Nothing Like Love

by Sabrina Ramnanan

“I am a humble man,” he continued. “A man who can admit an error when an error is made. And I must, mustn’t I, Vimla?”

  Vimla didn’t know, but she nodded again anyway.

  “Because a pundit’s duty is to set examples for the people.” He sighed, as if the burden of his station fatigued him, as if his pockets did not bulge after every Hindu celebration. “And so today, Chandani, Om”—he nodded to them both—“Vimla”—he smiled at her—“I called you here to declare that I judged you wrong.”

  Vimla’s breath caught in her chest. She wanted to look at Chandani, but she didn’t dare, not when Pundit Anand was gazing at her so intently.

  “Vimla, you have made Chance proud with your scholarly achievements. I must congratulate you.”

  “Thank you, Baba,” Vimla said. She wished she sounded shyer, more modest.

  “So after much thought, I am hoping that once again you will accept the teaching post at Saraswati Hindu School,” Pundit Anand finished. Of course, this wasn’t a request; it was an indulgence, a privilege that the Narines would snatch from his hands like thieves. And he knew it.

  “Baba, this is an honour,” Om said.

  “What a surprise.” Chandani actually beamed, although she didn’t look surprised at all.

  They all turned to Vimla. She pressed her hands together as she knew she should and smiled. “I go make you and Headmaster proud, Baba.” She felt a tingling at the bridge of her nose, a telltale sign that tears were near. The teaching post was more than just an esteemed position; it signified the renaissance of her reputation, the key to her freedom. She could travel beyond her home now with her head held high, knowing that she was in Pundit Anand’s good graces again. Vimla couldn’t wait to share her news with Minty. And then she wondered what could have changed Pundit Anand’s mind—especially now, the day before Krishna’s wedding, the day after Chalisa Shankar’s sultry performance on Mastana Bahar. He had more urgent affairs to attend to, did he not?

  Vimla noted the shadowy pouches beneath Pundit Anand’s eyes, the extra crinkles when he smiled. She saw the way Maya avoided eye contact, the hunch in her shoulders like she’d suffered some great defeat. Vimla realized beneath this facade of hospitality and repentance lingered shame. These parents were not celebrating their son’s wedding to Chalisa any more than Vimla was.

  The clink of glasses nudging each other interrupted her thoughts. Her throat felt parched now and she wished she had asked for some water after all.

  “Oh!” Chandani exclaimed.

  Vimla looked up and found herself gazing into Krishna’s smiling face. He was holding the tray of drinks with unsteady hands. The liquids splashed over the rims into the other glasses. “Sita-Ram, Auntie. Sita-Ram, Uncle.” He set the tray down then shook Om’s hand and kissed Chandani’s cheek.

  Vimla’s heart thudded. She tangled her fingers in her lap and reminded herself to breathe. Krishna stole a glance at her before he sat next to his father. The bridge of Vimla’s nose tingled again and she glanced away. She hadn’t prepared herself for this.

  “My son is back from studying in Tobago. A little wiser. A little darker.” Anand laughed, determined to dispel the tension that had stiffened Maya’s and Chandani’s spines. Nobody responded. What could they say when they all knew the truth: that Krishna had been sent away because of Vimla?

  Anand looked like he might launch into another meandering homily. He sat up tall, lifted his hand to gesture, untucked his priestly smile from the bristles of his moustache and leaned forward. But Maya touched his knee—a discreet brush of her fingertips across his cotton dhoti—and he seemed to change his mind. There was urgency in that touch; whatever Anand had prepared to say next, Maya wanted said quickly.

  Anand smiled, his eyes crinkled. “Last night, after the maticoor, Krishna tell me he in love with your daughter.”

  Vimla gasped before she could stop herself, but only Maya appeared to notice. The others stared, stunned at Pundit Anand as if he’d just denounced his faith.

  Pundit Anand put his hand to his heart. “I am not a cruel man,” he said. “I know my son go be miserable without Vimla in he life. He didn’t have to tell me so—I could read it in he face.” Everyone looked at Krishna’s face to see if they could read it, too. Krishna’s eyes were wide with disbelief.

  Vimla’s chin trembled. Her eyes pooled with tears. She thought of their many secret encounters in the cane field, of the night they were discovered. She remembered the lonesome days when Krishna was in Tobago, the moment she lost her teaching post. She recalled the first time she heard Chalisa Shankar’s name, the news of the wedding, Maracas Bay, the macajuel snake, her terrible nights of fever and heartache. Tears spilled over Vimla’s lashes and fell freely into her lap. She released the clenching in her stomach and allowed herself a luxurious sob.

  Chandani did not pat Vimla’s back. For the first time in her life, she was tongue-tied.

  “And so,” Pundit Anand continued, “Krishna is requesting Vimla’s hand in marriage.” He raised his voice so there was no mistaking his words. “Tomorrow. September first.”

  An Uncertain Future

  Saturday August 31, 1974

  ST. JOSEPH, TRINIDAD

  Delores stood in the middle of the kitchen, wringing her apron in her hands.

  Breakfast was already laid out: hot roti, fried baigan, slices of ripe avocado and mounds of homemade guava jelly for Avinash to slather on his roti. The kettle whistled on the stove. Nanny’s teacup gleamed, empty.

  “Delores—the kettle!” Nanny screeched.

  Delores jumped when she was called and removed the kettle from the stove.

  “Delores, what happen to you this morning? You dance till you can’t work?” Nanny asked. She snapped the newspaper open in front of her face so that Delores didn’t have a chance to answer.

  Chalisa threw Delores a nervous look, but Delores turned away as if she hadn’t seen and busied herself with fixing Nanny’s first cup of tea of the day.

  Avinash helped himself to a quarter slice of roti. “I dance so much last night I could hardly walk today!” He broke a piece of roti and dipped it into the jelly. Delores took the roti from his hands, opened it up and spread the jelly in the hot fold like a sandwich. She handed it back to him and returned to the stove.

  Nanny turned the page. “Avi, why you don’t ask your big sister how she does manage to dance whole night and walk the next day. Your sister is a professional, you know.”

  Chalisa made a face at Nanny from the other side of the newspaper. She pushed her breakfast around her plate with her fingers.

  Avinash opened his mouth to ask, but Delores tapped him on the head and shook her head no. Avinash cupped his hands and leaned toward Chalisa so that he could ask her in a whisper. Delores made to take Avinash’s breakfast away, and his hands fell to his plate as he forgot all about his question.

  Delores filled Nanny’s teacup with sugary tea and retreated with a sigh.

  “Delores,” Nanny said from behind her paper, “this is a wedding house, not a funeral home. Stop sighing and walking around like someone capsized and dead.” She turned the page and shook out the folds. “You starting to remind me of Miss Mastana Ba—”

  Nanny fell suddenly silent.

  Chalisa and Avinash stared at the wall of news blocking Nanny’s face. Delores cowered in the farthest corner of the kitchen. Waiting.

  It began with a groan, a guttural sound an animal might make in labour or in death. The newspaper trembled, then the words at the paper’s edges crumpled in Nanny’s hands. Then she let go and the paper fell across the breakfast spread with a whoosh. Avinash’s wispy hair fluttered.

  Nanny looked like her orange estates had gone up in flames. She pushed her chair back, the legs scraping the floor. Her gaze fell on Chalisa, murderous and fearful at once. “Lying wretch!” She wheeled around. “Delores! Call driver!”

  Delores shrank against the stove “Driver quit.”

  “Quit?” Nanny’s eyes bulged from h
er shrivelled face. She paced with one hand on her hip and the other holding the side of her grey head. She muttered, “The man just start working for me! … Who to call?” She closed her eyes. “Who to call?”

  Chalisa could think of a dozen workers who would drive Nanny where she needed to go, but none that would keep the reason for Nanny’s hysterics confidential, no matter how much she paid them.

  “Gavin!” Nanny snapped her fingers. “Call that boy now for now.”

  Chalisa looked at the polished teak, deadpan. Avinash kicked his feet excitedly under the table.

  Delores swallowed. “You fire Gavin, Nanny.”

  Nanny sucked her teeth. “That boy go run come if he know he could see Chalisa.” Nanny waved her hand in Chalisa’s direction as if loving her was a weakness.

  “Where you going, Nanny?” Avinash asked.

  But Nanny didn’t answer. She was climbing on a chair, reaching to remove the false cupboard door that hid her safe.

  Unbeknownst to Nanny, Mastana Bahar had aired the night before and now Chalisa was mentioned in the Trinidad Guardian as “a rising star with talent and finesse.” Talent and finesse!

  A multitude of emotions rattled around in Chalisa’s heart like Avinash’s jacks. She had changed her fortune with a single lie. She wasn’t sorry either. Nanny had to be stopped from resigning her to a monotonous life alongside a pundit and spoiling Chalisa’s chance at fame. She smiled out the window. Now that her waywardness had made national television, Nanny was petrified Pundit Anand would call off the wedding. As the car trundled along, she hoped Pundit Anand was just as appalled by her passion for performance as Nanny; she hoped he thought his son too good for her; she hoped he snipped her from his plan and let her fly free.

  And here was Gavin, taking her to meet her fate. Chalisa thought he’d never forgive her for causing him to lose his job and she certainly never thought she’d see him again. Gavin, with his Elvis hair and deep, adoring eyes, had never failed her. Chalisa was sorry now that she’d laughed all his proposals away.

  It took just under two hours to get to Chance. The gates were flung open when they arrived, but not for them; the Govinds had company, it seemed. Another family lingered in the entrance as the Govinds bade them goodbye, essentially barring Gavin from pulling the car into their lot. As Gavin let the car idle at an awkward angle, partly on the road, partly on the driveway, the Govinds and their guests turned their heads to see who had come. That’s when Chalisa knew that Nanny hadn’t phoned before visiting, that they were unexpected—worse, unwanted—visitors.

  Chalisa’s eyes met Vimla’s first. She had forgotten how much they were like oceans of cocoa tea, how her private thoughts swam naked to the surface. Something passed between them before Nanny ordered Chalisa out of the car: an understanding that while they were not friends, they were allies in the same cause. The glitter of triumph in Vimla’s eyes told Chalisa they were winning. She nodded, a movement almost imperceptible, and followed Nanny.

  “Good morning and Sita-Ram.” Nanny’s smile twinkled with innocence. “And Krishna! Welcome home, my son.” The group stared, dumbfounded, as she walked toward them. Chalisa hung her head and played the disgraced granddaughter, which helped to hide her embarrassment.

  Krishna mumbled a greeting and managed a weak smile. Chalisa could tell that he did not know how to play this game.

  Pundit Anand’s silver eyebrows gathered in the centre; his moustache drooped on either side of his down-turned mouth. He hesitated as if he were searching for a response then filtering it with care. It came out civil, but it was not warm. “Nanny. We wasn’t expecting to see you—or Chalisa today.”

  Maya pressed her fingers to her lips and said nothing. She had looked no happier standing in the Narines’ company than she did now that Nanny and Chalisa had arrived. Perhaps no girl was good enough for her son.

  Vimla’s mother started at the sound of Chalisa’s name. She inspected Chalisa like a mango, looking expressly for blemishes. The scrutiny took but two seconds before she flicked her gaze away as if Chalisa were yet unripe and sour. The slight chafed Chalisa’s ego. Who was this plain, country-dwelling woman to dismiss her like a piece of market fruit? She hid her irritation behind a veil of lashes.

  Nanny disregarded the Narines altogether. She spoke directly to Pundit Anand as though they were already relatives, as though she took precedence over neighbours calling on a Saturday morning. “Baba, I come to speak with you about a important matter.” Her panic slipped into the cracks in her face so that she appeared calm, merry even. She edged closer to him, turned her face from the others and said in a loud whisper, “Regarding the wedding tomorrow, nuh.”

  Pundit Anand shook his head with wonder, exchanged a glance with Chandani and Om over Nanny’s head. “We go talk in a minute, Nanny,” he said. “I just walking we friends out.” He patted Om on the shoulder and Om grew half an inch with self-importance.

  Friends.

  Chalisa looked from Vimla to Krishna and back. They gawked openly at one another like they’d been granted permission. Chalisa didn’t want Krishna for herself, but still, she felt worse than small in their company—she felt invisible.

  Nanny wasn’t faring well either. She endured the Govinds’ cool reception, the Narines’ victorious air, with a brilliant mixture of patience and feigned oblivion, but Chalisa knew inside she was hot with rage. She supposed this time Nanny’s anger was justified; it was plain Pundit Anand had replaced them with the Narines. Chalisa shrugged. Let Krishna and Vimla marry. Let Nanny burn. She wanted out of the blistering sun and back in the car, where she could make things right with Gavin.

  “Don’t go as yet.” Nanny put her arm out just as Chandani edged closer to the gates. “Allyuh don’t leave because of we.” She turned to Pundit Anand and Maya, one creased hand lying like a handcuff on Chandani’s wrist. “We ain’t staying long. We only come to show something to Krishna. He was in Tobago the last time I visit, you see.” Nanny rummaged around in her handbag now, a sheepish expression on her face. “I doesn’t remember good again. Is old age have me so.”

  They all stared at her—even Vimla and Krishna—and in that moment as the winds changed direction again, Chalisa knew there was no woman in all of Trinidad as clever and wily as Nanny.

  Nanny pulled a piece of paper from her handbag. “Here. I find it!” She flattened it to her stomach and smoothed it with her other hand. “Come, beta.” She crooked a finger at Krishna.

  Krishna hesitated. He looked for guidance to Pundit Anand, who shrugged his concession. Chalisa caught the glint of avarice in Pundit Anand’s eyes, but it was the peculiar way Krishna lingered on his father’s face, as if he were understanding something about him for the first time, that told Chalisa something was shifting in Krishna. But what? It vexed her not to know. Chalisa scowled openly, but no one was paying attention to her; they were all following Krishna’s eyes across the paper in his hands now.

  “What’s that?” Pundit Anand asked.

  Chandani folded her arms across her flat chest. She was irritated by his interest, or perhaps, Chalisa thought, irritated by her own.

  “A deed,” said Krishna.

  Nanny wiggled her way into the centre of the circle that had formed around Krishna. “Is a deed, yes. Is the deed to we orchard in Carapichaima on Orange Field Road. Is the biggest and largest one in the Shankar estate.” She peeled her lips back into a saccharine smile and extracted the worn square of paper from Krishna’s fingers again.

  Pundit Anand gasped and then attempted to cover his delight in a spell of false coughs.

  “What a special boy you are. I know you go take good care of my gem!” As everyone followed her gaze to Chalisa, Nanny stuffed the deed back into her purse.

  Chalisa found she was amused at how easily Nanny poured her lies at Pundit Anand’s feet. The orchard on Orange Field Road belonged to she and Avinash. This deed—if it really was an authentic deed—could only be for her last and smallest orchard, a significant piece o
f property in Quinam, but nowhere near as formidable as the others. And Chalisa knew she couldn’t just give the deed away; she had to legally transfer the land into Krishna’s name if she wanted him to have it.

  But what really amazed Chalisa was the way Krishna remained locked in silence as Pundit Anand and Nanny clasped one another’s hands and his fate was irrevocably warped. This was no bridal dowry—this was a bribe; and for all that he looked torn, Krishna had allowed it to happen.

  Chalisa saw her own defeat reflected in Vimla’s eyes before she flicked her hair over her shoulder and made her way back to the car.

  Chandani’s Tirade

  Saturday August 31, 1974

  CHANCE, TRINIDAD

  Om poured a generous shot of Old Oak into Chandani’s glass.

  She scowled. “Pour, nuh, man. Ain’t you is a expert at this?”

  Om poured until her glass was a quarter full. She downed the rum in one gulp and then scrunched her face and shook herself like a fowl cock in the rain. “Whey, sir!”

  They were sitting under the house, having just returned from the Govinds’. Chandani had brought out the bottle of Old Oak, and she was lashing drink after drink like the cane cutters on payday. Om sighed; she would be drunk in minutes if she didn’t stop. He was grateful Vimla had walked over to Minty’s house.

  “Well, I never see more!” Chandani began. “That kiss-me-ass lady drive all the way from St. Joseph to Chance to give Krishna a deed?” Chandani stood up and pointed in the direction of the Govind home. “She feel I born big so. She feel she real smart.” Chandani stood over Om, yelled in his face and stomped. “That old woman is a naaasty crook!”

  Om nodded, poured himself a drink. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the dogs retreat to the kennel with their tails between their legs.

  “You know, I have one mind to go back there and wring the smile from that wretch’s mouth.” She gestured the assault in the air. “Just wring it out!”