If Today Be Sweet (15 page)

Tehmina smiled. “Now I see why you're such a good lawyer. What a golden tongue you have.”

To her surprise and dismay, Percy's face flushed and his nose turned red. How well she knew that look, knew that it meant that his feelings were hurt and he was trying hard to keep his tears at bay. “I wasn't trying to trick you, Mamma,” she heard him say. “I meant what I said.”

Hastily, she took his hand in hers. “Of course, of course, deekra. I didn't mean to suggest—” She paused. “Okay, give me a few more days to decide. I'll let you know soon, I promise. I know this hasn't been easy for all you children. I'm sorry, I'm doing my best, but this is not an easy decision for me, you know?” To her embarrassment, she could hear the tears in her own voice. Still, she forced herself to continue. “To give up the city of one's birth, old friends whom you grew up with, an apartment that you've decorated and cleaned and furnished, all this is very hard, beta. I'm not so stupid that I don't realize what a strain this has put on Sorab and Susan, believe me. Quite the contrary. But I also—I need time. Or maybe I need a sign.”

“I understand. I really do. And I wish…But Sorab and Susan have some decisions to make, also. If they're going to move into a bigger house, they need to start planning for that, you know?”

She stared at him. “Move into a bigger house?”

Percy looked startled. “Didn't they talk to you about it? If you decide to stay, they're going to buy a bigger house. So that you can have your own bathroom and so that—so that they can have more, y'know, privacy and stuff. Preferably a house with a bedroom and bath on the first floor.”

Although she knew this was not what he'd intended, she felt a chill in her heart. So the children felt the need for a bigger house. What that meant was that her presence was an imposition, an inconvenience to them. Whose idea was it to move? Susan's probably. She
remembered now her daughter-in-law's pencil-thin lips and tight voice the day she had told her to please remember to take the hair out of the bathtub when she got done with her shower. At that time she hadn't thought much about it. Now she wondered which other of her thoughtless habits and behaviors affected Susan and possibly created friction between her and Sorab. She had tried to live unobtrusively in their house, tiptoeing around when she had to use the bathroom at night so as not to wake them, staying in bed later than usual so as to give them some time with each other every morning, not volunteering to do anything for Cookie unless Susan asked her to. She had tried to live in their home like a friendly spirit, eager to help in any way she could but also ready to disappear in the shadows when necessary. And all of it had been for nothing. Hadn't Percy told her as much? That the children still felt they needed distance and privacy? She imagined them talking in whispers, Susan voicing her frustrations, Sorab trying to appease his wife without insulting his mother. The thought of her son being placed in such an awkward situation made Tehmina feel nauseous.

“Mamma. What's wrong?” Percy was saying. “What did I say that's making you look like this?”

She looked at him, not bothering to keep the tears out of her eyes. “I didn't know the children felt the need for a bigger house. I have tried so hard these past few months to give them their privacy.”

Percy took in a sharp intake of breath. “Oh God, Mamma. Don't take this the wrong way. Please. Look, it's different in this country. People aren't used to living with their parents and so—so they need more space and privacy, okay? It's nothing against you, honest. God, I've heard Susan say that she'd rather live with you than any of her own relatives. And anyway, Sorab was planning on buying a bigger house regardless of whether you moved here or not.” She heard the wobble in his voice at this obvious untruth. Percy doesn't know how to lie, she thought. Not a good quality in a lawyer.

Tehmina rose from the bed. “Let's join the party, shall we?” she said. She tried to make her voice sound light. But her heart was cold.

 

“How'd it go?” Sorab whispered to Percy. The two of them were at the bar fixing drinks for themselves and their wives.

Percy shook his head. “I don't know. I made a faux pas, I think.” He turned toward his friend angrily. “Saala, why didn't you tell me that you hadn't mentioned your plans to buy a new home to her?”

Sorab stared at him. “You told her that?”

“Well, yes. How the fuck was I to know you'd kept it a goddamn secret? I just thought it would help her realize that time was running short.”

“Great. From the frying pan into the fire. Nice going, Percy. I know what she's going to think—that we are tired of her presence or something.”

“That's exactly what she thinks. I mean, I think so, anyway. Who the fuck knows what goes through the minds of women? If they're twelve or eighty, it's the same thing.”

“Oh, spare me your usual rant about the wily ways of women. Can we come back to the topic of my mother, please?”

“Yeah. Sure. Except I don't know what to tell you.” Percy sighed. “Any red-blooded American woman would jump at the chance to move into a new home. But not our Indian women, oh no. They have to bring enough melodrama and psychological intrigue into the situation to make bloody Freud and Jung both spin in their graves.”

Despite himself, Sorab laughed. “Fuck you, Percy. First you spill the beans to my mom and now you're trying to cover up your damn mistake with a broadsided attack on all Indian women.”

“Guilty as charged. Listen, let's just get through the next few weeks, achcha? I'll talk to her again after the first of the year.”

They walked back to where Susan and Julie were standing. Sorab glanced around the room to search for his mother and found her sitting on the couch next to another elderly woman from India who was visiting her daughter. “Here you go, hon,” he said, handing Susan a glass of red wine.

Julie and Percy sipped their drinks. “Aha.” Julie sighed. “Nobody makes a more perfect gin and tonic than my husband.” Like Percy's three previous wives, Julie was also blond and petite. She reminded Sorab of Patti Boyd, the model who had married George Harrison. He idly wondered where Percy found all these wives—they looked as if they came out of a factory that produced blond and petite women. But Julie had a tough streak that belied her tiny presence. And for the first time Percy had indicated that he was open to the possibility of having children. With his first three wives, Percy had been firm about the fact that he had no desire to be a father. Sorab had often thought that it was the only area in which he could observe the scars his abusive childhood had left on Percy. In every other way, Percy truly seemed to have left his past behind him, going so far as to visit his father once a year in the small flat that he had purchased for him a few years ago. But his adamant refusal to father a child had always struck Sorab as telling, especially given the fact that Percy doted on Cookie and lavished gifts on him. It had always filled Sorab with sadness, knowing that his best friend had shut the door on the possibility of his greatest happiness.

Now, feeling happily drunk on his second beer, he turned toward Julie. “You've been such a civilizing influence on this barbarian.” He grinned. “For this, we are all grateful to you.”

“Oh, give me a few more years,” Julie said. “You'll think he went to finishing school or something.” She was smiling, but something in her voice made Sorab believe her and he felt a twinge of panic. He
didn't really want Percy to
change
or anything. His friend was pretty damn perfect the way he was.

“Thanks a bloody lot, yaar,” Percy said. “Even my best friend turns out to be a traitor.”

“And here's another thing,” Julie said, and from her tone Sorab realized that she was a bit tipsy also. “One thing I've made clear to Percy—no more divorce. I'm not the divorce type, you know? I play for keeps. So I'm here to stay, baby.”

Sorab suddenly realized that he didn't like Julie very much and his heart sank with that knowledge. There was something a little brittle and hard about her, like the cashew chikki they used to eat as schoolboys. To console himself, he reached for Susan's hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back, and in an electrifying instant, he knew that she had just read his mind and told him that she agreed with his assessment. After all these years of marriage, he was still stunned by Susan's perceptiveness and the shorthand that worked between them. It made all the less savory aspects of their marriage so much easier to take, this connection that they shared. No one on earth could read him the way Susan did. At times he hated this about her because it made him feel as naked as an X-ray. But right now his heart filled with love for the smart, perceptive woman standing next to him.

He so badly wished for Percy the same kind of companionship and support that he had in his own marriage. But he had a sudden insight that Percy would never enjoy what he had—the quiet steadiness of love, the comfort of family. That his childhood had created a hole in Percy that nothing would ever fill. Maybe if he had found a woman as steadfast and intelligent as Susan, he would have stood a chance. But that was the catch—Percy would never seek out someone like Susan, someone who would knock down his defenses, threaten his glib posturing, someone who would demand to be taken seriously as a human being. Instead, he would spend his life chasing after some
thing he could barely define or describe, trying to feed a hunger that was insatiable, and then, in sheer frustration, settle for someone like Julie or Karen or—what was his second wife's name?—Veronica. Women with thin waistlines and painted toenails who were no threat to him, who were clearly not his intellectual equals, who felt more comfortable in beauty parlors than in libraries.

Sorab had never thought about all this before and he took another swig of his beer to chase away the sad, heavy feeling that was descending on him. What would it be like to have a baby with a woman like Julie? he wondered. What kind of a life would such a child have, with parents who were children themselves, who went out to nightclubs every weekend? Would Percy change, grow up? Or would he be a pale copy of his own father—kinder certainly, nonabusive for sure—but nevertheless a father whose own greedy desires would always come before the needs of a mere child? As for Julie—he just didn't know what kind of a mother she would be. Until tonight, he had liked Julie, thought she was good for Percy, had been touched by her attempts to learn Indian cooking. Now, suddenly, he felt dyspeptic, had a bitter taste in his mouth that he knew was not from the beer. Maybe he was just massively projecting his own discontent, his own nagging sense of failure, onto Percy.

But what the fuck was he so miserable about? Hadn't he just favorably compared his own wife to a woman who was at least eight years younger? Wasn't that his own mother on the couch there, looking for all the world as if she belonged in this living room with all his other friends? Wasn't it just yesterday that he had felt weepy at the sight of his mother and son at the mall together?

“Hon,” Susan was whispering. “You've had enough to drink. Why don't you switch to a Coke or something?”

Percy laughed out loud. “Henpecked, that's what all we Parsi men are.” He turned toward Susan. “My dear, there was a time when your husband could drink more beers than anybody else in college.”
He poked Sorab in the stomach. “Of course, that was almost twenty years ago and this belly of his wasn't nearly as—er, prosperous then.”

Perin Jasawala came up to them. “Well, Percy, you've just set a world record,” she said with a grin. “After all, the dinner buffet has been set out in the dining room for two full minutes. And you're still in this room.”

“Well, since I've married Julie, I'm a satisfied man,” Percy declared. He winked at all of them. “I'm talking about the fact that she is learning to cook Parsi dishes, of course—though I might add that I'm satisfied in—er—other rooms of our house also, if you know what I mean. And so I can resist the aromas coming from your kitchen, Perin. At least for a minute or two, that is.”

Perin laughed as she moved away. “Well, dinner is served. It's an authentic Parsi wedding menu. Although the patra-ni-macchi is wrapped in parchment paper, I'm afraid. The caterer couldn't find banana leaves.”

“Leaves or paper, who cares?” Percy muttered. “It's the fish I'm after, not the bloody wrapper.” He looked around. “Where's Mamma? Arre, Sorab, go fetch her, yaar. If she sits on that couch listening to that old lady's boring stories any longer, she might turn into a fossil or something.”

 

Parsis, Tehmina thought. They could come to America, attend top schools, get high degrees, marry American women, talk with American accents, own fancy cars and houses. But nothing could change a Parsi's eating habits or diminish his love for rich food. When it came to food they were still khadras, as greedy as ever. Look at this crowd of rich, sophisticated people, she marveled with amusement. They still acted the same way Parsis did at weddings in Bombay—single-minded in their pursuit of food. This was a big party—at least fifty
guests, Tehmina estimated—but Bomi and Perin had provided enough food to feed twice as many people. Still, the abundance of food only made the guests even more delirious as the aromas of food that they loved and missed—the chicken farchas, the steamed fish coated with green chutney, the lamb pallov—assailed their nostrils. They weren't exactly jostling for position at the long dining table—they were much too sophisticated for that—but the air was charged with their urgency and impatience.

Susan came up to where Tehmina was leaning against the wall. “Quite a spectacle, huh, Mom?” She smiled. “Think the men will remember to fix plates for us also once they get anywhere near the food?”