Silent Winds, Dry Seas

by Vinod Busjeet

  Madame Joseph returned with a scrap of torn skirt with which she vigorously dried me, then took me to her place. Modest as our rented rooms were, Madame Joseph’s dwelling was poorer. Sitting on the plot of land adjacent to the Desai house, it consisted of one room that served as kitchen, bedroom, and living room. She also rented from Mr. Desai, who owned three other properties in Rose Belle and villages nearby.

  Madame Joseph handed me a huge shirt that must have belonged to Mr. Joseph before he died. While I was trying to prevent the ample sleeves from sliding down my thin arms, she busied herself in the kitchen corner of the room. “Vishnu, have some warm milk with honey,” she said when she came back. She sat me on the bed, poured herself two pegs from a bottle labeled a1 rhum de prestige, and we quietly sipped our drinks. The southeast trade winds were blowing in the scents of mango, lychee, and zamalac, and the moon cast its light on the floor. Like everyone else, Madame Joseph left her window open in the summer.

  Madame Joseph improvised a mattress for herself by piling some jute gunnysacks on the floor. She kissed the Jesus Christ on her necklace good night, and soon she was snoring. I was restless. I stared at the ceiling, covered my face with the pillow, turned left and right as I pictured Mrs. Desai and Mama in the ambulance. I was half asleep when a lizard darted across the wall and landed on the windowsill. I didn’t want it to jump on me, and got up to chase it. Against the faint light in the Desai bedroom window, some twenty-five feet away, I thought I saw silhouettes. Silhouettes of two people bending and picking something. I rubbed my eyes and looked again and they were gone. I looked at Madame Joseph: her mouth was open; her nightgown had moved up her hips, revealing scaly skin and calluses on her soles and toes. Two cockroaches were navigating around the gunnysacks.

  * * *

  —

  When Mama woke me up, dawn was breaking. The backyard cocks crowed and the neighborhood stray dogs barked. Madame Joseph was in the kitchen corner. I asked Mama what had happened to Mrs. Desai. “She is dead.” She turned to Madame Joseph and added, “The doctor told us she swallowed acid.”

  Handing Mama a cup of tea, Madame Joseph said, “Mr. Desai uses acid in his business. I saw him bring them special bags last week.”

  While they talked, an image from Grandma’s funeral, six months earlier, crossed my mind—Mama pounding on her mother’s coffin and futilely clinging to it as my uncles and my father carried it out of the house. It occurred to me then that Kajal had left me forever, and tears filled my eyes.

  “The police drove us back from the hospital around five, me and Vishnu’s father.” Like many women of her generation on the island, when addressing others Mama referred to Papa not by his name, Shiv, but as “Vishnu’s father.” “I couldn’t wake you until they had left. They searched the whole house, even our rooms.”

  “What did the police ask Mr. Desai?” Madame Joseph said.

  “You know Mr. Desai. He is gentleman. The police believed everything he said.” Mama, whose only act of literacy was signing her name on official documents, knew about ten words in English. She spoke Kreol Morisien, a mostly French dialect. To her, the word gentleman (always without the indefinite article a) meant a dandy with the gift of the gab who used educated speech to get what he wanted—an apt, if incomplete, description of Mr. Desai.

  Madame Joseph sighed. “He’ll probably buy the police a case of Chivas Regal.”

  Mama told Madame Joseph that the police were mostly concerned with the whereabouts of everyone that evening. Mr. Desai explained to them that he had gone shopping for supplies in Port Louis, twenty-three miles away, and was driving back home when his wife was taken to the hospital. Anil, his son from his first marriage, was at his grandma’s. Papa had gone to the parents-teachers meeting at the school, then straight to the hospital when he heard about the ambulance at the house.

  “Did they ask you anything, Mama?”

  “Of course, and Papa too.”

  Mama took me in her arms and continued. “Papa warned me in Bhojpuri not to say anything bad about Mr. Desai. The two policemen were Creoles; they don’t understand our Indian language.”

  “Men: all the same sauce,” Madame Joseph said, shaking her head.

  * * *

  —

  Papa, who taught the sixth graders, and I, a pupil in the fourth grade, walked together to school every morning, about a mile. The day my parents came back from the hospital in the police car, Papa and I didn’t leave for school until noon. On the way, Papa tried to make conversation, but I was too sad. I don’t remember tears; I just felt empty. A friend had left me. She was such a friend that one day I had called her by her name, Kajal, and Mama scolded me and told me to show proper respect by addressing her henceforth as Mrs. Desai.

  Slim, with rosy cheeks and long black hair, Kajal was petite; the biggest girl in sixth grade was the same size. She had arrived in Rose Belle shortly after we moved there and looked much younger than her husband. Years later, when I was in secondary school, Mama told me that Kajal was seventeen when she died, and Mr. Desai at least forty. Mama told Papa about the wedding gifts Mr. Desai lavished on Kajal:

  “You should see her gold mangalsutra; it’s perfect on her long neck.”

  Craning her neck and collaring it with her fingers, Mama said, “I’m still waiting for mine.”

  “Your mother should have married you off to a Bombai,” Papa said.

  The Desais were “Bombai,” Mauritians whose ancestors hailed from Bombay. To my parents, that implied a few differences from the majority Biharis on the island, who were mostly laborers or small planters, hence rustic. Bombais were mostly in small business or the refined crafts such as goldsmithing, and Biharis viewed them as having a certain degree of sophistication associated with the city. Moreover, being generally more fair-skinned than Biharis, they were more highly prized in the marriage market. Mr. Desai was one of the few Bombais who lived in the countryside. I heard Madame Joseph tell Mama that he didn’t like to mingle and hated the noise in the city.

  In the first few weeks after her arrival in Rose Belle, Kajal wanted to play with me and read books under the zamalac tree. When I came back from school in the afternoon, and on the weekends, she read me French novels I didn’t always understand—Françoise Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse, Marcel Priollet’s Reine de Tango. Words like femme fatale, faire l’amour, débauche, and entrelacée cropped up. She taught me swear words used in the city: cul, pute. We plucked the bell-shaped pink fruits from the zamalac tree and gorged ourselves. Kajal was beautiful and was opening my eyes to a new and lovely world.

  She was so unlike Mama, who always kept busy—if she was not cooking or cleaning the house or ironing clothes, Mama was making lace embroidery that people had ordered for special occasions like weddings and baptisms.

  I spent much more time with Kajal than with Mr. Desai’s son, Anil, who was thirteen and in Form III in secondary school. The veranda was equipped with a Ping-Pong table. A few times, I asked him to teach me to play, but he got irritated and complained to Mama, who warned me to stay out of the veranda when Anil was there. I thought then that he disliked me because I had once called him a girl after I surprised him admiring himself in a handheld mirror.

  Mr. Desai, who conducted his business from two rooms in the house, would sometimes come out and tell Kajal that she should be cooking and cleaning instead of playing with a kid. She would then run to the kitchen and ask my mother to help her.

  After a month or so had passed, at dinnertime, across the thin wood walls, we heard Mr. Desai shout, “Is that all you can prepare? Omelets day in and day out! Bland sandwiches and salads!” The noise of dishes slamming against wood followed. Then the sound of slaps on the face. A thud.

  “You good-for-nothing imbecile! I’ll tell your mother and brothers about this. I bet you were too snobbish to learn some decent cooking.”

  We heard cries and sobs.
I could still hear them when I went to bed and fell asleep.

  The next day, when I returned from school, Kajal and Mama were in the kitchen. Kajal’s lips were swollen. A few minutes later, Mr. Desai walked in, wearing a double-breasted jacket adorned with a red pocket handkerchief. He offered Kajal roses and a box of chocolates. She stormed out.

  “Mrs. Bhushan, I am at a loss,” he said. “I don’t know what to do with her. Please, I implore you, teach her how to cook what men like your husband and I eat—curries and vindaloos, rougaille creole.” He stepped to the door, stood there for a few seconds, then walked back. “I’ll be grateful, really. Tell Mr. Bhushan he need not worry about a rent increase this year.”

  Over the next months, I saw Mama a few times in the kitchen teaching Kajal the mixing and blending of spices, the amount of time different dishes should be sautéed, fried, or simmered, and the pairing of sauces with meats and fish. Kajal seemed indifferent. She was more interested in reading, and her taste was shifting to crime stories. When Mr. Desai saw her with a copy of the French version of Caryl Chessman’s Cell 2455, Death Row, he slapped her in front of me.

  The violence increased. One morning when Madame Joseph and Mama were in the backyard slicing mangoes for pickling, I sneaked into the kitchen to help myself to a little bit of the French pastry meant for afternoon tea. I had barely snatched a slice of the Napolitain cake when I saw Kajal walk towards them. I watched with apprehension and horror as she lifted her blouse and showed Mama and Madame Joseph the darkening wheals and scars on her back and on her belly. “He did this with his leather belt,” she said. When she lowered her blouse, I stepped forward, took her hand, and squeezed it.

  Mama asked Kajal, “Why don’t you put your mind on the cooking?”

  “I don’t want to cook for that repulsive man. He hits me, then wants sex. His flesh sags.”

  Madame Joseph said, “Men: all the same sauce.”

  After Kajal left, Mama and Madame Joseph spoke about how her belly had gotten bigger.

  “Vishnu, go do your homework. Madame Joseph and I have to talk.”

  A few weeks later, Kajal explained to me in some detail how babies are made. Mama was aghast when I told her what I had learnt. “Vishnu, you’re too young to hear all this. Now, don’t tell Papa. Okay?” And to Kajal she said, “How can you expect me to help you when you behave in this manner?”

  I remember Mama knitting baby socks and embroidering tiny pillowcases that Kajal brought to her. But I don’t remember how many weeks went by before Kajal gave birth to a baby boy whom they named Dayal; it was such a long time ago.

  After Dayal’s birth, there was a period of quiet, and even joy. Mr. Desai bought toys and distributed sweets to us and the neighbors. Kajal’s mother and two brothers came to visit, but Mama remarked with surprise that they had not stayed long. She and Madame Joseph talked about how their mothers had lived with them for weeks after the birth of their babies to help them with the chores of mothering.

  Soon, though, Mr. Desai began complaining about how Kajal was feeding, cleaning, and clothing Dayal. As with the cooking, Mama helped. She taught her the proper way to wash cloth diapers and how to insert the pins so as not to hurt the baby when changing them. I felt sorry for Kajal and played with the baby on most days, until Papa told me to stop; he wanted me to read the books he brought from the library instead.

  It was impossible for Kajal to please Mr. Desai. Again dinnertime became beating and sobbing time. Anil, Dayal’s half brother, spent more afternoons and weekends at his grandma’s; he told me that he couldn’t study in peace with all the noise. Until Dayal’s arrival, Anil studied and read on the veranda.

  One day when the beating and crying were particularly intense, Mama told Papa over dinner, “We must move out of here. It’s not healthy for Vishnu to be exposed to this.”

  “We have to wait for this year’s crop, and see how much we can save,” said Papa, referring to the two acres of sugarcane fields he had inherited, which he tended on the weekends.

  We got a respite from the beating and crying when we spent a weekend in Mahébourg at the wedding of one of Mama’s nieces. On our return, Sunday evening, Kajal’s face was in such a condition—black eyes that were half-shut, swollen lips, bruised temples—that even Papa felt compelled to act.

  “She’s going to run away if you continue like this,” he said to Mr. Desai. “She’ll go to the police.”

  Mr. Desai shrugged his shoulders. “Your wife isn’t here for two days to help her, and she can’t function.”

  I wished I were big enough to smash Mr. Desai’s face. The sadness I felt seeing Kajal’s expression gave way to anger.

  “Why are you looking at me like a bulldog?” Mr. Desai said to me.

  “Leave Vishnu out of this, Mr. Desai. He’s a child,” said Mama.

  In the kitchen, Mama asked Kajal what had happened.

  “He was pestering me so much about the way I take care of Dayal, I mistook salt for sugar and put it in his tea. He got mad and said I did it on purpose. I told him he was an asshole.”

  Mama recoiled at the word: “Kajal, you shouldn’t use this kind of language in front of Vishnu.”

  “Auntie, you have to help me. I want to get out of here.”

  Unlike Kajal, who was totally dependent on her husband, Mama earned some money from her embroidery. On Monday morning, she gave Madame Joseph bus fare and lunch money and sent her to deliver an urgent message to Kajal’s mother.

  Kajal’s mother and two brothers did not come until the following Sunday. I remember the day of the week vividly, because when they arrived, I was sitting on the stone steps leading to the veranda, chewing sugarcane and watching the brightly dressed Creole families walk to Sunday Mass. Mr. Desai wasn’t home, and Papa was away working in his sugarcane field. They sat on the veranda with Kajal, whose bruises, black eyes, and swollen lips were still visible. She held Dayal in her lap. Mama and I were in our front room behind the veranda, me pretending to do my homework and Mama doing her embroidery. We could hear them clearly through the thin walls. Kajal’s mother and brothers repeated what Mr. Desai had told them about Kajal’s failings, and Kajal cried and called Mama, who went out on the veranda. I followed her.

  “It’s none of my business to tell you what to do, but I think you should take her home with you,” Mama said to them. “Most men hit their wives, but like Mr. Desai I haven’t seen or heard before; Mr. Desai, he is Bluebeard.”

  I smiled, with a little bit of pride: I had read her the children’s version of how the wealthy French aristocrat murdered his wives.

  Mama went on. “The neighbors say Anil’s mother died mysteriously and his second wife left him.”

  “Rumors spread by envious people,” one of the brothers said.

  Kajal’s mother spoke: “Her husband says she does not obey. She’s always been a disobedient child. Oh, God, I don’t know what I’ve done in my previous life to deserve such a daughter!” She raised her voice: “I warned her father—too much education is not good for girls; they lose respect for our traditions. Kajal was reading all that rubbish about love.”

  Suddenly Madame Joseph appeared. “Ma’am, you talk like you just got off that bloody boat from India. You forget that boat hit our shores more than a hundred years ago. Look what he’s done to your daughter’s face. How can you leave her here?”

  I was unhappy that Kajal would no longer play with me, but I silently agreed with Madame Joseph.

  Kajal’s mother looked at Madame Joseph’s bare feet and worn-out clothes and frowned. “She needs someone like Mr. Desai to discipline her,” she said.

  “Ma, take me with you. Please. Look at your beautiful grandchild; he’ll make you happy.”

  “A married woman belongs with her husband,” said Kajal’s mother.

  After Kajal’s folk left, Mama and Madame Joseph drank tea. They wonde
red aloud whether Kajal had had a boyfriend in the city, a sweetheart from secondary school.

  “Her mother couldn’t allow that,” said Mama. “Girls from respectable Hindu families don’t have boyfriends before marriage.”

  “Maybe he was poor or had no job,” Madame Joseph said.

  Days later, maybe two to three weeks, Mama was kneading flour for my favorite Indian bread, dal puri, when I went into the kitchen. “Vishnu, Dayal has been screaming for more than ten minutes. Mrs. Desai hasn’t come to make dinner. Go check if she needs something.” I went through three rooms and saw no sign of Kajal or baby Dayal; I ventured into the bedroom. On the bed, Kajal lay foaming at the mouth, tearing her hair, her body coiling and contorting. Baby Dayal, who stopped crying when I came in, was at the foot of the bed. He had no diapers on.

  * * *

  —

  When Kajal’s belongings were disposed of, I got to keep the books in which she had inscribed her name. Mama and I shared her perfume. Occasionally, I would open the flacon and inhale the fragrance.

  Three months after Kajal’s death, an investigating magistrate heard testimony in the Judges’ Chambers at the Mahébourg District Court. As I walked to school that day, I saw Mr. Desai leaving home in his car, dressed in his very best. My parents had left for the court earlier, by bus. The magistrate classified the case as a suicide.

  The following year, Papa got a raise and had a bumper sugarcane harvest. We moved to Mahébourg, and in 1960 I was admitted to the Royal College Curepipe secondary school. When the bus to school passed the house where we had lived in Rose Belle, I always looked out, hoping to catch a glimpse of what became of Baby Dayal and Anil and Mr. Desai—for I could see the veranda from the bus. But there was never anyone there. And one day, in my second year of secondary school, I noticed that the advertising sign for Desai Printers was gone.