The Secrets Between Us

by Thrity Umrigar

  “Stop drawing attention,” Rajesh whispers. “Go give the man what he wants.”

  “You come with me,” she says, taking his hand and dragging him across the room.

  But Rajesh gets pulled to the back of the line by Verma’s entourage, so that the other inspectors get to witness the spectacle of the chief insisting that Parvati go ahead of him, then rubbing her shoulders as she desultorily fills her plate. He puts an extra pakora on her plate, then familiarly takes a bite out of it before putting it back. The first time he lightly touches her bare waist, she ignores him, but the second time, she turns around and fixes him a look. He smiles, but his eyes are hollow, contemptuous, and she feels a stab of fear. This is a man who enjoys humiliating others, but why he has targeted her, she does not know. “Come bhabhiji,” he says to her in that same, humble voice, and the fact that he calls her sister-in-law grates on her nerves. “Come sit at our table. Your husband will join us in a few moments.” And she has no choice but to follow.

  “How is Principal?” he whispers to her as he makes a show of pulling out a chair for her. “You must be missing the action of the old days, no?”

  Parvati flushes, unsure of how to respond. She looks around for Rajesh, but he is far away, in the company of Verma’s men, who have clearly been given orders to detain him.

  “Arre, sister, why this false modesty? We both know what you are, right?”

  “I am nothing that you are not.”

  The handsome face darkens. “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that I look around this room and I am not seeing a single saint.” She fixes her eyes on him. “All I see is a roomful of fallen men.”

  Verma’s nostrils flare with anger and his hand curls around the fork. Parvati closes her eyes, bracing herself for violence. Instead, he bursts into laughter. “This is not a woman,” he says loudly, to no one in particular. “This is a firecracker. A fatakra. Pfooom.” He lowers his voice again. “You can thank God for this lump of shit growing under your face, sweetheart. Otherwise, I would’ve made you forget your husband’s name tonight.”

  “In which case, I pray to God to give me two more of these,” she says.

  A muscle twitches in his jaw as he absorbs the insult. He stares at her for a long moment, until his eyes lose their smolder and go flat. He turns around abruptly, yells, “Ae. Rajesh. Come look after your bride.” Then he strides to the bar, where someone immediately hands him a Scotch. And Parvati feels like a fish that has been yanked out of the water and then released again.

  During the trip home, she tries to reason with herself that Rajesh is not responsible for her humiliation. She has forgiven her husband for his timid passivity by the time they reach their apartment, but she has been so absorbed in her own thoughts that she has not noticed that Rajesh is furious. At her. And when she realizes this, all her good intentions go out the window. “You left me alone with that vile man,” she cries. “Bas, a few glasses of free liquor and you would’ve . . .”

  “Woman. I’m trying to watch TV. Can’t you see? Shut your mouth.”

  “You talk to me like this? With such disrespect, you dare to . . . ?”

  He rises heavily from the sofa, grunts his way toward her. “You are a common whore, Parvati. I knows it, you knows it, everybody at the party knew it. They were all laughing at me. My mother always used to say, why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free? Tonight, the whole world laughed at the stupid man who bought the used cow.”

  She stares at him, her lower lip quivering, aware of the vileness that they have let into their little flat, like a smell that has followed them in. “If this is what you believe . . .”

  “What I believe?” he bellows. “Tell the truth. Have you fucked every single man who was at that party? How did you even know that dog Verma? I offer you respectability, a decent life, but there you were, all flirty-flirty with him.” He spits. “Today I learn my lesson—once a whore, always a whore.”

  She takes a step forward to slap his face, but he grabs her blouse near its neckline, rips it down, and then shoves her back. She stumbles and falls onto the sofa and he picks her up roughly by her arm, then punches her. Her nose bleeds immediately, but he keeps holding her, so that she can feel his stale, drunken breath hot on her face. “From this day on, you will know your place. Wife.” He lets go of her arm, and she drops onto the couch.

  She has just received a death sentence, but somehow the doctor’s words have not destroyed her the way Rajesh’s words had on that day. Parvati shakes her head in amazement as she walks. How is this possible? An ancient memory that stings more than a fresh wound from an hour ago? Rajesh has been dead for years, and still she can feel his hand as he’d clawed at her blouse and ripped it. The beating itself, the first of many, had long ago lost its power, had tumbled into a spin cycle of violence. But his words, for which he had apologized the next day, had lingered precisely because they were true. Her husband had indeed made an error in marrying her, and the stench of his regret had infiltrated the rest of their life together.

  Two days after the party, he had approached her. “No need for dinner tonight. I am taking the evening train to Pune.”

  “Pune. What for?” she had said without thinking.

  His eyes glittered with malice. “What for? To see my only son. In case you’ve forgotten, I am not childless, like you are.”

  She pretended to focus on the stainless-steel pot she was scrubbing so that he wouldn’t see the tears that sprang to her eyes. Her four aborted children sat like heavy stones within her, making their presence known at unlikely times. “I thought Rahul was . . . angry with you?” she ventured at last.

  He sighed heavily. “That’s why only I’m going. To ask his forgiveness.”

  She stiffened. “For what?” she asked, her back to him. “For marrying me?” She waited, half hoping that he would deny this, that he would come up to her from behind and place his hands on her shoulders and kiss her nape as he used to. But Rajesh was silent. And just when the silence felt unbearable, he said, “For desecrating the memory of his mother.”

  She had screamed, grabbed a plate, spun around, and thrown it toward him. But he deftly moved out of its way as it hit the wall and fell to the floor without shattering. He was upon her in two quick strides, and before she could move, he slapped her. “You will not act like a lowlife woman in this house,” he said through gritted teeth. “You will not. If you do, I will grab you by the ear and drop you off at Principal’s door.”

  “That will be fine,” she spat back. “I was treated with more respect there than here.”

  He laughed. “More respect? You will starve to death within a week. Let’s see how many men want to touch a woman with a coconut growing under her face. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror?”

  She had fallen quiet, knowing he was right. Besides, the only thing she missed about the Old Place was the hustle-bustle. Everything else—the arrival of the new young girls, their dazed expressions after the first time they had been let out to a client, the bruises, and broken teeth that were becoming increasingly common as porn videos from abroad flooded the market and more clients wanted to enact what they saw there, the endless visits to the VD clinics, the addiction to drugs that almost all the girls succumbed to—she despised and was afraid of returning to.

  He was gone for three days. When he returned, he came armed with smiles and sweetmeats. From this, she inferred that the visit had gone well, that Rahul had accepted his apology. She told herself that she was glad, happy for him. She was not the kind of woman who wanted to stand between her husband and his son. It was only right that there be a reconciliation. She would not allow herself to think what Rajesh had to say in order to appease Rahul.

  And it was just as well that she hadn’t known what he had to do in order to win his son back. It wasn’t until later, much later, when it was far too late, that she’d find out the real terms of their reunion.

  Parvati stops walking. The world around her has gon
e white as she stares unseeingly at the city. She has no idea where she is or where she is trying to go. She fights a rising panic, trying to tamp it down, to get her brain to right itself so she can focus, get a sense of where she is. Or who she is. She looks down at her arms, brown twigs, and suddenly she has no idea to whom those arms belong. Standing there in the middle of the street, a blur of people walking past her, she is acutely aware of her physical body, feels the soles of her feet press against the leather sandals, can hear the rush of her blood, the sun on her skin. But what is her name? Who does this body belong to? The knowledge hovers just beyond her reach, like a speck of dust floating in the air that she can see out of the corner of her eye. Of its own volition, her hand rises and her fingers and thumb come together like tweezers, as she tries to grab this thing that hovers in the air, just beyond her reach.

  But this is not a city for a lone woman to stand still in the middle of a churning sea of people. A fast-moving teenager runs into her from behind, knocking hard against her shoulder. Parvati staggers forward, and in that motion, the confusion ebbs and her name comes to her, as fast as a coin dropped into a slot machine. Parvati. This thin brown body belongs to her, Parvati. And she has just left the government hospital where the doctor has given her the best news and the worst news she has received in a while.

  She gives her head a good shake and begins to walk toward the market.

  Bhima stops midconversation with an old Parsi customer and turns to her as soon as she sees Parvati. “Kya hua? What did doctor sahib say?”

  “Nothing. Sab theek hai.” Everything is fine.

  She can see that Bhima is not convinced. But before she can question her further, the old man speaks up. “Oi, bai. Did you hear me? Do you accept my offer or not?”

  “Go. Take it,” Bhima waves in a distracted manner. “But next time I charging you full price.”

  “Next time is next time,” the man says with a grin. “My wifey always says, ‘Tomorrow never comes.’”

  They wait until the man shuffles away with his pineapple, and then Bhima turns toward Parvati. “Tell me the truth. What did he say?”

  “Arre, do you have wax in your ears or what? I told you, na? Everything is fine.”

  “I should’ve gone with you . . .”

  “Why? So that we go bankrupt spending our days in the hospital instead of the market?”

  “You come for dinner tonight . . .”

  “Sister. You will have to excuse me for tonight. I am tired from all this walking. Tonight, I will go home directly from here and get some rest.”

  Bhima gives her a long, assessing look before turning away. “Your wish,” she says. “But tomorrow you must come. Exams start in a month and Maya is going to be very busy, soon.”

  30

  She misses Maya. Their little hut feels empty without the girl’s presence. Bhima suppresses the unwelcome thought that rises in her mind—this is how it will be permanently, in a few years, after she finds a suitable boy for Maya and marries her off. Then, it will be only her in this hovel, and the evenings will be long and solitary.

  Still, it is only two more days. Maya will take the last of her final exams on Friday and will return home from Chitra baby’s on that day. What will it be like for the girl to return to this one-room place after having spent two weeks in their clean, sunlit apartment? Bhima wonders how she will ever repay Sunitabai and Chitra for suggesting that Maya move in with them while she studies for her exams. She would gladly offer to work without wages for a few months, but she knows they will not agree.

  Parvati had looked at her curiously when she’d told her about the arrangement. “You’re not afraid?” she’d said.

  “Afraid of what?”

  “That they’ll try some of their tricks on her? She’s a nice, good-looking girl, your granddaughter.”

  Bhima had flushed. “My Maya’s not like that,” she’d said. “And Chitra baby would never do anything . . .”

  “Good,” Parvati had said, turning away. “Good you have such faith in them. But you yourself have said a thousand times that you trust nobody.”

  Bhima had bitten down on the angry response that sprang to her lips: I did. I used to. Until I got to know you. It is you who taught me something, you bitter, old woman. That a life without trust is not worth living.

  Instead, she said, “I trust them. They are good people. And they have helped me and asked for nothing in return.”

  “Good,” Parvati said again. And this time, Bhima heard the unmistakable note of envy in her voice.

  She sees Maya daily, of course. The girl is there when she gets to the apartment each afternoon, her nose buried in a book. The women have given her one of the two bedrooms, and Bhima’s heart twists with pleasure as she sweeps around the books that are piled onto the floor and on the small writing desk. Chitra has explained to her that just passing in first class will not be enough; Maya has to be in the top of her class to gain entry into law college. “The competition is cutthroat,” Chitra said, and Bhima had smiled. “Like at the vegetable market.” But Chitra had shaken her head. “A lot, lot tougher than that,” she’d said, which made no sense because Bhima knew how hard she had to work to compete against the other vendors.

  Every evening, they eat the dinner Bhima prepares, the four of them at the dining table together. The first few times Bhima had felt awkward, as if she were sitting inside an airplane, but Maya had told her with her eyes how embarrassed she would be if her grandmother squatted on the floor while they ate. Now, she understands the purpose of the chairs, how it helps to eat in this manner instead of crouching on the floor like an animal. Maya, she notices, eats with a spoon instead of her hands, and the sight of this makes Bhima happy, but in a sad way.

  “I like this,” Chitra had said earlier today in the middle of dinner. “It feels like family.”

  Bhima had immediately looked at Sunitabai, expecting to see the usual bemusement on her face, but the other woman had merely nodded. “It does.” Sunita had smiled. “We are so lucky to have you cook for us, Bhima. There’s nothing like coming home to a delicious meal. Thank you.”

  “It is my honor, bai,” Bhima murmured, embarrassed by this unexpected compliment. Chitra baby she could dismiss; that silly girl was always effusive in her praise. But Sunitabai was more measured, which made a kind word from her worth even more.

  “How is Parvati mausi, Ma-ma?” Maya had asked, making Bhima flush with guilt. She has been unable to invite Parvati to their house while she eats her dinner here each night.

  “Who can say? Who knows what is going on inside that beehive of hers?”

  Maya sighed. “I worry about her.” She sighed again. “I miss her.”

  “No worry-forry. You just pay attention to your studies. You’ll see her soon enough.”

  “Bhima.” Sunita’s voice was amused. “If poor Maya studies any harder, her head will explode.”

  “Thanks, Su,” Maya said casually, and the sheer casualness of it, the way Maya spoke to her mistress as an equal, took Bhima’s breath away. “See, Ma-ma? You don’t need to tell me what to do.”

  They had all chuckled, and then Chitra said, “So what are we going to do on Friday when Maya gets done? To celebrate, I mean?”

  All of them had instinctively turned toward Sunita, who looked taken aback. “What? You want me to decide?”

  “We could go to the seaside,” Maya suggested tentatively.

  “I know. Let’s take everybody to the club,” Chitra said. “We can eat at the Chinese restaurant there.”

  Bhima tensed. “Radio Club?” she asked, knowing that Viraf and Dinaz were members.

  Chitra shook her head. “No. This is the Breach Candy club.”

  “It’s exclusive,” Sunita said in a teasing tone. “Meant only for foreign nationals like our friend here.”

  “Oh, shut up. You like using the pool well enough.”

  Bhima looked from one to the other. “You all go,” she said. “Take Maya if you like. But
please . . .” She falls silent, unable to express the terror she feels at the thought of visiting such a place.

  “Don’t be silly, Bhima,” Chitra said. “Of course we can’t celebrate without you there.” She let out a sudden howl. “Ow. What’d you kick me for?” She glared at Sunita.

  Sunita turned scarlet. “Pagal hai. Crackpot,” she said in an apologetic tone. She looked at Bhima. “It’s okay. I myself don’t feel very comfortable in that place. We will celebrate elsewhere.”

  Now, sitting on the mattress in her silent room, Bhima rolls her eyes. That Chitra baby. A grown woman’s body but a child’s heart. What adult woman doesn’t know that if someone kicks you under the table you’re not supposed to announce it to the world? As for inviting her to the club. What business does someone like her have going to a posh place with swimming pools and fancy restaurants? The chowkidar probably will not even let her pass through the front gate.

  Bhima sighs. She has not been alone like this in many a year. Tonight, she aches for all those family members she has lost. Does Gopal ever think about her? Miss her? And Amit, her sweet boy, quick as lightning, whose moods could go from thunderstorms to sunshine in an instant? He is a grown man now, a middle-aged man, but all she can remember is that boy in half pants running around the corridors of their old apartment building, or begging her to buy him a new cricket bat. She had loved Pooja, of course, her quiet, docile daughter, but Amit was her heartbeat, her son, whose education she had chosen over Pooja’s, the favored child who always got the last piece of halva, the extra helping of milk. Is this why she had been punished, for valuing her son more than her daughter? These days it is different, she knows, with all the government campaigns about the value of girls. But in those days . . . Every mother she knew had made similar calculations, favoring the boys over the girls. Why then was she singled out to lose not one, but both her children? And which death was worse? The death she had witnessed? Or the death that is simply an absence, a hole in her heart that she cannot reach but feels constantly?