Deaf in DC: A Memoir

33. Setting Up Home

136 33 Setting Up Home I HAD MANAGED TO PURCHASE A SOFA AND A DINING table with five chairs. I was also a proud owner of a desk—an unfinished door panel lying on two steel drawers. I also had a foam mattress lying on the floor. That was our bed. This was the sum total of our furniture. Needless to say, Nirmala was disappointed. She had waited for six years in India while her husband finished his studies and had gotten a nice job. My American salary was princely from Indian standards and she had been listening to everyone in India about the nice life she was going to have only to find a mattress on the floor for a bed. She was horrified when she saw it. The furniture didn’t impress her. Worse than the furniture was the lack of enough pots and pans. The pots and pans I had salvaged from Kirk’s apartment were all right for cooking American food, but there was no “tawa” (a heavy griddle) or rolling pin for making chapatis. There were no Indian spices. There wasn’t anything in the refrigerator except for a case of half-finished beer. The pantry had a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of gin. I lived a simple life. The next morning, I took Nirmala to the Safeway to buy groceries. Rajesh, a friend from India who shared an apartment with Surinder, accompanied us. Since we had nothing to eat, we decided to arrive at the Safeway when it opened at eight in the morning. However, it was still closed. We sat down outside the Safeway and waited. However, after fifteen minutes, the store was still closed. Nirmala didn’t mind. In India, stores closed and opened whenever the owner wanted to. She wasn’t aware that American stores, especially large chains like Safeway, were not even a minute late. We saw other people come, park their cars, and loiter around. Rajesh asked one man and learned that it was the first day of daylight saving time. In the fall, the clock was moved back. I had forgotten it, as had s e t t i n g u p h o m e 137 Rajesh. We had to explain to Nirmala this strange American custom of moving the clock twice a year. She didn’t understand the rationale for it. Her first American shopping experience wasn’t very pleasant. Slowly, we began to establish our household. Nirmala liked to work. She cleaned the apartment daily and kept it spotlessly clean. I told her not to waste her time and to focus on learning English. But as a proud housewife, she was focusing on her house. English could wait. I taught her how to use the washer and dryer in the basement of our apartment building. She liked the idea of a machine doing the washing but wasn’t very satisfied with the washer. I learned later that she used the broom handle in the washer to make sure the clothes were fully rinsed. Everything must be perfectly clean for her and it was irritating to me. Soon, like all good wives, she began to find flaws in the décor and my way of living. My favorite pair of jeans with patches ironed on both knees disappeared after one week of her arrival. When I asked, she said innocently that she had thrown it in the trash. I was livid. “You mean you threw out my new pair of jeans?” “Not new, the one with the patches on its knees. Only chamars [untouchables] wear patched clothes. How could you wear tattered jeans?” My explanation that it was a new pair and I had bought the patches separately and had ironed them on only confused her. Why would one make a new pair of jeans old and patched? I would have asked the same question six years earlier, I thought, and gave up. She didn’t like the mattress on the floor. My explanation that we were living here only for one year and then moving back to India didn’t sound logical to her. She wanted a real bed. The windows needed curtains and the table lamps needed tables to put under them. I promised her that slowly, we would buy these pieces of furniture from other people. She couldn’t believe that I was going to buy used furniture and was horrified when she learned that I...