A Good Indian Wife: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

she was one of the first girls lined up for his viewing pleasure. Some families showed their foreign-living sons more than a hundred girls, with the most important ones appearing early in the parade. She knew this doctor would see many girls before choosing a bride. One of Appa’s distant relatives—a PhD candidate in New York—had met eighty girls, and in the end was so confused that he married the last one he saw.
    Leila thought she had been born in the wrong century. At one time—the good old days, she and Indy joked—women received dowries and even chose their husbands. Kings used to hold lavish Swayamvaras for their daughters, and on the appointed day, royal scions came from all over to win the hand of the princess. Occasionally there were prowess tests, but usually the princess walked down the row of hopeful princes, considering them one by one, finally indicating the husband of her choice by placing a garland around his neck. Leila often wished she were in that position. She would have been able to walk right past the man from Calcutta instead of being rejected immediately. “I like my wife to be more plummy,” he had said, ending both hope and conversation. “Plummy” had stumped Amma, until Indy explained the rude man had meant plump. For the next two weeks Leila was forced to hide all the food Amma tried to make her eat until things went back to normal.
    “We shall to buy a new saree,” Amma announced.
    “Amma, I don’t think we can afford—” Leila started, but Amma cut her off. “It has been a few months since you bought one. We shall to go shopping tomorrow.”
    Leila felt a future fight seed itself inside her. She refused to dress for certain failure. She didn’t want to spend her money to sit on a chair and be judged by strange eyes.
    “You didn’t tell us his name, Amma,” Indy said.
    “No? It is Suneel, Suneel Sarath.”
    “Suneel Sarath,” Indy tested the name. “Akka, you can call him SS.”
    “What is so funny?” Amma asked, her antennae going up immediately. Amma’s radar for detecting bad words in English had been alert ever since she intuited that Leila should not be teaching Indy the song: Spell it with an F, a U, a C, and a K. What does it spell? Fuck! She had reacted the same way when Leila brought home the phrases “Up yours” and “Balls” that were casually exchanged by anyone who was someone in college.
    “You want for me to wash your mouth?” Amma used to threaten.
    Leila didn’t. But she also didn’t want to be left out, so she simply switched to numbers, adding up the letters of the words she wasn’t allowed to say. Amma could only stand by in frustration as “Forty-six” and “One hundred and thirty-five” were bandied about by both sisters.
    “SS,” like numbers, could stand for anything.
    “Hmmph.” Amma knew she had missed something, but was too excited to care. As she left the room, she repeated, “We shall to buy a saree tomorrow.”
    “Nazi,” Leila said softly, then fell to laughing again with Indy.
    The laughter covered the hope that streaked through her like the bright tail of a comet. Maybe this time she would be lucky. A doctor from America. The last decent proposal had come five years ago. Leila now thought of the short, naturalized British citizen as just another sharp point in the ascetic bed of nails she was beginning to believe might be her destiny. Yet everything had started out so auspiciously. The two sets of parents shared numerous acquaintances and Leila had talked to him for a whole hour, during which a chance remark led to the discovery that they both enjoyed reading the Brontë sisters. He had visited the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth and raised her hopes by suggesting that she, too, would be charmed by the quaint town, with its cobbled streets. So Leila was not too worried when they didn’t hear from him the first day. She even convinced herself that he was too short to be accepted by anyone else. By the second day it was