The House of Hidden Mothers (26 page)

Another manager-type lady came to greet Shyama, with surprised high eyebrows and hair almost as long as Mala's, but so shiny, like it had been poured out of a tube. Only then did Mala dare to sit down on the soft sofa with the piles of magazines, many titles she had never heard of, all of them in English. But she could easily translate most of the titles and headlines; all those stolen hours poring over Pogle sahib's discarded newspapers had not been a waste. But she only pretended to read, her ears trained on the two women talking. Shyama Madam was some kind of businesswoman – a good one, judging by the way she talked, confident and in control, asking lots of questions about products and supply and overheads and export duty. Mala watched how she talked, how she occupied her space, filling it, pushing it out with her earthy voice and expressive hand gestures so that it expanded with her energy. When she smiled it filled her eyes, when she laughed it came from her belly, not the polite hand-over-teeth titter that some of the high-class women affected in imitation of their favourite movie heroines. Now she began to see what the handsome blond man saw in Shyama; she herself saw it in the older women in the village, whose children were grown and husbands slowing down. They didn't have to pretend and they didn't care what people thought of them, because an old woman is almost invisible anyway,
hena
?

Then Shyama Madam was calling her over excitedly, saying something about a treatment she wanted to try out and wouldn't it be fun for both of them, and before Mala knew it, she was lying on a long squeaky chair having her face scrubbed and rubbed with something that smelt like summer roses, and then something else which didn't smell as good and dried on her skin like the top of boiled milk and then was peeled off in one whole piece, as if they had removed her face and replaced it with a similar one but softer, shinier, newborn.

‘Wow,' breathed the girl as she wiped Mala's cheeks clean with a warm scented flannel. ‘Her skin is totally flawless. I mean totally, nah? Like there's not one open pore anywhere.'

‘I use
dehi
. Gram flour.
Haldi
sometimes,' Mala said without thinking.

The three women swivelled their heads to stare at her.

‘Yoghurt? And turmeric? Yes, we know all about traditional village remedies.' The tube-hair lady smiled at her reassuringly. ‘Most of our treatments are done in consultation with—'

‘Lime juice and sugar for leg hair.
Chaaval
and
channa
for face.'

‘Chickpeas and rice? For massage … like a scrub?' Tube lady was looking very interested now.

Mala nodded, rubbed her fingers together as if she was making crumbs. ‘But small-small … also with coconut oil.'

‘Don't give away all your secrets!' Shyama said, half-jokingly.

Mala prickled at the sideways look she gave her, the look she sometimes got at the riverbank from some of the other women when she laughed too loud or made fun of one of their husbands. But then Shyama Madam started coo-cooing over the jars and bottles that were brought out for her to smell and rub their contents between her fingers. They obviously made some deal, tapping details on to their matching cell phones before Shyama was given a bag of samples to take away. Before they left, Shyama asked if she could use the computer at the reception, and she and the tube-hair woman spent some time looking at the screen, deep in serious talk. Then Shyama beckoned Mala over, pointing at an image of a room not unlike the one they stood in, with leather chairs, walls of mirrors, pretty Indian women in white coats.

‘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 her 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.