by Shani Mootoo
Nayan slowed the car now as they approached the turn-off Viveka recognized from the night before. He gripped the steering wheel for control on the rough road. After some moments of weighty silence he tapped his forehead with one of his forefingers and said, “Heaven and hell. Right here, Vik.”
A man appeared on the road waving at the car. Nayan rolled down his window and the heat from outside rushed in. He spoke before the man did. “Hanuman, good evening. You drunk or what?”
“Oh God, sir, what you saying? I coming to look for you. The wife cook a goat and some of the fellows, them coming to eat. I have a bottle . . .”
“One bottle? One bottle is all you have? How many men?”
“Well, is about six of us. I coming to ask you to make it seven, Boss.”
“I have a function tonight. Meghu having prayers for his child.”
“Yes, all of we going. But we have to eat first. He aint go have food there, you know, Boss. Is only liquids by him.”
“So, is me you want or a bottle?”
“Oh God, Boss, don’t shame me so, na. Is you I coming to ask. Even before the goat done the wife say how it will eat good and I should go and bring you and the Madam, but . . .”
“No. Forget the Madam. She have company. I coming. I coming. I can’t disappoint all you fellows. I coming.” He looked at Viveka and then back at the man. “I just have to drop home one minute, and I’ll swing back.”
Nayan rolled back up his window and as he drove off explained, “That man is the foreman. He is a good worker. He doesn’t drink on the job, but after work you could pickle pommecythere in him. I could leave this place in his hands and not worry about a single thing.”
Viveka’s face flushed. She tried to keep her voice even. “Did I just understand that you are not going to be eating dinner with . . .”
“Yeah, yeah.” Nayan was now dismissive. He sat up high and leaned into the steering wheel with a brightened face. He seemed to push the car forward with his upper body. He appeared suddenly to Viveka like a boy who had been cooped inside all weekend and was now called out to come and play cricket with his friends. “You will be there to keep Anick company. You’ll see. She only wants me for one thing, girl. But I need a break! She won’t miss me if she has company.”
Viveka and Anick
THE ZIGZAG OF A SINGLE LINE OF MUSIC, A MELANCHOLIC, RESONATing drone, soared from the house, greeting Viveka as she and Nayan walked to the back stairs of the house.
“Good God!” said Nayan. “She plays that damned squeaking thing over and over. A recording her father gave her. It drives me crazy. She doesn’t dare play it when my parents or friends are here. They’d think I had gone crazy!”
A second melody danced around the steady pulse of the first. “What is it?” Viveka called behind Nayan as he bolted up the stairs ahead of her.
The smell of anchar masala was in the air. Viveka’s mouth watered. There would likely be roti, and some curried vegetable, and a meat dish. The music had ended, but as far as her untrained ear could tell, the very same piece had begun again. The maid greeted them shyly.
Nayan left Viveka in the kitchen while he went inside to look for Anick. He called back to the maid, “I’m in a hurry. I want a glass of ice water.”
The music came to an abrupt end. In a concerted attempt not to hear whatever was to transpire between Nayan and Anick, Viveka positioned herself on the top stair, and busied herself looking out the kitchen door toward the depth of acre upon acre of cacao.
In no time, her two hosts appeared in the kitchen, Nayan ahead of Anick. Nayan drank the water that was waiting for him on the table and wiped his face with the back of his hand. Anick greeted Viveka, her hands clutching her dinner guest’s shoulders as she kissed her on both cheeks. She wore a simple dress and she was barefoot.
Nayan was already heading down to his car. “I’ll see if I can score some goat for you all. Don’t wait up for me.”
He got no response from either of the women. Viveka was still clinging to the sensation of the touch of Anick’s cheek against hers.
“Behave yourselves,” Nayan added, to which Anick playfully threw back, “I am not telling you what to do with yourself. If you want to misbehave, nobody stopping you. So we too, we do what we want.” She looked to Viveka and said, “I am right, no?”
Viveka shrugged her shoulders. Glancing at Nayan, who looked sternly at Anick now, she posed what was clearly a rhetorical question, “I guess we can do what we want and still behave ourselves?”
“Oh, come on, Viveka.”
Her name rolled like a smooth cool marble in Anick’s mouth. A ticklish sensation ran through Viveka on hearing it pronounced a little queerly.
“We adults: we can do what we like, no? And how we like, too. Because he is a man he can do anything, and we, we women so we cannot? Who make these rules? After all, we are not backward people. Is true is the bush we live in, but we are not backward people. At least, that is what I think.”
Nayan shook his head. “She can carry on a whole conversation by herself, and sometimes it is ill-advised,” he warned Viveka. “I’m gone. Mr. Lal is already here. Send him for me only if one of you is dying.”
The two women stood side by side, close, Viveka leaning into the railing. Anick pressed her arm against Viveka’s. Admiring such brazenness, but not quite so brazen herself, Viveka stood firm.
Nayan made a sign to Mr. Lal, calling him over. Viveka took the opportunity to actively resist the warm leaning weight, pressing back just enough so that Anick could feel her do it, but not enough that Nayan, should he turn to wave, would notice.
“In twenty minutes the light will go,” said Anick. “Well, maybe not twenty minutes. But about that. Soon, I mean. Let us make a small walk, quickly, in the forest. We will eat after, no?”
It seemed to Viveka already too dark to walk in the forest, but she decided to trust Anick. Mr. Lal, lit cigarette in his mouth, nodded to the women as they headed onto the dirt path between a scattering of grapefruit trees.
Anick walked fast, as if to an appointment. The light along the path was low now, but Anick clearly knew the dangers — where there were dips in the ground and where the heavy roots of the shade trees protruded. Viveka almost had to run to keep up with her. All the while, her host chattered nervously, saying that now they were alone she didn’t know what to talk about, that she didn’t want to bore Viveka, asking (but not waiting for an answer) if Viveka knew and liked the forest, if she liked going for walks, and telling her that there was a place that was all hers, “une cabine,” Anick called it, that she wanted Viveka to see.
A section of the music Viveka had heard when she arrived had remained with her, the haunting sound wrapping itself around her brain. “What was the music you were playing?” huffed Viveka.
“You like it? Is my father favourite music. You like the cello?”
Viveka didn’t answer directly. She knew the cello was one of the string instruments, one of the bigger ones, but she wasn’t sure which and didn’t wish to show her ignorance of something clearly close to Anick’s heart. “I like that piece,” she said instead. “It’s new to me, but it has already stuck with me.”
“Is like a shovel that dig deep inside my soul. Is like it remind me not to forget . . .” Anick stopped mid-sentence.
“Forget what?”
“Just not to forget. Not to forget who I am, where I come from, what I dream about. You know, what move me. What I want.”
The path led downwards, an almost imperceptible decline over dried fallen foliage. Soon, on either side of the path was straight row after straight row of carefully spaced cacao trees. The trees were of equal height, at least two-and-a-half times the height of a person, their branches uncluttered, open, well-pruned. Plump yellow pods defied the pending darkness and stood out brightly against the trunks from which they clung. The rows of straight lines offered an attractive perspective from the path, a dizzying feeling of motion, as the two women swept past. Viveka was
nervous, fearful of snakes (she was sure she had heard more than one slither in the grass right at the edge of the rough path), the uneven ground, the falling darkness, but she remained determined not to show her fear. While Anick moved lithely a few paces ahead of her, Viveka was breathless, huffing uncomfortably, unable to respond to her companion’s non-stop ramble. With each deep breath she drew in the cloying odour of ripened forest fruit, not the sort of fruit found in the grocery or in the market, but fruit that gave off scent as if it were a pheromone, sickeningly sweet, insistent.
The sky, dappled behind the shade trees’ blackened foliage, had become blood-red. Full darkness would descend any minute. A few fireflies circled lazily.
“Fireflies,” Viveka huffed. “I had no idea they were so bright in the forest.”
“Oh, this is nothing. Their light can be so bright you can see the trees on either side.”
Then, there it was off to the side, ferns all around it — une cabine. Anick ran ahead. “Is getting too dark now. But you can look inside quickly. Is just one room. I don’t put anything in it as yet. You can see. Come.”
The structure appeared to have been recently built. It was a hut, but not shabby as one might expect so far from the main house.
“Is it new?”
Sweat ran down Anick’s face. She appeared suddenly youthful in a way that Viveka had not noticed before. “They had a little shack here for the workers to shelter from the rain, or sit down and rest,” she replied. “Nayan break it down and he make this one for me, with a door that can lock. Is mine, he say.”
“So what do the workers do now?” “I show you tomorrow. Tomorrow we can make a picnic here. You like it?”
“Yes, sure. I mean, it’s getting dark. We should probably go back. But can I step inside quickly?”
Anick took Viveka’s hand, pulling her in behind her. Inside, she continued to hold onto Viveka’s hand. A couple of fireflies danced in the still space. Barely discernable in a room no larger than eight feet by seven was an armchair, and next to it was a small table. Nothing else.
Viveka wrapped her fingers around Anick’s hand. She tugged shyly. “Your own space.” The feeble phrase was meant to take notice away from the pounding of her heart, which she was sure was loud enough to be heard.
Anick turned to look directly at her. “I bring my little portable tape recorder here, and I listen to that same music and other one my father give me. He like the cello, so is all cello music, very haunting, melancholy. Like a deep-deep human voice, singing. Is nice in the forest. Or maybe you think I should listen to the forest and not play any music?”
“No, no. I am not making any judgments. I am interested in hearing what you like.”
Anick suddenly let her hand go and moved to face Viveka. Viveka’s heart stilled. She could barely breathe. The sounds of the forest seemed to thunder — a cacophony of monkeys howling, of the trees trembling in the light breeze, the creaking of the branches of the silk cottons, the pulsing drone of a thousand cicadas, and frogs, frogs right outside the door croaking.
Anick stepped forward. She took both of Viveka’s hands in hers, lightly, and the sounds in Viveka’s head subsided. Anick brought her face, her lips to Viveka’s. Viveka stepped back and leaned against the wood wall of the cabin, a strange and complete relief descending on her, weakening her legs yet filling her chest, her brain, her mouth, and her fingers with an equally strange assuredness. She listened. There was hers and Anick’s breathing. Quick, shallow, wanting. She took her hands from Anick’s and rested them on Anick’s waist. She pulled Anick to her as their mouths came together, and they breathed in each other’s warm moist breath. They wrapped their arms about each other, each hungry to discover the contours and substance of the other’s body. Anick brought her hand to Viveka’s face, touched her cheek lightly, and their tongues, the tips only, touched. The soft sure slide of wetness, a sensation new to Viveka, imbued her with a ferocious hunger. She withdrew from Anick, who, in reaction, held on tighter.
“I can’t breathe. Just a minute. Just give me a minute,” pleaded Viveka.
Anick stood away, fearful that this was a repetition of an earlier rejection. She mumbled, trembling, “I am sorry.”
But Viveka had already sensed Anick’s misreading. “No, no. There isn’t anything to be sorry about. It’s just that this is overwhelming. It’s so . . .” She couldn’t find the words. Finally she said, “I don’t want to ever stop kissing you, Anick.” In a voice so soft she almost mouthed the words, she said, “Kiss me again, Anick. Please.”
Anick leaned against Viveka, who wanted nothing more than to be crushed by the weight, but Anick was light, and her touch was light, and Viveka feared she would want more now than she would ever be able to get. They explored each other’s mouths with their tongues, their bodies with their hands. Anick’s neck was wet with perspiration. The tips of her fingers were like ten eager tongues.
Through the thin fabric of Anick’s dress Viveka caressed Anick’s breasts, moving her thumb across the hardened, thick nipple. Anick’s breathing quickened, and she made sounds of pleasure that fanned Viveka’s fire. No touching had ever felt this good and true and right to her. She so wanted to place her cheek on a breast, to slip off the straps of Anick’s dress and put her lips to the firm mound, but she stopped herself, for as true as all of this so surely felt, she feared, too, crossing a boundary, crossing into an aloneness from which there might well be no return. So she felt the goodness and trueness of the moment and held on to Anick, pressed her mouth against Anick’s, wanting to take everything that was offered. Then she as quickly stopped herself again. How she wanted to collapse on the wood floor and wrap her body around Anick’s. But fear held her back.
Drenched in this new desire, the two women went slowly back to the house by the staccato light of hundreds of fireflies. They stayed close, their fingers entwined. Viveka peered ahead, her eyes open as wide as possible, turning back often to make sure that Mr. Lal or some unknown forest dweller was not approaching or following them.
THE MAID HAD ALREADY GONE HOME. A GROUPING OF SERVING bowls sat on the counter, a large tea cloth thrown over them to keep flies away. The table in the dining room was set. Anick turned on the stereo and the cello suite began. She had burned herself a CD with that very suite copied three consecutive times. When the third round of it ended, a concerto began, the cello leading, pleading, playing ahead of the other strings and wind instruments.
Viveka watched Anick listen to the music. Her body jerked and swayed, the movements small, almost involuntary, but still perceptible as Anick moved about the room, getting them drinks, doing quick mundane chores before serving out food.
They could, between the two of them, have eaten all there was on the table — roti, mango anchar, curried shrimp, pumpkin, curried same — and the remaining food in the pot on the stove, and still they would have been hungry. They picked at the food on their plates, grinning shyly, staring at each other, the dimmed light of the dining room laying bare their desire.
Finally, as if of one mind, they pushed back their chairs, stood up, and walked side by side down the corridor toward the room in which Viveka was to spend the night.
Anick left Viveka for as long as it took to return to the kitchen to lock the back door, and close and lock the windows and doors to the rest of the house. She turned on the lights in the TV room and in her study. From outside, the lights of these rooms could still be seen. She lit a mosquito coil and returned with it to the guest room.
Viveka and Anick kissed lightly at first, but their passion grew and they pushed and pulled each other, their mouths locking, tongues probing, tasting, hands searching frantically, bodies taking turns turning, lying one on top of the other. It eventually fell that Viveka lay atop Anick, Anick’s dress pulled up to her waist, and Viveka’s fingers, having parted the narrow band of panty fabric between her legs, discovered a viscous wetness that took control of her mind and her fingers, and as if she had done it a thousand times before,
she knew what to do to make Anick’s entire body pulse beneath hers. Anick’s arms were wrapped around Viveka, pulling her tighter and holding her more urgently than Viveka had ever been held before. With each thrust of her body, Anick kissed Viveka’s face and sighed and moaned in pleasure. Viveka’s body was an electric current of pleasure, but she was spurred on more by her desire to give Anick all that she so clearly wanted than by any need of her own. Then it was as if Anick’s pleasure opened as wide as it could, and she burst, and burst and burst. She continued to pulsate, and to cry out softly, until she collapsed and sobbed.
Viveka pressed the length of her body against Anick’s to still all the pleasure and anguish that had surfaced. Anick’s hair around her face was wet, her skin damp. Tears suddenly ran down Viveka’s cheeks and she wiped them fast so that Anick wouldn’t know. She had felt, during the initial moments of their lovemaking, a sense of having taken on the form of a young man’s body. Her body had become, albeit briefly, Vince’s body, and in other moments Anand’s. These two were suddenly young men, sturdy, muscled, handsome. As handsome as Anick was beautiful. It was strange how Vince and Anand had grown into such young men; this was the strongest sensation of that sort Viveka had ever had — of not being what she looked like, female. And yet, she knew now more than ever that her feelings and her way with Anick were hers and hers alone. Not a boy’s. Not a man’s. Whatever she was, these feelings were hers. She wanted to reveal all her secrets to Anick, to tell her of the time when she was a little child, the time when she and Vashti and Anand had gone for a drive with their parents to the wharf, the time when the painter from up the road had come waving a scythe at them, the time when her parents were bickering and she was trying to warn them about the man who was angry and waving the scythe. She had tried to save them all, but the others had never seen the man, and then Anand had disappeared. This story had always made sense to her, but suddenly, lying there with Anick, the story seemed, for the first time, unlikely, as disjointed and senseless as a dream. Perhaps she could be finished with Anand now. And with Vince.
