by Shani Mootoo
We lay back in the bed, like old times, her head on my shoulder and my arm around her. She wanted to be loved and seen as a sexual being, but I would never be, I saw, the one to give her these gifts. She nodded off and I dozed and woke and dozed and woke, knowing this was the last time I would see her on that trip. As I held her, it came to me that I had never regarded Angus as a threat to my relationship with Zain—he was, instead, my aide—and I was relieved that Eric, the real threat, was no longer in the picture. I could hold Zain and, regardless of the truth, imagine that I was the only one giving her the attention she craved. I could pretend that out of this could well grow more. I convinced myself there was no harm in my imagining or pretending.
Then I heard a noise outside the door. I lifted my head. Someone was there. I pulled my arm out from under Zain’s neck. She awoke and we both sat up quickly. We heard footsteps running up the stairs, then the door at the back of the house shut. I whispered that we should call the police, call Angus. But Zain insisted we should first go and look outside. By the time we reached the gate we could hear a car driving away, although we couldn’t see it in the dark. Zain was silent. She didn’t appear to be frightened. She was, rather, seething, but offered me no explanation for her reaction. I asked her if Eric had a key to the house and, with some relief at being able to admit it, she said he did. It was my turn now to be enraged. I asked if she had gone mad, and she nodded. Although Angus travelled for work, she explained, she’d always refused his desire to hire security guards for the house while he was away. She felt that an alarm system was enough protection even though she seldom bothered to engage it. Eric worried about her for the same reasons as Angus, and felt that Angus was “slack” in not hiring a security company regardless of what she wanted. A couple months ago he’d gone with her to a nearby hardware store, taken her house key from her and copied it, so that if there was any trouble at her house while Angus was away—or even if she was frightened, for any reason—he would be able to come over at once. It was a matter of trust between them that he would never enter the house without her prior knowledge and permission, and of course would only do so when she was there alone. Angus had always given in to her, and Eric’s protectiveness and insistence made her feel simultaneously vulnerable and taken care of. She found she liked the idea that someone would step in and do what needed to be done, not only without her having to ask, but against her wishes. So she let Eric make the copy.
I said nothing, but I was appalled. For a moment I felt that I didn’t know who Zain really was. She hadn’t yet had a chance, she concluded, to get the key back from Eric after their fight on his boat. She would deal with it the very next morning.
When Angus returned he sensed our unease and insisted on knowing what was bothering us. I said I was upset because I didn’t want to return to Canada; I no longer wanted to live in a place where I didn’t have family and where I wasn’t part of a community. Zain busied herself fixing him a plate of food. She and I were quiet, but Angus did not seem to notice. After he ate, we readied ourselves for the long drive south, back to my parents’ home.
Just before we left, Zain called me into her bedroom. She held my hands in hers and said in a low voice that what Eric had done that night was wrong, but that I wasn’t to worry. I made her promise that she would arrange to meet him only one more time, for the sole purpose of getting back her key, and that she would do so only in a public place, in the daytime. Then she went to her dresser, opened a drawer and pulled out a bulging white envelope, which she handed me. She told me that for years she’d been saving whatever U.S. currency she came across and that after our many conversations she knew what she wanted to do with that money.
In the envelope were two rubber band–bound bundles, each one holding thirty one-hundred-dollar bills. Six thousand dollars in all.
She would not accept my protests, insisting that I was to use it to do whatever would make me more comfortable in myself and in the world.
Angus and Zain drove me back to my parents’ house. And that was the last time I saw Zain.
I returned to Toronto, and over the course of the next few days she and I spoke on the phone a couple of times. In one of those calls she told me that the day after I left she’d gone to the trailer on the yacht club grounds and confronted Eric about the key and the intrusion. He had laughed with incredulity and ridicule, as if she were mad.
One week after I left Trinidad, one week and one day after she and I had lain on the bed in her guest room, I was awakened by a phone call early in the morning. When you live in another country, far from your aging parents, every call from them causes a lurch of fear. A call outside the usual schedule can stop one’s heart. My parents knew this, so they would begin each call by saying, “Hello, Sid, everything’s okay here. Are you well?” But this time my mother’s first words were, “Sid? It’s Mum.” I waited some seconds for the usual reassurance. None came, and so I braced myself for news about my father or my sister, Gita, Gita’s son, Devin, or husband, Jaan.
“I hope I didn’t wake you,” my mother said.
“What’s happened?” I responded.
“What are you doing?” answered my mother, and this made me sit up in fear. I repeated my question sharply. She answered, “We have some bad news. Something has happened.”
“Is Dad all right?” I asked, getting up out of the bed.
“Yes. It’s not our family. We’re all right.”
So, what could be that bad? I wondered. Her tone was not one that suggested her reason for calling was mere gossip.
“What are you doing right now?” she asked again.
“For Christ’s sake, Mum. Just tell me what happened.”
“Well, I’m worried that you’re alone. Are you alone?”
“What happened?” I shouted.
“It’s Zain.”
“Zain” was suddenly a name that seemed strange, unfamiliar. For a few seconds, I didn’t know who my mother was talking about. As realization dawned, my legs buckled and I sat back down.
“There was a home invasion at her place yesterday. She was alone at the time.”
“What happened?” I asked, but before she could answer I spoke again. “What do you mean a home invasion?”
The house had been broken into, she said. Ransacked.
I knew that robberies were never what they appeared in Trinidad. The room was spinning and I started to shake. I couldn’t summon the words to ask if Zain was all right. A small voice somewhere within me asked, “What did they want?” Mum didn’t answer. I knew then that Zain was dead.
“Oh God. Don’t tell me. Please don’t tell me,” I cried.
I heard my mother saying, “I’m so sorry, Siddhi. I’m so sorry. I wish you weren’t alone.”
Between sobs, I had sense enough to ask for details. “Was it really a robbery?”
“It’s very strange, Sid. The house was trashed, apparently, but according to the reports in the news, the police are saying that nothing was taken.”
We were both quiet for a moment. I am sure that what was in my own mind was also in my mother’s: the only thing that really mattered had, in fact, been taken.
“When did this happen, Mum?” I finally asked.
“Last night,” she said.
“What day is today?”
“It’s Wednesday,” she said. “I think Zain had to convert to Christianity when she married Angus, so it will be a Catholic funeral. But I don’t know when it will be. As it’s a murder, I mean. The police will have to continue—”
I interrupted her. “Tuesday night. That’s when Angus plays cards in Port of Spain with his friends.”
My mother said simply, “Yes.”
Somehow we managed to end the call.
My mother had promised to call again as soon as she had all the details for the funeral, but when she reached me a day later she had other matters on her mind.
“Siddhani, I hope you won’t mind, but I have something to ask you. Just a minute, I want to
shut the door.” There was a pause while she stepped away, then returned. “You there? I want to ask you something, but I don’t want you to get annoyed, you hear? I am not asking this to quarrel with you. I think I know the answer, but I want to hear it from you.”
My heart pounded. I thought I knew what was coming. I had already decided that Zain’s murder was the work of Eric or of someone hired by Eric. Perhaps Eric had been caught and had said something to the police, to the papers, to the world, about Zain and me lying in the bed in her guest room.
Had the police arrested anyone? I quickly asked my mother. She said no, and then, bluntly, “I want to ask about the two of you, Siddhani.”
I was relieved and panicked at once. She waited, and I remained quiet. She tried again.
“Well? Look, you’re really mashed up about this thing. You’re all alone up there. I don’t know what to do. Were she and you—you know what I mean? Did you like her? Well, not like. Come on, you know what I mean.”
My mother, I saw, was for the first time willing to talk to me—in an obtuse manner perhaps, but as best as she could—about this aspect of my life. But I dared not answer.
“Look, Siddhani, I am not asking to get annoyed,” she reiterated. “I’m just worried about you.”
Like the air released from a full, taut balloon, fear rushed out of me, and I was left oddly appreciative of this new interest and concern. I stumbled over my words, telling her that Zain “knew” about me. I trembled as I admitted that I’d always had strong feelings for Zain, but that she and I were never anything more than friends. And I hastened to add that, in any case, Zain hadn’t been “that way” herself. I told my mother that Angus “knew” about me too, but even so he hadn’t in the least minded Zain and me being friends. Even if Zain hadn’t been married, I said, she wouldn’t have been interested in me in that way.
Normally, I would not have liked to admit any of this; I would have preferred that anyone who wondered would never know the truth for sure. But on this occasion, still unable to fully process the fact of Zain’s death, I felt an overwhelming relief at being able to voice all this to my mother.
I went on to explain that it was because of my intense friendship with Zain that I had come to realize I wanted as my partner in life someone who didn’t need an interpretation of my home-ways, my home-vocabulary, who would know what I meant if I said, “I feel like a good lime tonight,” or who understood without explanation what made a comforting homemade meal for a Saturday night, what food and rituals were fine for a Sunday lunch, for a picnic, for Christmas lunch. My mother remained silent throughout this rush of words, and I was emboldened to say that I wanted to be with someone who, no matter how this body of mine aged, would love me and continue to want to take care of me; I wanted to be with someone who would notice that the hem of my pants had come undone and, without asking or telling me, would have it mended; someone who would see that I had run out of toothpaste and would, without asking or making a fuss about it, pick some up on her way home. I told my mother that it was Zain, the woman, the Trinidadian, the wife, the mother, the friend, who had made me see the incongruity between what I was and what I wanted. And it was Zain who had made me realize that I would probably be alone for the rest of my life.
I stopped then, unable to go on, openly weeping. After a long silence, my mother replied simply that she would book the ticket for me to return for Zain’s funeral.
———
The flight back to Trinidad to attend Zain’s funeral seemed interminable, and yet it wasn’t nearly long enough. I would arrive in a Trinidad where Zain no longer existed. We would not get in her car and drive off on adventures. I would never enter her guest room again. My face would not be touched by her long thin fingers. I remember thinking that it was useless to chastise myself and say, If only I could have known the last time I was with you that I would never see you again, because I couldn’t imagine how such a sentence might be finished.
Throughout the flight I repeated, under my breath: “I am going to your funeral; I am going to Trinidad to attend your funeral.” I recalled the dream I’d had during the previous night’s terrible sleep. It was one I had dreamed a thousand times before: Zain and I stand in a room full of people, quite far from each other. Yet I can feel her skin against mine. Then we’re in a bed. I know she’s my friend, but she’s lying in my arms. We’re in a constant state of moving towards each other, and we look at each other’s lips, but our lips never touch. A hollow plastic pipe, the kind used in plumbing, has replaced my backbone. It runs from my vagina to my chest. Its large hole makes a whooshing sound as air rushes through it unimpeded. I keep reaching behind my back to try to touch the hollow space, but it is as if I am backless. I want Zain to enter the pipe and fill me up so that I know I exist. When I wasn’t remembering the dream, I pretended that Zain sat next to me. There was an intense knowing between us. It was the same knowing I had felt the first day of high school when I met Zain and she pinched my arm.
The airplane landed in Trinidad at five thirty in the morning. I had been here only weeks ago, yet I felt as if years had passed. Day broke as I stood waiting in front of the arrivals building at the airport. A heavy greyness, portending rain any minute, hung in the sky. But then the low clouds on the distant horizon took shape with the light and slowly transformed into the outline of the Northern Range. Ahead, the parking lot emerged. A wide umbrella of almond trees shaded the doubles vendors who had already stationed themselves beneath, and from the branches of the trees the sound of quarrelling parakeets crescendoed with the dawning day. I watched the light creep over the mountain ranges, incising deep vertical ridges and bringing out of the darkness the rich variety of trees. I shook my head hard, trying to make sense of the fact that all this before me was just as I had left it mere days before, but Zain was gone for good. Trinidad was still Trinidad. But Zain was not Zain. This was not as simple and obvious a thought as it may sound. No, it was a baffling, shameless, outrageous thought. How could Trinidad exist without my dearest Zain? As a result of this revelation, everything I experienced and thought on that particular journey to Trinidad, to Zain’s funeral, felt stark and transparent. I saw the country, and the tenuousness of my place in it, as I never had before. I stood apart and watched.
A line of cars idled in place. Their drivers stood outside, leaning on car doors, ready to jump back in and make the circle if some authority were to move them along.
As I waited for my ride, my eyes wandered away from watching the sunrise over the mountains for no more than five minutes, and when I looked again, recognizable forms had emerged. My tongue danced inside my mouth: banana, silk cotton, poui, immortelle, cannonball, breadfruit, mango, caimete, bois canot, nutmeg—the words themselves becoming an umbilical cord. I picked out the roofs of houses, the silver of an unpainted galvanized roof, the fleck of a red one, one turquoise, and here and there light green patches of cultivated plots.
My father had insisted upon coming to meet me. I would have been happier if he had sent the driver to pick me up. Despite the reason for my trip this time, I couldn’t shake the usual discomfort that I would not be rewarding his effort with a son-in-law and grandchildren in my tow.
I had considered dressing more formally than usual for this journey home, out of respect for Zain. But Zain had once, quite a while before, met me at the airport when I was wearing a pair of baggy blue jeans, a golf shirt printed with horizontal stripes in red, yellow, white and green, navy socks and blue leather Campers. She commented in her usual teasing way that if I had clutched a large book or briefcase across my chest, I would have passed for an impossibly cute young boy in desperate need of sartorial guidance. I was, of course, pleased, and Zain thereafter became interested in trying to help me dress in that very manner. So, I had decided to wear this outfit, even though I had long outgrown the style. Against my chest I clutched a green all-weather knapsack from Mountain Equipment Co-op in which I had placed all the letters Zain had ever written me.
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sp; One might imagine that as I waited for my father I was preoccupied with thoughts of my dear dead friend, but self-consciousness, born of the habit of self-preservation, got the better of grief. I observed my fellow passengers, but so as not to have it confirmed that they were indeed judging me I did not let my eyes catch theirs. I was not, however, beyond judging them myself. This was again a matter of survival. I decided that the majority of the women passengers had dressed to show off their big-city accomplishments to the families they had once left and were now returning to. I saw that some had not removed their fancy leather and jean jackets with heavy fur collars, despite arrival in the tropics, that others had décolletage bedecked with gaudy pendants dangling from chunky necklaces, that several had hair that shone as if wet, piled high on their heads, while others had hair cornrowed so elaborately that one could construe the wearer’s desire to make it known that it was possible in Canada to have one’s hair done better than in Trinidad. There were flashy sparkling handbags, some in faux alligator skin, some in ultra shiny brown leather, some in ceiling-white plastic. I had also noticed among the returning passengers two women who were, I was willing to bet, “like myself.” All three of us, I saw, took pains not to catch each other’s eyes. We looked at our luggage, our watches, the hills, the changing sky; we read our passports and checked our return tickets.
