Page 26 of Six Days in Bombay

Without offering me anything to drink or eat (perhaps that was only an Indian custom?), Mira went to her bedroom and pointed at the bed. There, she’d laid out four dresses. “I’ll wear whichever one you choose.”

I touched the fabric of the one closest to me. It was a rich hazelnut satin with puffed sleeves and an empire bodice. Next: an ivory silk crepe with a high round neckline and butterfly sleeves that would sway gracefully with the wearer’s every move. I couldn’t keep from smoothing my palm on the Grecian cowlneckline of the one with a flowing satin skirt. The last dress took my breath away. “This one,” I said, lifting it from the bed and holding it against Mira’s small frame. It was a shimmery peach satin. The halter top left the back exposed all the way down to the waist where a bias skirt skimmed the hips.

Mira pursed her lips. “You don’t think it will make me look too flat? I’ve lost so much weight in the hospital. Morphine really takes away your appetite.”

I smiled. “That’s precisely the point. This dress is made for your build the way it is now.” I checked my watch. I needed to rush home and get fitted for the dress my mother was sewing for me.

“Pick a dress for yourself. I mean—I don’t mean it as charity.” Mira gave me an uncertain smile. “Just that it would please me to see you wear it.”

Normally, I might have taken exception to such welfare, but I knew Mira meant well, so I smiled. “As far as that goes, my mother has a surprise for me and you.”

Mira sat on the satin bench at the foot of her bed and regarded me for a moment. It was as if she were looking right through me. “Sona, your life will be as big as you allow it to be. You will have memories rich and deep enough to fill the hollowness in here.” She rubbed a circle on her sternum.

I sucked in a breath. She was doing that thing she did, forcing me open, searching for more. I felt as if I always fell short of her expectations.

“Not all of us are you, ma’am.”

She rose from the bench and came to stand in front of me. With the flat of her hand, she rubbed a circle on my sternum and left it there. “I want big things for you, Sona. You do too. It’s all in here and out there. Go find it.”

I understood that she was encouraging me to explore the world, see things I’d never imagined, as she had. But…she’d had a privileged upbringing. Didn’t she stop to wonder how someone like me could do that? Where was I supposed to go? Withwhat money? My father’s guilt fund? I could never bring myself to do that. As tempting as it sounded, the practical side of me, the one that didn’t want to waste time powdering my face, recoiled. Why give me hope when I had no way to realize it?

I stepped around her. “If I don’t leave now, my mother will be cross. Will you be alright?” It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen her husband. “Where is Mr. Bartos?”

Her eyes strayed to the dresses on the bed. She began to put the ones she wasn’t going to wear back in her mirrored wardrobe. “Out and about. Goodness knows where. He’ll be there tonight though. He may have gone to get his shoes polished.”

***

I rushed home on my bicycle, thinking about what the painter had said. Although I’d told my mother I would have been comfortable wearing one of my old dresses, Mira’s evening gowns had made me long for something far more glamorous. It was now five in the evening, the time I would normally have left for work. Somehow, with Mrs. Mehta’s and Dev Singh’s influence, replacements for Dr. Mishra and me had been found for the night shift.

I found Mum at her sewing machine with pins in her mouth and a pencil tucked behind her ear. The table was littered with pieces of the emerald sari and green satin for the petticoat. When I entered, she said, “Dinner is on the counter. First, eat. Then come and try this on so I can baste it.”

She was a nimble seamstress and always met her customers’ deadlines, but I knew this was a particularly fast turnaround. I had to be at the Singh household in three hours, and I needed to allow at least three-quarters of an hour to get there, first on the double-decker bus, then in a rickshaw. That would be the least expensive way. I was used to riding my bike everywhere in a skirt, but I could hardly do so in a floor-length gown.

I didn’t have much of an appetite, so jittery was my stomach. I ate half a roti with some dal and went to the landing to bathein the bathroom. When I returned, my mother asked me to strip down to my slip. She rose from her chair, dragging pieces of the gown with her. She held up both sides of the bodice and pinned them together to form a center seam between my breasts. I looked down and saw how much of my cleavage was exposed.

“Mum, you know I can’t go anywhere looking like that!” I started to pinch the center seam so it would start two inches above my mother’s last pin.

She slapped my hand away. “This is my first opportunity to design an evening gown for my daughter. Leave the design to me and we’ll argue about it later.” She was smiling at her handiwork, which softened my resistance. I hadn’t seen her this excited about anything since she’d made my first nurse’s uniform—so full of pride she’d been. I kissed her forehead.

From the top of the bodice, two long straps wound over my shoulder and across my back. She’d made them from thezariborder of her sari. With a stick of white chalk, she made a few marks and then removed the bodice. Next, she brought the long skirt that would attach to the bodice to see how much she needed to hem from the bottom. She planned to finish the hem with the remaining gold border. The skirt was slim-fitting and flared out below my knees. Together with the bodice, the dress created a long elegant column that made me appear taller than I was. We only had the one mirror over the sink so I couldn’t see all of me, but my mother’s expression was reflection enough.

“All eyes will be on you, my beautiful girl. Now, take that off and let me finish it.”

I removed it carefully so as not to undo the pins my mother had inserted.

“Shoes!” I cried. I didn’t have the right shoes to wear with this dress.

“Fatima!” my mother said. “Go!”

I dressed hastily and ran across the landing. Fatima, with herrosy cheeks and baby-making energy, answered the door. When she saw who it was, she looked concerned. “Mummitheek hai?”

“Yes, Mum is fine.” I explained where I was going that evening and that my mother was sewing an evening dress for me but I had no shoes to wear with it.

Fatima grinned. “Come!” she invited me into their apartment, which was more spacious than ours. In one corner was a rosewood almirah. She opened it to reveal a rainbow ofsalwar kameez, many of them with gold and silver threading. Along the bottom of the armoire were a row of shoes, neatly aligned. There was one pair of high heels in black satin.

Fatima said, “My wedding shoes.”

I was almost afraid to touch them because they were so sleek. There was not a mark on them. What if I accidently stepped on horse dung while walking or a passing cyclist splashed mud on them? In the streets of Bombay, there were a thousand ways to soil what you were wearing. But Fatima, who seemed to sense my hesitation, said, “Try them on.”

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