Motherland (9 page)

“When I was carrying my second, I had terrible cravings for lassi. My husband would get our servant girl to pour lassi into an airtight whiskey bottle and lower it on a rope down our well so it would stay cold enough.”

It was going to be a long night. There was no one my age. I hadn't considered before coming that their kids would be at their boarding schools. It was just me and the adults. And my uncle had disappeared on me. I sat quietly and sipped my drink and listened to the prattle: the problems of servants, of finding good courts for lawn tennis, of measles breaking out at their children's boarding schools, of journeying to Mysore or Bangalore or Madras to help some niece or sister or godchild pick out a wedding trousseau, because in this forsaken place you certainly couldn't do anything “properly.”

I kept thinking about my mother. These women were not so different from her. They all knew English, Hindi, and at least one other language, they were well bred and well educated, with master's degrees in political science or economics or biology. But none of them had jobs, some of them had never had one at all. The one in the red sari was a doctor who had graduated from an elite medical institute. She hadn't practiced in over ten years, she said.

“Maya's asking why I don't practice medicine anymore,” she announced to the group.

“How could Vandana practice? She was an oncologist; there are no cancer patients here, no hospital here, just the company's infirmary.”

“Would you want to work in the infirmary then?” I asked.

“It has nothing to do with what I was trained for. I don't want to bandage kids who fall off their bikes and tea pluckers who are bitten by snakes and wives having false labor. That's not medicine I'm interested in.”

“Sometimes there must be real illnesses, even cancer, up here?” I said.

“Yes, in any population there will be some serious illness.” Vandana spoke with exaggerated patience, like she was talking to someone who was not very bright. “But anything serious would be sent down to the city for treatment at a fully equipped hospital.”

“Do you think we should work just for the sake of working, like women do in America, even if it's menial or not interesting?” Lalu said to me.

“I didn't say that. I was just…”

“Don't jump on her, Lalu,” said a woman who hadn't spoken before, coming to my aid. She looked like a large honeybee, rounded at the middle and dressed in a black and yellow salwar kameez. “Our wealth and our social status come from our husbands' jobs. But we have no embarrassment about that, and 1 think this is what is new to Maya?”

“In these remote places where our husbands' jobs take us, making life palatable for them is a full-time occupation,” said the fat lady from among the cushions. “They could not survive up here without us, and they know it.”

“There are men here tonight at this dance who are unmarried, but none over thirty, none rank even an assistant manager. The unmarried ones want to marry soon so they can stay here and do well.”

“And the company is grateful to us. There is an unspoken understanding that the women will take care of the men and the company will take care of the women—contribute to our lending library, open country clubs and throw garden parties, pay our children's tuition, our trips to see family, our medical care. Ask your uncle, he will tell you this is how it works.”

“Come, let's all go back to the main room. There's probably a little time for dancing before dinner.”

In the main room, the one we'd first come into, the candles had been augmented with chandeliers. The dance floor was bordered on one side by couches and settees filled with ladies who weren't dancing. The orchestra was on another side, and opposite it were the doors to the verandah, open for the night breezes, through which I could see the staff setting up dinner. Directly across the dance floor from the settees was the bar. There and in the rooms behind it were the men.

I danced with a cluster of ladies to some Hindi film music, and then a Madonna song came on. I tried not to dance the way we danced at home, our eyes blank and unsmiling in a sexy daze, hips slowly rolling. I modified and adjusted my steps to match the women around me so I would not seem so American, so improper. Slow songs were easier. Lalu's husband, Ravi, came and asked me to dance, and I danced with him the way I would dance with my friends' fathers at a wedding or a Christmas Party, plenty of air between us, hands held lightly, his hand on my waist, far from my hips.

One of the unmarried twenty-somethings asked me to dance. Suraj wore dark framed glasses, but his seriousness was undermined by his symmetrical dimples. He told me he was a chemist, he was involved with the processing and preserving of the tea. He asked me about New York and whether I'd ever been to the New York Public Library. He said he'd seen it in the movie
Ghostbusters,
and he'd heard it was the biggest library anywhere. He said he'd heard there were a lot of Indians in New York now, in a place called Jersey City. I told him that Jersey City was in another state called New Jersey and there were a lot of Indians now, there and in New York both. He was the first person who asked if I missed home and meant America.

As we made a turn on the dance floor, I saw my uncle standing a few feet away. As soon as the music stopped, he approached us.

“This is my niece. Have we been introduced?” my uncle said.

“I didn't know, Mr. Pillai, I am sorry. Ravi suggested asking her to dance, I assumed she was here with his family,” Suraj said, his words nervously tripping out on top of each other. He gave my uncle his business card and said, “I work for Mr. Sethi and Mr. Menon. It is good to make your acquaintance, Mr. Pillai.”

“Likewise,” my uncle said, and led me away, his hand tightly over mine.

“1 thought you'd forgotten about me. Where have you been all this time, Sanjay uncle?"I said.

“With some colleagues I haven't seen in years. I trust Lalu introduced you around?”

“Yes, she did, but I was wondering when you'd come back and rescue me,” I said.

“You don't like Lalu?” my uncle said.

“Well, she's a little cold.” Bitchy was what I meant.

“She can take some getting used to. But she and Ravi have had us over a number of times, and they're really quite a lot of fun. Who else did you meet?”

“I didn't catch all the names—there were so many funny names, like Bunny and Baby and Cuckoo.”

“This set uses pet names more than we do,” my uncle said. “Especially the ladies. Your aunt and I have been trying to think of nicknames for ourselves before they think of ones for us.”

The music stopped and a stocky mustached man climbed up on the band's platform and announced awards for the year's events. My uncle took second place in tennis, within his age group, and first place in table tennis, across all age groups. The fat lady won two trophies, in golf and in darts. The bumblebee won for biggest jackfruit in the harvest festival. Reema auntie won a first in gardening for her tulips.

“Reema will be happy,” my uncle said. “Her tulips won last year, too.”

“How does she grow tulips in this kind of weather?” I said, thinking of our tulips pushing through the last crusts of winter snow in March.

“The tulips bloom in the cool months, in November, December,” he said. “And before the hot months and the monsoon, by February or so, Reema pulls the bulbs up and puts them in the refrigerator until September. Look in the butter compartment, you'll see.”

Dinner was served out on the verandah and on the patio just beyond it. The food was good, but very spicy, and I couldn't balance my waterglass with my plate. I ate a lot of naan to calm the burn, and then some plain rice too.

I surrendered my plate to an impatient waiter, and went to the row of sinks on the far side of the verandah to wash my hands and mouth. When I came back to the milling people, my uncle had disappeared. I stood on tiptoes and tried to find his slightly graying head among the others. I went back inside, where the dance floor was empty except for a few bedraggled flowers. The musicians were on break, wiping instruments clean, readjusting music sheets, getting drinks from the bar.

I went behind the bar toward the dim lights in the next rooms. This side of the club was much darker, less lighting, more wood, with smoke thickening the air. Bottles of imported liquor stood on side tables, clusters of men were playing billiards, or playing cards, or standing and talking. Some were smoking cigars and pipes and, because they were planters and this was not Bombay or Delhi, chewing tobacco. Everyone looked up as I walked past them, but anyone whose eye I caught politely looked away.

“I'm trying to find my uncle, Sanjay Pillai. Do you know where he might be?” I asked the group encircling a billiards table in the middle of the room.

After a long awkward silence, one man said, “I just saw him step out, I'm sure he'll be back soon.”

“He's not in this round, but he's in the next one,” another man volunteered.

“Would you like me to go find him for you?” said the first man, pausing as he chalked up a stick.

“No, thanks, you look like you're in the middle of a game,” I said, venturing closer to the billiards table. “Is this like pool?”

“A little. The scoring's different. And the size of the table. Do you know how to play pool?”

“My friend at home in New York has a pool table in her rec room. So we play sometimes, but I'm not as good as she is. She can even beat her brother and he's really good.”

“So you're Sanjay's niece from New York?”

“Yes, I'm Maya,” I said. “How do you know Sanjay uncle?”

He didn't answer me, calling over his shoulder, “Come here, Ravi, Chirag, see, here is another example. This girl is Sanjay's niece, pure South Indian, and see how light-skinned?”

Ravi and Chirag came over, ice clinking in their glasses, liquid sloshing over the edge, I moved back a little to keep my dress from getting stained. All three were my uncle's age, married, moneyed, confident of their charms, confidently in charge of this club, this company, this evening. They peered at me and, sensing their open appreciation, I stood taller, kept my hands still at my sides.

Chirag said, “She's light-skinned yes, Giresh, but not that light-skinned. I still say there is no way to tell a Sri Lankan girl from a South Indian one.”

“You're wrong, I tell you, Chirag. Our girls are much fairer. That woman Dhanu, they should have known right away from looking at her that she was a Sri Lankan and kept her away from Rajiv Gandhi. She was so dark, almost black. They should have known.”

Ravi spoke, “Listen to yourself, Giresh. You're saying just by looking at her I can know whether she's the type of girl who will strap a bomb on a belt around her hips under her nice clothes and blow us all up?” I felt them looking at me, as if they were trying to imagine what it would all look like, the bomb, the belt, my hips.

“Of course she wouldn't,” Giresh said. “It's not the pretty ones who become killers, it's the dark, homely ones who don't have any other way of getting attention. Blowing up leaders is the only way dark-skinned girls will ever get to have their picture in magazines.”

“You don't need to do something like that, do you?” Chirag said. His voice was low, intimate. I shook my head no, tried to smile. There was a certain tension, but I felt unafraid in this room full of men, full of ice and warm gin. It was the first time I'd felt really awake, alert, all evening.

“Are you going to play or talk?” another man said to Giresh. Giresh gave me an apologetic smile and stepped up for his turn.

“If he loses he's going to blame it on you, you know. He'll say it's because he was trying to keep Sanjay's niece entertained, and he was too distracted to play well,” Chirag said to me.

“If she plays, maybe she'll trounce you,” Giresh said to Chirag.

“I'll play if you teach me the scoring first,” I said.

“Sanjay, what do you say, shall we all play?” Ravi said to my uncle, who had just come into the room.

“I don't think so,” he said, coming to stand next to me. “If you're tired now, the driver can take you home, it's no trouble.”

“I'm not tired, Sanjay uncle, I'm fine.”

“Are you sure?” my uncle looked steadily at me. “You look tired—maybe we'll get some fresh air.”

My uncle walked me to the verandah out back. The remains of dinner littered the fabric-covered tables. Light, filtering through the windows of the club, brightly illuminated the porch, the patio, the sprawl of gardens beyond.

“These are colleagues of mine,” my uncle said. “Please be careful.”

“What do you mean, Sanjay uncle? What have I done wrong?”

“It's not just what you do, it's what everyone else does. You don't see any other ladies in the billiards rooms, do you? If the men are drinking a lot, or if they are talking freely, some will be embarrassed that you are there, they will be less comfortable, have less of a good time. This party is for everyone to relax among friends. Do you know what I am trying to say”

“They came up to talk to me, I didn't make them,” I said. I felt defensive.

“I know, Maya. I just don't want anything to go wrong. I will bring you here some other night and teach you billiards, maybe next week,” he said, his tone softening. “It's probably a dangerous thing to teach you, you'll be better than me in no time, won't you?”

“Do you want to send me home now?” I asked stiffly.

“Stay if you want to, there'll be dancing for another hour or two, and usually there are games for everyone together, charades or something. We can go home together. Shall I take you back to Lalu or to Bunny or someone?”

“No, I can find my way. I promise I won't cause trouble. I'll see you later at charades,” I said.