America for Beginners

by Leah Franqui

  Once Jake asked Bhim how he had become interested in the ocean and the snails that made it their home. Bhim had explained that in Kolkata, the river that ran through the city was always on its way out to sea, and when he was a little boy his mother would take him to watch it flow away and he would wonder what lure the ocean held over the river that it ran to it so eagerly. From then on, he had been hooked on the ocean, and he couldn’t wait to explore it.

  The details of Bhim’s life, when he chose to reveal them, excited Jake, but they also made him sad in their limitations. He wanted a shared life, and his desire for it was starting to overtake his desire for Bhim alone.

  One night, as Bhim began to touch him in bed, Jake found himself for the first time unresponsive.

  “What happened?” Bhim asked. He was always asking that, What happened, when Jake’s face would change or his eyes would drift away. Bhim spoke about emotions as if they were events, passing storms. Well, for Bhim they were, clouds passing over his otherwise calm serenity.

  “Will you meet my father?” And something hard and hurt must have flashed in Jake’s eyes, because without trying to argue him out of it Bhim closed his own and murmured yes. Later, Jake wondered if he had manipulated Bhim, used his body and its lack of response to force his inexperienced lover to do something he wasn’t ready for. But Jake was too overjoyed to seriously consider the thought, and he made the plans, ignoring Bhim’s discomfort. On the evening of the meal they dressed carefully, and Jake once again watched Bhim shave, scared of the blade that came so close to his neck and the look of resignation in Bhim’s eyes.

  They met Jake’s father, David, at a Japanese restaurant in the Valley and Jake, high on the moment and a little tipsy from the sake, begged his father to sing the shaving song, which David did. Bhim, who had barely said a word, watched in amazement as Jake joined in, his baritone warbling with David’s bass.

  Bhim had never heard his own father sing anything, not even a Sanskrit hymn, and to watch these two Schwartz men engaged in a duet to discarded hair, over sushi and tempura, with the full knowledge that David knew who and what Bhim was and had wanted to meet him, overwhelmed him. Everything about the meal was anathema to Bhim, the intimacy displayed in public, drinking alcohol in front of and with a parent, the way Jake touched his arm. He tried not to feel startled at the little touches, but they were icy cold to him. His face pinched with longing. He had always tried to want as little as possible but now he was flooded with need, drowning in it. He couldn’t breathe.

  Jake somehow understood this as he watched his boyfriend shrink into himself more and more as the dinner went on, and he cursed how casual he’d been, blaming the song in particular. He should have held back, should have pushed his father away somehow, picked a fight about something meaningless, like the menu, tried to show Bhim that he wasn’t alone, that Jake was on his side. But he hadn’t, and he couldn’t pretend to hate his father any more than Bhim could pretend to care for his own.

  Thinking more about it, Jake grew suddenly angry at Bhim, angry that he so clearly resented Jake’s bond with his father, and even more frustrated that Bhim would never even admit it. It was the way Bhim hid things that most angered Jake, hid how he felt in the folds of a calm that was, Jake knew now, just a mask.

  Why were there so many moments like that between them, with Jake looking for something that Bhim refused to show him? Jake had dared to hope that this was changing: Bhim had agreed to this dinner, coerced though he may have been, but now Jake felt that by the simple fact of his closeness with his father he had dug another abyss.

  That night, arriving at Jake’s home, Bhim said that he wouldn’t be coming in, that he needed to be alone for a while, that he would stay with friends. Jake nodded, of course, desperate to show that he was okay, eager to prove to Bhim how relaxed he could be about things, how understanding. Inside Jake wondered if something had broken. Bhim must have seen more in Jake’s face than Jake thought he would, because he cupped Jake’s cheek and kissed him, lightly.

  “Go shave,” he ordered softly, “your father’s beard is growing on your face.”

  Jake had drunk a glass of wine instead, waiting for Bhim to call, waiting for something to happen. But it didn’t.

  At breakfast with his father the next morning, Jake had been wary, touchy, provoking the argument he should have had the evening before, only without Bhim there to witness it there was no point. David had watched his son flail and nitpick for almost a full hour, finding nothing appealing on the menu and scowling over the excellent coffee, before he finally said something.

  “I liked him. The guy from last night.”

  Looking up furiously, Jake saw his father’s slight smile and deflated.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “You can’t make someone happy, Jake, you know that, right? You can’t make someone anything.”

  Jake looked away from his father, out the window, onto the bucolic Los Angeles suburbs around them. Everyone looked happy outside. What had made them that way?

  “He seems to care about you, though.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “He doesn’t mind that you’re a terrible singer, for one.” David returned to his eggs happily, humming the hair song in between bites.

  Returning home that afternoon, Jake pulled into a parking spot near his apartment and standing by his front door was Bhim, with a box in his hands.

  “May I come in?”

  Jake opened the door, looking at the box curiously.

  “Later,” Bhim said. “What will we eat?”

  Over dinner, a meal of Mexican takeout, as Bhim could barely toast bread unsupervised, Jake’s eyes returned to the box over and over again. Bhim caught him, and smiled at him as if he were a spoiled child.

  “It’s a present.”

  Bhim had never given Jake anything before. He had explained that he hated the concept of presents, and it had led them to what was almost an argument, something they had been avoiding, having never had one and having hoped they would be one of those miraculous couples who never fought. Jake was careful of fights—he’d hated them from the days of his childhood—and this state of zero conflict with Bhim had seemed vital to preserve, so he had not pushed the issue. He had been very careful not to give Bhim anything as a gift. And now Bhim was giving him something instead.

  Opening the box, Jake was confronted with an old-fashioned set of shaving implements. He stared at them, confused.

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “Of course. I’ve seen Sweeney Todd.” Bhim’s face wrinkled the way it always did when Jake made a reference he didn’t understand. Jake made a “move on” gesture with his hand, unwilling to dive into such a loaded subject as Stephen Sondheim.

  “It is a shaving kit. My father, I never saw him shave because he didn’t shave himself, he had it done for him. When I moved here I realized that this wasn’t customary here, that I would have to shave myself, and I bought a kit like this. I thought you might like one, too.”

  Jake smiled. “I’ve never had someone shave me. It seems like an easy way to die. You sneeze and there you go.”

  Bhim grinned. “It’s not like that. I’ll teach you. Come on. Your afternoon hair is already coming in. I don’t want to feel that tonight.”

  And just like that Jake knew that Bhim would be staying, that the alone time was over, that they were back to the intimacy he so craved. Since then he had shaved each night before bed, for Bhim, to make sure Bhim felt what he wanted to feel, his bare face and nothing else.

  Lying in bed, Jake asked him about his father.

  “I don’t want to talk about my father,” Bhim said, gently, to diffuse the sting.

  Jake thought for a moment. “What about your mother, then?”

  Bhim smiled, a smile Jake had never seen before. It was a gentle spreading of his lips, soft and smooth. His face suffused with light, like he was thinking of something wonderful. “My mother is the reason that I love you,” Bhim said simply.
“She is the reason I know what love is.”

  Jake stared at Bhim, transfixed.

  “I wish that you could meet her,” Bhim said. “You would like her very much.”

  “We can go to India—” Jake said, surprising himself with the suddenness of his thought, but Bhim was already shaking his head. He turned to Jake, his face serious and sad. He wet his lips and whispered softly.

  “I can never go back. I have told my father what I am. I have told him today.”

  Silence hung between them like a noose. Blood rushed to Jake’s face—he heard it in his ears—and Bhim reached out, comforting him. The absurdity made Jake laugh a little, a hysterical bubble foaming out of his mouth. Bhim smiled sadly.

  “When I saw you with your father, I realized, there is nothing at home for me. I will not marry. I will not be that way. And if I cannot be that way, they do not want me at all. So you see, I can never go to India with you. And you will never meet my mother. I am sorry. I would have loved for you to meet her. For her to meet you. I wish they would sing about my beard with me and we could sit at a table and just look at each other and be happy. But at least I will have that with you. And that will be enough. Won’t it?”

  Jake couldn’t answer. He held Bhim’s head as he sank it into Jake’s lap. He watched as the bedspread turned darker with Bhim’s tears, and he decided he did not care about these people. If they could turn their backs on a person like Bhim, then he simply could not care less about them. He would think of Bhim as someone who did, in fact, come off a plane fully formed; he would forget that Bhim had a family and a past, because it was only their time together, and their future, that mattered.

  Still, he wondered about the smile on Bhim’s face at the thought of his mother. Her, he would have liked to thank, at least, for the gift of her son. Bhim’s words echoed in Jake’s ears as he cried himself to sleep and Jake watched him, keeping guard over him through the night, as if by protecting him from future evils he could erase the pain of the past.

  She is the reason I know what love is.

  Jake did not even know her name.

  17

  Pival left the house at four thirty in the morning, just as the city was waking up. The apartment was silent in the haze. As Pival crept through her own home she felt like a thief, sure she was about to be accused of stealing her own luggage. She left two envelopes full of rupees, one for the cook and the maids and one for the driver, which she hoped would make it into his hands and not the maids’ pockets. She had paid for the milk through the end of the month and settled up with the yoga instructor at her last session. She left her wedding ring, which had always felt a little too tight on her finger. It was a Western affectation. Ram, who had been so against such things, had insisted that she wear it so foreigners would know that Pival was married. Not that she ever met any foreigners. She would now, she realized, and she would meet them unmarried. Ram would hate that, she thought with a broad smile. The maids could pawn it for all Pival cared. She thought of what Ram would think about someone else walking around in her ring, some poor couple enjoying her gold, which they would, no doubt, if Tanvi pawned it. She almost started laughing at the idea but she bit her lip and swallowed the sound. She walked out of the house just as the sun began to glint through the windows, and in her mind she said, Good-bye.

  The street was already creeping with life. The milkman bustled and servants and workers and early risers made their ways across the pavement, busy and uninterested in her. She was anonymous in her own city and it was glorious. She spotted the beggar she had seen days before; this must be his spot. The debris from the accident was long gone and new preparations for Durga Puja were sweeping through the city. By noon the streets would be flooded with people. This was the first Durga Puja she wouldn’t be there to see.

  Pival had spent her entire life in Kolkata. The city’s borders were the boundaries of her own existence. Her parents, the Banerjees, had no relatives to visit in other cities. Ram had never taken her anywhere. Indeed, he himself had only been to England, and had vowed never to return after his schooling in London was through. It was the rare thing the Senguptas had agreed on, the fact that they had no interest in the world outside of their own.

  It had amazed both of them, Rahi’s desire to leave Kolkata. Pival had wondered if the meaning of his name, “wanderer,” had dictated his fate in some way. She had always been uninterested in leaving the small world she had been thrust into, much as she disliked it, much as it seemed to dislike her. But now she, like Rahi, was escaping her only home, possibly never to see it, or India, again.

  Though several young men tried to help her, she waved them away with a smile and hailed her own cab and carried her own luggage. She hadn’t done either of those things in years and it made her feel vital and alive. She watched the city go by as the cab swept through it, the dirty fading glory of Kolkata crumbling under the weight of modern life. The cab moved in fits and starts, sometimes inching through the swarms of people already gathering to worship the goddess, sometimes zipping through empty streets devoid of shrines. She had left early to ensure that she would make it on time despite the murderous traffic the Durga Puja would inevitably cause in Kolkata, traffic she had heard about but never experienced. Every year since her marriage she and Ram had gone no farther than five blocks in any direction from their home.

  She glimpsed the river now and again as the cab barreled through the streets. Pival had often watched the Hooghly, a tributary of the Ganges, pump through the city and wondered if it was sad when it left India, the holiest of rivers becoming mortal as it reached the larger sea. She probed her own mind as she watched the waters rush away and could feel only readiness and anticipation building in her stomach. She decided that the water was happy to leave India, eager to continue its route and become part of something larger.

  Was this what Rahi had felt? Was this the sensation that drove him from coast to coast and world to world? Pival thrilled at the thought that she might have a moment of closeness with him even now, solely through her imagination.

  Arriving at the airport, she was bewildered by the signs and people and activity. But she had prepared herself, she had read guides on how to go through the airport, what to do, and Mr. Munshi had, rather kindly, included a list of things to know upon traveling. She wondered if he gave that to all his clients or if he could sense her inexperience over the phone. Mr. Munshi had told her that just as she would never accept less than first class taking an Indian Railways train, she ought to follow that rule when booking the flight. It was frightfully expensive, but she couldn’t argue with his logic, and she had felt a little thrill at how appalled Ram would have been at the price. How appalled she herself was. They had always been thrifty, despite their relative comfort. Conspicuous wealth was for newly moneyed peoples, flashy Punjabis and Marwaris, not the elegant refined Bengalis that they were proud to be. She hoped she was sitting near a Marwari on the plane. Ram would, if he could, die a second time.

  As she had been instructed to do, she checked her bags and endured the strange security rituals that made people feel safe in airports, handing over her purse, pushing her body through a metal detector, allowing the hanging folds of her sari to be examined by a female security guard.

  They touched her all over her body and Pival realized that it had been a long time since she had been touched. She supposed she should have felt violated by the search, but instead it warmed her. It was contact. It reminded her that this was real.

  She had vastly overestimated the time she would need. She was early. She looked around, clutching her purse to her and wondering what to do. There were cafés and stores everywhere; the airport was like a little mall. She knew what to do in malls.

  Settling down at a café with a cup of chai cooling beside her, Pival exhaled. She had been half holding her breath since she had left her apartment. Now she felt her lungs expand in her chest. It was over. She had escaped. There was no one left to stop her because there was no one left to
care.

  It had just been much easier than Pival thought it would be. That was, in some indefinable way, troubling. She might never see Kolkata again. She might never walk by the Victoria Memorial or her mother’s old school, she might never suffer through the New Market or stroll down Park Street. Her small treasure trove of good memories with Ram flashed through her mind. There was their wedding, where he had looked so handsome; the wedding night, when she had been so afraid, hating her ignorance, the way he had soothed her fears and given her appreciation, if not pleasure, and at least a kind of security that the job had been done; the early excitements and rare tenderness; the day she had given birth; the shared love of Rahi as they watched him stumble through the places of their lives. All of that was in the past now. She waited to cry. Nothing happened.

  Her equilibrium surprised her, worried her, and made her feel like she was perhaps already dead. She wasn’t ready yet, not in this country; she still needed to feel something, to be angry, to confront the pervert who caused her son’s death, if Rahi was really dead, and to cause her own. She was too used to compressing things within herself. Looking through the steam of her tea she vowed she would try harder. She would practice feeling something again. She would never make it to Los Angeles otherwise.