America for Beginners

by Leah Franqui

  “Absolutely, madam! First-rate observation. Very United. United States!”

  Rebecca snorted. Satya looked at her quickly, but her face went completely blank.

  “I simply do not understand why he is repeating this information about the 9/11 incident so often. I understand it was a terrible thing, but I had thought it was a single location in New York. Was it everywhere?”

  Ronnie opened his mouth, his self-important smile neatly in place. He himself had given many a talk on the subject, and felt ready to explain to Mrs. Sengupta the importance it had to Americans and why, in fact, should she be interested in a slight detour to the memorial earlier than planned, dinner at the first Indian restaurant on her itinerary could be moved back an hour, as he happened to know the owner of the restaurant in question, an uncle, of course, hence the very reasonable price for such exquisite food—

  But before Ronnie had a chance, Rebecca’s voice rang out.

  “They have some deal with the memorial. Or they think you don’t get the news in other countries. For some reason, it’s really important for guys like this to make sure that tourists like you really acknowledge how awful it was. They feel like it’s their duty.”

  Satya held his breath. She was trying to guide! He would put a stop to that, or perhaps the widow would be so offended that she would request a change. But Mrs. Sengupta looked at Rebecca for a long moment and then nodded, dismissing the subject. She looked out on the bow and asked about another building along the river, one on the Brooklyn side. As Satya rushed to explain how the boroughs of Manhattan worked and Rebecca returned to her guidebook, Ronnie deflated, sinking into his folding chair and slumping down against the boat’s movement.

  The precipitation had gotten neither better nor worse, but stayed an unmitigated drizzle, and Ronnie’s face and glasses were beaded with tiny droplets. Satya looked over at him and followed the direction of his gaze, to where the Circle Line ticket sellers were enjoying a nice cup of coffee and chatting underneath the deck. Both Satya and Ronnie had taken one look up at the dull, bruised sky and recommended to the ladies that they observe the tour from inside the boat, but Mrs. Sengupta wouldn’t hear of it, proclaiming proudly that she was not made of salt. The small widow seemed rather fragile, though, and Satya fretted about her taking ill, but Rebecca had smiled in support and told her that here we say sugar. Ronnie and Satya had immediately contributed with a chorus of why salt was better, and with that they had ended up on the upper deck, getting spat on by the sky.

  “What is that?” Mrs. Sengupta was pointing to a large sign on the Brooklyn side of the river, which was on their opposite side now, as the boat had turned around, halfway through its journey and ready to make the slow return to the dock. There was a large sign on the shore facing the left side of the boat that said in proud letters watchtower. Rebecca started laughing, while Ronnie looked momentarily puzzled, unable to see it, Satya guessed. Satya thought fast, wondering what lie would be the most easily swallowed about a building that he had never seen before in his life.

  “Madam, it is what it says it is, a watchtower, making sure that sea vessels and things of that like are suitably safe in the water. In the northern parts of this coast they call such things lighthouses, but here the lights are not necessary as the city is already so well lit, as I’m sure you observed last night on first night in USA, so here they just have watchtowers. For the ships.”

  Satya was suddenly sweating, despite the chill. Ronnie was looking at him with approval for the first time that day, however, which made the stress of inventing this quick-thinking explanation worth it. Rebecca looked at Satya with her eyes wide and her lips pursed. Satya assumed this was her look of admiration for his prowess as a guide, and he smiled at her. Rebecca frowned and opened her mouth, then quickly closed it, looking away. The boat plowed on through the waves, and Satya relaxed, enjoying the chilly breeze as it cooled him, soothing him, congratulating him on his first real test as a guide. He had passed, he knew, and whatever Ronnie had been angered by earlier, it seemed to be gone now.

  The rest of the day went quickly, from the pizza lunch in midtown that Rebecca picked through as Ronnie explained the importance of pizza in America; to the Statue of Liberty, which Mrs. Sengupta refused to climb, deciding she enjoyed the view outside more than she would the one from the middle; to dinner at Ronnie’s uncle’s restaurant, where Ronnie himself served them and over dal and naan described his brief and calamitous career in the food industry. There was one fragile moment in which Mrs. Sengupta complimented the food as the best Indian food a Bangladeshi could make, and the bottom of Satya’s stomach dropped out, but Ronnie laughed and no one seemed mad. Ronnie told Satya and Rebecca when the widow went to the bathroom that Satya didn’t have to pretend to be Indian anymore, which was a relief in a way, because Satya didn’t know how to be Indian in the first place, even if everyone already assumed he was.

  By the time they delivered Mrs. Sengupta safely to her room, she was yawning widely but smiled faintly as well, which Satya realized might be her way of showing happiness. She didn’t smile much, which was perhaps to be expected of her, given she was in mourning, but she seemed to have enjoyed herself, or at least, she hadn’t complained. Ronnie had told Satya of many a customer who had sent back food, demanded that the subways should be cleaner, and found the sights and sounds of New York subpar, asking for their money back on account of their disappointment.

  Satya shivered. He thought of what Rebecca had said, about changing your name at Ellis Island. You could, it seemed, walk into a building in America one thing and then out another. After all, he himself was now a newly baptized un-Bengali Bangladeshi, all over again.

  That night Satya showered, trying to ignore his deep sense of disquiet, his dread at leaving the city without knowing he had gotten word to Ravi, and, Ronnie’s warnings about the minibar in mind, ate three of the large candy bars he had smuggled in with him. Satya lay on his bed and looked around, unable to stop himself from enjoying the room, so much more luxurious than his own at home, with air-conditioning and heating controlled by a dial, soft clean towels sitting in piles in the bathroom, and even a painting on the wall. The television had one hundred channels and the bed felt soft and plush. Satya had slept in many places—buses, trains, the storeroom of the boat, his desk at school—but his bedrooms had always consisted of a mattress on the floor. Often they had not been bedrooms at all; in his grandmother’s apartment he’d just slept in a space where he would not be in the way. Now he had a whole room to himself, not just in this hotel but there in New York. He did not have to share a thing with anyone.

  Satya ate a fourth candy bar and felt calm. Perhaps not being Bangladeshi agreed with him, he thought sadly, and despite the rush from the sugar he put his head on the pillow and went right to sleep.

  20

  Rebecca knew that the guide’s far-fetched story about the Watchtower building shouldn’t have made her so angry. Why should she care if this guide was an idiot? Why should it matter if this Indian woman never learned about Jehovah’s Witnesses? But it did, somehow, matter to her, or at least, it mattered that Satya had lied.

  Rebecca had taken only one trip with a guide before in her life. It was a Birthright trip to Israel and she had loathed every minute of being controlled by a man on a bus with a microphone. She tuned him out whenever possible, but seeing Jerusalem, drinking arak, and letting an Israeli soldier slip his hand under her bra had eventually made it worth it. She had, however, done tours of individual places with a guide, and she had always appreciated those experiences. She loved feeling like she was learning something. It was what she enjoyed most about traveling.

  She remembered a fact about Notre Dame in Paris she had learned on one tour, that the magnificent church had been saved from destruction by Hitler’s army because one soldier, an art lover, had stayed behind as the army marched on and cut the fuses to the explosives that would have rendered the building a pile of rubble. She had been repeating that story
for years. Was it a lie?

  She hadn’t thought of herself as a patriot, but something about the idea of this Indian woman getting a false image of the United States aggravated Rebecca. Why bother going anywhere if you were simply going to be deceived? Who was Satya to make up stories about the US? She wasn’t making up anything about Bangladesh. She barely even knew where it was.

  Rebecca smacked the hotel pillow. The tiny room smelled dank and musty, and she knew there must be mold behind the beige and green wallpaper. The lights of Times Square were clear through the one small window, and the water, when it had emerged from the groaning tap, had been yellow for five minutes until it turned clear. Shivering, she had sat naked in the bathroom, waiting to take a shower. The night was clear and cool and when they’d been out walking she could smell the dried-leaf crispness of fall in the air, but not near Times Square, where it smelled only like hot dogs and burnt pretzels and garbage.

  Having showered, she figured out a way to draw the blinds on the window and block out the obnoxious neon lights, but she still couldn’t sleep. The blankets felt heavy on her body and she kicked them off, sweating.

  Rebecca didn’t spend much time angry, as a rule. She avoided dwelling. But now she was angry, irritable for no real reason whatsoever, except that the guide had been wrong and hadn’t cared. He had presented the lie with such an air of confidence and pride, so assured and clear, that she had almost found herself nodding along.

  She wouldn’t stay silent next time, she resolved. She would correct Satya, at least once Ronnie was gone. She didn’t want to jeopardize her position—she was already counting on that money for the next month’s rent and a new set of head shots—but once they left New York she would assume control if it seemed that Satya was incompetently explaining America to this woman. Comforted by her decision, her body temperature returning to normal, she pulled the blankets back up and finally slept.

  The next few days in New York were a whirlwind for Rebecca, filled to the brim with things she had never wanted to do as their little group joined thousands of other tourists at the Empire State Building, Madame Tussauds wax museum, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Central Park. They had changed the itinerary when Mrs. Sengupta shockingly had no interest in shopping.

  The park particularly seemed to confuse Mrs. Sengupta, which made sense to everyone but Rebecca, and so she asked about it as they sat on a wooden bench watching fat ducks become fatter off park concessions. Mrs. Sengupta explained that she had never been in a park that wasn’t flat before. This amazed Rebecca, and she asked them all to explain what parks were like where they were from.

  “Well, miss, there are no parks in Bangladesh, unlike India,” explained Ronnie, to which Satya reacted by rearing back angrily. Their pretense of being Indian had been dropped, which relieved Rebecca, as she hadn’t understood it in the first place.

  “Excuse me, sir, but perhaps you did not experience parks but in my experience parks are there. Bangladesh is not such a place that there are no parks there,” Satya sputtered, his tone respectful but his eyes blazing. Ronnie met Satya’s gaze and frowned, but this time Satya didn’t grow subservient or humble. On the contrary, his look withered Ronnie, making him duck his head down slightly, almost as if he was ashamed.

  Rebecca watched them curiously. She had seen the two men clash in slight ways over the three days in New York, as Ronnie was unable to let go after the Circle Line tour. He clearly missed being a tour guide; everything from the way he directed the route they took to the fact that he insisted on ordering for everyone, using his most precise and descriptive English, peeking back at Mrs. Sengupta the entire time to make certain she was observing his abilities, screamed “guide.”

  “Parks in Kolkata are flat. And I have never been outside of Kolkata before.” The simplicity of Mrs. Sengupta’s statement caught Rebecca off guard and interrupted Ronnie and Satya’s silent sparring match.

  “I had assumed parks were flat,” the widow continued. “Isn’t it nicer that way?”

  Ronnie and Satya rushed to agree, yes, madam, highly superior, but Rebecca shook her head, considering her words carefully.

  “I think it depends what you are looking for in a park, really. That is, what your philosophy is. This park was designed so that when you were inside of it, you wouldn’t feel like you were in a city anymore. You would feel like you were in nature. I don’t know if that really worked, but that’s why it’s hilly and so full of trees, so that you don’t see the city around you. It’s an escape.”

  “How should a park have a designer?” Satya asked skeptically.

  “This one did.” Rebecca closed her eyes, searching her mind for the name. She had been told about him during her Columbia orientation. “Olmsted. Frederick Law Olmsted.”

  “I have never heard of this man,” said Ronnie, frowning. Rebecca thumbed through the pages of her guidebook and showed Ronnie and Satya the section on the park. As they looked over it, their heads bowed together, Rebecca wondered if she had made a mistake, upstaging them. But when Ronnie’s face lifted from the page, it was bright with determined happiness.

  “You see? Nothing but the best for you, Mrs. Sengupta. Even companion is a kind of guide!”

  “It is an interesting idea. Designing a park. I wonder if people do this in India. I did not know that this was something a person could do with their lives. As old as I am, I did not know this.”

  Ronnie and Satya instantly jumped in with another chorus of denials that Mrs. Sengupta was old. Mrs. Sengupta seemed uninterested in their token protests, however, and she continued looking out at the park as two ducks fought for a particularly large chunk of bread floating through the murky pond. She seemed content to simply sit and observe the world around her.

  Over the past three days, Rebecca had accumulated more than a few questions about the widow. Was Mrs. Sengupta usually such a passive observer? If so, why had she decided to take this trip, to be so confronted by so many unfamiliar and unknown things? In the face of her tragedy, instead of sinking into what she knew, she had come to a new and strange place where the parks were hilly.

  One of the ducks had waddled out of the water and was now begging for scraps up on the walkway, looking at Mrs. Sengupta expectantly. The widow smiled and shook her head at the animal.

  “Always on the lookout,” the widow said. “Greedy things.”

  But she spoke with a fondness. The park loomed around them, a vast forest in the city. Mrs. Sengupta seemed more at ease now, in this park that wasn’t flat.

  Rebecca resolved to ask Mrs. Sengupta more about herself as soon as they were free from Ronnie’s watchful eye. Ronnie had explained to Rebecca in rather severe terms that Indian women did not like to talk about themselves because it was immodest and un-Hindu. Rebecca, however, couldn’t believe there was anyone in the world who didn’t like to talk about themselves. After all, Ronnie himself was now declaiming once again about his experience of New York City, explaining that now that Mrs. Sengupta had seen everything of value there, they should be ready to depart for Niagara Falls first thing in the morning. If, of course, she was still tired from her flight, the van procured for the purpose and driven by Saurish, a very good friend and very reliable driver, would be a very comfortable place to sleep on the eight-hour trip.

  Mrs. Sengupta nodded and declared herself rather tired at this very moment, in fact, and could they skip dinner that night at yet another Curry Hill establishment? Ronnie looked deeply saddened by this prospect and tried to convince the widow that she really ought not to miss this particular dal, despite the fact that they had eaten dal at the majority of their meals so far. Mrs. Sengupta was not one to be persuaded of anything, Rebecca understood, as she watched the woman smile politely and patently ignore each of Ronnie’s justifications, maintaining that she would really prefer room service, despite her acknowledgment that this was not, in fact, included in the price of the tour.

  Once Ronnie had made sure that she did indeed understand this salient point at lea
st five times, he shrugged, still baffled that she would choose to pay for an extra meal. At this point, Mrs. Sengupta gently suggested that perhaps this meal should not go to waste, and nothing would please her more than Ronnie and Satya and Rebecca’s enjoying the meal themselves. Rebecca quickly excused herself and then pointed out that the loss of two dinner guests meant that the men would receive twice as much food, an idea that deeply intrigued both of them. After a few half-hearted protests, Ronnie and Satya agreed.

  Sitting in her hotel room later, having been abandoned by the men as they pursued their Curry Hill bounty, Rebecca wondered if Mrs. Sengupta was content with room service, whose menu Rebecca disdained as overpriced and bland. Maybe she might like to try something new? The idea had only just formed in Rebecca’s head when she found herself knocking on the door next to hers, surprising herself with her own eagerness.

  Mrs. Sengupta answered the door in her pajamas, a sort of loose tunic that reached her knees with slits up the sides almost to the waist, and soft-looking billowy trousers. Her graying hair, usually confined to a neat bun, hung in a long braid, almost to her hip. She looked inquiringly at Rebecca, who smiled nervously back.

  “I was thinking of opting for takeout instead of room service. Would you like to join me?”

  “Opting for?”

  Rebecca smiled. As excellent as the widow’s English was, Rebecca had found quickly that colloquialisms were totally lost on her in any form. Mrs. Sengupta spoke like someone from a book, one from the 1950s, perhaps, with a formal precision that amused Rebecca. Satya and Ronnie peppered their speech with Americanisms and short overused phrases, but though Mrs. Sengupta’s English was clearly more fluent, her expressions were slightly dated.

  “I’m choosing to get some food delivered,” Rebecca rephrased. Mrs. Sengupta nodded, and Rebecca realized the room service menu was in her hand. “Oh, have you already ordered?”