by Meghna Pant
Genevive’s apartment was smaller than Bhanu’s bedroom.
Bhanu followed her past a multicoloured bead curtain into a cluttered room, where Agatha Christie and Mills & Boon novels lay strewn around a three-legged wooden chair. Next to that stood a plastic Christmas tree decorated with sad-looking baubles and drooping angels. In a small corner on a tiny bed, Genevive’s mother lay under a cascade of blankets, her feet sticking out from beneath them. Her fine hair, which she kept in a 1940s’-style wave, was thin and unkempt. Her rose lips had turned purple. Underneath the bed was a bedpan filled with brownish liquid that one of the cats was sniffing. Carla was whiter than the cuticles on her nails, her eyes firmly shut, deep hollows in her cheeks—she looked completely dead.
‘She is sleeping,’ Genevive said, and led Bhanu by the hand to a small enclosure that looked like a bathroom, but which turned out to be a kitchen with a single stove and a few utensils. Genevive sat down on the edge of a stool, beaten down, weary, and said, ‘Carla has breast cancer. She didn’t tell me because she says we don’t have money for the treatment. I told her I’d get the money from somewhere, somehow, but Doctor Uncle came home a few days ago and told me … he said that it’s too late for her now.’
Bhanu had run into Carla a few times in the lobby of the building. She was a pale-skinned woman with a tired face, reedy arms and a pointy chin, dressed in paisleypatterned dresses, red lipstick and high heels. She’d pat Bhanu lightly on the head, as if she was one of her adopted stray cats, before vanishing into the passage or the street. If she knew of Genevive’s deep friendship with Bhanu, or that her daughter spent half the day in Bhanu’s house, she didn’t let on. She neither came to Bhanu’s house—even on the rare days when Genevive stayed late—nor thanked Bhanu’s family for taking care of her daughter while she was away.
And over time, while most of the neighbours became friendly with Genevive, Carla continued to arouse wariness. When asked about Genevive’s father, she’d announce that he was dead without the slightest inflection of sorrow or helplessness, smoking in her décolleté dresses.. What the neighbours disliked even more was that Carla never knocked on their door to borrow curd or sugar, nor did she ever give the building watchman a little something for Diwali. And she never enquired after their health or children.
It was sinful for a woman in her situation to behave so unrepentantly.
So the neighbours gossiped about the men who came to Carla’s house. Someone saw Carla kissing a bald man in a taxi; someone else saw her holding hands with a hairy man in a movie hall, while she was also spotted outside an infamous ‘clinic’ with a fat man.
Carla, on her part, appeared unaffected by her infamy, which only worsened it.
Bhanu had never found the courage to ask Genevive about her father. But one evening, after school, Shardabai did. Genevive stuttered in her broken Hindi, ‘My Papa is a big banker in London. He really loves me. And he is coming very soon to take me away with him. Very soon.’ Then she burst into tears. It was the only time Bhanu remembered scolding Shardabai.
~
Three months after Carla’s death, Bhanu shifted Genevive into her house, moving her bed next to her own. Bhanu’s family was pleased to have Genevive around, especially once Bhanu’s marriage was fixed with a young Marwari man, Mohan. A helping hand in a wedding household was always welcome. Bhanu’s marriage didn’t stop the two friends from meeting; since Mohan lived just four buildings away, Bhanu would often visit Genevive—who had moved back to her own house—bringing her food, praying with her for her mother’s soul.
Soon after, Genevive met an Iranian man, Afshin, a model in one of the shampoo ads that she was helping direct. He moved in with her and within a few months they got married.
But it was not to be. Afshin was a gold smuggler, Genevive learnt, when the police came to her house to arrest him. She was not spared either; they hounded her and harassed her until they were convinced that she was not an accomplice to her husband. Genevive didn’t see Afshin again, despite her repeated visits to Arthur Road Jail, where he was imprisoned. It was the police who informed her that Afshin had been deported back to his country and that she’d probably never hear from him again.
Genevive was broken.
Once again Bhanu came to her best friend’s rescue, helping her weather a meltdown, alcohol binges, visiting her at all times, throwing out her liquor. Eventually, Genevive healed, and with a new job as an ad-film director, she was back to her old self.
~
Genevive is still watching her. She says, ‘Your tea is getting cold.’
‘I don’t want tea,’ Bhanu snaps. ‘Why don’t you have it?’
‘I’m not allowed to drink tea, remember,’ Genevive replies. Of course Bhanu remembers, for despite herself she had taped a list of dos and don’ts on Genevive’s fridge so she wouldn’t brush aside her pregnancy, like she did all serious things. Yet, apart from her bulging stomach, it’s difficult to tell that Genevive is eight months pregnant. She’s lost weight, though her neck seems bloated and her hair has thinned from frizzy to straight.
Bhanu looks at her own stomach, ghastly in its flatness. After having to abort her first baby due to a positive CVS test, she had gone to three specialists and they’d all told her that her uterus wasn’t strong enough to carry a fullterm pregnancy. She couldn’t try again and if she did, as she’d insisted she would, then the chances of her bleeding to death were high. Why, even her Mohan sided with the doctors and refused to give it another go.
Bhanu can never be a mother.
And then there is Genevive.
Bhanu had asked her a few years ago: how do you feel about having children? And Genevive had said that since her apartment was located directly below the lift shaft, she heard the lift make all sorts of unearthly sounds, day and night. She lived in fear that at any moment its creaky chains would snap and the lift would come crashing down, crushing her house, and the life out of her. This, she had said, was how she felt about children.
In the seventeen years that she’s lived in the building, Genevive has never used the lift.
Now Genevive gives a weak smile and says, ‘The baby, she is so heavy that I can’t walk up the stairs any more. I have to take the lift to get here.’ She hugs her elbows as if a tremor has run through her.
Bhanu almost admires her tenacity.
‘Bhanu, I came here to talk to you about something important,’ Genevive continues. She looks down at the floor purposefully, as if about to do something foolishly heroic, like jump in front of a bus to save a kitten. ‘I don’t know how to start this conversation so I’ll say it right out. Bhanu, I want you to take my baby and raise her as your own.’
‘What?’ Bhanu says. Her heart starts beating so loudly that she wonders if there’s nothing else inside her. ‘What?’ she says again at the top of her voice, so she doesn’t have to listen to her heart.
‘Please, let me finish or I’ll lose my nerve. I’ve thought about this a lot. You want a child more than I ever have. You’ll be a better mother than I will. Bhanu, we are dearer to each other than sisters, so I know that you will treat my daughter as your own. All these are good reasons, I think, for you to keep my baby.’
Bhanu is so angry that she starts laughing.
‘I cannot believe what you’re saying,’ she says, her hands mimicking her feelings in furious gestures. ‘It never fails to amaze me how you take it for granted that I’ll solve all your problems. You get yourself knocked up by god knows who, you decide to keep this child against my advice, and now that you’re scared you come running to me to cover up for your mistakes!’
On becoming pregnant, Genevive had refused to tell Bhanu who the father was. This hurt Bhanu, who’d never kept anything from Genevive, and the sting of the betrayal grew as the baby did.
‘You’re misunderstanding me.’
‘I am not misunderstanding you. I know you for exactly what you are: irresponsible, selfish and weak.’
‘Bhanu!’
‘I can explain … the doctor—’
Bhanu notices that Genevive’s round eyes are drooping and she has dark circles the size of horseshoes. Is she not taking care of herself because she is pregnant, like the last time? This infuriates Bhanu further and she interrupts Genevive, ‘I don’t care for your excuses, Genevive. I am not going to look after your unwanted child again.’
~
Genevive was nineteen when her college boyfriend Vikram got her pregnant. She didn’t tell anyone except Bhanu, because she bravely thought that no one would find out; she would have an abortion. But it was a futile proposition, for what could they do? They didn’t know any other pregnant girls, the doctors they knew were acquainted with their families, and it was illegal to walk into a clinic and ask for an abortion. Worse still, neither of them had any money.
It was Bhanu who came up with an idea; an idea so bold for her that she blushed thinking about it even now. Her brother had written a dissertation on the sex trade for his Sociology major, and Bhanu remembered him saying that the sex workers he encountered had unwanted pregnancies, for which they didn’t have the money to go to a clinic. Surely, Genevive and she could go to Kamathipura, where her brother used to go for his research, and ask one of the sex workers for help.
A week later—after much deliberation—the two girls, under the pretext of attending a college function, took a bus to Grant Road. Too embarrassed to get off at the actual stop, they walked to Falkland Road. There was still light outside when they reached and no women plied the streets, so they walked around aimlessly, holding each other’s hands, starting at any noise in the unexpected silence. Finally, they passed a dilapidated one-storey building with peeling paint, outside which sat a middleaged prostitute wearing a blouse and petticoat, gajra in her hair.
They went up to her. The woman scowled at them, her leg up on a stool, breaking suparis with a nutcracker. The girls hesitantly told her their problem.
‘What the hell should I do about that?’ she asked gruffly.
Bhanu’s reply stopped in her throat, but Genevive answered, ‘Maybe you can give us the name of a cheap doctor?’ Her voice was laced with fear.
‘Don’t know any,’ the woman said, and tossed three suparis into her mouth.
‘Please, I have nowhere else to go,’ Genevive said.
Moving her paan-stained lips in slow deliberation, the woman leered at the girls, her eyes hovering over their breasts, as if assessing how much they’d be worth in the market. Bhanu crossed her arms over her chest, while Genevive stared brazenly back at the woman.
‘How much money you have?’ she finally asked.
The girls looked at each other.
‘I have six hundred rupees,’ Genevive said humbly. She’d been stealing money from her mother’s purse over the last few weeks to pay for her abortion.
‘Not enough,’ said the woman.
‘I have three hundred more,’ Bhanu said. ‘And some change.’
‘Where did you get the money from?’ Genevive asked her.
‘It’s the money I was saving to buy a guitar.’
Genevive squeezed Bhanu’s hand in gratitude.
They emptied their purses and gave the prostitute all their money. The woman shoved the notes into her lowcut blouse, next to a threadlike gold chain, and said, ‘Wait here.’ She got up and disappeared into the building.
Genevive and Bhanu ducked behind a thin wall to avoid being seen, and waited. Thirty minutes passed, then an hour. They came out from their hiding place and looked around the road, not daring to talk to one another. Women were stepping out, dressed in flimsy saris, garish rouge, fake moles and big red bindis already smudged by the humidity. Men passed by on motorcycles and in cars, staring and honking at the two girls. The last of the sun’s rays began to disappear.
A man with a mass of hair on his knuckles stopped his car in front of Genevive, rolled down his window and asked, ‘You, how much for one hour?’
‘That’s it,’ Genevive shouted. ‘I’m going upstairs.’
‘Are you crazy? You don’t know what kind of people are in there,’ Bhanu said, frightened.
‘I don’t care,’ Genevive said. ‘She’s taken all our money and disappeared. And it’s my fault. I should’ve asked her name and followed her inside. Now I’ll never get rid of this baby and you’ll never get your guitar.’
Genevive stormed into the building and started climbing the stairs. ‘Stop!’ Bhanu said, and used all her weight to pull Genevive back. Just then, the prostitute came walking down the stairs. She was dressed up luridly, with a silver paranda coiled around her large head and body glitter gleaming from the fat rolls beneath her arms.
‘Oof! I’d forgotten about you,’ she said on seeing them. ‘Now which one of you is pregnant?’ Before they could reply, she looked at Genevive and added, ‘You’re the pretty one, so it must be you.’
Bhanu didn’t know what came over her, but she said, ‘Me. It’s me.’
‘Here,’ the woman said, pulling out a yellow plastic bag from her blouse that contained a few white pills. ‘Have two right now, and one every hour after that, till they’re all finished.’
Bhanu extended her hand, but Genevive yelled, ‘These look like headache pills. You can’t cheat us like this!’
In a huff, the prostitute threw the pills on the floor and walked off.
Bhanu ran after the woman, ‘What will these do?’
‘What you want them to do,’ the woman replied. ‘Just don’t sit down once you’ve taken them.’
Genevive came running behind Bhanu and shouted, ‘Give us back our money or I’ll report you to the police.’
The prostitute hopped into a car and was gone.
Genevive and Bhanu went back home, disheartened and unable to do anything for a few days. Then, Genevive vomited on three consecutive mornings and her mother asked if she’d been bringing her boyfriend home. So, the next day, while Carla was at work and Bhanu’s family was taking a siesta, Genevive—following the prostitute’s cryptic instructions—swallowed two pills.
Nothing happened for an hour. Genevive took another pill. She kept standing, pacing Bhanu’s bedroom, becoming increasingly irritable.
‘I’m exhausted and I don’t think this is going to work. We’ve been cheated,’ she said, walking towards a chair.
‘Don’t sit down!’ Bhanu said.
Genevive opened her mouth to say something and suddenly keeled over, clenching her stomach. ‘I’m getting really bad cramps.’
Bhanu held Genevive’s hand.
The bleeding started after the second hour, and Bhanu took her to the bathroom. Then she ran frantically around the house, finding old cotton sheets, newspapers, kitchen cloths and sanitary pads to give to Genevive, praying that no one from her family would ask what the girls were doing.
After another hour, Genevive leaned over the edge of the toilet seat and said, ‘I can’t take this any more.’
She was turning white.
‘Genevive!’ Bhanu said. ‘What’s happening?’
‘My entire stomach is falling out,’ Genevive whimpered, her face flushed and sweating.
It was the baby.
~
Genevive puts her hand on Bhanu’s.
‘You haven’t forgiven me,’ she says, as if a balloon has been deflated.
‘For what?’
‘For everything I’ve put you through. Kamathipura, my drinking, my mother and then my husband.’
‘There’s nothing to forgive.’
‘And your abortion? Do you still blame me for that?’ Genevive asks softly.
Had Bhanu done the right thing by taking someone like Genevive into confidence with regard to the life of a child? She didn’t know then, and she doesn’t know now.
But in the patients’ room, surrounde
d by a doctor and sterilized equipment, it was Genevive who had held Bhanu’s hand as her uterus was emptied. Bhanu was convinced that the positive CVS test had left her with no choice. So she lied to everyone, including Mohan, saying that the test had led to the miscarriage of her unborn son. As Mohan went about bringing her khichdi and holding her hurt body through the night, she couldn’t look him in the eye, wondering if he would’ve approved of her decision. Would anyone have?
At that time, Bhanu had little strength to dwell on these thoughts. She was so consumed by the pain, starting with the pins and needles in her breasts. Her body didn’t understand that its milk wasn’t needed as it spilled down her stomach and legs, through her clothes. My breasts are crying, she thought. They’re suffering for my sins. She began wearing a T-shirt and cardigan over her salwar-kameez, even to bed, hoping the milk wouldn’t soak through for anyone to notice. Then she ate, and how she ate, feeding the emptiness left by the son she could’ve had, the son in whose memory she still ate for two.
Bhanu couldn’t sleep in Mohan’s bed after that. She moved back to her parents’ home, saying she needed her mother, that it was temporary. Her family grew worried—even her cousins, who hadn’t spoken to her since their house was split into half, came to visit her. She saw them all, but when Genevive came to visit, Bhanu couldn’t bear to look at her. The mere sight of her face reminded Bhanu of the terrible mistake she had made. She told her family to send her away.
