Happy Birthday! And Other Stories Part 2

With her head tilted, Mary smiles shyly at me, and says, *She has got viral infection, Payal memsahib. I will work here till she gets better.'

I unwrap the new Gucci dress I'd gone shopping for and do a quick calculation. Mary has been at my home since eight in the morning and will clean, wash, iron, dust and cook till five in the evening. After a nine-hour workday how will she have the energy to play a gruelling forty-minute match?

I shrug aside the concern, for I've seen the poor face worse dilemmas. I instruct her: *My shoes need to be cleaned. And keep my protein shake ready.'

My coach, Lee Wales, an ex-Cornell player who married an Indian woman and moved to Mumbai to teach the elite Malabar Hill Basketball Club, has instructed me to increase my fluid intake, saying it will help my sluggishness during the match.

I go to my room and am gelling my hair-so that it doesn't get in my face during the game-when the doorbell rings. Sara is at the door. I haven't seen her in two years and she's paler than I remember, thinner too. I leave aside the squeals and tight hugs that I usually give my visitors and shake her hand.

*Sorry I couldn't come to the airport,' I say. *I have an important match this evening.'

She reciprocates by giving me a long hug and I pull away, realizing that she hasn't changed.

*Dad told me-' she starts, and I glare at her. I don't understand why she's come to Mumbai for two weeks when Papa is not even here. She takes a visible gulp before finis.h.i.+ng her sentence: *Your father told me you were meeting his friend for a job interview today.'

She's making polite conversation-how typical.

*I'm obviously not, right?' I reply, and plunk down on the leather couch in the living room. I know Sara sees me as loud-mouthed, slightly wild, and irresponsible, a child who'll transition into old age without experiencing adulthood. From her middle-cla.s.s American perspective, it's appalling that I refuse to work for a living, have never lit a stove in my life, and haven't seen the inside of a bus or train.

*Mary, get Sara memsahib some Tang. What flavour do you want?'

*I'd prefer coconut water, please,' Sara says. She really hasn't changed.

I holler to Mary to bring a gla.s.s of chilled coconut water.

*So which team are you playing against, Payal?' Sara asks as my driver Lalit comes through the front door and goes into the guest room to set down Sara's suitcase.

*This ridiculous team, from the slums,' I say, lowering my voice.

*Why are you whispering?' Sara asks me, leaning over, also whispering.

*Well, one of them is here and she knows English.'

*Who?' Sara asks, surveying the room suspiciously.

*The maid.'

*The maid?'

*Yes.'

*You have a maid who speaks English and enters sports compet.i.tions with you?' Sara asks incredulously. There is a wilful stupidity in the things Sara says and does, like calling my father *Dad' and visiting me without an invitation. This never fails to annoy me. I'm about to tell her so when I hear the jingle of Mary's gla.s.s bangles. I look up to see her walking towards us. The bangles will be gone in another three hours when I meet her on court.

She sets down two gla.s.ses in front of us-one filled with coconut water and the other with a protein shake-and leaves.

Sara turns to me and says, *She's wearing a chain with a cross on it. Is she Christian?'

*I guess so,' I say. I've never understood Sara's obsession with Indian religions, which I'm more indifferent to in the metropolis of Mumbai than she is in her hometown of Memphis. *Why? Do you feel for her because she's Christian?'

*That's not what I ... never mind. I guess I don't understand these things.'

I want to tell Sara that there are a lot of things she doesn't understand. Like my anger towards Papa who married Sara's mother, while my mother was still alive, and got away with it because he was a man, a very rich man. How my anger turned to resentment when he moved to Memphis five months before my mother pa.s.sed away. That I don't work so I can return the disappointment that he slapped on my face. More than anything else, Sara doesn't understand my anger at myself, when-in those dark confusing days after my mother's death-I had needed her support, held on to her, a half-sister I'd never met, as if she was a life jacket in a tumultuous sea.

Sara is still looking at me. There's a sense of purpose in her eyes that I can't ignore as she says, *Can I come and watch the game?'

*Come, don't come,' I reply, not caring. *But don't expect the NBA.'

Lalit drives Sara and me to The Bombay Club where the match is to start at seven. We walk to the court where there are already two dozen players, two coaches, a referee, three of my team members' boyfriends, and a handful of casual onlookers, mainly middle-aged men checking out the girls.

Sara looks dismayed. *How do I tell one team from the other? No one's wearing uniforms.'

*Seriously? You can't tell the difference between the slum kids and us?' I say to her, before running on to the court. When the game begins with a jumpball I wonder if the distinctions I take for granted are obvious to others. The Agnis wear unbranded mono-colour tees and shorts with single-sole sneakers (though their best three-point shooter plays barefoot). Their skin is patchy, blemished. They have calloused hands and oily hair tied tightly into ponytails. In contrast to them, we wear sneakers and clothes branded with Nike's confident swoosh, headgear to maintain our expensively cut bangs, and skin with the plastic sheen of melamine, thanks to the Clinique and s.h.i.+seido products we're partial to. Everyone in my team has a French manicure (despite Lee's frustration), unlike The Agnis with their nails crusted with dirt or henna half-moons. My girls move their limbs, long, poised and precise, like those whose life is a blur of comforts, while The Agnis flail their shorter arms and legs, both of which are used to being physically active. There's something about our eyes too, soft but smug, as if the world belongs to us, as does this game and its victory, unlike the alert, bright eyes of our rivals. There's definitely no need for uniforms to tell the difference.

I expect a slow start from The Agnis since they're unaccustomed to playing on polished maple backboards. But Fatima, The Agnis' fastest shooting guard, scores in less than a minute.

*f.u.c.k,' one of The Hoopsters shouts. The Agnis look at each other and start giggling. I've never heard them swear or curse, even when they're losing.

The Hoopsters catch up, playing hard and running up a 12a20 score, but The Agnis team comes back with some fast dribbling and agile slam-dunks, none of which they've done earlier. It's a close game, fought to the end. With three seconds left, Mary hits two free throws and Agni wins 40a34. The girls swamp each other with backslaps and silent cheers, probably afraid to behave like winners around rich people. We concede with a few claps. There are no awards or medals to distribute; all The Agnis have gained is an entry into the semi-finals.

After the game the two teams hang around the court. I introduce The Hoopsters to Sara, my *cousin' from America. They've seen many cousins from America and show no interest in someone whose town they've never heard of-New York, San Francisco, even Boston, yes, but not howdoyousaythatagain? The Agnis feel differently; they stand near Sara, smiling at her, staring diffidently, till she goes up to them, compelled by her curiosity and flattered by their interest. They gather around her, touching her blonde hair, holding her white hands, asking her what fairness cream she uses.

Fatima-who's won the game for her team without breaking into a sweat-tells Sara breathlessly, *You are beautiful, yellow like the sun.'

To stand out among your own is beauty, I decide, and Sara is no beauty. Amidst Americans, Sara would blend in, be called unusual-looking at best, but not beautiful. Her limbs are long but spindly and she has no b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she slouches at the shoulders, and her wide-set eyes are sunk in a tight face. Her cheeks, still red from the mountain air of Vermont where she said she went skiing last weekend, will lose the girls' admiration once they recede into their pale and rubbery countenance. It's her earnestness they admire, I realize, for her face reflects a simplicity that they identify as their own.

On the way back home Sara says, *I'm sorry your team lost.'

I shrug my shoulders nonchalantly, meaning it. *No big deal. I still won my wager.'

Before she can saddle me with another why or what, I go on, *After every game we Hoopsters check each other's nails to see whose French manicure is still intact. I usually win because I go to the best nail salon. See-' I hold up my fingers *-as good as new.'

I look down at her fingernails, which I've seen her biting. They're chipped and short, raw and slightly red at the edges. She's looking at me when our eyes meet again and I know she can't miss my triumphant look, establis.h.i.+ng that my father still splurges on his real daughter.

I wake up late the next morning and enter the kitchen to see Sara sitting on the floor with Mary, sipping tea.

Mary looks in my direction, wide-eyed, and stands up.

Sara turns to me, smiling from ear to ear. *I asked Mary if we could come to her house and she said yes. We're going at six today.'

I tell Mary in Hindi to leave. She unties her dupatta from the waist and I notice how frail she looks in a salwar-kameez; her agility and strength from last night seem implausible. Sara looks surprised that Mary is leaving but I want her to know that I'm used to waving people away, that I'm the sort of person for whom things are done.

After Mary shuts the front door, I turn to Sara and say, *Look, you cannot sit with servants on the floor and visit their houses.'

Sara looks genuinely surprised. *I don't understand, Payal. Mary is such a nice person. She is funny, honest and smart. Do you know she's the first girl in her family to graduate?'

*Sara, who cares?'

*She comes to your house every day and you play sports with her, but you know nothing about her. I think you keep her at a distance because she has less money than you. And that is ... just ... so ... sn.o.bbish,' she says with a clear-eyed superiority, as if she's lived a life of wellmaintained morals.

*Sara, everything is not yours to understand.'

*Then make me understand, Payal,' she says. I glare at her. *Please,' she adds.

*Sara, there is a protocol for dealing with servants. Do you know that at any given time I know exactly how much money is in my pockets, my purse and my cupboard, so in case a single paisa is missing I can catch Mary? Lalit has to fill a mileage sheet before and after every drive, and I check this sheet weekly to know how much he's actually spending on gas. We have a weighing scale in the kitchen so when the sabziwallah comes with kilos of vegetables I know he hasn't hidden a tomato or two for himself. These are rules which the servants know as well as we do. You've grown up in a relatively cla.s.sless society in the US, but here in India we live within boundaries that you must respect.'

My last sentence comes out with more venom than I intended, and judging by Sara's hurt expression I can see she thinks that the boundaries I spoke of allude to our family situation.

I sigh and say with resignation, *Why do you even care?'

*I care because I can help these girls. For my cultural anthropology thesis I've decided to write about The Agnis and their life. If the right people read my paper, then these girls' lives could change. Even otherwise, I love their spirit, their dreams and I want to let them into my life, as should you.'

*Come here,' I tell her, and she follows me to my bedroom. I throw aside the duvet and lift my pillow.

*You have a knife under your pillow?' she asks incredulously.

*Do you know that servants are basically beggars? Beggars who can feed their families because of the money I give them? You see, Sara, on any given day there are four to five servants who enter and leave my house. They come from filthy shanties and enter my home. They see my flat screen TV, my iPod, my BlackBerry; they don't have money to buy a radio. They want to be me and they know that the only thing stopping them from living my life, if only for a moment, is me. On any given day, one of them might give in to their desire. They may act on it. Then they'll enter this house and murder a girl who sits here alone. For when the beggar comes home, he isn't always looking for alms. Do you understand me?'

*Not completely.'

*Behind the mask of servitude these people, these beggars parading as my servants, absolutely hate me. I have to show them that I'm used to a life of comforts and my confidence will keep them at bay, in place. Showing them that I'm sympathetic to their situation is an acknowledgement that I'm better than them without deserving to be. If I waver in my belief in what's mine, it'll give them a chance to break the rules and do horrible things, things that you and me cannot imagine.'

She allows a moment for this to sink in. And then says, *I think you are wrong,' talking to me as if she knows the game better than I do, when she hasn't even played it, doesn't even know she's in it.

*And you're on your own,' I reply quickly, edging her out of my room, shutting the door. *I have never stepped foot in a slum and there's no way I'm visiting one now.'

That evening, after my candle-making cla.s.s, I sit in the car with Sara as Lalit waits at a traffic light.

Papa called this afternoon from Brisbane, where he's gone for the Integrated Steel Companies Conference, and when I told him laughingly about Sara's intentions, he said, *Do you remember that after your mother pa.s.sed away two years back, Sara missed an entire semester to be with us? Helping her with a college project is the least you can do.'

My father spends six months with me and six months in Memphis, as if by evenly dividing his time he can love and be loved equally. But I have to repay this favour that he thinks Sara has done for me, so we're both on par in his eyes, so he continues to come back to me. I'm accompanying Sara to Mary's slum.

A beggar knocks on my window. I ignore him. He knocks again, and then some more. I raise my palms upright and snarl in my meanest voice, *Hutt!' He starts to move away, then scratches his nails on my car window. I roll down the window, ready to abuse him, when Sara places her hand on my shoulder: it's okay; let it be.

But I'm not in the mood to be a.s.suaged. *You know, Sara, I respect a prost.i.tute more than a beggar. At least she works for a living. Why can't beggars work? Why can't this man become a cleaner at one of the million factories mushrooming in India? Why can't that woman with eight babies wash utensils somewhere? Lazy is what they are, and lazy people don't deserve my sympathy or money.'

She says, as I antic.i.p.ate, nothing.

We enter a narrow muddy path with jhopadpattis on both sides. Lalit apologetically turns his head towards me; the car can move no further. Seven or eight dusty children in ragged clothes surround our car, their noses pressed flat against the windows, their teeth white through the tinted gla.s.s. If we leave the car here they'll scratch the silver-grey paint, sit on the hood or steal the rear-view mirrors, so I tell Lalit, *I don't trust these slum people. I think you better stay in the car.'

*Memsahib, I can take you to Mary's house,' he says gently.

*How would you know the way around this kachra place?' I ask.

*I live here,' he says, and our eyes meet in the mirror.

I look away and croak a reply, *Wait for us here.'

He nods his head slowly as Sara and I squeeze through the small s.p.a.ce between the car and the corrugated iron wall of a jhopadpatti. The children scatter.

*Now what?' I ask Sara, for Mary has given Sara her address in three simple words: Ask For Me. I see Sara looking around the slum in a daze, as if nothing has prepared her for this reality. I realize that I'll have to find Mary's house by myself. I spot a group of women scrubbing pots in a giant cement drum filled with blackish water, their feet coated in mud. A lone woman is squatting next to a water pump, holding her bare-bottomed baby under the empty tap. I walk up to her, carefully tiptoeing around the piles of dirt, and ask her in Hindi (though, I do speak Marathi, the language she'll be more comfortable with) for directions to Mary's house.

She looks at me disapprovingly, as though I'm the reason there's no water in the tap, before saying, *The Mary who's mute or the Mary who wears shorts?'

*Shorts.'

The woman's expression changes immediately and she points straight ahead to rows of pink chawls sprouting up like weeds.

*Which one of them?' I press, and suddenly she's standing up with the baby in her arms.

*I will take you,' she tells me, and starts walking. We follow her down a path strewn with polythene bags, crushed plastic bottles, packets of chips, bits of slippers and bicycle parts. The woman doesn't stop talking. No slum dweller has spoken to me at such length: in Sara's presence-a white woman-I must seem less intimidating.

*What is she saying?' Sara asks, when the woman takes a break to breathe.

*She's telling me about the time The Agnis won a cash prize, must be the only time, for a match against Cathedral School. With the money they purchased sports clothes, so they didn't have to compete in salwar kameezes, and bought a first-aid kit with Band-Aids, Dettol and muscle sprays. Most generously, she says, they bought a television set, which everyone watches together every day. She wants her daughter to grow up and be like them.'

The woman's smile widens, excited that her words are valuable enough to be translated into English. She stares at Sara, and her eyes are round and unblinking, as if unable to believe that they're brave enough to look at a white woman.

Sara licks her lips self-consciously and says, *h.e.l.lo. How are you today?'

The woman shudders and for a moment I'm afraid she'll drop her baby. She turns to me for help.

*I think she's fine,' I tell Sara.

*Ask her how old her baby is?' Sara persists.

*Must be a newborn,' I reply dismissively, but when Sara keeps looking at me expectantly, I ask the woman.

*Ten months,' she replies, and I realize how malnourished the baby is to look so much younger than her age. The woman says she must get back to the tap, her baby hasn't been bathed in three days and the water comes once every few hours. I thank her, and Sara and me continue on alone.

We slip down a squelchy slope filled with overflowing sewage, and the sickly-sweet smell of garbage and human excreta intensifies. There are dogs everywhere; some are rabid with frothing mouths. I turn around and see a group of men walking behind us, silently. None of them look away when I glare at them.

I grab Sara's arm more tightly and say, *This is not a good idea.'

Looking shamefaced and sick, Sara doesn't reply.

Before we take another step we hear a shout ahead of us: *Welcome to our home.' The entire Agnis team is standing in front of us, giggling and jostling each other, as though unable to contain their joy at seeing us. They are a short team, but over here, in their own surroundings of squalor, they tower over everything, looking as out of place as we do.

I look back and see that the men following us have vanished.

Mary steps out and takes Sara's hand. She tells her, *I am too happy to see you. I thought maybe you will not come. Let me show you my house.'

We follow her into a tunnel of corrugated iron and emerge onto a narrow dilapidated walkway of bamboo poles, lashed together on stilts. There are holes in parts where the feet of pa.s.sers-by must have previously fallen through. The whole structure moves as I walk. Fatima holds my arm, anxious that I don't slip into the black sludge below.