The Wedding Drums

by Marilyn Rodwell

  Etwar also had similar instructions before Devinia disappeared into the kitchen to finish making the Indian sweets she had started.

  ‘I think we might be having special people visiting,’ he said to his sister.

  It was around eleven that morning that two men arrived while Amina was still upstairs putting on the new earrings her father had made. Devinia called her from the bottom of the steps.

  ‘Come down slowly, child,’ her mother said. ‘You don’t want to trip.’

  She looked beautiful as she walked down the steps in the new green and gold sari, with matching champals on her feet which dragged a little as they were slightly too big. As she turned the corner down the steps, two men stood next to the bench, and sat down when she sat next to Etwar.

  ‘Ma?’ she began. But her mother looked at her very sternly, so she stopped.

  Devinia brought out drinks and Indian sweets and offered them to the men as well as to the family. From the conversation, it was clear that they were business people, and from their outfits, a jacket and tie, they were pretty much anglicized and well to do. There was no Bhojpuri or Hindi being spoken, so it was a very easy environment for the children. Although her mother did struggle a little, Amina and Etwar listened, smiled when appropriate and even giggled on one occasion. The younger of the two men smiled a lot and spoke particularly good English, even better than Dr Boyle, who did speak a little oddly at times. They took the two men around the garden, and told them how much land was at the back of the house, and at one time both Etwar and Amina looked at each other, wondering the same thing. But they dared not interrupt to ask.

  After a good long while, both men left and said that they were pleased with everything and would definitely be in touch.

  When they had gone, the children couldn’t wait to find out the news.

  ‘Why are you selling the house?’ Etwar asked his parents.

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Devinia asked. ‘Don’t you know that is the boy we have in mind for your sister?’ she went on. ‘You heard them. They are well to do, and well-spoken in English. Educated to the best standard too. What do you think?’

  At first Amina wasn’t sure she had heard correctly. ‘You are not talking about me.’

  ‘Who else?’ Sankar said.

  ‘It cannot be me. You made me dress as if you’re selling a piece of furniture? After all I’ve said? There is nothing you can do to get me to agree to that! Nothing.’

  ‘You will do as I say,’ her father said. ‘You are my daughter and will do as I please. People have put ideas in your head that are very much against our customs. You are Indian. You cannot change that. It’s time to stop playing at being English.’

  ‘Ma?’

  ‘Your father has chosen well,’ Devinia said. ‘The boy is good-looking, and he was educated in a top school in Port of Spain. Also, they have a good thriving business.’

  ‘All you think about is money and business. Well I’m not interested. And his education is not mine.’

  ‘I tried hard to find someone suitable,’ Sankar said. ‘Pundit Lall had good contacts.’

  ‘Him?’ she said. ‘Now I understand. Do you want me to do something you will regret?’ With that Amina stormed off up to her room, stripped herself of her new clothes, shoes and jewellery, flung it all out of the window and threw herself on her bed.

  Devinia went outside and picked up Amina’s things and slumped in the hammock.

  ‘Leave her,’ Sankar advised. ‘Let her stew. She is bound to come to her senses. The girl is not stupid. She knows it is money that gives her a comfortable life so that she can pursue this education nonsense instead of a paid job.’

  Amina overheard him. ‘You are so wrong, Pa!’ she screamed. ‘You have just done something you will always regret.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Rajnath spent the whole day at work worried about why Sumati was being so secretive about Farouk. He had been so distracted that twice he was warned by the driver at work, who took the whip to him once. When he got home, Rajnath picked up his father’s gun for the second time in two days, and headed out. The previous time he had returned with a good catch from their forest land, and that was his first time hunting alone. Parbatee was pleased he was at last a man – bringing home the food.

  ‘Ma!’ he called out. ‘Do you know who owns the piece of land behind our Bonasse land? I want to buy it.’

  ‘Buy it with what? We have already promised you the three acres of forest land – as soon as we fix a wedding date. But first, we need to find you a wife.’

  ‘I will find my own,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Do you know how we got that land?’ she asked her son. ‘When your father first arrived here from India, he worked as a labourer in the cane fields for five years, before the government offered him the chance to return to India, or remain. He stayed, and got the three acres kind of cheapish. They were encouraging people to stay, but only paying twenty-five cents a day for labouring. Your father was made overseer, because he was more educated than the others, and could speak the English like an Englishman, as you know. And we had been promised to each other to marry, so he chose to remain. He was lucky because he had good schooling in India. Of course he spoke Bhojpuri too – an asset on the plantation. So, he bought the maximum amount of land – three acres.’

  ‘Ma, you know you have told me this already?’

  ‘And I will tell you many more times,’ Parbatee said severely. ‘You think everything comes easy? That you were just born lucky? Look around you – mud huts and half-built board houses ready to blow down in a puff of wind.’

  She looked at her son. ‘Where are you going with your father’s gun again?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want any more squirrel. We don’t eat it.’

  ‘I’m going to fetch a machete, so I can clear out some of the land. There’s cocoa growing there, and the squirrels are damaging every pod.’

  Rajnath went to the shed and pulled open the door. As he stepped inside, something big fluttered under the roof. A shadow moved from the narrow beam of daylight coming through the gap in the top slat of wood. He stopped still and looked up, shivering as if a blanket of ice had dropped over him.

  ‘Help her.’

  Rajnath stood frozen to the spot. He turned to bolt, but before he could do so, the flutterer flew out in what seemed like a flash.

  ‘There’s owls in that shed,’ his mother shouted. ‘I don’t know when they started living there, but one just came flying out. Your father thinks it’s something else in there, though!’

  She stopped and looked at her son. Rajnath was stumbling oddly, and leaning on the doorpost.

  ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘You’re as white as a sheet!’

  Rajnath didn’t respond.

  ‘What is it, boy?’ she said urgently. ‘You’re frightening me. Did a scorpion sting you? Tell me, quick! It could kill you.’

  Rajnath closed the door, shuffling as he went in the house. His mother followed.

  ‘It’s not a scorpion,’ he said. ‘But there’s something in that shed.’

  ‘Well, your father said so too, the morning after the funeral. But I’m here all day and I only ever see birds sometimes. It’s just owls, nothing more. They fly in, and they fly out if you go in. Otherwise, they don’t come out till dark.’

  ‘It’s . . . something else.’ Rajnath spat his words awkwardly. ‘Birds don’t talk.’

  Parbatee gaped at him, looking puzzled.

  ‘I’m making sweet tea for you now,’ she said. ‘I think you must have a fever. I was right the other day. You had better lie down. Come, son, rest yourself.’

  Rajnath stumbled to his bed and closed his eyes, unable to even think about arguing back.

  Rajnath decided that the only way to find out what had happened to Farouk was to go and see his uncle in San Fernando. He took the sloop from Cedros harbour, instead of going by horse or donkey cart. It was cheaper and more straightforward. He left home at dawn with his breakfast and
lunch wrapped up in brown paper, feeling daunted.

  When he arrived at the wharf in San Fernando, he disembarked and walked up the back of the town. Everything seemed different to what he remembered. The new buildings were huge, and filled the spaces along the road, which made the trees seem smaller. He approached the house with memories returning of school holidays, kicking empty cans and dry coconuts around the yard with his cousin Dillip, and pelting stones at ripe mangoes on the trees at the rear of the house. For a while, nostalgia chased away his worries, and he almost expected to see Dillip running up, ready to jump on him, throwing him to the ground and them rolling around over each other. But instead, he heard another familiar voice.

  ‘Look who it is!’ His Uncle Amrit punched Rajnath gently on the arm. ‘What are you doing here? You came to San Fernando for shopping? Come! Come inside. Sit down.’

  ‘Thanks, uncle.’

  ‘Look at you – the big man.’ He held Rajnath by the shoulders and looked him up and down. ‘So handsome!’

  Rajnath smiled, embarrassed by the compliment.

  ‘I can’t believe my sister’s son is so big. She must be so proud. Me too!’ He slapped his nephew on the back.

  ‘Where’s Dillip?’

  ‘Dillip has gone out on business. He’ll be back later.’

  The two of them sat on a bench under the almond tree in the front yard and chatted, drinking rum and coconut water before lunch was brought out from the kitchen.

  ‘Who is the woman in the kitchen?’ Rajnath asked.

  ‘Your mother didn’t tell you that Kalouti just packed up and left me one day?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know.’

  ‘Yes. I came home one day and caught her at it. She was planning to clean me out – furniture and all.’

  ‘But why would she do that?’

  ‘You surprised? Boy, I was surprised too. No explanation – not a damn thing worth listening to, anyhow. Left me high and dry. We didn’t eat for two days after she left. Mangoes and coconut water, that’s all. I had to get somebody in. That woman in the kitchen, that is Tonia. That’s why she’s here. Tonia will do anything for me. Anything.’

  ‘Oh,’ Rajnath said. He watched the large bachak ants walk in a perfect line, following each other with pieces of green leaves in their mouths. ‘You built up a big place here. When did you put up all this extension?’

  ‘Extension? That is a separate whole new building on that side. We did that last year.’

  ‘So, business must be going well then,’ Rajnath remarked, looking around.

  ‘Which business?’ Amrit sounded surprised. ‘Oh, you mean the shop. Not too bad.’

  Rajnath frowned, a little bewildered. ‘Well, it’s looking busy. You have a good few customers there, right now.’

  ‘We have a good hotel business too. Many businessmen stay here. I told your mother, “When the boys get married, I will pay for everything”.’

  ‘Thanks, uncle. But first I have to find a wife.’

  ‘I’m looking. I told your mother to leave it to me.’

  ‘I didn’t know about that either,’ Rajnath said. ‘When is Dillip coming home?’

  ‘Don’t bother about Dillip. He comes home when he’s ready.’

  ‘Hmm! Things really have changed around here!’ Rajnath commented.

  ‘Dillip is another story. We don’t see eye to eye on a few things, starting with the company he keeps. Maybe you could talk some sense into him.’

  ‘I don’t know, uncle. But what about Farouk – when is he coming home?’

  ‘Farouk?’ Amrit laughed. ‘He was no good. He disappeared a long time ago. Ran off not long after he arrived with the girl. She was very upset, but we managed to calm her down, gave her a place to stay. Then said she wanted to go and see her family. But she never returned.’

  ‘Really?’ Rajnath was surprised. ‘She is back in Granville, but refuses to talk about Farouk.’

  ‘If you ask me, she is another ungrateful one. We gave her everything. She just ran away one day and didn’t even tell anyone. We searched for her, but we didn’t find her.’

  ‘I thought you said she wanted to go and see her family?’ Rajnath asked, feeling uneasy.

  ‘You told me she was in Granville,’ Amrit reminded him.

  ‘You said it first, uncle. Or maybe I am mistaken. Anyhow, have you any idea where Farouk is?’

  ‘When you find out, let me know,’ Amrit said, easily. ‘I have no idea. Look, the lunch is here. Tonia is a master cook.’

  Rajnath felt confused, but he said no more about it. Maybe Kalouti leaving the way he said she did, had addled his uncle’s mind. The two men ate, and didn’t wait for Dillip. And Amrit was right about Tonia’s cooking.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Rajnath saw Amina again at the standpipe and told her he had news for her. She hurried back home to empty her bucket before darting down the road to meet him. She turned the corner after Sumati’s house, melting into the shadows below the trees. By the time she got there, she was breathless. Rajnath was leaning on a coconut tree trunk with a blade of grass between his lips. Her heart thumped from guilt about breaking the rules on meeting boys.

  ‘I see you are not bothered so long as nobody’s looking,’ he said, grinning.

  ‘You well know that this will only bring trouble. But you said you wanted to see me because of Sumati. So?’

  ‘I said that? I went to see my uncle in San Fernando on Saturday. But I didn’t find out anything.’

  ‘What does your uncle have to do with Sumati?’

  ‘They went to his house to stay till they got on their feet,’ Rajnath explained.

  ‘So was it was you who sent them there?’

  ‘I was trying to help out a friend.’

  ‘Why?’ Amina asked. ‘Do you think running away is a good thing?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But forcing somebody to marry isn’t right either. Especially if that person is in love with somebody else.’

  Amina’s eyes opened wide. ‘In love? She told you this?’

  ‘No. Farouk did.’

  Amina folded her arms, unsure how to put her thoughts into words.

  ‘Did Sumati say anything to you about what happened?’ the young man demanded. ‘Or why Farouk left the place?’

  ‘She wouldn’t say anything, except that San Fernando is a bad place.’

  Rajnath stared into her eyes. ‘Don’t play games with me,’ he warned her. ‘Something surely happened, but nobody is saying. Nobody! Someone is lying, but who and why? I want to know. And that is not all. There are strange birds in the shed. And my uncle is saying that Sumati took advantage of them and left without telling anyone.’

  He gripped Amina by the arm. ‘Tell me the truth. Talk to me! You never talk!’

  Amina felt scared. She hardly knew him and there he was making demands of her.

  ‘You believe your uncle?’ she said in a small voice. ‘Sumati says nothing, but I believe there was something bad going on.’

  ‘Did she say what they did – all the loving-up they were doing?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I know how you girls talk. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘Why do you want to know that? Are you in love with Sumati?’

  Rajnath glared at her. ‘The girl needs help. Her mother’s dead, and I am trying to find out what happened to Farouk. He is as good as her husband because I’m sure they . . . did it – and intended to live like husband and wife. But he’s disappeared. And now she’s an outcast. Who’ll want her now?’

  Amina couldn’t stop the image in her head of Sumati and Farouk doing it. ‘You could be wrong about a lot of things,’ she said, and wondered if she could trust him with Sumati’s secret. She looked at him, standing in front of her in some kind of pain, and wondered how he would react if she told him. She so badly needed to confide in someone.

  ‘Look, I care about Sumati, but not the way you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘And I care about Farouk, because he is my friend, and nobody
seems to know or care what happened to him.’

  ‘She thinks she is making a baby,’ Amina heard her voice saying. But a weight immediately fell from her shoulders.

  ‘I knew it!’ Rajnath shouted. ‘Damn and blast, I knew it!’ He picked up a stick and strode off. Suddenly he threw the stick up in the tree so hard that it hit a bird, which came down with a light thump on the grass. Amina shuddered. The bird was fluttering its last, then it stopped still.

  Amina watched him walk away, and felt guilt and fear of the consequences of betraying Sumati.

  School felt like a huge relief – calm, and predictable. It took her mind away from the turmoil in her life, with the advantage of gaining some new knowledge every day. Mr Clifford had started giving her more responsibilities and lending her out to various teachers to assist for a few hours at a time. She would listen to children read, or help struggling ones with arithmetic. But hovering in the back of her mind all the time was the fact that she had told Sumati’s secret to Rajnath. If it came out, Sumati’s father might beat her to death, after the village panch had cut them off completely once again. But what occupied her thoughts more than anything else, was the riddle of how it could be possible for Sumati not to know who the father of her child was, and there was no one she dared ask.

  As evening drew in, Rajnath and his father sat under the bamboo canopy, talking about the birds in the shed.

  ‘Is not birds, boy,’ his father said.

  Rajnath stared at his father. ‘I saw birds in the shed,’ he said. ‘Ma sees them all the time.’

  ‘I’m telling you, boy, it’s not birds,’ Kamal Singh insisted. ‘You want to know the truth? Ask your mother.’

  ‘Pundit Lall is coming to see us next week,’ Parbatee said, from where she stood folding up a big white sheet from the washing line.

  ‘Your mother thinks the same as me,’ Kamal said, darkly. ‘You can think what you like.’

  ‘But just the same, it could be nothing,’ Parbatee said quite matter-of-factly.