English Lessons and Other Stories (19 page)

There was nothing more Devika could straighten in the living room, so she took the teacup and went into the master bedroom.

The bed was too large for this room, but sharing a smaller one with a stranger would have been difficult for both of them. That first moment at the airport, she had not recognized him. Husband or not, a year waiting for a visa is a long time. And the few days she had seen him in Delhi were marriage days and one mercifully brief night of pain. She remembered circling above Toronto, with the double-oval letting her see small white planes nuzzling at the terminal below, and the moment of numb panic as the plane landed. Reaching into her carry-on bag, she'd drawn out two photograph albums, proof of her marriage for the phalanx of immigration officials she knew awaited her. And afterwards she pushed her luggage on a cart and walked past crowds of white, black, yellow and brown faces, including his, until he called her name.

Then as now, the apartment had bare white walls in the living room, two bedrooms, a couch and coffee table, a smoked glass and brass dining table with four beige-upholstered chrome-plated chairs, a small bed in the second bedroom — and this bed he told her was “king-size.” Ratan watched her unpack suitcases more than half-full of gifts for him from his family. A jar of sweet mango pickles, a plastic bottle full of honey from a relative's farm, two kilos of square-granuled almost-white sugar, two kilos of basmati rice, and a large black metal Nataraj Shiva, which his mother packed using Devika's gold-bordered wedding saris as cushioning. She was confused when he said, “Mum shouldn't have bothered — you can get everything on Gerrard Street right here.” Was that any way to treat the love of a woman who considered herself barren till his birth?

That first day, he had let her sleep alone on the king-size bed till her day was more attuned to his. In the evening, they set off in his new Ford Tempo with the automatic shoulder straps that startled her by whirring forward when the doors opened, to visit his sisters and their families in Malton, in Brampton, and in Mississauga. He had asked which sister she wanted to visit first. She had said, “Whatever suits you.” “You choose,” he urged, so she felt sure she was being tested. She named the eldest, “Vandana Di — it would show respect.”

“True,” he said, expectation fulfilled. She let her eyes drift to his face without turning her head so she could judge if he was pleased or not, but it was too early for her to read him.

That was her specialty. To read others and to know what they expected. Then to do her best to satisfy, to choose as they would have her choose. “Such a sweet girl, such a good girl,” Asha's mother used to say, touching her cheek with a wistful glance at her own daughter. Asha would toss her bobbed head and say, “Don't you mean docile, mama?” The reply would come certain as a Brahmin's incantation, “Docile girls are good, Asha.” And good girls are docile.

Ratan asked if she wanted to visit Niagara Falls, although there were no relatives there. Devika had never thought of travel except to visit relatives, seeing the occasional car trip out of Delhi as a test of endurance, a sacrifice offered to Duty. She had always agreed with her mother that it seemed appropriate that the Hindustani word for journey, safar, sounded like the English suffer.

A square of blue window balanced on the bedposts and she leaned close against the pane. A precise ant-stream flowed below and the drivers in their cars seemed to know just where they wanted to be, just where they wanted to go. It was seven o'clock, and still no sign of Ratan. Perhaps he went to visit one of his sisters.

She had first met Ratan's sisters when all three — with husbands and children — flew back to India for their wedding. They had been guests of honour decked in wedding finery, guarantors of certain prosperity for the groom, introduced to all her father's friends as “Devika's Canadian sisters-in-law.” She knew her father had no idea Vandana Di made her husband help with the children and the dishes. Or that Kavali Di's daughter worked as a model for a lingerie catalogue. In Canada, she found it more difficult to sort the good girls from the bad ones. It is important to have both, because if there are no bad girls, how would anyone know that girls like Devika are good? Would her mother like her youngest sister-in-law, Bindiya Di, whose passion for butter chicken and kofta curry had imprisoned her, bat-like in her caftans, before a daily stack of rented Indian movies? They were Ratan's family, she reminded herself, and she was duty-bound to love them.

Grey monoliths thrust deep into a tender mauve sky. Along them hung broken chains of light, and Devika realized it was now almost eight o'clock. She went into the kitchen, stirred the mattar-panneer and wondered if she dared call Ratan at work. Could he have had an accident? Quickly through the living room to the balcony. But there was no break in the necklace of twin-diamonded cars glowing on the collarbone of the Don Valley. Terror hit her low in the stomach; she could see no people in other apartments, there were no people walking along the side of the road, no people sitting on the scraps of green between the expressways. No people. A country with more acres of land than people.

What, thought Devika, would she do if Ratan died?

Ratan's hands were light on the wheel. His left foot tapped a disco rhythm to the Hindi film song filling the car. A good day, really, a good day. Peter Kendall, the grey-haired vice-president,
had noticed him. After three years on the job, Peter Kendall had invited him to join a few of the brokers at a pub for beer after work. He'd said “awesome” at least five times and laughed into the Molson beer at all the jokes. He hadn't mentioned that Peter Kendall had never invited him before. He'd been quiet in all the right places, especially when the talk moved to “foreigners getting jobs in Canadian companies, eh?” He hadn't responded when someone wondered “why those immigrants don't leave their battles at home.” And he just might be invited again — unless he made Peter Kendall mad.

In Indian English, mad means crazy. In Canadian English, it just means angry, but when Peter Kendall got mad Ratan couldn't tell the difference. One time, he thought Peter Kendall would have a fit explaining the need for the Canada – US free trade agreement to Ratan, and just a week ago Mr. Kendall had asked him to sit at another table in the employees' lounge because he said the smell of the curry Devika packed for Ratan's lunch was enough to make him sick.

So today was progress. And, thinking of progress, Devika seemed to be making fine progress. She had settled in and was keeping house as if she'd lived here all her life, instead of just two months. It would take her a few tries to pass her driver's test — after all, it had taken him two tries, even with his brother-in-laws' guidance, as he learned how to drive on the right. His parents had chosen well for him. Now his mother's description of Devika as a convent-educated, “homely” girl made him smile. In Indian English, homely means domestic. In Canadian English, homely means ugly. Devika was far from ugly. Her face was too round to be considered beautiful in Canada, but quite attractive. She had a good figure, maybe a little plump for Canada, but passable… desirable.

Maybe she could make a few changes, though. Her clothes,
for instance. She looked like one of those Indian women who promenade on Gerrard Street on Sunday evenings, teetering in their high-heeled sandals on the slushy sidewalks, examining racks of ready-made salwar kameezes from India and gossiping about the Hindi film stars. Whereas he… he was moving up in life now. He tried to imagine Devika in a black velvet skirt and a white silk jacquard blouse, like Peter Kendall's wife.

He thought he should reciprocate Peter Kendall's hospitality. Now that Devika was here, he could invite him and Mrs. Kendall to dinner. The apartment looked quite nice with the new couch and coffee table he'd bought from one of the furniture dealers on Kennedy Street. They would have to buy drapes and a better dinner set — English china, if possible — and a set of larger serving bowls, he thought. But the evening would be an investment in his future.

As he pressed the remote door-opener to enter the dark cave of the underground garage, he decided Devika must wear a dress. And pantyhose, and no nose ring.

It was ten o'clock when Devika heard Ratan's key in the door of the apartment. She uncoiled her body from its fear-knotted ball on the couch to greet him as he set his briefcase down and picked up the
Star
.

“I went out for a drink with the guys at work,” he said.

“Mmmhmm.” She started the Kishore Kumar tape over again. The chicken curry was falling off the bone, but she was so relieved that he was not dead and she left alone in a strange country that she didn't care. The fear still followed her like a shadow as he talked at her through the swinging doors to the narrow kitchen.

“Pete asked me to attend.”

“Pete?”

“Peter Kendall.”

He'd told her about Peter Kendall before, but he'd never called him Pete.

“You must be hungry,” she said.

“Use napkins under the hot dishes, Devika,” he ordered. “Otherwise the dining table might lose its colour.”

He lifted the cover of a serving dish, “Mattar-panneer?”

“Don't you like mattar-panneer?”

“You must try and learn some Chinese and Italian dishes, too. I want to ask Pete Kendall and his wife to dinner next month. We must buy a barbecue for the balcony and by then we will have bought drapes — curtains — and maybe a new dinner set.” He took in her silk salwar kameez but all he said was, “You need to buy some Canadian clothes, Devika. Try a skirt and blouse — it might suit you.”

She changed the subject. “Why Chinese or Italian food? When they come, I will make them Indian food.”

“No, no. Peter Kendall doesn't like the smell of curry.”

“He doesn't like that powder they sell at Loblaws. I'm sure he's never had proper curry.”

“One would think the recipe for proper curry was written in the Vedas. No, Devika — no curry. Besides,” he said, loosening his tie, “I'm tired of curry. Make something else.”

“Achcha.” She hated arguments. “When… when will they be coming?”

“We didn't fix a date yet.”

Devika had set the table for dinner hours ago, using the plates Ratan had bought on sale at the IGA store, but now she realized she'd set three places instead of two; Ratan, immersed in the
Star
, did not notice. There should be more people here. It wasn't right to have all this food and just the two of them, and no people except those faceless nameless people in cars for miles and miles around. Six or seven relatives, a few college friends or — looking
at the table — four. Even if they were only three, it would be an improvement. One relative, maybe a friend.

Just one friend.

She placed a generous scoop of rice on his plate, then on her own and then, still musing, on the third plate.

Ratan lowered the paper and looked at her.

“Who's that for?”

“For my friend. Asha,” said Devika. “She's hungry, too.” She ladled mattar-panneer and chicken curry on the third plate, and poured a third glass of water as well.

“I don't see any Asha,” said Ratan.

“She's right here,” said Devika.

And then she was. Asha, filling an empty chair, making the unfamiliar empty space go away. Not reformed and docile Asha, not the Asha transformed by marriage, or the Asha so proud to have a son, but the old Asha, sitting right here in Toronto, looking at Mr. Right-Can-Do-No-Wrong Ratan with cynical amusement.

Ratan stood up from the table, scratching his head.

“Have you lost your mind?” he said.

She sat still, looking down at her plate. Asha smiled.

He picked up the offending plate and took it into the kitchen. She heard it slam on the Formica counter. Then he strode past her into the bedroom and soon she heard a small grunt as he took off his shoes. He came back barefoot, a comfort she'd heard him call an “ethnic” habit.

And there was the plate again, in front of Asha.

He shrugged. “Stop being stubborn, Devika, there's no one here.”

“Asha is here.”

He shook his head. “Women,” he said.

Asha said to Devika, “Watch him think he can ignore me till I go away.”

They ate in wary silence, and the plate remained. After dinner,
Devika washed and dried the dishes and stood on the balcony.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I'm showing Asha the lights of the CN Tower,” she said.

“Come to bed.” Irritation in the command.

A blue aerogramme slipped away and she watched it flutter down the Don Valley.

On Sunday at Vandana Di's house Ratan expounded on hot stocks to the men, neat J & B scotch swirling in a glass in his hand like the tawny golden eye of a tiger. Devika was in the kitchen with his sisters, and he felt liberated. Devika's Asha had begun to really grate on him. A little pretence lent a new wife a certain enigmatic charm; in fact, pretence could be quite romantic. But to invent a whole person who inhabited their new apartment and had to be fed and clothed… surely his parents should have checked with someone — Devika's family, neighbours, friends — someone should have known about these… well, hallucinations. Should he indulge her or should he put a stop to it? Ratan had been pointedly silent to show her his displeasure, a technique his father had used to good effect on his mother, but it wasn't working on Devika.

“Asha wants to go for a walk,” Devika said after serving breakfast for three on Saturday. And then, instead of going to the grocery store in the car with Ratan, she took the elevator and he watched from the bedroom window as her tiny lone figure left the building. She scurried rabbit-like to the Philippine convenience store on the corner, and he watched till she emerged, saw her run all the way home, dupatta streaming behind her, as though Ravan himself were in pursuit. By the time she reached the apartment, he was back on the couch and absorbed in his stock analysis sheets, a briefcase of very important papers open on the coffee table before him.