THE IMMIGRANT (11 page)

‘I love you,’ he repeated, his heart beating, his body warm in the cold night.

She pressed herself closer. Gone was the awkwardness of words. With his free hand he turned her face towards him and nuzzled her lips. Her mouth opened, his tongue slipped in, to be met in eagerness by her own. His hand played fast and furious with her breasts, now no barriers between him and them. Involuntarily she opened her legs slightly; with alacrity he followed that invitation as well.

Nina’s body spoke its own language, coming to the fore in those insistent moments, treating as secondary her fears about distance and marriage. Her breathing told him this and he was satisfied. In his bones he felt this was the girl for him, and there by the wheels of Mr Singh’s Ambassador he did his best to make her feel the same.

‘Well, has she made up her mind yet?’ asked Alka sarcastically as he entered the house. ‘Or is she going to wait till the plane takes off.’

‘At least she is not looking for a meal ticket.’

This was ignored. ‘She is being mighty fussy. Where else will she get a man like you?’

‘Let it be. The girl has a right to ask for time.’

‘Already defending her,’ taunted the older sister. ‘You didn’t need time. Why does she?’

‘She is giving up more than I am, it’s not surprising that she should be cautious. I would feel the same in her place.’

Alka stared at him. So he was already under the girl’s spell. He looked happy, and she didn’t have the heart to puncture his joy. She just hoped this Nina would be worth that warms flushed look.

Six hours later when Ananda boarded the British Airways flight for London it was with a sense of loss. He was reminded unpleasantly of seven years ago when he had left, putting his youth and the deaths of his parents behind him. When would his life be sorted out, when would he have someone of his own? He was glad he had not told anybody in Halifax, should his hopes be dashed, the distress would only be his.

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No sooner did Ananda depart than Nina found her life empty. Two weeks and she had grown used to the pleasures of a romantic involvement. Away from him her own doubts seemed less substantial.

Now when his letters came, Mr Batra did not ask what was in them, Nina reacted so badly. It was useless explaining that she just wanted to know how he
was,
what was wrong with
that?

Instead she frequently inquired, ‘What does Zenobia think?’

‘Nothing much.’

Mr Batra had spent many years fearing Zenobia’s influence over her daughter. Despite her parents’ efforts to ensure a respectable second marriage, she remained alone in her barsati, thinking independence worth the pain of loneliness.

‘You don’t know the kind of people they want her to marry,’ said Nina angrily, but was it possible there was no one suitable for the high and mighty Zenobia?

Nina usually did not take kindly to Mr Batra’s comments about Zenobia. Now she thought if only her mother knew how much Zen’s views and her own coincided, her dislike would vanish. But she would not give her that pleasure.

The months passed.

Each day brought Nina face to face with her problem, should she or shouldn’t she? She grew sick of her indecision. If she didn’t say yes, she might regret it all her life. Twenty years down the road she could see herself alone in B-26 Jangpura Extension, growing old with the landlord’s children, the spinster of the English Department, her body dry with longing for a child. Then Ananda promised her such a future, laced with choices, edged with beautiful snowflakes that glittered through the distance, promising at the very minimum change, novelty, excitement. To push her over the fence Zenobia and Mr Batra held out the tantalising option of divorce. She should not resign straightaway, she should just take leave. All doors open, escape routes planned. Now jump off the fence. Go, Nina, go.

She did jump, as they had hoped, known, predicted she would, jumped to join legions of women who crossed the seas to marry men living in unseen lands.

In the nineteenth century they departed from their northern homes in boatloads, voyaging to Australia, Asia and the Americas. They left behind countries that had offered neither men nor security, left behind hopeless futures and lonely presents. In the women of the homeland, the waiting men saw helpers, family makers and standard bearers.

In the twentieth century it was the Asian woman’s turn. The immigrant man needed a bride who would surround him with familiar traditions, habits and attitudes, whose reward was the prosperity of the West and a freedom often not available to her at home.

For his part the dentist had turned to his own kind after seven long years. His wife would share his money, body and success. She would know and appreciate the distance he had travelled, and he in turn would guide her on her journey. For what did immigrants want but a better life, not only for themselves, but for others whom they could assist and patronise. These thoughts fell into place only after he met Nina.

After Nina said yes, Ananda experienced a sense of achievement. He had courted, at the same time he had completed what his mother had set out to do. He recognised his sister’s role in this and felt closer to her.

Once she had made the decision, Nina became calmer. Her torture was over. She was moving towards a new life, and she allowed herself to feel the excitement of this.

As for Mr Batra, she looked positively bridal as the weight of Nina’s thirty years lifted from her heart.

Letters between the engaged pair doubled. She who dealt in words all day came home from work to pen hundreds to him, a running commentary on her thoughts and feelings, shyly revealing her expectations of happiness. Now between his neatly spaced blue lines she was free to read every meaning she wanted—desire for her, impatience for marriage, an eagerness to build a future together

A few times Ananda asked whether she would like to work once she came. He would be away all day, she might get lonely.

Nina would investigate all that once she got there. She knew it wasn’t easy to get a teaching job, but she had no experience of anything else. When she considered all her years of study and preparation, doing nothing for a while seemed no bad thing.

Once a week Nina went to the university post office to get her sheaf of onion skin papers weighed. She bought stamps for the precise amount, gummed them onto a thin airmail envelope, which she then had franked before her wary eyes. She numbered her letters so Ananda would know when one was missing and be appropriately desolate.

Almost every weekend Nina visited Alka. Ishan and Ila called her Maami; she was already their aunt. For Nina it was novel to feel part of a larger family, her interest assumed and gladly given in every matter under discussion. She could wander around the kitchen, open the fridge, ask about Ananda’s favourite dishes. (Later she realised that Alka had got it all wrong.) Ila hero-worshipped her—it was the age—and wanted to come to Canada as soon as possible. On the evenings of these visits, Nina gratified her mother by recounting every tiny detail. Mr Batra was always greedy for more.

Alka presented Nina with an engagement ring, a rectangular cut ruby surrounded by Basra pearls. ‘My mother got it from Burma. How she was looking forward to this day.’ The ring had an old-fashioned prettiness, and Nina slowly put it on her finger, abandoning fantasies of Ananda and diamonds. She was too old for that sort of thing, she had better watch herself.

The wedding was fixed for December. Ananda, the uncle and his family, friend Gary and Gary’s parents were all coming. The uncle wanted to stay at the Oberoi Hotel; its central heating and running hot water would soften the harsh realities of Indian living. Gary and his parents were booked at the Gymkhana Club. A colonial relic, it had an atmosphere no money could buy.

Ananda and Nina wanted a court marriage—less trouble, less expense—but Alka insisted that ritual alone could satisfy the spirit of her parents. They compromised on a simple ceremony at the Arya Samaj Mandir. Canadian dollars were to be spent on a reception held in the Rose Garden of the Gymkhana.

Though the groom was adamant that the girl’s side be put to no expense, Nina did not want to start married life as a charity case. She took a loan against her college provident fund, determined to pay for the wedding and the subsequent breakfast. Every day Nina and her mother counted their rupees, now free to flow into the future with all their might.

Meanwhile the mother worried about the daughter’s trousseau collected during her husband’s postings abroad: sheets, towels, linen, cutlery, kitchenware. Were these items to be shipped to Halifax or stored in Alka’s house?

Ananda objected to both possibilities. The transport money to Canada would buy such household articles twice over, and Alka would not want to be burdened by them. As for memorabilia, the practical eye looked coldly on books, letters, old diaries, cotton saris, lecture notes and decided they could not go.

Ananda had made sure that none of the traditional demands involving gifts and money be made on the bride’s side. All the immigration paperwork and the price of the air ticket were his. A bed of roses was waiting for Nina. Mr Batra hoped the girl would not make a special effort to seek out the thorns.

The summer holidays began, mother and daughter trapped in the heat of Delhi. At night they slept in the small outer space, squeezed to one side of the car, on two string beds which were propped against the wall in the day. They wet their sheets, so they could fall asleep with some coolness against their bodies. By five in the morning the summer sun drove them inside, Nina to bed, the mother to the kitchen.

For the first time in years, the never-ending summer with its dusty, searing winds was bearable. Every day was numbered, the last one of its kind. The last May, the last June. Nina would soon break out of this prison of heat. As she sweated, and fanned herself during electricity breakdowns, she could scarcely believe that for the rest of her life she need never be this hot again.

Valiantly the duo dealt with the flies that came with this particular ointment.

Homesick? Home was just a flight away.

Especially if you had money, and money was what the West was all about.

The world was getting smaller. Distances were all in the mind.

College started. At a meeting during the first term Zenobia announced that their Lit Soc secretary was engaged. Family, sex and marriage would soon be hers.

The colleagues looked at Nina’s blushing face. How did it all start? How long had it been going on? And the boy, the boy, the boy?

Nina was careful to describe her courtship in a way that prevented the department from denigrating her as an arranged marriage type whom age had made desperate. Though the wedding was fixed for December, her own departure was not so certain. Her fiancé was doing all he could to expedite the immigration process, but much of that could only start after the ceremony.

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Ananda was affianced. It was time to let his uncle and friend know. He looked forward to neither conversation. Both of them had hoped he would find a wife in Canada.

An engagement is a big thing to hide. When his secret grew so large he could look at neither person without feeling guilty, he decided to start with his uncle. As it so happened Lara and Lenny were home from their respective universities for Easter weekend. Dr Sharma had invited him over for dinner and Ananda planned to break the news then. A wedding trip to India needed ample notice.

He sat with them at their dining table. The food was at its Sharma best: glazed ham, duchess potatoes, fiddlesticks with lemon butter sauce, an elaborate salad with fresh mustard–honey dressing, crisp brown rolls. All this was accompanied by a French red wine.

Mellowed by the feast, the drink and family feeling, Ananda allowed himself to imagine Nina sitting at this very table next year. He looked at Nancy and thought his fiancée was a hundred times more beautiful and elegant. And once she wore Western clothes she could pass for Italian or Spanish.

By now the family was on dessert. Fruit compote with rum flavoured whipped cream. During a pause in the conversation, Ananda took a photograph from his wallet. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is the girl I am going to marry in December. You are all invited.’

It was a bombshell, yes, it was. They were flabbergasted, they exclaimed, they examined him with more interest than they had in seven years.

Was it an arranged marriage?

How long had he known her?

How had they met?

Was that why he had gone to India?

What was he going to do about the immigration papers?

How much family did she have?

What did this girl do?

How old was she?

She looked pretty in the picture, what was she like in real life?

Ananda answered patiently. Dr Sharma grew quite emotional. They would come for the wedding. His children were half Indian; it was time they discovered their roots. Lara declared her father always sounded so soppy about India, if he cared that much, how come they didn’t go there more often? And could she please bring her boyfriend? Lenny said he wanted to go to Goa. He had heard the beaches there were fantastic.

And so the evening passed.

Now for the friend. Gary might wonder about the secrecy, might question the explanations, but he knew friendship recognised the clear divide between public and private and beyond a certain point there would be no probing.

It was Friday—come and have a beer with me, I have something to tell you, was how he put it. Gary immediately looked concerned. No, nothing was wrong, he had good news and he wanted to relate it properly.

‘So, I gather this is not your average arranged marriage,’ remarked Gary at the end of the story, thoughtfully nibbling his chips and sipping his beer.

That Indian marriages were barbarically arranged, that strangers were forced to cohabit, was a universal perception, and there was nothing Ananda could do to change it. Useless to assert the influence of modernity, to suggest variations, to indicate that in the cities it was just arranged introductions, and where in the world did that not happen? The Western eye, viewing things from a ten thousand mile distance, had no use for trifling nuances.