The Indian Bride (4 page)

She stopped at the café to buy cigarettes. Einar was polishing the jukebox. First he sprayed it with polish, then he rubbed it with a tea towel. It was still the school holidays. Two girls sat
at one of the tables. Marie knew them, Linda and Karen. Linda was a skinny girl with a shrill, almost manic laugh. She had very blond frizzy hair, a gaunt face, and pointy white teeth. Whenever Marie looked at the girl she immediately thought that here was someone who would turn out bad. She did not know why she thought this, but there was something about the girl's personality, the almost unnaturally sparkling eyes, the frantic movements, and the shrill laughter that made Marie think that she was the type who wanted too much. She stood out like a lamp with too strong a bulb. One day something would sweep her away. The other one, Karen, dark and calmer, sat there more subdued. Spoke with a lowered voice, kept herself to herself. Einar picked out a packet of John Player's and Marie paid. She did not like Einar. He was polite, but he always walked around as though he was hiding an unpleasant secret. His face was not open and broad like Gunder's. It was tight, gaunt. It bore evidence of ill will. Gunder did not like him, either. Not that he had ever said as much, because he never spoke ill of people. If he did not have anything pleasant to say, he simply kept his mouth shut. Like the time she had asked about the new chap at work, young Bjørnsson. He had looked up from his paper and said, "Bjørnsson is doing fine." Then he went back to his paper and said no more. She knew at that moment that Gunder did not like him. He could, however, talk about the village taxi driver for ages. Kalle Moe has bought car wax by mail order, he might say. Six hundred kroner for two tiny boxes. That man is unbelievable. I think the car has done 300,000 miles. But you would never know. I think he sings it to sleep at night. Gunder would laugh, and Marie would know that he liked Kalle. And Ole Gunwald in the one-stop shop. He suffers from migraines. Poor Gunwald. While she was contemplating these things she heard Linda's laughter once more and she saw Einar glance quickly at the two girls. At least he had something to look at while standing there rubbing his jukebox.

"So Jomann has ventured out into the big wide world?" Einar said all of a sudden. Marie nodded.

"To India. On holiday."

"India? Bless me. Oh well, if he comes back with an Indian wife I'll be green with envy," he laughed. Marie laughed. Was everyone thinking the same as she was? She left the café and drove home at an average speed of thirty-nine miles an hour. A light flashed red on the dashboard. She must remember to tell Karsten.

***

Gunder was sweating, but it did not matter. In fact his shirt was wet, and he did not care. He sat quite still at the table and looked at the Indian woman. She was so nimble and light and smiled so pleasantly. She wore a money belt quite like his own around her waist, where she kept her change. She had on a floral dress, her arms were bare, and she had gold rings in her ears. Long blue-black hair, which was plaited and coiled up at the back of her head. He sat there wondering how long it was. Perhaps all the way to her bottom. She was younger than he was. Maybe forty, and her face was marked by the sun. Her teeth showed when she smiled. Indeed her front teeth stuck out prominently. Her vanity resulted in frequent attempts to suppress the smile, but she had to give up: Smiling came easily to her. She is pretty when she closes her mouth, Gunder thought, and you can fix the teeth. He sat there observing her while drinking the strange, exotic coffee with cinnamon and sugar and he felt that she had noticed it and perhaps even liked it. He had eaten in this restaurant six days in a row. She had served him every time. He wanted to say something to her, but was fearful of making a faux pas. Perhaps she was not allowed to talk to the customers. He did not know the ways of this country and it inhibited him. He could stay here one evening till they shut and then follow her. No, no, of course he couldn't! He held up his hand. She came over immediately.

"One more coffee," said Gunder nervously. He was building up to something. The tension made his face look serious and she did notice that. She nodded without a word and fetched the coffee, coming back very quickly.

"Very good coffee," he said and fixed his blue gaze on her so that she would remain standing there.

"My name is Gunder," he said eventually. "From Norway."

She gave him a brilliant smile. The large teeth showed.

"Ah! From Norway. Ice and snow," she laughed.

He laughed, too, and thought that she probably had a husband and a child, possibly a whole flock of them. And elderly parents in need of help. That it would never cross her mind to follow him anywhere at all. He felt sad, but she stayed at his table.

"Have you seen the city?" she said.

He stared at the table, embarrassed. For days he had wandered aimlessly, watching the people. There were crowds everywhere. Sleeping in the street, eating in the street, selling their wares on the pavement. The streets served as market, playground, meeting place, everything but a traffic artery. He had not visited places of interest. He had just been looking for her.

"No," he confessed. "Only people. Very beautiful people," he added.

Then she blushed and stared at the floor. It looked to him as if she was waiting for something more. She lingered by the table a little longer. Gunder felt brave. He was constrained by the lack of time, impelled by the resulting urgency; he was also a long way from home. The overpowering heat, the feeling of unreality. And his actual purpose. He looked into her black eyes and said, "I came to find a wife."

She did not laugh. She only nodded, slowly, as if she understood everything. The fact that he kept coming back. To this very place. To her. She had felt his gaze, and thought about him after work, this mountain of a man with blue eyes. The calm that surrounded him. The dignity. So exotic and so different.
She had wondered what he wanted. Obviously he was a tourist and yet he was something other.

"I show you the city?" she said cautiously. She was not smiling now, and there was no sign of her protruding teeth.

"Yes. Please! I wait here," he said, slapping the tabletop. "You work. I wait here."

She nodded, but stayed a while longer. The room was very quiet. Only a low hum from the other tables.

"
Mira nam Poona he
" she said.

"What?" Gunder said.

"Poona. My name is Poona Bai."

She held out a brown hand.

"Gunder," he said. "Gunder Jomann."

"Welcome to Bollywood," she laughed.

He did not understand what she meant, but he heard his own heart beat softly and hopefully. Then he bowed to her and at last she collected herself and disappeared into the kitchen.

That evening he called Marie. He sounded excited.

"Did you know that they call this city Bollywood?" he laughed through to the other end; she could almost hear how hot he was. "They are the world's biggest film producers. I've learned a little Indian, by the way.
Tan je vad,
it means thank you. There are more than a billion people living in India, Marie, imagine."

"Yes," she said. "Soon there'll be so many of us on this planet that we'll eat one another."

Gunder chuckled at the other end of the line.

"Have you met someone?" she asked, unbearably curious.

Yes, of course he had met people, how could she suppose otherwise, one billion, you couldn't walk down the streets without all the time bumping into people. "There's air-conditioning in the hotel," he went on. "When I go out of the door, the heat hits me. That's the worst time."

"Are you taking care of your tummy?" she said.

Oh yes, he was taking care of his tummy, he took his tablets and felt fine, but the heat meant that everything had to happen in slow motion. Marie visualized a slow Gunder, walking down the streets of Mumbai in slow motion.

"I expect you're looking forward to coming back?" she said, because that was what she wanted to hear. She did not like it that her slow brother had all of a sudden become a well-traveled man, and she did not like his superior tone.

"It'll be great to come home," he reassured her. "And I've bought you a present. Something really Indian."

"What is it?" she wanted to know.

"No, no. It's a secret."

"I cut the grass today. There's a lot of moss. Did you know that?"

Gunder laughed. "We'll get rid of that," he said. "We can't have moss in the lawn."

We? He seemed strangely elated. Marie hardly recognized her brother. She clutched the phone and felt that she wanted him to come back. She could not take care of him when he was so far away.

"It's hot here too," she said importantly. "It was eighty-five degrees in Nesbyen yesterday."

"Well, well, eighty-five degrees? Here it's one hundred and seven, Marie. Yesterday it was hotter still. And when I ask the Indians if they're used to it—after all, they've lived with it for years—they say no, it is just as bad for us. Strange, don't you think?"

"Yes. If they came over here to our minus four degrees they would probably turn into ice," she said impatiently.

"I don't think so," Gunder told her. "The Indians work hard, and would keep warm regardless. It's that simple. But luckily I am on holiday. I just stroll around the streets with my arms sticking out."

"Sticking out?"

"Can't bear to have them touching my body," he said. "Have to spread my fingers, too. But there is air-conditioning at the hotel," he repeated.

"You mentioned that," she said.

Then they were both silent. Marie sighed the way a sister sighs over an impossible brother.

"I have to go now," Gunder said. "I'm meeting someone."

"Oh?"

"We are going out for dinner. I'll call in a day or two."

She heard the click as he hung up. Saw her brother in her mind, gliding around with his fingers spread and his arms sticking out. In the shimmering heat. She could not understand why he was so happy.

Gunder and Poona were married on August 4, at noon precisely. In the City Court House, as Poona called it. Gunder had obtained the necessary paperwork and the Norwegian Foreign Office had sent a fax to confirm his status in Norway as a bachelor. It was a simple but very solemn ceremony.

***

Gunder stood up straight like a soldier, listening and hoping that he answered in the right places. Poona shone. Her plait was coiled at the nape of her neck, like a huge pretzel. She did not even try to hide her teeth, but smiled joyfully at everything that happened. Gunder's English was getting better. They conversed in short sentences, helped by gestures and smiles, and understood each other very well. Often when Gunder was halfway through a sentence she would complete it exactly as he had imagined it himself. It was so easy. He explained to her about Norwegian citizenship. It could take a few years. Becoming Norwegian was certainly not straightforward, he thought. After the ceremony they walked down the streets as husband and wife. She wore gold sandals and a turquoise sari with the pretty filigree brooch at her throat. He wore a new white shirt, dark pants, and newly polished shoes. His arm was around her waist. She looked up at Gunder's face, the broad face with the strong neck. He was a sturdy and solid man and yet so humble. Sometimes he would blush and yet he possessed a peculiar confidence and was so unaffected by all the people around him. He had eyes only for her. She saw his suppressed joy and the broad smile around his mouth. She thought that this man had his own world, which he controlled. And how good that was.

It was not that she thought he was rich. He had told her so: I'm not rich at all. But I do have a house and a job. A nice garden. A good car. And a kind sister. She'll make you feel welcome. We live near a small village. It's quiet there, not much traffic. You can walk along the road all on your own and not meet a living soul."

This seemed strange to Poona. Such a huge silence, devoid of people. She knew only crowds in the city. She had only seen silence in photographs.

"I'd prefer to work," she said firmly.

"Of course you can. But then you may have to go into town. There is nothing in Elvestad. If you get a job in town, then I can give you a lift."

"I'm a hard worker," she went on. "I don't tire easily. I'm not big, but I'm tough. You won't need to provide for me."

"No, no," said Gunder then. "It's fine if you get a job. Then you'll learn Norwegian more quickly. It's going to be so good, Poona, I promise you. Norwegians are friendly. A little shy, perhaps, and very proud, but friendly."

Poona's only family was an older brother who lived in New Delhi. She wanted to write to him and tell him about her marriage. And in addition she needed to tie up the loose ends of her life in the Indian city before traveling to Norway. She would need about two weeks. Gunder booked and paid for her ticket. Explained to her about transfers and Gardermoen airport. He gave her money so that she would not be short of anything. Wrote down his address and telephone number in neat numbers and letters.

"Will your brother be hurt when you tell him this?" he asked anxiously.

"No, no," said Poona, sure of herself. "We hardly ever see each other. Shiraz lives his own life. Has a wife and four children. I like cooking," she said. "I'll make chicken curry for you and your sister when I get to Norway."

"And I'll make Norwegian lamb stew," Gunder told her happily. "Mutton and cabbage."

"Is it spicy?" she said.

"We don't have spicy food in Norway. Bring lots of spices with you, Poona. Then we'll make Marie and Karsten sweat a bit."

She pondered this for a while. "What will your sister say once she meets me?"

"She'll be pleased," Gunder said. "Alarmed at first, but then she'll be pleased. She doesn't like me living on my own. She's always telling me that I ought to travel a bit. Now I'm bringing the whole world back with me." He laughed, and hugged her tightly. He couldn't stop himself from touching the plait at the nape of her neck with his hand. It was hard and tight and shiny like silk. When she tore the band off, the hair unraveled and became unimaginably full. How many women in Elvestad had hair like this? None! She only lets it down at night. Only for him. In the night her eyes shone white in the darkness. She held his heavy body carefully in her slender arms. Gunder stroked her softly across her back with large, hesitant hands. Poona was happy. A tall and handsome man with blue eyes had picked her from the hot restaurant kitchen; he would take her away from the burning hot city, from the sea of people and the crowds, from the tiny room with a toilet in the corridor. Gunder had his own bathroom with a bathtub and swans on the walls. She could hardly believe it. From the first time they looked at each other, they both knew that they were going the same way. The first time he leaned forward and held the slender body and he saw the big eyes grow moist and then cloud over before finally they closed and she relaxed into his broad chest, they knew it. No words were exchanged during that first night, only the beating of their hearts. His firm and heavy, hers light and quick. They were not scared at all, not yet. Poona would leave her job and clear out the tiny room where she lived. Gunder would return home and prepare the house and the garden. At the hotel someone helped them take a photograph. They stood up straight, side by side, formal from the pact they had just entered into. She in the turquoise sari, he in the snow-white shirt. He had two copies made and gave her one of them.