‘There is always another way out,’ a voice came from behind her.
She looked up, trying to focus through the tears. ‘Is that you, Ma? Are you really there?’
‘No, is not your Ma. It’s me.’
Then she realised. The voice was deep – a man’s voice. She spun round on her knees, scared. Someone was standing behind her. She saw shiny shoes, caked with dirt round the edges. It was one of the boys from the village. Farouk’s friend – the boy whom Farouk had trusted. The one who had given them an address in San Fernando where he said they could stay safely until they worked out how to find a place of their own.
‘Where is Farouk?’ he said.
‘You!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here? This is my mother’s grave! Get out!’
‘The cemetery is a public place, girl,’ Rajnath said. ‘I was walking home, and I saw somebody in the half-dark. Then I realised it was you. How could I have just gone home? What has happened to you? You look like you haven’t seen water or a comb in days. Do you know people are worried about you?’ His voice was a mixture of concern and condemnation.
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know,’ she said indignantly.
Rajnath looked at her questioningly. She was distressed as well as looking a mess, but his head was throbbing after the kind of day it had been.
‘Where is Farouk?’ he asked again.
‘Don’t ask me about Farouk!’ Sumati screamed. She began striking out at Rajnath like a madwoman. ‘It’s all your fault! If it wasn’t for you, this would not have happened. My mother would still be here.’
With both hands Rajnath wrenched her off the ground by her shoulders, and brought her up to eye-level. He wanted to tell her it was her fault that her mother had had no choice but to hang herself. But he didn’t.
‘Some people just cannot take responsibility for what they do,’ he said, sternly. ‘You chose to go. You ran away from what, I don’t know. But what I do know is that you, miss, have no right to behave like the victim when you are the one who is alive. Now, where is Farouk?’
‘Is that all you can think about?’ she shot at him. ‘What happened to my mother is also his fault.’
Rajnath frowned, confused. She wasn’t making any sense. ‘You still don’t understand what I just said. Where did you go? And Farouk?’
‘You well know where we went. It was you who gave Farouk the address of that accursed place. What do you want with me?’
‘For the last time, where is Farouk? What did you do to him? He cared about you.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it!’ she shouted. ‘Leave me alone.’
‘I can’t leave you alone,’ Rajnath said. ‘It is getting dark, and you are a girl in a cemetery. What d’you think I am? I’ll walk home with you.’
‘Home? This is my home. Here, where my mother is sleeping. I’m staying here.’
‘She wouldn’t want you out here in the dark all alone all night,’ he said, his tone more gentle now.
‘Why are the police looking for me?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Who told you that? Come.’ He took her up by the arm. ‘I’ll walk with you.’
It was completely dark now. The moon had disappeared behind the clouds. Rajnath and Sumati walked two feet apart along the piece of asphalt road, which was still warm and soft from the heat of the sun. Sumati’s sniffing was the only sound, apart from the hooting of owls and the chirping of a bird settling down for the night. Candle flies lit the darkness in front of them. Then Rajnath decided he had to say something.
‘What are you going to say if someone sees us together?’
‘In the dark too,’ Sumati said, dully. ‘Things couldn’t get worse. I’m an outcast, anyway.’
‘Actually, it could get worse if they found out who you went with, and where.’
‘You know, after everything that has happened to me over the last few months, I no longer fear anything. Except for my father. I don’t know if I could ever go back to living under the same roof as him.’
‘I can understand that. He seems to be in the habit of bullying other people’s daughters too. Maybe you shouldn’t go back home tonight. Why don’t you go and stay with a friend?’
‘I can’t face anyone yet. And my father’s bound to find me by tomorrow if I stay at someone’s house. Besides, who can I stay with, without causing them problems?’
‘Well, girl, I can’t leave you out here in the dark. What kind of person would that make me? There might be jumbies,’ Rajnath said, smiling. ‘If you believe in that kind of thing.’
‘You don’t believe?’ she asked, surprised.
‘Well I have never met a jumbie,’ Rajnath said. ‘And I don’t think that one ever met me. Because if they did, they would know about it when I was finished with them.’
‘Look, is that not your house?’ Sumati said, as they went past the rose mango tree.
‘I know where I live. And I know where you could stay, but just for the night. Come.’
TWENTY
Mr Clifford listened patiently while Amina poured out ten minutes of anxiety. Then he spoke.
‘Worrying is a lazy man’s way of avoiding getting off his backside and doing something to solve his problem. Or using his brain to figure out a solution. That’s not you. Remember that fruit is not born in a basket full of worries, but from direct connection, action, and nurturing, right up to the completion of the task.’ He laughed. ‘You may well look bemused! Here, come, I have a job for you. Engage with it, and take your mind off your concerns. Believe me, a solution will appear when the mind is at rest. And you’ll be doing something useful for me.’
‘Sir, I was only interested in what your God had to say about these things.’
‘I don’t know if you have noticed,’ he said patiently, ‘but the whole school is trying to get ready for School Inspection. What would be beneficial, is if you could help the teachers fix up their class areas with their charts and things on the walls.’
She smiled. ‘Yes, sir. I understand.’
‘Excellent! It will be good experience for you – and it will help me out too. Mr Franklin, the Standard Three teacher, is sick. I don’t know how long for, but I need that class area prepared for inspection. I want this place to look like a first-class school by Monday morning, and for the inspector to go back to the Catholic Board and tell them. We need more books and supplies. We also need the latrines fixing. I think they have forgotten about us, so let’s remind them. I want every wall covered with teaching charts.’
‘Yes, sir. If you show me, I can do it.’
‘You can do it, no problem,’ he said, confidently. ‘Pull down some of those old charts. Make new ones. Times-table charts. A map of Trinidad. Use your imagination.’
Amina’s face lit up. She felt important.
‘And about what you asked me,’ he added. ‘The man Jesus said, Let the dead bury their dead. Of course the dead cannot literally bury the dead. But you must not concern yourself with those who worship idols. It is all very nice, the rituals, but they are stone dead. Yesterday was most interesting, I must say. And some of it seemed to make sense. Of course, it will. But I can’t say I understood that much about the balls of rice and such.’
‘I think it is for Daya’s spirit to eat when she gets hungry.’
‘Well, what can I say to that! Why would a spirit need to eat?’
‘I too don’t understand a lot of what my parents believe and do. That’s why I ask you what your God says.’
‘You seem to ask a lot of questions about my God. I don’t mind. It’s good to ask questions about anything. When you stop asking, you stop learning. But each person must come to their own conclusion about what path to take in life – like anything else. You seem to be at loggerheads with your culture and religion in more ways than one. But you are an intelligent girl, so choose wisely. It is better to be like Mary instead of Martha in that respect. Both followed Jesus, but Mary chose to be close to him. To learn. Seek
ye first the Kingdom of God, and all things will be added.’
‘What is Kingdom, sir?’
‘An end to the misery of this life. Paradise, girl, a new world where Jesus will rule.’
‘You know such a lot, sir. I want to read it myself. Where can I get a Bible?’
The headmaster held up a hand. ‘First I want you to concentrate on this task,’ he said. ‘It will mean a lot to the whole school if we get more supplies as a result of pleasing the inspector.’
Amina was late home that afternoon, and arrived with roles of paper.
‘This is called the alphabet, Ma.’ She unrolled one of the sheets of the old charts. ‘It will help you learn English words. Makes it easy with the pictures.’ Devinia stared in amazement. ‘And this one – a map of Trinidad,’ Amina continued.
‘How do they know how to do that?’ Devinia asked.
‘Somebody went all round the island a long time ago and drew out the shape on a piece of paper, and that is how we know what it looks like. These are the mountains – see?’ Amina pointed. ‘These are north of the island, these are in the middle, and some south, near here. Look – oceans and seas around us. This says Columbus Channel.’
‘Big words.’ Devinia stared in admiration. ‘It’s pretty.’
‘I did that one today.’ Amina had used shades of green chalk to show where the cane plantations were, and yellow and brown for higher ground.
‘Put it carefully upstairs,’ her mother said, ‘so the dog can’t eat it.’
That night, Amina burned three candles and the oil lamp, working on the geography charts. The next day she started on the times-tables charts. There were six of them, two on each chart, with all the tables up to twelve times, differentiated by colour.
When she took them all in two days later, Mr Clifford gasped. He nailed them around the walls, then offered her services to other teachers. Gradually that week, the school walls grew colourful, with Amina’s pictures of Columbus’s ships, the Santa Maria, Pinta, and Nina, floating on dark green waves; parts of an insect; and various geographical and arithmetical charts, ready for the Schools’ Inspector on the Monday morning.
Monday morning, School Inspection day. Mr Franklin returned to his Standard Three class and his eyes popped. Every inch of wall was covered with colourful charts, the attendance register was up to date with neat entries, and every book in the cupboard was in straight, tidy piles, and spotless. He was surprised.
Amina returned to her Standard Five class where she belonged as a pupil and sat in her usual place in Mr Mortimer’s class. The whole school was warned that morning, and the noise level was low in anticipation of the inspector’s visit. The day was tense.
At morning assembly on Tuesday, when all pupils were lined up in front of the double doors, Mr Clifford announced that the inspector had been most impressed. Mr Clifford praised everyone for being well behaved, and every teacher for the work they’d put in. At lunchtime, Mr Clifford saw Amina.
‘You’re looking pale,’ he noted.
‘Just a bit tired, sir.’
‘The inspector was impressed, so it was all worth it. You did very, very well. You know the best thing? Those charts were so good, the inspector thought I’d done them myself when I said Mr Franklin was off sick last week.’ Mr Clifford chuckled. ‘Funny how it happened, because all I said was that I was up till late the night before, and he assumed it was me, and I . . . well, I found it hard to contradict him. I didn’t have the heart to say a twelve-year-old pupil did it.’
‘I’m twelve and a half, sir.
‘I know, I know. You have the mind of a twenty-one-year-old sometimes. The strange thing is, the inspector wants me to go and show some of those schools up in San Fernando how to create colourful and informative charts like those. How did you do them so well?’
‘I don’t know, sir. I just looked in some of the map books in your office.’
‘Could you do some more?’ he asked. ‘The practice will be good for you. And I’ll put in a good word for you to start your teaching course a year early. Maybe you could begin when you’re thirteen. Because you’re so good at these charts, you made me have to tell a lie.’ He laughed.
Amina smiled at the compliment, but her heart was pounding. ‘Did I do something wrong, sir? Except . . . I don’t want to cause you to go to hell, sir.’
‘Hell? Why?’
‘You didn’t say the truth to the inspector, sir.’
‘The truth? Oh, that. A white lie or two won’t send me to hell. Not if I go to confession and say a few Hail Marys. After all, I am Catholic.’
‘I didn’t realise,’ she said, feeling disappointed in him. ‘But I can start the teacher training next year?’
‘Oh of course.’
Amina decided that it was not worth telling him about her plan to teach the women at home, in case he advised her against her better judgement.
TWENTY-ONE
Amina and her mother got three other women from the village interested in learning English for half an hour at a time. The girl forgot her worries, and was delighted to be making a start on her project. She seated them all under her house at the far end, and began by showing them some familiar packaging such as a tin of condensed milk, Wright’s Coal Tar Soap, and Vicks VapoRub, teaching them to recognise words by looking at their shape. Then she introduced her alphabet chart.
Sankar arrived home early one day and interrupted her class.
‘Look what I brought for you,’ he said, eager to show Amina something.
‘Later, Pa,’ was all she said, glancing at the red cloth in his hand.
‘Just take a look,’ he insisted.
‘She say later,’ Meena spoke up, giving Sankar one of her evil looks.
Sankar retreated looking dejected, and stroked Fluffy, who followed him halfway up the stairs. After the women had all gone, he rebuked Devinia in the bedroom for not warning him about what was going on and making him feel like a stranger in his own house.
‘You have to get used to it,’ she asserted. ‘I am trying to support our daughter. She wants to help people her way. Have you forgotten how dangerously ill she was? It is the least you can allow her. Otherwise she will put her trust in other people.’
‘Like who?’ Sankar said.
‘Like the headmaster.’
‘She is Indian – our flesh and blood,’ the man scoffed. ‘He will never be able to convince her completely.’
‘Don’t be so sure. Sumati was her mother’s flesh and blood too – and look what happened. And remember their friend Moonia? And the others? We cannot ignore it.’
‘Well I cannot guarantee it, but I will try to go easy on her,’ Sankar relented, then rebuked his wife again. ‘But you must tell me everything. You made me look like a fool in front of all those women and my daughter.’
Hearing her father’s angry voice, Amina went into the room. Seeing her, his face changed, and as promised his voice became calm and controlled.
‘Listen, beti,’ he said. ‘I wanted to show you what I made for you. I finished it and polished it up today.’
He opened the cloth to show her the sparkling necklace he had made.
‘Jewellery is important to us Indians,’ he went on. ‘You will be married soon. And a woman who wears a lot of jewellery shows she’s well taken care of. It makes me swell with pride to see you walk down the road with gold around your neck, and hanging from your ears. Pride is important. Without it, what are you?’
Amina stared at her father. ‘Before destruction, the heart of a man is proud. Pride didn’t keep me alive when I nearly died, Pa.’
‘What is she talking about? You are her mother – do you know?’ Sankar looked at his wife in bemusement.
‘Don’t ask me,’ Devinia said. ‘That is between both of you.’
‘Between both of us?’ he echoed. ‘You were right before – it is that headmaster. What is he teaching you in that school that you are becoming so insolent and disobedient? Telling me about my destruc
tion! You were a good child – but now? I don’t know who you are.’ Her father’s voice cracked. ‘You are killing me.’
‘Amina,’ Devinia said, ‘just look at it. It is the most pretty, shining necklace your father has ever made. These things take a lot of time and gold.’
Amina glanced at it then looked away.
‘Are you feeling well?’ Sankar touched Amina’s brow. ‘Listen, it’s also a practical matter. Jewellery is an investment. You can pawn it if you hit hard times, so it’s as good as hard cash. But let’s hope it will never come to that.’
‘At least listen, Amina,’ Devinia begged. ‘Your dowry shows your value. The bride must have worth.’
Sankar nodded. ‘Your mother is right. You see? She’s come around to the correct decision,’ he snorted. ‘Endless education is for people who don’t know the value of work.’
‘My education will be my worth,’ Amina said. ‘And it is you, Pa, who is forcing Ma to say things.’
‘Why don’t you stop resisting, and choose at least the rhinestones for the big pieces? I’ve just got a new shipment. Come with your Ma to the shop. You and she could look for the sari and champals too.’
Amina was seething, but aware that this argument could go on half the night, she relented.
‘You see?’ her father said. ‘That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?’
Devinia put her arms around Amina. She realised that education was a better option, but was not convinced that marriage was all bad. She had done it and it had worked well. The truth was that Devinia had a foot in both camps, which was now becoming painful as the camps were drifting further apart, causing conflict between her culture and her heart. Sankar made sense, and his reasoning was sound. The gods were on their side again – her prayers answered. Amina was alive, and Sankar’s business was prospering. They wanted for nothing. They had land and properties, and their main dwelling was set in six acres filled with fruit trees and coconut palms. It wasn’t a mud house with dirt walls and floor, or a shack sitting on the bare ground. It was wooden and well-built, and safe on high stilts. And Sankar was a well-respected man.
The Wedding Drums Page 11