THE IMMIGRANT

by Manju Kapur

  The group nodded, agreeing with Lore. Nina agreed too, though whatever her difficulties, she hadn’t considered language one of them. But as a metaphor, yes, she was a child, learning to walk on a different piece of earth.

  In the coffee break, she disappeared into the bathroom to stare at her woebegone face in the mirror. Get a grip, she told the reflection. Nothing is going to change, not here, with this group, not with Ananda, not anywhere.

  The co-counselling sessions continued.

  ‘You need to do something,’ pronounced Gayatri, breaking the rules by offering advice, while brandishing her fine porcelain tea cup.

  ‘I know, but what? I am qualified for nothing.’

  Gayatri frowned. ‘This group is to enable you, not to encourage helplessness.’

  ‘Didn’t I get a job at the library? How am I helpless?’

  ‘Is a part-time job enough? How much do you earn a month?’

  ‘Two hundred dollars.’

  ‘Why are you satisfied with so little?’

  Nina had come to Canada in the throes of hope and love, that was why it was taking her so long to adjust to the necessity of a career. She pointed this out.

  Gayatri collected herself.

  ‘Listen, you’ve been here less than a year, eventually you’ll find your way. But Indians do succeed abroad; you find them flourishing everywhere.’

  The hands on Nina’s own felt heavy, while the moisture on her palms grew. The heat was turned on too high. ‘If I could get pregnant, it would be so easy,’ she said.

  ‘Suppose you never do?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘We are conditioned to think a woman’s fulfilment lies in birth and motherhood, just as we are conditioned to feel failures if we don’t marry.’

  ‘It’s one thing to read this stuff, it’s another to suddenly start thinking differently. I’m not sure I can do it.’

  ‘In time, perhaps?’

  ‘Time won’t do a thing if I can’t alter my expectations.’

  ‘By being in this group you have taken the first step towards change. If you didn’t feel the need, you wouldn’t be here, would you now?’

  ‘True.’

  The session ended.

  ‘Should I call a taxi?’

  ‘No thanks, I’ll walk.’

  Outside it was cold and still. She could see the icy underside of the trees lining the sidewalk. Here and there, the yellow piss of dogs streaked the snow, especially near lampposts. The piles of snow pushed against the side of the road were coated with black. She had not realised how dirty winter could look in the city. Nor how quickly she would tire of being an Arctic explorer.

  Once inside her apartment, she sank into the red vinyl bean-bag she had persuaded Ananda to buy in order to (vainly as it turned out) enliven their place. She looked out of the window. Though not yet four, it was almost dark. She could hear the wind howling around the apartment. Whatever life she hoped to have in this place, she could no longer go on walking to her destinations and count the journey part of the experience. It was too cold, the wind too biting.

  It was true, she might never get pregnant, never have the meaning of her life automatically granted to her. She and her mind were going to be on their own, with crying jags at co-counselling sessions, that revealed ghastly inner depths into which she would rather not venture.

  When Ananda had come, it had been easy for him. He had enrolled in the Dal Dental School and now he was a respected member of society.

  She thought of Miranda House. To replace such a job, she would have to enrol for a PhD, repeat MA courses, then bolster her cv with academic publications. Those years and those tasks were like huge boulders pressing the life out of her—though every year people left her country in droves for just such futures. Maybe she could be like Beth, study to be a librarian. She could continue what she was doing, but with respect and a future. As a part-timer she only got minimum wages, it was essentially a student’s job; under thirty five hours a week.

  She heard the key in the lock. Ananda was home.

  Ananda had also given some thought to her problem. ‘You should do a B Ed, then you can teach in a school.’

  ‘I don’t want to. I used to work in a college.’

  ‘So what? The schools here are not like those at home.’

  ‘No schoolchildren—no matter where they come from.’

  ‘So you tell me, what is it that you have in mind?’

  ‘How about a library degree?’

  ‘A library degree?’

  ‘It’s worth trying.’

  In reality neither of them knew much beyond doctor, lawyer, teacher, engineer, bureaucrat—these species that came out of the Indian middle classes.

  ‘Well, why not?’ said Ananda slowly, considering the idea of his wife as a librarian. He would make a brief phone call in his uncle’s direction tomorrow.

  ‘If I don’t like it, I can always switch.’

  This gay assumption struck him as frivolous. Thoughtlessly she would spend time, money and effort, as well as take up valuable space in a professional course. Though the West was about choice, those choices claimed responsible appraisal. ‘Life is not a game. If you are so unsure, why go through all the trouble?’

  ‘Because I have to do something that ensures me a job I am suited for, where I won’t take forever to qualify.’

  And that would give her independence, she thought but didn’t say.

  At the very least it would give her focus and take care of her moods, he thought but didn’t say, and then admired himself for his positive thinking. If only his wife could learn from his example.

  Ananda was disappointed with Nina’s response to his sperm test. He had expected her to be more appreciative that there was nothing wrong with him. Now he was left with the disagreeable feeling that it was up to him to push the fertility tests through. Granted he had said they would be expensive, and that insurance did not pay for them. But he had never meant they should not investigate. Irritated he accosted her—what happened, first you were very enthusiastic, you found a doctor and had a checkup, now when it is time for the next step, you suddenly lose interest?

  She looked up blankly from the book she was reading. ‘Lose interest?’she repeated.

  ‘In our child.’

  He was maligning her maternal instincts. ‘I could never lose interest in our child,’ she retorted.

  ‘Then?’

  ‘You were right—it’s too soon. I have to find my feet…’

  ‘I know, I know. You can’t walk on mine.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He didn’t understand what was so special about her feet. Immigrants had to find their way, of course, but instead of following his advice, she preferred to go to some women for help. He hoped their child would make the family more whole, give them all a greater sense of belonging. ‘We can still go ahead with the tests. They may take a long time, and we aren’t getting any younger.’

  She smiled at him wanly. It was nice that he said we when he meant you. If only this heavy feeling would lift from her heart. ‘I don’t know,’ she began and stopped.

  He controlled his exasperation. She was going to ramble, and at the end of it all his head would spin. Studying literature for over ten years took you away from the real world.

  ‘I miss home—I miss a job—I miss doing things. I feel like a shadow. What am I but your wife?’

  ‘That’s a good place to start,’ he tried to joke. She didn’t answer, merely sat there looking at the closed book in her lap, her finger inserted between the pages, some dreadful looking book with a female torso slung from a rod.

  ‘I’ll let you go on with your reading,’ he said sarcastically.

  She bent her head, annoyingly taking his advice.

  Later Ananda thought that Library School was a good way to explain to the world why there weren’t any children. Not that anybody was asking. But in the two years it would take for her to finish, anything could happen. The pressure to b
ecome pregnant would be reduced, and the whole thing would happen naturally.

  Meanwhile he too should take advantage of this time to do a little exploring of his own. He had a secret that gave him a frisson of pleasure whenever he thought of it.

  It doesn’t rain but it pours.

  A life that three years ago was a desert so far as women were concerned, now had a wife and a mistress. The first had lead to the second. And the second had made all the moves.

  Poor Mr Hill had broken her leg and needed to rest for two months before she returned to work.

  Mandy was the result.

  She was young, ten years younger than him, it later turned out. This was her first receptionist’s job. The third Friday she had said she would stay back and sort out some records. Ananda, it so happened, needed to stay back too. Their first fuck happened there on the hallway carpet. She was so uninhibited, all over him, kissing, licking, sucking.

  ‘Please,’ he protested modestly, his voice faint, ‘what are you doing?’

  ‘You are my first Indian,’ she said, ‘When I saw you I wondered what it would be like.’

  ‘Do you always think things like this about the men you meet?’

  ‘Sure, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m a man.’

  ‘Oh, come off it. Hasn’t anyone told you that men and women are not that different?’

  Ananda was nothing if not a professional. He couldn’t carry on an affair with the office receptionist, and he waited impatiently for Mrs Hill to come back. ‘No more, my darling, not until she returns.’

  Mandy was not however the slave of circumstance. ‘What about my place?’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘Clayton Park.’

  ‘That’s pretty far.’

  ‘It’s all I can afford.’

  He knew no one there. Yes, Clayton Park suited him.

  ‘So how about this Saturday?’

  ‘You are free on Saturday?’

  ‘My wife works at the library, it’s a part-time job she has.’

  ‘Holy shit, I wouldn’t work on Saturday, not if you paid me double.’

  ‘Well, sweetheart, she’s not like you.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  So Saturday afternoon saw Ananda driving to Mandy’s apart-ment in Clayton Park. She lived on the seventh floor: two rooms, a TV, wall to wall carpeting, mattress on the floor, beanbags.

  ‘Can’t afford much,’ said Mandy as she followed Ananda’s eye.

  ‘Hey, you should have seen me as a student. I had nothing for years and years.’

  ‘But you’ve been a doctor for a while, surely?’

  ‘I had debts to pay, and I’m perhaps not as old as you think.’

  She giggled. ‘Come here.’

  He may have been the doctor, older and definitely more educated, but in ways that surpassed his imagination, she soon demonstrated who was the expert in the field of love.

  He went home that first afternoon in a slight daze. A—he had committed adultery. His wife must never know. B—there was no way he could give this up. It was too splendid a thing. C—life was full of surprises and new experiences. He owed it to himself to do them justice.

  ‘Hi,’ shouted Nina, as he walked into the apartment.

  ‘Hi, darling,’ he replied.

  She waited expectantly for his kiss, but he scurried into the shower instead. Mandy had given him a shower, but the smell of sex still lingered in his nostrils.

  Nina heard the water running, and her heart sank. That meant sex, meant the clock, meant postponing the shopping till they had finished, and dinner would be late. Still, it was the weekend, they didn’t have to be on such a tight schedule.

  Fifteen minutes later, a freshly shaved, damp, fragrant husband put his arms around his wife. ‘How’re you doing, baby?’

  Baby. She cringed, then ignored her feminist reaction. ‘Fine. And you?’

  ‘Never better. Shall we?’

  ‘Sure. But what about the shopping?’

  ‘Later. This is more important.’

  He lifted her, she put her arms around his neck. Ananda was being so romantic, it was rather wonderful she had to admit, even if he did call her baby. And the best part was that he didn’t look at the clock even once.

  Ananda found everything about Amanda exciting. He loved her hair, a fine pale gold, darkening slightly towards the roots. Even after he realised that some of its more dazzling effects came from a bottle, he continued to be dazzled. And her skin—unless you made love to a white woman, you did not realise what fair really meant.

  He was mesmerized by its slightly mottled hue, its blue veins, the pinkness of her nipples, her delicate eyelids, the thinness of her skin. He bought a small travelling clock and placed it next to the mattress.

  ‘What’s this for?’ demanded the mistress.

  ‘I need to time myself.’

  ‘But baby, you’re doing great.’

  ‘It’s not that. It’s part of the doctor’s orders.’

  ‘Which doctor? Gary?’ she giggled.

  ‘No, the ones in California.’

  The story came out. ‘But baby, you should have come to me,’ said Mandy.

  ‘I would have, if I had known you.’

  ‘Well, now you do, and if you paid them, you have to pay me.’ She looked so knowing, so young, so after his money in such an obvious way, so willing to be his, that he could barely bring the next words out. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘A dollar for every minute you are inside me. Any part, baby,’ she whispered, slithering between his legs, and drawing his penis deep within her mouth.

  He agreed.

  It became a game with them—how much money he owed her. Mandy kept the notebook, writing down the figures while Ananda held her on his lap. Every time it reached fifty dollars they would spend it on furniture or clothes for Mandy, charged to his credit card, chosen from a catalogue. Ananda had never thought an Eaton’s holiday special could be such an erotic object.

  She was so inventive, he was amazed.

  ‘How do you do it,’ he murmured, ‘my new found land. My Newfoundland.’

  ‘Hey, I’m not a Newfie,’ said the ignorant Mandy.

  ‘It’s from a poem by Donne. When my sister came home from college for the holidays she used to read out poetry to me. She said she didn’t want me to become a one dimensional science type.’

  But Mandy was not interested. Her curiosity was directed towards his wife.

  ‘Didn’t you say your wife used to teach English?’

  ‘Yes. In the same college where my sister studied in fact.’

  ‘Is that how you met her?’

  ‘Through my sister, yes.’

  ‘Your sister arranged it?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  ‘Couldn’t you find someone here?’

  ‘Oh, her father died, she wanted to emigrate, so I married her. It was to help her really.’

  ‘That was nice of you.’

  ‘I’m a nice guy.’

  ‘So it was just a marriage of convenience, right?’

  Even a blind man could see where the innocent Mandy’s questions were leading, but a married man can always play for time.

  ‘Well yes, but I’m responsible for her. She has to get settled first, poor thing, she feels quite lost here.’

  ‘Mandy—Andy, our names match.’

  ‘They do indeed.’

  Afternoons such as these fixed Ananda’s thoughts quite firmly on Nina’s future education. His wife was so trusting, so easy to deceive that his love for her increased exponentially. ‘Any time you want my help just let me know,’ he frequently said, as he watched her painstakingly go through the Library School prospectus, tick possible courses and double-check her choices with Beth on the phone.

  ‘Thank you, darling.’

  ‘You know how much I want you to settle down. Then you’ll be happier.’

  ‘It’s better now that I have this to do. Otherwise all one thinks ab
out is how infertile we are.’

  ‘I’m not. Don’t you remember that report?’

  ‘Yes. But the doctor said I was ok too, remember?’

  ‘I’m always willing to go for further checkups, that’s why I even went and got my sperm tested.’

  This conversation was supposed to be about her happiness, not their shortcomings. With an effort she put it back on course.

  ‘Now I have got this to look forward to, I feel more settled, don’t fret about me.’ She smiled at him. ‘You really are a worrywart, you know.’

  So, he had her permission, albeit inadvertent, to go back to his secret life, to linger over scenes of sex and passion with Mandy, to compare the two in bed.

  Mandy encouraged him to be wild, free, uninhibited, playful. With Nina he was his mother’s son, his sister’s brother, the good husband, playing out a role he had been trained for since childhood. Nine years in Canada had not dimmed the need to be this person.

  No wonder he had not been able to succeed with white women before. He needed to stabilise this part of his life. There were too many unseen pressures that had spoken through his body. He smiled lovingly at his spouse.

  ‘What are you grinning at?’

  He shook his head—nothing, it’s nothing.

  Over Christmas and into the New Year, Nina worked at her application processes. In grave oversight she had left her degrees at home. Now her mother dug them out of the cupboard, went to the market to make photocopies, went to Miranda House to collect references from her daughter’s former teachers, as well as certificates testifying to the length of her teaching experience. She sent the whole thing to Nina by air mail registered post. Nina counted the rupees stuck on the packet and mailed back a hundred dollars that would cover every incidental expense. This lessened fractionally the guilt she felt about the trouble to which she had put her mother. Locally, her only task had been to get a testimonial from the HRL.

  Nina spent weeks over the essay that would accompany her application.

  Why did she want to become a librarian, how did she think she could contribute, what were her goals?