We Are Not in Pakistan

by Shauna Singh Baldwin

  Can’t do much about the mailbox — some prankster cracked its supporting post last week. Probably the sandy-haired freckled kid next door or someone in his gang. The kid looks fifteen or so. Just a few years younger than Karan’s students. Has nothing better to do till September but slouch around smoking weed with his pimply friends and make a nuisance of himself.

  But the car …

  He won’t clean up. Let the girl see him as he is. Decide if she wants any more to do with him. She’s probably like his first-year students — bored, sullen and given to quoting themselves with a prefatory “I’m like.”

  But it is a good thing he had the windshield replaced. Someone — probably the kid, but he can’t accuse anyone — hit a baseball that splintered it the day he moved in. He waited two days for a parent to come over, apologize, insist on paying for replacement, but no one showed up. Even after the insurance, it was still $218 out of his pocket.

  He slides a tape in. The car fills with Rabbi Shergill’s voice: “… Bulla ki jana mein kaun?”

  Who knows who I am?

  Twenty-three and she hasn’t been to college. His daughter — if she is his daughter — isn’t a college grad. For this Uma can thank her mother. If Rita had called Karan once, wouldn’t he have found a way for Uma to go to college? One of his cousin-nieces in Amritsar is writing a PhD on racism in Joseph Conrad’s novels at his expense. He’s helped pay for another in Ludhiana to study chemical engineering and encouraged at least three in Delhi who are now working in multinationals. Two generations ago … well, everyone in the family was village-schooled and muddy from the fields back then.

  Karan parks, enters his home, opens one of the moving boxes and takes out a backpack. Returning to the car, he begins filling it with junk from the back seat. When he’s finished, he opens the hatch, leans into the boot, pushes the black bag all the way in so there will be space for the girl’s luggage.

  No question of a hotel, Uma must stay with him. Maybe she’ll want to study here in Santa Barbara — it’s a beautiful city.

  The Santa Barbara Train Station has, Karan is proud to note, been remodelled lately. On this Saturday it’s full of people who will never make it to Karan’s classes without Pell grants. Flyers hanging over the red, white and blue bunting warn of a Yellow Alert. He takes a seat and waits for the train from LA, hands clasped around a rolled up page from a legal pad on which he’s written her name.

  Smell of onions. A tanned tattooed arm appears beside Karan’s. Impression of leather and polished rivets. The hair at the base of his turban is rising. The man leans closer, digs his elbow into Karan’s side.

  “Go home, Bin Laden!” Karan turns. Two inches away, a single-browed glare radiates from a stubbled face.

  Karan’s skin tightens. Fear hits in a galvanic rush, then anger.

  Ignorance — just ignorance! Don’t allow yourself to react to Philistines.

  He swallows. One, two, three, four, five.

  A flush is rising beneath his beard. “I am home, mister.” His voice is as even as if he is lecturing in class.

  And he smiles.

  Then hates himself for smiling.

  He gets up, moves to another seat a few feet away. Sits down. Presses his palm on his knee to steady its tremor.

  This id iot could n’t pass his SAT even if there were a GI Bill for bikers. But surely a basic education should have taught him something. In the absence of better schooling, one of Karan’s much-rejected papers argued, the US will need more immigrants.

  The man hauls himself off the bench, slings his backpack over his shoulder and swaggers off to catch his train; Karan pretends he doesn’t notice.

  A mute television above his head repeats the clip of bodies being carried out of the subway. The death toll is now fifty-two, maybe more. Sad! And now mug shots of suspected Muslim men.

  A few minutes later, the same images again.

  In 2001, one of his colleagues said the scene of the planes and the twin towers was replayed so often that her five-year-old thought all the planes were falling from the skies and crashing into buildings.

  At least this time it isn’t New York or Washington.

  Now a close up of Osama Bin Laden. Karan is much better looking — plenty of women would agree.

  Eleven o’clock. The train has arrived. He stands up, unfurls his paper.

  Uma will never be able to read it from a distance.

  He sits down again, takes out his pen. Darkens his handwriting.

  The passengers have alighted. One girl — woman — remains. She walks toward him immediately. He crumples the paper — he always forgets how much his turban stands out in a crowd.

  Not obese like Rita. Not thin, either. Proportionate. Tall, well-endowed as any Punjabi girl. Shoulder-length dark hair — did he expect she’d have hip-length hair like his own? Caramel colouring. A pink camisole baring an expanse of skin that makes Karan wince. White Capri pants. Sunflower sandals — retro fashion from the seventies.

  Oh, she is his all right. No paternity test required. Those are his mother’s dreamy eyes, the set of his father’s chin. The slightly pouted lips — those are Rita’s. And between her lower lip and chin is a round stud of polished steel.

  Not a nose ring — a stud.

  He approaches her, extends his hand. Suddenly wishes he had thought of bringing flowers. “Uma? Karanbir Singh.” It comes out as if he’s at a wine and cheese gathering.

  Dark eyes spark. A quick tug at his hand. Hers is cooler.

  “Hi. Uh, hi.”

  He reaches for embrace. She doesn’t, so he stops. His voice wobbles forward again, stalls, balks.

  She gives a faint smile; that’s something.

  Her tapestry bag has wheels but he carries it out of the station.

  Welcome to Santa Barbara. How was the train ride? Good. Had a good time in LA? Sure. Did you go to Disneyland? Oh, yeah. And the beach? No, didn’t have time. Well, then, we must visit a beach in Santa Barbara. Can’t go back to Detroit without experiencing the ocean!

  Thank god for ritual small talk.

  In the car, Uma puts on a pair of boxy sunglasses and flicks a lighter without asking permission, takes a deep drag on a cigarette.

  Karan debates reproving her, but it’s minutes since he met her, and she is — no question — his daughter. His only daughter. Maybe she doesn’t care that smoking is against his religion. No, she just doesn’t know anything about Sikhism. And she’s from Detroit, where they don’t frown on smoking as much as Californians.

  Karan starts the car. A cell phone appears; Uma calls someone.

  “You okay?”

  Someone she cares about, she doesn’t say who.

  At least she can care — many of his students don’t seem to care about anyone but themselves.

  State Street. Left or right? Karan’s interior compass oscillates. As usual, the earth’s magnetic field refuses to attract his directional core.

  Vaheguruji!

  He turns right.

  “Later!” she says, and hangs up.

  Despite invoking the Name, Karan finds what must be the longest route home. Along the way, he points out the towering Santa Ynez mountains, the impressive Spanish-era courthouse and its clock tower, the Santa Barbara Mission. He drives her past the golf club on Las Positas because it’s beautiful, not because he plays. He shows her the red tile roofs, the arched facades, the wrought-iron gates of houses. He’s comparing Santa Barbara’s cleanliness and spacious boulevards to Delhi, of course. He compares everything to Delhi. Is she comparing Santa Barbara to Detroit or LA or Madison or — where? He can’t stop his tour patter long enough to ask.

  On Cliff Road, he grips the steering wheel tight. The car could veer off, take both of them over and down. Is she enjoying the ride? She nods, but the sunglasses guard her expression.

  She’s over twenty-one; he is not responsible for her. His sperm was merely a catalyst between Rita and her child. Maybe Uma thinks he’s rich. How much will she ask for sile
nce?

  Behind her sunglasses, Uma wishes she hadn’t come. After she calls Ashley to check on her, she rolls down her window so the smoke has someplace to go. She takes a last drag and flicks the butt out.

  In Ma’s stories, her pa — Karan — looked like an actor called Omar Sharif, so she married him. “So I could have you, baby,” she’d say. “Only an immigrant woulda married a woman the size of your ma.” And she’d laugh and laugh as if that was funny.

  Karan isn’t as tall as Uma expected. The turban, the moustache. Jeez, a Toyota. Pretty uncool. Were all Indian men so dark? She hadn’t met any Indians up close in Detroit. Only seen bright fluttery figures entering a Hindu temple. When she was little, she never told Ma how she punched the kid who asked, “What’s a Hindu?” and the one who answered, “Lays eggs.” She figured her dad was Hindu — which was why she’d tried to read that Bhagavad-Gita thing — but last year Ma told her he was a Sikh. So Uma found reams of stuff about Sikhism on the web and printed out pages and pages. From what she read, it wasn’t anything like being Hindu. But Ma got worse right after, and what with work and hospitals and the funeral, pretty soon nothing Uma read seemed to stick in her head.

  Karan is going on and on about the scenery. Lecturing like she had to taste it, eat it. Hasn’t mentioned Ma once. Ma, who can’t see this, can’t hear, taste, touch or smell anymore. Who does he think was with Ma till the end? Who drove Ma to dialysis appointments three times a week, kept her pill schedule, cooked her special food? Uma rolls her left shoulder, then her right — taut muscles from lifting Ma.

  Shouldn’t have come. Seemed like a good idea a couple of weeks ago when Ashley invited her to cheer up and visit Disneyland and sent her a frequent flyer ticket. Uma was functioning semiokay after the week-long rummage sale of Ma’s belongings. She still had two kidneys. Goddamn genes from the guy at the wheel here had made hers useless — “incompatible” they said — for a transplant.

  But … think about Disneyland.

  The day at Disneyland was the only one that seemed real all week. On Saturday morning when she arrived on the red-eye, Ashley met her at the baggage claim at LAX and said she was scheduled for a “birth prevention” on Tuesday morning after the long weekend. “Two months. Didn’t want to tell you on the phone — you wouldn’t have come. Can’t be pregnant right now — my agent says I’ve got a chance for this great part in a Spielberg blockbuster. You’re the only one who can help me through it.”

  And Uma did — sucker! What else was she to do? Tell a friend she’d been with from kindergarten through high school that she wouldn’t drive her to the doctor, wouldn’t wait for her, drive her home, clean up, cook lunch and watch her in case she began hemorrhaging?

  No, that wouldn’t be her. Even though she’d decide differently than Ashley in the same circumstances. And even though it meant she never got to see Universal Studios. But the Ashley thing made her almost forget she’d written to Karan on Friday night before leaving Detroit. She hadn’t expected a reply to her Shock and Awe bombshell — Hey, Pa! Here I come, fully grown, and you didn’t even know. Or the invitation to stay at his home. He probably guessed there was no way she could afford a Santa Barbara hotel — that was kinda nice of him, yeah.

  But she could have said forget it after the week with Ashley and headed home — now why didn’t she? Freakin’ geography and curiosity, that’s why. Kill two birds … oh, that’s real funny. Especially when you’re driving along a cliff and you’re a turn of the steering wheel from one helluva drop to the ocean below.

  Ma is dead. Dead. Dead. And Uma’s going to carry that loss forever. But she did her best. No guilt. Because Ma said, “You blame yourself when I’m gone and I’m sure as hell gonna come back to haunt you.”

  Look, Ma, I’m blaming myself — just come haunt me. Show up already!

  Karan yields his right-of-way to let a car pull into his lane. The other driver doesn’t signal thanks.

  A few minutes later, an SUV cuts in front. Passenger yells, “Fuckin’ Ay-rab!” and gives Karan the finger. Fucking idiot — her dad is not an Ay-rab.

  Karan didn’t react; it’s just road rage. Californians!

  It’s fine. Everything will be fine.

  Ma always said, Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed. No use. Uma can’t stop expecting. Not from Karan, but from herself. Where is the warmth? She should feel it rise spontaneously for the father who went missing, the dad she always wanted. But this guy. He doesn’t look like her — or rather, she doesn’t look like him.

  Ma, couldn’t you have shown me pictures of him — something?

  Karan swings into a neighbourhood of neat houses. Homes — each is different. Definite curb appeal. People who don’t mow their own lawns live here. No apartment buildings in sight. Up a gravel driveway to a tiny red-roofed house set against a backdrop of trees. The car rocks Uma to a halt before a garage door freshly painted rust red. Sprawling letters of underlying graffiti. Readable if she narrows her eyes: “How to stop wars — kill the ragheads.”

  “Oh, that. A gang of kids, about three weeks ago,” he says. “Needs another coat of paint.” And he gets out of the car.

  “Awful mean,” she says.

  If this white-turbaned guy carrying her bag across the lawn and into his home is her closest relative, Uma better get to know him and his life this weekend. She won’t make enough money bartending to get out here again any time soon.

  Look, Ma, your baby made it all the way to California. And I can’t even send you a wish-you-were-here postcard cause you went and left me, didn’t ya?

  Okay, be honest now, Ma, listen up. Is this visit gonna heal me or kill me?

  It takes Karan only a few minutes to show Uma around. Cardboard boxes stacked in each room. Accumulation of his years in four different countries, different cities. He still isn’t sure what should be tossed out, what he needs to keep. Now that he’s no longer renting, he tells her, he might decorate typically American, say, Posturepedics instead of the old futons in the two bedrooms. And a curio cabinet to display the trophies from his field hockey days. He’ll add Indian touches, of course — mirrorwork cushions, some big brass planters, wool durries — and maybe, someday, Kashmiri carpets.

  He pours Uma a glass of orange juice while she freshens up, then leads her into the green glow of the one room he’s carved off for living, the screened veranda. She calls it a patio, as Rita would have. No boxes here. Just bookcases across two walls, his reading chair and footstool, two wicker chairs angled on the tile floor to face a small TV, and a collapsible coffee table of painted wood. He watches approvingly as Uma examines the books spread face down on his two-drawer steel file cabinet in the corner — books are his true community, beyond religion or time.

  Karan sweeps file folders off a chair and into the cabinet.

  “My taxes.” He laughs ruefully. He used to have his taxes completed by January, when paying them was a privilege, the price he paid for smooth roads, clean water, future Social Security. But he’s been procrastinating since he began paying for two wars, torture and detention. Still, he pays. Because he’s one of the good kind, the hard-working white collar immigrant — so he told his interviewers.

  The veranda, surrounded by lush foliage, is dark and cool, but from this angle, the rest of the house looks half-built or half-ruined.

  “Had a break-in a few days ago,” he tells Uma. “Kids, I’m sure … can’t prove that, unfortunately. Took a couple of boxes. They didn’t need the stuff — tossed it down the hillside.”

  He doesn’t believe himself. It had to be Homeland Security. Those chaps don’t need warrants now and don’t have to know or tell you what they are searching for. He inserts a CD — Vikram Seth’s selection for An Equal Music. A violin launches into Bach’s Partita in E major.

  Uma takes a sip of orange juice and makes a face. “Got a beer?”

  “Kingfisher — an Indian beer. Want to try it?”

  She looks dubious.

  “Or a very el
egant fumé blanc.”

  “I get sleepy from wine.”

  Tipsy, is what he would have said. A word that no longer belongs anywhere.

  “You don’t have much of an accent,” she says, obviously intending a compliment.

  “Everyone has an accent of some kind.” He smiles. He is always conscious of lilting phonemes long excised, accents on the wrong syllable.

  “Got any pictures? Of Ma and you, I mean.”

  He nods, having anticipated this one. “A few.”

  “Videos?”

  “Only a couple of Betas.”

  “What’s Beta?”

  “A video format — it’s not around any more.” He brings a shoebox of photos, places it before him on the coffee table and sits down. He rifles through them and hands her one.

  “Rita and I. At school.”

  She sinks to the floor beside the table, legs folded beneath her, and supports her head on her hand as she looks at it closely.

  Without the photographs, he might persuade himself that Rita never existed as his wife, that she was just a one-time helpful friend with whom he’d lost touch.

  Uma looks up, holds his gaze.

  “How much did you pay her?”

  He can all but taste the anger in her words. Silence is his best defence.

  “I heard twenty-five hundred.”

  He nods. Decides repentance would be dishonest. “You’d pay a personal matchmaker about the same.”

  “Yeah, but this was citizenship.”

  “A resident alien card,” he corrects her. “After two years, if you can prove you’re still married. And the possibility of citizenship, if you apply, after another five. In fact, I’ve only recently applied. And I’m sure Rita had her reasons.” Feelings are layered, inaccessible. He wants to be precise, bring them into words for her. “We were friends. At least, at the beginning … I thought of it like an arranged marriage.”

  A hooting laugh. “Bet you Ma didn’t.” She takes a cigarette from her pocket and lights up.