THE IMMIGRANT (33 page)

Ananda parked his beloved Saab, quickly had a shower to get Mandy’s smell off him, put the rice on to cook, took out a portion of dal from the freezer, cut up onions and tomatoes that he would fry to spice it up. Thankfully they always ate late on Fridays.

The doorknob turned. There was his wife, somewhat paler than usual, but then, she did insist on walking in all weather.

‘Dr Cunningham asked about you. I was hoping you would come.’

‘I told you I couldn’t.’

‘Still, I was hoping.’

‘Well, we are together now. Come, I’ve made you your dal. And the rice is about to be done.’

‘I’m sick of rice and dal.’

He looked at her in surprise. ‘I thought you enjoy what I make.’

She did, and was very thankful that he took care of all the meals. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me.’

‘Well, you can always try meat.’

It was a meaningless statement. She wished they could connect more. ‘Why don’t you come to Ottawa next weekend?’ she now asked—what a brilliant idea, she would kill many birds with this one stone.

His back was turned. ‘I’m not sure that’s such a good plan. You’ll be working, what will I do?’

‘Only from Monday to Thursday. Some spouses are going up on Friday for a holiday. We could also have one. Have you even been to Ottawa?’

No, he hadn’t.

‘Then it’s an opportunity. Come on, Ananda, we hardly spend any time together.’

‘That’s because you are so busy.’

‘I know. It is getting a bit much.’

‘Who wants to go to Ottawa in the winter? They say spring is the best time. It’s sister city to some Dutch place and thousands of tulips bloom then.’

His entanglements meant he could never spontaneously agree to anything.

Nina put her arms around him. ‘Tulips may bloom in spring, but in all these years you have never seen them. Why start now? Please come. Library Science is taking up my whole life.’

‘Well, you seem the happier for it.’

She stared at him doubtfully. Was there sarcasm behind those words? ‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing. What should I mean?’

‘I don’t know. Never mind. What about us?’ And what about the fragments of her scattered self lying about the place? They needed to be collected by her husband’s hands and kept close to his chest.

‘I’ll definitely try to make it. Ok?’

Gary was delighted when Ananda told him he might join Nina in Ottawa. Ananda began to feel he had little choice in the matter; in some ways he desired Gary’s approval more than Nina’s.

Two months earlier he had told Gary about Mandy, a revelation that turned out to be a terrible mistake. His motives had been simple—by sharing his secret with his best friend he had sought to extend his pleasure more fully.

He had invited Gary for a drink; it had been so long since they had gone out together. A pub was needed in order to fully savour his friend’s reaction, to perhaps even indulge in confidences regarding Max and Carla, so long withheld, to share with him the triumph of his sexual progress.

But Gary proved unreceptive, despite the close, smoky atmosphere of the pub, despite the beer they were drinking, despite the chips and peanuts they were munching. The Dental School Gary, the one who slept around and urged him to do the same, had disappeared into a strait-laced father of three. ‘Everybody feels like straying, man, doesn’t mean you do it. You got her all the way from India, like just yesterday. Now you have telescoped the seven year itch into less than two. No fair, man, try and give it up, it just gets worse. Otherwise divorce will be the result. I’ve seen it happen every time.’

After this judgemental attitude, never before seen in his friend, any mention of the trip to California was unthinkable. Instead Ananda was reduced to making lame excuses for his behaviour: arranged marriages—not like here—same expectations don’t apply—which even he could tell made him sound like a callous bastard.

Gary looked sceptical. They finished their drinks quickly in an atmosphere that had become strained.

Now here was an opportunity to show his friend that his heart was firmly in place with wife and home.

‘I’ve decided to come,’ he said, holding his wife in his arms the evening before her departure.

‘I’m so glad. What made you decide?’

‘You’re right, we should spend more time together.’

She hadn’t really thought he would agree and she was pleased. To see a part of the country that was new to both of them would be fun, even though it was winter.

‘Uncle has recommended the Ambassador Hotel. I’ve booked a room for us there.’

Nina wiggled with pleasure. ‘It’ll be so nice, Ananda. Just the two of us.’

‘Hey, what is it here?’

The two of them among many shadows. ‘We’ve never really had a holiday together. Now we’ll be doing what I wanted to do when you went to California.’

‘Baby, why are you bringing that up? I went on work.’

She said nothing, not wanting to enter into an argument. She wished she wasn’t so distracted all the time. Even sex had become perfunctory. The weekend was bound to bring them closer.

Next day, the Library School contingent reached Ottawa. Snow fell lightly and steadily, masses of it lay everywhere, making Halifax look positively tropical by comparison. Nina hoped the bus ride from the airport to the city centre would be long, so she could absorb the wonders of the nation’s capital.

Anton was sitting next to her. Had she ever been to Ottawa before? No, had he? No.

They gazed out the window at a city so clearly less provincial than Halifax, that for a moment she could understand people’s disdain for the Maritime capital. Dr Evans, their accompanying teacher, pointed out a few landmarks. There, the Rideau canal frozen over; tulips bloomed along its banks in spring. There, the Ottawa River, and there, beyond that they could see Parliament Hill with the Houses of Parliament, the Supreme Court of Canada, Wellington Street coming up next, with the National Library and National Archives.

‘Impressive,’ remarked Nina, staring at the distant, gothic green spire rising from Parliament House. Anton agreed.

‘But you couldn’t really think so, not after New York.’

If she could think so after New Delhi, why couldn’t he think so after New York, he countered.

She laughed. Fancy comparing New York with New Delhi. It showed how little he knew.

Fleetingly he dropped his hand on her arm. Later, she thought of that instant many times. Was that when she should have been on guard? But how could she have known? In a plane full of people, Anton drops his hand on her arm, she looks at it startled, he removes it, smiles boyishly, she reads charm, friendliness and contrition in that look, and smiles back to show no hard feelings.

What could she have done differently, knowing as little as she did at that moment? She was the person she was, and compared to her later self, that person was a reckless babe in an unfamiliar wood.

The hotel that had been booked for them was a small one off Laurier, in the centre of town and walking distance to Wellington Street. The bigger rooms were shared by two students, the small ones on the sixth floor were single occupancy. Nina’s was so tiny she could stand in the middle with both palms pressed against either wall, but she felt fortunate to be alone. The package deal included breakfast, other meals they paid for themselves.

Over the next three days they toured the National Library, the National Science Library, the National Archives. A librarian was a keeper of records, to which there will never be any end, Nina realised, stunned by the plethora that lay in these buildings.

Collection management they called it. Management of newspapers, periodicals, any bit of text to do with ethnic, aboriginal, immigrant or student communities. Diaries, letters, films, documentaries, textual records, architectural drawings, maps, watercolours, sound recordings, music, theses both post- graduate and doctoral, microfilms, manuscripts, medals, seals, posters: all were collected.

They had portraits of Canadians, thousands and thousands; and when it came to photographs, books and drawings, the figures were in millions.

The oldest film in the Archives was dated 1897, the oldest portrait of a Canadian 1710, before the country was even a nation. Since 1957, every publisher in Canada had had to send two copies of each book they published to the National Library. All the publications of the federal and provincial governments, every bit of data ever commissioned, was filed away for the benefit of Canadians in particular and the world in general.

The Archives were the nation’s memory. No detail was too small, no record too unimportant for it to store. This was the information Nina had to learn how to access.

She felt a little disloyal to her own country, at the idea of servicing Canada in such a thorough manner. If she was to be a successful librarian, she would have to change her way of thinking, in more ways than she had anticipated.

Thursday night. To celebrate the last day, the graduate students went to a pub cum restaurant downtown. The air was blue with cigarette smoke. In the spirit of adventure Nina held a tentative cigarette between her fingers. Before her was a second glass of beer.

She was sitting next to Anton, as indeed she had for practically all their guided tours. His hand had touched her many times, on the neck, shoulders, arm, small of the back. It was so casual that it seemed stupid to make anything of it. Besides she liked the way he listened to her, liked his intelligent comments, his jokes about meagre Canadian history. ‘They have a complex about America,’ he opined, ‘that makes them want to document everything. This is Canada they think,’ said Anton, gesturing towards the Archives, ‘this here, folks, step right up, step right up, and see the pictures of every Canadian that ever lived in this huge and wonderful country—wunnerfuul,’ he went on, imitating some unrecognisable native Canadian, ‘and right here, folks, is every book these people ever wrote—right here, folks.’

All this delivered in sibilant whispers, enclosing them in a light-hearted space of their own. She tried to shake off the attraction of this by looking at him severely and saying, ‘In our country, people consider Americans self-obsessed and insular. At least Canadians are not like that.’

He put his hand on his heart and sketched a mock bow. ‘Guilty as charged, Ma’am. Where do we stand next to a country like yours?’

She had to laugh. He was so different from Ananda, who could never talk about nations without a deadly earnestness.

Now the trip was over, things would go back to usual. She felt a little sad, allowing herself a brief moment in which to visualise a different scenario for her life. A happier one with less adjustment, less struggle.

‘And so,’ said Anton, examining her as she silently contemplated her glass of yellow liquid, a red Hudson Lager logo stamped on the side, ‘we have finished our crash course in Canadiana.’

She smiled but said nothing. Ananda was coming the next day, and Ottawa was the place for aspiring immigrants to soak in the country’s sense of itself.

He tried again, ‘The archives of India must be huge—such an ancient country.’

But not so intent on documenting itself, replied Nina. In fact, warming to her theme, it would be nice if India had a similar sense of urgency so far as their records were concerned. There were certainly more people who would benefit, the Indian population being what it was, and the Indian migration scene being what
it
was.

‘What is the immigration scene so far as you are concerned?’

‘Permanent settlers.’

‘Ah! So the Canadiana is up your street?’

‘Certainly up my husband’s.’

‘He likes it here?’

‘Loves it.’

‘Really? Doesn’t miss home?’

‘Both his parents were killed in a road accident, which traumatised him considerably, as you can imagine. He was already working as a dentist when his uncle persuaded him to come here, said it would help him recover. In addition he helped him get into Dental School. Now he practises privately with one of his classmates. You can see why he would feel loyal to this country.’

‘Where do you fit in?’

‘An arranged marriage two years ago.’

Was that right?

Yes, Anton, that was right.

It was almost nine. One by one their classmates left them, pleading fatigue and the pressures of the next day.

Nina and Anton lingered.

She felt daring. It was easy here, drinking, smoking, asserting something, probably her sexuality. Looking at Anton she said, ‘So, you like Asian women.’

‘I do,’ he replied. ‘And you?’

‘What about me?’

‘How do you feel about white men?’

‘I know nothing about them.’

‘And been here so long.’

‘Been married and here so long.’

‘I’m married too. But it’s stupid to confine yourself to one person for your whole life. What about adventure, what about experiencing differences? Nobody owns anybody, you know.’

‘Does your wife agree?’

‘Sure. Besides, what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her,’ said Anton as he put his hand over hers. Nina looked down. His hand was dry and hard, it felt odd.

Anton was patient. The vibes between them were delicate, probing vibes, emanating from her as well as him. They got up to leave. The hotel was six blocks away but Nina rejected a taxi, guided by the thing that hung in the air between them, that needed time to develop.

He took her arm and put it around his waist, doing the same with his own, fitting her against the contours of his body. He did it naturally, they looked like the zillions of couples she had seen walking around the university campus. Through months of Library Science, she had gazed covertly at those couples, and now, in appearance at least, she was one of them.

They entered their hotel, he suggested the inevitable. He too was on the sixth floor in a single room, his Halifax hope realised.

His Halifax hope?

Yes. He had been wanting to make love to her from the first day of the first term. She had such a remote, princess-like air. He liked everything about her, she was pretty, intelligent, perceptive.

In that order?