THE IMMIGRANT (19 page)

She was going to tell Ananda she wasn’t the kind of Indian to respond to camels or colourful dancing girls, when the smells caught her mind and shut her mouth. Turmeric, yellow turning into brown as it bubbled in hot oil, red chillies that crackled as they roasted, onions and garlic that turned pink then brown, releasing sweet sharp smells, tomatoes that became soupy as they were swished around, cumin and coriander that gave out pungent flavours, these smells and imagined sights travelled across the world from north India to eastern Canada to kick her sharply in the stomach.

‘Do you come here often?’ she managed to ask.

‘Only to bring friends who think that with me they should be eating Indian food. I prefer places like Mike’s Ribs.’

They sat at a table for two, glanced at the menu decorated with friezes from Mughal architecture and ordered chicken do piyaza, palak paneer, dal, raita and naan.

Naan. Nina hadn’t had a roti item since she left home. She traced the pattern on the plastic table mat impatiently with a toothpick.

The food came. Not bad, not bad at all. Not exactly like home, but distance blurred the distinction.

‘We can go to Mike’s Ribs next time,’ she offered bravely.

‘That’s my girl,’ said Ananda, looking at her tenderly. He chomped on his chicken ‘Quite good, no?’

Nina nodded.

‘I find the chicken here far tastier than at home,’ continued the husband, ‘at least these birds have some meat on them.’

‘I’ll take your word for it.’

A pause before Nina started asking questions. ‘How come the previous dentist wanted to sell such a beautiful house?’ She heard the cheerfulness in her voice and flinched. She distrusted cheerfulness, and always looked for the darker feeling beneath it.

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Oh, do tell.’

‘Gary’s father’s friend wanted to retire.’

‘Why, was he old?’

‘Not by the standards here. Late sixties. But dentistry is hard on the back and eyes. It’s minute work and you have to bend all the time. Besides, the sound of the drill can get on your nerves after forty years. Once we graduated, he sold us his practice.’

‘I could work forever in a place like that.’

‘His practice was on Quinpool. But we were two, we needed more space, so we bought this house. I thought we could manage in a cheaper location, but Gary insisted the two of us could afford the down payment. The Gellers maintained that a nice clinic would give our practice added value. As it has. A lot of the neighbourhood children come to us.’

‘If it’s such a fancy place, where did you get the money?’

‘The bank. Where else?’

‘Isn’t the interest high?’

‘That’s the way things are done here.’

‘So how much is the loan?’

‘Forty thousand. All these years, saving, saving, no trips home, living like a student, so I could hold my head high. At the time I put ten thousand down from my own pocket. Of course getting married, those two trips to India, the wedding, then your ticket, all this meant four thousand more.’

Nina thought of the expenditure at the Oberoi, the uneasiness he had brushed aside, the patients that were supposed to make up for everything, ‘I didn’t know the wedding would pinch you financially.’

‘One needs a nest egg. Gary has both his and his wife’s parents to rely on, should any difficulty come up. People who are new to this country have no such cushion.’

‘Didn’t you mention Gary lived upstairs?’

‘He did till the second kid. Then his father helped him with the down payment on a home nearby.’

‘Maybe I should look for a job?’

‘Don’t be silly. We are starting a family—what is the point?’ He put his hand over her own. In the silence that fell between them he finished his chicken, she her palak paneer. Finger bowls with a sliver of lemon in hot water were put before them, and the last touch of home was presented in the saunf and mishri that came with the bill.

They got up. Ananda looked around as they emerged from the cave-like atmosphere that was the Taj Mahal. ‘This place needs more people, otherwise it’ll shut down. The Bengal Tiger on Quinpool has already closed. It’s not easy making it in a new country.’

Outside, the day was summer time Nova Scotian: breezy, cloudy, sunny, cool and kind. This was the day on which Ananda led Nina to the Halifax Regional Library, a lovely old grey stone building, at the bottom of Spring Garden Road, set slightly apart at an angle. There was a small lawn in front, benches, trees and a statue of Churchill. Engraved across the top was Halifax Memorial Library.

The mourning that the smells of India had engendered in Nina vanished as she was made a member. Feverishly she scanned the titles. European, English classics, American, Canadian fiction—authors she had never heard of. She confined her selection to Stephen Leacock and Madame Bovary; she intended to come back very soon. With a steady supply assured, she could live secure and happy between the pages she read. Smelling the paper, touching the covers, devouring the words—in book heaven.

Each day now had its purpose enshrined in the Halifax Memorial Library. It was amazing how direction appeared in her life with just one compelling destination. She almost always finished one book during the night, but even if she didn’t need to borrow, there were magazines to read and newspapers to flick through. As she walked she swung her tote bag in a simulacrum of carefree gaiety. Passing the speciality stores on Spring Garden Road she felt superior to her star struck material self, who had stared so longingly at things in the Shopper’s Drug Mart. Here there were the fresh baked breads, cakes, biscuits at The Baker Man, the imported sweets at the Candy Bowl, the French perfume, socks and soft cashmere sweaters at Mills, the jewellery at Birks; there were all these things, but their allure was restricted because she was on her way to the library, and the fact that she had no time to waste was mapped in her hurried, severe, abstracted gaze.

v

‘Gary has invited us over this Sunday, isn’t that nice?’ Ananda beamed, ‘I knew he would.’

Nina had also known he would. If Ananda’s best friend and colleague didn’t invite them, who would? The wonder was that this invitation had taken some months to come.

Continued Ananda, thoughtfully examining his bottles of wine, ‘I’ve helped him a lot around his house. His is an old construction and this is a society in which people do things for others.’

‘So is ours,’ said Nina, defending her society, its virtues radiant through the mists of distance. ‘After all Ramesh got my mother that phone.’

‘That is not the same thing. Family and pull don’t count.’

‘Why not? How does it matter in what way you help people so long as you help them.’

‘Can you really not see the difference? Here, it’s clean, above board, not dependent on birth or connections. It’s your own skills that are important, what you can do with your
hands.
’

What was so great about that? Any carpenter/ plumber/ electrician would do. Pull was so much more potent, it made the difference between having and not having. But she didn’t want to agitate her husband.

‘I didn’t know you were a handyman,’ she said soothingly.

‘One has to know a bit of everything: plumbing, electricity, woodwork. In the West it’s more economical to be self-reliant. Just see if there’s some wrapping paper in the last drawer of the desk.’

Nina found wrapping paper, neatly folded. He spent so much time helping them, still he had to take something. Was that how things were done here, give, give and give? She resented every fold of the thick coloured paper around the bottle.

‘I don’t see you socialising much with Gary.’

‘Just before you came, I was over every weekend helping him with the rec room for his kids in the basement.’

‘You can still help him, you know.’

‘He won’t hear of it. Couples do things together in this country.’

Another definition of marriage.

‘It turns out they are expecting a baby. Sue was very sick, that’s why he hadn’t called us. I knew there was a reason,’ ended Ananda triumphantly, all Nina’s unspoken accusations answered by this one fact of nature.

‘You said they already have two children.’

‘They want a large family. Maybe because he himself was just one.’

‘You mean they practise no birth control?’

‘How should I know? I don’t ask him these things.’

‘But at this rate they will end up having ten children,’ tittered Nina. It was strange to think of an educated man as much at the mercy of his body as any villager in India.

‘People are not so different,’ said Ananda stiffly.

‘Of course there are universals, but still, many factors do determine differences. One reads about it often.’

‘Life is not all books.’

She kept quiet. There might be those who thought life was not all books, but she was not one of them. Her husband was the outer world of telegrams and anger that EM Forster described in
Howard’s End,
she represented a dark inner world of feeling, instinct and intuitive wisdom. She was Margaret Schlegel, he was Mr Wilcox; she Constance Chatterley, he Clifford.

He took her acquiescence in his world view for granted; it was so obvious and sane. She turned her attention to the sari she was going to wear, a brocade purple and turquoise tanchoi. It was slightly creased, she would have to iron it before Saturday.

‘My God, they’ll think I’ve married a Christmas tree.’

‘Isn’t it a party?’

‘It’s a barbecue. People will be wearing jeans and T-shirts.’

‘I didn’t bring ordinary saris.’

‘Here, all saris are extraordinary. Wear your salwar kameez.’

Nina put the brocade away and wore one of the five salwar kameezes she had been living in since she came.

It was a nice day, that is, the sun was shining. They walked across the complex to Quinpool Road, and the breeze played, chilly, about Nina’s ears. Her tropical blood yearned for a shawl, in the height of summer. ‘Wait till it’s winter,’said Ananda, his standard response to every statement that reflected cold. She now accepted his pride in winter and its horrors.

Down Maple Street, across Elm Street, twenty minutes later, 1902 Peach Street. A child’s tricycle lay confidently on the grass. A swing on the porch exuded certainty that its cushions would not be stolen, nor its surface marred with pigeon shit.

Ananda walked up the steps, swinging his wrapped bottle of wine. He pushed the door open and the house drew him in, down the back steps into the yard, followed by his wife.

‘Andy, Andy,’ cried a little girl with red hair, rushing towards his leg and hugging it.

‘Hey, how’s my baby?’

A tall woman, blue eyes, long curly blond hair, clear pink skin, came smiling up to them. ‘Hi,’ she said, holding out a hand which Nina took limply. ‘I’m Sue. Welcome to Canada. We’ve been meaning to have you over for so long, but I just haven’t been feeling well.’

‘Please, it’s no problem,’ murmured Nina.

‘Wow, don’t you look stunning! Look at that, what do you call it?’

‘Salwar kameez.’

‘Gosh, it’s so pretty.’

If this was pretty, what attention would the sari have elicited? She was glad she hadn’t worn it.

Introductions followed. Gary’s parents, Sue’s parents, Melissa the daughter, John the toddler, some more dentists. Nina smiled, received compliments for her costume. No she had never been to Canada before, she loved it, the trees, the coolness, the library facilities, the few people, everything so different and interesting.

Yes, Nina gratified her audience with her appreciation. They thought she was a nice girl, she looked exotic in her silk, gold jewellery and bindi, but she spoke English so well, they could understand everything she said.

‘Hey, Sue, my wife needs some clothes. Something practical.’

‘Sure. We could go to the mall and try something out.’

Nina hesitated, ‘I don’t know if they would suit my figure. Indian women are either pears or apples.’

‘I wish I could wear clothes like yours, graceful and feminine. But,’ she gestured to her jeans and T-shirt, ‘old fuddy-duddy, that’s me.’

‘Oh no,’ protested the couple anxiously.

Sue laughed.

‘Ananda has talked of nothing but you and Gary since we first met,’ said Nina.

‘We’ve been wanting him to settle down for a long time, we are really, really glad to meet you,’ confided Sue in turn.

Nina blushed.

I’ll help her in any way I can, thought Sue. Since our blind date, I’ve wondered who he was going to end up with, and here he is with a girl straight from India. They say arranged marriages are quite successful, perhaps the women expect less. Maybe that’s why he had to go there for a wife; I wonder how his problem is. She
seems
quite happy, but it’s still early. Are they trying to get pregnant? Andy would make a wonderful father.

‘Andy is so much part of our family. Did he tell you he is Melissa’s godfather?’ she said.

‘No, no, he didn’t tell me. But he keeps mentioning how the two of you are like family to him.’

‘He is just darling. We both thought Andy would be ideal—he is so patient, look at him,’ and Sue waved her orange juice at the four year old who at this moment was clutching Ananda’s long, jean clad leg, and shrieking, ‘Andy, Andy, gimme a ride.’

The smell of barbecued meat rose into the warm blue air. Gary advanced towards them bearing a paper plate with barbecued pork chops, ‘Is potato salad all you are eating, Nina? Is there anything else I can get you?’

They discovered she was vegetarian. Her husband was called to account, why hadn’t he told them? Cheese sandwiches appeared. With a plate respectably full, Nina sank into a garden chair, watching Ananda and his goddaughter. He was good with children, how little he minded the length of time Melissa dangled from his leg, how exemplary his patience with her demands.

On the way home.

‘Did you like Sue?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘And Gary?’

‘Him too.’

‘His parents? Did you talk to them?’

‘Not much.’

‘You must next time. After all I lived with them for many years.’

So this was more about their reactions than her own liking-disliking. Had she passed the test?