The Story Hour (26 page)

“Arre, baap.” Lakshmi swatted her forehead. “Yes, of course.”

“When you came to America in a big plane, were you scared?”

“I thinking I fainting, I so ascare.”

“When you drove for the first time, were you scared?”

Lakshmi grinned. “Okay, okay. I understands.”

They had reached the house and stood facing each other in the driveway. “Think of how far you've come,” Maggie said softly, trying to keep the breathlessness out of her voice. “And then ask yourself how much farther you wish to go.”

Lakshmi's eyes were wide, and Maggie noticed how young she looked, her dark hair lit orange by the midmorning light. “Yes, Maggie.”

“Okay. I have to go in and prepare for the next client. I'll see you at the same time next week?”

“I can make the vegetable soup for you in a half hour—”

“Lakshmi. I'm okay. Just cold. Don't worry. Now go.”

“Okay.”

“Bye.” She turned to make her way up the driveway.

“Maggie?” Lakshmi called after her. “Many thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

She was aware that Lakshmi stood at the bottom of the driveway and watched until she was in the house and the wooden screen door had banged behind her.

I
DRINKS WATER FROM
the bottle I keeps in my car but the burning, burning in my stomach not getting quiet. I lower the window, then put it back up, but still the shame sit in my stomach and refuse to leaf. I fix my mind to focus on the road—baap re, the roads near Maggie's house so twisty-turny—but my thought keep going back to fifteen minute ago, when I give up my darkest shame to Maggie, and instead of blowing it out like a candle, she blow it up like a balloon and give it back to me. And now it is sitting in my stomach, getting more bigger.

I angry with myself. I angry with Maggie. Then I angry with myself for being angry with Maggie. Then I angry with Maggie for making me angry with myself. Bas, I angry.

Why I tells Maggie true story of my marriage? What I want from her? Maggie kind but she is Am'rican woman. How she understand our village life? Her eyes getting so big when I tells her how we receive the two goats as present. Who in Am'rica giving the goat? Here, they giving the gift card. Just other day, the husband asking Rekha whether we should start printing the gift card for restaurant also.

Someone pull in my lane ahead of me and my foot hit the brake hard. And then my hand hit the horn. In Am'rica nobody hit the horn khali-pilli, for no reason, like they does in India, but today I's so angry with how Maggie judge me, I keeps my hand on the horn. Everything so neat and quiet in Cedarville, but I crack the quiet with my horn. It sound so loud and sudden, a group of birds fly out of a tree and go straight up into the sky.

It my mistake. For telling. On TV last Sunday, the Christian priest say, “The truth shall set you free.” Maybe that what I think? That telling Maggie what sin I do will make me free? That I make her understand the big joke of my life—I marries my husband so he can save his honor when he divorce me. Instead, his old baba interfere and force him to stay marry. What I think will be one-hour marriage now turn into a six-year punishment.

Maggie not feeling sorry for me. She feeling sorry for the husband. Which I understand. I feeling sorry for him also. Every day for six years. So why I not liking it when Maggie do same as me?

Oof. I's being stupid. What I expects from her? Maggie so good to me; why I want what she cannot give? Ma use to say: Bee give the honey, bee also give the sting. Up to us, whether we want the sting or the honey. Maggie give me so much honey. Why I go tell her my old story until I feel her sting?

For first time today, I looks out of car window and notice how green everything look. It still February, but winter is soft this year and the snow little. I stops at traffic light and lean my head out of the window. I sees the grass on people's lawn. Will husband and me ever have our own house? Or will we always live in smelly apartment where the dead woman live and die? What he collecting all his money for? In first month after I come here, husband make very clear he not wanting children by me. I not blame him—who want to make children with cheat woman?—but it hurt me so deep, in place where my breath come from. Always, I thinks I will have many childrens. So many childrens I take care of—Shilpa, Munna, Mithai—and it is nothing I learn in school. It come from inside me, knowing how to care for anything that is small and hungry and need me. So when husband say he not wanting the children, steel door close in my heart. But I cheer up when I think of Shilpa making children with Dilip. I will be auntie to all her children, I thinks. But then husband say rule number two: I is to forget my family. They all cheater.

The sun hit the redbrick on the buildings in downtown Cedarville and I wishes I could make the painting of it. One thing I never understanding—how the world be so beautiful and still holding so many sad people. When I was small child, I use to think that I could cheer up anybody who sad by showing them the love. Now I knowing the truth: Between love and beauty, beauty winning. I could learn to love my husband, but he still hunger for Shilpa's beauty, even though he never get it for even one full day, even though it never his, even though it only make him depress to not have it.

A thought enter my head and it is so correct, so big, so truth, that I almost runs down the man crossing street in front of me. I stops to let him pass and then I speeds up all the way home. I carry the thought as I gets out of the car, carry it careful, like I balance a pot of water on my head and not suppose to spill a drop. I walk into the store and see the husband kneeling near the can foods. A woman customer I don't know standing next to him.

“Ji,” I say. “I needs to talk to you. Now, only.”

He pick up the mango tin for the lady and stand up. “I am busy,” he say. “Helping customer. Can't you see?”

“I knows. I can see.” I smile at lady. “Anything else you need, madam, Rekha can help.” I take husband hand and pull it. His mouth open with surprise. It first time I touch him in public.

“What—?”

“Please. I needs to talk.”

He give sorry smile to lady customer and then follow me. I take him up the stairs going from store to apartment. I hear his breathing, huff-huff, as he climb. He gaining too much weight eating his own oily foods. “What is it, Lakshmi?” he say when we standing in kitchen. “You know how bad it look—”

“I know,” I say. “I know everything.” I feeling giddy. It is time to set the water pot down. Time to tell him the truth thought that roll into my head. “You know how you always call me stupid?” I start.

He make irritate noise. “Woman, if you want to start the fight—”

“No. No fight. I just want to say, you wrong. I's not stupid.”

He turn around to go downstairs. “Okay.”

“No, I's not stupid,” I say quickly. “You's stupid.”

He come back into the room. “What you call me?”

I laugh. “You. You's stupid. Not me. You know why? Because you choosing beauty over love. You choosing ghost woman over real wife. You choosing Shilpa, who never loves you, over a wife who cook for you, clean for you, worry for you, who even give you her money from her business.”

“Stop it,” he say.

“No. No. Today you listen. You want to know why I marry you? Not to takes your money. Not to come to this dead country. Not to steal your business. I marry you to save your family name. To make up for my sister's insult. How I knowing your baba force you to not leaf me? Or that you listen to him? If you wanting to blame someone, blame him. Curse him.”

“You say one bad word about my father and I—”

“No. I never say one bad thing about your baba. But I do curse you. Not for ruining my life. But for ruining your.”

“What you mean?”

“I mean you stupid. Chasing after a face you saw for ten minutes at the mela. While here you having your own wife who you treats like she a garbage. But who know your habits? Is it Shilpa? Who hears you snoring at night? Who knows what soap you use? Who knows what favorite dish you're liking? Who knows what whiskey you drinking? It is I. I's your wife. Not Shilpa. She nothing but paper. Remember what you telling me when I come to this house six year ago? ‘Forget your family,' you say. But all this time, you the one who remembering Shilpa. You the one making her yours when she not belong to you. Even her one fingernail not belong to you.”

I close my eyes, wait for the slap on face that will come. Husband never hit me before but I also never insult him before. So I close my eyes and wait. My face burning, like his hand already slap me. But no pain. When I open my eyes, he still standing. His lips move but he not say anything. His eyes is red with tears. He pull out his handkerchief and blow the nose. But still he not speaking. Or hitting.

Looking at him, my heart hurt. “Sorry,” I say. “Maaf karo. I not meaning to—”

He put his finger to his lip to shut up me. “Enough,” he say. “Bas, enough.”

And then he turn and go into bedroom and shut the door. Quietly. I stand in the kitchen like beggar woman outside the jewelry store, with my hand out. But it is not his gold coin that I begging for. It is not even his love. I just wants that when my husband look at me, it is me he see. Not Shilpa, not dream woman. Just me. Just me. Just ugly, broken, motherless me.

S
UDHIR WAS MARCHING
in the commencement ceremony for the first time in six years. Usually, he shunned graduation day events. This year he'd made an exception because of Susan Grossman, a disabled student who had finally earned her master's degree and who had requested Sudhir to personally hand her the degree. He had agreed immediately.

Now, sitting in the bleachers and watching her husband walk past her in his robes, sensing rather than seeing his bemusement at the scene before them, Maggie tried to catch his eye. But Sudhir was walking languidly in the procession headed toward the stage, stopping occasionally to wave to a student who called out his name, pointing something out to Larry Andrews, who was in line ahead of him. Whatever Sudhir had commented on was apparently funny, because Maggie saw Larry let out a guffaw.

She felt a small movement as the people in the row behind her shuffled to accommodate a latecomer. A second later, she heard a familiar voice whisper, “Hey.”

Her head shot back and she turned slightly, even though she already knew it was Peter. Her stomach collapsed. She had not seen Peter in months. What was he doing here?

As she debated whether to respond, she felt his breath on her ear. “I'm leaving. In a couple of weeks. I thought maybe we could get coffee. Before, you know, I took off.”

A bolt of disappointment ran through her at the thought of Peter's departure from campus. But there was no question—she could not trust herself to see him again. “I can't,” she murmured, hoping he could hear her over the din of the crowd. “But I wish you the best.”

“Listen,” he hissed in her ear. “I'm going back. To Afghanistan. I need to see you before I leave.”

The thought of Peter being in Afghanistan, in harm's way, made her tremble. How terrible it would be to be married to someone like Peter, she thought, and was thankful for Sudhir's stable, nondramatic choice of profession.

She realized that Peter was leaning forward, waiting for her to answer. How soon before the processional reached the stage and Sudhir took his seat and stared into the crowd, searching for her? “I'm going to ask you for a favor,” she said. “Please find a seat elsewhere. Please. I'm requesting you.”

For a sickening moment, she thought he was going to refuse, but then she sensed him exhale. “Okay. Whatever.”

She forced herself to stare resolutely ahead when she felt the rustle in the row behind her as Peter left. After what seemed like a safe amount of time, she turned her head casually and scanned the crowd. Almost immediately, she spotted Peter sitting six rows behind and to her right. He was staring directly at her, and when their eyes met, he smiled that knowing, sardonic Peter smile. I know you were looking for me, the smile said. I know you can't keep your eyes off of me.

She looked away, her cheeks burning. Arrogant bastard. That's what Peter was, a cocky, arrogant bastard. The next second, her anger was extinguished by a thick grief. It was one thing to stay away from Peter while he lived nearby. It was quite another to think of him on the other side of the earth, courting danger, breathing the dust of a faraway land, focusing his camera on unspeakable violence and ugliness. To know that she may never see him again. Never. Something twisted in her stomach, an extra organ that grief had bubbled into existence, and she winced in pain. Still, she would not let herself turn around again.

Instead, she focused on the stage, following Sudhir with her eyes as he took his seat in a row of chairs behind the podium. She knew what it meant to Sudhir to have Susan graduate, the pride he took in her accomplishment, and she had offered to come to the commencement before he asked. This is why you're here, she now reminded herself. To support Sudhir. And Susan. The fact that Peter is sitting behind you, staring at you so intently that you can feel his eyes boring into your back, is beside the point. He is the past. Peter is the past. Sudhir is your present. And your future. Remember this. Don't lose sight of it for even a moment. Be strong, she said to herself, be strong.

As soon as she thought those words, she felt better, felt her stomach unclench. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knee, and concentrated on the exuberant faces of the students on the stage. Thirty minutes later, when Susan Grossman walked onto that stage on her double crutches, and Sudhir rose, beaming with pride as he waited for her with her diploma in his hands, a feeling of intense love for her husband tore through Maggie. In the excruciating moments that it took for Susan to reach the podium, Maggie remembered it all—how timid and shy Susan had been when she entered the program, how Sudhir had personally fought with the administration to make every possible accommodation for his student, how he had invited her for supper on the day Susan had been so discouraged that she'd thought of quitting, how, after dinner, Sudhir had in his usual methodical, thoughtful way, presented the reasons why dropping out would be a mistake, and Susan had turned to both of them, her face shiny with a tenuous new hope. Susan was only twenty-six years old but had already known a lifetime's worth of obstacles. She'd had one lucky break, and that was having as her adviser the man who was presenting her a degree, who briefly looked astonished as Susan leaned in to him for a hug, whose hands fluttered uncertainly for a second before he returned Susan's embrace. Through her own tears, Maggie saw the look on Sudhir's face and knew that he was as caught up in this moment as his student was, but then she was distracted by the cheering coming from the bleachers on the left side of the gym. Maggie craned her neck and saw two middle-aged people rising to their feet as they clapped and hooted—Susan's parents, she presumed—and then there were whoops from the front seats as all the graduating seniors from the math department began to cheer Susan. The whole scene probably lasted only a few seconds, but Maggie had the unreal sense that it was something she would remember for a long time to come. This was where she belonged, with the man who flung a shy smile at his cheering students before he returned to his seat. See that? she wanted to say to Peter. This is who my husband is—unassuming, decent, non-flashy, but the reason someone like Susan Grossman will have a job someday. He's the reason they're all cheering her today. He is not running away to some dangerous, exciting place like Afghanistan. He will not get his name in the newspapers. No, he will stay here and put his shoulder to the wheel and continue doing what he does so well—teaching generations of young students, inspiring them, picking them up when they fall. It may not count for much with you, Peter, but it does matter, what Sudhir does. That's why I'm here today. That's why I came. To say that it matters.