A Good Indian Wife: A Novel

by Anne Cherian

  Neel picked up his pen and prepared to leave.

  “Sweetie, I’m not criticizing her cooking.” Caroline took the pen out of his hand, surprised by his response. His enjoyment of Western food was another advantage for her. Why was he annoyed? She didn’t want him to leave feeling that way. She leaned forward so that the neck of her blouse dipped forward. It was a trick she had learned in high school. Sex was like makeup. Learn to use it, and it enhanced your natural charms.

  Her sexual boldness continued to surprise Neel. On their first date she had invited him up for coffee and then excused herself. Neel assumed she was using the bathroom. He was fiddling with the receiver when she walked in stark naked.

  Now, too, he reacted immediately and shifted uncomfortably.

  “See you tonight?” She smiled.

  “How about now?” They never risked making love in the hospital, but Neel could visualize her white ass bent over the operating table, legs spread apart on a vacant bed. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

  “I’m ready,” Caroline responded immediately, glad that he desired her. He had to keep desiring her. “I’m not wearing any panties.” She had recently read that many French women didn’t bother with underwear.

  Neel pictured the blond triangle, as excruciatingly inviting as his first sight that night when she slid up against him, her white body smooth and hairless. She had tiny “baby coconut” breasts, with the pinkest of nipples.

  “I was just kidding. This is a hospital,” he said, trying to look stern.

  “Oops, sorry, Doctor. I thought you were bold and daring.” She shook her head so that her hair cascaded around her face.

  Gold. The color never ceased to fascinate him. Oona said she wanted their children to look exactly like Sanjay. A loving tribute—but ultimately foolish, Neel thought. Much better to be born white in America. Then their children would never have to worry about glass ceilings and rude comments.

  Neel moved behind the counter and put his hand under the short black skirt, touching the bare skin, her thigh warm. She shivered. His hand moved up slowly, his fingers gradually approaching that junction of all men’s beginnings.

  “Sweetie, you aren’t sleeping with—her—are you?” Caroline pressed his hand between her legs. The question had burned inside her ever since his return, with visions of Neel and the unknown woman in the condo she had never spent the night in. But she had waited for the right moment to ask it.

  “What do you think?” He began to explore her.

  “I don’t know. You tell me.” Caroline willed him to say no. What would she do if he was sleeping with both of them?

  “My grandfather asked me to marry her. Not sleep with her.” He could hear Tattappa saying, “Suneel, I have spoken to the priest. He has picked July 24 as the ahspicious day.” Today was July 24. The mood was broken. He jammed his hand into his pocket.

  “Do you know what I’m thinking about right now?” Caroline felt his withdrawal and moved against him. “It’s big and it’s hard,” she paused coyly. “And it’s on my bedside table.” When Neel didn’t respond, she said, “The Kama Sutra.”

  He loved the way she mispronounced the word. He had bought her the large edition for Christmas and she had proclaimed it the perfect book since she didn’t need to read it. The pictures were enough.

  “I knew there was a reason I was born double-jointed. Double your pleasure, double your fun,” she sang, bending her fingers so they looked like claws.

  Neel laughed, then saw Patrick Connery from the OB/GYN unit coming toward them and quickly reached for his clipboard. Caroline busied herself with the schedule.

  “Neel, how’s married life?” Patrick asked.

  “Fine, fine.” Neel moved away from Caroline. “How are the twins?”

  “Noisy. When do we get to meet the new Mrs. Sarath? I’ve got all these stories about you I want to tell her.”

  “That’s reason enough to keep you far away from her. You’ll get me into more trouble than I’m in already.” Neel swung into step beside Patrick. Patrick was yet another colleague who wanted to meet Leila. How long could he keep putting people off?

  He wished he could cancel the dinner tonight, send Leila back to India and pretend the trip to see Tattappa had never happened. He wanted the complications of his old life, not this new one of juggling two households and two women. Leila wasn’t demanding, but she was there. Which meant food in the fridge, explanations about the tiniest details of life in America, and invitations like this evening.

  Oona had probably prompted that call. Why was she was so keen to adapt to the Indian way of life while living in America? She was taking Bengali lessons. And classical Indian dancing, Sanjay told him proudly. An oxymoron, Neel thought immediately, a tall, blond woman performing Bharat Natyam steps in a silk saree. Then he remembered Leila coming out of the dressing room at Macy’s.

  The pant suit had transformed her, but she wore it like it was someone else’s clothes. A few of the other customers stopped and stared, making him think that perhaps he was right. Her face was too Indian for the outfit. “Her eyes are made for dancing,” Tattappa had said, referring to the intricate eye movements in Bharat Natyam and Kathak. Leila looked better when Neel asked her to let her hair down. The loose black strands framed her face, giving her the look of a love child from the sixties.

  He hoped she would remember to wear it down tonight. This was their first social outing and he was nervous that she might do or say something to embarrass him. He hadn’t acted as a couple since the days with Savannah and wasn’t used to others judging him by who he was with. At least Leila spoke English fluently and her knowledge of poets and novelists—if she brought them into the conversation—would be impressive.

  He had forgotten to ask if there was some food she didn’t eat. Sanjay, no doubt prompted by Oona, had kept asking him. He had finally said no, just to placate Sanjay.

  It didn’t matter, however. Even though he didn’t know Leila, he could count on the fact that she was Indian enough never to draw attention to herself by revealing that the food was not to her taste.

  FOURTEEN

  THE HOUSE WAS PART OF A new development and looked exactly like the others in the cul-de-sac, cream-colored, red-roofed (“Our Stanford connection,” Sanjay maintained), with an emerging garden in front. Yellow and purple pansies that Sanjay grew because you could eat them, like the marigolds back home, lined both sides of the walkway, and grapelike wisteria clustered around the porch pillar. Across the street children played jump rope on the pavement, their voices carrying in the evening air.

  Leila lost part of her nervousness when Sanjay opened the door, hands joined in the age-old Indian greeting. “Namaste, Didi,” he bowed, and the typical Bengali face and accent gave her the illusion of familiarity.

  Neel took a deep breath to contain his irritation. Sanjay would call Leila “Didi—Big Sister,” trying to transform America into India.

  The sharp aroma of mustard oil reminded Leila of meals cooked by their Bengali neighbor, Mrs. Nandi. Sanjay could have been one of Aunty Nandi’s sons, except that he was wearing jeans, not kurta pajama, and standing behind him was his wife, tall, white, and very blond.

  For a moment Leila was paralyzed, could barely breathe. Was it Savannah? Had Neel not married Savannah because she had married his friend?

  Sanjay stepped aside and the porch light illuminated the long hair and smiling face of his wife. It wasn’t the face from the photograph. Leila took a deep breath. She had been more anxious about those letters and the picture than she realized.

  “Welcome to America. I’m Oona.” She stepped forward and held out her hand. Oona didn’t kiss Leila. Sanjay had explained that Indians don’t like strangers touching them, and Oona had said their “Namaste” seemed so formal and distancing. “Germfree,” Sanjay corrected her.

  Leila smiled in return and felt her hand warmed by the blond woman’s clasp.

  Neel kissed Oona’s cheek, then handed he
r two bottles of wine, red and white. “Your husband didn’t know what marvels you were concocting tonight so I took the liberty of bringing one of each.”

  Leila hadn’t known they were bringing anything. At home a gift like this would be considered insulting, an indication that the host could not afford wine.

  “Oh Neel, how sweet of you. You shouldn’t have,” Oona said, while Sanjay promptly joked, “Arre, arre, why do you think I invited him? He knows all about wine and has expensive taste, which suits me very well. Come on in. Look who else is here.”

  “Bob, Shanti,” Neel greeted them. “Good to see you,” though he had not expected anyone else to be there.

  Leila took in the other couple, mixed like Sanjay and Oona, but with the sexes reversed. She had never seen anyone with red hair before, except Archie in comic books. In real life the effect was clownlike. Bob’s six feet five exaggerated the comedic look and reduced his wife to a midget.

  “Shanti, Bob, this is Neel’s wife. Leila Didi, this is Shanti, who is anything but shant,” Sanjay teased. “She talks, talks, talks, and because she is an editor is always correcting my grammar. Bob works with me in pediatrics. Top floor of the hospital, which means we are the best doctors.”

  They went into a living room that was a mosaic of India and America. Oona pointed out that the leather sofa (their first purchase after marriage) set off their dual heritage: her grandmother’s hand-knit afghan on the back and a maroon Kashmiri carpet on the floor. The mantelpiece held wedding and family pictures, black and white for the Indian side, color for Oona’s parents. Sanjay suggested a quick tour of the house, “to make you comfortable,” showing her the bathroom with its pale blue seashell wallpaper, the piano room where Oona practiced her dance steps, even the wreaths his wife brought out for the different seasons. “I keep telling her the Bay Area only has foggy weather,” Sanjay said in mock despair.

  It was the first American house Leila had been in and she took careful notes: the bouquet of dried flowers on the piano, the large art book on the coffee table, the collection of pastel-colored shell-shaped soaps in the bathroom that matched the wallpaper.

  The kitchen cupboard best delineated the dividing strands of their braided lives. One shelf had Western spices only, marjoram, thyme, oregano, names Sanjay usually mispronounced, though he liked to say “dill weed” at any opportunity. Oona had naively assumed Indians didn’t smoke dope, so was surprised to learn that Sanjay had been high on ganja all through his college years in Calcutta, becoming a serious student only in Stanford. Indian spices, some store-bought, others made by Sanjay’s mother, filled another shelf, and beneath that were the bottles of pickles, garlic, mango, chili, carrot, bitter melon, all so spicy Oona never touched them.

  “So,” Shanti looked at Leila as she sat down on the black leather sofa, “you’re the lucky one who finally snagged Mr. Bachelor here.”

  “Snagged?” Leila bypassed the “lucky,” not wanting to be proud, and concentrated on the bit she did not understand. How could a broken thread refer to her? Shanti looked like an Indian but dressed like an American, and her accent was equally confusing, caught between the two countries.

  “She means married,” Oona explained, coming to sit beside her. “Shanti’s been bugging Neel about it for years.”

  “He was the odd one out in our small group of marrieds,” Shanti said.

  “Still is.” Sanjay laughed. “We two married phirangis. He married a nice girl from back home. Not that you aren’t nice, my lovely wife.” He winked at Oona.

  “What was that marriage theory of yours, Sanjay?” Shanti asked.

  “Which one?” Oona raised her eyebrows and sighed.

  “About how one chooses one’s partner.”

  “Do we have to hear this?” Neel said. He had not chosen his partner and didn’t want to hear theories from those who had.

  “I’d like to hear it,” Leila spoke up, wanting to be part of the group.

  “Arre, marriage is too mysterious for theories,” Sanjay explained. “I think I just said that here in America we Indians are funny creatures. We either marry the exact opposite of ourselves, like Shanti and I did, or we go back and marry the girl next door.”

  “That sounds mutually exclusive,” Shanti said. “I don’t remember it quite like that.”

  “That’s because I change my theories all the time. As I said, marriage is mysterious, which follows because weddings are so mysterious. Speaking of which, I still don’t know why you had to go and get married behind our backs.” Sanjay shook his head, the glasses and bottle clinking in his hands.

  “Champagne?” Neel stood up to help. “Are we celebrating the imminent arrival of a new generation of Bannerjis?” he deliberately asked. About a year ago Sanjay had told him that Oona wanted to start a family but that he wasn’t ready. Neel had listened, amazed and envious. Savannah hadn’t wanted to marry him and here Sanjay was putting up a fuss even though Oona didn’t mind taking the chance that their babies might be brown. He hadn’t said anything then, and now wondered if this was still troublesome or if they had resolved the issue.

  “No news on that front as yet, though we’re working on it,” Oona said, smiling at Sanjay. “We’re toasting your marriage, of course. You do drink champagne, don’t you?” she turned to Leila.

  Leila nodded. She had never tasted champagne before, but was sure she would like it. The very word evoked romance. Candlelight. Trysts. Love. In Mills & Boon novels, couples were always drinking champagne. Neel had taken the bottle from Sanjay and was turning the wire carefully, holding the neck away from him. He was relaxed, confident. This was the Neel she had seen that night in Ooty when they shared a table with Cynthia and Harold. He was so different from Sanjay. If someone blinked Sanjay into Calcutta, he would fit right in. Sanjay had not lost any of his Indianisms in the long journey over. Leila could not take her eyes off her husband, this man whose very foreignness made him exciting. She thought of the night ahead and wished they could leave right now. Shanti was right. She was lucky to have “snagged” him, the handsomest man in the room.

  “Cham-pug-knee,” Sanjay deliberately spoke as if he were a villager who read English like Hindi, sound for sound.

  Neel cringed. That old joke again. Sanjay could be incredibly childish sometimes. He acted the same way when he told other doctors that his favorite weekend getaway was “Yos-a-might.” But Oona enjoyed his sense of humor. She smiled up at him as he poured her a flute full of golden bubbles.

  They all raised their glasses and Sanjay said, “I was going to bring out a small piece of toast, for the toast. But…no matter. To my new Didi Leila and her husband Neel. May all your troubles be little ones.”

  Another old Indian joke. “On the contrary,” Neel said smoothly, “may all your troubles be little ones,” though he knew the punch was gone.

  Oona laughed. “I’ll drink to that.”

  “So Leila,” Shanti asked from across the room, “how do you like living in America so far?”

  “I like it very much,” Leila responded immediately. “I always wanted to come here.” She could say it easily now because she was here.

  “Just like me and ten million other Indians. I remember when I first arrived.” Sanjay pushed back the recliner until his feet were level with his knees. “I stood at a street corner counting the cars. My God, there were so many different types. About three cars stopped and the drivers asked if I wanted a ride.”

  “Oh no, what did you tell them?” Shanti asked.

  “I told them, ‘Thank you very much but what is this thing with so many wheels? In India we are still using only the cow and the cart.’” Sanjay exaggerated the Indian accent, bobbing his head sideways. “Then I blew my nose on the street and did the ‘whackthoo’ bit.” He mimed spitting.

  “You know, Sanjay, it’s people like you who give Indians a bad reputation,” Shanti said, her voice stern.

  “Arre, don’t be so serious. I just said, ‘No, thank you,’ very politely and continu
ed watching the cars—with my mouth open.” Sanjay laughed.

  “Honey,” Bob reminded his wife, “you did a pretty good job of giving Indians a bad reputation yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember the warranties?”

  “What’s this? What’s this?” Sanjay asked.

  “Now that I have your full attention.” Bob smiled. “Well, we’d received the usual assortment of kitchen appliances for our wedding and I came home one evening to find Shanti throwing away all the warranties. She said they were useless. No one would honor them.”

  “But I was new here,” Shanti defended herself. “I didn’t know how different things are in America. In India, no one takes anything back.”

  “Now of course my wife is the queen of returns.” Bob laughed. “It’s gotten so bad I refuse to go shopping with her most of the time.” Shanti hit him playfully. “Ouch! You know I’m only kidding.” He pulled her against him so they took up just one half of the loveseat.

  “That’s Shanti for you,” Neel said. “Give her an inch and she’ll make a long mile out of it.”

  “As if you didn’t return your car,” Shanti scoffed.

  “That was an entirely different situation,” Neel clarified, carefully balancing his drink on the armrest of the wing chair. “It was a brand-new Porsche with a defective motor. They’re lucky I didn’t sue them.”

  “Do you still have the BMW or did you finally sell it?” Shanti asked.

  Neel had given it to Caroline. “Parking one car in San Francisco is bad enough. I decided to stick with the Porsche.”

  “You’ll have to get a car for Leila,” Shanti said. “You aren’t going to be one of those ghastly Indian husbands who leaves his wife at home all day, are you?”

  “You forgot pregnant and barefoot,” Neel joked, then added more seriously, “She’s going to be working, so yes, she’ll need a car.”