The Namesake. Jhumpa Lahiri

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СКАЧАТЬ his mother tends to vomit the moment she finds herself in a moving car, she is unable to accompany her husband to take Gogol, in September of 1973, to his first day of kindergarten at the town’s public elementary school. By the time Gogol starts, it is already the second week of the school year. But for the past week, Gogol has been in bed, just like his mother, listless, without appetite, claiming to have a stomachache, even vomiting one day into his mother’s pink wastepaper basket. He doesn’t want to go to kindergarten. He doesn’t want to wear the new clothes his mother has bought him from Sears, hanging on a knob of his dresser, or carry his Charlie Brown lunch box, or board the yellow school bus that stops at the end of Pemberton Road. The school, unlike the nursery school, is several miles from the house, several miles from the university. On numerous occasions he’s been driven to see the building, a low, long, brick structure with a perfectly flat roof and a flag that flaps at the top of a tall white pole planted on the lawn.

      There is a reason Gogol doesn’t want to go to kindergarten. His parents have told him that at school, instead of being called Gogol, he will be called by a new name, a good name, which his parents have finally decided on, just in time for him to begin his formal education. The name, Nikhil, is artfully connected to the old. Not only is it a perfectly respectable Bengali good name, meaning “he who is entire, encompassing all,” but it also bears a satisfying resemblance to Nikolai, the first name of the Russian Gogol. Ashoke had thought of it recently, staring mindlessly at the Gogol spines in the library, and he had rushed back to the house to ask Ashima her opinion. He pointed out that it was relatively easy to pronounce, though there was the danger that Americans, obsessed with abbreviation, would truncate it to Nick. She told him she liked it well enough, though later, alone, she’d wept, thinking of her grandmother, who had died earlier in the year, and of the letter, forever hovering somewhere between India and America, containing the good name she’d chosen for Gogol. Ashima still dreams of the letter at times, discovering it after all these years in the mailbox on Pemberton Road, opening it up only to find it blank.

      But Gogol doesn’t want a new name. He can’t understand why he has to answer to anything else. “Why do I have to have a new name?” he asks his parents, tears springing to his eyes. It would be one thing if his parents were to call him Nikhil, too. But they tell him that the new name will be used only by the teachers and children at school. He is afraid to be Nikhil, someone he doesn’t know. Who doesn’t know him. His parents tell him that they each have two names, too, as do all their Bengali friends in America, and all their relatives in Calcutta. It’s a part of growing up, they tell him, part of being a Bengali. They write it for him on a sheet of paper, ask him to copy it over ten times. “Don’t worry,” his father says. “To me and your mother, you will never be anyone but Gogol.”

      

      At school, Ashoke and Gogol are greeted by the secretary, Mrs. McNab, who asks Ashoke to fill out a registration form. He provides a copy of Gogol’s birth certificate and immunization record, which Mrs. McNab puts in a folder along with the registration. “This way,” Mrs. McNab says, leading them to the principal’s office. CANDACE LAPIDUS, the name on the door says. Mrs. Lapidus assures Ashoke that missing the first week of kindergarten is not a problem, that things have yet to settle down. Mrs. Lapidus is a tall, slender woman with short white-blond hair. She wears frosted blue eye shadow and a lemon yellow suit. She shakes Ashoke’s hand and tells him that there are two other Indian children at the school, Jayadev Modi in the third grade and Rekha Saxena in fifth. Perhaps the Gangulis know them? Ashoke tells Mrs. Lapidus that they do not. She looks at the registration form and smiles kindly at the boy, who is clutching his father’s hand. Gogol is dressed in powder blue pants, red and white canvas sneakers, a striped turtleneck top.

      “Welcome to elementary school, Nikhil. I am your principal, Mrs. Lapidus.”

      Gogol looks down at his sneakers. The way the principal pronounces his new name is different from the way his parents say it, the second part of it longer, sounding like “heel.”

      She bends down so that her face is level with his, and extends a hand to his shoulder. “Can you tell me how old you are, Nikhil?”

      When the question is repeated and there is still no response, Mrs. Lapidus asks, “Mr. Ganguli, does Nikhil follow English?”

      “Of course he follows,” Ashoke says. “My son is perfectly bilingual.”

      In order to prove that Gogol knows English, Ashoke does something he has never done before, and addresses his son in careful, accented English. “Go on, Gogol,” he says, patting him on the head. “Tell Mrs. Lapidus how old you are.”

      “What was that?” Mrs. Lapidus says.

      “I beg your pardon, madam?”

      “That name you called him. Something with a G.”

      “Oh that, that is what we call him at home only. But his good name should be—is”—he nods his head firmly—“Nikhil.”

      Mrs. Lapidus frowns. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Good name?”

      “Yes.”

      Mrs. Lapidus studies the registration form. She has not had to go through this confusion with the other two Indian children. She opens up the folder and examines the immunization record, the birth certificate. “There seems to be some confusion, Mr. Ganguli,” she says. “According to these documents, your son’s legal name is Gogol.”

      “That is correct. But please allow me to explain—”

      “That you want us to call him Nikhil.”

      “That is correct.”

      Mrs. Lapidus nods. “The reason being?”

      “That is our wish.”

      “I’m not sure I follow you, Mr. Ganguli. Do you mean that Nikhil is a middle name? Or a nickname? Many of the children go by nicknames here. On this form there is a space—”

      “No, no, it’s not a middle name,” Ashoke says. He is beginning to lose patience. “He has no middle name. No nickname. The boy’s good name, his school name, is Nikhil.”

      Mrs. Lapidus presses her lips together and smiles. “But clearly he doesn’t respond.”

      “Please, Mrs. Lapidus,” Ashoke says. “It is very common for a child to be confused at first. Please give it some time. I assure you he will grow accustomed.”

      He bends down and this time in Bengali, calmly and quietly, asks Gogol to please answer when Mrs. Lapidus asks a question. “Don’t be scared, Gogol,” he says, raising his son’s chin with his finger. “You’re a big boy now. No tears.”

      Though Mrs. Lapidus does not understand a word, she listens carefully, hears that name again. Gogol. Lightly, in pencil, she writes it down on the registration form.

      Ashoke hands over the lunch box, a windbreaker in case it gets cold. He thanks Mrs. Lapidus. “Be good, Nikhil,” he says in English. And then, after a moment’s hesitation, he is gone.

      When they are alone, Mrs. Lapidus asks, “Are you happy to be entering elementary school, Gogol?”

      “My parents want me to have another name in school.”

      “And what about you, Gogol? Do you want to be called by another name?”

      After a pause, he shakes his head.

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