Habitations, page 22
It puzzled Vega how, after nearly seven years in the States, Shoba still did not notice when people talked down to her. “That’s good. I’m happy you can trust her.”
“You’ve been to the park here, no? Where the tennis courts are, where Mohan and Suresh practice?”
Vega had no idea where the tennis courts were. She had never been even remotely curious. But Shoba insisted they visit the park. It was too cold to stay long, but she wanted to show Vega the walking path and the small lake that it wrapped around. “We can go for walks on Saturdays,” she said. “When the men are playing.”
They stopped at a bagel shop for lunch, then drove back to the turnpike and followed signs to Brundage Park, Shoba pointing out every landmark of note: a mini-golf course, a Dairy Queen, a farm that advertised cider donuts and fresh eggs. “It’s a very commercial area,” Shoba said as they pulled into the parking lot. “Many businesses.”
It was colder than it had been just hours before, and they were walking so briskly that Vega wouldn’t have noticed the courts, had Shoba not pointed them out. The gate was locked. A sign hung over the edge, reading, Closed for Winter. Reopening in April.
“See?” Shoba asked. “What did I tell you? So close, we can even walk from the new house.”
* * *
At home, Asha had just woken from a nap. She was sitting at the kitchen table, rubbing her eyes, sleepily working her way through a pile of steamed apples. Suresh was making tea. Without asking, he poured Vega a cup, added some milk, and placed it in front of her. “House was nice?”
In the car, she had rehearsed her conversation with Suresh, each version gentler than the previous. More conciliatory, more plan oriented. Now, she couldn’t remember any of it. “It was. Shoba seems happy.” She mixed her tea, then reached for the sugar. “You haven’t been playing tennis on Saturdays.”
“Mohan is too busy with the baby. We’ll start in the summer.”
“But you still go on Mondays.”
“Rupa needs some time away from housework.”
“I saw the tennis courts, Suresh. They’re closed. Until spring.”
He looked stricken.
“You don’t have to tell me any details, Suresh. It’s okay.”
“We talk, Vega. Nothing more.”
She wondered, briefly, if it would be useful to tell him about Edwin. Winston she would never mention, but Edwin was a more manageable story, just enough of a betrayal to relieve Suresh of his guilt. But she had a feeling it would cause more harm. Even without love, a betrayal still hurt.
21
Margo proposed dinner the following week, telling Vega she had some news she wanted to discuss. They met at an Italian place in the West Village and squeezed into a corner table. Margo ordered a bottle of house red. “You don’t mind?” she asked. “We could get something better.”
“I can never tell the difference,” Vega said.
They ordered plates of mushroom ravioli, and on their second glass of wine, Margo said, “I saw that posting you mentioned. The one at Seton Hall.”
Over the past few months, Vega had been building a list of job openings within range of New Jersey, all lecture and adjunct positions, and though she often sat at her computer with the specific intention of submitting her résumé, something always stopped her. It wasn’t just that the positions were menial—she knew it wasn’t uncommon to work as an adjunct for a few years after graduate school—but these jobs seemed so static, so dismally local. She imagined them holding her in place, year after year.
“I haven’t applied yet,” Vega said. “But it seems like the best option. At least locally. I’ll be teaching four courses each semester. Two introductory sections.”
“I’m not saying it’s terrible, but here’s another path to consider. I have a former classmate. We did our PhDs together at Wisconsin. She’s the head of the sociology department at Louisiana State University. They’re hiring an assistant professor, ideally with a Global South focus, but they really want someone who works in the realm of feminist theory and sociology of family. They haven’t even posted the job yet, but she gave me permission to mention it to you in advance.”
For a moment, Vega wondered if this was some sort of administrative request. If she could spread the word, post the job on an announcement board. But Margo was nodding, wide-eyed, as though expecting an answer.
“You want me to apply?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“I won’t be defending my dissertation until May. I didn’t think I’d be a contender for a tenure-track position.”
“I think you’d be surprised.”
“I worry I don’t have enough to distinguish my research. A lot of people study sociology of family.” She knew she was pulling an old trick from her childhood—wooing the encouragement she needed, the same as when she stood in front of Gayatri’s mirror during their Rhodes School days, complaining about her weight or her hair. She wanted Margo to say, “You’re exceptional! You’re the best candidate I’ve seen in years!”
“Every space is crowded with ideas,” Margo said. “What distinguishes anyone? How many political scientists study the Cold War? How many historians are sitting in their offices, whacking off to more documents about Jefferson?”
“Countless,” Vega said. “No doubt.”
Margo laughed. “My point is, your teaching reviews are stellar. And you’re an excellent writer and researcher.”
Vega took this in. They ordered tiramisu and coffee. Finally, she said, “The logistics seem impossible.”
“I’m sure the logistics seemed impossible when you moved to the States. But here you are.”
“That was a different situation entirely. I was twenty-one. I have a child now.”
“Fine. I get that. But here’s what I recommend. As your advisor, but also as a friend. Apply. Get an interview. Talk up your research and your student reviews. And once you have an offer in hand, then you make the decision. But don’t think about logistics yet. Stay focused on getting the offer.”
* * *
Suresh and Vega’s interactions were as pleasant and mechanical as ever. One Saturday, as they were driving to the dentist, she found a bobby pin in the cup holder of his car. She didn’t bother mentioning it. She was coming to enjoy their time together, the quiet meditativeness. The sudden lifting of pressure.
Her only source of anxiety was the Louisiana State interview, arranged to take place by phone during the first week of April. In the days leading up to it, she assured herself that it was simply a screening, nothing more, that she was unlikely to advance. The call was scheduled with an associate professor, a scholar of family and criminology, and Vega managed to find a copy of her book—Birth Behind Bars at the Low Library. She told Suresh she had a late meeting, rode the subway to 116th Street, and spent the evening on the same couch where she used to study during her Columbia days. She practiced her talking points obsessively—on the train, on her way to and from campus, as she moved from one household task to another. But in the end, the conversation moved so quickly she couldn’t remember any of the lines she had rehearsed. And then, two weeks later, the call came from the department.
It had seemed needlessly cruel to tell Suresh about the interview in advance. But the offer was a different matter. That night, she lay next to him in bed. He was reading a novel. Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music, borrowed from Mohan. The entire exchange puzzled her—Mohan possessing a novel to begin with, Suresh having any interest in literature. She would have assumed he wasn’t actually reading, using the book to avoid conversation, but occasionally he grunted, seemingly surprised by the events on the page.
“I have some news.”
He looked up. Asha was asleep, and the room felt large and quiet without her presence to distract them. Vega breathed deeply. She had spent so many hours preparing for her interview, but this was the hard conversation, the one she should have rehearsed.
“I have an offer. It’s an assistant professor position.”
“That’s wonderful news. CUNY itself?”
“Suresh, these positions are incredibly rare. Nobody is hired from their own doctoral program.”
He put the book down and Vega stared at the cover. A soothing, aquatic blue. A man’s torso. What in hell was he reading?
“Where, then?” he asked.
“Louisiana. Baton Rouge.”
“How can we do that? My work is here.” He picked at the side of his thumb. He had stopped chewing on his cuticles, but this—the finger picking—seemed to be the last vestige of the habit. In a moment, Vega knew, he would clench his fists to stop himself, the way he always did.
“Suresh. You deserve to be happy. Fully happy.” Her throat was tight, and it hurt to get the words out.
“There are couples who live together,” Suresh said. “They stay in the same house, just to raise their children. It’s possible.”
“Suresh.” She felt as though she were holding the last two years of her life in her palm, finally able to see them with clarity. Of course, he had loved her. Of course, she couldn’t have loved him back—not as his wife, at least. But she had never before cared for him as much as she did in that moment.
He was quiet for an unbearably long time. Then he said, “She needs to go to the doctor regularly.”
“Of course she does, Suresh. Why would we not take her to the doctor?”
“I’m with you when you take her. Each time.”
“Maybe we can arrange to take her together, still. We can discuss that.”
“You never talk about your sister. Everything I know about her, your mother told me. Heart conditions are genetic.”
“Ashwini’s condition was different, Suresh.”
“I know. Tetralogy of Fallot.”
She steadied herself. “It’s entirely treatable in infancy. Any American hospital, nowadays, will detect it early. The problem was that we didn’t. Unless you catch it in the beginning, it’s hopeless.”
She had never been able to say this aloud, or even admit it to herself. If somebody had looked at Ashwini at birth, had examined her hands and noticed the telltale clubbed fingers, she would have needed nothing more than a surgical heart procedure. A shunt operation, it was called. When Asha was born, Vega had pressed her hands flat and examined her fingers. “There’s no reason to think anything is wrong,” the pediatrician had said. He talked to her slowly, with a rehearsed patience, as though Vega were a hysterical mother, pumped full of hormones and old-world superstition. But even when the echocardiogram revealed nothing, when the chest X-rays were perfectly normal, Vega asked him over and over: What if there’s something you’re not seeing?
Now, Suresh asked the same question. “How do you know she’s healthy?”
“I specifically asked. She’s healthy. I’ll continue taking care of her. And so will you.”
He didn’t respond. She put her hand on his arm. “I want you to begin your life. That may be easier, at the beginning at least, if you have some distance.”
“There’s distance, and then there is too much distance.”
“I’m thankful for it all, Suresh. And I’m so glad we have her.”
He was crying now, quietly, staring at the ceiling. She relaxed her grip on his arm, but let it rest there. They fell asleep with the light on.
22
They spent the second half of the summer in Chennai, Suresh staying with his parents and Vega with hers. They had planned for Asha to divide the time between sets of grandparents, but she was too unsettled and jet-lagged to be moved from home to home. In New Jersey, she had breastfed occasionally, more from habit than hunger. In India, she chewed on Vega’s nipple throughout the day and held on to her breast at night. Vega saw Gayatri only twice. The first was a stilted visit at Vega’s home, Rukmini hovering over them with more tea and biscuits as Asha sat on the floor, scratching at a heat rash spreading across her neck. The second time, Vega left Asha with Rukmini. Suresh and his parents planned on coming later, and it seemed easier to leave than to explain the condition of their marriage.
“What do I say to P.N. and Kamala?” Rukmini whispered, following Vega onto the steps. “How do I explain why you aren’t here?” Vega’s own parents had been surprised when she told them about the divorce, less by the fact of it than the timing. “I rather assumed you would wait until Asha was older,” her mother had said. But P.N. and Kamala, Vega knew, were a different matter. They were old-fashioned. Divorce, in their minds, was something that existed in faraway tabloids. Bollywood actors. Charles and Diana.
“Suresh has told them, Amma. They understand.”
“Yes. But what do I say to them?”
“Just be normal, please.” She paused. “And kind. Just be kind to them.”
Vega met Gayatri on the beach. They had planned on getting lunch, but instead, dropped onto the sand and slid off their shoes. “We can eat here,” Gayatri said. “I can get us a pizza or some pakoras or whatever.” They stared at the restaurants in the distance, simple shacks with overpriced food, usually crowded with Europeans. “That’s fine with me,” Vega said. But neither of them moved.
“How are you?” Gayatri asked. “Tell me honestly.”
“I don’t know. Fine, I think.” After a pause, she said, “Asha isn’t usually so fussy. She was just overwhelmed.”
“That is what you think I’m worried about?”
“I know that isn’t what you were talking about. I just want you to know she’s a happy baby.”
“I have no doubt she is. And that you’re a happy mother. At least, with respect to her.”
“That’s true. I am happy.” She hadn’t fully realized, until saying it aloud, how true that was. Being with Asha made her happy. Being Asha’s mother made her happy.
“Well then? What’s the plan? And don’t bullshit me. I’m not Rukmini.”
“Suresh is going to stay in Chennai a few extra weeks. He has the vacation time saved up. I want to go to Baton Rouge and get settled. He’ll follow with the things we left in New Jersey and spend a few days with us.”
“And then he goes back to New Jersey?”
“For the time being.”
“Is there any plausible way, really, he could end up in Baton Rouge? Long-term.”
“Houston is a possibility. We’ve discussed it. He would be closer, at least.”
“In that case, why pretend? Make your arrangements. Every two weeks, every month, whatever it is. People divorce. Even here, it’s becoming more and more common.” She dug her feet deeper into the sand. “And Asha will adjust to whatever it is.”
“People always say that about children,” Vega said. “I don’t actually think it’s true.”
“Then that will be her challenge,” Gayatri said. “God knows we all have something. But if you stayed unhappily married, then that would be her challenge.”
“Fair point.”
“My only advice? Be honest. Decide what you and Suresh want. Be direct with each other, and with everyone else.”
Despite Vega’s efforts to linger at the beach with Gayatri, Suresh and his parents were still at the house when she returned. They seemed on the verge of leaving, but Vega soon realized it was a prolonged departure that, by the pace of things, could have started hours earlier. Kamala was crying in a silent, shaking manner that made Vega want to apologize, to take it all back, to return to New Jersey and undo the entire separation. It was such a sad display that Vega expected the entire house to be mired in sympathy. But Rukmini was refilling a bowl of pistachios. Asha was napping on the floor. The men were standing next to the bookshelf, discussing steel exports.
Kamala hugged her. The men didn’t look up. Vega heard P.N. say, “Make no mistake! China is still our top buyer.”
“Seeing you is like a dream,” Kamala said. They walked outside and sat on the steps. Vega gripped her mother-in-law’s hands. She had known women like Kamala her entire life—women so desperate to please, so blindingly happy with the happiness of others—and she had always found them vapid. In her mother-in-law, though, those qualities had been endearing. Now, they were the qualities that broke Vega’s heart.
“You’re a good mother,” Kamala said. “I know you’ll take good care of Asha, always.”
Vega fingered her bangle. She had meant to remove it earlier and set it aside to be returned to Kamala. She couldn’t possibly do that now. It would require procuring some Vaseline, and the process would seem uncomfortably ceremonial. Maybe she would send it to Rupa, if Rupa and Suresh eventually married. It would be her way of giving them her blessing, telling them she was happy for them, that everything had turned out for the best.
* * *
Rukmini sobbed on the drive to the airport, but Vega was too nauseated by the traffic and diesel to feel any emotion.
“It’s the stop-and-go,” her father said. “It’s terrible these days.”
The traffic hadn’t, in fact, changed considerably in the four years since Vega had been home, and she knew her father was talking just to distract them. Still, the sound of his voice was comforting. At the gate, Rukmini was still too emotional for coherence, but her father pulled Vega to him. It was the first time they had hugged since her childhood. Even when she left India for the first time, he had simply shaken her hand, checked that the envelope from ICICI Bank was tucked securely in her purse, and delivered some parting wisdom on the dangers of credit card theft. But now he squeezed her so tightly, she was afraid she would hurt him. She could feel his ribs. She could lift him off the ground if she wanted to.
On the plane, Asha nursed ravenously, biting down when Vega’s supply was depleted. In her delirium, Vega was reminded of the tube squeezer her father affixed to the end of his toothpaste. Somewhere over Northern Europe, they both dozed off. Vega woke, even more delirious. She tried—propelled by the habits of marriage—to pass a sleeping Asha to the man next to her. But the man wasn’t Suresh. He was a stranger, whose thick arms spilled over onto her seat. He was watching an action movie. A car chase, followed by a shoot-out in a parking lot. Vega tried to go back to sleep, but the images pulsed on the screen, even with her eyes closed.
