THE IMMIGRANT

by Manju Kapur

  The relationship cooled; a few more encounters and it turned quite cold. The tactful ceasing of Gary’s questions led him to believe that knowledge of his failure had spread. He abhorred the experience of Western women, which gave them the ability to compare.

  It became worse when Gary started going out with Sue. Sue the voracious. She reminded him of Nandita.

  ‘What about Kim?’ he questioned.

  ‘We weren’t making it man, Sue is more my type.’

  ‘But still her friend and all?’

  ‘Hey, man, nobody owns anybody.’

  ‘Is that Kim’s view?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask her if you are so concerned?’ snapped Gary. ‘Besides she’ll find someone else, plenty of fish in the sea.’

  The sea could be crawling with fish, but to meet the one his friend was now dating was going to embarrass him terribly.

  Gary made no further attempt to fix up dates for Ananda. ‘There are always solutions to problems, man,’ he said invitingly, but Ananda chose not to get into this discussion. Gary was his dearest friend, but how could he explain a difficulty he barely understood? There was a lack of inhibition in the women he met that excited and alarmed him. He had to match up in some unknown way. After his encounter with Sue he went over his performance in minute detail. Where had he gone wrong? He had so longed to abandon himself in her arms—Sue, who stood for the whole race, who was the book of knowledge.

  As he tried to figure out his feelings in the dark watches of the night, he wondered whether his inability to love a white woman meant he had never really left India. Perhaps he was still clinging to his parents, still unable to come to terms with their deaths, still faithful to the notions of purity they had instilled in him. In his more despairing moments he liked to imagine he was indelibly marked by a tragedy that had imperceptibly seeped into his blood, bones and muscle. He who had never failed at anything was now failing in this most fundamental act, an act which even the poorest, meanest, most deprived peasant in India performed with ease.

  In his less despondent moments he dismissed these thoughts as trivial rubbish. The fact that his penis seemed to have its own notions made him a little vulnerable, that was all.

  The few Indian girls he met in Halifax did not attract him. He was too suspicious of the strings he saw around them. They might be looking for marriage, they might regard any physical contact as commitment, they might get their parents to contact his uncle.

  And then too Indian women meant he could never escape his country. His uncle might remember on occasion that he was Indian, Nancy might enjoy playing the native, but for him the basement of the Equador Hotel on Diwali and Holi only evoked the shadows of home without its beauty. He hadn’t travelled so far for that.

  For a while he was edgy around Gary, wary of Sue’s presence and judgement. But Sue met him with her usual friendliness and Ananda was forced to behave as she did. Gary continued to be his natural self, and gradually the trust that had been severely shaken was reaffirmed. Such a friend was worth crossing the seven seas for.

  Meanwhile Ananda threw himself into his work. He had done well in the first part of his DDS, he was soon appearing for the clinical evaluation. His skill in passing exams stood him in good stead.

  Finally he was a qualified Canadian dentist. Dr Cameron offered him a junior partnership. He was getting old, his back hurt, his eyes were giving him trouble. It was time to semi-retire. Ananda was delighted to prove that he was not the menial he had seemed the previous summer. All those people for whom he had made impressions, mixed silver, filled glasses of water, now all those people were going to see him in his true avatar.

  When his uncle posed the big question—did Ananda want to specialise?—the nephew replied that he could not afford to. Gary however was going to become a paediatric dental surgeon. After that the two friends were thinking of a practice together. Yes, professionally things were going smoothly, congratulated Dr Sharma. Now for his personal life. ‘Beta, here one is alone. You need a companion. Unfortunately these things are not arranged as they are in India, otherwise—’

  The boy blushed, ‘Uncle, please, there is no need. First I want to repay my debts.’

  Didn’t Ananda know that in Canada a wife was willing to support you while you established yourself? Women did demand—some of them—equality, but in turn they also shouldered considerable responsibilities. The boy was good-looking, with sharp features, dimples, smooth skin brownish red in colour, bright intelligent eyes behind black rimmed glasses. Was he gay? Gary?

  ‘Does your friend have a girlfriend?’

  ‘Lots.’

  You too could have lots, cried the uncle’s heart, you are such a good boy. Any woman would be lucky to have you—steady, faithful, reliable, earning well.

  But he had to let him be. His wife was never tired of pointing out that he was obsessed with his nephew. He wasn’t, but he had a special empathy for young Indian immigrants, facing his own initial difficulties.

  Ananda fixed his eyes on the grass outside the ceiling window, picked his lips with his fingers, tapped his foot against the floor and withdrew into his shell. After a few minutes the uncle left, leaving Ananda free to throw himself face down on the bed. He could smell his uncle’s cologne and it made him furious. What he did with his emotional life was his business. They were not in India. In the guise of discussing his future he could not come and say anything he liked.

  To himself he could admit how desperately he wanted a girl to love. His experience with Sue had been traumatic, but maybe another? In this country nothing was awarded the faint-hearted.

  There was little variation in the next two years of Ananda’s life. He worked at Dr Cameron’s and saved money. He did not move out of his bedsit, and he did not take a holiday. Gary accused him of penny-pinching—but that was Gary not understanding his ways. Though another loan was unavoidable, he wanted it to be as low as possible. Gary and the nation could go on paying interest on borrowed money, but he saw no necessity to follow suit.

  Gradually Ananda lost Gary to Sue. Occasionally he joined them, but he was hesitant about being an awkward third, the bone in the kebab, the fly on the wall of their love. He envied his friend the security of his relationship. Sue was territory he had explored but had not been able to possess. She had been willing but an essential part of him remained hiding in his pants, shy, insecure and frightened. Now she and his friend had found each other and day and night they bloomed.

  Gary and he talked of partnership, of loans, rentals, offices, practices, equipment, types of insurance and hiring staff, but when it came to anything intimate, he fell silent. Unlike Gary’s, his personal life was confined to the same, monotonous, never varying place.

  Many girls were attracted to him, but he could keep nothing going beyond a few dates. Still, he was hopeful. With an understanding partner, sexual prowess could improve. He dropped all those who suggested doctors, they were trying to undermine his confidence. How could there be anything wrong with him when he wanted sex so much? And which doctor did these stupid women think he could go to? He belonged to the medical fraternity, and he knew no sex therapist existed in Halifax.

  Two years later Gary emerged a fully fledged specialist. By now Ananda had gained experience and popularity at Dr Cameron’s. Being Indian turned out to be his USP. Arranged marriages, elephants, tigers, tree houses, there was no end to his patients’ curiosity or misconceptions. There they were, pinned to their chairs by their open mouths, happy to listen to him, willing to be distracted, eager to be enlightened. Dr Cameron was very sorry to see him go.

  Gary and Ananda bought a house on the corner of Durant and Leslie Streets. By himself Ananda would not have dared to venture into a future tied up in mortgage payments, but with the security of Gary by his side, he felt bold and Canadian.

  Ananda loved the house. It was double storied with brown wooden shingles. Twin hydrangea bushes flowered on either side of the steps, and on the front lawn was a Japanese maple wit
h maroon leaves.

  The pair hired an architect to help them convert the ground floor into a dental clinic comprising three offices, a reception with picture windows and a tiny kitchen. A ramp was built for wheelchairs. Upstairs was transformed into a self-contained residential unit that the zoning laws demanded. It had hardwood floors, a fireplace, a tree brushing against the back window and large rooms; a place to die for. Gary fixed the rent, and decided that he would be the one to stay there—if his partner didn’t mind. For, he explained, things were getting serious with Sue, and he needed a proper place. Of course, said Ananda, of course Gary must take the apartment.

  Nothing further was said. Both saw it fit that Gary should retain the privileges his birth and country gave him. Later Gary would get the slightly larger office with the slightly better view.

  Many of the repairs Gary intended they carry out themselves.

  ‘I am not a carpenter,’ complained Ananda as they drove towards Canadian Tire.

  ‘You’ll learn on the job, that’s what we all do. As it is, the plumbing will cost a bomb.’

  They sawed, they fixed, they painted. Dr Geller senior helped, as did all their friends. The chumminess reminded Ananda of his friends at King Edward Medical College. How many of them, he wondered, had built their own shelters in a strange land? Truly an immigrant had to be skilled in many things.

  Despite Ananda’s two years of saving, his debts became oppressive. A friend of Dr Geller senior sold them his practice for twenty five thousand dollars. That was twelve thousand five hundred his share, plus ten thousand on filling materials, five thousand each on new dental chairs, six thousand on new X-ray machines. Then there was malpractice insurance, liability insurance and the insurance for the equipment and office contents. In frightened moments he added his dental school loans that he was paying off at the rate of ten percent interest. Gary laughed at his fears and told him to be a man. In a few years he promised they would be earning so much he wouldn’t even notice his payments.

  There was much comfort in the fact that he and Gary were a team, consisting of two dentists (themselves), one hygienist and one receptionist cum secretary. If only his parents could see him now. A respected member of society, with a Canadian as partner and best friend. A man of substance in the new world.

  In the apartment upstairs, in a place that promised security and contentment, Sue became pregnant. She and Gary decided to do the conventional thing and get married.

  Ananda was best man. He stood next to the groom in the church on Spring Garden Road, and drank in the solemnity of the occasion, the vast arrays of flowers, the pews filled with white Anglo Saxon Canadians, quiet, elegant, expectant and well-behaved. The sound of the organ filled the church, deep, moving, sonorous. It had to be the most wonderful instrument in the world.

  To marry a white woman would be like marrying the country with your whole body. He wondered whether being Hindu would be a deterrent to a church wedding.

  The bride appeared. She was clothed in a sheath-like gown that left her shoulders bare. A single strand of large white pearls ringed her neck, pearl drops dangled from her ears, white gauze flowed over her pulled back hair. Down the aisle she walked, drawing all eyes towards her.

  The service began. Ananda’s attention wandered through its long recital, till ring, the priest indicated, and Gary turned to him. Soon the couple kissed, tenderly, lengthily, passionately. The audience sighed as the bride and groom trooped off to sign the register in the small side room.

  1975. A state of Emergency is declared in India. The nation has had enough of democratic processes declares the Prime Minister, it is time for stronger medicine to cure the body politic.

  Uncle and nephew are horrified at what is happening back home. Ananda writes anxious letters to his sister. Won’t she think of emigrating? He is not a citizen yet, but he is sure their uncle will sponsor Ramesh.

  His sister writes scolding letters back. Ramesh is a trained bureaucrat. Unlike medicine or engineering, that is not a profession with transferable skills. Besides, the new dispensation is making use of his talents in Delhi. Western media with their obsession with democracy tended to blow things out of proportion. India did not need an opposition, India needed economic development, which a strong leadership enabled. The slogans he heard, like India was Indira, Indira was India, were coined to drive this into the heads of the masses. Ananda could come back now—the nation needed its doctors, with his foreign degree he would find that home was the land of opportunity.

  What opportunity was his sister talking about? He was still in touch with his old college friends—they were all desperate to leave. Why should he go back?

  Meanwhile pictures of Sanjay Gandhi appeared with great regularity in the weekly Statesman and Guardian that Dr Sharma passed on to the nephew. Dr Sharma was a great believer in news. And the news was all bad. The PM was re-writing the nation’s laws. Her party’s majority meant that she considered herself free to amend the constitution, to award her office more power and to imprison any dissenter. Parliament was harnessed to her will. States where the Congress did not have enough seats had their assemblies dissolved with President’s Rule imposed.

  India had become a threatening place. A censored press, forced sterilizations, a factory that never took off, money laundering, kickbacks, torture, with more and more in jail. Each detail became a brick in the edifice of Ananda’s love for Canada, the sanctuary. He determined to become a citizen as soon as he qualified.

  From time to time Alka brought up her poor lonely brother’s need for a wife. Such and such offer had come, what did he think? He always thought negatively. A wife from India meant the India Club, meant socialising with immigrants, pretending they had a bond, when really he found their conversation monotonous and boring. With a superior snigger they compared their own virtues with the shortcomings of their adopted country; look at their domestic life, the way they educated their children, their sexual morality, their marriages, their treatment of the old, etc, etc. Then they talked of Hindi films and songs. Their heads, hearts and purses were permanently and uneasily divided between two countries.

  Give him Gary any day.

  Alka began to get more insistent.

  ‘Did you think about that last proposal? I can’t keep putting off interested people.’

  ‘You should see the way I live—in one room as a paying guest.’

  ‘A wife will help you settle. Ma’s spirit will not rest in peace till you are married.’

  Ananda thought mournfully of his sexual difficulties, and wondered whether the breakthrough moment would come with an arranged marriage. Certainly he could count on a willing, patient, forgiving, loving partner.

  ‘You have to stop being so fussy. My astrologer told me about this girl, a teacher in my old college, a year younger than you, father used to be in the IFS. She sounds just your type.’

  ‘How do you know what my type is?’

  ‘O-ho. Calm down. I will send her picture, and if you approve I will meet her.’

  ‘There is no need for hurry.’

  ‘You are thirty one, you call that hurrying?’

  ‘How can I decide with just a photo? What about compatibility, taste, her ability to live here?’

  ‘Poor boy,’ murmured Alka after a pause. ‘To think like this makes it more difficult. Marriage is a question of adjustment.’

  ‘You still need a canvas to paint on.’

  ‘So write, phone, get to know her. I am not asking you to marry a stranger. No thinking person can.’

  Still, she was pulling him backwards into the arms of an Indian wife. If she could see how respected he was in his community, how immersed in Canada, she would understand his reluctance.

  ‘Why don’t you visit me? Get your hotshot husband to wrangle a trip abroad. Must be easy now.’

  Alka spent the next five minutes of the precious phone call explaining how Ramesh was not one of those corrupt civil servants used to wrangling trips abroad. He was a loyal and
humble servant of the state. He wanted India to progress, and ever since strikes were banned the economy had been improving.

  Abruptly Alka rang off. Were things so bad that an ignorant middle class housewife had to sound like a propaganda machine? Was her phone being tapped?

  Two weeks later, a photograph. He stared at it, a bland, black and white formal portrait of a girl gazing into the distance. It gave away nothing. Certainly not the state of her teeth.

  He first kept the snapshot face down on the table, but after a few days propped it tentatively against the frame containing his parents. Suppose circumstances propelled her from the basement to the clinic?

  Picture of wife sitting in the dentist’s office on top of the implement cabinet:

  Patients ask, who is that lovely lady? She looks so exotic.

  With quiet pride he responds, that is my wife, her name is… he opened his sister’s letter, ah yes, there it was, Nina. Her name is Nina.

  Nina, what a nice name.

  Both Indian and Canadian. There are few names like that.

  Like Andy? Dr Andy?

  Actually Andy is not my real name, my Indian name is Ananda. Means deep happiness.

  Really?

  My friends call me Andy, and since it is easier to say, I use it myself.

  End of conversation, but was it the end of Nina? Her name had been thoughtfully provided, no need for a Westernized version.

  By this time Ananda had experienced multitudinous unbearable evenings. It was a little humiliating not to be able to find a companion on his own, but he had to admit there were some things he could not do. This was a very intimate area, and his body showed him who was master every single time.

  He came from a traditional background. What was wrong with thinking of a woman from home? His sister would consider the girl’s age, education, looks, adaptability and lack of encumbrances. In a way the ground would be cleared. His friends might wonder at his choice, but Westerners, thank god, were not nosy, inquisitive, prying and pushy with their insane curiosity about other people’s lives.