Unaccustomed Earth

by Jhumpa Lahiri

  The couple stood with their backs to the guests, facing the minister and the mountains and the setting sun. It was a brief, simple ceremony, without bridesmaids or a best man, as Amit had predicted. Someone got up and read a poem he could not hear because there was no microphone. Still, visually, it was spectacular, the sky deepening into a combination of dark peach and plum over the mountains, the lush grounds of the school unpopulated save for the spot where the wedding was taking place. He watched strands of Pam’s hair, loosened by the wind that had settled over them, causing women to put shawls around their shoulders, that cold mountain air that always replaced the day’s heat. She was thirty-seven now, his age, but from the back she looked like a girl of nineteen. And yet she was marrying late, so much later than he had.

  As he witnessed the ceremony he felt grateful for the faint connection he and Pam had maintained, enough for him to be sitting there, watching her marry, witnessing the very beginning of that phase of her existence. Amit anticipated only a continuation of the things he knew: Megan, his job, life in New York, the girls. The most profound thing, having Maya and Monika, had already happened; nothing would be more life-altering than that. He wanted to change none of it, and yet a part of him sometimes longed to return to the beginning of his relationship with Megan, if only for the pleasure of anticipating and experiencing those things again.

  There was a round of applause as Pam and Ryan kissed, their eyes open from the excitement, and then the music started up and the wedding party receded down the grassy aisle. Amit rose, this time positioning himself on Megan’s left without having to be told, and together they took their places behind the others in the receiving line. Pam tossed back her head and laughed at things people said, leaning over to kiss them or put a hand comfortingly to their upper arms. “Where are your beautiful little girls?” she cried out as soon as she saw Amit, extending her neck so that he could kiss her on one cheek, then the other. Her skin was the same, disconcertingly soft, but now that he faced her he saw Mrs. Borden’s crow’s-feet forming around her eyes.

  “We left them with Megan’s parents. It’s our weekend of reckless freedom.”

  “I want to stay up until five in the morning,” Megan announced cheerfully. “I want to celebrate all night and watch the sun rise from our balcony.”

  Amit glanced at Megan, puzzled that she’d never mentioned this to him. He had assumed her main objective for the weekend was to sleep undisturbed. “You do?”

  Megan didn’t answer him. Instead she said to Pam, “You look lovely. It’s such a pretty dress.” She said this genuinely, not intimidated by Pam as she’d been in the past. Amit wondered if it was because Pam was married now, belonging to another man and therefore not even a little bit to Amit.

  They shook hands with Ryan. “Pam’s told me so much about you,” Ryan said to Amit.

  “Congratulations,” Amit replied. “All the best.”

  “We’ll see if I can make a California girl out of her.”

  “Ryan’s kids are running around here, somewhere,” Pam said. “That was Claire, carrying the flowers.” She corrected herself, kissing Ryan on the cheek. “Sorry, sweetie. Our kids.” She caught Amit’s eye, as if to say, Can you believe I’m a stepmother? So this was a second marriage for Ryan, another woman’s children involved. The long-faced girl in the wedding procession was now Pam’s stepdaughter. It was not what Amit would have predicted for Pam, such complications, Pam who could have had any man.

  “I was really hoping to see your girls,” Pam said. “Do you have a picture?”

  Megan looked in her bag, but she was carrying a small beaded evening purse and had left her wallet in the hotel room.

  “I’ve got some,” Amit said. He flipped to two pictures, each taken when Maya and Monika were newborns, their eyes beady, their mouths drawn to fine points. “They look nothing like that now.”

  “You’ll have to bring them to L.A. You’ll all have to come and stay with us at Ryan’s beach house.” She laughed. “I mean, our beach house.”

  “We’d love that,” Megan said. But Amit knew it would never happen, that this was the end of the road, that there would never be a reason for him to step into Pam’s world again.

  “There’s a brunch tomorrow, on campus,” Pam said. “We’ll see you there?” She said it in her old way, looking at Amit as if there were something of extreme urgency she needed to discuss with him—notes for an exam they were about to take together, or an analysis of his latest college infatuation.

  “Of course,” he told her.

  “It’s great of you to come, Amit. It’s so good to see you,” Pam said. For a moment he felt a flicker of their old bond, their odd friendship. He had always been devoted to her, more so, she’d once admitted, than even her brothers, and he felt that she was acknowledging that again, now, in her glance.

  “We wouldn’t have missed it,” he said.

  The line pushed them along, into the crowd of the party. Megan said she needed to use the restroom. “Do you know where one is?”

  He looked around. Across the lawn where people stood eating hors d’oeuvres was the admissions building, a massive Victorian mansion with wraparound porches. The double doors at the back were open, and waiters dashed in and out with their trays. He remembered going there with his parents, being interviewed by an unpleasant man named Mr. Plotkin. Mr. Plotkin had asked Amit why he wanted to attend Langford, and because his parents were sitting outside the room, Amit had replied, truthfully, that his parents were moving to India and didn’t want him to go to school there. “I’m afraid that reply isn’t the mark of a Langford boy, Mr. Sarkar,” Mr. Plotkin told him across the desk where Amit’s report cards and recommendations lay. And then he folded his hands together and waited until Amit had provided a more adequate reply.

  “There’s probably bathrooms in there,” he said now to Megan. He walked with her, still positioned faithfully at her left, toward the building, but inside they discovered a long line for the ladies’ room.

  “What should we do?” Megan whispered.

  “Well, I can’t wait in that line with you. It’s all women. I’m sure no one will notice the skirt.”

  “You think?” She fiddled with her purse, adjusting her wrist so that the purse rested over the burnt material. Over the skirt she was wearing a white buttoned shirt, open to reveal part of a pink camisole below. Her neck was bare. She never wore the jewels his mother had given her eventually, that were too ornate for her taste.

  “You look great,” he said. He meant it, but he hadn’t told her yet. “I’ll get us more drinks and meet you back here. Another lemonade?”

  “Okay.”

  He left her there, still fiddling with the purse. It took him longer than he expected to get the drinks. The line at the bar contained a few of his old teachers, most of them in advanced middle age, a few looking on the brink of retirement. There was Mrs. Randall, his physics teacher, to whom he waved, and Mr. Plotkin, whose eyes he avoided. Then he saw Mr. Nagle, one of his English teachers, who’d also been the adviser for the school newspaper, The Langford Legend, that Amit wrote for and eventually edited. Mr. Nagle had been one of the youngest members of the faculty, just out of college when Amit was a student, and he still looked refreshingly young, his dark hair and drooping mustache reminding Amit of a shorter, thinner version of Ringo Starr. Mr. Nagle was originally from Winchester, a graduate of the high school there, and Amit always felt a connection with him because of that.

  “Let me guess. You’re writing for The New York Times,” Mr. Nagle said.

  “Actually, I work for a medical journal.”

  “Is that right? I didn’t think you were interested in the sciences.”

  He hadn’t been. He’d wanted to be a journalist, it was true. He had loved working on the eight-page weekly paper, loved going with Mr. Nagle and the rest of the editorial staff to the offices of the local town paper once a week to do the layout. He remembered sitting in the library, thinking up story ideas, inte
rviewing members of the faculty, and the famous people who sometimes came to Langford to speak at assemblies. Taking an active, reporter’s interest in the life of the school had helped him to endure the fact that he hated it there. But he knew that journalism wasn’t an option as a career, that his parents would never indulge such thinking. It was the one battle he hadn’t had the courage to fight—his parents’ expectation that he go to medical school, their assumption that he become a doctor like his father.

  He’d had the aptitude for science and so he’d gone ahead with it, majoring in biology at Columbia and then starting medical school there. He lasted two years, mainly because he met Megan and fell in love with her. But the more he got to know her, the clearer it became that he lacked her dedication, her drive. One night in the middle of studying for a pharmacy exam, he’d gone out for a cup of coffee. He walked a few blocks to stretch his legs, and then a few more. He kept walking down Broadway, one hundred blocks from his dorm in Washington Heights to Lincoln Center, and then continuing all the way to Chinatown where, at daybreak, feeling close to delirious, he finally stopped. Fish and vegetables were being unloaded from trucks, life creeping back onto the streets. He entered a bakery, had hot tea and coconut bread, watched a group of Chinese women sitting at a round table at the back, sorting through a mountain of spinach. He took the train back uptown, slept through his exam. He began to cut one class, then another. A week went by, and in spite of his total passivity, he felt that he was accomplishing the greatest feat of his life. He dropped out, not telling his parents until the semester ended. He’d expected Megan to break up with him, but she’d respected his decision and remained. On a lark, after dropping out of med school, he applied to the journalism school at Columbia but was not accepted. Megan urged him to write anyway, to work freelance and put together some clips. But the job at the medical journal was easier, more predictable work. It demanded less of him, and Amit could no longer imagine doing anything else.

  “I had you pegged as a newspaperman,” Mr. Nagle said. “We won that wonderful award the year you graduated. Never managed to win it again. They still have the plaque up in the library.”

  A third person joined them, a man who was introduced to Amit as the newly appointed director of alumni affairs. He took an immediate interest in Amit, asking whether he planned to attend the next reunion, talking about plans for Langford’s new gymnasium.

  “Excuse me,” Amit said when there was a pause in the conversation, “I need to find my wife.” He realized that in the course of talking to Mr. Nagle he’d finished his drink and now had only the one for Megan. So he stood in the line again and got another spiked lemonade. He began to weave among the guests, going into the admissions building, looking for her. But she wasn’t there, and he realized she’d probably gone out to look for him. It was getting dark, and the only lit-up area was the tent where they would all sit to dine. When he found Megan she was talking to Ted Schultz, her left hand still placed strategically over her skirt. The sight of Ted made Amit feel foolish all over again, for calling him by the wrong name.

  “I got you this,” Amit said, handing Megan the lemonade.

  “Oh.” She looked at the drink, shaking her head. There was a glass of champagne in her other hand. “I got this off a tray.”

  “I was just telling Megan about what it was like here when we were students,” Ted said. “Before these ugly new buildings went up. Where did you live?”

  “Ingalls my first year. And then Harkness.” He felt unsure about the names, as if they, too, might be incorrect.

  “Guess what,” Megan said. “Our cell phone doesn’t work up here. I tried to call the girls but there’s no service.”

  “I’m sure there’s a pay phone somewhere,” Amit said. “I’ll call them before their bedtime.” He was tired of standing, longed for the opportunity to sit down and fill his stomach with something solid. A few elderly people were already under the tent, along with some mothers nursing their babies, and he wondered if it would be improper of him to take his seat as well. He waited for a gap in Ted and Megan’s conversation, to suggest going to their table, but then he felt a tap on the back and turned to see Pam’s parents. He proceeded to catch up with them, congratulating them, pulling out his wallet again and showing the pictures of the girls. “They look just like their mother,” Mrs. Borden said in her usual forthright way.

  When he turned back to Megan he saw that her champagne glass was empty. She had moved closer to Ted, and her hand was playing with her diamond earring, a habit of hers when she was nervous. Could it be that Megan was flirting with Ted? Instead of being jealous Amit felt oddly liberated, relieved of his responsibility to Megan, to show her a good time. His head was pounding. He needed a glass of water, needed to dilute the alcohol that had rushed too quickly into his brain. The evening had barely begun but it was as if he’d been drinking for hours. Then he saw that the hand by Megan’s ear was the one that had been formerly concealing her skirt. Now that she’d had a few drinks herself she no longer cared, and Amit realized he was free of his duty to stand by her side.

  At dinner they were seated at a table with three other couples. Two of them were friends of Ryan’s from California, and after introductions were made they talked among themselves. The women were in their fifties, both dressed in silk jackets and with heavy pieces of silver jewelry, and Amit suspected they had something to do with television. The men were dark-haired and voluble and seemed to be very old friends. The other couple was engaged to be married. The woman, Felicia, was a friend of Pam’s, and her fiancé’s name was Jared. Jared was an architect, with very fair wispy hair, who seemed to be faintly smiling at everyone and everything, until Amit realized it was the set expression of his face, his thin mouth permanently pulled back at the corners. Jared’s current commission was a new wing in a hospital, and he and Megan immediately fell into conversation, Megan telling him all the things that needed to be improved, in her opinion, when it came to the design of hospitals.

  As their wine and water glasses were filled and a salmon terrine was served, Felicia talked to Amit about her and Jared’s wedding plans. She was a petite woman, her girlish figure encased in a high-necked beige sleeveless dress. Her features, though pleasant, seemed too small for her face, as if yet to fill it up properly, the distance between the bottom of her nose and her top lip distracting. She spoke in a tired way, each word weighted down. They were in the process of deciding on a venue, Felicia said, and weren’t sure of the number of guests.

  “This wedding is huge,” she remarked. “How many people, would you guess?”

  He looked around at the tables, counted eight bodies at each. “Around two hundred, I think.” He drained his water glass and looked over at Megan, her animated face without a trace of discomfort.

  “Where was your wedding?” Felicia asked.

  “We eloped eight years ago. City Hall.” It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time—instead of asking his parents to fly in from Lausanne, and Megan’s parents to go to the expense, and figuring out how to make everybody happy. He was twenty-nine, Megan thirty-four. It had been exhilarating—the joy of getting married combined with the fact that it would all be in secret, without planning, without involvement from anyone else. His parents had not even met her. He was aware of what an insult it was to them. For all their liberal Western ways he knew they wanted him to marry a Bengali girl, raised and educated as he had been.

  “Do you regret it at all?” Felicia asked.

  “I think our daughters do.” For they were at the age now when they expected tales of a wedding cake, pictures of their mother in a white gown.

  Felicia asked how old the girls were, and again, clumsily, he pulled out the photos in his wallet. “Megan has better ones. More recent, I mean. But they’re at the hotel.”

  “Did you have to try for a while?”

  He thought it a bold question, coming from a stranger. But he was honest with her, his thoughts still loose from the spiked lemonad
e. “Would you believe, with Maya it happened the first time,” he said. He remembered how proud he’d felt, how powerful. The first time in his life he’d had sex without contraception a life had begun.

  “Will you go for a third?”

  “It’s hard to imagine.” He thought back to when his daughters were infants, when swings and play-saucers crowded the rooms and the sticky tray of the high chair had to be scrubbed in the shower at the end of each night. His girls had already turned mysterious, both out of diapers, withdrawing to their room to read or play games, talking in secret languages, bursting into peals of laughter at the table for no apparent reason. He’d been more eager than Megan to start a family. It was exotic, the world of parenting, fulfilling him in a way his job did not. It was Amit who’d pushed for a second. Megan was content with one, telling him she’d paid the price for being from a large family. But Amit hadn’t wanted Maya to be an only child, to lead the lonely existence he remembered. Megan had given in, gotten pregnant again even though she was almost forty, but since Monika’s birth she’d worn an IUD.

  A spoon clinked on a glass and they all turned their attention to the front of the tent, to the first round of toasts. They listened to friends of Pam’s from prep school and then from college, a few of whom he vaguely remembered drinking with at the Marlin. They were followed by members of both families, and coworkers of Pam’s and Ryan’s. Amit was distracted by a pale gray spider that crawled up the side of the tablecloth and then into the space between the cuff of Jared’s shirt and jacket. He was tempted to say something, but Jared hadn’t noticed; instead he sat there, the same faint smile still fixed on his face, no doubt anticipating the day people would stand up and offer toasts at his own wedding.