He bowed his head. “If you are sure. But . . . let me fetch you the glass of water, memsahib.”
Smita had intended to take a short nap, but when she awoke, the clock said 5:00 p.m. She got up and, in her bare feet, went to look for Mohan. She found him on the living room sofa, snoring softly, the magazine on his chest rising and falling with each breath. She stood watching him for a moment, then turned away. But her knee knocked against the crystal fruit bowl on the table nearby, and the sound woke him. He sat up almost immediately, running his hand through his hair.
“I guess we both zonked out,” she said.
“We?” He cocked his right eyebrow. “I already dropped Ramdas off at the train station and stopped to buy a few provisions. I must’ve dozed off for less than ten minutes.”
“Sorry, yaar,” she said, adopting his favorite slang.
“Be careful,” Mohan said. “Or else you’ll turn into a pucca Indian.” He stifled a yawn. “Listen, I thought we would eat at home tonight,” he said. “We can make pasta if you want.”
Pasta? After the spicy Indian dinners they’d been eating all this time, Smita felt as if she’d give her right arm for pasta.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Sunday I found out that I was pregnant, Abdul had gone to the factory to work an extra shift. Soon after he left that morning I vomited, just as I had the previous night. I blamed it on the food I’d eaten the night before. I went to my cot to lie down and didn’t wake up until Ammi came in. “Kya huya?” she said. “It’s eleven in the morning, and you are still sleeping?”
I forced myself to rise. “Sorry, Ammi,” I said. “I’ll make your breakfast.”
“Shoo—” She waved me away. “Forget breakfast now. I had a chapati with ghee at my house.”
Sick as I was, I took pride in Ammi’s words. With the wages Abdul and I were earning, we were giving Ammi a good life. Now, she could afford to spread ghee on her chapati.
“Sorry, Ammi,” I said again.
But my mother-in-law was staring at me with her eyes narrowed. “What is the matter with you? You look unwell.”
“God only knows. I threw up after dinner last night. And this morning I did so again.”
“Are you with child?”
As soon as Ammi said the words, I knew it was so. I remembered now that I had not been visited by my menses the month before.
“It’s not that, Ammi,” I lied. “I think I ate something rotten last night.”
She nodded before telling me the reason she had come. She needed to borrow some sugar and rice to make kheer for her friend, Fouzia. “Take what you wish, Ammi,” I said. “Our house is your house.”
“But of course it is,” she replied. “After all, this is my son’s house, no?”
I had wished that Abdul’s mother would be like a mother to me, that she would grow to love me the way Abdul loved both of us. My own mother had died when I was six, and she left in me a hunger as big as the sky. But as I watched Ammi go through my jars of sugar and rice, without even putting the lids back on properly, I knew that my mother-in-law would never make me her own.
As soon as Ammi left, though, I was filled with a joy more powerful than I had ever known. A baby. Our own baby. I looked around in wonder at our small, humble hut. I stared at my thin, brown body. I thought of Abdul’s hands on my body, his lips on my lips. Out of our love, we had stitched together our baby. It was the oldest story in the world; it was the newest. Every single thing that I had lost in my own life, every motherless moment, I would make up for with my own child. I was laughing-crying at the miracle of this, at this second chance to take this crooked world in my hands and set it correct. “Ae, Bhagwan, Bhagwan, Bhagwan, I thank you for Your gift,” I prayed. And then, feeling guilty, I chanted, “Ya Allah the Beneficent, thank you.”
Another wave of nausea came over me, but I laughed. This was the first sacrifice for my child that I would make, in a long line of sacrifices. What was a little vomiting? What was the pain of childbirth, compared with the miracle of a new life? In the face of God’s will, what was the wrath of my brothers, or the judgment of my former neighbors? Because this was God’s will. If He did not will it so, this would have never happened—and so soon after our wedding. Because God lived in His heavenly castle, and not on Earth, He looked for different ways to speak to us: through our dreams, in the pictures made by clouds, by this announcement of new life. This little one was God’s messenger sent to us, proof that Abdul was right: We were the new India. This little one would thread Abdul and me together forever: Hindu and Muslim, man and woman, husband and wife. Forever.
I stood up; I paced; I sat down. The tiny hovel was choking me, my happiness leaping over its straw walls. My Abdul had built this home for us, and for that reason, I loved it. But today it felt small, too small, to hold all my joy, my hopes, my overflowing love. What should I do? Abdul was the first person I had to tell, which was why I did not confirm Ammi’s suspicion. I wished Radha was here with me. But Radha had disappeared, as if Govind had shoved her into a gunnysack and thrown her into the river. One month after I ran away, he got her married to some old cripple. Abdul heard the news from someone at the factory, but the man did not know the name of her husband or that of the village where Radha now lived. My sister, my first love, had disappeared from my life wholly.
Because I couldn’t think of Radha, I forced myself to think of this new joy. But how to pass the hours until Abdul came home, when each minute was a pinprick, when I was aware of every heartbeat? How it beat, my heart. My heart, and now, my baby’s heart. And that thought calmed me down. I was not wasting my time as I awaited Abdul’s return. Rather, even as I lit the stove to make myself tea, my body was doing its job—feeding my baby, building its bones. Even as I waited, I was not waiting at all. With every passing minute, I was growing my baby. Our baby.
When Abdul came home that evening, I could tell that he was hungry and tired. I looked at his face, so serious and beautiful, and I thought, Please God, let my son look just like his father. In that moment, I was sure I was carrying a boy.
He caught me looking at him and smiled. “You miss me?”
“Me? No, not at all,” I said, smiling back at him.
He grabbed me by my waist. “Then why you’re looking at me as if I’m a box of chocolate?”
I shook myself loose. “Eat your dinner,” I said. “Mr. Chocolate.”
As always, Abdul waited until I ate the first mouthful. Even then, this ritual felt fresh and new to me. Before our wedding, Abdul made me promise: Everything we did, we did equal. He wanted a wife, he said, not a maid. He only made one request—that I would take care of Ammi, just as he did. “Did Ammi eat?” he asked.
“I dropped off her dinner. Same as usual.” I said. Every Sunday, Abdul and I ate alone in our house. The rest of the week, we cooked in Ammi’s hut and took our meals with her and Kabir.
“I will stop by and see her after we are done here.”
I took his hand. “Not tonight. I have some news.”
“What?”
“You eat while the food is hot-pot. I will tell you afterwards.”
He frowned. “Is it your brothers? Are they harassing you?”
“No, no.” Then, I saw the worry in his eyes and felt sorry for him. “It’s not that. It’s good news.”
“Good news? Arre, Meena, didn’t anyone teach you? Bad news can wait. But good news you must share immediately. Tell me.”
I placed one finger on my lips. “Shoo. I will tell after you finish eating.”
A strange look came over Abdul’s face. He stared at me while chewing his food. He swallowed. “Meena,” he said, his voice sounding as if the food was stuck in his throat, “tell me now. Are you carrying our baby?”
I screamed and made a fist to hit him. “You spoiled my surprise!” I said. “How did you know?”