The Wedding Drums

by Marilyn Rodwell

  ‘Now I understand,’ Rajnath said, looking relieved.

  ‘You understand? In that case you are doing better than me, son. I don’t understand any of this. But what are you doing home so soon?’

  ‘The overseer sent me home because I shouldn’t be in work yet so soon after the TB. I said I didn’t have the consumption in the end, but they still said to go home. He said nothing about the letter I got. I’m just going to change my clothes and go down the village. I think I might go to Granville beach and catch some fish.’

  ‘That will be good,’ Parbatee said, relieved. ‘And we will cook it this evening.’

  When Rajnath went to wash the salt off his skin, Parbatee called him from outside the bathroom. ‘If you going to catch fish by the sea, you don’t need to change your clothes,’ she said. ‘Wear the same thing, rather than make more washing for me.’

  ‘My clothes are dirty, Ma,’ he said, having been caught in a lie. ‘I’m changing them because I have to go and see somebody first.’

  Rajnath came out of the house clean and neat, smelling of Wrights Coal Tar soap. His hair was wet and combed straight back, completely off his forehead, a few stray clumps falling to the side in a half-moon curl. His white shirt was tucked into his newly pressed khaki trousers, and his brown leather shoes had been cleaned and polished by Parbatee herself, and left outside his bedroom door.

  ‘You going by the sea?’ Parbatee teased. ‘You don’t fool me. What kind of fish you going to catch? The kind that wears a sari?’

  He smiled and went past her and out to the shed to get the bag of money and the fishing rod. He then left the house, whistling loudly and calling good evening to everyone he passed.

  ‘Good to see you too, Mrs Banderjee. And I’m sorry for your loss.’ Devinia turned around and looked again, almost not recognising him.

  Before he got to the shop at the T-junction, Rajnath turned swiftly right into Sumati’s yard, slowing down at first. Sumati was walking from the kitchen across the yard to the door of the house, clutching both babies to her chest. Rajnath’s feet suddenly became leaden.

  ‘Who is that?’ Sumati called out, pulling the babies closer to her.

  ‘It’s only me. Rajnath,’ he called as he walked slowly down the side.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she shouted. ‘It’s only me at home.’

  ‘Oh,’ he gasped, as she stood there, one shoulder bare, pushing the babies together in front of her. She smiled, half-surprised, half-pleased.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone,’ she explained. ‘I’m here alone, funnily enough. People have been coming and going as if it’s San Fernando wharf, normally. But nobody has come today.’

  ‘Well, I’m not staying long,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘It’s you who should be worried.’

  Rajnath laughed. ‘I’m not bothered who’s gossiping about me either. But I would worry if it gets worse for you because of me.’

  ‘You see these two?’ She looked down her breast at her children. ‘These are all I’m worried about. Were you looking for Amina?’

  ‘No, I wasn’t. Strange question. I just saw her mother.’

  ‘You know, there’s something I really like about you,’ Sumati said. ‘You talk a lot of sense.’

  ‘Really?’ His face flushed as he smiled.

  ‘But you could get some things very wrong,’ she continued.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said, frowning.

  ‘Well, tell me this,’ she said. ‘What reason would a young Hindu girl have for suddenly wanting to become a Roman Catholic nun?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sounds like a riddle.’

  ‘See? You don’t know. And she’s too proud to tell you.’

  Rajnath looked confused. ‘You? You want to turn into a nun?’

  ‘No! I am talking about Amina. I know the two of you have been meeting in secret by the spring.’

  ‘She told you?’

  ‘Tongues talk. Trees whisper. School’s boring, but I’m not stupid.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re stupid. I really don’t. I think you’re one brave woman. But you have got it all wrong. We talk about you and Farouk. And where he’s disappeared to.’ Rajnath smiled, his eyes fixed on the babies.

  ‘Hold him,’ she said, pushing the boy baby towards Rajnath.

  He held the child close, as if afraid he would slip out of his arms. Sumati disappeared inside the house with the other child, while Rajnath sat on the bench holding the baby. It was ten minutes before she reappeared, patting the girl baby’s back.

  ‘Look at his face,’ Rajnath marvelled. ‘And these hands.’

  ‘Say it!’ Sumati said, suddenly aggressive. ‘Say what everybody’s thinking.’

  ‘Have I done something wrong?’ Rajnath was alarmed at her sudden anger.

  ‘The colour of their skin,’ she blurted out. ‘I saw how you were looking at him.’

  It had just dawned on Rajnath why the children looked different from other local babies.

  ‘You see his eyes? They’re blue.’

  Rajnath stared closely at the little boy. ‘Oh yes – they’re really blue. Is that normal? His skin’s more transparent too, and he’s so small. These babies need to be protected, and I am worried that you don’t have anybody to help you.’

  ‘So have you come to help? Are you saying I’m not managing?’

  ‘I didn’t come here to accuse you. I came to give you . . .’

  ‘Give me advice? To see if the gossip is true?’ Her voice was raised and fierce.

  ‘No! Just the opposite,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Well let me tell you – I really don’t care who thinks what about me. My mother’s dead so everybody comes here to watch me. They come and sit down, gossiping and spying on me, talking about me as if I’m deaf.’

  ‘I’m sure they come to help,’ he said.

  ‘So why don’t they? Instead they come and sit together, gossiping hush-hush, their eyes following me. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘These children are so pretty,’ he said. ‘What could they be saying?’

  ‘I just told you! It’s their colour – their white skin. The yellow in Patrick’s hair.’

  Rajnath stared at the babies. She was right. He hadn’t noticed the detail, and now felt stupid.

  ‘Well, let me tell you, Rajnath Kamalsingh, it wasn’t my fault that I ended up like this. Yes, I did go with Farouk. That was my fault. But not this.’ Sumati suddenly stood up and said, ‘I’m tired of everybody. Just go! Leave me alone.’

  ‘I didn’t come here to upset you. I came to help – but you don’t want it.’

  ‘Help how? Look, you’ve said your piece so just leave me now. Go and find your nun!’

  Rajnath got up and left, feeling wronged and misunderstood. He had never meant to cause her any upset. He had come to make amends, distressed that the pain in her life was caused by him. Something he could never reverse. But he was trying. He hung his head and walked out of her yard, wondering what she had meant about a nun.

  The day wasn’t turning out too well. Rajnath headed down to the beach, hoping to calm himself. Fishing boats lay on their sides beneath coconut tree trunks under the magical spell of clusters of green, yard-long fingers, waiting for the tide to float them again. Rajnath got up, his feet sinking into the dry sand. A hermit crab hovered at the mouth of a shell, then disappeared into the blackness inside, escaping to safety. Everyone seemed to be looking to hide. It was time to return home in case a message had arrived from work.

  A sudden uneasiness crept over him and made him panic. He stripped off to his shorts and ran into the cool waves, diving head first and scraping his belly muscles on the seabed, swimming like a flounder out to sea for as long as he could hold his breath. When he surfaced, the wildness and solitude of the sea brought peace to his mind.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Amina went to see Sumati. She needed a friend, but when she got there she couldn’t speak. Instead, she burst into tears and wept for a
good ten minutes.

  ‘Do you think it’s karma?’ Sumati asked. ‘I know that’s what Pundit Lall would say. Especially if he knew about you wanting to turn Catholic as well as not get married.’

  ‘Somebody murdered my father,’ Amina sobbed. ‘How could it be about me? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘I know. It’s hard to make sense of something like that. What can I say?’

  ‘Nothing you can say will make him come back.’

  ‘Rajnath came to see me yesterday and I told him to leave. I didn’t want to talk. He left that bag here.’ Sumati picked up her friend’s hand. ‘Amina, I’m ready to tell you . . . what happened to me in San Fernando. It was all my fault.’ Sumati’s face had turned to stone.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘When we stayed there – I was never given any food or drink all day. By evening I was so hungry and thirsty, I used to drink whatever they gave me. It was bitter, but I got used to it. Rajnath’s cousin, Dillip, used to send women to dress me up. It was strange, but it made me feel happy – like they cared. I used to smell the food and wait for him to shout for me to come down from the room, and drink with them after they had eaten their dinner.’

  ‘They used to starve you?’ Amina asked, shocked. ‘I thought they were rich.’

  ‘Yes, they starved me so I would get drunk fast. I got breakfast, but that was all. They made me smoke a pipe as well. They used to say – pull harder – and I used to laugh and laugh. It was ganja. Made me dizzy.’

  ‘Some people smoke it – like on a Friday night.’

  ‘The whisky and rum went straight to my head. They mixed it with red sorrel drink, or orange juice or water. I drank it fast to finish it, but then they just gave me more. By then I was laughing and drinking it all down. Two of the women would take me across to the new side of the house, upstairs, where people were staying. Men. By the time I hit the bed . . . they were taking my clothes off. It was as if I was dreaming.’ Sumati’s eyes were sad and glistening.

  ‘They?’

  ‘Yes, the women helped. It was my fault. I think I must have wanted it.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ Amina exclaimed. ‘How could it be your fault? I’m so angry. I wish my father was here.’

  ‘I didn’t fight hard enough. I let them. Then I wanted it . . . because they wanted me. Those men treated me well. Farouk had gone.’ She grit her teeth. ‘I hated him for that.’

  Amina wrapped her arms round Sumati and the babies and squeezed them, tears streaming down her face. ‘Why didn’t you run away?’

  ‘I was ashamed the next day. Every time. When I woke up I would find myself lying half-dressed in my bed and feel worse than the day before. Where could I go? I couldn’t come back home in disgrace. My parents wouldn’t want me. The women said I was always too drunk to undress myself before going to bed. They said that I liked the drink.’

  ‘What kind of people are these?’ Amina was furious. ‘Rajnath’s uncle?’

  ‘I don’t know how much Amrit knew, but Dillip is not a good person. He and his father quarrelled a lot.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Money mainly. And business. And about the men who stayed there. And Tonia – they quarrelled a lot about her. She was a servant, but I think she was Amrit’s mistress too.’

  ‘And this Tonia woman knew what was going on and didn’t put a stop to it?’

  ‘Worse. She was one of those who used to carry me up to the rooms and put me on the bed for those men. Sometimes there was more than one man. She would take off my clothes, and she helped to hold my legs open when I tried to fight.’

  ‘Really?’ Amina shook with rage. ‘You can’t trust anybody! Rajnath needs to know this. I’m not sure how to tell him this, but he needs to know the truth. What happened to Farouk?’

  ‘He left almost as soon as we got there.’

  ‘Sumati, something has to be done about this. It can’t be allowed to continue. I will have to talk to somebody. Oh God, I want my father back!’ Amina began to howl. ‘I miss him so much. I wish I hadn’t thought bad things about him sometimes. He was in the shop late, making jewellery for me – and I was too much of a fool to appreciate him. Did I tell you he changed his mind about the wedding? He cancelled it. He wanted me to be a doctor. How can I do that now? Everything is ruined. And now this! Men are not worth it! I wish he was here. I want to tell him I’m sorry for being a bad daughter. I want to die. Why wasn’t it me? I nearly died, and instead I got selfish.’

  ‘No, Amina. No! You mustn’t say these things. He was wrong and he changed his mind because he realised that. Some contemptable criminal murdered him. Have they found who did it?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Amina said dully. They sat in silence for a while. ‘What about the other girls, Sumati? You actually got away somehow, but the others?’

  ‘They are still there, I suppose.’ She brightened up. ‘There was one man who was nice. A white man. He wanted to take me back to Ireland. His name was Patrick Cassidy.’

  ‘Where is this Irishman now?’

  ‘He went somewhere on business but said he would come back. I waited two weeks and then I left. I tried to find him, but I couldn’t. I don’t know what happened. Somehow I managed to get on a sloop, but that’s all I remember.’ Sumati looked down at her babies, tears streaming and falling on their soft hair. ‘I can’t help thinking that if it wasn’t for all that happened to me, my babies wouldn’t be here, so I’m happy about that.’

  ‘I know, but that doesn’t make it right either.’

  ‘I can’t be sure, but I think their father was Patrick Cassidy. This one looks like him.’

  ‘So, you called him Patrick.’

  ‘Patrick and Saraswatti. I want to think he was a nice enough man, and would have come back for me.’

  ‘I don’t know. But Patrick and Sara are both nice names,’ Amina half-smiled. ‘Sara is a good Christian name. She was Abraham’s wife.’

  ‘So long as Abraham was a good husband,’ Sumati joked, relieved.

  ‘Abraham? He was a friend of God. So yeah.’

  ‘That’s good enough for me. It gives me hope for them. Thank you, Amina.’

  Amina was more disturbed when she left Sumati’s house than she had been when she got there. Horrible images went through her head. Her father, with a slit throat lying bleeding to death, Daya dangling from the tree with her tongue blue and protruding, and now Sumati’s ordeal of being raped and abused naked every day. She shuddered. She was desperate to talk to someone who would know what to do, and take some kind of action. So she headed up the road to Rajnath’s house.

  After Amina left Rajnath’s house, the young man sat and wept for a long time. After he had dried his eyes and recovered from the details of Sumati’s experiences at his uncle’s house, at the hand of his cousin, he disappeared into the bedroom and began writing a letter to the police in San Fernando, regarding Amrit and Dillip’s illegal business practices. He folded it and put it safely under a clean shirt till he managed to get an envelope to post it. When he returned outside, his mother gave him a different letter, one she had received from the post office that same day.

  ‘Miss Lottie told me that is your name on the envelope,’ she said.

  That evening, the Singhs were all outside sitting under the bamboo canopy before dinner. The mosquitoes had started buzzing around their earlobes, piercing skin and drawing blood. Rajnath slapped one and splattered blood across his bare arm.

  ‘Annan,’ Parbatee said. ‘Go and get the Cockset and light it.’

  Annan left, returning with the Cockset mosquito coil, and lit the end. Rajnath’s face was wretched, and his brother noticed.

  ‘What did the letter say?’ Annan asked.

  Rajnath didn’t reply. He just threw the piece of paper down on the table in front of him. Annan picked it up and read it.

  ‘Oh boy!’ Annan said. ‘You are in the proverbial shit.’

  ‘Annan!’ Parbatee chided him. ‘Who taught you to talk like
that?’

  ‘You mean proverbial?’ Annan asked cheekily. ‘Oh, I learnt that in school. And shit? I learned that from Pa.’

  Kamal Singh was bathed and dressed for a relaxing evening at home, when he overheard his younger son back-chatting his mother. ‘You are not too big for me to scrub your mouth with carbolic soap, you know,’ he shouted. But then he too spotted Rajnath’s face. ‘What’s wrong, son? Something in the letter?’ He hadn’t heard anything at work even though there was always gossip travelling from one cane estate to the next.

  ‘Read it for yourself,’ Rajnath shrugged. ‘I don’t understand it.’

  Kamal picked up the letter and read it. ‘What!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘What is it?’ Parbatee asked.

  ‘The court case is on Friday in Port of Spain,’ Kamal said.

  ‘And that is not all,’ Annan added.

  ‘The summons says that the offence is refusal to work, desertion, and insubordination to the management.’

  ‘That is not true!’ Rajnath said hotly. ‘The doctor’s certificate! We sent it, didn’t we, Ma?’

  ‘Your father took it in,’ Parbatee said.

  ‘But who is going to believe you?’ Annan said, looking at Rajnath. ‘That is why I wouldn’t work for those lying dogs.’

  ‘But they never said yesterday. The overseer told me to go home and rest. I don’t understand.’

  ‘They’re a load of cheating bully-liars managing the cane fields,’ Annan spat.

  Rajnath felt overwhelmed. His bad day had just got worse. The world was conspiring against him, but it brought the family closer that night.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Annan counselled him when they were alone. ‘They can break your back, but they can’t break your spirit. You are strong, you are able, and you are brainy, my brother. Besides, you don’t have to go back to that donkey-head cane estate no more.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Rajnath asked.

  Annan winked one eye. ‘Dillip told me what Uncle gave you.’

  ‘Oh, he did, did he?’ Rajnath said. ‘And did he tell you why?’