by Shani Mootoo
Viveka and Anick lay like this for some minutes, and then the touching began again. The second time was longer and there was no crying, but instead an urgency to know and have more. Eventually, they rolled out of the bed and went to the kitchen, drank water, ate squares of chocolate from the stack that Anick had hidden away, pieces of bars sent to her by her parents.
The third time was interrupted by a whimper from the dog. Anick heard it first and she bolted up out of the bed and ran into her bedroom. Then Viveka heard the sound of Nayan’s car. The car hummed on the street. Viveka shut the door to her room. She pulled a T-shirt and sleeping shorts from her overnight bag, changed, and got under the cover of the bed. She heard the shower in the next room turned on. The car horn sounded, two quick pops. The dog barked excitedly now. The shower turned off. The gate down in the yard opened. Viveka imagined Mr. Lal awakened from his slumber, moving slowly. The car rolled in, and the gate scraped shut. The barking stopped, a whimper and the tinkling of the dog’s chain-link leash the only sound now.
Anick opened Viveka’s door, pulling her nightgown around her body. The ends of her hair were wet. She whispered, “Good night, sweet Viveka, I won’t stop thinking of you.” She pressed two fingers hard to her lips, then offered them to Viveka. Viveka whispered back, “’Night,” just as Anick drew in the door and silently shut it.
At the same time, the kitchen door was being less quietly unlocked.
AFTER NAYAN HAD LEFT FOR WORK THE NEXT MORNING, MUSIC similar to the Bach Viveka had heard last night, but pieces far longer, played quietly in the house. The music filled her with delicious longing. When, shortly after rising, the two women left the house to go down to the cabin and Anick gave to Viveka the tape she had played the previous night, Viveka felt as if an entirely new world was opening up for her. She had not heard such music before last night, yet it was as if it was part of her being now.
“I can make myself another one,” said Anick. “Take it and listen to it when you alone. Each note enter your body when is quiet and you can concentrate. Is like love, and it make you long to give love and long to get love. Not the kind of love like between two people. Is something bigger. So big I don’t know what it is, but is very real. Only some people can know this. I know you will know.”
Nayan’s driver was to come before noon to fetch Viveka and return her to her parents’ house. They had to hurry. They took cups of iced chocolate milk with them. They met workers along the path, caught sight of them between the baliser and pineapple plants, in the groves of cacao, clearing the gullies, hacking off ripe pods, and transporting baskets, one between two people. They heard the braying of a transport donkey. Several paths ran off to the sides, the main one splitting off several times. Viveka marvelled that Anick had been so sure of her directions the night before.
They spent little time in the cabin. Viveka was certain that anyone seeing them in there would know instinctively of their passion. She kept just enough of a distance from Anick to dispel questions others might have about their closeness. Soon they had walked well past the place where the cabin was, toward the workers’ hut. Viveka could hear the workers chattering, laughing, sometimes raucously, from a small distance. The hut was a low thatched-roof shelter with no walls. On its clay floor was a long table and two benches, one on either side. There was a hammock and a stand-pipe from which water dripped into a pool. The moment Anick and Viveka were in sight, the chattering and laughter quieted. The men straightened themselves and were formal but warm with Anick.
“Good morning, everybody,” said Anick. “Is my friend. She come to visit.”
The men nodded, and salutations were muttered back. One of them approached, a bottle in his hand. He removed his hat.
“Madam, I just get honey from the tree.” He pointed to the crown of a far-off and very tall tree. “Take a bottle. I have plenty.”
Anick told the man to keep it, that she still had the three bottles he had given her not long ago. But she asked if he might let Viveka have a taste.
The man was pleased. He opened the bottle, and Viveka held open her palm. The honey was black, like molasses. It was unlike the more common honey from bees that lived and fed in fields of flowers in the central plains or in the dry dunes at the seaside. Its taste was almost rancid, like an old and dirty dish cloth, yet it was as cloying and compelling as any other, more conventional honey. Viveka very forwardly asked if there was enough that she might take some home with her. The man was only too delighted to oblige.
When they walked away, Anick confessed, “Nayan, he hate that honey. Is too dark for him. He say it taste like sweat. Is true, no? But I like that it come from the forest, and that man risk so much to get it. He have to climb so high, and he don’t wear nothing to protect his body. He take the comb with his bare hand. Is a talent, no? It make him proud to do this. Is why I take the honey. But I don’t know what to do with it. I have six bottles in the house. If you really like it, I give you all.”
AS THE CAR APPROACHED SAN FERNANDO, THE LIGHT OF THE DAY became whiter, harsher. Viveka urged herself to — in Anick’s word — remember. She had had a glimpse of who she was, of what her desire looked like for her: she wanted to feel again and again all that she had with Anick. Several times, an image of Anick’s face as they had made love — made love! That is what she had done, she had finally made love — came to her, or the sound of Anick’s voice after a touch from Viveka, and there in the back seat of the car Viveka shivered.
But with this ephemeral knowledge came another thought: the dreadful possibility of losing her family. Which was greater, she wondered — to be all that you were, to be true to yourself, or to honour one’s family, one’s society, one’s country? Her family, despite everything, was her life. She could never be without them. She could never do to them what Merle Bedi had done to her family. She wondered if her family could do to her what Merle Bedi’s family had done to Merle. Again she felt an urge to go and find Merle, to talk to her. Take her away. But away to where?
Viveka
OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL WEEKS, VIVEKA FOUND LOCKED INSIDE OF her — not unlike her previously unknown ability to be stirred by classical music — a power and strength, physical and mental, that spilled over into how she communicated at large. She had become bold.
To her family’s surprise, she got over her fear of driving rather abruptly. She announced — rather than asked — that she would be playing volleyball with Helen’s team. Her father was pleased that he was finally being spared the burden of granting or denying permission. The announcement was received by her mother with only pursed lips and a general curtness, but Viveka was used to this and chose to ignore it. In general, the family was so stunned by this new tactic of Viveka’s that they let her take her mother’s car to go to volleyball, and even as far as Rio Claro to visit Anick.
What Viveka’s parents and Nayan did not know is that Anick, driven by a chauffeur, would come to see Viveka play volleyball. And Viveka showed up for games as much for Anick as for the pleasure of the sport.
Helen was surprised, found it curious, that Anick would come such a distance so regularly to see Viveka play. And she expected Viveka to join the team and their friends for after-game drinks. Wayne was often there, these days accompanied by his cousin Trevor, who was visiting from Toronto and who, according to Helen, was ready to settle down and was looking for an Indo-Trinidadian wife. Spending time with a team of very independent, and mostly non-Indian, young women, Viveka could only disinterestedly wish him the best. Helen did not hide her irritation when, after the games, Viveka visited in the stands with Anick and joined the team at their regular pizza house too late to participate in the camaraderie. Helen and Wayne numerous times extended to Viveka invitations on Trevor’s behalf to accompany them to dinner, to a movie, to the beach. But unlike the other women on the team, who tried in vain to capture Trevor’s notice, Viveka had time for, and interest, in only one person: Anick.
On the court Viveka was as if on a stage, ever ready t
o show off her abilities. And she was particularly spry if she knew Anick was watching.
One notable day, she had one eye on the ball and one on the stands, awaiting her love’s arrival. She was semi-crouched, trigger-ready. She saw the player on the opposite team leap for the ball and knew what was coming. She was ready to impress. The coach’s dictum rang in her head like a bell, “You hit the ground first. The ball? Never.” Towering at the top of the net, the woman lifted her cupped hand and the ball made loud contact as she spiked it into Viveka’s team’s attack area, a section of which was vulnerable. But Viveka had already slid into place, and the hard, outstretched cradle made by her bare forearms blocked the descent of the leather, firing it back high. One of the teammates behind her shouted, “Yes!” The slaap of the ball against her skin reverberated in the air. She felt so good these days. This is how she wanted to be always, her mind primed for high-speed analysis, her body its instant respondent. She felt like wind, a hurricane over open sea.
Scarlet welts on her arms were already blooming. They would intensify to a rusty rose by the end of the evening. The stinging felt good, told her that she was indeed out on a court doing what she wanted to do. But in becoming conscious of that good feeling in her body, of the thrill of having just made the kind of play she dreamed about, she lost focus. She pushed long bangs damp with sweat out of her face and glanced away, into the stands.
A handful of spectators were scattered there to watch the practice games. On one side, a group of bongo-drummers were immersed in their own incessant groove. But for Viveka, the bleachers might as well have been empty. She was suddenly disheartened. The ball remained in play and the opposing team, as if they saw her lapse, returned it directly at her. Crouched behind her in readiness, Helen screamed, “Vik!”
Viveka lashed at the ball with the palm side of a sloppy fist. It shot right out of the court.
Viveka followed the ball out, her body moving sluggishly in spite of the monologue in her head about how good she could be. Even as she muttered the words, “Focus, focus, focus,” she couldn’t help scanning the stands again.
The women on both teams wore fashionable and very short shorts in light fabrics that swished sportily as they moved. Of course they would dress like that, her mother would have scolded had she been there, because not one of them was of Indian origin and other people don’t have the same values. Viveka, however, wore shorts that reached her knees and looked like something more likely to be worn by one of the basketball players on the neighbouring court. She looked different. Ever since that transformative night at Anick’s house, knowing the wet heat of Anick’s body against hers, she had relished the difference.
The women on the other side of the net, having been given the point, embraced, thumped one another on the back, and grunted, “A ya yai, a ya yai.”
Vik’s captain shouted to her, “Focus, girl. Take it easy, and focus.”
A group of five young black men on the basketball court on the other side of the fence had stopped their own play to watch. They began imitating the women’s cheer to the rhythm of the drumming coming from the stands. “A ya yai, a ya yai,” they repeated at length, gyrating their hips while jabbing the air with pointed forefingers. Viveka’s coach smiled with only one side of his mouth. One of the men came up to the wire fencing. “Pssst. Ey, you. Sweetie Pie, I make you miss the point or what? Is me you watching so? Ey. Vik is your name? Is short for something? Watch me, na, girl.”
Viveka turned, surprised to hear her name, and then turned away again, blushing that she was singled out. Oddly, it felt good, yet a rush of hot panic rose up her neck and over her face. The referee blew his whistle to signal his impatience. The half-smile disappeared off the coach’s face. He folded his arms high across his chest. The young man, undeterred, called again, “Girl, you are the prettiest one on the court. All the other girls on the court ugly, for so.” The women on both sides broke into a chuckle. Viveka didn’t know how to take the man’s comment or the women’s laughter, for she was not like them, it was true. She knew most people would argue that these others were the pretty ones, and she — well, they might have said she was unusual, or asked why she didn’t grow her nice, thick, black hair, or why she didn’t wear earrings, or, off court, a dress.
The man, encouraged now, leaned into the wire fence and called directly to her, “Vik, Aloo Pie! Smile, na. Why you so serious?”
The two coaches and the volleyball referee convened and spoke briefly. The opposing team’s coach stepped away and ambled close to his side’s end line. The referee returned his attention to the game. Viveka’s coach, arms still folded high, walked toward the man by the fence. His pace was hesitant, his eyes soft yet fixed on the man.
The man was undeterred and continued, “What a Indian girl like you doing playing in the park? Your dad and your mom know you here?”
Viveka was close to shouting at him to mind his own business. She weighed which was more prudent: standing up to him or ignoring him. Fortunately, the women on both teams, hearing the name-calling as a slur, had their limits too — they sucked their teeth loudly, over and over, in a show of heightened, united irritation, and in an instant they switched their minds right back to their game, shutting the fellow out. Viveka rejoined the competition, but less fervently. Her back tingled. It felt naked.
The man bounced off the fence laughing and broke into play with his group again.
It was they, those same basketball skylarkers, who eventually alerted Viveka that there was a new presence in the stands. Suddenly and noticeably quiet, they had stopped shooting hoops and were staring into the stands. There Anick was, seated and looking straight out at the volleyball court. The men were talking quietly among themselves. Viveka heard one of them say to another, “Boy, leave the woman alone, na. You don’t have wife and child enough to mind? You shooting with us or what? If you leave, don’t come back, and by that I mean don’t even come back tomorrow.”
A hot and thudding flush of mingled relief and happiness coursed through Viveka. She felt invincible and grinned wide like a grouper to realize that, even so, she felt like herself, not like Vince her imagined boy, and that she hadn’t felt like him in a good while now — and she suddenly charged, heading harder and faster than was necessary for a play that was not hers to take. She collided with her partner, to whom that ball ought to have belonged. Neither of them made contact with the ball and both fell to the ground hard. Viveka jumped up and hugged her mate in excited apology. They resumed play and Viveka thought how odd, how great, to feel on the court like that boy she used to be, and who had slipped out of life so quietly. What a wonderful thing the mind was. She was elated. Feigning deep concentration now, it was several minutes before Viveka looked across to the stands, casually, and when she did, she behaved as if she had only that very moment realized her friend was there. She waved. Anick reservedly wagged in front of her a tightly rolled-up magazine. One of the basketball players had spotted this exchange and waved back to Anick, and then he, too, burst into a flurry of hard competitive play.
Viveka took on a slight limp, rubbing her right knee, and asked to be substituted. To her embarrassment the coach made a greater fuss of her knee than was necessary. Since it was near the end of the game, she asked to sit it out in the stands. Carrying her water bottle and unnoticed by the basketball players she limped onward, her gait that of a wounded but proud and decorated warrior. When she reached the bleachers she did not turn to see if her coach was watching; she bounded up the four tiers like a white-tail doe to Anick’s row. Anick stood to greet her with their usual hug, but Viveka, breathless and grinning, put her hand quickly on one of Anick’s shoulders, pressing her back into her seat. Viveka leaned in and over the drumming whispered, “Not here.”
She set the water bottle between her and Anick and sat down, aware that Anick’s presence had, as usual, caused a small excitement in the stands. She hoped the novelty would wear off fast.
It was unusual for a white person, let alone a
woman — foreign or local — to come to the park, whether it was to play on a court or to sit in the stands. And this particular white woman, wearing large European-style sun glasses — there was not another person in the stands wearing sunglasses — drew attention, as she always did. Just the way she walked, the authority with which she held the ground beneath her feet, as if she had the idea that she could have almost any thing she wanted simply by wanting it — just the way she casually ignored every eye on her — from all this, onlookers knew she wasn’t from this place. Viveka was easily captivated by this look of Anick’s, but was shy of it too. She didn’t want to be like all the other people Anick had told her about, liking her for her looks. And while it was quite a thrill to be the one Anick had come to watch, Viveka was uncomfortable sitting next to her. She felt exposed. Taking advantage of the loudness of the drumming on the far side of the stands, she and Anick spoke frankly to one another, Anick in her native French, Viveka in a version of it that would make sense only to someone set on understanding.
