Nothing Like Love

by Sabrina Ramnanan

  “Mommy, you need a bigger life jacket,” her son said, peering through his binoculars at Dutchie and his mother.

  The woman reached out and hushed her son with a hand to his shoulder again. “This one’s fine—right, Captain?” She gazed into Dutchie’s face, her lips curved in a salacious smile. “I just need to shimmy a bit.” And shimmy she did.

  Krishna chuckled as Dutchie’s expression dissolved into flagrant desire. The woman helped her son down the ladder into the water, and she slipped in after him, as lithe as a mermaid. Dutchie motioned to Krishna to join him at the bow. “You vexed, Boss?”

  Krishna shrugged. “What I go vex for?”

  Dutchie nodded. “Good. So tell me”—he wiped the beads of perspiration from his hairline—“why you really going Tobago?”

  Krishna shrugged, staring after the snorkellers. “My father sending me Tobago to study.”

  Dutchie’s eyes bulged. “To study!” And then they crinkled at the corners as he laughed, one hand on his chest. “Is only one thing you studying while you in Tobago and that’s Vimla. Let me guess.” He leaned his forearms on the railing. “You left she back in Trinidad.”

  Krishna rubbed the stubble at his chin. “Yeah.” It was hard to hear someone else say it: he had abandoned her.

  Dutchie cupped his hands around his mouth. “George, don’t swim too far out. I don’t feel like playing hero today!” He turned back to Krishna. “That man need a wife.” When Krishna gave him a half-hearted smile, Dutchie retrieved the bottle of rum punch from his cooler. He scooped ice into a cup and filled it to the brim with the pink drink. “Here.” He passed the drink to Krishna.

  Krishna waved the cup away. “No, thanks. I don’t drink, man.”

  Dutchie shrugged, taking a swig of the drink himself. “You could swim at least?”

  Krishna smiled. “Like a barracuda.”

  Dutchie stepped back and made a sweeping gesture toward the water. “Well, let we see, Mr. Barracuda.”

  Krishna looked down at his starched shirt and hesitated.

  Dutchie sucked his teeth. “Listen, right now, you ain’t in Trinidad and you ain’t in Tobago. You floating somewhere in the middle.” He downed his drink and tossed the cup back into the cooler then let the lid fall closed with a bang. “While you in limbo, enjoy yourself, Boss. This moment wouldn’t come again and it wouldn’t last forever.”

  Krishna thought of his father’s oppressive demands, of the smirk that peeked from beneath his silver moustache when he’d handed Krishna his ticket for The Reverie Tobago Tour. Krishna thought of what waited for him in Tobago: an un familiar aunt’s dwelling and long, lonely days of studying in a place without friends, without Vimla. Suddenly he didn’t want to be in either place. Suddenly the tiny belt of sea between the islands felt like home.

  Abandoning his inhibitions, Krishna stripped off his shirt, rolled his pant legs above his knees and sprang off the edge of The Reverie. He whooped as he soared through the air, flailing like a fledgling, his face turned to the sun. He dropped into the sea in a chaos of sprays and limbs and then gathered grace and glided deeper. A school of creole wrasse zipped by him, their violet bodies grazing his fingertips as he reached and propelled himself forward. He felt weightless. The sea gurgled in his ears. As he took in the jewel-toned fish and assortment of peculiar-shaped coral, he had the odd sensation of discovering another world. In the dizzying moments just before his last breath ran out, Krishna understood that the sea would become a part of his life. He pushed down in the water and rose toward the sunlight, bursting through the surface with a splash.

  “Yes, Mr. Barracuda!” Dutchie cheered from the boat.

  Krishna flipped on his back, cradled by the sea, and smiled at the cloudless sky.

  Maracas Bay

  Saturday August 17, 1974

  MARACAS, TRINIDAD

  The sun was just setting when they arrived at Maracas Bay, a swirl of cherry and pineapple Solo drifting lazily on the horizon, tinting the water pink and gold. Hilly mountains, draped in tangled foliage, rose up around the deep inlet, nestling kilometres of sandy shore between them. A pair of birds glided like black shadows across the glittering water, landing in a snarl of leafy mangrove trees that lined the mountain’s edge and hunched with age toward the rising surf. And everywhere, tall palms stretched to the heavens, vacillating in the salty breeze.

  Vimla stood at the shore, mesmerized by the dark-green surf as it crept toward her toes and ebbed in frothy white foam. She hiked the bottom of her floral print dress up and tied it in a knot at her knees then slipped free of her sandals and marched to the water’s edge. Small rolling waves surged over her feet, loosening the sand beneath them, so that when the water retreated again, she nearly lost her footing. Vimla giggled quietly to herself, and then, realizing there was no one she needed to be quiet for, hooted wildly at the dying day. The sea roared back and sprayed her from the waist down.

  Minty slapped across the shore behind Vimla as she withdrew the silver pins that held her hair in a bun at her nape. She pressed the pins between her lips and twisted her silky tresses into an even tighter coil than before. “Look at Faizal,” she mumbled.

  Vimla snatched the pins from Minty’s mouth and flung them into the water.

  “Vimi!”

  Vimla pulled Minty’s hands away from her hair. “Shake your head. Stop wiggling. Just do it!”

  Minty tossed her head and let her hair spill down her back like a waterfall. “You did that just like your mother. Pretty.”

  Minty turned away quickly to hide the glow on her hot cheeks. “Look at—”

  “I see him. That is one vexed little matchstick of a man.” Vimla giggled.

  Faizal Mohammed sat darkly on his prayer rug in the sand with his lanky arms wrapped around the knobs of his knees.

  “How you get him to bring we here—and keep he big mouth shut about it? You promised to tell me when we reach the beach.”

  Minty paused; a shadow crossed her face and faded away. She dipped into her pocket and retrieved a thick gold chain. It dangled from her index finger and Vimla steadied the twirling initials with her pinky. F.M. She shook her head. “Where you find Faizal’s chain, Minty?”

  Minty slipped the chain over her head and began to tread through the water again. “In Mammy’s bedside table.”

  Vimla gasped and then wished she hadn’t. Poor Minty.

  “Faizal waved he Qur’an in my face and said Allah did not condone adultery,” Minty called over her shoulder, “but I show him he chain, and remind him that my father is not a forgiving man. I never see Faizal shut up so fast.”

  Vimla laughed, catching up to her friend, then sobered quickly. “Minty …” She was watching the oncoming waves as they rose restlessly before crashing into her bare shins. “If they get home before we do …”

  Minty threaded her arm through Vimla’s. “Our parents? Then we might as well drown each other in Maracas Bay.”

  Vimla squeezed her eyes and shook her head. “But they wouldn’t. Is Krishna Janamashtami. They go stay in the temple till at least midnight. They do it every year, right?” Vimla shrugged, her smile sheepish. “They praying for me. They go stay until Pundit Anand ready to lock up the mandir and go home.”

  The girls fell silent for a moment, and then: “Suppose Chalisa ain’t come?” Vimla kicked at the water. “You feel she fooling we?” Her eyes travelled the horseshoe shoreline. Except for Faizal Mohammed, who was lying on his belly, reading his worn Qur’an now, the beach was deserted. Fear set panic ablaze inside Vilma.

  Minty’s lips turned down at the corners. “Don’t frighten, Vimi, Chalisa go come before it get dark.” She glanced worriedly at the deepening sky and the sun that was melting into a yellow pool in the sea.

  Vimla waved her hand with impatience. “I look frighten to you?” She clenched her jaw and dug her feet firmly into the sand, toes burrowed deep in to ground her.

  As Minty wandered farther up the beach, she discovered a grotesque chu
nk of driftwood washed up on the shore. It was a labyrinth of thick, unyielding gnarls, sprawling across the beach and twisting heavenward. Weather-worn brown and grey with age, it was uneven and craggy to the touch. Minty walked around the intricate arrangement of contorted knots, ducking beneath arches and sinking her feet into the patches of cool sand shaded from the sun. She placed one foot on the base of the driftwood anchored deep into the earth, grasped a limb overhead and swung herself up. “Vimi!” She waved her arms wildly.

  Vimla tore her gaze from the sea and spotted Minty perched high on the mammoth driftwood. She trudged along the beach, ignoring Faizal Mohammed’s wary stares, until she arrived at the base of the structure. Clasping Minty’s outstretched hand, Vimla pulled herself up onto a particularly thick snarl. The girls sat in silence for an hour as the sun switched shifts with the moon and the sea rolled and tumbled to the shore with increasing liveliness.

  “What o’clock it is? Chalisa supposed to reach here half six.”

  Faizal reclined on his prayer mat and crossed his arms over his narrow chest. “I’s not your timekeeper. I agree to bring you to Maracas Bay and take you back home to Chance. That is all. Don’t mix me up in this stupidness.”

  Vimla sucked her teeth haughtily and plunked into the sand beside Faizal. “You love to mind people’s business, Faizal Mohammed. You is the biggest maco in Chance. In fact, you—”

  Faizal pulled the edge of his prayer rug out from under Vimla’s foot.

  “Vimi.” Minty’s hot hand closed around Vimla’s arm. She was gazing at headlights in the distance; they flickered as the car jounced across the last stretch of Trinidad’s North Coast and began its descent to the bay. “She reach.”

  Vimla’s heart knocked violently in her chest. She suddenly became conscious of her wind-whipped hair, and the gritty wet sand wedged between her toes. She looked down at her clothes; she had on her best: a floral salmon-coloured cotton dress with sleeves to the elbows and a hemline that fell below her knees. She had pressed the dress carefully the night before, but now it was wrinkly from the long, bumpy ride up the mountain in Faizal Mohammed’s car. She tried to smooth it, but defiant creases resembling her mother’s angry scowl remained fixed in the fabric. Vimla closed her eyes and did something altogether astonishing: she began to pray.

  The black sky had swallowed up the last rays of the sun now and a pearly crescent moon hung among a shimmer of faint stars that winked at the odd trio on the beach. The changing winds wrestled cruelly with Vimla’s hair, leaving knots where there should be waves and sending wild shivers through her body. She squeezed her eyes tighter and began to rock back and forth for warmth. She heard the robust hum of the car engine as it drew closer and saw brilliant crimson behind her eyelids as the headlights cast two pools of dazzling light onto the sand where she sat. Vimla straightened her back and raised her chin in the spotlight, waiting for the other player to take her place.

  Faizal reached around Vimla’s back with his long, gangly arm and poked the bottom of Minty’s foot. “Wake she up,” he hissed loudly.

  Chalisa Shankar stepped from her driver’s car then. The car’s yellow high beams played off her black hair, giving her an otherworldly glow. “No, don’t wake she.” She studied Vimla’s defiant face with interest. “She look like a meditating goddess.” Chalisa met Faizal’s and Minty’s gazes one at a time, nodding almost imperceptibly. “Good night.”

  Faizal whistled under his breath. “I find she looking like a witch. Be careful she ain’t cast a spell on you!” He adjusted himself more comfortably on his prayer mat and gave Chalisa a charming smile.

  Vimla’s eyes flew open and her terrifying glare speared Faizal to his mat. “Shut up or I go feather your parrot and stew his ass up real nice when we get home.”

  Faizal recoiled. “You see?”

  Chalisa’s Cupid’s-bow lips curved into an amused smile. “Vimla”—she floated forward on slender legs and curtsied into a sitting position in the sand—“so you does eat meat.” She reached for Minty’s hand and squeezed it.

  Minty beamed; Vimla growled softly in the back of her throat like an agitated old dog.

  “That is surprising for somebody who want to marry a pundit. Not so?” Chalisa said.

  Vimla loathed the teasing in her voice. “You late.” She raked her gaze brazenly over Chalisa from head to toe in search of a flaw, but Chalisa’s inky hair really was a mass of enchanting unspoiled spirals; she was tall and graceful; her voice was sweet, her smile brilliant, however insincere. Vimla leaned forward so that her bottom lifted just slightly off the sand, and searched Chalisa’s face for a mole, a blemish, a faint moustache. Any defect to make Vimla feel whole. She plopped down again with a huff, and flicked her gaze like an angry cat from Chalisa to Minty and then back again. “So what allyuh want from me?” She sat up tall and folded her arms tightly across her chest.

  Chalisa set about fixing her gleaming white skirt just so on the sand. “What you want from me?”

  Vimla’s eyebrows arched like birds’ wings in flight, and then swooped low and gathered in a peak at the centre so that darkness fell over her chocolate eyes. Angry accusations ricocheted wildly against each other in her mind, but before she could snatch the right one to hurl in Chalisa’s face, Chalisa was laughing at her, showing off the sickle-shaped dimples in her cheeks and her even white smile.

  “Is seven o’clock, Vimla. You travelled from quite Chance halfway across Trinidad, up a mountain road to a deserted bay on Krishna Janamashtami”—she looked sideways at Faizal Mohammed, who was lying on his belly on his prayer mat with his chin cupped in his hand, studying Chalisa—“with a very peculiar driver. You want something from me as much as I want something from you.” Chalisa lifted and dropped her right shoulder in a delicate shrug.

  Vimla’s ears grew hot. She was conscious of Minty shifting uncomfortably on the sand and Faizal Mohammed swinging his legs in happy circles behind him. She imagined shoving a fistful of sand in Chalisa’s beautiful mouth and stalking away. Would Minty and Faizal Mohammed follow? Vimla had her doubts and she couldn’t risk looking more foolish than she already did. Instead she spread her hands, palms facing up, and said, “You right—”

  Minty exhaled the breath she was holding.

  “I want you to haul your scrawny backside back to St. Joseph and stop prancing about Chance like some hoity-toity town girl come to marry Krishna, when we all know”—Vimla gestured to Minty, Faizal Mohammed, and Chalisa’s driver, who was lounging against the car—“that he mother and father forcing him to marry you because he can’t marry me. That is what I want from you.”

  Chalisa’s smirk morphed into a straight line. The light in her eyes went out. Still, Vimla wasn’t satisfied.

  Chalisa folded her smooth hands in her lap. “Mm-hmm. I hear about this temper of yours.”

  Vimla glowered. Who had been discussing her temper with Chalisa? Minty? Krishna? She felt betrayed either way.

  “Vimla, let we be friends, nuh?” A ringlet, lying loosely against the coffee cream of Chalisa’s neck, stirred in the wind and uncoiled itself in the air. She snatched the loose strand back from the night and tucked it adroitly behind her ear before continuing. “That is why I come here.”

  Faizal scoffed. “You come all the way to Maracas Bay to make friends with she?” He pointed a thumb at Vimla. “This girl mad in she head.” Then he pointed at Minty. “That one, too. The two of them kidnap me and t’ief my car.”

  Chalisa ignored Faizal Mohammed as though he were beneath her. “Come,” she said to Minty and Vimla. She stood up so smoothly it looked as if the wind had raised her up and lowered her back down on her feet. “Is a matter of setting our lives straight.” She extended a hand to Vimla, who stared up at her, bewildered.

  Vimla grasped Chalisa’s hand, despite herself, and before she knew it, she and Minty were being led down the dark deserted beach toward the raucous waves. Chalisa’s hand felt like silk against hers; it made Vimla’s heart ache to think that Kr
ishna had held both their hands, knew whose was softer, more delicate, and had decided whose hand was more worthy of holding. She felt frumpy in her crumpled salmon-coloured dress and foolish for thinking she was any match for Chalisa Shankar. She gulped deep breaths of the wind in an effort not to collapse on the beach and bawl into the sand.

  When they reached the shoreline, Chalisa drew Minty and Vimla into the water, knee-deep. “You does swim?” She teetered and caught her balance again, extending her long slender arms out to the side.

  Vimla looked narrowly at Chalisa. “We ain’t have time to swim.”

  Chalisa lifted her skirt to her thighs and slid deeper into the chilly water. Her white blouse and skirt glowed against the darkening sky and the end of a long ringlet trailed behind her in the black water like a brush in paint. She waded through the restless waves with remarkable poise and purpose as if she were an extension of the sea.

  Minty gazed, awestruck, after her.

  Chalisa glanced back at the girls, who stood huddled, waves crashing at their knees and drenching the hems of their skirts. “You have time now.” She sank so that the sea kissed the lobes of her ears and she was no more than a striking face floating on the water.

  Goosebumps upon goosebumps spread up and down Vimla’s arms and legs, but inside she burned so hot she thought she might explode.

  What if she strode through the water and forced Chalisa’s smiling face under the waves? What then? What if she followed Chalisa and learned to glide like an ethereal fairymaid, too? She loathed and admired Chalisa. It made her stomach roil.

  “Hey!” The girls turned around slowly, steadying themselves against the wicked undertow. “Heeeyyy!” Faizal was sprinting on spindly legs across the beach toward them. “Allyuh mad or what? Get out of that blasted cold water!” He lifted his bony knees high and flapped his skinny arms as he ran. Chalisa’s driver, still leaning on the car, gazed at Chalisa as if she were the very moon.