by Shani Mootoo
He had grunted, “I wasn’t even serious. There is just no joking with you these days.”
“Well, I thought you were serious.”
“And what does Viveka have to do with all of this? What good is it to drag her into this?”
Devika didn’t answer. Seconds, and then a minute passed, and still she answered his last two questions only in her imagination. He closed his eyes. When he did this her blood boiled. She hated being shut out. She simply couldn’t let him have the last word, but she made sure that hers were as caring as she could manage: “You know, Valmiki, you don’t complain about things as they are but you always seem so remote, as if you’re living in another world.”
Now, Devika wondered how much of last evening’s acrimony had stayed with him. She would steal into his quiet and make an offer of some pleasantness. She would tell him she wanted to have a party. Perhaps the pendant Valmiki had given her this evening was not an indicator that he had done something wrong today but an acceptance of her words from last night. An apology, an admission. She would accept these without mention of any of it. Even he must agree that a party would do them all good.
“I want to have a party of my own. We haven’t thrown one in a good while now. What do you think?”
“What do you have in mind?” Valmiki muttered behind the paper. He had not really been reading it, contemplating still how close he had come that afternoon to shooting a dog.
“Not a sit-down. Something bigger. With a live band. Like we used to have.”
Valmiki closed the paper, rested it on his lap, and looked at her quizzically. “Am I forgetting something? Is there an occasion?”
“Have we ever needed one? But no, there isn’t one in particular. I just have an itch to organize something. Dinner, dancing. A good old-fashioned fete.”
He folded the paper, the rustling of it at odds with his pensiveness. He dropped it on the terrazzo floor. She expected him to recall a very particular one of her parties — not the one she had minutes ago remembered, but the one a while later that had exploded into a scandal without parallel. How could he not recall it? It was at that party that the nature of his relationship with Pia Moretti was made perfectly public. It had been a great party otherwise, later talked about for many reasons.
The complication had first arisen on a Sunday thirteen years ago, in the days before Valmiki spent the better part of his weekends hunting with Saul. Valmiki was down in the living room that day, trying to mount brackets to one of the concrete walls. He intended to erect three shelves to hold his growing collection of beer steins. Shelves, he told Devika, that might one day be encased, glass doors attached. He described to her how he could see the completed thing in his mind: the cedar stained to mimic mahogany, gold hinges, clasps, keyhole, and knobs on the doors. He could imagine it there off to the side, a thing of beauty. But Devika knew that he had no idea how to build it, other than to nail brackets to the wall and set pre-cut slabs of wood on the brackets. She reminded him that they could afford to buy a shelving unit or a cabinet, or even hire a carpenter to do it quickly. But Valmiki wanted to build it himself. He wore the tool belt Devika and the children had given him that Christmas past. He wore the belt low, like a gun belt, and from the leather holster he would pull the hammer out by its head and aim the handle at Devika or the children. It made them all laugh, and even though Devika had no confidence in Valmiki’s meagre abilities, it pleased her that he enjoyed wearing the belt and fooling with it. During the initial spurt of fixing things, he had taken off the light switch plate in the living room and replaced it with a decorative one. When he finished, the plate was askew. Devika asked him to straighten it, so, a little peeved, he removed it, and put it back, swearing that to his eyes it was fine. She shrugged, twisted her mouth in small despair, and left it at that. And soon she became accustomed to these halfway measures and left him alone to enjoy this play that kept him in the home, close to them all.
That fateful Sunday, Devika could see that Valmiki enjoyed being watched as he imagined the shelf. He stretched his hands and peered through the set square he had made with his fingers. He tried to draw it on paper for Devika, but his lack of skill left her clueless as to his intentions. He said to her, “Honestly, I know what I am doing. Here on paper it is exactly as I want it. I don’t know why you can’t see it; it’s so clear.”
Devika was not convinced, but accompanied by Anand, who clung to her, his nose runny as usual, she sat in the same room, not contradicting in the least, but picking up the nails that dropped from between Valmiki’s teeth or from between his fingers as he tried to hold them against the resistant concrete, or the hammer when it fell, and it fell often, or the tape measure that more than once sprang hard out of his hand while he awkwardly perched on an upper rung of the ladder.
That is where he was that Sunday when the telephone rang. Devika heard Viveka answer it from the hallway. She had taken to rushing to answer the phone before anyone else could, delightedly blurting out, “HelloDr.Krishnu’sresidencewho’scallingplea se,” her seven-year-old voice and greeting attempting to emulate that of their housekeeper. Devika and Valmiki looked at each other, rolled their eyes and smiled. Viveka hopped into the living room to announce that it was a lady wanting to speak to Dad. Devika said, “Did you ask who was speaking?” Viveka became shy. Yes, she said, but I can’t say her name. It is the new lady. She speaks funny.
Valmiki began to descend the ladder. Devika asked him who that would be. He seemed perplexed. “I don’t know. A lady who speaks funny? I wonder if it’s not the people who moved in up the road a couple months ago. The ones in the house with the front porch.”
Devika asked, “Are they your patients now?”
“They came once. She had something wrong with her back. I sent her to see Peter. I think he’s seen her already, but I haven’t spoken with him since.”
“But I think I have seen her. What’s wrong with her back?”
Valmiki didn’t answer. Devika carried on, “He is a painter, or some such thing? There is a sign on their gate. They have a Spanish name, a name with an accent, I think.”
Valmiki half-smiled and muttered, “Italian.”
Devika continued, “The sign says he is a house painter, I think. I wonder if he is any good. What’s the name, again?”
As Valmiki made his way out of the room to take the call in his home office, he said, “Mani and Pia Moretti.”
“Pia Moretti. Hm! That really is a lot of syllables,” Devika said, opening her eyes wide as she looked at Viveka. Viveka drummed her small hands on the coffee table in time to her repetition of the name: Pia Moretti, Pia Moretti.
Valmiki returned some minutes later to say that he had to make a house call, and oddly, it was not as a doctor but as a plumber. Mani, he explained was not at home, he was working on a house where there was no phone, and the Moretti kitchen faucet, which had already had a small leak, was suddenly beginning to gush water. The faucet, Pia worried, was likely going to pop right off the housing any minute.
Devika was puzzled. “I don’t understand this at all: you’re on a first-name basis with every Tom, Dick, and Harry! And I don’t understand if she is having a plumbing problem why she called you.”
Valmiki’s testiness when he responded —“Oh, God, Devika, she is new in the country, hardly speaks the language, and doesn’t know any other neighbours”— put her suddenly on edge.
“She obviously doesn’t have any trouble communicating with you. And you, all of a sudden, you know about plumbing? Well, that is a good one.” She wasn’t laughing.
“Well, it can’t be that big a mystery,” said Valmiki. “I mean, you just have to shut off some valves — they shouldn’t be hard to locate — close off the main, tighten a few things, and turn it all back on. With this handy little belt you all gave Dad, Dad can accomplish anything.” He winked at Anand, and walked past Devika saying, “I think you need something like washers. We must have washers somewhere in the toolbox, and that stickyish whi
te tape — plumber’s tape. I’ll go look for them.”
Devika snapped, “So, what about lunch? It is Sunday. What about Sunday lunch at home with the family?”
“Her house will be under water if I wait. I’m already taking too long in leaving. Why are you being so difficult suddenly?”
“Well, why don’t you call our plumber? I mean, what on earth can you do for her? Here, I will get the number.” She made a step toward the hall where, on a small table, her address book rested.
But Valmiki leapt at her, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her to him. “Hey! Let me at least try. Besides, I will get there faster than he will. Look, don’t make a big thing out of this. I will be back as soon as I am finished.” He put his palm on her cheek and looked into her eyes. “In any case, I have seen plumbers do these things before, right here in our house. I can at least try. I will learn something at the very least. I’ll eat when I get back. Don’t wait for me. And don’t worry.”
All he had to do was touch her face and look at her like that, and Devika gave in to him, even when she didn’t totally believe him. In a softer, more conciliatory tone, she said, “Well, just don’t go and break anything, for God’s sake, and then find that you end up paying their plumbing bills.”
Devika had decided that she and the children would wait until Valmiki returned from his plumbing mission so they could all eat together. But after an hour the children became cranky with hunger, Anand crying in a low monotone wail that made her want to run out of the house, and so they ate without Valmiki. Devika took her sickly boy to nap with her in her bed. After he had fallen asleep, she went out to the back gate and looked up the road. She could see the fence of the Moretti house, but the house itself was obscured by the one before it. She went back inside, to the bathroom attached to her bedroom, and closed the lid on the toilet seat. She sat on the lid, and lit and smoked a cigarette out of view of the children. It made her eyes burn and her throat ache, but it had a calming effect. She thought of her two girls. Vashti was in the study combing the shiny yellow synthetic hair of one of her dolls. Viveka was in the backyard, trying to catch butterflies and grasshoppers with an aquarium fish net.
What Devika didn’t know was that sometime later Viveka had taken it upon herself to go up the road to look for her father.
Later that night, as Devika and Valmiki and the three children sat at the dinner table, just about to tackle their dessert (Valmiki had finally returned in time for supper), Viveka asked Valmiki why, when Pia Moretti was groaning, he had continued to lie so long on top of her.
Devika stopped breathing, She stared at the tip of the fork in her hand.
Viveka waited for an answer from her father. Valmiki glared at his daughter, but in his peripheral vision he was observing Devika.
She put down the fork slowly and reached for her glass of water. She gripped the glass. Valmiki gripped the edge of the table, bracing himself against his chair. But Devika simply lifted the glass, as if, oddly, to offer a toast.
Viveka whined, “Tell me, na, Dad. What were you doing?”
Valmiki sat up briskly and lifted his glass to comply with Devika’s raised one, but Devika merely brought the glass to her pursed lips and sipped the ice-cold water, thoughtfully. Valmiki was spared having to answer to Viveka’s question when Devika, in a chillingly soft voice, said, “I need to have a party. I need to have a big party. Right away. With a band. Food. Every single person we know.”
Valmiki lifted his glass higher and said, “Yes! What a good idea. I’ll drink to that!” and Viveka immediately forgot her question.
“WHO DO YOU WANT TO INVITE?” VALMIKI SAID, INTERRUPTING Devika’s reverie.
“The usual, and others whom we haven’t entertained as yet but owe an invitation.”
Their chatter was interrupted by the sound of the back gate being unlatched. They looked at each other puzzled, as no one was expected. Devika sat up, pulling the skirt of her dress over her knees. Valmiki instinctively checked the zipper of his trousers and stood up. There came a friendly rustling of leaves from the bird of paradise shrubs that crowded the path leading from the gate to the patio. Devika hoped, even as the thought unnerved her, that it was Viveka returning from her day at the campus library.
A man’s voice filtered through the shrubbery.
“Uncle? Auntie?” It was Nayan Prakash, their good friend’s son. His family and theirs were not related by blood, but like any decent young man he still called them uncle and auntie. Only this past month Nayan had returned from five years of university schooling in Canada, and he returned a married man.
Nayan rounded the garden path, followed by a slight white woman — the woman people were already talking about. Until three weeks before his return, Nayan’s annoyed parents had informed Devika and Valmiki, no one, not even they, had known of the presence of this woman in his life. Worse, he had married this foreigner, this stranger, a Frenchwoman, without their knowledge. No, it wasn’t a shotgun thing. The only sense they could make of it was that it was the passion of youth, impetuousness, the influence of North American ways, of that kind of culture, with its lack of consideration for family and for what people might think and say. They weren’t pleased, they felt obliged to express explicitly. They had had no hand in choosing this woman. She certainly would not have been on any list of possibilities for their son. (Devika had later told Valmiki that she almost felt that Nayan’s parents were apologizing to them for him having married this woman. She had itched to assure them that neither Viveka nor Vashti were upset when they heard he had married.)
This woman, the Prakashs had carried on, eyes wide with wonder, was white and not a Hindu, and English was not her first language. She didn’t even speak it well. They didn’t know a thing about her family — what class she came from, which, they were quick to add, was not the most important thing, but it was something, wasn’t it? What about her and her family’s medical history? They knew nothing of this, of any madness or hereditary diseases. And what was the matter with Nayan, in truth, for he had never spoken a word of French before meeting her? And still he only knew a handful of words — and she a handful of English — and the whole thing just drove them crazy, especially as they lived all together in the same house and had to listen to this tortured back-and-forth quarter-English, quarter-French, and-the-rest-I-don’t-know-what between the two of them. And how many parents had spoken with them in the hopes that their daughter might marry him? Some of those young women had steadfastly refused other shows of interests. Well, even if they were after the money, at least they were known families, Hindus — and regardless of class, this above all else was important.
There had been talk, not idle Valmiki and Devika could see now, that Nayan’s wife was a remarkably beautiful woman, in a glossy, foreign-fashion-magazine kind of way. This had not impressed Nayan’s parents but had rather irked them. Valmiki and Devika, on the other hand, were immediately impressed. Before Nayan could introduce them, Devika had already taken good note of the glistening double-gold chain that hung heavily from his wife’s neck.
“Auntie Devika, Uncle Valmiki, this is Anick.” The young woman uttered something Devika imagined was a greeting. The words were not only inaudible, but accented — perhaps not even English. Devika repeated Anick a few times, trying to get its pronunciation. Awkwardly she said, “It’s French, eh?”
Anick said, Mais, oui, with the tone of someone saying, But obviously, why wouldn’t it be, and Nayan rubbed his wife’s back and laughed as if to say, Isn’t she lovely and funny? Devika flattered back, “Well, I will just have to call you Mrs. Prakash, won’t I? I won’t get that wrong.”
Valmiki informed the pair that Viveka — their eldest daughter, he enlightened Anick — was still at the university, and Vashti — the younger one — was expected back any minute from an after-school extra-lessons class in preparation for the advanced level exams the following year. Devika watched the model-like features of the young woman, her long neck, minute waist — stomach flat,
flat, flat — and the provocatively protruding pelvic bones. Anick’s nose was slim and ran straight down, no bumps or humps — a perfect angle. The skin on her face was flawless. There was not even a blemish from, say, a scratched pimple. Had she never had chicken pox? Her complexion was not fatty or puffy. It was thin, lean skin. Her eyes were brown, and although Devika had seen brown eyes on white women countless times, she noticed that Anick’s were unusually alert — a well-mannered and unintimidating alertness. Her eyelashes were long, but they weren’t false. They were definitely hers. She didn’t seem to be wearing mascara. If she were, it was obviously of a good quality. Her eyebrows arched perfectly, the arch itself in exactly the right place. Hard to do. There had to be help from nature to be able to do that. And they were not too thin or too thick. Her lips were pink, but she didn’t seem to be wearing lipstick. A little lipstick might have been a good idea, thought Devika, but she conceded that Anick might not have expected to have been brought to meet anyone on her stroll. They were shaped by the hand of God himself, Devika mused. She watched hard, trying to see if Anick really wore little makeup or if it was of such a quality and so well-applied that it looked natural. She thanked God that Viveka was not home, for next to this beauty Viveka would be rendered even plainer than she already was.
Nayan intoned apologetically that he had been taking Anick for a walk around the nieghbourhood and, spotting Valmiki and Devika through the shrubbery against the fence, had wanted to say a quick hello and introduce his wife. Devika invited them to come right in, come and sit down, have a cup of tea — or, Valmiki interjected, a glass of sparkling wine; there was a chilled bottle with no other but their names on it. He added that he had heard from Nayan’s father that Nayan had become a discerning wine drinker. Nayan raised his eyebrows and, chuckling said, “Discerning? That couldn’t be the word Dad used!”
“What would he have said?” Devika provoked.
“He would more likely have said I became a snob, and he might have used a qualifying expletive, too.”
