Why Indian Men Fall In Love With White Women

Why Indian Men Fall in Love With White Women

by Sherman Alexie

"This is how it is," says the white woman in the donut shop (it wasn't
a donut shop but something else entirely) and then she laughs
a melodious, joyous noise, and she smacks a hand, her left one
I believe, to her forehead in mock-Lucy exasperation, and then says
again, "This is how it is," but then adds as an afterthought, or

considering the use of the pun, perhaps had planned on saying it
all along, saying, "This is my job," except she doesn't say job, as
in work, she says Job, with a long vowel, as in the guy from the Bible.
Of course, this makes me love her, because if she said it
as an afterthought, then she is bright, but if she had always planned

to say it, to say Job, like the Job in the Bible, who had the worst job
in human history, then she is disciplined. She sais "This is my Job,"
as an afterthought, or as part of her daily script, I don't care which.
She says Job with the job, the job belonging to Job, Job possessed
by his job, the Job, the job, the Job, the job. Is the white woman

in the donut shop really that clever, and let's admit it, the pun
is not truly that clever, but clever enough, perhaps too clever
for a woman working in a donut shop (but it wasn't really
a donut shop), but I don't really care to guess at the exact level
of her education, because she laughs so joyously, because her eyes

are blue and alive with happiness and intelligence, so I decide
right there in the donut shop, that she is indeed too clever to be
working in a donut shop, that she is, in fact, a scholar who turned
her back on her academic pursuits, that she was a theologian
a blessed and gifted woman who wanted to be a priest, a Jesuit

an Ignation, of all things, but was turned back by the Catholic Church
and its antiquated notions of gender. She is romantic and novel
and more than a little sad, but she disguises her sadness so well
behind her blue eyes, though I am sensitive enough to see enough
of her sadness to guess at the whole of her sadness, even as she laughs

even as she takes my sympathetic order for a dozen donuts, as she gathers
the donuts into the appropriate container, as she hands it to me, as
our hands touch, as the tips of her fingers brush against the tips
of my fingers, as we briefly share a moment, and by "moment," I mean
a segment of immeasurable time, and in that moment, I feel forgiven

or perhaps I am merely aroused sexually and/or spiritually, but
in either case, I take a donut (maple?) from my appropriate container
and offer it to her, and she takes it with delight (she still loves
donuts, despite the Job-ness of her job), and she bites into it
and chews it without suggestion. She chews simply

with and without grace. She chews like a monk. She is that flour;
she is that egg; she is that sugar; she is that water. She is that flour;
she is that egg; she is that sugar; she is that water; She is the whole
of the donut; she is the hole of the donuts. She is the blue tear
balanced on the lower lid of her left eye. She is Job, my dear Job.

Sherman Alexie