Nothing Like Love

by Sabrina Ramnanan

  Vimla scowled. She picked idly at the grass. “What else?”

  “Chalisa and she small brother have plenty money. They inherit big-big orange estates after they parents dead. Mammy say they more rich than Nanny self!”

  “Oh.” Vimla brushed her mop of unruly hair over her shoulder. “Chalisa Shankar. She pretty?”

  Minty looked her square in the face. “She like a old crapaud.”

  Vimla burst into tears. Krishna was too vain to marry someone who looked like a frog; Minty was the worst liar she knew.

  Chandani looked like she’d been chewing a sour green mango when Vimla returned thirty minutes later. She rounded on Vimla the moment her slippers slapped against the concrete of the house. “People is laughing at we!” Her spittle rained down like missiles.

  Vimla stared back at her dumbly. She was still digesting the news of Krishna’s marriage.

  “That pork-chamar Pundit Anand is marrying he duncy-head son to a next little jammette from St. Joseph!”

  Vimla should have been appalled by her mother’s foul ejaculations, but by now they were as commonplace as the kiskadees’ evening song. She wasn’t surprised Pundit Anand had been reduced to a blasphemous pork-eating fiend, that Krishna’s future wife had acquired the same slack status as herself; her mother saw good in no one these days. Vimla manoeuvred around Chandani to the standpipe for a cup of water, but Chandani trailed behind her, the veins in her wild-turkey neck throbbing with every livid heartbeat.

  “Those kiss-me-ass people invite the whole island to the wedding—except we!” Chandani stomped her skinny foot, scattering a knot of pecking hens that had wandered boldly into the house.

  Vimla, hot and pitifully heartbroken, downed the cool water in her peeling enamel cup and dropped it with a clatter to the floor. “I go stop that wedding, Ma!”

  Chandani recoiled as if she’d been cuffed. Then she removed her slipper and lunged madly at her daughter. “Blasted—ungrateful—little—wretch!”

  Vimla took off around the house, sweating and crying. She had never seen her mother move so quickly in all her life, never seen her so determined to injure. She considered sprinting into the street in the hope a neighbour would come to her aid, but the truth was, Chandani’s invective would faster draw cheers and applause than sympathy from the district. She circled the house another time, hoping to tire her mother out instead.

  “You ain’t embarrass me and your father enough? Keep your ass home, you hear me?” Chandani launched her old slipper into the air like a discus and hit Vimla square in the backside.

  It was two days and two nights before the entire district caught word that Krishna Govind was going to marry a pretty girl named Chalisa Shankar from St. Joseph. Chance began to vibrate with a special kind of energy; people anticipated this wedding like no other. Many thought this would be the biggest wedding the district had ever seen, since pundits tended to marry their children with even greater ceremony than the average Hindu family. Others felt honoured that Chance was hosting the likes of Chalisa Shankar. But most people were excited because they knew the sensational scandal that was the catalyst for this hasty wedding.

  All of this was according to Minty, who quickly became Vimla’s eyes and ears outside the Narine residence. Minty accompanied her mother everywhere, gathering gossip from the parlour and the market and committing it to memory. At home she became an inconspicuous fixture in the kitchen, peeling potatoes or chopping onions while her father disclosed what he’d heard in the rum shop that evening. Minty learned to listen to outlandish speculation about the Govind, Narine and Shankar families with a veil of aloof blankness shrouding her unease. She was the perfect spy and she delivered all the news to Vimla in the cane fields with generous pieces of sugar cake to sweeten the shock.

  Dr. Mohan wondering if Chalisa Shankar know about you, Vims.

  Faizal Mohammed think you pregnant.

  Puncheon say Pundit Anand hire he brother to paint they house pink for the wedding.

  Patsy say Pundit Anand send Krishna away from Chance to save he from the “little obeah witch, Vimla.”

  Gloria say the Shankars have five orange estates in St. Joseph and that they does wipe they backside with all the extra money they have.

  My mother say your mother gone mad and slap up Headmaster Roop G. Kapil.

  Vimla barely reacted to the gossip until the day Minty told her that Chalisa Shankar wanted to meet her. Vimla scowled and sucked her teeth at this. “Why I should meet she?” But the truth was, Vimla was just as fascinated by Chalisa Shankar as the rest of Chance. She wanted to see if Chalisa was really as clever as everyone claimed, if her hair really did fall in perfect inky helices down her back. She wanted to hear Chalisa speak, witness her breathe, touch her. She had to be certain that Chalisa was real, this woman who had snatched Krishna away. And of course, Vimla was pleased, too. It was a victory—however small—that Chalisa had learned who she was, that Chalisa had an interest in knowing her.

  Vimla licked the sugar from her fingers. “Tell she I busy.”

  “Busy!” Minty’s eyes bulged. “I can’t tell she that.”

  Vimla narrowed her gaze at her friend, who blushed and stuffed her mouth with the last of her sugar cake so she wouldn’t have to explain herself.

  “So you fall in love with she, too!” Vimla tossed her wild tresses over her shoulder. “Tell your friend Chalisa I busy, and that’s that!” She dusted her dress off and stalked like a wild animal toward home, leaving Minty crouching, bewildered, amid the tall cane stalks.

  That night, when the cicadas were screaming Trinidad to sleep, Vimla lay awake thinking about Chalisa Shankar. She wondered if Krishna was thinking of her, too, and the thought sent a firecracker of pain through her chest. She tossed on her squeaky mattress, flinging her arms and legs out like a woman crucified, the conch jabbing her ribs. Perspiration trickled between her breasts and collected in her navel as she watched a lizard scurry across the ceiling into a pool of white moonlight. The island breeze lifted Vimla’s curtains and whispered something ominous into the room before it disappeared again. Her feistiness had melted away with the day’s sun, and now she lay whimpering so piteously even the lizard stopped and took notice.

  Krishna and Chalisa’s wedding was like an oncoming hurricane and the eye of the storm was watching Vimla. She would go to the wedding—she knew that much; Vimla had to see the marriage for herself before she could move on with her life. But what did moving on with her life mean? What would she do when the last sad wedding song was sung and the last drunken reveller staggered home to sleep? She wondered if Chance—Trinidad—was big enough for her and Chalisa.

  Vimla rolled out of bed and crept into the hallway. She glanced at her parents’ closed bedroom door. Om’s booming snores were all but rattling the door frame, but she was certain her mother’s wiry body was stretched stiff across the mattress, her gaze fixed on the ceiling beams.

  Vimla stepped out onto the veranda and leaned against the iron railing. Dark palm trees danced eerily in the midnight breeze, like they were conjuring spirits, or spirits themselves. A raindrop landed on her cheek, and the wind grew bolder in the black-green foliage about the house. Another drop, fatter this time, fell on Vimla’s shoulder and dribbled down the length of her arm. She inhaled the familiar smell deeply. Suddenly the sky over Trinidad opened up and a downpour of rain spilled onto the island. Vimla tilted her head back and glared at the sky as a gust of wind whipped at her hair. She gripped the railing, filled her lungs with air and wailed, “Krrriiisshnaaaa—and—Chaaaliiisaaaa—I—haaate—youuu!”

  Then she slipped back inside and decided that she would meet the young woman she hated after all.

  The Orange Orchard

  Friday August 9, 1974

  ORANGE FIELD VILLAGE, TRINIDAD

  Chalisa stood frozen under an orange tree like a dancing figurine whose music had stopped. Her back was turned to him, the fingertips of her right hand touching the side of her averted cheek, the pal
m of her left hand resting against the uneven bark of the tree. Her spine was straight, her slender shoulders squared against the world, one ear tilted in the direction of his footsteps.

  They were in one of the Shankars’ orchards, fifteen acres of lush treetops heavily studded with swelling oranges and delicate white blossoms. In between the rows of trees, stippled sunlight fell across the ground like a carpet of stars. A butterfly sailed through the hazy air, rich with the scent of earth and sweet citrus. Krishna followed the malachite’s flight, noting the striking green and brown markings on its diaphanous wings. When it disappeared in the thick of trees, he returned his attention to Chalisa and found her in the same pose, listening, quite obviously, to the sound of his tentative footfalls.

  Krishna stopped and looked over his shoulder. He could just make out the blue-and-white house Chalisa’s Nanny lived in, tucked behind a knot of old orange trees; just hear her scratchy sandpaper chuckle at some joke his father had told. They were sipping tea, Nanny and his parents, knitting his life to Chalisa’s with grand wedding plans while he came upon her in an orange orchard like a vagabond looking for some stranger to pin his affections on. Krishna laughed, despite himself, shaking his head at the absurdity of this moment. He knew nothing of Chalisa Shankar other than she was rumoured to be beautiful, her parents had died in a car crash and she came from money. He rubbed his freshly shaven chin with the palm of his hand. The rumours were of no consequence to him; he had plans to marry Vimla.

  Krishna thought of her now. Vimla’s big doe eyes, Vimla’s impish smile, Vimla’s pluck. Guilt knocked at his conscience. The magnitude of this moment suddenly struck him. While he trod through this lovely orchard toward his betrothed, Vimla was held captive in her own home. He wondered what she would think of him if she could see him now. He swallowed and looked around the quiet orchard. The trees seemed taller, denser, than before; they seemed to rise up and gather about him like an army.

  Just then there was a rustling in the leaves overhead. As Krishna glanced up, a young boy bounded from a thick branch and landed at his feet. The boy straightened himself, adjusted his glasses on his hooked nose and folded his arms over his little chest. “Avinash Shankar,” he said, blowing a tuft of hair from his eyes. “Chalisa’s brother. Six years and three-quarters. Your chaperone.” His eyes were round and luminous behind his glasses. He was small for his age and the soft, feathery hair on his head just barely measured up to Krishna’s belt buckle.

  “Is nice to meet you, Avinash Shankar.”

  Avinash took a step back and let his eyes travel from Krishna’s wavy hair to his brown shoes. He tried to whistle, but he blew too hard and spittle sprinkled on his shirt. “You real tall,” he said solemnly.

  Krishna knelt in the dirt so that he was eye level to Avinash. “What about now?”

  “Better.” Avinash wiggled his hook nose. “You could see over the trees?”

  Krishna pretended to consider. “Almost.”

  Avinash’s face brightened with an idea. “I could sit on your shoulders and see for myself.”

  Krishna crouched lower to the ground and allowed Avinash to clamber up his back and sit on his shoulders. Krishna rose slowly as Avinash squealed with delight and hooked his legs beneath Krishna’s armpits. “I could see plenty more orange from up here. Oh! Look, a parrot!” The bird took flight in a whir of green and yellow. “I could see Gavin, too. Hi, Gavin! I could see you picking oranges, Gavin!” Avinash cried, waving his arms in the air, rocking back and forth on Krishna’s shoulders.

  Krishna took a few more steps with the boy on his shoulders and then lowered him to the ground again. Avinash grinned up at him. “I almost touch the sky up there! And I see my partner, Gavin. He does help Nanny pick the oranges in orange season.”

  Krishna smiled at the boy. “And what you does do in orange season?”

  “Watch Gavin and his friends see about Nanny’s oranges—watch Chalisa sing and dance—play marbles and jacks—teach my dog tricks,” he said, counting on his little fingers as he walked toward his sister’s turned back.

  “Does your sister sing and dance?” Krishna asked.

  Avinash nodded eagerly up at his new friend. “Yes! All the time.” He doubled his efforts to keep pace with Krishna’s long strides. The plumes on his head wafted in the wind. “You go like she. Plenty boys does like she because she pretty. Kevin, Anil, Benjamin, Gavin …”

  Krishna hid a smile. This was a boy who couldn’t be trusted with secrets. “Even Gavin?”

  Avinash leaped in the air. “Especially Gavin! He does call she ‘Dream Girl.’ ”

  Krishna raised his eyebrows in surprise. “ ‘Dream Girl’? After Hema Malini?” He thought of the famous Indian film star and wondered just how attractive this Chalisa Shankar was.

  “Yep.” Avinash began to trot backward in the grass, looking up into Krishna’s face. “Your skin does ever turn blue? You remember to bring your flute?”

  For a moment Krishna was confused, and then he realized Avinash was comparing him to the Hindu deity Shri Krishna. “No, I doesn’t turn blue and I can’t play the flute.”

  Avinash looked disappointed. “Oh. Nanny say so.”

  Krishna raised his eyebrows. “She did?”

  “Yeah. Nanny tell we that you was playing your flute under the moon one night for some girl named Vimla.”

  Krishna stopped in his tracks and looked down at the boy. He felt his pulse quicken. “You sure Nanny say that?” But he didn’t have to ask; Krishna knew it was true. Avinash had said Vimla’s name. This was a story he had been told. What Krishna didn’t know was why Nanny would be willing to wed her granddaughter to him if she knew about Vimla.

  “Yes. She say that. That is why I thought you would bring a flute today, to play for Chalisa.”

  “Maybe she go like me even without the flute,” Krishna said, although he didn’t care either way.

  Avinash’s eyes grew round again. He pursed his small mouth and shook his head. “Chalisa say she ain’t want to marry no pundit. Next time bring your flute.” He scampered ahead, calling out to his sister.

  She whirled on him. “Avinash! What you doing here?”

  Avinash threw Krishna a sheepish look. “Nanny send me to chaperone.”

  Chalisa laughed, but it sounded lonely and hollow in the open orchard. “A chaperone?” And then a flicker of suspicion crossed her face. “Avinash, what you tell Krishna?”

  The boy lowered his eyes and inched away. “Nothing.”

  Krishna stepped forward. He flashed his most charming smile at Chalisa and placed a reassuring hand on Avinash’s small shoulder. “Your brother was telling me all about his dog.” He hoped she wouldn’t ask him the dog’s name. “And Avinash challenged me to a game of jacks later.” He extended his hand to Chalisa. “Krishna,” he said, turning his full focus to her.

  Avinash darted behind a tree.

  Chalisa’s golden-brown eyes were traced with black kajal and they glowed at him with alarming intensity. Her high cheekbones and peaked bow lips had been brushed with a soft peach colour that almost looked natural against her fair, creamy skin. Her hair was parted down the middle and hung in heavy spirals over one shoulder. She was dressed in a white-and-brown paisley blouse tucked snugly into a pair of high-waisted bell-bottoms. On her feet were the tallest white platform shoes Krishna had ever seen and she balanced easily in them, as if they had been crafted for her feet alone. She placed a hand on her hip and tilted her head to look into his face, something akin to scorn swimming in her eyes.

  Krishna ran his hand through his wavy hair and forced a smile. She was absolutely stunning, but there was a haughtiness about her that unnerved him. That and he didn’t appreciate her indifference to his presence in the orchard. Already he resented her for playing a part in entrapping him in this marriage—however innocent—and now she had pricked his pride.

  “Is nice to finally meet you.” The corners of Chalisa’s mouth turned up in a half-smile; the flecks of gold in her eyes
glittered.

  Krishna ignored the lie and fell into step beside her.

  The pair exchanged pleasantries as if this moment were not the beginning of their lives together. Now and again Avinash marched between them, until his attention was taken away by an interesting bird or bug or butterfly. Chalisa grazed the leaves above her head with her fingertips as she walked, her pretty face entranced by her thoughts. “Nanny says you are a pundit. Is true?” she asked, tiptoeing to press her nose against a cluster of ripe oranges.

  “Almost. I have a year or two again to study before I could start doing pujas on my own.”

  She plucked one of the oranges and twirled it in her hands. “Oh. Should I call you ‘Pundit Krishna,’ then? Or ‘Baba’?” She made a face. “It make you sound old.”

  “Call me ‘Krishna.’ ”

  Chalisa shrugged as if she had no real intention of calling him anything at all. She flipped the orange from one hand to the other. “Tell me if I wrong—didn’t Shri Krishna have many lovers?” Chalisa tilted her head to the side and pretended to think. “I believe he did. He liked to seduce the cowherds with his flute-playing. They would meet in the woods under the moon and dance and sing and make passionate love.” She tossed the orange to him and arched an eyebrow. “Ain’t that is right?”

  Krishna would have agreed if not for the reproving undercurrent of her words. Instead he said, “In the Bhagavad Gita, Shri Krishna teaches us about our life purpose and duty in this world.” He emphasized the word to remind Chalisa his union to her was a burden set on his shoulders by his parents.

  Chalisa ignored Krishna’s slight and continued with her train of thought. “You have many lovers, ain’t?” She started to walk again, but her eyes never left his face.

  He regarded her warily. “No.”

  Chalisa’s laugh rang like a distant bell in the sprawling orchard. “Then you must have one special lover. Shri Krishna had the beautiful Radha, and you have …?”