by Manju Kapur
‘You do. Don’t you see, it’s one thing getting over the problem, it’s another keeping up with the improvement. I don’t want to backslide to the pre-therapy stage. That’s a lot of money wasted for one thing.’
He realised his mistake as soon as she asked, ‘How much?’
‘Oh, with this and that it came to quite a bit.’
‘How much?’
‘I kept paying in stages, I haven’t yet calculated the whole.’
She didn’t believe him. He who knew where every cent went.
Quickly he said, ‘If it bothers you I won’t do it.’
‘What?’
‘You know, the counting bit.’
A bit warily she smiled at him. ‘Thanks darling.
He kissed her. ‘Anything for you.’
She leaned against his arm. ‘Above all I want us to have a solid relationship, with us sharing everything. You are all I have in this country, you are the reason I am here.’
He tried to reassure her. ‘Things are much better now, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, they are.’
‘It’s because of you I went for therapy.’ He hugged her again.
Left to himself, Ananda whipped out his little notebook, and noted the date, the thrusts, the length of time inside. Nina need not know about these notations, but they really were necessary for his confidence. The longer he could stay in her, the more triumphant he felt, the better pleased with life, the more loving towards his wife. As yet, she was unable to properly appreciate this.
He hid the notebook in his toilet case and zipped it up. Just looking at the figures made him glow with pride. They could go to the gynaecologist now. There would be no awkward questions, no embarrassment. He was ready for anything. The first thing that needed to be done was a sperm test. Maybe he would start with that.
It was good, thought Nina, that in the middle of all these changes she had a new job, a place with purpose, co-workers, timings and salary attached to it. True those timings were in the evenings and weekends, when Ananda was free, but it was only ten hours and he didn’t seem to mind. ‘Once you have this experience, maybe you can apply for something full time,’ he remarked.
The important thing was to get an entry into the system. From small things big things come, but from nothing comes only nothing.
Outside it was very cold, and Ananda sometimes urged her to take the bus to work, but she preferred to walk. It was fun for her to imagine herself an Arctic explorer, braving the elements. By now she had all the clothes required, and the attitude too, as she walked head down, in pants and closed shoes, woollen socks, thick scarf around her nose and ears, camel hair coat with the lining attached.
All around Nina were signs of Christmas. Up went a tree in the foyer of the library, up went imitation snow and Christmas decorations in shop windows. Santas sat enthroned in malls, against huge ceiling-high trees and scenes of the nativity outlined in winking lights. When she and Ananda went shopping she could see boxes of Christmas decorations on sale everywhere. She stared at these shiny things in Lawton’s Drugs and Dominion. She wanted them, her fingers itched to beautify a tree, it hardly mattered if such was not their custom. She asked Ananda whether he had ever had one, but no, his uncle’s was enough for him.
Still he came home one evening with a small tree in a tiny pot, bought from a woman on Jubilee Road for fifteen dollars, bought specially for her. Even with nothing on, it was perfect.
‘I hope nobody will think we are Christian.’
‘Who’s to see us?’
Her first 20th of December in Canada. Nina was racing against the wind on her way to the library. She was going in early today. It was still light though overcast, the trees were all bare, the branches outlined blackly against a pale sky. Nina’s nose was running, a shawl was wrapped around her head, the ends tucked into her coat collar. She was thinking of the letter she had written Zenobia, in which she had joked about her Christmas tree, given details about the part-time job.
This letter contained many lies, mostly of omission. It was so hard to convey the whole truth, everything seemed but partially correct. If only she could talk to her, if only she had a single solitary friend here. As she was thinking this, flakes began to fall. She stopped in wonder. There was much she had forgotten about snow. That it could be so quiet coming down, that it could spiral about so madly as it floated to the ground, that it could be so different from the straighter path of rain. Next to the silence of snow, rain was brash.
She held out her hand, but the flakes melted as soon as they hit her glove. They were also melting on the sidewalk. She stuck her tongue out, but she felt nothing except the cold. Quickly she broke into a trot; she had to share her excitement with somebody.
Once inside the library, she darted to the information desk. ‘It’s snowing,’ she burst out.
The lady looked over the long room to the end where the windows were. ‘The weather forecast did predict flurries,’ she said calmly. ‘Is this your first snow?’
‘Not quite,’ said the radiant Nina, ‘but I haven’t seen it for a long, long time.’
‘Well, you’ll see plenty of it here,’ said the lady and went about her business.
Part III
Nina met Beth in the library.
Beth had long brown hair that hung limply down her back, large brown eyes and a face that looked earnestly at the world through a pair of glasses. She was doing her Masters in Library Science.
‘What do you do?’ she asked Nina in turn.
‘Nothing.’
‘What’s that then?’ She pointed at the trolley that Nina had loaded with returned books, and was now arranging spine up, according to code.
‘A part-time job, paid by the hour.’
‘As is mine. If we don’t consider our work important, who will?’
Next Saturday morning, Beth bounded up to her. ‘Listen,’ she said, taking some books from the cart and flopping onto the carpet next to her, peering at the bottom shelf, ‘I’m starting a group—it was one of my New Year resolutions. Interested?’
‘Depends on what kind it is.’
‘I had in mind a support group designed to strengthen ourselves. We would function on feminist principles but also use co-counselling.’
‘Sorry, but I’ve never heard of co-counselling.’
‘Oh, that’s all right. Not many people have. In California I was part of such a group for two years. We create therapeutic situations for each other, it’s just great. Cuts out dependence on a professional, besides being free and effective.’
‘I see.’
‘The first meeting is Thursday afternoon. Would you like to join?’
‘Sure.’
‘Great. Now, I gotta run. I have my story telling session in five minutes. See you?’
Ananda was suspicious. Why was Nina going to meet a bunch of women she didn’t even know? He didn’t hold with bra burning feminists; why couldn’t she continue with that nice group of Sue’s? As for sharing her thoughts and feelings, she had him.
‘Why shouldn’t I join a group? When in Rome, do as the Romans do.’
Ananda was not amused. She had to choose the best from the West, not blindly follow any and everybody. As he detailed his objections, anger submerged Nina. Sharing, when he could go to California without telling her? The La Leche League when she was not even pregnant? Bra burning feminists? If there were any around she hadn’t met them, and surely he was too intelligent to stereotype. She was lonely. And she was going to the meeting.
‘I need to find my feet in this country. I can’t walk on yours.’
The following Thursday at three in the afternoon, Beth drove Nina to Quinpool Road, and stopped outside a large, ramshackle, double storied wooden house, home to ten. They shared rent and household chores and saw themselves as a brave new alternative to the nuclear family.
Inside was light, colour and mismatched furniture that harmonised through the ideological power of the co-op. There were armchairs with colourful throws, a
faded brown velvet sofa and a black beanbag. A dark red carpet was spread on the pinewood floor. A huge overflowing ashtray rested on a coffee table which, once a small door, was now stained with many water rings. The bay window had thin white net curtains drawn across, through which could be seen trees and an occasional passerby.
The group comprised of eight women. One Asian, Nina noticed with pleasure. Later she was introduced as Go-Go; her real name, Gayatri Gulati, had been abandoned as too difficult for foreign tongues.
‘We all have problems,’ Beth started, ‘and we all need help, right? Now, how are we going to get it? So far, the only way has been through professional counsellors, therapists, psychoanalysts, usually men, usually with biased attitudes that are considered normal. As a result, male–female power equations are further replicated, with the difference that the woman is now paying for this shit.
‘For those who are new to co-counselling it is the theory that in order to avoid dependence, we provide mutual help to each other. In a clinical setup the anxieties and problems women have tend to be treated as neuroses, rather than the result of stress that comes from coping in a male dominated world. Often women feel inadequate, powerless, even sexually vulnerable because of professional therapists.
‘The raison d’être of this group is to provide us with a safe place in which to express ourselves, to grow without fear of criticism, where our individualities will be nurtured and strengthened.
‘When we feel comfortable with each other, we will chose partners and interact on a one-to-one basis. Twice a month, we will meet as a group to discuss general issues. Questions?’
Suppose they said the wrong thing?
Gave the wrong advice?
Ended up harming instead of helping?
Created dependency without knowing it?
Beth waved a slim blue book. ‘Here are the guidelines. Please try and get hold of a copy, if you can’t, borrow mine. Obviously I’m not talking of clinical situations, I’m talking of empowering ourselves. We are not, not, I repeat, here to solve each other’s difficulties, but to help our partner work through her issues on her own. When you only listen and give no advice, there is no question of saying the wrong thing.
‘For starters we could discuss some of the problems we face as women. No one has to get personal, or give details they are uncomfortable with. Above all, we practise absolute confidentiality.’
Maybe some of the details were disguised, but getting personal didn’t seem to bother anyone. Nina heard of sexual harassment in the work place, of women having to struggle with housework, child care and a job, while the husband watched TV, of a mother who suspected her estranged husband of molesting their daughter, of a jobless husband who resented every cent his wife made, of infidelities that came in all guises and with all justifications.
As they spoke, Nina grew tense. Her turn was coming. What was bothering her most at the moment? Her inability to conceive or Ananda’s going to California without telling her? Among these women, she became conscious of how hostile his secrecy had been; why had she accepted his explanations so easily? She was now less enthusiastic about a baby, but this only made her feel empty. All her expectations of marriage and her future had been bound up in motherhood.
She looked at the faces around her. Eight white, one brown, sympathetic, caring and concerned. As she started to talk, she realized what a burden she was carrying. She yearned to put it down.
So came the story she never imagined telling in these circumstances.
Her husband needed a certain kind of therapy, she would not go into details—they nodded understandingly—and though it was preferable to treat couples, he had lied to her and gone alone. Now she felt used, excluded and angry. He claimed the end justified the means. He accused her of being unsupportive.
She wasn’t even sure whether she had any business to object, because indeed the eventual result was good. If she continued to feel resentful, wasn’t that spoiling what she had, as well as undermining her husband’s confidence? God knew she didn’t want to do that. It had come at too great a cost. Alone in this country, she was emotionally, financially and socially, heavily dependent on him.
Nina’s words found a tender home in this room. They had all experienced such negation. Blame was a power game, a way of making the woman uncertain and confused. Eventually it could silence her. Whatever his reasons, she had to give legitimacy to her own feelings. It took courage to discuss something so personal, they appreciated that.
Nina felt more alive than she had in days. Talking, sharing, it was amazing what it could do. She looked at her audience with gratitude. Blame, yes, it was a way of silencing. How she was going to fight was uncertain, but she hadn’t been wrong to mind, not wrong at all.
Beth now pointed to a little pile of books on the table; some of these are quite good, write down your name and the book you borrow in that notebook.
Nina picked up The Second Sex, heard of, but never read.
Lore, graduate student, said, ‘That’s a good one.’
‘I don’t know it.’
‘“One is not born, but rather, becomes, a woman.” The book is still an eye opener for us.’
‘Does she say that?’
‘Beginning of part ii.’
‘You know the book well.’
‘I should. I’ve taught it.’
And the meeting was over.
‘How was it?’ asked Ananda, standing in the kitchen, frying a steak. There was rice boiling for Nina, yesterday’s dal heated, a little side dish of yoghurt with onions and tomatoes cut up, some salad and packaged mashed potatoes. Looking at him she felt guilty. Hopefully, he would never know how she had betrayed him.
‘We are going to counsel each other, but that’s not all. It’s also a feminist group. We borrow books and discuss issues. Look, I got this.’ And she laid The Second Sex on the kitchen counter, moving to the cupboard to take out plates and glasses.
‘Simone de Beauvoir? Is she one of those bra burning woman’s lib types?’
‘“One is not born, but rather, becomes, a woman,”’ she repeated for his information.
‘What?’
‘That’s what she says in this book. She wrote it in 1949, not quite the bra burning era.’
‘Why are you reading it?’
‘Because what she says is really relevant.’
He looked at her uneasily. ‘But why do you want to read such stuff? You are not deprived in any way.’
She stood next to the table, the open book in her hands, turning the pages slowly, apparently unreceptive to his words.
‘Well?’
‘I read a novel of hers in college, The Mandarins. And this book is really well known.’
‘Is she famous?’ Ananda asked, as they sat down to dinner.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Well, eat up,’ he ordered, as he grasped his steak knife and lovingly eyed the chunk of meat oozing reddish brown juices. ‘Want some?’ he asked as he made the first delicate cut.
Nina shook her head and began mashing the dal and rice together with her fingers. From time to time she dabbed frugally at some chilli pickle. She wanted to finish quickly and get on with her book.
But Ananda had other plans. ‘Ooh, your lips are so hot,’ he said, nuzzling them with his own. ‘I can taste the chillies.’
‘Really?’
‘Um yes,’ and he drew her to the bed.
As the act proceeded, she caught his eye on the clock. She pushed it away. It fell with a cracking sound.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I don’t want to be timed.’
‘But baby, each time I improve I feel better. Don’t you want me to feel better?’
‘Of course. But like this it becomes mechanical. I don’t like that.’
‘This is a real turn-off.’ By now he was out of her.
‘Your looking at the clock is a turn-off for me.’
Angrily he retrieved his precious clock. ‘Is it because you have gone t
o some meeting and become a women’s libber that you are saying all this?’
She said nothing as she understood that one way or another, he was determined to time himself and she had no choice but to agree. The many pages of The Second Sex that historicised her sense of powerlessness were still unread.
Though Ananda found sleep, Nina was cursed with wakefulness. Carefully she slid out of bed and walked to the living room sofa, where she could put on the light and start reading her Beauvoir.
She leafed through the first part—she would read all that biological and historical stuff later. Right now she was looking for an answer as to why she was the way she was.
A woman, an Indian, an immigrant.
Which came first?
Her female self, according to Beauvoir. From her first breath, the processes that formed that being were set in motion.
‘One is not born, but rather, becomes, a woman.’
Reading, she found much of the text alien, yet she could not deny the centrality of Beauvoir’s thesis, that women are defined in relation to men. In the end hadn’t she given up everything familiar because of man and marriage?
Tired of her thoughts, she put the book down and turned to the soporific of TV. It was almost one in the morning—when, oh when, would she feel sleepy. The screen flashed to a clip of a couple heaving and panting. As Nina watched, the camera lingered lovingly on shut eyes, moving backs, interlocked hands, hair spread on pillow, again backs humping up and down to the tune of heavy breathing. One, two, three minutes and still not over. Ananda should be watching this, not she. He could count the minutes, assess the similarities, analyse the techniques. Irritated, she switched off the TV.
Next morning she woke with a headache. Ananda, with his usual consideration, quietly made his own breakfast and left, pecking her on the cheek.
‘How are you doing with The Second Sex?’ asked Beth.
‘Good.’
‘What are things like in your country? You have arranged marriages, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jeez, fancy marrying somebody you don’t even know.’
‘Many people prefer it actually. It has the advantage of social and family sanction, you are not alone to deal with your problems, it is more convenient to fall in love after you marry than before. And certainly it frees you of some of the sexual burden Beauvoir mentions.’