Saffron and Lime

One day after a thoroughly difficult trek through customs, the newlyweds sat down for a respite at a orange and green table and instantaneously a waiter appeared with a generous and aromatic vegetable thali. Sitting in a hand-carved wood chair reminiscent of a museum, the bride surveyed the room. She saw a dozen stalls in this small market within a restaurant, manned with staff scurrying about trying to make sure all the food was well presented. The style and panache of the operation was surprising, clearly well beyond her expectations. It was simply eclectic.

She looked around, carefully weighing the plusses and minuses of each woman's serong, saree, or kurta. While serongs were restricting, they had a certain flair. The sarees elegantly floated about the room but somehow seemed inappropriate. The kurtas' functionality could not be beat.

She thought she could smell a lamb dish her husband loved. In the corner of the room, near a potted palm, was a stall with a gentleman waiting patiently with his white-sleeved arms behind his back. Every once in a while, he would gingerly stir the mixture. As far as she could tell, it was a thick salon with lamb cubes. She unraveled her ornate napkin and placed it on her lap. Her eyes shut. She reflected on where she was precisely at this moment in her life, finally. She looked at her husband and smiled. Reaching across the table, he gently clasped her hand. It was reassuring.

There was a sense of serenity and closure to the situation, she thought. Uncertainty unwound, relaxation had caught up to her after a long and arduous chase. She exhaled. I can feel myself rejuvenating, she thought. Listening to the sounds of the mixture of languages around the room, she herself felt like singing. "Here comes the bride," she chanted.

"I am so lucky." His words held her. "I had such a great time at the wedding."

"At our wedding," she corrected.

"Our wedding," he chuckled. "It was really lovely. Really."

"Yes it was," she said.

"Are you okay? Feeling better now?" he asked.

"Now that I'm here."

"Me too. It's just like the book," he said. "The book said India has finesse."

"I'm so glad you thought of it. It's such an unusual choice for us, don't you think?" He said nothing. She continued, "Is it as you expected?"

"More everything," he finally said after deliberation.

"I know what you mean. But in a good way, too." She too paused, "The details, the smallest details are so intricate, so very…"

"Indian?"

"Yes." She said softly. She eyed the food. "Ready to go up?"

"After you."

They sauntered through the delicacies, hand in hand until he got to the lamb. He took only a little at first but after a quick whiff, he heaped so much onto his plate that the waiter gave him a look.

She let go of his hand and made the rounds quickly, returning to the table after lightly painting her plate with yellow daal, green bindi, and red tikka. The fairness of her skin drew more than a few furtive glances from some of the junior staff.

He arrived a moment later with a regal oomph. Gently, he lifted the lamb to his mouth. He savoured it for an unbelievable amount of time. Finally, it occurred to him to offer some to his wife. She accepted. He rinsed his mouth with a gulp of pomegranate juice and reached across the table for some of her greens.

"I'm glad I took so much time off," she said.

"My idea," he teased.

"Four weeks," she said matter-of-factly.

"Just about right, right?" he asked.

"But the baby?" she questioned. She thought about their two year-old, their baby, left at home with grandparents while they enjoyed their time alone together. Finally. As a married couple.

He raised his eyebrows as if to chide her. "She's with your mom."

"I'm sorry," she said, "I'm sure she'll be okay. She'll be fine." She banished the worry from her conscience as quickly as it had rushed in. I'm really starting to figure it out. I'm getting better. A faint sense of pride made her sit up straight in her chair and assume the regal role beside her husband. He can be so good at presiding.

Carefully cleaning the gravy off her plate with naan, she methodically moved her hand in small arcs like her Indian friend had shown her. I knew I'd be a quick study. I'll pick it all up by the time we have to leave. And after I get my orange and green kurta, I'll fit right in.

Too preposterous for even her to imagine, she jumped back into her role as honeymooner-in-new-and-exciting-land-losing-no-sleep-over-nothing-except-baby-making. Baby-making. The term stuck in her mind. A few years late for that, she thought.

It made her think back to the "birds and the bees" talk in her life. Her uncle, strangely enough, was the first one to explain it to her. Sitting quietly under her aunt's favourite gardenia on the porch on an exceptionally warm spring afternoon, she and her grandmother and her grandmother's eldest son had their high tea like they always did. She scurried around in her make-believe tea party, preparing the table and pretending they'd come over to her house. The grown-ups took the wrong seats at first but they caught on quickly. Her uncle had unknowingly sat on the baby's cradle but after he was told, he was careful to keep it down so baby could sleep.

In the middle of tea, she announced that she was pregnant. Expecting. Expecting another baby. And it's a boy. The grandmother and her son looked at each other and he couldn't help but laugh. "How do you know it's a boy?"

"I want a boy," she explained.

"You chose?" he asked.

"I chose a boy. A big baby boy. It'll be ready in ten minutes, I mean in ten weeks," she said sweetly.

"What happens when it's time?" he kept asking.

"It's ready to come out. Just like a cake."

"How do you know it's ready?" the uncle mischievously prodded.

Grandmother piped in to her son, "Don't make sick jokes now."

"But," he asked her ten year-old niece, "you don't even show?"

"I do. Look at my big stomach." She arched her back. "Want to hear?"

"No," he lied.

"Yes you do."

"Is baby kicking?" he asked.

"Yes. Feel."

"Feels like a soccer player this one."

"Just like his father," she said.

The uncle widened his eyes and asked his mother for permission. She closed her eyes to accede. "Where's the father?"

"The boy. I mean the father is….at work." She was getting a bit confused.

"At work?"

"Yes. I'm the Mommy. I take care of her."

"How did you get pregnant?" the uncle wouldn't let up.

"I just did," she said.

"Well, actually, this is the way it happens." And he told her.

"Yuck." She didn't like his explanation.

"Yup," her uncle confirmed.

"Honest grandma?" the girl asked.

"Yes, dear," grandma confirmed.

"I don't ever want to…" She had a lemony grimace on her face. "Euuuh."

"You don't like the courgettes?" her husband queried greedily.

"No, they're fine," she said, returned but thinking about her real baby. And missing her.

Water was rushed to the table when madame had an unexpected encounter with a green chili. She held back tears and emptied her purse for something, anything to temper the pain. Yogurt was brought and in an instant, relief was at hand. Sort of like an epidural. She threw her head back to shake the hair out of her face and stonily stared at a row of numbers on a placard. She added them up instinctively, found the trend, and determined the second derivative to be negative. A 'hold'. Typical staple product. The curse of her work was that it was everywhere. Retail buying, especially for a high-end department store, was an insanely analytical, pervasive, and relentless job. Seizing control of a pen from the gobs of stuff she had taken out of her purse, she started scribbling on a napkin. It may have been midnight here but it was nine a.m. back home and the left-side of the brain was staging its daily coup over the nocturnal right-side. Do you remember where that saree shop was?

"Do you?"

"What?" he responded. "What do you want darling?"

"Do you remember where that saree shop was?" she asked out-loud this time.

"Somewhere near that circle in the center of town. We'll go tomorrow. If you want."

"Yes, I want." She toyed with the idea of asking him to take her tonight just to check what 'hot' colours were in the window. She knew she could have her way but felt sorry for him. Earrings at the airport, a forty-five minute phone call, a scarf in Heathrow, a fax waiting on arrival, and an unexpected supplier meeting this morning. Work. I don't know when to put it away. I don't really want to. I can feel my happiness when I do something brilliant, something flashy, something that makes people take notice. I know what it does for me. I've known for a while. I know I'm good at it. I know it's what I want. I know. He won't choose to understand, and sometimes I can't blame him.

"Can we talk about home for a moment?" he asked her.

She showed her surprise. "Breaking your own cardinal rule."

"Bad rule, I guess. It's about getting some help around the house." He was treading lightly.

"Help?" She was perplexed, "You need help?"

"A part-time maid. It's only a hundred a month and it would save me so much time. I could concentrate on my work," he explained.

"Oh?" she said optimistically.

He explained further, "My drawing."

"Yes, I suppose." Drawing. I thought he said 'work.'

"Let's talk about our vacation next year," she perked up.

"Oh. Next year already?" He looked like he wasn't finished but she knew he'd never say no to talking about travelling.

"What do you think? Somewhere more easy." She didn't know where.

He thought for a moment. "France."

"France?"

"Yes. We'll go to France next year." He said it with such a definite tone, it closed down the discussion.

"France." It's as though he's already bought the tickets. I guess we're going. Besides, France is the land of Vuitton, Hermes, and all the others. It'll be like the runway shows without all the stress. I can't wait. "What month?"

"June."

"June." She had something to look forward to. Resolved, she could start to enjoy it for a whole year. I guess he wants to try his hand on Pont Neuf. "And for Christmas?"

"Christmas?" he seemed surprised.

"Home?" she postulated that he wouldn't mind.

"Your home?" He watched her nod. "Fine. We'll drive."

"Okay." She moved her rice into a pile on her plate.

"Enough. Look around you," he said, his eyes circling the room.

She noticed she was in India. She got caught up in the swirl once again. She narrowed her eyes to get a better look at the dessert table. It was the same white-sleeved gentleman. She thought of her husband. Of his job. Of their beautiful daughter. Of her upcoming third birthday party. Of the dress she was going to buy her. Of the day after and the trip to New York. And of the two of them the day after, father and daughter, sitting on the porch having her favourite strawberry milkshake.

After the dessert rounds, he had a lassi, kulfi, and almond biscuits shaped like mandalas. He spun them on his plate, following the spokes until they turned into a haze. He talked about an article about drawing light as a particle or a wave, akin to physics theory. He also said something about a sand sculpture in the Sahara. Symmetric, even, but still unpredictable when you walk through it because of its immensity. You can't get perspective. You're not supposed to.

He continued to ramble, "You can't really tell how difficult and complex something is if you break it down to a series of simple problems."

"You have to be able to see the big picture," she felt like she was the air traffic controller in his life.

"Yes, but sometimes, it's easier to do one thing right."

"In the right general direction," she said.

"Sure." He didn't hesitate a second, "Anyway, like the adventure yesterday. When we came out of the trees in that truck, and drove up to the dusty border post, we had to readjust our perspective. We couldn't be impatient. We just had to endure. Every time we had to pass through a new queue at every checkpoint we just had to focus on the here and now."

"But what a slow process that was." The truth was that she didn't really mind the delay.

"Yes, but to each of those men there was nothing more important than transcribing our passport numbers down precisely. Once you understand that that is the scope of his job, of his life, that he feels a sense of attachment to his place, you can share the sense of pride he has. For his country. Tending the flag, the saffron and lime. For the border. Even for the neighbour."

"I can't imagine it matters all that much," she remarked.

"Maybe," he said softly. He acted like he'd lost his place, brought back down from his bush-plane in a completely separate forest, staring at a completely new tree. His words proved her right, "I love you very much, you know. You know that, right?"

She looked at him and asked herself if she had even one shred of doubt. She didn't. She was sure that he was going to be there for her. That he loved her implicitly and explicitly and that despite it all, he was now her husband, her daughter's father. "I know," she finally said tenderly.

He touched her cheek and sat back in his chair, maybe back in the first forest, "It can be so revealing to be in the smallest of places. Where everything's effect on everything else is as clear to see as a waterwheel. When someone's son marries another someone's daughter, it changes everything and yet it was fated and probably was arranged from the moment the two babies lay next to each other in the hospital maternity ward."

"And us?" she asked.

"Our lives are so much more"

"Complicated?" she filled in.

"No…just vague. The influences are so much more ancillary. Other than you, who has any effect on me in any direct way? Which butterfly is flapping its wings changing me, in my life?"

"I affect you that much?" she asked, unconvinced.

"You determine me."

"I do?" her face crinkled.

"You know you do." His words pointed at her, like they were hers, only in his voice. "We've had all this happen to us, with the little one coming unexpectedly and you getting so embroiled in your new job and the world taking off for you; and there I was ready to be plaster. It was fate."

"Fate?"

"Believe it darling," he smiled. "I do."

"You're fated to be with me?" she asked.

"To be with you and that's it," he pronounced.

"Not limited?" Her voice went up an octave, "You don't feel limited? Not short of your potential because you have to stay at home?"

"Do I seem unhappy? Unfulfilled because I tend our home?" He paused rhetorically. "No. Not at all. I love my life; its simplicity."

She sat still, astounded by what he had said, almost disbelieving the natural course of events. No. Did I do this? I didn't, did I? My life. Why don't I? Love my life? Its complexity?

"I have something to ask you," he said on his last bite of kulfi. "I want to draw again. I want to give up that old job. It's not me any more. I want just to stay home and sketch. I have a contract for eight pieces a year from Home magazine."

"You do?" She took a short breath.

"Yes. It's just a small illustration every six weeks. It pays peanuts. It's something though," he explained.

"You want to give up that old job?" she echoed.

"Don't think of it that way. I'm gaining my freedom. And I can flex my creativity."

"Are you sure you aren't just doing this because of the baby? You don't have to stay at home to take care of her. We can get that au pair. There are plenty of students coming from abroad. We can get a French-speaking one if you like. She can be bilingual by the age of four. She'll have three parents and so much attention and love. So much love. I'll find time to see her. She'll be cleaned up and fed for me. I can help decorate her room and dress her for school. I can… I can figure out a way if you want. Are you sure this is right for you? I mean in the long term? Doesn't it close so many doors? Doesn't it make you sad? Are you sure? Are you sure you aren't just doing this to be at home with the baby?"

"Yes."

She looked down at the table and slowly started putting her things back in her purse. She let a wooden comb linger in her fingers. She couldn't find space in her purse. It took some effort to snap it shut.

.