Well-Behaved Indian Women

by Saumya Dave

  “You’re right. I don’t,” Simran says, raising her voice. “But it’s not like you’re easy to talk to. I’ve had to deal with so many things alone! And you think nothing was forced on me? Really? God, all you’ve ever expected is for me to be like you.”

  Mom shifts toward her. There’s a brief drop in her face, as though she may be considering this. But then her features tighten again.

  Simran opens the study door. It takes her a second to register everyone lined up in the hallway outside: Kunal’s family, her aunts, uncles, cousins, Ronak, Namita, and her dad. Nobody says a word. They just look at her as if she’s some foreign creature they’re trying to identify. Maybe because she is and always will be an outsider. Someone who doesn’t belong. The one to be embarrassed and entertained by.

  Mom steps out after her.

  “You dropped out of school?” Kunal asks. “How could you do that? And not tell me?”

  “I wanted to. I really did. There’s a lot we need to talk about. We just haven’t had a chance.”

  He puts his face in his palms, unable to look at her.

  “It’s not worth it to throw away your life just to be defiant, Simran,” Dad says, tilting his head downward in the same way he used to when she was little and asked to eat dessert before dinner.

  “You think this is some act of rebellion?”

  “Isn’t that what it always is with you?” he asks, the calmness in his voice somehow stinging more than anger would. “You’re always trying to prove to us, to everyone, that you don’t have to listen.”

  Her dad’s three brothers, each one heavier than the last, stand around him. It’s a running joke that they’re the living version of those Russian dolls that fit inside one another.

  “She’ll come to her senses,” Kaushal Kaka says.

  Rajan Kaka shrugs. “Maybe not.”

  “I’m standing right here,” Simran says. “Please don’t talk about me in the third person.”

  “You love psychology. It has everything you need,” says another voice whose owner she can’t find. Should she get a microphone? Stand behind a podium?

  “No, it doesn’t,” Simran says. “And it never did. Maybe I can be something else, like a journalist.”

  Everyone starts moving toward her and talking at the same time, as though she suggested becoming a stripper. She almost expects a stampede like the one in The Lion King.

  What does that even mean, a journalist?

  You’ll sit at your desk and make pretty sentences about strangers while your friends actually become something?

  You are almost at the finish line for becoming a psychologist. It makes no sense to quit now.

  You just need a break. What’s that word you American kids use? Sabbatical!

  I thought she was over her nonsense. I told you she was aiming too high. She should have tried for something easier.

  Poor Ranjit and Nandini. Just when they thought they could celebrate. . . .

  “Look,” Simran says, facing the crowd. Now would be a good time to use one of those power poses she’s read about. “I’m sorry my news came out this way. But I do believe that I did the right thing. And I have to figure out the next steps on my own, in a way that feels honest to me.”

  Everyone murmurs, not knowing how to respond to her. Simran keeps her head held high and chokes back a few threatening tears. She can’t let her outside reflect her inside. She won’t.

  “You’ve been lying to me,” Kunal says.

  “No. I mean, yes,” Simran says. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I should have told you earlier. You deserved that much.”

  He turns and walks toward the kitchen, his mom behind him.

  Simran start to follow them. Dad goes up to Mom. “What was Simran saying about you leaving?”

  “Ranjit, I will not discuss this in front of everyone. I. Will. Not.”

  “Well, I will not be made a fool in my own house!”

  “I’m not trying to make you a fool. I’m trying to keep it together.”

  “Dad, let’s take a walk,” Ronak suggests before facing his relatives. “Thank you for coming today, everyone.”

  Simran’s brother might as well have a superhero cape blowing behind him. Don’t worry about that fuckup, people. The perfect child is here!

  Dad puts his hand up before Ronak can come any closer to him. He repeats the gesture when his brothers and sister start talking to him.

  He grabs his wallet and keys from the front desk. “I need to get out of this place.”

  Simran sees his green BMW screech out of their neighborhood through the nearest window.

  Nandini

  “NOT NOW, PLEASE!” Nandini screams.

  She double-checks that the master bedroom door is locked.

  Another knock.

  “Just leave me alone!” she yells like a little girl.

  One floor below her, guests are starting to trickle out. At least, the considerate ones are. The rest are lurking in the kitchen and living room, rehashing what they just saw.

  Nandini pictures herself opening the door, standing in the hallway overlooking the living room, and saying, Yes, please feel free to keep talking about my family in our house. Can I serve you some chai while you’re at it?

  At least Greg left before this scene. How would she explain any of this to him? He wouldn’t be able to understand. She doesn’t even understand.

  She checks her phone. Sure enough, there’s a text from him:

  Greg: I’m sorry if I caused any trouble. I thought you told them. We really need to talk.

  She walks toward the bed, rips off the plush white down comforter, and punches the throw pillows. Then she sits at the foot of the bed and rests her face in her palms. If she stays here, she can pretend that this was all a bad dream, a mistake.

  It doesn’t matter that she did everything right, everything she possibly could. Things went to complete shit. Her emotions are a tangled knot of contradictions. She wants to yell at Simran again. She wants to make sure she’s okay. She wants to tell her she’s worried about her future.

  How could this have happened? How could Simran have not told her? Could she have done something to prevent all of this? Where did she go wrong?

  She takes a deep breath. Her questions don’t matter. The truth matters. And the truth is clear: Simran deceived her. After everything, her daughter felt the need to lie.

  A voice from within her speaks back: But aren’t you lying to her by keeping things from her? What about the fact that you’ve never told her about what happened in India or about your job offer with Greg or even meeting Kunal’s mom for lunch?

  She tells the voice that she withheld those things to protect her daughter.

  The master bedroom is just as she remembers it from this morning, minus the king bed that had tight hospital corners before she ripped it apart. Brightly colored artwork from India, including a burnt orange tapestry Mami bought, hangs on the walls. The floors are shiny and wooden. Simran and Ronak used to wear socks and slide across them on weekend mornings, when Nandini and Ranjit were hoping to catch up on sleep. Where did those times go? How did they get here?

  Her thoughts start racing, and she struggles to keep up with them.

  You’re a disappointment.

  You screwed up all those years ago, and here you still are, screwing up.

  Just because your kids don’t know about what happened doesn’t mean it’s behind you. You’re always going to pay for that.

  You deserve this.

  How dare you think that things were about to change?

  She stands up. Blood thumps through her ears. Her breaths quicken.

  Do not give in to the panic. Do not let it control you.

  She inhales and wraps her arms across her body, the way her therapist taught her to all those years ago. Her sari is sudd
enly too tight and itchy. She removes all the safety pins holding the folds together. Yards of gold silk fall to the floor in a heap. She wishes she could remain there, with her sari billowing around her feet like a shimmering puddle.

  Her stomach twists. Does she need to throw up? She runs into the bathroom, avoids the mirror, and hunches over the toilet. Nothing.

  From here, she can make out the faint buzz of Gujarati downstairs. People are cleaning and gossiping.

  She turns on the shower to drown out the noise. In five seconds, her bra and underwear are in a pile on the floor. The hot water hits her body like a smack. She savors the heat, the pain. She clasps her hands together and prays for the gift of being able to forget.

  Nine

  Simran

  Anyone who has ever flown to India knows they’ve arrived by the smell: a mixture of gasoline, oil, and stubborn humidity. The pilot announces Baroda’s weather in English and Hindi. Simran realizes she’s slept the entire flight, thanks to too many glasses of red wine. So much for exchanging life stories and gaining tough-love wisdom from her neighbor, the way Rachel did in Simran’s favorite Friends episode, when she was going to London to break up Ross’s wedding.

  Everyone cheers when the plane lands, all of them tired of the plastic cups and stale air. (That and Indians love to cheer. The first time Simran went to a movie theater in Baroda, she was thrown off by the lasers people brought to point toward the screen whenever a beloved actress came on, each appearance followed by a barrage of whistles and claps. That’s the way to watch a movie, Nani said, appalled by the decorum of American theaters as she munched on the candy she snuck in.)

  The heavy air feels like a wall between her and her life. She can almost pretend nothing ever happened. Slap a temporary Band-Aid over her post-dramatic stress disorder.

  Simran almost forgot about how different the Baroda airport is from JFK. Here, she steps off the plane, gets onto a crowded bus to the airport, and then struggles to find her luggage on the carousel.

  She gets off the bus and follows the signs to baggage claim. There are already dozens of people waiting for their bags. A mother links her pinky with her toddler’s. A pair of grandparents spot their suitcases with matching labels.

  She is the loneliest person here.

  There’s a family of four next to her. The mom and dad count their luggage. The dad asks his daughter, who can’t be more than six years old, if she has her passport. She pulls it out of her teal book bag and yells, “I told you I’d remember, Daddy!” He lifts her up for a kiss. Simran wonders if she’ll ever disappoint her parents.

  A memory comes to mind. A trip to India when Simran was in elementary school. Her dad couldn’t take time off from the hospital, so Simran, Mom, and Ronak trekked the journey together. Mom was managing three massive suitcases, two children, and a delayed flight. One of the suitcases fell off the cart Ronak was pushing. A lady bumped into it, glanced at Mom, and yelled, “Hey, watch it!”

  Mom didn’t say anything.

  The lady yelled again: “I said, WATCH IT! Jeez, why are you traveling if you can’t even manage your own shit?”

  Simran looked up at the lady and yelled, “Why don’t you watch it?”

  Within seconds, Mom grabbed her hand, faced the lady, and said, “My daughter has a point. There’s no need to be so rude.”

  Mom put the suitcase back on the cart and, when the lady wouldn’t move, said, “I’m sorry. Maybe I wasn’t clear. Get out of my way. Now.”

  Ronak tugged on Simran’s arm, and the three of them kept going. Mom only started crying once they boarded the plane.

  The story is often recalled by their family to laugh about how outspoken Simran is, but she knew the real point. That with her mother, they would make it to India. They would make it anywhere.

  Now, Simran sneaks a peek at an old man’s wristwatch. It’s around seven p.m. in America, which means her parents have likely dispersed to different compartments of the house, back to not speaking. Kunal might still be at the hospital. And Neil, Neil is just one country over.

  Whenever Simran’s family visits India, Dad beckons for someone to stack their bags on top of a black taxi, while Mom calls Nani from a phone booth that says “STD.” She should call home. Check in.

  Instead, she goes outside. Within seconds, there are beads of sweat rolling down her stomach and back. There seem to be a thousand people waiting behind the metal bars, some of them holding signs, others shrieking as they spot their loved ones emerging from the double doors.

  Three boys and a girl dressed in rags surround Simran, their palms clasped together. “Please, please, please.”

  Simran removes the bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups she remembered to grab from Duane Reade. The girl grabs the bag and rips it open. The chocolates spill onto the concrete and roll in different directions. The kids run after them and hide them in the folds of their clothes.

  A group of men motion toward her bag. “Help, madam?”

  Simran shakes her head. She doesn’t have enough rupees to give an adequate tip.

  She finds the driver Nani hired, a thin, short man holding a sign that reads, SIMI. She puts on her resting bitch face again. He flings her bags into the tiny trunk with ease, which is a feat considering his build.

  They drive on the highway for half an hour. It’s the first time she can’t point things out to Ronak or her parents. For ten miles, there’s a pickup truck and a cart of bulls riding on either side of the car. Baroda is similar to New York in that way, both of them manic cities, infused with impulses. The roads become narrower and bumpier. They pass tiny shops that have packets of paan and Cadbury chocolates hanging in their doorways. Rows of scooters and motorcycles are parked on dirt roads. Dogs with protruding ribs nap outside of bungalows. There are billboards of Bollywood movies, the latest iPhone, and a McDonald’s that sells chicken tikka burgers.

  All Simran sees are her parents’ faces, the blur of the engagement party, her solitary Uber ride to the airport.

  “We’re here,” the driver tells her in Gujarati as they pull up to Nani’s house, the same one Simran’s mother grew up in. The barred windows are closed. Outside the entrance, a brown cow chews on a mixture of grass and banana peels.

  The driver retrieves Simran’s massive green suitcase, the one that their family usually stuffs with gifts and American candies for relatives.

  After her bags are arranged on the dirt road, Simran hands him some flaccid rupees and takes quick steps to the entrance. “Nani!”

  “Simi!” Nani says as she opens the groaning wooden doors. “Tu ketli saras lagech.” You look so nice.

  Simran drops her bag. “Oh my god, what happened to you?” she asks as she comes close enough to inhale Nani’s signature scent: incense and fresh basil.

  “Nothing.” Nani pulls her into a hug, and Simran feels her vertebrae, like beads on a string, through her starched sari blouse.

  “You’ve lost so much weight. Too much,” Simran says, soaking in the angles of Nani’s face. It’s as though someone sucked the life out of her. She looks like Nani through a funhouse mirror. Or is it that Simran is suddenly noticing her age because she hasn’t seen her in too long?

  “I’ve always said I needed to,” Nani says, laughing.

  “But you didn’t. And this, this is just crazy. Too much.”

  “You’re starting to sound like your mother. I’m fine. Come, I’ve already gotten everything ready for you.”

  Simran removes her shoes and follows Nani’s slow steps into the dining room.

  There’s a photo of the goddess Durga at the entrance. She’s sitting on a lion. Despite the weapons in her hands, her expression is serene. Maybe that’s true strength: maintaining a sense of peace but having all the tools to fight whatever might be hurled at you.

  The rest of the house is still the same: no decorations and walls that are cracked an
d yellowed from time. They pass the living room, with black couches that are now spitting up cloud-like stuffing. A black-and-white portrait of Nana is on the main wall, above a cupboard where Nani keeps all the poems and short stories Simran’s ever written.

  Memories are splattered throughout the place. There, near the twenty-year-old television, is six-year-old Simran, dancing to the songs from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, and then twelve-year-old Simran, sitting at Nana’s dusty desk, sifting through his plastic-wrapped books with their permanent library smell.

  Simran thinks back to one of her favorite quotes by Maya Angelou: Every woman should know where to go when her soul needs some soothing.

  The dining table is covered with bowls of her favorite Indian street food: bhel, shakarpara, chakri, chaat. Two cups of chai are on plastic floral tablemats. The cups used to have designs of pink flowers with long stems, but over time, the flowers have been distilled to specks. Simran sips directly from her cup. Nani pours the tea into a saucer, blows on it, and then drinks.

  At the end of the table, there’s a purple pillbox, the kind with tiny compartments for each day of the week. Simran thought Nani took only the one blood pressure medication Mom ships to her.

  “What do you want to do today?” Nani asks after they’ve been eating for a few minutes.

  Simran shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. Whatever you want. Maybe we can go to the school.”

  Mom told Simran her geriatric patients’ lives always eventually revolved around their health. Appointments. Bowel movements. Memory loss. Simran could never picture Nani living that way.

  Nani’s hands shake as she brings the saucer to her lips. “Let’s decide in an hour. The girls will be having lunch then. And so will the teachers, so nobody can bother us.”

  They talk about the girls: which ones are keeping up with their reading assignments, which ones are falling behind, and which one’s parents can afford after-school lessons, an essential component of passing the year-end exams.