Cereus Blooms at Night

by Shani Mootoo

  “I must tell you of our great fortune. I ought to have informed you a while ago but with all the business of graduations it simply slipped my mind. Lavinia has been accepted into the seminary.”

  Chandin thought, You are the seminary, in other words, you have accepted her. But he succeeded in sounding pleased when he answered, “Good news! Well done! She must be very happy.”

  “Indeed, she is. We all are. And this is the thing. Before the term starts up again, I have decided to take the family to spend the next few months back home in the Wetlands. You know we have not been back in a long while.”

  Chandin’s heart leapt, thinking he was to be included in the family journey.

  “Mrs. Thoroughly, Lavinia and I will leave in a matter of days,” said the Reverend.

  “But, sir, there are no sailings for at least four more months, until the end of the storm season,” Chandin interrupted indignantly.

  “Ah, but an unscheduled sailing takes place in three days, precisely to beat the storms. Fortunately our affairs are such that we can leave on short notice.”

  The Reverend continued to talk as Chandin became filled with fear. In her homeland Lavinia was bound to meet some Wetlander with whom she would fall in desperate love and marry. He heard the Reverend saying something about how much they would miss him. Chandin’s only concern was to declare his love to Lavinia right there, that very day.

  She and Sarah were strolling along the edge of the field, heading away from the crowd. Chandin took off in a little run, shouting Lavinia’s name. She seemed not to hear. When he caught up, he did not excuse himself but grasped Lavinia firmly by the elbow.

  “Lavinia, I must talk with you.”

  “What! What on earth could be the matter? You have not even excused yourself, and why this?” she said looking down at his hand still clutching her.

  “Please excuse me. Sarah, would you please excuse us. I have a matter of some urgency to discuss with Miss Thoroughly.”

  “Chandin, Sarah calls me by my first name. You know that. Why so formal? What can be so urgent?” When Sarah walked off with a hint of a glare, Chandin apologized and softened his manner.

  “I have been meaning to talk with you for a while now, but I haven’t had the opportunity before today’s match…”

  “By the way, you batted marvellously! I had no idea that you were such an asset!”

  He stepped in front of her and took both her hands, bringing them up to his chest. “Every one of those was for you, Lavinia. I have been meaning—”

  Understanding his intent all too clearly she pulled her hands out of his and said in disbelief, with a hint of a laugh, “I think you better stop right now!”

  “Lavinia, listen to me please. I think only of you. I have only ever thought of you. I must tell you that I love no one quite as much as I have always loved you. Your father has just informed me that you are to leave in a matter of days. I will wait here for you, and when you return I will ask your father—”

  She slapped her thigh.

  “You will do no such thing. You are nothing more than my brother.”

  “Lavinia, stop this please. We are not siblings. I love—”

  “No! No! No! This is ridiculous. Let’s just stop this conversation right now. I think you must have batter’s sunstroke.”

  Chandin fell silent. He stared blankly at her.

  “Don’t speak a word of this to anyone, Chandin. Please. I disapprove and do not consent—”

  “Lavinia—”

  “Shhh, shhh, do not speak to me of it either.” She turned and saw her mother carrying two pitchers of mango juice. Without another word she ran off to relieve her.

  Chandin was caught out with the first ball of the first inning after lunch. From the corner of his eye he could see that Lavinia had not even noticed. Her back was to the field and she was chatting with Sarah, who was laughing, clearly unaware of the state of the game.

  * * *

  —

  The holidays passed miserably. Chandin, with little or no appetite, dwindled in size. One letter came from Mrs. Thoroughly, who wrote only that they were thrilled to see their relatives and happy to meet old friends again. She added, “We miss you and talk of you often,” but said nothing about Lavinia. On the day of their return Chandin took special care in his grooming, changing his clothing no less than three times, trying to find the look that might catch Lavinia’s eye without being too obvious. He arrived at the harbour in time to watch the steamer coast its last half-mile to port. Among the hundreds of pairs of hands waving wildly he picked out the Reverend and Mrs. Thoroughly, who had long ago spotted him, one of the few brown-skinned people on shore not employed in bringing the ship in. He was unable to see Lavinia.

  The Thoroughlys warmly greeted him. The strained smile on his face, his nervous laughter and his scanning of the crowd were not unnoticed. Mrs. Thoroughly held both his hands, squeezing them in hers.

  “Lavinia has stayed on in the Wetlands, Chandin. But not for long. Not for too long. My, my, it is indeed rather hot, isn’t it? We have hardly been away for very long and I have already forgotten just how hot this place could be! I am delighted to be back, though. How are you, Chandin?” Her Wetlandish accent was thicker than Chandin had remembered. She let go of his hands and fanned herself with a scented handkerchief.

  Reverend Thoroughly was quiet. He had his eyes on porters unloading trunks of luggage. As fast as he wiped perspiration from his forehead and neck with a large handkerchief, beads sprang up again. Seeing their luggage he excused himself. Mrs. Thoroughly faced Chandin squarely and began to talk quickly, as though trying to answer the questions she read in his eyes.

  “Our family has very strong ties in the Wetlands, Chandin. All my family and Ernest’s, I mean, Reverend Thoroughly’s, live there. And they all know everything about you. You were the subject of many wonderful conversations, and people who have never met you have sent their greetings and blessings! It is good that Lavinia will stay on. But she will not be absent long—only until the very next sailing. As you know, Chandin, it had been many years since Lavinia and her grandparents had seen each other. She met cousins, several of whom were either babies or not yet born when we left to come here—”

  Pain engulfed Chandin. He had an urgent need to say something, if only to assure himself that he was still breathing. “What about her plans,” he interjected feebly “to attend the seminary? Does she not want to attend?”

  “Of course she will attend! Her father has promised to hold her seat for her—she will, after all, be the first woman to attend! She will return, Chandin, on the next sailing. She is just so fascinated with the Wetlands. So much family there, you know, so many relatives. And it’s so damp, so cool, so richly damp…”

  The Thoroughlys regularly invited Chandin for supper, but it was impossible for him to enter their house and not obsess over information about Lavinia, about her pending return or her interest in him as her life’s companion. Citing the need to study for this examination and that test, he more often than not declined. He spent much time by himself, sequestered in the library or his room in the dormitory. Despite what Lavinia’s parents said, he had lost hope that she would return. His lack of appetite continued. His nights were sleepless, and he grew thin and morose. Even his gait changed; his muscles sagged and his bones seemed to bow under the weight of despair. The will to imitate the Reverend’s posture of confidence and power had completely withered.

  A month had not passed since the Thoroughlys’ return when the Reverend arrived unannounced one afternoon at Chandin’s room in the dormitory. The instant Chandin opened the door he felt a tired resignation in the pit of his stomach.

  “Come walk with me, Chandin. The kanganilla are in bloom. Have you seen them today?”

  Out on the lawns in brilliant sunshine Chandin remained quiet, thinking, Well, come on, I am waiting. I am ready.
I know very well that you have not brought me here to see the kanganilla. Tell me whatever it is you must.

  But he was not ready for the news. Reverend Thoroughly reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a thin, twice-folded paper. He held it up as if to verify its existence yet did not unfold the sheet. A telegram from Lavinia, he said, and touched the page briefly to his lips. Chandin’s heart leapt with fear and excitement. He wanted, at the very least, to brush the piece of paper with his hand, but Reverend Thoroughly had already slipped it back into his pocket.

  “It is wonderful news, Chandin, simply wonderful news for a parent. Lavinia is in love—” Chandin, breathless, came to an abrupt halt. Even as he knew it to be in vain, an ember of hope spat at his heart. “—and requests permission to marry, Chandin. Our little girl, your sister, is to marry!”

  A rush of blood to his head made him dizzy. Tears sprang into Chandin’s eyes. He turned away to look toward the distant valley.

  “Ah.” The feeble response fell from his mouth.

  “Fenton Thoroughly. A lovely chap, lovely! We…”

  Chandin was startled. “Thoroughly?”

  “Yes. He is my nephew.”

  Chandin turned to face the Reverend, uncaring, suddenly, that his disappointment would be visible. “Her cousin! She is in love with her cousin? I don’t understand. And what about her schooling? I don’t understand. Her cousin, sir?”

  Reverend Thoroughly looked up at the sky, over to the kanganilla, at the seminary building, and continued on, trying to sound as if he were doing nothing more than confiding in a trusted family friend.

  “Yes, Chandin. I was sure that you would mention it. He is not truly her cousin. You see, my brother married a woman who had been married once before and brought with her a child—Fenton. My brother was good enough, wouldn’t you say, to bring him up as his own child, give him his name and all of that sort of thing…but as you can see he is not a true relation. He is a marvellous gentleman by every standard, and on maturing he is slated to inherit a rather large estate from his blood father. He is a medical student.”

  “And he is in love with her?”

  “Well, of course! We have given our blessings to them both. There will be a marriage as soon as—”

  It might as well have been night time. On cue from the word marriage, Chandin’s world spun and blackened as if the sun had suddenly been switched off. He broke out in a sweat and began to shiver. The words spilling from his own mouth surprised even himself.

  “I have been meaning to talk with you. I wanted to talk with you and Mrs. Thoroughly. I too…I want to…”

  “What is it, Chandin?”

  “I too have been thinking about marriage. I wanted to ask your permission also.”

  “You?”

  “I, I, it’s time for me also. I have been thinking of Sarah. Sarah, you know, Sarah.” Chandin wanted nothing more than to collapse in the security of a woman, a woman from his background, and Sarah was the most likely possibility.

  “Sarah! Well, what a surprise! I had not realized…Sarah, eh? Look here, son, shall I write her parents, or go and see them on your behalf? I am…speechless. So surprised. Her parents will be delighted. Thrilled. But not half as delighted as I am. We must inform Mrs. Thoroughly right away. Come on, come on.”

  Six weeks later Chandin and Sarah were married.

  REFLECTING NOW ON the story that Cigarette Smoking Nana had begun to relate to answer my boyish query, I realize I had known of Miss Ramchandin for many, many years. I often want to call out to Nana up in the heavens—where I am sure she is and quite sure that Bible Quoting Nana is not—and say, “You were right, you were right. There was indeed a Chandin Ramchandin. But there is much more to that story!” It was as though Nana had introduced me to Miss Ramchandin, and Miss Ramchandin had confirmed Nana for me.

  * * *

  —

  After a few days in the wheelchair, Miss Ramchandin was strong enough to walk. I held her by the elbow as we wandered across the grounds. Being outside was what she most loved. She came alive and made her bird and insect calls. That day as we strolled across the grounds a young stray cat scuttled by, unsure but curious about us. Miss Ramchandin made her most decisive gesture yet. She dropped to her knees, put out her hand and meowed like a kitten. The cat responded immediately, running to her hand. She picked it up, stood and pressed the creature to her chest. I was perplexed, wondering if this cat might have belonged to her and found its way back. Miss Ramchandin rested her cheek against the cat’s head and whispered her first words since her arrival.

  “Pohpoh, Pohpoh,” she cooed into its ear lovingly, seeming to call the cat by name.

  When I asked if it was her cat, she closed her eyes. “Pohpoh, Pohpoh,” she said again. It was a common nickname affectionately given to children and I supposed not an unnatural name for a kitten as well.

  The cat came back to the bungalow in Miss Ramchandin’s arms. That night I hesitantly asked Sister if it were possible to keep the animal. She shrugged and said, “It have mice in the kitchen. It might be a good thing.”

  That Miss Ramchandin got to keep the cat was both fortunate and a mistake. Fortunate because it gave her something to exercise concern about; a mistake because in time I learned that when she had pressed her cheek against the cat’s body and called the name Pohpoh, it was not a cat that she was calling.

  * * *

  —

  By the time Nana got around to addressing my specific question, she was, in the end, unable to tell me everything.

  “So Chandin Ramchandin married this Sarah and she made two children, two girl children,” she said. “And well, you know, Tyler child, one thing lead to the other and, well, to make long story short, Chandin pick up with the older daughter. Now she never had any children with him but it could have happened. That is the thing. It could have happened, yes! Now if the daughter had made a child for him, that child would be his—”

  Right then we heard the front door open. Nana stopped, outed the cigarette and tried to mash it into the earth, swiping frantically at the smoke with her arms. She got up quickly, making herself look busy. You see, Ma had just returned from her day’s work in town. Nana’s talk came to such a screeching halt that I sensed from her stony silence that the story had ended right there and then because these were things my Ma, her daughter, would have disapproved of her telling a little boy like myself. Even in its pre-empted state, what she was telling was alarming. The insinuation at the tail end of her story stayed with me. Over the years I pondered the gender and sex roles that seemed available to people, and the rules that went with them. After much reflection I have come to discern that my desire to leave the shores of Lantanacamara had much to do with wanting to study abroad, but far more with wanting to be somewhere where my “perversion,” which I tried diligently as I could to shake, might be either invisible or of no consequence to people to whom my foreignness was what would be strange. I was preoccupied with trying to understand what was natural and what perverse, and who said so and why. Chandin Ramchandin played a part in confusing me about these roles, for it was a long time before I could differentiate between his perversion and what others called mine. Some instinctual fear stopped me from bringing it up with Nana again, and I noticed that she avoided it, too.

  Two decades and more have passed since then, and so too has Nana. She made a long story short yet I wonder how much she really knew. If she were still here, would she and I be able to go through and finish that conversation we started on the back steps, and now that I have grown up and found my own nature, would this particular nature be coarse sandpaper drawing blood against her? I wonder if she and I as adults could today have that same talk without grudges surfacing. I fancy the affiliation blossoming between Miss Ramchandin and me to be a clue to these musings. The relationship between Nana, my Cigarette Smoking Nana, and me, her Peculiar Grandson, was
special, for we both had secrets from my mother, her daughter. Miss Ramchandin and I, too, had a camaraderie: we had found our own ways and fortified ourselves against the rest of the world.

  I wonder what Nana would think if she knew the positions I was in that enabled me to gain the full story. For there were two: one, a shared queerness with Miss Ramchandin, which gave rise to the other, my proximity to the very Ramchandin Nana herself had known of.

  SARAH GAVE BIRTH to her first child ten months after the marriage, and a couple of years later she was pregnant again. Chandin thought often of Lavinia but his love for her had soured and mostly he felt betrayal. He was a dispassionate husband to Sarah though he enjoyed observing his two daughters, albeit from a distance. He was composed and diligent performing his duties as Reverend Thoroughly’s interpreter and field assistant. Yet he often felt chained to both the church and the Thoroughlys, and impotent to reverse the path his life had taken since the day the Reverend made that trip to his parents’ quarters.

  Even when news came from the Wetlands that Lavinia had broken off her engagement, Chandin could only think with curdling cynicism, I knew this would result! I could have told her that it would not have lasted! As long as she stayed in the Wetlands he would be able to keep at bay his unquenchable desire for her and his ferocious hatred, not of her but of the effect she wielded. But a crisis would arise, he knew, if he were to come face to face with her again—if, that is, she were to one day return to the island of Lantanacamara.

  * * *

  —

  Before Lavinia returned to live in Lantanacamara, Pohpoh’s parents seldom spoke to one another unless it was absolutely necessary. Sarah, whose reserved nature did not suit an occupation in the church, occupied herself grinding spices downstairs in the yard, which was cooler than the kitchen, or weeding the front yard once the sun had gone behind the house, or washing clothing.