Free The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar Page B

inevitably eavesdropping outside their bedroom door couldn’t hear him. “And you are a crazy woman for having married this crazy man. But oh, my Bhima, we are going to have so much fun the rest of our lives.You just wait, woman, I am going to treat you like the queen that you are.”
     
    Thinking of her wedding night, of Gopal’s broken promise, Bhima stirs restlessly. She knows she must try to sleep, but her mind feels feverish as it races through the crowded hallways of the past. Beside her, Maya snores softly and occasionally murmurs in her sleep. Instinctively, Bhima responds with this new emotion that she’s grown familiar with ever since she learned of Maya’s pregnancy—a combination of unbearable protectiveness and strong irritability. Hearing her grandchild’s snores and murmurs, Bhima wants to smother her with a pillow as well as take her in her arms and rock her all night. She wants to preserve the innocence that lets Maya sleep her childlike sleep; she wants to destroy that innocence much as the baby growing in Maya’s womb has destroyed Bhima’s peace of mind. It scares her sometimes, how effortlessly both feelings seem to reside inside her heart, how she has grown to love and hate Maya, how a singular strand of love now has fear weaved into it. How she has come to see her own flesh and blood as her betrayer.
    But you should be used to betrayals by now, you old woman, she says to herself. You, of all people. Why should this wisp of a girl owe you more than your husband did? Look what he did to you. Stole your life away from you, didn’t he? And you’ve forgiven him, haven’t you? No, not forgiven, but you’ve made your peace with it, no? So why not do the same with this poor, stupid girl?
    Straining her eyes to see Maya’s outline in the dark, Bhima answers her own question. The situation with Gopal belongs to the past, and like a used wedding sari, she can fold it and tuck it away in a dark corner. But Maya is the present (once, she had also been thefuture, but no point in thinking about that now). A red-hot, pulsating dot is growing in her womb, throbbing with life and energy. Unsanctified by a priest, conceived under the veil of shame, unwanted by the world, that thing growing in Maya’s body has the power to destroy both of them. But before it can do that, before it can wail its grievances to the world, before it can wave its tiny fist at them, they have to destroy it.
    A solitary crow caws, and Bhima groans. It is 3:00 A.M ., she guesses. In a few hours, it will be time to get up, and she has not even slept for a full hour yet. Soon it will be dawn.

7
    I t is Saturday morning and Bhima is late again. Despite her pregnancy, Dinaz has woken up early today to help Sera prepare breakfast. Dinaz knows how much her mother hates chopping onions and cilantro, and since both ingredients are necessary in making Viraf’s favorite breakfast dish of akuri—scrambled eggs with chili powder, onions, garlic, and other spices—she has taken on the unpleasant task. Sera glances at her daughter and, as always, feels a sense of awe at how wonderful Dinaz has turned out. If for no other reason, she cannot regret her marriage to Feroz because of what that marriage produced. It’s funny, she thinks, Feroz and I were both such flawed people. And yet look at what we made together—one of the nicest people I know, and I’d feel that way even if she wasn’t my only child. It makes you believe in evolution or God or miracles or something. The endurance of the human spirit, maybe.
    Sera glances at the clock. She worries that this tardiness is becoming a habit with Bhima. I can’t have this, she says to herself. I know she’s burdened with Maya, but after all, she has obligations here also. Unbidden, Feroz’s voice plays in her head: “Treating that woman as if she’s a family member. Servants have to be kept in their place, I tell you. One of these days I’ll come home to find you waiting on Bhima.”
    As