Kaya Days

by Carl de Souza

  She found him asleep in a despair of sorts among the tree’s sheltering roots. The bottle of beer had rolled out of his open hand, emptying in a foam on the grass. She stayed there, standing and watching him at rest, in contrast to the morning’s feverishness—approachable and vulnerable. His mouth was half open, revealing his teeth, and a smirk she had originally taken for a smile stretched his face. It reminded her of Ram’s slight grimace of pain or surprise when she extracted splinters from his finger with a needle. Ram never voiced his discomfort, she wondered how he did that, she always let out a scream at the least pain. She wondered what hurt for boys, what made them squeeze their eyes shut. She could make out the sturdy torso in the vee of his undershirt, just enough to see one nipple and his ribs exhaling peacefully. She watched this steady breathing a while longer, then went to see what the cart held. She didn’t dare to pull it closer and make it jangle.

  He woke up to a spread of cookies, apple juice boxes, beer bottles, and smoked sausage. For lack of a picnic blanket, she had laid out several T-shirts. The girl was nowhere to be seen. The impractical shoes with straps had been cast aside. He was so shocked he didn’t think to get up, and his eyes went from the empty cart that gleamed in the sun to the food surrounding him. His surprise gave way to anger once he realized that the beer bottles were getting hot. He leaped up to go to the river and stick them in the water. She was definitely gone, and had left him there in the middle of a picnic he hadn’t asked for. This wasn’t even the first time—once a girl named Caroline had abandoned him here, almost naked, hurling insults at him after having led him on all morning. This time, he’d run and catch her and tell her what he really thought, about women, what he had to say about all the time he wasted on them, what did it matter if grocery stores were being set on fire in town right then? He was furious at himself for having fallen asleep in front of her.

  Another woman appeared, clearly to protect the first one or to finish off her job, pushing apart the branches of a eucalyptus like a timid doe. But he was the one who felt unsafe in this garden. She wore a long linen dress and had flowers in her hair. She was cautious as she walked barefoot, looking for the surest spots. She examined the items under the flame tree, looked around, then, finally seeing him at the stream’s edge, seemed to be relieved. She went to sit by the tree and wait for him. He started laughing—a vulgar, astonished laugh. A defeated laugh that touched her. Not having any better option, he went and joined her where the food had been laid out for this meal, under this tree, in this place. She opened a bag of potato chips, licking the salt off her fingers. He had never eaten ham with dried fruit, never drunk whiskey from the bottle. Nor had she. They didn’t wait until they’d had their fill to get up. She pulled him down the path and he followed, laughing. Sometimes she would disappear behind the palm-tree trunks, then her sweet face would peek out, Shakuntala, Shakuntala, what do you want? Deep down, it was as if the sitar were emitting its first quavering notes. The only shows he’d ever bothered to watch on TV had been American, and so he had no idea how to follow her among the lotus ponds like those Bombay actors—he’d have caught her too quickly, ruined the whole thing. With the bottle of scotch in his hand, he shuffled awkwardly down the path, not yet convinced that he should just follow. But she never lost hope, her acrobatic twirls grew more and more lascivious, her eyes quivered to suggest that she’d soon need a strong hand to keep her from falling, and the circles she traced around him tightened. Her interlocked fingers and the rhythm of her pace belied so many emotions that were just as new for her. They slipped unknowingly into figures of Bollywood choreography, he felt at ease in the snare of her hair, and fell with her into the garden’s green grass. They stayed there a moment, unmoving, then rolled down the lawn to the cliff’s edge; she whispered words he’d never heard before, explained with a bat of her eyelashes, a crook of her neck. He told her the story of the Tour Blanche, haunted by the soul of some old scholar, a British one and a mad one too. She interrupted him—of course Shakuntala knew about the Tour Blanche. He wanted to let her keep going, to hear her chatter the way Bengalis did, but all that remained of the Tour Blanche was the funny taste on her tongue of the stream water that she shared with him. Along with the name she had revealed: Shakuntala. He didn’t let himself get swept up, telling her how the scholar had claimed that humans had descended from monkeys and had ended up trying to talk to macaques in the ravine. They both laughed, alone in the garden, lying on the grass beneath the bottle palms. It was a garden for laughter just outside the town on fire, each one’s hand was gentle on the other’s skin, their breaths mingled, those were days with no yesterday, days with no tomorrow, and there was no telling who took the other.

  The British scholar’s notes mentioned an elephant on the grounds of the Tour Blanche. Why not lions, gazelles, a snake? Serpents were a familiar presence in gardens, a reminder that everything was fleeting. Elephants, on the contrary, were meant to last, they were imported from India to the colonies to pull heavy loads. Ronaldo Milanac was convinced that the Tour Blanche one was still alive and the monks were hiding it from the locals so as not to scare them, but there were nights when the gardens echoed with dreadful trumpeting. It was possible, elephants did have long lives, longer even than turtles, Ram had insisted—he never stopped asking her tricky questions taken out of an old encyclopedia. Why was it that the old scholar had only stayed a short while at the Tour Blanche? Because he was driven by his madness to talk to other monkeys or simply because he was exiled from paradise for his heresy? It had to be both—reason has no place in gardens. The tame monkeys had come back, curious, to huddle on the fence and behold the now-sleeping couple. The monkeys watched them, whispering mischievously to each other. They were no longer living their macaque lives in the ravine, jumping from branch to branch for thim-bleberries, but had come and invaded this garden where Shakuntala and Ronaldo Milanac had fallen in love with each other, and the creatures let out small sharp cries like badly behaved children. She let go, opened her eyes, and got up, pushing Ronaldo aside. As she stood, furious in her long, rumpled linen dress, she saw Ram among them. They faced off: her with her lover at her feet in the garden grass, him astride the fence. The Tour Blanche presided over their evenly matched duel, and once again the tropicbirds froze in the sky. But the other monkeys dragged Ram away, the power that Princess Shakuntala wielded here among the lotus ponds in the feasting garden was too great. A footpath led away along the other side of the fence, plunged from the garden down to the cliffside aloes. Ronaldo Milanac, lying dazedly on the lawn strewn with bottles, paper bags, spread-out T-shirts, saw the linen dress disappear over the fence. He ran his hand over the flattened grass beside him. The monkey-children’s invasion had cut their Bollywood film short. Maybe, if he’d been more willing to believe in the old scholar’s story, he might have realized that she was hurtling down the path to try—as the scholar had—to talk to the monkeys; as he didn’t understand the monkeys’ language, the path beyond the fence was unknown to him. His eyes took in the rubble of the picnic once more and then he headed for the gate.

  Swallowed by a tunnel in which branches snapping, screams in the distance, and thorns sliding against one another became whispers meant for her, she barely felt the acacia bush pricking her, didn’t see the ravine’s bottom. Had that really been Ram on the fence? Each step toward her brother was a step away from Ronaldo Milanac, from herself, and from returning to Ma’s house in Bienvenue; she was now nothing but one unexplained disappearance following another. In the tunnel of thorns and doubts, she suddenly had a clear picture of the path Ram had been clearing from the start, taking devilish pleasure in keeping her at a distance, just like he did in Bienvenue, in the little garden adjoining the sugarcane fields behind Ma’s house. It always ended badly, Ma would find her crying in her room; all Ma had to do was call for him to come out of whatever nook he’d hidden in, but instead Ma would stare her down as if she’d lost track of him on purpose, as if she were sowing panic throughout the house
for no reason. Fury seized her and she rushed onward. The sounds of something trying to get away grew more distinct, she could make out a white shirt amid the fur and a lanky form that had already surrendered. She became aware of her strength in the last few steps that separated the two of them—in the tussle the boy let out a yip, his bare face rent by terror. He was far younger than Ram, but just as delicate. He was sobbing and she felt bad the way she might when catching, nearly hurting a bird or other woodland animal that shouldn’t be touched because it would die then and there. She let him go, but it was already too late. The little monkey was dead and it was just some boy’s thin legs that flailed as he scrambled up the path to civilization, back to his parents’ house, abandoning this wild life because he was just a boy-child in the woods. At a loss for words, she listened to his whimpers receding in the distance. The other noises waned as if the gang had paused to wait for what was next, for the missing monkey to return or for all of them to get caught. But maybe they were gone for good, maybe they’d made their way down the side of the ravine… She got her answer when she started walking, the rustling further down began again, staying well ahead of her. She took care to keep her distance this time; in any case, her descent was slower because all her fury had been replaced by fear. Fear of slipping, as she could feel the path’s soft, thick mud between her toes, and fear of scraping her feet on stumps. The sun was past its peak. It could have been early or late, but the darkness was no surprise here at the bottom of the Grande Rivière ravine into which she had followed a gang of child-monkeys. There was no question of going back up, nobody clambered up the cliffs of the Grande Rivière at this late hour, nobody even walked there, and then she fell into the basaltic riverbed with a thud, welcoming the unyielding harshness with relief. Waist-high masses of lava—the only things that broke the surface during floods—rose up here and there on the carpet of pebbles and small, murky puddles. All that remained of the river and its waterfall was a weak whistling amid the clumps of ferns and taro leaves. She scanned the horizon above for the garden fence, but without any luck. The Tour Blanche, too, was hidden behind the cliff’s edge. But, down at her level, the child-monkeys were leaping from rock to rock along the river’s curve. She didn’t dare to do the same, and made her way around the puddles in the pebble bed. Their sharp cries picked up now and then, as if to catch each other’s attention and goad each other on. They were unconcerned by her presence, dawdling in their search for some berries or critters like timillions or dark tadpoles that had survived the drought. They weren’t scared of her anymore; she had been brought down to their level; they were all at the mercy of Grande Rivière Nord-Ouest, with its massive banks and seasonal surges. She wasn’t trying to find Ram anymore, she headed upriver with her mind elsewhere, at Ma’s where the tides didn’t matter, Ma who never lost track of the days, ritualistically cleaning the house in the morning, meeting the other women at the river after that, feeding the animals at night. Ma was oblivious to low tides, the river’s level might fall slightly but it would have no effect on her life. Ma didn’t listen to the radio and didn’t save water as citizens were asked to. But Santee wasn’t only thinking about Ma, she was also thinking about that garden at the top of the cliff with a name she no longer remembered. The song came back to her, stopping her in her tracks:

  Shakuntala, Shakuntala,

  I know nothing but her name,

  Shakuntala, Shakuntala,

  Not her caste, nor whence she came—

  He had sung it awkwardly in Hindi, unable to recreate its vibratos, just mindlessly repeating the words that everyone—even the Christians—knew from the film. Past the bend, the gorge ended in a rocky outcrop. The Indian song had, unbeknownst to her, brought her closer to the gang of children. They had stopped, assuaged, and looked back. As if home again, they had dispersed among the rocks, checking the nooks for reassurance that the place hadn’t changed, that nobody had intruded while they were away. She heard the splashes of diving, laughter and shrieking, splattering and snorting. She hid behind some lava for a while, listening to them. Ram sat alone on a rocky platform, nude, as water from his swim trickled down and pooled around his brown body. Others were playing in the one remaining pool of the Grande Rivière, sprays of foam sputtering every so often onto the outcrop. His legs were pressed to his chest, locked together by his hands. As he rested his chin on his knees, his eyes contemplated the gorges’ outlet downstream. He was waiting for something that beckoned from beyond the river’s bend. Down that way, she realized, was someplace he’d never been, and the river, or what remained of it, was flowing there, drawn toward some strange fate. Had those muted explosions been meant to herald the river, the way fireworks burst in the sky for newlyweds? It was unlikely they were for this ghost of a stream that last summer’s heavy rains had forgotten. The other boys were spread out, some throwing stones to flush something out of a thicket, four others sitting around a flat stone playing dominoes. She heard coins clinking against the stone. She and Ram sometimes played dominoes, but after a few minutes he’d always start yawning. Maybe if there had been money on the line he wouldn’t have gotten so bored… she’d never thought about that before—but she’d have to ask someone for the money. Would Ma give them some if he was the one to ask? Every so often, the boys called out to Ram, whose response was curt, weary. Santee might have told them to let him sit with his thoughts, as she and Ma always had in Bienvenue. She suddenly felt embarrassed for having followed him. Having gone looking for him among the town’s embers. Finding herself here, spying on him with his eyes lost in the gorges’ outlet, both within reach and inaccessible. He had always refused to be hugged when he was little; he’d fought, slipped under the table, but she’d wanted to hold him. His hair smelled so good and she needed to feel it against her cheeks every so often, she wanted his warmth in the crook of her body, but he could hurt her with a single elbow thrust. He’d bitten her once, then had just gone back to playing, perfectly aware of what he’d done. That’s just how he is, Ma said. He’s a bit wild. Sometimes she’d lashed out at Ma in exasperation, telling her that Ram was spoiled, that it wouldn’t turn out well. Ma always shot back that if she couldn’t spoil her only son then who could? And then Santee would flee to her room and cry as Ma yelled from the kitchen that she was the one in trouble. She caught herself crying again here, behind her rock, sobbing so loudly that any of the boys could have heard her. She didn’t know where they were, she heard their voices echoing from the ravine’s banks: Double-fives, Pass, You’re cheating, Wait, who’s that over there? One of them whispered, It’s Bissoonlall’s sister, but quietly so Ram wouldn’t get mad at them. The boys with the rocks reappeared. Others who had been fishing were now dragging a huge, reeking eel; their voices disappeared down a path leading to the town. When they sheepishly walked past Ram, he spat—was it because of the stench? He turned to face her determinedly.

  She felt exposed, as if naked for the first time, but didn’t let it show. He got up and peed against a rock. Then he started looking for his clothes, which he found all over the place. Dressed again in his filthy school uniform, he walked toward her. She crouched behind her rock as she watched him amble over; he was tall, she couldn’t see his features, just his dark silhouette rising above the ravine’s sides, lost in the murky sky. He strode self-assuredly; she felt somehow detached. She didn’t care that he would find her sitting there, haggard, her cheeks wet with tears. Once again. She didn’t care that, after looking for him for days on end, it would be he who found her. She stayed put, wringing her hands, looking resigned and resentful. Now that he was before her, safe and sound, she could be as mad at him as she wanted—not for having led her astray from the outset, not for making her roam all over Rose-Hill, but for something unsayable she kept in her heart, something that had been there since she’d been in the cradle that would later hold Ram, something corrosive that nobody had been able to extract. Maybe Pa could have, but he’d passed away before she’d been able to talk to him about it, and even
if he had been there, the chance still might never have come. Ma had to have experienced it too, the feeling of living with a wound that never scarred over but not being able to talk about it; Ma had suffered too, but she didn’t show it; and Ma, too, hadn’t given Santee any chance to talk about her own pain, even though it would have done them good. They could have taken their tea in the kitchen, Ram would have been at school right then, it would have been hot out in Bienvenue, and Ma would have sat down with a sigh, holding her cup and wiping her temples with her odhni, the fields would have been deserted, and there would have been just Ma and her in the little kitchen struggling with their wounds; maybe they wouldn’t have needed words or maybe the words would have come to their lips easily, but instead Ma had gone to lie down and sent her to pick up her little brother. It was simply too late, this wound had to be borne within herself, there was no use in grappling with it, since there was nothing that could be done. It didn’t need to be like this, though, and there would probably be other wounds, if that could be any consolation, there would probably be other wounds that would make her forget this one. Ram couldn’t possibly know any of this as he walked up to her, a stone among the basalt stones of the Grande Rivière.