A moment passed. Shit, Smita thought. This is a fucking mistake. But just then the door opened, and there was Pushpa Auntie’s rotund face, older but familiar, peering at her. “Yes?” the woman inquired. “Can I help you?”
Smita’s mouth went dry. She waited for a flicker of recognition to spark on Pushpa’s face, but instead the older woman’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Can I help?” she said again.
Too many years had gone by, Smita realized. What a son of a bitch time was, chewing up everything in its path.
The door was closing on her, Mrs. Patel retreating into the apartment. “Pushpa Auntie, it’s me,” Smita said in a rush. “Smita Agarwal.”
But Pushpa Patel looked as confused as before. How old is she now? Smita wondered. A little older than Papa?
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Patel was saying. “You have the wrong number.” As if this encounter were a phone call, instead of a face-to-face visit.
“Pushpa Auntie, it’s me,” Smita said again. “Your old neighbor from 5C.”
Chapter Six
Smita recognized the mahogany trunk in Pushpa’s living room. She and Chiku used to hide in it when they played hide-and-seek, while Rohit, two years older, thumped his feet on the marbled floor and pretended to not know where they were hiding. “I remember that trunk,” she said. “Chiku and I . . .”
“Thank you,” Pushpa said. She sat in an armchair and indicated that Smita should sit across from her. “What will you take?” she asked politely. “Something hot? Something cold?”
“Nothing, thanks,” Smita said, not wanting to turn this into a social visit. She looked around the room where she had spent so much time.
“You are still in the States?” Pushpa asked. Her voice was friendly, but her eyes were disinterested. Once upon a time, Pushpa Auntie had been one of Smita’s favorite adults. Now, Smita wondered why.
“Yes. I live in New York.”
“I see. We have visited. Many times.”
Smita nodded. “That’s good,” she said vaguely. “Did you like it?” She wondered if Pushpa’s husband was at home. What was the man’s first name? For the life of her, she couldn’t remember.
Pushpa made a face. “Some things were good. But there were too many of those darkies, always misbehaving on the streets.”
“Excuse me?”
“Those, what you call them? Those blackies.”
“The correct term is African American.” Of course the woman was a racist. Why was Smita surprised?
Pushpa stiffened. She sat back in her chair. “And you? You are married?”
“No,” Smita said. “I’m not. What about—?”
“So, you are having no issues?”
Smita stared at her blankly before realizing what the woman was asking. She’d forgotten that Papa’s Indian friends often referred to children as “issues.” “No,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Pushpa said, as if Smita’s childless state was something that warranted condolences.
Smita bristled. “How is Chiku?” she asked, wanting to change the subject.
Pushpa’s face brightened. “He’s fine,” she said. “He’s a well-known lawyer. He goes by Chetan now, of course. Nobody calls him Chiku anymore. He argues cases before the high court, after all. He and his wife live in Cuffe Parade. They are having three children. All boys, by the grace of God. I got him married as soon as he finished college.”
So, she was not just a racist but a sexist to boot. “Rohit is married and has a son, also,” Smita said. “You remember my brother, Rohit, right?”
Pushpa made a noncommittal sound as she stared toward the balcony. Both women listened to the cries of the boys playing cricket on the street below. “Ball, ball, ball!” one of them yelled.
“What community—what kind of girl did he marry?” Mrs. Patel asked.
She knows, Smita thought. She remembers. Forcing her voice to remain neutral she said, “An American girl, of course. Very beautiful.”
“She’s a—what do you call them, an African?”
Smita fought down her distaste before she spoke. “Nope. Allison’s white.” Her sister-in-law was the daughter of first-generation Irish immigrants, with hair as dark as her own. But Smita felt an irrational, childish urge to impress the woman by turning Ali into a WASP. “She’s blonde. With blue eyes. Comes from a very wealthy family.”
Pushpa looked impressed. “Wah,” she said.
Smita smiled grimly. “You’ve heard of Apple computers?”
“Of course,” Pushpa said with a laugh. “We are not so backward. Everybody knows the Apple. My Chetan has three Apple phones.”
Smita nodded. “My sister-in-law’s father is a senior executive at Apple. You should’ve seen the dowry he gave us, Auntie.” Even as the string of lies escaped her lips, she wondered why she was trying to impress this awful woman.
“That’s very good,” Pushpa said, nodding in a cow-like fashion. Her eyes held Smita’s for a moment before she looked away. “And your parents?” she said. “They are well?”
Smita hated herself for the tears that sprang in her eyes. “Mummy died eight months ago,” she said.
“My condolences,” Pushpa said, as if they were discussing the death of their mailman rather than her former best friend.
Smita felt her anger rise. “Mummy built a good life for herself. But she never stopped missing this city, you know,” she said softly. “All her life.”
Pushpa looked down at her hands. “Nobody who moves to America misses India,” she said.
You bitch, Smita thought. You fucking bitch. “That’s probably true for people who leave voluntarily,” she said. “Not for those who are chased out of their own homes.”
Pushpa’s head jerked up. “It’s best to let bygones be bygones. No use crying over spilled milk.”
It was the word “crying” that unleashed something in Smita. It rekindled the memory of those early days in Ohio when she and Rohit would come home from school to find their mother red-eyed and listless. The two of them overhearing conversations in which Mummy would berate Papa for dragging the family to this cold, wintery desh. Papa’s voice, low and apologetic at the start of their arguments, then rising and growing more urgent.
“This is your privilege talking, Pushpa Auntie,” Smita said sharply. “It’s not your life that was upended, right? Until the day she died, my mother wondered why you betrayed us the way you did.”
“Don’t talk rot,” Pushpa said. “You are just like your father. Always blaming others for your problems.”
A vein throbbed in Smita’s forehead. Nobody had ever spoken about Papa in such a dismissive way. “That’s a lie,” she said. “My papa . . . He’s a thousand times the person that any of you will ever be.” As she said the words, she knew why she’d made the trek to this horrible woman’s home: to say to her face what Papa was too much of a gentleman to ever say.
Pushpa’s face darkened. “Have you come back after all this time to create problems?” she hissed. “What is the meaning of all this drama, this tamasha? You show up to my door after all these years to insult me? Is this how you Americans treat your elders?”
Smita leaned in. “No,” she said slowly, her eyes fixed on the older woman’s face. “But is this how you Indians treat your children?”
She heard Pushpa gasp before the older woman stood up. “Get out. Leave. Get out of my house now.”
Smita stared at Pushpa, aghast at how quickly the conversation had gotten derailed. “Auntie, we got off on the wrong foot,” she said. “Listen, I came here to gain some insight. I would like us to talk . . . Please.”
“Jaiprakash!” Pushpa yelled. “Where are you?” And when a dark-skinned elderly man rushed into the living room, she turned to her cook and said, “Show memsahib the door.”
The man looked from his employer to the well-dressed younger woman in confusion. Smita put up her hands and rose. “It’s okay,” she said to him. “I’ll go.”