Secret Daughter (10 page)

She finds it impossible not to smile when he is like this. Now it is her turn to exhale. “Okay, Mister
Dhaba-wallah,
let us have dinner then.”

O
NE MORNING TWO WEEKS LATER
, K
AVITA WATCHES FROM THE
bedroll as Jasu carries a small basin of cold water to the corner of the room. Methodically, he washes himself and shaves. He has been
going back to the
dhaba-wallah
office every day, but still they have not had a job for him. The man who took two hundred rupees from him has not been seen again either. Still, every day, Jasu rises early to stand in the water queue. He insists on doing this himself, though it’s usually women from the
basti
standing in line. Today, he brings back reports of a typhoid outbreak on the north side of the settlement. Three children dead already, many more sick. “Keep Vijay away from the dirty water,” he tells her. “These people do
susu
and
kaka
anywhere, like dogs they are. No shame.” He dresses carefully and combs his hair. He hurries, as if someone expects him at a certain time. Each morning, he departs hopeful; every evening he returns to their temporary home dejected again.

Kavita steps outside to make
chai
in the dead embers of last night’s fire. There is some leftover
khichdi
from dinner, which she divides into two portions, one each for Jasu and Vijay. As she prepares breakfast, other people emerge from neighboring homes to do the same. Women gather their crumpled saris between their knees to squat, and chatter together. They have lived here a long time, these neighbors. Kavita does not join in their conversation, though she does listen to the gossip they share over their cooking fires. It frightens her: tales of children gone missing, wives beaten the night before. Some of the men brew homemade liquor, then sell or trade it to the others. In their drunken state, these angry men turn on one another, their neighbors and families, to take out their rage.

It seems it is a whole city unto itself, this slum community. There are moneylenders and debtors, landlords and tenants, friends and enemies, criminals and victims. Unlike the village she has known, people here live like animals: packed into small spaces, fighting over every necessity of life. And worse yet, many people who have been here for years already have come to accept this place as their home. They do the dirtiest, most detestable jobs in the city—they are toilet cleaners, scrap scavengers, rag pickers. Not
dhaba-wallahs
, who live in
proper homes like proper people. As soon as Jasu gets his job, they’ll leave this place. Kavita knows they won’t survive here.

L
ATER THAT NIGHT, WELL AFTER THEY HAVE ALL FALLEN ASLEEP,
they are awoken by loud voices outside, men yelling. Jasu immediately jumps up toward the door. The empty Gold Spot bottles sit nearby, ready to collect water in the morning. He takes one in each hand. Kavita sits up and gathers Vijay, barely awake, in her arms. As their eyes adjust to the darkness, the voices get louder and draw closer. Jasu opens the door a crack and looks out. Quickly, he closes it and whispers to Kavita, “Police! They’re banging down the doors, looking inside. They have sticks and flashlights.” He stands with his back against the door. She moves her body in front of Vijay’s, whose eyes are now wide and scared.

They hear pounding on doors. Bottles thrown against walls. Glass breaking. More angry voices. Then, a woman’s scream, long and loud and laced with tears. After what seems like a long time, the angry sounds begin to fade away, giving way to sinister-sounding laughter that retreats slowly into the distance. Finally, it is quiet again. Jasu is still guarding the door. Kavita beckons for him to come to her. When she holds him, she feels the fear and perspiration the police have left in their wake.

“Mummy?” Vijay says. He is trembling. Kavita looks down to where his hands are clutching the front of his pants. They are wet. She changes his clothes, and covers the damp bedroll with an old newspaper. They all lie down in bed: Jasu with his arms around Kavita, and she with her arms around their son. In the dark, Vijay says simply, “I miss Nani.” Kavita begins to cry without making sound or movement. Vijay’s breathing eventually becomes heavy and regular, but neither she nor Jasu sleep any more that night.

The next morning, Jasu returns from the water queue with news
about the police raid, apparently a common occurrence in the
basti
. One of the neighbors told him the police had been looking for someone, a man suspected of stealing from the factory where he worked. Even after waking dozens of other families, they didn’t find the man at home.

But they did find his fifteen-year-old daughter. In front of her mother and young brothers, and while the neighbors listened in fear, they brutally raped her.

Menlo Park, California—1991

“D
ID YOU MASH THE POTATOES YET
? K
RIS
!”

Krishnan is so engrossed in the pages of
India Abroad,
he barely hears Somer.

“You need to mash the potatoes. The turkey will be ready in a half hour. And remember not to add any pepper this time. My dad doesn’t like spicy food.”

Krishnan exhales loudly.
Spicy food?
Only an American would consider mashed potatoes, quite possibly the blandest dish ever created, to be the least bit spicy. No, that would be the
battata pakora
his mother made—slices of soft boiled potato, dipped in spicy batter and studded with green chilies, then deep fried until they turned golden brown. She would barely lay one on the plate before his eager fingers snatched it up. It’s been such a long time since he had a good
battata pakora
. He sighs as he begins mashing up the steaming potatoes in the large bowl. Somer obliges him by going out for Indian food occasionally, but she hasn’t taken a true interest in Indian cuisine, and her own cooking skills are limited. He once showed her how to make
chana masala,
a simple dish made with a can of garbanzo beans and some packaged spices. Now, it is the one dish she makes over and over, with store-bought pita bread. The expensive bottle of saffron his parents sent from India sits unopened on their spice rack, after Somer admitted she didn’t know how to use it.

He adds a couple tablespoons of butter into the bowl, pours in some milk, and stirs. The whole concoction is as smooth and white as hospital bedsheets, and about as appealing. How can one eat something with no color or flavor? These potatoes have become his designated task on Thanksgiving. One year, he took some latitude and added a handful of finely chopped cilantro leaves as a garnish. The next year, he stirred a teaspoon of his mother’s
garam masala
with the butter. This year, he is restricted to salt and butter again.

“I still have to get the pie into the oven.” Somer rushes to the oven, opens the door, and stabs the thermometer into the turkey for the umpteenth time.

Krishnan never understands why Americans, and his wife in particular, get so worked up over this one meal every year. His family celebrations at home regularly featured at least a dozen dishes, all of which involved more complex preparation than putting a turkey in the oven for a few hours. And none of it came out of a tin or a box. For Diwali every year, his mother and aunts would cook for days beforehand: light fluffy
dhoklas
dipped in rich coconut chutney, rich vegetable curry, delicately spiced
dal
. Every vegetable was individually selected from the
sabzi-wallah,
and each spice was toasted, ground, and mixed by hand. The tart, creamy yogurt was homemade, and the
parathas
were rolled and served hot from the flame. The women spent hours, gossiping and laughing while they peeled, sliced, simmered, and fried up a feast for twenty people or more. Never did he see the kind of frenetic worrying his wife now exhibits. He thinks back to his first introduction to the strange rituals of an American Thanksgiving.

I
N HIS FIRST YEAR OF MEDICAL SCHOOL, HIS CLASSMATE
J
ACOB
invited him to Boston. Krishnan had only been in the United States a few months, and all that time in California, so when they arrived in Boston, the first thing that struck him was the crisp cool air and the brilliant colors of the leaves. It was the first autumn he had seen.

There were a dozen people there, and Krishnan was soon put to work with the other men, raking leaves from the ample yard of the regal Colonial house. This was disorienting enough—he wondered why there weren’t servants to do this kind of labor—but Krishnan was even more confused by the game of touch football that ensued afterward. Inside, as they warmed their numb fingers around the fire, Krishnan could hear the tinkling laughter of Jacob’s pretty sister from the kitchen. Her cousins were teasing her about the new boyfriend she had brought home for the first time. This concept was truly foreign to Krishnan. In India, parents and other relatives served as the first level of approval for prospective mates, not the last. Courtships between engaged couples were brief and usually chaperoned. Krishnan enjoyed the meal, though he couldn’t help thinking a measure of hot sauce would make everything taste a good deal better. By the end of the weekend, Krishnan was enamored with everything he had seen: the beautiful house, the sprawling yard, the pretty blond girl. He wanted it all. He had fallen in love with the American dream.

When he first came to the United States for medical school, he was excited about the new possibilities his life suddenly held. Stanford’s serene mission-style campus could not have felt more different from the bustling city he had left, but there was much about America he could appreciate: clean streets, huge malls, comfortable cars. He developed a taste for the food, particularly the french fries and pizza served at the campus cafeteria.

Krishnan went back to India for a visit after his second year to find things had changed. It was the summer of 1975, and Indira Gan
dhi had just declared a state of Emergency after being declared guilty of election fraud. Political protests were quelled rapidly, and government opponents were jailed by the thousands. It was difficult to believe anything in the propaganda-filled papers, but there was a distinct sense of fear and uncertainty about the future. When he accompanied his father on rounds, he found the hospital older than he remembered, particularly in contrast to Stanford. Some of his friends were getting married, but Krishnan managed to evade his mother’s suggestion it would soon be time to start meeting girls. By the end of that summer, he found himself missing America, where life seemed good and the career opportunities superior. Going back to his homeland had tipped the scales for him, and when he returned to California for the last two years of medical school, he was quite certain he wanted to stay.

The past decade since med school has passed in one long blur of days and nights, working relentlessly toward becoming a surgeon. He made it through one of the toughest residency programs in the country. His colleagues now consult him on their most challenging cases, and he’s often asked to guest lecture at Stanford. And he did get the pretty blond girl, now his wife. By every objective measure, he is a success. After fifteen years in this country, he has achieved that dream with which he was so taken.

T
HEY ALL SIT IN THE DINING ROOM, AT THE FORMAL TABLE, WITH
a little too much space between them. Somer’s father carves the turkey, and they pass around dishes filled with stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans. While Krishnan eats, he listens to Asha regale her grandparents with stories of her new teachers and the school uniform she loves. “The best part is there are no boys, because they can be so annoying.” Everyone laughs, and Krishnan makes an effort to smile. They eat in this room only a few times
a year, he realizes, looking around, and they never fill up the table. He blinks several times. The house is spacious and beautiful but feels sterile to him, just like their lives. He doesn’t notice it as much when Asha fills it with her chatter and laughter, but even then, it never feels as full and rich as the family get-togethers he remembers from childhood. This is the life he envisioned, the life he hoped for, but somehow the American dream now seems hollow to him.

Just a few weeks ago, his family back home was all gathered for Diwali dinner at his parents’ home, at least two dozen people in all. Krishnan was the only one missing, so they called him, passing the phone around so each could wish him a happy Diwali. He had been rushing out the door that day when the phone rang, but after hanging up, he sat motionless at the kitchen table with the phone in hand. It was evening in Bombay, and he could close his eyes and picture the millions of
diyas,
the tiny clay pots holding small flames lining the balconies, the street stalls, and the shop windows. Visitors came to exchange boxes of sweets and good wishes. Schools closed and children stayed up to enjoy fireworks. Ever since he was a child, it had been one of his favorite nights of the year, when the whole of Bombay took on a magical feel.

Krishnan has raised the idea of going back to India to visit and perhaps adopt another child, but Somer has resisted. She seems intent on preserving Asha in the little cocoon they have woven around her. It’s not the way he sees family, as a precious thing that needs to be protected. For him, family is a wild sprawling thing, a strong thing that withstands years, miles, even mistakes. For as long as he can remember, there have been minor transgressions and major feuds erupting among his big clan, and it doesn’t affect the endurance of their family’s bond. Somer has good intentions, she tries to make an effort with Asha where she can: going through National Geographic, pointing out maps of India, reviewing facts on agriculture and animals. When his parents send a
chania-choli,
she dresses Asha in it and
sends off photographs. But his daughter has no occasion to wear the festive outfits, so they accumulate in a row in her closet. Just like his weak efforts to teach Somer a few words of Gujarati, her gestures are, in the end, insignificant.

Perhaps all this wouldn’t bother him as much if he felt he still had the woman he fell in love with—the intellectual partner, the equal companion. He misses talking to Somer about medicine. She used to be interested in his cases, but these days, she’d rather discuss the mundane details of Asha’s schoolwork. Even when Somer talks about her work at the clinic, he finds it hard to feign interest in runny noses and muscle sprains after dealing with brain tumors and aneurysms all day. Though, technically, they’re in the same profession, it’s hard to have a conversation without one of them becoming disinterested or frustrated. At times, it seems the things that occupy and define his marriage today bear little resemblance to what once brought them together.

“Let’s make a toast.” Somer’s cheery voice interrupts his thoughts. She holds her wineglass in the air, and the rest of them follow suit. “To family!” They all echo the sentiment as they stand halfway out of their chairs to reach awkwardly across the table and clink one another’s glasses. Krishnan takes a deep sip of the chilled Chardonnay, feels the liquid trickle down his throat and the coolness permeate his body.