America for Beginners

by Leah Franqui

  Rebecca sat quietly. This was the longest thing Mrs. Sengupta had ever said to Rebecca, and she didn’t know, really, what it meant. It was a gift, Rebecca knew, what Mrs. Sengupta had been saying to her, only Rebecca wasn’t sure how to open it.

  The widow smiled self-consciously and sipped her tea. She did not apologize for her long speech, or her opinions. She simply let them hang in the air between them. Rebecca appreciated this. She had to unpack everything the woman had said, discover its meaning, before she would be able to respond. Their drinks disappeared and were refilled. The silence between them was occupied by Rebecca’s mind, working furiously, and Mrs. Sengupta’s mouthfuls of milky tea. Finally Rebecca asked the question Mrs. Sengupta had dreaded.

  “Where is he now? Your son?” Mrs. Sengupta looked as though Rebecca had slapped her. Rebecca didn’t flinch. Mrs. Sengupta breathed deeply and exhaled, her mouth working, trembling. Rebecca wondered what was coming. Would she scream at Rebecca? Would she cry? Would she tell Rebecca that this was, as Rebecca knew, simply none of her business? But she did none of these things. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply again, in through her nose and out through her mouth, the way they always told Rebecca to in yoga class. Her eyes were still closed when she spoke.

  “I don’t know. I was told that he died. Very suddenly, one day, in Los Angeles. This is in California.” She said the words dully, as if she were reciting facts in school. Rebecca had done a report on the state of Iowa for her fifth-grade class and she had described the state in the same way that Mrs. Sengupta now described what she knew of her child.

  “My husband has told me that he received a phone call from his, his friend in California. My husband said that his heart stopped. I do not know if it is true.”

  “Why would he lie about that?”

  “We—my husband—we could no longer speak to our son.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words felt painful in Rebecca’s mouth, dry as dust and worthless.

  “Thank you.” More questions bubbled up in Rebecca, but she pushed them back down this time. There was nothing she could say on the subject of this woman’s son. Their last stop was Los Angeles. She had wondered why. Now she understood that this trip had not been for the purposes of seeing the United States. They were taking a slow trip across the country to ready Mrs. Sengupta for Los Angeles. She must have wanted to meet this friend, see for herself in person; she must have needed time to prepare, and so she had built that time in, distracting herself with waterfalls and monuments. She wondered if the friend was someone Mrs. Sengupta would not approve of, a girlfriend who wasn’t Indian, perhaps. Rebecca understood now. Jews sat shiva. The widow was traveling it.

  They returned to the hotel to find a frantic Satya relieved to see them. He had not thought to ask at the front desk if a notice had been left for him, and he was concerned about their flight to Phoenix in three hours. From Phoenix they would take a train to see the Grand Canyon, early the next morning, and then fly to Las Vegas that evening. Apparently the West Coast of the country wasn’t worth much time. With the arrogance of an East Coaster, Rebecca could hardly disagree. She herself had never been to the Grand Canyon or Las Vegas, though she couldn’t imagine what kind of experience she, Satya, and Mrs. Sengupta would have in Sin City. Perhaps the widow could use that city to sleep. Or think about the stranger she was about to meet and the city her son had lived in without her, without expectations and without wanting to come home.

  Did her own parents feel that they had lost their child to a city? Rebecca wondered. She did not often think well of her parents. But then, she had not questioned her devotion to acting, either, and here she was suddenly doing both.

  Soon, they were in a cab to the airport. Rebecca could smell three kinds of toothpaste and mints coming from Satya’s mouth as he tried to herd Mrs. Sengupta like a sheepdog. He was freshly showered, his hair still wet, and he seemed presentable, but she could see him wincing at the bright sun and she thought he must be at least as hungover as she had been before her coffee. She met his eyes and smiled, but he seemed flustered, and he didn’t look her way again. As they waited for their flight, she handed him a coffee she had bought him after the security check, while waiting through an interminable pat-down for Satya. Satya was not destined to go through a security checkpoint without being noticed. Rebecca was past anger and into amusement. She couldn’t imagine a more hopeless terrorist. She told him this as he opened the paper cup to see a coffee with so much milk it looked like butterscotch pudding, pale beige and creamy. He took a reluctant sip and smiled at the amount of sugar. Apparently five packets was right. His tentative thank-you was stiff, but Rebecca simply nodded a “you’re welcome” and looked out onto the terminal. She would let Satya get over his discomfort on his own. They weren’t the first people who had kissed after a night of drinking, and they would hardly be the last. He would learn from her how to move on. It would be a welcome-to-America gift.

  “I used to have a friend and he always wanted to see the Grand Canyon.”

  Rebecca looked at Satya. It was a strange thing to say, she thought, that he used to have a friend. “What happened to him?”

  Satya took a long swallow of his coffee. “He is not my friend anymore. But I am thinking of him just now. I would not know what it was without him. He had read about it in a book and told me it was one thing in America worth seeing. And now I will see it, and he will never know.”

  “I’m sorry.” It was the second time she had said that today. Somehow the two losses she was responding to felt equally important, although she couldn’t have said why. It was, perhaps, the way each statement had been spoken, as if it were an irreversible truth, indelibly marked on the life of the speaker. What can’t be changed must be endured. She had read that on a greeting card somewhere and hated it. She had yet to accept that there were things that couldn’t be changed, and meeting people who not only accepted it, who in fact knew it in their souls, vibrated through her with the impact of a shovel meeting a stone. Satya was looking at her intensely. She turned away.

  Their flight took just under four hours. Rebecca thought her mind was too full to sleep but woke up just as the plane hit the runway in Arizona with the bright sun gleaming off the tarmac. Phoenix was baking in late September. It was almost October, Rebecca thought as she adjusted her sunglasses and looked out at the city, flat as a pancake and covered in wide roads and wide cars and wide people. It was evening on the East Coast but it was earlier here than Rebecca wanted it to be. She looked at her hands, which weren’t shaking at all now. The morning seemed a long way off.

  Their hotel, a Best Western, was squat and sandy, overly air-conditioned, with all the charm of a prison cell. Rebecca unpacked nothing but her sweaters and wrapped them around herself as she shivered in the frigid room. The Indian meal that evening at Tandoor Kebab was a particularly bad one. Rebecca supposed that vegetarian curry was unpopular in this land of Mexican food and Southwestern chilies. All the cumin was evidently seasoning meat, not enhancing lentils. There certainly was no flavor in any of the dishes they endured that evening, the soggy sag paneer with soured cheese and sad gooey rice, which managed to be simultaneously under- and overcooked. Rebecca sighed as she poked at a mushy portion of chana masala and regretted not eating more in New Orleans. They should have been swimming in gumbo to make up for this worthless dinner.

  She was surprised to see Satya also picking at his food listlessly. This was the first time this had ever happened. She began to laugh. Mrs. Sengupta looked up at the sound of her laughter. The meal had been entirely silent up until this point, with each of them lost in their thoughts, in the exhaustion of travel, and in fighting the cold of the Arizona air-conditioning obsession. Now, though, Mrs. Sengupta stared at Rebecca, who was almost doubled over with laughter, and without warning, joined her, tears forming in her eyes. Satya’s face reflected complete confusion. Rebecca simply pointed at his plate and the dishes around them, all of which were still laden with food. Satya looked down
and up again, confused, his befuddlement only adding to the laughter at the table.

  “What’s happened?”

  Rebecca tried to catch her breath. “Aren’t, aren’t you, hungry?” Satya’s face cleared in an instant, and his sheepish grin would have spanned a football field if not for the limitations of his cheeks. He sat as the two women laughed and laughed, and Mrs. Sengupta’s laughter turned freely from laughter to tears as they sat in the horrible restaurant and ignored the miserable food. The widow wiped her eyes and smiled a watery smile.

  “I would wish that I could cook for you, to show you what is better, but I do not cook. You are the one who cooks,” the widow reminded Satya.

  “I’m not very good. I’m about as bad as this. But my grandmother tried to teach me,” Satya revealed, blushing.

  Mrs. Sengupta smiled. “I am sure she is proud.”

  “She was, I think. She is gone now.” Satya said it without self-pity, another fact. “She made the best rotis, though. Nothing like this.” He held up a cold roti.

  “I think they’re tortillas,” Rebecca joked.

  Satya’s eyes sparked with indignation. “Bastards! Think they can trick people!”

  “Satya, I’m kidding—” But he was already up and screaming at the management. Once he started rattling away in Bengali, however, the faces of their waiter, the host, and a chef who had emerged and was watching from the doorway to the kitchen all purpled simultaneously with rage. They began screaming in Hindi, and soon a cacophony of noise filled the small and desolate restaurant, echoing against the glass windows and reverberating through Rebecca’s ears. What she caught was the phrase “Damn dirty Bangla dog” and suddenly she was adding her own voice to this fight, yelling at them for their racism, for their ignorance and her own, for the fact that she hadn’t had to know anything about any other part of the world before now. Her own self-disgust burst forth in a mudslide of fury. Before she knew what was happening Satya’s hand was on her elbow, and it was his turn to drag her out of a restaurant before a fight occurred. Mrs. Sengupta hurried after them, her purse gripped in her hand and her scarf fluttering back in the manufactured air from the wall AC unit. Before they left, the widow turned back and said one word: “Bastards.” And then she exited, as graciously as a queen.

  The three of them stood in the sudden desert heat silently, the earlier laughter gone.

  “It’s better this way. I wouldn’t have paid for that meal anyway,” Satya said, and then he laughed, a short angry pained chuckle.

  “It is better. I am an old woman. I should not have had to hear the evil words of such filthy men,” Mrs. Sengupta said stoutly. “Thank you for defending my ears, Satya. Very kind of you. You are an excellent guide.”

  She bowed slightly over her folded hands and walked toward where their driver, a man named Juan who constantly and quietly spoke Spanish into a Bluetooth attached to his ear, was waiting.

  Sitting in the car, Satya realized he was still quite hungry. He looked at Rebecca in mute distress. She rolled her eyes.

  “Juan? Do you know a good taco stand around here?”

  They sat sweltering near the roadside stand, mouths on fire from the extra chilies Satya and Mrs. Sengupta had requested, faces bathed in salsa. Over her corn and mushroom taco, Mrs. Sengupta’s eyes were bright and streaming with happy tears.

  “I can’t feel my tongue,” Rebecca said calmly.

  “I was just going to ask if they had anything hotter,” Satya said seriously, and Mrs. Sengupta laughed, the sound echoing across the desert. It was, Satya realized, one of the happiest moments he had experienced in months. He wished he could hold on to it, but it was gone, and they were back in the hotel, mouths still smarting with spice, before he knew it.

  The morning came bright and clear again, but without the aftereffects of alcohol Rebecca did not find the brilliant Arizona sun so aggressive. She woke up stretching in her blankets, bundled up as though it were January in Chicago, enjoying the light if not the warmth.

  On their Grand Canyon Railway tour, she watched the beams of sunlight reflect off the miles of Southwestern desert as they plugged and chugged along, eating up the miles of track slowly but steadily. Giant cacti stood in the distance, looking so perfect that they didn’t seem real. Arizona was like a cartoon movie set, from the vultures to the tumbleweeds blowing between the dust-covered plants and enormous red rock formations.

  There had been a brief period in Rebecca’s life when she had been interested in crystal healing and the energy emitted by the objects around her. It had been a trendy belief to have among the artistic set with whom she ran and she figured she would try anything if it might work. It hadn’t, though, and it became expensive with all the crystals to buy and sage to burn, and Rebecca soon abandoned it. But during that time she had read that there was a resonance about the rocks out in Arizona, that they emitted an energy that could affect people, heal them. Now, as she looked across the desert stretching out forever, it made her wonder. Did native peoples really believe this, or had it just been the sheer relief at seeing something solid in a world of shifting sand? Were these gargantuan lumps of red rock sending her signals, trying to break through the glass of the train compartment to reach her and help her on her way? It seemed to her the height of narcissism, to think that the natural world was sending out messages to humans, to assume it cared at all. Didn’t the rocks have better things to do?

  Next to her, Mrs. Sengupta was also looking out the window as Satya slept, soothed by the swaying motion of the train. The widow glanced at him and smiled. Her hand reached out to smooth the hair across his forehead and he mumbled in his sleep but didn’t stir. She gazed at Satya like he was her child. As Rebecca turned away Mrs. Sengupta looked up and smiled at her.

  “What is your name? Your first name? Ronnie never told me, actually,” Rebecca explained.

  “My name is Pival.”

  “Oh. Thank you.”

  “You can call me that, if you wish.”

  Rebecca looked at her curiously. “What does it mean?”

  “It means ‘tree.’ What does Rebecca mean?”

  “They say it means ‘captivating.’ But really it means ‘a trap.’”

  They both returned their gazes to the window, where the cactus arms with their giant yellow spikes were waving a deceptive hello, reaching out to shake the hands of foolish passersby. Rebecca wished the rocks would send her secret signals, telling her what to do with her life.

  They reached the Grand Canyon an hour later. As they got off the train and stared out into the expanse of caverns and crevices carved so deeply and securely into the earth, Rebecca’s breath caught in her throat. She had always thought that the Grand Canyon would look like a crack in the ground. This was like that, she supposed, but it was beautiful, immense and spectacular with a thousand shades of orange and red and gray. The bright blue of the sky with its tiny clouds hovering above a sunken world of ridges and valleys, with a brown slippery snake, the Colorado River, winding its way through. They all three walked toward the first viewing point like people possessed, drawn in by the majesty of the canyon.

  “How did this happen?” It was Mrs. Sengupta, Pival. She had breathed the question lightly, but her face betrayed how deeply she would count the answer. She looked at Satya, who was, for once, actually prepared.

  “Water. All of this is from water. As the river has carved through the stone in a few years until all of this has been revealed.”

  “In just a few years?” This came from Rebecca, smiling wryly.

  “A few. Maybe seventeen million.”

  “A handful, then.” This came from Pival. She was breathing her words again, her voice weak, her chest rising and falling quickly. They stood right at the edge of a viewpoint, alone, somehow, despite all the tourists.

  “You must be careful, madam. People meet fatalities here often.” Satya’s voice was concerned as the widow swayed against the safety railing. She smiled, though, at his words, as her eyes drank in
the wide and brilliant views in front of them.

  “You mustn’t worry, Satya. I will not die here. I promise you that.” She spoke with a sense of certainty that should have made Satya feel better, but it only disconcerted him. It disconcerted Rebecca, too. She wondered what the widow had meant—that she wouldn’t die, or that she wouldn’t die here?

  “We must take a picture, madam. You have none for the trip.” This was true, Rebecca realized. Unlike every other tourist Rebecca had ever encountered, the widow hadn’t taken a single photograph. She wasn’t even sure if Mrs. Sengupta had a camera.

  “Here.” Rebecca took out her phone and stood away, ready to snap the photo with the Grand Canyon as the backdrop to Mrs. Sengupta standing in her tunic and trousers.

  “I do not need a photograph. There is no one who will care to see this.”

  “Won’t you care?” She didn’t respond. “I want one, then. For myself.” Rebecca realized as she said it that it was true; she wanted to remember this moment. “Here, can you help us?” she asked a family sporting a tripod and a high-tech series of cameras, who looked not just a little disdainfully at the deficient phone camera. “Come here,” she ordered Satya, and looping her arm around him she dragged him into the frame and stood him next to Mrs. Sengupta with herself on the other side, framing her as the Grand Canyon framed them all. When the quick photo session ended, Mrs. Sengupta looked at her and smiled, but there was moisture in her eyes.

  The train back blended together with the bus and the taxi to the airport and the flight to Las Vegas. The lights from the Technicolor fluorescent city hurt Rebecca’s eyes as they arrived, tired and hungry, late that same night. After the wonders of the canyon, the fake city of fake monuments and fake sights seemed like an insult. Rebecca couldn’t believe they had come so far in one day. She wanted to go back, but they simply went forward, to the hotel, to another round of Indian food, to their beds.

  Tired as she was, instead of sleeping Rebecca lay in bed thinking about the things she had done to herself, the things she had believed that weren’t true, the ways she had always wanted to be another person. She tried to sleep but all she could think about was the river pushing through the rock, and the phrase There is no one who will care to see this echoed in her mind over and over and over again until she slept and had nightmares she couldn’t remember in the morning.