A Good Indian Wife: A Novel

by Anne Cherian

“Still thinking about what to do.” Leila didn’t want to tell Shanti about the children’s books. Just yesterday an agent had written saying he liked the story, did she have any more? Since then her fantasies revolved around getting published. She imagined telling Neel, “I’m going to have two types of babies, one of the flesh, and another that is intellectual.” She’d dedicate the first book to her old and new family. She handed Shanti a mug of tea.

  “What are you interested in doing?”

  “Anything with words. Editing would be great. I’m going to be volunteering at the Y, starting next month. They have children who need extra tutoring in English and it will keep me busy a few evenings every week.”

  “Good for you. If I see any editing opportunities, I’ll let you know. This tea is wonderful, Leila. It’s different. What did you put in it?”

  “Almonds. It’s my short-cut version of kahva, the almond tea they make in Kashmir. Only mine isn’t authentic.” The almonds were on the counter as a reminder to be eaten daily—Amma used to say they helped to grow the baby’s bones—and she had crushed some into the brew almost as an afterthought.

  “This is light-years away from the awful tea they serve at the cafeteria. Bob and I had lunch there today.”

  Just a few weeks ago, Leila would immediately have imagined Neel having tea with Caroline in the same cafeteria, despairing that, unlike Bob, he never invited Leila to meet him at work. Now her eyes played out a different scenario: The secretary sat alone, while she, Leila, was the lucky Mrs. Sarath.

  This morning she had sorted through Neel’s closet, wanting to rid the condo of Caroline. She had deliberately not asked Neel about his late nights, because part of her suspected that he hadn’t told her the whole truth. He had not broken up with Caroline years ago. He must have been seeing her those times he worked late because he had suddenly started coming home early after they first made love. She had to forgive him his past, even his recent past, if she was to stay with him. One by one she put her hand into suit pockets, expecting to see some remnant of his days and nights with Madam Fake, but always her fingers came up empty. At the last double-breasted gray suit she breathed easy, taking in the smell of her absent husband, who was present in the baby she carried.

  “Why aren’t you having any chai? Don’t tell me you too are allergic to nuts?”

  “As far as I know, I don’t have any allergies. I’m having this.” Leila raised her glass of orange juice.

  “Since when does an Indian give up tea for juice? Are you pregnant? You do have a glow about you.”

  “An orange-colored glow?”

  “Very funny. Come on, tell me.”

  Leila relented. “Yes, I am pregnant.”

  “Aren’t you the sly one.” Shanti raised her cup of tea. “To your baby. Tell me, is Neel thrilled? Is he ready to be a father?” So, she thought, the secretary fling is over and Dr. Suneel is settling down to being the good Indian husband.

  “I hope so,” Leila said.

  She had spoken to him two hours ago. Indy’s proposal was proceeding well and he had promised Amma to bring Leila for the wedding, unless it was around the baby’s due date. Everyone knew she had not attended the funeral because it was too early in the pregnancy. The whole town, then, was aware of her good fortune. There would be no more talk of “poor Leila.” The next time she saw them, there would be a baby in her arms.

  Shanti left, and the empty apartment made Leila wish that Neel were already home. She wondered if he had spoken with Indy and on the spur of the moment decided to call her sister. As the long-distance buzz was replaced by a steady ringing, Leila thought how far she had come to being this person who easily picks up a phone and dials a country halfway around the world.

  Indy answered, and it was as if they had never been parted. Words raced between them—interrupting; completing each other’s sentences; changing topics quickly to make the most use of this expensive talking time. Amma and Appa had taken Kila to the Temple, so Indy didn’t have to share the phone.

  Indy said she could hardly wait to become an aunty. “I hope it’s a girl. I’m not sure I’ll know what to do with a little boy.”

  Leila asked when Srinivasan was coming to India. “Soon. I’m not sure when. Akka, I’m so nervous to meet him. How did you manage to keep so calm? I wish you were here to help me.”

  Leila promised Indy everything was going to be all right. “I just sent you some frizz control in the mail. Use it when he comes to see you, okay?”

  Leila asked after their friends, including the woman who had taken her place at the college. But nothing much had happened the last few months, no marriages or engagements.

  “There is something,” Indy’s voice faltered. “Janni died.”

  Leila was immediately transported to the crowded excitement of that first year in college. Sarees had replaced school uniforms. Some of the bolder girls wore lipstick. Classroom seats were not assigned and Leila always took the last row, eating, talking, sometimes even playing cat’s cradle. In the big lecture halls the one teacher sitting up front didn’t have the eyes or the energy to maintain discipline, and “bad” girls like Leila took advantage of that. There was no homework and hardly any tests. But what Leila liked best was the long bus ride to the college.

  Liked it because she had met Janni in those aisles, sat beside him, squished, on the long seat at the back of the bus. And when he started passing her notes, she felt like a heroine in a Bollywood movie. On the big screen, couples took just one minute to fall in love. Now she had the same experience, writing his name a hundred times on paper that she threw away in case Amma’s eagle eyes spied it. For months she had been content with the sporadic encounters. Then that day when the note was a question: Will you come see a film with me? The words kept echoing in her mind, her stomach too excited to eat lunch. She could think of nothing else during class except the hope that he wouldn’t change his mind.

  He hadn’t, but someone must have seen them entering the cinema, because Appa came to get her even before the interval.

  They didn’t speak the whole way home. Amma met them at the gate and immediately took Leila to her room.

  “So you went to your friend Saranjeet’s house today? Such lies from my own daughter. No more college for you from now on. You are not to be trusted. Shaming our whole family. Stay here and don’t move until I tell you.”

  For two weeks Leila lay in bed, her only companion an irate Amma. Indy wasn’t allowed to comfort her. “I will not have you spoiling your sister,” Amma shouted. “A Muslim boy. You want to be seen with a Muslim boy? Did you know that they can have three-four wives? His sister Yasmin is now the third wife to an old man. Is that what you want in your life?”

  Each day was the same. Amma lectured and Leila listened through her tears. Her repeated sobs—“I’m sorry, Amma, I won’t do it again”—weren’t acknowledged. It was as if her tears had baptized her and she went from being the girl who always challenged Amma (“Why can’t I cut my hair? I cut one inch yesterday and you didn’t notice.”) to being just another daughter squashed under her parents’ will. Amma was unstoppable. Leila was too old to be beaten, so Amma used her only weapon: words. And when she left the room, the door was locked so Leila could not escape. When Amma returned, the berating started again as if nothing had been said earlier.

  There was no need for Leila to finish college. A proposal had just come from a farmer, an older man who wouldn’t care if he heard about Leila’s shameless behavior. Appa was checking into it. By next month, Leila would be married. No more going out with a Muslim boy. Letting the whole world know by seeing a film together. What kind of daughter had she raised? And this Muslim boy? Did Leila think he really liked her? Hah! He was already seeing another girl. Saving her a place on the bus.

  All this time Leila had been comforting herself with the thought that Janni, too, was suffering. That he was looking for her on the bus. Maybe standing around the college gate hoping to pass a note. Now Amma even took Janni away fr
om her. Leila felt she had nothing to live for. How long could she listen? How long did Amma expect her to pay for this? She didn’t want to marry an old farmer.

  Now, almost half a lifetime later, Leila allowed herself to open up—fully—to that evening when the crows cawed so frantically, as if they sensed the approaching change and had to hurry to the safety of their nests. They gnawed at the calm of the evening, black sounds for a black event.

  She emptied the bottle of pills, each white pellet innocent until massed together and swallowed with a glass of tap water. Her last thought was that Amma would be relieved, one less daughter to marry, Leila’s bad behavior burned along with her body.

  Afterwards, Indy told her how she had come into the room and tried to wake Leila for dinner. Then she screamed for Amma and Appa. The hushed, rushed taxi ride to the hospital, the extra money given to the driver so he would forget what he had seen.

  Trying to get to the other side, Leila knew none of this.

  Her hearing was the first of her senses to return to life. Voices, sobs, silence. A voice again, and this time she recognized it as Amma’s. “My oldest child, my first baby. I could not have lived if she had died.” Another voice, also broken. Indy. “Amma, she is going to be okay.” Amma again, “We must go to the Temple tomorrow. I shall to scrub the floor in thanks.”

  A door whined as it was pushed ajar. A light was switched on and Leila opened her eyes. A nurse bent down, wagging her index finger in Leila’s face. “Next time you better not eat chicken. See, eating flesh can be very dangerous.” In a flash Leila knew what had happened. She had not succeeded and someone, Appa, probably, was telling people the suicide attempt had been food poisoning.

  The old farmer was forgotten. They sent her away to Appa’s village with Indy, two weeks during which Indy kept her sister in constant sight, afraid she might try something again. Leila had been tempted. But every time she wanted to throw herself in the river, she thought of Amma’s words. “My oldest child, my first baby. I could not have lived if she had died.”

  When the rejections started coming, the incident was not brought up. But in the back of everyone’s mind was the fear that people knew about Janni, that the suicide attempt had leaked out of the hospital. Had the gossip been started by the questioning nurse who knew it wasn’t food poisoning? Perhaps Appa’s insistence that his cousin be the doctor alerted suspicious minds. Was that why the men kept saying no? Were they afraid that Leila was unstable? Or did they think she had compromised her virtue and was too cheap for them?

  Leila held the phone tight against her ear and stared at the dishwasher. Janni had wanted to be a mechanic and own his own TV shop. She would never see him again, the man who had bought her a movie ticket and made her think of passages in Mills & Boon books.

  “How did he die?”

  “A motorcycle accident.”

  Leila touched her mangalsutra and asked, “Was he married?”

  “Yes, he had two children.”

  Leila didn’t want to know any more.

  Thou hast committed—

  Fornication? But that

  Was in another country, and besides,

  The wench is dead.

  She herself had died so many deaths over Janni. It had changed her whole life. Amma had made sure she paid for her mistake. Just like the time she caught Leila turning down the waistband of her skirt so the hem would hang above the knee, the way other girls wore it. But Victorian, thrifty Amma wanted the skirt to look decent and last a long time. Then, too, she had stamped Leila down, insisting on checking her skirt every morning. Though Leila wore skirts and pants now, Amma would say it was okay because of Neel. He was the do-no-wrong son-in-law. But compared to Neel’s dalliance, her brief tryst with Janni was so innocent.

  “Poor children,” Leila said, looking down at her stomach.

  “Death comes in threes,” Indy reminded her, but Leila didn’t want to talk of Janni and dying anymore.

  Babies also came in threes; she, Indy, Kila. Maybe the one she was carrying was the first of a trio.

  THIRTY-SIX

  NEEL RETURNED ON FRIDAY NIGHT wearing Tattappa’s watch. The timepiece had yellowed with age and the thin, brown leather strap was tight around his wrist. Leila noticed it immediately but didn’t say anything. She was happy to see him, happy to set the table with the meal she had prepared.

  She had spent the whole evening making the dinner, excited that Neel was coming home. She had counted the days of his absence in terms of meals eaten alone. Four more breakfasts without Neel, three more dinners alone, until the final, solitary lunch today.

  First she cleaned the whole condo, including the windows and the floors. Leila did not like the long-handled American mops, and squatted on the kitchen linoleum like Heera, using a cloth to swab it. She scrubbed the bathroom sink till it sparkled, thinking that soon Neel’s toothbrush would be back in its place.

  Only when everything was ready did she take a shower, lingering under the hot water. She had called the airline and timed everything down to the minute. Half an hour for Neel to get through Customs and another half hour to get a taxi home, where she would be waiting.

  She had been saving the sample of perfume for months, hoping for just such an opportunity. She wanted to smell like America for Neel. She hoped he would like her new outfit. The yellow top enriched her own coloring and the slim cut of the jeans suited her. It still thrilled her that her legs were not wrapped into one by a saree. She had thought nothing of baring her midriff the first time she wore a saree, but had felt almost naked that day in Macy’s when her legs stood apart like the metal divider in Kila’s geometry box.

  Neel had lost weight in the last week and there were new lines on his face. His words sounded gruff, interrupted by long spells of coughing. He was hungry, and Leila watched as he served himself some more rosemary risotto. She was used to thinking of rosemary as the herb of remembrance in Hamlet or a girl’s name, not something used in cooking. The recipe for the courgettes and bottleneck squash called for just salt and pepper, but she had sprinkled on a little cayenne. It pleased her that she was beginning to experiment with American recipes. She had done the same with the green salad, adding the sharp-tasting baby bok choy to the bland butter lettuce.

  That night, Neel walked into the bathroom as Leila brushed her teeth. Since his departure for India she had gotten used to leaving the door open and now felt shy to be doing something so personal in front of him. But he didn’t seem to notice and began squeezing paste onto his brush. Their eyes met in the mirror, two bodies side by side, sharing a sink. And so much more, Leila thought happily.

  Leila felt conspicuously different in her new nightie and fragrant Joy perfume. She watched as Neel switched off the lights and came to bed.

  He sneezed and she asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m just bushed.” He yawned, then sneezed again. “The dinner was great, Leila. Maybe a good night’s sleep will help my cold.”

  “Good night,” Leila said. She wished he had not come back so tired and sick. She rolled over to be closer to him, but by the time she touched his hand, he was already snoring. She started to pull her fingers away, but his tightened. Leila smiled. Even in his sleep he was holding her. She was still smiling when she fell asleep.

  The next day, his cold had gotten worse. His eyes and nose were red. Leila made the special tea Amma always brewed when they got sore throats and coughs. She boiled equal parts of milk and water and then spooned in the black tea leaves along with cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and sugar. She let it steep for a few minutes and then poured Neel a cup.

  She wanted him to get well quickly. He had turned off his pager. It was to be just the two of them spending the weekend together before he returned to work Monday morning.

  “I’m feeling a little better,” Neel thanked her after breakfast. “I’d like to get out, do something. Is there anything you need? I’ve been gone a while.”

  “I have to go to the Indian store,” Le
ila said, pleased but hesitant. She wanted Indian almonds. She knew Neel preferred the health food store, which carried many of the same ingredients. He still talked about seeing a mouse in the corner of the Indian one and how the owner had very nonchalantly said, “Oh, they’re back again.”

  “The Indian store is too far away,” Neel said immediately. He had just returned from the heat and overpowering odors of India and didn’t want to be immersed in them again.

  “Shanti says there’s a new one just ten minutes from here.” Leila jumped at her chance. “She brought me some jalebis from there.”

  They even found parking right outside the store, which Neel proclaimed a miracle. Leila simply thought it fit the day. Everything was turning out wonderfully.

  They walked down aisles of freshly ground spices and products brought especially from India. Vajradanti toothpowder, Horlicks, incense. It was so reminiscent of the shops she used to frequent with Amma that Leila felt she might run into a former classmate at any moment. She wished she would. Then she could say casually, “Hello. This is my husband Neel.” The word wasn’t just a label anymore.

  Neel walked alongside as she filled the blue basket with lentils and spices. With nothing else to do, he began to read the names. Garam masala. Ajwain. Panch poran. The array of pickles sent him back to college days when all the boys brought back bottles of lemon, mango, chili, bitter gourd, even meat and fish pickle. One of the doctors at the hospital who had spent a year in Bombay joked, “If you stand still long enough in India they’ll pickle you.” Neel had laughed, but pickles supplemented the meager diet of dorm food and he had even spread the spicy mixture on bread. A hot mango pickle sandwich was a popular midnight snack, with boys competing to eat the spiciest one, bragging that this was the way to become a real man and put hair on one’s chest.

  “Shall we get some whole mango pickle?” He suddenly wanted to taste his memory.