A Good Indian Wife: A Novel

by Anne Cherian

  “Yes, if I know Indian women. They look wishy-washy, but they have steel insides.”

  “Are you just saying that because she comes from a steel town?” Oona knew her husband’s penchant for jokes and puns.

  “Ha, ha! That’s a good one. But no, that steel has nothing to do with the steel I’m talking about. Remember how Grandfather cut me off when we got engaged? Grandmother pretended to go along, but she was the one who sent us your wedding saree. Took a lot of courage, but she did it because she knew Grandfather was wrong. South Indian women are notorious for being even more steel-boned than North Indians. Why do you think I married a nice, pliable American girl?” he teased.

  “To have children?” she reminded him.

  “Oh my God, let’s go before my sperm forget how to swim up the American channel.”

  “Darling,” Oona admonished, smiling.

  “At your service.” He ushered her into the bedroom.

  SHANTI HAD BEGUN ANALYZING the new addition to their group the minute Neel and Leila walked in. She had pegged Leila immediately—and, surprised by Neel’s hasty marriage, was further surprised by his choice of wife. She had assumed he would return with a fluffy airhead Indian version of that ridiculous secretary he’d been seeing for years. Neel had no idea she knew, but Oona had let it slip one afternoon when Shanti pondered aloud why such a handsome and charming man wasn’t dating or married. Shanti had noticed Caroline at hospital parties. Who could miss it? But she had never thought her Neel’s type of woman.

  She was relieved to see that Leila didn’t call attention to herself by talking loudly and dressing in clothes one size too small. Leila was the product of a small Indian town: good family, well educated, shy without being withdrawn—with a mixture of confidence and modesty that Shanti recognized as her own pre-America self. Both of them had married late and each had to contend with an obvious handicap. For Shanti it had been color, for Leila height. India’s overpopulation made it an unforgiving country. People demanded perfection, especially from girls. Shanti smiled, thinking that here, Leila would be considered of normal height. And pretty in a way not appreciated in India, where fair skin was more important than high cheekbones and a silky complexion.

  She looked down at the freckled, sleeping face of her husband. He was a good man, this giant who had taken her away from a life of pitied spinsterhood. But like most good men, he wore blinders, and Shanti knew he hadn’t understood any of the uncomfortable moments she had noticed. Bob was used to American openness and could not decipher Indian subtleties. During their wedding reception in Bombay, an aunt had piled his plate with hot pickles. Bob thought it was her way of welcoming him, of introducing him to Indian food, and refused to believe that the sweet old lady was actually making fun of him. But Shanti knew her aunt was waiting to see Bob spit out the chili-hot pieces of mango so she could point to his reddening face and cackle.

  They had had completely different reactions to Neel’s marriage. Shanti was aghast, while Bob smiled and said, “Good for him.” He reminded her that many Indians did the same thing. But Shanti knew that Neel was not like other Indians. He had made the deliberate decision to shed the past, which inevitably, like a plugged-up leak, would show itself again.

  Shanti was aware that Neel responded to Oona in a way he never did to her. She had long suspected he had a white fetish, but it didn’t bother her. After all, Bob had an Asian fetish. His first wife had been from Sri Lanka.

  Bob had been eager to introduce her to Sanjay from the moment he joined the hospital. Shanti had met a few other mixed couples and automatically assumed that Bob’s pediatrician colleague was like some of the other Indian men married to foreigners. They were the ones who, uncomfortable in their own skin, wanted a white wife to fit in better. Not any white wife but a blond, blue-eyed wonder they could show off. Sanjay, however, was just Sanjay. He wasn’t the type to keep bringing attention to his white wife, whether it was to remark on the amount of sunscreen needed for a visit to his parents or to sigh that all Indian cooking had to be done on the outside barbecue since his better half wasn’t used to the smell of curry. As Sanjay said, he would have married Oona even if she was purple.

  Neel had misunderstood and responded, of course, purple is the color of majesty, and you would try for a princess. But Shanti understood what Sanjay was saying. He had not gone looking for love. It had happened and the object happened to be American.

  Neel was very different. He was smooth, charming, and had made a dedicated effort to become his new passport. She would never have predicted an arranged marriage for him. Why had Neel married Leila? Was it pressure? Certainly not love. He must have succumbed to his family, which stunned Shanti. He was a strange one, and now this latest action had rendered him completely inexplicable.

  Leila, of course, had married him because he was a doctor from America. No doubt she believed she loved him, or at the very least, was happy to be married to him. Like most Indian girls, her romantic ideas came from Hindi movies. Shanti hadn’t watched one in years, but she remembered how those lengthy love stories, in which everyone burst into song, were typically implausible. Like others in the audience, she too left her reason behind when buying a ticket. Still, there was something thrilling about watching love—deep, all-encompassing love—unfold from a glance. The predictable happy endings were what every Indian bride expected and wanted.

  Would Leila be able to cope, so naive, so far away from her family and the social structures that had molded that very innocence? She would have to change; they all did. Soon Leila’s convent school accent would lose the light dusting of her mother tongue, and by the time she had children, she would be giving them a bath, not even conscious that she wasn’t pronouncing it the Indian way, “baahth.” Shanti hadn’t only begun believing in warranties; she had also given up the Indian belief that marriages have lifetime warranties. There were no such social certainties in the United States. Leila would have to fight if she wanted things to work out. Shanti thought she had detected that fight in her. For a brief moment she had seen the anger darken Leila’s eyes when Neel called her Lee.

  FIFTEEN

  TRANSFIXED BY THE COMMOTION of sounds and smells, Leila almost walked past the shop, in spite of the books piled outside the door. This was what she missed in pristine Pacific Heights, where it was possible to go for whole blocks without seeing another pedestrian. But here, all around her, was India, magically transported to Clement Street. Cars honked at those drivers parked in the middle of the road, their hazard lights blinking insolently, while others swerved quickly to take a just-vacated space. Children dripped ice cream on the sidewalk. Old women staggered, pulled down by heavy grocery bags filled with Indian vegetables she did not see in their local supermarket. The very air was spiced with the flavors of Asian restaurants—Chinese, Thai, Cambodian, Malaysian, Korean. The frying onions and garlic smelled like the open-air food carts back home, and the range of skin colors made her feel at one with the others.

  Leila had wanted to visit this bookshop after reading about it in her guidebook. Since the dinner at Sanjay’s two weeks ago, the guidebook had become her friend. If she could not get close to her husband, at least she could behave like an American and get to know her new city.

  The immigrant flavor of the street was a bonus she hadn’t expected. She was further delighted to find that the shop itself was another corner of India, with handwritten signs, and paperbacks heaped any which way on the tables and jammed onto shelves. For years she had resented the hours spent preparing lectures, wanting to be with a husband, feeling humiliated that Amma treated her like a child precisely because she wasn’t married. Now, with no deadlines and no one to monitor her movements, she missed that other life.

  She glanced at the best sellers, turned the large, glossy pages of a few art books, then made straight for the literature section. The first thing she noticed was someone carrying a tooled-leather bag with its signature Shantiniketan design. Could she be Indian? Leila edged closer, wish
ing the aisle were better lighted. Suddenly the dark-haired girl glanced up. Large brown eyes looked into her own and Leila smiled, partly to cover the embarrassment of being caught in the act of staring.

  In that second Leila thought how Shanti and Oona had said they would love to get together but had yet to call her, and felt again the loneliness of her solitary walks. She passed people who looked friendly, their white faces lifted in a polite smile, but they were neither familiar nor approachable.

  “Your bag, it’s from Shantiniketan, no?”

  “It’s from India.”

  The accent was unexpected, and bewildering. Leila had assumed the milky tea complexion meant the girl was just like her, an Indian living in America. But the words sounded as if they came from the TV.

  “Oh,” Leila did not want to say that Shantiniketan, the school started by Rabindranath Tagore, was in India.

  “You’re from India, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought I recognized the accent.”

  “And I thought I recognized your face.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As Indian.”

  “Well, my parents are from there. But I was born here.”

  “It’s strange. When I close my eyes, you are American; when I open them, you are Indian.”

  “No one’s ever accused me of changing in the blink of an eye before. I’m Rekha.” She smiled.

  “I’m Leila. If you are not in a hurry, maybe we could have a cup of chai, I mean tea?” Leila suggested spontaneously.

  “Sure. Why not? A warm idea on a cold day.”

  Leila had never been to a café before. The long list of teas and coffees was as perplexing as the array of clothes in Macy’s. She was used to the limited choice of her college cafeteria, which served either regular tea or masala chai. She ordered orange pekoe tea, intrigued by the idea of something fruity in her cup, while Rekha asked for a giant cappuccino.

  The tea, when it came, looked just like tea. But when she tasted it, Leila realized it had no sugar and sprinkled in two packets.

  “Here, have some tea with your sugar,” Rekha teased, handing her a bunch of sugar packets from the next table.

  Leila laughed and emptied a third packet into her cup. “I like my tea very sweet.” She had missed the camaraderie of women, particularly her sister, and this was the next best thing to sitting on the bed with Indy.

  Leila was bemused by this girl who pronounced her name “Rikka.” Her face could be seen on any Indian road, yet the incessant hand gestures, the choice of words, the tilt of the head, were totally foreign to Leila. As was the conversation. They had just met, and yet Rekha didn’t mind sharing details of her life that most Indians would consider too personal to tell anyone, much less a stranger.

  “I used to teach in a small private school in Annapolis, but decided to get a journalism degree at Berkeley. Thought I’d meet some men, you know.”

  “So you are a writer too?” She hadn’t meant to put herself in the question, and hoped Rekha didn’t notice.

  “I’m leaning toward TV, but we do have lots of writing assignments. You’re a writer then?”

  Leila hesitated. The children’s stories seemed trite beside Rekha’s graduate work and ambitions.

  “Yes. I write cat stories for children. But it’s really a hobby.”

  Rekha was amazed to discover she was interested in talking to a bona fide, old world Indian. Leila, with her British “a’s” and soundless “r’s,” was so different from her parents and their friends. They were embarrassing. The men matched striped shirts with plaid trousers and the women looked like samosas, huge rolls of fat distorting the graceful lines of the sarees they insisted on wearing. Their conversation revolved around two issues: glorifying India and recommending the children get “First-Class marks” in school. They refused to speak English inside the house and didn’t care when shopkeepers, Girl Scouts selling cookies, even the plumber, couldn’t understand them. She had been so scrupulous about separating herself that at age thirty, she had never met a young Indian.

  “You actually had an arranged marriage?” Rekha was incredulous. “My parents have tried to get me to have one, but I either change the subject or leave the room. In fact, my mom just wrote me about some guy. Let’s see if I can find the letter.” Rekha rummaged through her bag, taking out a few books before unfolding it: “Rekha, your father has heard of this fine boy with a very good family. He came from Delhi two years ago and is studying English at the University of Florida. So you have some things in common. Can we arrange for him to contact you? Absolutely not, is what I always say. But do they listen? Absolutely not,” Rekha put away the letter. “I guess you didn’t mind?”

  “That’s how most Indians get married.” It felt strange to explain an arranged marriage. In India, love marriages had to be defended. Parents were not above locking girls in their room until they came to their senses.

  “No dating? Going to the movies? Dinner?”

  “Oh, no, never.”

  “You mean to tell me no one in India has boyfriends?”

  “Maybe a few girls do. But they are the racy ones.” They were also the ones who got bad reputations that were painfully resurrected with every marriage proposal.

  “And of course you weren’t racy?” Rekha smiled at the choice of word.

  Leila hesitated, thinking about Janni. No one in her new life need know about him. “My mother would kill me if I even said hello to a boy. She’d say that I had brought disgrace to my family and no one would marry me or my sisters.” She could almost hear Amma’s words, and sitting so far away in a country where couples lived together and kissed in public, it sounded almost silly.

  “I bet my mom wanted to kill me lots of times, even though I was one of the last girls in my class to date. I couldn’t talk to her about it, so I’d sneak out after they went to bed. Got caught once or twice, but that was nothing compared to making the cheerleading team. When my mom saw me in the short skirt, she practically yanked it off me.”

  “You just kept doing all that?”

  “I had to live my life. We were the only Indian family in our town, the only ones in school. I wanted to fit in, be part of the group.”

  “But now everything is okay with your parents?”

  “Well, yes. I don’t live with them, which makes it easier. Though they still call me on Friday nights to check if I’m home.”

  When Leila looked puzzled, Rekha explained, “Friday is big date night.”

  Leila didn’t respond. Friday nights she usually oiled and washed her hair. “End of the week grime,” Indy used to say. Saturday had been the only day of possibility. And she had grabbed her chance.

  It had started with the notes. Pages torn from an exercise book that Janni passed to her as they sat together on the bus. She hid them inside her textbooks to read over and over again, sometimes right under Amma’s eyes as she turned to the chapters she was supposed to be studying. Will you come see a film with me? That single line, written in Janni’s sloping handwriting, filled her with delight and fear. She wanted to see a film, any film, with him, but she also knew it was the wrong thing to do. Good girls didn’t go out with boys. Conversely, good boys didn’t put girls in the position of having to say yes or no. Plus he was a Muslim and she was Iyengar, which elevated the wrong to a taboo.

  But it was just a film. And she kept convincing herself that these were modern times. The Hindu Muslim killings had happened before she was born, during Independence, and were something she knew only because they were in her history book. People were getting less strict all the time, with some Iyengars marrying Iyers.

  So, on the appointed Saturday, she told Amma a lie. She didn’t tell Indy anything. It was her first secret from her sister. Indy was too young to understand, too innocent to keep it from Amma. Leila wore the nicest saree she could without raising Amma’s suspicion and met Janni in front of the cinema.

  The film played for the others; she was only a
ware of sitting in the dark with a man. Janni leaned back, crossing his legs so that an ankle nested against her saree. It was the closest she had come to touching any man and she hoped he could not hear her heart.

  “Leila, come with me at once.” She hadn’t noticed the limping figure patrolling the aisle with the relentlessness of a searchlight. Suddenly Appa was looking down at her, pulling her by the hand. Janni and she stood up together.

  “Shhh,” people whispered.

  “Even our expensive seats have noisy people,” a woman grumbled.

  They stumbled out of the dark into the sunlit lobby. It was empty, Leila noted gratefully. She didn’t look at either man, just stared at the floor.

  “Uncle, let me explain,” Janni pleaded.

  “You. You leave my daughter alone or I will break your legs,” Appa threatened. “I never want to see you near her again. Understand?”

  Appa and she struggled home under one umbrella, the rain plastering her saree all along her left side. Amma was waiting at the front door, her open-mouthed fury making Leila shiver far more than the wetness that had crept into her bones.

  “Weren’t you frightened to marry a stranger?” Rekha interrupted Leila’s thoughts.

  Jolted back to the present, to Neel, Leila responded, “But it wasn’t as if he was a complete stranger. My parents knew his background, his family, and we saw each other before the wedding.”

  “Didn’t you want to know him better before committing yourself to him?”

  “I had no choice. That is the way things are done.”

  “And now you’re a doctor’s wife. I guess there must be something to arranged marriages. At least you don’t have to bother with the whole dating game. You’re really quite lucky,” Rekha mused. Perhaps her mother wasn’t all wrong. It was so difficult to meet men, and it seemed as if all the good ones were either commitment-shy or gay. Then there were those who were taken. Like Tim. When she first met Tim he told her he was married, but unhappy and considering divorce. They had been going out for the past six months, and Rekha was getting tired of only being allowed to call him at the office.