She and Ram sat on the edge of the rock shelf. He watched the afternoon’s colors change along the gorges’ crests. Maybe he was watching for some movement in the wild pepper trees that the last of his friends had disturbed. The ravine’s sides stopped vibrating, turned gray and calm. Just like his sister’s face once her nervous tics had subsided and the creases around her mouth softened.
Every so often he glanced at her: how would this night with her at the bottom of the ravine go, what would happen next… The past didn’t matter anymore, didn’t have any bearing on his thoughts. Coils of smoke unfurled along the face of the Grand Rivière’s cliff, marking an end. Of the dry season, perhaps; if so, they’d be caught by surprise. He could have weathered a flash flood by scrambling up trees and living like the little monkeys who fed on the berries and picnic leftovers by the Tour Blanche. But what about Santee? Her presence changed everything—he couldn’t see what he ought to do if the river swelled, someone would have to take care of him now. The other child-monkeys were back safe in their parents’ houses, and now that she was here, Ramesh needed to be taken home, too, and she was the only one who could do that.
With each explosion, he jumped. She realized that the town going up in flames, where people were now living in abundance, pushing around overloaded shopping carts, wasn’t Ram’s but hers, Shakuntala’s, and he didn’t know this woman. He couldn’t brave the smoke rising above the cliff’s edge alone, looming over them like a massive night-tree. These thoughts could wait, as patiently as Ram did; she herself, lost in the depths of her wound, was waiting for her sobbing to stop and he, deep in his Grande Rivière ravine as the black tree unfurled over the cliff’s ridge, was listening, focusing on her so as not to hear the explosions, watching her hiccups subside under the dark branches, become as regular as a heartbeat.
When she looked up, he was slumped on the rock shelf, his chin pressing into his chest. She stepped around his outstretched limbs, his pale feet wedged into his dirty sneakers. A lock of heavy black hair came down to his thick upper lip, and his chin was covered in a barely visible dark peach fuzz. His breath, which had come to mirror hers, was deep. She climbed along the flat rock to the pool’s edge. There was no light to see what was at the water’s bottom; clumps of elodea rose up on vines—the last survivors of the drought. A trickle of water from a crack in the lava had traced its path to feed the basin. All the timillions and tilapias and eels crammed into this one space meant a very nice haul for any boy who fished there. She skipped from rock to rock to see the fish that had been so certain the boys wouldn’t disturb them anymore slip away. She was happy to be there, alone on the pond’s edge while Ram slept. She didn’t know the names of the fish or other animals. She wouldn’t have wanted someone to tell her, not even if that could mean making up names together. Tadpoles, larvae, the other strange things that fed on slimy algae: they entered her world with their own names—hardly Ramesh’s creatures. He was here, sleeping like a baby because she was here. He had handed all the power back to her, but she didn’t care about such a gift, she was Shakuntala of the town on fire, of the garden, and of Grande Rivière Nord-Ouest’s critters. Should she ever want to, she could leave the gorges, choosing to swim in the trickle of water leading toward the sea, changing form at every twist and turn, mingling with fish and algae. She wouldn’t have to find her way, the water would take her. She didn’t really know whether she was falling or slipping, she wasn’t surprised to feel so strangely inclined, at the bottom of this ravine no horizon could be seen, and so there was no horizontal or vertical, there was no sky apart from the vault of the black tree’s branches, and there was no way of knowing what was beneath the water.
But Princess Shakuntala felt no fear, even though she had never swum in the river behind Ma’s house. Santee had helped her mother carry piles of laundry, but never dared stick her feet in the milky water that the laundresses waded through unthinkingly, much less strip down on the sly for a swim while one of the aunties stood as a lookout. She had fallen into the water one day. Arms weighed down with a load of laundry that Ma had just washed, she took the shortcut along the river. The mud sucked in her flip-flops, and she remembered the soft mud against her side, her face, the slow slide into the water. She had struggled to avoid drowning in water that came up to other people’s knees. Had Ma scolded her, it would have come as a relief. She had soiled an entire heap of white sheets with mud—a scolding and stern slap would have offset the shame she felt amid the scattered clothes in the shallow water as the women, and even Ma, laughed. She’d eventually taken refuge far back from the bank, and Ma had to bring the laundry up to the rocks that Santee refused to ever go past again.
When Ram was woken by a splatter, Santee had disappeared beneath the surface. She hadn’t decided to come back up. It wasn’t a matter of air but of decisiveness, Shakuntala didn’t see the need, it wasn’t a question of life or death, there was no line between the two these days. Did she need to undergo a rite of passage by way of these waters, as a puddle creature, did she have to earn this? Ram must have gone through this stage, his childhood was a road paved with gold, he must have done something in a previous life to deserve it… If Ram dove into the water right where some bubbles were still rising, maybe he would be able to help her, but no, she was too big and he wouldn’t be able to bring her all the way to the surface. What his presence might do, at least, would be to bring her to her senses. But he didn’t do anything; he simply watched the bubbles rise up as if from a spring, the same way he’d watched her cry. It was all the same: while he had been asleep she’d been drowning in her tears, and it wasn’t the first time. She needed to come back of her own will; he had lost all the power he once held over this pond where he knew every nook and cranny.
Ram knew he had no way to make his sister decide to resurface in this life—there’s no sacrificing yourself by water, only emerging from it, and it would be the water, the obliging water, that bore her back up to him. She was now a creature unfamiliar to him, with his sister’s features but put together differently: Ma’s cheekbones, like Uncle Vijay’s, and Pa’s forehead from his passport photo, all these similarities usually ascribed to him at family gatherings, even the thick lips—he couldn’t remember Santee’s lips, in fact he didn’t remember any of her features, just her pout and her slightly forced laugh. When she’d cried the only part of her face not shrouded by her hair had been her nose’s blotchy tip. The eyes of this woman drifting in the water were shut, he could look right at her, her hair floated freely around her body tangled in its linen dress; her swaying arms and legs slowly bore her upward in the gestures not of a drowning woman but of a water creature with no immediate need for air. Santee didn’t know how to swim, she had often watched as he horsed around with other children five or six years old like him while their mother did laundry, but when they were older they had to tend to the house and the animals, and were shooed away from the river by a torrent of curses so they wouldn’t see the women bathing in the nude. He’d never seen Santee in the water. The woman whose large nipples and dark crotch stood out against the linen’s soaked fibers wasn’t covering herself the way the village women did. She opened her eyes to the vault framed by the gorges, to the indifferent walls of the ravine around the rocky shelf, and to him watching her. The womanly body stood up without much hurry, lumbering with her heavy hips—her feet must have come across a shoal. Should we leave now? She furrowed her brow in confusion. Leave? Why? In February’s tropical heat the water was the same temperature as the air. The water would get cold soon, but today there was no difference between water and air. It was a matter of leaving this place…leaving… Drought had stopped the river in its course, all that remained were this unmoving pond and a thin trickle that might not even reach the valleys of Port-Louis, he’d never followed it with the critters that risked it. Maybe he understood and had stopped with his questions, or maybe he didn’t want any crying like in Bienvenue. Maybe he’d given up entirely on trying to convince her to leave.
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Footsteps resounded from beyond the river’s bend downstream. Restless footfalls. The town loomed large. It was clear to him now he couldn’t let her stay here. Halting breaths filled the silent, waiting world, a mad rush scattered stones everywhere. Ram’s face hardened—she needed to leave, now. But she lingered, shaded her eyes to make out the newcomer. It was a young man in a khaki uniform whose surefootedness belied his worry. As they watched, he slowed down; usually at this hour there wasn’t anyone in the gorges of Grande Rivière Nord-Ouest. His face showed some fear and he steered well clear of them, going up the sparsely vegetated slope to look for a path leading to the clifftop, he slipped, tried again to no avail. The man turned around and looked uneasily at the two in the ravine. Ram pointed out the footpath, and he took it. Where did you come from? she yelled. The man stopped but didn’t answer. His eyes flitted from Ram to the woman who had spoken, but he didn’t dawdle—the black tree was swelling, blooming overhead. Where did you come from? she repeated. Can’t you hear us? Ram turned his back on his sister, discomfited by her presumptuousness. The man nodded his head downstream. He was out of breath and out of words to say what had to be said. The tree was there, that was all the explanation needed. Are there shops down that way? She was dripping; her mud-stained linen dress clung to her skin.
Ram didn’t understand who his sister thought she was to be asking the man questions. Women never ventured into the Grande Rivière’s gorges; even children who came only did so behind the grown-ups’ backs. Ram couldn’t even say what exactly it was he’d come here to do, the only water left was in the pond, he didn’t like fishing, and he didn’t like playing dominoes. The other kids from school liked this place, they called it “the casino” for just that reason, and also to maybe kill a few inedible animals and leave them out to dry in the sun. But the first time he’d followed them, he’d sat on a stone for hours looking up and down the slopes with scattered leaves: Bissoonlall, you coming or what, next time somebody else can be number four if you don’t want to play, he’d joined in, the dominoes already set out. After that, he’d started coming here while the others were at school. By himself, just to hang out. The gorges had their own laws, their own tides that he’d come to know. Her intrusion had upended them, and once she was gone, he wouldn’t ever return.
The man in uniform, however, was in too much of a hurry to take any interest in her; he went up the path Ram had pointed out, and they could hear the dry grasses rustling for a while longer. Ram would have liked to double back, why not follow the stranger? But that would mean leaving her there, abandoning her at the bottom of the ravine, she wouldn’t have let him. He had no choice; he had to wait until she relented. They could have taken a different path, like the one back to the Balfour Garden, they didn’t have to follow the young man. They had to get going before night fell rather than continuing toward where the now-fleeing figure had come from.
If he could have read his sister’s mind, he’d have known that down there was indeed where she was leading him. He didn’t have to retrace his steps, the ravine swallowed him just as the preceding events had. He had to stay fish-like, following rather than fighting the current, as weak as it was. He had to not worry himself sick like Ma who’d spent her life trying to make Pa bring home his paycheck and not drink it away. Then, once Pa was gone, raising Ram. They didn’t have long before the day would be gone, just an hour of daylight—her bare feet found the rocks they needed, round enough not to hurt yet steady enough not to roll. Ram trusted her now, had stopped wondering where she’d picked up all this knowledge. He imagined a whole secret life that had gone by unbeknownst to him. To them, rather: he couldn’t imagine Ma had any inkling of it. But Ma always knew everything, she had to be in cahoots. He felt exposed, imagining that Ma and maybe even his sister knew all his secrets but hadn’t shared any of theirs; they must not have told him anything because he was too little, and fury grew within him, grew each time he stubbed his toe, grew each time he caught sight of his sister’s bare feet so nimble on the basalt rocks, grew when he finally saw the red sky of Port-Louis spreading wide over the fires. She, in turn, seemed dazzled or simply dazed. The steep slopes dwindled and they reached the first houses. Ram heard a hubbub in the distance. He couldn’t make out the people’s words but sensed a crowd. Ram didn’t like the thought of so many people, that was what drove him deep into the gorges or into the fields of Bienvenue, someone would always be yelling: Get, Ram, get divan… Ahead were the three bridges of Grande Rivière Nord-Ouest, like triumphal arches welcoming his sister. He didn’t understand her hurry; she was now yanking him by the arm. They passed beneath the first bridge. Ram looked up to the deck and beams, high up on the piles that supported the old railroad tracks. He felt ill, wanted to stop. But she went under without even noticing.
Santee is moving toward the sea, she’s the water that was missing from the riverbed, her movements flow, and he should do likewise, he shouldn’t fight. He tries to match her steps, convinced that she’s slowing down. But no, she’s practically running, jumping from stone to stone, hiking up her dress with one hand and gripping Ram with the other, a grown-up girl doesn’t hold her eleven-year-old brother’s hand—her hand feels so soft but she’s holding tight so he can keep up with her. She instinctively took his hand beneath the first bridge because the second is as imminent as a wave, a riptide that carries her, she’s racing as if she were late to meet someone. But, Santee, nobody’s going anywhere, nobody’s been waiting for anyone for two days. Old Ma’s lost all hope that we’ll be back, she’s got to have called Uncle Vijay, and made him go to the police, but the police have bigger fish to fry than going to look for two kids who haven’t come home because one didn’t wait for the other. The police station’s on fire, officers are being pelted with stones, nobody’s waiting for us, nobody, so…
And then he feels bad; he curses himself for having played hide-and-seek, he can’t tell her that in the thickets behind Ma’s house, whenever he heard her worried voice several yards away yelling Are you there, Ram, answer me, Ramesh, his heart always pounded as she closed in. Keep looking, try harder, use your brain, and if by some miracle she did find him, it came as a relief. They pass other teenagers, fleeting silhouettes going upriver. They don’t even stop, they merge with the darkness, where they’re going nobody’s ever found again, into deep-rooted memories of long-lost childhood, playing hooky, a sister with long legs and immense, terrified eyes that had missed him by a matter of minutes. No, that’s not right, because he would have stayed hidden regardless, he’d have slipped past the teacher at school and out the back door—who’s this woman who’s found him and is dragging him toward the sea, far below the streets lit by burning buses? They’re right there, flipped over right in the middle of the road and blazing in the fire somebody lit, their wheels still flaming circles, women with steel-gray hair, smiling with all their wrinkles, dance all around them. They haven’t reached the outskirts of the town, this is a camp in one of the Chamarel forests, they’re chanting refrains from seggae songs and their hips swing with a vigor they thought their bodies had lost, a fervor they thought their hearts had forgotten. The teenagers watch them with jealousy, teenagers who don’t know what the flames mean.
Sha-kun-ta-la! Sha-kun-ta-la!
Who are those syllables aimed at? Not them, clearly, but the throaty voice from above is good enough for Ram, it’s as good as heaven-sent. Let’s stop running! They’re under the old bridge, the name echoes every which way beneath the arches, but she’s still running straight ahead, toward the sea, toward a weak arc of moonlight in the distance. Stop, look, there’s someone up there. She hears him, but she thinks it might be a figment of her imagination, or one of Ram’s jokes. But no, nobody’s joking now. Look, foutou, someone’s calling your name! She won’t listen, with his whole body he pulls her back, she stops, irritated.
Shakuntala!
Her eyes light up, her neck cranes up to the bridge’s beams. What’s happening now? He’s already regretting havi
ng stopped her, it probably would have been better to keep heading toward the sea, to reach it and even drown in it. They can’t make out the person up there, who’s that little black speck with such a voice? Who’s leaning halfway over the railing, yelling Shakuntala? Ramesh sits on a stone as his sister answers. He hears the other one, up above, tell her: Come on up, can you see the path on the bank? Just look, Shakuntala, are you blind or what? Ram doesn’t want to take the trail that will lead them up there, he stays put with his eyes fixed on the river’s mouth and the little arc of moonlight that his sister has left him. What good is a bit of moonlight on the water going to do him when she’s storming the town, when she’s going to take it head-on? Ram wants to stay right here on this stone, he wants to lie down in the withered riverbed. He doesn’t want to know what’s happening up there, he can hear plenty already: people are slinging the sounds of explosions, names, laughter down into the river that will carry them away. He’d prefer for his sister to stay here peacefully with him, for him to be there for her as she cries, for her not to leave him so quickly.
Ramesh!
She’s already up there, with that other man, he sees their torsos extending over the railing, the strong wingbeats of their calls. She’s above him, perched above his riverbed, her hair will fall around him and he’ll play with it, grab hold of it. He’ll feel her warm, sweetish breath, and then Ma will come and say: Let your little brother sleep now, it’s late, don’t keep him up, you can play with him tomorrow. He’s going to slip away to the coast, it’ll be easy, he just has to take one step toward the arc of moonlight. She shouldn’t have left him alone in the riverbed, he’ll head down toward the tideway. He has no idea what could be waiting for him there, but he’s going to go, and she’ll save him before he drowns.
Kaya Days Page 6