If Today Be Sweet

by Thrity Umrigar

  So this is what happiness feels like, Tehmina thought. She had forgotten the feeling but recognized it immediately, like the face of a schoolmate that one has not seen in thirty years. “Will you stay with me tonight?” she asked even as she snuggled her chin into the V of his chest.

  “I told you. I’m here. Now go to sleep,” he said as he stroked her hair.

  And so, Tehmina slept.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  She was awakened from a deep slumber by the ringing of the phone in Susan and Sorab’s room next to hers. Her eyes flew open into the pitch dark and her heart began to race involuntarily—a phone call in the middle of the night usually spelled bad news, didn’t it? Immediately, she reached for Rustom’s warm body, but he was gone, scared away by the ringing of the phone, probably. The mattress felt cold, as if Rustom had left soon after she’d fallen asleep. Apprehension won over disappointment as she rolled over and turned on the light on her alarm clock. Four A.M. Who could be calling at four A.M.? Her thoughts flew immediately to Susan’s eighty-year-old grandmother, a frail but feisty old woman with a voice that sounded like a pickup truck going down a gravel road. Old Ruthanne had always been short-statured, but her osteoporosis had almost bent her double. But what she lacked in size, she made up in personality. As bent over as she was, those twinkling eyes never missed a thing and that gravelly voice never wavered even when Ruthanne told jokes so bawdy they made the listener gasp at the incongruity of the speaker being a sweet old lady with a soft Oklahoma accent. That voice made you ignore her misshapen body and see the spirit contained within it. Truth be told, she was Tehmina’s favorite member of Susan’s family and Tehmina’s heart was already beginning to ache at the thought of the old lady being dead. Now she wouldn’t get a chance to give Ruthanne the blue sweater that she had knitted for her for Christmas. Involuntarily, she began to say an Ashem Vahu to pray for Ruthanne’s soul.

  Tehmina could hear Susan’s muffled voice through the thin walls that separated her bedroom from theirs. She braced herself for the tears that would follow once Susan hung up. Susan adored Ruthanne, Tehmina knew. Often, she would ruefully admit that her grandmother was the only “colorful” member of her family, and then Tehmina never knew whether it was polite to agree or disagree. Certainly, Susan’s father, Fred, a tall, ruddy-cheeked man, was nothing like his flamboyant mother, although he had been nothing but gracious to her and Rustom. In fact, it was Fred who had insisted that Rustom learn to play golf during their first visit to the States. A divorcé who lived in Texas, Fred was also deeply appreciative of Tehmina’s cooking—though when he had first met them, he had boasted about being a staunch meat-and-potatoes man. “Wow, this sure beats Burger King, Tammy,” Fred had said to her the first time he ate one of her meals, which Tehmina didn’t think was much of a compliment. But Susan had beamed and marveled at the fact that her conservative, rigid father had even agreed to try something different from the burgers and pot roasts that he lived on.

  Now Tehmina remembered the first time she had met Ruthanne. It was at Sorab and Susan’s wedding reception. Ruthanne noticed the proud look with which Tehmina caressed her son every time he walked past her. “That boy of yours reminds me of my late husband,” the old woman had said, sidling up to Tehmina. “A good, decent, solid man, your son. Good thing that granddaughter of mine had the sense to marry him.”

  Tehmina turned to Ruthanne with grateful eyes. One of her misgivings about Sorab having married a white American was whether he would be accepted into his bride’s family. Although Tehmina was too young to remember too much about when the British ruled India, she had heard enough to believe that all white people considered themselves superior to nonwhites. And the thought of anybody considering her smart, handsome son less than perfect was enough to make her bristle. “Thank you,” she said to Ruthanne. “My Sorab is…I can assure you he will make a good husband to your Susan.”

  Ruthanne laughed a strangely irreverent laugh. “Aw, honey, I ain’t worried about that,” she said. “A boy that’s built the way he is…oh, he’s already making my Susan very, very happy. I can tell from that Cheshire-cat smile she has on her face all the time now. Naw, that son of yours knows how to keep a girl satisfied, that’s fo’ sure.”

  Tehmina blushed, scarcely believing her ears. Luckily, Sorab came to her rescue. Grabbing Ruthanne’s bent body from behind, he put his arms around the older woman. “Now, Grandma.” He grinned. “You better mind your manners around my mom, here. None of your naughty jokes, you hear? And if I catch you flirting with my dad once again, why, we’ll just have to cut off your beer.”

  Tehmina marveled at how effortlessly Sorab picked up the cadences of Ruthanne’s speech, of how easily he teased his in-law. Sorab doesn’t just belong to us anymore, she realized with a pang. He now belongs to this other family, also.

  “It ain’t the father I’m interested in,” Ruthanne was saying. “It’s the son.”

  And her laughter was so loud and wicked that even a slightly scandalized Tehmina felt compelled to join in.

  By the time there was a tap on her bedroom door, Tehmina had already finished saying twelve Ashem Vahus for Ruthanne’s recently departed soul. “Yes, dear?” she called back. “Come in. I’m awake.”

  A grim-faced Susan stood at the door, but what Tehmina noticed immediately and with some surprise was that Susan was not crying. “I’m so sorry, beta,” she began, but Susan cut her off with a quizzical look.

  “It’s for you, Mom,” she said. “It’s Persis auntie, calling from Bombay. Guess she forgot what time it was over here.” Tehmina could tell that Susan was fighting to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

  “Persis?” she said, getting out of bed. “Calling at this time? Has she lost her mind?” And then, stricken by another thought, “Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine,” Susan said tightly. “But it seems as though there’s a situation with your apartment. But—well, she’s waiting to tell you. You can take the call in our bedroom. Save you a trip downstairs.” Now Tehmina could hear the sleepiness in Susan’s voice.

  She hurried behind Susan murmuring her apologies. That Persis was an idiot. Why had she ever entrusted her apartment key to her? And what was so urgent that it couldn’t wait till morning? Entering the bedroom, she noticed immediately that the call had woken up Sorab also. To block out the overhead light, he had covered his head with a pillow, but still he was tossing and turning and muttering about inconsiderate callers. She made up her mind to get off the phone as quickly as she could.

  “Persis?” she said, trying to keep her voice low. “Su che? It’s four in the morning here, bhai.”

  “I’m so sorry, so sorry,” the voice at the other end sobbed. “I…what to do, Tehmina, I was so shocked that I just didn’t even think of the time difference and all that.”

  Now Tehmina felt a slight panic. “What is it?” she repeated. “Is…everybody all right?”

  “Everybody is fine, fine,” Persis said. “Except that shameless nephew of mine. I swear, when he wakes up, I’m going to skin him alive. Badmaash, betraying my trust like this.”

  Persis had called her in America at four in the morning to complain about her nephew? Was her neighbor mad? Was this early dementia, something that affected so many Parsi men and women?

  “Persis,” Tehmina said cautiously.

  “No, no, Tehmi, don’t be angry with me, please. Let me explain. See, my nephew Sharukh was visiting us from Pune. But what to do, Tehmi, my sister and her children were visiting the same week. And, Sharukh has had such troubles with the bottle, Tehmi, remember? Anyway, he promised me he is totally clean, swears he’s not had one drink since the last three months. And my small flat is so crowded with all the company. So, like a bevakoof, I tell him he can stay at your apartment. I know it was wrong, I should’ve asked your permission, Tehmi. But I’m thinking, it’s just for two nights, and after all, your apartment was empty and only two floors below us. That way, the whole family can be together, you know?�
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  Out of the corner of her eye, Tehmina could see Sorab rolling in bed, trying to find a comfortable position. He was muttering something about a hangover and a bad headache. “Persis,” she whispered into the phone. “If you’re calling about this, I don’t have a problem with—”

  Persis sounded even more distraught. “No, no, you don’t understand. That ungrateful nephew of mine, he—oh my God, Tehmi, I am so ashamed—he stole your TV and your stereo. Must’ve done it in the middle of the night. Loaded it up in his car and sold it. Turns out he’s still hitting the bottle. I went down this afternoon to let the servant in as usual, and you can imagine my shock. Immediately I noticed that something was not right. And like a roadside ruffian, there’s Sharukh, passed out on the bed. I tell you, Tehmi, I shook him so hard, he would’ve woken up even if he was as dead as the Dead Sea. Confessed everything to me before falling asleep again. But he scared poor Hansu so that she refused to stay alone in the house with him there. So I had to let her go without cleaning your apartment today. Though of course, with these servants you never know—probably just did some acting-facting, to get out of having to work. As if my Sharukh could’ve done anything to her. Snoring loud as a freight train, he was.”

  Tehmina felt her head spinning. If only Persis would stop talking for a moment. This would teach her to entrust her apartment to someone as flighty as Persis. “So, what else is missing?” she asked, trying to focus Persis’s attention on the theft.

  Persis wailed so loudly Tehmina was afraid Sorab would hear it. “Oh, God, Tehmi, that’s the whole problem. I don’t know. I haven’t even looked through the whole apartment yet. And that besharam nephew of mine is still sleeping, so I can’t even ask him. Forgive me, Tehmi. I am so ashamed. My sister said we should call the police, but Sharukh is my dead brother’s only child. How to call the police on him, Tehmi?”

  Despite her irritation, Tehmina felt her heart soften. “Of course you can’t call the police on your own flesh and blood,” she said, and heard Persis’s sigh of relief. “The stereo and TV were both old anyway. And there’s nothing to forgive. I’m grateful to you for keeping an eye on the apartment for me and making sure it gets dusted and cleaned every day.” She thought for a moment. “Listen, Persis. You still have Sorab’s e-mail address, yes? Good. Tell you what. After you find out whatall Sharukh sto—that is, whatall is missing—just send me an e-mail. That way, you don’t waste your money on another phone call. And now get some rest. Put all this out of your mind. Just—please—just make sure you take the key back from Sharukh.”

  As she hung up she wondered: What if the boy had made a spare key to her apartment? Should she write to Persis and have her change the lock to the flat? Lost in her thoughts, she turned absentmindedly toward her son. “Sorab,” she said, “looks like Persis’s nephew has stolen a few items from my flat. Do you think I need to change my front-door lock?”

  Sorab let out a cry. Tossing off the pillow covering his head with a violent shake, pulling off the bedcovers, he sat up, a mad look on his sleepy face. “I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you change the locks or not,” he hissed, his voice shaking with outrage and anger. “I’m tired of having to blow my nose each time someone sneezes in Bombay.”

  “I’m so sorry, beta,” a startled Tehmina said, but Sorab went on as if he’d not heard her. “It’s friggin’ four in the morning. I have to be up in less than two hours. Every day I go to work like a fucking zombie. Is that woman crazy, to call in the middle of the night? I tell you, Mamma, I don’t know how much more of this I can—”

  “Sorab.” It was Susan, and Tehmina heard the sharpness in her voice. “Shut up. Don’t say anything you’re going to regret in the morning.”

  The room fell silent. Sorab blinked rapidly several times and looked down at his hands, as if he was trying to recognize the man he had become. Susan was staring at her husband as if seeing him for the first time. And Tehmina, Tehmina stared at the floor, waiting for it to open up and swallow her whole. Sorab had never before spoken to her in this way. More than his words, it was his tone, the bitterness in his voice, that made her realize how much frustration her son had been bottling up. The tears welling in her eyes were not of self-pity but of remorse and self-recrimination and sympathy. Her heart bled for her son. For she had heard it as clearly as if he’d said it—Sorab was tired of living this half-life, living in the state of suspension that her indecisiveness was forcing upon them all. To him, the theft in Bombay was simply a symptom, a reminder of the fact that happenings in a city, in an apartment eight thousand miles away, could still cast a shadow over their lives here. And truth be told, hadn’t her first instinct upon hearing Persis’s news been to want to rush back to her apartment, to wash the sheets upon which the drunken Sharukh had lain, to take an inventory of her clothes, to make sure that the boy was too stupid to know the value of the Hussein that hung in the living room? Perhaps Sorab had read her treacherous thoughts—had known that at the slightest mention of the Bombay apartment, his mother had been willing to abandon him and his family and rush back to safeguard the apartment that Sorab, to Tehmina’s eternal incomprehension, had left behind so utterly.

  Sorab made a choking sound that awoke Tehmina from her reverie. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so—”

  “No.” Susan’s voice rang out. “You have nothing to apologize for, Mom. It’s this one here”—and she nudged Sorab hard on his back—“who needs to apologize.”

  Tehmina appreciated what Susan was trying to do, but she wished she wouldn’t embarrass Sorab further. She knew her son well enough to know that he was already eaten up by remorse. And sure enough, Sorab looked at her with glistening eyes. “I don’t even know what I’m saying, Mamma,” he mumbled, looking exactly the way he had when he was seven. “I’m just so tired that the lack of sleep is making me nuts. But I’m truly sorry that I—”

  “Please.” Tehmina took a few steps toward Sorab and stroked his hair. “Please, my darling. I know how hard you work. You need your sleep. Nothing to apologize for. I should’ve known better than to trust that crazy Persis with the apartment.”

  “Well,” Susan began, and Tehmina could see that she was readying for an argument, wanting to assure Tehmina that she hadn’t done anything wrong. But as much as she appreciated Susan coming to her defense, she knew she didn’t need defending against her own son.

  “We all need to go back to bed,” she interrupted, walking toward her own room. At the doorway, she glanced back. “I love you both. Good night,” she said with a smile, hoping that Sorab would see that there was nothing to forgive.

  She headed for the bathroom. May as well use the bathroom while everybody was still up. This winter cold made her pee so often, it was a running joke in the family. Sorab had taken to calling her B.B. for baby bladder.

  Back in her room she climbed into bed. She could hear the children murmuring to each other in the other room and she wished she could urge Susan to stop chastising Sorab and let the poor boy go back to sleep. But in the solitude of her room, her instinctive resolution to forgive her son for his harsh words, to ignore the shocked hurt he had caused her, receded a bit. In its place, she felt a certain coldness, an icy feeling of disappointment and grief. Sorab had never spoken to her in this tone before. It was a measure of how much pressure he was under, how many burdens she had put on her son’s head. And now a flood of emotions assailed her—guilt at adding to Sorab’s problems, sadness at his impatient words that now stung at her like mosquitoes, shock at having her house violated by a drunken thief, revulsion at Sharukh dirtifying the clean sheets on her bed.

  Her bed. The bed that she had shared with Rustom for most of their marriage. Closing her eyes, Tehmina remembered the beautiful, dark polish of the teakwood, the intricate carvings on the headboard. They had had so little money in the early years of their marriage when Rustom had made this extravagant purchase. How she had yelled at him then. And he had stood, grinning at her impudently, waiting for a break in t
he tongue-lashing she was giving him, to put his arms around her. “It’s fine, it’s okay, my darling,” he had murmured. “The business is beginning to pick up, God willing. And I want the bed where all my children are going to be born to be grand as a king’s throne.”

  “But, Rustom,” she protested, worried about the money they had already borrowed from his parents.

  “But, fut, nothing,” he said firmly, holding his finger to her mouth. “Now come on, woman. Don’t you want to try out this wonderful bed I’ve spent my hard-earned money on?”

  Tehmina smiled at the memory, but her smile was tinged with something bitter. Rustom had always declared that he wanted at least five children. He himself had been an only child and he had sworn that he would never settle for just one child, that it was an unfair thing for parents to do, that children needed siblings. She, too, had been happy to oblige. But fate had decreed otherwise. What was that Omar Khayyám line? She thought for a moment and then it unfolded in her head. But instead of hearing it in her own voice, she heard it in Rustom’s.

  Love! Could thou and I with Fate conspire

  To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire!

  Would not we shatter it to bits—and then

  Re-mold it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!

  She still didn’t know what had gone wrong, why Rustom and she had been unable to have more children after Sorab was born. Even that birth had been a miracle, coming three years into their marriage. Every doctor they went to said there was nothing wrong with either one of them. For a while, Rustom’s mother, Bikhumai, made Tehmina swallow a series of foul-tasting tonics and powders. Bikhumai took their inability to conceive more children as a personal insult, as a sign of God’s displeasure with her. For a year, the woman gave up eating chocolate, as an offering to appease Ahura Mazda. Then she swore off ice cream, which everyone knew that she loved. But when she announced that she was renouncing bread until God saw fit to bless her son with another child, Rustom put his foot down. “All this nonsensical faras must stop immediately, Mamma,” he roared one day when they were having Sunday dinner at his parents’ home. “Bas, if we are meant to have more children, we will. In the meantime, just enjoy your grandson. What is it, is my Sorab not enough for you that you keep doing all this nataak-nakhra?”