by Leah Franqui
Swati told herself that this would fade with time. She would tire herself out, as a toddler did while having a tantrum, and find contentment. But as the days turned into a week, Swati’s certainty that Rachel would see the benefit of having help was, slowly but surely, beginning to erode. The chatty girl Swati had first met, full of life and energy, seldom emerged. Instead, Rachel faded, slipping into the background as Swati enjoyed the household she had created. But to her surprise, she couldn’t really enjoy it, not this way. She who had been so sure she had cast off that attention to others when she had left her husband was finding herself attuned to her daughter-in-law, mystified by her doings. It was like living with a spirit that hated you but refused to do a thing about it. A very strange kind of haunting.
Swati had won. She owed nothing to anyone but herself; her duty was for her alone. She was free, and she was in charge. She had gotten exactly what she wanted. So when would the happiness come?
Fourteen
The recording studio was a tiny box set in the middle of a block of buildings and shops that in America would have been a strip mall, but Rachel didn’t know the name for it in India. The strip of shops—a potato-chip seller, a place to buy sparkly shoes and four-inch heels, a pharmacy selling headache cures and skin-whitening creams, an insurance agency, a bank—was walled off from the street, with apartments layered above the first commercial floor and multiple entrances. Rachel had gotten lost several times trying to find it. But it had been almost four months since she had moved to India, and now she was resigned to that.
Mumbai was a confusing city, part labyrinth; part sleek, modern metropolis; part open construction site, with pockets of grass and dirt full of grazing goats and skinny chickens peeking out between slum housing and luxury high-rises and government buildings and malls and mosques and temples and shrines everywhere, and even a church or two, especially where Rachel lived, in Reclamation.
In the hours that she killed waiting for all the help to leave her home, she had spent long afternoons lost, aching with heat, her brow beading with sweat, only to discover the business she was trying to find had moved, or she had passed it twelve times, or that it had never existed at all. She had once seen a tree with a number painted on it and realized, only later, that the tree had an address, just like the rest of the block. She had been on two streets that ran parallel to each other and had the same name, and no one could tell her which one she needed to be on. She had, over time, gained an appreciation for the rickshaw drivers of the city that bordered on awe. They kept worlds upon worlds in their heads, ever changing, covered in potholes.
But that day, she had found the recording studio and was, despite being lost, on time, by some miracle, and she was about to embark on her first voice-over assignment.
A call had come from Richard on a Tuesday afternoon, a week after she had met him at the meet-up. Over that time she had contacted Fifi tentatively twice, trying to meet again, and was met each time by an excuse as to why she couldn’t, giving Rachel a glimpse at a life far more active than her own, prompting her jealousy and her hope that the promise to meet soon would be fulfilled. She thought about calling some of the other women, one or two of whom had reached out to her, but their attitudes, their ideas about India, bothered her, and she wasn’t sure she could be friends with people like that, even in this moment of deepest desperation for companionship. She was furious with Swati, yes, it lived in her chest like a hard pit, gathered against her rib cage, but even with that, even with the hatred she felt for her mother-in-law, she didn’t want to be with these women who talked this way. They would, she realized instinctively, bring out the worst in her. Everyone had the capacity to be prejudiced, she had learned in a college sociology class. If her worst thoughts about the world, about India, about Indians, were constantly reflected back at her, she would begin to believe that they were true. She knew that. And she didn’t want it, no matter how comforting it might seem. She wanted someone to hate India with for an hour, not a lifetime.
By the time Richard had called her, she was so focused on the friend she wanted to make, and trying to forget Dhruv’s troubling words from days before, that she had almost forgotten who he was.
“Raquel!” She hadn’t recognized his number, but that voice was unmistakable, tinny and nasal, and far too pleased with itself.
“It’s Rachel. Is this Richard? Hello, how are—”
“Listen, I’ve got a job for you. It’s a great gig, great gig; you’re lucky, boy, for a first-time job, it’s great!”
“Great,” Rachel said, mimicking his tone, his overuse of the word, but he didn’t notice.
“It’s a long-term thing. I’m doing some work on it, too. It’s a show from somewhere, Estonia, Bulgaria, one of those, dubbing it into English for the East African market; it’s a soap. They need a bunch of voices, actually, so if you know anyone else—”
“I don’t.” She really didn’t.
“No worries. Anyway, I’ve given them your number, okay? They want to start on Thursday.”
“This Thursday?”
“You around?”
“Well, yes, of course, I just—”
“Great! So they’ll call you. Fifteen hundred rupees an episode. Pretty good, right? It’s like, two hundred episodes. It’s the whole show! I’ve never gotten anyone a gig this good on the first try. You’re lucky, am I right?”
“I don’t even know if I’ll get the role—”
“I told them you’re great! Don’t worry about it! You’ve got the American accent, you sound good, they’ll be thrilled to have you. They just need to hear your voice and I am sure they will give you the gig. You’re welcome.”
“Thank you. So, when will they—”
The line went dead before Rachel could get any additional details, like what she should prepare, or anything else that might be relevant.
Her heart pounding with excitement, she had left the café where she had situated herself during the call and walked to a nearby paan stall. She had found, a few days ago, that she could buy single cigarettes from paan sellers. She had watched someone else hold up a single finger, as she passed the stall in the street, and get one cigarette, and she had been so amazed that she had almost crashed into someone. She apologized to the woman, a tiny figure in a blindingly bright magenta sari, and bought one, her first in years, and smoked it furiously. When she inhaled and closed her eyes, it made her feel, just for a moment, that she was somewhere else. She was back in college, or in Brooklyn, or traveling in Spain. She was just not there, not in that moment, not in the reality of her life.
A cook was the one thing she had told Dhruv she didn’t want, above all. He had promised her that their life here in India would be theirs, that they would decide what it was and wasn’t. And now someone else had made it, someone she didn’t understand. Someone who had made a choice Rachel supported, but one that also trapped her. She could not ask or want Swati to go back to her husband, but she could not stand her in her home. Sometimes she felt tender toward Swati, and sometimes she felt livid, like she wanted to claw out her eyes. Rachel’s world looked and felt exactly the way she didn’t want it to, and every day felt like waking up in a parallel universe.
She had talked to Dhruv again about the cook, trying to be logical, clear, trying not to sound too angry or too shrewish or too something, and he had been sympathetic, and told her it would all work itself out, and done nothing.
He had had less and less patience for her since they had moved, in a moment in her life when she needed the most patience, and she could hear it in his voice, how he wanted her to get over it, she knew, to just accept the things that made her unhappy, to ignore them or pretend to like them. He didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t understand why she did. She wanted to make him happy, and so she shut her mouth, and listened to him talk about the strangeness of being home, the silence at the dinner table with his father, the long days empty of real interaction. He wanted her to tell him that she was happier than he was, so she did, eve
n though she wasn’t sure it was true.
Her Instagram account reflected bright high-contrast images, with the torn edges hidden from view. She spent her days exiled from her own home crafting images that reflected a happier person, a person people would think was adventurous, someone exploring the city with abandon. She did some of the things she had planned to do with Dhruv, sending him photos, to which he responded with a thumbs-up sign, never commenting on his own absence.
Rachel, whose parents had been able, and willing, to talk about everything, found herself paralyzed and confused by how hard it was to communicate with Dhruv. She knew that he was struggling, knew that his work was hard and being with his father even harder. It would be Diwali soon, and she and Dhruv had talked about going somewhere in Rajasthan, where his family was originally from, watching fireworks from the centuries-old walls of a Rajput fort. Instead, she would be spending the festival of lights in Mumbai, with Swati, while her husband worked long hours in Kolkata and avoided his own father. Not quite the holiday she had been hoping for.
Instead, she tried to distract herself. Earlier that week, she had taken a ferry to Elephanta Island and dodged monkeys and tourists while trying to frame the perfect shot of the ancient cave carvings, and her friends at home had reacted with wanderlust and envy. But she knew she was a fraud. She had cried on the way back from the island, letting the breeze off the ocean dry her cheeks, and thrown the disgusting masala-flavored chips she had bought at seagulls and pigeons.
One of the most frustrating parts of her life was the way that her mother-in-law wanted her to be happy about the way she had remade Rachel’s life, expected her to be, even. She kept telling Rachel it was better, asking her Isn’t it better?, and Rachel didn’t know what to say, because all she wanted to do was scream.
But at least the sidewalk paan stalls and tobacco sellers could sell her comfort, one cigarette at a time. She saw one, right by the recording studio. She had a few minutes before she was supposed to go in, and no one in Mumbai was ever on time for anything, anyway.
The man at the tobacco stall already knew what she wanted. He had pulled out the pack of Classics before she even opened her mouth to say, “Ek, shukriya.” One, thank you. She paid and puffed on it slowly, enjoying the way it gave her something to focus on, that all she had to do in that moment was look at the bright ash at the end of the white cylinder.
She was nervous, she realized, desperate for the voice-over work to be real, for it to be something she could do with her time, for the producers to offer her the job. What if they didn’t? She had no experience, no résumé; what had Richard even told them about her? If they didn’t want her, if she didn’t do this, what would she do? She told herself there would be other jobs, other work, but she knew, she needed this. She needed something to think about, something to do to distract her from her life.
She had texted Dhruv about the job, but he had been confused and asked her why she wanted to do something like this; wasn’t she looking for work in food? Wasn’t this time supposed to be about figuring her life out? And what about Swati, would she be all right alone? After the last question, Rachel had changed the subject. It was sad that this was the way they ended up communicating, two people who had sworn to live their lives together and spoke to each other on machines, instead of in person. But, then, that was all her relationships, since she had moved. Should it be your marriage, though? she asked herself.
She texted friends, she responded to their Instagram comments asking how the chai she never drank tasted. She had taken a photo of Swati’s morning offer the week before, figuring she ought to get something out of it, and then tried it. It was sweet and tan and the tea leaves had been boiled in milk, their bitterness cut with spice. It was nothing like what she wanted tea to be, and she disliked it deeply. She told her friends it was great. There was too much to explain, too much context she would need to give them for them to understand.
She pulled out her phone and took a quick video of the street, smiling at the scowl on the face of the vegetable seller. People took photos of her all the time, as Swati had pointed out to her, and now she couldn’t stop seeing it. She caught people sometimes walking too close to her and saw a phone in their hands, ready for a sneaky selfie. We are all just recording each other for no real reason, she thought sadly, and then posted, My new office!
She stubbed out her cigarette and stepped into a heavily air-conditioned box. She saw a lean little man in a swivel chair in front of a group of computer screens, with a single keyboard at his fingertips. Next to him, she saw another chair, a microphone, a music stand with a tablet charging on it, and a large pair of ratty headphones. The man quickly introduced himself as Ram Arjuna.
“My mother wanted to name me for both India epics. You read epics? Mythology?” He pronounced the words like eeeepeeks and MY-the-logy, and it took Rachel a moment to understand what he meant.
“I haven’t, sorry.” The Indian epics were so long. She had copies of both, but they daunted her. Why? You have nothing but time, really, came a voice she tried to ignore. Her lack of familiarity with them seemed to make him sad, though. She should try again to plow through at least one, so they could discuss it. Already planning how to make this stranger like you, she thought, hating herself.
“Which is your favorite?” she asked.
“The Ramayana! Is adventure story.”
“I will have to check it out,” Rachel said.
“I think you will be Magda,” Ram Arjuna said as he studied her.
“No, I’m Rachel—”
“Character of Magda. You will be her.” Ram Arjuna pointed to one of the screens, where Rachel could see a still of a pretty girl with long curly hair in a ruffled dress.
“Okay?”
It seemed that Magda was the star of the story, as Ram Arjuna continued to explain. A Romanian girl from a small town who was falling in love with a city slicker while his scheming mother plotted Magda’s downfall as a thousand other characters flitted in and out, she was stunningly beautiful and virtuous, meeting all of life’s many challenges with grace and fortitude. The dashing Pytor, her counterpart, was as at home in the big city as Magda was out of place. With her small-town values and good heart, Magda defeated her mother-in-law’s machinations and lived, eventually, after about two hundred episodes and at least two comas, with Pytor, happily ever after. Apparently the show had been Romania’s second-most popular soap opera, although Rachel wondered just how stiff that competition was. How many soap operas did Romania produce? And what had number one been like?
“We start now.”
“But, you haven’t even really heard my voice,” Rachel said, starting to panic a bit. Maybe Dhruv was right. Why was she doing this? She had never done anything like this before, lent out her voice to someone else.
“No, no, you are talking now, you have very nice voice. You ready? Just five minutes, please. You will be Magda. Show is called Madga’s Moment, and you are her. Perfect. Yes?”
It appeared she had gotten the job.
Ram Arjuna, for he went by both of his names, gave Rachel a small digital tablet with her lines in a document. She read through them as he drank a quick tea and smoked outside the studio, and realized quickly that she only had her lines, not anyone else’s, and each line was next to a series of numbers divided by decimal points. As Ram Arjuna slid back into the studio and into his seat like a wiry eel, she held the tablet up, pointing to the numbers.
“What does this mean? Do I say this?”
“That is counter. Time when line comes,” Ram Arjuna explained patiently. “You tell me counter, I go one second before, you say line when Magda says line. Okay? Ready?”
Rachel nodded, wondering how she was supposed to act and say the lines in any kind of genuine way when she didn’t know the other half of the conversation, what the other people in any given scene were saying to Magda, what the story was about. She supposed she would have to observe the actress and try to figure out her emotions as best s
he could.
“Problem?”
Rachel looked up with a start. She had missed her first line because she had been thinking about how to say it. Not a good start. “I’m sorry.”
“Is okay. You learn. Try again.” Ram Arjuna nodded sagely. How strange for him, too, to listen to the same scene over and over again, only understanding bits and pieces of it. “Counter?”
“Oh, um, one minute, three seconds.” He went back to one minute and gave her two seconds of lead-in, but this time she was watching Magda like a hawk, determined not to mess up. Rachel realized that she wanted to be good at this, not because she was eager for a career in voice-over work, but because she just needed to be good at something, feel good about something, anything. She was wrong all the time in India—everything she did and said and wanted, it was wrong. Swati was trying to teach her how to live, everyone she met wanted things she hated, liked their cooks. Even Dhruv corrected her, admonished her, and didn’t tell her why. So she had to get this right. She had to make someone in India happy, even if it wasn’t her. She had to be good at something, even if it was this.
She turned the first line over in her mind, a measured hello. She chirped it out, trying to match her voice to what she imagined this plucky, pretty girl would sound like. Ram Arjuna looked at her in approval, and Rachel grinned.
“‘My mother said I would fall in love this year on my birthday. She said I would be happy and sad, all at once. Do you think she was right?’” Rachel said, smiling while Magda did the same at the man she would love forever. Silly as it was, even just smiling like Magda made her feel better than she had in a long time.
She could do this. It was just talking, after all. She hadn’t been doing much of that lately, not with Dhruv, not with her mother-in-law, not with anyone. She might as well do it as Magda. Maybe Magda had something more interesting to say.
Four hours later, Rachel leaned back in her chair, her eyes dry from staring intently at the screen, her voice strained, but triumphant. After her initial stumble, she had taken to the work with flying colors, moving from scene to scene quickly. Over the space of five episodes, Magda had met Pytor and Pytor’s stepbrother, Igor, who was also attracted to Magda but plotting to take Pytor’s inheritance, and Nora, Pytor’s mother, who thought that Magda was a trampy gold digger, and Magda and Pytor had had their first fight, encountered a Gypsy who told Magda she had a dark future, and eloped before Pytor had to depart on a sea voyage, leaving Magda in Nora’s unscrupulous hands. She was, as her mother had predicted, happy and sad at once.