THE IMMIGRANT (4 page)

Into the car and out to Peggy’s Cove. ‘It’s down the South Shore,’ said Dr Sharma, ‘about fifty kilometres or so.’ Lovely scenery, spectacular setting. As before the nephew was struck by the lack of people along the way, but this paled next to the beauty of their destination. There, beyond huge sloping boulders lay sparkling waters, glittering grey and silver in the bright sunlight. A white lighthouse marked the edge of land and sea, and as they stood on the rocks the wind tore into their clothes, hair and ears. He knew the place, knew it from Enid Blyton, the place where four children had gone for an adventure along with Kiki the parrot. What would his friends say if they could see him now, he thought, while Nancy took pictures and gulls wheeled and shouted.

Within five minutes the wind had frozen Ananda’s bones. And that too in August. What kind of summer was this? His nose began to run, and as he had no hanky he wiped it surreptitiously with his fingers, dragging his hands across his face as if deep in thought. When he could bear it no longer, he excused himself and went into the gift shop. It was warm there. His uncle followed him. ‘Want anything?’ he asked. The boy shook his head. In his slim wallet he only had the eight US dollars he had been allowed to take when he had left India, dollars he was too afraid to spend. He had been so focused on leaving, it had never occurred to him that money would be an issue once he reached Canada, because of course everything would be taken care of.

When his uncle felt Ananda had drunk his fill of Canadian beauty, they got in the car and headed back to Halifax and the Taj Mahal.

In the red lamplit warmth of the restaurant on Spring Garden Road, Ananda breathed in smells he could no longer take for granted. Bending his head over the menu, he bleakly asked for mutter paneer, while the family bickered gently over what had been good last time and how much of the mutton, chicken, fish, tandoor and gravy items to order: Dad, you swore last time the lassi was too sweet, so why are you ordering it again? And Mum, you cannot eat spicy, though you think you can. Don’t forget the pappadums. And Ananda, too bad you are vegetarian, the meat here is really yum.

‘You are not eating?’ observed the uncle, as he looked at the single naan on Ananda’s plate, now cold, and stained red with the oily gravy from his mutter paneer.

In fact his appetite was curbed by memories too recent and too raw to be ignored.

‘It’s still night for him,’ explained Nancy on his behalf.

After the saunf, called mouth freshener, and after the bill, so mammoth for food so familiar, they trooped out. From the car he was shown the Citadel, the graveyard, the pier, the cathedral, Scotia Square, Spring Garden Road, its park. Then on to Dalhousie University, the biggest university in Nova Scotia. Where the uncle studied, where Ananda was provisionally enrolled. And there to the right was the site of the Killam Library, still under construction, the Student Union Building, the Forrest Building, King’s College and the Dome that was part of the Arts and Administration building. He caught a glimpse of department signs on old wooden houses, yes, they said, Dal—Dalhousie—had bought most of the houses around.

The tour of Halifax was over.

To continue bonding with his nephew, Dr Sharma suggested they walk down to Point Pleasant Park, at the end of Young Avenue; they would be back in an hour. It was four in the evening, yet Ananda’s eyelids were drooping, his head felt heavy, his body was screaming for a bed. But his uncle had decided he must see this park and it was not in him to be disrespectful.

‘It’s so beautiful, uncle,’ Ananda breathed, as he walked through the wood and saw the sea at its edge, ‘so clean and fresh—so few people.’ The uncle beamed, admiring for the thousandth time the view and himself for living so close to it.

‘Beta, we must talk.’

‘Ji uncle.’

They walk on meditatively, the uncle pulls on his pipe, an affectation he has. To help his nephew, now so unfortunate, would be a way for him to pay back the debts a life of fortune had accumulated; a way also of making sure his sister’s soul was at peace. As soon as he knew the boy was coming he had spoken to the Dean of Admissions at the Dental School, submitted Ananda’s application and explained his circumstances. He was well respected, and they were understanding.

‘Thank you, ji,’ murmured the tired nephew, soaking in the feeling of being taken care of, by his uncle, the system, the government.

‘Meet the Dean, then we will see about your loan.’

The feeling of being taken care of melted away. Of course this was not a world where family sacrificed their all for your success; here blood expected you to stand on your own.

‘This is how things are done here,’ went on Dr Sharma, his Indianness attuning him to Ananda’s discomfort. ‘Even Lara and Lenny will take loans. No pocket can stretch to cover higher education, maybe a millionaire’s, but not a doctor’s.’

‘How much loan?’

‘Doctors and lawyers are considered good investments, so the whole thing is easily worked out. Right now I will give you a hundred dollars a month, enough to cover some basics.’

He pulled the money carefully from his wallet. The sight of the blue, red, orange and green Canadian notes brought relief to Ananda’s soul. He could unclench his fist from around his eight US dollars, could look forward to replenishment every month, could avoid the ignominy of having to ask, so close to begging.

‘I will pay you back, uncle,’ he murmured. You had to learn fast in the West, it was sink or swim, and Ananda was trying out his strokes.

Dr Sharma looked at the boy, noticed the weariness on his face. Poor child, he had just been orphaned, but what better way to find your feet than student life? If he made things too easy, his nephew, being Indian, might take such avuncular indulgence for granted.

‘Let’s go back, you must be very jet-lagged—it’s going to be light for hours yet. But have something to eat before you sleep.’

The boy looked at him and there never was such an open, unguarded expression on his face again. ‘Thank you, uncle, thank you—for everything. I can’t—don’t want to—go back home, after what has happened—it will be impossible. With your blessings I can make it here.’

‘You will make your mother proud if you do well.’

Why did his uncle have to mention her?

After a pause the uncle said, ‘One does miss relatives here. I kept inviting your mother—even offered to pay—but she said it was impossible to leave her family and I could not afford four international tickets.’

His mother, his self-sacrificing mother.

‘I often discussed it with Nancy,’ continued the uncle reflectively, ‘but it was not feasible.’

Ananda said nothing, he was in too much pain.

Dr Sharma’s own sadness increased. He wished he had done more for his sister. Compared to his life, hers had been so mean and small. Though close in age, as children she had mothered him. Well, he would make it up to her son. She would prefer that, and the son himself would eventually realise that good things can come from even the greatest tragedies. Time is a great healer, he told his nephew, who nodded obediently.

They went home, Ananda made himself a tomato, cheese and lettuce sandwich, drank a glass of milk and went to bed.

Getting Ananda’s life in order took the better part of two weeks. Dr Sharma went with him to the Dean’s office, went with him to the Forrest Building, went with him to the student loan section, showed him the layout of Dalhousie University, this time on foot. With each day Ananda felt more beholden. Because of his uncle he would be in a place where there were no rickshaws, where if truck drivers were rash, they were caught and punished. With so few people an individual life must mean something. ‘If God shuts the door, he opens a window,’ remarked the uncle periodically.

In India many of his fellow students had yearned after these doors and windows, spent time and money trying to get them open. The brightest of futures anyone could think of was going abroad to study, then staying on somehow.

‘Look at me,’ Dr Sharma often said, pretending Ananda had a choice of where to place his gaze, ‘look at me. I am a citizen of the world.’ In other words, every summer they went to Europe. In Rome, Florence, Paris, Venice, London, Amsterdam, Munich, in art galleries, theatres and museums he exposed his family to the finest artefacts of Western civilization. The uncle looked mystical as he pronounced these evocative place names, and Ananda saw his future dotted with similar alluring stars.

Once Ananda, thinking more of his own situation than intending any criticism of this highly successful man, ventured to ask why his uncle did not visit India more often. Were Lara and Lenny not curious about their father’s birthplace?

‘Arre, beta, last visit, ten days out of three weeks were spent being sick. Such bad diarrhoea—we all had to go on antibiotics. The whole country is crawling with disease, filth, flies and beggars. The children were horrified. How can they be proud of their ancient heritage if they see nothing of it? Very disappointing—and from what I hear the country is practically a dictatorship. One should take the best of one’s country and leave.’

‘Ji, uncle.’

Ananda had been dyed in a lifetime of study, and such habits were not difficult to return to. The dental course was rigorous, but he welcomed hard work. Long hours in the library stood between him and his memories. In the old wing of the Dental School, he could dawdle, read, feel himself king of the silence, the large windows, the high ceilings. He often returned to work after dinner.

Occasionally he wandered over to the vending machines in the basement. There he drank coffee, ate sandwiches, candy bars and chips. He felt a great fondness for the black, glass-cased monsters. Like his parents, they always gave, never asked. Come ten or eleven he would walk out onto Robie, down the mile to Young Avenue. Meanwhile, this new country was sinking into his heart.

He watched darkness fall earlier and earlier, till night came at four. By February he had joined others in grumbling about the snow and the cold. But in his heart he had not yet had enough, he only complained because everybody else was doing so. And look how efficient the snow cleaning, how manifold the pellets of salt, how pervasive the central heating.

This was the country to live in, despite the cold, the darkness and the never-ending winter.

Diwali and Holi. Every year their dates change, but around the beginning and end of winter come the festivals that make Indians think with longing of celebrations in the mother country.

Halifax was no exception. Home to four hundred Indian families, home to the India Club whose main aim was to ensure that expatriates did not feel deprived during festive occasions and to expose the next generation to Indian traditions.

Ananda would have preferred not to know when Diwali and Holi fell. With his parents he had eaten special foods on fast days, prayed with them before the gods on Janamashtami, Dussehra, Diwali, Ram Navami, Holi and a hundred other smaller occasions. There was no way he could replicate any ceremony on his own; he preferred complete rejection.

On November 5th of his first year in Canada, Ananda finds himself in the basement of the Equador Hotel. Curtains give the illusion of windows. Tiny coloured winking lights are strung all around. A pundit arranges prayer materials before small images of Ram, Sita, Lakshman, Hanuman on a raised dais. A few diyas are lit around them, more, being a fire hazard, are not allowed. Myriad women are dressed in saris, Nancy and Lara included. Dr Sharma and Lenny are wearing new clothes.

On the other side of the hall is a long table, where the vegetarian feast catered by the Taj Mahal restaurant is laid out. The guests eat, wish each other a Happy Diwali, joyously, festively, wistfully, then emerge into the Nova Scotian night, the wind howling around the women’s saris, inflating them like balloons, reaching under their petticoats, chilling their skin before they even reach their cars.

Another hybrid Diwali over.

Later Ananda asked his uncle why he participated. This was a man who couldn’t stay three weeks in India.

‘To give the children some idea of their background of course, otherwise how will they know our customs?’

Ananda looked unconvinced. His uncle was a fraud. He went on about Canada, and here he was dressing his women up in saris and devouring vegetarian food on Diwali. His own life would be conducted with more integrity—none of this Indian for a day, and Western for the remaining year. The uncle glanced at his nephew. ‘Beta, I was once like you. I too wanted to leave my country behind when I left its shores.

‘Twenty years ago there was no India club. I am one of the founding members. I realised that if I forgot everything of mine, then who was I? When the children came, it became even more important to keep in touch. Nancy thinks like I do, after all there is something so graceful about our rituals. She loves the opportunity to wear her sari. Then at Christmas we all go to church, that is fair, don’t you think?’

‘Ji, uncle.’

It was some time after Diwali, when days were shortening so much one barely caught a glimpse of light, that Dr Sharma decided to partition the laundry room to made a cubicle for his nephew. Ananda was bewildered; he was fine on the sofa bed, quietly watching TV during his free evenings and holidays.

He tried to prevent his uncle from spending the money, but his uncle explained—as though to a two year old, that this way he could have privacy. He could use the den of course but his clothes, books and all his personal stuff would have their own place in this little room. He would have a cupboard, his own desk with a tube light above it and a tiny alcove fitted with drawers. Wouldn’t that be nice?

By now Ananda knew that privacy was an important issue in this culture and though he felt wounded, he said nothing. His uncle wanted to shut him up in a cage.

Workmen came and in ten days it was finished.

The room had a window near the top of the ceiling that looked onto the skimpy grass of the back lawn. It was this alone that prevented Ananda from dying of claustrophobia. ‘You are lucky to live rent free,’ remarked Nancy. ‘There are many students who pay highly for accommodation in this area, we are so close to Dal.’ Ananda hadn’t realised he had to show gratitude, his instinct was to feel aggrieved.