“Fine,” she said cautiously. “Sounds like you heard part of my conversation.”
“Yup. I heard. Something about you still being in the Maldives? Instead of in India?”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to worry him.”
“Why would he worry about you being in India?” And before she could think of an answer, Mohan added slowly, “Also, you said ‘Khuda hafiz’ before hanging up.”
“So what?”
“So . . . It’s a Muslim greeting, right?”
The suspicion in his voice ignited her anger. “I don’t appreciate you snooping on my conversation with my dad.”
“Snooping? I was simply crossing the hallway to go toward the kitchen when . . .”
“Then you should’ve kept moving along.”
Mohan’s face turned red. “Excuse me? You’re going to tell me how to behave in my own house? What I should do and not do?”
“I’ll leave,” Smita said immediately. “Just call me a taxi, and I’ll leave. I don’t have to take this.”
Mohan stared at her, as if he was seeing her for the first time. “Smita, what is going on?” he said, bewildered. “What just happened? Why does your father think you’re in the Maldives? Why are you lying to him? And to me?”
She shook her head, stiffening, unable to respond. Could she trust Mohan? Could she count on him to understand? And then she thought: When has he been anything but kind and trustworthy?
Still, she hesitated, her heart racing. She wiped her clammy hands on her pants, trying to slow down her thoughts.
“Smita?” Mohan said.
Then, relief nipped on the heels of her apprehension. Relief at the thought of untying the secret that had stayed knotted for over twenty years. She had carried the burden of a double life for as long as she could. Here, at last, was the thing she’d welcomed and dreaded—the end of the road.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell you.” She moved toward the living room couch.
Mohan followed her slowly and sat across from her. Smita’s heart hurt at the wariness she saw on his face. “Who are you?” he said. “Why did you lie . . . ?”
She held up her hand to stop him. “I’m trying to tell you. I’m going to tell you.”
She took a deep breath. “My birth name is Zeenat Rizvi. I was born a Muslim.”
Book Three
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Smita Agarwal was born at age twelve.
Before that, she was Zeenat Rizvi.
Zeenat’s family lived in a large, airy flat in Colaba. Her parents had met in 1977 when Asif had gone to visit his college friend at his home in Hyderabad. Zenobia was the friend’s first cousin, a gregarious girl who had immediately captured Asif’s slightly melancholy heart. Upon his return to Mumbai, called Bombay back then, he wrote Zenobia passionate love letters. After a year of letters, Zenobia, knowing that her parents were determined to marry her off to a distant relative, left for Mumbai and eloped with Asif. A small scandal ensued until it was determined that the couple would live with Asif’s parents while he finished his PhD.
If Asif’s father thought it was strange that his son intended to be a scholar of Hindu history and religion, he never said. Perhaps he held out the hope that his only child would eventually come to his senses and join him in the family construction business. Perhaps in the Bombay of the 1970s it was still possible for a father to not worry too much about such cultural hybridity. In any case, good fortune continued to favor Asif. Zenobia proved to be loving and kind, and within a year of marriage had become an integral part of the Rizvi clan. Both his parents doted on her. One of the happiest gifts of Asif’s life was listening to his wife and mother chatting away as they cooked in the kitchen while he wrote his dissertation.
The apartment in Colaba, perhaps the most cosmopolitan neighborhood in the city, was a graduation gift from his father. Asif and Zenobia, who were more than content to continue living with Asif’s parents, protested such extravagance, but the old man insisted. “It’s your money in the end, na, son?” he’d argued. “Who else am I going to leave it to, the sweeper’s son? At least I’ll have the satisfaction of seeing you enjoy part of your inheritance while I’m alive, isn’t it?”
The Rizvis’s first child, Sameer, was born after they had shifted to the Colaba apartment. After Sameer’s birth, Zenobia continued to spend part of each day at her in-laws’。 She’d bathe and dress her son and leave for her in-laws’ home by midmorning. “A child needs his grandparents,” she’d say, a wistfulness in her voice that only Asif heard. Zenobia’s parents had come around to the marriage, had even visited them once in their new apartment, but still, the humiliation of her elopement lingered.