Neela's Lucky Penny

An Indian movie blared in the living room, too loud for Neela to mask by turning on the sink faucet. Her parents-in-law were losing their hearing. She considered going upstairs and sitting by her table fan, letting its whir drown the noise; gusts of wind in her hair always soothed her. Penny, her dog, wasn’t allowed upstairs. How could Neela leave her? She reached over to massage Penny’s belly.

Lying on the couch with her paws straight in the air, Penny lifted her head. Her tongue hung out the side of her mouth; blackish gums showed above sharp, discolored teeth. Under Neela’s caresses, Penny fell back asleep. Occasionally, the dog whimpered and yelped. Neela imagined her dreaming of geese, gnawing sticks, and digging up fish bones at the beach. “Wish I had your dreams,” Neela said, lifting up strands of Penny’s fur. The dog snored sporadically, and sometimes so loudly that her eyes opened, baring whites glinting surprise. This was Neela’s favorite position—snoozing with Penny on the couch in slants of afternoon light.

Neela bought the couch on a spring day in 1970, soon after she got Penny, to celebrate the four-month anniversary of her arrival in America. She'd left India at eighteen to be with her new arranged husband and in-laws in a strange country. She tried to be what they wanted—an impeccable housewife and daughter-in-law. She grew lonely, her days following a familiar pattern. She knew no one in the country, had no family here. She began to want something more.

She first saw her husband, Kartika nearly a year ago, as he sat in her parents’ drawing room in Bangalore. He hunched his shoulders and pressed his fingertips together. She covered her head with her sari and gazed downward—not being demure, as they may have supposed, but stubborn.

“I don’t want to meet him,” she’d said to her mother. “He’s twenty-eight. Too old.” She didn’t want to get married, nor to leave India.

Her mother insisted Kartik was a solid match—good family, steady job. His parents were known to them: Kartik’s father was her father’s boss. Their stars matched. For Neela, there was no escape.

Her mother gestured at the maps decorating Neela’s walls. “All you talk about is wanting to travel,” she said. “You’ll thrive on the challenge.” She looked sideways at Neela, dimples showing. “Besides, darling, maybe you’ll like him. He’s not bad to look at.” She stood to leave, then paused. “You know the meaning of his name, yes? ‘One who bestows happiness and courage’? Isn’t that what you want?”

Finding happiness with him couldn’t be possible—not if he wanted to take her to America.

She wasn’t prepared for what happened when, by chance in the drawing room, she caught her future husband watching her. He had a slow smile showing white teeth, laughing eyes. A small cleft in his chin that might fit her pinky finger. She avoided him, startled at the way her body tingled.

They left for Pennsylvania together after the wedding. He called her ‘Neelu,’ a name only he used. When he said it, ‘Neelu’ sounded nice.

She wouldn’t let him hold her hand at night; she barely knew this man she’d had no choice but to marry. Kartik didn’t press her. Instead, he left magazines open to vistas of exotic beaches with blue seas. Fashion ads. Snapshots of babies. Was he using the pictures to tell a story about the life he wanted? Or were these just gifts to placate the wife he probably still thought of as a child? She thumbed through the magazines, then shut them.

Kartik straightened the bathroom for her when he finished; he wiped off the counter, line up towels, closed the lid of the toilet seat. He complimented her tea. Some mornings, after he left for work, she found a lily in a vase on the windowsill; it’s fragrance filled the room.

He mentioned the possibility of children. She refused. She missed India; he made her leave it. It was impossible to love anything coming from him.

Kartik’s parents lived with them; it was Neela’s job to be their caretaker. She served their meals, drove with Kartik to the grocery store to shop for them, kept clean their linens. She did what she’d been told. Her in-laws tried talking to her. Had she received any letters from home lately? Did she want to watch a movie? Or learn how to cook more intricate meals? If so, they could teach her. Neela remained polite, but rarely spoke.

One Sunday evening, Kartik took a roundabout route home. Neela sat next to him; her in-laws napped in the back. Kartik hummed along with a Hindi music cassette. He asked Neela if she knew the words; she shook her head. Outside were nothing but cornfields. She wished he’d found a job somewhere prettier than rural Pennsylvania, despite its sunsets of fushia and gold and the rippling of its lavender hills.

Then, she saw the sign: Puppies For Sale.

Kartik laughed. “You’re not serious,” he said. “My parents would never have it.”

Neela asked only once, but didn’t stop thinking about it.

She returned to the spot alone as soon as she got the chance, glad that Kartik had recently taught her to drive and bought her a used Toyota.

“Can I help you?” asked a woman with a doughy smell and rough, powdery hands. “I’m Martha.”

“You have puppies needing homes?” Neela scanned the modified barn-house.

“That’s right. Got too many animals as it is—cats, horses, a pig, three dogs. Then my Lola came home pregnant one day and now I got seven puppies and no room for them. Thought I’d make a sign, see what the wind blew in.”

Martha wiped the sugar from her hands onto her apron and stared at the thin fabric that wound around Neela, from her tightly pressed legs to her drooping, slender shoulders.

“You’re not from this town, are you, honey?” Martha asked.

“No, I’m sorry. From a neighboring town.”

“How long you been in Pennsylvania?”

“Months now. I came from India.”

“Do you miss it? Ever wish you could go back?”

Neela paused at the question no one had asked her. “I did. Now, maybe it’s time to stay.”

“Time for a change, right? Something new to hold onto. Why don’t I make you a nice cup of tea while we chat?”

Martha reached for the copper kettle and swished about the kitchen. She sliced an extra large piece of lemon cake and put it on a plate. The lines around Neela’s mouth softened, and she pressed her palms against undereye circles dark as bruises.

“Ever had a pet?” Martha asked.

“Not a pet exactly.” Neela listened to the kettle hissing.

She’d once found a mouse in a gutter outside her parents’ home. Its white fur was matted with mud, one of its legs twisted. It seemed ready to die. When she picked it up, it tried to bite her, then tired quickly and gave up.

Neela had never touched a mouse. The way this one’s body was angled resembled how she felt inside about the upcoming wedding. She wrapped the mouse in a handkerchief and put it in her purse. When she peeked in, the mouse gazed back, unblinking, whiskers lightly twitching.

She hid it from her parents and fed it milk from an eyedropper. It struggled until hunger took over. She broke off a corner of paneer, figuring a mouse would like cheese. When it got used to her, she attached its leg to a broken toothpick with a scrap of cloth. The mouse slept in a handkerchief folded into a nest in her purse.

Two nights before her wedding, the mouse disappeared. Neela hoped it watched her from a hole in her wall. She hoped it would crawl into her suitcase and be transported with her. In Pennsylvania, she shook out every article of clothing she possessed, though never found it.

Neela followed Martha into the living room. The edge of the couch dipped under her weight as she perched, uneasy about drinking American tea made with only hot water. She’d always spiced her milky chai with homemade masala, and sweetened it with sugar. Would this woman enjoy Neela's chai?

With her hair wrapped in a bun and an apron covering her full chest, Martha made her relax. Neela relished eating food for once not cooked by her—eating until her loneliness had been dislodged and swallowed away along with pieces of homemade lemon cake.

Neela stood. “Miss, do you mind if I see the puppies?”

“Sure, sweetie, they’re over behind that fence. Take your pick.”

Neela leaned over the fence, smiling at the puppy exuberance. Never had she received such a greeting. Normally only her mother-in-law’s comments about the cooking and her father-in-law’s knotted eyebrows met her in the mornings.

Her husband worked full days at the foundry plant, and didn’t come home until mealtime late in the evening. After dinner, he joined his parents to watch the Indian films Neela disliked. The women in those movies flirted easily, and didn’t want much besides male attention. They looked ridiculous to Neela as they danced amidst fake glacier fields and hid behind icebergs, clad in high heels and gauzy saris. These movies didn’t depict the home she had left behind. They made Neela lonely.

Neela bent over the fence. Each time one pup made it to the top of the squirming pile, it got knocked over and replaced by another. Claws scratched, elbows poked. Paws slipped on the floor. The scent of urine sharpened the air.

The puppies kept moving, trying to jump onto her chest. But one puppy sat still with only its eyes betraying its alertness. It was smaller than the rest and seemed to want no part of the banter. It had been licking a bloody nip mark, but stopped when it saw Neela, who scooped it up with one hand.

“I can feel this one’s ribs sticking out. It barely has skin over its ribs.” She traced the pattern of bones, fine as ivory carvings, with her finger.

“I figured you’d pick the smallest of the litter,” Martha said. “That one’s the runt, that’s why. She has to wait her turn for food and only eats the end scraps. I try to feed her extra, but I get busy, you know how it is.”

Neela brought the pup to her face, her hands cradling its rump. “I know how it is,” she whispered. The puppy licked the salt off Neela’s cheeks.

“I’ll call her Penny,” Neela said to the woman.

“On account of her color? Comes from a mix of golden retriever and Irish setter.”

“No. Because she turned up like a lucky penny. Because she’s all the wealth I need.” Neela rubbed Penny back and forth against her face as the puppy curved around her fingers with approval.

At home, her in-laws and husband slept on the couches in the living room. Penny sniffed the air: the too-sweet scent of old age mixed with eucalyptus oil. Her in-laws’ hardened heels stuck out from the silk shawls covering their legs. Kartik grunted in his sleep. Penny growled. Neela shushed the dog. She contemplated her husband, his face buried in a pillow. She growled too, then laughed.

Neela had an hour before making afternoon tea and biscuits. She tucked Penny into the crook of her arm and rushed upstairs. From her drawer, she pulled red silk embroidered with gold. She washed her face with Indian sandalwood soap, and waved the soap under Penny’s nose. She placed Penny in the sink and lathered it through her fur.

Neela massaged coconut oil into her hip length hair. She dribbled it on Penny’s head too. Penny pranced through the waterfall of Neela’s hair. Rather than tying it up in her usual braid, Neela pinned her hair back from her face with a gold clip and let it hang. She put a clip on Penny’s collar. She smiled into the mirror at the glowing woman holding a golden dog.

“I’m a queen. You--my royal pooch,” she said, Penny’s ears tickling her mouth. “Penny, what special treat shall we order tonight? Would sweet halwa please you?”

Penny yipped.

“Then it shall be done. We’ll go for a regal ride—our chariot awaits. Such is a maharani’s life.”

Neela laughed, grabbed Penny’s paw, and bent over as if to kiss it. “And the life of a maharani’s treasured dog.”

When her in-laws and husband awoke, Neela pressed her rigid back against a chair. Penny sat in her lap like a queen’s pampered pet. Kartik jumped. Her father-in-law made sucking sounds, clicking his tongue against his dentures.

“What in God’s name is that filthy thing?” her mother-in-law said. Penny emitted a low, rumbling sound as Neela stroked her.

“Quite disgusting,” said her father-in-law, furrowing his brows at Penny. “Take it away.”

Neela held Penny closer. “No,” she said.

“Is something the matter with you, Neelu? What’s going on?” Kartik moved towards her.

Penny growled louder. Kartik paused. Her in-laws headed to their bedrooms, their complaining voices high-pitched and cracking.

“No, I’m fine,” Neela said, smoothing her hair with a steady hand. She looked straight at her husband, no longer the shy new bride. “This is Penny.”

He rubbed his stubbly cheek. “Penny? What are you talking?” He dropped his hand. “Neelu, you know dogs are unclean. Haven’t you seen them in the streets in India? Dirty things.” Penny’s sandalwood-scented fur bristled. “A pack of them lived outside our house when I was young. They barked half the night, fought like fiends. We had a heck of a time slipping into our car without them lunging for us. My mother will never forgive the one that bit my hand--I had to get a rabies shot.”

“Penny is not a pack of vicious dogs. She’s not biting anyone’s hand.”

“But you can’t expect my parents to suddenly stop hating dogs. The subject is finished now—end of story. Could you please put the dog back? And also make me my tea?”

“I think I will go for a walk,” Neela said. Sun-lit dust motes spun in the air between them. “Such a nice day. Penny might need exercise. I’d like to start toilet training.”

“Toilet training? Neela, have you not heard me?” Kartik said, concern wrinkling his forehead. “How can we have a dog? We know nothing about them. What’s gone wrong with you?”

“Actually, my mother grew up with three dogs. She’s raised me with stories about them, though my father never let us get one.” Her eyes grew moist at the thought of her mother.

She knew she was acting childish; she should have discussed it with him first. He worked hard at his job everyday. Her job was to take care of him and their home. She knew, but she couldn’t stop herself—this dog belonged with her. Having a dog made her feel at home in this country that was not yet hers.

“I’m assuming you don’t want to walk with me? I’ll go myself then with Penny,” she said, trying to ignore the hurt on his face she’d never seen before.

She left him in the living room. Her hands were damp as they fondled Penny’s back.

As Kartik stood behind the screen door, she said over her shoulder, “Please, can you manage dinner on your own? I promise, just this once. Don’t worry about cooking for me.”

After spending a couple of hours chasing leaves in a field, Neela tripping in her red silk sari and Penny wobbling on too-thin legs, she sat, juggling the dog on her knee.

“Are you hungry, darling?” she said, turning Penny around to face her. “I’ll make something tasty. How about yogurt pachadi? We’ll eat like royalty.”

Neela ran to the middle of the field. She checked no one was around before undoing her sari palu covering her tightly buttoned blouse. She draped part of the sheer fabric over one arm and began to spin, letting it flap in the breeze. The sky, trees, and grass turned red through the gauze.

“I’m a butterfly, Penny,” she said, extending her arm and swirling the fabric around her. Penny jumped up, butting her head against the cloth.

“No one except you can catch me!”

She raced with her dog from one end of the field to the other, her body’s curves showing beneath the unraveling sari.

Kartik was pacing in the living room when she returned. He called her over.

“Okay, if you want this dog, we’ve got some things to discuss.” His hair stuck up, making him, Neela admitted to herself, more handsome.

“I want you to be happy,” he said. “I’ve let you get lonely. You know my parents’ feelings about dogs; I explained to them that yours are obviously different. Though I wish you’d first run it by me. Anyway, no dog on the furniture. No dog in the living room or upstairs, no. . .”

Penny’s ears flattened at so many no’s.

Neela said, her voice soft, “Thank you for letting me keep her. I’ll make the dinner now if you don’t mind it being a bit late.”

The next morning she went out and bought Penny a used couch that she’d seen in a second-hand store, requesting it be delivered by late afternoon.

Days later, when nobody was home but Neela and Penny, Neela squatted on the stairs and spread her hands out. Penny thumped her tail, ears perked. Her eyebrows and nose twitched; she knew she wasn’t allowed upstairs.

“Come here, darling. Come, now,” Neela said. “It is okay; we’re alone. Is it not my house too? Can I not tell you to come?”

Penny hesitated. Neela pulled her collar, gently tugging her up the stairs. Penny stepped lightly on the bedroom carpet, as if on too-hot sand. She pressed her ears back, trembling. Penny didn’t like it upstairs where the rooms were large and bare, where there were no stuffed toys for her to chew, and no cozy corners. In these rooms with dank smelling air, Penny was afraid to expose her underside.

Neela's scent was faint in the bedroom. There were few traces of her here—no maps on the walls or books scattered, no blankets, throw cushions or Indian cotton prints, no food crumbs. She lifted Penny onto the bed where the dog sniffed at the cold pillows, tucking her tail between her legs.

Neela rolled down onto the carpet. She hitched her sari to her knees, exposing sun-deprived legs. Raising her arms above her head, she flapped them up and down. Penny slunk over to Neela’s head and peered into her face, ears brushing silk onto Neela. The dog’s tail shivered out. She pushed her wet nose against Neela’s neck. If Penny were allowed to sleep at her feet, Neela would spend nights next to her husband rather than in the guest room. She decided to give it time before asking him.

Penny's couch was positioned beneath direct sunlight. If her father-in-law moved it, Neela, late at night, moved it back. Eventually the couch stayed and Neela stopped straining herself in the dark.

She knew Penny enjoyed sleeping on its lumpy cushions. She’d pressed the couch against the window to let Penny watch groundhogs, squirrels, and rabbits scuttling in the back yard.

The couch was Penny’s, as Neela told the dog, and Penny only allowed certain people to sit on it. When her in-laws tried to take over the sunny window haven, Penny sulked in a corner with her rump facing outward and her tail plastered flat between her legs.

Neela slammed cabinet doors and dropped pots loudly in the sink whenever Penny’s rump faced outward, mumbling under her breath. She released smells for Penny—the balmy caresses of samosa, pakora, roti, or whatever food she cooked that day. She saved morsels from the dinner table in order to coax Penny to position herself in defiance at Neela’s feet.

As Neela cooked, she spoke to Penny, giving the dog a taste of each dish. If she got approval with a series of licks and tail wags, Neela closed the lid and stopped cooking. Sometimes, when no one was looking, she slipped her sari palu off her shoulders and whispered, “I’m a butterfly.”

One weekend, Neela caught Kartik watching her from behind the pages of his newspaper. In the middle of dinner that evening, he studied the food as if he’d never before seen it.

“Dinner today is quite good, Neelu,” he said. “You got it perfect. Coriander, chili, and cinnamon, right?” He asked his father if he agreed.

Neela winked at Penny. Her father-in-law let out a low rumble as he usually did before pointing out some flaw in her cooking, but he remained silent as Kartik chewed thoughtfully.

Penny ran into the coat closet and emerged, tripping over her paws, with Neela’s shawl draped over her head. Kartik said, “How funny. A smart dog after all.” He slipped Penny a bit of buttery naan.

The next morning, Neela awoke before dawn in the guest room. She heard a noise in the living room.

They didn’t see her at first. Kartik reclined on one of the forbidden couches. Penny’s head rested on his belly. He stroked two fingers from the top of Penny’s head to her snout. Penny's ears pricked when Neela moved, Kartik’s finger-lines marking the dog’s face.

“Why is Penny in the living room?” Neela asked.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to my parents about that. There isn’t really any reason why she shouldn’t be, is there?” He lifted one of the dog’s ears and peered inside. “Can you get me a wet cloth? We need to wipe this one out. Don’t want it smelling.”

After cleaning the ear, and getting a wet thanks from Penny, he said, “I’m not doing anything today. Want to wash Penny out back? The hose is set up.”

Neela borrowed a t-shirt and pair of his pajama bottoms for the occasion, rolling up the pants at the waist and tying them with a cord from her petticoat. The material bulged under the shirt and her husband laughed. “You know what you look like, don’t you? Six months at least.” Neela blushed.

The hose spewed freezing water. Neela hunched over Penny’s head while Kartik squatted by her paws. She soaped Penny’s head and back; he did her belly, tail, and legs. Their slick arms brushed as they both worked on Penny’s sides.

Penny shook, sending soap spray flying. Neela squealed and Kartik stumbled, falling onto his side. She held out her wet hands to help him up and he smiled, caressing them. Water dripped from Neela’s hair; her shirt, now almost transparent, clung to her skin. She felt her husband staring.

Neela started to towel Penny, but Kartik got a hair dryer. “I hope this won’t bother her,” he said. “Let’s get it done quick.”

The drier blew hot air on Penny. The dog balked, then relaxed under Neela’s touch. Neela, preoccupied with the drier, jumped when she saw something move at the window. Her parents-in-law were observing from the kitchen; they nodded and waved.

“Now that is a clean dog!” her father-in-law said when Penny emerged fluffed and sneezing. “Not like those hooligan street mutts. Might she need a treat?” He tossed Penny a biscuit.

After lunch, her father-in-law chopped carrots for dessert and her mother-in-law taught Neela to make gajar halwa.

Neela finished her chores, fed Penny. Then Neela and Kartik dozed together on Penny’s sunlit couch, the dog warming their toes. They'd never slept so close.