by Leah Franqui
Thinking back on that evening, she realized, as the rickshaw hit a speed bump, hard, and jolted her up and down violently, at that party she was Magda. She was the outsider, looking in, confused and curious and judgmental and alone. She had thought the same things that evening that Magda had as she surveyed a party just like the one in the show. Of course, in the show, Magda had narrowly escaped Igor’s attack and attempted rape, and no one had believed her, and so she had fled the house in disgrace, sobbing on the beach as she looked out to the waters, longing for Pytor’s ship to return, even as he comforted himself in Mariska’s arms.
She wished she could talk to Dhruv, tell him this. She should, even if he didn’t understand; she should bridge the distance she felt between them, she should be the one to try. It wasn’t all his responsibility, was it? She tried to call him, as the rickshaw plodded toward the studio, but the phone just rang and rang. She knew he must be busy, of course, but it felt more and more overwhelming, everything she wanted to tell him, everything they had to catch up on, to say to each other. Where would they ever find the time to catch up? Or would they be far behind forever, talking about things they had felt weeks and months before for the rest of their lives? The thought made her unexpectedly sad, and she felt her eyes water.
Enough of that. She was being silly, making herself cry. She would not do that. She would talk to her husband another day, she would go to work, she would fill her time and her mind with someone else. She didn’t have to be Rachel today, a woman lost in her own life. She didn’t have to go down her own murky path. Magda’s story had a beginning and a middle, and someday, it would have an end. She could be Magda, and she could be happy, if only for a little while.
At the end of her recording session, she ran into another voice-over artist. It felt funny to Rachel to call herself an artist for a job she’d gotten just because of her accent, but that was what Richard—Rishi, the supremely annoying Indiophile who was recording right after Rachel today—called them both. He was, she had learned through Ram Arjuna, also voicing several characters in Magda’s Moment, including Igor, Magda’s would-be rapist, which made sense, because he had gotten her the job, so why wouldn’t he be doing it himself? His role as her attacker on-screen seemed fitting to Rachel, who had not found herself any more enthralled by Richard each time she met him.
Richard, on the other hand, was quite eager to be Rachel’s buddy, no matter how many times she brushed him off. She had received several texts and invitations to meet for chai—never tea, always “chai.” That alone felt like reason enough for Rachel to avoid him, but he refused to be rebuffed, sending her daily meditation ideas and links to articles about the health benefits of ghee. She knew that beggars couldn’t be choosers, and she hadn’t heard back from Fifi to meet, but the idea of becoming friends with Richard, someone whom she just didn’t think she could ever really listen to without rolling her eyes, made her loneliness seem more bearable.
As she wrapped up that day, her twentieth episode, she reminded herself proudly, she smiled at Ram Arjuna. He had told her that day that she was his favorite voice-over person, to which she had giggled.
“I bet you say that to everyone,” she had said, winking at him. There was something about flirting mildly with Ram Arjuna that soothed her. It was so harmless, so easy, like a romance from a Bollywood movie, totally sentimental, totally nonsexual. She had always thought those movies were silly, but now, sitting in this room with a complete stranger as they watched other strangers fall in and out of love in a language neither of them understood, she could finally see how the romance of Hindi cinema really worked.
Her recent Instagram photo of herself and Ram Arjuna in the recording studio with the caption Work Husband had earned her over seventy likes, a personal best. Old colleagues from Dinner, Delivered told her that she looked so happy, and she sent them back thumbs-up signs. She didn’t know if she was really happy, and it was worrisome that her face and mind weren’t aligned. There was no emoji for ambivalence, and even if there had been, she wouldn’t have sent it. There was no point in displaying anything other than delight. That was all anyone wanted to consume and perform, really, Rachel included.
“No, I do not just say,” Ram Arjuna had said earnestly. “You are fastest. With you, I can take break, have tea. You are still done fast.” He reached down and brought up a notebook to show her. She could see each of the five actors employed neatly listed in Ram Arjuna’s clear hand, with episode numbers trailing after their names. She was at twenty, while everyone else was still trailing behind in the low teens. She nodded.
“I see.”
“This is why you not come for a while. Maybe four, five days. It’s okay? You get break.” Rachel smiled uncertainly, trying to pretend she was happy. “They catch up, we schedule next session. Okay?” Ram Arjuna continued, bobbing his head from side to side as he patted his pockets for a cigarette. Rachel was tempted to offer him one of hers. She had graduated to a pack now and kept it in her purse, but she thought he might be scandalized by a woman smoking, as many men in India seemed to be. A rickshaw driver had pointed out two girls outside a bar to her the other day, tsking at their smoking. When she had asked him why, he spoke a little English and told her, It doesn’t look nice, girls doing that. What a strange place it was, Mumbai, half in the present with beggars on their smartphones and teenage girls in short shorts, half somewhere between the 1920s and the 1960s in its social attitudes. The fact that it could be all those things in one place was dizzying.
“Sure, fine,” she said, trying to hide her disappointment as she stood up to go. Five days. What would she do while she was waiting? She had just gotten used to waking up with a purpose and there it went again.
Ram Arjuna had found his cigarette and stood, joining her as she left the tiny studio and made the transition from its icy-cold interior to the sultry heat outside.
“Oh ho! How were the salt mines?” That voice. Rachel turned to see Richard sitting on the stoop, having tea in a clay cup from the nearby chaiwalla and slurping it with evident bliss. “Oh, my love, why do you reject me?” he said in a heavy fake Slavic accent to Rachel. “Pretty good, right? Tell me, why don’t you leave that Pytor and come with me instead?”
“I guess all the attempted rape really dampens the mood,” Rachel responded flatly, trying to shut him up as he pretended to be Igor to her Magda. But instead, he laughed heartily, nodding.
“Do you have this thing, rape, in America?” asked Ram Arjuna solemnly. Rachel turned to him, about to answer, but Richard jumped in first.
“Of course, buddy, of course.” He slapped him on the arm. “It’s not just India, pal.” Buddy. Pal. So many words for the same thing. What an idiot, Rachel thought. But Ram Arjuna seemed cheered by the news that sexual violence wasn’t India-specific.
“I am thinking this is an India problem, but no,” he said, smiling.
“Everyone in the world finds a way to do horrible things to women,” Rachel said evenly.
“I am teaching my son respect,” Ram Arjuna said proudly.
“Do you have photos of him?” Rachel asked, eager to change the subject. And of course he did, on all three of his cell phones. Cell phones were like potato chips in India, you couldn’t have just one. Rachel oohed and aahed appropriately, then made her goodbyes and stepped forward toward the curb to hail a rickshaw.
“We never did get that chai,” Richard reminded her as Ram Arjuna smoked another cigarette.
“Sorry, I’m sure we’ve both been busy,” Rachel said, trying to be kind. What was it about him that bothered her so deeply? Perhaps it was the way he was embracing all things India, while she was still unsure how she felt about anything there. Maybe it was the fact that he was clearly happy and she was, despite herself, horribly jealous of that. Or maybe it was because he called tea chai. Idiot.
“Maybe next time?” he asked, crumpling his paper teacup in his hand.
She sighed. She really shouldn’t be so picky in her choice of compani
ons. It was not as if she had many alternatives. She doubted this was someone advantageous to her, the way Dhruv wanted her relationships to be, but that was hardly her priority.
“Or maybe a drink instead. Tonight? There’s a place called Dodos in Bandra. See you there at seven.” And she stepped into a rickshaw even as he was nodding his reply. Maybe a bar and decent company would make Richard better. And if not, at least she had alcohol.
“I don’t know why you want to go out alone,” Swati said, sounding genuinely confused, as Rachel prepared to leave the house that evening to meet Richard for their drinks. She had finally gotten a response from Fifi, who also wanted to meet that evening, and rather than let the chance pass she had decided the more the merrier. Fifi was her one lead on a friend; she didn’t want to give that up.
Of course you don’t, Rachel thought. Wasn’t that the whole point, as Dhruv had stated over and over again? Swati was clearly allergic to being alone at all.
Sometimes Swati complained that she had no one to go shopping with, no one to spend time with, citing movies she wanted to see, experiences she wanted to have that were all off-limits because no one was there to do them with her. Rachel pointed out in return that Swati could do any of those things by herself; after all, the city was safe, the safest in the country, or so the news so proudly proclaimed. But Swati would shake her head, her eyes panicked.
“Have you ever done anything alone?” Rachel muttered under her breath.
“I beg your pardon?” Swati asked.
Rachel sighed, frustrated. She shouldn’t have said it out loud. “Nothing,” she said shortly, shoving her keys into her purse.
“Who is this person you are meeting?”
“I told you, it’s a girl from the expat group and a man from the soap opera.”
“They are together? Married?”
“No, she’s married to an Indian man and he’s single, I think. It hasn’t come up. We don’t know each other well.”
“So why are you meeting?”
“So we can get to know each other?” Rachel said, feeling like a teenager being interrogated by her mother.
“He’s Indian?”
“From the US,” Rachel said, looking around for her wallet. Swati nodded, visibly relieved, which for some reason aggravated Rachel further. “But why does it matter?”
“Indian men don’t know how to be a friend to a woman,” Swati said solemnly. “He may want something else if he is Indian.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Rachel said, groaning internally. Dhruv had female friends; what did Swati think that meant? Oh, it wasn’t worth discussing.
“It’s better that he is American. He won’t think something wrong about you, like an Indian man would, you meeting him without your husband,” Swati continued, as if Rachel had never spoken.
“I’m glad you feel that way,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes.
“What will you eat?” Swati moved on to her next thought, sounding almost mournful. “You will be hungry. Better you should eat.”
Rachel looked at her, sighing. Since the evening that she had asked Rachel to stay with her, Swati seemed to think she could comfortably dictate Rachel’s decisions. Rachel, surprisingly, appreciated the thaw between them, she did, but she didn’t want to have to answer for everything she did. Since that evening, Swati had asked Rachel where she was going each day, what did she want to eat, how had she slept, treating her, well, like Swati was her mother. Rachel’s own mother didn’t treat her that way anymore; what gave Swati the right to do so?
“I’m sure I can order something there.”
“Outside food isn’t healthy,” Swati said disapprovingly. “That is why we have a cook.”
“We don’t have anything,” Rachel said bitterly.
“If you tried her food—”
“She doesn’t make anything I want,” Rachel said, her tone clipped. Why was she having this conversation?
“You could ask her,” Swati pointed out. “I can tell her whatever you want.”
“I want to cook. In my kitchen.”
“You can cook now—”
“I’m going out now!” Rachel said, her voice rising in annoyance. She breathed deeply. The apartment was still with tension. She shouldn’t yell at this woman, this strange, fragile person who had invaded her life, her marriage. It didn’t help. And yet she struggled to control herself, to remember that Swati deserved her sympathy. The problem for Rachel in India, with Swati, was the difference between theory and practice. Theoretically she wanted to support Swati, theoretically she wanted to understand India, but not when it affected her day-to-day life.
“She’s leaving for Diwali soon, remember,” Swati said softly.
Diwali was in a few days. Why did Swati want to talk about the cook?
“I have to go now,” Rachel said.
“You can cook then. When she goes,” Swati said.
“Oh. Well. I’m looking forward to it. Okay, good night.”
“It’s just—” came Swati’s tentative whisper as Rachel reached for the door.
“What?” Rachel said, swinging around. What was wrong with this woman?
“When you go, I will be alone. At night,” Swati said, her eyes downcast.
“And?” Rachel asked.
“I’ve never been alone at night. Not without some maid or, or something,” Swati confessed.
“Well, what a fun new experience this will be for you, then!” Rachel said with false brightness. But instead of smiling, or even getting angry, Swati’s face crumpled into tears.
“Oh Jesus Christ.”
“You are Jewish person. Why are you—”
“It’s just an expression. Come here.”
“For what?”
Rachel sighed deeply, and tentatively but firmly pulled her mother-in-law into a hug. They didn’t hug much, and it was not particularly comfortable. Swati stood in the circle of her embrace stiffly, like she didn’t know what to do when someone held her, but then dove her head into Rachel’s shoulder and talked through her tears.
“It feels very strange to me, to be alone,” Swati said. Rachel tried to think about what she could say that wouldn’t sound cruel or condescending or baffled.
“In the show—”
“Moment of Magda,” Swati said, sniffing.
“Yes, Magda’s Moment, in the show, there’s this character who’s like you, she’s had this certain kind of life.”
“What is her name?”
“Olga, she’s Magda’s aunt or something. Anyway, she has always followed all these rules and now she doesn’t have to, and it’s really scary because even if you hate the rules, they make you feel safe sometimes. But what Olga said in the show, to Magda, in this scene I did, was that she has to learn to make her own rules. And so do you.”
Swati was silent, considering it. “You think I am pathetic person,” Swati said into Rachel’s shoulder. Rachel sighed and checked her phone, holding up her hand behind her mother-in-law’s back. She saw with relief that she still had some time before she had to meet Fifi. She patted Swati comfortingly, or so she hoped, and eased herself back from her.
“A little,” she said honestly. That made Swati laugh. “But I think you can improve.” Swati smiled at her. “Listen, would you like to come with me?” Rachel asked impulsively, unsure whether she was hoping Swati would say yes or no.
“To the bar?”
“Yes. You could have a drink, get out of the apartment, it might be nice. These people I’m meeting, Richard, he’s a total idiot, and Fifi’s really lovely. Could be fun. What do you think?”
But Swati was already shaking her head. “I couldn’t.”
Rachel drew back, crossing her arms. She hadn’t really wanted Swati to come, so why did she feel rather, well, rejected? “All right.” They stood in awkward silence for a long moment, until Rachel sighed, rolling her eyes. “Do you want me to stay with you?” But Swati shook her head at that, too. “Are you sure?”
“No,
I would like to be alone, I think. Maybe, maybe it would be nice.”
“Really,” Rachel said, smiling. It felt like the first real smile she had had for her mother-in-law since Swati had moved in, full of appreciation for the irony of Swati’s words. “You want to be alone.”
“Yes. I have decided, just now. I will try it,” Swati said, smiling back.
“Well, you know where I keep the booze. I’m going to head out, then. But listen, I’ll be back early. Okay?”
“I am going to bed. But maybe we can talk in the morning?” Swati said, her voice almost hopeful.
Rachel nodded, hesitant. One moment of vulnerability wasn’t really enough for her to suddenly feel that Swati was her friend, but she supposed she could muster up the energy for a quick conversation before fleeing the house the next day.
“Maybe I will say yes next time. To going out. If you ask again,” Swati said.
“That’s a big if,” Rachel said, and Swati’s hesitant laughter followed her out the door. Rachel smiled ruefully. She hadn’t really been joking.