by Shani Mootoo
And so the once-carefree Frenchwoman, in trying to grab onto a slippery foothold in Trinidad, finally chose sides. She begged Nayan to make an effort to befriend businesspeople with longer and more presence in business — the ones, for instance, who took pride in their work and country, paid attention to the architecture of the buildings that housed their businesses and to the design of their homes, and certainly those who patronized charities and the arts. These were often the same people who holidayed abroad, not just in Miami for the sole purpose of business or profit, profit, profit, but in London, Paris, Venice, Delhi, Mexico City, places that packaged and sold their histories. They went for the sheer enjoyment of getting away and of learning, experiencing the new. These people were, too, the same ones who tended to have holiday homes on the small islands in the Gulf of Paria, an archipelago known as “down the islands,” and had yachts, racing boats, and racing horses, and who had expressed the desire umpteen times to get together with Nayan and Anick.
But Nayan now accused Anick of wanting to spend time with these people because they were so worldly that they would accept or even laud her strange sexual deviance. He had watched them carefully and he saw suggestions in some of the men and the women of homosexual tendencies. He spotted signs that he was unable to adequately articulate. Trying to warn Anick, he could only say, “Well, don’t you see how short her hair is? And how big her hands are?” And, “Why does he have to wear a bag like that? He is not in Paris or Rome. There isn’t anything a man carries around that can’t fit in his pants pocket. He wears it because he wants to hold a handbag.”
What frightened and angered him was that he couldn’t be sure what these apparent signs actually meant. He watched every interaction Anick had with these particular other women, to see how they looked at each other or touched each other, and feeling vulnerable by association himself, he monitored the other men’s interactions with him. They so easily touched each other, but not with the slaps on the back or big animated handshakes he shared with Bally and other men who were more like himself. The gestures of these men were small, too delicate to be coming from real men. They seemed so reserved and polite and good-humoured, clean-humoured, on the outside, but who hadn’t heard of their transgressions? These people Anick liked so much better than his simpler family friends such as Bally and the Krishnus, these rich types who did all this travelling, the ones from the other islands and from Port of Spain, too — despite the longing for acceptance they incited in Nayan, they made him a little sick.
Nayan demanded to know what Anick felt was lacking in him and his family. Pressed to answer, she accused him of using Bally’s insufficiencies to boost his own ego. Such transparency in Nayan only angered him. He could not openly fight Anick in his father’s house as he might have fought had they been in a house of their own. So he found quiet but deeply cutting ways to respond. He stayed away from home even more often, and drank everyday, even with his lunch. He declined, as if out of spite, invitations from the people in the north, and those from anyone of interest to Anick, in favour of spending time with Bally or having a drink with his workers. Anick had no choice but to forgo those invitations and instead visit with Bally’s wife — if, that is, she didn’t want to stay at home with Nayan’s parents. And she certainly did not.
WHEN, A COUPLE OF WEEKS AFTER HER DINNER AT THE PRAKASHS, Viveka invited Nayan and Anick to her parents’ house for a meal that she herself would cook, Nayan implored Anick to go without him. He would call Viveka and tell her that Anick was free but that he had a previous engagement, and he would take the opportunity to see Bally about some business. He didn’t tell Anick that he wouldn’t be able to bear watching her be the centre of attention, a position that made him feel ridiculed. He imagined, with disdain, Anick and Viveka tossing between them the names of artists, musicians, writers, cultural movements. And he imagined himself and the rest of his family made out to be dolts.
Viveka
FOR TEN DAYS, VIVEKA HAD RESEARCHED VARIOUS COOKING TRADItions and recipes. The information she devoured on food and chefs of the highest regard internationally cited either French or Chinese or both traditions as having the major influence and as the two greatest culinary traditions in the world. If she had come across a statement like that in one of her courses at the university she would have flown into an intellectual tizzy about who had the power, investments, and narrow-mindedness to make such ridiculous declarations, but now she merely seized on the notion and decided to match Anick’s meal of boeuf bourguignon with something Chinese of equal grandeur. After hours spent at the university’s library and on the Internet, she put together a meal of several courses that consisted of regional recipes cited as “authentic” by their Chinese author-chefs. As there had long been a good-sized Chinese population, and therefore a tradition of Chinese food, in Trinidad, ingredients such as dried mushrooms, dried tangerine peels, five-spice powder, Shaoxing wine and more were easily available.
Devika and Vashti set the table, and even though there were the four Krishnus and only one guest, the table was rather formal. They did not have the style of dishes in which authentic Chinese courses would have been served, so they made do with the best there was: white bone china dishes with a heavy twenty-four-karat gold border, and the heavy cut-lead crystal wine and water glasses from Brazil, and the silver-plate cutlery that was otherwise kept in a locked buffet cabinet drawer and used only for special guests. Viveka’s mother had made for the top of the buffet cabinet a lovely arrangement of flowers from the garden, yellow and deep pink gerberas, white chrysanthemums, with long unruly strands of purple baby bougainvilleas dramatically waving out of it all. There were candles, too. Nothing had been spared for this sole guest. For anyone else she might have thought it too much, but Viveka was pleased.
The meal turned out well, but sadly for Viveka, there wasn’t much comment on the food except to say, My God, this is a lot, a veritable feast! And conversation at the dinner table was strained. Usually, a dinner with friends at that same table would have been a lively affair and laughter would fill the room, a good mix of lewd jokes scattered like chips on a gambling table by Valmiki and even by Devika — once she had sipped a glass or two of wine. And there would be some pertinent gossip, some local politics, some local news, and catching-up types of conversation. But this evening was subdued. Anick’s hesitant English, and the Krishnu family’s inability to see that, in order for her to comprehend, a certain amount of background information was necessary on just about every person, place, or thing that they spoke of, resulted in conversation that was restrained. No one was at ease.
After groping about in the dark forest of cultural difference for topics of mutual interest with this unusually private guest, Valmiki raised the subject of hunting as a pastime. This intrigued Anick. She was interested in the flora and fauna of the Trinidad forest and had finally been taken on a short walk into the forested cacao lands in Rio Claro, but said flatly that she was appalled by hunting as sport. Viveka intuited that Anick was hoping for a discussion on the ethics of hunting, but Valmiki wouldn’t have thought to argue with any guest in his house, particularly a woman. He wasn’t really interested in the flora or fauna and couldn’t tell Anick much about the birds he had taken from the forests. That topic appeared and disappeared like a shooting star.
As everyone fumbled through the dinner, they occasionally heard the birds whistle to one another from their cages. Now Valmiki felt self-conscious and childish for having trapped them. What Devika wanted to talk about — Anick’s parents-in-law and the cost of vegetables at the market — irritated Anick. She was unable to hide her irritation, and Viveka was embarrassed that her mother could talk of nothing else, not even to show an interest in Anick’s past or to hear her opinions of Trinidad and life here. After dessert of cold red-bean-and-tapioca soup, Devika and Valmiki made their apologies and retired earlier than usual.
Vashti was curious about Nayan’s foreign wife at first, but out on the patio as Viveka and Anick bonded over t
heir mutual interest in the fine arts, literature, philosophy, and other subjects, she became bored. She drifted into daydreaming, and eventually roused herself and turned in.
Once she and Viveka were alone, Anick initiated the French conversation practice they had begun by phone over the past couple of weeks.
“D’accord, mais je suis . . . timid,” ventured Viveka.
“Pas timid. Timide. Tee-meede.”
“Tee-meede? Oh, okay. Je suis timide. Is that better?”
“Oui, tres bien. Mais, c’est mieux si tu developpes un bon accent des le debut.”
“Oh my God. I didn’t . . . Je ne comprend pas . . . a single mot . . . tu as dis. You’ll have to . . . Lentement . . . Okay, okay. Let me try this. . . . Pouvez vous parler plus lentement, si’l vous plait?”
This kind of exchange seemed, oddly, more intimate to Viveka than when she and Elliot had kissed. It was a little frightening, and yet she felt brazen. She had pushed Elliot away, but now she so easily laid the vulnerability of fumbling for language like a cloak on the ground for Anick to tread on.
It was Anick who eventually called the impromptu session to a close and the two women reverted to English. It was as if they had been in a movie theatre, watching something beautiful yet a little illicit, and suddenly the movie had ended and the lights had come on. But now that they were alone, Anick spoke English with much less hesitation than she had done at the table, and this too seemed intimate. There grew between them a boldness and a closeness that both frightened and weakened Viveka. There had been wine at the dinner table, they had drunk modestly and eaten heartily. That had been a couple of hours ago, and now Viveka felt as pleasantly drunk as if she and Anick had just shared a magnum between them.
EVENTUALLY, NAYAN ROLLED HIS CAR UP. VIVEKA COULD SEE HIM making his way in drunken bliss to the door. Anick appeared suddenly sober in the glare of his presence. He wanted to sit with them on the patio, stay for a while, but Anick insisted on leaving right away.
After they left, Viveka locked up the house and readied herself as quietly as she could for bed. She lay wide awake for hours thinking about what had transpired between her and Anick when they had been left alone. Anick had been sitting on the loveseat of the patio set, and Viveka, at first, on an armchair. She had gone to the kitchen to get them both drinks of sorrel, and when she returned she tucked herself into the loveseat, managing in that small sofa to create enough space between them for still another person to slide in. Both women now looked straight out into the darkness of the garden, the lights of Pointe-à-Pierre shimmering beyond.
Anick had rested her hand in the space between them, close to Viveka’s knee, and Viveka could feel Anick’s hand as if it were a flame as big and bright as one on the oil rigs in the gulf. She glanced down at it, so much wanting to pick it up as if it were a delicate leaf, turn it over, and examine it. She was distracted from conversation by this proximity, and felt a suffocating weight in her chest, heat coursing up and down her body. In the quiet that fell between her and Anick, Viveka’s legs tensed. She wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. Anick turned to look at her. Viveka hoped more than anything that her face gave nothing away of these delightful and terrifying sensations. She glanced toward Anick, who was still watching her intently. Anick smiled and Viveka looked ahead again, now staring at the Pointe-à-Pierre jetty, watching every single building and light out there. She tried to count the lights.
There was an awkward moment, and then Anick said, “I feel something. Do you feel what I feel?”
Viveka felt as if she had been hit. Her body was drained of all previous sensations, as if a cold gust had come in from across the gulf and stunned her. She felt the need to blunt Anick’s words, make a joke of them quickly, kill the strange and frightening thing that Anick was perhaps about to say.
“An earthquake?” Viveka had snapped over a chuckle of indignation, and just then Nayan’s car had pulled up outside.
Anick looked as if her heart had stopped beating. She made a sound, somewhere between a wince and truncated gasp. Viveka didn’t know if this was in response to her words or to Nayan’s arrival. Their parting was awkward. Anick didn’t seem to know if she should give the accustomed goodbye hug and kiss on the cheek. Viveka came toward her and pressed her cheek to Anick’s. She took Anick’s hand. It was no leaf. Anick squeezed hers back, lightly, but in that lightness was the weight of the evening.
Now Viveka relived the touch of cheek and hand, and each time without fail felt a rush of dizzying desire. It was weakness, daunting and wonderful, that began in her toes and washed quickly upwards, to land between her legs, gripping her there in ecstasy, and then it made its way back down again. Over and over. She put the back of the hand that had held Anick’s to her mouth, and with her lips closed, brushed it. As if it had a mind of its own, her mouth opened and again brushed the skin of that hand. She came down hard now, her parted lips to that hand, teeth pressing into skin, and this made her cry out. The sound was thankfully muffled. She flicked the tip of her tongue, moistening the area, finally eating that part of her hand as if it were the fleshiest part of a ripe mango. She heard again her lame words, “An earthquake?” Surely Nayan would have responded differently if Anick had said those words to him. She tried to imagine how he might have replied, or what some chivalrous man would have said, and she was caught in a riptide of confusion and excitement. What if she had said something as simple as: Yes. I, too, feel something?
THE NEXT DAY, ANICK CALLED VIVEKA TO EXPRESS HER GRATITUDE for one of the lovelier evenings spent so far in Trinidad. Still, it seemed that no immediate time or space could be found for them to visit again. This was a small but painful relief to Viveka. Thoughts of Merle Bedi’s fate played in her mind. Later that week, she took a trip down to the Harris Promenade to see if she might spot Merle, and was both grateful and sad that Merle was nowhere to be seen. She had no plan for what she might do or say had they come face to face.
As the next few days passed, Viveka oscillated between two poles. She decided one minute to still whatever thoughts and feelings Anick Prakash had stirred in her. Such thoughts and feelings were dangerous tricksters out to trip her up and land her, like Merle, out on her own, family-less. And Anick Prakash, being the root of such thought, was even more dangerous. A troublemaker. Brave. Stupid. Disrespectful of Trinidad, its people, its ways.
But there was always the other pole: the desire to see, speak with, touch Anick Prakash was like the pull of a tidal wave against which Viveka decidedly did not want any cautioning or power.
But Anick had withdrawn. There was that one phone call of thanks, and a few days later, one other phone conversation — so brief, it left Viveka feeling shunned. She had mustered the courage and called Anick just to say hello, perhaps for a little French conversation, but Anick was oddly formal and distant. For several days afterwards, Viveka spent most of her time in the study with her feet up on the desk, locked at the ankles, and a book on her lap. She would stare in the direction of her feet and wonder if Anick had ever really said, “I feel something. Do you feel what I feel?”
During this time, Viveka withdrew from Helen and lost interest in volleyball. She spent more time than usual sleeping. In bed, she would not kiss her hand nor touch herself while imagining kissing and touching Anick Prakash. She would rather clutch her pillow as she curled into the smallest ball she could make of herself, and as fast as she could, she would fall into a heavy, sad sleep.
After a week or so of this, the reality of the larger situation dawned on Viveka and she was appalled at herself — appalled that she had not before been affronted by Anick’s disloyalty to her husband, to Viveka’s friendship with Nayan, to the Prakashs’ closeness to the Krishnus. She didn’t know who she felt more loathing for, herself or Anick.
Soon, it was nearing the year’s end and the beginning of a school holiday. Viveka thought of Anick occasionally but with bitterness. Had Anick meant to provoke her, or simply to mock and expose something she thought she
detected in her? Viveka felt twinges of what could only be termed hatred toward Anick for making her feel things that confused her and that could easily have got her into unimaginable trouble. Not so unimaginable, actually, for hadn’t she seen how much her mother had suffered from her father’s philandering? And Merle Bedi’s fate was indeed very real.
Around this time, Viveka noticed that her face seemed to be getting more angular. She stood in front of the mirror and pulled her hair back so that its length disappeared. She was even more certain now that she looked like Anand would have, had he been alive. If he resembled their father in photographs taken at the same age, he would have been rather handsome. Viveka, too, looked like her father, but that only made her ugly, she thought, not handsome. She let her hair fall again and held a pair of earrings from a dish on the dresser up to her ears. Her heart sank. She actually looked more frightful with them. Should she, she wondered, dress more like a woman and look rather ungainly, ugly even, or dress the way she liked to dress, in her T-shirts, jeans, slippers, her long hair parted to one side and left hanging down, no jewellery save perhaps for a single plain ring? Like this, she was almost invisible. She preferred it that way. It was as if she had slipped into a crack where there was no gender-name for what she was. It was feeble consolation to think that she was still developing. How long would that process take, she wondered, and what on earth would she evolve into? At least she had brains — something to fall back on. The ugliest people had a place — even in her mother’s mind and, she had noticed, in many other people’s minds, too — if they were smart enough.
She would use the holiday to take care of her friendships. She would resume contact with Helen who, like Viveka, on account of their family’s financial stability, did not need to take on holiday employment. She would consider playing volleyball again.
