to her. He had spent the last week not far from tears himself, and twice had succumbed to them after the unsatisfactory nightly ritual of going to this pretty stranger’s bedroom, sitting rigidly on the edge of her bed and making attempts at conversation in a language she could barely understand, and retreating again having done nothing but briefly touch the back of her hand, once.
But now she was the one in tears, this delicate, precious, daunting, sweet-faced young goddess, and without even pausing to consider his action, he reached out and took her hand. In response she sobbed aloud, and his heart simultaneously broke and swelled up in manly pride that at last he had found a role he could step into, even if it was only that of comforter.
Sleeping and awake, they held hands all the way to San Francisco.
IT WAS NOT EASY after that, and Pramilla was often in tears, but at least she had the vague comfort of knowing that her sorrows were those of all young wives, home in the village or here in this new country, and that she had only to endure and life would, in the end, sort itself out. Peter’s wife, Rani, playing the part of mother in the family (and indeed, she was nearly old enough to be Laxman’s mother), was hateful, even cruel, but that after all was what mothers-in-law were. She refused to speak Hindi with the newcomer, pretending that she did not understand the peasant girl’s rural accents; she pinched Pramilla’s arm when the girl put the spoons in the wrong place or failed to peel the vegetables to her satisfaction; worst of all from Pramilla’s point of view, Rani encouraged her own children (who were not actually all that far from Pramilla’s age) to mock her and treat her as a rather stupid family pet. And Laxman… Her husband was not a simple person to be with, since he seemed to know that he had something missing and was short-tempered because of it. He lost patience with her at the slightest irritation and occasionally shouted and sometimes slapped her, and bed was never easy, since she did not seem able to be anything but dry and tight against him. Still, even that was a thing that her knowledge of village marriages had prepared her for, and she soon folded away her picture of
So Pramilla Mehta went her way in the New World, walking a tightrope between an inadequate and easily frustrated husband and an oppressive mother-in-law figure, with no friends or family or even familiar surroundings to bolster her. Tens of millions of women had done the same, and like them, Pramilla could have been happier, but at least she had the degree of contentment that comes when one’s expectations are met.
The precarious balancing act held for precisely five months, until one evening when Rani, annoyed at some problem with a plumber and angry at Peter for working such long hours, pointed out with a voice that cut flesh that Laxman and ‘Milla had been married for nearly half a year, why wasn’t the girl pregnant?
All four Mehtas ended up in a shouting match, which broke apart only when Peter slammed out of the house, Rani turned her wrath on Pramilla, and Laxman retreated from the scene. Later that night he came to his wife’s room expecting her to sniffle and cuddle and comfort him by her need for his manly comforting. Instead Pramilla, still smarting from Rani’s cruel words and her own fresh, sharp fear of childlessness, turned on him and demanded furiously why he, her husband, had not been a real man and stood up for her against his brother and sister-in- law.
Laxman went berserk. He hit her and screamed at her, forced himself on her, and then collapsed in a storm of teary self-recrimination, kissing her bruised face and saying over and over how she must never again make him do that.
She never did. In the seven months that remained to her, she was always careful, around him and around Rani (who conceived and miscarried what would have been her fifth child).
The only outlets to Pramilla’s spirit were the daytime television programs, which taught her English with their simple plot lines and
Her name was Amanda, and she was a being even more exotic to Pramilla than the people on the daytime television programs. She acted more like a man than any woman Pramilla had ever known, allowing her arms and legs to go bare—not like a prostitute, which was what many of these women looked like, but like the castes of women who carried stones and bricks to building projects, chattering loudly and ignoring their veils—or like the pictures of women athletes Pramilla had seen, strong and brazen. Pramilla couldn’t understand why men weren’t afraid of Amanda; she looked as if she would pull out a sword or a club at any moment, like Kali. She certainly frightened Pramilla, she was so overflowing with Western ease and power, and she fascinated Pramilla, because she was as strong and confident as Peter. Her independence was… godlike.
They met at the local market, where Pramilla was puzzling over a display of unfamiliar greenery. A bare, browned arm snaked past her to snatch up a head of curly purple leaves, and paused to shake it under Pramilla’s nose.
“Great stuff,” said the voice attached to the arm. “You ever try it?”
Pramilla glanced around to see if this stranger might not be speaking to someone else, then looked up into a face as sunburnt and roughened as that of a road-mender. She was as without manners as one of the road gangs, too, bluntly informal in that way that was both offensive and secretly appealing. Pramilla came up with a phrase her sister-in-law had used on a similar occasion. “I beg your pardon?” she said, but it did not come out the same way as Rani said it, and this Western woman took it as an invitation.
“Purple kale, it’s called,” she continued cheerfully. “Fry it for just a minute with butter and garlic, it’s gorgeous and healthy, too.”
Pramilla’s English was sufficient to gather that the woman was telling her a recipe, although it sounded remarkably bland and nearly raw. Pretty, though, if the purple stayed in the leaves. Perhaps she could convince Rani to try it.
“Amanda Bonner,” the woman said, and put the brown hand out at Pramilla. Very gingerly Pramilla extended her own fingers, allowing them to be clasped briefly and released.
“My name is Pramilla Mehta,” she recited.
“Pramilla. What a beautiful name. You live down the block from my parents, I think. I’ve seen you on the street.”
“Parents, yes.”
“Sorry—I’m talking too fast, aren’t I? Can you understand my English?”
“Understand, yes. I do not speak good. I hear the television, when they talk slow.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Seven, eight month.”
“Is that all? Did you know any English when you came?” Amanda asked, sounding surprised.
“Some little. Hallo, goodbye, Tom Cruise, Superman.” Pramilla shrugged her narrow shoulders gracefully.
“Well, I wouldn’t have thought TV could have much to offer, but it obviously works for you. Do you watch the soaps?”
Pramilla knew that word from Peter’s disparaging remarks. “Yes, and cooking shows, news, cartoons. Game shows are too fast. They make me tired.”
Amanda laughed, showing a lot of white teeth. “They make me tired, too, and I was born here. Your English is very good, though. You must practice.”
Pramilla grimaced. “I have to. No one will speak anything else.” Laxman knew little Hindi, Peter pretended he knew none, and Rani treated the language as something only an Untouchable would speak. It was English or go hungry.
“Immersion English, huh?” Amanda said and, seeing Pramilla’s confusion, changed it to, “We have a saying: Sink or swim.”
“I know,” said Pramilla a touch grimly. “I know.”
Chapter 9
“YOU GOT ALL THIS from Amanda—what’s her name?—Bonner?” Kate asked, since Roz seemed to have come to a pausing place.
“Most of it. Some of it I asked Pramilla herself.”
“You met her, then?”
“I did. On Thursday night, in fact, the day after I mentioned her to you. Sweet little thing, looked about twelve years old, but quite bright and nobody’s fool. Amanda thought she might listen to a woman who was also a priest.”
