THE IMMIGRANT (30 page)

Ananda said nothing more about Gayatri as they sat down to eat. Instead he held forth on Canada as a land of opportunity. These people she had gone to meet hadn’t started from scratch like students. If you came here with money, making money was so much simpler. Then to do business where there was no corruption, no bribes, no bureaucratic inefficiency, no hurdles deliberately put in your way, why, the sky was the limit.

If their house is anything to go by, they have soared, agreed his wife, caught in the coils of jealousy once it was made clear that such a house was available to her as well.

‘One day we too will have as nice a place,’ said her husband competitively.

‘Really?’

‘Really. You saw uncle’s house. He is a dentist, an immigrant like me.’

‘Will our house have hardwood floors?’

‘Sure.’

‘And a fireplace, with a fire?’

‘Of course.’

‘A patio where we can cook in summer?’

‘Why not?’

‘How lovely that will be.’

‘We live cheaply, it shouldn’t take very long. You can also have the kind of silver you saw in Uncle’s house.’

‘But I thought you didn’t like to shovel snow and mow the lawn?’

‘With a snow blower removing snow will be easy, and if the grass isn’t too long you can mow it.’

‘I have never cut grass.’

‘I’ll help you if it’s difficult, but everything here is electric, so you don’t have to worry.’

‘Ok. But how come you have changed your mind about apartment living?’

What could he tell her? That now he was certified normal, he was ready to enjoy life? That finally his focus could move outside his body, to the city around him? That he knew status was associated with houses and not with apartments?

‘We could try and find a house near Gary. Would you like that?’ he went on.

Near Gary, near whomever, what did it matter? It was not as though neighbours were interfering in this country. ‘Any place is fine, it depends on the price.’

‘Naturally.’

Next week it was Gayatri’s turn to visit Hollin Court. They drank tea bag tea and held hands as Nina listened to Gayatri. Parental pressure to marry an Indian, and while she wanted to please her parents, she had come to Canada when she was so young, it was hard for her to adjust to the idea of an arranged marriage. Yet it was not as though she had found someone on her own. She loved studying, but she was lonely, very lonely. Kipling was the man in her life, she thought of him day and night. Being in the group gave her clarity. Like Nina she thought a lot of this stuff didn’t quite fit the Indian paradigm, yet how could one throw the baby out with the bath water? As a woman, she felt caught between her Indianness, her parent’s expectations and her own desires, which she had to admit were confused.

Here a few tears emerged, but they were mere dew drops compared to the flood unleashed by Nina, when her turn came. A month later, the group met at Quinpool Road for a review session.

‘She doesn’t say anything, she just cries,’ reported Gayatri. Everybody looked at Nina with great interest. Nina blushed, but reminded herself that such reporting is in the interests of awareness. You can’t be embarrassed by awareness.

‘Why is that, Nina?’ asked Lore gently. Waves of compassion and curiosity came from the group.

‘I don’t want to talk about myself. What can anybody do? They can do nothing, I can do nothing.’

Listening to her, the group thought, this was the woman who had been bold enough to talk about the most personal details in their very first session. Why is she so stuck now? What can we do to help?

Beth said, ‘The purpose of the group is to explore yourself, not to offer explanations. It is not important that we know why you are crying, but Nina, it is very important that
you
know.’

‘Everything is very strange,’ she said in a rush. ‘I used to be a teacher, in fact I taught for ten years before I came here. And now I do nothing. I have not even been able to conceive. Am I locked into stereotypical expectations? I don’t know.’

‘If you really want a baby, that’s fine.’

‘I don’t know what I want. At home it was much clearer. I feel so lost here.’

‘Feeling lost is inevitable in a new place—and if you are a woman without a job, far away from your own friends and family, it must be doubly hard. I thought of you when I read this.’ Here Lore flipped open her copy of Shulamith Firestone’s
The Dialectic of Sex,
page 101. ‘Every person in his first trip to a foreign country, where he knows neither the people nor the language, experiences childhood.’

The group nodded, agreeing with Lore. Nina agreed too, though whatever her difficulties, she hadn’t considered language one of them. But as a metaphor, yes, she was a child, learning to walk on a different piece of earth.

In the coffee break, she disappeared into the bathroom to stare at her woebegone face in the mirror. Get a grip, she told the reflection. Nothing is going to change, not here, with this group, not with Ananda, not anywhere.

The co-counselling sessions continued.

‘You need to do something,’ pronounced Gayatri, breaking the rules by offering advice, while brandishing her fine porcelain tea cup.

‘I know, but what? I am qualified for nothing.’

Gayatri frowned. ‘This group is to enable you, not to encourage helplessness.’

‘Didn’t I get a job at the library? How am I helpless?’

‘Is a part-time job enough? How much do you earn a month?’

‘Two hundred dollars.’

‘Why are you satisfied with so little?’

Nina had come to Canada in the throes of hope and love, that was why it was taking her so long to adjust to the necessity of a career. She pointed this out.

Gayatri collected herself.

‘Listen, you’ve been here less than a year, eventually you’ll find your way. But Indians do succeed abroad; you find them flourishing everywhere.’

The hands on Nina’s own felt heavy, while the moisture on her palms grew. The heat was turned on too high. ‘If I could get pregnant, it would be so easy,’ she said.

‘Suppose you never do?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘We are conditioned to think a woman’s fulfilment lies in birth and motherhood, just as we are conditioned to feel failures if we don’t marry.’

‘It’s one thing to read this stuff, it’s another to suddenly start thinking differently. I’m not sure I can do it.’

‘In time, perhaps?’

‘Time won’t do a thing if I can’t alter my expectations.’

‘By being in this group you have taken the first step towards change. If you didn’t feel the need, you wouldn’t be here, would you now?’

‘True.’

The session ended.

‘Should I call a taxi?’

‘No thanks, I’ll walk.’

Outside it was cold and still. She could see the icy underside of the trees lining the sidewalk. Here and there, the yellow piss of dogs streaked the snow, especially near lampposts. The piles of snow pushed against the side of the road were coated with black. She had not realised how dirty winter could look in the city. Nor how quickly she would tire of being an Arctic explorer.

Once inside her apartment, she sank into the red vinyl bean-bag she had persuaded Ananda to buy in order to (vainly as it turned out) enliven their place. She looked out of the window. Though not yet four, it was almost dark. She could hear the wind howling around the apartment. Whatever life she hoped to have in this place, she could no longer go on walking to her destinations and count the journey part of the experience. It was too cold, the wind too biting.

It was true, she might never get pregnant, never have the meaning of her life automatically granted to her. She and her mind were going to be on their own, with crying jags at co-counselling sessions, that revealed ghastly inner depths into which she would rather not venture.

When Ananda had come, it had been easy for him. He had enrolled in the Dal Dental School and now he was a respected member of society.

She thought of Miranda House. To replace such a job, she would have to enrol for a PhD, repeat MA courses, then bolster her cv with academic publications. Those years and those tasks were like huge boulders pressing the life out of her—though every year people left her country in droves for just such futures. Maybe she could be like Beth, study to be a librarian. She could continue what she was doing, but with respect and a future. As a part-timer she only got minimum wages, it was essentially a student’s job; under thirty five hours a week.

She heard the key in the lock. Ananda was home.

Ananda had also given some thought to her problem. ‘You should do a B Ed, then you can teach in a school.’

‘I don’t want to. I used to work in a
college.
’

‘So what? The schools here are not like those at home.’

‘No schoolchildren—no matter where they come from.’

‘So you tell me, what is it that you have in mind?’

‘How about a library degree?’

‘A library degree?’

‘It’s worth trying.’

In reality neither of them knew much beyond doctor, lawyer, teacher, engineer, bureaucrat—these species that came out of the Indian middle classes.

‘Well, why not?’ said Ananda slowly, considering the idea of his wife as a librarian. He would make a brief phone call in his uncle’s direction tomorrow.

‘If I don’t like it, I can always switch.’

This gay assumption struck him as frivolous. Thoughtlessly she would spend time, money and effort, as well as take up valuable space in a professional course. Though the West was about choice, those choices claimed responsible appraisal. ‘Life is not a game. If you are so unsure, why go through all the trouble?’

‘Because I have to do something that ensures me a job I am suited for, where I won’t take forever to qualify.’

And that would give her independence, she thought but didn’t say.

At the very least it would give her focus and take care of her moods, he thought but didn’t say, and then admired himself for his positive thinking. If only his wife could learn from his example.

Ananda was disappointed with Nina’s response to his sperm test. He had expected her to be more appreciative that there was nothing wrong with him. Now he was left with the disagreeable feeling that it was up to him to push the fertility tests through. Granted he had said they would be expensive, and that insurance did not pay for them. But he had never meant they should not investigate. Irritated he accosted her—what happened, first you were very enthusiastic, you found a doctor and had a checkup, now when it is time for the next step, you suddenly lose interest?

She looked up blankly from the book she was reading. ‘Lose interest?’she repeated.

‘In our child.’

He was maligning her maternal instincts. ‘I could never lose interest in our child,’ she retorted.

‘Then?’

‘You were right—it’s too soon. I have to find my feet…’

‘I know, I know. You can’t walk on mine.’

‘Exactly.’

He didn’t understand what was so special about her feet. Immigrants had to find their way, of course, but instead of following his advice, she preferred to go to some women for help. He hoped their child would make the family more whole, give them all a greater sense of belonging. ‘We can still go ahead with the tests. They may take a long time, and we aren’t getting any younger.’

She smiled at him wanly. It was nice that he said we when he meant you. If only this heavy feeling would lift from her heart. ‘I don’t know,’ she began and stopped.

He controlled his exasperation. She was going to ramble, and at the end of it all his head would spin. Studying literature for over ten years took you away from the real world.

‘I miss home—I miss a job—I miss doing things. I feel like a shadow. What am I but your wife?’

‘That’s a good place to start,’ he tried to joke. She didn’t answer, merely sat there looking at the closed book in her lap, her finger inserted between the pages, some dreadful looking book with a female torso slung from a rod.

‘I’ll let you go on with your reading,’ he said sarcastically.

She bent her head, annoyingly taking his advice.

Later Ananda thought that Library School was a good way to explain to the world why there weren’t any children. Not that anybody was asking. But in the two years it would take for her to finish, anything could happen. The pressure to become pregnant would be reduced, and the whole thing would happen naturally.

Meanwhile he too should take advantage of this time to do a little exploring of his own. He had a secret that gave him a frisson of pleasure whenever he thought of it.

It doesn’t rain but it pours.

A life that three years ago was a desert so far as women were concerned, now had a wife and a mistress. The first had lead to the second. And the second had made all the moves.

Poor Mr Hill had broken her leg and needed to rest for two months before she returned to work.

Mandy was the result.

She was young, ten years younger than him, it later turned out. This was her first receptionist’s job. The third Friday she had said she would stay back and sort out some records. Ananda, it so happened, needed to stay back too. Their first fuck happened there on the hallway carpet. She was so uninhibited, all over him, kissing, licking, sucking.

‘Please,’ he protested modestly, his voice faint, ‘what are you doing?’

‘You are my first Indian,’ she said, ‘When I saw you I wondered what it would be like.’

‘Do you always think things like this about the men you meet?’

‘Sure, don’t you?’

‘I’m a man.’

‘Oh, come off it. Hasn’t anyone told you that men and women are not that different?’

Ananda was nothing if not a professional. He couldn’t carry on an affair with the office receptionist, and he waited impatiently for Mrs Hill to come back. ‘No more, my darling, not until she returns.’

Mandy was not however the slave of circumstance. ‘What about my place?’

‘Where is that?’

‘Clayton Park.’

‘That’s pretty far.’

‘It’s all I can afford.’

He knew no one there. Yes, Clayton Park suited him.

‘So how about this Saturday?’