by Shani Mootoo
Conversation continued between father and son about bank accounts and workers, so Anick offered to show Viveka the house. They entered the living room through the louvred doorway. The open interior and the polished mahogany wood floor, the wide planks a deep reddish brown, seemed like an ocean to be crossed. Lime green walls — green the light shade of the lime’s pips — rose high to a ceiling of the same material as the floor.
Anick pointed to several closed doorways on either side of the living room. On one side were the TV room, her own private room, and an office space for Nayan, and on the other side were bedrooms, her and Nayan’s included. She recited the logic of this architecture — the central area that was left open for air and cooling breezes to pass from the front doors and windows right through to the kitchen and out the back door. The house was indeed cool, but there was a strong complex scent, like fresh earth and decaying wood, not unpleasant, inside of it. Cacao beans drying in the attic, Anick explained. Her vocabulary, Viveka noted, had improved, although she still preferred to speak in the present tense.
“The whole area smell of cacao. In the daytime, when is hot, the air is sweet. Everything, everything is cacao. Is like you want to bath in it.”
“Don’t you get tired of it?”
“No, of course not. Is not like chocolate. Chocolate you only have a small piece of and is enough. But, of course, that has to be very good chocolate. I am not talking of candy, too milky, too sweet. A small piece of good quality chocolate goes a long way.”
To Viveka it sounded strange, the way Anick said this, flawlessly, like a phrase she had heard more than once and was practicing now.
“But cacao is different. You don’t get tired of it. Never. Is not sweet at all-at all. On the contrary, is very dark, mysterious. You must come in the daytime. I will show you the whole process, how they collect the pod, how they cut them to get the bean, how they dry the bean and then the fermentation. Is a long process. It have all kind of smell and taste, very very interesting, before they make it into chocolate.”
They went through the well-lit kitchen, in the centre of which was a mahogany table covered with an ordinary white-and-red cotton tablecloth, and cutting boards, piles of trays, canisters and a mess of cutlery, as if everything was in the middle of being sorted for storing elsewhere.
A toilet off to the side flushed and the maid appeared. “Good evening,” she said to Viveka in a barely audible voice, and then to Anick, “Madam, I finish everything. I going home now. Is okay? We will finish putting everything away in the morning.”
Did she want to wait for a drive home? asked Anick. Nayan would drive her once his parents had left.
The maid answered, “He don’t like to go down my street, Madam. It have too much hole in the road. He does get vex and buff me, like I make the hole.” She smiled apologetically.
Anick turned to Viveka as the maid went down the back step. “Lystra is so good, but Nayan treats her badly. He can be so harsh.”
There were appliances of all kinds on the kitchen counters: a blender, a coffee machine, an electric grinder, a juicer, and several mortars and pestles made from different materials and in different sizes. Cupboards lined two walls and open shelves displayed colourful dishes — more, Viveka thought, than a couple really needed. Everything was in disarray and Anick explained that she was indeed sorting through things that had been sent to her by her parents, given to them by Nayan’s, and that she herself had bought.
A heavy wood door on the outer wall opened to the backyard. There was a screen in it, and a metal burglar-proofing grate. Anick led Viveka back toward the interior of the house and down a hallway — Viveka could see that there was one on either side of the kitchen, running parallel to the dining room. They went past the TV room, in which there was only one couch facing a small television. Viveka imagined Anick and Nayan on the couch, Anick curled into Nayan’s body, a bowl of chocolate-covered peanuts on her lap, the two of them eating from it. They passed an office, Nayan’s, and came to a room Anick called her own. Anick switched on the light. The walls were painted yellow, with white trim on the base and ceiling boards. There were piles of boxes in this room, most sealed, a few opened, and Anick explained that she was temporarily using the room for the storage of household things, and Nayan was also storing some business-related things there too.
Viveka entered this room, and walked to the window. She looked out onto a sloping darkness. Stars were just beginning to twinkle in the darkening sky, which seemed to stretch into the distance forever. Anick came up behind her, and said, “Is too dark, but in the daytime when you can see the rows of cacao, is the most beautiful sight.” She had separated out the three words and stressed each one as she looked directly at Viveka. “You hear birds, and the monkeys, and other animals, and see colours like in a carnival. The leaves of the cacao plant are like jade. You know jade? And then in between you see little flecks of bright, bright, bright yellow, and this red —” She held a hand out to Viveka and rubbed her forefinger and thumb together as if the red was a substance, “like fire or glass. Come in the daytime, I show you.”
She touched Viveka’s shoulder lightly to usher her out of the room.
They retraced their steps to the kitchen and Anick pointed to the hallway on the opposite side. “Those are the bedrooms. There are three. If you come to stay overnight, you will stay there. In the one next to mine. Well, is not mine alone. Ours.”
Was this an invitation? Viveka wondered.
“You want I show you my little garden? Is pitch-black but I think you can still see something. In any case, is nice outside. Sometimes I like it out there better than to be inside all the time. Nayan, he don’t like to go in the forest. Is his, yet he only go to see how the cacao growing and he come right back. It have places to walk in there but he don’t go. He think I am crazy. Your father, he like the forest, no?”
They went down the back stairs into the yard. Viveka remembered her walks as a child, just on the edges of the forests, with her father. She remembered him seeming most at peace then. She had always been terrified of snakes, and so close to the wild she felt that it was inevitable her fear would bring her in contact with one. She could not bear to show this timidity now, though, for fear that she would seem like Nayan. She followed close behind Anick.
“What about the dog?” Viveka asked.
“He is chained. I don’t know why people here chain their dogs like this, but is how it is, I have to accept it. He is on the other side of the house. He bark a lot, but he don’t bite. The villagers don’t know that, though. Well, that is what Nayan think. But they not stupid.”
Viveka gasped and held back when Anick suddenly snapped, “Look!” But in the twilight she saw that Anick was only pointing to a barely visible fist-size frog breathing rapidly in the dirt of a lettuce bed.
Anick saw Viveka’s nervousness and took one of her hands. Anick’s hand felt quite strong, and it was warm as she pulled Viveka farther down the path. Then, suddenly, Anick stopped and pulled Viveka closer, gripping her hand tighter yet. Blood pounded in Viveka’s head, and her ears and cheeks turned hot. She could hardly breathe. Anick said something, but the pounding in Viveka’s head and ears had become so loud she could not hear. She tried to ask Anick to repeat what she had said, but it was as if her throat had become clogged. She wrapped her fingers around Anick’s hand, made a half-stroking, half-gripping movement with her thumb, and was sure she felt a quick squeeze from Anick, and then Anick let go. She rested that same hand on Viveka’s shoulder now, and pressed gently down. Together, the two women stooped. Anick put her head close to Viveka’s, pointed to something, and whispered, “Look.” But Viveka could see nothing. Anick manoeuvred herself slightly behind Viveka. She brought her arms around Viveka and covered Viveka’s eyes with her hands. She held her hands there, lightly, but they trembled a little, and from them came a heat that burned Viveka’s face. She held her own hands up and placed them over Anick’s to still the trembling. Anick pulled Viveka’s he
ad toward her, and before Viveka had time to be really sure that Anick had actually kissed the back of her head, Anick released her hands from over Viveka’s eyes. A pair of pinpoint lights flashed on and off in a patch of anthurium lilies. Viveka soon made out the eyes of a rabbit.
“Nayan would kill me if he know I feed the rabbits,” said Anick. “But they so adorable. The land is big enough for everybody, not so?”
They turned back along the path toward the house again. Anick hooked one of her fingers around one of Viveka’s. Then Anick said, “Mr. Lal, is that you? Did you have dinner yet?”
Viveka pulled away from Anick. She heard a voice off to the side answer, “Yes, Madam. Lystra give it to me before she gone home. Thank you, Madam.” Anick whispered to Viveka that this man was the watchman. Viveka looked for him but could not see him. She wondered if he had been watching them the whole time.
Inside, the light of the kitchen seemed harsh and Viveka was sure that her face was etched with evidence of fear, excitement, and restraint. She could not look directly at Anick, but neither did she want to return to the gallery and sit among the others.
Anick reached into the oven and took out a stainless-steel platter holding small mushroom caps that had been stuffed with a mixture of creamed crab and shrimp. She placed the tray on the counter and asked Viveka if she would mind helping her by taking the food out to the gallery. She said, “You do not have to serve them; I will bring out a table and these plates. We put everything on the table. Why we have to serve them? They know how to help themselves. They grown-ups, after all.”
Viveka liked Anick’s little tirades. She picked up the platter and was about to walk away with it, but Anick caught her by the elbow. Anick glanced over her shoulder toward the veranda as she picked one of the caps off the platter. She brought the cap up to Viveka’s mouth and looked directly at Viveka’s lips, parting her own. Viveka felt the mushroom cap brush her lips and she opened her mouth. She offered the tip of her tongue to take the morsel. Anick rested her forefinger and thumb on Viveka’s lower lip. The two women looked directly at each other now. Anick bit her bottom lip. Viveka’s mouth was full. She chewed slowly as Anick stood in front of her, watching, waiting. Anick said, in a voice that quavered, “Is good?” Viveka could only nod. Her body felt unanchored.
Anick was smiling mischievously now. “You know us French girls,” she said, seemingly out of nowhere, her voice soft and trembling, “we like both.” She lightly flicked Viveka under the chin with the back of her forefinger, and was ready to spring away, but Viveka surprised even herself when she caught Anick’s hand and brought it to her lips. If she had stopped for one second to think about what she was doing, she would never have done it. She slightly parted her lips, and lightly held Anick’s finger there between her teeth, nicking the tip of that finger with the tip of her tongue.
Anick gasped. She was no longer smiling. She came closer, again biting her lower lip. Her breathing was quick and shallow. Viveka released Anick’s hand, yet Anick kept her finger at Viveka’s lips. She ran her finger there before stepping back.
Viveka had been holding the platter with one hand. She wanted to drop it and fall to the ground, taking Anick with her. She felt a force inside of her that was entirely unfamiliar, frightening, and exhilarating. This was what she had not felt before, she marvelled, what had been missing between her and Elliot. It wasn’t simply that it was missing from her.
The tray tilted and the mushrooms slid to one side.
“Anick!” Nayan’s voice broke into the silence in the kitchen. The two women started and stepped away from each other. He was calling from the veranda.
Anick’s response was swift and sharp. “Yes!” To Viveka she whispered, “I hate it when he call me like that.”
“Bring another beer for me. What are you all doing?”
Anick answered only, “Okay.” And then to Viveka, she spoke hurriedly. “You in my mind all the time. Do you understand, Viveka, what I am saying? Is like you steal my brain. I cannot stop thinking about you. Please, come again. Come for a longer time. Please.”
IT WASN’T UNTIL THE SUN HAD COME UP, THE BIRDS BRIGHTLY RAUcous outside her window, and she could hear her parents just rising, that Viveka finally drifted off to sleep. She had spent the night reliving and reimagining the past evening. She repeated Anick’s words to herself, interpreted them again and again to mean everything from I love you to I am bored and think you would be an interesting friend to have. Anick’s finger was imprinted on the tip of her tongue, the feel of it brushing her lip. She imagined being at Chayu when Nayan was there, and when he was not. She wondered what would happen if this thing she was feeling in every atom of her being were to stay and never go away, if it were to grow and take over her good sense. If her parents were to find out that she had such feeling for a woman. If Nayan were to know that his wife made her dizzy like this.
But most of all, she imagined Anick and herself in the house in Rio Claro, with the doors and windows closed and no prying eyes around. They would lower themselves onto the floor of the kitchen, and she would lie there with Anick, holding her face, stroking her hair, and kissing her mouth. No words would be spoken between them. They would be hungry only for each other, the aromas of cacao and Anick’s perfume dizzying her. Their legs would entwine, and she would lie on Anick, lightly, and when Viveka imagined this she gasped aloud into the silent night. She imagined so well the feel and slide of fabric on Anick’s hips and thighs that she wondered if she had accidentally brushed Anick in those places, and in the vertiginous events of the past evening hadn’t remembered doing so. She touched herself and felt her body and mind explode as she imagined the heat of their breath, close, the wetness of their tongues touching. And she wondered if perhaps she had misread Anick’s intentions. If she had, what on earth would she do with her own feelings?
She would have to wait and see if Anick suggested anything more. Or perhaps she would telephone Anick to say thank you for a lovely evening, and she would linger on that phone call and hope. Hope for more words from Anick that would tell her unequivocally of Anick’s intentions. But clarity was also what she did not want. When the day began to break, not wanting to be torn away from these crazy longings and imaginings, Viveka let sleep in to comfort and protect her.
PINKY, THE MAID, WAS TOUCHING HER SHOULDER. “MISS VIKKI, IS HALF past twelve. You Mom say to wake you up. Lunch on the table.”
Viveka turned reluctantly. “Half past twelve? Mom told you to wake me?” She was, in an instant, drowning in guilt. “Why didn’t she just come and wake me herself.”
“I don’t know. Your mom look like she vex. She quiet this morning.”
“She and Dad quarrelled?”
“No, it don’t look so. They eat nice this morning. I don’t know what happen. You know how your mom is sometimes.”
Viveka tried to smile, the muscles of her face still in the grip of sleep.
In the kitchen, Devika hustled and bustled, making a display of her business.
“Did you eat already, Mom?”
But Devika did not answer Viveka directly, speaking instead to Pinky. “There is food for her in the oven. Let her help herself, Pinky. I have a hair appointment that I am late for.”
Viveka realized she had not heard the phone ring that morning. She was not a heavy sleeper. Not usually. The phone would have awakened her. “Did anyone phone for me?” she asked. When her mother didn’t answer, Pinky replied that the phone hadn’t even rung once for the morning. In the quiet that followed, Pinky said, “So, you like the countryside, Miss Vikki?”
Viveka answered, but for her mother’s ears. “I don’t know how anyone can live so far from the town. Anick will get tired of it I am sure. She asked me to come and visit again. I’d like to.”
At this, her mother looked directly at her and said, “I don’t know if your father will let you go there again so soon. What do you have in common with her, anyway? She is married, and has a house and a husband to look after.”
The room bristled. Pinky discreetly made her way to the laundry room, where she busied herself.
“What do you mean if Dad will let me? Is it you or is it Dad who has a problem with me going there? I am not a child anymore. Anick is interested in a lot of things I am interested in, Mom. And she could tell me things about the village. It would be good for my paper on cacao Indians and . . .”
But her mother cut in. “How many times do I have to say it? As long as you live in my house, you are my child and will live by my rules. I am not a fool, you know. I don’t know why you and your father get so bamboozled by whiteness.”
“But, Mom, I was just talking about the cacao Indians!”
“Cacao Indians, my foot! You want a white foreigner to teach you about cacao Indians. I might not have gone to university, but I am not ignorant. Look, I don’t want you bothering Ram and Minty to go out there with them again, you hear.”
Viveka wondered if her mother could really see right through her, if with motherhood came a seventh sense, the ability to know the mind and heart of one’s children. She took the plate of food from the oven and turned her back on her mother as she headed down to the den to have her lunch in front of the television.
“I don’t have a plan to go again. I want to. But not right away,” she muttered over her shoulder.
The phone rang just as Viveka passed it. She flew around, almost slipping on the terrazzo floor in her rush to grab it, her food sliding to the edge of the plate.
Her mother watched.
Viveka belted out an urgent and serious hello! In an instant her body both rose like a helium-filled balloon and tensed, and her voice lowered to an inaudible whisper.
“Who is it?” Devika asked in a tone that suggested she already knew.
“It’s for me. It’s Anick. Mom, can you hang up for me? I will take it in the den. I want to watch the news.”
