by Shani Mootoo
On the days when Nayan did spare a driver, Anick did not go to Luminada where she would have been obliged to stop in on her in-laws, but to Port of Spain to housewares shops and boutiques, looking for items with which to furnish her new home. And she took the opportunity to lunch with a friend or two, the ones she saw little of nowadays.
Three months in a rented house in the hot, humid and busy centre of the island might as well have been a year, but eventually Anick and Nayan were able to move to “Chaillou.” One of the restorers had found that time and weather had rubbed almost smooth an incised text on the gable of the pavilion-like entrance to the house. A wax rubbing revealed the words Le Ciel de Chaillou. When Anick told her father of the discovery of the plaque, and of the French words on it, he immediately replied, “But of course, Chaillou must refer to David Chaillou, France’s first official chocolatier, appointed to the court of the chocoholic Queen Marie Therese.” The original French owners of the estate obviously knew the history of chocolate in France and had named it in honour of David Chaillou —“Chaillou’s Heaven.” It was a pleasant irony to Anick that she had ended up living in this particular estate, this particular house. The discovery of the name of the house was, to her mind, like unearthing an umbilical cord to France. It gave her a humorous sense of “right of presence.”
But the connection, and her talk of it in this manner, irritated Nayan. He had an ornate brass plaque made, on which was inscribed the single word Chayu. This is how the house had come to be known, with a name that sounded Indian enough, and so, according to Nayan, it would remain.
ONCE ANICK WAS ABLE TO MOVE IN, THE HOUSE BECAME HOME FAST. It was airy and light. In the early morning when mist clung to the ground, it was cool — so cool, so damp, one had to wear a sweater and socks. The forest had its own earthy smell, but the air around Chayu was cacao-scented some days, and on others, when the fermenting was happening, it reeked of an earthy sweat-like odour and sweetness — sweetness that was almost turning to rot. Early morning, the estate workers could be heard entering the fields, chatting quietly as they headed out to clean or pick or gather fruit. And when the sun burned off the mist, the forest gave off the rank odours of decaying matter, leaves, too-ripe fruit that had been left unpicked and fallen to the ground. From the earth itself rose the odour, oddly, of fresh fish or ocean sand. The workers said that this was the scent of snakes. Anick disliked mosquitoes more than she feared snakes, and fortunately the house was shrouded in nearly invisible netting that kept out not only snakes and mosquitoes but scorpions, birds, frogs, bees, lizards, and flies.
Throughout the day it was not entirely quiet, but the sounds were a kind of music to Anick. Workers came and went around the house. Women on their way to or back from the town a taxi ride away slapped their rubber slippers on the asphalt, chatting with one another in English that Anick was just beginning to catch. And there was the burbling of schoolchildren, or children who were not at school but swung cutlasses as they went down the road to cut hands of bananas from someone else’s property or to pick peas or dasheen. A car passed Chayu occasionally, but off the main road there was hardly any traffic save for the donkeys that were used on the land, and the one-ton truck that belonged to the estate and transported sacks of roasted beans to the factory outside of Chaguanas. There were, always, the kinds of sounds that one welcomed: the shriek of a parrot; parakeets squabbling incessantly; once in an anticipated while a bellbird’s mournful tocking; the wind fighting its way through the coffee, cacao, and citrus trees and getting snared in the banana clumps; the apamat and the silk cotton trees creaking high above all the others; and if it rained, the heft of each drop, known by the shape and quality of the sound it made on the variety of leaves all around, sounds that Anick eventually — eventually — came to take for granted.
She became more at ease in the country, recognizing neighbours and entering into lengthy conversations with them about their lives and about life in Rio Claro, in which they seemed much more interested than life elsewhere in Trinidad. This always amused Anick, since the island was so small she thought of it as a whole, all the parts entwined and entirely dependent on each other. On one side, her neighbours were Hindus, and on the other Muslim. Anick had attended the Pentecostal Church down the road, only once, on the invitation of the pastor and his wife. It took no skill to see how divided such a small village could be, divisions by colour and by religion, and by the size of a house or the materials from which it was built, and by one’s children going to school or not. At the Pentecostal Church she enjoyed the singing and clapping and found catching the spirit intriguing, but the church service was no more to her than that.
Anick discovered that she was a presence in the neighbour-hood, not only because she was the only white woman, but because she and her husband owned the largest property, the biggest house, had the fanciest car, and were the employers of a good percentage of the village population. If resentments ran underground, they did not show. Anick now made an even greater effort to speak and understand English, as she knew that her lack of communication skills in such a place would not be “cute,” as they had been in San Fernando or in Port of Spain. The result of her making extra efforts and learning the names of neighbours, visiting people, and allowing herself to be visited in turn, was that she was looked out for by the villagers as much as she came to look out for them.
As she became more at ease in Rio Claro, however, she began to miss her friendships in Port of Spain and the acquaintances she had made with people on the other islands. She was in touch with some of these people by telephone, but the drive to Rio Claro interested few of them. She would stand at her bedroom window sometimes and look out at the land with its neat rows of cacao trees, and then interrupting that neatness the chaos of tall trees and the broad-leaved vines that hugged them, and gripping their branches the bromeliads with their central spear-like stalks that seemed to be aflame, and she would wonder if she should broach being in touch again with Viveka Krishnu.
Meanwhile, Ram and Minty drove down to Rio Claro regularly so they could enjoy quiet evenings on the now-widened gallery, sitting in the antique rocking chairs Anick had sourced and purchased, the scent of the various states of their cacao marking the village air. Each trip, they hoped that they would be invited to stay the night in one of the two spare bedrooms, but Anick had firmly made it clear that she needed Chayu to be fully her own before she would let them spend more than a few hours in a house they had once lived in, and might naturally take to bossing in again. When no invitation came from either Anick or their son, Ram and Minty would reluctantly rise, say their peevish goodbyes, and head west again, only to return in a day or two.
Viveka
WHEN, ABOUT A MONTH AFTER MOVING INTO CHAYU, NAYAN CAME into San Fernando especially to visit Valmiki as a patient, Valmiki returned home and went immediately to the study to find Viveka. The younger Prakashs were finally experiencing a second honeymoon, he told her, as if he felt some duty to do so. Anick, he reported, had fallen in love with the forest, and was taking an active interest in the cacao estate and in the social life of the village. Nayan, he beamed, had invited Valmiki to bring his hunting friends some Sunday to hunt on the estate land. He ended his report with the news, strangely disheartening to Viveka, that Nayan was finally ready to consider fatherhood.
Viveka listened to all of this with a well-performed glimmer of passing interest. Anick quite disgusted her now. She was unequivocally relieved that Nayan and his troublesome wife no longer lived just around the corner.
And then, some days later, Nayan phoned Valmiki, asking him to pass on an invitation to Viveka to visit him and Anick in Rio Claro. He had arranged the details of the visit on Anick’s suggestion: Viveka would travel there and back with Nayan’s parents during one of their frequent evening visits.
The invitation unsettled Viveka. She fussed to her parents and Vashti that Anick had not been in touch since just after the dinner she had so painstakingly made, and now wanted her as audience
for her new house. They reminded her that it was Nayan who had phoned with the invitation, to which she whined back, “To Dad, not to me. What does he think I am, a child? He is so old-fashioned. And I am surprised at Anick. She is just like him.”
Vashti simply told Viveka she was being overly dramatic when she knew very well that she really wanted to go. Devika, at first, thoughtfully encouraged Viveka to go with Ram and Minty, but when Viveka continued to protest, and indeed, did so theatrically, Devika grew terse. Finally she was brusque: “Why is she bothering you so much? What is it that you have with her? Either decide to go or stop talking about it.”
Valmiki watched Viveka closely, and then he said, “Just do what you want to do, Vik, don’t worry about what anyone else thinks.”
This angered Viveka further. She looked at her father as if he were daft and responded, “What makes you say that? It has nothing to do with what anyone thinks. I’m just not sure she and I have enough in common, and Nayan sure doesn’t interest me.”
This stopped the conversation. She could tell, though, if only to save themselves and the day, her family had all decided to let her have the last say.
DURING THE DRIVE TO RIO CLARO, VIVEKA FIDGETED IN THE BACK seat of Ram Prakash’s car. At four-thirty in the afternoon, progress along the narrow road was slow. Having just left work for the day, many people congregated at the taxi and bus stands. There were some private cars on the road, but mostly regular taxis, maxi-taxis, and buses. It had been a hot day, the journey was to be a long one, and outside the car it was noisy and smoggy with vehicle exhaust. Even though the use of air-conditioning put great stress on the car’s cooling system, Ram kept it on. After some pleasant chitchat, Minty nodded off and Ram turned on the radio. Viveka leaned back and tried to relax. Pedestrians outside her window were noticeably wilted in the heat and glare. Viveka, on the other hand, was chilled in the air-conditioned car.
Before leaving the house, Viveka had tried on everything she owned, trying to find something that was both appropriate for a visit and that she would be comfortable in. She ended up wearing her “uniform.” She could see that her mother was on the verge of commenting but then changed her mind. Viveka knew that any comment would have been disparaging and so interpreted her mother’s quiet as an expression of exasperation. Rather than feeling triumph at this, she felt defeat. Now she felt shy to ask Ram to turn the cold air down, so she simply made do by rubbing her bare arms. She looked out the window and wondered what Naipaul would make of this particular present-day Trinidad. What had really changed for these people since Naipaul’s depictions of them? He hadn’t ever really paid attention in his work to the presence of blacks in the country, but now his cane-and-cacao Indians seemed outnumbered by people of African descent.
Viveka tried to imagine seeing Anick again. She decided that she would be still, cool in Anick’s presence, not too talkative, not too quiet — she would project a fine balance of interest, disinterest, and aloofness. But as they finally neared Rio Claro, she wanted, in one breath, to get out of the car and find a way back to San Fernando, and in another to have Anick to herself, to ask her why and what and how come.
With each turn of a corner that brought her closer, Viveka’s body tightened. In less than half an hour, too long and too short, she would arrive at Chayu. When she stood next to Anick, they would all see that she was uglier than ever.
Viveka looked at her hands, clasped on her lap. They were small but thick, her fingers short, indelicate. She gripped one with the other. On a volleyball court one might have called them strong hands, but now she felt as if they only confirmed the fact that, as a female, she was inelegant. The idea that Anand’s spirit lived inside of her, was pushing himself upwards, through her, taking over her body, her mind, her manners, had seemed lately more plausible than ever. It was as if he insisted on living again through her — a thought she cherished at times, particularly when alone in her bedroom or the bathroom, flexing her biceps, sucking in her cheeks to make her face more angular, slipping her thumbs into the loops of her jeans and commanding a cowboy-leans-back-on-the-fence pose. She certainly often felt as if she knew what it would be like to be him, and as if she knew, too, the kinds of women he would be drawn to. He would be drawn to Anick. But then, who wouldn’t be? And Anick might well have thought Anand interesting. Desirable. The thought sent a current through her.
And then, just as the sun was setting, the car arrived, all too suddenly, at the turn-off from the main road. Viveka’s head swam. She would do her best, pay compliments all around regarding the house, and she would be a good enough, innocuous guest.
The area they were driving through was a poor one, and golden light from the sunset in the west highlighted every detail. The two-room houses, all with little verandas, and all exactly alike, like barrack houses, were of unpainted wood. They perched on high stilts. The Hindu houses could be identified by the religious prayer flags collected in the yards. Viveka decided that she would make conversation with Nayan and Anick about the plight and flight of present-day Indians. The plight of those left behind; the flight of others to the city. Nayan was, after all, a descendant of these Indians. She could talk of a revival, of him as a pioneer of such a revival with his return to the country. She had no elegant presence with which to grace Anick’s home, but she could, at least, be bright and try to bring interesting conversation their way.
WHEN RAM PRAKASH’S CAR ARRIVED AT CHAYU, THE SUN HAD SET and the sky was spread out in hues of red. No lights had been turned on. Even so, Anick’s nervousness was palpable to Viveka. Her self-consciousness — Viveka wondered if it was on account of her presence, or Ram and Minty’s — unsettled everyone. She asked Viveka if the drive had been long, but then she herself answered that it was stupid of her to ask, that of course it was long, and then countered that with, “Well, you know, is polite to ask if your guest’s journey was good.”
There were five of them, and only four chairs on the veranda. Minty sat, but everyone else stood awkwardly, and Anick did all the talking. Of interest to Viveka was the information that from the kitchen Anick had seen two howler monkeys that morning, and that every morning the monkeys could be heard, howling indeed. And a man passing in front of the house had called to Anick that he had seen a pair of toucans in the African violet tree down the road.
Ram leaned over and whispered to Minty, who got up and pulled Anick aside. Anick went into the house and returned with another chair, but Nayan immediately sent her back in to turn on lights and get drinks for them. Did Viveka like his little kingdom? he asked. She responded that what she had seen was indeed a paradise. Nayan, satisfied, turned to his father and launched into business talk: a batch of chocolate had been spoiled because of too many air pockets; some of the machinery needed servicing, some replacing. He had read that there was, available from a German manufacturer, a new grinder and conching machine that worked in combination to make a finer product. Finer than what, his father asked, and what kind of money was he talking about? Minty listened intently, but said nothing.
Viveka got up, said that she was going to explore, and ambled along the gallery. At the side of the house, still on the gallery, she peered through the mosquito netting into the darkness, hoping to catch the movement of a howler monkey in the branches of the trees. They were so elusive that if she were to see one, or even hear one, it would have been and gone in a flash, like a falling star. There was no furniture on the gallery and Viveka wondered what, in time, would be bought for it. There were some elaborate brass hooks in the ceiling for hanging baskets, she imagined, or perhaps a hammock. A dog on the grass down below shook itself hard. She spotted it and whistled. The dog turned to her and growled, and then began a frenzied barking, and she pulled back, embarrassed. Nayan ran around, and seeing that she was still on the gallery and all right, he shouted to the dog, “Shut up! Shut up!” It growled once and whimpered before becoming quiet.
Soon Viveka came to a wall that marked the end of the gallery, but she did not want
to return just yet. She waited, then turned and walked back slowly, almost tiptoeing. She couldn’t bear to return to the three Prakashs and their solemn, uninteresting talk of business. But she knew, too, that if they allowed her to engage them in conversation about Naipaul or cacao Indians or books, she would still have no time for them. It was not them she had come for.
The lights in the house came on, and then those on the veranda. With light in the house, the garden just on the other side of the veranda and everything beyond it was obliterated. The chirping of cicadas suddenly rose loud all around. From inside the house, there was a clatter. Through a set of louvres along the side of the house Viveka caught sight of Anick and the maid in the kitchen. Anick wore a dress in shades of deep reds, garish yellows, and verdant greens. It was made of of sheer fabric, layers sewn upon layers, and was held up by two string-like straps. About her breasts the dress fitted close. Below, it hugged her narrow waist and her bony hips, and from her hips the layers fell in uneven angles about her knees. They flounced about her thighs as she walked. With each step that took her one way, the skirt of her dress swooshed the other. Viveka watched for a moment then made her way back to the front of the house, wishing she had not come.
Anick brought out a tray of lime juice. She told her guests that it was made with limes from one of their trees, sweetened with honey collected from a nest in a tree in the forest by one of the village boys. Ram asked if the tree that the honey came from was on the estate, who was the boy, and if he had asked permission. Anick looked at Nayan and said, uncertainly, “I think so.” It was Gopaul’s son, replied Nayan, the retarded one, and this seemed to satisfy Ram.
