The Wedding Drums

by Marilyn Rodwell

  ‘Help me up,’ Rajnath said, and spat blood.

  ‘No,’ Dillip snarled. ‘Leave him there and let me finish what I started. This is becoming a bad habit. Every time this bully comes to my house, he starts a fight. He said he came here to take my wife, Uncle Kamal. This is what you all are now? Wife thieves?’

  ‘Your wife?’ Kamal asked. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The girl is not your wife,’ Rajnath said. ‘She is my friend. Her father died and you . . . you . . . you think you have found another country girl to take advantage of. Just like you did with Sumati.’

  ‘The girl was always going to be my wife. Her father agreed.’

  ‘Is that why you just tried to sell her to me?’ Rajnath said furiously. ‘You told me you’re sure she is a virgin. Apart from that, you are a top-class liar!’

  ‘Sell the girl to you? You are one fool. You stole my money. Do you think I would just give the girl to you? My wife?’

  ‘She is not your wife, or even your wife-to-be. Mr Banderjee cancelled the wedding before he died.’

  Dillip pulled Rajnath up to his feet and shouted in his face. ‘Nobody does that to me! Nobody! You hear? And what is it to you anyway? Why are you here? You break out of jail? The girl is mine. Don’t you come here and try to take her for yourself? You think she wants a loser like you?’

  Rajnath pushed Dillip away from his face, causing a struggle which turned into an all-out fight. As they knocked each other around, the oil lamp fell off the bedside table onto the bed, but none of them realised.

  Amina ran into the room. Neither of the two men who were struggling with each other seemed aware that a fire was blazing on the bed.

  ‘Stop it!’ she screamed out.

  She was surprised to see that one of the men was Rajnath. What was he doing here? Why had he come? She launched across to separate them, but she got in the way and was knocked over. As she rose from the bed, she noticed her dress was on fire, and panicked. Amina ran to the door of the room but had to struggle to open it. She ran down the long veranda in the open air, screaming. As she got to the top of the stairs someone pulled her back and spun her into a blanket from the banister to stifle the flames. It was Annan, who had heard the screams and commotion.

  ‘What are you doing, Raj?’ he yelled at his brother, who had staggered out of the bedroom. ‘Who set the place on fire?’

  Rajnath then realised that Dillip was still in the bedroom.

  ‘Hold on to her,’ he said to Annan, ‘I need to get Dillip out of there.’

  ‘Let him burn,’ Annan said callously.

  ‘No. He’s not getting away that easy. To jail is better than to burn!’

  Kamal and Tonia ran around with buckets of water to throw on the fire, but it had spread everywhere. Mayhem erupted. The rafters caught aflame, and girls and men were running half-dressed, down the stairs into the yard.

  ‘We need more water!’ Annan bellowed, rushing down the corridor.

  Amrit arrived home at that moment, to find the whole building on fire. Everyone was frantically dashing around with buckets slopping water, and shouting.

  ‘Take her out,’ Kamal commanded Rajnath. ‘Go on – run downstairs, out to the road. Get away from the premises. I shall be right behind you. This is not our concern.’

  As Rajnath and Amina headed downstairs, they could see that the fire was consuming the downstairs rooms of the new building. Amrit was calling for Dillip, cursing and swearing. Amina and Rajnath pushed the doors and realised that people were trapped in the rooms downstairs. Seizing a hammer and a short axe that he found nearby, Rajnath forced open the doors, and they both pulled the dazed occupants out to safety.

  ‘The whole place is on fire! Somebody go and call the fire service!’ Rajnath shouted.

  ‘Amrit has already gone to get the fire service,’ Tonia said, wringing her hands. ‘Who started it? And where’s Dillip?’

  ‘That little worm has probably gone to save his stash of money!’ Rajnath snorted.

  Barrels of rain water were being thrown onto the fire, but nothing seemed to be working. The wind had picked up as if Daya were wreaking revenge, and while everyone was panicking and shouting, ‘Fire, fire! – it’s all his fault the place is being destroyed,’ Rajnath and Amina stole away. They ran until they could no longer feel the heat of the flames, just barely hear the cries. But just before he got Amina to safety, he heard a cry from one of the rooms – a voice he recognised. He ran back following the cries to find Dillip overpowering a young woman who was struggling to escape.

  ‘For this,’ Dillip screamed at the young woman, ‘you will pay – with your life.’

  ‘I have two children,’ she said. ‘You can’t do this to me. Haven’t you done enough? Where is my friend? Have you used her like you used me? You want to tie me up and leave me to die now? Karma will get you.’

  ‘No, I will get him first!’ Rajnath shouted, his face red with heat and anger. ‘I never thought you were as bright as you tried to be. No kind of education could get this out of you. Leave that girl alone.’

  ‘Rajnath,’ Sumati said. ‘I didn’t know who else to ask to save her, so I came myself.’

  Rajnath pulled Dillip and threw him out through the window of the burning building, before freeing Sumati from the ropes with which Dillip had tied her up. Her face was bruised and blackened with soot. Rajnath picked her up in his arms and ran until they were well away from the premises. Black smoke bellowed into the blue skies, then they heard a bang and everything shuddered around them.

  Rajnath held Sumati tight until she struggled to stand free, but he didn’t seem to want to let her go. Her fingers were still holding his. He looked into her face and whispered,

  ‘You are something. I’m never going to let you go. Do you hear me?’ Sumati stared at him, not able to reply, but she smiled as if she was relieved.

  ‘What are you saying?’ she said. ‘I thought you liked Amina?’

  ‘Amina? Yes, I like her. But you . . . I feel differently about you. Put it this way. I couldn’t live with myself if anything had happened to you today.’ He put his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. Just then Amina, Annan and his father came up to them.

  ‘You all okay?’ Kamal said. ‘What is this girl doing here? Sumati? I thought you were in Granville.’

  ‘Well we’re all here now, and the important thing is Amina is safe,’ Sumati said. ‘Girl, you have no idea what trouble you put yourself in by coming here.’

  ‘Believe me, I know,’ Amina said. ‘I didn’t know then, but I do now. And I can’t believe all of you came to get me. I’ve put you all in so much danger.’

  Together, they all walked away, Rajnath and the girls behind, leaving the smoke-filled yard of Amrit Dass’s business premises, as people went in to help extinguish the fire and watch the wreckage.

  The middle of the morning of the next day, two policemen arrived at Rajnath’s home.

  ‘He is not here,’ Parbatee told them. ‘He is in prison, my poor son.’

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘Nobody is here but me. What do you want with my son and husband, officer?’

  ‘Somebody went to a property in San Fernando and burnt it to the ground. The property of a Mr Amrit Dass.’

  ‘That is my brother!’ Parbatee cried. ‘That can’t be true. Why would my son do that to his own uncle? You are making no sense. Is my brother safe?’

  ‘Mr Dass and his son are both safe. All the girls are safe too. But their hotel business is burnt down.’

  ‘Hotel business?’ she echoed. ‘Girls? What is that about? No, no. My brother has a shop. Selling rice, dhal, pots and cooking spoons and such. He knows nothing about any hotel business. My father was a shopkeeper in India. Jaipur. That is where he learnt to run a shop. Not a hotel.’ She shook her head hard.

  ‘We were told your son was there – that he got away with one of their girls. A young girl from this village.’

  ‘Young girl?’ Parbatee�
��s eyes jumped out from their sockets. Annan had never shown any interest in girls except to tease his brother. ‘This cannot be true, officer? You cannot be talking about my son at all. You have got wrong information. I have a lot of work to do, and now you give me worries about my brother?’ Parbatee began to cry loudly. ‘I must go and see him. Where will he live, if his house is burnt down? My husband will not have him here. I cannot bear it. Please – leave me.’

  ‘All right, we are going. But the place is not completely ruined. The old part is still there.’ With that, the policemen left Parbatee sobbing into the tea towel she had on her shoulder.

  FIFTY-THREE

  It was around midday when the same two policemen arrived at Devinia’s home asking for a young woman called Amina. She and Etwar were outside, and came to see what the men wanted. When Amina heard, she was furious.

  ‘Mr Dass tricked my mother into sending me there. He runs a prostitute house. I’m not afraid to say it – I saw it, I was there. He uses poor young girls promising them good money and an education. That is no hotel. He is a bad man and his son is worse. Do you want to see my friend living down the road? See what they did to her? They used her to make money. Now she has two white babies.’

  ‘Miss, is that why you burnt down their property?’ one policeman asked.

  ‘I have never touched a match in my life. It was an accident.’

  ‘So you were involved. You will have to come with us to the police station.’

  Devinia began to shout like never before. ‘No! You are not taking my daughter to jail. She has done nothing. I will go instead.’

  ‘That is not how it works, madam,’ one said. ‘We are not taking her to jail, although she might stay in a cell if we find her a danger to the public.’

  ‘No! No jail. Kill me first. Take me down in the cell.’ Devinia’s voice could be heard from the road.

  Just then, they spotted a man walking down the path. A stranger. An Indian, wearing a three-piece suit and dressed like an Englishman. Devinia stared at him in horror.

  ‘Have you come with them, to carry my daughter to jail?’ she challenged. ‘Somebody murdered my husband, and now you are taking my daughter? This land has no justice. My poor husband was right. But they killed him. Who killed him?’

  ‘That’s a very good question you ask,’ the stranger said. ‘Maybe these kind gentlemen can answer it. They are the police. They must be investigating it.’ He turned to them. ‘How far have you got with the investigation into the murder of this woman’s husband? Are you with the Point Fortin police force?’

  Devinia, Amina and Etwar stared at the Indian man standing in his brown suit, brown leather shoes, and brown leather briefcase, and by his voice, clearly well educated.

  ‘Do you know this man?’ the policeman asked Devinia. Before she could say no, she had no idea, the man introduced himself.

  ‘My name is Narine Banderjee,’ he said. And all three of them jumped visibly from the spot they were rooted to. ‘I am the lawyer acting for this family.’ He stuck out his hand to the police, shook their hands and nodded at Devinia.

  ‘Unless you are going to arrest anyone here, I suggest you leave these people alone. I am suspecting you have no evidence but hearsay from the desperate man who lost his property to fire, which more than likely happened as an accident, as the girl says.’

  ‘Don’t believe this is the last of it,’ one policeman said. ‘There’s bound to be evidence.’

  ‘Then I suggest you have it if you are planning to return here.’

  When the police left, Devinia, Amina and Etwar stared at the lawyer.

  ‘Who did you say you were?’ Devinia asked.

  ‘I am family,’ he said. ‘Don’t look so alarmed. I should have tried to find you long ago, but I was worried how my brother would take it. Yes, he, your husband, was my brother. I’m so sorry he died.’ Tears filled his eyes. ‘I never thought . . . I kept putting it off.’

  ‘What happened to your wife you ran away with?’ Etwar said. ‘Pa told us about you. How you ran away on the ship.’

  ‘With a Brahmin’s daughter? He told you?’ There was a faraway look in Narine Banderjee’s eyes. ‘She got bitten by a snake. She withstood the four terrible months on the ship, and then a snakebite and fever killed her. It took me a long time to get over her.’

  Narine dried his eyes and sipped the water Amina brought him. ‘Anyhow,’ he said, ‘I went to England, and I studied law. I was so angry at the life we lived. But England is a strange place. Full of smog. Cold and wet. The people are like that too.’

  ‘The people are wet and full of smog?’ Etwar asked, bemused.

  ‘I see you are a bit of a joker, boy. You remind me of your father. I have done some research into his case, and I want to try to help you.’

  Etwar was wide-eyed, still looking for an answer. ‘No, uncle, I was serious.’

  ‘How do you know about my father’s case?’ Amina asked.

  ‘I heard his name called when I was in San Fernando police station. Of course immediately the name meant something to me.’

  ‘Do you know who did it?’ Etwar asked. ‘Who killed our father?’

  ‘I can’t be altogether sure, but I have a suspicion. Forgive me, but I am not at liberty to say anything yet. Besides, I want to ensure it goes to trial.’

  Devinia’s hands began to shake. ‘People in Point Fortin were jealous of my husband.’

  ‘People here too,’ Amina said.

  ‘You must tell me anything you know,’ Narine said. ‘What about the people he worked with? Everyone is a suspect – anyone who could have been there, that is. Think.’

  ‘We wouldn’t tell anybody,’ Devinia insisted. ‘I have to know who killed him. They could be living right here.’

  ‘My dear sister, it isn’t in anyone’s best interests for me to give you false hope. Let me see if I can get somewhere first. The police should be investigating this, but I’m not sure how far they’ve got. You will be the first to know if I find anything out. I want justice for my brother, just like you do.’

  ‘Yes, Ma,’ Amina said kindly. ‘Just let Uncle do his job. He is a professional lawyer. We’re lucky to have him on our side.’

  ‘Yes, here is my identification, so you’re sure I am who I say I am.’ Narine opened his briefcase and showed them his travel papers from India, and other papers with his name. And a photograph.

  ‘This is my wife, Myrtle. She is from a town in Berkshire, England. And these are my children, Edward and Elizabeth. But we live in Port of Spain now.’

  ‘Your wife is a pretty woman,’ Devinia said. ‘How old are the children?’

  ‘Edward is eleven, and Elizabeth is seven. We call her Betts. Mischievous little thing.’

  ‘I’m glad you came when you did today,’ Devinia said.

  ‘That was a stroke of luck. I overheard them, talking about paying a visit to Granville, yesterday, and that is what forced my hand to get down here right away. I was hoping to be here before them, but I got lost. Do you know where I can get lodgings around here? Is there a hotel?’

  They all laughed. ‘There’s nothing like that here,’ Devinia said. ‘You will stay here with us. Your family.’

  Mr Clifford encouraged Amina to concentrate on her goal, and she tried. But at evening class she became argumentative, questioning everything. She queried the weakness of Mr Bennet in Pride and Prejudice obeying his wife, whose motivation was solely to marry off her daughters to wealthy men. And didn’t the English people send their daughters to be educated? So why marry them when they were not employed and not earning? Her father had promised to send her to England to be educated and she intended to use it every day at work, not become anybody’s wife.

  ‘Studying for a profession costs money,’ Mr Clifford said. ‘Only the rich can afford it. And for most, it isn’t worth spending that money on a daughter, who will end up married and at home minding children anyway. The education is wasted. The money is wasted.’

  �
�I thought you said that education is never wasted, sir?’ Amina contradicted.

  ‘That is my personal opinion. But it is wasted in practice.’

  ‘It’s not fair on girls!’ she burst out. ‘That’s why I’m not getting married. But what’s the point? I can’t go to England to study anymore.’

  ‘My dear girl, you must take opportunity as it presents itself. What is available to you. You can still become a teacher right here in Trinidad, like I did. Port of Spain is the place. England is cold and unwelcoming. They don’t take well to black people either. Indians too.’

  ‘My Uncle Narine studied to be a lawyer in England. I’ll ask him.’

  ‘Believe me, the white rich in England don’t even like their own white poor.’

  Narine spent a few days in Granville, mixing with the villagers, talking to people to get a sense about how they felt about Sankar. Because he omitted to mention Sankar was his brother, people weren’t afraid to say what they thought. It turned out that some were jealous, and that not everyone knew him that well, presumably because, unlike Devinia, Sankar didn’t mix much with the locals. They knew him as the businessman who owned the big house in the middle of the village, who was considerably richer than they were. This gave cause for concern to Narine, who felt that it would be easier to harm someone you didn’t know personally or identify with – which placed many villagers as suspects. Trying to find out where people were on the evening Sankar was killed was more difficult, and he particularly noted the few who had no alibis or seemed edgy, whilst he was chatting in a friendly way as a new neighbour would.

  ‘The man still warm in his grave,’ Roopchand said nastily to Narine, ‘and you move into his bed?’ He addressed his daughter, scowling. ‘Sumati, did you know about this? If Devinia wanted anything, she could have come to me.’

  Narine smiled. ‘You like her – Devinia.’

  ‘She’s a pretty woman,’ Roopchand said. ‘My wife has gone, and I know Devinia. We are both alone now. It makes sense.’

  ‘What happened to your wife? Did she leave you? If so, mightn’t she come back?’