THE IMMIGRANT (14 page)

They also had their future, one that would take place in her flat, as Ananda insisted on calling it. It was a nice modern flat. Gary had suggested he buy a house, but a house was too much work, constant attention to repairs, messing about in the garden, dealing with the snow, plus all the equipment needed for coping with these things. An apartment was more practical.

Nina could connect to none of this. The important thing was that they should be together, even a mud hut would do. As she talked Ananda felt more in love than ever.

Meanwhile election fever was in the air. Many interests coalesced to create the Janata party and to provide a coherent opposition to fight the PM. For a moment their individual differences mattered less than a united protest against the Emergency that had been declared two years ago.

The forces of dictatorship seemed so firmly entrenched that Nina voted Janata in despair rather than hope.

It was a day of miracles when the results declared that Indira Gandhi had lost. The Emergency was over. Firecrackers went off all night, cars hooted, people shouted in the streets, Janata has won, Janata has won. Morarji Desai was sworn in as prime minister. Nobody had thought it possible. Nina described all this to Ananda, detail after detail. Across the seas he echoed her joy in more reserved, let’s wait and see tones.

Three months later and the call from the Canadian embassy came.

This time she could look around the glass and concrete, the lawns, the fountain, the French and the English brochures with a sense of ownership. She had been accepted. They knew. They smiled at her, greeted her warmly. She was in the process of crossing oceans to be one of them.

She gave notice in college; she would finish the term and leave on the 1st of May. Ananda sent her ticket. Delhi—London—Toronto—Halifax. She collected it from British Airways and stared at the three red and white pages that comprised her departure from India.

At home she could not escape the sorrow of leaving her mother. Every glance at the sad pathetic face, pinched cheeks, badly dyed hair, eyes blinking behind spectacles marred her happiness. She had been her mother’s life since her father died, now that life was going ten thousand miles away.

‘Don’t worry about me, beta,’ said Mr Batra, constantly endeavouring to reassure. ‘Don’t worry about me. I will be all right. If need be I can go back to Lucknow.’

‘And be their unpaid servant? Promise me you won’t do that. You know you can always come to Canada.’

‘Yes, yes, I know. But you can hardly arrive there with your mother.’

Yes, first Nina had to go.

It was as difficult parting from Zenobia, and a great deal less simple.

‘Promise me you will come and visit,’ said Nina again and again.

Zenobia refused to allow this cheap comfort. ‘It’s expensive, you know that. I don’t have a husband earning in dollars.’

Departure time was definitely ebb time in their relationship.

The tears Nina hadn’t shed before, during or after her wedding, all came pouring out days before she was to leave. They came unsought, at all hours, trickling down her cheeks, hidden from her mother, mopped furtively only to come again. This was her true vida—to her home, her friend, her job, her mother, everything.

Alka made soothing noises as the office car drove them to the airport. ‘Don’t worry, we will look after her, you will feel better once you reach, this is the lot of women, what is one to do.’

They parted at the airport door. Alka put her arm around Mr Batra’s heaving shoulders and led her back to the car. And that was it. Mother and daughter were separated, as is the fit order of things.

In the plane Nina sat hunched in her tiny seat. It was the middle of the night. As the flight took off she had to fight her nausea. Panic-stricken she tried not to vomit, breathing deeply, closing her eyes, repeatedly swallowing the saliva that flowed into her mouth. Her head felt too heavy for her neck, her jaws were clenched, her temples throbbing.

In Delhi she had been soothed by animated discussions of how small the world had become. Stupid, she had been stupid. She looked at her watch that marked distance in the changing time zones of the earth. Half an hour. Hours and hours, minutes and minutes, thousands and thousands of seconds more. And during every one of those seconds the links between her and home stretched tighter and tighter.

The last time she had travelled internationally had been sixteen years ago, when she had flown back from Brussels, her father’s coffin in the hold of the plane. In these intervening years she had never thought of that nightmare journey, blanking it out as completely as she could.

Now she was married and in a place that allowed her to throw a cautious glance backwards. She could see that child returning unwillingly back to India, homeless, fatherless and dislocated, her destiny changed forever. It had taken all this time, and much doubt and anguish, but as she travelled westwards, she felt her life shifting onto the track it had been forced to leave. This despite the pain of leaving her mother, and the uncertainties in her future.

She began to shiver with the assault of the air conditioning and wrapped her thick silk palla around her arms. Trolleys of food and drink came and went. She took a tray then returned it untouched. ‘Ask the air hostess for a pill,’ said the matron next to her, ‘that’s what I had to do the first time I went to visit my son.’ (By now the woman had gleaned all there was to know about Nina.) Grateful to be reminded that states of mind can have pill-like solutions, Nina asked for one, and on a tray came a little paper cup of water with two white tablets—they will work in half an hour, promised the air hostess.

Gradually, the pills she had ingested kindly closed her eyes. Her head fell against the seat, her mouth dropped open. For the next six hours Nina slept, scrunched up and oblivious. The stewardess woke her as the plane started to descend, ‘Fasten your seat belt, please.’

She sat up, hair dishevelled, limbs cramped. She couldn’t believe it. Heathrow. London. England.

Nearer the earth they came and there it was: a white city, tall buildings, large, sprawling, a grey-silvery river. ‘Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song… Sweet Thames run softly for I sing not loud or long’, ‘The river sweats/ Oil and tar/ The barges drift/ With the turning tide’, the mighty river of the opening of
Heart of Darkness;
O Thames, I come from far away shores to greet you, receive me your foster daughter, who loves your literature and language better than her own.

The plane lurches slightly as it hits the tarmac. The foster daughter looks out at the great silver wings dotted with tiny raindrops. The passengers heave, rise, pull open the overhead luggage bins, haul out their bags and unable to sit a moment longer, jostle in the aisles till the doors open.

The long windowed tube connecting the plane to the airport is new to her. Purposefully she follows the arrows pointing to transit.

She crosses a sweeping woman, long handled mop describing damp concentric circles on the floor. She is salwar kameezed, with gold hoop earrings, a face brown, worn, lined and shut. Punjabi, fellow country woman, we are sisters, you and I.

Just then the woman does look up, but so blankly, it is obvious that the sari clad lady in front of her strikes no chord, her kindly gaze, her twitching, ready to smile lips mean nothing.

Heathrow: miles and miles of duty free glitter, seduction encased in lights, each dazzling item rivalled by adjacent companions. Nina glutted herself with looking; she had no money to buy as was obvious from her demeanour and shop assistants kindly ignored her. She rifled through postcards: the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, the Thames River, the Lord Nelson Column, Trafalgar Square overrun by pigeons, names and places that found a faithful echo in a heart taught to beat to English Literature for so many years. So near, yet so far. Wistfully she drank from a water fountain, then made her way to the gate that would take her to Toronto. Her feet hurt in new closed shoes.

In the waiting lounge Nina gazed at the raindrops still sliding off the big glass windows. Everything outside was grey: the sky a pale grey, the planes a silvery grey, the tarmac a blackish grey. The colour was soothing; there was no need to respond to it, all her responses had been absorbed by the shop lights, vortexes which reached out to people and sucked them in.

Two hours passed. The departure lounge filled with confident, well-dressed people, looking as though they owned the world. For the first time in her life Nina felt out of place. Wrong clothes, shoes, handbag, bag. Maybe in their eyes she was like the woman sweeping. If Ananda were here, would both of them seem the same? Outwardly they might, though he was West and she was home.

She looked down at her book to block out these useless thoughts.

Half an hour later they were requested to proceed for boarding.

The flight to Toronto was much easier than the flight to London. Nina could concentrate on the film, it was bright outside, the food was better and she could eat.

Looking at the British Airways magazine, it occurred to Nina to figure out where she was going to live. What and where were Canadian cities anyway? Toronto, ah, there it was, why it was practically in America. And Halifax? Where was that? Good heavens, almost half a page before Toronto. Right by the edge of the sea. Why was she going to Toronto if Halifax came first? She wished she had been more alert when she had been told about these travel arrangements instead of bored and switched off.

The plane started to descend. Saliva filled her mouth, nausea overcame her and as the wheels touched the ground, she retched into the brown paper air sickness bag. She wondered if this was an omen.

As they go through immigration Nina clutches her passport apprehensively. She notices the many glances cast at her bangles, the bridal ones that enabled every Indian in the nooks and crannies of the globe to identify her as newlywed. She covers them with her shawl.

When Nina reaches the counter, the immigration man demands to see her husband. He is in Halifax, says Nina nervously. She is told to step aside. She waits. The white people queuing for entry into the country look away, the coloured ones have pity in their eyes. Will she be deported?

She is ushered into a small empty cubicle with neon lights, and no windows. It looks like a jail, which is where Nina feels she is heading. She sits down and stares straight in front of her. After a while a woman appears. She smiles briefly, takes out a form and begins to fire questions.

When had Ananda first come to Canada, who were his relatives here, who were his relatives in India, what did all of them do, where did they live? What did her husband do, what was the name of the partner he worked with? Where all had she travelled, who were her parents, what was her education, what were her professional qualifications?

Nina has no idea why this is happening to her. She has a valid visa which had taken three months to acquire. She is decent, respectable, god fearing and worthy. If deported, she doesn’t think she can make the plane journey back again.

The immigration woman examines each page of her passport suspiciously. Nina’s claim that she has married a citizen needs to be scrutinised despite the paperwork. The colour of her skin shouts volumes in that small room. She feels edgy; she is alone with a woman who makes no eye contact, for whom she is less than human. Suppose they found a way to kill her? That would be one less unwanted immigrant.

Now she is being asked for proof of marriage.

‘How did you meet your husband?’

An astrologer is clearly not the right answer. ‘Our families are old friends.’

‘How often had you met your husband before you married?’

Nina cannot think of a reply, the question is repeated; Nina says with distances so great, they wrote more than met, as can be seen from the number of these letters.

This is a weak answer, but thankfully the woman has had her fill of torturing her. She examines the photographs, the wedding invitation, the marriage certificate, all that Ananda had asked her to carry—just in case you get someone unpleasant. Well, she had got someone unpleasant.

Rage fills her. Why were people so silent about the humiliations they faced in the West? She was a teacher at a university, yet this woman, probably high school pass, can imprison her in a cell-like room, scare her and condemn her. Though she was addressed as ma’am, no respect is conveyed.

Nina has been used to respect. It came with her class, her education, her accent, her clothes.

Here a different yardstick is used to judge her.

A short note to her husband:

Dear Ananda

This is not your country. You are deceived, and you have deceived me. You made it out to be a liberal haven where everybody loved you. This woman is looking for a reason to get rid of me. I am the wrong colour, I come from the wrong place. See me in this airport, of all the passengers the only one not allowed to sail through immigration, made to feel like an illegal alien. See, see, see.

Love Nina.

Finally she is allowed to go. The woman thanks her for her time and urges her to have a good day. Nina leaves, by now three inches tall.

Numbly she walks down the corridor. She feels soiled, accused of trying to take something not rightfully hers. In her heart she holds Ananda responsible for her humiliation, while her mind accuses her of unreason. He is not to blame for attitudes found in this country. If he is responsible for her coming here, she is responsible for having chosen to marry an NRI. There exist some rotten eggs everywhere.

These things happened. It was bhind her. Forget, forget. Forget the injustice of her treatment, the slurs on her marriage, her helplessness, forget all in the glitter of shops and the lights of the Toronto airport. Have some tea, hot, with a touch of sugar, redolent with the fragrance of the Darjeeling hills.

Ananda had given her some Canadian money. She goes to a restaurant. The tea comes in a bag. She swishes it around in the cup, takes a sip and finds it devoid of flavour.