by Manju Kapur
‘Thank you,’ she murmured to a husband who was already asleep.
She put in some tossing and turning before drifting restlessly to the other room, over to the unit on which rested the TV, and quickly unearthed its single literary treasure. The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler, inscribed with love from Sue, was evidently unread from the stiffness of its pages. Well, might as well get to know this country. As she read on, the book gripped her. She had not realised rural Nova Scotia was so interesting. She would like to meet Sue, perhaps borrow other books.
And now she remembered, Ananda had said no point shipping, with the same money you could buy a new library. This remark drew the days ahead into some shape. To read as much as she liked with no disturbance! 612 Hollin Court began to seem like paradise.
Or so she thought at night. In the day it was sleep, sleep, sleep. ‘It’s just jet lag,’ said her husband, as he woke her up for dinner the next day. ‘Some people get it very badly.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘I can’t afford to. Not with my patients waiting. It’s all right for you, take your time.’
Did he not suffer, crossing nine different time zones? Or was Canada so deeply embedded in his body that waking, sleeping, he moved to its rhythms? One day her system too would move to a different beat.
For now, after a restless, wakeful night, sleep came upon her like the most artful lover in the day, and despite her determined efforts to resist, claimed her for his own. The tiredness of her life, the hardships, the journeys in buses, the baking summer sleeplessness on a calefacient bed, the nagging discomfort of two miniscule rooms, all melted into soft pillows, sweet smelling sheets and a springy mattress.
Two nights later she finished The Mountain and the Valley. She had a greater sense of Canada with this one book, than after all her husband’s conversation. At dinner she demanded more reading material.
‘I’ll ask Gary.’
‘What’ll I do in the meantime?’
‘Watch TV.’
‘TV?’
‘There is the remote. And there, the guide.’
Nina had never watched TV in her life. She required the printed word to fill the spaces in her mind, the leisured turning of pages, the slow absorption of words, the occasional re-reading. She wondered whether this suggested some rigidity of outlook.
iii
Certain Indians become immigrants slowly. They are not among those who have fled persecution, destitution, famine, slavery and death threats, nor among those for whom the doors of their country slam shut the minute they leave its borders.
These immigrants are always in two minds. Outwardly they adjust well. Educated and English speaking, they allow misleading assumptions about a heart that is divided.
In the new country they work lengthy hours to gain entrance into the system, into society, into establishing a healthy bank account. Years pass like this, ungrudged years because they can see their all sustaining dream of a better life coming true.
As far as citizenship is concerned, a divided heart means that the immigrant clings to his status, feeling that to give up his passport is the final break in the weakened chain that binds him to his motherland. That day does come however.
The steps towards it are varied and not necessarily slow. Sometimes trips to the home country bring a disillusion and bitterness that the immigrant has forgotten how to cope with. Is this how it is here? So corrupt, merit stifled, such malfunctioning of every civic amenity, where your last ounce of energy is spent in merely keeping the wheels of daily life oiled and running. For men this logic works particularly well. Ok, let’s be loyal to the country that has done so much for us.
In fact the years it takes to qualify for citizenship are needed to adapt, bit by bit, day by day. To stop finding little things strange and confusing, laughable and inappropriate. Wear the shoe on the other foot, sister, brother. They think the same of you. Get rid of the schism, become enough like them to be comfortable, merge and mingle. From East to West, over and over.
Forget the smells, sights, sounds you were used to, forget them or you will not survive. There is new stuff around, make it your own, you have to.
When it comes to buying, yes in North America clothes are mass produced and wonderful, food is plentiful, prepackaged and cheap. For a long time the immigrant looks upon these things with joy. This is what he has come for. The price he pays for leaving the uneven artistry of home is not very high.
Work is an easy way to integrate. Work engages the mind and prevents it from brooding over the respective merits of what has been lost and gained. Colleagues are potential friends.
The immigrant who comes as a wife has a more difficult time. If work exists for her, it is in the future and after much finding of feet. At present all she is, is a wife, and a wife is alone for many, many hours. There will come a day when even books are powerless to distract. When the house and its conveniences can no longer completely charm or compensate. Then she realises she is an immigrant for life.
Nina cries, feels homesick, sometimes adventurous, often forlorn. The minute she gets up she is at a loose end. Languidly she approaches her housework: dishwashing, bed making, cleaning, stretching every task out, slow, slow. She keeps the radio on, listening to music, advertisements, the CBC and its take on Quebec separatism and Pierre Elliott Trudeau. It seems a big issue here.
This done, she puts on her silk salwar kameez, fast becoming her uniform, goes out to wander around. She admires the Nova Scotian summer, so cool. She buys junk and nibbles it on the way: chips, chocolate, candy. She ruins her appetite, but she doesn’t need much of an appetite to do justice to the canned soup and toasted sandwich that will be her lunch.
Once home she takes off her shoes, which had been deceptively comfortable in the store, but now pinch like her old ones did.
Books bought from the grocery store fill her time. They are as cheap and trashy as the food she indulges in. Basically she waits for Ananda to come home, then she will talk, often the first words of the day. She writes frequently to her mother and Zenobia. Her letters are very cheerful.
Ananda knows she is lonely, but hopes she will settle down quickly. A teaching career would be ideal, but in the West the road to a teaching job is long and arduous. She has to have a PhD, she has to have published.
Nina insists that not doing anything for a while will be pleasant, however the statement lacks its earlier buoyancy. Ananda tries to come home early so they can do things together.
Women in Love is her first film in Halifax.
How strange the halls in the West are, thought Nina, holding on to a bag of buttered popcorn and surveying the miniscule number of people that made up the audience. Did they even make a profit? At home crowds milled around film halls, the black market in tickets was brisk. Here, come here, plenty of room for all.
The film credits started, Ananda took her hand and they became a regular couple, for all to see. Nina directed these visuals towards her mother and colleagues. Ananda directed them towards his uncle, aunt, Alka, Ramesh, Gary, Sue and the students at the school of dentistry. Look, look at the clasped hands, at her head resting against my shoulder.
Nina soon became distracted from the drama on the screen by the couple sitting directly in front of them. The man had his arm around the girl’s shoulders. Every so often their faces merged, their lips locked in kisses. Why couldn’t they wait till they got home? How long had they known each other, was this a new love or an old one, clandestine or legitimate? She marvelled at such passion in a public place, while her hand lay in Ananda’s, so coy and shy compared to the fecund model in front.
Those two lived on in her imagination long after she had forgotten the details of Women in Love.
Later as they were driving home, ‘Did you like the movie?’
‘It was lovely,’ though actually Women in Love had too much sex for Nina’s taste. She did not like direct evidence of how different her own experience was.
Ananda looked pl
eased.
‘But it was very different from the book. In fact,’ she said, warming to her theme, ‘I much prefer The Rainbow.’
‘Do you?’
‘Oh yes. I read everything Lawrence wrote, but his blood thing is overrated. What do you think?’
‘As a medical student, I did not get much time to read.’
Perhaps that was just as well. Only a fool would be influenced by the whole Lawrentian sexual mystique. If one applied books to life one had to distinguish between the prescriptive, descriptive, metaphoric and realistic.
She grabbed her husband’s hand. He pressed it momentarily before releasing it. He did not encourage affection on the road; too unsafe, too reckless, one should focus on what one was doing.
‘Did you know insurance rates are the highest for young unmarried men below twenty five?’
‘Really?’ How much the man knew!
‘They are considered very reckless.’
Nina twiddled with the knobs of the car radio, and was rewarded by a Beatles song: Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, it’s all right. She hummed and tapped her feet while her husband drove in silence.
That night Ananda couldn’t wait to get inside her. No foreplay, no kissing, just jam it in. Nina tried to take his head in her hands to suggest some preparation, but he was too impatient. The green glow of the digital clock cum radio sitting on the bedside table illuminated the seconds for one minute, and it was over. She didn’t even have time to speculate on the whiff of hospital odour, similar to the one she had smelt at the Oberoi. As she reached for his hand, he sighed,
‘That was better, wasn’t it?’
She murmured an assent. What this said about his standards, she did not care to consider. Besides, her body had decided to object to his emissions again. She rose to pee in the pink bathroom. Washing herself liberally, she wondered how long it would take her to conceive.
She woke up late next morning. From the stillness in the apartment she could tell Ananda had gone. He insisted she not get up for him, insisted beyond politeness, and she wondered whether he saw her as an intrusion. On his own for almost ten years, he must value his space. It couldn’t be easy to share everything with a still unfamiliar wife.
Rubbing her feet together, she lay in bed, eyes shut, enjoying the pleasure of perfect idleness. It was beautiful outside and the mild sun, clear blue sky and stringy white clouds called to her. She decided to surprise Ananda by planning and cooking dinner on her own. That meant she would have to touch meat, but such a moment was inevitable; it was not really fair that, because of her sensibilities, her husband had to cook his carnivore dish after the stress of work.
Tea in hand, she settled down with Canadian Cooking at its Finest, a book her husband loved. When I called so and so, I cooked such and such out of this, and boy, they couldn’t believe it had been made by me. Sue even said she was reminded of her mother’s cooking.
A glossy picture of a pork chop caught her eye. The recipe sounded easy with paprika, sour cream, peppercorns and bay leaves. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too bland. She got up, had a bath, put on her uniform and wended her way to the nest of shops across Hollin Court, that semi-circle of magic and desire. There was the Dominion Food Store, her old friend, the Shoppers Drug Mart, Canadian Tire, Scotia Bank, Nell’s Green Thumb, Flo’s Bakery, Canadian Post.
Each shop felt like a treasure trove. These very things Indians yearned for at home, here hers to possess. Alone she could exhibit her third world immigrant self, no witness to the depths to which a former academic had fallen.
Today she started with the Shoppers Drug Mart, really a shopper’s wonder mart. The drugs were confined to a small counter at the back, scarcely noticeable. The real drug was to her senses.
Starting down the corner aisle she passed sunglasses, mittens, gloves, in various sizes, colours, prices, textures.
Turn a corner stacked with special discount shampoos, then down another aisle to meet shaving creams, hair dyes, shampoos for every conceivable hair type, fragrance, different brands, marked down ones, bargain ones, store brand ones.
Turn the corner stacked with discounted bags of sweets. Colours of the rainbow glowed from bags of gums, jellies, boiled candy, chocolates, peppermints, caramels, toffees, mouth fresheners: the deep reds of cinnamon and cherry, the greens of mint, the blacks of liquorice.
Slowly around another corner, skirting the pyramid of two for one toothpastes.
To move on, down the aisle to body lotions, to meditate on her skin type, to compare prices and brands, to wonder how long it would take for one bottle to finish before another could be bought.
Around the corner to bath salts, bubble baths, bath creams, bottles and cubes all promising beautiful, glowing skin in a miasma of perfume, if one could bring oneself to lie in a tub and be surrounded by one’s dirt.
And then the counters where the agents of beauty were displayed: nail polish, lipsticks, mascara, eye shadow, foundations, with brushes to put these things on. And creams, thousands of creams to defeat age, blemishes, wrinkles, sun, water, dryness, oiliness—a cream for every second of the day and night.
A girl advances towards her. Would she like a free demonstration?
She is startled. It is more important to look than do. She rushes on to the savouries: potato chips in myriad flavours, barbeque, sour cream and onion, plain salted, garlic, cheese, then past the corn chips, the onion rings, the Cheetos, the tins of Pringle.
Turn the corner, past the stationery, the greeting cards, pencils, pens, office and kitchen equipment.
Down another aisle, past toilet paper, tissues, sanitary towels.
Endlessly picking up and putting down, staring, staring. So much variety takes away her power to choose because everything beckons.
She comes away with full eyes and empty hands. This was not about need, it was about plenty, and she feels sick from gorging.
Dissatisfied, and out of tune with herself, she angrily walked to Dominion’s. Why had she wasted so much time gazing at things? Firmly she walked past the aisles in a straight line; pork chop, sour cream, paprika, bay leaf, tinned peaches, cake mix, bought purposefully, without looking right or left. To do this was a test of character.
Her character tested, she lapsed into dreaminess before the window of Nell’s Green Thumb, visualising a home full of flowers, imagining suspended pots flowing over with myriad shaped leaves.
And then to reward herself for her steadfast behaviour in Dominion’s she visited the bakery to buy a cupcake, eat and feel sick. It was too rich for her, too full of white flour, which settled like a stone in her stomach, making her feel dull and full for hours afterwards. Still the sticky sweet taste soothed her.
One day she would have looked her fill, satisfied enough longing to feel replete. On that day she would float through the semi-circle of shops, going straight towards the things she needed, above the blandishments of the material West. That day she would have clarity of mind and heart. She thought these things as she trudged up the little hill to 612 Hollin Court, bearing her produce in a backpack.
Ananda was going to be offered peaches in cream. Both of them liked tinned peaches, so big, yellow and syrupy. And he was going to get a crisp fresh salad with blue cheese dressing, the one he loved, that was evidence of his sophisticated preferences. And chocolate cake with cherry burgundy icecream.
She ate this same ice cream for lunch, rested, then put on an old shirt of Ananda’s over her salwar kameez to start the cooking.
Rub garlic on the pan, braise (explained by the glossary) the chop, stab it gingerly with fork, mix sour cream, paprika, five peppercorns, salt, throw in pork chop, shove in oven, reflect on how lonely it looks, hope the husband will like it. Now cut up the salad, boil peas, mash potatoes, make cake from the stuff in the box, open peaches, lay table. Set wine glasses, unearth candle stand, insert three red candles. Use Indian table mats, part of trousseau. Rest aching legs, ignore counter covered with peel and packages.
A
key turned in the lock.
‘Surprise!’
‘My goodness. What is this, a party?’
‘A party for you.’
‘My,’ he repeated, coming to kiss her. She lifted her face eagerly.
He poured himself a drink while she briefly described her expedition to the Hollin Court shops. I went, I bought. Then they sat down to eat.
‘Do you like it?’ she asked, surveying him from behind the egg shaped glow of the non-dripping candles. ‘I couldn’t taste the meat, but I know you are fond of pork chops. I hope it is all right?’
Ananda looked up, mouth full. ‘Very good,’ he said appreciatively. ‘How did you manage to cook like this?’
‘Canadian Cooking at its Finest.’
‘Wonderful book. Sue said her mother couldn’t prepare better spareribs.’
‘You mentioned.’
‘These people are very particular about home food.’
‘I know.’
‘And you are fitting in nicely.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘you haven’t finished your wine.’
Nina gingerly sipped the sour tasting liquid.
Ananda beamed, ‘Californian. Three dollars a bottle. Tastes the same as French, so why pay good money for a name? Now—what’s for dessert?’
The wine made Nina feel high and melancholy, like looking at the sky from the apartment window and feeling her solitude. She shook herself. ‘Cherry burgundy ice cream, chocolate cake which I baked, peaches with cream.’
‘Three deserts Wow.’
‘Well, I couldn’t decide—so I thought why not allow you the choice.’
‘At the clinic today I never thought I’d be getting such a spread. A real change from bachelor days, I can tell you.’
Nina bustled about with many dishes, while Ananda cleared the plates.
Much was eaten.
Then Ananda said, ‘You sit, and let me do the washing up.’
‘I will do it. You have had a hard day at the clinic.’