“I’m glad. Listen, have you thought about going back to school? These days everyone seems to need a graduate degree. I’d be happy to help with tuition.” Her voice rose at the end of the sentence, her way of making a suggestion without imposing.
I changed the subject to an ongoing conflict with her neighbour who’d built a fence ten inches over her property line. The issue had consumed her for months. She’ d sent two letters to her him and had met with her city councillor. I wondered why she hadn’t just knocked on the guy’s door and talked with him directly.
Two weeks later, I boarded an early train to Ottawa for a one o’clock interview, stumbled my way through the French oral exam, and then was interviewed by Anita McLeod. I was surprised that she was South Asian and wore a paisley-printed shalwaar kameez; her accent had sounded as Canadian as mine when we’ d spoken over the phone. After the initial formal interview questions, she spoke more casually. She revealed that she had just returned from her honeymoon in Huatulco, where Oceana was developing its resorts. She gushed about her wedding, which included a combination of Hindu and Scottish traditions.
“I guess I’m a little old fashioned.” She confessed that she’ d taken her husband’s surname.
“There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s all about making the choice that’s good for you, right?” I said strategically, aware that I was still being interviewed. I didn’t know anyone who followed the anachronistic marital convention anymore.
“Did you do the same? Is Gilbert your married name?”
“No, I’m single. My father is Indian, but my mother is Canadian. I took her surname because I didn’t grow up with him.” I fidgeted in my seat hoping I wasn’t revealing too much about my unusual upbringing. But Anita didn’t seem bothered by these details; she babbled on about immigrating to Canada when she was a preschooler and we bonded over our South Asian ancestries, with me doing my best to nod and smile knowingly at her first-generation anecdotes.
We went to Swiss Chalet for an early dinner and then she dropped me at the station in time for the evening train. A voice mail arrived the next day with an offer. Finally, after two dull years at the travel agency, I had some positive news to share with my friends: I’m moving to Mexico!
Over the next three weekends, I sold my furniture, winter clothing, and appliances on Craigslist. Everything else got crammed into eleven cardboard boxes that I lined up against my mother’s townhouse basement wall. For Huatulco, I’d packed like a tourist, filling one large suitcase with summer dresses, toiletries, my laptop, and two boxes of condoms. At the last minute, I tucked in a hardcover book from my childhood, Exploring India.
∆
“Oh mio Dio! Your job is more boring than mine. And I’m an information technology manager at a hospital,” Serena said after I’d told them all about my contract and routines. Usually, vacationers’ responses to the mundane details of my life were bright-sided: “At least you get to be near the ocean, eh?” or “But the weather here, you can’t beat that!”
“You must hate tourists by now, yes?” Sebastiano laughed.
“Well, sometimes. But some tourists I quite enjoy.” I ogled him, and he matched my steady gaze.
By the time our third drink was delivered, I was aglow from alcohol and attention. I suspected that Sebastiano had been asking for doubles, because the cocktails tasted more rummy than usual. It was resort policy to water down liquor to counter our guests’ overindulgence and therefore reduce their accidental death liability.
“So, a pretty girl like you … you must have a boyfriend?” Serena stole the tiny cocktail spear from my glass and sucked on its pineapple chunk. The evening had progressed as I’d hoped.
“So?” Sebastiano persisted.
“No, no boyfriend … and no girlfriend, either.” I filched Serena’s cocktail spear, held it up in victory, laughed too loudly.
“Ah, so, you’re, how you say it in English … flexible,” Sebastiano quipped, waggling his eyebrows and taking a sip of his piña colada. White froth coated his upper lip. I wanted to lick it off.
“Yes, flexible is one way to put it,” I replied.
“Just like my wife, sí, Serena?”
“Sí.” Serena nodded.
∆
I awoke in the dark, sandwiched between the Italians, damp from sex and sweat. The clock radio glared 3:07, shocking red numbers. I didn’t normally do sleepovers; I couldn’t sleep well with strangers. Just before I’d drifted into unconsciousness, a sheet was draped over me, a soothing palm stroked my lower back, and I’d succumbed.
I crawled my way down the centre of the bed. Without rousing, Sebastiano rolled into the empty space. He nudged his pelvis into Serena’s lower back, and she reciprocated by shifting closer to him. Sensing that my absence barely mattered, I was tempted to sneak my way back into the heat between them.
In the darkness, I sorted through a pile of hastily discarded clothing and identified the cotton of my sundress. In the lit laneway, I inspected myself in a window’s reflection, combed my hair with my fingers, and fastened a button I’d missed. Walking away from the Italians’ villa, I sensed I was wearing the wrong underwear.
The resort was quiet at that hour, its inhabitants tucked neatly away into their beds, inhaling and exhaling the warm pre-dawn air. I slowed my gait. Without its daytime merriment, Atlantis almost resembled a sleepy rural village, like those on the Swiss tourism posters that hung in my old travel agency. I descended a staircase that led to the main restaurants and bar, pausing halfway to survey the landscape. To my left, the surf crashed against the shore and wind rustled the leaves of a tall palm tree. A small green lizard darted across my path. With my mind still hazy from the booze, I squinted and imagined the land before it was expropriated, before it was called Atlantis, when its inhabitants were Mexicans: verdant farms, thatched buildings, rolling hills.
I continued on, tripping over a poorly laid pavement stone. The path that intersected the main boulevard was under construction and a barely visible CUIDADO sign had been posted on a nearby fence. Beside it was a small hand-written note that read: CONSTRUCTION. I crouched and looked more closely at the jagged rock that had caused my stumble. Each flagstone was unique, differently shaped and sized, and fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. It looked to be slow, painstaking work.
A few minutes later, I passed the security station, and lowered my gaze. After almost three years, the officers could recognize me and the other foreign tour reps, even in the dark. They could tell stories about when this-one-or-that-one arrived home drunk in a taxi, or leaning on a guy she’ d just met, or weaving, all alone, down the long driveway. Foreign tour reps were known for that sort of thing and in contrast, I lived a pretty quiet existence.
I looked up, met the security guard’s eye. I considered Oceana’s online complaint about me, and its mysterious sender. Worry rippled across my belly.
Azeez
∞
I pocketed Nora’s phone number and deposited my keys on the cluttered dining table. No one was home to bid me farewell that afternoon.
On the way to the airport I jabbered non-stop about my new life in India. I told the driver about my academic job, and joked about how my mother, in that very moment, was searching for my wife. He was an older man, pink from the early summer sun, and a good listener. It was extravagant, but I left him a five-dollar tip.
At Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, I took my place in the long queue and fiddled with my passport and tickets. There were large groups of Indian families, some in Western garb, most dressed semi-formally as though about to attend a fancy party. I wore jeans and a T-shirt, and I’d packed a kurta to change into before landing. After almost half an hour in the snaking lineup, I checked my bags and was lucky enough to get an aisle seat. I hoped there wouldn’t be a bawling baby nearby