Land of the Free
By: Pritha Deshpande
Tags: Short Story, Fiction Writing, Fiction, Racism, Indian

Credits — Unsplash

The suit I had chosen was dark brown, a few shades deeper than my skin. It was immaculately tailored, the crisp lines of it sweeping upward and making me look taller, more polished. I had saved up, as my father had grumbled on several occasions, a ridiculous amount of money for it, making sure everything about it, from the lapels to the belt loops, was perfect.

It was delightfully western, a world apart from the dhoti I was required to wear at my parents’ house in Mysore. My mother had insisted I pack a few, so I could pray and perform our daily rituals in my hotel room. She had folded them neatly and tucked them among the many suits and trousers and leather shoes in my suitcase. Incongruously traditional, incongruously Indian.

I peered into the small, dirty mirror that hung on the wall above the sink outside the tiny bathroom at my own reflection, coaxing my hair to lie flat with the help of a small comb and making sure my glasses were smudge-free and spotless. I looped a red silk tie around my neck with careful, deft and experienced fingers, but their slight shaking betrayed my nervousness and excitement.

The deafening horn of the ship sounded out, but I was far too used to the sound of it to jump. I tore my eyes away from my neatly parted hair and tightly knotted tie and moved over to the window, a small circle of cracked, dirty glass set into the equally cracked and dirty wall. I put my face as close to it as possible without touching it, squinting to get a look outside, hoping to get a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, or perhaps the Brooklyn Bridge, anything to cement the reality of it all — I was actually in America. The land of the free, the land of opportunity, the land where all your dreams come true.

I knew numerous people who had immigrated here after the bill passed in ’46, people looking for better lives and better governments after the partition had ripped India into two still-bloody, unequal halves. They’d wanted stability, they told me and my parents, arms full of suitcases, faces full of smiles and heads full of dreams. Peace of mind. Somewhere they could settle down and raise a family without having to worry about communal riots and unstable governments.

Me, I had simply wanted to study law. My mother protested that I could learn just as well in an Indian college, but I had wanted to escape the lingering influence of the British on our education system. I had wanted a fresh perspective, a clean slate. Armed with an F visa, flawless English and high hopes of citizenship after I completed my degree, I had come here, tentative and timid but ready for whatever this country had in store for me. I’d had to book a ticket on a ship rather than a plane for how expensive air travel was, and while the month’s journey had been grueling to say the least, it hardly mattered any longer.

There were far too many cargo ships and other passenger ships congregated in the port blocking the view for me to catch sight of anything, but we would be docking in fifteen minutes or so. And then I would step out onto American soil, the first time I was leaving my home country behind. The first time the soles of my shoes would rest on earth that didn’t belong to India.

I tidied up the little room I had inhabited for the better part of the last month, checking every nook and cranny and even kneeling to check beneath the bed before snapping the small lock onto my suitcase and surveying the now-pristine room. Attached to the cramped space as I had become, I was more than ready to leave. I had never been away from home, and as wide a leap as this was, I would take it in my stride. I stood in the open doorway, suitcase in hand, gazing at it a moment one last time in order to try and commit it all to memory; the single long, slender spiderwebbing crack in the wall above the window, the short, stout dresser in the corner, the hospital-like bed with metal frames and a mattress so worn in places that I had been able to feel the metal against my back. The dirty circle of glass in the wall that I had spent so many days pressing my nose against, my only portal to the world outside and the endless blue expanse of the sea.

Giving a little nod as if to tell myself that was enough, I turned on my heel and shut the door behind me, walking away from the cabin at the bottom of the ship, blissfully and ignorantly unaware that within its four walls would be the last time I would ever feel comfortable for a long, long time to come.

***

New York was — overwhelming.

I was swept along by the powerful human tide of activity and bustle the moment I stepped out of customs, the sound of their talk and footsteps hanging in the air like a swarm of bees, a constant hum. The cold January air was as sharp and crisp as the edge of a blade, but the warmth of a thousand bodies surrounding my own made it easier to bear, stifling the chill. A weak winter sun wobbled in the sky high above my head, a tremulous gold.

I hardly had time to look around, enraptured by the sheer amount of life around me. Buildings stretched high and higher still, their tops lost to the clouds, and the roads were paved, cobbled and were wider than any road I had ever seen. There were no trees in sight, only buildings and people, restaurants and cafés and theaters, bars and brownstones and banks. It was a world — no, an entire universe — away from my contained, simple life in Mysore, where everything was a stone’s throw away from my front door.

I had been to a big city only once before, and that had been about a month ago when I had gone to Bombay in order to board the ship I had booked. New York was nothing like Bombay, though. It was cleaner, more modern. Befitting my journey away from the congestion of my life at home and towards the future, I thought as I made my way through the wide streets and towards the first hotel on my list. I had consulted a map of the city before arriving in New York, jotting down several potential temporary homes I could stay in before hopefully getting admission to the college I had always dreamed of going to.

People stared at me as I walked, some out of the corners of their eyes and some openly. I knew I stuck out like a sore thumb among the fair-skinned, blue-eyed majority, but by the time I reached the first hotel I was beginning to feel ever so slightly uncomfortable. Curious and startled stares aside, I’d had my fair share of cold glances and hostile glares thrown my way as I walked down the streets. I tried to convince myself that I was imagining it as I found the first hotel, turning into the wide, attractive lobby.

I studiously ignored the fresh onslaught of stares I received as I walked towards the reception, knuckles white on the handle of my suitcase. Never had such a short distance seemed so endlessly long as the few yards between the revolving glass doors of the hotel and the desk at the other end of the room.

“Excuse me,” I said once I finally reached the desk, behind which a woman was sitting. She wasn’t looking at me, bent out of sight beneath the desk. All I could see of her were her blonde curls, styled and pinned immaculately atop her head. I could hear the rustling of paper. “Just a moment, darling,” her voice said, and a few seconds later she straightened, a benign smile on her face. “How can I help — ”

She caught sight of me standing at the desk and her face went slack, her words dying at her lips. Her eyes were wide behind her wire-rimmed spectacles, and her pink-lipsticked mouth was agape in a perfect O. I swallowed my unease and smiled at her in what I hoped was an easygoing manner. “Good morning, madam,” I said. “I’m looking for temporary accommodation and I was hoping you had a vacancy.”

She spluttered inelegantly, her pale face reddening. “You can’t stay here!” she said incredulously, as if she were stating something that was obvious, something I should have known. “This is a whites-only hotel, can’t you read?” She pointed at something behind me, and with a sort of distant horror sinking through my stomach, I turned around.

Hanging on the wall a few feet away was a large sign, upon which was emblazoned the words: ‘WHITES ONLY. NO COLOREDS ALLOWED’ in large, ugly, unmistakable letters.

I turned back towards her, unable to think of a single thing to say. As I stared, the realization dawning on me at last, she crossed her arms, looking at me with the pure loathing only a stranger can harbor towards another stranger. She no longer looked remotely benign, every ounce of kindness wiped away and replaced by prejudiced hatred. This was not about me. It was not about my visa. It was not about my passport. It was about the color of my skin.

“Get out of this hotel,” she said, and then she called me a word, one I had never heard before but knew was full of hatred and bitterness just by the ugly way it sounded when she said it. I didn’t need to be told twice — I turned and all but fled the place, humiliation and anger burning like brands on my face as the white men and women standing in the lobby smoking cigars and drinking champagne out of little glass flutes all clapped and jeered at my retreating back.

I didn’t stop walking as fast as I could until I was several streets away from the hotel, sagging against a wall to catch my breath. Panicked, frustrated tears sprang to my eyes and I wiped at them furiously, taking a deep, shuddering breath. Just because that one hotel was whites only didn’t mean the others were, too. Resolving to be sleeping in a comfortable bed in a good hotel by the time the day was over, I picked up my suitcase and straightened my tie, pulling my map out of my pocket. Locating the next hotel, I began to walk again, trying as hard as I could to ignore the stares I now knew were because of my brown skin.

“Good morning,” I said to the receptionist of the next hotel, smiling as pleasantly as I could. “I’m looking for a room and I was wondering whether there were any available.” Before the man seated behind the desk could reply I shoved my visa at him, still smiling. “I’m here to study law.”

He glanced at me suspiciously before taking my visa, running a dismissive eye over it, as if he had already made his decision before he even had a chance to treat me fairly. “Vivaan,” he struggled to read aloud, pronouncing the last syllable the way one would pronounce the word ‘van’. He stared at my last name for a solid ten seconds, brows furrowed and face twisted with the utmost concentration. Then: “Murphy?” he tried, frowning up at me.

I tried not to let my smile waver. “Murthy.”

“Look, Mr. Murphy — ”

“It’s not — ”

“Look, I don’t care what your name is, all right?” He flung my visa back at me and it skidded across the desk, coming to rest a few inches away from my clenched fist. “I don’t care that you’ve got a visa, and I don’t care what you came here to do. This isn’t a coloreds hotel, and by those rules I can’t give you accommodation.”

“Please, sir,” I said, dropping my voice. “I’m here to study, and I only got here this morning. I’d be willing to pay as much as you ask if you allow me to stay here. I’ll have citizenship in a few years, but until then I do need a place to stay. I’m from India, sir.”

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from,” the man said, unmoved. “You’re dark, and by my book, that makes you not white. And if you’re not white, it makes you colored, and that’s good enough for me. Now get out of here before I call the police for trespassing.”

I snatched up my visa, gritting my teeth against the words I so badly wanted to say, and left the hotel. Digging out my map and ignoring the way the paper fluttered and tremored in my shaking grip, I turned and began to walk.

***

Six more hotels later, I was ready to give up.

Afternoon waned into evening, and the temperature had dropped like a stone as the sunlight dwindled, leaving me shivering in my thin suit, unused to such cold weather. The city didn’t seem remotely wonderful or beautiful anymore; it looked cold and distant and hostile, the buildings sharp and jutting, the roads sinister and dark and the people unwelcoming and hateful, their white faces full of judgement and contempt. The weak sun overhead seemed dark and useless, the city closing in on me like the jaws of a great beast.

I wanted to go home. But home was on the other side of the world, too far away even to fathom. I felt helpless and cast out, my brown skin like a spotlight that excluded me, made me different, made me unlucky and unwanted. Unbidden in my mind rose the image of how India had been under the rule of the British, my grandfather and his father and his father before him all punished and arrested and flogged in the streets simply for existing as who they were.

I never thought I would reenter the hell of colonialism. I had only been a child when India finally freed herself from the shackles the British had put on her, but I had been old enough to realize exactly how important the moment was. My people had been treated as outsiders in their own country, and while I had heard about it and knew of people to whom it had happened, I had never really understood how it had felt.

But I did now.

Somehow I was invisible, yet there was a target painted on my back at the same time. Somehow I didn’t matter but I was scrutinized and picked apart by every eye in the city. Somehow I was nobody but my skin was a brand that made me other, made me alien, and somehow this country and her people hated me even though I had done nothing to them. It was a special sort of powerlessness, to be put in chains just when you thought you were finally going to be free. A life sentence in place of a parole.

I dragged in a shaky breath and let it out again, and it was turned to mist in the cold air, lingering in white trails that faded moments later. I was still walking, but it was aimless and purposeless now; I wasn’t willing to go to any more hotels now, not after what I had come to realize.

I had come here to start a new life, to leave behind my home that was still healing slowly after the litany of repeated blows that it had been dealt. I wanted something else, something more modern, something more individual. And what better country to realize those dreams in than America? The dreams of going to a top-notch law school, passing the bar exam with flying colors. The dream of getting a passport and buying a house, the dream of being able to call this country home. That was what they called it, wasn’t it, the dream of money and beauty and fame? The American dream?

I suppose I hadn’t understood exactly what America was until it was too late. Until I had been thrust knee-deep into the undercurrent of hatred and anger that ran beneath its skin like poison through its heart, veiled and concealed in plain sight. It’s not a bad thing when you’re on the right side of the gun; but when you’re staring down the barrel, that’s when you truly understand the reality of it all. This country was full of hatred and anger and prejudice. Not freedom and dreams and happiness. There was no American dream for people like me. America was not the land of the free. America was a lie.

I crumpled my map with all the hotels I had so painstakingly researched and located in my shaking fists and tossed it in a garbage can as I passed it, not throwing it a backwards glance. Turning my collar up against the wind, no matter how futile a gesture it was, I kept walking.

“Heya, mister?” A voice behind me called out. “’Scuse me, sir. You, in the brown suit!”

I turned, an already surprisingly familiar spite and bitterness rearing up in my chest. “I know, I’m leaving,” I snapped defiantly. “I’ll find somewhere else to stay, I don’t need your — ”

“Oh no, you got it all wrong, mister,” the voice said, and it sounded different from all the other snooty, aristocratic voices I had heard today, calling me horrible words and names and telling me to get off their property just for being darker than they were. The man who the voice belonged to stepped forward into the perfect circle of light cast down by one of the streetlamps behind me, and for some odd reason seeing him made all my defensive fury melt away like sugar into tea.

His skin was dark.

“You dropped this, is all,” he said, coming forward and holding something out to me. I took it from him as if in a daze, and realized belatedly that it was my crumpled hotel map. I shook my head. “I meant to throw this,” I said. “I don’t want it anymore.”

I suppose I could have said need. I don’t need it anymore. But that would be a lie — I did need it. I just didn’t want it.

“I couldn’t help but get a look at it,” said the man, looking at me with eyes the color of charcoal. “You new to the city?”

I nodded. “I came here to study law. I was looking for places to stay, but…”

“But you’re you, and they don’t like that, do they, the white folks?” He smiled ruefully at me, and on any other day, at any other moment I would have smiled back. But I was too tired. “No,” I agreed instead, the monosyllabic response all I was capable of just then.

“You still looking?” he asked.

“I suppose.” I shrugged, crumpling the list in my hands even further. “I do need somewhere to stay, and I’ll freeze to death if I don’t. I’m used to it being very hot even in winter.”

“Your body ain’t going to agree with the Big Apple, then,” the man said sagely, and I would have agreed if I had any idea what he was talking about. “Listen,” he went on. “If you’re looking for someplace, you ain’t going to have any luck out here. This is the white part of town, see? We ain’t allowed in any of these joints. We’ll be thrown out, ’cause we’re colored.”

“Yes, I learned that bit the hard way,” I said.

He laughed, and it was the first laugh I had heard since I stepped off the boat this morning. It felt nice to hear laughter after so many jeers and curses. “You’re a colored man in the white part of town, you’re half frozen, you’ve been thrown out of half the hotels in the city and you’ve still got a sense of humor,” he said. “That’s a good sign.”

“I’m — ” Not colored, I wanted to say, but then I stopped. What did it matter here? Here in America I was not white, which automatically made me colored. To everyone who wasn’t colored, that made me an alien. But to everyone who was colored, it made me one of them. And for that one little kernel, that small feeling that maybe, just maybe, I could actually end up belonging somewhere in this city, even if it wasn’t where I thought I would belong? For the feeling of being included and being taken in and being valued as a human being? For that, I would do anything.

“Where do you live?” I asked him, before I could lose my bravado.

“Me? Harlem,” he said confidently. “It’s where we all stay.”

“We all?”

“Yeah, all us black folks.”

I swallowed hard. “Anyone there like me?”

“Oh yeah, sure thing,” he said, and a relief so profound washed over me that my knees went weak. “We got all sorts. We got Mexicans, Indians, Africans, you name it.”

“Is — it possible for — ” I could hardly get the words out fast enough. “I mean — could I — ”

“Sure,” he said, even though I hadn’t even articulated the entirety of my question. “We’ve given a whole lotta folk like you shelter. You’ll want to follow me though, this city doesn’t like people who don’t know the way.”

I stepped up beside him, and for the first time I got a proper look at his face. He was a few inches taller than I was, and slender to the point of being skinny. His hair was shaved close to his head, a shadow clinging to his scalp. There were creases around his eyes, lines drawn there not by age but by laughter. He couldn’t have been any older than I was.

“Thanks,” was all I could manage.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, smiling at me, and the lines around his eyes crinkled. He held out a hand. “I’m Leon.”

And without a shred of hesitation, surprising me more than anyone else, I reached out and shook it. “Vivaan.”

“Good to meet you, brother,” Leon said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Now let’s get you a home.”