Things I Can’t Tell Amma
March 27th, 1981
I twist the curly wire connecting the rotary phone’s receiver to base. My first call to India from 9,000 miles away.
Amma will ask if I’m eating and sleeping. Then, as an inveterate matchmaker, she'll push the “eminently suitable” Mrs. Pai’s son in Atlanta. “This call must be costly,” she’ll say. “Write letters, except when there’s news.”
There are things you tell your mother, and there are things you don’t.
I can tell Amma that the traffic in America is orderly and quiet, that I open a bank account and get my phone connection in one day, that I can use an amazing new device—the automated teller machine—to withdraw money instead of going to the bank.
I can’t tell her that my flight arrives late, that I take a cab from the airport at 11:00 pm, that the apartment office is closed, leaving me no place to go, that Theo, a young American wearing thick glasses and what she would consider inappropriate, faded-denim shorts, offers to let me stay with him, that I sit outside the office all night, that I watch male students in togas—fake Greeks in white sheets tied around their shoulders—cavort to loud music across the street, that I wait there until morning, when people walk past me as if a travel-worn Indian woman settled on her suitcases is an everyday occurrence, until Theo with the thick glasses hands me a mug of lukewarm black coffee and asks if I’d like to freshen up, that he says, “I don’t have a gun, I promise,” with a sparkly smile, that I run my tongue over slimy teeth.
March 29th, 1981
My apartment is next to Theo’s. With an ear against the wall, I listen to his television. His dishes clatter over the sound of canned laughter. I calculate the hours—breakfast in India, time for hot idlis with chutney or peanut-laden aval upma.
When I dial home, the phone rings and rings. Amma’ll ask why I haven’t called Mrs. Pai’s son, then contradict herself, ask why I’m wasting dollars. It’s always easier to lie. I prepare to say, “His phone must be out of order.”
I organize my information.
I can tell Amma that the grocery stores here are massive, that I can get everything except Indian spices, that I crave her cooking, that I can hear the radio over invisible speakers in the stores, that the phone company’s advertisement asks us to “reach out and touch someone,” that it seems like such a nice thing to do, that my studio is tiny and spare—a twin bed, desk, chair—that my department is half a mile away, that I’ve been clocking the walk there so I can get to class on time, that I bought myself a plasticky jacket because it’s cold here in March, that I have to train my ears to understand American English, that I’m confused about the spellings here, that tomorrow is the first day of the quarter, first day of class.
I can’t tell her that Theo sees me walking to the grocery store, that he offers me a lift in his car—chipped blue paint and noisy—that the woman on his car radio sings, “Call me,” that he laughs, sparkling again, and says, “Hop in,” that I decline and end up trudging back with heavy grocery bags draped on either arm.
March 30th, 1981
I ring home for the third time in four days. The phone does not connect. While I try again, I decide if she answers I’ll preempt Amma and say, “Mrs. Pai’s son doesn’t answer his phone.”
I can then tell Amma about Dr. E in communications class, that her “annihilation” sounds like “an-eye-lation,” that I have lunch at the student union which is big and loud, that they have loads of unfamiliar foods—potato salad, macaroni and cheese, bagels and cream cheese—that there are many television sets, that giggly girls at my table watch a show called General Hospital, that a blanket of silence drops when the television screen changes to breaking news, when newscasters announce someone shot the president of the country. And that, I can announce, is the big, shocking news.
I can’t tell her that Theo is in the student union, that he slides in next to me, that he drinks Tab and squeezes a yellow condiment into his many-layered sandwich, that he catches me staring at his frayed backpack—ready to snap with the weight of its contents—that he grins and starts to unzip his backpack, and at that moment, they tell us a gunman shot President Reagan, that Theo reaches for my hand, that I gulp and gulp, that the giggly girls are silent for two minutes before they start talking about General Hospital again.
Nor can I tell Amma that the phone company’s jingle repeats in my mind, and repeats and repeats, that there’s an echoey silence at the other end of the line because the Indian telephone company has disconnected her line after all the unpaid bills, that I must accept she is more miles away than I can count, that I want to tell her everything.
Sudha Balagopal’s recent short fiction appears in Vestal Review, JMWW Journal, The Nottingham Review, and Jellyfish Review, among other journals. She is the author of a novel, A New Dawn. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions and is listed in the Wigleaf Top 50, 2019.