The Invitation

by Anne Cherian

  “He did what you wanted. Starting in the fourth grade, he took swimming lessons and practiced every day.”

  “What did you want him to do? Stand by the stove and stir some vegetables? I made sure that his body was strong.”

  “So now his body is strong, and his mind also is strong. He wants to become a cook.”

  “I’m not sending my son to a cooking school,” Vic shouted.

  She was soft, just like Nikhil. She had been raised to believe that she would always be looked after—first by her parents and then by the man they arranged for her to marry. She had never struggled to fill out applications, never crammed all night, never known what it felt like to walk past the IIT canteen as if the food were bad, because in fact there was no money to buy a cup of tea, the cheapest item on the menu.

  Nikhil was even luckier. He had slept in a bed from the day he was born. He had pocket money, a bike as soon as he asked for one, and a swimming pool in his backyard because he did not like contact sports. It wasn’t just that he had never been hungry for one day in his life; he had never needed to desire more than he already had.

  “He’s my son, too,” Priya stated.

  “Your son, your son,” Vic raged. She had started saying that when Nikhil began helping her cook. Vic would come home for dinner and Priya would announce that Nikhil had made the dal. Vic was always so tired that he only half-listened. He just wanted to eat and rest.

  “He’s my son,” Vic shouted now, suddenly remembering the day Nikhil had received the acceptance letter from MIT.

  Vic had been ecstatic. Some of his classmates at IIT had applied there, but Vic had had only enough money to try for admission to one college. His professor had gone to UCLA and advised him to apply there, saying he would write a letter on his behalf. Vic looked at the MIT admission letter he had never received and wanted to call everyone and tell them the news. But, just as he had done when he got his UCLA acceptance letter, he kept quiet. His mother had raised him to fear the black eye, had always told him never to share good news in case someone’s jealousy would cause it to go away. The seth had only known that Vic was at IIT in his second year. They had been able to keep it from the seth that long, by which time his own son was in a college in Delhi, so he hadn’t minded that one of his workers’ children was also studying.

  Nikhil hadn’t said much about the acceptance letter. He put it in his room, and, later that day, Vic heard him talking to his best friend Jeff. Instead of bragging, Nikhil had told Jeff he was lucky to be going to college in Long Beach. “You won’t have to brave the winters,” Nikhil said. “I hear Boston’s cold for half the year.”

  Vic had never taught his son the art of deliberate modesty. Yet Nikhil was behaving just the way he had, when his roommate back at IIT had gotten a job in Bombay but not admission to the University of Wisconsin. Vic had told his roommate that he was luckier, because he knew exactly what he was getting, while he, Vic, might have to return to India if things did not work out at UCLA.

  “He’s my son,” Vic shouted again.

  Nandan came into the room.

  “Are you two fighting again?” Nandan inquired.

  “We are discussing things,” Priya said.

  “And it is not any of your business,” Vic said.

  “It is when you disturb me,” Nandan responded.

  “Then close the door,” Vic instructed his son. “I bought a big house so we can all have our own rooms, and you don’t have to be disturbed when I am having a discussion with your mother.”

  He had done all this for them, and now they were being ungrateful. Nandan was just fourteen and already cheeking him, Nikhil didn’t want to have a party, and Priya was siding with their son.

  That got him the angriest. He had taken her out of the small village where she had attended a one-room school, and had married her even though she hadn’t finished college. Her parents had given her just two gold bangles and one necklace, and her dowry was so ridiculous it wasn’t worth mentioning. But because his parents had arranged everything, he had flown home, gotten married, and returned to the States in one week.

  When Priya first arrived, everything frightened her. She did not know how to use the stove, preferred washing clothes in the bathtub, and even though she desperately wanted to make friends with the neighbors, stayed inside the house the whole day.

  He had been convinced that the best thing for her was to get pregnant, and he had been right. After she gave birth to Nikhil, she began going to the park, meeting nannies and mothers, and arranging play dates.

  Next thing he knew, she was speaking English easily and telling him that she needed more time before having another baby.

  He had been pleased by her adjustment, relieved that he no longer came home to a crying wife.

  But now that adjustment had led to her sassing him. He, the man who had built a two-story house for her parents, who had provided such large dowries for her younger sisters that they were able to marry doctors, and who had sent her brother to college. Two years ago, he had even brought over her idiot cousin Rajesh.

  Rajesh had a BCom from a nothing college in North India, but every time they visited, he begged Priya to use her influence with Vic to give him a job. Vic had signed the papers only after it was clear that Priya’s immediate family had no intention of leaving India. Like his own younger brother, they were happy to write long lists of requests, but no one, other than Rajesh, wanted to emigrate. So Vic had a lawyer take care of things, and, when the time came, he bought airline tickets for Rajesh, his wife, and three children under the age of six.

  Rajesh had assumed that America was just like India, where relatives got high-paying jobs without the right qualifications. Vic had warned Rajesh that he would need excellent computer skills if he wanted a top job at VikRAM Computers. Rajesh kept assuring Vic that he was taking such-and-such classes, but it turned out that he only signed up for them and never completed a single course.

  Still, Vic had listened to Priya and given her cousin a job. Rajesh, however, soon started complaining. He wanted his own office, more money; he wanted a good position in the company. But on this matter, Vic remained firm. He wasn’t going to inject Indian rules into his American firm.

  After numerous attempts, Priya stopped asking. Perhaps it was because Priya herself was getting fed up with Rajesh’s wife. She complained all the time about the lack of servants, about how she missed her family, and could not understand why she needed to drive. If America was such a great country, she asked Priya and Vic one night when she came for dinner, then why were the shops so far away from the people? It wasn’t just an inconvenience for her, she reasoned, it showed how stupid this country really was. Back home, she only needed to call out to the vegetable man as he walked down the road. She never needed to leave her house in order to cook a meal.

  After six months, she decided to return home. Vic bought the tickets for her and the children and encouraged Rajesh to leave as well. Rajesh refused. He had found a job selling insurance. “There is a very big Indian population here in the Los Angeles area, so I will definitely make plenty of money. Then I will bring back my wife, and this time I will make sure we have some servants. Maybe I will even bring a servant from India.” He moved into an apartment, and every time he saw Vic, he had another insurance scheme to sell.

  Did Priya think that just because he had given in to her nagging and bought some unnecessary insurance policies from her cousin, she was now in charge of their house?

  “You are forgetting who is the boss of this family,” Vic said.

  “I always remember,” Priya said calmly, “but you keep forgetting that in this country, parents can’t be bosses forever. Nikhil is twenty-one now. He can vote, and drink, and he can also just walk away from us.”

  “That he will never do,” Vic waved his hand. “He has never worked a day in his life. How will he support himself?”

  “He knows computers and cooking. America has plenty of jobs for such people.”


  “Not in this economy.”

  “He has been talking of going to India.”

  “What?” Vic exploded. “I raise him here, send him to MIT, and he wants to go back to India? What have you done to him?”

  “Me? I didn’t do anything.”

  “You were the one who was always wanting to take the children to India every summer. You kept telling them stories about your village, making it seem so wonderful.”

  “As if you stopped me,” Priya scoffed. “You liked it when we left for the summer, because you could work all the time.”

  “And who did I work for? You tell me that.”

  “For us,” Priya said. “You always say it was for us.”

  “I did everything for this family. I didn’t take holidays, I even walked to save the bus money when I first started my company. Did I buy fancy suits and eat lunch in expensive restaurants? No, I took my lunch and shopped at Target. Now, when I want to have a simple party, you are saying that I am asking for too much.”

  “I am not saying it.”

  “You just make sure that Nikhil comes back,” Vic said. “Now I am not going to be on time, and it is all because of you.” He stomped into the garage.

  It wasn’t good to be late with this group. Thank God they were meeting just to discuss the next motorbike trip. The men took their rides very seriously and did not wait for latecomers. He had been left behind a few times in the beginning, until he realized that 5 p.m. meant exactly that. Back home, being on time was reserved for exams. He even used to be a few minutes late for classes when he first started UCLA, until he adjusted his thinking.

  He ignored Priya’s “Don’t drink” and got on his BMW motorbike, which still gleamed with the shine of new paint and chrome. He revved down the road, picking up speed, all the while watching for the police. If he made every light, he just might be on time.

  Vic had stumbled across this group of six expat French motorbikers a year ago when he had wandered into the BMW showroom. He had thought he knew about bikes until he heard them going back and forth about gears and sprockets and drivelines with the salesman. He hung around, pretending to check out the different bikes but actually listening to the men and making mental notes.

  For some reason he followed them outside and then blurted out the obvious: “You have Harley-Davidsons.”

  “So what is that to you?” The man who had harangued the salesman now challenged him.

  “Nothing. I just thought, because you know so much, that you must have BMWs.”

  “We like to give those BMW types a hard time. What do you have?”

  “A Jaguar.” He heard one of them snort, and said quickly, “But I am going to be buying a motorbike, which is why I came here.”

  “A BMW?” the man asked.

  “Yes.” He knew that hard-core riders preferred Harleys, but he had wanted a BMW from the time he was a little boy.

  His village didn’t have tar roads, and there were no streetlights. People had bicycles, and the better-off ones had scooters. The fat seth, who owned most of the land that the villagers tilled, was the only one with a car.

  Mahesh was the sole man who had something different: a BMW motorbike. It had belonged to Mahesh’s father, who said he got it from a British soldier years earlier. The bike was old, and Mahesh didn’t ride it often because it was hefty and difficult to maneuver on the uneven roads, especially after a heavy rain. But whenever he did take it out, everyone came to watch the wonder that had been born in Germany, taken to England, and finally brought to India.

  Vikram begged Mahesh for a ride, but he always refused, giving the same answer the other children had heard for years: “I don’t want you to get hurt. Your parents will get too angry with me if this ancient machine harms even one precious hair on your head.” Vikram could only watch as the stately motorbike rolled down the road, Mahesh waving to the people as if he were the prime minister.

  He promised himself that one day he would make enough money to buy it from Mahesh. Mahesh didn’t have children, and Vikram guessed that when he died, his widow would be willing to sell the motorbike. Vikram was in his final year at IIT when he heard that Mahesh had been killed by a snakebite. He was conjuring up ways to get enough money to offer the widow when his mother, who remembered his love for the motorbike, wrote and said that Mahesh’s cousin had taken it. So even before he could try it out, the motorbike was gone. That was when Vikram decided he would buy himself a brand-new motorbike one day. It would be as similar to the old one as possible.

  Other desires—the house, private school, the Mercedes, the Porsche, the Jaguar—had intervened. He also did not think it was practical to have a motorbike when he needed to take the children to their various activities. But now only Nandan was at home, and Priya was able to manage his schedule on her own.

  Finally, the time had come for him to drive that dream he’d had as a boy when he had watched the bulky, pre–World War II BMW putt-putt down the dirt road.

  “Good luck,” the Frenchman said, climbing on his bike.

  “Wait a minute,” Vic put up his palm. “Are you members of a group, a motorbiking club?” He came up with the right phrase. Until this moment, he had only thought of buying a motorbike. But now he considered how much more fun he would have if he rode with others. “Maybe I can join up with you?”

  “We’re all French.”

  “The French and the Indians are not so different,” Vic smiled. “Maybe you know that your emperor Napoleon, and Tipu Sultan, the king we all called the Tiger of India, gave each other advice on how to fight the British?”

  “For that reason we should let you join us?”

  “When I was in Greece, a shopkeeper lowered his price when I informed him that the Indian king Porus was the one who stopped Alexander from conquering any more countries.”

  “What are you, a historian?”

  “Actually, I am the CEO of VikRAM Computers.”

  “And now you want to ride with us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you even know how to ride a bike?” the man asked, and the one to his left added, “And you will have to get a Harley.”

  “As you point out, I am Indian and you are French. So my bike, too, will be different. I will ride a BMW.”

  The next week he had the bike and took his first ride with the French group. Pierre, the one who had done most of the talking when Vic approached them outside the showroom, had been in America the longest and had started the club three years earlier as a way of meeting other French expats. He told Vic that they had agreed to break their “French only” rule because he had been so persistent, coming up with history to push his point.

  Vic didn’t care why they let him in. He liked riding with them and also found them unexpectedly useful. Since he was now one of them, Pierre told him which shop sold the best riding gear, and which mechanic knew the most. He showed Vic his bare chest and recommended that Vic also shave the hair to make himself more aerodynamic.

  “I thought that was for swimmers.” Vic wondered whether Pierre was making fun of him.

  “No, no,” Pierre insisted. “All serious riders do the same because the air is like the water. This makes it easier to cut through it.”

  He also told Vic to start building muscles on his arms if he wanted to wear the tight, sleeveless shirts that went so well with bikes. Priya had been appalled by his bare chest, and it had hurt so much that Vic never shaved again. He did, however, install exercise equipment in his house. Though he had started out pumping iron every day, now he only had time once or twice a week.

  Vic had never enjoyed free time before this. Until he met the Frenchmen, he had meetings over lunch and often went to the office during the weekend. His company was well established, but he still needed to ensure that it kept up with the changing times. And ever since a newspaper had written an article about him, he had become involved in numerous Indian civic ventures.

  The once-a-month ride was his only indulgence. The summer trips Priya in
sisted on were more for her than for him. He usually spent half the time on the phone, staying back at the hotel while the others visited a museum or toured a castle.

  Today he was meeting the bikers to discuss a trip to Las Vegas. The group went every year, they said, as a sort of pilgrimage to good shows, casinos, and booze. Vic had never been to Vegas and was excited just thinking about it. Nikhil and Nandan had gone on numerous school trips, many around Newport Beach, some as far away as Washington, DC. Now he, too, could do the same. Last month he had gone up to Santa Barbara with the Frenchmen. Vic had given a talk at the university, but it had been a quick trip, up and back in a day. The men took him on narrow roads that had spectacular views, and they had eaten a take-out dinner on the beach.

  Vic turned into the parking lot of the bar. The Harleys were already there. He set his bike alongside the others and entered the bar. He knew exactly where to find them. They were in the back, playing darts.

  “Twenty dollars says you can’t put this in the center,” Pierre handed a dart to Vic.

  Vic aimed, and threw.

  “How do you do that,” Pierre shook his head, “every time?”

  “Good aim,” Vic shrugged, accepting the money.

  He had bought a dartboard after he realized they always played while drinking beer. He had practiced for weeks before finally, reluctantly, agreeing to a game. Now he was able to beat their challenges and pocket their money.

  “Sure your wife will let you get away for a three-day weekend?” Pierre poked him in the ribs.

  “Just because you are not married does not mean your girlfriends don’t mind,” Vic reminded him.

  “But we change our girlfriends every time they make a fuss,” Pierre laughed. “Wives are more difficult.”

  “Not Indian wives,” Vic said smugly. “My wife always does what I ask her.”

  “So what we hear about Indian women is correct, then?” Pierre ascertained. “They are the opposite of that Indira Gandhi.”

  “Some are like her, but I did not marry one like that.”