Honor: A Novel(15)
“She’s a—what do you call them, an African?”
Smita fought down her distaste before she spoke. “Nope. Allison’s white.” Her sister-in-law was the daughter of first-generation Irish immigrants, with hair as dark as her own. But Smita felt an irrational, childish urge to impress the woman by turning Ali into a WASP. “She’s blonde. With blue eyes. Comes from a very wealthy family.”
Pushpa looked impressed. “Wah,” she said.
Smita smiled grimly. “You’ve heard of Apple computers?”
“Of course,” Pushpa said with a laugh. “We are not so backward. Everybody knows the Apple. My Chetan has three Apple phones.”
Smita nodded. “My sister-in-law’s father is a senior executive at Apple. You should’ve seen the dowry he gave us, Auntie.” Even as the string of lies escaped her lips, she wondered why she was trying to impress this awful woman.
“That’s very good,” Pushpa said, nodding in a cow-like fashion. Her eyes held Smita’s for a moment before she looked away. “And your parents?” she said. “They are well?”
Smita hated herself for the tears that sprang in her eyes. “Mummy died eight months ago,” she said.
“My condolences,” Pushpa said, as if they were discussing the death of their mailman rather than her former best friend.
Smita felt her anger rise. “Mummy built a good life for herself. But she never stopped missing this city, you know,” she said softly. “All her life.”
Pushpa looked down at her hands. “Nobody who moves to America misses India,” she said.
You bitch, Smita thought. You fucking bitch. “That’s probably true for people who leave voluntarily,” she said. “Not for those who are chased out of their own homes.”
Pushpa’s head jerked up. “It’s best to let bygones be bygones. No use crying over spilled milk.”
It was the word “crying” that unleashed something in Smita. It rekindled the memory of those early days in Ohio when she and Rohit would come home from school to find their mother red-eyed and listless. The two of them overhearing conversations in which Mummy would berate Papa for dragging the family to this cold, wintery desh. Papa’s voice, low and apologetic at the start of their arguments, then rising and growing more urgent.
“This is your privilege talking, Pushpa Auntie,” Smita said sharply. “It’s not your life that was upended, right? Until the day she died, my mother wondered why you betrayed us the way you did.”
“Don’t talk rot,” Pushpa said. “You are just like your father. Always blaming others for your problems.”
A vein throbbed in Smita’s forehead. Nobody had ever spoken about Papa in such a dismissive way. “That’s a lie,” she said. “My papa . . . He’s a thousand times the person that any of you will ever be.” As she said the words, she knew why she’d made the trek to this horrible woman’s home: to say to her face what Papa was too much of a gentleman to ever say.
Pushpa’s face darkened. “Have you come back after all this time to create problems?” she hissed. “What is the meaning of all this drama, this tamasha? You show up to my door after all these years to insult me? Is this how you Americans treat your elders?”
Smita leaned in. “No,” she said slowly, her eyes fixed on the older woman’s face. “But is this how you Indians treat your children?”
She heard Pushpa gasp before the older woman stood up. “Get out. Leave. Get out of my house now.”
Smita stared at Pushpa, aghast at how quickly the conversation had gotten derailed. “Auntie, we got off on the wrong foot,” she said. “Listen, I came here to gain some insight. I would like us to talk . . . Please.”
“Jaiprakash!” Pushpa yelled. “Where are you?” And when a dark-skinned elderly man rushed into the living room, she turned to her cook and said, “Show memsahib the door.”
The man looked from his employer to the well-dressed younger woman in confusion. Smita put up her hands and rose. “It’s okay,” she said to him. “I’ll go.”
Smita dragged her feet as she walked back toward the Causeway, angry at herself for this impulsive visit, mortified by how easily Mrs. Patel had turned the tables on her. What had she hoped to gain from this fool’s errand anyway? She had hoped to embarrass the woman, to squeeze out an apology that she could carry back to Papa, to remind Mrs. Patel that the past never died. Instead, she had been banished from Mrs. Patel’s life for a second time.
Why on earth am I surprised? Smita asked herself as she crossed the street. She had been a journalist for too many years to not know how easily people made excuses for their past misdeeds. Nobody was the villain in his or her own life story. Shame on her for expecting Pushpa Auntie to have lost any sleep over ancient history. Why would she fret over the past when every day a new Mumbai was being built atop the debris of the old city? “Look to the future, child,” her father used to say. “This is why our feet point forward, not back.”
As soon as she got to the shopping district, Smita stopped at a clothing store to buy appropriate outfits for her trip to Birwad, but the salesman who greeted her in the first store was so oily and effusive, she walked right out. She was spent; she would have to shop the next day, in between breaks from caring for Shannon. Surely, there will be stores near the hospital? she thought. Meanwhile, she wanted only to get a bite to eat and then collapse on her bed. But the thought of eating alone in the opulent splendor of the Taj was a lonely one, and so she continued walking, looking for a restaurant that catered to the many Western tourists in the neighborhood. She stopped at the Leopold Cafe and sat at one of the tables overlooking the Causeway.