THE IMMIGRANT

by Manju Kapur

  Once home, Ananda gratified his wife by insisting they make love immediately. Maybe this time you’ll get pregnant, he whispered, though he did not last long enough for such hopes to persist.

  Still, thought Ananda, sexually he was doing better than before, even without the anaesthetic he sprayed on his penis to delay his climax. He felt uneasy about using it too frequently; it was meant for teeth after all, not for tender female depths. And although Nina had not complained, except to remark on the smell, his own sensations were unpleasantly affected.

  He knew he still had miles to go before he reached his goal of pounding some woman to sexual pulp, but with marriage, he had gained confidence. One day he might try again with a white woman. He loved his wife, but he didn’t want to feel that she was the only one in the world he could have sex with. What kind of man would that make him, with his masculinity so limited? His lack of control rendered him very vulnerable, the anxiety of it grew cancerously inside him. Every female patient lying in his chair with her mouth open, giving herself trustingly to him, made him imagine an alternate sexual scenario. Her attractiveness, her responses, were immaterial; his sole concern was, could he do it? At these moments his touch became tender, his voice lower as he assured her she would feel no pain, the injection would only take a second.

  He was a doctor, bound by professional codes, and his fantasies sometimes disturbed him.

  At least he was lucky in his wife, a good woman, never saying anything to make him feel bad. As he came out of the bathroom, full of ungratified needs and sexual resolve, she smiled at him and asked whether he would like some tea. He could hear her hum in the kitchen as he put on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, one of his favourites.

  vi

  As immigrants fly across oceans they shed their old clothing, because clothes maketh the man and new ones help ease the transition. Men’s clothing has less international variation; the change is not so drastic. But those women who are not used to wearing Western clothes find themselves in a dilemma. If they focus on integration, convenience and conformity they have to sacrifice habit, style and self-perception. The choice is hard, and in Nina’s case it took months to wear down her resistance.

  Looking after her Indian clothes was time consuming and exhausting. Everything had to be washed by hand, then hung on hangers from the shower curtain rod to dry, then the ironing board had to be hauled from the closet so the clothes could be ironed meticulously. And ironed again whenever she wore them, for this fabric crumpled easily.

  In Brussels her mother had worn saris everywhere, thick Kanjeevarams even in the snow, underneath her winter overcoat. Lovely, lovely, had been the unanimous response. But to go with all this, she had imported Indian domestic help

  Nina’s clothes demanded the local dhobi, the corner presswallah, not washing machines. So when Ananda declared enough was enough, she had to graduate to Western, she acquiesced.

  He hadn’t thought his wife would need so much prodding. Once dressed in a certain way, it would be easy for her to blend in; she was lighter in colour than he was, her origins not so obvious. In her silks (praised at the party as exotic and dazzling) she was too much of an exhibit.

  The weather helped him win his argument. Although in the summer she was quite comfortable in her salwar kameez, as it grew colder, the wind dug sharply into her silk clad legs, the damp ground made the hems of her salwar dirty, while constant scrubbing left the edges ragged. She couldn’t live in such clothes for the rest of her life, she knew that.

  To the Halifax Shopping Centre then, to those giants in standard clothing, Eaton’s and Simpsons, that flanked either end of the mall. Ananda’s patriotism meant that he preferred Eaton’s, the all-Canadian store, to the offshoot of Simpson-Sears, USA.

  Once there he hunted out a salesgirl while Nina surveyed the racks in the woman’s section. Blue, black, grey, brown, white, these were the dominant colours.

  The salesgirl’s X-ray vision looked through the kindly, concealing salwar kameez to the awkward body beneath and asked, ‘What would you like? A skirt? A dress? Tops? Slacks? Jeans?’

  Nina disguised her apprehension with a look of deep thoughtfulness that she hoped could be interpreted as Eastern mysticism. ‘Pants?’ she said, her voice disengaged and distant.

  ‘Jeans,’ clarified the husband.

  ‘Try these for size.’

  The stiff blue material pinched her waist and hurt her crotch. She tried squatting in them; the discomfort grew. Looser, I want looser. In a larger size, she could slip a hand in the waistband, but still the material felt hard and stiff against her skin. Her bra stuck out in points under the knit material of the accompanying shirt, her belly bulged visibly against the material. She looked so awful she could not bear it. Averting her head from the mirror, she stepped outside the trial room.

  ‘That looks nice,’ said Ananda enthusiastically.

  ‘I feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘They’ll feel better after a couple of washes,’ said the salesgirl.

  The jeans were agreed upon. So were two dark baggy shirts. For the first time in her adult life Nina was wearing assembly line clothing.

  It was a beginning, thought the husband. She did look ungainly, he had to admit. Despite her foreign service background, his wife was quite traditional. He smiled at her. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he said, and she said that if she looked nice to him that was all that mattered. He put his arm around her and thought again what a good woman his wife was.

  Nina has new clothes. She is going to the library and on the way she will check the number of covert glances she is able to dis-attract. As she walks the familiar roads her gaze flickers here and there, but her surroundings respond with indifference. She could be any jean clad woman with a colour co-ordinated blue shirt. There is comfort in this anonymity. She strolls through the public gardens, stops and stares at the ducks. They swim in the waters with an air of belonging, regally swallowing the bread people throw at them. They are there to be admired, and they do their job well.

  As she hangs over the railing, a young man sidles towards her. ‘Nice, aren’t they?’

  She nods uncertainly.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  It is broad daylight in a public place. ‘Guess,’ she says, in her accentless English.

  ‘Italy?’

  She nods.

  ‘Wanna have a coffee?’

  Alarmed, she ceases to be an adventuress from Italy and subsides into a housewife from India. Quickly she leaves the park.

  In all the time of wearing salwar kameez no one had accosted her. Now in jeans, she is accessible to the whole city. She looks down at her clothes with some friendliness. Maybe in time she will get used to her belly jutting out (it hadn’t stopped a man from addressing her), get used to thick stiff material between her legs.

  The Candy Bowl arrives. She nips in and spends 14.95. It is just as well men do not accost her every day.

  The library, and our newly clad Nina disappears inside it. Assimilation brings approval, and the checkout counter woman assures her she looks wonderful.

  Autumn came. Sue phoned. ‘Nina? Would you like to go to the Halifax Shopping Centre to look for your coat and boots? I promised Andy I would do this, and I’m sorry, I just haven’t had the time.’

  Nina hastened to convince Sue that she had not felt neglected.

  ‘Afterwards I thought we could visit the Atlantic Winter Fair?’ Sue went on with her upward lilt. ‘The children love it. We could go directly from there. The fall colours on that road are really nice.’

  ‘Won’t the children get bored buying a coat?’

  ‘It shouldn’t take too long—and you’ll get to see a bit of our Nova Scotian culture as well.’

  ‘I’d love that.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll pick you up in half an hour.’

  Nina used that time to experiment with her clothes. The jeans and shirt of course, but she tried her shawls in various draping combinations so that she seemed more herself in t
he mirror. Finally she decided that a red shawl in folds till her waist and Ananda’s grey all purpose coat made her look quite attractive. Would Sue think so too?

  Sue did. ‘My, you look nice. What a lovely stole, it complements your skin, we sit for hours to get a tan like that.’ But Nina is not interested in fairness or darkness; they have their standards, she has hers and never the twain shall meet. She wants information.

  Last night, perhaps in consonance with her new look, Ananda had asked Nina to call him Andy. She had refused. It was foreign, Christian, Western, and to use the word Andy in her own home would be to carry alienation into the bedroom. Ananda had not persisted, but the very fact that he had asked suggested desires she found disturbing.

  ‘Sue. Can you say Ananda?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Andy. His name is Ananda.’

  ‘I did realise you were calling him something different at the party, but I thought that was a pet name.’

  ‘No, no, it’s his actual name. Andy is not a Hindu name.’

  ‘Well, fancy that. He always said call me Andy.’

  There was a subtle distinction between call me Andy and my name is Andy, which Sue was perhaps not in a position to appreciate. To sensitise her, Nina briefly described Ananda’s efforts to assimilate.

  The granddaughter of immigrants, Sue was completely understanding. ‘My grandfather changed his name from Dmitri to Jimmy. His last name from Philippoussis to Phillip.’

  ‘Jimmy doesn’t even sound like Dmitri,’ objected Nina.

  ‘He wanted a total change. My grandfather didn’t do things by halves.’

  ‘Didn’t your grandmother mind? She must have been used to Greek names.’

  ‘I think she felt the same way. They were very poor. They met on the boat they came out on, and married soon after they landed. They were grateful to this country, they thought of it as their home before they had even seen it.’

  ‘What about their identity?’

  ‘Oh, they had the one they wanted. Canadian. They made every effort to mingle as fast as possible. Even though their English was limited, they didn’t insist their children learn Greek. Then my mother married a Scottish Canadian, and I married someone of Polish origin. End of Greece.’

  Dmitri—Jimmy, Ananda—Andy. If you looked at it from this end it made sense. New beginnings, new names. Didn’t Hindu families change the bride’s name if they felt like it? Hello Canada, we are married. Now change my name.

  What about colour? Dmitri could call himself Jimmy and get away with it, his skin was a shade of white. What assimilation when your body stamped you an outsider?

  Never, for a moment, in all her years at home, had she to think about who or what she was. She had belonged. Only now was she beginning to realise how much that meant.

  In the back seat John kept up a steady chant: horsy, horsy, horsy, horsy ride horsy.

  ‘Yes dear, you’ll ride a pony once we get there.’

  ‘Ride horsy, ride horsy,’ repeated John insistently.

  Sue spent five minutes nosing around for a space in the parking lot, then John was put in the stroller, Melissa’s hand taken and now Simpson’s or Eatons?

  ‘Let me see,’ she murmured, heading towards Simpson’s. ‘They did advertise a pre-winter sale of camel hair coats—maybe with a lining…’

  ‘Gimme candy, I want candy,’ started Melissa, her attention caught by a lollipop a little boy was sucking.

  ‘No dear, you only get candy on Sundays. It’s not Sunday yet.’

  ‘Candy, I want candy.’

  ‘No dear.’

  ‘CANDY—I WANT CANDY.’

  Nina felt responsible for Melissa’s behaviour. It was her coat that was causing it. ‘We can come another time,’ she offered.

  Sue ignored this, turning her attention to her daughter. ‘Now Melly—if you don’t say another word about candy, I’ll give you some caramel corn at the fair. But otherwise not even that.’

  Melly shut up. Nina was impressed by the effective discipline.

  Sue explained, ‘I don’t like bribing them, but when they see other children eating candy, they can’t help but want. Well, other children will end up in the dentist’s chair, but they are too young to understand that.’

  They walked to the Simpson’s end of the mall and into the ladies’ section. By now Nina had developed ambitions as to how she wanted to look in Western clothes. Tall, slim, elegant, at ease in a good quality coat that she could swish about in. She liked what she saw of the camel hair, the same colour as her tussar saris—golden beige, sophisticated, understated, attractive. ‘Here’s a nice one,’ said Sue, ‘it has a cape, very in this season, with a belt and a detachable lining.’

  Nina looked doubtful. A belt would showcase her stomach, her shoulders would be widened by the extra material of the cape. She tried it on, and the tall, elegant image of herself faded before the reality of the mirror.

  In the end she bought a coat in which she would not be noticed, an ordinary camel coat with a detachable lining, two ugly raised plastic beehive buttons, a small unobtrusive collar; a coat with no character. This cost her ninety five dollars.

  Boots followed, plain brown low-heeled boots to match the coat.

  ‘Well, that’s done,’ said Sue brightly, as they headed towards the car less than an hour later.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Nina, her heart heavy at the thought of what lay in the parcels she was carrying. She reminded herself that clothes were for comfort and protection, looks came afterwards and were not essential to the more enduring values of life.

  They hit St Margaret’s Bay Road, crossing a lake that reflected the sun in a silver rippling sheet. Trees glittered with incandescent reds and yellows. Above them the sky was a deep blue and in the distance a bank of rolling dark clouds shaded into peach at the edges.

  Nina gazed at this spectacle. The sky reflected such a variety of moods, gentle, melancholic, tender, romantic, fierce; she could look at it forever. Finally she said, ‘I hope those clouds don’t mean it is going to rain. The Fair will be quite ruined.’

  Sue looked puzzled. ‘I do have a couple of umbrellas in the back.’

  Now Nina looked bewildered. ‘Won’t the children get wet?’

  ‘It’s not far.’

  This was even less clear, and Nina took refuge in silence.

  The Atlantic Winter Fair. Oh, it is inside a building realised the immigrant, for whom fairs were associated with Diwali, with stalls around a maidan, rising dust, a friendly winter sun, crowds, rides on elephants, bangle sellers, paper lanterns, firecrackers, earthen diyas and all kinds of delicious food.

  They queued up for entrance tickets and once inside, John started his chant again, ‘Ride horsy, ride horsy, ride horsy,’ while Melissa cried, ‘I want candy, you promised.’

  Caramel corn bought, they headed towards the petting farm. Ponies, sheep, goats, calves, pigs, all there to be petted. John and Melissa rode ponies. Then they saw a hog race, then they circulated among the many animals, all so fat that not a bone could be seen.

  And then to the barn, row after row of horses’ rumps, beautiful gleaming rumps: black, dark brown, brown, roan, red, gold, a few greys. Their tails were being plaited, their coats brushed, their manes clipped.

  Announcements were being made. The competition of jumpers in the speed class was about to begin.

  ‘Ride horsy, I wanna ride horsy,’ said John, toddling towards a huge chestnut, eighteen hands high. A young girl with Anna written on her sleeve was holding its reins. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Look how big he is.’

  ‘Wanna ride horsy,’ repeated John, who barely reached the horse’s knee.

  ‘John, come here,’ called Sue.

  John didn’t budge. Sue grabbed him irritably. Having children in the West is no joke, pondered Nina. Complete absence of help along with constant demands. And Sue would soon have a third. What life would she have left?

  ‘Ride horsy,’ repeated John as his mother dra
gged him towards the rink, saying, ‘You rode that nice pony, remember? Now we’ll see the big horsy jump.’

  They settled into seats high above the rink. The dirt was raked, ten jumps set up. One by one, the horses came, cantered around to warm up before starting their rounds of seventy seconds. The spectators groaned at every railing knocked over, clapped loudly at the successful few.

  It was soothing, watching these horses, noting their strange names: Holly Go Lightly, Bluestreak, Thunderbolt, Winner, Ascot, It’s No Trouble. The hall was warm, the fresh dung had an earthy, moist smell. The horses were big, healthy and glossy, their movements fluid. Nina too groaned, held her breath and applauded with everyone else. She felt part of the crowd, the fair, the city, the province, the country.

  One day she would be sitting here with her children. All this would seem very natural to them; their minds would be imprinted with Canadian images from the day they were born. It made her a little sad that they should be so different from their mother. On the other hand, they wouldn’t have inherited the template in the mother’s mind where every experience contained a hidden double. If she saw a horse, it stood against the emaciated beast back home, if horse droppings were cleared she was reminded of the way cow dung patties dried in the sun, if she wandered around a fair it was against the vast backdrop of Diwali melas. Compound images shuttled to and fro in her mind, faster than the speed of lightning, covering thousands of miles, there and back, there and back, there and back.

  She broke her silence by saying, ‘I am so glad you brought me here. Our fairs at home are very different.’

  Sue smiled indulgently. It was axiomatic that for the immigrant everything was new; she took it for granted that Nina would want to imbibe this culture as fast as possible. Like Dmitri Philippoussis. Sue could not imagine differences that hurt the senses and pained the mind. No, she couldn’t imagine such a thing, and because she lived in Canada, it was probable she would never have to.

  Ananda was very pleased when he heard about Nina’s day.