A Good Indian Wife: A Novel

by Anne Cherian

  “You were gone so long I got scared and looked through your desk. I found her picture there.”

  So the quiet mouse had squeaked as early as day one. He wasn’t sure whether to be furious or intrigued by her chutzpah. Leila must have known about Savannah, too, all these months. He had thrown away her letters just last week. “Her picture? Maybe she gave it to me years ago. She could have put it there herself. I really don’t know.”

  “Why did she come to see you in Reno?”

  “I told you. I’d left some slides behind and she brought them for me. Don’t you believe me?”

  “She said you had quarreled.”

  “We did. In Reno. I told her she should not have come up. It didn’t look right. You and I were—are—newly married, and people might think it strange to see her with me. I didn’t bring her over to meet you because I don’t like to mix my professional and personal life. I was going to tell you all this, but I had no idea how you would take it.”

  “Who sent you those flowers that first night?” Everything had to be explained if she was going to stay with him and hope again.

  Neel hesitated. “Caroline did. I think it was her way of trying to get back with me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But looking back, I don’t think I could have done anything different. You had just arrived. How could I possibly expect you to understand?”

  “But how did she get inside?”

  “Leila, this feels like the Inquisition. How did she get in? Very simple. There’s a duplicate key in the office. For emergencies, if I lose my set. Most people leave it with a friend or a neighbor. Since I’m at the hospital so much, mine is there.”

  “I called the hospital that night you wanted me to postpone our dinner reservations because you were working late. This woman said you had left at your usual time.”

  “She must be the new girl they’ve just hired. Why would I lie about something you can check up on? As you did.”

  “The scarf in the plane. Who does it belong to?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “It’s not Caroline’s?”

  “Only if she left it there years ago.”

  “Is there any other woman I should know about?” Leila thought of Savannah’s letters.

  “No one who is important now. I’m married to you, and that’s what is important.” He didn’t know he felt like this until the words came out. He was comfortable with Leila in a way he had never been with Savannah. Oh, he had admired and loved Savannah, but always felt he was trying to live up to her. Leila and he were more evenly matched. And Leila’s parents loved him for the same reason that Savannah’s had hated him. That he was Indian. Sanjay was right about the comfort of shared experiences. Sanjay was already worried that when he grew older he might be repelled by the very differences that attracted him to Oona now; that they might make him long for the Bangla girl he had always expected to marry.

  “There is just one more question.”

  “Thank God.” Neel smiled. “I’m not sure how I’ll hold up if you question me for another hour.”

  He was being smooth again. For a moment she had stripped him of his American veneer, but now it was back.

  “Did you marry me to please Tattappa?”

  This, then, was the most important question, Neel realized. She had accepted and seemed relieved by his other explanations.

  “Marrying you certainly pleased him. He is very fond of you. He thought you were very much like his wife, my grandmother, whom I never met. She died before I was born.” Neel tried to gain time, weighing possible answers as he kept talking. “I had not gone to India with the idea of getting married. But once you were suggested, I agreed to see you. My mother had arranged for a number of other girls, but you were the only one who interested me. When I met you, I thought you would do well in America. That was important to me. I didn’t want to marry someone who couldn’t speak English and would constantly carp to return to India.” Neel was relieved that most of what he was telling Leila was the truth.

  Leila relaxed, the pressure-cooker tenseness vanishing. Indy was right. Neel had seen something he liked in her during that walk in the garden. He had intimated as much at the restaurant in Ooty. Of all the scenarios she had thought possible, this was the one she had not dared to hope for. Everything was going to be all right. There was no need to disappoint Amma, no need to feel jealous of Caroline, no need to have a limited life here with Neel, or live manless for the rest of her life.

  She smiled. “I definitely don’t want to go back to India. I love living here.”

  “You do?” Neel had never thought to ask her. “Well, I’m relieved.”

  “I never want to go back. Even if you were having an affair, I would not have gone back.” Here she would be like millions of other disappointed women; not a pitiable symbol living out her days as the object of pointed fingers.

  “There’s no need to think of that. Everything all cleared and out in the open now?”

  “There’s just one thing.”

  “Uh-oh. It’s the ‘just one thing’ that usually is the clincher. What is it you want to know now?”

  “It’s not a question. I have to tell you something.”

  “Well? Tell me.”

  “I’m pregnant,” she said, expecting to see a smile, a look of excitement on his face.

  For a brief moment Neel thought he was back on the airplane, and Caroline was saying, “I’m late.” Then he shuffled his feet, gazed at the walls that were not pressing against him, and wondered why he was having a difficult time breathing.

  “Pregnant?” Nothing had prepared him for this. Not Caroline. Not Cindy, a three-week encounter in Stanford who claimed he was the father of the baby she aborted. Not India, where babies are considered a gift from God. Neel didn’t believe in God. He believed in choices.

  Leila placed her hand on her stomach. “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Our baby will be born a few weeks after Oona and Sanjay’s.”

  “You talk as if everything has been decided. Don’t you think we should discuss this?”

  “What is there to discuss?”

  “Whether we should have the baby.” Neel knew the word “abortion” was not in her vocabulary. Well-raised Indian girls got pregnant and had babies. It was one of the reasons why the population kept multiplying. “We just got married, we are getting to know each other, we’re both young, why complicate things?” He knew these were American arguments and would not move Indian logic, which had a simple equation: Marriage = Pregnancy = Babies. He, too, had been raised to believe that. But America had shown him that a person could actually control his or her fate.

  Leila sat very still. Once again he was turning everything upside down, making her feel she was wrong for wanting something so natural, so simple, that even the poorest Indians have it: the right to a baby and a husband who is happy to move onto the higher plane of fatherhood.

  Neel kept going. “I know that I’m not ready yet. For one thing, this condo isn’t the right place for a child. No yard, no family room. But aside from those considerations, children take money. I’d like to wait a few years, maybe more, until our cash flow is better. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m not prepared for diapers, crying, and all the other paraphernalia that comes with children.”

  As he spoke, the burgeoning being inside her took shape and Leila saw plump brown fingers curl around her thumb, large dark irises looking up at her, a black dot hidden on its back to protect against the jealous eye of others.

  “I’m ready,” Leila said, and the words came from deep within her, feral and fighting.

  “You may be, but it takes more than that. I think you should think about it.”

  “I don’t need to think. I want to have the baby. Why didn’t you use a condom?”

  “It was just that first time and I asked if you were safe.”

  “I wasn’t sure what you meant.”

  “What do you mean, you didn’t understand? Now
you tell me. God!” He put his hands on his head.

  “What will your parents say?” Leila hurled.

  “My parents have nothing to do with this. They don’t need to know anything. This is our decision.” That threat wasn’t going to work. His family had interfered enough in his life.

  “I don’t understand you. Why don’t you want to have a child?”

  “I told you, I’m not ready for one yet. I don’t understand you. Why do you have to have it? You don’t even want to consider other options.”

  “I don’t see abortion as an option.”

  “Why not? It’s not even a fetus yet. It’s a mass of cells. Just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean you have to have a child. It isn’t as if you’re in a village where you have no recourse.”

  “With or without you, I’m having my baby.” Leila stood up. “You do what you like.” She turned and left the room.

  THIRTY-THREE

  THE CONDO WAS NOT BIG ENOUGH to accommodate two disparate minds. The atmosphere was as bleak and charged as the wild moors in Wuthering Heights, Leila thought. They ate the rice and egg curry quickly, the only sound the chime of metal prongs against porcelain. Self-righteous but uncomfortable, Leila tried to convince herself that this dinner was no different from previous silent meals. But she knew this time the tension between them was not due to a blond-haired woman but a baby.

  Neel pushed the white oval containing a pale yellow yolk from one side of the plate to the other. Had she made the curry deliberately? Trying to remind him that eggs were unhatched chickens? She was just like Mummy, stubborn and stupid. Seemingly pliable on the outside, but unshakable once her mind was made up. From the very beginning, pouring coffee with her bent head, she had confounded him.

  Sequestered in the study, he thought about Caroline. In the past, any disturbance had been balmed by her touch. Now she was the cause of his problems. Why had she called Leila? No discussion. No warning. Was it her idiotic, desperate attempt to get him back? Into what? A family that wanted to throw him out the door? Too bad he hadn’t told the brother, “Listen, you loser, I never planned on marrying your sister.” During one of their predictable fights last year when she brought up marriage and he resisted, she had suddenly turned on him and said, “I swear, Neel, if you ever dump me, I’ll kill you. That’s how much I love you.”

  “I’m frightened,” Neel mocked, though he was mildly alarmed by her words. Part of him, however, was pleased that she loved him so much. “Want to die now?” His tongue circled one pink nipple. “Let me show you the weapon I’m going to use,” he said, as he guided her hand between his legs. Those days of passion were gone. He had already given her up without realizing it.

  He felt relaxed with Leila. Enjoyed discussing movies with her. Was even learning from her wide knowledge of literature. He was proud that everyone seemed to like her. Sanjay had told him three times at least how the sudden marriage had worried him. One of their Chinese-American colleagues had made an arranged marriage with a woman from Hong Kong and it wasn’t working out. Sanjay feared the same might happen to Neel. Having met Leila, he not only understood but gave his complete approval. Then penny-saving Patrick, who never invited anyone anywhere, had surprised him by suggesting they come to dinner. “My wife really enjoyed talking to Leila at the barbecue. And since she’s mad about India, she has all these questions. So warn your wife, okay?”

  Lying in bed, Leila hoped the baby could not feel her anger. Larger than any fetus, the anger had lodged itself in her stomach, spreading throughout her body, making it impossible to sleep. Images from the past would not stop flashing through her mind: Neel with Caroline beside that heart-shaped pool; Neel leaving the day she fainted; her pregnant friends’ happiness. Their husbands’ pride and excitement. Oona’s face. Kila as a baby trying to walk and ending up on the floor. The absoluteness with which Neel said he didn’t want the baby. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, give in to Neel. It was wrong to throw away a gift from God. She didn’t care what she needed to do, she was going to become a mother.

  Neel’s body was a dead weight in the bed, relaxed into the middle of the mattress. His closeness, the smell of his aftershave, the soft noises that weren’t even snores were repugnant to her. She turned on her side, her stiff back to him.

  She was still awake when the phone rang. She didn’t move. Let Neel get it. It was probably Caroline. Leila glanced at the clock. Two fifteen was no time to call, but Caroline lived outside of time and morality. Women who steal other women’s husbands don’t care what they do or when they do it.

  Neel jumped up and ran for the phone.

  His voice filled the apartment.

  “Mummy?”

  Leila knew immediately that something had happened to Tattappa. No one called from India just to say hello. It was too expensive and people were more used to pens than phones. Leila turned on switches as she walked toward the study. It was always better to receive bad news in the light.

  “Tattappa, how are you?” Leila watched as Neel strained to hear his grandfather’s words.

  “Tattappa, I can barely hear you.” He was back on the basketball court, trying to hear what his grandfather was advising from the other end. Before he left for Stanford they had walked all over town, stopping to let a truck piled with steel cables pass by. “We are like that,” Tattappa pointed to the long poles tied with a red flag to warn people of the danger. “Our bond is strong and dependable. No one can break it.”

  “What? Leila? Yes, she is here with me. She sends you her greetings.” Even now Tattappa was thinking of him, wanting Neel to be happy with Leila. How could he be angry with someone who loved him so much?

  The phone was a smooth, high-tech seashell, containing the sound of the ocean. Standing where she was, Leila could hear the crackling noise of the long distance. Neel motioned her closer and she came beside him, her arms hugging her body, trying to shake their fight from her bones.

  “Yes, yes, everything is okay. What? What?” Tattappa’s weak voice was replaced by a sound like a distant electric saw.

  “We got cut off.” Neel shared his worry and disappointment with Leila.

  “Why don’t you try calling back?” Leila said hesitantly.

  Neel began dialing. Twenty tries later, he admitted defeat. The famous Indian telephone system had failed him again.

  In the silence the kitchen clock ticked on its minutes—2:50 a.m. Just a little more than half an hour and yet so much had changed.

  “Shall I make some hot milk?” Leila asked.

  They took their mugs to the dining-room table and sat facing each other.

  “It’s the first time Tattappa has ever spoken to me on the phone. Why do you think he called?” This was something only another Indian could answer.

  “To tell you something,” Leila said, then decided to speak the truth. “I think he wanted to say good-bye.”

  “Maybe he will get better soon,” Neel resisted. “I remember playing basketball with him. He must have been sixty at least but he was pretty tricky on the court.”

  “My sister and I used to see him in the market sometimes. We thought he was so nice because he bought sweets for the beggar children.”

  “He never told me he did that.” Neel shook his head. “He’d say he was going to check up on his shops.”

  “Your grandfather owned shops?” Leila realized she had used the past tense and hastily added, “Which ones?”

  “A saree shop and a small cycle-repair shop.”

  “Which saree shop?” Leila was curious.

  “Nirmala. He sold it a few years ago.”

  “I didn’t know he owned Nirmala. We got quite a few sarees there and on the last day the shopkeeper gave us one for free. We thought it was because we had bought so many.”

  “It was probably Tattappa’s doing. He really likes you.”

  “But we never even talked to each other.”

  “Tattappa always says you can tell a lot about a person without speaking to them.
The New Age people in the United States say that everyone has an aura. I guess Tattappa would agree, except he’d say, ‘Jus-tuh from the face-uh wonly.’”

  They both laughed at Neel’s imitation.

  “For years I begged Amma not to say ‘ohniun’ instead of ‘onion.’ It used to embarrass me, but she couldn’t hear the difference. Then an Irish professor visited our college and he spoke with this strange accent. Everyone thought it was cute and I realized there shouldn’t be double standards,” Leila said.

  “When I was about ten, I tried to teach Tattappa to pronounce ‘physics’ correctly. He’d listen, nod, and then the next time it would be ‘pijiks’ again. I finally gave up.” Old, interfering Tattappa. Had he been checking up on Neel? Had he somehow known about the pregnancy?

  The phone rang and Neel picked it up before the first ring stopped.

  “Mummy? I’ll leave immediately.”

  “He’s taken a turn for the worse,” Neel told Leila. “He’s sleeping but can still talk. I hope I’m in time.”

  “I’ll help you pack.” Leila retreated to the bedroom.

  What sympathy could she offer a husband she was only just getting to know? A suitcase and a voice without any fight in it.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  TATTAPPA HAS BEEN ASKING for you all the time,” Father said when Neel entered the house.

  Neel smelled death as he approached his grandfather. Old people acquired an old age smell that changed when death drew near. Neel did not have to examine Tattappa to know that he had a few more days at most to live.

  “Tattappa, you called?”

  Tattappa squeezed Neel’s hand and a small smile appeared on his face. Neel had learned those words from Mark, and for a while always answered Tattappa with that phrase.

  “The boy,” Tattappa said slowly.

  “The boy,” Neel repeated gently, relieved that Tattappa’s mind was still alert. “What did you call me for?”

  “Suneel, I was worried. You—Leila.” Tattappa paused, the words he wanted to say trapped inside his decaying body.