THE IMMIGRANT

by Manju Kapur

‘Nice of Sue.’

  ‘Do you want to see the coat?’

  ‘Sure.’

  The middle aged, frumpish, bulky, inelegant creation was modelled. ‘I think it makes me look old.’

  ‘Nah. You look fine.’

  ‘Should I take it back?’

  ‘You bought it, Sue helped you, she would not have let you buy something unsuitable. Why are you being fussy? ‘

  Because in winter enough bulges could be hidden for even her to appear glamorous, and this coat meant she had failed before the first snowflake fell.

  vii

  Till Nina came to Canada she hadn’t known what lonely meant. At home one was never really alone. The presence of her mother, the vendors who came to the door, the half hour gardener who watered their plants, the part time maid who washed and cleaned, the encounters with the landlady, all these had been woven into her day. When she mourned her loneliness to Zenobia, it was a romantic companionate loneliness she was referring to, not the soul destroying absence of human beings from her life. She had worried about her mother’s lack of companionship after her marriage; it would have been wise to have spared a thought for herself as well.

  Day after day passed without her speaking to anyone but Ananda.

  ‘Why is it that we hardly see uncle? It’s just us two, alone in the whole city with no one to care if we live or die.’

  ‘People are busy here. We meet them for family functions.’

  ‘Like birthdays?’

  ‘Birthdays! That’s not a family function. No, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, occasions like that.’

  ‘Thanksgiving and Christmas! That’s all?’

  ‘It’s a big thing. Nancy does them very well. For Thanksgiving, pumpkin pie, turkey and stuffing, fresh cranberry sauce. For Christmas, presents under the tree, stockings with our names on them and a traditional dinner. It is nice to have somewhere to go on holidays.’

  Her husband was talking another language. Canadian perhaps.

  Her most intense social gesture was a nod. One could go to a shop and buy something without a word, the prices were all written, no need to ask, suspect, haggle or accuse.

  If she had a baby, the next twenty years would be taken care of. Her interest in Canada would grow, her child’s home after all. Would s/he have an accent? Read at an early age like her mother? Shine in school like his father?

  Ananda’s thoughts of their child’s future were on a grander scale. He should aim to be prime minister of Canada. If no NRI had so far reached high office, there was a first time for everything. The country had been made by immigrants, and that included people like themselves.

  This when incidents of racial hatred were frequently reported in the newspapers. In Toronto the other day, students had beaten an Asian travelling on the subway. The subway—a public place.

  Ananda feels it is useless being frightened by such incidents. Intimidation should not be allowed to succeed.

  Meanwhile Nina’s biological clock ticks on and the sounds echo loudly in the Canadian vastness. Every time she has sex she imagines her egg fertilised, and every time she has her period she wonders whether this is a miscarriage; the bleeding is so plentiful, the pain so intense. Her childlessness is reinforced daily.

  Morning time in the city was mother and child time, no single young adult woman could be seen on any of her walks. Her visits to the HRL coincided with reading hour for preschoolers. Among them she saw the shadowy figure of her own child, listening intently, intelligence gleaming from large dark eyes.

  Her mother too is concerned. The word patience, ricocheting across the planet, assumes a tinny quality, and the mother eventually stops using it, suggesting a doctor instead. Ananda doesn’t want to hear the implications of this. They have not been married that long, what is the hurry?

  Nina decides to phone Sue. A woman with a third child on the way would be qualified to guide her.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ exclaimed Sue with obvious pleasure. Nina felt gratified. ‘How are you? I’ve been meaning to call, but Melly came down with a cold. I didn’t want to invite you over, in case of infection, you know?’

  ‘Infection? With a cold?’ repeated Nina. At home people coughed and sneezed in your face and thought nothing of it.

  ‘Yes—isn’t it terrible?’ repeated Sue. ‘But now everything is fine, just fine. She’s gone to play school.’

  ‘Sue, if you are not too busy, could I come over? I need some advice.’

  The forlorn tone in her voice was obvious. Sue chastised herself; she should be paying more attention to the girl. Andy had a heart of gold, but sometimes that wasn’t enough.

  Sue welcomed her cordially. Over coffee, to avoid a single awkward pause Nina nervously asked about Melly, her cold, her symptoms, enough questions to persuade an onlooker into thinking the child had a terminal illness.

  ‘And now,’ said Sue, when she had had enough, ‘about that advice?’

  Nina started by wanting to know where she could look for a job; she had ten years experience in Delhi University, but Ananda was quite categorical that she was not qualified to teach here.

  ‘He must know,’ said Sue, but she did believe it was quite difficult. People spent years trying to get tenure after their PhDs.

  The very thought of a PhD made Nina tired. She didn’t want to study, her brain had grown weak with fiction and idleness. Besides, what was the point; even after years of labour there was no job guarantee.

  The topic she had been nerving herself to mention came naturally from the pregnant mother’s lips. What about children, did they plan on having any?

  Nina blushed, guilty of barrenness. Some involuntary tears as she told her story. Sue leapt up and pushed a box of Kleenex at her.

  ‘Oh, don’t cry, don’t cry,’ she murmured. Encouraged, Nina sobbed, ‘It’s so awful,’ into the soft clutch of flowered tissue in her hand.

  Abruptly she felt ashamed of herself, using her situation to gain sympathy and comfort. See what being in this country had reduced her to.

  She left the house having agreed to come over for the next meeting of the La Leche League. This was an association of nursing mothers and Sue knew that two or three of them had had trouble conceiving, it might help for Nina to talk to them.

  On the appointed day Nina is introduced to ten mothers with matching babies and toddlers.

  White faces stare at her, interested, curious, friendly. Sue drew the League’s attention to the fact that Nina was new to this country and needed advice. They had plenty of experience, at the very least they could point her in the right direction. Now, Nina, take the floor.

  Nina describes her monthly waiting, along with her monthly despair. ‘If only I were home I would have somebody I could talk to, ask is there anything wrong, am I worrying too much, should I see a doctor, is it too early, am I being as alarmist as my husband insists, how much time should I give it? I am thirty two. Is it already too late?’

  The women looked concerned and sympathetic. Their collective wisdom touched on many things. The stress of being in a strange country could be a reason for not conceiving. Or the husband might be producing sperm that was insufficient, immobile or misshapen, or it could be some hidden infection or alcohol or nicotine, or age, or too long on the pill, blocked tubes, fibroids, irregular periods, faulty ovulation; it could be any one of a hundred things, known or unknown. Sometimes after every test and treatment in the world, the couple still did not conceive. The anxiety and strain often took the desire out of sex, and then the marriage often broke up.

  Though medically speaking, infertility was not specifically a woman’s problem, it was she who bore the brunt of this particular deficiency. Her feminine self in question, she could end up hating her body. Its female functions, the period, the blood, the cramps, the inconvenience, the dry breasts useless and without purpose, were all reminders of the child that was not to be. It could get so bad that even the sight of a baby or a pregnant woman caused pain. Therapy worked at times, but nothing could really
take the sense of loss away.

  There was always adoption, an option for those not wedded to biological maternity.

  Nina listened with alarm. She had not realised her vague dissatisfaction was the precursor to such drastic things.

  Alone, in all the room, her fertility was in question. Her menstrual blood, even as they spoke, was soaking into a sanitary napkin, her stomach cramping with an unfruitful cramp. She looked down at her lap and fiddled with the strings of her purse. Now her back began to hurt. How soon before she could go home and lie down?

  But these women were into action, not lying down. If initially her husband was unwilling, she could make a preliminary visit to the doctor. Her husband would soon come around when he realised medical attention was necessary. These procedures could take a long, long time, she was absolutely right in wanting to start.

  Sue said Andy was the sweetest man; he must be in some kind of denial to not be supportive.

  Another said she was free three hours every morning when David went to playschool. She could accompany Nina.

  Hearing his name, David stuck his head out from under his mother’s T-shirt. His mother laughed and said though almost weaned, he always nursed at meetings—it was seeing all the babies that made him want to suckle.

  ‘How old is he?’ asked Nina curiously.

  ‘Three.’

  ‘We believe in the bond between mother and child,’ explained Sue, ‘and in nursing as long as both are comfortable.’

  How strange, thought Nina, that the La Leche League should have this affinity with villagers back home. It was the second time she was led to question assumptions about the so-called backward and developed worlds. Here it was developed to nurse for years, to stay at home with your children, to decide to fulfil your motherhood. Development allowed you to have the luxury of choosing a way of life from the practices of any part of the world. That was developed, not the age of the child dangling from your breast.

  Finally the meeting settled down to the business of the day.

  La Leche League pamphlets were circulated, containing descriptions of various items: backpacks and frontpacks for babies, carry cots, books on nutrition, baby welfare, family welfare.

  Nina studied the pamphlets, again aware of her cramps. Her failure to produce seemed all the more poignant in this room profluent with life.

  But apparently there were other problems with the female body besides an inability to conceive. Breastfeeding was not the simple, natural exercise she had thought it was. You had to be careful about your diet, your mood, the way you sat, the angle of the baby’s head, the position of the breast. And then that devastating common thing was discussed: the disappearance of milk.

  There were instances when the milk turns recalcitrant. The baby cries, the worried mother gets tense, the milk retreats further, in frustration the bottle is wielded. The milk objects violently, and really plays hide and seek. What the mother had thought was a temporary measure becomes a feeding pattern in earnest. The mother is in despair—what’s the use, with breastfeeding her nipples hurt, her uterus hurts, everything hurts. She wants to give up. Which is where the La Leche League steps in and says, there are other women like you, with troubled breasts, minds and hearts; courage, meet, compare notes, receive support and all will be well.

  Not for nothing was the association’s name derived from the Spanish leche, meaning milk. Yes, thought Nina, when she became a mother, she too would come to every meeting. She looked around at the bobbing babies heads, and the bits of white—very white—breasts she could see. Oh, if only that day would come when she too cradled a nursing baby in her arms. Just look at these women, grounded, rooted, connected to the earth by those pulling, plucking mouths, by those searching little hands, by the soft skin and round staring eyes, the tender skull with blood throbbing visibly beneath the sparse hair. How could these women nurse their wrongs when they were so busy nursing children, drawing out the process into years? There obviously was no place in their lives for solitary brooding.

  Though Ananda was predictably pleased with her morning at Sue’s house, he asked for no details and she provided none. There was a storm inside her, created by raising the possibility of infertility in front of a group of women and finding her fears were real.

  Helplessness, loss of control and a lack of confidence in her femininity. That was a sterile woman’s profile.

  If Nina felt more in charge of her circumstances she wouldn’t have blamed Ananda so much. From his point of view, waiting was understandable. He didn’t have a clock marking time inside his body. Other distractions occupied him daily.

  She told herself this was not about finding fault; this was about being united and doing what was necessary to have a child. They each had to understand how the other felt.

  It was Friday evening. ‘Let’s go out,’ said Ananda.

  She preferred to stay home. They ordered pizza.

  The Papa Pepito’s guy came and delivered. Ananda opened a beer, poured Nina some juice and started on his pepperoni-olive-mushroom affair with relish.

  ‘My, you cannot beat Papa Pepito. So much better than Pizza Pizza, Pizza Express or Domino’s.’

  Nina just ate. She couldn’t tell the difference between one pizza and another.

  Did Ananda remember, she asked, when sated with food he sat back, sipped his beer, remarked, this was the life, and smiled at her fondly, did Ananda remember her visit to Sue’s?

  Of course.

  Well, Sue was a member of the La Leche League, an association of nursing mothers and she had gone to attend a meeting.

  Ananda’s look of satisfaction turned to bewilderment.

  Sue had suggested she come to talk to some of the mothers who had had trouble conceiving.

  And?

  There was so much information about infertility! So many reasons, to do with either the man or the woman. And, incidentally, not conceiving after six months if you were under thirty five qualified as infertility.

  ‘What rubbish.’

  If he liked, he could check with Sue, she would corroborate all this.

  Ananda pointed out coldly that he was a doctor, he had the medical fraternity to consult if need be.

  ‘Then please, please, Ananda consult someone. Am I the only one here who wants a baby?’

  At this he lost his temper. It was the weekend and there was time for lengthy confrontations. Of course he wanted children, but there was no need to get het up before even a year was out. To get pregnant as soon as you married was a very stupid, backward thing to do, it was more important to settle down first.

  That was exactly why she wanted a child, to settle down, to give her days focus in this new country. What was she to do with her time, it wasn’t as though she had a life.

  ‘You were the one who didn’t want a job just yet.’

  ‘But that was when I thought a child would follow. Even my mother keeps asking…’

  When she thought about it later she could not understand why mention of her mother should make him so angry. He said all kinds of unreasonable things such as: if there was anyone she had left out of her discussions, please to let him know, he would fill that person in also, he hadn’t realised getting married was such a violation of privacy, and maybe if children were so important to her, she should have suggested a fertility test before the engagement.

  Though startled, she held her own; there were others who cared even if he didn’t, she said.

  Back and forth, back and forth, the anger mounting, the words meaningless, except to wound.

  Ananda retreated to the next room to remove the obdurate Nina from his sight. He went over his position in his mind, and found it impeccable. He wasn’t being stubborn, he was being sensible. His body told him to relax in marriage, but how could he with this kind of performance anxiety on his head? He knew the way infertility tests worked—the woman keeps a record of her basal body temperature, there were ovulation times when you had to have sex, there was a test of post coital fluids,
a detailed test of semen, a medical searchlight trained on premature ejaculations; hunt, hunt for the problems in him, in her, sexually, physically. Was his penis going to feel inspired by such relentless scrutiny? It was still in a delicate stage, managing penetration but not long or deep enough to satisfy him. Marriage had done much, but there was more to be conquered. They should get to know each other in comfort and peace. Was their personal happiness more important or some baby?

  What was left of the weekend passed in silence. They had never had a major fight before. Each felt violated and refused to make conciliatory gestures. Nina brooded over her situation for a few more days before picking up the Yellow Pages to look for gynaecologists. She chose the first one, Dr Abbot.

  The appointment made, she wondered whether to tell Ananda. No, what did he care? At least she was doing something about her problems, she was venturing into the unknown, she was expanding into Halifax in ways that made her less dependent on her husband.

  She took a taxi to the doctor’s office on Quinpool. A nurse at the reception took down details, and then she waited in the small room with no windows or warming lamps, a stack of well-thumbed magazines—MacLean’s, Time, Redbook—on the centre table. She flipped through one, looking at words, her friends, at present unequal to the task of comfort and oblivion.

  There were three other women, all looking at magazines, as alone as she was.

  What would it be like to see a male gynaecologist? Most of the doctors in the Yellow Pages had been men, perhaps she should have done a little more research?

  Well, it was too late now. She stared at the terracotta pot of ferns in the corner, its feathery plastic leaves artfully spilling over. At home her mother would have come with her, or Zenobia. She would never have been allowed to do something like this on her own.

  Her turn came after forty minutes.

  The doctor sat across a big desk and smiled at her firmly. The card the nurse had made was in his hand.

  More smiling, now from her side, placating, pleading.

  ‘What exactly is the problem?’

  It was easy enough to talk, to describe the length of the marriage, the fear of age vis-à-vis pregnancy, the feeling of isolation, the not knowing what to do.