America for Beginners

by Leah Franqui

  “India is often dirty, yes. But parts of it are not. You should come see for yourself.”

  “You aren’t making a strong case for it,” Jake teased her. She took him seriously, though.

  “No, you should. You would understand Bhim better, being there. I understand him better here. Together, between the two parts, it makes sense.”

  “I’ll have to visit, then,” Jake said, not really meaning it.

  “Yes. You will,” Pival said, meaning every word.

  Getting off the train at the Berkeley BART station, they walked the streets of the little suburban town, dry and verdant and teeming with students. They visited Bhim’s lab, and Pival shook hands with each of the scientists who’d known and admired her son. They showed her his research, tried to explain its implications, showered her with a downpour of technical terms and excitement for Bhim’s brilliance. She touched the pages of his thesis, printed, bound, and carefully stored in the university library, with reverence.

  “It is amazing, when the person you made makes something that you never could,” she said. Jake, thinking of the way his own mother made sure to drive by as many of his projects in a day as possible, smiled. Pival took the snail shell he had given her out of her purse, examining the whorls with her fingers and her eyes.

  “Did they know about him?” she asked Jake, suddenly anxious.

  “Bhim never talked to anyone about his personal life much,” Jake said, “but when he passed away, many of them came to the funeral and met me. They knew who I was.”

  “And they, they didn’t mind?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  “Does it seem like they minded?”

  They looked around the lab. One of Bhim’s advisers, an algae specialist, was waving them over to look at something amazing that Bhim had found. Jake put his hand on Pival’s shoulder, and they went to look into a microscope at tiny vitally important things that they might never grasp and couldn’t wait to see.

  Jake took her to Bhim’s favorite café, the Indian restaurant that would make him fish curries if he asked in Bengali, the grocery store where they had shopped for organic produce when Jake tried to teach Bhim to cook. He took her to the apartment where Bhim had lived, the soulless place where Jake and Bhim had, together, achieved a little bit of joy. It was rented to someone else now, but they were kind and let them in for a brief visit. She looked around once, and smiled. When they left, she turned back to Jake.

  “That was not a very nice place.”

  Jake laughed. “I was the one who cared about what things looked like. Bhim said he never noticed.”

  “That sounds like my Rahi. Completely oblivious to the world outside his own mind. And yet you spent more time in Los Angeles, you said.”

  “We did, yes. His work was mobile, and—”

  “Then perhaps he did notice, after all.”

  They stood out on the street, watching bicyclists speed by; people walking their dogs; a couple, both men, holding hands. The couple walked, unselfconscious, down the street, lifting their joined hands over the head of a child on a bright pink plastic bicycle, forming an arch above her head for a moment before she moved on and they let their arms fall, still holding hands, still walking along. Jake looked over at Pival. She was crying. She reached over and wiped a tear off his own cheek.

  “This is a very nice place. Isn’t it?”

  And Jake nodded, because it was true.

  “This was the best place for him, wasn’t it. Better than being at home with me.”

  “The best thing, I think, would have been not having to choose,” Jake said. And Pival nodded, and smiled through her tears.

  “I’m glad that he had you. I’m glad that he was loved by you.” There was nothing for Jake to say to that. So instead he hugged her until their faces dried in the California sun, and then they went back to the train, back to the city, back into the world.

  Jake had arranged for her flight to be changed so that she could return to Kolkata from San Francisco, not Los Angeles. They departed on the same day, her before him, and as he watched her be swallowed up by the airplane terminal, a small figure draped in fabric fading into the background, he knew despite everything, despite however he had felt before, he would miss her. Together, they had fit the two pieces of Bhim’s life into one. He knew Bhim better because of her, and when she thanked him in the end he knew part of it was for what she now knew, for the memories he had traded with her.

  Now he was home in Los Angeles. It had hurt to take her to Berkeley, but it had felt good, like the ache after running or the way stretching makes your body feel better after it feels much worse. He had felt so much less alone, mourning Bhim with her. The cat was still alive in his house and he named her Draupadi. Mrs. Sengupta had explained the origin of the name Bhim, the story of him and his four brothers, brothers the real Bhim had never had, and the princess who had married all five of them, the beautiful Draupadi. His cat was beautiful, and if Bhim had lived she would have been both of theirs. So the name seemed to fit. He was restless and he worked long hours and he ran long distances but Bhim’s ashes still sat on the shelf and he watched them sometimes. He had wanted Mrs. Sengupta to take them, but she had refused. So there they were now, waiting for something. He didn’t know for what.

  31

  Rebecca brushed her teeth, looked at herself in the mirror, and spat. Her face contorted wildly in the early morning light.

  She was staying with an old friend, an actress she had known in New York who had moved to Los Angeles and kept promising to move back and never did. Her friend, Shana, had a neat and carefully curated apartment with large windows drinking in the California sunshine. Rebecca squinted, feeling like a vampire, annoyed by the rays. New York had made her bitter, she thought, rolling her eyes at her own cliché.

  Life in Los Angeles was appealing, she could certainly see that. She had been there for three days, since Mrs. Sengupta had sent them away and Satya had left for New York, three days that she had filled with cold-brewed coffee and yoga classes and meetings over drinks, endless drinks, that everyone sipped lightly, barely tasting before ordering another. Drinks were not objects, they were networking tools, but some part of Rebecca still regretted the waste, no matter how much she told herself it was an investment in her future.

  She met with agents and managers, and smiled and chatted and gave her résumé and felt them assessing her, her body, her voice, her smile. She knew if they could they would have cupped her body, man and woman alike, testing that, too, like a melon at the market. She was exhausted, more than she had been in her travels running from place to place. She kept looking up from conversations and from networking over cocktails and coffees and thinking, What am I doing here? What does any of this have to do with acting, with being onstage?

  Shana had a lovely life, Rebecca had to admit, if a bit brittle. By all rights, she was doing wonderfully. She was working, a few small parts on television shows, commercial work every month or so, with large enough brands to keep her more than comfortable between jobs. She looked fit, and her skin was clear and swelling with moisture, but her eyes were strained and almost hunted. There was something close to breaking around her edges, something mirrored in every friend of Shana’s Rebecca met who was in the industry. If in New York actors were high-strung and cutting, in Los Angeles they all showed a little wear and tear under the pressure of being so visibly relaxed all the time. It was as if they were boiling under the strain of being so chill. Everything was fine, everything was great, everything was so light it could crush you. People drank happiness with their kombucha, but it didn’t seem to sit right in their stomachs, from the fear you could see in their faces when they thought no one was looking.

  Rebecca told herself this was all in her head, she was being deliberately negative. She left the bathroom and dressed for the day, donning spandex for a hike in the mountains. The air that filled her lungs was clear, and the sun seemed healing, not stinging as it had in the morning, hours before. She watched Shana
try to take the perfect selfie, pouting her lips, sucking in her cheeks, jutting out her collarbones.

  “It’s good marketing, really. I’m up for a part as a trainer in a new movie, someone the main character thinks about cheating on his wife with. The casting director follows me on Instagram.” Rebecca nodded as Shana spoke, overwhelmed. Should she be doing this? It was so much work, this place that prided itself on being so effortless.

  That night they went to a party, something in the hills with lots of important people. Rebecca wore a tight red dress and danced, and drank vodka and smiled at everyone, and people told her she was gorgeous and charming and laughed at her quick East Coast wit, and suddenly this trip she had been on seemed very far away. She had been wrong, it wasn’t brittle here at all, it was bright and perfect and she should move here forever and be in movies and be happy. Everyone else was, weren’t they?

  But as she lay in bed at night even the alcohol couldn’t help her sleep and she thought about Mrs. Sengupta. She thought about Satya and she hoped he would call the number she had given him, hoped he would work for Mr. Ghazi. She knew that she wouldn’t anymore. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but Satya needed that job. He needed the Ghazis more than she did. She turned over on Shana’s couch, trying to get comfortable.

  She checked her phone. It was seven a.m. on the East Coast. She didn’t know many people who would be awake, but she knew someone. She slipped out of the apartment and dialed.

  “Rebecca?” Her mother’s voice, despite everything, made her smile. Cynthia had been waking up at six to run every weekday morning since Rebecca was a child. She knew she would be walking home now, stretching out her body slowly. She could see her, on the streets of Washington, sweaty and triumphant. “You’re up early,” Cynthia said, tentative. She clearly hadn’t forgotten their dinner any more than Rebecca had.

  “I’m up late. I’m in Los Angeles.”

  “Has the trip ended?”

  “Yes, I’m here for a few days before heading back east.”

  “Ah. And how is it?”

  Rebecca looked around at the empty streets, the flowers blooming, the green all around her, the orderly neatness of Los Angeles, so unlike New York’s squalor.

  “It all looks great. But—”

  “It doesn’t feel that way?”

  “It’s making me tired. Just in a completely different way.”

  “Of course. It’s exhausting, all that healthy living.”

  Rebecca laughed. She could see her mother’s face, visualizing her own expression in it. “It is! How do they do it?”

  “Heavy medication,” Cynthia quipped dryly.

  “I had hoped it might be better here for me,” Rebecca confessed. She closed her eyes, the night air cool on her face. “New York has been hard.” She held her breath. Would her mother laugh? Scold her, reminding her of how she had told her so? The dinner at her parents’ loomed large in her mind.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie.” Rebecca felt on the verge of tears. When was the last time her mother had said that to her? And really meant it? “I want you to be happy. It’s hard for me, knowing that you’re not.”

  “Do you think I will be happy in Los Angeles?”

  “I think they kick you out if you’re not.”

  “It’s such a strange place, Mom. Everything seems so thin.”

  “That’s because you’re spending time with actors. They don’t eat.”

  “No, I mean, nothing feels real.”

  “I know. Do you know your father and I thought about moving there, a long time ago?”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. But we didn’t. We took a trip, and as we left, your father said to me, oh, thank god we can stop being happy all the time.”

  Rebecca laughed and laughed, tears rolling down her cheeks. It wasn’t all that funny, she knew, but she found it hilarious, and now she was crying.

  “Oh, Rebecca. Don’t cry.”

  “This isn’t digging ditches or breaking rocks, I know that. But it’s still hard, Mom.”

  “I know it is. I wish you did something else, not because I think you can’t do this, but because thinking about all the people who say no to you, it makes me so mad, honey. So mad for you.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “That’s why you have to say yes, when you can. I’m happy you went on this trip, love. I’m happy you said yes to something.” As Rebecca hung up, ending the best conversation she’d had with her mother in years, she realized she was, too.

  After a week, she went home to New York. Her check was waiting for her in the mailbox. There was not a word said about losing and regaining their widow, nor a word from the widow herself. She had thought it would be wonderful to be back in New York but it felt strange. She had survived outside of it, and now it did not feel as essential to her as it had before she had left. Nothing was essential, it turned out.

  She sat in her apartment and thought about what to do next. Her agent called her with an audition for a job out of town. And for the first time ever, she said yes.

  After the audition, which had gone wonderfully, even she could admit, she took the subway to a Bengali restaurant in Queens. All that time on the road and she had never had Bengali food. She looked at her phone. She’d gotten the job. It would be in a theater in Chicago. She ordered fish baked in mustard paste. She thought about calling her parents, Mr. Ghazi, the guy she’d met last night, and telling them she was leaving New York for a bit. She looked at her phone and decided it could wait. She took out a piece of paper. She thought about the widow and the way her son had written her those letters. Dear Mrs. Sengupta, she began.

  In Chicago everything was built at a massive scale, Rebecca realized. Perhaps because there was just so much more space out there, in the flatlands. The theater company had put her up in a beautiful apartment, four times the size of her studio in New York, and when they had apologized profusely for the tiny size she had struggled not to giggle. On her first day of rehearsals, unable to sleep, she looked out through her window at sunrise, watching the massive sleepy city wake slowly, sweetly. Today she was going to go to a theater and become someone else for a while. And without even trying, she was happy.

  32

  When Pival returned to Kolkata the first thing she did was fire all the servants. Well, the second thing, because the first thing had been to drink a good cup of tea while listening to Tanvi scold and wail at her.

  She was surprised, frankly, that anyone was still there. She had assumed they would “bunk,” as her son used to say—that is, cut out, leave, be gone from the apartment. She had expected all her belongings to be gone with them, had even anticipated with some sense of relief an empty apartment robbed of all its wealth. But then she remembered, her return wasn’t so unexpected to them, only to herself. And of course, they would fear being charged with theft, no matter how much she had urged them to take things. A few saris, a bangle, would be the most they would dare.

  On the drive from the airport, looking out on the city she had thought she would never see again, she assessed Kolkata with open eyes, the ugliness and the rare beauties, cement housing and fading wooden doors. Letting herself into her flat, she interrupted lunchtime, and suddenly both the maids, the cook, and the driver were fluttering around her, crying and touching her feet, treating her like a returned hero, the Pandavas coming back from the forest. She was forced into a chair and served tea and biscuits before she could get a word in, and then the haranguing began, How could you leave, madam, we were so worried, you must never do this again, on and on it went, a stream of reproaches and guilt-inducing statements that would have made her shrivel up into a ball a month ago, promising anything just to make it stop. Now, she straightened, put her tea aside, thanked Tanvi politely, and told her she was fired.

  She offered her and each of the other servants a severance that was more than any of them typically made in a year, and thanked them for everything they had ever done for her, for Ram, and for Rahi. Most of them n
odded, resigned, but Tanvi almost seemed relieved. She wailed and screamed, it was true, but behind it there was the sense of a burden laid to rest. Maybe that was just the weight that had rested on her heart so long; Pival didn’t know.

  They moved out the next week, taking money back to their villages or going on to other posts. Pival wrote Tanvi a recommendation that stressed her care and downplayed her judgmental nature, and saw her on her way. Sitting alone, in the apartment she had never thought she’d see again, she felt a sense of peace. She packed away Ram’s photograph, the fading marigolds around it, the incense and the offerings. She didn’t have to pray to him anymore. All the ghosts of her old life were gone now, except Rahi’s, and even that one was a ghost of love.

  To find new servants, Pival enlisted the help of an organization that rehabilitated women from Kolkata’s red-light district and trained them for housework. They were often immigrants, Pival was told, girls from Nepal, Tibet, and Bangladesh, of course, who had been displaced, or come to India for a better life, or been sold as children and spent their lives in brothels or waiting on sidewalks for men to buy their bodies. They often had trouble finding homes for their girls, Pival learned from the head of the organization, a woman with graying hair and a crisp cotton sari and such life in her eyes. People didn’t trust these women to be good workers, not to tempt their husbands, not to seduce their sons. They saw them as vamps, willing women, not humans looking for a new life. Pival hired two girls that day, a quiet Bangladeshi woman who almost never talked and who swept the floors, and a cook from Tibet who made wonderful vegetable dishes and never ever cared what Pival did with her time.