Secrets We Kept

by Krystal A. Sital

  —If yuh poh she to wash ah cup oh pot, my mother tells me, Nollie go stand dey foh twenty or tirty minutes just sayin undah she breath dat she hah to wash dis, she hah to wash dis, and she goh juss keep washin and scrubbin ovah and ovah again.

  Nollie continued to repeat the instructions to herself and scrubbed and rinsed while everyone milled around her, free to tend to their duties for the day. But within minutes loud voices rose from the front. Amrit, grown into a tall man, was now the same height as his father. Muscles from farm work rippled along the tops of his shoulders, down his chest, and across his abdomen. His voice became thunderous, and just beneath that they heard the rumble of their father’s. Then the quiet.

  How dare Amrit speak back to him?

  Rebecca’s first instinct was to guide Nollie away from the dishes and nudge her toward the stairs, where at least she could safely hide. But Nollie zeroed in on the silence, asking why her brother was shouting. Her words were filled with such sweetness no one would believe the brutality of the beatings he inflicted on her.

  Ah juss hear bhaiya, Nollie told Rebecca, lemmeh goan see wah appen.

  Nollie, frail looking and with the innocent mind of a child, always tried to stop her brother when he beat his children. Rebecca wanted to get her out of the way before she interfered yet again. Whenever Nollie tried to stop him, his anger intensified, resulting in even more lashes for the children. When the Singh clan once tried to stop their father from beating Nollie, he threatened to pull out his gun and shoot them all. They knew they had no choice but to allow his anger to run its course.

  Even though she appeared fragile, Nollie was strong and sprang from Rebecca’s grip with surprising spryness. They followed her just in time to see Shiva clout Amrit about the head. Nollie slid between them, willowy in her housedress. She pushed her brother with enough force to make him step back. Amrit gathered Nollie in his arms and tried to hand her to Arya to get her out of the way, but Shiva, in his twisted mind, saw himself challenged, and turned his rage upon Nollie.

  Bhaiya. Nollie called him brother affectionately in Hindi. Why yuh do dis? Is yuh chilren.

  More tender words dripped from her lips, but no one heard them, they never heard them, no matter how Nollie tried to reach out and, as senseless as she appeared to be, talk sense into Shiva. The screams of childlike Nollie haunted them all long after she’d passed away. She bawled like a baby, never understanding why she was being beaten, never understanding why her brother beat his children or his wife, always pleading with him to stop.

  —Is de kinda bawl dat make yuh belly tun, my mother says, de kind dat echo een yuh head till de day yuh dead.

  After he was done thrashing Nollie, then Amrit, the siblings, who had stuffed themselves into every corner, swooped in and cleansed Nollie’s wounds, held her as she had held them many times before, hummed lullabies into her ear. It was the least they could do for this woman who had shielded them so many times before.

  —Believe meh, Krys, says my mother, if we couldah stop im we wuddah do it ah long time ago. Dat oman din deserve nutten like dat een life, she was so sweet. But if we try an stop im e show we e goh beat she moh befoh movin on toh we.

  The sound of his car starting and pulling away flooded them with relief. It was a comfort to know he was gone, and even more so to hear him return after his long drive, gather a few necessities, and retire to the cocoa house. As was often the case after one of his violent episodes, Shiva fell into a deep silence. He closed in on himself, packed up some clothes, clanged some pots and pans together, and moved into the cocoa house across the path.

  Underneath the pyramidal structure was bare dirt and a low wooden wall, an unwelcoming place, even for stray animals. ­Galvanized metal sheets were pressed together to form the angles for the roof. Brown patches of rust glittered in the sun while the heat exacerbated the bitter scent of cocoa permeating the air. Round tree trunks formed the foundation of the structure. Even though it took a violent outburst to bring the calm, everyone looked forward to the quiet for as long as it lasted.

  —Meh eh know why nah, Krys, my mother says, e juss di go een this silence an move outtah de house, cook e own meals and wash e own clothes. And is always always aftah ah big blowout oh two. When e beat Mammy or Nollie or one ah we till we bloody and lifeless den e gone een dis calm like e vex or satisfy. We eh know which one it was, we juss happy e eh een de house. Sometimes it lass foh weeks.

  The house itself seemed to breathe easier. Brothers and sisters joked and laughed. They stayed up late at night and told stories of Papa Bois, father of the forest, who had horns and ­donkey’s hair and could turn into a deer, or shared gripping tales of witnessing a douen beckoning a child that was never to be seen by its parents again, its soul claimed by the monster. With the absence of their father’s looming shadow, they were free to be children, siblings to one another. They laughed with their heads thrown back, not having to check over their shoulder; they were affectionate, slinging an arm around a neck. For them, this was the height of their togetherness.

  Their nightly talks took a somber tone one night when Amrit made fun of one of their cousins who lived right up the road from them.

  Ah see Sachin walkin like dis, said Amrit, and mimicked Sachin’s wide gait, made so from a greater girth and from squatting and carrying lumber.

  Doh make fun ah im like dat, Amrit, Arya chided.

  Arya came to realize much earlier than her siblings that her father had taken more than the lion’s share of land his mother had left behind, had claimed more than was rightfully his.

  Shiva was one of eleven children—seven girls and four boys. Because their father, under the pretense of caring for Nollie, snagged the most envied piece of property, the house they lived in along with the lands connected to it, animosity ballooned among the Singh children and their cousins.

  —Dere was juss so much dispute, Krys, my mother tells me, we juss keep ahwey from we cousins and dem. Even if we went toh visit one ah e sistahs who livin dung de road juss ah half ah mile ahwey she run we like dawgs.

  The history of the brothers was muddled. One disappeared, stories of him lost to time as well. Another was murdered, but no one knew how or for what reason, the stories changing with the sands of the shores. There was no interest in avenging his death, and so no arrest was made; the police were as uninterested in the case as the family was. And to no surprise, for disappearances in Trinidad were not unheard of; your connections were what mattered. That left Mitra and Shiva among the sisters.

  In a house as small as a matchbox and as flimsy as chicken wire, Shiva’s last brother, Mitra, lived with his wife and children. Because of the friction caused by the unequal distribution of land, to say the cousins didn’t get along would be an understatement; this kind of strife is passed down through generations.

  Mitra’s house stood along the gravel path that led to the main road. To get to and from the house each day, the Singh clan passed by them without uttering a word, while Mitra’s girls hissed and spat at them, their mother clipping clothes to a line, her lips pressed together. Once in a while a scuffle would break out among the girls from the two households while the adults weren’t looking, causing a ripple of retaliative acts and more hurt and pain than could ever be repaired.

  —Ah use to feel sorry foh dem, Krys, my mother says, livin een dat small small house wid dey muddah and faddah. Right een front ah we. All dey hah toh do is look back and see we een we big house and land, so when Amrit makin fun ah im ah nevah like dat.

  Sachin, the boy Amrit mercilessly made fun of, was Mitra’s eldest son and bore witness to his father’s decline into the bottle, where his fears became his reality, consuming him until he started consuming his family. When there was no money to bring in, Mitra sold a piece of his land twice, collecting money but never delivering the deed to either party. This became one of his many failures. He blamed Shiva for his misfortunes, accusing him of having stolen their mother’s land, leaving him destitute.

  Alc
oholism and depression were not terms yet widely known in the early 1980s, not in Trinidad, not on a Caribbean island where boys were bred to grow into men who drank rum the minute the sun sank below the horizon, to mark the end of a workday. This was a place where rum shops stayed open all night, where a teething child’s gums were rubbed with brandy. Women grew up knowing that, one day, they would be debating whether or not to show up at the bar to beg their husbands for money for food.

  Mitra had been an alcoholic who was also severely depressed, but no one connected those dots, not until it was too late.

  —Everyting di juss appen right on top ah one anuddah, my mother tells me, fuss de accident wid me, den Amrit beatin, and now dis.

  Sachin was the one who delivered the news to the house. He approached with trepidation, uncertain now of where they were in this family war, and asked for their father. There was something in the way he asked that made Arya point him to the cocoa house, no questions asked.

  Mitra had pulled up a chair in his house, slid the barrel of a gun into his mouth, and pulled the trigger, leaving his eldest son to find him.

  —Ah remembah goin toh de viewin to see wah e di look like, my mother says, and I juss kyant bring meh mind toh go back dey right now.

  In the wake of such violent loss, their entire house trembled under him. They rode the wave of the aftermath of his wrath for close to a month, holding, holding, holding while he almost destroyed them all. At last, he again moved to the cocoa house, and while they didn’t know how long he’d stay, they needed the relief now more than ever before.

  In this interim, Arya and Dharmendra seemed to glide together, smiling and laughing. Their romance was finally everything she wanted it to be. With her father out of the house, ­Dharmendra could sneak in and lounge in the living room with her siblings. Sometimes they were even bold enough to drink liquor while Arya’s father was off tending to his other properties during the day. Staticky music filtered through the speakers of a busted-up old radio while the boys smoked. Laughter touched them again, and on a farm atop a picturesque hilltop, they swayed their hips to the beat of the islands.

  TRADITION

  DHARMENDRA PULLED OFF the main road and onto the familiar gravel pathway that led up to the house. He waved to Shiva, who’d just arrived at the shed after a day’s work, and Shiva tipped his head in acknowledgment. Rebecca was up at the house alone.

  Ma, Dharmendra called her for the first time, and Rebecca knew what was coming next. She tenderly caressed his chin and smiled.

  Yuh hah to tawk to Mistah Shiva, Dharmendra boi, not me, she said to him. E muss be dung by de shed by now. Yuh wahn someting toh eat son?

  Ah wantah ax yuh permission fuss.

  Rebecca nodded her head. Now goh, she said, flapping behind him with a towel, befoh yuh make meh drop some tears een dis soup.

  Dharmendra went back down to the shed and asked Shiva for Arya’s hand in marriage. He was the only suitor of any of Shiva’s daughters to do so.

  Arya knew the proposal was coming after the night of their car accident, but she waited for it to come the right way—Dharmendra came to the house when she wasn’t there, chatted with her father, charmed him the way he charmed everyone else. He explained how he was from a good family, had a stable and respectable job, was madly in love with Arya, and assured Shiva that not only would he treat his daughter the way she should be treated, but by marrying him, her social and economic status would rise. Shiva agreed, and with her father’s endorsement, Arya couldn’t risk saying no. She’d already tried everything, down to applying for her visa to leave the country, before even meeting Dharmendra and had been denied over and over again. Dharmendra was her chance of escape, and so he and the blinking lights of the city were the only thoughts in her head.

  —Oh Gawd Krys, my mother says, dem Indian weddin an dem eh play long no ass nah. All ah know is dat it was too long.

  As tradition would dictate, the wedding was to be held at the bride’s home. Of the seven Singh children, Arya’s was the only wedding in that house, an important distinction for both Shiva and Rebecca. Rahul, Reeya, and Gita had already emigrated to America, leaving Amrit, Pooja, and Chandini still at home. Gita, only a handful of years older than Arya, had followed in their mother’s footsteps; in her early twenties, she was already pregnant with her fourth child. Rahul, now living in rural Pennsylvania, already had two children with two different women.

  Avinash arrived early with all his records in tow. He embraced Arya in a hug warmer than all her siblings combined, eager to be the DJ for the wedding. To no surprise, he told her their father had instructed him to play only classical Indian music.

  —Rheal ole time ting, eh Krys, my mother tells me, laughing. Only Hare Rama Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, she says collapsing into laughter, making fun of a quintessential Hindi song that has now become synonymous with American cults, when all we rheally wahn to hear is some nice hot chutney and soca music to dance up toh.

  But Shiva wanted no dancing and frivolity under his roof today, just the strict ceremonial giving away of his daughter to a man he thought would make a fine husband for the integrity of his family. Arya joked with Avinash, telling him, Oh Gawd boi, slip een ah lil chutney nah mahn, but even though it was a joke, Avinash, as always, was very serious about following Shiva’s orders. She studied him closely, noticing for the first time how much Avinash resembled their father, more so than any of her other siblings.

  Arya retreated upstairs, which was empty save for a stray family member running up to grab something. She wanted the comfort of her mother in these moments, but Rebecca was banished to the kitchen, or anywhere else her husband told her to be.

  —She kyant be wid meh, my mother tells me sadly. De mahn wahn de oman een de kitchen and dah is whey she hah toh be. Dere was not one minute ah closeness wid me and she dat day. Ah wanted it but nevah geh it.

  Rebecca rinsed and cracked the spines of hundreds of fig leaves for people to ladle channa and aloo, globs of mango takarie, curry pumpkin, deep-fried dhal balls soaked in cur-hee, string beans dotted with masala, paratha roti followed by the sweets to placate the spices—sweet rice with cinnamon and ­raisins, ­vermicelli steeped in nutmeg, parsad, ladoo, burfi, and gulab jamon bobbing in honey sauce. All of this and more Rebecca had a hand in preparing for her daughter’s wedding, with guests bringing more dishes to add to the tables that were constructed for the occasion, both outside and in.

  The morning of the ceremony passed by in a blur of saris, bells, and people. Arya rented her sari and all the jewelry that twinkled on her ears, nose, wrists, and ankles. Her father offered to hire a make-up artist and hairdresser, but she insisted upon doing this herself. Even then, Shiva sent a family friend up to her room to help tie her sari and apply her make-up.

  —Yuh know how dem ole head and dem is, my mother tells me, when dey oldah and come up toh do up yuh face and ting she only wantah do it she whey, what she tink goh look good on me. Ah juss hah to send she awhey aftah ahwhile.

  With henna-painted hands, Arya curled her hair and pinned the veil, vermillion stitched with gold thread, to the crown of her head.

  Arya was twenty-two and Dharmendra was thirty. It’d been three years since they first met, and though this outcome was inevitable—and one she yearned for—sadness seeped in. Arya started to cry before the ceremony even began. She tried to wipe away her tears, but upset her jewelry and smeared her make-up. Wah de ass yuh doin? someone chided. Look at yuh messin up yuh whole damn face.

  —Meh was cryin, Krys, my mother says, not because ah wasn’t happy, ah was happy, boh it was ah sad day too. Meh was leavin meh parents’ house. Ah was toh be ah oman now.

  Arya looked at the three siblings she was leaving behind, and thought of the laughter and conversations only brothers and sisters could have in the happiest and also the most terrifying of times. Memories as sweet as the smell of freshly halved coconuts drifted to the forefront of her mind—going to the market and sharing sweets together,
reclining in the arms of mango trees, stealing away to watch a movie while their father slept. When she looked forward to her future with Dharmendra, she feared the loneliness she would find far away from what she’d always known. Once she left, she would never be able to return. Yet she knew Dharmendra loved her, and Arya had to be pragmatic.

  —Only yuh faddah di know what e wahn, my mother tells me. E was tirty—ah grown mahn—and ah was only twenty-two. Ah was ah lil gyul still. Dat wasn’t no kinda courtin me and e do nah. We nevah went toh de movies, barely togeddah by weself, always arung uddah people, a lil bit a time hyah, a lil bit ah time dey, teefin time like criminals. Meh still feel like ah din know dis mahn ah was marryin, and ah know foh sure dis wasn’t de kinda ting ah wanted foh meh chilren.

  In the home where Dharmendra pretended to be Amrit’s friend, and earned Shiva’s respect, he led his bride around the sacred fire seven times; then they placed garlands of flowers around each other’s necks—Arya’s was white to match his kurta, and his was red to match her sari. They sat cross-legged on a pink blanket with a pattern of red hibiscus and yellow ­hummingbirds while listening to the pundit chant in Sanskrit. He flicked water on them, chanted some more, and then beckoned their parents. Both sets of parents gave their children to one another. Arya wept.

  —Krystal, my mother tells me, is ah blessin toh hah boat yuh parents gih yuh away. Goin forward wid yuh parents’ blessin is de right ting toh do an yuh goh hah ah blessed life. Widout yuh parents’ blessin yuh goh only see trouble.

  UPSTAIRS, AWAY FROM THE CROWD, the chattering, and the cheering, Arya took off her jewelry, unwound her sari, and unhooked her bells. On the bed was a gossamer white gown overlaid with lace that she had paid a seamstress to create for her. From magazines she had seen in the dressmaker’s shop, Arya told the woman how the shoulders should be puffed and shiny, the sleeves long and lacy—not appropriate for tropical weather, but it captured the delicate beauty she wanted for her wedding day.