insects, and the ink markings were dark enough to see.

  Perveen took extreme care as she opened the series of pages that showed exterior views and elevations of the bungalow. “What do you think? I suppose I should have my brother here pointing things out. It all looks very geometric.”

  Alice looked over Perveen’s shoulder for a good minute before speaking. “If one counts up all my classes in public school and Oxford, I’ve studied geometry for five years. But one doesn’t need a mathematics degree to see that the angles in these facades don’t match the floor plans.”

  “What do you mean?” Perveen adjusted herself to see Alice, who was still gazing deeply at the building sketch.

  “I can tell you what I think is strange, but it would be more significant if I knew about who’s staying in which room.”

  Perveen thought she should wait to ask her father whether he’d approve of what she was about to do. But she wanted to hear from Alice, and she finally knew how she could bring her in.

  “Just a minute.” Perveen walked out to the balcony again and slid open the panel underneath the floor of Lillian’s cage. She pulled out a tarnished sovereign, one of the few coins she had left from her time in England. Of course, keeping it outdoors for the last half year had resulted in its tarnishing, but it could always be polished. Returning to Alice, Perveen held out the coin.

 
“That is quite generous, but I’m more in need of rupees than a Queen Victoria sovereign,” Alice said dryly.

  “I gave away all my rupees and paise in the last twenty-four hours. This sovereign is a formal payment,” Perveen said. “I’ll write it up with a receipt. If you accept it, you’ll become an employee of Mistry Law.”

  Alice looked cautiously at her. “You can offer me a job without your father’s say?”

  “A temporary job as geometry consultant,” Perveen said with a grin.

  “Geometry consultant? I never heard of such a thing.”

  “It’s the only way I can stay within the letter of the law and tell you some important things about the Farids. I just hope that what you hear doesn’t make you want to run back to England.”

  Alice shook her head. “The only ones with the power to put me on a boat are my parents—and you must believe I won’t divulge a word of what you’ve got to say.”

  Perveen went to the bedroom door and looked out into the hall. She could hear her mother snoring down the hallway—and Gulnaz was likely doing the same on the other side of the duplex wall. Only after Perveen had locked the door and taken Alice back out to the balcony did she tell the whole story.

  “I suspect the answer is in front of me, but I can’t see it,” she said at the end. “It feels as if I were on the beach, staring at a swimmer out at sea. I can’t identify the black speck in the waves. Could be a man or a woman or an animal—”

  “From the description of the murderer’s style, I’d say animal,” Alice said with a snort. “And when will it end? I’m not as confident as you seem to be that yesterday’s call came from someone trying to get you into the street for kidnapping. It could have come from a woman who’s no longer alive.”

  Perveen considered this. “Gulnaz said she spoke to two widows—I’m almost certain it was Sakina and Razia but not Mumtaz. What if one or both of them guessed she was pregnant?”

  “You haven’t yet calculated the estate payments due. There’s still time for someone to reduce the number of inheritors and improve her situation.” Restlessly, Alice picked up Perveen’s mother’s pen and tapped it on the table. “Remind me again of who’s going to inherit?”