by Shani Mootoo
“After dinner, before he take me back to the city, we might sit on a bench on the front lawn, with a little blanket-throw on our lap, and watch the water turn from orange to black. You know that water cold too bad! But still, I went in it. You know I can’t pass up a dip in the sea. The only way to keep from freezing in that ice water is to keep moving. Now, if he and Boss have one thing in common, is that neither of them would too far go in the water, if even they go at all! And, too, both of them—no matter how much they wouldn’t spend time in the water—both of them want to live near the sea. But Mr. Harry have reason; he was born by the sea, you see.”
Piyari looked down at her hands clasped in her lap and muttered, “You can take the man out of the island, but you can’t take the island out of the man.”
Madam smiled, for that seemed like a good thing, and she continued.
“And there again, he would ask me questions—questions relating to something or the other I had said earlier, or even days before. He remembered everything I had said, and he had a question for everything. You could imagine that?
“One day we went to a place name Asha’s Garden Center. Is a woman who had emigrated from Lantanacamara who owns it. She was the reserved type, secretive for so. That was good, because I myself didn’t want to be caught by anyone who might know Caribbean people—anyway, her business sold supplies for professional gardeners—all kinds of tools that we can’t find in shops here. She had plants from down here, bromeliads, passionflower, pelican flower. She had a good few varieties of the cereus plant, ent you know the night-blooming cactus? She had Caribbean broom and baliser. That sort of thing. I wanted to buy him a little present from that shop, so I pick a Norfolk pine. But she also had plenty birds. You know, he and his mother used to have chickens. As a child, he used to keep one for a pet. I told him that every respectable Eggman must have birds, so I buy two birds, two pretty birds that only staying chook-up-chook-up against each other. If one take two steps to the left, the other one doing the same, and they pressed up like they glued right next to each other. Yes, lovebirds. Well, we laugh about that a lot. He can really laugh, you know. He not serious-serious and stuffy at all.”
Piyari wiped her mouth with her hand in an effort to hide a smile. Lovebirds. She noticed that for all the information Madam was willing to let loose, she still wouldn’t say what else she and Mr. Harry might have given to each other. This side of her Madam excited her. She was keen to know more.
“Those are the happiest days I have ever known. How can I go back to my life as it was before, Piyari? Can you tell me? How can I? But you see how I let Christmas pass quiet so? Well, it is not going to be like that for long. You will help pack and get ready. We will leave tomorrow, and all of us will spend the New Year, as we have done every year for the last twelve, by the sea. But because I have had a taste of life, Piyari. Whosoever so desires can say I get greedy, or they can say I get smart, but today I am not settling for anything less than the whole meal.”
A STRANGE COMPLICITY
The day before dinner with Kay, Harry is unsettled. He knows that if he were to speak with Rose, a quick exchange of season’s greetings between them, he would be able to relax and enjoy a New Year’s Eve celebration with Kay. He decides impetuously that he will not wait—he will not allow the enjoyment of the evening to be curtailed by waiting for Rose. He will call. If Shem answers, Harry will simply hang up, without a word. Seizing the moment, he composes the number. International code. Country code. Area code. And the number of her house.
After six rings he begins to doubt the wisdom of calling. He has the sensation of engaging in an act of breaking and entering. As he is about to take the receiver away from his ear someone is saying, “Morning, Bihar residence.” He considers hanging up and the woman on the other end, clearly the maid, says in a questioning tone, “Hello?”
“Yes, hello. I am looking for Mrs. Bihar.”
“They not here. Who is speaking, please?”
He ignores her question and above a faint static asks, “When will she be back?”
“They gone away for the holiday. Who speaking please?”
“I am just wondering when they will be back?” He realizes that he may be sounding rude.
There is silence. Then the woman says in a tone of strange complicity, at once a mixture of asking and confirming, “You calling from abroad?”
She must have guessed that it was an overseas call from the quality of the connection. He does not respond and she continues, “They at the beach house. They went up there day after Boxing Day. They bringing in the New Year there. I with them, too, but I just come back for a few hours to make sure everything here safe. You lucky you call now. Half hour again and you would of miss me. They coming back right after the New Year. You want her to call you?”
Her familiarity, the ease with which she has given up so much information, confuses him. Almost frightens him. Who, he wonders, does she imagine he might be.
He didn’t answer. Nervous now, he ends the conversation with, “Don’t bother her. It’s nothing urgent. I will call next week.”
How he wishes he had not called.
THE NEW YEAR’S EVE DINNER
British Columbia.
The bird in the cuckoo clock in the drawing room wobbles out of its house and begins to chirp just as the Volkswagen van comes to a wheezing halt. Harry, aware that he is being rather outdated, remains amused by the idea that a woman would drive such an unwieldy vehicle.
Once out of the van, Kay stretches tall, her nose to the sky. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.
“Winter in the Sound. Oh, Harry, I don’t have to ask how you are! You look wonderful.”
Her cologne, the scent of marigolds, overpowers the salty odor of the dried kelp and other flotsam on the low-tide beach.
“Well, I’ve finally made it to your house! The turnoff from the highway is not easy to find.”
“They keep promising us a light. They’re waiting for an accident, no doubt.”
She hands him a tray with a foil-covered dish and fetches another and a straw basket from the passenger side of her vehicle. Harry asks about traffic. On the stairs of the house, she turns and looks at the garden.
“You can really tell that this here is done by a professional, can’t you?”
Inside, she admires the red milk tins with the plants in them on the enclosed verandah, saying that they are more interesting than clay pots and plastic planters. On the way to the kitchen, she pauses at the entrance to the living room. He did remember this morning to clean out the birdcage and vacuum up the seeds, but more seeds already carpet the area.
Kay’s marigold scent, concentrated in the warmth of the house, blots out the aroma of Harry’s fish dish in the oven. She marches directly to the oven, opens the door, slides aside the sizzling fish, and places her dish next to it. She takes the straw basket from the counter and heads to the refrigerator, opens, and surveys. She makes room on a shelf for her salad and two bottles wrapped in brown paper. She pulls out yet another bottle and hands it to him.
“Now, listen. I know that you’re some kind of activist when it comes to wine drinking,” she teases, “but I took the liberty of bringing Italian. You’ll like it!” She puts up her hands to halt the objection she anticipates. But Harry is amused.
“You know, I figure that whatever ills those Europeans have inflicted—and hey, I am a descendant, I can speak for them—I say do not, and I mean do not permit those … those whatevers to keep from you the spoils they produce: I say, as long as you can afford it, you just put that whole damn continent—and descendants like me—to work for you. I say let them serve your taste buds. And now let me serve yours.”
With that she holds out the bottle. One line of the label, reads Marchesi di Morano, the other Colli Consola. Was one the region and one the estate? He tries to guess which might be which. He has, in an instant of panic, forgotten how to read a label. It doesn’t even seem to indicate a grape variety. He knows that
if he utters a word, he could surely make a fool of himself. He nods approvingly.
“Open it, Harry. It’s a pinot grigio.”
Pinot grigio. Ah yes, of course. He takes the bottle and studies the label more carefully.
She has brought long tapered candles dipped in silver sparkles. She sets them on the kitchen counter and looks around for candleholders. “We could easily have eaten at my house tonight, but it’s much nicer to be in a house by the sea.”
A house by the sea. He has indeed accomplished so much in his life. He has come such a long way. He thinks this, pleased, sinks and turns the screw into the cork. He tells her she won’t find candleholders in this house, to use saucers, or better yet, one of the tin cans he has stored under the sink.
“Why don’t men ever have candleholders?” she says, feigning indignation. Harry explains that he—he himself, not able to speak for all men—has never understood the recreational use of candles, that he grew up in a country where, in some places, candles were the only source of electricity. Where there was electricity, candles were used only in the event of an outage. As if presented with a mission, she begins rummaging through the cupboards for something more suitable than a saucer or a tin can. The cork squeaks as he eases it up. It pops out in one piece, a pleasant sound. She comes across a stack of empty wine bottles in the recycling bucket under the sink, and examines some, remarking on those she recognizes. The wine makes its pleasant glug glug glug as it fills the glasses. He holds a glass out to her and prepares to make an early toast to the year ahead.
“No, not yet,” Kay exclaims. She asks for foil and wraps two empty bottles in smoothed-out pieces he has found in a drawer that is crammed so tight with a mess of empty plastic bags, twist ties, a pair of pliers, masking tape, matches, and much more that it is difficult to open and then to close again. She flares the edges of the foil around the mouths of the bottles and shoves a candle in each. A residue of silver dust sparkles on the countertop.
“There you are. Silver candleholders. They’ll do, won’t they? It’s like being young and playing house, having to be inventive again, isn’t it? Now, where is the table?”
The small table is clearly visible against a wall in the kitchen. He had thought they would pull it away from the wall and eat in the center of that room, with the stove and the refrigerator right there.
“Which table?” The question gives him time to adjust to the idea that he will have to clear the one on which months of paperwork, customer files, magazines, and gardening catalogs are stored, albeit neatly.
“The dining table.”
He moves everything, trying to keep the piles intact, to the guest bedroom, the bed already overrun with papers and files.
After wiping the table, Kay sets down the candleholders and returns to the kitchen.
He leans against a counter, eyeing the forbidden wine, content to watch this woman in his kitchen open cupboard after cupboard, drawer after drawer. She pulls out plates and cutlery, two of everything, and sends him to set his table.
“What about the pinot grigio? It’s getting warm, isn’t it?” he blurts confidently.
“No patience, have you? That bottle is so well chilled that it could use a little cuddle.” She has pulled the sleeves of her sweater up to her elbows. Her arms are severely freckled.
From her straw basket she pulls a plastic container with odd-shaped balls of a cheese that is unfamiliar to him. She cubes the cheese, chops basil and tomato, sprinkles salt and black pepper, and tosses the colorful dish with olive oil. Inspired by her busyness, Harry goes out the back door and clips cuttings from the Cotoneaster horizontalis that spreads fanlike, a fiery carpet running up the cliff. As he reenters the house, the aroma of fish with all its seasonings, and the sweetness of corn pie, greet him.
He places the fine-leafed dark sprigs with their brilliant orange berries in a chipped ceramic mug. From the verandah he brings a milk can with a red geranium, places it on the windowsill. There is seasonal color in the room. Kay nods approval.
She picks up both glasses, hands one to him, picks up the appetizer, and suggests they sit in the living room. She nestles into the corner of the couch, he in the other corner, the appetizer between them. They watch the birds hop in unison along a perch, to the left and then to the right and back again.
“So, you’re a bird person,” she says.
“I wouldn’t exactly say that; these were given to me as a present in this last summer. Although, come to think of it, my mother and I kept chickens when I was a child. In fact, I had a—well, I had a cock for a pet.”
Kay slaps her thigh and laughs generously. Should he tell her that the birds were a present from a childhood friend, a special lady friend from his homeland who visited him here in the summer? But before he can say anything, Kay rearranges herself, angling to face him. She crosses her legs and says, “Well, cheers to that, then!”
“To that, yes! And to the year that was!”
They lift their glasses to these, and to the light, the latter a formality, as in the yellow tungsten lighting in the living room, it is impossible to see this wine’s true color. She brings the glass to her nose and sniffs. “Fruit,” she says somberly.
“Ah, yes,” he says, spotting an opportunity, “two distinctly different fruit.”
She swirls it again and gravely announces, “Fleshy fruit.” He tilts the glass. “Guava,” he says. “Guava on a horizontal plane, and hovering just above, almost vertically, a note of seed of cashew. Rather, this has the smell of the taste of a cashew seed. If you know what I mean.”
“I don’t know the smell of guava, but if this smells of guava, then I must find myself a bottle of guava-scented cologne. And cashew seed? I don’t even know what a cashew seed looks like. Would that be one or a handful?”
“More than one but not quite a handful.”
He gathers from her acceptance of this New Year’s Eve invitation that there is no man in her life. Swishing the liquid over and around and about his tongue, he swallows after his mouth has warmed it. Coconut. This is indeed what he tastes. Coconut in an Italian? He chews his mouthful, remaining quiet. A smudge of burnt-orange lip color rims Kay’s glass. He does not mention the coconut.
He puts a forkful of her cheese-basil-tomato appetizer in his mouth. He sips the wine again—ocean wind, seaweed, oysters, crab, and at the back of his throat, more an odor than a taste, a low-tide mangrove swamp.
A tide of longing washes over him. Longing for Raleigh, a place he has not been to in years. For the faces of people he never really knew except as strangers he passed along the route from Raleigh to Marion. Of those congregated along the narrow and bustling streets of that town. Not wanting to talk about where he was born, about Raleigh or Guanagaspar, he does not describe the experience of this other world in his mouth.
Kay has closed her eyes, her head to the ceiling, a hand laid palm flat on her chest. She keeps her eyes closed, and in a low voice, almost a whisper, she says, “This is why I drink wine.” After a pause, she looks directly at the birds in their cage and says, “You know, you have never really told me. You were married once, that much I know, but when? Was that here in Canada?”
He thinks of last summer and the two weeks Rose spent in his house. They behaved then as if they were married. Shall he simply tell her yes, but not to the woman he was in love with? The wine is going to his head. He looks at his watch and stands. She, too, gets up, and they make their way back to the kitchen.
Harry lowers the heat of the oven and tells her it is not much of a story, that it will take longer to tell her about it than it actually lasted.
They prepare to eat at the table. She finds the switch and turns off the dining room light. He goes to the table lamp in the far corner of the living room and turns it on. The room is softly illuminated, and the dining area by the light of her flickering candles only.
“I was about twenty-two or so. Most of my friends from school were either already married or engaged to be married. I h
adn’t shown any interest in girls—well, not suitable ones. Actually, there was a girl—”
“I see: an unsuitable one, then?” she mocks.
“Very unsuitable. Rather, I should say I was the one who was unsuitable. Actually, it is she who gave the birds to me.”
Kay regards him quizzically. He says no more, and she, suddenly pensive, does not press.
She hands him the salad bowl. The sweater she wears tonight is tight. Perhaps it is the light of the candles that accentuates the shape of her breasts. He serves her before serving himself. Surprised, Kay sits back and places her hands on her lap. A woman from back home would have served him, he thinks.
It occurs to him that she is exactly the type of woman men from Guanagaspar—in general, of course—love to be with and at the same time fear. The type you don’t have to worry over, as you know they are quite capable of taking care of themselves, and of you if it ever came to that. But the kind you don’t dare fool with. Guanagasparian women tend to admire such women for what they would call brazenness, but in the next breath they would think these kinds mannish, harsh, too independent, too own-way.
As if attempting to move from too personal a conversation Kay asks about the house. “Such a lovely place you’ve got here, Harry. How did you ever find this house?”
The little piece of land with this house, part of a tight community nestled in a cranny at the foot of a mountain by the sea, is his. His piece of Canada. None of this would he have had in Guanagaspar.
How far back does one go? Finding this house began long before he came to this country, so shall he tell her about the little shack he lived in by the seaside in the islands with his mother? Shall he tell her how he dreamed as a child, as a youth, as a young man, of having a house and home that would have brought him and his mother a little recognition from the business community of Guanagaspar? Perhaps he ought to boycott the nature and lament of his longings and begin with when he first arrived in this country. Daytime, he studied landscape design at the technical institute, and nighttime, to pay for his studies, he drove a taxi. Long days, long nights, grabbing a little shut-eye at Anil and his wife’s house amid the screams and the full range of noises their young active children made.