English Lessons and Other Stories by Shauna Singh Baldwin Page B

offers her a slip-pad and pencil so she can write them down.
    Mem-saab reads the English writing and draws her eyebrows together. The lady-lawyer writes some more. Mem-saab repeats the words aloud, in Hindi. “He cannot build the rooms but I cannot tell him to go back to Bombay?”
    The lady-lawyer nods. “His lawyer said he had no place to live in Bombay. Balvir said you gave him part of your house as a gift to entice him to Delhi — to look after you.”
    Mem-saab puts the slip-pad back in her purse. She shakes herhead slowly. She does not have enough breath today to discuss Balvir’s lies.
    â€œWhat has been gained?” I ask.
    â€œTime,” says the lady-lawyer.
    She helps my Mem-saab to rise. I follow them out to the car, Mem-saab’s pashmina shawl on my forearm. There is some satisfaction in knowing Balvir will have to take a taxi.
    Every day, Mem-saab asks if there is a letter from Jai.
    â€œNo,” I say, “no letter.” And since that one call the day after Balvir arrived, no phone call either. Now I am sorry I told him Mem-saab was well.
    The Embassy-walla sends Mem-saab a note asking if he may come to tea. She sends me to him with a note saying Yes. I tell Khansama to make cake and jalebis, and by now I know this means Balvir and Kiran will be notified as well.
    It takes her most of the morning to dress and prepare; she rests often to ease the pain in her chest. All afternoon, she sits waiting for tea as though the Embassy-walla were one of the relatives who no longer visit.
    Khansama wheels in the trolley as usual, but he doesn’t leave the room afterwards. He has to report back to Balvir. The Embassy-walla asks for tea without milk. Since he says it in English, I do not tell Mem-saab, and she pours it in his tea anyway. He should repeat himself often, and in Hindi, if he wants me to help him converse.
    â€œAs you know,” says the Embassy-walla, “my lease is till the end of this month.”
    Mem-saab bows her elegant head and smiles. His lease has been till the end of each month for four rains now.
    â€œI have been told I will be posted back to Washington after that.”
    Mem-saab smiles again. “How nice.”
    She has not understood.
    â€œPosted back to abroad?” I ask.
    He looks at me then. “Yes. Tell her I will be posted back to Washington — say, to America — after this month.”
    I mouth his words to her again. She smiles at him, but this smile is tinged with dread. “I see,” she says, quiet.
    He accepts a piece of dry sponge cake and declines the jalebis — crisp tubes oozing their red-gold sugar-water. Khansama will give them to his children tonight.
    Now who will stop Balvir — or Jai — from putting their belongings or padlocks downstairs? The judge said everything must remain the same, but some changes cannot be decreed away. Four rains ago, Mem-saab could ask her English-speaking sons to place an advertisement in
The Statesman
saying “foreign embassy people desired” so she didn’t have to lease to an Indian tenant. It takes a generation to oust Indian tenants, and they can never afford to pay. But now…? Who will listen to Amma if I ask them to write in their English newspaper that Mem-saab doesn’t want an Indian for a tenant?
    Mem-saab receives a note from the lady-lawyer; she reads it to me and begins to cry. The lady-lawyer says Balvir requested the court to restrain her from renting the downstairs “until a family understanding has been arrived at.” The judge has granted his request.
    â€œWhat will I live on?” she weeps.
    I remind her, “You are a rich woman, Mem-saab. You have money at Grindlays.”
    â€œBut that is family wealth — stridhan — just mine on paper, for my lifetime. I use just a little for my needs, Amma.”
    I agree she keeps her needs to a minimum. She has alwayshad a strong sense of duty, my Mem-saab. It is the