Issue 19

Anu Kandikuppa

Srini had not wanted to hit the grocery store owner—he had done it only to make his wife Priya happy. She’d always been difficult to live with and was becoming more difficult every day, carping and complaining, pecking and prodding him to the point where he said to himself with grim humor, over and over again, hardly aware of how repetitive the thought was: I may as well be living with a chicken. From the time they got married, Srini was aware of a gap between them, a mismatch. She wanted something from him—her marriage, her life—that he simply wasn’t able to give. She didn’t hesitate to let him know that she found him wanting and so, for months before the grocery store incident, Srini had been terrified she’d leave him.

The day of the incident, they’d set out around one p.m. as usual to go to Monsoon, an Indian restaurant in a strip mall near their house. Eating the lunch buffet there had been their Saturday ritual for years. The parking lot was almost full when they reached it—Monsoon wasn’t posh, but the food was good, and popular with Indians and Americans alike. After driving around for a bit, Srini managed to find a spot with lots of space around it and began backing the car in. Srini always parked in reverse because it was safer. He was a careful man.

Priya sat wedged in the passenger seat in loose jeans and a huge flowered top, her face puffy from lethargy and her pregnancy—she was seven months pregnant. All during the ride, she’d clutched at her tummy and moaned that she was hungry, her hair swinging in lank strips about her face. She did this even when Srini was going seventy miles an hour, making him so anxious that his hands shook and his head drummed. One day, he thought, he’d press the accelerator instead of the brake or put the car in reverse instead of drive—make a mistake and hit someone. How horrible that would be! Lives and limbs lost only because two people wasted their time fighting.

“Hurry up,” said Priya. She did nothing to help him though, just pulled down the mirror to inspect her face. “Why do you park like you’re docking a spaceship, looking to left and right a thousand times? There’s not a soul around, for God’s sake.” It was what she said whenever Srini was parking, her words dripping with scorn as if she were a queen. Yet look at her, thought Srini. Was it his imagination, or was she really so fat that her wrist completely engulfed her watch? There were no angles at all to her face, and her nose was just a round little button plugged between her plump cheeks.

Naturally. She’d been eating more than ever since she became pregnant, something Srini hadn’t thought possible. And if he wasn’t mistaken, the clothes she was wearing were the same she’d worn all week. She dressed badly on purpose, came back from work and threw on things she’d worn the day before. If Srini took the bait and said, “Why don’t you go and buy yourself some nice new clothes?” she launched into a tirade about how they didn’t make enough money. It wasn’t true. It was just one of the ways in which she liked to wear him down, God knew why.

In theory there was no reason for them to not get along. They’d both grown up in India in conservative Brahmin families, but Priya hated everything about the way she was raised. She collected hates like other people collected coffee mugs and sneered at what she called the “three Indian gods of cleanliness, industry, and restraint,” sounding like she wanted to wring the gods’ necks. Sometimes Srini thought that, versus everything that was going well for him, his job, his health, Priya tipped the balance towards bad.

In spite of the pressure, he parked well, craning his neck this way and that, checking all three mirrors for obstacles, and finally aligning the car in the space. “A little to the left now,” he said. “A little to the right … don’t want to jolt you …”

“Ufff!” said Priya. As soon as he stopped the engine, she rolled out and waddled towards the restaurant. Srini saw that she’d coiled her hair into a greasy knot on top of her head while he was parking. It looked bad. He knew from her credit-card bills that she got expensive haircuts in big-name salons. Yet, out of sheer laziness, she didn’t wash her hair for weeks on end until it gave off the smell of a small wild animal. Something was always eating into her.

I may as well be living with a chicken, he thought.

The restaurant was teeming with people. A long line shuffled along the buffet counter, which was loaded with dishes—it seemed there was a special buffet today. There were several starters, at least ten main dishes, and maybe four desserts. Everything shone with ghee. Priya joined the line immediately, leaving Srini to get a table, which he did.

He sat down. He wasn’t hungry. He was careful about what he ate and didn’t like heavy Indian buffet food, but he had to bring Priya here every Saturday—she was mad for the food. In fact, his entire weekend was in her service. There was always this or that she needed him to do. That morning she’d woken up late as usual and sat glued to her armchair, eating donuts and directing Srini on jobs about the house—nailing in some coat hooks, putting up a mirror, opening some packages. He got to work happily—sank into a warm soup of domesticity—grateful to be able to do something for her. Every coat hook she bought, every package and pan, he saw as a sign she would stay. The hooks weren’t from Home Depot. They were made of ceramic and hand-painted with an intricate green motif. Who took time to pick nice coat hooks if they were going to leave? The hooks looked expensive. She had expensive tastes, while Srini was thrifty. He was also vegetarian, no seafood or chicken, and didn’t smoke, swear, or drink. He drank water or ginger ale and wouldn’t hold a glass of wine even for a toast. But Priya saw no glory in a small ginger ale, no ice.

The only thing that held out hope for them now was the baby. It was going to be a girl. Srini had almost cried when he saw the little beating heart on the ultrasound, but he was careful not to reach for Priya’s hand. It would have been embarrassing if she’d smacked his hand away in front of the doctor. He’d learned not to seem too happy about the baby. If he seemed happy, if he asked to lay a hand on her belly to feel a kick, Priya said, “Ufff!” and that it wasn’t fair she had to do all the work of carrying the baby. She didn’t care about logic. She blamed Srini for everything—the traffic, the weather, the laws of creation.

He watched her go slowly down the buffet line, keeling from side to side. Two young Indian men in dark jeans and polished black shoes flanked her in the line. Neither looked at her or tried to touch her. Srini used to do that sort of thing himself, reach for the same spoon or plate as a pretty girl in the hope that their fingers would touch—the thrill when it worked!  But the young men took no notice of Priya—they just talked to each other across her.

Why did he stand her nonsense? He knew people would think him slavish for standing her nonsense, but it was really no one’s business but his own. Every married couple must find their own equilibrium. This was theirs. Who would answer to him if she left? Who would bring her back? A syrupy sadness oozed out of the sockets of Srini’s eyes. Srini never used to feel sad. He used to think that as long as one did everything one was supposed to do, there was no need to feel sad. But the complex emotion never left him now.

Things had been different between them in the beginning, when he’d first brought her to America four years ago. She’d been duly impressed by the blue skies and clean air, got a job, and sang when she cooked. Small things about her had bothered him even then, like how she got the spices mixed up in the spice box—the coriander powder with the chili with the turmeric—so they became one brown mess that she spooned into the pan randomly while beating time with her foot to music: I wanna run, I wanna hide. I wanna tear down the walls that hold me inside. Srini had to take the spoon away from her and check what was going on in the pan, which was always fine—everything she made always turned out great. But he didn’t understand why she liked that type of grinding music and why she sometimes sliced the onions in poetically thin slices and sometimes in ragged chunks.

How long did the okay times last? A year? Srini couldn’t say. One evening he came home tired, hung up his jacket, took off his shoes, and walked into the kitchen, his mouth already watering, to find no dinner ready. Usually Priya came back from work before him and cooked dinner. But the counter was bare, while on the living room TV, Anthony Bourdain nibbled on something the shape of a small bird, its legs folded subserviently, motionless and dark red from being breaded and fried. “The beak is delicious,” Bourdain was saying. “Crispy. Just right!” Srini gagged. Still, he sat down next to Priya on the couch. She didn’t move. The tension was palpable. What awful thing had happened? Bourdain, in a horrible, wrinkled blue shirt, finished eating the bird, then took his rangy body and craggy face and prominent under-eye bags on board a deathtrap of a train, which he was going to ride into the boonies for twenty-four hours. He stretched out his long legs and grinned, looking badly in need of a shower and a nap. Srini liked people on TV to be well dressed and polished. It didn’t help that Bourdain, though unkempt, radiated confidence.

It was some time before Srini noticed the tears coursing down Priya’s cheeks and realized he was feeling oddly low himself.

“What’s wrong?” he asked gently.

“I don’t know,” said Priya. “I feel stuck. Out of a billion possible lives, this is mine. I always wanted an exciting life. Then I go signing up for the most ordinary one possible. I’ve always wanted adventure more than I wanted money. Now I have neither. The Charles River will flood. Blizzards will choke the city. The whole country will go to war. Tanks will roll down the highways, but you and I will get dressed and drive to work and toot at the tanks to get out of our way. I don’t know why I’m bothering to talk to you. You don’t drink or swear. You wear long johns. I’m going to be miserable and I’ll make you miserable, too.”

Srini stared at her—she’d never spoken so many words at a time to him before. “I do understand,” he said eagerly. “You want to take a break, travel. Let’s plan something for summer, a trip to—”

“No,” she said. “I don’t want trips with you and your camera. I don’t want picturesque canyons and geysers and driving trips in national parks.”

Srini was baffled and hurt. He’d spent a lot of money on those trips. What was wrong with geysers? He loved Old Faithful. Old Faithful had been very obliging for his camera.

Anyone would say they were mismatched.

For appetizers there were mini dosas, samosas, and bhel. Priya served herself all three, about which there was nothing wrong—the food was there to be eaten. She came to the table and sat down.

“Stop looking at my plate,” she said. “I told you I was hungry.”

“I’m not looking at your plate,” said Srini.

She folded a mini dosa into a square, pierced it with her fork, and ate it whole. She loved dosas. And rice. And potato chips. And chocolate. The evening Srini had first found her watching Bourdain, she’d flounced off after her speech and eaten two bags of chips and three bars of chocolate for dinner. She was mad for chocolate, hid bars upon bars in her lingerie drawer. Srini looked for them and took them away, averting his eyes from her expensive lacy underwear. Srini felt shy to look at Priya’s underwear and at her when she was changing. He was too shy to say the word “s*x”—it was a miracle it even happened. During it, Priya would snap, “Touch me only if you have to, and never with your hands. They’re too warm and too dry.” Somehow Srini did the job, no hands.

“You are looking at my plate,” she said. “In your judging way.”

“Eat as much as you like. You need to eat for the baby,” said Srini.

May as well be living with a chicken.

“I need to eat for me. Baby, baby, why’s it always about the baby?” She picked up the wine list and threw it on the floor. “Wine list. Why bother? We drink only small ginger ales, no ice.”

“You can have wine if you like. After the baby. I’ve always said that.”

“Easy to say. You don’t mean it.”

“I do mean it.”

“Have you really never tasted wine?”

“No.”

“Beer?”

“No?”

“Vodka?”

“No.”

“What in the world do you do at office parties when everyone’s drinking?”

“I told you. I drink soda. It’s perfectly fine. No one should have to drink alcohol.”

“You’re not even mildly curious about what alcohol tastes like?”

“No.”

“How do you know you won’t like something if you’ve never had it?”

Srini knew she was working herself up. He noticed how she filled the little dining chair to overflowing and how her thighs hung down the sides. What if she was bulking up for a reason? One kick from one of those legs, one swipe of that powerful forearm, and he would be chutney …

He was being silly. Buried somewhere in the loose jeans and huge flowered top, beneath the greasy topknot, was the girl in the photo he’d fallen in love with. A family friend had sent the photo to Srini’s mother. In it Priya wore a red top with blue embroidery and stood looking down at something. Her eyelids were swollen, her mouth curly and red. Instantly Srini was smitten. “But, kanna,” his mother had said, spooning caramel pudding—Srini’s favorite food when he was eight—into his mouth. “She doesn’t even smile.” Srini opened his mouth in a big aaa whenever the spoon approached but dug in his heels about the girl. And when he met her he laid himself out for her like a rug, sure she would love him.

He shifted in his chair.

“I don’t like even the smell of alcohol. But you can suit yourself. You can have whole glasses of wine. I’ve never stopped you.”

“You’re just saying that,” she said. “I can’t do it, because you don’t. I can’t eat Mexican, because you think the waiters lie and say the sauce is vegetarian even though there’s meat in it. I can’t eat Thai because you think the waiters lie and say they don’t use fish oil even though they do. I can’t do anything, because you don’t. You have no vices.”

Srini picked up the wine list from the floor and looked around to see if anyone had noticed they were quarreling. A couple with a toddler sat at the table next to them. The parents were immersed in the child and didn’t look at them.

No one was looking at them. No one was looking at Priya. Yes, the restaurant was busy, but a pretty woman never goes unnoticed. Srini remembered how people used to stare at Priya, starting with the day they landed at Logan Airport, when she was exhausted yet so fetching. The immigration officer was a young white male. “My wife,” Srini said, brimming with pride, and noticed how the man’s pupils contracted when he looked at Priya. Of course, all the Indian men they met ogled her too. Priya was more impressed by all of them than she was by Srini. Some Indians (peck) try new things, she said. Some Indians (peck) become adventurous when they come to America. They ski and run marathons (peck). They wear cargo shorts and tan on beaches (peck). They discuss wine and hold glasses filled with blood-red liquid in their long relaxed fingers instead of small ginger ales, no ice (peck).

May as well be living with a chicken.

“I do have a vice,” Srini said. “My vice is you. You’re bad for me, but I still want you.”

He didn’t know where the words came from or how he was able to look straight at Priya when he said them. Normally he couldn’t look straight at her, the way he couldn’t look straight at the sun. To his surprise she colored and looked away and didn’t give a pat answer.

Srini’s heart leaped. Maybe she wasn’t impervious to him.

“What sweet things you say,” she said. “What a good boy you are. Except you’re not. For example, why aren’t you eating anything? It’s because you want me to look greedy. You aren’t as good as you pretend to be. You feel stuck with me, too, but you won’t admit it even to yourself. Whatever else I am, at least I’m honest.”

The woman at the next table spooned something into the toddler’s mouth. “Oh, look, Ravi,” she said. “She’s trying to lick her chin!”

Srini felt like crying. It had become her new thing, to say that he only pretended to care about her. All he had was the conviction that his love would one day make things all right between them. She attacked that, too.

“Why would I feel stuck with you?” he said. “You’re pretty and smart. You’re good at so many things.”

“Rubbish,” she said. “I’m not pretty. I was but not anymore. You liked me for my looks, didn’t you? You wanted to marry me because of my photograph. Well, I don’t look nice now. Look at me. Look how fat my wrists are.”

She waved her wrists in Srini’s face.

“Stop it,” Srini said. The mother and baby turned to look at him. The baby smiled, but the mother didn’t.

Srini got up and went to the buffet line and piled his plate high to show Priya she was wrong and stuffed himself with the food when he came back. Priya ate steadily, too—all three starters and all ten entrées, one after the other. She ate and ate, and Srini let her because of the baby. He tried to focus on the baby—its lopsided smile, its tiny fingers curled around his. Whether Priya believed it or not, he wanted the baby to look like her. Her pout, her lanky hair, her lost look. Her peck, peck, peck? Srini heard a little voice whisper in his ear: Why’re you so cheap, Daddy? Why’re you so boring, Daddy? Then he heard Priya’s voice: Daddy can’t help it, honey. Daddy’s just being Daddy.

May as well be living with some chickens.

Out of nowhere, an errant thought, “If it wasn’t for Priya, I would have been hundred percent happy.”

“Where is she?” Srini’s mother would ask when she called. “In the bathroom? She’s always in the bathroom when I call. A girl who won’t talk to her husband’s mother makes a bad wife, Raja. She’ll ruin you. She’ll make you do things you’ll regret. Just tell me, and I’ll find you a better girl. Mistakes happen. Divorce is common even in India now.”

“She’s having a baby, Ma,” Srini said. “My daughter. Don’t you care?”

“It’s unfortunate,” his mother said. “But not impossible. I know people who’ve divorced after a baby.”

Priya finished dessert—a cup each of rice kheer and carrot halwa, and three gulab jamuns. From the dreamy look on her face, Srini knew she was thinking about dinner.

“You know that biryani recipe I keep talking about?” she said. “The Hyderabadi one with nuts and cream? I want to make it tonight, but we’re out of rice. Take me to the store, Srini!”

Why did he ever worry that she would leave him? She needed him for everything, made him drive her everywhere except to work. She didn’t bother with the nitty-gritty of bills and taxes, or how the phone service worked and where the water meter was. If a bulb went out or if her car made an odd noise, an imperious “Srini!” rang out instantly. The same when the doorbell sounded or the TV screen went black.

They left the restaurant.

Srini found an Indian grocery store nearby on his GPS and drove to it. It was smaller than the one they usually shopped in, but it was open.

“I’ll go,” said Priya. “I need to make sure I get the right things.”

“But you hate dealing with cashiers in Indian stores,” Srini reminded her. “They may not have your rice brand, and you’ll get mad at them.”

But Priya was already waddling away. “Think about what I said at lunch,” she said. She pushed open the store door, picked up a basket, and disappeared from sight. Srini watched the store, ready for anything. Sure enough she reappeared within minutes and waddled to the cashier, who was doing something at the counter, and began waving her arms and shouting. Srini could even hear her shout. Then she threw open the door and rolled at top speed towards the car.

When Srini got home from work, he always found Priya either watching Bourdain and crying or sitting in her armchair, wearing old clothes and a long face, something on her mind. He always tried first to pretend he hadn’t seen her. If the matter bothering her wasn’t serious, she got tired of waiting for him to notice and became normal. If the matter was serious, she jabbed him hard to get his attention.

Now was not one of the times that Srini could pretend he hadn’t seen her. He scrambled out of the car and said, “What happened?”

“Stupid man was rude to me,” she said. “I asked him why he didn’t carry Kohinoor, and he said he didn’t need me to tell him what he should sell. Who yells at a pregnant woman? How dare he make me run like this? Oh God, I feel faint.”

She cradled her belly in her hands and managed to look motherly.

“Aren’t you going to do anything about it?” she said.

Srini found himself walking into the store, Priya behind him. He walked up to the cashier, a hefty man with a mustache, and glared at him. Srini’s eyes were very big, made for glaring. His mother used to line them with kajal and make him look like little Lord Krishna. Srini also had thick, beetling eyebrows to go with his eyes.

“Yes, sir?” the cashier said.

“My wife said you were rude to her,” said Srini, his eyebrows bristling.

“That’s your wife, eh?” the cashier said. “I didn’t do anything. She started shouting at me because I don’t have Kohinoor. She can buy rice wherever she wants. I’m not forcing her to buy here.”

“That may be,” said Srini. “But she’s pregnant. Can’t you see? How can you yell at a pregnant woman?”

“Pregnant?” the man said. He shrugged. “I couldn’t tell.”

Whenever Srini thought about it later, he thought he must have hit the man because he couldn’t tell Priya was pregnant. Was she so fat? Was he implying there was no baby? What would happen to him and Priya in that case?

Whatever the reason, Srini gritted his small pointy teeth, took hold of the man’s collar, and pulled him around the counter. He drew his fist back and hit him three times on the nose. Blood poured from it. The man shouted weakly, but there was no one around to hear. Srini kept hitting him until he slumped to the floor and stopped moving. Then he kicked him a few times.

He felt calm, almost lighthearted. The only thought in his head was: surely, after this—after he’d beaten a man bloody and left him for dead—things between him and Priya couldn’t go back to where they’d been before?

Except that they could. Things could go back to exactly where they’d been before. This was just one little incident. It was too small. It had already not happened. The only thing left to discover was just how far he, Srini, would go to keep her with him.

Srini walked out of the store, Priya waddling hard to catch up. He got in the car and sat quietly for a moment before starting the engine. The knuckles of his right hand felt sore. He put them to his lips and kissed them. Priya pretended not to notice.

“You’re going to say you did that stupid, dangerous thing for me,” she said. “To make me happy.”

Srini started the car and drove out of the lot.

“What else should I say?” said Srini. “Believe it or not, I did it to make you happy. A Brahmin boy like me, being violent. Why would I want to hurt my green card application? You can be sure that man noted my car number and will call the police. Everything I do, I do to make you happy. You play hot, you play cold, you cry for no reason. But I’ll still do anything to make you happy. This is just the beginning. Wait and see what I will do!”

“Stop making long speeches. Won’t change a thing!”

Srini took the entry to the freeway. As he picked up speed, Priya picked up her carping.

“Now you’ll blame me if your green card gets delayed,” she shouted.

Srini swung into the exit for their home and drove along slowly.

“That’s right, blame me for everything that goes wrong in your life!” she shrieked.

Carp, carp, carp. Peck, peck, peck. Prod, prod, prod.

May as well be living with a chicken.