Arranged Marriage: Stories (32 page)

Mrinal had listened in silence for a while. Then in a quiet voice she asked, “Is this what you really want, Asha? It’s a big decision. You don’t even know him—you’ve only met him once.”

“What’s all this westernized nonsense about
only meeting him once?”
I snapped. Part of my anger came from disappointment. I had wanted so much to impress her with my news. “This is how it’s always been done, especially in traditional families like ours.” My voice sounded prim and pinched and terribly old-fashioned. I knew Mrinal was thinking of all our rebellious conversations about love and romance and choosing our life partners. But they’d only been foolish adolescent fancies, with no connection to our real fives. “Your mother got married this way, and so did mine. And they’re perfectly happy.”

“Yes, but our mothers didn’t even complete high school. Times have changed, and so have we.” Mrinal spoke in a maddeningly equable voice. “I wouldn’t be in such a hurry if I were you.”

“Oh, really?” my growing temper made me sarcastic. “And what would madam do?”

“I’d wait awhile, finish college, get a job maybe. Don’t you remember how we always used to talk about the importance of women being financially independent?”

“No, I don’t,” I lied.

“Ashoo!” Mrinal said reproachfully. Then she added, “And you write so well, too. Professor Sharma always says how you have the makings of a novelist.”

“And besides,” I said, choosing to ignore her last comment, “who says I can’t be financially independent after marriage?”

“All I’m saying is, I’d learn a bit more about the world and what I wanted out of it before I tied myself down….” The pleading note in her voice frightened me. I didn’t want to hear any more.

“Well, I’m not you, thank God,” I’d shouted and slammed down the phone.

We’d made up of course, and Mrinal had helped with all the wedding preparations—buying saris, making invitation fists, choosing luggage for the journey. On the morning of the wedding, she’d done my hair over and over while I wailed that each style made me look uglier. When it was time for me to leave with my new husband, we’d clung to each other, promising to be friends forever. But throughout—even as, exchanging the fragrant red-and-white wedding garlands, Mahesh’s hand had brushed my throat, sending a shiver through me—I was wondering whether I’d been too hasty, whether I’d made the wrong decision. Whether Mrinal had won again after all.

Now, with the phone pressing its coldness against my ear, I heard Mrinal’s voice, tiny, metallic, a little disappointed, asking if I was still there, if I was all right.

“Of course I am,” I said, forcing a laugh and switching to English, which seemed a more appropriate language for lying. “I was just checking the calendar. It’s really hectic for us all
next week. Mahesh’s going to be out of town till Friday. They’re sending him to Philadelphia to straighten out some R and D projects. Dinesh is busy Mondays and Wednesdays with his karate, Tuesday he has Toastmasters,” (I was improvising wildly by now) “he’s the youngest member, you know, Thursday …”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a movement in the kitchen. It was Dinesh, checking on the pizza. He glared at me. My voice faltered, but I couldn’t stop now. “I can’t quite read what he’s written here—maybe volunteer work at El Camino Hospital. I’m pretty tied up, too…. What a pity, if only you’d let me know earlier. …”

“Ashoo, don’t tell me you’re too busy to see me!” said Mrinal, calling me by my special name that only she used. I could hear the hurt in her voice. “I found out about the U.S. conference just before I left India. I was so busy running around trying to get a visa that I didn’t have a chance to call. But I’ve been thinking about you all the way to London.”

Something twisted inside me then, like it was breaking, and I knew I’d have to meet her. The knowledge filled me with excitement and dread. “I’ll cancel something,” I said. “Where are you staying?”

“What’s all this shit about me and karate?” Dinesh burst out even before I’d replaced the receiver. “And Toastmasters—
Toastmasters
, give me a break!” I could see an artery pulsing in his temple. He’s inherited that from Mahesh. “I’m not good enough for your friend just the way I am, is that it? And why’d
you have to he to her about
him”
—he wouldn’t use his father’s name—“being out of town on business.” He imitated my Indian accent, thickening it in exaggeration. “Why couldn’t you just tell her the fucking truth—that he got tired of you and left you for another woman.”

That’s when I slapped him. It shocked us both, the action, the way it happened, involuntarily almost, while a part of me was still trying to fathom the depths of hurt and rage from which his words had erupted. I’d rarely hit Dinesh when he was growing up, he’d always been such an obedient boy. What frightened me now was that I’d
wanted
to hurt him, that I’d put all the strength in me behind that swing of the arm. We stood there facing each other, my palm ringing with the impact, a splotch of red spreading over his cheek. I wanted to throw my arms around him and cry for what I’d just done, but all I could say, even though I knew it was totally wrong, was “never use that word in front of me again.”

Dinesh’s hands curled into fists like he wanted to hit me back, and I wondered wildly what I would do if he did, but all he said in a cold voice that went through me like a knife was “you make me sick.”

“You make me sick, too,” I heard myself yell as he slammed the bedroom door. “Just remember, I’m not the only one your father left when he moved out. I didn’t hear him asking
you
along, Mr. Smart-ass!”

And then I was so ashamed that I
did
feel sick. I went into the bathroom and tried to throw up, but nothing happened and I felt worse. I sat on the toilet seat for a while, trying to figure out how my life, which had seemed perfect a
year ago, had turned into such a mess. When I came out, the smell reminded me of the pizza in the oven, by now a charred black mass. I threw it into the garbage and went to bed.

Dinesh was avoiding me. He left the house early each day—even on the weekend—and came back late, when he was sure I’d be asleep. In the mornings I’d go to the kitchen and find the dinners I fixed for him the night before still sitting on the stove top, untouched. When I lifted the lid, the congealed food would give out the faintly sweet odor of rot.

One Friday night, determined to talk to him, I waited up. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say—something to explain my long and complicated relationship with Mrinal, maybe something to assure him I loved him just as he was. It had been a humid afternoon, the still, sticky air hard to breathe. I hurried home from work and then spent the rest of the day in the kitchen making
kachuris
, which have always been Dinesh’s favorite dish. For hours I stuffed the dough with the spicy crushed peas, rolling out the perfect circles, sliding them into the hot oil, and lifting them out when they were just the right golden color. Once in a while I would brush a floury hand across my sweating forehead, wondering if I was going about it all wrong.

In the evening, unexpectedly, it rained. I opened all the windows and the cool smell of wet earth filtered into the house. I felt a sudden happiness—though surely I had no reason for it—a sudden hope that things might turn out all right. I lay down on the sofa in the dark to wait for Dinesh, and when I fell asleep I had a dream. In the dream his face
came to me. Not as it is now, with his earring and his mutilated hair and the anger wrenching at the sides of his mouth, but his baby face with its silky unlined glow. The way he slept on his side, his plaid blanket clutched in his fist, his pursed mouth making little sucking movements. The way his eyes would dart under his thin lids when he was dreaming. It was such a clear image that I could smell the milk-smell of him, and the side of my neck tingled where he always rubbed his face after I had nursed him.

The slamming of the door woke me. Then I heard his footsteps receding down the darkened passage toward his room.

“Dinesh,” I called.

He didn’t reply, but the footsteps stopped.

I hurried to the passage, groping for the fight switch. “Dinesh, I made some
kachuris
. I thought we could have dinner together.” Where
was
that switch?

“I ate out….” Already his shadowy silhouette was turning away.

“Dinoo,” I called desperately, using his baby name though I knew it was the wrong thing to do. “Dinoo, I’m sorry for what happened.” You shouldn’t have to apologize, a voice inside my head scolded. You’re the parent. And besides, he started it. I ignored the voice. “I want …”

“Spare me!” Dinesh said, holding up his hand, just as I finally found the switch. In the sudden flood of harsh yellow light, his expression was so forbiddingly adult, so like his father’s, that it hit me harder than any physical blow. I stood in silence and watched my son walk away from me until the bedroom door shut behind him with a final, decisive click.

Rummaging through my closet, I tried to figure out what to wear. In two hours I was supposed to meet Mrinal for dinner on the top floor of the Hyatt in San Francisco, (“my treat,” she had insisted, fortunately) and nothing I owned seemed right. In the afternoon sun that slatted through the blinds, the silk saris seemed either garish or old-fashioned. The
kurtas
looked drab. I didn’t have any fancy western clothes because Mahesh had never liked how they looked on me. I wished I could ask Dinesh for advice, but since the night of the
kachuris
we hadn’t spoken to each other.

It had been a summer day just like this one when Mahesh told me he was leaving. I’d been sifting through clothes, trying to decide what to wear to the Kapoors’ twenty-fifth anniversary celebration that night, while he sat on the bed, looking out the window.

“Which do you like better?” I’d asked, holding up a cream-and-orange sari and a blue
kurta
with silver flowers. Mahesh liked to choose my outfits when we went out. He knew exactly what made me look my best.

But on this day he kept staring at the lawn as though he hadn’t heard me. He’d been this way a lot lately, preoccupied. Worrying about work, I thought. But when I’d ask him if everything was OK at the office, he always said yes.

I asked him again which outfit he wanted me to wear.

“I don’t care,” he replied in a voice that didn’t sound like his. “I can’t take this anymore, Asha.”

All his life, he told me then, he’d been doing what other people wanted, being a dutiful son, then a responsible husband
and father. Now he’d finally found someone who made him feel alive, happy. He wanted the chance to really
live
his life before it was too late.

I remembered how calm I’d felt as I listened to him. Calm and mildly curious. Because of course this wasn’t really happening to me. Besides, I had a host of pictures inside my head to prove him wrong—Mahesh smiling into my eyes on our honeymoon in Kashmir, the night water shimmering beyond our houseboat on Dal Lake; Mahesh and I looking down at the tiny scrunched-up face of our new baby, then catching each other’s eye and breaking into the tremulous laughter of disbelief; all of us crowded into our bed Saturday morning, watching Bugs Bunny. And just the other day we had gone to buy a brand-new red Mazda Miata, father and son assuring me that a two-seater was not impractical, Dinesh excited, laughing, asking,
Can I drive this as soon as I get my license?

“Haven’t you been happy with us, ever?” I’d asked, my voice even.

“I thought I had,” Mahesh had said. “I hadn’t known what real happiness was then.”

Now, as I noted how the dust motes hung in the sunlit air exactly like on that day, how the jasmines outside smelled the same, I feared that Mrinal would be wearing the latest fashions. Even when we’d been dependent on the meager pocket money our parents doled out, she’d had a flair for colors and styles. She’d go down to Maidan market and buy remnants from the wholesalers that sat outside with their bales of tie-dye cottons and silks, and then she’d create the most clever designs around the scraps she’d bought. And now that she was a top-level executive, she took good care of her
self, as I could tell from the photos she sent me infrequently but regularly along with hastily scribbled notes that said she was thinking of me. The photos were of vacations in choice spots such as the Ooty hills or the beach at Kanyakumari where the three oceans meet. They hinted at glamour and allurement. In the latest one, sent a year ago, Mrinal was wearing a midnight-blue silk
kameez
with a daring scooped neck and golden
chappals
on her feet. She was leaning lightly against a good-looking man. The marble domes of the Taj Mahal shimmered in the background.

Sometimes, privately, I wondered how Mrinal felt about not being married. Surely she experienced some regret at family gatherings when sisters and cousins paraded their offspring and boasted about their husbands? But when I reexamined the photos where she posed against a fresco in the Ajanta caves or waved elegantly from the deck of a cruise ship with her direct, open smile, my doubts faded.
She has the perfect existence—money, freedom, admiration
, I would say to myself enviously, suddenly wanting it for myself,
and she doesn’t have to worry about pleasing anyone
. Underneath my envy, though, I was happy for her. Whenever my own life depressed me with its clutter and its ordinariness, I took a strange solace in thinking of Mrinal’s, which seemed to me to be fashioned with the same clean, confident strokes with which she had once designed her clothes.