Kajal and Mr. Desai were slowly fading from memory. Women from the movies now occupied my thoughts and imagination. Baby Dayal, however, still haunted me. At a neighbor’s funeral wake in 1962, we ran into Anil, who was now eighteen and about to complete his secondary school studies; I was thirteen. He was playing with a baby when Mama asked him to help her serve tea to the mourners. As he walked towards me with the baby, I pulled back.
“It will shit on me,” I said.
“Vishnu, that’s not nice,” said Mama.
The following year, when I turned fourteen, Kajal came back to me. Chemistry lab class did it. I learnt that aluminum plates used in manufacturing rubber stamps were bathed in diluted acid to enable the designs to be etched and raised. Now that I had read Romeo and Juliet, I imagined Kajal bringing the bottle of diluted acid to her lips, but, unlike with Juliet, the acid ate away her delicate stomach. If only I had gotten to the bedroom earlier! When I asked the chemistry teacher if he knew of people committing suicide with acid, he said, “I don’t know anyone personally. But if they want to, cyanide is the best—the corpse exudes an aroma of almonds.” That led me into deeper reverie. I had seen a photo of a painting of Ophelia drowning, surrounded by flowers; I now pictured Kajal floating in the river, perfuming the air. I must have been in love with Kajal, I thought.
Two years later, when I was slowly outgrowing my teenage fantasies, I learnt that the smell from cyanide is of bitter almonds.
Around that time, we had a visitor.
“Madame Joseph!” said Mama as she opened the door.
Madame Joseph had changed: she now leaned on a cane and wore shoes.
Mama’s eyes were moist. It was time for afternoon tea, and after we sat down, she served cakes. “What brings you here?” Mama said.
“The pig is dead,” said Madame Joseph.
Mama furrowed her brow.
“Mr. Desai. He died a painful death…throat cancer.” Madame Joseph’s face showed no emotion; her voice was resonant but calm.
I said nothing. I was still angry at the way Mr. Desai had treated Kajal.
“How is Dayal?” Mama said.
“He is growing into a fine boy. His grandma looks after him.”
“And Anil?” I said.
“Vishnu, I don’t know what to tell you. After Kajal’s death, Anil and his father fought constantly. Mr. Desai sold his business and Anil left home to live in Beau Bassin,” Madame Joseph said. “His grandma says he’s going to change his name.”
“I would do the same if I were Anil,” I said.
Mama looked at me in a way only she could, showing approval and concern at the same time. I wondered, then and many times since, if she sensed that Mr. Desai’s death unsettled me, that it brought back images of Kajal’s suffering: her bruises and black eyes, her pleading in vain to return home to her mother, her final agonizing moments on her bed.
I continued: “Madame Joseph, can I ask you something? Did you ever find out what really happened to Kajal that night?”
“Mr. Desai shipped Anil to his grandma that day. He told everyone he was in Port Louis for supplies; but I know he had already made his monthly trip for supplies the week before,” Madame Joseph said.
Mama turned to me. “Mr. Desai warned Papa that he would kick us out of the house if we gave too many details to the magistrate. Earlier that day, Kajal had complained of stomachache. Oh, my God, when I think back, I was so naive then.”
“I overheard Mr. Desai’s brothers when they were visiting—you know, the two who stay together in Curepipe,” Madame Joseph said. “They were drunk and babbled about how they went to the house that night and took some bottles. They threw them down the latrine in their outhouse.”
Shaking her head, she added, “Men: all the same sauce.”
I remembered the silhouettes in the Desais’ bedroom, and related what I had seen to Mama and Madame Joseph. “I should have told you and the police the day you came back from the hospital. It’s terrible.”
“Son, you were eight years old. The police wouldn’t have believed you.”
“Mama, I never tried to help Kajal.”
“How could you? You were a kid,” said Mama. Her face turned somber. She paused. “That was a very dark period of my life. I feel so guilty I didn’t do more for her.”
Madame Joseph and I moved close to her and held her hands.
* * *
—
Throughout my secondary school years, Mama asked me to read the daily newspaper to her. It was only four pages, in French, with legal notices in English. A few days after Madame Joseph’s visit, I saw this:
NOTICE OF CHANGE OF NAME
ANIL Desai residing at Beau Bassin hereby petitions the Master and Registrar of the Supreme Court for change of his name to JAMES OLIVER MORGAN…etc.
Mama said nothing when I translated it for her, but her face showed distress. She mentioned it to Papa at dinner.
“I saw the notice. He thinks an English name fits his skin color better,” he said.
Some three months after publication of the legal notice, there was a knock on the door.
“Anil,” said Mama as she opened it.
“Auntie Seeta, I am James now. James Oliver Morgan. But you can call me Anil. You and some older relatives can.”
Mama’s eyes were moist. “Oh, Anil, you’re so handsome in that suit.” She touched his gold cuff links lovingly. “You’ve got style—gentleman, like your father! How are you doing? You’ve got a job?”
“I’m now active in the Protestant Church; they have taught me so many things, Auntie.”
“Son, why did you have to convert?”
“How could I remain a Hindu after all that my father did? To my mother, to Kajal, to me. The way Hindus treat women—it’s a disgrace.”
“Anil, it’s not a Hindu thing; it’s a man thing. Look around here—the Creole fishermen go to Mass on Sunday morning, get drunk at the bar at noon, and come home and beat up their women.”
“It’s not the same, Auntie. The fisherfolk are illiterate; my father was educated.”
“Anil, even the white people—you don’t know what goes on in their mansions. They walk hand in hand and kiss on the beach, but remember what Madame Joseph used to say—‘Men: all the same sauce.’ ”
“Auntie, I’ll be different. They’re grooming me to be Deacon; you and Uncle Shiv should come hear me in church. The parishioners love me. The Reverend says I know how to bring out the poetry when I read the Psalms. Vishnu, come too, you’ll enjoy it.”
* * *
—
A month before I left Mauritius for university study, Madame Joseph died and I went to her funeral. As the Catholic priest left and mourners started shoveling soil over her coffin, I walked to the Hindu section of the cemetery and found Kajal’s grave. I cleared the leaves, rooted out the weeds, stood and contemplated her name on the headstone. For how long, I couldn’t tell.
Papa spotted me and called, “It’s time to go.”
A part of me did not want to leave.
IV
For a Fistful of Rupees
I
How come you’re all eating ice cream?
The teacher stares at Sundar’s shoeless feet,
pricks Murday’s torn shorts with his cane.
Did your fathers give you pocket money?
My friends say nothing.
Raymond, who eats ice cream every day,
points to me.
The ice cream man bicycles away.
The teacher takes me to Papa’s classroom.
Papa digs into his jacket pockets,
counts.
Dear colleague, you have my permission.
II
Children, what is the Seventh Commandment?
Raymond raises his han
d, writes it on the blackboard.
Sundar, hold his arms down firmly.
The teacher adjusts my buttocks against his desk.
Murday, the right cheek. One. Stronger. Two. Three.
Change places with Sundar.
Sundar, the left cheek. One. Stronger. Two. Three.
Six scoops, six lashes.
V
Silent Winds, Dry Seas
1960
The Class 1 warning for Cyclone Carol had been broadcast on the Mauritius radio before Uncle Ram and I boarded the bus at ten in the morning. The previous day, his wife, Auntie Ranee, their baby, and Mama had left for Coromandel village, about twenty-eight miles north, to help Auntie’s parents prepare for the yaj. Class 1 warnings weren’t much to worry about; in the cyclone season, we get quite a few of them. Besides, the yaj is not just any religious service. It is the highest form of prayer, one that Auntie told me would last the entire day, from sunrise to sunset. According to the priest, that day, February 26, 1960, was particularly auspicious for a yaj in the Hindu astrological chart, the Panchang.
Uncle Ram, who had little if any religion, was keen on meeting the many relatives who were expected to show up. Papa stayed home. Though a devout Hindu, he shunned public displays of devotion like the annual Maha Shivratri pilgrimage to the holy lake of Grand Bassin, and wasn’t the gregarious kind. Since the yaj was organized by his sister-in-law’s clan, not by the Bhushans, Papa felt no obligation to attend. When we left home, he told Uncle Ram, “Please don’t forget to show Vishnu the secondary school. It’s as important as the yaj.”
Six months earlier, our family had moved from Rose Belle to Mahébourg, where we shared a house near the Pointe des Régates beach with Uncle Ram and his family. I had always enjoyed visiting Uncle Ram in his various postings as railway stationmaster throughout the island. He was always jovial and would show me around the stations, let me wander in the train compartments, introduce me to the postmaster next door, and demonstrate how the telegraph and the semaphore signals worked. Now that he had retired and we were living in the same house, with a wood partition separating the two brothers’ families, he intrigued me. During the day, he walked to the district court to listen to witnesses’ testimonies and lawyers’ pleadings, and in the evening he visited bars with other retirees, and quite often came home drunk. He remained his cheerful self at all times, whereas Papa, who was younger by eleven years, always looked serious and rarely smiled. The two brothers seemed to have only one thing in common: every day they both dressed up in suit and tie, winter or summer.
Uncle Ram beckoned me to sit next to him at the back of the bus. Through the rear windows the turquoise ocean had turned darker and the waves rougher, but I had seen that before and was not alarmed. None of the passengers looked worried. The wind, however, reminded me of an incident at the bazaar two days earlier, when a Creole fishmonger accosted me: “Vishnu, half of Mahébourg heard your uncle’s invocation last night. You’re by the sea, and with that voice of his and the strong wind, his words travel far. ‘Hawa baand, samoondar soukarey,’ he roared all night. What does he mean? Is he a prophet?”
Indeed, the last words Uncle Ram uttered every evening, in a thunderous and imperative voice, were “Hawa baand, samoondar soukarey,” never “Good night.” I had until then thought these were meaningless words from a tipsy man. When I told Mama about the fishmonger’s question, she said with a benevolent smile, “Uncle Ram likes to puzzle and challenge. Those Hindi words mean ‘Halt the winds, dry out the seas!’ ” She added, for reasons unclear to me at the time, that at both his weddings, Uncle Ram had scandalized the Bhushan clan and the Hindu community with his behavior. This was the first time I heard he had married twice. When I asked Mama to explain, she told me, “It’s better you ask him. I don’t want to be part of any gossip.”
As our bus left the terminal, Uncle Ram pointed to a man running towards a taxi. His elegant turban, the ashen marks on his forehead, the saffron-colored string garland on his neck, and his dhoti indicated he was a pandit, a Hindu priest.
“Look at his loincloth flapping in the wind. Do you see between his legs?”
I thought Uncle Ram’s question strange, but nodded in agreement.
“You see the pandit’s eggplant dangling?”
I laughed. “No. I understand what you mean, though.”
“That’s what the dhoti does: everything hangs. That’s what they wanted me to wear at my wedding. Can you believe that?” Uncle Ram said, caressing his jacket lapels.
“All the bridegrooms wear that at our weddings,” I said.
“That’s what the clan wants you to wear. They flock to you when you have a secure job. They live in your house for two years, eat your food, and then they have the nerve to dictate what you should wear at your wedding.”
“They lived with you when you married Auntie Ranee?”
“I’m talking before Auntie Ranee’s time. My first wife.”
“You had a wife before Auntie Ranee? What did you do…I mean about the dhoti?”
“I flung it on the floor and threatened to walk out of the wedding if I couldn’t keep my suit on.”
I was shocked. I had never imagined jovial Uncle Ram could be so defiant.
“You have guts!” I said.
Uncle Ram shook his head but avoided my eyes. He looked out the window. The branches of trees lining the road were swaying. He put his arm round my shoulder and squeezed me tight. “You’ll show your guts one day by leaving this place. Emigrate,” he said.
But I wanted to talk about his first wife. “Did you love her as much as Auntie Ranee?”
“Vishnu, you’re only ten. You know about love?”
The old Creole couple in front of us turned their heads, peered at my skinny legs and shorts, and said to each other, “Today’s kids!”
Uncle Ram punched my upper arm. “We should travel together more often. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about love,” he said.
As the bus puffed uphill towards the High Central Plateau, I could feel the wind steadily growing stronger: the moment I opened the window for fresh air, I had to close it. On the road, sari-clad women carrying dry wood on their heads for their stoves were straining to balance their loads. Bulls towing carts were slowing as the wind blew in their eyes. When we got off the bus in Curepipe, the sophisticated town where foreigners and many wealthy Mauritians lived, it was fun watching the women struggle to cover their underwear as the wind blew up their skirts. Uncle Ram was looking, too, and he winked at me.
* * *
—
Ten minutes later, we stood in front of a massive two-story stone building with wrought iron fence and gates, and windows the size of doors. The manicured front lawn and the central facade supported by columns gave it the allure of a small palace. This was the Royal College Curepipe secondary school. With the cyclone warning, the students had the day off. Uncle Ram pointed to the statue of two soldiers on a huge pedestal at the entrance and said, “Every July 14, the police band plays ‘La Marseillaise’ here, and on November 11 they celebrate the Armistice. The governor and the big shots salute.” I didn’t understand what he was talking about. I found it strange that the soldiers held a laurel in one hand, pointing skywards, and a gun with bayonet in the other hand. I kept quiet, not wanting to sound stupid. Uncle Ram carried on: “The building is modeled on Buckingham Palace.” That I understood. He went inside and after a few minutes came back with the caretaker. For the next thirty minutes, they showed me facilities I never imagined existed in a school—basketball and volleyball courts, a gym with contraptions whose purpose I couldn’t figure out. And what a library! Ebony bookshelves, mahogany reading tables, etched glass panes, first editions of Dickens novels and Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species on display. I hadn’t heard of Darwin. “A revolutionary book that Catholic priests and pandits should read,” said Uncl
e Ram.
He told the caretaker, “Let’s take the boy to the Grand Hall.” I was ushered into what looked like a huge theater, except that on the walls were big wooden panels with lists of names going back to the 1800s. “Ça banne lauréats, banne grand bougres,” the Creole caretaker told me in the local patois: laureates, bigwigs, the school’s top students who made it to Oxbridge and the Sorbonne. The island’s academic hall of fame. The names on the panels until the 1950s were mostly French, a few with the nobility-denoting particle de—de Chazal, de Commarmond. Uncle Ram made me read a few names aloud. “You get your name there, Vishnu, and that will be your ticket to leave the island. You can then tell the pandits and the clan to go to hell.”
Uncle Ram thanked the caretaker with five rupees for the unofficial tour.
* * *
—
Mama was right, I thought as I took my seat on the bus from Curepipe to Coromandel. Uncle Ram does like to challenge and puzzle.
“Uncle, why are you telling me to emigrate? Most of these laureates came back. I read about them in the newspaper.”
He sighed. “We’ll talk about that later. Let’s have your name on that wooden panel first.”
“And how am I going to get admitted to that fancy place?”
“We all expect you to win the scholarship entrance.”
“No one from Mahébourg Primary has ever done that.”
“That’s why your father is cramming your head with all those books they don’t teach you at Mahébourg Primary.”
“I don’t know about that.”
Silent Winds, Dry Seas Page 4