At the start of my shift the next evening, my first task was to change Mira’s sheets. I walked into her room to find Dr Mishra pressing on her abdomen. Mira’s face was pinched. Her breathing was labored. When the doctor saw me, he said, “Nurse, could you help me for a moment?” “Of course.” I set the sheets down on the only chair in the room. As soon as Mira saw me, she said, “Sona! Please…” She held out her hand for me to hold. She looked frightened. Her forehead was shiny with sweat. I clasped her hand. “Just here.” He placed my free hand just below Mira’s navel. Surprised that he would ask me to do something nurses generally didn’t, and even more surprised that he touched my hand, I pressed lightly on Mira’s belly. She let out a yelp that made my stomach cramp. I tried not to grimace. The doctor handed me his stethoscope. His body was so close I could hear him breathe, smell his lime aftershave. I moved the chest piece of the stethoscope to the area where my hand had been, keeping my expression neutral so as not to alarm Mira. I looked at Dr Mishra as I handed back the stethoscope and tipped my head down slightly. Yes, I hear it too. A gurgling that indicated inflammation. He took a deep breath.
“What is it?” she asked now, staring at us. Dr Mishra smiled reassuringly. “Probably nothing. When you came to us, you were in the early months of pregnancy, and your body underwent significant trauma with the miscarriage. Dr Holbrook took care of you in the operating theatre. Sometimes, there’s residual swelling afterward, which may be the cause of your pain.” I noticed that when he talked to patients, he lost much of his shyness. Mira let out the breath she’d been holding and nodded. “We should check you out more thoroughly in a few hours when the house surgeon returns.” He patted her shoulder. “Rest now.” He made notes on her chart, looked vaguely in my direction to thank me and left the room. “Take a deep breath, Miss Novak. I’m going to turn you on your side now.” As I did, she let out a cry. The stitches, no doubt. The surgeon had repaired her from the outside but her insides still needed healing. Delicately, I pulled up her gown and removed the blood-soaked underwear and the wet menstrual cloths, taking care to place them in a container underneath the bed, out of sight. I picked up the rubbing alcohol and a small towel. With a light hand, I wiped her, changed the cloths and dressed her in a fresh gown. I scooted her to the far side of the bed so I could change the sheets on the side closest to me. She grimaced and clutched my hand to stop me. “My mother was the one who discovered Paolo at the Venice Biennale in 1924,” she continued as if we hadn’t taken a break from the day before. “She fell so hard for him! Followed him back to Florence, dragging me along with her. When I finally met him, I could see what she saw in him. He’s beautiful.” She sighed. “Of course, Mama was always falling in love. Which is probably why I can’t. She was so messy with it. Tantrums and fainting spells and screaming matches. Father stayed out of her way as much as possible when she was innamorata.”
I eased my hand from her grip and continued making the bed. A mother who had love affairs and didn’t hide them from her husband? What did he think of her dalliances? Did he have affairs of his own? I’d heard of such marriages among film stars here in Bombay and rumors of unusual arrangements between wealthy couples. “When I was little,” she was now saying, “my father took loads of pictures of me. Dressed me up in costumes. Mama did not like that. When I began painting, she told him to stop and took over. I’d started being noticed, you see. She began showing me off. Like a prize she’d won at the mela… I’d craved her attention for so long, but…why did I have to paint for her to see me?” Tears were rolling down her temples as I helped her lay on her back again. I wiped them for her with a clean cloth. Were those tears of pain or memory? Mira sniffled. “Father, of course, has his own passions.”
She changed subjects as often as a woodpecker attacks a coconut palm. “Did you know he’s building a synagogue right here in Bombay? There’s a lot of money to be raised. He’s good at that.” I went to the corner sink in the room to wash my hands and thought back to what I’d read about Jews like her father who had settled in Bombay. India was a refuge for them, safer than it was for the colonised Indians who had lived here for 65 millennia. Mira was saying, “He’s awfully busy with the planning. I’m sure he doesn’t know I’m in the hospital.” My eyebrows shot up. As busy as he was building his synagogue, couldn’t Mira’s father find time to visit his only child after she had lost his only grandchild? His absence seemed almost intentional. Cruel, even. A reminder of my father. I felt the need for fresh air. I opened the window in the room and leaned out. The delicate fragrance of the orchid tree outside her window entered the room, hesitantly at first, then settled in for the night. I listened for the mournful hoots of owls, the skittering night animals hunting for their dinner.
Behind me, Mira said, “It’s like music, don’t you think? Night music.” I made to close the window, hastily, but she stopped me. She held out a hand for me to take. By now, I was getting used to this request from her. “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” she said. “A music of courtship. Supposed to be played at night. I imagine the animals being serenaded. The deer in the forest. Moths fluttering around the lights. The field mice.” She’d worked her fingers between my own and was swinging our hands lightly as she hummed the piece. Like the animals of the night, I felt as if she was courting me. She began talking about her childhood friend Petra in Prague. “She was my first. We were just schoolgirls trying out something. She fell in love. Followed me around like sheep. It wasn’t like that for me. I told you before I can’t fall in love. I don’t think I’m capable of it.” I tried not to show it, but a Ping-Pong ball was bouncing inside my chest. She had slept with another girl? Did women have sex with other women? Mira, who’d been watching me, laughed and offered me a wry smile. “You’re more Pip than Estella. I like that about you.”
I pictured Great Expectations on my bookshelf at home. Mira, of course, was Estella. As the more shockable, chaste Pip, I marvelled at how Mira could talk so openly about things most of us knew to keep to ourselves? Did she not care what other people thought of her or her family the way I obsessed about what they thought of my English father leaving my family? In that way, I was like most Indians, consumed by the judgment of others, so wary of the repercussions. I’d only known Mira for two days and I knew more about her life than the hundreds of patients I’d served over the years. “You will love, Sona. Be sure of it.” Mira kissed my hand and let go of it. She sighed, lost in the music only she could hear and memories only she was privy to.
Was that a prediction? Or a demand? I clasped my hands together to contain the warmth and the free spirit of Mira Novak a little while longer. There was a commotion in Mrs Mehta’s room. I’d been looking for Indira, whom I hadn’t seen today, when I passed the open door. Mr Mehta was standing at the end of her bed, his hands clasped in front of his suit coat, a gesture of supplication. “You must come back, Rani. Bippi is threatening to quit. I like her biryani. I don’t want her to leave.” Mrs. Mehta’s face darkened, not a good sign. She had high blood pressure. “You like her biryani better than mine? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Quietly, I stepped into the room and poured her a glass of water from the pitcher at her bedside. “No, Rani, no!” Mr. Mehta decided to appeal to me. “Nurse Sona, you must know how dire the situation is. I know Rani confides in you. My father can be…demanding. Bippi won’t stand for it.” His wife’s nostrils flared. “I won’t stand for it either. But you never hear me when I say it. Bippi says it and you come running to me.”
Her husband looked as if he was on the verge of tears. The window was ajar. I pushed it open farther and looked out at the night sky. “Is that a lovebird I hear, Mr Mehta? You’re the expert birder. What do you think?” I didn’t know one birdsong from another, but I’d heard Mrs Mehta mention their pet lovebirds. His curiosity aroused, Mr Mehta joined me at the window. He turned to his wife, excited. “Rani, come listen! It sounds just like our Dasya and Taara.” To me, he said, “Dasya is the blue lovebird. Taara is green.” I helped Mrs Mehta climb out of bed (although she didn’t need it; she just liked the special attention).
Excerpted with permission from Six Days in Bombay: A Novel, Alka Joshi, HarperCollins.
