English Lessons and Other Stories

by Shauna Singh Baldwin

  Gayatri didn’t answer. She opened a jar of Orange Skin Cream and started to massage it into the complexion her parents’ advertisement had described as “wheatish” in colour. He watched her sulk a little longer — she’d given him two sons, so she was due at least that much. Then he rose, adjusting his Peshawri salwar, and called to the sleepy-eyed servant boy to serve the Alphonso mangoes for his breakfast.

  She looks like a hippie, Gayatri thought. Those faded jeans and long silver earrings and that awful rust-brown kurta. Today she wore one anklet, and such was her irritation that Gayatri resisted the urge to tell her she had lost its mate. She had the usual cloth satchel over her shoulder and Gayatri thought she could smell cigarettes.

  “Hi, Guy.” Reena draped her long legs over the side of a cane moora.

  She wanted to say, Don’t call me Guy, but it was beneath her.

  “Are you feeling well? I came in last night and you were already asleep. You know I got a job, don’t you?”

  “I know.”

  “What do you know about it? Tell me.”

  “You’re going to be working for an airline.”

  “No, no, Guy. Get it right, yar. I’m going to be an air hostess — I mean, a stewardess.”

  Gayatri lashed out. “Haan, haan, next you’ll become a model, or maybe a nachnewali.”

  Reena cocked her head to one side and regarded her in some astonishment. “Guy, what’s the matter? You should be happy for me. I’ll be making two thousand rupees a month and flying all over the world.”

  But Gayatri was not impressed.

  “Serving men in the sky or on the ground — what’s the difference? If it’s money you want, I could give you money if your brother can’t do his duty and support you. My parents gave me enough. Why should a girl from a good family need to work?”

  Reena laughed. “So what would you like me to do after college instead? Advertise for a husband, like you did?”

  Gayatri adjusted her French chiffon sari with dignity. “I did not advertise, my parents advertised. And what is so wrong with that, please?”

  “Well, if there is no difference between a stewardess and a dance girl, there is no difference between your parents’ advertising and your advertising.”

  Gayatri took refuge in righteousness.

  “Your parents and your brother spoil you too much, Reena. So much so that you think you’re independent now. When I was in college there were some girls like you who went wild, and then their families had to find them any match, because their reputation was ruined. And of course then the whole family suffers. Well, maybe this job will be a good pastime until they find a suitable boy for you.”

  Reena uncoiled from the moora and stretched. “You know, Guy, I think you’re jealous.”

  Gayatri sent her one of her Looks. Reena pretended to be oblivious.

  “I think you’d love to travel and meet people — different people. You’re just afraid of what it might do to our precious family reputation, na?”

  Gayatri was quiet; the sulk was waiting to descend, but Reena continued. “You’ve done your duty now — two boys, both very spoiled. Why don’t you get a job, see the world, start a business? All you do while Ramesh is at Glaxo is to haggle with the fruit merchants and watch American movies on the video. Aren’t you bored?”

  Gayatri allowed herself to smile. “Of course I’m bored. If I had been interested in working, my parents could have found me a poor man. But since they wanted me to marry a rich man, they protected me so I had a perfect reputation when I married your brother. My mother always said, ‘A girl can’t be too careful with her reputation.’”

  Reena reached over her shoulder and picked up a bottle of Worth from the dressing table and sprayed a little on Gayatri’s neck. “Smell that, Guy. I want a man who loves Reena to enjoy that perfume on my body, not a man who wants a cow to give him calves.”

  “I don’t understand you anymore, Reena. You’ve become a very selfish girl. I think your brother and your parents will all be sorry we did not stop you when we could.”

  Reena shot back, “Not a selfish girl, Guy. A selfish woman.” Then, more gently, “Guy, think about it. You love me, I know — you’re not usually nasty. I really think you’re jealous, so you’re talking as if you’re eighty-four years old.”

  Gayatri’s sulk descended. Her sister-in-law tried to meet her eyes in the mirror, but her crescent-moon eyelids declared the conversation was over. Perfume from the open bottle mixed with the fragrance of marigolds as Reena lifted the chic. Gayatri felt the heat blast inward and red sun-swirls form behind her tightshut eyes.

  The children were at school when Reena called. The servant boy brought the cordless phone into Gayatri’s room on a silver tray, but he didn’t quite know what to do after he had presented it to her. Gayatri waved him into a squat on the floor.

  “I have a layover in Delhi for twenty-four hours,” Reena said. “I’m staying at the Ashoka Hotel. Would you like to come and have some chai? They serve great pastries, too.”

  “I just had breakfast, Reena.”

  “Well, I wanted to introduce you to a friend.”

  Gayatri was immediately suspicious.

  “Male or female?”

  “Male.”

  “Ramesh and I could come this evening for drinks.” It would never do to meet Ramesh’s sister in a hotel in company with a male friend. It might look like endorsement, encouragement, approval.

  “He’s very nice, and I thought you’d like to meet him.”

  “Reena, don’t do anything stupid, now.”

  “I told you he’s very nice, and he’s a friend. What do you mean, do anything stupid?”

  Gayatri felt she was deliberately being obtuse.

  “I mean, don’t do anything your family would be ashamed of.”

  Reena’s voice was a little sad. “Listen, you’re more conservative than my parents, Guy. By the way, he’s American.”

  “I’m relieved.”

  “Relieved?”

  “Mmm. They sleep with women, but they don’t marry them.”

  Reena’s voice rose a little.

  “So, are you saying it’s all right for him to sleep with me, but not to marry me?”

  “Better for your reputation, Reena. I’m only being practical. If you will go off and sow your wild seeds, it’s probably better to do it with an American. He won’t know anyone in our crowd, so you’re pretty safe.”

  “Gayatri, maybe I don’t want to be safe. Maybe I want to live.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “So, will you come and meet him?”

  “Leave it open. Ramesh and I may drop by this evening for drinks.”

  She placed the phone back on the waiting tray. There was no reason to bother Ramesh — he would only worry. Besides, it gave her pleasure to think of Reena and her male friend waiting in suspense. It might cramp the American’s style. Maybe Reena was right. Perhaps she was just a little jealous.

  The company wives declared Gayatri’s bridge party a success. The stupid little servant boy was quite worn out from carrying tea and samosas and Bavarian cream torte to each in turn. Once she’d scolded him for letting a blob of strawberry ice cream fall on the oriental carpet, Gayatri felt her housewifely duties were done and she could sink into the leather armchair and turn on the video in air-conditioned comfort. Only then did she pick up the letter from Reena.

  When she finished reading it, she called Ramesh at the office. It took her about half an hour to get through to him, even with the redial button.

  “Ramesh, I just got a letter from Reena.”

  “Yes, any problem?”

  “Yes. She says she has gotten married.”

  “To whom?”

  “Some American fellow.”

  “Oh, what is his name?”

  “I don’t know. What does it matter? My parents would have died of shame if I had married an American.” An explosion was in order, threats to kill, to poison, to maim, or, at the very least, never
to speak to his ingrate sister again. This would be appropriate to Reena’s provocation, to the sheer audacity with which she had flaunted her independence from her family’s opinion. This is how Gayatri’s family would have reacted if she had ever done or thought of committing such an act. Why, if she’d even dreamed of such folly, she would not be Ramesh’s wife today.

  She heard Ramesh laugh. “Well, times have changed, Gayatri. Your parents didn’t have such a lot of money, so reputation was very important. Now in Reena’s case, no one will dare to say much. And who knows, an American brother-in-law can be an asset also. I am only sorry she got married without telling us, but she must have had her reasons. Did she say if they plan to have a Hindu ceremony as well?

  Gayatri’s angry, hot tears were falling on the letter.

  “No… no. She didn’t say.”

  “Any picture?”

  She hadn’t thought to look. “Yes, here’s a picture.”

  “Well, what does he look like?”

  Gayatri held it up triumphantly, as if Ramesh could see through the phone.

  “He’s a black man.”

  Ramesh was quiet for a long time.

  She waited.

  Then she heard, “She will need all the help we can give her. Send her a telegram, Gayatri. Say Congratulations. Oh, and Gayatri…”

  “Yes?”

  “Sign it: Love, Ramesh and Gayatri.”

  Simran

  AMRIT

  Veeru and I had dinner at the Delhi Gymkhana Club around midnight and then drove to greet Simran at Palam airport. I was the first to find her as we peered through the glass wall smeared by the breath of waiting friends and relatives. She looked bright and alive despite a twenty-six-hour plane ride, and she’d put on a little weight in just four months in America. I was glad to see she was excited to see us. In America, children learn that they can blame their parents for everything and then they all, parents and children, spend years in psychotherapy. I felt so relieved to see her I was almost in tears. Which mother wouldn’t worry about a nineteen-year-old unmarried daughter so far away?

  She asked questions about everyone as if she had been away a year and I was glad to notice she had not caught an American accent. (I have always tried to teach my pupils to speak the Queen’s English.) When we got home, she went around the house touching everything familiar as if to reassure herself that it was all just as she left it. Although it was four in the morning by then, she wanted Veeru to put some brandy in her hot milk and Ovaltine just as he did when she was a child.

  I listened with every nerve to her excited, animated chatter. I was determined to notice any signs of change in her. I had good reason. Every time we called (person to person calls, three minutes, cost a hundred rupees) she was “out.” Yet in every letter she said she was studying hard and taking our advice to stay clear of Americans and make friends with other foreign students. She’d always been addicted to books, but we were troubled by the constant excuse, “I was at the library.” I’ve never known a library that stayed open till midnight and we go to some of the best libraries in Delhi.

  It was Kanti, who’s been with our family now for almost fourteen years, who found the first thing that made me worry. She was unpacking Simran’s suitcases and she held up a clothbound volume, asking where Simran wanted her to place it. I said, “Let me see that.”

  When I realized that it was a copy of the Koran that lay cradled in my only daughter’s baggage, I was horrified. What had my daughter exposed herself to in America? We are a proud Sikh family and we have long memories. Our Gurus were tortured to death by Moghul rulers only three hundred years ago, and both Veeru’s father and mine still get tears in their eyes talking about the fate of old Sikh friends and neighbours at the hands of Muslim marauders during the 1947 partition. Veeru is even old enough to remember the sight of Sikh women, raped and disgraced by Muslims, walking home to Amritsar. And my daughter comes back from America with a copy of the Koran? I don’t know what is in it — I only know it is the book that gave its believers permission to kill us. Out loud, I said sternly, “I do not want this book in my house.”

  “Oh, Mummy, how silly. It’s just a present I got from a friend when I was leaving for the winter break. What’s so terrible about it?”

  “What’s so terrible? Ask your father. See if he’ll allow this in our house.”

  “C’mon, Mumji. I’ve read the Bible and the Gita, too. Just because you read something doesn’t mean you have to believe it; just because you read something doesn’t mean it’s true. You really should be more tolerant. Have you read it?”

  “Don’t say ‘come on’ to me. Of course I haven’t read it. All I can say is, you better not let your father see it.”

  She was about to argue but thought better of it. It was her first night home, after all. She nudged Kanti aside and began unpacking herself as if she were Kanti’s servant and not the other way around. I said, “You’re not in America anymore, you don’t have to do everything yourself. Let Kanti do it or you will make her upset.”

  She said, “I’m looking for the presents I brought back.” And soon, forgetting our little tussles, she had them spread on the bed. A length of cloth for a salwar kameez for me, polyester with a self-design (I think about eight dollars per yard), a tie for Veeru (about twenty dollars, not a brand name I recognized, but he thought it was an excellent choice), a box of chocolates for her brother away at boarding school in Dehradun (maybe ten dollars), and — she’s picked up the American habit of spoiling the servants — a sari length for Kanti that must have cost at least fifty dollars.

  I said, “Don’t be so generous — give her the box of chocolates.”

  She grinned mischievously, “And give the sari to Raju?”

  “No — we’ll find him something else.”

  “I’m only joking.”

  “I know your kind of joking.”

  We settled on a bottle of hand lotion for Kanti instead, but I lay next to Veeru with a sense of apprehension afterwards, watching the winter sun rise over my roses and chrysanthemums as the mali tended them outside our window. Finally, I told him what I found in her luggage. He was appalled, as I knew he would be — all he kept saying was, “My daughter? My daughter reading the Koran?” He would not sleep till I promised to watch Simran carefully for signs that she might be in danger of becoming a Muslim.

  MIRZA

  You couldn’t miss Simran sitting on that bar stool in the residence hall lounge because she was a splash of red, gold and orange in a room full of faded jeans, sweatshirts and denim jackets. She had the panicked look of a recently arrived foreign student, and I knew she came from some convent girls’ school in Pakistan or India from the way she shrank backwards every time a man walked too close. She sipped her drink looking over the top of the glass, huge fish-shaped eyes darting from one speaker to another.

  I was in love before I crossed the room to ask her name, introduce myself as Mirza, the head of the Pakistani Cultural Society, and ask her which part of the subcontinent she was from. When she said Delhi, India, I hesitated a bit. Then I asked, “Did your family originally come from Pakistan before 1947?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Lahore.”

  “Lahore! My family is from Lahore, too.”

  They weren’t, but I was in love, so they had to be.

  She looked relieved, moving a little on the bar stool, just enough so that I heard the chink of glass bangles and noticed she had painted toenails. I hadn’t seen a woman with bangles or painted toenails in North Carolina in two years — all the time I’d been there. I praised Allah, most benevolent, ever merciful, for rewarding me by sending her.

  I have to say she made no attempt to be artful. She simply managed to fill my entire mind within ten minutes. I listened to her demure talk about coming to America to learn computer science and thought, “You don’t know ishk yet, meri jaan. When you learn ishk you will forget computer science and nothing but love will enter your mind.”

  Aloud, I sa
id, “It is very refreshing to find a woman from our part of the world who is interested in such important topics as computer science. Progress depends on women’s education, I have always said.” Of course, I had said nothing of the kind, ever, but that was what she wanted to hear so I said it. And I added casually, “You know, I am a computer science major too — just a few years ahead of you, that’s all.”

  She was impressed. I could see it from the way she looked at my glasses with a new respect. I am not as tall as most men from Pakistan, and my hair is already thinning slightly though I’m only twenty-one, but I straightened up to my full height and said, “Just call me if you have any trouble with your classes at all.”

  And I took the opportunity to give her my phone number and get hers. Then as I advised her about the different Indian and Pakistani cultural groups and expounded on how Indians and Pakistanis are friends in America, the American students left us alone as usual in a little island surrounded by ignorance, and together we watched them become steadily less and less inhibited. She showed a most proper disgust, and if I thought she could have been a little less curious I kept it to myself. A red-haired fellow lurched too close and I said, assuming a slight accent, “You gotta watch out for these guys.”

  Over the next few weeks, I made myself indispensable to her. I advised her on everything, whether I knew anything about it or not. My older brother always said, “You have to make them think you know more than they do, or you don’t get their respect.” I also know the promise of protection is the easiest way to seduce a woman — at least, any woman from my part of the world. So I offered her mine.

  I showed her how to use a cash machine (I was glad she didn’t ask how the damned thing worked, because I couldn’t have told her), explained the phone system so that she could call home, introduced her to the transient world of international students as if she were my personal property… and very soon everyone thought she was my property. All but Simran herself.

  If only I had known then — she was bent on driving me mad.