Bharati Mukherjee - The Middleman and Other Stories

One Friday afternoon she was writing up the credit info on a Guyanese Muslim who worked in an assembly plant when Loretta said that enough was enough and that there was no need for Jasmine to be her father’s drudge.

“Is time to have fun,” Viola said. “We’re going to Ann Arbor.”

Jasmine filed the sheet on the Guyanese man who probably now would never get a wife and got her raincoat. Loretta’s boyfriend had a Cadillac parked out front. It was the longest car Jasmine had ever been in and louder than a country bus. Viola’s boyfriend got out of the front seat. “Oh, oh, sweet things,” he said to Jasmine. “Get in front.” He was a talker. She’d learned that much from working on the matrimonial match-ups. She didn’t believe him for a second when he said that there were dudes out there dying to ask her out.

Loretta’s boyfriend said, “You have eyes I could leap into, girl.”

Jasmine knew he was just talking. They sounded like Port-of-Spain boys of three years ago. It didn’t surprise her that these Trinidad country boys in Detroit were still behind the times, even of Port-of-Spain. She sat very stiff between the two men, hands on her purse. The Daboo girls laughed in the back seat.

On the highway the girls told her about the reggae night in Ann Arbor. Kevin and the Krazee Islanders. Malcolm’s Lovers. All the big reggae groups in the Midwest were converging for the West Indian Students Association fall bash. The ticket didn’t come cheap but Jasmine wouldn’t let the fellows pay. She wasn’t that kind of girl.

The reggae and steel drums brought out the old Jasmine. The rum punch, the dancing, the dreadlocks, the whole combination. She hadn’t heard real music since she got to Detroit, where music was supposed to be so famous. The Daboo girls kept turning on rock stuff in the motel lobby whenever their father left the area. She hadn’t danced, really danced , since she’d left home. It felt so good to dance. She felt hot and sweaty and sexy. The boys at the dance were more than sweet talkers; they moved with assurance and spoke of their futures in America. The bartender gave her two free drinks and said, “Is ready when you are, girl.” She ignored him but she felt all hot and good deep inside. She knew Ann Arbor was a special place.

When it was time to pile back into Loretta’s boyfriend’s Cadillac, she just couldn’t face going back to the Plantations Motel and to the Daboos with their accounting books and messy files.

“I don’t know what happen, girl,” she said to Loretta. “I feel all crazy inside. Maybe is time for me to pursue higher studies in this town.”

“This Ann Arbor, girl, they don’t just take you off the street. It cost like hell.”

She spent the night on a bashed-up sofa in the Student Union. She was a well-dressed, respectable girl, and she didn’t expect anyone to question her right to sleep on the furniture. Many others were doing the same thing. In the morning, a boy in an army parka showed her the way to the Placement Office. He was a big, blond, clumsy boy, not bad-looking except for the blond eyelashes. He didn’t scare her, as did most Americans. She let him buy her a Coke and a hotdog. That evening she had a job with the Moffitts.

Bill Moffitt taught molecular biology and Lara Hatch-Moffitt, his wife, was a performance artist. A performance artist, said Lara, was very different from being an actress, though Jasmine still didn’t understand what the difference might be. The Moffitts had a little girl, Muffin, whom Jasmine was to look after, though for the first few months she might have to help out with the housework and the cooking because Lara said she was deep into performance rehearsals. That was all right with her, Jasmine said, maybe a little too quickly. She explained she came from a big family and was used to heavy-duty cooking and cleaning. This wasn’t the time to say anything about Ram, the family servant. Americans like the Moffitts wouldn’t understand about keeping servants. Ram and she weren’t in similar situations. Here mother’s helpers, which is what Lara had called her — Americans were good with words to cover their shame — seemed to be as good as anyone.

Lara showed her the room she would have all to herself in the finished basement. There was a big, old TV, not in color like the motel’s and a portable typewriter on a desk which Lara said she would find handy when it came time to turn in her term papers. Jasmine didn’t say anything about not being a student. She was a student of life, wasn’t she? There was a scary moment after they’d discussed what she could expect as salary, which was three times more than anything Mr. Daboo was supposed to pay her but hadn’t. She thought Bill Moffitt was going to ask her about her visa or her green card number and social security. But all Bill did was smile and smile at her — he had a wide, pink, baby face — and play with a button on his corduroy jacket. The button would need sewing back on, firmly.

Lara said, “I think I’m going to like you, Jasmine. You have a something about you. A something real special. I’ll just bet you’ve acted, haven’t you?” The idea amused her, but she merely smiled and accepted Lara’s hug. The interview was over.

Then Bill opened a bottle of Soave and told stories about camping in northern Michigan. He’d been raised there. Jasmine didn’t see the point in sleeping in tents; the woods sounded cold and wild and creepy. But she said, “Is exactly what I want to try out come summer, man. Campin and huntin.”

Lara asked about Port-of-Spain. There was nothing to tell about her hometown that wouldn’t shame her in front of nice white American folk like the Moffitts. The place was shabby, the people were grasping and cheating and lying and life was full of despair and drink and wanting. But by the time she finished, the island sounded romantic. Lara said, “It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if you were a writer, Jasmine.”

Ann Arbor was a huge small town. She couldn’t imagine any kind of school the size of the University of Michigan. She meant to sign up for courses in the spring. Bill brought home a catalogue bigger than the phonebook for all of Trinidad. The university had courses in everything. It would be hard to choose; she’d have to get help from Bill. He wasn’t like a professor, not the ones back home where even high school teachers called themselves professors and acted like little potentates. He wore blue jeans and thick sweaters with holes in the elbows and used phrases like “in vitro” as he watched her curry up fish. Dr. Parveen back home — he called himself “doctor” when everybody knew he didn’t have even a Master’s degree — was never seen without his cotton jacket which had gotten really ratty at the cuffs and lapel edges. She hadn’t learned anything in the two years she’d put into college. She’d learned more from working in the bank for two months than she had at college. It was the assistant manager, Personal Loans Department, Mr. Singh, who had turned her on to the Daboos and to smooth, bargain-priced emigration.

Jasmine liked Lara. Lara was easygoing. She didn’t spend the time she had between rehearsals telling Jasmine how to cook and clean American-style. Mrs. Daboo did that in 16B. Mrs. Daboo would barge in with a plate of stale samosas and snoop around giving free advice on how mainstream Americans did things. As if she were dumb or something! As if she couldn’t keep her own eyes open and make her mind up for herself. Sunday mornings she had to share the butcher-block workspace in the kitchen with Bill. He made the Sunday brunch from new recipes in Gourmet and Cuisine. Jasmine hadn’t seen a man cook who didn’t have to or wasn’t getting paid to do it. Things were topsy-turvy in the Moffitt house. Lara went on two- and three-day road trips and Bill stayed home. But even her daddy, who’d never poured himself a cup of tea, wouldn’t put Bill down as a woman. The mornings Bill tried out something complicated, a Cajun shrimp, sausage, and beans dish, for instance, Jasmine skipped church services. The Moffitts didn’t go to church, though they seemed to be good Christians. They just didn’t talk church talk, which suited her fine.