Kalyana Read online

  I wanted her to tell me that a woman’s strength is hidden, yet encompassing. That just as a movement is only as good as its leader, so is a household only as good as its mother. This was the power that had been bequeathed to a mother, to a woman, for generations upon generations past, and that would stand for centuries to come.

  But my mother did none of these things. Instead, she spoke in a slow, self-assured manner, like an actor delivering a monologue on the Broadway stage, and she imparted what seemed like others’ wisdom, telling another woman’s tale. She whispered what I already knew: “Everyone in this world is granted one beginning and one ending, Kalyana. Life is made up of what is in between: the connections, the discoveries, the triumphs, and the losses. Some of these inspire us, some mold us, and some destroy us. But remember that no experience leaves our spirits untouched. Remember that, Kalyana. Remember that wherever you go.” She forced a faint smile, kissed my forehead and, following my father and Raju, she hurried out of the room.

  I left the gold snake charm on the windowsill in the empty flat.

  CANADA

  The wind blows me away

  Away to another home

  As the clouds keep drifting above me

  The mountains cry out to tell me something

  But all I can hear is the melody the stream creates,

  Close by me

  The smell of spring fills my soul with dreams

  Dreams of another exciting adventure

  I open my heart and hug the new life before me

  And I see the rainbow

  Making sweet and sour promises to me again

  Just like yesterday

  27

  A fat man with a fluffy white beard and a red-and-white suit walked up and down the corridors of the airport, screaming “Ho-Ho-Ho” and jingling golden bells. Another one dressed just like him sat in a busy open restaurant, eating fries smothered in cheese curds, gravy, and ketchup. I wrinkled my nose at the sight. Kirtan said it was called poutine.

  “Father Christmas,” I said, nudging Kirtan on the arm. This was the first time I had seen one in person.

  “I think they call them Santa Clauses here,” Kirtan whispered back. The sound of airplanes landing and taking off filled the air, and my heart lurched a little as I thought of the tiny strip in Nadi, now left far behind. I noticed that Kirtan’s hands were trembling as he sorted out our passports and documents. He had seemed so strong, so sure, back in Fiji, but for the first time I realized that the anxiety of starting a new life in a foreign country must have drained him, too. He seemed to have aged a few years in the past week.

  Kirtan’s sister and brother-in-law, who had emigrated to Canada already, met us outside the glass doors. They moved fluidly through the chaos of Vancouver International Airport, not batting an eye once at the serious security guards who were running baggage through scanners and frowning over the arriving passengers. They did not seem to notice eager relatives standing behind the glass doors, hoping to see familiar faces. Nor did they stare at a young couple who embraced passionately and flooded each other’s faces and necks with soft kisses, leaving behind red patches where lips had grazed upon skin. My mother would have stared at them. Kirtan and I tried not to.

  Young people locking hands and lips in broad daylight was something that we had never seen on the streets of Suva, Lautoka, Nausori, or Labasa. Even if such a thing had happened, it would have ended quickly. The brothers and cousins of the young girl would have beaten the boyfriend until his white T-shirt was soaked in his blood.

  Kirtan’s sister and brother-in-law put our bags in their car and drove us to their home, leaving the airport and its strange people behind.

  If I had known the significance of the month of December for Canadians, I would have urged Kirtan to select another month to move here. I found the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season overwhelming; from morning to night, the streets were congested with strangers rushing in and out of stores with shopping bags over their shoulders or wound around their fingers. Some wore designer jackets in bright, vibrant colors, while others walked the streets in plain coats. Women sported perms that made their hair dry and frizzy. Some wore electric-blue eyeshadow.

  One man wore a skirt, with fishnet stockings and high heels. People snickered and stared at him as if he was a foreign animal trapped in a zoo. He reminded me of the young boy who lived a few apartments down from Kirtan and me back in Suva. He went to the clubs every weekend, dressed in ladies’ clothes and heels. Strangely, in Fiji, nobody had stared at him disapprovingly, the way they would have glared at the passionately kissing teenagers. I wondered if I would ever become used to this place.

  Women were different here, too, in the way they carried themselves and in the way they dressed. They trotted the streets quickly and confidently, wrapped in cardigans and wool coats. I saw women wearing pants, and I thought of Manjula strutting in our living room. For a moment, I wished I had thought to practice wearing pants before coming to Canada.

  Some young boys shaved the sides of their heads and dyed the small remaining strip of hair on the top of their heads red and blue. It stood upright like a strange flag. Beggars—“bums,” they called them here—lined the city streets, asking for money and cigarettes.

  One day, in the drizzling rain, I bought a cup of hot chocolate for a bum with a straggly gray beard. He reminded me of the healer whose strange words had lifted the cloud of breathlessness from me long ago. Unlike the healer, however, he didn’t smile; his eyes were full of suspicion as he grabbed the hot chocolate from my hand. I felt an unpleasant shiver rush through me as his leathery hand touched mine. He didn’t whisper a quiet prayer or offer silent blessings. Nor did he wish my family goodness and prosperity like the beggars in Fiji had always done. As he stared unblinking, tremors ran through both of his hands. He licked the hot chocolate off his lips and smirked devilishly. It was his smirk that reminded me of Uncle Baldev, and instantly I felt my breath grow still in my lungs. There was a bitter taste at the back of my throat. I left the man abruptly, but the sound of his hollow laugh followed me into the distance.

  I looked around me as I hurried away. In this Christmas season, lights blinked in every store. Most of the displays glowed with gaudily decorated trees. I was a speck in a large crowd, small and invisible. I wished fervently that I had listened to my mother, that I had not left the gold snake charm behind on the windowsill. A small part of me longed for the comfort of the smooth metal resting gently in the palm of my hand.

  Yet gradually we became accustomed to the strange sights and sounds that were Canada. The Sky Train schedules, bus routes, and downtown streets were soon imprinted on our minds. By the time we moved into our own flat, we could already navigate Vancouver almost as quickly as Kirtan’s sister and her husband.

  We had also learned what streets to avoid when we set out for a stroll. East Hastings spelled bad news; it was here that scantily dressed women walked the streets in stiletto heels, and bags of white powder and green herbs were exchanged freely for rolls of crisp bills. Police cars blazed through the narrow streets there, sirens shrieking, chasing unknown ill-doers. On East Hastings, the concrete walls were painted with obscenities and crude displays. The public called it “graffiti,” the art of the untamed, said Kirtan’s brother-in-law.

  Some argued that this graffiti was a movement. But it did not fill me with hope. Though the air might be the clearest of clear, every time I walked by East Hastings my heart would start to beat at a fierce speed and my breath would come in gasps. I was twelve again, waiting for darkness to overtake me. If I fell, would anyone help me? Or would the untamed crowd of East Hastings pounce on me and carry me back to its graffiti-plastered dens? It wasn’t until I had left the area far behind that my chest would once more release, allowing my breath to flow freely and easily again.

  During my first year in Canada, while Kirtan was busy balancing the books o
f a Canadian company, I boarded the bus that was going in the opposite direction of East Hastings and went down to Stanley Park—where the tourists, with cameras draped around their necks or video cameras tightly gripped in their hands, roamed the paths in white sneakers and flat shoes. Lines of people with little children impatiently awaited their turn to enter the aquarium, where they could gaze at the beluga whales swimming in circles in a large tank or watch dolphins eat fish out of their trainers’ hands. Inside the Aquarium, noisy sea otters sat on rocks in a small pond, their noses up in the air like the sister-in-law of Manjula’s first suitor. Barely noticing the crowds around them, they sat flapping their tiny flippers and making high-pitched squeals.

  I never watched the sea creatures do their tricks, however, for I longed for something quieter and more intimate, somewhere far from the chattering crowds. I would walk along the natural paths in the wooded area, observing the details on the totem poles and staring at the high, triangular pine trees that reached for the clouds. I would stand on the seawall and dream of home, as I watched the calm seas.

  A familiar breeze would blow through my hair, though the air was crisp and even chilly, not pungent with warm saltiness. I couldn’t take off my shoes and hop over the seawall. There were no sandy beaches or yards of shell-scattered shores, no small crabs that disappeared into holes in the sand. Here, six feet of freezing water flowed below, and flying seagulls squawked in the sky. In Vancouver I never heard the pundit chant Sanskrit verses in the far distance, nor the sound of my mother grating coconut on a small wooden board.

  It was so cold, so bleak, so bustling. But standing there on the seawall in Stanley Park, looking at the deep ocean grays stretching to the horizon, I felt the smallest fraction closer to home. If I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in, I could almost feel the humid, salty air graze my skin. The scent of jasmine and frangipani flowers blooming in the setting sun did not seem so far away. As I stood and felt the spray of surf, I would reflect upon my old home and this new place that Kirtan and I would slowly make our own. In Canada the smell of curry did not linger in the breeze, but perhaps with time I could learn to love the scent of pine.

  What I missed most about Fiji were the holidays. Even though at home I had huffed and sighed sometimes at my mother’s celebrations, I still remembered the graceful stories she had told. In Canada, people told stories of baby Jesus and not of Rama, Lakshman, and Sita. Everyone waited for Christmas, never for the lighting of the diyas of Diwali, and they indulged in the sound of fire crackling in their fireplaces, never the blast of firecrackers piercing the dark skies.

  “Why do we celebrate Diwali, Mummy?” Once again I was five years old, clinging to my mother’s sari.

  “Questions, questions!” she would sigh, but I always knew she loved to give the answers. “With his faithful brother Lakshman on his right-hand side, the divine king Rama left his jeweled crown on his dying father’s pillow,” she would begin. “He strapped on his bow and arrow and took out for the woods to rescue his beloved wife, Sita. Even though Sita was a common girl, a common girl whose chastity was in question even in those days.” My mother would soak the white cotton wicks in ghee and light them with a matchstick, one by one.

  “What does chastity mean, Mummy?”

  “Never mind what it means, Kalyana.” She would blink her round eyes to brush my question aside. “Do you want to hear the story or not?”

  I would nod my head, eager and alert.

  “Ravana kept Sita imprisoned in a small hut, in a wooded area. Oh, Ravana thought he could one day convince her to forget about her husband, Rama, and become his kept wife. For fourteen years, God Rama fought lions and tigers, cheetahs and cougars, wolves and hounds, bears and gorillas too. Oh yes, every animal, Kalyana, and more, for he even fought four-limbed and three-eyed monsters, hideous beasts of demonic nature. Yet he defeated them. One by one, the beasts would fall to the ground, panting and weak, then take their last breaths and turn to dust. In the end, after fourteen long years of exile, the victorious divine King Rama killed the demon Ravana and rescued his beloved wife, Sita, and brought her home. That is why we light the pathways, the verandas, and the gardens. It is to help him find his way back home.”

  I would start to talk about the princes and princesses of my fairy tales, but my mother would shake her head. She would tell me that no, to celebrate Diwali was to celebrate the defeat of evil and the triumph of good, to mark the end of Rama’s suffering. “See, Kalyana,” she would say, “even a divine force such as Rama was not without trials and tribulations. He, too, suffered, like any other mortal being.”

  Even now, in the quietness of Stanley Park, I could hear my mother’s stories ring in my ear. And in spite of myself, I longed for that day when diyas would light the pathways, under the overhanging fruit trees, and, like Rama, I courageously returned home.

  28

  It was not long before Kirtan and I moved into another dwelling, leaving our small flat for a two bedroom townhouse in the outskirts of Vancouver, a place Canadians called “the suburbs.” Our larger house was cheaper than our flat, something which mystified even Kirtan.

  I was delighted to find that the back door led onto an attached deck and a small patch of green grass. In the middle of the yard, which was surrounded by a brown wooden fence, a crabapple tree stood tall, shading the deck—a reminder of the many fruit trees that lined the back and front yards of houses in Fiji. But soon I realized that, while the fruit from the trees in Fiji were almost always picked by the locals for sale in the markets, the crabapples from the tree in my backyard landed on the ground or on our deck, making a mess. It did not take me long to come to regret this tree. For every time I stepped outside into the backyard, I trod on rotten and squishy crabapples that stuck to my shoes or bare feet and tracked back onto the clean tiled floors of my kitchen. I did not know what to do with the hundreds and hundreds of crabapples that smiled upon me every morning.

  One day, full of exasperation and defeat, I was on my deck, contemplating this tree, when our neighbor came out her back door. I had noticed her on her deck before this, standing erect, sipping a hot drink and laughing with her husband. She was petite, with strong shoulders, and she had long, lustrous black hair, small brown eyes, and a warm, charming smile. In so many ways, she reminded me of our Manjula.

  “Hello, neighbor,” she said, smiling broadly.

  I smiled back.

  “I’m Angela,” she said from over the fence.

  I hesitated.

  Angela walked closer to the edge of her deck. “I wish I had that crabapple tree in my yard. Then I could have made jam.”

  I sighed in relief. “Please, come and take them all. I was just standing here wondering what I would do with so many crabapples in my backyard.”

  Angela climbed down from her deck, and joined me. Still thinking of Manjula, I hurriedly sliced limes and squeezed their juices into a clear jug. I filled it with cold water and ice, then mixed in a few tablespoons of sugar. “Lemonade,” I said, pouring the cloudy liquid into a tall glass. I handed it to Angela.

  “You mean, limeade?”

  I squinted.

  “Lemonade is made with lemons, no?” Angela smiled, taking a sip.

  “In Fiji, lemonade is always made with limes, never lemons,” I said, and we both laughed at the strange look she gave me. The difference between lemonade and limeade was one of the first small details that Angela made me see differently.

  Angela and I spent the afternoon collecting bags full of crabapples, some green and some red. As we chatted and laughed, and she told stories of her adventures abroad, I remembered Mother and Manjula; I remembered Mother and Roni. That afternoon, I realized that I had never before had a female friend.

  From that day, Angela came to my house regularly: for afternoon tea; or to collect more crabapples; or to drop off homemade jam—which Kirtan and I loved. Sometimes she came over simply t
o talk. Angela was unlike any other Indian women I knew. She talked quickly and confidently—in perfect English tinged with a Canadian accent. She walked with an assurance and self-confidence that I had only seen in white-skinned women on Vancouver streets. Often I thought of Manjula, when I gazed upon Angela’s small face, and the way my aunt had been: smirking and giggling, breaking tradition, shifting the gears of an automobile as she rode down the bumpy Fiji roads.

  Sometimes I wondered what my mother would think of Angela. I thought she might insist that I stay away. For Angela was one of those women to be feared, to be reproached. She was living with a man whom she called her husband, without the pundit chanting Sanskrit prayers over an open fire, without receiving her father’s blessing, and without watching her mother’s tears of happiness. Yet she lived without shame, without regret. Sometimes, when they were both home on the weekends, she brought her partner over to visit with Kirtan.

  Kirtan teasingly called her a coconut. He said she was brown on the outside, but white on the inside. “She’s not a real Indian, Kalyana,” he would whisper, as if our new neighbor could hear him if he spoke in a normal tone. “That is why she married a white guy named Grog.”

  “It’s not Grog, Kirtan. It’s Greg.” I would shake my head while he chuckled. In Fiji, “grog” was another term for the popular hallucinogenic drink yaqona. I never did tell Kirtan that Angela and Greg were not truly married, like we were. I was not sure what Kirtan would think of my new friend if he knew. In time, I figured, he would come to know on his own.