Everything Was Good-Bye (18 page)

Now I looked up at the daughter-in-law’s upside-down reflection in the mirrored-tile ceiling. She stood slightly behind her mother-in-law, speaking only when spoken to, as if she existed only for the benefit of others. She could have been me four years ago.

“Surinder?” The shopkeeper was squinting over his bifocals.

“Hello, Uncleji.”

He smiled and twisted his head in an elfish nod. “This is Rani’s daughter-in-law,” he told the mother-in-law type. She smiled and eyed me up and down with some admiration. I stood taller, recouping my pride in being recognized as someone. “Your mother is already here. She is in the showroom looking at our latest collection.”

The showroom smelled like incense. Not the kind you got from the Indian store, but the kind that was sold in overpriced tin canisters at trendy import shops—the kind that made being Indian smell like mango peach and gingered spice rather than the aroma of ghee and tarka that I’d grown up with. Even the walls were painted with a Taj Mahal-like mural, complete with marble pillars and frescoes of the Mughal period, lovers sitting on woven carpets, the bejewelled women feeding men whose heads and eyes were reeled back in ecstasy. Not a picture of a guru in sight.

I wiped my feet on the Persian rug and walked across the mahogany floor to where my mother-in-law was seated in a large rattan chair, sipping chai.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, kissing her on the cheek.

“You’re late.”

I looked at my watch. She was early. “Sorry, I was in another shop and lost track of time.”

She nodded. “I had them pick out some things for you. I will wait while you try them—Sita, can you get me another cup of chai?” Sita, the salesperson, nodded and asked me if I would like tea and some sweets. My mother-in-law told her “No,” before I could answer.

I came out of the change room and stood in front of a three-way mirror, surrounded by myself. My mother-in-law put her chai down, stood up and shook her head.

“Too many gulab jamuns at Aman’s wedding, heh?” she said, pointing to the taut fabric across my chest. I caved my shoulders in, trying to hide my curves, which had long since gone out of style. Even Sunny seemed to prefer the waif girls in push-up bras. After he’d bought me a gym member-ship
for my birthday the year before, I’d gone shopping for undergarments with spandex in them: I needed something to hold me in. “How does Aman like living in England?”

“Well enough, I suppose. She’s still settling in,” I said, turning around, wondering what Aman would think of this outfit if she were here. I’d sel-dom heard from her since she’d moved away.

My mother-in-law shook her head. “No, I really don’t like this. Try the next one—and hurry. We don’t have all day.” She ushered me back into the change room.

“What time is the party?” I asked.

“Seven-thirty, but come to the house early because I want everything to be ready before Sunny’s chachaji gets there.”

“Sunny’s chacha?” I asked, knowing that Sunny’s father did not have a younger brother.

“Mmm,” she said, teacup trembling in the saucer. “It is Sunny’s grandfather’s cousin’s son—he is here for the party
.
”

I nodded, shut the change room door and tried to trace the family tree to work out where this new person really fitted. Was he second cousin once removed, or first cousin twice removed, or maybe second cousin twice removed? I could never figure it out, and just went along with the endless string of dinners she asked us to attend.

When we were first married, she’d accepted social invitations on our behalf, considering our requested attendance as a mandatory function of our marriage. These events were the same regardless of who was the host. I wore a ridiculous amount of gold jewellery, applied a radiant moisturizer to replicate the honeymoon glow that had already worn off, and spent the evening pretending that my existence was completely defined by Sunny and that married life was the only life. I complimented the ladies on their outfits, dished out useless advice to the unmarried girls who wanted to be me, and discreetly watched the clock. I wondered if anyone realized that everything I said was disingenuous. I wondered if their asking things of me and accepting of me was as artificial. While I sat in the family room with the ladies, sipping tea sweetened with polite insincerity and watched our wedding video for the one-hundredth time, Sunny sat in the living room
with the men drinking whisky in a whirl of testosterone, crude jokes, pats on the back and burst of laughter. I felt like the punchline.

I’d hoped that when we moved out of his parents’ home, these social obligations would lessen but they never did. Whenever his mother asked us to attend a party, Sunny insisted we go, saying that was the least we could do considering how our moving out had devastated her.

Initially, when I’d brought up the topic of moving to Yaletown, Sunny refused, reminding me how much money we were saving by living with his parents and how much money his parents had spent on refurnishing the basement suite to suit us. We had a private entrance, our own kitchen, living area and a master bedroom ensuite complete with a Jacuzzi we never used. “What more could you want?” he’d asked. But as he went out night after night with his friends, leaving me behind to watch Hindi movies with his mother, I knew it was his bachelor status that he was not yet ready to part with. He’d often come home smelling like Scotch and cheap perfume, stumble on and offme in a forceful fuck, occasionally leaving me grateful that he could still make me feel something, even if it was my own discomfort. On those rare nights when I felt something close to desire, he’d cover my mouth so his parents wouldn’t hear.

“How about this one?” I asked, turning before the mirror so my mother-in-law could inspect me.

“Masi!” a voice said from behind. My mother-in-law turned around to greet Sunny’s hook-nosed bitch of a cousin Preetpaul—Pretty for short. I didn’t bother turning around; she was used to talking behind my back.

“Are you here to pick up your sari for tonight?” my mother-in-law asked.

“Just the blouse. They had to take it in… It’s so nice of you to have this dinner for me, Masi.” Pretty stood behind me, circling. “Jasmine was wearing a similar lehnga last month. She looked stunning. She’s so thin she can make anything look good. Apparently her secret is not to eat before a party—that way your stomach stays flat,” she said, sucking in her already flat abdomen until it caved in beneath her ribs. “Maybe you should try that, hmm?” she said, looking at my midriff. “Unless you’re pregnant.”

My mother-in-law’s eyes widened at the thought of a grandchild. She was more frustrated with my inability to get pregnant than I was and forced
me to endure her suffering. She worried I was infertile and had insisted that I go to see her astrologer, who mapped out my stars, suggested that I no longer eat meat on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and encouraged her to hold a paath to bless us in our baby-making. After a year of trying and tests, our doctor informed us that Sunny’s sperm count was too low to father a child. Sunny went into a rage at the mere suggestion, calling the doctor a quack and threatening to sue him for a misdiagnosis. I didn’t tell anyone about Sunny’s infertility and he did nothing to shoulder my monthly blame. “No, I’m not pregnant,” I said.

“Well, when are you going to have kids?”

“When the time’s right.”

“Well, you may not want to wait much longer—you know, tick-tock,”

she said, laughing. “I can’t wait to have kids. I told Raj that I want to have them right away!”

“Lucky for you that right away is only a few months away,” I muttered, knowing the truth behind her rushed engagement.

“What?” She stamped her foot in a controlled tantrum.

I turned to face her. “I just mean that your wedding is only a month away.”

“I know, isn’t it great.” She presented her left hand, showing us her ring as if we hadn’t seen it a dozen times. “I can’t wait to be a wife and a mother. I think giving life is the most important thing a woman can do.”

I tried to smile despite the snub. The only life I’d given was my own. I had long stopped trying to conceive of any existence but the one that I had moment to moment. My mother cautioned me that when it came to marriage, it was best not to expect anything. On my wedding day, she’d told me not to smile too much. When I asked why, she stood behind me and gazed at my reflection in the mirror and told me that life was about depth. “The greater your happiness, the deeper your sorrow.” I asked her if it worked the other way—if my sorrow was deep, would my happiness be great? As we stood in each other’s reflection, looking forward and back, she narrowed her eyes to a squinted stare. For a moment I thought she saw me, and I knew she did when she answered, “Your disappointments dwell with your dreams.”

As my mother-in-law and Pretty continued their conversation, I returned to the dressing room to try on more lehngas, acutely aware of their lowered tones, the pentameter in their verse—the sound of gossip.

When I arrived at the house, my mother-in-law was in the kitchen doing the dishes. “Good, you are here,” she said, handing me a tea towel. “Dry these… Where is Sunny?”

“He’s working late. He’ll come by when he’s done.”

She shook her head. “He works so hard… He didn’t work that much when you lived here. Hmmm. You kids didn’t know how expensive it was to live on your own.” She turned the faucet offand dried her hands. “In-dependence. All you want is independence.”

“Mom, it’s not like that. Everything’s fine. We’re fine.”

“Of course it is; my son makes sure it is. But you, what do you do.

Hmm, how much money do you make?” I didn’t bother with the dialogue. Ever since she’d hit menopause, her hot flashes and mood swings had ruled the household. “Go tell your father to move the cars out of the driveway so our guests can park.”

“Where is he?”

“How should I know?”

I stacked the remaining dishes and went offdown the grand hallway and up the stairs to look for him, poking my head into the almost empty rooms that served as guest rooms. During and after our wedding, their megahouse with its massive oak doors and columned entry had welcomed out-of-town guests who came to visit us and bask in our post-wedding life. We’d spend the day taking them sightseeing, pointing out the best places to take pictures, posing with them in Stanley Park or on the top of Grouse Mountain, and when we came back home too tired to cook, Sunny’s dad would order in pizza with extra chilies on the side. But ever since we’d moved out last year, their guests had been few, and my mother-in-law had retreated into her own paranoia and telephone gossip while my father-in-law spent most of his time in his study.

I knocked on the door even though it was open. He was sitting behind a mahogany desk that was far too big for the cramped room, and staring at a computer screen. “Surinder,” he said. “Come here, help me with this.” He pointed to the screen. “I can’t get this working.” I walked around the desk and clicked a few buttons showing him how to end the non-responsive program. “You make it look so easy,” he said, looking at me over his reading glasses. “Sit down.” He pointed to the leather wing chair that he had picked up at an antique store the last time we went shopping together. “We’d had it reupholstered and edged in brass tacks, refinished to its ori-ginal splendour until the chair looked like it belonged in a grand library from some other time when art and literature were as important as com-merce, when the art of conversation was as important as the content. But here in this space the chair looked captive, a prisoner of this ten-by-ten room. My mother-in-law hated his penchant for old things and relegated them all to his study, which was now brimming with bookcases and first-edition finds, the dust layering and insulating shelves and nooks. “How are you, my dear?”

“I’m good.”

He nodded. “You look good, yes, but are you?” he asked again, this time pulling a bottle of Scotch from the bottom of drawer.

“How many have you had?”

“Not enough,” he said. “Your mother is driving me crazy. All this cleaning and cooking, and for what? To entertain people we don’t even like?”

I smiled. “Maybe the two of you need a holiday, get away for a while.”

He shook his head and sighed. “This is what we’ve worked for. This is what your mother wants.”

I tried to imagine him as he was when they lived on Vancouver Island—big glasses, pot-belly, a striped tie and a white short-sleeved, col-lared shirt. That was how Sunny had described him and it was very unlike the wiry old man who sat before me now. Even though I’d seen photos of him, I couldn’t get my head around the contradiction that this man who loved books, recited Rumi and adored Picasso had spent his youth in a mill, smelling of cedar and sawdust. I stood up and ran my fingers across the row
of books, turning my head to read their spines, wondering what was new in his collection.

“Looks with its sidecurved head curious what will come next. Both in and out of the game, and watching and wondering at it.” He paused, waiting for me to pick up his recitation.

“Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders, I have no mockings or arguments… . I witness and wait.” I pulled the book offthe shelf and cracked the spine, inhaled the musty pages and old words. “I see you’re reading Whitman again.”

He smiled. “It suits my mood. My age.” He blew the dust offthe chess set that was sitting in the bay window, all the pieces still locked in play from where we’d last left them a month ago. “I believe it is your move,” he said.

“We don’t have time. Mom wants you to move the cars.”

“Come on now. Just one move.”

“All right,” I said, shaking my head.

He waited and watched—a breath, a sigh, dangling from his mouth as my hands hovered over pieces, plotting a course. “Too bad Sunny doesn’t play anymore.” He took offhis glasses and wiped the lens on the untucked end of his dress shirt. “You know I taught him and Kal when they were boys. They were good. They even entered tournaments.”

“He never told me that,” I said, sliding my pawn into play. “Why did they stop?”

“Because Kal wouldn’t let him win.”