No One Can Pronounce My Name

by Rakesh Satyal

  Compassion was being able to put yourself in the place of another, to draw from whatever experience you had to relate to someone else’s trauma and therefore strengthen the both of you. But how could anyone understand what he had gone through? To live in this body, shackled in its self-doubt, to wander these meager rooms and understand how tiny a human life could feel, to see the strong will and bearing of your mother reduced to a joke of itself, to see Swati’s body, crumpled, at the foot of the stairs … Each night, he would think of his body as an assemblage of conditions, things gone wrong—his diminishing hairline and spot-mottled hands and hairy gut and unsavory private parts, the corns on his feet and tiny hairs in his ears and in his nose, clustered together as if sharing secrets or telling rumors about the person on whom they grew. How could this be desirable to someone, and if it happened to be desirable to someone, how could that person be expected to move past purely physical concerns into the much more dangerous world of emotion and friendship and, hardest of all, love? He felt detached not just from himself but from anyone who could attach value to him. For, clearly, anyone who found him attractive—emotionally, physically, romantically—had to be a complete disaster.

  Nevertheless, regardless of the fears that had struck him the night of the confrontation at TGI Friday’s, he believed a woman’s presence, the softness of her body and the roundness of her hips and emotions, was welcome to him. Ranjana carried with her a combination of the motherly, the sisterly, and the wifely that he wanted so desperately. She had to be the one to take the mess of his feelings and, from them, make him into the functioning man that he wanted to be.

  Hovering in the doorway to the kitchen and seeing that his mother had fallen asleep, he was prepared when he heard the tires of Ranjana’s car crackle over the street. For a second, he feared that the headlights would pierce the darkness of the room and give his escape away, but they made nothing more than a soft glow, and soon Harit was slipping out the back door, around the house, and over his lawn. He could see Ranjana’s hunched form and already knew that she was tense, too. This did not deter him but compelled him forward. He did not wish to see her agitated, but he wanted someone who could understand the direness of his situation. If she were already showing signs of worry, then she was all the more suited to what he had to tell her.

  As he opened the door and slid into the car, he had the vague memory of seeing something like this in an American movie, a high school comedy in which a girl and a boy slipped away into the night and wound up talking until morning. He felt his posture straighten: to imagine himself in such a casual social situation gave him a sense of belonging and progress, a small confidence.

  “Namaste, ji,” she said, pulling away from the curb and already, he could tell, more nervous than he had imagined. He adopted this feeling in turn, wishing for just a moment that he had never called her, that she had never answered the phone. As they drove farther and the silence between them continued, he started to feel comfortable again. The fact that she did not break the silence, did not try to fill it with unimpressive facts of her day or unnecessary questions into his, expressed to him that she knew that their eventual conversation would be serious.

  * * *

  For the past few weeks, Ranjana had asked herself what Achyut’s presence in her life had meant. Surely, she had not endured such a bizarre occurrence for nothing; her instincts had been motherly, and she deserved some kind of reward for trying to help out a young person in need. Now, as she drove, a similar air seizing her car, she saw that her nurturing of Achyut had prepared her for this: the nurturing of Harit.

  Harit had not sounded suicidal on the phone, but his voice had sounded resolutely irresolute; he needed her. She could not leave someone in a position like that, and Harit was not just someone. She was too involved to let him keep struggling.

  She had intended to take him to Buzzed (even though the thought of running into Achyut was nightmarish), but as she neared the place, she realized that it was later in the evening than she had thought. By the time she and Harit bought their tea and sat down, they would have very little time to converse, let alone process the surely upsetting news that Harit had to share. Her next thought was Paradise Island, but knowing how dark and isolated it could be in that spot, she could not bring herself to take him there; he would find it just as reckless as she did. Then she had a genius idea: she had told Mohan that she was going to the grocery store, and since it was a superstore, it was no mere collection of produce, canned goods, and paper products but, rather, a veritable shopping mall with a café at its center.

  She broke the silence, merely saying the word “groceries” as she turned into the massive parking lot, and Harit seemed to relax. She imagined that he saw the same series of reliable things that she had in mind: the cool grip of the shopping cart, a serene village of greenery and colorful packages arrayed in its netted-metal bottom; the strangely satisfying image of your face glimmering back at you on the glass of large refrigerators and freezers. And then, of course, there was the café, nestled between the produce and dairy sections, where you could get a cheap cup of tea or coffee amidst the frenzy of shopping. This is where she led him, after stopping to place a small tub of Dannon yogurt and a block of Land O’Lakes butter in her cart.

  * * *

  Ranjana would hear the story about Swati as a short story, and she would write it down later.

  ON HER EIGHTH BIRTHDAY, Swati received a Barbie doll from her aunt Manisha, her father’s sister. Swati had seen the dolls, usually tucked away in display cases behind store counters and shimmering in their gowns. To actually hold one in her hands, to see the butter-colored tug of its hair and the high arches of its small feet, felt like stealing. The doll stayed in her possession at all times, except when her family went to their temple in Delhi and she kept it under her pillow at home. Had her brother been remotely mischievous, he would have seen it as an opportunity to torment Swati, hiding it in unexpected places or even disfiguring it. Instead, he was a quiet, respectful child who clearly adored his sister, and if Barbie was the most important thing in her life, he would pay the doll dutiful attention.

  Barbie was dressed in a demure blue dress with a checkered pattern on its front. An apron, tied with a neat blue bow in the back, hugged her waist and curved over her ample bosom. The blood-drop of her lips and her arched, dark eyebrows seemed to come equally from India and another planet, and Harit dreamed of these things whenever he had the chance. (Later, he would realize that the attention he paid to the doll had less to do with whatever feminine prowess it exhibited and more to do with how much his sister adored it.)

  In a household with very little in the way of decoration, a doll as beautiful as this was able to hold sway over everyone. Because Barbie had been given as a gift from a family member, she was not banished from the dinner table but, rather, sat next to Swati’s plate, as if she were judging every dish placed on the table and every bite of food that each person took. Swati would begin to tell the family what had happened during her day by speaking directly to the doll. “Barbie, today we learned about Nehruji and how he studied a man called John Maynard Keynes, and now we have to write three pages in our copybooks about economics.” Harit’s mother and father would smile between themselves and occasionally roll their eyes, and Harit himself began to see how important it was to be as creative as this, to find life as imaginative and decidedly odd as Swati made it to be.

  Children have the tendency to pick up and then quickly discard their toys in favor of other ones, but Barbie maintained a powerful spell over Swati. As the years passed and Swati became a more self-possessed young woman, Barbie began to assume a symbolic role in her life. Even as Swati grew up and the doll was in her possession less and less, it seemed to leave an impression of its presence, charmed and strange. As one might associate Harit with the clip-on maroon tie that he often wore as a child, one would imagine Swati as she had been with the Barbie in one hand or positioned next to her plate or keeping watch from the win
dowsill near her bed as she slept.

  Although Swati was not vain, she began to resemble the doll more and more. She exaggerated the kohl around her eyes, flicking up two streaks toward her temples, and her lipstick became redder. As she developed breasts, the white cotton shirt that she had to wear as part of her school uniform began to expand, completing the mimicry. She looked at that doll and said, “That’s what I want to be.” And, more or less, she was.

  To Harit, it was fascinating that aging could make you a more defined version of what you already were. Swati seemed to grow in confidence because she practically willed it so. She seemed to be asserting herself as a strong-minded, smart, and worthy woman—not just something to be looked at but someone to respect and admire.

  Then, eight years after she had received it, Swati lost the doll. It was on the windowsill next to her bed, and then, the next morning, it was gone. She berated Kamila, their housekeeper, because she was convinced that Kamila had taken it to give to her own daughter. This accusation seemed not only rash but unfathomable, as Kamila and her daughter would never have dared to commit such an indiscretion.

  Swati searched the house. She checked under the couch and among its cushions. She got on top of a chair and scanned the surroundings of her bedroom, then accidentally toppled off and bruised her elbow. She explored their foul-smelling toilet, thinking that it may have been thrown in there (by God-knew-whom and for God-knew-why). With no one else in the house but her parents, Harit, and Kamila, she began to suspect that a burglar had taken it. But what kind of heartless, juvenile, and deranged burglar would break into a house just to steal a doll?

  Like something out of a dark fairy tale, the doll began to assume, in its absence, an even stronger and decidedly destructive hold on Swati. She was a charming and pretty girl with lots of friends and the clear adoration of her family, yet this one little thing seemed to affect her extraordinarily. She was a teenager, a young woman with more important things that she should be focusing on, yet she seemed to be acknowledging a sad fact of life: she had come to that moment that a growing child fears but never suspects will actually happen, that at some point the symbolic accessories of youth will have to be discarded in order to acknowledge the serious responsibilities of adulthood. Begrudgingly accepting this fact, Swati began to pay less heed to her looks. Gone were the exaggerated lashes, the confidence in her appearance, the graceful but excited gait of her walk.

  Her mother finally said something. Harit was making roti with Kamila, the kitchen alive with floating flour particles that caught the light. He heard his mother call Swati to the sitting room, and he knew that Barbie was going to be the focus of her speech. Kamila clucked her annoyance (she couldn’t believe that this ordeal was still happening), and Harit craned to hear the conversation.

  “Beti, you must stop worrying over this. It is gone, and it is not coming back.”

  “She is gone, and she is not coming back,” Swati corrected her.

  “Whatever, beti. The point is that you cannot worry about something—someone—who is gone. You can carry a memory of that thing—that person—in your heart, but you cannot let everything else in your life fall to the side.”

  “I am not letting everything fall to the side,” Swati said. She had a habit of wringing her hands when she was being criticized, and from his position in the kitchen, Harit could hear the jingle of her bangles. “I am doing well in school. I am helping Harit with his schoolwork, too.”

  “It is not just those things. This is a time of your life when you must be thinking of your future. No man is going to want a woman who complains about losing her favorite toy. This is not normal.”

  Harit was surprised at this comment. One thing that their parents were not was normal. They were some of the most self-possessed people in their circle of friends, known for their fine looks and their calm surety when it came to socializing. Their father, Jaideep, was a respected accountant, and even though Kamila handled many of the cooking duties, their mother was nevertheless famous for her mattar paneer and kadhi. “Unfair!” Swati said. “This is so unfair. You’ve always encouraged us to be unique and successful. I don’t think anyone would accuse me of not being successful.”

  “Ah, yes, but it is a question of in what you are successful,” her mother said. “Being charming will get you only so far. You must be likeable and approachable, too.”

  “So you’re saying I’m not likeable?”

  “I am not saying that at all. I am saying that you may want to think about how you use your likeability. That is important, especially for a girl as special as you are.”

  Even at this young age, Harit was aware of what his mother was doing. She was using the doll as a springboard to another topic entirely, a topic that girls dreaded: image. This was, in a word, cruel. It was cruel to take a boisterous young woman like Swati and make her question herself. Yet Harit also felt—and was sure that Swati felt—an unavoidable desire to heed his mother’s words.

  And so, gradually, the doll was forgotten. Swati set herself even more fervently to her studies, and she learned how to re-create, in a poof of spice and milk, flour and greenery, the mattar paneer and kadhi of her mother’s renown.

  But despite this change, despite the efforts that Swati made, there were the vestiges of her personality that could not be swept away. She was and would always be a headstrong woman, and men continued to sense this and back away. There was a close call, a young doctor—well, podiatrist—who took a liking to Swati immediately, but Harit’s mother caught him looking too lustily at the tender flesh of Swati’s ankles, and suddenly, the reason for his choice of vocation became all too clear. As Swati’s mother hurried him out the door, he scoffed, “No need to tire those pretty little feet searching for a husband—because you’ll never find one!” Men were prone to grand, harsh statements like this in Swati’s presence, but her tough demeanor refused to surrender to them. This was to their parents’ chagrin, but for Harit, it was one of the things that he revered most about her.

  Harit and Swati grew up and went to school and became young adults, and then their father suffered a heart attack and was swept away as quickly as that doll. His spirit was repurposed to his family in varying degrees—Harit’s mother became more imperious, Swati more compassionate, Harit more afraid of being the man of the house—and then they came to America and found themselves irrelevant outside the confines of their household. Harit found a janitor job at a medical supplies company, and Swati found work as a part-time nanny, not just for Indian families but also for American ones. The Americans loved her energy, her smile, and they loved how expertly she played with little girls—the voices she could do for any stuffed animal and or for a variety of dolls. She began to get more work, more hours, and her mother did not mind simply because the money kept them afloat.

  Then, years after their arrival in America, Harit, opening a box of cups and saucers that had escaped their notice, was astounded to see the Barbie—the very same doll—placed atop them, as if someone had meant for him to find it. The doll was bent so that it was curved into a cup, its arms and legs stretching upward like those of a baby calling for its mother. Harit let out a gasp. It looked no different from the way it had all those years ago, the dress as crisp and colorful as ever.

  He was not a natural prankster. He had once tried to throw a surprise birthday party for Swati when they were back in India, but he had not told people to stagger their arrivals; he had also failed to have someone tail Swati to make sure she didn’t come home too soon. So there she was, falling in step with at least four guests and so unsurprised that she went over to the cake and presented it to the guests as if she herself had baked it that afternoon. Therefore, Harit worried about how to present this long-lost possession to his sister. Should he reseal this box of dishes and send Swati to open it later, so that she might experience the kind of excitement that he had experienced? Should he wrap it up as a separate gift and give it to her on a special occasion? Should he let his mother in on
the secret?

  No, he decided firmly—especially when it came to this last question. He remembered his mother’s conversation with Swati in that sitting room years before, and he knew that his mother would not share his elation at having rediscovered the doll, especially since Swati was as single as ever. Moreover, he wanted Swati to credit him with the doll’s reappearance.

  Swati woke at five in the morning every day, before any of them, and the first thing she always did was scurry downstairs to take a shower in the first-floor bathroom. She preferred it to the upstairs bathroom because it had a slanted window that allowed the bather to look up at the sky without being viewed by passersby. Harit decided that he would pose the doll on a window opposite the bottom of the stairs. The oblong window, with its floating lace curtains, looked out on the street and would act as a frame for Barbie. Nothing could be more impressive than for her to see this childhood ghost, backlit by the breaking dawn and framed in soft white cloth. Meanwhile, Harit would conceal himself in the sitting room so he could see Swati’s reaction.

  He didn’t want to waste any time. He had discovered the doll on a Saturday afternoon, and so Sunday morning would be the time for his surprise. Swati did work on Sunday afternoons, babysitting for a nearby trio of kids while their parents attended church.

  Their mother normally went to bed early, at around nine o’clock, but Swati usually stayed up late, fascinated by late-night television. She loved to make fun of Conan O’Brien, his long, red-topped form, and many nights found her enjoying a plateful of chaat while giggling at his non sequiturs and flimsy tosses of hair. Harit didn’t have the stamina to remain awake as long as Swati—he marveled at how she could go to bed after one thirty and wake as early she did—but he could usually manage to stay awake until just after midnight. So, to prevent his sister from being suspicious, he went to bed at his usual hour, kissing Swati on the cheek and padding up the stairs. He spent the next few hours listening to her, her giggles and chomps, the rustling of her salwar as she fidgeted comfortably on the couch. Then, the TV clicking off, her wistful ascent of the stairs, the creak as she curled into bed, deciding not to change out of a garment that doubled as sleepwear.