Happy Birthday! And Other Stories Part 8

*I'm exhausted and I don't think this is going to work. We've been cheated,' she said, walking towards a chair.

*Don't sit down!' Bhanu said.

Genevive opened her mouth to say something and suddenly keeled over, clenching her stomach. *I'm getting really bad cramps.'

Bhanu held Genevive's hand.

The bleeding started after the second hour, and Bhanu took her to the bathroom. Then she ran frantically around the house, finding old cotton sheets, newspapers, kitchen cloths and sanitary pads to give to Genevive, praying that no one from her family would ask what the girls were doing.

After another hour, Genevive leaned over the edge of the toilet seat and said, *I can't take this any more.'

She was turning white.

*Genevive!' Bhanu said. *What's happening?'

*My entire stomach is falling out,' Genevive whimpered, her face flushed and sweating.

It was the baby.

Genevive puts her hand on Bhanu's.

*You haven't forgiven me,' she says, as if a balloon has been deflated.

*For what?'

*For everything I've put you through. Kamathipura, my drinking, my mother and then my husband.'

*There's nothing to forgive.'

*And your abortion? Do you still blame me for that?' Genevive asks softly.

Had Bhanu done the right thing by taking someone like Genevive into confidence with regard to the life of a child? She didn't know then, and she doesn't know now.

But in the patients' room, surrounded by a doctor and sterilized equipment, it was Genevive who had held Bhanu's hand as her uterus was emptied. Bhanu was convinced that the positive CVS test had left her with no choice. So she lied to everyone, including Mohan, saying that the test had led to the miscarriage of her unborn son. As Mohan went about bringing her khichdi and holding her hurt body through the night, she couldn't look him in the eye, wondering if he would've approved of her decision. Would anyone have?

At that time, Bhanu had little strength to dwell on these thoughts. She was so consumed by the pain, starting with the pins and needles in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her body didn't understand that its milk wasn't needed as it spilled down her stomach and legs, through her clothes. My b.r.e.a.s.t.s are crying, she thought. They're suffering for my sins. She began wearing a T-s.h.i.+rt and cardigan over her salwar-kameez, even to bed, hoping the milk wouldn't soak through for anyone to notice. Then she ate, and how she ate, feeding the emptiness left by the son she could've had, the son in whose memory she still ate for two.

Bhanu couldn't sleep in Mohan's bed after that. She moved back to her parents' home, saying she needed her mother, that it was temporary. Her family grew worried-even her cousins, who hadn't spoken to her since their house was split into half, came to visit her. She saw them all, but when Genevive came to visit, Bhanu couldn't bear to look at her. The mere sight of her face reminded Bhanu of the terrible mistake she had made. She told her family to send her away.

In less than eleven months, at a time when Bhanu could have been playing with her son, but instead was still hurting, still in mourning, still spending most of her time in her parents' house, Genevive came to her room: *Shardabai said you were sleeping but I had to see you. I have something important to tell you. I am pregnant; four months pregnant.'

From deep in Genevive's chest comes a growling sound.

She pulls out a handkerchief that Carla had crocheted for her, a token of her mother that she says she'll keep till her dying breath. *Bhanu, you know that I take equal responsibility for letting you go through with the abortion. I wouldn't have let you if I'd known any better. You know that, right?'

Bhanu throws aside her blanket that suddenly feels unbearably hot.

*You should have stopped me,' she whispers fiercely. *I couldn't think straight at that time, but you should have thought for the both of us. Like I always do for you.'

*I know,' Genevive says, tears rising in her eyes. *I should have and I am sorry that I didn't. I tried to explain so many times afterwards, to apologize, but you wouldn't let me near you. You don't know how deeply sorry I am.'

*Why didn't you stop me?'

*Oh, Bhanu. I didn't know, how could I know then that you wouldn't be able to conceive again?' Genevive cries. *And I had no idea that CVS is a diagnostic test; it isn't always completely accurate. That it could have been a false positive. That you could have taken the risk and had a healthy baby.'

*And what if it wasn't a false positive, Genevive? What if my son was born with Down's Syndrome or something else?' Bhanu says, her voice startlingly loud. *Would you be sitting here apologizing to me about that as well?'

Her life cannot slip from perfection to imperfection based on this one single decision.

*If your son were here, even with special needs, we would have arranged to look after him, joined a support group, or even started one. We had a choice.'

*Choice? The way you had a choice when you killed your unborn child.'

*Bhanu! It isn't the same thing. I was a kid.'

*You had a choice, and you chose the coward's way,' Bhanu says, her face hot and wet with emotion.

Genevive sees this and says softly, *You are comparing things that can't be compared, Bhanu. I understand your anger, believe me I do. There are so many things that I still have to explain to you. The last few months, they've been tough on me.'

*Tough on you?' Bhanu can't help but snort.

Genevive says nothing. For the first time in a long time Bhanu studies her friend, noting that Genevive has acquired the thin, intense look of the unlucky. Her arms are mottled with the round bruises of injection needles. Her body bears the gaunt look of being subjected to pills and transducers. It must not be an easy pregnancy.

They finally look similar, her once beautiful friend and her.

*Perhaps you are not ready to hear my side of the story yet,' Genevive says. *But I can't leave without asking: Will you be able to raise my baby?'

Her tear-rimmed eyes are swimming with hope.

Bhanu answers slowly, *No, Genevive. I will not. I am sorry.'

It feels as though she is finally shutting the door to an ill-willed storm.

Before either of them can say another word, there is a knock on the door, and Dr Hussain, Bhanu's gynaecologist, enters the room. He is a little man with a generous beard, a craggy jaw, and hair that grows all the way up to his neck.

*Hi Bhanu,' he says cheerfully. *It's good to see that you're up today.'

He then sees Genevive and the blood drains from his face.

*Genevive?' he says. *What are you doing here? You're supposed to be on bed rest.'

*Dr Hussain!' Genevive says, standing up. *I was just ...'

The doctor walks up to Genevive and places a hand on her shoulder. *No excuses, my dear. Go home and lie down. Promise? I will come by your house after this visit.'

Bhanu looks with surprise from Genevive to the doctor. She sees how tenderly he is gazing at her, as if genuinely concerned about her well-being. And Genevive, Genevive is blus.h.i.+ng!

*I'll come back later,' Genevive mumbles to the floor, and speeds out of the room.

Dr Hussain walks up to Bhanu's bedside, as she stares at him. He is a pleasant person, studious and mild. Not Genevive's type at all. But earlier in their conversation, Genevive had said something about a doctor. How can the doctor be involved with Genevive? Is it possible that he is ... the father? No, Bhanu thinks, for Dr Hussain is married with two sons. But who can put anything past anyone nowadays? Especially with Genevive. A married doctor is better than all the men she's been with before.

She will ask him, Bhanu decides.

*So ...' Dr Hussain says. *I didn't know the two of you knew each other.'

*We're childhood friends,' Bhanu says flatly.

*Oh, I see.' He sits down on the chair where Genevive had been sitting, leans over and says sympathetically, *You have been crying. I guess Genevive told you about the baby and the whole situation.'

*Well, in her own way she did.'

*It's difficult for her right now. She had told me that she would talk to her friend today. I didn't know that friend was you. Small world.'

*Small world, indeed,' Bhanu says, wondering how the doctor goes home to his wife when he's been with another woman.

*So, did you say yes?'

*No, I did not,' Bhanu replies indignantly. *She can take care of the baby herself. And maybe you should help out as well.'

Dr Hussain tilts his head at her in puzzlement. *What? How will she take care of the baby after she's pa.s.sed on?'

Silence fills the s.p.a.ce of Bhanu's anger.

She blinks in confusion. *P ... pa.s.sed on?' Her voice comes out in a shout, much louder than she expects. *What are you talking about, Dr Hussain?'

Dr Hussain observes her for a moment before speaking, *Well, her cancer has left her with four, maybe five months at most.'

Memories of Genevive and Bhanu, laughing, playing and hugging in this room, push against the stillness that's gripped the room by its neck.

*She wasn't very clear,' Bhanu hears herself mutter weakly. *I don't understand. So you are not the father of her child?'

*Father?' Dr Hussain asks in shock. *There is no known father, my dear. Genevive got pregnant through artificial insemination.'

*Artificial? How? How could she even afford it?'

*She took a loan using her apartment as collateral.'

*But ... why? Why would she do this? She never cared about having a baby.'

*Genevive didn't do this for herself. She came to my clinic one day, more than a year ago, asking if it was possible for her to have a baby for a friend of hers. The friend couldn't conceive, she told me. I had many long consultations with her about it, over several weeks. It was a difficult decision. What will people say? How will it change her life? Affect her relations.h.i.+p with her friend? We discussed it all. Obviously, I didn't know that friend was you,' Dr Hussain says.

He picks up the fallen packet of wafers from the floor and places it neatly on Bhanu's bedside table. *She did all this for you.'

*For me? Then why didn't she tell me?'

*I guess she wanted to spare you another loss. She wanted to be absolutely sure that the baby was healthy, especially since she was sick.'

Genevive wanted to spare Bhanu any further loss.

*How serious is Genevive's-' Bhanu can't even say it *-her condition?'

*Very serious.'

*There must be some mistake, Dr Hussain. She is so young, my Genevive. It can't be.'

*I wish there was a mistake. But she was diagnosed with lymphoma in her first trimester itself, while undergoing a routine health checkup. I advised her, as did her oncologist, to terminate the baby. It would take a further toll on her body. But she was determined to leave something behind for her friend, for you.'

*You are a lucky woman,' the doctor adds.

A lucky woman indeed.

*She said that she couldn't think of anyone who deserved a child more. I hope you agree to adopt that baby.'

Bhanu turns towards the window.

Her reflection fades into the dark of the night, like the end of a promise.

*Hope,' she says to it.

In the far distance a star twinkles, despite knowing that it is dying from the inevitability of its own brightness.

LEMON AND CHILLI.

It's six o'clock. I hear the key turning in the lock and slip into Karan's room, which he shares with me. Preeti is home from work, as usual an hour before my son Rahul. My grandsons-Jay and Karan-run to greet their mother. Their voices and laughter ring through the house.

I sit on the bed and look around. Karan's Yankees Ts.h.i.+rt, which I'd ironed for him earlier this morning, lies discarded on the oak-panelled floor, beside his Nintendo console. On the blue wall he's tacked a poster of John Cena whose muscles burst forth, almost angrily. I contrast his arms with mine-sixty-seven years old with jagged aches and pains. I wonder if his glistening skin will ever look cratered like mine, or his eyes become soft, as mine are, jailed behind their spectacles.

A half hour later, I hear Preeti go into the kitchen. After my wife Karen's death, Preeti insists on cooking alone, but she doesn't seem happy about it. Often she sets the pots down noisily or mutters curses I wish I couldn't hear. I'd help, but dare not offer. I had tried to surprise her once-when I didn't know any better-by making a meal for our family. But she hadn't allowed anyone to eat my food, saying that an elderly man working in the kitchen reflected badly on the woman of the house.

The mustard seeds begin roasting in the pan. I catch a whiff of cardamom and cloves.

Soon after, I smell fresh coriander. The meal is ready.

Rahul is home. Father and son, we walk quietly to the table.

*This looks delicious,' I say. I know Preeti will not acknowledge the compliment, and she doesn't.