Read Happy Birthday!: And Other Stories for Free Online Page B

mouth. The sparrow blinks hard for a minute and then jumps to her feet.
    Sara claps with excitement.
    The sparrow looks curiously around the living room, blinking less furiously now. Before we realize it, she spreads her wings and starts flying around the room.
    â€˜Turn off the fan before she is hurt by the blades,’ I shout to Sara, who is next to the switchboard.
    I open the French windows and watch as the sparrow flutters furiously about, banging against the false ceiling, the embroidered curtains and the chandelier.
    â€˜When there is a way out, why is this bird not seeing it?’ I say.
    I run over to where the sparrow is and try to catch her.
    â€˜Don’t be so rough,’ Sara cries, when the sparrow, driven by my aggression, finds the way to an open window and flies out.
    I look at Sara; once again she’s brought home a problem that I’ve had to solve.
    ~
    During the next few days I play the cordial host and go through the standard protocol of offering Sara a few crumbs from my life, drinks and dinners with friends, movies. But she’s not interested. She has a plan for The Agnis and asks me if I want to join her.
    â€˜I wish I could,’ I decline, as if a great force is holding me back.
    Yet, when she’s gone to visit The Agnis, I imagine what she’s doing with them and picture myself next to her. Something goes missing from the things I’m used to enjoying; they leave me dissatisfied, empty, as though I’ve left something behind.
    I go for my weekly potli massage. During the massage, I stare at my masseuse, whose presence I’ve never acknowledged before. I feel the urge to know more about her: why she’s here, where she’s from and who she’s doing all this work for. She shifts uncomfortably. I ask her name and she murmurs, ‘You seem tense today.’
    I come out of the parlour feeling knotted, dirty.
    The next day, when Mary comes home (quieter after I stormed out of her house), I realize that although I see her every day—even more than I see my own father, who’s usually travelling or with his other family—I know almost nothing about her. I’ve treated her as though she’s invisible. I lock myself inside my room and clean my cupboard, for the very first time.
    ~
    The day comes for Sara to leave and I know that with her departure the train of my guilt will leave the station. Early that morning I hear the bell ring. Thinking it is Mary coming for duty, I open the door without looking through the peephole. The entire team of Agnis, twelve girls, are standing outside my front door. Fatima is holding a cake on which is written in clumsy white icing: ‘We Will Miss You.’
    Their mouths drop on seeing me; they were expecting Sara to open the door.
    â€˜How did the watchman let you all in?’ I ask.
    â€˜I told him to,’ Sara says, coming up behind me. The girls’ faces bloom like flowers. Sara invites them in but they refuse, throwing cautious glances at me.
    â€˜How did you find an oven?’ I ask pointlessly, seeing that the cake is lumpy and unpretentious, the kind that has bits of forgotten eggshells in it, the kind that Sara will like.
    The girls look at each other and Fatima mumbles, ‘We request my memsahib for permission to use her oven.’
    I know the memsahib whose house Fatima works in, the eighteenth floor Mrs Mehra who has made a nuisance of herself by adopting stray dogs, many of which have bitten young children in the building. The girls chose wisely.
    â€˜You bake?’ I ask, knowing such a concept is alien to them.
    â€˜We learnt because Sara Didi say she likes cake,’ Mary says, her eyes lingering on Sara. I notice she calls Sara an elder sister now instead of memsahib.
    â€˜Well then, enjoy yourselves,’ I say, and hear my voice dripping with a kind of excessive sweetness that masks nothing.
    I go into my room, ignoring their flat-toned requests for me to stay. I