Mrs. Sengupta, understanding that she would be getting a male tour guide—Ronnie didn’t hire women for fear that they might distract his employees and male clients—requested that Ronnie provide a female companion/travel partner, for an appropriate extra charge, of course. In short, Mrs. Sengupta was looking to hire someone to be her friend. Ronnie, who had no friends himself, was unsure about hiring one for someone else. He wished, not for the first time in his life, that escort meant just that, and not a woman who pretended to be one’s girlfriend.
Ronnie’s first instinct was to enlist his wife, Anita. It had seemed like the perfect solution, he remembered, munching glumly on a handful of dried peppermint leaves. He liked to switch between remedies for his stomach, hoping together they might work. Ronnie shook his head as he remembered proudly presenting his plan to Anita at dinner, Thai for her, stomach soothers for him. He had stirred his yogurt with a resigned sigh as Anita happily devoured a papaya salad, comforting himself with his brilliant idea. He was just leaning back in satisfaction when Anita surprised him by laughing her large braying laugh.
“Oh, absolutely not, Big Nose!” Anita’s favorite pet name for Ronnie was one he hated. “Surely you must make joke. No way, no how, nowhere. Over my ashes, as they say.”
Ronnie, stunned, said nothing, not even correcting her English, an opportunity he rarely passed up. They had agreed to speak English to each other for at least an hour a day, using it as a chance to try out new words and idioms that they might have been fearful to try out on strangers. Ronnie loved to assume an air of superiority, having been in America for so much longer than Anita, but the truth was, she was a far faster learner than he.
He realized, sighing through his peppermint leaves, that he should have expected this from his wife, but at the time, almost a month ago, he was flabbergasted. It sometimes troubled him how Anita was nothing like what she was supposed to have been. He had specifically asked for a wife who would be, like the families he guided, enraptured with his intellect and his knowledge. Instead, he had gotten Anita.
Although he enjoyed the freedoms of America, when Ronnie had decided to get married, he looked for his bride in Bangladesh. He had met nice Bangladeshi girls in America through his uncle and the growing network of Bangladeshi friends and neighbors who had flooded into Jackson Heights in the years since Ronnie had arrived. However, he had found the women raised between Bangladesh and America to be too much of everything. They were bold, these girls; they looked him directly in the eyes, they ventured to touch his shoulder when he made them laugh, and they sat too close at movies and meals. It made him uncomfortable. He would never be the authority with a girl like that. He had to look to the old country.
He called his mother, who was initially annoyed to be disturbed during her favorite soap opera but forgave all when she heard his reason for doing so. She nodded constantly through the conversation, because she had never really understood that her face wasn’t visible across the phone line. After hearing Ronnie’s careful stipulations, she concluded that she had just the girl in mind, her friend’s sister’s daughter’s niece, Anita Das. Anita would do very nicely for Ronnie; she spent her days in her home helping her mother, who was, by all accounts, an excellent cook, which meant that Anita herself must have inherited this ability.
For her part, Anita was not actually consulted at any level, but if she had been, she would have been thrilled by the new match. Not because Ronnie Munshi, a skinny child she could barely remember from the village school years ago, seemed to be any great prize, but because marrying him would be a one-way ticket to America. Anita would have consented to an Indian husband, a Pakistani husband, even a Chinese husband, had one presented himself, because they would have all meant the same thing to her: escape. Her family was not an unhappy one: she was not beaten any more than was deemed strictly necessary by her parents; she had been allowed to complete several years at the local school, and even took classes and received a junior degree from a two-year college in the nearest city. Still, Anita had been born, she had been told, looking up at the world, emerging from the birth canal with her eyes open and unblinking. Ever since then, she hadn’t been able to stop looking for something better or deeper or just more.
She had been considering her own escape seriously, hoarding little bits of money in a hole in the ground in a corner outside of her father’s house, when the offer from Ronnie finally reached her, relayed through a series of long-distance interactions. This was two weeks after Ronnie had first contacted his mother, but eventually her mother deigned to explain to Anita that she had, at long last, found a husband, despite her tanned skin and disinterest in domestic duties. Her dance of joy was interrupted by her mother’s reminder that now would be an excellent time to learn to cook. Her major selling point had been her cooking abilities, passed down, it had been assured, from her mother. Anita merely laughed. Her mother slapped her hard, but that rebellious giggle was worth it. Her mother didn’t matter anymore. Anita was already far away.
Though Ronnie had been certain that his delicate country-bred bride might find the US of A overwhelming, the reality was that Anita took to America like a fish to water. Initially, she had been worried about only two things. One was the food, and the other was the bedroom. However, Ronnie, who had never been with a real live woman, lasted all of twenty seconds after entering his virginal bride for the first time, and it would take him several years to improve on this performance. While not exactly a pleasant experience, it was, for Anita, a mercifully short one that seemed to give her new husband pleasure and, more importantly, a deep sleep.
As for the food issue, Anita very quickly discovered takeout by means of Chinese food menus that were slipped under their apartment door, and that was that.
While Ronnie had carried an expatriate’s love of home and hearth, Anita had spent her childhood and adolescence in the Bangladesh of reality, rather than the lovely and lush country village of Ronnie’s imagination. Initially confused and disappointed in his wife, Ronnie sought the advice of his aunt and uncle, hoping to find someone to dictate Anita’s behavior more effectively than he had managed to do. But Ronnie was out of luck, for Anita, with her quick mind, respectful disposition, and easy laughter, was seen as brave, funny, and adaptable. Instead of Anita’s changing, it was Ronnie who grew to see his wife’s abilities and interests as, if not attractive, then certainly rather useful at work.
But not this time, apparently. He begged, he implored, but Anita stood firm.
“You are thinking this madam will be so thrilled to see a nice brown female face she will dance for joyousness, yes?”
Ronnie nodded slowly. He had, indeed, been thinking along those lines.
“You are ten kinds of an idiot. This Kolkata auntie will take one look at me and swim back home. Look at me!”
Ronnie surveyed his wife. She looked very nice in her hot-pink spandex leggings and teal polyester tunic, he thought. Her bangles, all neon plastic, provided a nice contrast to the two other elements, and her sneakers were bright silver and purple.
“Even for dinner with Uncle I don’t wear sari nonsense. This memsahib will expect someone from another century. I can’t do it, Ronnie baby, just haven’t the wardrobe!” Anita licked her fingers. “And besides. Two weeks traveling around dull towns with an Indian -auntie judging my every movement? It’s been too long for me, nah, I’m too USA now for such things. No thank you.”
Anita raised her trim body up and gave her disappointed spouse a peck on the cheek.
“Sorry, Big Nose. It’s not for me.”
Ronnie knew better than to try to convince her, or worse, order her. Ronnie was no match for his wife, a village flower with an iron will. He would have to think of something soon. Mrs. Sengupta was one client, but that’s how it began. Disappoint one person, and the rest stop giving you the chance to do so. He could not afford for his business to fail. He could not be one of those men who clung on to life and thought about what they used to be. He would have to accommodate the widow, if that meant forcing Anita