A House for Happy Mothers: A Novel (23 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The backache began in the middle of the night.

Asha woke up moaning. She tried to find the best position to sleep in, but the pain was incessant. In the end, she gave up trying to lie down and sat up. She would have liked to turn the light on and read the Telugu book she had borrowed from one of the other mothers, but that would wake up Gangamma, so Asha found her book in the darkness and left the room.

In the dim moonlight the house looked beautiful. You couldn’t see the chipped walls or the uneven cement floors, and even the charpoys that were the furniture of choice in the TV room and hall looked elegant. She was startled to note that the light was not coming from the moon but from the television.

“Who is there?” she heard Revati’s tentative voice call out.

“Asha,” she responded, and found the housemother sitting on one of the charpoys. Now that her eyes had gotten used to the dark, she could see better.

“What’s wrong?”

“My back is hurting,” Asha said as she waddled up to the charpoy next to the one Revati was half lying on with the remote control in hand.

“Come sit.” Revati sat up and gestured to the charpoy Asha was walking toward. “I can’t sleep anymore. It’s the age. I need to sleep because I’m tired all the time, but I can’t, and then I’m even more tired. It’s a curse. Old age is a curse.”

“You’re not that old,” Asha said with a smile. Sure, Revati had gray hair, but her body was still sturdy, her eyes didn’t need glasses to see, and everyone in the house had noted how white and strong her teeth were.

“Old enough that sleep has abandoned me,” Revati said. “Do you want a back rub? Something to eat or drink?”

“I’m fine,” Asha said, and sat tentatively on the charpoy, holding on to the load in front of her as she sank. “It starts now for me, the backache, and it doesn’t stop until the baby comes out.”

“You’ll be done in . . . what . . . two months now?” Revati asked.

“Almost,” Asha said. “Doctor Swati said nine more weeks. I can hardly wait.”

“Was it easy, the labor and delivery with your own children?” Revati asked.

Asha shrugged. “As easy as it can be. You can’t avoid the pain. There is nothing to do about that. It’s just the way it is.”

“God gave this chore to us because he knew that man could not bear such pain,” Revati said. “Our bodies are designed for this. In the old days, women had eight to ten children; now we have one or two.”

“This is my third,” Asha said, and then bit her lip. “Well, this one is not mine.”

Revati nodded.

“What are you watching?” Asha asked.

“Telugu movie songs,” Revati said. “They show old ones at night and I like to watch them. Women used to keep their clothes on then. Now they’re half-naked and shaking their breasts about. It’s not decent.”

“Times have changed.”

Revati shook her head. “Times have changed for those who have money, not for you and me. What has changed for you? Has your life changed a lot because of all that IT business they say India has? Our lot in life remains the same. The rich get richer and the poor stay poor.”

“My sister-in-law lives in a flat now. My children and husband are there with them. They have never lived in anything but a hut in our village. That’s change,” Asha said.

“And what, it came free to her? No, Kaveri sat right where you are and got pregnant with some white people’s baby,” Revati said. “We still have to do work and struggle to get anywhere. The rich, they just sit on their asses and things happen for them.”

Asha had spent time with Revati before and enjoyed her straightforwardness. She was a good woman who fiercely watched over the surrogate mothers and took good care of them. She was polite and gentle but also firm. She was a mother to the core, Asha thought, a strict mother with a big heart.

“You don’t think what we’re doing is a good thing?” Asha asked.

“Good thing for whom? The white people and the rich people? Sure. Is it good for you? I don’t know,” Revati said. “You have to sell your body and have a baby. I understand it’s a gift you give to a barren couple, don’t get me wrong. And I understand that it helps you live a better life, but . . . they get a baby; what do you get? Hemorrhoids and a sagging stomach.”

Asha laughed.

“Oh, you get the money,” Revati continued. “But it’s not going to change your life, is it? That’s why women keep coming back here. They have one, two, three children like this to make more money while their no-good husbands sit at home, doing nothing.”

Asha had never realized that Revati didn’t approve of surrogacy. It was a strange role she played as housemother when she disapproved of the process, and Asha told her so.

“No, no,” Revati said, waving her hands. “I don’t disapprove. You misunderstand. I think it’s wonderful. I just think . . . well, I think the mothers should get more money.”

“We get what we get, and it’s more than we ever had,” Asha said. But the women did talk about it. How they got just five lakh rupees while Doctor Swati kept ten or more; no one was sure of the exact figure.

“But it’s such a big sacrifice.”

“Not really,” Asha said, not wanting to believe that this was bigger than it was. It was important, she told herself, not to use words like
sacrifice
. “We’re like coolies, carrying someone else’s load for a while,” she said, borrowing Keertana’s words. “Once we’re done, we hand over the baggage and it’s over.”

“You really think it’s that easy?” Revati asked.

“I hope it’s that easy,” Asha said.

“Well, then, I’ll pray for your sake that it is that easy,” Revati said.

They watched television for a while after that, and Asha fell asleep on the charpoy, waking up feeling sore and very tired.

A few days before the mother was supposed to come, Asha read a story in the newspaper on the computer about a Japanese couple who had used a surrogate in Gujarat. Apparently the couple had gotten divorced, and now the mother didn’t want the baby but the father did. However, in India, a single father cannot adopt a baby, and since he needed the permission of the Indian authorities to take the baby out of the country, there was a problem.

The surrogate who had given birth to the baby didn’t want the baby, either, so the baby’s Japanese grandmother was taking care of it, hoping to get all the legal things taken care of so she could take the baby back to Japan.

Asha couldn’t help but wonder if she would get the chance to keep the baby if her mother and father got divorced in the next couple of months. Was that why the mother was coming early? Because things weren’t working out between them? Maybe if they got divorced she wouldn’t want the baby anymore and then Asha would get to keep it. That could happen. Everyone knew that these foreigners didn’t have good family values. They got married many times, divorced many times; it happened all the time.

It was a regular checkup. Doctor Swati checked her blood pressure and her temperature, and they took her urine in a cup.

Asha wondered if she would have to lie down today on the bed Doctor Swati had in her checkup room and wait for the cold jellylike thing to be put on her stomach before Doctor Swati used the plastic thing that helped them see inside her womb.

Asha loved this part. She would see the baby and feel anew the surge of love she felt for this life growing inside her.

“Should I lie down?” Asha asked expectantly.

Doctor Swati shook her head. “No, no, not today. We’ll do it next week when Priya and her mother are here. You don’t mind, do you?”

She did mind, but what could she say?

“When are they coming?” Asha asked, trying to keep the irritation she felt out of her voice.

“This Monday. Around noon or so, after lunch,” Doctor Swati said. “I couldn’t ask them to stick to the visiting hours, you know. They’re driving all the way from Hyderabad. And she’s come all the way from America. We have to give them some concession. And since your family comes during visiting hours, it seemed like the right thing to have them come earlier.”

Suddenly everything felt like too much. Asha wanted to scream.

“Are you OK?” Doctor Swati asked.

“I have a headache,” Asha said, her voice snappy. “Are we done?”

Doctor Swati put her hand on Asha’s shoulder. “Something’s wrong,” she persisted.

“I . . . I just get a little moody when I’m pregnant,” Asha said, almost mumbling the words. The doctor’s concern was making her feel guilty for her behavior. She was acting like an idiot, like a child—she should behave herself and not throw tantrums like Mohini did when she didn’t get what she wanted.

Doctor Swati smiled. “Most pregnant women get irritable at some point or other. No surprise there. I just . . . you always seem so calm that I never expected it of you.”

Now she felt even more foolish. “It just happens. My husband also said I was a little . . . well, moody.”

“Of course,” Doctor Swati said. “And how are Pratap and your children?”

“Good,” Asha said. “We’re just so worried about Manoj’s future. The school sounds good, but . . . so expensive. I don’t know how we will be able to send him there.”

She thought Doctor Swati was the one who was a little irritable now. “You should not burden yourself with these worries. I told you we’ll figure it out. Just find peace and get through your pregnancy. If you’re worried, it’s not good for the baby.”

“But how can I not be worried?” Asha asked, feeling a prick of anger. “He’s my son and I’m doing this for him.”

“I know,” Doctor Swati said, and looked at her wristwatch impatiently. “Look, we’ll talk about this later, OK? I have a few more patients to see, and I have some new parents visiting soon as well; just go on over to the house and try to rest. Worry isn’t good for a pregnant woman.”

Easy enough for you to say,
Asha thought. Why, she could probably send her child to America or London or someplace like that where they had even better schools.

Asha remained angry when Pratap came to visit with the children. She didn’t talk to him much, but spent the entire time talking to her children and holding them close to her.

“What did you learn in school today?” Asha asked Manoj, who was playing with a cube with blocks of color on it.

“I learned about magnets,” Manoj said. “Do you know what the biggest magnet in the world is?”

Asha shook her head.

“The world,” Manoj said. “The planet Earth is the biggest magnet.”

Asha didn’t understand and just nodded vaguely.

“What is this you’re playing with?” she asked as she held Mohini close, kissing her hair as she waited for Manoj to answer.

“It’s called a Rubik’s cube,” he said. “I have to find a way to make all the sides have one color only. Look, now there is red, yellow, blue, and green on this side; I have to make it all one color.”

“Can you do it, you think?”

“He’s already done it several times,” Pratap said, and was met with a chilly glance from Asha. “What? I’m not supposed to say anything?” he asked calmly.

Asha sighed. This was just not like her, but there didn’t seem to be much she could do about it. She was trying to be nice and normal, but her mind was spinning out of control.

Mohini felt the baby kick at her back and giggled.