“Well, I’m ashamed, too. Ashamed of my country.”
She knew that Mohan was trying to express his solidarity, that his words were meant to console. But they made her feel awful. “You don’t have to dislike India for my sake, Mohan,” she said. “Really. I mean, I don’t. Not anymore.”
“How can you possibly say that? After what you’ve shared with me?”
Smita was flooded by memories: The horns of the bull plowing a field, decorated with marigolds. The strange democracy of children and dogs and chickens and goats coexisting in the villages they had passed. The line of women walking down the side of the road with clay pots on their heads, carrying water back to their villages. The older women at the park in Breach Candy jogging in their saris and tennis shoes. The waiter at the Taj who had given her a single white rose. Nandini’s fierce, protective love for Shannon. Meena’s rootlike hand stroking Abru’s back. Ramdas’s pride in a home that didn’t belong to him. Each one of those tender things was India, too.
And this man sitting next to her, his eyes wet, torn between his need to console and his desire to be forgiven. How to make him understand that the very casualness of him, his unthinking acts of kindness and generosity—allowing the doorman at the Taj to carry her suitcase to the car, hoisting large bags of rice and dal into Ammi’s shack, his playful manner with Abru and Meena, his impressions of his coworkers that kept her entertained, all of it, all of him, had become India, too? That having spoken out loud the secret that had dirtied her for two decades—and seeing his fine, clean anger and outrage—had set free some part of her that had remained calcified for much too long?
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t say. But it’s true.”
“And you’re glad you told me? Even though I badgered the truth out of you?”
“I am.”
After some time, Smita rose from the couch, walked toward the kitchen and then looked back. “Can I ask you for a favor?”
“I will.”
“You will what?”
“I’ll keep helping Meena and her daughter. In fact, I’ll send them a monthly check. And I’ll stop by every time I come to Surat. I promise. Although, I cannot imagine going there without you, yaar.”
She made a rueful face. “I know. But we will remain friends.”
He nodded, but she knew what he was too polite to say: He was more likely to keep his promise than she was to keep hers.
Chapter Thirty
Anjali sent her assistant to drive me to the courthouse. I wanted to take Abru with me but Anjali had said absolutely not—we may have to sit for many hours before our case number would be called. The assistant said to leave Abru with Ammi, who grumbled about taking her granddaughter to her job with her. Her mistress does not like little children.
I have not seen my brothers since I saw them in court the last time.
I am very scared.
I am praying Smita and Mohan babu will be there.
I am hoping God will be there.
I am not sure if I should pray to the Muslim God or the Hindu one.
If Abdul were alive, he would say there is only one God—and that I must pray to the God called Justice.
But I am going to court because Abdul is dead.
Maybe, when people die, they become a speck in the eye of God?
Maybe it is Abdul to whom I must pray.
Maybe he can do in death what he couldn’t do in life: save me from the devils I must face in court.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Mohan. Slow down, please. You’re going to get us killed.”
He glanced at her, irritated. “You only said we can’t be late.”
“I know. But I also . . . Jesus.” She flinched as another car brushed past them, blaring its horn as it did.
He raised an eyebrow. “Jesus?”
“It’s an expression.”
“I know.” He flicked a piece of lint off his cheek. “So . . . Speaking of Jesus, did you ever see Beatrice again?”
“Of course. Although the poor woman was so wracked with guilt, she could barely look us in the eye for several months.”
“Yah. It’s always like this. The innocent ones feel guilt. Whereas the true bastards, like these two brothers we’re about to see, walk around like they own the world.”
Smita gave him a sidelong look, debating whether to ask the question that had been bugging her. “And you, you . . .”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Smita. Come on. What is it?”
“It’s just that, I was wondering. Does it change anything for you? Knowing, you know, that I was born a Muslim?”
Several seconds passed before Mohan spoke. “I guess it does. To tell you the truth it makes me ashamed to be a Hindu. And it makes me wish I’d known you back then so I could’ve protected you.”
Others had expressed their solidarity with the Rizvi family. Poor Beatrice Gonzales had apologized profusely for being unable to protect Sameer and Zeenat. The chair of Asif’s department had thundered his disapproval when he’d heard about Asif’s decision to convert. A neighbor’s servant had muttered an apology the next time he had run into Mummy. But nobody had wanted to renounce their religion because of what had happened. Nobody had wished they could have scaled the time-space continuum for them. And there was no hint of pity in what Mohan had said. There was just sympathy, a clean sympathy that burned as pure as alcohol.
“Thank you, Mohan.”
After a few minutes Mohan asked, “Your father didn’t think of shifting immediately? You lived in that neighborhood for another two years?”
They did.
Asif, the only child of an only child, had a handful of distant relatives in Bombay. When word of the conversion got to them, they cut off all ties. And of course, there was no way now to move into an all-Muslim neighborhood, even if they’d wanted to. In any case, Asif, cosmopolitan and agnostic, had no desire to live in a homogenous place, not after living in the most bohemian part of the city. Where would he go? Forced out of one religion and into another, to whom would they turn? Who were their people? For the first time in his life, Asif Rizvi, aka Rakesh Agarwal, secular humanist, faced an identity crisis.