What You Are

by M G Vassanji

  Nadia recognized Amyn immediately as one of the academic stars of their generation back in their small universe in East Africa. Back then everybody knew about the supersmart boys, how they would go on to make their mark in the world. But the world changed and here they all were in North America. Amyn taught English literature at Trinity College. Nadia got along well with him from the moment they were introduced, and they happened to sit next to each other, first in the living room, where the families briefly gathered and introduced themselves, and later at the dining table. They found that they could talk, they had common interests in books and music and tennis. Both had attended university in the States. And they must have crossed paths at Dar’s new public library, with its spacious study hall and all those new English novels, where it turned out they had both gone to study for their final school certificate exams. They might even have borrowed the same books from there. A connection.

  A generous spread had been laid out for the guests. Enough to dull her brain, she thought in good humour. The chai was exquisite though sweet. Nothing was said about the marriage proposal, it was as if this were a routine invitation, though there hung an air of formality and good behaviour over the proceedings. As they departed, Sheru Bai said to Nadia’s mother, “Please be a little quick.” With your decision, was what she meant. Jara jaldi karja. Obviously there were others waiting to grab this choice suitor.

  That same evening Amyn called and asked if he could take her out for dinner the next day. She couldn’t, Nadia said, she had reserved her evenings for her mother. They settled on lunch at the Faculty Club. They met at the entrance and shook hands. Inside, he paused to sign her in before they found a table. A civilized place, she thought to herself, looking around at the oak fittings, the glowing chandeliers and antique wall sconces. A middle-aged waiter with a Scottish accent and patronizing manner brought them the menu. They both ordered the spinach soup and salmon, which were the specials, and a glass of white. And they chatted as comfortably as they had done before.

  Over coffee Amyn brought up the subject.

  “I don’t want to rush you or anything, Nadia. I know a proposal has been made…for…you know what, but I think I would like to speak for myself. You’ve been ambushed, I know. But I really like you. We do have a lot in common and I think we can make a go of it…” They both laughed and he added, “And make a success of it. I see myself…loving you.” He blushed.

  “Well,” she said. “That’s a mouthful.”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me a little time…a day or two.”

  “Of course.”

  He walked her to her car, parked on St. George Street, where she discovered she had received a ticket.

  “Let me pay for it,” he said, grabbing it. “I invited you here.”

  They said goodbye and he gave her a peck, and he closed the door when she had sat down and saw her drive off.

  She liked him, of course. How could she not? He seemed just right. Not someone to sweep you off your feet, but then what did that mean? He was comfortable. She would grow to love him. After all, what were the prospects for meaningful relationships in DC? A few Europeans at the Bank, and an Egyptian at the Fund. Nice men, sophisticated and exotic, but at the end of the day, alien and transient.

  She let a day pass and called him Sunday afternoon.

  “Yes,” she said past the first greeting.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes,” she laughed at the raised pitch in his voice.

  He couldn’t contain himself. “Ever since I met you I have been praying to whatever is out there, Shiva, Krishna, Allah, Jesus and Mary…for just this one wish of mine to come true. It will be wonderful, I promise you. Our love will grow…”

  They went for a late coffee, had cognac to follow, and made plans for the future. She would move to Toronto and find a job. She liked Toronto. Yes, she wanted kids.

  It was nice. Sweet. Ups and downs, of course, but a predictable journey. Was it worth giving up a cushy job in DC for a lesser one, losing touch with friends, the nights out at the Folger or the Kennedy Center, the train to New York? But in my new life I wasn’t lonely, had someone I could speak to in Kutchi, indulge in nostalgia and recall the life we had left behind. We made new friends together. Became lovers. Now the boys are gone, returning only for Christmas, and there are only the faults and flaws to glare at. His slippers are never aligned, the drawers are left ajar, as though somewhere deep inside he is afraid of closure. Does it matter? It doesn’t. Then why do these habits glare at you like cracks in a wall? Why do his changing looks embarrass you when you know you’re not as supple as you once were? It’s because of the emptiness that’s come to occupy me.

  * * *

  —

  The next morning he’s made coffee and is ready to go when she comes down. He watches her. Always trim, still pretty. He can’t help a glow of pride that he won her. Not quite PC, some of his students would pounce on him if they heard him speak those words. Won her. He knows that his friends still wonder, How did the bugger manage to snare her? He gives her a kiss on the cheek.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she says.

  He smiles, he’s waiting.

  “I thought I’d go visit Layla in DC.”

  “The one from—”

  “Nairobi, yes. She lived with a guy from Ghana for a while. They broke up. Now she’s alone and she’s invited me. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not. You should go, if you feel like it. But I didn’t know you were in touch, or were still close.”

  “Well, recently. When she became single again.”

  “Go. You’ll feel good. You don’t want me to come with you?” He waits then gives her another peck. “Only kidding. You should know that.”

  She looks relieved.

  All those years, he says to himself, walking to the station. It was like working on a long project together. Bringing up the boys. Hard work but fulfilling. Gave you a purpose, and they bound you together. With kids there’s always something to do or say, and it’s worthwhile, you’ll do anything for them, even waking up at dawn for band or hockey. The medical emergencies. The few times he would rather forget. Still, he would have preferred a third child, a girl. But two is enough, she said, and three would be stretching our means. True enough, if you want to send them all to Upper Canada or Branksome Hall.

  Before he enters the station he texts brief hi’s to the boys. How you doing? Fine, Irfan replies instantly. One word, but good enough.

  That sudden announcement, I thought I’d go to DC. It felt like a stab, but why? It just did. An announcement or a notice? Is there a difference? Washington is her past, why call upon it now? She and Layla had spent a lot of time together way back. Nadia was at the World Bank, Layla at the IMF—the Fund, as they called it. Great jobs, and Nadia had given hers up for the sake of their marriage and come to Toronto. What did she leave behind? He’s never inquired about the details, what do they matter? And he? She never inquired either.

  He comes out on St. George Street and reads a message from their younger son, Arman. It’s longer, as always. Yay, I got my visa for India! Doing great! And you? He smiles, already feeling better.

  His day is typical. At ten he teaches his African Lit class. They discuss the question Why did Achebe dislike Conrad? An animated discussion, rather neatly divided along racial lines, most of the white kids standing up for Conrad, in which Amyn takes no definite position. He’s there to prompt and suggest, to teach them how to analyze, without himself getting personally involved. Two students take him up on that. But you must believe something, Prof! Don’t you stand for anything? He does not take the bait. Not for this class, he replies, I don’t. But it’s not the first time the point of his reticence has come up in a class. He can’t help it, for every argument he sees a counter. He’s been accused of hiding behind fairness and literary jargon in order to remain safe. After the class, fo
r about an hour in his office he looks at a few of the applications for next year’s college admissions and makes notes for his short list. At twelve he meets his colleague Appa for lunch to discuss their current project, a conference. The arts councils have refused assistance, but the Dean has come to their rescue, scrounging up a small sum from a reserve fund. There’s a caveat: he’s asked them to involve local communities. The university has to reach out. That’s easy to say, but how do you do that? Use a student, Appa suggests, he has one in mind, a Tamil. Involve two of them, Amyn says. He has an Ismaili in his class. After lunch he goes back to his office, looks at his mail, and reads more applications. At four he attends a history seminar at the Munk Centre next door, after which he leaves for home.

  How did he end up in this profession? He’d been an economics major at Penn. But encouraged in an elective literature class, he took a minor in English, and at a whim studied for a higher degree in the subject. He had a gift for it, his supervisors said. And miraculously he was offered a job for which a couple of dozen had been turned away. All he had to do was come to Toronto and say his piece in a seminar. He had not even submitted his thesis formally. It had been too easy, and at heart he was never satisfied. He had been shown a cocoon and moved right into it. Tucked away in his office at the college or his study at home with his books, dissecting stories and poems according to the theories of the day, a post-colonialist, a postmodernist, a deconstructionist, using jargon to spin theories like jalebis, as someone derisively put it. Or webs, to veil realities, as he himself sometimes despaired. He should have written stories or poetry to express himself, dug into his soul. Produced art, not argument. He’s become a passionless scholar instead. Our meddling intellect / Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things / We murder to dissect. Wordsworth.

  It’s too late to change careers now. But Nadia was impressed initially that she’d married a professor. He was a pundit, a learned man who could quote poets. That meant something back there, long ago. The illusion was gone in no time.

  * * *

  —

  Layla picks her up at Dulles. Dark and lithe, softer now but still sensuous in a clinging white dress; the broad smile, the lips thickened with purple lipstick, perhaps give the game away. Nadia’s disappointed but decides not to be. We have all aged. But DC looks the same, if you don’t pay close attention to the clothes.

  First thing, they lunch at a French restaurant in Georgetown, as they did in the past, once a month or so at la coquette, which of course is no longer there. Nadia catches up with news about people she had known here. Karla the British girl married a Kenyan and went to Nairobi; Josephine returned with Bruce to Paris, now is back in DC by herself. Still at the Bank. Arvind married a woman from Bombay, settled down, has two kids and has grown fat; a celebrity now, riding high on the success of his book on the 2008 market crash. Pulitzer. Bestseller. And hardly to be seen, Layla thinks it’s the Indian wife. Nadia once had eyes on him. She has to struggle to recall the others from the hazy collective they’ve become in her memory. They partied together, played tennis and bridge, went for brunches and concerts. Nadia’s Wimbledon brunch was the event of the year every July, kicking off with champagne and strawberries, what else, and then a lavish spread to follow. Croissants and bagels, sausages and kippers, cheeses. A crowded, boisterous event, the men’s final followed sporadically during the replays, and the American brat John McEnroe the rage. It was a charmed life, though stirred with that essential and irrevocable loneliness of the exile.

  “And you?…Any men?” Nadia asks.

  “A few…”

  “And?”

  “Nothing that lasted. What about you? What’s married life like? You and your husband seem to have steered a steady ship. I met him only once, that time at the wedding. A solid person.” She pauses, then blurts out, “You can’t be happy with him…all those years? Nadia, of all people?”

  Always blunt. And subversive. Nadia gives a smile. “Could have been worse,” she says.

  “That’s hardly a recommendation for married life.”

  She refuses the challenge. But is that what she wanted to say, Could have been worse? And solid? Yes, she could write an essay on solid character.

  That evening they go for dinner at a jazz club, flirt with a group of young political types, laugh and giggle a lot, then continue drinking at home, still catching up on the past. The following day at noon they drive to Bretton Woods to play tennis. Nadia’s partner is Soren, tall and charming, mature, an excellent player but patient with her game, which to her grief is almost gone after long neglect. Layla convinced Arvind to come and he’s her partner while his wife watches. They play a laborious set, after which they sit down for a light lunch. But Nadia and Soren have hit it off and he takes her out in his Maserati for an afternoon tea that ends with champagne. Nadia has the feeling that all this was planned. She doesn’t mind. Soren is a consultant with the Bank, advising on a project in Mozambique to rebuild villages that were destroyed during the civil wars. He’s just returned from Maputo. Previously he was in Vietnam. Upper-class French despite the name, his manners are what you would expect. How she’s missed such charm, such class, she admits to herself. They exchange contact information and agree to play singles the following afternoon. Can he take her out for dinner afterwards? Of course he can.

  What is she doing?

  The second time at tennis she is not as bad. He doesn’t take her out but cooks for her at his home, an old house in Georgetown furnished as you would expect for a single man like him. He is an accomplished chef. The asparagus is from his garden, and so are the herbs; the ginger is from Vietnam, the pepper from Szechuan, and the lamb from a farm in Virginia. The Burgundy he opens is exquisite, from an estate in France that he knows well. I’d forgotten that wine could be such an experience, she thinks.

  They talk about themselves, reveal details. There is a studied deliberation to Soren’s manner in contrast to his agility on the court. But the grace carries over from tennis to intimate dinner. “I am rather ordinary,” he says. With a smile, a twinkle. She laughs. “Tell me more.”

  He was born in a village in Argonne and after a degree in economics from the Sorbonne he went for his graduate work to Harvard. His first marriage to a Dane had not worked out, and he is—shall we say, cautious now.

  “And you? Who is this charming, beautiful woman who’s descended from the cold north suddenly? And sits, unbelievably, in front of me?”

  “More ordinary than you are.”

  She was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, she says. Her father was a partner in an electric shop. She went to high school there, then to college at Oberlin, and soon after found a job at the World Bank. It was hiring Africans. She tells him how she met Layla, how she got married and moved to Toronto. Two sons.

  It turns out he has a daughter in Geneva, married.

  They have dinner, more wine. He offers her his best cognac, of which she takes a sip. It is a heady evening, on the edge of possibility.

  She’s arranged to have coffee and dessert with Layla and some acquaintances from her Tanzanian past. She cannot get out of it, and reluctantly they part. It’s eleven when Soren calls her a cab. As he says goodbye, his embrace lingers, his body tightens, he squeezes her hand.

  She arrives at a modest apartment on M Street, where they’re already waiting for her. Her cousin Salim has come from Silver Spring. She last saw him five years ago in Toronto. It turns out to be a fun and raucous evening, and she meets people she’s not seen in ages.

  Back at Layla’s house, as Nadia undresses in her room, Layla calls her over. She’s sitting on her bed, leaning against the headboard, legs stretched out, a magazine open idly on her lap. “Come, sit. Let’s talk,” she says and makes way. Smiling. She’s put on a selection of sentimental old Indian film songs that remind them of their schooldays, all about heartbreak. As they would do in the past, they take turns translating the key lin
es—Simple heart, what’s happened to you? Giver of my life, I’ve lost faith in your world; If there were no grief, who would pen songs?—and laugh and let the tears flow in turns, without inhibition. At some point Nadia gives an audible, uncontrolled sob from the throat and turns away.

  “What’s it, my dear?”

  Nadia shakes her head.

  “What is it, tell me, Nadia. Shed it off. Come on.”

  “It’s all been wasted, my life. I’ve so missed something…”

  “Something what? Tell me.”

  Nadia waits, then:

  “I feel that I’ve never loved, really loved. Never got the chance. And now it’s almost over, my life…”

  She wipes her eyes.

  “Nonsense. It’s not over. It’s midlife…Are you sick? Is there something you’ve not told me?”

  Nadia shakes her head.

  “Look at you—you’re still good-looking. Your husband loves you?”

  “Amyn…yes. I think so.”

  “So what? Chuck him. Take your life back.”

  “How can I? After all these years?”

  “Dump him.”

  Nadia is in tears again, and Layla pulls her over to comfort her. She murmurs, “Did Soren…propose?”

  “I think so.”

  “Say yes. Have a last glorious hurrah, show a finger to life before it’s too late. He’ll sweep you off your feet. Besides, he’s a nice man, from an ancient family. This can actually lead somewhere. I’m jealous.”

  “Really?”

  Layla starts to cry, and they fall asleep in each other’s arms as dawn breaks outside.

  The next morning an aroma of coffee wafts upstairs. Layla, hearing her, shouts, “Coffee is ready! And croissants!” Nadia sits on her bed, stares with a smile at Soren’s card. On the blank side he’s written a brief message, “Lovely to meet you! I would like to stay in touch…Possible?” in an exquisite hand. She recalls that extra squeeze when they said goodbye, that exchange of looks, the anticipation. She lets the card drop into the trash basket.