Silent Winds, Dry Seas

by Vinod Busjeet

  “You made an appointment?”

  “We don’t need one. We’re going to his home.”

  * * *

  —

  We left Mahébourg by bus at five in the morning to catch the minister at his residence in the cool Central Haut Plateau before he left for his office in hot, dusty Port Louis. The Plateau—with towns named Curepipe, Rose Hill, Floréal, and Quatre Bornes—was where the merchant and ruling classes lived. On the bus, Papa was back to his usual taciturn self. He was in no mood to waste his day’s leave from work.

  The minister, Honorable Bara Thakoor, received us in his living room. The furniture was ornate, what the magazines I’d seen at the Carnegie Library called Victorian-style furniture—a secretary bookcase, Chippendale back chairs, and a Victorian writing desk. I had no notion whether they were original or copies, or if they belonged in a living room. They must have been imported. Papa and I sat on oval-back armchairs, Honorable Thakoor on a wing chair. On the wall, there was a photo of him as a student in London, standing under a young labour banner with Clement Attlee, the post–World War II British prime minister.

  Honorable Bara Thakoor was a short man. Small may be more accurate, as he had no physical presence. “Incolore, inodore, et sans saveur” is how my secondary school French teacher would have described him. Colorless, odorless, and tasteless. Not ugly, for ugliness would have given him some “couleur et saveur.” Just unimpressive, far from the articulate type I had expected to see in a barrister trained at one of London’s Inns of Court. To me, these institutions brought to mind alumni like Gandhi and Nehru, the leaders of independent India, and many British prime ministers.

  My father had told me that the minister had been a colleague of his at the primary school. Dr. Maurice Curé, the labor leader and politician, spotting a man who he thought would contribute to the uplift of the country’s poor, had organized a national fund drive to finance Thakoor’s legal studies in England. The same elderly Dr. Curé who treated me for free when, six weeks after my premature birth, my mother had taken me for consultation because my chances of survival looked dire.

  Earlier in his career, Honorable Thakoor had crossed the floor; that is, he had defected from the opposition to join the ruling party, “for the good of the country.” So he had told a boisterous seaside meeting attended by thousands of his constituents. Many had cheered; many had booed; few had been indifferent. A week later, he had been rewarded with a ministerial post.

  For the meeting with Honorable Thakoor, my father had put on his best suit. Unlike the newly minted, university-educated professionals, he believed in dressing up every day. That meant suit, tie, and felt hat, winter or summer. He was especially proud of his hat. A present from an Englishman he had met and befriended during his weekly walks to Blue Bay, it gave him the sense of belonging to the gentlemanly class. My father was schooled in the old colonial manners. Like many of his generation, he ended his letters to his superiors with “I have the honor to be, Sir, Your Faithful and Most Obedient Servant.”

  After he took off his hat, he addressed the minister. From his days as the minister’s colleague, Papa knew the minister would speak in either English or the local Kreol, for his French was only adequate. So Papa chose to speak in French: his English was good, but he had mastered Molière’s tongue. Though he was a supplicant, he was not going to let a London-educated barrister intimidate him.

  My father handed him a copy of my Oxbridge results and explained the situation.

  “Monsieur le Ministre, not only has my son been denied a Commonwealth Scholarship, but he’s been robbed of the French scholarship awarded to him a few months later.”

  Papa had brought with him, besides the award letter from the French embassy, a newspaper that carried the names of the top-scoring students. During those early post-independence days, all the newspapers listed them. These published lists boosted family pride. They gave the parents bragging rights with relatives and friends; in town and on the bus; at weddings and funerals. He handed these to the minister.

  “Why should someone who came out fourth in the nation, with excellent grades, be denied the chance to attend a top university? Monsieur le Ministre, it is unfair that inferior students with rich parents are getting the prestigious scholarships.”

  The minister nodded, though whether to mark his agreement or his neutrality, I couldn’t say.

  My father continued: “The information we have is that my son’s scholarship has been ‘given’ to the niece of one of your colleagues in the cabinet. She didn’t even rank in the top twenty. Her parents can afford the university expenses.”

  The minister turned to me. I took the opportunity to reinforce my case. I told him how, two weeks before my scheduled departure to France, the French Cultural Attaché had informed me of a “pépin,” how I had knocked on the doors of government bureaucrats as I tried to dig deeper, and how Ministry officials and the French Cultural Attaché blamed each other for the problem.

  Honorable Thakoor looked baffled.

  “Shiv, I can’t understand why he’s been treated this way. This is unacceptable. Come see me at the office in two days.”

  Papa picked up his hat.

  “Very smart hat,” said Honorable Thakoor as he shook Papa’s hand. “Bates of Jermyn Street?”

  Papa smiled and nodded. “Yes.”

  On the way back home, Papa stopped in the village of Rose Belle and took me to a man I had often seen at political rallies: the election agent of another member of the cabinet, Minister Pierre Legrand. My father must have assessed the situation as desperate, to resort to such a meeting. Election agents were individuals, with varying degrees of honesty and reliability, paid by politicians to collect intelligence, mobilize votes, ensure that transportation is available on Election Day for the party supporters, and if necessary win the voters with rum and promises of public sector jobs. They were referred to in the local vernacular as bachara, the “politician’s tout.” Men who, in the normal run of things, were deemed “pollution” by Papa.

  “The academic year in France starts in mid-September. We have only two weeks, and I don’t want you to miss that,” Papa said. “I’ve racked my brains thinking who to turn to. The agent was my student at primary school.” He didn’t say his name.

  In the 1960s and ’70s, teachers were revered like the gurus of ancient India. Even by election agents.

  Once again, Papa explained the situation. The agent expressed concern. “Pas traka, Missié Bhushan. I’m here to help, and my minister is always at the service of the people. I’ll be at your house early tomorrow morning.”

  Shaking my hand, the agent added, “I’ll take you to Minister Legrand. He’ll fix it.”

  As we boarded the bus for home, my father told me we’d better enlist the support of Honorable Iqbal Mohamed, who in Parliament represented Ferney, the village where many Bhushans grew up. Ferney was a bastion of the ruling party. Honorable Mohamed was another former colleague of my father’s who had left the teaching profession for politics. He played a prominent role in the major Muslim religious organizations, much as Honorable Thakoor played in organizations of the Hindu faith. He was a backbencher, not a member of the cabinet.

  Honorable Mohamed must have seen us from his window: before we knocked, he opened the door and embraced my father. Greeting us inside was an imposing tapestry on the wall that featured Mecca, with the black cubic Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine. As for the furniture, he shared my father’s spartan tastes—it was utilitarian, not decorative. On a sideboard was a photo of Honorable Mohamed, palms joined in the namasté gesture, with Prime Minister Nehru. Smart, I thought, for him to display that photo; Hindus formed the majority in his electoral constituency.

  He served us tea and inquired about various members of the Bhushan clan. When Papa explained the reason for our visit, he muttered something about being frustrated by the actions of some o
f his Parliamentary colleagues, excused himself to write a letter to Honorable Thakoor, which he showed me. When I saw the letter, on Legislative Assembly letterhead with the country’s coat of arms, I felt my heart beat faster.

  I urge your serious and urgent consideration of Vishnu Bhushan’s case. In addition to his superb academic results, he has considerable personal qualities, exceptional maturity, a gentlemanly manner, a clever sense of humor not only about the world but also about himself. He is a purposeful young man with a deep interest in the economic and social problems of our country.

  My friends were reading and hearing gossip about our post-independence rulers, and I was sitting in their living rooms and getting gushing letters of recommendation! Honorable Mohamed also wrote that my father was a strong supporter of the ruling Labour Party—a questionable statement.

  When I finished reading, Honorable Mohamed said, “Vishnu, with your father’s genes, I expect you to go very far. Did you know that he topped our class at the Teachers Training College? Bara Thakoor and I trailed behind.”

  This was the first time I had heard about Papa’s ranking.

  Honorable Mohamed handed the letter to my father and hugged him tight. “Shiv, you should have joined us and run for office. You were stubborn and didn’t listen to me!”

  At the door, Honorable Mohamed’s son handed us a bag of lychees. “From our orchard,” he said.

  On the bus, I asked Papa, “How come you never told me about being top of your class?”

  “That was such a long time ago.”

  “But you did tell me how you got higher scores than the other applicants in your entrance exams.”

  “What’s the point of boasting?”

  Papa then reminisced about his younger brother who joined the British colonial army to escape poverty and was blown up in Palestine in the last year of the British Mandate. “He was the hot-blooded one in the family. He didn’t care for education.”

  “Maybe he was right,” I said. “Look at what’s happening. Aren’t you sick of these politicians and their pimps?”

  “We have to be optimistic. You’ll get that scholarship. We just have to fight for it.”

  Back home in Mahébourg, Mama looked at us, exhausted from the day’s travels and meetings, our oily skin made shinier by the day’s sweat. She dared not ask what happened, so I told her. She reacted with her usual worried look.

  “Son, it will be all right. God helps those who work hard.”

  * * *

  —

  After dinner, Mama asked me into the kitchen. “Vishnu, I know you have a lot on your mind. But you have to help Papa.”

  “I’m the one who needs help.”

  “The judgment against him includes paying Auntie’s legal fees. He’s got the money, but he has too much pride to face Auntie’s attorney.”

  “So he wants me to deliver the cash?”

  “He hasn’t said that.”

  I remembered Mama’s words about reconciliation. I took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’ll go to him and offer to do it.”

  * * *

  —

  The following morning at six, the agent showed up in a taxi. Papa handed me a sealed envelope marked “Maître Robert Foiret, Attorney-at-Law,” and a wad of banknotes to cover taxi and other “expenses.” Until then, we had traveled by taxi only when someone was too ill to take the bus.

  “Minister Legrand likes a special kind of fish. Let’s go to the bazaar,” the agent said.

  When we arrived at the market, the agent didn’t proceed to the fish section right away. Instead, he walked up to the sellers of Indian pastry and savories in front of the corrugated iron building. The flaky crust of the samosas and the smoke from the piping hot dal puris beckoned to my taste buds. But I had to stay by the agent as he greeted everyone with a namasté and chatted about the latest political news.

  He then strolled through the main section of the bazaar, addressing the vegetable and fruit sellers by name. The sweet scent of red lychees and the fragrance of green mangoes were soon swept away by aromas of cardamon and coriander, saffron and turmeric, from the spice stalls. In this section, we came by a stall owned by the son of a Hindu priest. He sold goods used in religious rituals—incense sticks, threads for initiation ceremonies, betel leaves, sandalwood, clay lamps, statuettes of gods and goddesses. The agent noticed a calendar that had Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi appearing next to Hindu gods and goddesses. “Next year, you’ll have to add Chacha on that calendar,” the agent said. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or serious. Chacha was the Prime Minister’s sobriquet.

  I thought we were ready to move on to the fish section, but as we reached the western end of the bazaar, the agent took me outside, some twenty yards away, to a small building where beef was carved and sold. I had never been inside. Hindus, for whom the cow is sacred, didn’t loiter here. The butchers were all Muslim, and the agent switched to the greeting “Salaam alaikum.” He then turned right, to another small building for pork, anathema to Muslims; the butchers here were Creole, and he pumped hands and switched to Kreol, saying, “Bonjour, ki nouvel?” By then I was convinced the agent had higher ambitions—he would one day run for political office himself. He may even become minister.

  When we hit the fish stalls, I was curious about the special fish the agent was seeking. He inspected each stall.

  “They don’t have it. The taxi will take us to the Port Louis bazaar, then we’ll backtrack to the minister’s house in the Plateau,” he said.

  In Port Louis, we walked straight to the fish section. I concluded that the agent didn’t know many people here and that the capital was not his boss’s electoral district. After checking a few of the stalls, he found what Minister Legrand liked: a fish I had never seen, whose name I had never heard, selling for seven rupees per pound. The Mahébourg bazaar carried fish with prices per pound ranging from one rupee, for the proletarian corne, to 1.70 rupees, for the aristocratic capitaine or guele pavé. The agent bought a six-pounder.

  “I give you discount,” the fishmonger said. “You have it for forty rupees.”

  I thought of my monthly teacher’s salary, 160 rupees.

  When we arrived at Honorable Legrand’s residence, it was around nine. The gardener was trimming the roses; the driver was shining the ministerial Jaguar. I thought we would enter through the veranda to deliver the precious package to the minister, and I was shocked when the agent motioned me to accompany him to the back of the house. At home and in the circles I moved in, only family and very close friends entered through the back. The minister’s wife, still in her peignoir and baring her ample cleavage, opened the kitchen door to usher us in.

  “We’ve brought you Pierre’s favorite,” the agent said as he opened the newspaper wrapping to reveal the red-and-white fish. The agent referred to the minister by first name, as one would family and friends.

  “Magnifique. Grand merci,” she said, with an English accent. “Pierre will see you at his office.”

  Before we drove back to the capital, I gave myself a minute to take in the luxurious kitchen—the sort I had seen only in movies. Instead of the logs, twigs, and pookni (a piece of metal pipe used to blow the fire) we had at home, here were electric countertops; instead of a plywood table on which lay the family’s enamel teacups, glasses, and plastic plates were kitchen cabinets holding real china. A refrigerator. A floor of real marble. I was getting a foretaste of the luxury that, hopefully, would come after a good university education.

  Unlike Honorables Thakoor and Mohamed, who as descendants of Indian coolies had experienced privations in youth, Honorable Pierre Legrand was a child of privilege. He was a big donor to the Catholic Church. A mulatto who could pass for a white person, he had been decorated for bravery during World War II and subsequently knighted by the Queen. He had met his wife in London during the Second World War. Prior to his
entry into politics, he had a thriving law practice. Yes, he, too, was an alumnus of the Inns of Court.

  At the Hotel du Gouvernement, Honorable Legrand’s office wall was adorned with a photo of him in a Royal Air Force pilot’s uniform, next to a bomber aircraft. He was a big man with the looks of a movie star. A lady-killer.

  After I was introduced by the agent, Minister Legrand began with a warning.

  “I want to make one thing clear: when you leave this office, remember that the fish you brought home was meant for Madame. I did not ask for it and you did not give it to me.”

  He looked me in the eye. I turned to the agent, who shook his head to confirm the gravity of Honorable Legrand’s words. Fishy business it sure was. My blood boiled as I imagined him savoring the fancy fish with his wife later that evening, followed by a night of voracious lovemaking, while Papa and I were trying to figure out how to get my scholarship back.

  The minister gave me more than a few seconds to digest his point, and then I presented my case. When I finished, he said that he would contact the French embassy to see if they could do something. His face was blank, his voice unconvincing. I asked for his phone number so that I could check the outcome. He pointed to the agent: “I’ll let him know what they say.”

  I never heard from the agent.

  From the historic grandeur of the Hotel du Gouvernement, I proceeded to the attorneys’ chambers, walking distance from the Supreme Court. It was an oppressive building: low ceilings, stuffy hallway, and piles of law books about to crash on you at any moment; febrile, anxious faces in the waiting room. Maître Foiret, a portly, bald man, wore a sad face when he took the envelope of cash. “It’s a pity so many families are torn apart by such cases. I told your father to accept a compromise, but he wouldn’t listen. Il est tenace et coriace.” Tenacious and hard as leather.

  It had been a depressing morning. By the time lunch was over, I had a headache. Thinking some levity might help, I took the bus to Curepipe to chat with Voltaire, a primary school classmate who had excelled academically but didn’t go on to secondary school. He became a tailor’s apprentice to help his father, a night watchman, make ends meet. I had used my first two months’ salary as a teacher as down payment on a new suit, in anticipation of the social life at university. The day I selected the fabric, my father came with me. He agreed with Voltaire’s recommendation that I go with the luxurious Dormeuil wool. “After seven years at that snobbish school, it’s time Vishnu gets some stylish clothes,” Voltaire had said. It was now time to try on the suit to ensure a proper fit.