Coconut Dreams

by Derek Mascarenhas

“What album?”

  “My album. I needed to choose the final track, and now I have my answer.”

  Before they parted, Thomas promised he’d bring Emma to José’s club. José walked away with headphones in hand, his pace a little quicker, humming the chosen song. Thomas felt suddenly motivated to keep searching for Emma’s ring.

  Back at his towel he was greeted once again by Jasmine carrying two coconuts. She handed him one and asked about Emma. Thomas told her that his fiancée had gone to make a call, but Jasmine didn’t understand, so he made a phone gesture with his hand against his head.

  “Sorry, my English no good,” Jasmine said.

  “No. Your English is fantastic. Much better than my Hindi. Where did you learn?”

  “From hotel guests. They no teach me, I listen and learn. I no read, no write.”

  “That’s still amazing you picked it up from just listening to guests.”

  “Yes, one day, when I learn read, write, I start school on island. Bring all the kids.”

  “That’s a very admirable goal. You should ask Mr. Lakhani to teach you to read. He’s not your father, is he?”

  “No. Mr. Lakhani boss. My father fisherman. Very good fisherman. You like to go fish?”

  “I’d love to do some fishing. He’d take me? Only if it’s no trouble.”

  “No trouble, he take you tomorrow. After breakfast. And Miss Emma?”

  “I’ll ask her.”

  “She is your wife? Yes?”

  “No, we aren’t married. How about you, Jasmine?”

  “I am no married.”

  They both turned to see Mr. Lakhani summoning Jasmine from the edge of the wood path, calling out that other guests had arrived.

  Thomas had a tingly feeling as Jasmine walked away between the coconut trees and disappeared from his view.

  The way the coconut tree leaves swayed in the wind reminded Thomas of the view from Dona Paula, in Goa. After climbing the steps of the large pavilion, he had looked back at the shore, and it was as if the wind were meeting the tree’s branches with short waves to match the water below. Thomas took a picture of the coconut trees stretched across the sand, then moved higher up the steps to see the statue of the lovers who had thrown themselves off the black-rock cliff. On the train, Clara had told him she had come here not long before getting married. She’d known the man who would become her husband since they were children, but another man was trying hard for her love. Thomas remembered her saying, “Seeing those statues, I asked myself, ‘Who would you want holding your hand if you were jumping off a cliff?’ Then it became easy.”

  Thomas tried to imagine Emma and him jumping off a cliff together—but why would they need to?

  Thomas drank his Kingfisher beer in the dining area, waiting for Emma to join him for dinner. The hot water had been fixed, so she was taking a shower.

  The new guests were an Indian family accompanied by two security guards, and they were finishing up their meal two tables over from Thomas. The uniformed guards were positioned by the doorway. After the woman and two children finished eating, they left the table, but the man stayed behind with his beer.

  When Thomas made eye contact, the man pushed out the chair next to him and said, “Care to join me?” He wore thin wire-frame glasses and, despite the heat, a navy blazer.

  Thomas walked over and they introduced themselves. The man rolled the “r” when saying Rishi, and Thomas cautiously eyed the security guards as he repeated it.

  Rishi asked where Thomas was from, then told him about his trip to London. Thomas guessed he might own some kind of business and was too curious about the guards not to ask.

  “Just a formality. You see, I’m the minister of tourism.” He took a sip of beer, then continued. “I’d be interested to hear what brought you to Neil Island. You don’t see many tourists here.”

  “Actually, we almost went to Havelock Island.”

  “Oh, it’s a good thing you didn’t!” Rishi let out an odd laugh more like a child’s giggle than the practised chuckle of a politician. “I was told the bugs came early this year on Havelock Island.”

  “Well, looks like I made the right choice.”

  “Always follow to your instincts. That is what has got me this far.” He pushed his eyeglasses up on his nose. “So, you are enjoying my country so far?”

  “I love it.”

  “Very good. Is there anything you can suggest? It’s not often I get to speak with visitors.”

  “My only complaint is that we’re not allowed to stay longer.” Rishi gave Thomas a puzzled look, so he continued. “We were told that foreigners are only allowed to stay for four days and then have to go back to Port Blair if they want to return.”

  “Bhaiya,” Rishi called out to the next room.

  Mr. Lakhani came rushing over. “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?”

  “Why is my friend Thomas only allowed to stay for four days?”

  “Yes, that is the rule for foreigners.”

  “Well, we’re going to change that, yes? They should be allowed to stay as long as they like.”

  “Yes, sir, not a problem. They can stay as long as they like.” How quickly Mr. Lakhani’s disposition changed from superior to subordinate; he was almost grovelling as he backed away into the other room.

  Thomas thanked Rishi, who then left to join his family.

  Jasmine dropped off the curried goat Thomas had ordered, and as he was tucking in, Emma arrived with her hair still wet.

  “Just in time,” Thomas said. “Good shower?”

  “It was hot, but the pressure was low.”

  “Maybe I can talk to Mr. Lakhani again.” Thomas explained his meeting with the minister of tourism and how they could stay longer.

  Emma, disinterested in his victory, ordered the one non-Indian dish on the menu—spaghetti—and sipped her water.

  “Maybe we could go to that DJ’s club I told you about in a couple of days.”

  “I don’t think I’m up for it,” Emma said.

  “Your stomach?”

  Emma said no, it was fine. Thomas ordered another beer and they ate in silence.

  Only when Jasmine returned and reminded Thomas where to meet her father the next morning to fish, did Thomas say, “I’m going fishing tomorrow. Do you want to come?”

  “I came here to relax on the beach, Tom. I’ve never been fishing in my life. You can go if you want.”

  The fishing trip was brilliant. Thomas had missed the sunrise again that morning but was out on a small boat for most of the day with Jasmine’s father, Adu. They shared only a handful of words from each other’s language, yet he learned so much. They used both fishing nets and rods, and Thomas was thrilled he managed to catch two pomfrets by himself. Adu let him take one for supper, pointing and rubbing his stomach to indicate which of the two would be tastier.

  After taking the rest of the fish to the man Adu sold them to, they stopped at the home he shared with Jasmine. Their house was modest, save for the shrine on the wall decorated with fresh flower garlands, an unlit clay lamp, and incense sticks. Outside, with a long knife Adu cleaned the fish: glittering scales flew in all directions and stuck to his dark skin like jewellery. Then he wrapped the pomfret in a newspaper for Thomas to take to Jasmine to cook.

  Thomas entered their room, unwrapped the fish, and laid it out on the table for Emma to see.

  Emma stared. He noticed that she was in the middle of folding her clothes into her suitcase.

  “What are you doing?” she said. “That thing reeks.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going home.”

  “Home? Why? You’re not having a good time?”

  “No. I am not having a good time. Nothing on this trip has been a good time, and I think it was a mistake.”

  “What happened?”r />
  “All I wanted to do was relax on the beach. But for some reason, there were kids there today. They kept screaming Ta-ta! Ta-ta! It was cute the first time, but God, are those the only English words these people learn? Ta-ta. I ended up having to come back to our room and spend the day here. You shouldn’t have left me.”

  “You’re critiquing their English? How many Hindi words have you learned? How many words in any language have I heard you use? Please, thank you, hello—they go a long way.” Thomas thought about Jasmine, who tried so hard to learn English, relying only on tourists and picking new words out of the air. “I mean, you haven’t made the slightest attempt to embrace or even accept the culture here.”

  “This isn’t what I thought it would be. The brochures and travel agents back home sold it as this magical, spiritual place. But they don’t tell you how loud and dirty it is.”

  “Not spiritual? Most of the people here pray more than our priests. And how do you expect to see the magic in a place if you lock yourself in the bloody room?”

  “Thomas, I’m going home.”

  “Then go.”

  “You’re not coming with me?”

  “You’re the one who made me leave Goa and come all the way here, and now you want me to leave again and go back home before I’m ready?” Thomas turned and walked to the door.

  “Take your goddamn fish with you,” Emma shouted.

  Thomas stomped back in, picked his fish up from the table, and carried it out in one hand. “I’m going to eat it, too!”

  And he did. Thomas ate alone in the dining area, devouring the spiced and fried pomfret, picking every bit of flesh from its bones and licking his fingers afterwards. When he returned late that night, Emma was already asleep.

  The birds woke Thomas early; Emma wasn’t awake, but her packed bags sat beside the bedpost. He left their room and walked down to the water’s edge. The sun hadn’t come up yet, and the water and sand were cool on his feet.

  José’s tune returned to his head as he walked the shore. The morning felt pure—he was no longer thinking or searching, just walking.

  And it was then, with one step in the sand, that Thomas felt something beneath his big toe. He looked down as a soft wave spread over the sand, nearly erasing his footprint. He almost kept walking, but something made him stop.

  He crouched down and sifted through the mud with his fingers. He found only sand. But when a fresh wave brushed over the area, a sparkle caught his eye. And there it was. Emma’s ring! Thomas plucked it out of the sand, rinsed it off, and held it in his palm.

  Crouched there in the surf, he turned the ring in his fingers. He pressed its sides, testing its strength. He eyed the cut of the diamond and the smooth, simple shape of the dolphin.

  On the horizon, a sliver of sun pierced the sea. The gold rose and grew and set fire to the clouds.

  Thomas stood, staring at the sunrise, feeling its warmth, and let the ring fall from his fingers, into the gentle waves, to be carried out to sea.

  1996

  Small Things

  Clara had her notes for the next day’s thesis defence scattered on the dining room table. It was an hour past midnight, so it was actually that day’s thesis defence, but Clara didn’t allow herself to view it this way; it was too disheartening. The house was quiet. The rain had stopped a few hours ago, and the night outside seemed to be at rest. The silence was familiar to Clara—it was her time to study, both when she was back in India, as well as here in Canada. Three years of night classes would all come down to one evening to see if she’d be recertified to teach.

  She had hoped to have more time to review, but her kids had gotten into such a hullabaloo earlier in the evening. Ally had a project due, and although Clara had taken her to the library to get books on blue whales a week and a half ago, she hadn’t opened them until tonight. And Aiden had turned the house upside down packing for his school trip to Quebec. Ally didn’t want him to take her CD player, so Aiden wouldn’t let her use his markers to make a diagram of plankton. A shouting match ensued until Felix yelled from upstairs for the kids to behave themselves, but it was the third period of the hockey game and Clara and the kids knew it would take much more to pull him away.

  From the dining room table, Clara could see Aiden’s two packed bags sitting near the door; beside them, leaning against the wall, were Ally’s rolled-up Bristol boards bound with elastics. She made a note to remember to pack Gravol for Aiden in the morning and another to make sure Ally didn’t forget to bring her project to school. She was about to add another note to remind Felix to be home for Ally tomorrow after school, but seeing the Bristol boards reminded her of plankton. Before Ally went to bed she’d finished drawing the whale’s comblike teeth that trapped krill. As Clara tucked her in, Ally asked in a halfway-to-dreaming voice, “Do whales really eat such tiny things?” Clara gave her forehead a kiss and explained that even the biggest creatures sometimes relied on small things to stay alive.

  Clara yawned. The furnace came clanging to life and air hissed through the vents. She put her pen down. She was close to being done, although she needed a break, and stood up and walked three steps to the living room. She stretched her arms out to her sides, swung them up high above her head like a diver, and reached down to touch her toes. Then she stood up straight, her eyes level with the framed photo on the wall that Aiden had insisted she hang right above the couch. Goa. Towering coconut trees, the glassy ocean flirting with the sand. She closed her eyes and imagined the waves and the warm breeze tickling her skin.

  The photo had been sent over by a young fellow named Thomas that Clara had met on the train during her last visit to India. She’d gone back to pay respects to her father. The stone cross on his grave had seemed so severe and final. On that trip, she’d heard from many in the village about what a great man he’d been. She knew herself how he had worked his whole life in a mill so that his children could have an education. She’d decided then that she would not waste what had been given to her. She wanted to teach. To do in Canada what she had done in India for years. To do what she loved.

  In the afternoon, before her defence, Clara picked up Ally from school. Ally usually took the bus with Aiden, but he was away on his school trip. On the ride home, she told her mother how some kids in her class wouldn’t believe that whales weren’t fish. Clara gave Ally a rear-view-mirror smile and asked her if she’d finished her lunch.

  “Everything except the banana,” Ally said.

  “And what did your banana learn in school today?”

  “Integers. It had a big bruise on it, though.”

  “Maybe your banana got in a fight with its brother on the tree.”

  Ally crinkled her nose.

  In the driveway of their home, a few puddles lingered from the previous four days of rain. Clara got out to help Ally carry her backpack and Bristol boards into the house, and gather her own notes for her thesis defence. As she slid out of the back seat, Ally pushed the car door closed with her elbow. Clara realized her keys were still in the car the moment it shut.

  “Dammit!” she said, trying the handle, and ran around the car to check the other doors.

  The engine hummed gently. She could see the keys in the ignition, the dangling Tweety Bird key chain swaying. Ally peeked in, too. She tried to pull open the same door, apologizing when she also found it locked. Clara breathed slowly in and out through her nose and turned to her daughter. She told Ally it wasn’t her fault and that it would be okay. She went to the garage. There was a fake security sticker on the garage door, but it only creaked as she pulled it up. Then her heart dropped: there was no car inside.

  “Where is your father? He should be home by now.” She checked the door into the house inside the garage—locked, of course—and rejoined her daughter on the driveway. “Ally, let me have your key so we can get inside.”

  “I don’t have my key.”

&n
bsp; “What do you mean you don’t have it?”

  “Aiden has it.”

  Clara went to try her husband at work on a neighbour’s phone (no luck) and Ally checked if her friends were home (none either), and they met back at the idling black Corolla in the driveway.

  “Johnny and Pearl aren’t home,” Ally said.

  “Well, if your father doesn’t get home soon, you might be coming with me to school.”

  “You didn’t get Dad?”

  “No,” Clara said. “I forgot to remind him before he left for work to come straight home, but he should have known about today. Of all days!”

  “We should have done like the Mathews and kept a key under our mat,” said Ally. She looked at their car and said, “We can take a taxi!”

  “I still need to get into the house. All my notes are in there.” Clara ran her fingers through her hair and clenched it into a fist when she reached the end of the strands. “I think we need to call a tow truck,” she said.

  Clara went back to the neighbour’s, flipped through the Yellow Pages, and found George’s Automotive Service. At the bottom of the ad it said: Locked Keys in the Car? Call Us.

  Clara gave George her address and information and asked how long it would take, explaining she was in a rush. George said, “I’ll put a call in now, and Sammy should be with you shortly.”

  On Thursdays, Sammy broke into Olivia’s apartment. Well, he didn’t technically break in. He still had the key she’d given him when they were seeing each other; she’d overlooked asking for it back. Olivia had an odd memory like that—she forgot her bank card in the ATM occasionally, yet could tell Sammy what they had for dinner on their fifth date.

  Sammy made sure nobody saw him when he entered her apartment. Olivia didn’t have many friends in her building, anyway. They all lived in the city. The last time Sammy hung out with them, one guy named Charles, an accountant, made a grease-monkey joke. Sammy grabbed his shirt and told him to repeat it. Charles didn’t. Sammy didn’t half mind some of Olivia’s co-workers at St. Augustine’s Secondary where she taught history, but he didn’t half like them either.