A Good Indian Wife: A Novel (15 page)

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.

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 her 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 continued 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.”

Leila stared at him. A job? Didn’t he make enough money as a doctor?

Shanti spoke before Leila could respond. “Neel, you’ve become such an American. It took me a while—oh, six months at least—to adjust to this crazy, work, work, work country. You can’t expect Leila to step into a marriage, a new city,
and
a new job. Unless that’s what you want,” she belatedly said to Leila.

“In a few months, yes, I think I will start looking for a job.”

Neel was relieved to hear this. She
had
to work and become independent, otherwise he would be stuck with her forever. As soon as she was making some money, they could separate and start divorce proceedings. She could even return to India if she wanted. But she would probably stay here, where divorcées were not looked down on. He wouldn’t feel so bad if she was doing well on her own.

“Take your time,” Shanti advised. “Don’t let living here pressure you into working. I waited till I found something I really liked. Until then I lived the good life: sitting around at home, visiting, watching TV. Just like India.”

“We must have lived in different Indias,” Leila said. “I taught for the past eight years, and we don’t have a TV.” She had assumed she’d paid her dues, that being married to a doctor meant never having to work again. She had imagined herself busy raising children.