Silent Winds, Dry Seas
Page 23
He paused, giving me a few seconds to think.
“Is it because it’s lucrative?” he added.
“As far as money is concerned, as long as I have a spacious house, well furnished, a nice car, and good food, I’ll be satisfied.”
“So it does not take much to make you happy,” the President said.
His countenance changed, from affable and well disposed to solemn.
He continued, “Money drives this business. We have to bring in money, day in and day out. You won’t be able to sustain that if you’re not driven by the profit motive. Have you given any thought to that?”
“If I do the job right, the money would come in,” I said.
“If I don’t bring in more money each year, the Board fires me. Bankers don’t have the luxury of tenure that your professors have. What motivates you, Vishnu? That’s the question you have to ask yourself.”
The interview had turned into a lecture. I looked at the masks; they were laughing at my expense. My earlobes were hot. I was tongue-tied.
“We like you, but I’m not sure you’re ready for the business world. The profit motive has to be ingrained in you.”
“How does that happen?” I asked.
“Go to business school. A good one—Harvard, Stanford, Chicago. For two years you’ll bathe in a special atmosphere, where people are not ashamed to talk about money.”
He rose, shook my hand, and wished me luck.
In the taxi to Boston’s Logan Airport, I looked back on the occasions when the word profit was mentioned at home. There were not many, and they usually involved some unethical activity—the shopkeeper diluting rum with water or the goldsmith falsifying scales to increase profits, the sugar estates cooking the books to escape taxes and keep all their profits. When we arrived at the airport, the driver had to wake me up. It had been a tiring day.
As I handed him the fare, the sight and feel of green banknotes in my palm took me back to a book that my father often referred to, especially when he didn’t want to buy something Mama or I wanted. It was written by an award-winning American journalist, Louis Fischer—Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World. The back cover carried a photo of Gandhi’s possessions when he died: a pair of wooden shoes, his spectacles, his dhoti, and the Bhagavad Gita. “Anything else is superfluous,” Papa would say.
No wonder I didn’t grasp it when the bank president handed me the answer he wanted to hear:
“Why do you want the job? Is it because it’s lucrative?”
I let Gandhi win.
I let the opportunity of a lifetime go down the drain.
I let down the neighbors in Mahébourg who regarded me as “their horse in the race.”
As I walked to the boarding gate, inchoate thoughts burst forth. Was I at heart a non-materialist? Or did I enjoy the good life that money brings, gourmet food, fine wines, and stylish clothes? Uncle Ram wanted me to emigrate not to become a millionaire but to escape the repressive and hypocritical morality of the island. The caretaker at the Royal College spoke about students who became “grands bougres,” big wigs. What did that mean? Making money, wielding power, achieving something special, helping family and country? Maybe I was a bundle of contradictions, with the family’s ambivalent attitude towards money hanging over me. When my father and Uncle Ram spoke of their lost heirlooms and possessions in the wake of Cyclone Carol, they never mentioned their monetary value. True, Papa didn’t hesitate to sue Auntie Ranee for Uncle Ram’s land, and he talked about suing the sugar estate for damages; nonetheless, he admired Gandhi’s austerity and gave to the man with the glass eye and other strangers who knocked on the door; he even gave Uncle Mohan money barely a year after the latter had attacked him at the conclave of goons.
Had I really wanted the banking job, or had I made the trip to Boston to figure things out?
All along, I had been trumpeting to myself the motto Survive? That’s not why I came to America. I came here to thrive!
Now I asked myself whether I fully understood what I meant by “thrive.”
The turmoil had begun.
On the plane that would take me back to Yale, I lifted the shade on the window and caught a glimpse of the few people bidding good-bye to loved ones. As I mused over the advice of the bank president and struggled with Gandhi’s influence, I thought about the many people who had chartered a bus to see me off at the airport in Mauritius two years earlier—family, friends, and the neighbors, led by the two Creole fishermen, the brothers Fringant and Kalipa. They brightened the departure balcony with colorful balloons that said bon voyage and bonne chance. They were proud and full of hope. But the moist eyes, theirs and mine, expressed more than sadness at my leaving: there was the fear of the unknown. None of us knew anyone who had been to the United States. Papa hugged me tight and kissed me on my cheeks. Mama sobbed and held my hands and wouldn’t let go. Kalipa bowed to her, gently pulled my left hand, and shoved in a vial of the seven-colored earth of Chamarel (“Souvenir of Mauritius” the label read).
“Never forget what’s written in the Bible: Don’t let your parents down. Don’t let your community down,” Kalipa said.
Over the aircraft’s loudspeaker system, the pilot announced a ten-minute delay in the plane’s departure to Windsor Locks. Simon & Garfunkel resumed their song “Look for America.”
Acknowledgments
My deepest thanks to:
My parents, Seenarain and Cossilah, who toiled to create for me opportunities they never had.
My uncle Ramnarain, whose nightly utterance inspired the title of this novel.
Yves Léfébure and Daniel Koenig, teachers at the Royal College (Curepipe) Secondary School, who instilled in me a love of literature.
Kimberly Witherspoon and Maria Whelan, my agents, for their unstinting belief in, and advocacy for, this novel.
Robert Bloom, my editor, for his insightful and sharp editing, and his enthusiasm.
Edward P. Jones, for the guidance and wisdom of a guru.
Tim Johnston and Antonya Nelson, for their comments on an earlier draft.
Teachers and fellow writers in the following workshops: Aspen Words, Jenny McKean Moore Workshop at George Washington University, Lighthouse Writers, UNM Summer Writers’ Conference in Santa Fe, Summer Literary Seminars (Vilnius and Tbilisi), and Eckerd College Conference: Writers in Paradise.
Last, but not least, my wife Nessa for her encouragement and support on this journey.
The poem “Truants” first appeared in Crosswinds Poetry Journal, vol. IV, 2019.
I have quoted from: (a) Edwin G. Davy, “Meteorology in Mauritius” in Glimpses of Empire, A Corona Anthology, edited by Anthony Kirk-Greene, I. B. Tauris Publishers, London, New York, 2001, and (b) Richard Crichton, The Coldstream Guards, 1946–1970, printed by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk, 1972.
About the Author
VINOD BUSJEET was born in Mauritius, a multiracial island in the Indian Ocean. He holds degrees from Wesleyan University, New York University, and Harvard University and spent twenty-nine years in economic development, finance, and diplomacy, holding positions at the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, and as a secondary school teacher in Mauritius. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife. This is his first book.
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