Bela watched him warily from the door of the bedroom, a frown gouging her forehead.
He did this every day, for a week, two weeks, until Tara refused to go to sleep without him. Until she became his. And—though he hadn’t quite thought through this part—he became hers.
Over the next month, it seemed like he saw them together, Bela-Bishu, all the time. Sometimes Bishu would already be at their apartment when Sanjay returned from the office, claiming that his shift at the Indian motel where he worked as a manager was over early. That was a lie. Sanjay knew that Bishu worked the night shift because it paid more. He must have left the desk in charge of the cleaning lady, bribed her a few dollars and slipped out.
He said nothing about this to Bishu. He was always cordial to him, more polite than ever. But he avoided all conversations that leaned toward intimacy. Sometimes Bishu would look at him with a perplexed frown. But Sanjay deflected this successfully with an innocuous smile.
The days he couldn’t come over, Bishu called. If Sanjay picked up the phone, Bishu would ask a few cursory questions; then there would be an awkward silence because he had nothing more to say to him. Bishu, his best friend, his brother. “Can I talk to Bela?” he would ask. They would be on the phone for half an hour, Bela laughing as she described Tara’s antics in unnecessary detail. Sanjay sat nearby, staring at his copy of Business Week, turning the pages as though the words he read made sense.
The worst was when Bishu rang the doorbell late at night, bearing gifts. Hotel candies or soaps for Bela—cheap stuff that she exclaimed over fatuously—or a balloon for Tara that she’d bat at over and over. Biku-Biku. That’s what she called him, short for Bishu Kaka. She’d put her small fat arms around his neck when he picked her up, while Bela smiled indulgently. It destroyed Sanjay to watch the three of them together like that.
Can you blame him for writing the anonymous letter to the owners of the motel that led to a sudden night-check when Bishu wasn’t there, that resulted in him losing his job? Bishu looked for other positions, but word had sped along the motel owners’ grapevine in California. He tried for other kinds of work, minimum-wage clerking at stores, night watchman jobs. He listed Sanjay’s name as a reference. Strange, no one would hire him.
Desperate, his savings dwindling, he was forced to start looking out-of-state. Finally, with Sanjay’s help, he managed to land a manager’s job in a motel in a small town in Utah. He hated the place. He would call them each week and complain bitterly about the terrible winters, the weirdos who came through, the crippling loneliness. “I miss you folks,” he’d say to Sanjay, who made sure he was the one to pick up the phone. “Is Bela doing okay? Can I talk to her?” When Sanjay made excuses—Bela was out, or asleep, or in the shower—he’d say, sadly, “How’s my Tara-baby? She must be getting so big. Being away from you-all is killing me.”
Perhaps it wasn’t an exaggeration. In two years, Bishu would be dead. When he received the phone call from the motel management, because Bishu had listed him as next of kin and beneficiary on his life insurance, Sanjay was torn between relief and shame.
The first weeks after Bishu left the Bay Area, Sanjay watched Bela for signs. But she went about her daily chores cheerfully, humming as she vacuumed or folded clothes. If anything, she seemed happier, even, than she had been before. He would come home at unexpected times, trying to catch her out. Would she be in tears? Would she be talking to Bishu on the phone? But all he ever found was her taking a nap or watching Sesame Street with Tara. Sometimes the Indian woman who had moved into the apartment below would be there. She had a baby, too. Sanjay would come home to find the babies crawling around on a bedsheet while the two women drank tea and munched on chanachur. They would look at him curiously and a little disapprovingly, as though wondering what he was doing home in the middle of the day.
Months passed. Bela remained serene, glowing, Madonna-like. When Bishu phoned, she did not ask to speak to him. When Tara turned one, she went back to her job at the child-care center, taking her daughter with her. Work suited her. Gave her confidence. At dinnertime, she served, without apology, boiled rice and dal, prepared quickly in the pressure cooker. She interrupted Sanjay’s news-watching with anecdotes of things that had happened at Tiny Treasures.
It bewildered Sanjay, how well she hid her sorrow at Bishu’s absence, and, later, at his death.
One night, several months after Bishu’s death, Sanjay lay in bed unable to sleep. Childhood memories of Bishu pressed against his skull until his head hurt. Beside him, Bela’s breathing was rhythmic and untroubled.
That was when the truth struck him. Bela had never been attracted to Bishu. She had only pretended, in order to make Sanjay jealous, to create a rift between them, to make sure that Sanjay drove his best friend away. She’d even used Tara as a weapon. She must have planned this for a while, perhaps since the dead dog incident. He’d thought she’d forgotten it, but she’d never forgiven either of the men.
Rage seared Sanjay’s veins like poison. He couldn’t breathe. This was a greater betrayal than if she’d actually cheated on him. He jerked upright, his body at once hot and cold and shaking, like the time when he’d had malaria. How dare she manipulate him this way? He was going to choke the lying life out of her, never mind what happened to him after that. He looked down at his hands. They were flexed and ready.
He was this close to doing it.
Then he heard Tara in the crib, murmuring as she shifted, snuffling in her sleep.
He forced himself to breathe. For her sake, he forced himself to lie down.
A better punishment: he would divorce Bela, leave her to flounder in loneliness, the way Bishu had, in snow-choked Utah. But not now, not until his daughter was grown up. He wouldn’t jeopardize Tara’s future, take the chance of losing even a little bit of her. No messy joint custody for him. He would wait, patient as a heron by the water, waiting to swoop ruthless upon the right moment, when Bela had grown too dependent to manage without him. Meanwhile, he would love Tara fully and fiercely. He would make himself indispensable in Bela’s life, would make her believe that he adored her. Then when he left her, Bela’s life would be shattered.
He didn’t know then that the long interim would be studded with moments when the light would be of a certain quality, dust motes dancing in it as when they had been in Kolkata, and Bela, smiling at him contentedly as she pasted photos into an album or concocted a special dish for his dinner, would look so like the girl he had loved in college that his truant heart would twist, murmuring, Maybe you’re wrong. Or, Stop, it’s not too late. But of course it was.
It is dark in the car inside the parking garage, and strangely cold, far too cold for Oakland in July. No matter. He zips up his jacket and rests his forehead on the steering wheel. A few minutes to recharge; then he’ll start for home. The dominoes are falling in beautiful sweeps of black and white, as they did that night when he lay next to his lovely, unaware wife. Watching them, he sleeps.
A Thousand Words: 2020
I stand in this unfamiliar kitchen, wrestling with a stubborn acorn squash, because my mother has decided that as her last meal before she’s jailed she would like Bengali pumpkin curry.
My mother is given to exaggeration. It’s not really her last meal. We’ll have several meals together through the weekend while I pack her things. And it isn’t jail but Sunny Hills, a decent, if not lavish, senior facility in Austin. After her second fall, the one that fractured her leg two weeks ago, her doctor called me and said she couldn’t live alone anymore. I took a week’s emergency leave and flew down from San Jose to persuade her to move to a facility. I would have preferred one closer to me, where I could have kept an eye on her more easily. But she told me right away she wasn’t leaving Texas. Bela Stubborn Dewan, that’s my mother.
I’d been nervous about coming out here. I’d never spent an entire week alone with my mother since the divorce. The few times we’d met, on occasions of family importance, my husband and son had acted as bu
ffers. Otherwise it was emails or duty calls, brief, pragmatic exchanges of information, mostly to prove to each other that we were doing just fine.
“What will I even say to her?” I had wailed to Gary as he dropped me off at the airport. “I’m afraid she’ll bring up sad, sad things from the past, and we’ll end up having a fight.”
“You’ll do great,” said my sweet accountant husband, who believes that with assiduous goodwill, the books eventually balance out. He handed me my carry-on bag and kissed me goodbye. “Just remember that it takes two to tangle.”
“Tango,” I said grumpily. “It takes two to tango.” I wanted to add something about his misplaced optimism, but right then one of those airport cops blew shrilly on her whistle and yelled at him to move the car.
Struck by last-minute panic, I called Dr. Berger, my therapist, from the airport gate, but she wasn’t of much help, either. “Keep in mind that this is harder for your mother than it is for you,” she said. And then, “Maybe being alone with her will give you an opportunity to work out some of your issues.”
I told her I greatly doubted that. Besides, I didn’t want to work out any issues. Not with my mother, at least.
All week I’ve been ferrying my mother to retirement homes around the city. It’s been hard, with her leg being in a cast. Each time she’s given the place a cursory glance and said, “I hate it.” A couple of times, she refused to even get out of the car. Inside my head, I chanted Gary’s parting advice like a frantic mantra and kept my mouth shut, but I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to manage that.
Sunny Hills was clearly the nicest among the facilities we could afford. The private room we looked at opened out on a pleasant courtyard lined with flowers. It was more expensive than we had budgeted for, but when I saw that it had its own kitchenette, I said yes.
“I hate it,” my mother said.
I was ready to scream. Then I had a better idea. “You’ll just have to come back to California with me, then,” I said in my sweetest voice. “Remind me to book your ticket as soon as we get home.”
She seemed to deflate. She allowed me to push her wheelchair into the office without making a fuss. Once in there, she signed the forms silently. When the manager asked if she had any questions, she shook her head. In the car she closed her eyes. I hadn’t realized how much weight she’d lost. Her eyelids were creased and delicate, tissue-thin.
I expected to feel victory, or at least relief. I was entitled to it. But I only felt like there wasn’t enough air in the car.
I’ve managed to hack the squash into jagged halves. But scooping out its stringy, seed-filled entrails is proving to be a challenge. After that I must peel and steam it until it’s soft but not mushy. I must sauté it until golden, thicken it with a flour-based sauce (no lumps, my mother has warned), and garnish it with coriander leaves chopped fine enough to suit her standards.
I really don’t have the time for this, but having won the war of Sunny Hills, I feel I should concede this battle. I confess: I am a disgrace to my family. My mother has several successful cookbooks and a popular food blog, Bela’s Kitchen, now well into its second decade. My grandmother Sabitri’s desserts were legendary in Kolkata—so I’ve been told. No wedding in my great-grandmother Durga’s village was considered complete without her special malpua, golden-fried and dipped in rose syrup, sprinkled with crushed fennel seed. Me, I just want to fix a meal, chopping block to dining table, thirty minutes max.
“Don’t put yourself down,” Gary tells me. “You’re a fine cook.”
“I forgive you for lying,” I say.
My mother once announced, “Tara, you have no ambition.” We were rolling rutis in the kitchen. I was twelve years old, and my rutis refused to come out as round as she wanted them to. I pointed out that they still puffed up when she roasted them on the skillet. Wasn’t that good enough?
“No.” My mother was easygoing about many things, but not the preparation of food. She took my rolled-out rutis, the ones that were waiting to be cooked, and mashed them back into dough. “Do them again.”
“Hitler!” my father said, swooping into the kitchen like a savior angel. He led me away to play a board game. I loved him because he always took my side.
My mother was wrong. I do have ambitions; they’re just not the same as hers. I want to be able to hold on to my job, bland as it is, in the human resources department of my company. I want to be the kind of mother Neel will call from college. The kind of wife Gary will never want to leave. I have one ambition, in particular, that only Dr. Berger knows about: I want to cure myself of the disease hiding inside me like a canker curled up in the heart of a rose.
“Tara,” my mother calls from the bedroom, “I’m hungry. Is the pumpkin curry ready? Did you use the recipe I told you to look up?”
I scowl at the shiny hardcover I’d pulled down from the shelf, Everyday Delicacies of the Bengal Countryside, by Bela Dewan. I had, indeed, looked up the recipe. It spanned three entire pages and asked for twenty-seven separate ingredients. It would require severe modification. “Curry’s not done yet, Mom,” I say, trying to keep the exasperation from my voice. “If you’re really hungry, I can give you some cereal.”
“It’s noon.” My mother’s voice is affronted. “Normal people don’t eat cereal at noon. You haven’t even started the curry, have you? I would have smelled the frying spices. . . .”
I consider reminding her that I’d been occupied all morning in sorting through the many closets in this house. But I exert saintlike control over my vocal cords and say, instead, “How about a cup of tea, then, with a couple of those cranberry-and-white-chocolate cookies that I picked up for you from San Francisco?”
There’s a pause. But finally my mother, Bengali in her food habits if nothing else, can’t resist the offer of cha and mishti. “Be sure to use the Darjeeling,” she calls out. “Brew it on the stove, not in the microwave. And take out the good gold-rimmed cups. No point saving them, now that I’m going to jail.”
Our delayed lunch is a startlingly pleasant meal. Rice, Bengal gram lentils with coconut, and curried squash. The squash has turned out well, which I didn’t expect, and my mother compliments me on it. That, too, I didn’t expect. Is she delirious with hunger? But no. She wants this weekend to be free of conflict—as do I. A visit we can remember without regret. God knows we don’t have many of those.
We make cautious conversation, sticking to nonflammable topics. I ask her about the book I’d taken the recipe from, published roughly ten years ago. It was her second cookbook, her most successful one. The publisher had arranged a tour for her in seven cities.
“Seven cities!” I try to imagine her rushing from airport to auditorium, holding forth in front of gaggles of strangers. “Were you nervous?”
“Terrified,” she says. But a smile flits across her face.
And suddenly I’m sad because there are chunks of her life that I know nothing about. There was an entire decade after her divorce when we didn’t communicate. My doing, mostly. I can admit this now; Dr. Berger and I have been working on accepting responsibility.
Maybe it was good we weren’t in touch. In those days I wasn’t a nice person to be around. I hurt people who got close to me. And I hurt myself.
Once my mother asked, “Why were you so angry with me after the divorce? I wasn’t the one who wanted it, you know that.”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t want to talk about it. Plus, I wasn’t sure of the answer. Perhaps it was a displaced rage. Perhaps the person I was really angry with was myself.
Also this: The one time since the divorce when I’d reached out to her, the time I’d needed my mother most, she hadn’t been there for me. She’d already moved on with her life. Was it any wonder that, for years afterward, I’d done my best to avoid thinking about her?
Neel’s birth changed things some. A couple of weeks after he was born, I was nursing him. He wasn’t too good at latching on to my nipple yet. Every couple of minutes he’d lose it
and make urgent snuffing sounds as he nuzzled around for it. It was funny, really, so I don’t know why I found myself weeping. Maybe it was postpartum hormones. I held him to me and cried like I’d never cried before. It didn’t make up for the things that were snatched from me, or the ones that I’d thrown away, or the people who had shrugged me off like a threadbare sweater. It certainly didn’t make up for the baby I’d scraped out of myself. Nothing would do that. But when I stopped, something was different. When Gary, who had been wanting me to make up with my mother, found her address through the Internet, I allowed him to send her a photo of Neel. And when she called a few days after that, I didn’t refuse to speak to her. We talked about safe things: Neel and Gary, her books, my job, her arthritic knee, my sore nipples. Then and later, we stayed away from the things we really needed to say.
My mother’s napping. I hear snores from the bedroom, though should I mention this later, she’d totally deny it. I’m glad she’s getting a bit of rest. The cast tires her out but makes it hard for her to sleep at night. I’ve made her leave the door open and instructed her to call me when she has to use the toilet, but if I don’t watch out, she’ll try to maneuver her walker in there by herself.
I’m sleepy, too. I’m not used to eating such a heavy meal in the middle of the day. I long to stretch out on the sofa, wrapping myself in the red quilt that’s lying there. Then, with a stab, I recognize the quilt. My father had brought it back from a business trip he took to New England long ago. Ironic, how objects remain in your life long after people have exited.
I start to empty out the family room cabinets. My mother the arch-squirrel has quite a stash: old receipts, packets of Floralife flower food, barf bags courtesy of American Airlines, music tapes that are useless now that technology has moved on, dusty crime thrillers that I can’t picture her reading.
Before We Visit the Goddess Page 19
