Valmiki's Daughter

by Shani Mootoo

  And so, without having laid a hand on Anick’s body or taken the hard plastic head of a stethoscope to her chest, it was apparent to Valmiki that he had already been of help. Such confirmation of the possibility of restraint and of unconditioned goodness in him caused a warm shiver to course down his spine.

  II Luminada Heights

  24 Days

  Your Journey, Part Two

  LET US SAY THAT, HAVING SEEN THE PROMENADE, YOU’RE INTRIGUED. Say you want to see at least one neighbourhood that will tell you something more about town and country. There are many neighbourhoods you might venture into, but a drive through Luminada Heights is a social lesson in itself. Besides, that is where the Vishnus and Prakashs live.

  To get there, take a taxi from the San Fernando General Hospital. Don’t walk — the hills are steep, the roads narrow, and traffic dangerously swift. Go down Chancery Lane, to the bottom where the land is flat for all of a hundred yards or so, and then begin your climb upwards again. Even a car, especially those used as taxis, protests its journey into Luminada Heights. You rise above the red galvanized roofs of the post office, the bus terminal, the Ministry of Works, and other government offices. You round a bend, and Fisherman’s Wharf disappears. The road turns and you’re hemmed in by tiny one-room houses and smaller shops on either side of a road that looks as if no more than one and a half cars ought to fit on it. You’re ascending and realize that you’re on a precipice to which the houses on the drop side cling precariously. In some places a stout yet mangled yellow-and-black iron railing makes a mockery of the safety it had originally been intended to provide.

  Not soon enough, the land is more forgiving. The precipice blunts into rolling hills. Just ignore, if you can, the barefoot wiry man in the red merino vest and torn trousers meandering dangerously in a drugged stupor down the middle of the road, his unkempt wiry hair making him look that much more fearful. And the bent, bodi-thin woman sweeping the step of her one-room shack that opens directly onto the winding uphill road. Look, instead, beyond the orderless smattering of gutted houses and shacks, away from the clotheslines, chicken coops, outdoor latrines and shower stalls. Look through the avocado and mango and plum and dongs trees that thrive in spite of having been haphazardly chopped away to make room for one thing or another, and there it is again — the roti-flat, silvery Gulf of Paria. An excellent view of it is commanded by this prime hillside location: you’ll see rigs topped by gushing orange flames, red-and-black oil tankers, flat-bottomed barges, and the refinery’s pier that lights up like a string of diamonds at night. You can even see the faint pier of Point Lisas sticking out like a peninsula, while the steel factory and ammonia plant emit cloud-like plumes into the air. On the western horizon of the Gulf is a sliver of the mountainous Venezuelan coastline, a northerly spur of the Andes that sinks into the Gulf then rises again in the northern hills of Trinidad. At sunset, with some little imagination, it resembles a golden tiara.

  Slowly, perhaps, but surely, these lands with exceptional views, on which squatters live in huts and shacks with no running water or electricity, will give way to the kinds of homes that are built just a little farther on — the ones with gardens designed for entertaining, all angled just so, to take advantage of the view of the gulf.

  A short history of Luminada Heights as it is today begins with a family of French origin, the Rochards, who in the late 1950s — with independence from Britain imminent — sold their colonially taken and inherited hillside land on the eve of their emigration. The Rochards were cattle- and horse-breeders and Luminada was a pasture. It had always been shaded magnificently by a profusion of generous samaan trees, host to birds, iguanas, bromeliads, and philodendrons, their umbrella tops intricate as lace handkerchiefs. The Palmiste palm grew there too in abundance. Several stands of them remain, interspersed among the houses that eventually emerged. A consortium of bright young San Fernando brothers, all Indian in origin, pooled the money they had, borrowed the rest, and bought the land. They added “Heights” to the name and divided up the pasture into lots. To this day they have held on to double and triple parcels for themselves, passed on to their children now. But they, of course, made fortunes selling off the rest in smaller lots. Thankfully, they and those who bought from them were in awe of the samaan’s grandeur and stamina, and the trees were, for the great part, left alone and built around.

  The winding road with its gentle inclines and declines opens before you and suddenly begins a climb in earnest, offering now a chronology of affluence: just past the ground-bound shacks — homes of the fisherman, the knife sharpener, and the nut seller — you find the homes of the doubles vendor and the roti man. These, only a little bigger than the shacks just passed, stand proudly on stilts. As the road winds and rises, each tier makes its own definitive statement to rival the one below it. Each level out-designs and out-builds the one before. The modest wood house gives way to larger wood houses, and these sport wrap-around verandas, and multiple doorways and windows that open onto those verandas. These are the homes of the elementary school teachers, store clerks, and book-keepers. Baskets of lush ferns hang from their eaves, and low concrete fences brace themselves against the possibility of being rammed by out-of-control vehicles, some of which have made their threats more palpable by leaving paint streaks across the fences. These houses beget, on the tier above, low concrete structures in which the high school teachers, car and insurance salesmen, and self-employed petty businessmen such as electricians and painters live. Their houses show off terrazzo-paved patios with wrap-around wrought-iron fences and wrought-iron patio furniture, paved and covered garages, and clipped hibiscus hedges instead of concrete fences.

  Now come the multi-layered, multi-roofed concrete homes with partial walls of cut and polished stone, the enclosed two-car garages, portals over the front door, the rare museander shrub punctuating a military-crisp lawn, and the relief of a hybrid bougainvillea spilling over concrete and wrought-iron fences — the concrete to discourage trespassers; the wrought iron to allow the public a view of the grandeur inside. The store managers and accountants, a couple of hairdressers, the town’s printer, and the denture maker are among those who live here. These beget on a yet higher tier other similar houses, but with uncovered, paved patios, sprawling lawns, and large picture windows to take in the view of mangrove hugging the coast and the Pointe-à-Pierre jetty jutting into the gulf. Here you’ll find everyone from engineers and stockbrokers to small business owners, people who work in the oil fields, and a good number of moneyed white people.

  When the very top of the road was finally etched out, well before electricity and water were put in, and the land was advertised for sale in parcels rather than lots — larger, that is, than anything below — there was in San Fernando a rush for this land, as if for the last pound of rice or flour on the grocery shelves. Bidding was fierce, and some people waited to make their offers only when the bidding was so high that their offers revealed much about them. It is here that the bigger business-people live, like the jewellery store owner, and those who are in the oil or transport business. Several doctors and lawyers are here too. The access road runs at the backs of the houses, rather than at the front as they do below. These houses face the sprawl of the island northward, their view enviable, magnificent, and unobstructed. The residents here have the privilege of knowing what the top of a samaan tree looks like. From their property fronts they can see the yacht club and the moored boats, they can survey the entire refinery, the oil tanks and the flaming stacks at Pointe-à-Pierre, without using their star-gazing telescopes. They can see Point Lisas. With their star-gazing telescopes they can look downwards, unseen, into the windows of their neighbours lower down. They can see the small, traditional, rectangular swimming pools down there.

  The neighbours below crane upwards, or take drives to that highest road and lurk outside of the houses there. They will their vision to bend around to the fronts of the houses, but instead they receive only furiously tantalizing glimpses of lands
caped gardens, light fixtures like statues that dot the lawns, and swimming pools in innovative shapes, some taking advantage of the slope downwards, one pool emptying into another.

  It is in this mix that Valmiki and Devika have their house, the least ostentatious of the lot. The Prakashes are just down and around the corner, not even five minutes away.

  Eyebrows would be raised and heads would nod in understanding, if you were to say you lived in Luminada Heights.

  Viveka

  FOR THE PARTY, VIVEKA WORE A KNEE-LENGTH, LONG-SLEEVED kurta. It was dull blue, printed with darker stripes, and in the stripes a grey-and-red paisley design. It had been a present to Valmiki from one of his patients who had visited India. The first time Valmiki had tried it on, Vashti and Viveka thought it made him look like a movie star. He quite liked it, too. But Devika had pursed her lips and showed no interest in it. He knew she thought it looked like a dress on him. Later he took it to Viveka and asked if she wanted to have it, explaining that as much as he liked it, he knew that he would never actually wear it. It had to be altered to fit her, but it became her favourite outfit immediately.

  On seeing Viveka dressed like this, Vashti rolled her eyes. Devika said, “That is what you’re wearing?”

  “I don’t have anything else. What is wrong with it?” Viveka couldn’t hide her defensiveness. “It’s what I feel most comfortable in.” The kurta reached her knees, and under it she wore narrow blue slacks and Indian leather slippers.

  “Don’t make it sound like you are deprived, child. It is dowdy. You look like you are going to the mall, not to a party. I could lend you something. Go look in my cupboard.”

  Devika’s offer did not soften the criticism in Viveka’s estimation. “Well, you all are always saying how muscular my arms are and that sort of thing. It hides my arms.”

  “She’d be more comfortable in one of Dad’s old shirts!”

  “Oh, shut up, Vashti.”

  “Shut up? Mom, why does she speak like that to me. As if I am a child.”

  Viveka curled her lips as she levelled, “You are.”

  Valmiki, tucking his crisp white shirt into his black trousers, came out to look at Vashti. He put a finger to his lips and whispered in a good-natured voice, “You keep out of this, honey.”

  He smiled at Viveka and said, “First of all, you have lovely arms. Everyone’s jealous because you’re strong for a girl. Do you want one of my shirts, Vik?”

  Devika exhaled hard at him. “Rather than help me, why are you cajoling them like this? Look, they are your children, too.”

  Back at Viveka she snapped, “I don’t care what you wear, but you will come down and say hello. If you want to look like that in front of people, that is your business.” And so the banter went. Soon everyone except Viveka headed down to the front of the house to meet the guests.

  To the accompaniment of instrumental music from the party, Viveka, shelving and unshelving books in the study, heard the chatter and laughter grow as each new couple arrived. Before going out to mingle with her parents’ guests, she had informed her mother, she wanted to check something on the computer. She turned on the computer and engrossed herself in a chat-room debate with other students regarding the university administration’s implementation of heightened security measures on the campus.

  Her mother didn’t hide her irritation when she came into the study for the second time to call Viveka out. “I don’t care how important it is,” Devika declared. “If you were watching an advertisement on TV now you would say that that was of some great importance. You think you know how to get what you want, but I want you to get yourself out there right away. I am not coming in here to call you again. You are behaving like a real coonoomoonoo. You will come and meet people, and you will stay out and chat with your sister, and with Anick and Nayan when they arrive, and everyone else. Why can’t you be more like your sister, eh?”

  Viveka glanced away from the computer. “Aren’t Anick and Nayan here yet?”

  “No, but everyone else is.”

  “Steve Samlal is here, too?”

  “No. His parents are here, but he didn’t come.”

  This both pleased Viveka and made her feel peeved.

  “It is really looking as if you are being very rude. Why do I have to keep making excuses for you?” continued Devika.

  “All right, all right. I am coming, but I have to shut the computer down. I will come in a few minutes.”

  “Vashti has already come out. She is just sitting there by herself. Turn off that computer and come outside right now.”

  “But I just said I was turning it off, Mom. You don’t have to tell me to turn it off again.”

  “Look, I don’t want to go outside with a sour face because of you, yes. If it’s not your father, it is you. I don’t know what is wrong with you all. Look, you just do what you want. As usual.”

  “Why are you bringing up Dad? Did something happen?”

  Her mother, realizing that she might have provoked Viveka’s old anxieties with her dig at Valmiki, backtracked quickly. “Just stop worrying yourself. He is behaving perfectly. Stop all this worrying-worrying and come out, for God’s sake.”

  Another ten minutes passed, and Viveka’s father came into the study. He stood behind her. “You’re chatting?”

  “Yeah, I’m finishing up now, though.”

  “I know you don’t like these kinds of parties, pet.”

  Viveka interrupted him. “It just all feels so hypocritical. I always feel as if I don’t know what’s actually going on. How come your hunting friends aren’t invited to these kinds of parties, Dad? I mean, you see them more than you see anyone who will be here tonight.”

  “Well, precisely. I see them enough as it is. Besides, you know they won’t feel comfortable with this crowd.”

  “You mean this crowd won’t feel comfortable with them.”

  “Both.”

  Viveka could hear her father’s irritation and defensiveness in that one word, and changed her direction with him fast. “I just don’t like these kinds of parties, Dad.”

  “I know that, and I know that I am to blame. I know your mother doesn’t think I have changed or grown up at all, but surely you can see I have. Just come out and say hello. Everyone is asking for you. Come, make your mother happy, please, for my sake. You can come back here after you say hello.”

  “Have the Prakashs arrived yet?”

  “Not yet. Uncle Ram said they had another party to go to first. But they should be here any time now.”

  “I hope they bring chocolates,” Viveka said in a conciliatory tone.

  Valmiki quickly jumped on the moment. “Come on out now, my pet, for a few minutes, please.”

  Outside, Viveka remained distracted, one eye on the entrance looking out for Nayan and his wife, and one foot ever ready to rush back inside of the house to the study. Vashti, wearing green high heels and a short spaghetti-strap cotton dress with an abstract print that flashed every colour bled from the rainbow, came and stood next to her. Their father slid himself between them, and put an arm around each girl. He could be so flamboyant when he was ready, observed Viveka. And he was certainly ever ready to party. He was indeed a good host. She looked around and didn’t mind admitting that so was her mother.

  Viveka fielded small talk about the university from some of the guests while one man asked Valmiki if he had sons-in-law lined up yet. Viveka good-naturedly interjected, “Marriage? I don’t even have my degree yet.”

  Vashti rolled her eyes, “What she doesn’t have yet is a boyfriend.”

  “But who say you have to wait until you get degree?” the man answered, thickening and flaunting the popular version of the Trinidadian accent. “Pretty girls like you, and you keeping the boys waiting? Valmiki, is Devika who make these children by herself, or what? How they pretty so, boy?”

  Valmiki said, “You’re right about where they got their looks. I have taste, you know that. Anyhow, listen, I am not paying any dowry, you hear?
I will have to be paid for these girls, and whoever wants the privilege of marrying either of my daughters will have to come damn good, for either of my girls! They will have to make sure I can retire in the style to which I have accustomed my wife.”

  He said this as Devika passed by, and without stopping her march toward a group of women gathered on the lawn, she said over her shoulder, “It was I who taught you, boy. When you met me I was already accustomed to that style. Everything you know I taught you.”

  Valmiki kissed Viveka on her cheek, whispering in her ear, “Your mother is in fine form tonight.” He offered his daughters a drink, which they both declined. Then he left in the direction of the bar. Viveka felt rather awkward, standing there with Vashti, fumbling to carry on with friends of her parents the kind of conversation that bored her. In minutes a server arrived in front of the two girls with a glass of white wine and a sweating glass of Coke, the napkin around it already damp, both set in the centre of a doily-clad silver serving tray. Vashti playfully reached for the wine. Viveka slapped her sister’s hand lightly, then looked over at her father, who winked at her. She shook her head at him, but took the glass of wine and remained chatting with these friends of her parents — it was a “then and now” conversation about the quality and quantity of available street food, the vendors outside the gates of Vashti’s school, and the roti shops near the university gates — until she had finished half. Then Viveka excused herself with some mumblings about research and course work. Vashti reluctantly followed her into the house but went to her own room, where she turned on the air-conditioning and made a phone call to one of her friends.

  BUT IT WASN’T LONG BEFORE VIVEKA HEARD VOICES, HER FATHER’S included. He and another man, gentler sounding, were talking. She recognized Nayan’s voice and panicked. She straightened herself, pushed her chair back from the computer, and slowly spun the swivel chair around to face her guests as they arrived in the study. She stood.