by Anne Cherian
She had heard that Sanjay was taking his wife; what if Neel decided to do the same? Were Indian women insistent? She didn’t know, and at times like these, not knowing frightened her.
“You better not take her,” Caroline had warned. “It’s our special place. I want to go with you.” Once every few months they flew to Reno in Neel’s plane. Neel was a different person there, freer—less anxious about being seen together. And she enjoyed winning money. Or losing. Neel never minded.
“You know you can’t go,” he said flatly.
“I’ll stay in the room the whole time if necessary. But I don’t want her there.”
Instead of placating her, he had turned on his heel and left.
Two days of dishes were piled in the sink and suddenly Caroline couldn’t stand the clutter any longer. She put on her latex gloves and began cleaning the kitchen. It was what she always did when she was miserable—like after a breakup.
But she wasn’t breaking up with Neel. No, this time things were going to go her way.
She hadn’t realized how difficult it was to date a married man. Once the shock of his marriage wore off, she decided to bide her time until he got divorced. They would carry on as before, as Neel promised, until his crazy grandfather died. Meanwhile, if she didn’t talk about the wife, or ask about her, she wouldn’t exist. But now Neel might be taking the wife to Reno. And the wife could, legitimately, go.
The phone rang.
It had to be Neel. He was calling to tell her he was sorry.
As always, her mother began talking even before Caroline put the receiver to her ear.
“…and he’s doing fine.”
“Something wrong with Pop?” The doctor had advised a change in diet after Pop’s heart attack last year. But Pop loved his meat and beer too much to give them up.
“No, love, Pop’s fine. He’s over the moon same as me. It’s Cathy. The baby came a little early, an eight-pound boy. But they’re both doing well.”
Cathy’s first four were girls, and everyone was excited about her finally having a son. The two sisters had been close as teenagers, but Cathy married her sweetheart straight out of high school and began having babies. In those days, Caroline, voted “Most Likely to Have Her Name in Lights,” had pitied her sister. Stuck on the small farm her husband had inherited, eating, giving birth, eating, giving birth, till her body looked like a haystack. But Cathy had a husband who loved her and five—five—children who would look after her. She would never be alone.
“Give Cath my best. What’s the baby’s name?”
“Tristan. She was going to name it after Pop, but you know how he’s been saving that for your son.”
“I know, Ma.” Ten-year-old Caroline had made that promise and he had taken her seriously.
“When are we going to meet this doctor of yours?”
“Soon. He’s busy.”
“So you keep saying. But even doctors must get vacation time?”
“Ma, we’d need at least two weeks to come out there. Anyway, he’s taking me to Reno this weekend. In his plane.”
“Send us a picture this time. I’ll show it to Bonnie next door. She thinks only millionaires have planes.”
They had never even seen a picture of Neel and only knew him as “Your doctor in California.” They bragged about the doctor part. “Bring him home so he can see how real Americans live.” Pop had insisted she invite him last Christmas, threatening to call the hospital. “He’s coming,” she kept telling them, though Neel, thank God, had refused to accompany her.
Her best friend, Natalie, said she was playing a dangerous game. When was she going to tell her family he was Indian? “After we’re married,” Caroline always stated, to which Natalie responded, “You think that’s going to make it all right?”
Perhaps not. But it would make it a done deal. In France, her parents had been suspicious of “the Frogs,” hardly ever leaving the base, refusing to learn the language. They still called blacks “niggers” inside the house and as far as Caroline knew had never met an Indian, certainly not socially.
No one in the family had married out. She recalled how Aunt Bessie had carried on when Cousin Laura dated a Jewish man. Laura was a dummy. She had brought him home for a Fourth of July barbecue and the poor man hadn’t lasted the evening. The family refused to give him a chance, just ignored him completely. Caroline was the only one who tried talking to him. Living in California had changed her even more, but she was well aware that the family remained the same.
Now her mother was asking her, “Reno. You wouldn’t be going there to get married, would you? It would break Pop’s heart not to walk you down the aisle.”
“And Cathy’s. She wants to be maid of honor.”
“You’d better get on it, then. I know I told you not to make Cathy’s mistake, getting pregnant right out of school. But you didn’t have to wait this long. You sure your doctor is going to make an honest woman of you?”
“I keep telling you, the men here are different. They need more time.”
That’s what she told Natalie, too. Natalie didn’t trust Neel and couldn’t understand why Caroline wanted a man who went to see his dying grandfather and returned with a wife. She rolled her eyes every time Caroline insisted, “He’s working on the divorce. Just give him a little breathing space.”
Caroline listened to the loud voice over the mouthpiece. “Men are the same everywhere. If he’s thinking so much, maybe you should go ahead and get pregnant. It’s now or never for you. Besides, it’ll give him something real to think about.”
“Ma!” Ma would never have said something like this five, ten, years ago. But now she, like Caroline, was getting desperate. She merely wanted Caroline to have what she had: a husband and family.
“Just something for you to think about when you’re in Reno. Make a nice playmate for Tristan.”
EIGHTEEN
THE PHONE RANG FOR THE FOURTH TIME. Shanti had called to say an Indian writer was giving a reading, did she want to go? and Neel to announce he would be home late. Then it was Rekha, changing the time of their meeting to four o’clock that afternoon. As Amma always said, when the monsoons finally came, they made you forget the dry, cracked earth of summer.
“Am I catching you at a bad time?” Oona asked.
“Oh, I’m very busy,” Leila joked. “I was just about to practice the rope trick. I wanted to see if those Indian fakirs were fakes.”
Oona laughed. “It’s last minute, but the judge rescheduled a hearing so I unexpectedly have the day off. I’d love to come see you.”
It was just like being back home, Leila thought contentedly, as she cleaned and cooked. People dropped in all the time, often staying for a meal. She ran around the rooms with the vacuum cleaner, and made sure the bathroom was guest-ready, as she and Indy termed it.
“Namaste.” Oona handed Leila a package. “A belated wedding present.” This was her first visit to the condo she knew Neel was so proud of, though he never said so. But she’d thought Sanjay was joking when he told her it was practically unfurnished.
“Thank you so much.” Leila held the silver-papered box awkwardly. She didn’t know whether to open it or put it away.
“It’s a great view,” Oona said from the window. “You can almost reach out and touch Angel Island. What a perfect day to see the bridge. We don’t get anything like this in the South Bay.”
“Yes, it’s nice,” Leila said vaguely. She didn’t understand why Americans were so crazy about a view. It wasn’t as if people sat by their windows looking out all the time. “Shall we go to the kitchen? I’m making some pakoras.” She wanted to usher Oona out of the living room as quickly as possible. The large empty space and the sagging couch embarrassed her.
“What a charming place,” Oona admired the high ceilings and moldings. “When was it built?”
“I really have no idea. Neel knows all that.” Lately, Leila had begun seeing their home as Neel’s condo. He didn’t want her to change anything,
and point-blank refused to buy more furniture. “I want to get some good stuff at auctions,” he said, but when she found out about a few, he was too busy to go.
“Will you have some tea?” She placed the gift on the counter, then picked it up again when Oona said, “If it’s tea you’re making, you may want to open that.”
Leila didn’t have to feign her delight when the paper fell away. “A kettle! And it whistles like a train,” she read the print on the box. “Thank you.”
“I’m glad you like it. I have one just like that and use it all the time. Sanjay approves of it because the spout is lined with twenty-four-carat gold. He calls it the real stuff, unlike the fourteen-and eighteen-carat gold that’s more typical here. I had no idea Indians cared so much for gold.”
“Yes, we Indians love our gold. Some rich girls even wear gold anklets, though I’ve never heard of gold on a teakettle. My mother will be amazed.” Leila filled the shining kettle.
“I never drank so much tea as when Sanjay and I went to India. Tell me, did the British take the tea habit from India—steal it, my husband would claim—or was it the other way around?”
“You know, I have no idea. I come from the south where people drink coffee. Though in my house we also drink a lot of tea.”
“What is ‘tea’ in Hindi? I’ve forgotten?”
“Chai. And in my college we’d say ‘Who’s aye for a chai?’ Any time was a good time for a chai break.”
Leila put spoonsful of chickpea batter mixed with green onions, spinach, and cumin powder into the hot oil.
Oona took a deep breath. “It reminds me of Sanjay’s mother’s cooking. She used to serve the most delicious meals. I’d heard of people losing weight in India but I came back about ten pounds heavier.”
“She must be a good cook. I’m not very good, you know,” Leila quickly disclaimed, using Amma’s words. She liked the way Oona pronounced “Sanjay,” as if she were beginning to say “sand” instead of “sun.”
“I’m sure you’re a very good cook. Or cooker, as I heard someone say in India. Sanjay says English is the strangest language. Bake, baker, garden, gardener, but no cooker for cook.” They both laughed. “Oh, that smells delicious. I wanted to learn how to cook, but Sanjay’s mother refused to let me do anything.”
“She sounds just like my mother.” Leila smiled, thinking of Amma bustling around, taking charge of everything. The girls could help by cleaning the rice or grating the coconut, but only she stood in front of the kerosene stove, converting vegetables into curries.
“Do you miss your family and friends?” Oona asked.
Leila thought of ET jumping onto her shoulder and meowing into her ear, the daily comb battle with Kila’s fusilli hair, helping Indy decide which saree to wear and then arranging the pleats.
“Yes. Especially my sister,” she said.
“You’re so brave, Leila. Having an arranged marriage, coming to the United States and then settling in with no trouble.” Oona thought how most Americans she knew would have had a nervous breakdown. Here there were support groups for every variety of angst and couches for those who wanted one-on-one attention.
“But that was expected of me. You are the one who is brave. After all, you married a foreigner.”
Oona’s obvious love for India drew Leila toward the white woman. Neel never talked about home, hardly ever asked about his mother’s letters. Perhaps it was because he wanted her to adjust to America. Yesterday he had suggested she cut her hair. “You’ll look more modern when you go for job interviews.”
“I never consciously thought of Sanjay being a foreigner until we went to India. Then I felt like a foreigner, which in turn made him seem alien.”
“I don’t understand?”
“Oh, it was all the customs I didn’t know. We had our first major fight in India. We had gone to his cousin’s house for tea and I was so full from lunch at another person’s house that when they brought around the tray of sweets, I couldn’t eat any. Sanjay was livid at me for slighting his cousin. I didn’t know it was rude and reflected badly both on Sanjay and his cousin, who had made the sweets herself.”
“Oh yes, you have to eat when you go to people’s houses or they will be insulted. Do you fight here?” The words left her mouth before she realized it was a Nosy Nandi question.
“Sure. Not all the time, but there are cultural issues that crop up every now and then, aside from your everyday please-put-the-ice-cream-back-in-the-freezer. Tell me, how are you coping with the cultural differences?”
“Not too bad.” Leila poured milk into the tea, and watched the dark brew turn a soft sparrow brown. She didn’t find America hard to decipher; all she had to do was read the ubiquitous paperwork that was attached to every product. Neel was the problem. She kept learning things about him—he clipped his nails every week, he didn’t like pepper in his food—but they weren’t a unit. He never asked her a simple question like: “What did you do today?”
She wished she could ask Oona if her expectations of marriage were unreasonable. But Amma had raised her to be very careful not just about what she said but who she voiced it to. Leila had grown up amongst aunties who extracted unhappiness even when it wasn’t there. If a bride said she wanted to wait a while before having children, it was automatically assumed she could not get pregnant. Leila couldn’t be absolutely sure Oona wasn’t like the aunties. She hadn’t learned to decode Americans the way she did Indians.
“What do you do with your time?”
“I joined the library so I’ve been catching up on my reading. And next week I start driving lessons, after which I’ll begin looking for work.” She refrained from saying, “I write.” Oona might make much of it and Leila wanted to surprise Neel. She had finished the Annigma story and had already done some research in the library on agents and publishers.
“Oh, the luxury of not having a job. Poor Sanjay! He comes home ready to play and I have briefs to read and arguments to prepare. Where has Neel been taking you in the evenings?”
“I think Neel is making up for the time he was in India. He works almost every evening.”
“Really? I guess anesthesiologists have it rougher than pediatricians. The last time Sanjay worked late was, oh, over two months ago. Poor you. Anyway, you should see more of Neel in Reno.”
“Reno?”
“Didn’t Neel tell you? That’s where the annual medical conference is being held this year. I’m taking a few days off and we plan to drive there. Neel, of course, will probably fly up. You are coming, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Neel won’t want to go.”
“He always goes to those conferences. Sanjay’s not too crazy about them, but it’s for their CME credits. It’s great for us women. We get to gamble and hang out while they attend boring talks.”
“Gamble? I thought Reno was for quick divorces?”
“No, Reno is getting to be more and more like Las Vegas, with everything from easy slot machines to craps tables. And fabulous buffets. We’ll have a great time, I promise you. Why don’t you and Neel come up with us? Our car can easily fit two more.”
“That’s very nice of you. But really, I can’t say anything for sure without talking to Neel.”
“I just remembered Sanjay saying that he is on a panel with Neel. Which means he is going, so you, of course, are going, too.”
“But Neel might not want to take me.” The words were difficult to say. Oona didn’t know she hadn’t even been in the plane yet.
“Of course Neel will want you to go with him. You’re his wife.”
Leila held that phrase to her chest like a hot water bottle. She had recently begun to doubt it. But Oona was correct. She was Mrs. Sarath.
BY THE TIME OONA LEFT, it was past three-thirty and Leila set off immediately to meet Rekha. Every walk still contained the thrill that she was on concrete instead of sending up small squalls of mud. The cold air that pricked tears out of her eyes was so different from the sticky warmth back home.
She shook her head. She had to stop thinking of India as home. This was her home now and she was beginning to own it. Just last week the painters had finished with the apartment building across the road. The old cream was gone, replaced by pale blue, but she would always know that original color.
Tall apartment buildings, stuck together, gave way to houses, and she saw people weeding gardens, gathering leaves into piles, snipping flowers whose blooms had faded. A dog walker picked up the pile just deposited by a golden retriever, though the odor still lingered. She increased her pace. She had looked up the address on the map and been fooled by the distance. Places always looked closer on paper.
The café was almost empty and she chose a corner seat. The herb tea smelled deliciously familiar, the cardamom evoking Amma’s Sunday-only biryani. Indy used to call it the culinary obstacle course because of the cardamom, cloves, and round, fat peppercorns in the biryani. The rest of the family would have finished eating, and there was Indy, slowly, painstakingly picking through the rice because she didn’t want to bite into one of the spices.
“Sorry I’m late.” Rekha was out of breath. She considered punctuality a crucial difference between Indians like her parents, who were habitually late, and Americans.
“Hi. I was a little late myself. I was actually afraid you might have left.”
“Oh I’d never do that. Just give me a sec and I’ll get something to drink. I’m dying for some brew.”
Leila watched Rekha. She was so confident, chatting with the man behind the counter, dropping coins into a tip jar labeled “Counter Intelligence.” It was obvious that things came easily to her. Including Tim. She had told Leila on the phone that their relationship was “back on track.”
“Leila, I’ve been thinking a lot about you ever since we met and I’ve had a brilliant idea!” Rekha vigorously dissolved the powdered cocoa in her cappuccino. “Well, actually, I have to give Tim some of the credit. I was telling him about you and it suddenly occurred to us that I should do my MA thesis on arranged marriages. Concentrating on the woman’s perspective, naturally. What do you think?”