But even after the riots ended, things didn’t blow over. Sushil took a proprietary interest in them, acting like a scientist who had discovered and named a new planet. He insisted on accompanying them when they went to formally register their new names. He drove them to a temple for the first time, making sure they had front-row seats during the pooja ceremony. He took to stopping by their apartment whenever he wanted, referring to their mother as bhabhi, or sister-in-law. Zenobia’s hair began to fall out. She began to grind her teeth at night.
All invitations to the bridge tournaments and the kitty parties stopped. One afternoon, she knocked on Pushpa’s door and gave full rein to her rage at Pushpa’s betrayal.
“You put my children at risk, Pushpa. For what? We were like sisters.”
“You lied to me. You told me you were going far away.”
“I didn’t. I just said we were going away temporarily. And even if you were angry at me, why would you take that out on my children?”
“Don’t blame me. Blame that stupid husband of yours, for not knowing his place.”
Zenobia was about to turn away when she remembered something. “In any case,” she said, “I have come to take my jewelry back.”
Pushpa stared at her coldly. “You will have to wait until my husband comes home. He has the key to the safe. I will send your bag up with my servant. Now, if you will excuse me.”
Zenobia stood outside the woman’s apartment, blinking in disbelief over the fact that Pushpa had shut the door on her. She heard the doors to the elevator open. Three of her former bridge partners walked out, along with a new woman she didn’t recognize. “Hello, Zenobia,” one of them said stiffly.
She took in their flawless hair and crisp linen clothes and suddenly was aware of her own damp armpits and stained dress. “I’m no longer Zenobia, remember?” she spat out. “Now I am Madhu. We were forced to convert against our will. While all of you watched.”
“Oh, stop being so dramatic,” one of them said before being shushed by another.
Zenobia’s eyes were wild. “Dramatic? My daughter was molested in the middle of the street. My son was . . .”
“Yes, it’s very unfortunate,” said Priya, a slender, fair-skinned woman who had two children of her own. “But I don’t know what you were thinking. Pushpa says she pleaded with you to get out of town for a few weeks. But you didn’t listen. And honestly, if your husband wants to jeopardize his own family with his stupid newspaper articles, that’s one thing. But he put all of us in harm’s way. Those goondas would’ve come for our children next for associating with you people. And still you stand here and blame us.”
Asif came home that evening to find Zenobia in bed. She hadn’t made dinner, and the children had not eaten. When he woke her up, she said only one thing: “Get me out of here. Get me out of this cursed building, as soon as possible.”
Pushpa’s servant rang their doorbell at 9:00 p.m. Asif came back into the bedroom, looking puzzled as he held out a cloth sack. “I may be wrong,” he said, “but it doesn’t feel like they’ve returned all your jewelry? It feels so light.”
His wife looked at him with dull eyes. “What does it matter?” she said. “And how are we going to prove anything anyway? We are luckier than most. At least she sent some stuff back.”
Asif nodded. But at that moment, he resolved to move the family as soon as he found someone to buy their apartment.
He spent the next six months looking for a buyer. The first, a wealthy Muslim merchant who wanted to move into a “cosmopolitan” locality, was summarily dismissed by the building’s co-op board. “Forget it, yaar,” Dilip, the head of the building association, told Asif. “We are now an all-Hindu building. Let this man go live with his own kind.”
Three other buyers were rejected by the board before Dilip made his intentions clear. It turned out that his brother was looking to relocate to Mumbai. He of course wished to live near his family. Would Asif reduce his asking price and sell to his brother? It would be a win-win-win for all of them.
“How is it a win for me?” Asif asked.
Dilip smiled. “Arre, yaar, you want to sell eventually, right? How you will do that if I don’t approve the sale? You see? Win-win-win.”
Asif went home, called his broker, and told him he had changed his mind. He wasn’t selling just yet. Because he had come to a decision. There was no point in simply moving to a different neighborhood. He no longer wished to live in this godforsaken country.