The House of Hidden Mothers

by Meera Syal

  ‘This is my salon, back in London.’

  ‘Yours? You are manager?’

  ‘I own it, Mala. It’s all mine.’

  Mala looked at the picture and wanted to dive into it, take her place next to the smiling smart woman with the tiny yellow sun emblazoned on her coat pocket.

  ‘Surya.’ Mala pointed upwards, despite the fact that they were inside, miles away from a real sky. ‘The sun, you know?’

  Shyama nodded. ‘I know. A beautiful name for a girl, don’t you think?’

  As they were leaving, Mala grabbed some leaflets from the reception desk. Even if she wasn’t able to make sense of most of the words now, she was sure she could learn enough over the next few months, and wondered fleetingly if Shyama Madam could be persuaded to buy her a dictionary.

  In another part of the mall, seemingly miles away from where they had started, they sat in front of a tumbling fountain of unnaturally blue water, eating cones of hot buttered corn kernels, shiny snail-trails running down their chins. In a bag at Mala’s feet sat the small Hindi–English phrase book that she had lingered over for a good fifteen minutes until Shyama had finally taken the hint. She thought this was such a good idea that she had also bought one for herself, declaring, ‘If we both do our homework properly, soon you will be able to chat to me in English and I will answer back in Hindi.’

  Mala had to ask, it had been playing on her mind ever since they had left the beauty salon.

  ‘Madam … Shyama … you wouldn’t mind? If you have a girl?’

  Shyama stopped mid-chew, swallowed carefully and wiped her chin with the heel of her hand. ‘Why would I mind? I already have one lovely daughter.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘From my first husband. She’s nineteen now.’

  ‘Oh … he is dead? Your first husband?’

  ‘Ha! He may as well be, I hardly see him … But no, we’re divorced.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I hope that doesn’t shock you, Mala.’

  Mala half laughed, wishing she had the language to express how ridiculous that question was. Wasn’t every other soap opera nowadays about some independent woman battling with her husband or even leaving him after he had shouted at her, drunk too much, sided with his mother against her, even hit her (though only when drunk and always he was very sorry afterwards). It was meant to make everyone feel better, Mala supposed, that despite their big houses and expensive clothes these people were also unhappy with their lives, still wanted more. She and Seema would sit munching snacks for hours in front of these bahu-sus stories, as they were known – daughter-in-law versus mother-in-law sagas – because apparently it was always the women who created trouble for each other to start with. These firework stories had been exploding for real in the villages since Mala could remember, but dirtier, messier, darker. Men half-blind on moonshine kicking their wives and kids till they bled into the dust; men killing each other for land, or killing themselves when their land failed, forced to use fertilizers that strangled the soil or crippled with debt after a crop failure. Lying side by side with the corpses of the brutalized baby girls were the fathers too poor to afford them, leaving behind widows too unprotected to survive for long. Divorce was there in all but name, too. It was obvious to everyone that Pogle sahib couldn’t stand his wife and nor she him, but they still roly-polyed about the village with their competing stomachs, hands raised like great gurus dispensing blessings, never mind that the sound of their screams and smashing plates regularly set off the stray dogs howling into the night. But to actually leave? For what? Where to? The soapy-women characters, they had money, an education. Half the time the teachers in the local school didn’t bother to turn up if they had more pressing engagements elsewhere. In Mala’s birth village, she had been the star pupil, but her dreams of college had died with her father. What was more shocking, to get divorced or to have never had the choice in the first place?

  ‘There is a movie,’ Mala began haltingly. ‘Sushma Bajaj is the heroine. She has divorce and her husband steals her children. First-class songs also.’

  ‘Wow, I’m so behind with my Hindi movies,’ Shyama laughed. ‘I think the last one I saw was Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham.’

  ‘Very good movie. But very old.’

  ‘Right. So this Sushma film …?’

  ‘Is out now.’

  Three hours later, the two women were sitting in the cool, darkened cinema hall at the top of the mall, reclining in the top-price luxury seats, chomping on popcorn (mixed for Shyama, salty for Mala) and cheering on Sushmita as she delivered her final tear-soaked rallying speech to a mesmerized courtroom, calling upon society, the judicial system and God to recognize the right of the modern woman to be single, respectable, and a good mother to boot.

  It was dark when Shyama finally dropped Mala back at the clinic. They walked down the untarmacked side road wordlessly, Mala clutching the sheaf of magazines that Shyama had insisted on buying her, noticing her hungry gaze as they passed the magazine stand, with the beauty-salon literature tucked inside a copy of Indian OK! No need to declare her interest, not yet anyway. The wasteground slum houses looked less desolate in the dark: oil lamps flickered here and there, cooking odours and a smoky haze from dozens of bubbling pots hovered over the battered roofs, stork-legged, bare-footed children scampered in and out of the narrow gullies between the dwellings, shouting to each other in bold, hoarse ululations.

  Shyama drew her shawl around her, facing Mala. ‘I hope you won’t be in trouble for getting back so late? Should I come in with you?’

  Mala shook her head. She knew the other women would already be gossiping about her disappearance, she didn’t want to fan their smouldering curiosity by turning up with her employer in tow. Even within this small group of women, there was already an unspoken hierarchy: at the top those whose second or third surrogacy this was – they got the top spots in the dorms, the quiet side of the building away from the slum, the coolest spots shaded by the trees. The Hindu/Muslim divide wasn’t so much of an issue here, though the women tended to dorm with others of the same religion, if only to make the daily pujas or namaaz less of an inconvenience to their neighbours. More significant was the presence of a couple of Dalit women – untouchables, as they weren’t allowed to be called any more, but everyone knew what was in a name; after all, it changed nothing. Some of the other Hindu ladies refused to use the same toilet as them or eat anywhere near them, and privately wondered if the poor firengi couples realized their expensive offspring were being grown inside an impure vessel. What would they all think if they could have seen her today, strolling along like Shyama Madam’s best girlfriend, eating, having beauty treatments, movie watching with knees touching. Say what you liked about the Western Indians – and everyone had plenty to say, especially the Shiv Sena types with their Hindustan for the Hindustanis and attacking young people who held hands in the street and trying to ban Valentine’s Day – would any of those crazy fundy types have bought Mala popcorn? She realized, being a first-timer in the lodgings and so young, that she would be ignored, as she was of no interest to anyone, and that’s the way she wanted to keep it. Even though she was queen of the riverbank back home, here she knew it was best to be like a stray animal in another’s territory and stay silent, downwind of trouble.

  ‘I’m so glad we spent some time together, Mala. And I hope … well, you know what I hope. Some good news soon, hena?’

  ‘Hahn-ji. Good news.’

  They were distracted by the sounds of a heated argument coming from the wasteground: two men were yelling at each other, both in the labourers’ uniform of worn vests, lungis and checkered scarves tied around their heads. To the side stood the young woman Shyama recognized from earlier, the same toddler clinging to her hip like a koala. One of the men threw down his bidi and took a swing at the other, losing his footing and slumping to the ground, where he lay, mumbling obscenities to himself. The other man, swaying on unsteady feet, flicked the young woman on the shoulder and handed h
er some notes. Wearily, she unpeeled the baby from her side and handed it to a young girl in a tattered frilly frock who appeared beside her, then gestured for the man to enter the hut in front of them. As she held open the strip of plastic sheeting, the lamplight inside momentarily caught her face, impassive as the statue of the nameless goddess watching from a shelf behind the woman’s bowed head.

  Shyama and Mala caught each other’s eyes, a moment of understanding passing between them, beyond language. Shyama found herself pulling Mala into a brief embrace, sniffing coconut oil and the faint lingering scent of the rosewater face mask, glad that she was here and doing this and hoping it would change Mala’s life for the better. Mala submitted to Shyama’s strong arms and soft chest; it had been some months since she had seen her own mother, whose farewell embraces were always hesitant, doom-laden at yet another goodbye. And as she held her breath, she kept looking over Shyama’s shoulder to the woman’s small hut with its plastic curtain, and thought, we are not so different, bhain-ji, we have to sell the only thing we almost own.

  Toby was disappointed to find Shyama fast asleep when he climbed carefully into the hotel bed beside her. Had she always snored? Maybe he’d only just noticed. He had a whole evening’s worth of anecdotes from her family, many of them featuring her own childhood scrapes and embarrassing teenage incidents, which he would have liked to share. He had been treated like a demi-god, lavished with attention and an unending cornucopia of delicious home-cooked food, whilst Prem’s eldest brother and his wife, whose house it was, kept reiterating what an honour it was to have received their new son-in-law into their home. Numerous other relatives had called in on their way back from work, having jumped into rickshaws especially to meet him. He had found it overwhelming, how kind and interested everyone was in him, how disappointed they were that Shyama herself hadn’t been there to enjoy the first family meal as a new bride. Prem and Sita’s gaze had flickered only momentarily every time marriage was mentioned. They were keeping the secret and so would he, and what did it matter anyway, that flimsy piece of paper? He had never felt so much part of any family, including his own, as this one, with its noise and warmth and open arms.

  He had wanted to apologize to Shyama for their stupid row earlier, but, more importantly, he wanted to make her understand how bloody lucky she was to have these people. The rogue uncle was an aberration – every family had a black sheep and hopefully the courts would punish him for what he’d put Prem and Sita through. And luckily, tonight Yogesh had stayed away. But one selfish git wasn’t enough to break the bonds he had seen and felt tonight. They’ve got it right, this lot, he told himself as he snuggled into Shyama’s back – family first. And our child is going to be part of this. How lucky are we?

  When Dr Passi had first discussed her database of egg doners with Shyama and Toby, she said they could try to find as near a physical match to Shyama as possible, Shyama had joked, ‘Couldn’t we find a nearer physical match to Angelina Jolie?’ And then, ‘Or Mala. I woudn’t mind if the baby came out looking like her.’

  It was a flippant remark, but one that had stayed with both Toby and Dr Passi. The doctor noted that this couple would have no problem if the baby emerged on the darker side of ‘wheatish’, unlike most of her local couples, who were quite open about their preference for a fair-as-possible child. As one bullish father put it, ‘As we are having a baby to order like this, why not order what you like?’

  This logical extension of the principles of her life’s work had occasionally put Dr Passi in a difficult position. It was relatively easy to abort a damaged foetus at an early stage as frequent scans revealed any problems early enough to take preventative action. No one chose to have a disabled baby, why would they? She had seen the way many disabled children were treated once they were born – a life of being shut away in shame or abandoned to an institution – and it brought into stark relief the difference between life and quality of life. That was the whole point of selective conception, as far as she could see: to identify and remove all those defective genes, some of which could be passed on through the generations, to stop the cycle of misery and only bring forth healthy useful citizens of the world.

  But when people got choosy, that’s when Dr Passi began to feel a little uncomfortable: the skin tone was one such issue, although understandable, given their centuries of conditioning about the superiority of fairer skin. She had presided over some nasty cases of poisoning and irreparable skin damage during her training, hundreds of women seduced or shamed into using over-the-counter skin-whitening creams. What the European models on the packaging hadn’t revealed were the long-term effects of such concoctions, which used mercury and hydroquinone. Symptoms would range from skin thinning, raised capillaries, tell-tale blue-grey patches and rampaging acne to liver and kidney failure and skin cancer. (Dr Passi herself had been considered a little on the dusky side, her childhood punctuated by regular and vigorous massages with oily gram flour and turmeric by her ayah, her mother watching anxiously to check whether this traditional cure would scrub away the darkness, leaving her daughter with glowing, paler skin. Dr Passi doubted that it worked, though one happy side effect was that she hardly ever had to wax or shave; the years of grainy exfoliation had killed off most of her body hair.) Sex selection was also understandable, at least in her clinic. If a family already had girls or boys and wanted a balance, no problem. Most of her local couples usually asked for boys first, and the way Dr Passi saw it, if she was preventing another ignorant family from aborting an unwanted girl, it was better to acquiesce than to argue. One of the reasons why she had abandoned her hospital work was the number of female foetuses she had found herself terminating, the daily scrape and sluice of healthy little girls into overflowing buckets, too many needless endings. Eventually she had left that post; she needed to be somewhere creative, literally, as her training had prepared her to be.

  She was immediately encouraged by the discovery that the foreign couples in her new clinic hardly ever expressed a preference for a boy or girl. This felt like progress. But then as time went on, the demands and requirements became more specific, the boundaries of what could be done more elastic. She recalled two sets of couples whom she suspected were perfectly able to have children, but preferred having a child made to order with minimal disruption to both their careers, one lot from America, the other from France. In both cases, the women were high-flying professionals, whip-thin and efficient, their partners similarly worldly and handsome in that groomed magazine-cover kind of way. The French couple had dropped out fairly quickly when they had realized the legal complications of taking the baby back home. She had directed them towards a nearby orphanage, not expecting they would ever get there. The Americans, however, were more persistent, until it came to discussing why they could not have children of their own. That’s when she knew: not just because their explanations were minimal and vague, but because every other couple who had been through the trauma of years of futile baby-making attempts wanted to talk about it in precise, emotional detail. For most of them, Dr Passi was their last hope, and they needed not only to share the suffering that had brought them to her door, but to grieve for all the ghost babies that haunted their journey. Dr Passi directed the American couple to a rival clinic, unable to condone their intention to use a surrogate as another convenient labour-saving device. Mummy-as-microwave: it calls us with a ping when it’s ready and we can take it home.

  That was in her early idealistic days; since then she had got used to parents being very specific about how their child-to-be should be: tall, with handsome regular features and a high IQ. They even sought assurances that only the eggs or sperm from MENSA-registered donors should be used. It was at times like these that Dr Passi would use her discretion, telling her clients what they wanted to hear, but mostly using the stock she already had, so her conscience was relatively clear. She was aware that consultants like herself were often criticized for playing God, but whose? Her reference points were the amoral deities of
her Hindu upbringing, blue-hued and smiling, constantly reminding humanity to accept and endure joy and pain equally, as both are temporary, and neither can be ordered or controlled. As Lord Krishna counselled his kinsman, the archer Arjuna, before they launched into battle with their own cousins, you cannot control where your arrow lands, but fire it you must. Or words to that effect. Take action without presuming to know or predict the outcome, because to take no action, to remain static and undecided, was the worst sin of all. In her lab, under the bright lights and with a microscope to her eye, Dr Passi often recalled this verse in the Bhagavad Gita. Pipette in hand, piercing the filmy wall of a human egg to place a wriggling sperm inside, she knew this was one deliberate action with profound life-long consequences. She took this so seriously that her actions also extended to curbing the excessive demands of some of her clients: she knew what they needed and maybe even what they deserved.

  It was a collision of circumstances that pushed Dr Passi into the decision she made that day, the day when Mala lay unconscious on the operating table waiting for her eggs to be harvested for the clinic’s ever-dwindling stocks. Her British couple had no idea this was happening, that it would delay the creation and implantation of their embryo, but in Dr Passi’s opinion, they seemed relaxed enough to wait another month. However, that morning, several other couples would also have their hopes delayed: a whole batch of embryos had defrosted unsuccessfully, five implantations cancelled at the last minute. It happened, but time was money, and also, as so many of Dr Passi’s clients knew too well, money could not buy time.