This is actually happening, I can’t believe it, you’re in my backseat and I’m driving you, I can’t believe it. He shook his head, but not enough for her to see his face.
Shall we go to the theater, Shakuntala? He swerved left sharply. Santee hadn’t recognized the Rose-Hill town center, where she’d been several times with Ma, she hadn’t seen the dark mass of Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes or Montmartre’s spire sliding past, and now the cab was turning off toward the Plaza. The huge, drab wooden building was all lit up, with its rows of palm trees. A group of people sat on the steps, chatting. The cab slowed, slyly pulled up to the front steps. See, they’re out, too, I told you we’ll never see another night like this one. People are just like big game… have you ever gone deer hunting, Shakuntala? If there’s time I’ll take you to Rivière-Noire, there’s a place to hunt there, it’s off limits at night but I know somebody, I can get you in. You’ll see the eyes, so many eyes, eyes always there, none of them ever move when the headlights are shining in their faces, but then they dash off and jump over obstacles in the dark—all you see are small eyes that leap and then disappear into the woods. Characters in a play are no different. See, there isn’t much of an audience tonight, so for once they’re venturing out.
The onlookers seemed wary. Every now and then, one of the characters would stand up and intone a few lines, half song and half speech, while the others barely reacted. The cab didn’t make much noise—it was an old ’50s model, as bulky yet quiet as an idling speedboat. When the wind carried the motor’s rumble their way, they all looked worriedly at them. Santee didn’t know what play they were performing, couldn’t read the title on the massive marquee. The actors, some in uniforms, others in long gowns or rags, rushed to the cab. They showed no fear, so Santee figured they must know the driver. A woman and a little girl in tatters piped up: Robert de Noir! But what are you doing out and about? You ought to be home. I could ask you the same, Cosette. And the woman retorted, the little girl echoing her: I’m just waiting for the audience. The reply came with a chuckle: Well, I’m off to find it. You coming with us, Cosette? No, I can’t, he told me I didn’t belong up on the barricades, they both said, turning to a heavyset old man in a frock coat. Well, keep him company then, Robert de Noir said. He gestured toward the backseat and added, I’m not free tonight. Santee peered at the man with the frock coat; he hadn’t come over and instead was eating popcorn on the steps. The actors surrounding the car blocked her view. They peered at her, sitting in the back of Robert de Noir’s cab, trying to look prim in her torn dress. This is no night for theater, Robert de Noir declared as he rolled up the window, all the drama’s outside. He revved the car and tapped his foot gently on the gas to make his way through the group. The cab was now moving past the Plaza and the Coignet’s looming Chinese banyans. Ahead of them were police sirens and a traffic jam. Piles of tires were burning along the roadside but nobody seemed to care. And farther up, a three-story house was on fire. Robert de Noir parked the car and turned up the radio as he asked, without looking at her: You weren’t planning on missing this sight, were you?
The fire had almost completely wiped out the top floor, and only the bare window frames remained. Firemen in yellow uniforms were aiming jets of water at the lower floors, but the blaze was so ferocious that to Santee it looked like they were actually spraying fuel on the flames.
They had a front-row spot for the spectacle. Robert de Noir reclined his seat and reached over his shoulder to hand her a packet of peanuts. Enjoy, Shakuntala, even in your Bollywood films there’s no way they’d be able to pull off something like that—they’d burn a cardboard cutout or light some fireworks, sure, but that… The windows shattered in the heat and shards sprinkled the firefighters’ helmets like confetti. In Robert de Noir’s cab, parked on the sidewalk, Santee savored the salt of the peanuts on her lips. She took in the crowd, just inches away, eager to see Kent’s on fire. The car’s glass insulated her from the men—their heat, their touch, but not their gaze. Robert seemed oblivious to them; he had kicked back in his seat, his feet up on the dashboard: bare feet with long, pale toes. She heard him chewing and watched his jaw moving calmly. He was proud of her, proud to have her in the backseat, eating peanuts with him. She started cracking the shells and crunching them loudly so he would know she appreciated the peanuts at least, adding to the pile of empty hulls on the seat. Are you thirsty? I’d have taken you to Kent’s, but… He let out a hearty guffaw and had to catch his breath before saying: But it’s on fire! That’s Kent’s. You didn’t even recognize it, dear Shakuntala, that used to be Kent’s… And then she noticed the ruined Coke bottle sign on the side of the building. The flames had already started on its neck and the water the firefighters were spraying filled what remained of the bottle’s body. Her thirst made the decision for Robert de Noir. He yanked the back of his seat up hastily and started the engine. The cab jolted forward, narrowly missing a conflagration on the street, and then did a U-turn as other cars honked. Were they really objecting? There was no stopping a cab in Rose-Hill. Maybe the honking was to make the taxi bounce on its thickly padded suspension. She wanted to tell him it would be nice to stay a bit longer, tucked in the backseat as the folks gawked at the blaze. And surely Ram had to be here, this was the sort of scene he loved; when they set the sugar fields on fire he had been so excited and had run from the house to see. Ma had gone over too, but to shout at the Bienvenue workers to start the backfire fast. Santee could convince Ram to get in the cab, could ask Robert to drop them off in Bienvenue. It would upset Robert, she knew, but her job was to find her little brother and tell Ma…tell her what? She wasn’t sure. It was too late, there was no point in fantasizing, Robert de Noir had already turned onto the street past the shoe repair shop, urged onward by a need to quench her thirst. There won’t be anything left in town for us to drink if we don’t go now, I’m not driving my beautiful Shakuntala to any old joint. Robert ran the red lights as if every second counted, as if he were driving someone badly injured. He sped down Vandermeersch Street, the speakers blaring at each corner, got to have kaya now, he yelled at anyone standing in the way of his mission to slake his passenger’s thirst. In the Beau-Bassin town center all they found was a restaurant being looted, people climbing out with armfuls of bottles and leaving nothing behind. Robert de Noir’s irritation only grew and he kept on swearing. He dismissed Gool’s tea room. Why didn’t he ask her? Why? She’d have been perfectly happy with a warm-white vanilla tea with lots of sugar. Robert went the wrong way around the roundabout in front of the church toward the part of town with all the nice houses, but they wouldn’t find Ram there. She didn’t mention this to him, but yawned instead, and this was such an affront that he couldn’t bring himself to point out his family home, with its glassed-in verandah and flowerbeds full of petunias. He wondered how he could even have shown her without her making fun of him, of that bourgeois cottage, but he didn’t linger on the thought. He drove past the new, white mosque, holding his tongue rather than voicing the fury that the riotous, incessant calls to prayer stirred up in him. Better for Robert de Noir to keep silent. He had realized that showing a starlet around was a difficult job and life was unfair. Next to the metal railing in front of the monastery, by the sign indicating private property, he slowed for a second, just one second, which was the evening’s undoing—showing a Shakuntala around meant never pausing, meant all doors were open for you. The drive snaked between flowerbeds of bamboo orchids and when they reached the wooden bridge he stopped. The headlights shone on the Tour Blanche, which had been inhabited by the monks of the order of Saint Expédit ever since the death of the lady of the castle. Robert’s concern was evident as he stepped out, leaving the engine running. Huge trunks Santee had taken for palm trees slowly started moving in the darkness, and a large animal disappeared behind the outbuildings. She looked at Robert for an explanation. He was crouching by the stream’s bank. It was the same posture as that of the washerwomen in Bienvenue: legs spread apart, skirts gather
ed between. His bald scalp gleamed in the moonlight, but she couldn’t see what he was doing, he had his back to her. There was a deer’s head embroidered on his gray suede shirt, and he was wearing velvet pants of the same color. She had never seen anyone dressed like that. On the sugar estate near Bienvenue the whites wore khakis when they weren’t in the fields, though they weren’t taxi drivers. His name was engraved on a small bronze plaque affixed to the dashboard’s varnished walnut: Robert de Noir, vicomte de Beau-Bassin. A coat of arms with the same design as on his shirt, and a medallion of Saint Christopher carrying the baby Jesus on his shoulder caught Santee’s attention as she clambered over the seat to sit up front. She slipped into the too-deep driver’s seat and tried to touch the pedals with her toes, but to no avail. Then she squatted down and pressed the accelerator with her hand. The engine roared with pleasure.
Robert de Noir jumped as he heard his car revving. He ran over with water held in his joined palms and found the small dark red heap in the driver’s seat. He felt relief at the fact that she was still there. Waited. As she raised her head, all she saw were his two hands cupped together, the torso disappearing above the roof of the car. She rolled down the window and he brought his hands toward her. She held his fingers and drank the water. It wasn’t fresh, the water had a faint taste of treacle, just like the stream behind her house did when they were cleaning the machinery in the sugar factory. He let her take all the time she wanted and, once the water had been drunk, she wiped her face by pressing it into his damp hands. She felt the roughness of his joints as if it were her face covering his hands and not the other way around. His fingers trembled against her eyelids. Then she leaned back onto the passenger seat and shut her eyes. Lights were coming on in the Gothic windows of the monastery. Robert slipped nimbly into the car. I have to find my brother. The shrillness of her voice struck him; she kept her eyes shut with a determination that said, matter-of-factly, what he had always suspected: you’ll drop me off wherever we find him. He was disappointed; he had been hoping for such a long time for a night free of orders.
He would have liked to keep watching her with her head slumped toward the door as she slept more deeply. The car dodged a monk-mahout brandishing a lantern—Stop! Stop!—and headed out. Why couldn’t he offer her a show of sounds and lights, sweep the headlights across the small pond, feed the eels, whisper that when his mother was little she had played badminton on a mown portion of this vast estate? Why? Because Shakuntala didn’t care about mothers, and she only pretended to be worried about her brother, but he wasn’t fooled, he’d seen others like her. Her brother! She could have come up with something better, told him there was someone else in her life, someone waiting for her. She could have confessed while he’d had his back to her, she could have told him what she really wanted: the fire. He’d been driving her around in his own cab unthinkingly. Her brother… If she had told him the truth, she could have gotten out of the cab, looked him in the eye, and given him the order, even though only people who are weak give orders as they look up for inspiration. Shakuntala ought to have confided something, anything, to him; he, Robert de Noir, hadn’t held anything back.
The wind blowing through the wide-open driver’s door was no match for the harsh sun. Dark blotches of sweat discolored the garnet velvet dress. The Cresta was all alone at the end of the Place de la Gare, parked in the bus lane. No more music flowed from the radio; it was now repeating the latest about the high-pressure weather system. Inside the car it was stifling, but Santee didn’t dare get out and make her way across the square. In the distance, past the asphalt and concrete, a man who wasn’t Robert de Noir was strutting from building to building.
She knew the square from having been there many times with Ma, shopping before the holidays, but today all the metal grates were lowered. Ma always headed straight to the shops, while Santee wanted to take her time, pick out all the sounds, get a sense of the place, but that was how things were with Ma, the older you get the less time there is to waste, and the sounds aren’t going anywhere after all. Santee didn’t remember a thing about getting off the bus to pick up Ram. She didn’t even know whether that had been just yesterday, if she’d taken the time then, alone at last, to absorb the sounds of the Place de la Gare. She must have, that would be why she’d missed her little brother. What she did remember was the young conductor warning her, it had stuck in her head as she’d gotten off the bus. And also a weird rumor that the last buses headed east had been leaving the station, that there already weren’t any more headed north, the roads that way had already been blockaded. People had been talking about strangers and lootings, you needed to be careful going in that direction, assuming you’d even want to. Santee knew that she was now in Ram’s world, and that finding him here would be no easy feat. In the overheated cab, she tried to recall when she had seen her brother last.
The young man at the other end of the square was sitting on the sidewalk. He was looking at the cab with all its chrome gleaming in the sun; he had to have seen her moving. Sleeping. Maybe even heard her breathing. Because nothing else in the square was moving. All she could make out was his hunched-over, wary profile, as if he were actually scared of being noticed by the car’s occupant. Or by someone else. The rising hum of traffic brought some semblance of normalcy, although it was late in the morning for people to be heading out. So many things seemed to be out of sorts, like sugarcane stunted by a too-dry summer, or little brothers gone astray. The sun might have risen, but day hadn’t really broken. A metallic scraping echoed amid the empty storefronts. The teenager started. Behind him, a few men were working at the steel grate of a clothing store. He got up, looking torn. Scratched his head, took a few steps toward the group, which gave him a hearty hello. Then, changing his mind, he headed for the car with his hands in the pockets of his shorts, moving at an exaggeratedly calm pace. He turned around every so often to see where the others were. They shouted at him. The metal slats had slipped from their tracks. Santee realized she didn’t have much time and got out of the car. The guy was now running. His calves bulged; she could see his grimace in the shadow cast by his hat’s brim. He didn’t stop when he reached her, he grabbed her by the arm and began dragging her. The group had come back out onto the square and noticed the car. They were all about the same age as the guy in shorts, nineteen or twenty, and they ambled along unhurriedly. The man pulled Santee across the green along Vandermeersch Street and then slipped into the passageway under the old railroad tracks. The others had their sights on the abandoned car. They’d popped open all the doors and were making it bounce on its suspension. Once they lost interest, they flipped it over, opened the gas tank, and set it on fire. Santee could hear them shouting, laughing, and chanting long before the flames rose above the sheet-metal roofs. The two made their way down to the road leading past the monastery. He let go of her arm; his fingers had left red marks. Gasping for breath, he asked her where she had been heading, before realizing how ridiculous the question was—where can anyone go in a cab without a driver, where can anyone go when it’s been set on fire, where can anyone go when they’ve been kidnapped? Do you know Ram? was the only response he got. He shrugged. There’s dozens of Rams. Let me think, there’s Ramon the sheet-metal guy on Hugnin Road, there’s Rambo, but nobody’s seen him since all the fighting last night, and there’s Ramses… She wasn’t listening. She’d stopped to pull off her shoes, which were starting to hurt. She sat on a milestone and examined the purplish blister she’d developed from running. I was saying the third one is Ramses, some people call him Ram but some others call him Ses, I only met him once, at a party where we were all drunk, he deejays at the Sphinx. He stopped talking to take a look at the girl. As he stood over her, what he saw was the too-short garnet dress torn along the sides and the thick dark hair spilling over her face as she focused on her blister. Her shoe had fallen into the gutter. He saw girls like this every so often—they’d come from the villages to find work, but at night. Pimps were always busy driving Creo
le girls back to the countryside in the wee hours. But this girl was Indian; she’d been left behind in the night. He’d never been with an Indian girl; he didn’t go looking for them like some of the guys from Trèfles who fantasized about unwrapping their saris. He thought of Indian girls as timid, awkward, unsophisticated. He wouldn’t want his friends to see him with this girl who had purple blisters, limping in what was left of her dress. The women in his part of town hadn’t gone outside in two days; their mothers had kept them at home. They were listening to CDs of Kaya, the singer who’d been found dead in his jail cell. They kept repeating his lines that called for more justice, for sime la limiere, while the guys went out and protested his death by throwing rocks at the police stations and setting grocery stores on fire. It was a blister on the side of her little toe that she was trying to rub away. He wondered if she would be able to walk around Rose-Hill with that—nobody just walked around Rose-Hill any old way, everyone here knew that, and those who came from the villages learned it fast. Everyone wore the right shoes, the right clothes, they got it all at the Galerie or at the Arcades, or in a pinch, from one of the stalls in Arab Town. The idea to get her all that came out of nowhere, he’d never asked a girl if he could buy her clothes before. He didn’t know anything about women’s clothes, and he’d never have dared to suggest she change her dress. He had no idea how a woman would take such an offer. One time he’d said something to a girl about her nail polish, just a passing comment for no real reason, and she’d ended up sobbing. In the middle of the street in Rose-Hill. And everybody had stared at him, and the girl had just kept crying for effect. The memory was painful enough that the only thing he felt comfortable doing was sitting next to her, right in the gutter, next to her long, bare legs, and waiting patiently until she finished with her blister. She crinkled her forehead and every so often, when she wanted to rest her eyes, she batted her long lashes while her mascara ran in streaks down her cheeks. He couldn’t tell if the worst of the pain was gone now. She finally noticed his presence and looked at him. He let her, allowed her to take in his small cross earring, the stubble of a two-day beard barely thicker than his buzzed hair. As her gaze reached his face, his eyes, he looked away. On his forearm was a tattoo that read RONALDO MILAN AC. She suddenly felt embarrassed for stopping to deal with her pain and making him wait. But the guy didn’t seem terribly upset at her, they were comfortable in the shadow of some bamboo, their feet in the gutter. The house visible through the tall stalks was quiet, those within it hadn’t bothered to wake up yet, maybe they would wake early tomorrow, or maybe they wouldn’t ever again—even though this was a morning not to be missed. Santee felt like she should have a tattoo with her name, too, it would save her all those introductions she could never stand. She’d go quiet while Ma introduced her as mo tifi, never Santee, and afterward, nobody ever said her name, she was just Ma’s daughter. It surely wouldn’t be long now before Ram insisted on getting a tattoo of his name on his forearm just like this Ronaldo Milanac.
Kaya Days Page 3