The Widows of Malabar Hill Read online

  “Razia-begum is correct in her accounting because you married him last July.” Perveen thought the senior wife’s decision was stingy, but she didn’t share this opinion. “You will also receive some inheritance from the estate, but I won’t know the amount for several more weeks.”

  Mumtaz nodded. “But what about the five thousand? Mukri-sahib said because I can’t save money, it is better for me not to take it but to put it in the wakf.”

  Perveen wasn’t surprised by Mukri’s recommendation, but she was wondering if it was true Mumtaz was bad with money. “What is this about you not saving?”

  Holding up her palms, Mumtaz smiled ruefully. “Money is like sand running through my fingers. From the wakf money I received in December, I’ve less than one hundred rupees left.”

  This struck Perveen as suspicious. “But you live inside a house—going nowhere. Were you charged for food or household expenses?”

  “The special foods I like that are expensive—pomegranates and fresh dates. I’ve bought new strings for my instruments, too, and some saris and caftans. A lady tailor came around, and her materials were so fine—more expensive than I realized. That is why my mourning saris are so plain.”

  Nodding, Perveen realized that the water was doing the trick—it was giving Mumtaz the strength to speak with her.

  “I also ordered some furniture from a carpenter who comes through the street every month,” Mumtaz continued in a whispery tone. “I wanted my room to look just a little bit like Sakina-begum’s. My room is not a sickroom anymore. If I spend the rest of my life here, why shouldn’t my room be pretty?”

  “I agree.” Perveen had not realized that a person’s illness could saturate a room so much. But, she reflected, she should know. She thought of the rank odor of the little room upstairs at the Sodawalla house, and her head started to ache. Quickly, she changed the subject. “Are you happy here? Are the other begums friendly to you?”

  “What wife would welcome a woman of my background coming in as the new wife?” Mumtaz said in a low voice. “Sakina-begum was jealous, even though my arrival meant she didn’t have to nurse her sick husband at all! And Razia-begum is her senior—thinking she is better than both of us and so clever with all her letter writing.”

  Perveen could have soothed Mumtaz and said that things might get better with time. But looking at the twenty-year-old girl with such fragile ties to the other wives and little more than three instruments to her name, she did not feel like saying that. “Mumtaz-begum, would you be happier living here or somewhere else?”

  “Do you mean—go away?” Mumtaz’s voice broke. “Even though I’m a wife?”

  “You would still be a respected widow—but think of all the possibilities,” Perveen said gently. “You could use the second part of your mahr to pay for a small bungalow or house, and you’ll also have your inheritance. If the neighborhood is a good one, you could also use your residence as a music school. And—”

  “Stop your scheming!”

  Instinctively, Perveen turned her head, looking for the origin of the harsh male voice that had interrupted.

  Nobody was visible, but Mumtaz was staring with a stricken expression at the house wall just fifteen feet away. On the other side of the garden, the girls stopped playing music.

  “Mukri-sahib, are you there?” Perveen called out to him while she looked at the thick wall she guessed was attached to the house’s main wing. There were no windows. From where was he listening?

  “I trusted you to carry out work for me, and you have abused that by feeding the widows falsehoods. You are a devil!”

  “On the contrary, it’s my duty to ensure this family’s welfare.” Perveen was shaking slightly from the shock of realizing he’d overheard her.

  “Telling a foolish woman not to sign a paper that would secure this household’s future is against the welfare of the widows. I am hereby severing your representation—”

  “Excuse me, Mukri-sahib.” Perveen enunciated every word to the utmost. “You should not shout at me. I shall come into the main house and speak with you.”

  Perveen tried to still her trembling and went from the garden into the zenana entrance, where she came upon Amina and the girls huddled together.

  “He’s angry at me, not you. I must talk to him to make my responsibility clear.” Perveen put on her sandals with shaky fingers. This was a terrible outcome of the confidential interviews.

  “I tried to say to you that he’d come home”—Amina’s voice was choked—“but you made me go away.”

  “I regret I did not listen,” Perveen said grimly. “Where are the other begums? Did he question them?”

  A tear slid down Amina’s cheek. “I don’t know. I was doing as you said, just listening to Nasreen and Shireen playing. Are you going home now?”

  “Not until I have a discussion with him and make sure that your mother and aunt are all right.”

  Perveen strode outdoors and under the porte cochere, where Arman was lounging against the car, spinning his chauffeur’s cap idly in his hands.

  “Ready to go, memsahib?” His neutral expression told her he’d heard none of what had happened.

  “I’ll just go over to the other side to speak to Mr. Mukri. Bring the car around to the main entrance. I shan’t be long.”

  The main door was closed. When she knocked, it was opened by Zeid. He looked as anxious as the little girls had been.

  “I’ve come to see Mukri-sahib.” She did not bother to take off her shoes but stood in the entrance of the reception room. She wanted to remain near the exit, because she couldn’t be sure of the extent of the guardian’s anger.

  As Zeid crept out of the reception room, Mr. Mukri came barreling in. He wore a European suit, likely because he’d come from the office. That’s where he’d told her he would be.

  “We’ve some matters to clear up, Mukri-sahib. I believed myself to be having a private consultation with the begum. I’m willing to address—”

  “Shameless!” His eyes narrowed. “You disregarded my directive as the operating household trustee. And what stupid advice. These women can’t leave home. They wouldn’t know what to do!”

  “I am not trying to cause trouble. It is my duty to give them a full understanding of their assets and how the law works to protect them.” Perveen delivered her words loudly, realizing that Razia and Sakina might be listening. “You cannot decide what happens with the wakf. You are not in charge of it.”

  “How dare you speak of being in charge?” Mukri’s voice was contemptuous. “You are not even accredited by the Bombay Bar. You have no power in the court.”

  Perveen realized he must have looked into her background and had prepared to fight. His insulting declaration was intended to scare the begums into thinking she couldn’t defend them. Drawing herself up to her full five feet three inches, Perveen said, “The women on the other side of the jali are not weak. They hold more power in their six hands than you have in two. I have it in mind to terminate your association with this household, based on your attempts to manipulate their assets.”

  He advanced toward her. “I am the only one who can do sacking. I have power of attorney to decide the household’s course. Leave this place at once, and do not return. I will telephone your father and tell him that Mistry Law has been terminated. When you arrive home, prepare yourself for a proper beating!”

  “A beating?” Perveen defiantly met his gaze. “My father is a good man, so that is not a fear of mine.”

  “Is that so?” He walked up very close to her and raised a flattened palm.

  In that awful instant, she knew he was going to hit her. He meant to prove that he was stronger than her words, that he had rights over her as well as the others. He would hit her again and again. Pain flashed through her, and suddenly she wasn’t in Malabar Hill but a bottling plant more than a thousand miles away.
r />   Just as suddenly, she was back. The surly durwan had appeared at the door. Loudly, he said, “Sahib, excuse me!”

  Mukri snarled, “What is this?”

  The durwan was a godsend. Perveen used that moment of distraction to slide out the door. The car was under the porte cochere, and Arman was anxiously motioning her to get in.

  “Memsahib, it is not my custom to ask about your business matters,” Arman said after they’d turned the corner past Alice’s house and were going down the hill. “But that was a terrible fight!”

  “I never expected that man to be listening!” Perveen put a hand to her chest, which was still vibrating with fear.

  “He was very angry. I heard the shouting and called out to the durwan. He said that man is crazy. Did he touch you? Your father won’t forgive me for my lack of protection.” Arman’s voice broke.

  Perveen hesitated, still feeling jumbled. Her back ached as if she’d been hit with a series of blows. How could that be? She knew Mr. Mukri had been in front of her. What he had done was break through to memory.

  “What did he do, memsahib?” Arman was looking anxiously in the rearview mirror.

  “He shouted, and then he tried to get me to cower. Some men use fear to get what they want, and I’m sorry to say that he raised enough worry in me to make me run away.”

  “It is not running away—it is self-defense!”

  “I meant to check on the begums—I left without doing it. Now I won’t know if he approached them and forced them to say what I’d told them.” A lump rose in her throat. “I didn’t keep my word.”

  “Sometimes Mistry-sahib’s clients have been angry with him. Usually it is after losing at court.”

  “Thankfully, that doesn’t happen often.” Perveen sighed, because Mr. Mukri had been right in guessing that her father would be upset. In less than two hours, she’d turned a straightforward series of private consultations with women who’d never met a lawyer into a dramatic conflict. Perhaps Mr. Mukri really could fire Mistry Law, and then she’d never have access to speak to the begums again.

  As they turned off Malabar Hill and onto the Queen’s Necklace, Perveen’s thoughts became even more miserable. What if it really was true that Faisal Mukri had power of attorney? She’d seen a paper certifying him as the family’s agent, but not granting him power of attorney, which was significantly stronger. Had she missed it? What kind of a solicitor was she not to have taken this into account? Perveen reached beside her for her briefcase, but felt nothing.

  “Damnation!” she cried.

  “What is it, Perveen-memsahib?”

  “I left my briefcase behind.”

  “The fancy London briefcase? It must be worth a lot.”

  “It’s what’s inside that matters,” Perveen said, sickened by this additional evidence of her carelessness. “All those documents. I must go back.”

  Arman sucked air through his teeth. “I don’t know. The gentleman was so angry! Shouldn’t you ask your father to return for the briefcase, for safety’s sake?”

  “We cannot wait, because the papers inside my briefcase could be stolen or destroyed. It would be terrible for my clients. You must turn around, Arman.”

  “But memsahib—”

  “I am ordering you!” Perveen’s voice cracked.

  Arman didn’t answer, but his shoulders rose as if Perveen’s harsh words had affected him deeply.

  They were already a mile down the seafront. Arman slowed, crossing the road sharply in front of a bus that sounded its horn. He turned around on the rough ground of a construction site and started back for Malabar Hill.

  Perveen checked her watch. They’d left Malabar Hill twenty minutes earlier; it would be twenty more minutes before they got back, at least. As they went back up the incline, past the beautiful mansions surrounded by tall trees, every twisting road increased Perveen’s feeling of dread. It would be wonderful luck if her briefcase was still in the zenana garden. But she had no idea of the safety of the women. Did she dare to stop to check on them, too?

  She had to. It would mean a visit longer than five minutes, but she would be negligent if she didn’t make sure they knew she could help them get away from Faisal Mukri. “I want you to go past the bungalow,” Perveen said to Arman when they approached Sea View Road.

  “Why?” Arman sounded uneasy.

  “I don’t want us to have to ask the durwan for admission into the property. I will go inside on foot through the second gate, which is the one we used for reaching the zenana. Mohsen can’t guard more than one gate; he’s always been at the one to the main house.”

  “But if it’s the second gate you want, he will see you passing by in this car.”

  “I’ve thought of that. After you have dropped me off past his line of vision, I’d then like you to drive back and create a distraction by stopping at the main gate. Then I’ll walk in through the second gate—”

  “If it’s open!”

  “That’s a good point. If it is open, I shall go in, and when I’m finished, I’ll walk back to the same place you dropped me.”

  “It sounds very complicated. And what will I say to distract him?”

  “Try to find out whatever you can about Mukri from him. I’m sure he’s got something to say.”

  To her surprise, Mohsen wasn’t even in sight when the car rolled past. Out of caution, Perveen told Arman to stop around the bend of the road. He didn’t look happy, but he could not refuse an employer’s command.

  The second gate had not been locked, so it was easy for Perveen to slip inside, although the durwan at a bungalow on the opposite side of the road gave her a curious glance. She made an effort to stroll in looking like a relaxed, respectable person: the opposite of how she felt.

  Though she was on the property, she could not access the zenana garden, which was shielded by a high wall. She’d have to enter the garden the same way as before: through arched doors at the back of the zenana’s wide reception room. Perveen knocked at the zenana door very lightly. There was no response, and she thought it too risky to call through the window as she’d done before.

  Tentatively, she put her hand on the knob, and it turned. She guessed that there had been too much commotion after her departure for Fatima to remember to lock up.

  Nobody was in the reception room, so she went silently into the garden, walking along the house’s edge to avoid being seen by anyone looking out a window. The garden was deserted. Her briefcase wasn’t where she’d sat in the pavilion and watched the little girls playing music. Nor was it where the musical instruments still lay on the rug. Perveen rushed to the spot where she’d spoken with Mumtaz; no briefcase was there.

  She realized that she couldn’t recall when she’d stopped carrying the case. She was almost certain that she’d brought it out of Razia’s room, but she wasn’t completely certain. Another possibility was that Mumtaz or Amina had spotted the briefcase after she’d left and taken it for safekeeping.

  At the zenana entrance, Perveen peeked through a gap in the curtains. The room was still empty. She went in, keeping her sandals in one hand, and eyed the staircase. It was empty, too, though she could hear the muffled sound of voices upstairs. She heard women talking and a young child bawling. Perhaps it was Jum-Jum, the baby she hadn’t yet seen.

  Perveen went up. At the edge of the first hallway, she stood, adjusting her awareness to sound.

  In Razia’s room, she could hear a rumble of conversation, but the door was closed tightly enough that she could not distinguish anything except the fact there were three voices. Knowing that the three widows were together made it possible for her to check the other rooms before asking them about the briefcase. She passed the nursery, where Jum-Jum’s wails were subsiding just as Shireen’s and Nasreen’s voices were rising. “Why can’t we . . . ?” Shireen was saying.

  Perveen heard an older woman an
swer reprovingly, “It’s not for you!”

  Sakina’s bedroom suite door was open. Inside, everything was as orderly as before; even the silver tray was gone. Perveen looked under the bed and in drawers and then lifted aside the picture to look at the locked safe door. The safe was certainly wide enough to accommodate the briefcase—but perhaps not deep enough.

  Being in Sakina’s room alone made Perveen feel almost like a thief. She put her head out of the door, checking in the hallway for new sounds. Perhaps five minutes had passed since she had entered the room. It was too bad she didn’t know which room was Mumtaz’s.

  Perveen glanced toward the brass jali that Sakina had said was the conversation place between the zenana and main house. If Mr. Mukri chose to eavesdrop, he could only do so from there; that was the likely reason the wives were speaking in Razia’s faraway bedchamber rather than Sakina’s closer quarters. As Perveen studied the patterned brass border, a smear of red caught her eyes.

  A dash of red, reminding her of the kumkum Hindu and Parsi women used to make a decorative marking between the eyes. But this red marking was slashed across the brass metalwork, and there were droplets and smudges on the floor. It could not be vermilion powder. With a growing sense of worry, Perveen stepped out of the doorway, taking care not to touch any of the red droplets as she approached the screen. Squatting, she could make out a shadowy mass just below the document slot.

  Although she knew it was improper, Perveen lifted the long, wide brass lid that covered the slot. Her last calm thought was that this lid was about the same weight and size as the one on the mail slot in the door of Alice’s ancestral London townhouse.

  Then she felt sick.

  On the other side, Mr. Mukri lay collapsed, arms and legs skewed wildly, as if he’d tried to escape but failed. Half under him was the edge of her Swaine Adeney bridle-leather document case. Blood covered the back of his head and collar and ran in thick rivulets down his black suit jacket. Something long and silver protruded from his neck. Was it a knife? She didn’t care. She couldn’t bear to look any longer.