Authors: Thrity Umrigar
“ ‘This affair’? Is that what we’ve been having, an
affair?”
He stared mutely at the cup of tea he had ordered, unable to look up.
Philomena laughed a contemptuous laugh. “Come on,
men.
Don’t be such a damn coward. Nothing’s come up, unless it’s the fact that you’ve been coming to work drunk. Yah, don’t think I haven’t noticed your breath, stinking like a sewer. Or how you’ve been hiding from me like a little schoolboy. What it is is that you’re just like all the other men. I was right after all. You had what you wanted from me, in that hotel room, and now that you’ve tasted the cherry, you want to go rinse your mouth. Saving yourself for some nice, virginal, innocent Parsi girl that your mummy will pick for you, eh?”
He looked at her then, his eyes flashing. “I’m not like all the other men,” he said. “It’s not like that, not what you’re thinking at all. I still respect you, love you even. …” He stopped, frightened by the look on her face.
“My mummy always said, ‘When a man talks about how much he respects you, beware.’ Because, you coward, if you respect someone, you don’t have to say it,
men.
You just do. You Parsi boys are the most hypocritical of them all. You try to act all sophisticated and free, but underneath, you all are more old-fashioned than the Bhendi Bazaar Muslim with his four wives.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but she had risen from her chair and stood towering over him like a mountain—proud, imperial, wrathful. “I really thought you were different from other men,” she said, her mouth twisting bitterly. “But you turned out to be a boy, just like the rest of them.” For a moment, she looked as if she might cry, and his stomach clenched. He thought he would do something violent, smash some plates if she cried, the pain of hurting yet another woman too hard for him to handle. But instead, she pulled herself tall and spat silently on the tilted floor near her feet. He flinched, but it felt right, somehow, that for once, a woman would spit at him, rather than the other way around. Then she was gone. A month later, she accepted another job. He never saw her again.
That had been a year ago. He had spent the time since the breakup with Philomena cultivating his only hobby—alcohol. Once again, Adi’s neighbors in Wadia Baug got used to his sad, drunken steps going up the stairs late at night. Children sensed something unbalanced about him and often burst into tears at the sight of him; women swore that there was something fishy about him; teenagers snickered at him behind his back; their fathers felt a blend of pity and disgust for him. “Some
jadoogar
has cast a spell on that Adi, I swear,” Dosamai said to anyone who would listen. “What
naatak-tamaasha
that boy does. Should’ve been a movie star, with all his drama. Imagine, a Parsi acting like a common drunk.”
Still, in their own way, the members of Wadia Baug kept an eye out for their resident drunk. When his uncle and aunt went to spend a week in Kerala, Adi went home each evening, to find a plate of mutton cutlets or
biryani
left at his door. Rusi Bilimoria and Soli Contractor once treated him to a meal at a restaurant and spent the evening counseling him against drinking. And if any of the non-Parsi thugs who loitered around the neighborhood made fun of Adi as he staggered home, his neighbors were quick to see it as an insult against the entire Parsi
com.
Then they would alternate their fury against Adi for conducting himself in a manner that allowed these illiterate
gaatis
to make fun of him and against the
gaatis
who dared harass a Parsi.
As if he had conjured him up, Adi saw Soli Contractor approaching him. “How goes it,
bossie?
You ready to go home soon?” Soli asked. “Fine, fine,” Adi lied. “Everything’s okay. I was just needing some air. I was wondering, Soli Uncle, are you leaving soon? If so, can I get a lift home?”
“Jimmy’s made special arrangements for the Wadia Baug people to go home together. He’s chartered a minibus or something,” Soli informed him. “But he’s wanting some of us oldies and baldies to wait until the other guests leave. Says he has a surprise for us. So if you don’t mind waiting …”
Despite his earlier desire for privacy, Adi suddenly knew he could not face the thought of riding home alone in a cab. “I’ll wait,” he said. “That is, as long as Jimmy Uncle doesn’t mind me tagging along.”
Soli Contractor peered closely at the bloated, once-handsome face of the youth before him. He felt a wave of pity run through him. What a waste, he thought to himself. What a bleddy waste of a young man. “I’m sure Jimmy won’t mind,
deekra,”
he said mildly. “After all, you’re part of the Wadia Baug family.”
Adi looked away. “Thanks,” he mumbled, wishing that Soli would stop staring at him.
There was a sudden barrage of whistles and catcalls. “C’mon, Soli,” a voice called. “We’re all here waiting for you to open our surprise.”
“I swear,
yaar,
he’s worse than a blushing bride,” another voice said.
Adi rose unsteadily and began walking toward the group. Soli gripped the younger man’s arm in an effort to steady his drunken gait. “Adi, if you’re ever needing a friend to talk …” Soli began.
They had been down this path before. “Soli Uncle,” Adi said, his voice sounding harsh even to his ears, “I told you, everything’s okay. Please.”
Soli stiffened.
“Achha,
okay.”
When they reached the group, Soli caught a flicker of annoyance on Jimmy Kanga’s face as he looked at Adi. Jimmy did not have much time or patience for Adi, Soli knew. But the next moment, the smile that had been etched on Jimmy’s face all evening long was back.
Jimmy gave Soli a quick hug and presented him with a box covered in pink satin. He noticed that every couple had a similar box perched on their laps. “Soli, in commemoration of my son’s wedding, Zarin and I would like you to have this. It is nothing much, simply a token of our love and appreciation for all of you and the role you have played in all three of our lives.”
Pulling Adi along, Soli found an empty chair and began opening his gift.
It was a photo album.
They sat in a half circle, this group of middle-aged men and women, hunched over the albums resting on their laps. Sheroo and Bomi Mistry stared at the cover, which said,
Memories of Wadia Baug.
Tehmi was a few chairs away from them, holding her copy of the album primly in her lap. Mehernosh and Sharon sat holding hands, their dark hair standing out like a lighthouse in this sea of gray. They, too, had an album in their laps. In their midst sat Jimmy and Zarin Kanga, looking as pleased and excited as children. “Some of these pictures we hadn’t looked at in over thirty years,” Jimmy was saying. “Most of the credit for assembling them should go to Zarin. This was her idea, actually. I’m just pleased the copies turned out so well.”
Out of force of habit, Rusi Bilimoria wiped his hands on his pants before touching the book and turning to the first page. He let out a guffaw, which was immediately echoed by the others. The first picture was of a very young and very dirty Jimmy sleeping next to a very young and very dirty pig. “Let me see,” Coomi murmured, and pulled the album closer, so that it now rested on both their laps. For once, Rusi did not mind this enforced closeness with his wife. It felt good actually, this warmth from Coomi’s arm as it brushed against his. “Oh, those were the days,” Soli chortled as he looked from the picture to Jimmy. “We should have sold this picture to the opposing lawyers when our
bara sahib
was arguing before the Supreme Court.”
“So this is the pig that almost prevented my being born. Interesting little fellow—I mean the pig,” Mehernosh said, grinning at his father.
Coomi turned another page. Two photographs here. Both of them group pictures of the time they’d all gone to Poona for the weekend. How absurdly, perilously young we all looked, Rusi thought. How confidently we were looking at the eye of the camera, as if we felt capable and strong enough to face down life itself. He cast a swift glance around and found it hard to reconcile this gray-haired gathering of hunched men and women with the handsome, upright people in the photograph. For a minute, his heart cried out at the injustice of it all, the unfairness of growing old. What a waste it seemed, if all the hard work, the economic successes, the sexual conquests, the pursuit of drearms, the nights spent seated by desire or ambition ended in a sad soup of double chins and weak bones and feeble flesh. And as if the outer, superficial changes—the shriveling up of the flesh, the bending of the back, the frailty of the limbs—weren’t painful enough, there were the inner changes—the wretched shrinking of courage, the dimming of the eyes, the pessimism of the heart, the failure to dream, the terrifying fear of tomorrow. That is the true growing old, Rusi thought, and the outer changes are simply a manifestation of hearts that have turned yellow and fibrous with age.
He could sense Coomi’s impatience as she sat beside him. “Ready?” she asked, and without waiting for a reply, she turned another page. And a few more memories tumbled out. There was a picture of Soli standing on his hands at Bombay Gymkhana and grinning hideously at the camera. Rusi looked at the squat, muscular youth with thick dark hair and searched in vain for a glimpse of the bald old man who was sitting across from him. The only thing they had in common was that big smile and a spirit that remained irrepressible. Rusi felt a surge of affection for Soli. That Mariam treated him so shabbily, he thought. Soli had known betrayal at such a young age. The few other relationships he had been involved in since Mariam had also ended badly, Rusi knew. And yet, miraculously, some part of Soli had remained alive to the promise of the world. Once, Rusi had accompanied Soli to a Beethoven concert at Homi Bhaba auditorium and saw a side to Soli he had never seen before. Soli, whom Rusi thought of as a good-hearted buffoon, sat still and transposed, a look on his face that suggested that he had just seen the face of God. Looking at Soli now, the top of his bald head gleaming under the lights, Rusi resolved to ensure that Soli responded to Mariam’s letter. Like a monster under a child’s bed, the past had to be faced up to, Rusi decided. He himself was a good example of the consequences of not dealing with the past. For a moment, he felt the silence that stretched long and thin between him and Coomi snap like a rubber band against his heart.
More pictures. Of Jimmy sweating under the hot Bombay sun, improbably dressed in a leather jacket and scowling like Brando. (“What was that, Jimmy? A costume for a play?”) Of Bomi and Sheroo—the first of their gang to get married—at their wedding reception, Bomi winking at the camera and holding two fingers like a gun to his forehead. (“You
gadhera,
Bomi. How come I never saw this picture before? Acting like I chased you, instead of the other way around. Even at your own wedding, you had to be a joker?”) Of Coomi, slender and beautiful in her black graduation robe. (“I tell you,
yaar,
Coomi was always the brainy one in the group.
Ae,
Coomi, remember how that Professor Sinha was all
lattoo-fattoo
over you in college? Used to forget his lectures when you’d walk in.”) Of a grinning Rusi in a white shirt and khaki shorts, dangling upside down from a tree at Victoria Gardens, while Sheroo stood next to him, holding her head in a gesture of exaggerated horror. (“There’s Rusi and his sugarcane legs. Look, the twigs on the tree are fatter than his legs.”)
Then, as if someone had pulled a switch, the joking stopped. The turning of a page had revealed two other pictures, ones that many of them had spent years trying to forget. Cyrus Engineer stood in the middle of the group of adoring boys, squinting at the camera and leaning on his cricket bat, looking for all the world like a young prince. The midday sun lit up the brown hair that fell on his forehead and his grin was as wide as a continent. Even seen through the prism of time, it was clear that Cyrus was beautiful. Below that was a picture of Cyrus and Tehmi sitting under a tree at the cricket
maidan
where Cyrus used to coach the Wadia Baug team. His white cricket clothes stained with the red-brown dust of the field, Cyrus sat with his head on Tehmi’s shoulder, his eyes intense and bright as they faced the camera. Even to a casual observer, it was clear that Cyrus was very much in love with the woman in the picture. “Wow. Who’s that dreamboat with that girl?” Sharon Kanga asked, failing to recognize the fresh-faced woman in the picture. Several sets of eyes turned cautiously toward Tehmi, who sat looking at the picture with a sad, mysterious smile on her face. Just when they thought she would let Jimmy answer the question, Tehmi spoke up. “That’s my Cyrus,” she said. “He was—is—my husband. He died. A long, long time ago.”
There was a short, awkward silence. Nudged by Zarin, Jimmy finally broke it. “Tehmi, I’m sorry if this was a mistake. I meant this to be a tribute. Cyrus was such an influence in my—”
“Oh, no. No. No mistake.” A pause. “In fact, I’m proud of Cyrus being included in a group of such fine people.” And Tehmi smiled, a quick, shy smile that made the others gasp with surprised pleasure.
Rusi saw that smile and felt a pang of regret. Tehmi had always been the quiet sort, but he and the others had been genuinely fond of her in the days when Cyrus was alive. How could they have abandoned her so after his death? Wadia Baug was populated with so many lost souls, and here was another. He thought back to his own complicity in Tehmi’s becoming a recluse. Could he and the others have made a difference? Had they given up too easily, been too put off by Tehmi’s bad breath and bad temper? After that encounter in the street, when he had first gotten a whiff of Tehmi’s problem, Rusi had made several more attempts to get in touch with Tehmi. But each time he rang Tehmi’s doorbell, Dinabai answered the door and made excuses for why her daughter could not receive him. The old woman seemed grateful for Rusi’s efforts, but something in her eyes also told him that it was futile to try to reach Tehmi. And tell the truth, Rusi now said to himself. Weren’t you also relieved when Tehmi refused to talk to you? Weren’t you afraid that the stench of her breath would make you turn your head away and thereby hurt her again? Thinking back, Rusi also remembered another thing. After a few weeks, Khorshed Bilimoria had pulled her son aside and told him to stop going over to Dinabai’s house so often. “I know your intentions are good, Rusi,” she said. “And I know you are just a boy. But you know how our neighbors are. I don’t want any tongues wagging about you and the young widow.”
Rusi looked up at the starless sky and took another sip of his scotch. I have been unable to help too many people in my life, he thought. Unlike Jimmy, whose Midas touch rubbed off on those he came in contact with. From the poor Parsi families in Udwada that he took care of to his wife, Zarin, Jimmy made people happy. That was exactly what Rusi had wanted from his own life. The ambitions of his youth— the desire for a successful business, his hopes for a large family—had all sprung from a central desire to create happiness in his tiny corner of the world. What others had seen as personal ambition was not personal at all. But none of it had worked out the way he had planned. He had not been able to help Tehmi. Coomi, he was sure, believed that he had destroyed her life. And by marrying Coomi, he’d brought disharmony and grief into his mother’s life. In fact, the only person he’d been able to help was Binny. She was his one true success story. In order to help Binny, he had to kill himself, but never mind. He had stuck a knife into his own heart, but that same knife had also cut Binny’s from the misery of Bombay. He had set her free. Free to fly, free to climb. Free to have the life fate did not decree for him.
As if he had conjured her up, Binny was peering at him from the pages of the album. He let out a splutter of delight. “Look, it’s my Binny,” he said, his finger circling the outline of her sweet face. Beside him, he felt Coomi smile at the image of their seven-year-old daughter. It was a picture of Binny dressed as a cowboy for a costume party at Jimmy’s home. Binny stood scowling at the camera, her hands on her hips, ready to draw a gun. The expression on her face made Rusi smile, and he looked up, to see a similar look on all his friends’ faces. “That Binny. Always was a ham,” Sheroo said. Then, as if to make sure her words were not misunderstood, she added, “God, I miss her.
Chal ne,
Rusi. Call that daughter of yours and tell her to hurry up and give us a little baby. About time Wadia Baug had some new blood. If not for the Lakdawalas and the Vajifdars, we’d have no children in the building.” Taking a quick look around to make sure both families had left the reception, Sheroo continued, “And they are newcomers, after all. Bit stuck-up, if you ask me. Not like the old days, when Binny and Mehernosh used to run in and out of our flats. I tell you, it’s no fun being surrounded by all you
boodhas.”
Despite her years, Sheroo always prided herself on fitting in with the younger generation.
Bomi took the bait. “Pardon my wife’s ignorance,” he said happily. “She is not knowing that England, where Binny lives, is not located within Wadia Baug. Even if Binny has a baby—which I pray to God she does soon—how will it infuse Wadia Baug with new blood, my dear?” Bomi turned his drunken gaze on Mehernosh. “No, we have to rely on our young stallion here to help us out. It is up to him and Sharon now to come to our rescue. Even though they will be living in Cuffe Parade, their child will be our newest resident. They can drop the baby off with his grandparents on weekends. Though mark my words, Mehernosh and Sharon will be moving back to Wadia Baug before we can say one, two, three. After all, who can resist Wadia Baug’s lovely sights—such as Dosamai peering through her curtains and spying on us all—and its delicious aromas—like those street people using the wall of our building as a urinal? I’m sure Cuffe Parade doesn’t have half the piss that our beloved neighborhood has collected over the years.”
“Chup re, besharam,”
his wife chided. “Why do you drink so much, if it gives you diarrhea of the mouth?” The others chuckled at the familiar bantering between Bomi and Sheroo.
Coomi spoke up now. “Say what you will, Sheroo’s central point is valid. It would be nice to hear the pitter-patter of young
feet
in the building. It’s been too long since I was running around behind Binny. Mehernosh, I just hope you and Sharon don’t make us wait as long as our Binny has.”
Mehernosh smiled. “We’ll try not to disappoint all of you, Coomi Auntie,” he said lightly as he squeezed Sharon’s hand. “After all, we aim to please.”
“Sukhi re, sukhi re,”
Sheroo murmured. “Long live both of you.”
Rusi drained the last of his scotch, and, ever the attentive host, Jimmy immediately signaled to his driver.
“Ae.
Hari, go in and bring another bottle of scotch and some more soda, will you? Come on, go
fatta-faat.
Bring out some cold drinks for the ladies also.” Hari walked around the small circle, refilling everyone’s glasses. Rusi lifted his glass to take another sip, but Coomi had turned another page of the album, and his hand remained frozen halfway up to his lips. He stared at the picture of Coomi and him.
He remembered that windswept day at the beach. He and Coomi had walked the length of the beach that day, planning their wedding, laughing and hugging each other at the thought of what happiness awaited them. We had really believed our own words, our own prophesies, he now realized with wonder. That much was obvious just looking at the photograph. He looked at himself dispassionately, as if looking at the picture of a stranger. He noticed the proud angle of his head, the arrogance of his gaze, the clear, unlined brow, the starch in his back. How could he have stood so tall? As if he’d had two extra vertebrae in those days. Above all, he noticed his eyes, which burned like coal in the cavern of his face. They were the eyes of a man who was not afraid of what lay around the bend. These eyes did not dart nervously; they did not wish they could look around corners or gaze into a crystal ball. These eyes were rooted in the present and they looked life in the face. These eyes, he now thought, which had not known what lay in store for them, what disappointments and trials they would witness. They were the eyes of a child. And for a second, he felt both envy and irritation at the boy he had been.