Arranged Marriage: Stories (24 page)

This is our little private joke. If we have a son, we’re going to call him Anand, which means joy in Bengali. If we have a daughter, her name will be Shanti, peace. Until the amnio results reveal the baby’s sex, we call him (her) Peace-and-Joy.

“Will you be just as happy if it’s a girl?” I ask Sunil, my voice trembling a bit though I try to control it. This is a conversation we’ve had many times before.

“Of course, silly,” he replies patiently, smoothing my hair.

“And your parents …?”

“They will too. And even if they’re not at first, they’ll get over it. So stop worrying!”

Then we’re both silent, thinking about the other thing, the one we don’t talk about. What we would do if something turned out to be wrong with the baby. I think of the drooling boy with albino eyes who used to be kept hidden in a small room in the dark and crumbly Calcutta mansion where an
other aunt lived. I’d come across him by accident one afternoon, exploring the forbidden parts of the house while the grown-ups were drinking tea downstairs. I hear again the grunting sounds he’d made, see his fingers beckoning to me from between the iron grills of his window, soft and fat and a pale pinkish-brown, like earthworms. No one ever told me what happened to him. I slip my hand into Sunil’s and he grips it tightly. We sit like this until night darkens the room.

Sometimes when I’m dressing, I glance up at the mirror and am surprised once again by the changes—the dark line of hair pointing downward from my navel, the nipples dark and glistening as the prunes I soak in water overnight for my constipation, the pearlike swell of abdomen and breast, at once luscious and obscene. I cannot decide if I am gorgeous or revolting. I wonder what Runu looks like. I don’t have any recent photos of her. I guess her mother-in-law doesn’t believe in taking photos either.

The last time I saw Runu was a month before I came to America. I had gone down to Burdwan to visit her in the big brick and marble mansion in which her husband’s family had lived, her mother-in-law proudly informed me, for seven generations. Was there just a hint, in her voice, of how lucky Runu was to be chosen into such a household?

Runu had been waiting for me just behind the front door, in the looming shadow of the heavy teak panel carved with fierce-looking house gods,
yakshas
and
yakshinis
. (It wasn’t fitting that the bride of the Bhattacharjee family should come to the station where common people could stare at her.)
Her eyes sparkled as she threw herself into my arms, repeating over and over how delighted she was to see me, how wonderful I looked, just like on our marriage day (which was the last time we’d seen each other), and how much she had to tell me.

I was about to say that she too seemed exactly the same. The wedding
sindur
on her forehead and the red-bordered sari wrapped around her slight, girlish form only made her look like she was playing at being a grown-up. But right then Runu’s mother-in-law called from the kitchen, her voice pleasant but firm, “Arundhati, are you coming to roll out the rotis?”

“Coming, Mother,” Runu answered. Turning to me apologetically, she said, “Why don’t you rest for a while, Anju dear?” As I stared at her back disappearing hurriedly down a corridor, I realized that many things had changed.

Next afternoon we sat in the backyard, under the shadow of an old
neem
tree, Runu sewing buttons onto a pair of pants that belonged to one of her brothers-in-law. There were three of them. I’d met them at dinner last night. And though they’d been properly respectful, calling her
boudi
, older sister-in-law, and complimenting her on her new fish
kalia
recipe, I’d felt a pinprick of anger as I watched Runu serve them and clean up their spills and remove their dirty dishes with a smile that never faltered.

“Don’t you get bored when your husband is gone?” I asked. Runu’s husband Ramesh worked for Indian Railways and had to travel several weeks out of the month.

“Oh no! There’s always so much to be done! Early in the morning I have to supervise the maid as she milks the cows.
Then I make tea for Mother, she’s very particular, I have to get it just the right color. Then I tell the maid what to get from the market. After that there’s vegetables to cut, and breakfast and lunch and dinner to cook.”

It sounded terribly dreary to me.

“And when the brothers come back from school I make them something nice to snack on, maybe some hot fried
singaras
or some
rasogollahs,”
Runu proudly continued, “and in between there’s quilts to be put out on the terrace in the sun, you won’t believe how musty everything gets….”

I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Wait, doesn’t your mother-in-law help with
any
of it?”

“Oh yes, but I tell her not to. She’s getting old and frail, poor lady, and she’s worked so hard her entire life. It’s only fair that she should rest now.”

To me Runu’s mother-in-law looked tough as alligator hide and fit enough to outlast us both by decades. But I didn’t say anything.

“There are servants to do some of the heavier work,” Runu was saying. “But you know how it is.” She shook her head wisely, almost like her mother-in-law might have. “They’ll steal the clothes off your back if you don’t watch them like a hawk.”

I thought of how, when we were growing up, Runu would meet me secretly on the roof on summer nights so we could watch shooting stars and make up stories about them. We believed that if we saw one falling exactly at midnight, we could wish on it and the wish would be granted.

Even the night before we were to be married, we had gone up to the roof together at Runu’s urging.

“Oh, I do hope there’ll be a midnight star for us to wish on,” Runu had whispered.

I didn’t believe in shooting stars anymore. I knew they were merely burning meteors that had no power to help anyone, not even themselves. But I heard the longing in Runu’s voice and hoped there would be a star for her.

And now, just one year since then, that wistful girl seemed to be gone forever. In her place was a pragmatic housewife concerned only with mildewed quilts and lazy servants.

I sat there in that backyard watching the sun’s rays falling dappled and golden over Runu and her mending. Through the dust motes that hung in the heavy afternoon light, her small, animated face seemed suddenly far away, beyond reach, like something at the bottom of the sea which might at any moment, if the current changed, blur or even disappear. It frightened me.

But I pushed back the feeling of having been betrayed and told myself,
She’s happy, that’s all that matters
.

And so for the rest of the visit we spoke only of innocuous things: the fun-filled times of our childhood, new recipes Runu had learned from her mother-in-law, the shopping I’d done in preparation for America. When I left we hugged each other, promising that we’d never lose touch even though I was going so far away. But once I was on the train I leaned my head against the hard wooden seat back and stared out at the parched afternoon sky and thought of the little things that disturbed me, things I would have ordinarily told Runu about. The way her mother-in-law would sometimes appear in the
middle of our conversations so that I’d look up to find her watching me and Runu from the door. The way one of Runu’s brothers-in-law had made a rude comment when she’d burnt the rice pudding. The way Ramesh, who’d returned from his business tour a couple of days before I left, had scolded her, his voice rising in irritation,
Arundhati, how many times have I told you not to mess up the newspaper before I’ve read it
. I wondered if my husband in America would speak to me the same way.

The train gave a sudden lurch as it changed tracks, causing me to bump my head hard against the wood bench. The beginnings of a headache gripped my skull so fiercely that I ground my knuckles into my eyes. And when the tears came I couldn’t tell whether I was crying from tiredness or pain or fear of what the future held for us both.

But of course I was being adolescent, melodramatic. Four years have passed since and we are happy enough. Our husbands are kind and dependable and take good care of us. In the Indian culture, that is the same as love.

I feel additionally fortunate because in Sunil I’ve found a friend, someone to discuss the perplexities of America with, someone who understands on evenings when I look up and the skyline with its palm-tree silhouettes is so like home that my throat tightens with loneliness. Oh, we’ve had our quarrels—mostly about money, of which Sunil is far more careful than I. Sometimes when I bought something I shouldn’t have, he shouted that I was a spendthrift, letting money flow through
my fingers like water.
Your mother should have married you to a maharajah, not a mere working man like myself
. Sometimes he stormed out of the house and didn’t come back till late at night. I cried on those nights, sitting in the kitchen, keeping his dinner warm in the oven, waiting. Still, I know I have it better than most of the girls I grew up with.

Sunil was the one who urged me to go back to school to get a degree in education. He didn’t mind fixing dinner when I had evening classes. He let me practice abysmally inept model lessons on him and stayed up with me those nights before exams when I was too nervous to sleep. At the graduation ceremony next year, I know he’ll be in the front row, cheering, as I go up to receive my diploma. Though Runu looks forward to going back to her mother’s house for the delivery, as is the custom, and laments the fact that I can’t, I’m not unhappy. In India they don’t let husbands into the labor room. And I know that I’ll need Sunil with me, holding my hand, sharing the pain and the triumph of our baby’s birth.

Runu doesn’t say much about her husband. Sometimes I’ll ask and a shy note will come into her voice, and she’ll change the subject. Even in her letters she is cautious, understated, writing only about tangibles—the jasmine she planted underneath their window last spring because he likes the smell, how tall it’s grown; the intricate design, cream and red and navy-blue, of the new sweater she knitted for him. (Like a good wife, she never calls him by his name, even in letters.) How pleased he’s been because his mother’s cough improved after she started taking the herbal tablets Runu had sent away for. It is hard for us Indian women to talk openly of love.

But she’s happy, I’m sure of it. I would sense it otherwise. I feel her growing into her household, spreading her tendrils like the jasmine she has planted, dispensing fragrance and shade enough to win anyone’s heart.

And now, to make everything perfect, the babies are coming.

The doctors waiting room is decorated in pastels, pale blues and pinks designed to soothe the anxieties of expectant mothers and fathers. They have no effect on Sunil and me as we fidget in our plush pastel chairs. The doctor is forty-five minutes late. Complications with a delivery, the nurse assures us smilingly. But I’m certain his delay has to do with the test results we’re waiting for. He’s probably sitting in his office right now, head in his hands, agonizing over how to tell us. I glance at Sunil, but he’s no help. He dabs at his upper hp, then clutches my palm damply.

What will I—we—do if …? But my mind, freezing on that thought, refuses to proceed further. I stare at the cover of the magazine on the table in front of us until I think that the face of Princess Diana will be etched forever in my memory.

But once again I’ve tortured myself needlessly. The doctor breezes in, smiling plumply and waving a sheet. All is well with our baby—and it’s a boy! We follow him with sheepish, relieved grins to the examination room where he measures my abdomen, declares himself pleased with my progress, and invites us to listen to our baby’s heartbeat. It sounds like a
runaway engine, full of furious energy. I cry, and even Sunil looks away and wipes at his eyes. The doctor pats us indulendy and tells us to come back in a month.

On the way home, we stop at the China lion, our favorite restaurant, to celebrate. We splurge on hot and sour soup, spring rolls, eggplant in black bean sauce, sweet and sour shrimp, and pork chow mein. Recklessly, I eat a whole plateful of the extra spicy kung pao chicken which always gives me heartburn. But I know nothing can go wrong today. The fortune in my cookie reads,
A wonderful event is about to occur in your life soon
.

Before we sleep, we make love. When Sunil kisses the curves of my breasts and hip and thigh, I cry again. In spite of my bloated body, I know I am beautiful. I cannot remember how unhappiness feels. Afterward, I he nestled in the warm hollow of his shoulder, listening to the rhythm of his slow, deep breathing. I place my palm over my belly and picture my baby sleeping inside, curled up and as large (I know this from my pregnancy book) as a lemon. I think I feel a special warmth, a tingly yellow sunshiny warmth, radiating into my hand. I must ask Runu if she feels it too. But it’s still too early to call India.

Sometimes in the middle of the most mundane activities—driving or washing dishes or doing pelvic tilt exercises to strengthen my back—a wave of thankfulness surges through me, so powerful that I have to stop whatever I’m doing. I whisper a prayer of gratitude that my baby has come to me so easily—almost unasked, like grace—as soon as Sunil and I
started thinking that it would be nice to have a family. I know the stories. Women chastised, even beaten, because they couldn’t have children. Women whose husbands stopped loving them because they’d reneged on the unspoken wedding contract. Women from whose faces people averted their eyes because they were bad luck.

I love my baby with a fierce abandonment that I find amazing. Already I am willing to die for him. To kill. But I have a feeling that Runu loves her baby even more intensely, with a passion that I can only guess at, a desperate tenderness. This is because she’s been trying to get pregnant ever since her marriage.

Five years might not seem that long to people in America, but where we come from, it is. Marriages can be broken in half that time, and barren wives sent back to their parents’ home in shame. Runu’s in-laws, of course, weren’t like that. Still, I felt the growing tension between the words of her letters, in the pauses of her voice. And once in a while my mother would write about things. Runu’s mother-in-law had taken her to the shrine of Shasthi, goddess of childbirth. The family priest had asked Runu to wear a good-luck amulet on a copper chain around her waist to appease the angry planets. They’d taken her for a medical checkup to make sure there were no “problems” with her system.