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(excerpt)
At the airport, I was questioned by an immigration official. “You’re blind—totally blind—and they gave you a visa? You say it’s for your studies, but studies where?”
“At the Arkansas School for the Blind. It is in Little Rock, in Arkansas.”
He shuffled through the pages of a book. Sleep was in my eyes. Drops of sweat were running down my back. My shirt and trousers felt dirty.
“Arkansas School is not on our list of approved schools for foreign students.”
“I know,” I said. “That is why the immigration officials in Delhi gave me only a visitor’s visa. They said that when I got to the school I should tell the authorities to apply to be on your list of approved schools, so that I could get a student visa.” I showed him a big manila envelope I was carrying. It contained my chest X-rays, medical reports, and fingerprint charts, which were necessary for a student visa, and which I’d had prepared in advance.
“Why didn’t you apply to an approved school in the first place and come here on a proper student visa?” he asked, looking through the material.
My knowledge of English was limited. With difficulty, I explained to him that I had applied to some thirty schools but that, because I had been able to get little formal education in India, the Arkansas School was the only one that would accept me; that I had needed a letter of acceptance from an American school to get dollars sanctioned by the Reserve Bank of India; and that now that I was in America I was sure I could change schools if the Arkansas School was not suitable or did not get the necessary approval.
Muttering to himself, the immigration official looked up at me, down at his book, and up at me again. He finally announced, “I think you’ll have to go to Washington and apply to get your visa changed to a student visa before you can go to any school.”
I recalled things that Daddyji used to say as we were growing up: “In life, there is only fight or flight. You must always fight,” and “America is ...’s own country. People there are the most hospitable and generous people in the world.” I told myself I had nothing to worry about. Then I remembered that Daddyji had mentioned a Mr. and Mrs. Dickens in Washington—they were friends of friends of his—and told me that I could get in touch with them in case of emergency.
“I will do whatever is necessary,” I now said to the immigration official. “I will go to Washington.”
He hesitated, as if he were thinking something, and then stamped my passport and returned it to me. “We Mehtas carry our luck with us,” Daddyji used to say. He is right, I thought.
The immigration official suddenly became helpful, as if he were a friend. “You shouldn’t have any trouble with the immigration people in Washington,” he said, and asked, “Is anybody meeting you here?”
“Mr. and Mrs. di Francesco,” I said.
Mrs. di Francesco was a niece of Manmath Nath Chatterjee, whom Daddyji had known when he himself was a student, in London, in 1920. Daddyji had asked Mr. Chatterjee, who had a Scottish-American wife and was now settled in Yellow Springs, Ohio, if he could suggest anyone with whom I might stay in New York, so that I could get acclimatized to America before proceeding to the Arkansas School, which was not due to open until the eleventh of September. Mr. Chatterjee had written back that, as it happened, his wife’s niece was married to John di Francesco, a singer who was totally blind, and that Mr. and Mrs. di Francesco lived in New York, and would be delighted to meet me at the airport and keep me as a paying guest at fifteen dollars a week.
“How greedy of them to ask for money!” I had cried when I learned of the arrangement. “People come and stay with us for months and we never ask for an anna.”
Daddyji had said, “In the West, people do not, as a rule, stay with relatives and friends but put up in hotels, or in houses as paying guests. That is the custom there. Mr. and Mrs. di Francesco are probably a young, struggling couple who could do with a little extra money.”
The immigration official now came from behind the counter, led me to an open area, and shouted, with increasing volume, “Francisco!... Franchesca!... De Franco!” I wasn’t sure what the correct pronunciation was, but his shouting sounded really disrespectful. I asked him to call for Mr. and Mrs. di Francesco softly. He bellowed, “Di Fransesco!”
No one came. My mouth went dry. Mr. and Mrs. di Francesco had sent me such a warm invitation. I couldn’t imagine why they would have let me down or what I should do next.
Then I heard the footsteps of someone running toward us. “Here I am. You must be Ved. I’m Muriel di Francesco. I’m sorry John couldn’t come.” I noted that the name was pronounced the way it was spelled, and that hers was a Yankee voice—the kind I had heard when I first encountered Americans at home, during the war—but it had the sweetness of the voices of my sisters.
We shook hands; she had a nice firm grip. I had an impulse to call her Auntie Muriel—at home, an older person was always called by an honorific, like “Auntie” or “Uncle”—but I greeted her as Daddyji had told me that Westerners liked to be greeted: “Mrs. di Francesco, I’m delighted to make your acquaintance.”