“Come in, come in, come in,” Zarine Sethna said. “Please, welcome, welcome.”
“Thank you,” Smita said, suddenly shy. She stepped into a well-appointed room, filled with Chinese vases and antique furniture, and smiled at Mohan’s landlady. “Thank you for inviting me to lunch.”
“Definitely, definitely.” Zarine was a tall light-skinned woman with curly gray hair. She pushed her rimless glasses back up on her nose. “Mohan has told us so much about you.”
“Thank you.” Smita looked around. “Where’s Abru?”
“Taking her afternoon nap,” Zarine replied. She smiled. “You are worried about her? You want to see her?”
Smita nodded.
“Go take her to see the child,” Zarine said to Mohan. “Then we can eat.”
“It’s very nice of you to take all this trouble . . .”
“Arre, wah,” Zarine interrupted. “No trouble. Mohan is like my son.”
They went into Zarine’s bedroom. “She already looks plumper,” Smita whispered. “Or is it my imagination?”
“She ate three ice-cream cones yesterday, remember? You’ve been spoiling her.” He pretended to frown. “Once you leave, bas. I am putting her on a diet.”
Smita laughed, but her heart hurt at the thought of Mohan having Abru all to himself. “And Zarine Auntie is okay with the arrangement? She’ll watch her while you’re at work?” She hesitated. “If you are paying her to take care of Abru, I can send a monthly contribution?”
“Yah, right. So that Zarine Auntie and Jamshed can kill both of us. For insulting them like that.”
“Jamshed?”
“Her husband. I told you about him, remember? They are both in love with this child.”
“But you will be her primary guardian? You won’t let them . . .”
He touched her wrist. “Smita. Stop fretting. I told you—” He broke off as Zarine entered the room.
“Please. Come to the table,” Zarine said. “What will you drink? Something hot or cold?”
“A soft drink, please,” Smita said.
Mohan placed his hands on the older woman’s shoulders. “Come on, Zarine Auntie,” he said. “You’ve been cooking since morning. Smita and I can do everything else. I mean, at your age, you should not tire yourself.”
Zarine grinned. “See how he teases me?” she said to Smita, who had noticed that Mohan’s accent sounded thicker, more Indian, when he spoke to Zarine. There was also no mistaking his affection for her. Was he like this around his own mother? The thought of never finding out saddened her.
Smita sat sipping her raspberry soda while Zarine and Mohan brought the dishes to the dining table. “Auntie,” Smita gasped. “So much food?”
“Eat, eat, deekra,” Zarine Auntie said, spooning some sali boti onto Smita’s plate.
“Oof, Auntie,” Smita groaned. “Stop.”
“Smita,” Mohan said with his mouth full, “eat up, yaar. You will never get food like this in America.”
She nodded and did as she was told. A peaceful silence fell at the table, interrupted by Smita’s occasional murmurs of appreciation. “I remember this drink from my childhood,” Smita said as she took another sip of raspberry soda. “My father had a lot of Parsi friends. Any time we visited, they served us Duke’s raspberry.”
Zarine snapped her fingers. “Go to the fridge and get your friend another bottle,” she told Mohan, who rose immediately, a broad smile on his face.
The older woman followed him with her eyes until he was out of the dining room. “So how long have you known my Mohan?”
“Ah, er, not really that long,” Smita stammered. “That is . . .”
Zarine shook her head dismissively. “Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter,” she said. “When two people love one another, time doesn’t matter.”
Smita kept her gaze on her plate. She jumped as she felt Zarine’s hand cup her face. “So beautiful,” the woman murmured. “No wonder my Mohan is lattoo-fattoo over you.”
“Laddoo-faddoo?”
Zarine laughed. “Not ‘laddoo’—lattoo. It means, how do you say? ‘Head over heels.’ ”
Smita smiled back. Then, she yelped. Zarine had pinched her forearm.
“Don’t you dare hurt this poor boy,” Zarine said. Her eyes were blazing. “All these years I’m knowing him, and this is the first time he’s brought a girl home.”
“Auntie,” Smita said. “You . . . you know that I live in the US, right?” She waited until Zarine nodded. “So, you know that I’m scheduled to go home in three days?”
Zarine looked stricken. “Three days? What about Mohan? And the child?”
“I—I wanted to place Abru in an orphanage. But Mohan said no. He said he . . .”
“Chokri”—Zarine rose to her feet—“have some sense. Do you know what would happen to a girl in an orphanage? Of course Mohan said no. I thought you were more intelligent than that.”
She will blame me for hurting Mohan, Smita thought with dismay. She looked toward the kitchen. She could hear Mohan dispensing ice cubes into a glass. The food sat heavily in her stomach. Was this lunch an ambush? And if so, had Mohan been part of it?
But the puzzled expression on Mohan’s face as he came back in assuaged her suspicion. “Su che?” he asked Zarine in Gujarati. “What happened?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Zarine said as she sat back in her chair. Then she added, with effort, “Eat some more, deekra.”
Smita shook her head. “No thank you,” she said.
There was a strained silence. “I will make some Parsi-style tea,” Zarine said. You will take? And we have lagan nu custard for dessert.”
“Arre, Zarine, give this poor girl a break, yaar,” Mohan said. “Let’s wait ten, fifteen minutes before we begin to eat again, okay?”
Zarine’s face softened. “You know what they say about us Parsis,” she said. “While we are eating breakfast, we are already planning the lunch menu.”
They laughed, and the chill in the room dissipated. “I will go warm the custard in the oven,” Zarine said. “Do you want to show Smita your room? I will call when it’s ready.”
They were both shy as they entered Mohan’s bedroom. Smita took in the bare walls, the neatly made double bed, the single chair with a pair of jeans draped on it. Mohan’s room looked as spare and impersonal as her own condo. Somehow, despite his friendly nature and the fact that he lived with other people, his was as monastic an existence as her own. The thought made her emotional, a fact that he noticed immediately. “What is it?” he said.
“Nothing. I’m just happy to see your room. To know where you live.”
He got the embittered look that she’d begun to dread, the look that came over his face each time he was reminded of her imminent departure—and she braced herself for a caustic remark. But he said nothing, and she walked toward his dresser and picked up a framed photo. “Your parents?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You look a lot like your father.”
“That’s what everybody says.”
She set the picture back down, absentmindedly flicking off the lint from the frame as she did so. He noticed. “It’s so dusty here,” he said. “You clean, and a half hour later, bas, it’s dirty again.”
“And yet, it’s your beloved city,” she teased.
But Mohan’s face remained unsmiling. “It is. Of course it is.” He gazed at her for another moment. “Come. We should keep Zarine Auntie company.”
“Can I help you?” Smita asked in the kitchen.
“You want to make the tea?” Zarine said.
Smita hesitated. “Do you . . . I just use tea bags?”
“Tea bags? Nonsense. We use real tea leaves. And mint leaves. And lemongrass.” She turned to Mohan. “Take this American girl and go sit in the living room. I will bring us a nice hot-pot cup of tea.”
As Smita and Mohan entered the living room, they walked past the old teakwood armoire. Half of the cupboard was faced with a full-length mirror, and Smita glanced at it. But instead of seeing her reflection, she saw an older couple. They were rushing around a kitchen, assembling a school lunch. Smita recognized the couple immediately—it was Mohan and her, ten years older. The temporal distortion made her woozy, and she stumbled.
“Smita? What’s the matter?” Mohan asked, steadying her.