The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai [139]
“How am I supposed to travel to Jalpaiguri in my dirty underwear? As it is I am smelling so badly, I am ashamed even to go near anyone,” the same lady said, holding her own nose with an anguished expression to show how she was ashamed even to be near herself.
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All the NRIs holding their green cards and passports, looked complacent and civilized. That’s just how it was, wasn’t it? Fortune piled on more good fortune. They had more money and because they had more money, they would get more money. It was easy for them to stand in line, and they stood patiently, displaying how they didn’t have to fight anymore; their manners proved just how well taken care of they were. And they couldn’t wait for the shopping—”Shopping ke liye jaenge, bhel puri khaenge… dollars me kamaenge, pum pum pum. “Only eight rupees to the tailor, only twenty-two cents!” they would say, triumphantly translating everything into American currency; and while the shopping was converted into dollars, tips to the servants could be calculated in local currency: “Fifteen hundred rupees, is he mad? Give him one hundred, even that’s too much.”
A Calcutta sister accompanying a Chicago sister “getting value for her daaller, getting value for her daaller,” discovering the first germ of leprous, all-consuming hatred that would in time rot the families irreversibly from within.
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American, British, and Indian passports were all navy-blue, and the NRIs tried to make sure the right sides were turned up, so airline officials could see the name of the country and know right away whom to treat with respect.
There was a drawback, though, in this, for though the staff of Air France might be instructed differently, somewhere along the line—immigration, luggage check, security—you might get the resentful or nationalist kind of employee who would take pains to slow-torture you under any excuse. “Ah jealousy, jealousy”—they inoculated themselves in advance so no criticism would get through during the visit—”ah just jealous, jealous, jealous of our daallars.”
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“Well, hope you make it out alive, man,” said the Ohio man to the South Dakota man after they had filled out their claims, feeling double happy, once for the Air France money, twice to have it all reconfirmed: “Oh ho ho, incompetent India, you’ve got to be expecting this, typical, typical!”
They passed by Biju who was inspecting his luggage that had finally arrived, and had arrived intact.
“But the problem occurred in France,” said someone, “Not here. They didn’t load the suitcases there.”
But the men were too gratified to pay attention.
“Good luck,” they said to each other with a slap on the back, and the Ohio man left, glad to be bolstered by the story of the lost bag—ammunition against his father, because he knew his father was not proud of him. How could he not be? But he wasn’t.
He knew what his father thought: that immigration, so often presented as a heroic act, could just as easily be the opposite; that it was cowardice that led many to America; fear marked the journey, not bravery; a cockroachy desire to scuttle to where you never saw poverty, not really, never had to suffer a tug to your conscience; where you never heard the demands of servants, beggars, bankrupt relatives, and where your generosity would never be openly claimed; where by merely looking after your own wife-child-dog-yard you could feel virtuous. Experience the relief of being an unknown transplant to the locals and hide the perspective granted by journey. Ohio was the first place he loved, for there he had at last been able to acquire a poise—
But then his father looked at him, sitting in his pajama kurta working away at his teeth with his toothpick, and he knew that his father thought it was the sureness that comes from putting yourself in a small place. And the son wouldn’t be able to contain his anger: Jealous, jealous, even of your own son, he would think, jealousy, third-world chip on the shoulder—
Once, his father came to the States,