How to Find What You're Not Looking For

by Veera Hiranandani

  “Oh, stop, you will,” Leah says.

  “I don’t even want to think about it,” you say and roll onto your back, hugging your knees to your chest. Then you roll back up into a sitting position. “But if they care so much, wouldn’t it have been easier to stay in Brooklyn, where there are more Jewish people and we didn’t feel so, I don’t know—”

  “Separate,” Leah says and goes back to brushing.

  “Yeah. Do you feel that way?” You haven’t thought about it much before, how you feel about religion or about being Jewish. It was something you just were.

  “I guess, sometimes. It depends. I don’t feel that way with Raj. In my opinion, religion shouldn’t matter so much. I mean, if Raj and I get married . . .” she says and gets quiet. You wait. You wait some more. She sits back in her chair, thinking.

  “What were you going to say?” you finally ask.

  “Nothing. You ask too many questions, Ari. Can we just listen to the music?” she says.

  “Tell me,” you say. You won’t ever stop asking Leah questions. Who else can help you figure out the world in the same way?

  But Leah just goes over to the record player and turns up the volume. The music fills the room, and it’s too loud to talk anymore.

  The following Sunday, after you’ve all straightened up, put in the laundry, and Ma has Mr. Cleaned the whole place down, the smell of roasting chicken takes over the apartment. Leah asked Ma specifically to make chicken. She told her it was because she makes the best roast chicken in the world, but she told you privately that Raj doesn’t eat beef. She said lots of Hindus are vegetarians, like his parents, but he eats chicken and fish.

  You wondered if being vegetarian for Hindus was like keeping kosher, the way some Jewish people do, like Aunt Esther in Brooklyn, and the way Ma and Daddy don’t. You’re just relieved Leah made sure chicken is served, because you wouldn’t want to be in the room if Ma spent all day making brisket and Raj wouldn’t eat it.

  You’re watching Ma take a steaming tray of roasted potatoes out of the oven when the doorbell rings.

  “I’ll get it,” Leah says, bursting out of the bedroom in an orange minidress you’ve never seen.

  “A little short, don’t you think?” Ma says, wiping her hands with the dish towel, but Leah doesn’t respond and opens the door.

  Raj is standing there with a bouquet of roses, looking as handsome as a movie star. You walk over and inch behind Leah. They lock eyes, and it makes you feel embarrassed.

  “Thank you, they’re just lovely,” she says, taking the flowers. Ma is still in the kitchen. Daddy is reading the paper on the couch, not facing the door. “Daddy, Ma, come,” Leah calls. Ma takes off her apron. Daddy gets up. Then they see Raj, and both of your parents stop in their tracks. Daddy, probably realizing he’s being rude, starts to move again, clears his throat, and shakes Raj’s hand.

  “Hello,” he says. “I’m Mr. Goldberg. Nice to meet you.”

  Ma comes over, finally. “Mrs. Goldberg. I’m sorry, what was your name again?” she asks, not holding her hand out.

  “I didn’t say. It’s Raj,” he says. “Raj Jagwani.”

  “Let me go put these in water,” Leah calls in an odd singsongy way and walks the flowers over to the kitchen, leaving Ma, Daddy, and Raj all staring at each other.

  “Hi,” you say, giving him a little wave. Ma and Daddy turn to you abruptly, as if they’d forgotten you were there.

  “You must be Ariel,” Raj says and smiles. He holds out his hand. “Leah has told me a lot about you.”

  You smile back shyly, acting as if you’ve never met, just the way Leah told you to. You shake his hand.

  “Okay,” Leah says, coming over. “Why don’t we all sit down here before dinner and have a chat.” She gestures to the couch. Everyone walks over and sits down in an awkward silence. Then Leah asks if Raj would like something to drink.

  “I’m fine,” he says. But Daddy asks for a seltzer. Leah rushes off to get him one. When she comes back, she mentions Raj is a business major at the University of Bridgeport.

  “Well, young man,” Daddy says. “The best way to learn about business is to run one of your own. College can’t teach you that.”

  “That’s true,” Raj replies.

  Leah squirms in her seat. Ma looks at her nails. The silence falls like wet snow again.

  “I’m going to check on the chicken.” Ma stands up and heads toward the kitchen. She calls you to help her.

  “Did you know about this boy?” Ma whispers when you’re standing next to her over the stove.

  “No,” you say.

  Ma studies your face. “Never mind,” she says. “I truly don’t know what Leah is thinking.”

  “He seems nice.”

  All she does is hand you the salad bowl, pick up the platter of chicken, and bring it to the table.

  You all sit down at the table, and the food gets passed around while Raj compliments the apartment. There’s some talk about how hot it is for this early in the summer. Then Leah says Raj will be entering the graduate business program at New York University this fall.

  “Your parents must be proud,” Daddy says.

  Raj laughs. “I hope so. They wanted me to be an electrical engineer. That’s what my father does. But I’d like to run my own business one day.”

  “So where exactly are you from, Raj?” Daddy asks.

  Leah sits up straighter and looks tense.

  “We live in Danbury,” Raj says.

  “No, no,” Daddy says. “Before that.”

  Raj refolds his napkin before placing it on his lap again. “I was born in Bombay. We came to the US a few years ago for my father’s job.”

  “You speak English very well,” Ma says and passes him the potatoes.

  “I learned growing up,” Raj replies, taking the platter.

  “Oh.” Ma wipes her mouth. “I didn’t realize they taught English in India.”

  “Yes” is all Raj says.

  “And I assume you speak Indian as well?” Ma asks.

  “Not Indian, Sylvia. Hindu,” Daddy says.

  You don’t think that’s the right answer, either. Leah and Raj eye each other for a second.

  “Actually, Hindu is my religion. I also speak Hindi, Sindhi, and a little Urdu. But mostly English now.”

  “My, so many languages,” Ma says. “Very impressive. I do think that if people are going to live here, they should learn our language.”

  You think of how Ma and Daddy speak Yiddish all the time to each other.

  Raj gets a hard look in his eye. You feel bad for him, having to answer so many questions. You notice that Leah touches his arm.

  Then no one talks for a bit, and all you can hear is chewing. It makes you want to plug your ears.

  Ma swallows and dabs her mouth. “Will you go home after your program?”

  “Home?” Raj asks.

  “Back to India,” Ma says.

  “We just became US citizens, so I suppose Connecticut is home now. We visit my grandparents in Bombay as often as we can, but it’s a long trip.”

  “I can imagine,” Ma says. “One of my friends traveled in India a couple of years ago. She brought back the loveliest jewelry, but the food made her very sick.”

  “How do you know it was the food?” Leah asks.

  “That’s what she said,” Ma says.

  Raj takes a long sip of water.

  “So your plans are to stay here permanently?” Daddy asks.

  Raj squints. “Yes, that is the plan. It would have been a lot of trouble to go through if it weren’t.”

  “Trouble?” Daddy asks. “Isn’t it an honor?”

  “Daddy,” Leah says in an extra-calm way. “I’m sure Raj just means that they wouldn’t have naturalized if they weren’t planning to stay. Isn’t that righ
t?” Leah glances nervously at Raj. She’s starting to look as if she might faint.

  “Can someone please pass the salad?” you call out loudly. All eyes suddenly shift to you as if they’d forgotten again you’re even there.

  Raj grabs the bowl near him, hands it to you, and smiles. “I think we can all agree it is an honor to live in this great country.”

  After that, Leah tries to steer the conversation to the bakery and gets Daddy to talk about bread making, something he can talk about for hours. It turns out Raj is interested in baking and explains to Daddy how naan is made in a clay oven. Daddy tells him how to make pumpernickel, and they both seem to enjoy the conversation, though you, Ma, and Leah start to glaze over because you’ve heard Daddy talk about bread too many times.

  Raj makes Daddy laugh, though. Even Ma smiles when he tells a story about the first time his family tried Wonder Bread and how it stuck to the roof of everyone’s mouth. You like the way Raj’s forehead crinkles up when he laughs. It’s going well, you think. Of course they like Raj.

  After more smiles, dessert, and the shaking of hands, Raj leaves. As soon as the door closes, Ma turns to Leah.

  “What were you thinking, surprising us like this?” she says. Then she tells Leah she doesn’t want her seeing Raj anymore.

  “I knew it!” Leah yells and points at Ma. Leah never yells. “You’re prejudiced.”

  “Prejudiced? It’s the world, not us,” Ma says. “I’m thinking of your future.”

  “Ma, the world is changing. Did you see what happened this week? The Supreme Court ruling, Loving versus Virginia?” She goes over to the stand in the living room where Daddy stuffs the newspapers and comes back with a copy of Tuesday’s New York Times. She puts it on the kitchen counter and taps the page.

  “Look,” she says. You walk over and look. Ma and Daddy do the same.

  Justices Upset All Bans on Interracial Marriage, the headline says. Then Leah reads the first sentence of the article. “ ‘The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that states cannot outlaw marriages between whites and non-whites.’ ” She stops reading and faces Ma again.

  “I see,” Ma says.

  “What does it mean?” you ask Leah.

  “It means that it’s legal everywhere now for different races to marry,” says Daddy.

  “But it wasn’t illegal in Connecticut,” Ma says. “And that’s not what this is about.”

  “Oh no?” Leah says. “You should have seen the way you both stared at Raj when he walked in the door. I had to pick your jaws off the floor. And you should know what prejudice feels like, living in this narrow-minded town.”

  “This narrow-minded town has given you opportunities I only dreamed of. I don’t have anything against the color of his skin,” Ma says.

  “Leah, you know we’re not like that,” Daddy says.

  “So the first thing you noticed about Raj was his religion? I know that strangers look at us funny in the street. You don’t want me to be with him because of his religion and his skin color.”

  Ma takes a deep sigh. “Leah, listen to me,” she says. You’re all still standing around the kitchen counter, the newspaper open in front of you. “This is not about him. It’s about what it means to be Jewish, about having a Jewish family someday. Isn’t that important to you?”

  “It’s okay that you have a little crush. He’s very charming. But that’s all it is,” Daddy adds.

  “Yes.” Ma smiles at Daddy. “I’m actually glad you had him over for dinner. You saw for yourself that it wouldn’t work. It’ll be easier to let it go now rather than later.”

  “This isn’t a little crush. I love him.”

  Ma rolls her eyes. Daddy looks away.

  “I think he’s nicer than Leah’s other boyfriends,” you offer, but no one even glances in your direction. They go back to staring each other down. “He brought flowers,” you try again.

  “Leah, you have no idea what love is,” Daddy says.

  “See,” Leah says, looking at you with her hands on her hips. “This is why I didn’t want to tell them.”

  You open your mouth, but you don’t know what to say. She walks over to the roses.

  “Well, if you don’t want me to see him anymore, then you don’t get to enjoy the flowers.” She grabs them out of the vase by the tops of the stems so she doesn’t prick herself and shoves them in the garbage. Then she hurries off to the bedroom you share and slams the door.

  Ma and Daddy stand there for a moment. Ma starts speaking in Yiddish to Daddy. She speaks it better than Daddy, but he knows enough to keep up. They learned from their parents, but they never taught you and Leah. You think it’s because they wanted to keep it for themselves, a secret language. You only understand some words. You hear Ma say farblondjet, then meshuggener. Those words you know. It means they think Leah and Raj are all mixed-up and crazy.

  Ma marches to her bedroom, still muttering to herself, and Daddy follows, leaving you alone in the living room.

  You walk over to the flowers in the garbage and pluck out the largest rose. You put your nose in the center of the flower and breathe. The smell is sweet and comforting, the petals silky smooth to the touch.

  It seems a shame that the rose will die in the garbage. You once did flower pressing in school, so you know to break off the top part of it. Then you put it between the pages of one of the big art books Ma and Daddy keep below the coffee table. After you press it closed tightly, you open the book again and see the print of the red petals staining the pages like watercolor paint. You decide to close it again and hide it on a shelf in the coat closet. Maybe you’ll tell Leah about it later, or maybe you’ll just keep it for yourself.

  How to Spy on Your Sister

  Leah doesn’t ask you to go to the Sweet Scoop with her anymore. She barely speaks to anyone at all. Ma and Daddy only let her go to her dance classes and make sure she’s either home right after or helping at Gertie’s. You wonder if she actually goes to class, and Ma must have wondered the same thing, because a few Mondays after the dinner, you hear her on the kitchen phone.

  “Hello, Miss Duchon, this is Sylvia Goldberg, Leah Goldberg’s mother. I wanted to call you and see how Leah was doing? Oh no, everything is fine. I just wanted to make sure she was getting to class on time and doing well? Yes? Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you.”

  After she hangs up, you head into the kitchen, pretending you haven’t heard a word, and pour yourself a glass of milk.

  “She doesn’t talk to you anymore about that Indian boy?” Ma says.

  “He’s a man,” you say.

  Ma squints at you. “Ari, I don’t think you understand.”

  You grip the glass tighter. You hadn’t meant to do this, to be in the middle. You’ve been in the middle of Leah and Ma before. Leah tells you something, and then Ma tells you something. You know they both want you to deliver their messages, but the messages have never been this confusing.

  Ma puts on her yellow apron and ties it tight around her waist. She lowers her voice like she doesn’t want anyone to hear her.

  “It was hard enough when your father and I got married,” she says. “My Orthodox parents didn’t think Daddy was Jewish enough for me. My sister feels the same way. It has always been a problem. It’s part of why it’s easier for us to be here.”

  You take a sip of milk and nod. It’s like you’ve somehow always known this even though she never talks about it, that moving to Connecticut wasn’t just for the bakery.

  “But this. I’ve never seen Leah look that way at anyone. It’s better that I break her heart before . . .” Ma trails off and rubs her forehead.

  You put your glass of milk down on the counter. “Before what?”

  “Before it’s too late,” she says.

  “But what if they really love each other? What’s the harm?” you ask.

  “She’s tur
ning her back on her heritage. She doesn’t know what it will cost her down the line.”

  “You and Daddy stayed together for love, right?”

  “This is an entirely different situation. We didn’t turn our backs on anything. Daddy and I are both Jewish; that’s the important thing. Even though my parents had questions, they still approved of our marriage. They knew we would bring up Jewish children together and keep our traditions. I don’t want Leah to make a worse mistake.”

  “So you and Daddy made a mistake?”

  Her face changes, and she opens and closes her mouth. “Of course not. Honestly, I don’t know where you get your ideas sometimes.”

  “But you said—”

  “Set the table for dinner, please.” Ma cuts you off and hands you four plates.

  “But—”

  “Don’t hok a chainik,” she tells you, which means to stop bothering her immediately. Then she starts peeling potatoes so fast, you’re afraid she’ll nick herself with the peeler.

  Later that evening, after Leah gets home, you all sit in the living room, watching the news. Daddy lounges in his big armchair, and you and Leah curl up on the couch. Ma sits in the small wooden rocking chair. You watch Leah watching the television, the light of the screen dancing in her eyes. A commercial for Ivory detergent comes on, and the woman in the commercial talks about how smooth her hands are from using Ivory, so young-looking that people still think she’s a teenager.

  “Lies,” Ma says and laughs.

  You look at Ma’s hands as she mends a loose hem on her green-and-white dress. They look fine to you, still youthful even after all the mixing, slicing, and kneading she does at the bakery. But her shoulders are slouched. She looks tired. She never stops. Even when you’re all lazing around in front of the TV, she’s still fixing something, taking care of something.

  “Leah, put your hand up to Ma’s,” you say.

  Leah looks at you, surprised. “Why?”