East Into Upper East

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  On her return to New York, Minnie told everyone about Ma; and the way she spoke of her, her friends too longed to come within Ma’s aura. Minnie tried to describe this aura, but words failed her except for common ones like fantastic, and out of this world. That was exactly what being with Ma was, Minnie insisted: like not being in this world at all but in a completely other, different one. At that, Tammy could not repress a cry: for it was exactly what she herself was always wishing for, to get out of this world into a completely other one. Minnie described how, when Ma had laid her hands on Minnie’s head, the effect had lingered for days, for weeks, and it was still there, she said. So then all the friends agreed that Ma must be brought to New York, and it did not take them long to collect her fare and other expenses; she would of course be staying with Minnie, who had first claim on her. Ma herself was surprisingly compliant with all their plans for her, which she said came from above.

  Minnie had described her as a homely, comfortable, housewifely figure, but when she arrived, they were all surprised by the way she glittered. It was as if she had done herself up the way a star would, when on tour for a series of gala appearances. She had repossessed herself of all the gold jewelry—the bangles, the bracelets, the earrings, the hair ornaments—that she had had to lay aside as a widow; her cotton saris were replaced by effulgent silks with huge borders of gold thread; no traces of grandmotherly grey remained in her hair, which shone black as night except for the parting adorned with henna. Her manner was effusive, brimming over with gratitude for all their kindness to her. She called them her children, her little ones; she read wonders in their palms; she told them all the old stories, about Krishna teasing the milkmaids and Vishnu churning the ocean. She also laid her hands on their heads, the way Minnie had described—but though they waited expectantly, nothing happened. The fact was, Ma fell flat; she was a failure; by common consent, Ma was a bore.

  Meanwhile, Minnie was stuck with her. She had installed her in the master bedroom, which had once been her own marital chamber (“Don’t remind me,” said Minnie). Minnie herself slept in the second bedroom, but this turned out to be too close to Ma, who got up at dawn and sang very loudly, giving Minnie a headache that lasted the entire day. Ma was moved into another, smaller bedroom, and from there farther away to the maid’s room at the back of the kitchen, but still Minnie’s headaches continued. For it wasn’t only Ma’s song that pervaded the place, it was her smell too—“All that scent she uses,” Minnie complained to Tammy, “and twice a week she has an oil bath, smearing herself from head to foot in some ghastly stuff that makes me want to puke—” “Sh,” warned Tammy, for at that moment Ma entered, radiantly bearing a plate of very greasy fritters she had just fried for them. She thrust her offering at them, smiling with pleasure at the pleasure she was giving them. But Minnie drew back—“No thank you,” she said. Ma’s smile gave way to an expression of such disappointment that Tammy felt she had to take one of the oil-drenched balls and, with Ma’s eyes fixed on her expectantly, to chew right through to the slice of raw onion inside and then to swallow that as best she could.

  The situation became impossible for Minnie: she said Ma would have to be sent home. But Ma wasn’t ready to go home. She felt she was still needed here, also that she hadn’t yet had her fill of shopping and nice restaurants and all the lights coming on in the theater district and the advertisements flashing and the many different cable channels and flavors of ice cream. Inside the tiny room that was now her lot, she kept as quiet as she could, even muting her morning hymn so as not to irritate Minnie. She never complained that no one gave any more dinner parties for her, nor that Minnie’s friends had ceased to call on her. When they came to visit Minnie, she was as sweet with them as before, pressing the heads of those that would let her and maybe failing to notice that most of them now shrank away. Tammy was the only one who managed not to yawn when she told the beautiful old stories; and Tammy became her favorite—she recognized very special qualities in her, so that day by day it became clearer to her that her mission in New York lay with Tammy. Ma was grateful to Minnie for bringing her here, and for her hospitality and all her goodness. But Minnie was on a different path where she was unable to benefit from the help that Ma had come to give; and finally one day Ma had to break the news to Minnie that she could no longer stay with her but was needed at Tammy’s.

  Tammy’s apartment on the West side was as large as Minnie’s on the East side, but nowhere near as pristine. Minnie had hired an interior decorator for hers, also contributing some wonderful ideas of her own; but the rolls of wallpaper specially made for her in Paris had only just arrived when her marriage ended and she began to spend more time traveling around than living in the apartment. Tammy had inherited hers from her mother, and she left it the way she had always known it: sofas and ottomans upholstered in unraveling tapestry, a tattered wall-hanging of silk thread, the marble busts of early Presidents, the Venetian mirror with black spots on it, the collection of dead clocks handed down by a great-grandfather who had been an envoy to Russia. From time to time Tammy bought a plant to cheer things up, but it always died, and even the hardy desert ones drooped and collected dust in their fleshy wrinkles. There was only one other person living there, and that was Ross—“Is he your uncle?” Ma asked Tammy, who said no but didn’t know how to explain him.

  Ma asked a hundred questions about Ross: who is he? Why is he living here? Doesn’t he have a wife? Children? What is his income? Why is he called Ross—is it his own or his father’s name? The only one Tammy could answer was the last; she knew Ross was a corruption of something else: Rosenthal? Rosenbaum? He was a refugee of a vintage so outdated—so old hat—that no one wanted to hear another word about their stories of escape or survival. “Ross” was what Grace, Tammy’s mother, had called him; sometimes she said “Rosie,” not affectionately but to tease him. As far as Tammy was concerned, he had arrived from nowhere: one year, when she had come home from school for the summer vacation, he was there. “I found him in the park,” was all Grace said by way of explanation. It may have been true; Ross spent a lot of his time, even now, sitting in the park. “How do you like my new beau?” was something else Grace said about him, but this was hard to believe. Grace had been tall, aristocratic, haughty; a ruin of great beauty. Ross was tiny and bald and spoke with an accent that was a compound of languages spoken in European countries with ever-fluctuating borders.

  Grace’s brother in Philadelphia—this was when they were still on speaking terms—used to warn her that Ross was a dangerous character out to bilk her of her fortune. It was true that Grace had a fortune, but it was safely buried in trust funds from where she was not inclined to dig it out for anyone. Ross had difficulty getting even his cigarette money out of her, and it amused her to make him beg for it—sometimes literally, holding it high above his head so that, looking up pleadingly, he resembled a pet dog standing on its hind legs for some promised morsel. But she must have been fond of him, for she let him stay with her for over six years—the last six years of her life, when she had quarreled with everyone else. They were each other’s only companions, except when Tammy came for vacations; and in the last years, when Tammy started traveling, Ross and Grace were mostly alone, entombed together in the vast apartment in the vast old Gothic building. Tammy knew that he took care of her mother as far as anyone could; Grace had almost stopped eating, all the cigarettes she smoked and the vodka she drank must have killed her appetite. Of course he couldn’t make her happy or contented—all he could do was hide her hoard of pills, though not successfully, for in the end she managed to get hold of enough to kill herself with an overdose.

  When Tammy told her some of these facts, Ma put her hand to her cheek and cried, “Oh! Oh! Oh!” She almost blamed herself for not coming earlier to save Tammy’s mother. But she now understood that the purpose of her mission (we move in one direction, she explained, and then we are moved in another) was to do whatever she could for Tammy. While engaged on this work, Ma s
ettled in very nicely. That was one beauty of her character, that whatever her circumstances, she accepted them gladly. Never for a moment had she murmured when demoted to Minnie’s maid’s room; and she installed herself as equably into the dark, dusty, cavernous bedroom allotted to her in Tammy’s apartment. She made it her own, spreading her ambience over the furniture—as roomy and gloomy as coffins—that had come down from Tammy’s maternal ancestresses. Soon there were all the smells of incense and oil that Minnie had objected to; also little statues of gods that she tended and sang to with jubilant hymns; and the jingle of her bangles, and the silks of vibrant orange and purple in which she swished around the house.

  Ma also loved roaming the streets. She was completely uninhibited by the city, which she treated as her neighborhood bazaar. If she saw something of interest on the opposite side of the street—it might only be a colorful display of fruits—she would not hesitate to cross against the lights, holding up her hand to stem the torrent of traffic. She was always intrigued by what people were selling out of cardboard boxes on the sidewalks, and after some decent haggling, she came away with their, often stolen, goods. She brought home trinkets for Tammy—not that Tammy didn’t have everything in the world, but as a gift from Ma’s own hands, and what did it matter that this was paid for out of Tammy’s money (they had made a tactful arrangement about Ma’s expenses). She also came home with some purchase she had made for Ross—her first present to him was a T-shirt with “You’re My Best Grandpa” printed on it.

  It was of course a joke. He never wore T-shirts, he was always in jacket and necktie, which would have looked natty if they had not been frayed. “Put it on,” urged Ma, snapping her fingers at him as if to give him rhythm, “you must be a little bit with-it.” But she grew serious when he pointed out that he was nobody’s grandpa. She said that, on the contrary, he was everyone’s—that he and she had both reached a stage where they were only there to help others along their paths. She said she knew of what great service he had been to Tammy and waved aside his disclaimer that, in view of the fact that he had no money at all, it was the other way around. As if that mattered a hoot, exclaimed Ma. He admired her attitude of complete nonchalance about who paid the bills, having never really got used to being unable to pay any himself.

  It was not difficult for the three of them—Tammy, Ma, and Ross—to live together because they never got in one another’s way. Tammy was taking a variety of courses in psychology and religious philosophy; Ross followed his own routine of reading the papers in the park, or in the coffee-shop where he ate all his meals; Ma went out on her excursions, cooked spicy little messes for herself, had long afternoon naps, and watched TV. She felt fulfilled in the knowledge that she was of use to Tammy. She encouraged Tammy in her attendance of classes and was disappointed if she dropped one, as she often did. When Tammy expressed disappointment with what she was being taught, Ma said that it was always good to learn—she had great respect for book learning, possessing very little of it herself. But Tammy longed for something quite different. She couldn’t say in words what that was, but her face took on an expression of yearning. Tammy had a very pure face, with clear eyes and clear skin; her head was small and reared up from a long neck, so that she seemed always to be straining upward, in the direction of something beyond her reach.

  One day Ross was sitting in the park reading the afternoon paper; he had already read the morning one. It wasn’t really a park but a triangle of grass set at the intersection of four busy crossroads; here he was in the middle of the city’s traffic without being a part of it. Looking up for a moment from his paper, he saw a strange sight: this was Ma escaping from a car that was about to run her down. She was going as fast as she could, making for the safety of the little park. But she was laughing as if it were a game, one hand hitching up her orange sari, so that her brand-new golden shoes were visible; she clutched a handbag under one arm, a red umbrella under the other. Still laughing, she made it to the park where she stood and shook her fist playfully at the driver of the erring car. She sank onto the nearest bench, which happened to be the one occupied by Ross. “Did you see that? The rascal,” she said, as though about a favorite grandson. She was tugging at her sari, which had come partly undone in her flight, and she adjusted something at the front and tied a string at the side, pulling her garment together. “He saw me perfectly well but he said let me have a game with this old madam. But I won—you saw me win? Oh, it’s you,” for she had thought she was addressing a stranger.

  “He had the light.”

  “What light? He could wait for a minute, my goodness, what is there? And for a person my age.”

  “You run pretty fast for a person your age.”

  Having fixed her sari, she began on her hair, sticking a lot of hairpins into her mouth, which however did not inhibit her from talking. He had noticed her habit of commenting on whatever happened to float into her mind—in this case, the little park in which they sat: “How refreshing,” she said, “a small paradise of peace in all this hubbub.” It did not seem to bother her that the grass was worn away in big patches, and was anyway not very green, or that several benches were broken and all of them unpainted; besides herself and Ross, the only occupants at the moment were two bundled figures, one stretched out, one hunched up, both asleep.

  She showed him her red umbrella: “I bought it just now from a man who let me have it very cheap. When it rains, at once the price shoots up, so I said better buy now, why waste? Oh shame!” she cried, for having opened the umbrella to admire it, she found it torn at the center spoke. “Cheating an old lady! And such a nice boy from Ghana with a big big smile—wait till tomorrow, he’ll hear from me so he’ll forget to smile.”

  “Tomorrow he’ll be back in Ghana. And there are plenty of umbrellas in the house, since you don’t believe in waste.”

  “I love this pretty color.” Probably she was thinking, as he was, of the huge old umbrellas in the brass stand at the entrance door, some with animal heads, none of them colorful or ever used, the property of people who had died. This silent thought led her on to others that were spoken: “Did you see the pretty moonstone ring I bought for Tammy? Of course it was not costly, but I wanted only to give her something in return, as you do. You’ve given her so much.”

  “That’s not the general opinion,” said Ross.

  “Oh, she’s told me how you loved her mother and cared for that poor soul! And I’ve seen with my own eyes how you love Tammy, sitting up for her every night, waiting for her to come in. No need to be shy,” she interpreted the expression on his face.

  “How would you know I wait up for her? You’re always fast asleep and snoring.”

  She laughed: “Yes, I can sleep in peace because I know you’re awake to welcome the child when she comes home. That’s what makes it home for her—that you’re there. Again you’re shy. You should be proud and glad.”

  Now it was his turn to laugh: proud and glad! Never had such scintillating words descended on him.

  But it was true that, however late it was, he was always awake when Tammy came home. This was due both to insomnia and habit: or perhaps the insomnia had become a habit from the time he was always starting up, listening into the night for what Grace might be doing. He had not trusted her for a second. And what a relief it had been when Tammy was there in her vacations to ask, “Is she asleep? Is she all right?” That was all he wanted, someone to care with him, for a moment. Not that he meant to burden Tammy or have her carry a share of his burden of her mother—on the contrary, it was his ambition to keep her as she was, young and free.

  Even now, four years after her mother’s death, it was what he wanted for Tammy. That was why he asked: “How long is she staying?”

  “Who?” Tammy asked. “Ma?”

  He grimaced at that name: he didn’t call her that—he didn’t call her anything, and the first time he had heard Tammy say “Ma,” he had asked “Whose Ma?” with the same face as now. “Has she settled down for goo
d, or what?”

  “She likes it here. Well, it’s all right, she’s not disturbing us—unless you mind all the smells, her oil and so forth?”

  “They’re potent, although one could get used to them, if one had to. But does one have to?”

  “She’s got nowhere else to go, that’s the thing. And we brought her here. It’s not her fault it didn’t work out. And she still thinks we need her. Ma is very simple, really. But of course if you want her to leave, Ross, then she’ll have to.”

  Ross had been living in the apartment for ten years. When he first came, Tammy was thirteen and at boarding school, since no one knew what else to do with her. After Grace died, she left everything to Tammy and nothing at all to Ross—it had been one of her taunts to Ross when she was alive: “He’s hanging around because of my will, but just wait and see,” which had made Tammy feel ashamed. She had felt generally ashamed about the way Grace had treated Ross; and when she didn’t leave him anything, Tammy was relieved to be able to make some amends.

  The day after she bought the red umbrella, Ma showed up again in the little park, with a green one. She waved it at Ross from the middle of the street—this time the traffic stopped for her—and when she joined him, she said, “See, I made him change it. He was a good boy, after all.” She sat down and chattered away, though he didn’t look up from his paper and rattled it ostentatiously whenever he turned a page. That didn’t make any difference to her, she continued to share her thoughts with him. Suddenly she poked him with her green umbrella: “How is it you’re not married and no children?” she repeated the question she had been asking since the first day she met him.