Nothing Like Love

by Sabrina Ramnanan

  The seer man’s eyes fluttered open. In seconds his glazed look sharpened. “Rajesh Gopalsingh—” He stood, and Rajesh shrank in his chair. “You must bathe every morning at five o’clock for fifteen days.”

  Om saw Puncheon whip a sheet of creased paper and pen from his pocket and begin scribbling. It dawned on Om that he had never seen Puncheon write anything before. In fact, he had assumed years ago that Puncheon just didn’t know how.

  “As you bathe, think about washing away your doubt for your wife.”

  “I don’t doubt my wife,” Rajesh blurted. It sounded as flimsy as the dinner-plate hibiscus dancing in the wind outside.

  The seer man stroked the black stubble at his chin, tapped his fingers against his lips again. “You do. You doubt she. If you didn’t doubt she, you wouldn’t be here.” He spread his arms as if the oppressive square room with the jars and the upholstered chairs was a palace.

  Rajesh hung his head. Om looked at his hands. Puncheon tucked his pen and paper back in his pocket and jiggled his knees.

  “When you done bathe,” the seer man continued, “pick a flowers.” He turned his head at an angle and regarded Rajesh. “You have flowers in your yard?”

  Rajesh nodded.

  “Good. Pick a flowers and put it where your wife go see it.” The seer man stood and turned to his shelf of jars.

  Om tapped Rajesh on the knee and gestured to the car outside. “Let we go.” He didn’t think it was fair to subject his friend to this foolishness any longer. But Rajesh shook his head no.

  The seer man trailed a finger across the front of the jars. When he found one he liked, he tapped it. The clink of nail against glass was the only noise in the room. One by one, the seer man pulled jars from the shelf and set them on a ledge by the window. He unscrewed the covers and brought the jars to his nose and smiled. Om suspected smelling the ingredients was not part of the man’s work but an act that pleased him. The seer man dropped a pinch of each powder into an empty jar and gave it a shake.

  “Rajesh, put this in hot water and drink it like tea. If your situation ain’t improve in three weeks, come back and see me.”

  Rajesh accepted the jar and Om noticed his hand only trembled a little. “Mr. Seer Man, what about something for Sangita?”

  “To make she less pretty, maybe,” Puncheon suggested.

  The seer man shook his head at Puncheon. “The problem is you, Rajesh Gopalsingh,” he said. “You ain’t paying attention when you should. There is something preventing you from engaging in love.”

  Om knew Rajesh wanted to protest, but he didn’t.

  “And anyway, ain’t you said she faithful?” The question created an awkward silence. When the seer man realized Rajesh was not going to answer, he smiled and said, “It have a man who fall in love with your wife, Rajesh Gopalsingh. You must do as I say: bathe at five, pick a flowers for your wife, drink the tea and pay attention. If you do as I say, the evil separating you and she go disappear.” He snapped his fingers.

  Some of Rajesh’s gruffness worked its way to the surface now. “Who fall in love with my wife?”

  “Rajesh Gopalsingh, I will not encourage quarreling among neighbours. Fix yourself.”

  Om felt he might as well have named Faizal Mohammed.

  The seer man rummaged around in a woven basket filled with bags of herbs and handed one to Puncheon. “Your hangover medicine.” Then he flopped in his chair and closed his eyes—a dismissal of sorts—and Om, Rajesh and Puncheon filed out of the room.

  Faisal’s Chain

  Saturday August 31, 1974

  CHANCE, TRINIDAD

  Faizal meandered through his frangipani trees with his hands clasped behind his back. He was thinking of adding televisions to his shop inventory. After last night, Faizal realized Trinidadians wanted more than just radio; they wanted to see the world—and themselves. They needed television, and he would give it to them.

  “Is a good plan, Sam. What you think?” Faizal said. Sam was perched in the frangipani tree with the pink blossoms. He took two steps to the right, one to the left and finished with a small bob. Faizal grinned. “Sweet, sweet parrot,” he cooed.

  “Faizal, that parrot does get more attention than me!”

  Faizal glanced over his shoulder. Sangita was fingering the soft white petals on another tree. She smiled at him, secret and suggestive. “Well, stay with me, nuh, and you go get more attention,” Faizal replied. He wondered if she knew he was only half joking.

  Sangita crossed the yard. Her hips swayed with each step. Her blouse rippled over the curves beneath it. Faizal’s breath caught in his throat. “An unexpected visit from Mrs. Gopalsingh, Sam. How lucky we are,” he said, hoping to cover his pleasure in dryness.

  She drew near, arching an eyebrow. “I only come to see how you keeping, Faizal.” She stared at his cheek where the purple bruise had paled into something dirty and grey. She touched the bruise so lightly it could have been the wind.

  Sangita never came just to see how he was keeping. She was a hungry cat always stalking something; sometimes it was gossip, other times company and always, always affection. Faizal never minded. He gave her everything willingly. Perhaps that’s why he could not hold her.

  “Mr. Gopalsingh is suspicious, Mrs. Gopalsingh. Is that why you come? So he could come here and break my ass?”

  Sangita pouted. “He gone somewhere with Om, Faizal.”

  Faizal shook his head. “The two of them is like a pair of anti-man,” he muttered as Sam stepped onto his extended finger. Sangita gasped, but she did not storm away. A good sign. “I ain’t know why they doesn’t just build a shack and live together.”

  “Faizal Mohammed!” Sangita exclaimed. She swatted his arm.

  His heart danced. She was even more luscious in a huff. “And Minty? Where she gone?”

  “By Vimla.”

  Faizal paused, distracted by the rise and fall of Sangita’s chest as she sighed. “What happen to Vimla? She still stick?” he asked. He forced the worry away, irritated with himself.

  “She foot better. Is the fever that have she still lock up in she room.” Sangita’s blouse whispered against Faizal’s arm as they strolled. “I doesn’t wish people bad, Faizal.” She lowered her voice. “But I think is better Vimla remain in she room for a while. The girl does behave so wild! How she really get bite by a macajuel? That is what I want to know.”

  They rounded the orange hibiscus. Sam squawked. Faizal set him on his shoulder and said nothing.

  “I does feel sorry for Chandani sometimes. That woman straight like a needle and she daughter come out like a fireworks.”

  A tendril of hair escaped her plait and dangled alongside her face. Faizal resisted the urge to tuck it away. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “Could you imagine Vimla teaching at Saraswati Hindu School?”

  Faizal did not particularly care for Vimla, but he thought the young children of the district might. There was no denying her spark. She would make the classroom come alive in ways the older, more conservative teachers couldn’t. He held his tongue and veered closer to Sangita so that her shoulder grazed his biceps.

  “Is a good thing I talk to Pundit Anand about Minty,” Sangita mused.

  “Minty?”

  “Of course!” The high pitch of Sangita’s voice vexed Sam. He squawked back at her and inched toward Faizal’s ear. “Minty go teach at Saraswati Hindu School instead of Vimla.”

  Faizal didn’t know why this made him uncomfortable. “But Minty ain’t write she exams yet. Pundit Anand wouldn’t just put any and anybody in the school. And neither Headmaster,” he added as an afterthought.

  Sangita waved her hand. The bangles at her wrist slid to her elbow and clinked. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement. “A minor detail!”

  “And so how you manage to convince Pundit Anand and Headmaster?”

  She stopped and turned to him, tilting her face to the sun as she laughed. “Oh, Faizal! Ain’t you know me and Maya is good f
riends?” Sangita trailed a finger across his bruise again. “Besides, people doesn’t tell me no.”

  Sangita and Maya’s unlikely friendship had sprung from the ruins of Vimla’s reputation. Faizal never knew what Sangita had suddenly found in common with Pundit Anand’s worrisome wife, but now he understood. She had been spilling Minty’s good merits into Maya’s ear, priming her to speak to Anand on her behalf for the coveted teaching position at Saraswati Hindu School. He wondered if in the process Sangita had sullied Vimla’s name into the ground to ensure she fell out of the running for good. He wondered why he even cared.

  Faizal caught Sangita’s fingers in his. Her feline eyes glowed before she hid them behind a fringe of dark lashes. He pressed her fingers to his lips.

  “Faizal!” she said, but she made no effort to pull her fingers away. “Minty go be home soon.” And then her face changed as if she’d remembered something horrible.

  “What happened?”

  Sangita reclaimed her fingers and fished into her skirt pocket. “Look what I find.” She dropped the gold chain into Faizal’s hand with a clink. He saw her open her mouth to say something more and decide against it.

  Faizal fastened the chain around his neck. “I guess you ain’t find the pendant,” he said. His face remained impassive, but he knew it was impossible for Sangita to suddenly find his chain. Minty was not a careless girl and his chain had been in her safekeeping for weeks. What was Sangita not telling him?

  Her lips twitched with another lie. She looked away under his watchful eye. “No. I ain’t know how the pendant fall out, Faizal,” Sangita said. Her words dripped with sweetness. “I go look again.”

  Faizal nodded, amused. “Where you find it?”

  “In my sewing room!” Sangita smiled now. “I have so much fabric and clothes lying all over the place is no wonder it loss for so long.” She touched the chain and her fingers brushed his skin, feverish with longing. “You know, Faizal, I think that pendant hook up on a piece of cloth somewhere.”

  Faizal suppressed his laughter. He slipped his arm around Sangita’s waist and began to walk, linking the pieces together in his mind. He believed Sangita when she said she discovered the chain in her sewing room. That’s precisely the place Minty would leave it if she wanted to startle—even threaten—her mother. And of course, Minty had kept the pendant. She had shown him it the day Vimla was bit by the snake. It was the key to her blackmailing him, and it would keep Sangita in check, too. He smiled despite himself. Minty was cunning—he gave her that much. But what had upset Minty so much to make her leave the chain for Sangita to find? Faizal looked down at the woman by his side and knew that he would not find out from her.

  “Faizal?” She leaned into him as they walked. “What you was going to tell me last night? About Chandani?” She was fishing for something to quell her own anxiety. This was the reason she was here.

  They arrived at the edge of his lot where a mango tree slouched with unpicked fruit. Faizal twisted one from its branch. The leaves rustled as the branch bounced back like a slingshot. He handed the mango to Sangita. “Chandani? I can’t remember.”

  She frowned. “But you looked excited, like it was something important. How you mean you can’t remember?”

  Faizal lifted her chin and daringly lowered his face toward hers. “Because,” he murmured, “you does make me forget everything else.”

  It was only a half-truth. Sangita would be livid if she knew Chandani had charmed Headmaster into appealing Anand’s decision. No doubt she would retaliate. Faizal didn’t like the idea of it. It was unfair to pit two friends—sisters, really—against one another for nothing more than a teaching post. He placed his hands on either side of Sangita’s face and wondered when he had become the witches’ advocate.

  Sangita sighed, breathless with impatience. “Kiss me, nuh, Faizal. I have to go home!”

  Faizal crushed his lips against hers and she melted into his arms.

  Changing Winds

  Saturday August 31, 1974

  CHANCE, TRINIDAD

  Vimla sat cross-legged on her bed, staring at the globe her father had purchased in Port of Spain. She found Trinidad and Tobago, sisters who promised to always stay near, floating off the coast of Venezuela. She touched the islands and they disappeared beneath her finger.

  Her ankle was better. The snake bite had healed nicely and Dr. Mohan assured her the scars would eventually fade. She spun the globe so that the land and great bodies of water blurred into one, then with a finger she stopped the globe at random. She smiled. North America. Canada. They wore boots in Canada. Nobody would see her scarred ankle if ever she moved there.

  “Vim-la!”

  Hurried footsteps filled the hallway outside her room. Heavy and laboured, light and frantic. Vimla’s door swung open with a crash and she wondered how her mother expected her to get well with all the noise. Chandani panted in the doorway. Her face was more animated than Vimla had seen it in weeks—months even. Om hopped in behind her, pulling his best pants over a pair of shorts. He grinned.

  Vimla twisted so that she was facing her parents. Something had happened.

  “Vimla,” Chandani breathed, “get dressed.” She scurried into the room and began dragging open drawers. “Pundit Anand want to see we right away.”

  The globe toppled sideways onto the bed. “Why?” Although it didn’t matter why: Vimla would stand before Pundit Anand to be chastised if it meant catching a glimpse, exchanging a glance, a quick word, with Krishna.

  Chandani threw a few dresses at Vimla. “I ain’t know why. It ain’t matter why. He want to talk to we and we going!”

  Of course Chandani had an inkling why. She wouldn’t be so enthusiastic if she didn’t. Chandani and Pundit Anand, once respected friends, had been at a standoff the past few weeks over Vimla and Krishna’s relationship. It was unlikely Chandani would anticipate any kind of interaction with him unless she was certain she would benefit from it. Even Om, who had never trusted Pundit Anand, seemed pleased. “Do fast, Vimi,” he said.

  “Ma, my hair need to wash.” Vimla felt the residue left behind by the Limacol.

  Chandani stopped sifting through Vimla’s clothes and straightened. For a moment she looked worried about keeping Pundit Anand waiting. Then she set her jaw, let her lips settle into their usual hard line and said, “Don’t sit there and watch me like a manicoo in a headlights, Vimla. Get up! I go help you wash out your hair.”

  Vimla sat in an old dress on a stool behind the house while her mother filled a bucket of water from the standpipe. “Vimla, how you feeling? You feeling good? You feeling like you go faint?” Chandani asked.

  Chandani was anxious, and Vimla knew her mother was harbouring great expectations in her heart about this meeting with Pundit Anand. For the first time Vimla felt sorry for Chandani. This unease, this desperation was the result of her own carelessness. “I feeling okay, Ma,” Vimla answered, although her gut was twisting with similar emotions.

  Chandani dumped half the bucket of water over Vimla’s head and Vimla squealed. “Humph! Just like when you was a child, Vimla. Sit still.”

  Vimla did as she was told, feeling very much like a small child indeed. Chandani squirted shampoo into her palm and applied it to Vimla’s scalp. She lathered and scrubbed, creating a rope of bubbles down the length of Vimla’s back. “Vimla,” she said, “your hair feeling so fine-fine.”

  Vimla bit her lip and said nothing. She felt the scrubbing soften to a gentle kneading, heard the squish of suds through her mother’s fingers. She closed her eyes and relished the extraordinary tenderness of this moment. She had missed this.

  Without warning another whoosh came and water cascaded onto her head. Vimla yelped like a puppy. The soapy water swirled across the concrete. Rainbow bubbles shone in the sunlight before they disappeared down the drain. Vimla felt a towel warmed by the sun fall across her head. She wondered if Chandani would comb out the tangles, too. And then she decided she didn’t want her mother to see
just how much of her hair remained in the comb when the task was done.

  They arrived at the Govinds’ residence an hour later. Chandani marched behind Om and in front of Vimla with her back straight and her chin tilted. The gates had been left open. They were expected.

  Vimla’s palms sweated; her stomach roiled with nerves. Minty’s words danced through her brain: He sorry, Vims. He love you, too. He go come for you tonight and allyuh go sail to Tobago to live. They collided with her deepest insecurities: And what if he changed his mind? What if he didn’t come? She felt utterly lost.

  Pundit Anand ushered them up to his veranda, where Maya was already sitting. Her smile was not cold, but it was false and that was worse. They all sat on the edge of their seats except Pundit Anand, who cozied into his cushioned chair as if he were a king, and Vimla realized that he was, in his own right. His silver moustache lifted and revealed a smile. “Water? Coffee? Cane juice? Mauby?” He listed the options quickly, setting the pace for the meeting.

  Chandani wanted water, Om cane juice. Vimla’s stomach would pitch them all onto Pundit Anand’s lovely wicker table, so she declined as politely as she could. Chandani bristled at her side.

  But Pundit Anand didn’t seem to mind. He called his drinks down to the help in the kitchen, rested his left ankle on his right knee and with two hands clasped the place where they joined. “You know,” he began, his voice rising, “Bhagwan does see what we cannot. And everything that happen, does happen to teach we lessons. Ain’t so, Vimla?”

  Vimla nodded mechanically. Usually she loathed Pundit Anand’s long, preachy discourses, but this time she found herself hanging on every word.