Arranged Marriage: Stories

“Hope I’m not disturbing you, Abha.” It was Srikant, carrying a glass of 7-Up. “I thought you might like something to drink.”

  “Thanks,” I said, attempting a smile. It was just like him, considerate, to remember that I didn’t drink alcohol. “How about yourself?”

  “I’ve had enough,” he said, leaning back by me against the wall, and when I turned to ask him where he’d been all this time, I smelled the raw whiff of it on his breath. It surprised me because Srikant, too, hardly ever drinks.

  “They look good together, don’t they?” he said, ignoring my question.

  A slow love song was playing now. Meena and Ashok moved fluidly among husbands and wives who held each other at awkward arm’s length, as they had been taught. He lowered his head to say something to her, and as she looked up to reply, it seemed to me her cheek rested for a moment on his shoulder. They didn’t glance toward us. Not once.

  “They do,” I said heavily, watching my husband’s hand on the bare skin of my best friend’s back.

  “You know, I’m going to India,” said Srikant.

  I tried, for his sake, to show some interest. “Really! Meena didn’t say anything. When are you folks leaving?”

  “Next week. My mother’s not well. I’m going alone.”

  “Meena isn’t coming with you?”

  “No. There’s no point to it.”

  “What do you mean?” I said, my voice sharp and too high. Did he, too, know something I didn’t?

  But all he said was, “She’s doing so well at work, and it’s their busiest season. I don’t want to drag her away.”

  Leaning close to the mirror in the ladies’ room, where we were alone for the moment, Meena touched up her lipstick—the same flame-orange as her sari—with a deft hand. She examined her eye shadow and blusher critically, then turned to me.

  “Do I look OK?”

  “You look fine.”

  In spite of all the dancing, it seemed like Meena had just arrived at the party, her hair freshly styled, her clothes un-wrinkled. She wasn’t even sweating. I’d just stood against the wall drinking 7-Up, but my kurta, a modest, high-necked affair, had damp patches under the arms. My mouth was smudged and my hair, shampooed just this morning, hung limply about my face. I pulled out my lipstick, though all I wanted to do was go home and go to bed.

  “Not like that,” Meena said. “Don’t scrape it across your mouth as if it’s a stick of crayon. Here, let me do it for you.”

  Before I could say no, she’d taken the tube from me. She filled in my lips with one smooth stroke, then took a little of the lipstick on her finger and rubbed it onto my cheek-bones. Her touch was soft, the brush of a bird’s wing. Did her hands move over her lover’s body—Ashok’s body?—with the same lightness? The thought made me want to weep.

  ‘What is it, Abha?”

  “Nothing.” I tried to keep my voice steady, to look past her at the Taj Mahal poster hanging on the wall, where under a huge golden moon a man and a woman stood holding hands and looking at the majestic marble structure that symbolized eternal love.

  “You’re upset about something. Tell me.”

  I shook my head. “We should get back to our table—they must have served dinner already.”

  “Is it my choli?”

  “You want to dress like that, it’s your business.”

  Meena smiled faintly. “I knew you wouldn’t like it—but I wanted something different. I was so tired of doing the same things, the proper things….”

  Is that why you’re having an affair? I wanted to spit out. But I couldn’t. I’d been too well trained, all my life, in holding in anger and heartbreak.

  “Are you mad because I danced with Ashok?”

  As we’d walked from the dance floor to our table, Ashok had said, “That was great, Meena. How about some more after dinner?”

  “Maybe Abha would like to dance this time.”

  “Oh, you know Abha, she never dances.”

  The dismissive sureness of his tone had made me furious. Yes, I want to dance, I’d almost said. But I knew I’d only embarrass us both on the floor with my stumbling stiffness.

  You stay away from my husband, I wanted to scream at Meena now.

  “He’s just a good friend, you know that, don’t you?” Meena said, looking at me closely. In the flickering neon tube lights of the ladies’ room, her irises were a deep purple-black flecked with gold.

  “How is it that you don’t tell me what’s going on in your life anymore?” I blurted out.

  “What do you mean?”

  I looked at the surprise on her face. It seemed so genuine, the wide eyes so distressed, I was ashamed. Maybe Ashok had lied after all.

  “Srikant told me his mother’s sick—he’s going to India …” I stammered.

  “Oh that. We just decided on it today—I didn’t get a chance to tell you.” She linked her arm through mine as we made our way back to our table and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Personally I think he’s making a big deal out of nothing—she isn’t really that sick. It would be quite OK even if he didn’t go.”

  “So, Mrs. Mitra, what do you think? Mrs. Mitra …?”

  I looked up with a start from the pad where I’d been doodling. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I knew I’d lost you there, the last few minutes,” said Suren Gupta, the editor of the Lifestyle section of The Indian Courier, the paper for which I wrote recipes every week. He gave me a not unsympathetic smile. “Something on your mind?”

  I gave him a small smile back. One of them is lying to me, I’d been thinking. Ashok or Meena? I didn’t know which possibility was worse.

  I had known Suren—if one could call our brief, infrequent meetings at the Courier office knowing—for a couple of years. Usually I just mailed him recipes, but once in a while, for Diwali or Baisakhi or some other important festival when he was planning a special issue, he’d ask me to come in to see him. Sometimes I’d just stay on at the office and work until I had a menu that fitted his theme. Suren always asked me out to lunch on those days, and I always declined. Rich and single and good-looking, he had a bit of a reputation in the Indian community as a playboy.

  Today, though, he had a different kind of proposition for me. The Courier wanted to put out a cookbook—glossy cover, color pictures, the whole bit—of selected dishes from all the Bay Area Indian restaurants. Several Indian businesses had agreed to sponsor the project, and of course the restaurant managers were enthusiastic about the publicity. Would I be interested in compiling the book?

  “As I was saying,” Suren repeated, “it’ll mean visiting the restaurants, sampling the menu, choosing the best dishes for the book, observing how they’re prepared, and writing up a simplified version suited to the western lifestyle and palate. Of course you’ll be suitably paid. …”

  “Sounds very interesting,” I said, battling the heaviness in my heart. And indeed, it was. I’d been wanting to put together a cookbook for a long time, and this way I’d learn a lot about professional Indian cuisine. It would also keep my mind off things I didn’t want to think about.

  “Why don’t I fill you in on the details over lunch?”

  I started to say no. Then I took a deep breath. “Lunch would be lovely.”

  If he was surprised, Suren didn’t show it. “Let me help you with your shawl,” he said, rewarding me with a brilliantly suave smile.

  I’d been afraid that Suren would take me to one of those ostentatiously expensive San Francisco restaurants with lace tablecloths and dim lighting and snobbish waiters and I’d feel terribly out of place. But the little place in Chinatown that we went to was bright and crowded, its walls covered with good-luck signs and dragons painted on red brocade. The waiters were friendly and didn’t speak much English, which, together with the disposable chopsticks in their cheerful paper wrappers, put me at ease.

  So did Suren. I’d been afraid, too, of how he’d behave, given his reputation. But he was quite charming. He pointed out his favor
ites from the menu and told me funny stories of his experiences at the Courier and didn’t ask any awkward questions. Slowly I relaxed. It was fun to be out with a man who wasn’t my husband. In my entire life I’d never done that. I enjoyed the little courtesies I wasn’t used to—someone to pull back my chair and refill my cup of Chinese tea before it was empty, someone to ask if I liked the food. When Suren said he’d tried some of my weekly recipes—the rogan josh, the pista kulfi—and liked them, I was surprised and flattered. As we talked, I found myself wishing that I were wearing something more elegant than a kurta printed with big sunflowers that suddenly seemed blowsy. That I’d taken the time to put on some makeup.

  So when Suren ordered me a glass of Chablis, I didn’t say no. And when he leaned across the table to pat my wrist, saying, “I know you’ll be perfect for the job, Abha. I look forward to working with you.” I didn’t snatch my hand away like I would have done at any other time. And if, when he placed my shawl around my shoulders, his fingers lingered a moment longer than necessary, I didn’t care. So what, I thought defiantly, remembering Ashok’s palm pressed against Meena’s bare back. So what.

  I looked up at Suren, my smile as brilliantly suave as his, and said, “I’d be happy to take on the project.”

  I bought the robe that afternoon, on my way back from the Courier.

  In general I hate shopping. The large department stores confuse me, and the exclusive boutiques with salesgirls in slinky outfits that cost more than what I make in a whole month intimidate me. But today I wanted to celebrate my new job. Or maybe it was because, as I drove through the city, I was aware as never before of all the billboards with women in strapless evening gowns raising glasses of Smirnoff vodka to their glistening lips. All the storefront windows with slim-hipped mannequins elegant in their swimsuits and wedding dresses and white linen skirts, their holiday jackets slung over casual shoulders.

  Anyway, I found myself in the big Macy’s at Union Square, wandering through the lingerie department. I wasn’t looking for anything particular, but as soon as I saw the peach robe, all silk and lace with a deep scooped neck and the thinnest spaghetti straps that crossed in the back, I knew it was what I had come in to get. And though it was prohibitively expensive, like most things at Macy’s, for once I didn’t care. When the young woman at the cash register held it up so that light shone through the translucent material and said oooh, sexy, I didn’t blush or stammer.

  “Yes, isn’t it,” I told her with a cool smile.

  After dinner that night I went upstairs and changed into the robe. I brushed my hair till it shone and left it loose, and I put on some matching peach lipstick that I’d also bought at Macy’s, smoothing it onto my lips and cheekbones the way Meena had the other night. When I walked back into the family room where Ashok was looking over a report he brought home from the office, my heart flung itself wildly around in my chest. I felt like I was about to start a revolution—and perhaps I was.

  “The Courier has offered me a new assignment,” I announced. “A cookbook. It’s something I’m really excited about. But it’ll mean a lot of driving around, watching chefs at work. …” I waited expectantly.

  I don’t know what I thought Ashok would say. Maybe I feared he’d turn macho on me. My wife, hanging around in restaurant kitchens with cooks and waiters? Never. Maybe I hoped for acknowledgment. Great, Abha! I knew, sooner or later, someone would notice what a good job you’ve been doing with that weekly food column. And by the way, what’s that gorgeous outfit you’ve got on?

  But all he said absently as he turned the pages of a report he’d brought home from work was “that’s very nice.”

  I crushed the folds of my new robe in my fists. Even a taunt—So you think you’re going to be the next Julia Child— would have been better.

  “I had lunch with Suren Gupta today,” I told him now. “You know about Suren—they say he’s quite a ladies’ man.”

  Ashok didn’t even look up. “It’s good for you to move around a bit in society, meet people.” His voice held that same absentminded kindness. “Smarten you up some.” Then he added, “Why don’t you go on up to bed. I’ve got to finish studying this by tomorrow.”

  I swallowed my disappointment and my pride.

  “Do you like my new robe? I picked it up at Macy’s today.”

  That made him raise his head, finally. “Macy’s, huh?” For a moment his eyes glinted with their usual malicious amusement. “What is this, your answer to the backless choli?” He examined me critically for a moment. “The design’s pretty, Abha, but frankly I don’t think it was made quite with you in mind. And the color makes you look anemic.”

  I moved through a haze all next morning. My usual activities—fixing bed tea for Ashok, setting out his clothes, squeezing fresh orange juice for his breakfast, making blueberry pancakes from a new recipe I’d seen in Good Housekeeping (I prided myself on my international repertoire)—seemed monotonous and meaningless. The thought that I’d be doing them for the rest of my life pressed down on me like a suddenly unbearable weight. Thank God Ashok was too busy marking up his report to notice how I sat across from him in silence, pushing the food around on my plate.

  Maybe if I started on the project I would feel better.

  So after Ashok’s car pulled out of the driveway, I took a shower and put the peach robe on again. It was cool and silky against my skin, and in the morning light from the bedroom window, the fabric glowed and shimmered. It made me feel strangely elegant. Queenly. And I wasn’t going to let Ashok’s comments spoil it for me. Defiantly, I sat down at the dressing table to apply makeup.

  I was getting better at it already, I could see that as I outlined my lips in deep peach, darkened my eyes, and brushed blusher onto my cheeks. I sprayed myself generously with the Chanel No. 5 that Ashok had given me for my first anniversary and that I’d been saving all this while and, on impulse, slipped on my one pair of really high heels. I even put on a pair of dangly crystal earrings. I felt a bit embarrassed when I saw myself in the hall mirror as I came down the stairs, a bit silly, a girl dressed up in her big sister’s fancy clothes. But it did give me an added confidence. And when I spoke to the manager of the first restaurant on the list Suren had handed me, I was surprised at how pleasantly businesslike my voice sounded, as though I’d been doing this kind of thing forever.

  An hour later I was feeling a lot happier. The managers of the first three restaurants I’d phoned were eager to be part of the project, and I’d set up appointments to visit them in the next two weeks. The fourth one, the owner of a San Francisco restaurant that specialized in Mughal cuisine, one of my favorites, sounded flustered but not unfriendly. His head chef had suddenly quit, and he needed to find a replacement right away. Could I check back with him in a week? I certainly could, I graciously assured him.

  Not bad for a morning’s work, especially for a novice.

  That’s when the doorbell rang.

  I didn’t answer it right away. It was probably someone trying to sell something—a cleanser that would magically remove every spot on my carpet, a fertilizer that would turn my miniature daisies into giant double chrysanthemums. Maybe they would just leave if I stayed where I was and made no sound.

  But the person was knocking now, a polite yet persistent knock. I sighed and opened the door a crack, bracing myself to say no.

  Then I saw who it was.

  “Srikant!” I was too shocked for a polite greeting. “What are you doing here?” In all the years I’d known him, he’d never visited our house without Meena, and certainly not when Ashok was away. It was not the kind of thing done by Indians brought up the way we’d been.

  Srikant looked down, fidgeting with his keys. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you, Abha. I needed to talk. …” His voice trailed away, apologetic.

  “Please,” I said, motioning him in, though I felt uneasy about being alone in the house with a man I wasn’t related to, even one I’d known for years. But all the familiar rules were breaki
ng around me. What was one more?

  “You look nice,” said Srikant as he followed me in.

  I flushed, sneaking a quick look at him. Was he being sarcastic? No, Srikant wouldn’t do that. Still, I was horribly aware of the unsuitableness of my attire—the thin robe that clung to me, the lipstick that seemed suddenly garish, the high heels that made me stumble on the thick shag carpet.

  “Can I get you something—a drink, or maybe a snack?” Maybe, under cover of making tea, I could run upstairs and change into something more proper. But Srikant shook his head.

  We sat stiffly on the edges of our chairs in the living room, I trying to make polite conversation while he examined the pattern on the curtains as though he were seeing them for the first time.

  Then he said, “Meena and I are getting a divorce.”

  The erratic pounding of my heart made me forget my appearance. “When?” I whispered. But what I really wanted to ask was why?

  “As soon as I get back from India. That’s part of the reason I’m going, to break the news to my mother.” He was silent for a long moment, but I could tell he wasn’t done. My jaws ached with a tight fear.

  “She’s been having an affair for two months now. She finally told me last week, asked me to let her go.” He rubbed at his face tiredly. “I’d begun to guess it was something like that—little things didn’t fit, times she said she was working late, or visiting a woman friend, times in bed when …” He broke off.

  My face grew hotter.

  “You knew about it, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

  I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t been sure, that Meena hadn’t confided in me. The hurt of it. But it was too complicated to explain. I nodded guiltily.

  “It’s OK. You were right to keep her secret. It’s probably the best thing for us. We weren’t meant for each other. Meena, she’s like a falcon or something, wild and beautiful and filled with the need to soar.” He paused, frowning a little as though he didn’t expect me to understand. But of course I did. Perfectly. “And I”—his laugh was a sad, scratchy sound—“I guess I’m more of a penguin, waddling along my everyday path. I knew it the first time I saw her, at the bride-viewing. I should never have let my parents arrange our marriage—but she was so pretty, so alive. I thought some of it might rub off on me.”