Miss New India - Bharati Mukherjee [26]
Once out of parental range, as he drove down LBS Road past the major intersection of MG Road and Pinky Mahal, past the cheap hotels, where Rabi must have stayed, and the Vasco campus and the apartment block where Peter and Ali lived—a light was on in their window—he finally burst out in English, "What a strain! But that was a very good show you put on back there. Very convincing. Very funny, actually." It was his first lapse from his flowery Bangla. His English was no match for hers.
She'd expected that he would park the car and they would stroll down MG Road to Alps Palace or maybe to the hotel restaurant. She wondered if she should take his arm. She wouldn't mind being seen in public with him. She would tell him Allahabad—no way! She didn't know what young people in the early stage of prenuptial negotiation were supposed to talk about. The photo sessions and letters, the gold and sari shopping, the piles of rejected suitors, had happened in a vacuum. But he acted confident and she was good at picking up cues, and anyway, it was happening to an imaginary girl named Anjali while the real person, Angie, could sit back and watch. Hobbies? Thank God for her minimal talent with the harmonium. Favorite foods? How should she pose—sophisticated and international, pizza perhaps—or sweetly, coyly desi, just an unassuming Bengali girl raised on fish curry and rice?
Subodh had no intention of walking or of stopping for coffee and ice cream. They were out of Gauripur in just a few minutes, across the main highway to Patna, five hours to the west, into the monsoon-lush countryside. It was a sunny afternoon between bouts of rain. Rabi had been out here too, on a bus; she recognized scenes from his photos: the now-glistening, once-dusty vegetation, the red soil, the woven patterns of the thatched roofs, the returning long-legged wading birds in the now-flooded fields, the bright saris of women walking along the side of the road. India was beautiful. The countryside was peaceful.
And she felt comfortable, secure, in Subodh's company. This is how she'd imagined it, driving through the countryside in a red car with a handsome, confident husband. It could work. She felt certain that her mother and her sister had never known such a moment. Mr. Mitra's English might impress in Asansol, or Bangalore, and especially in her parents' house, but she held the upper hand.
"A very good show? What are you implying, Mr. Mitra?"
"You are a total fraud. No one with the name of Anjali Bose could possibly speak Bangla as poorly as you!"
"And is this customary praise for all your lady friends, Mr. Mitra?"
"I am an honest man. I speak my mind. I take what's mine."
At least he didn't deny having lady friends.
"Honesty is a poor substitute for decent manners, Mr. Mitra. My honesty makes me ask what in the hell is Lucknow all about? What modern girl is going to settle in Lucknow or Allahabad?"
"My uncle in Lucknow is Civil Judge, Junior Division. In Allahabad my oldest uncle is manager of the State Bank of India." A few minutes later, he added, "For your information, I have no intention of going to either place."
"I have no interest in Kolkata," she said.
"Good for you. Kolkata is dead and buried. And you'd have to learn the language."
To which, of course, she smiled broadly. She decided he was not really a bad catch. A different Angie might have looked him over and said "He's honest, he's funny, he's certainly handsome, he's shrewd. I could do worse." In English she could be as saucy and seductive as any Bollywood heroine. She turned on him with that smile and asked, ever so sweetly, "So all that business about settling your parents in Kolkata was what ... a lie?" Not that it mattered. A certain amount of mutual inflation was built into the marriage negotiation. She was not above the deployment of subterfuge on nearly any level.
"You've got a big