Nothing Like Love

by Sabrina Ramnanan

  Krishna considered this.

  Dutchie drained the last of his beer. “Sunday School in Buccoo Reef is a weekly fete with an easygoing vibe.” He gyrated his waist slow and seductive. “Not a wild bacchanal vibe.” He thrust his pelvis back and forth in quick, raunchy succession. A local woman pinched his cheek as she passed. A tourist tittered behind her hand, scandalized.

  “Thanks for the demonstration.” Krishna crossed his arms over his chest. He was embarrassed by his own naïveté. He had never been to any kind of fete like this before, let alone Carnival. The closest he ever got to festivity was at the weddings his father dragged him to. But even then, he knew everyone contained the celebrating until the pundit and his family left. The real excitement erupted when Krishna was behind the Govind gates again, listening to his father sing bhajans in his scratchy voice. Nobody had ever done anything remotely similar to what Dutchie had just done in Krishna’s presence.

  His resentment must have shown on his face, because Auntie Kay looped her arm through his and said, “Never mind him. Enjoy yourself, son. Is not every day you come to Tobago. And is not every day you get to fete with your Auntie Kay!” She leaned her head against his arm.

  Dutchie was just about to tell Auntie Kay how grateful he was for her, when he thought he spotted a familiar face in the sea of dancing people. As she turned, the woman’s fiery hair blazed bright under the Christmas lights and Krishna knew for certain who she was. He made to nudge Dutchie, but Dutchie was two steps ahead of him, dancing his way into the crowd, an extra drink in his hand.

  “Oh gosh! Who is that lady Dutchie sweet-talking?” Auntie Kay asked. She stood on her tiptoes for a better look.

  They watched Dutchie brush the woman’s freckled face with his lips and hand her a drink.

  “What colour she hair is, Krish? Copper?” Auntie Kay inched forward and Krishna pulled her back.

  “Where you think Dutchie meet a white woman like that? She so pale. She make my Dutchie look blacker than he is.” Auntie Kay squinted at the pair. “Oh gosh, Krish, he teaching she to dance! Watch! Watch!”

  Krishna draped an arm around Auntie Kay and spun her. “Come on, let we get a drink.”

  Auntie Kay went reluctantly, stealing glances over her shoulder. When she could no longer make Dutchie out in the crowd, she looked up at Krishna. “How about a sweet drink? You used to like red Solo when you was small.” She reached up and grabbed his chin in her hand.

  It was true, Solo had been his favourite—it still was, really. But he wasn’t small anymore and he wasn’t in Chance either. He pushed his shoulders back and sauntered to Ernest the way Dutchie had, dragging Auntie Kay on his arm. “I go take a rum and Coke, please. More rum. Less Coke. No ice. Thanks.” He needed to catch up.

  Auntie Kay placed a hand on her hip and Krishna thought she might make him cancel that order. “What about me?” she asked instead.

  He surveyed her: flushed cheeks, restless feet, swaying hips. “And one more,” he told Ernest. “Less rum. More Coke. Plenty ice.”

  Liquid bravado had Krishna twirling Auntie Kay on the dance floor in minutes. She giggled like a girl, telling Krishna she hadn’t been to Sunday School since Bas left. Bas? Krishna thought he remembered his parents whispering about Bas and Auntie Kay a long time ago. He pushed the thought from his mind. He didn’t want to know about Bas now, and he didn’t think Auntie Kay really wanted to talk about him either, the way she was tilting her head back and laughing as she spun.

  “Eh-eh! What is this!” Dutchie’s voice sounded over the music. His grinned, dancing around Auntie Kay and Krishna with the easy rhythm of a true islander.

  The rum made Krishna feel warm and light. It loosened his limbs so that he moved easily; it loosened his waist so that he fell into a wine that caught the attention of the attractive girl who’d been watching him earlier.

  Dutchie raised an eyebrow at his friend. “Careful, Boss,” he said. “A wine like that does draw women like flies to shit.”

  Auntie Kay poked Dutchie’s chest and gestured to the redhead ogling him from the bar. “You should know, Mr. Captain Man!”

  Krishna laughed the way people do when they forget they’re supposed to be sad: a burst of unexpected delight. As Dutchie’s arm draped over his shoulder and Auntie Kay’s arm slipped around his waist, Krishna felt a part of himself unknot and fall away.

  Bacolet Bay

  Tuesday August 20, 1974

  BACOLET BAY, TOBAGO

  Krishna stood knee-deep in the water at Bacolet Bay, watching the morning sun glitter off the wavelets racing to shore. The water splashed against his chins, playful, inviting. He stooped and trailed his fingers in the froth, a promise that he would return, and then headed on his way. As he trudged across the beach, sandals hooked on his index finger, Krishna hummed to himself.

  Dutchie’s house was tucked away amid a flourish of greenery on a hill overlooking the secluded bay. It was humble, a small two-bedroom structure invisible to the world until Dutchie painted it red. Now it sat like a splash of sorrel in the trees. At night Dutchie reclined on his front porch and watched the sun set over Bacolet Bay. He once said nothing was prettier, nothing felt sweeter, than having the Tobago sun bid you goodnight. Krishna couldn’t blame Dutchie for thinking so; he had never had the pleasure of Vimla’s goodnight kiss.

  Krishna jogged up the thirty-four steps that led to Dutchie’s front door. The seashell wind chimes dangling from the porch clinked against each other. The pot of white bougainvillea from Auntie Kay sat on the top step, its blossoms cascading over the sides. Last night’s shorts were flung over the railing. They billowed, threatening to blow away. Krishna suspected Dutchie had discarded them there after a late-night swim before bed.

  He let himself in as he always did. “Dutchie!” he called. “Your head bad from last night?” They had spent the evening at Castara Bay in the company of fishermen who insisted they join them for fried fish and a few bottles of rum punch on the beach. Krishna passed on the fish—he still couldn’t bear the smell of meat—but he did have a few drinks. Dutchie had had a few more.

  Dutchie’s bedroom door was wide open. He sat on the edge of the bed, grinning, his elbows resting on his knees. “Morning, Pundit!”

  Krishna laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  Something moved in the twist of white sheets behind Dutchie. Krishna raised an eyebrow at his friend just as a blaze of red hair, an alabaster forehead, piercing green eyes peeked over Dutchie’s shoulder. “Morning,” the woman said.

  Krishna stood, dumbstruck, and raked his fingers through his hair. Dutchie tilted his head back and let his rich laughter fill the small room. “Krishna, this is Tatiana. You remember she from—”

  “The Reverie?”

  “Don’t stand up there like you see a ghost!” Dutchie said. Although in truth, Tatiana was so pale, her hair so red, there was something otherworldly about her. “How about some grapefruit juice, Krishna? The tree in the back laden.”

  Krishna realized this was a cue, that he still hadn’t moved and Tatiana was probably naked under the sheets. He took a step backward, bumped into the door frame. “Coming up.” But just as Krishna made to pull the door closed, ears burning, Tatiana called, “I’ll do it!”

  She wrapped the sheets around her and slid off the other side of the bed. As she passed in front of the window, sunlight set her curls aflame, and Krishna’s eyes grew wider still. He watched her expertly secure the white bedsheet around her voluptuous body in seconds and cross the room as elegantly as if she were wearing a gown. “Excuse me, Krishna,” she crooned, brushing past him into the hallway. Her eyes were laughing. She smelled of talcum and cinnamon.

  Dutchie’s lips twitched before they broke into his signature grin.

  Krishna shrugged. “Well, how I supposed to know Miss Lady from the boat go end up in your bed?”

  Dutchie looped a dreadlock in the air like a lasso and reined in something invisible. “Is only a matter of time before the sexy ones fall into
my bed, Pundit,” he said.

  Krishna rolled his eyes. “You didn’t even have to try with she. She nearly pounce you on the boat self.”

  Dutchie sauntered to the mirror hanging on the wall. A jagged crack sliced down the centre. “Well, if I handsome, I handsome,” he said, rolling his dreadlocks into a thick knot. “Can’t do nothing about that.”

  “Ain’t she have a child? The little boy with the binoculars is she own.”

  “Anthony.”

  “And where is our little Anthony?” Krishna asked.

  Dutchie stretched and yawned. “With he grandfather. Tatiana’s father, Charles, own a resort in Pigeon Point.”

  “How convenient for Tatiana,” Krishna said.

  “How convenient for Captain Dutchie!”

  “So what we doing today?”

  Dutchie swaggered down the hall to the washroom. “Let we lime right here by the bay today, nuh? For some reason, I feeling real tired this morning.”

  Tatiana lay across the sand, her legs stretching on forever. She wore a wide-brimmed hat and dark shades. Both seemed bigger, somehow, than the pink bikini fastened around her body with strings. A book lay at her side, but she rarely picked it up. Instead she turned herself in the sun every fifteen minutes. “To tan evenly but to avoid burning,” she had explained to Dutchie. Now and again she waved at Krishna and Dutchie drifting along on their body boards. The slow part of her pink lips as they curved into a smile made Krishna feel like his swim trunks had been whisked away with a wave.

  Dutchie paddled closer to Krishna. “Pundit, when you going home?”

  Krishna didn’t look up. His cheek was pressed against the board. “What happen? You want me leave?”

  “Yeah. I want you go home and marry your girl,” Dutchie said.

  “Which one?”

  “I find you real smart today, Pundit,” Dutchie answered.

  Krishna slid off his board and stood in the water. He stacked his fists on the board and rested his chin on top. “My father call Auntie Kay last night. He want me back this Friday night.” Krishna sighed. “I find myself in a real mess, Dutchie. My father done set the date for my wedding to Chalisa Shankar.”

  “When?”

  “September first.”

  “But what kind of bacchanal is this?” Dutchie said, paddling himself in a circle. “Hear, nuh, tell your old man this: ‘Pops, you see this marriage you fix up with that Chalisa? Cancel it one-time. Me ain’t like she and she ain’t like me. I marrying Vimla.’ ” He lifted his hands from the water and twirled in the cyclone he’d created.

  Dutchie made it seem so simple. “I would like to see you tell my father that. Besides”—Krishna kicked his feet off the sandy ground into a float, holding the body board at arm’s length—“Vimla probably so vexed with me she ain’t go want to marry me neither.”

  Dutchie laughed. “Serves you right.”

  “What?”

  “The least you could have done is tell the girl something before you leap the island so.” He turned serious, a rarity that made Krishna pay attention. “You have she suffering in oblivion in Trinidad. You just take off and leave she there to wonder.”

  Krishna knew Dutchie was right, but it had been impossible to see Vimla after they were found out.

  “Let we send she a message, nuh?” Dutchie said. He flipped onto his back now and gazed at the sky.

  “With who? No. It wouldn’t work. You can’t keep secrets in Chance. I go only get she in more trouble.”

  Dutchie sucked his teeth. “Man, you fell I’s like you? I know how to romance a girl good and I know how to keep it a secret.” He winked at his friend. “Just think of what you want to say and leave the rest to Captain Dutchie.”

  Krishna was doubtful, but he didn’t protest. Dutchie had a way of reeling you in and making you feel like everything was going to be just fine. He wondered when he went back to Trinidad if he would ever see Dutchie again. He wondered if he could even go back to his old life at all.

  Bacolet Bay remained deserted throughout the afternoon. The trio lounged in the sun, swimming, drinking and eating mangoes from the tree. The day drifted by in a haze and for once Krishna stopped thinking of time.

  Tatiana sat behind Dutchie with her legs wrapped around his waist. She trailed her fingers through his dreadlocks. “How about a French braid, Captain?” she asked, nipping his ear between her teeth.

  Dutchie took a swig of his Stout and deposited it back in the hole he’d dug in the sand. “Mmm-hmm.” Nothing cured a hangover like a cold Stout. Krishna learned that first-hand after their night at Sunday School.

  He gave the couple a sideways glance. He’d tried several times to go for a walk, to go for a swim, but every time Krishna made to leave, one of them engaged him in conversation again. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy their company; he just wished Tatiana would nuzzle, nibble and stroke Dutchie less in his presence.

  “I hear you’re in love, Krishna,” she said, lacing a handful of Dutchie’s dreadlocks over another.

  A pair of birds hopped and tittered in the trees behind them.

  Krishna threw Dutchie an exasperated look, which Dutchie pretended not to see.

  “It’s nice to be in love, isn’t it?” she said, more to herself than to him.

  Krishna picked up a piece of driftwood and drew a crab in the sand. “Is not all that nice.” He wasn’t in the mood for this conversation—especially with a woman he’d only just met. His stomach rumbled; he longed for dinner.

  Tatiana wrinkled her nose at him. Krishna noticed she was browner now, her freckles less startling. “Hmm.” She bit her lip as she wove Dutchie’s dreadlocks into a neat French braid. When she finished, she trailed a finger over the ridges thoughtfully. “I wish I had love, Krishna.”

  Krishna hated to admit it, even to himself, but he liked the way Tatiana said his name. He didn’t understand her longing, though. Wasn’t she falling in love with Dutchie before his eyes?

  Tatiana wrapped her arms around Dutchie’s neck and laughed. There was nothing innocent or ladylike about her laugh. It was full of life and knowing and something else Krishna couldn’t quite place. “This isn’t love!” she exclaimed, reading Krishna’s bewilderment. Tatiana kissed Dutchie’s hair, paused for a moment inhaling the sea that was a part of him.

  Krishna searched Dutchie’s face for hurt, but there was none.

  Tatiana reached out and stroked Krishna’s cheek. Condescending and sensual at once. Her fingers were soft, but it was the flash of her wedding ring that captured his attention.

  “This is lust, darling. Passion. Abandon.” She winked a green eye at him. “Tobago.”

  Tatiana’s fingers fell away, but the burn lingered on his skin. Tobago was none of those things to Krishna, but he nodded as if he understood. Shortly after, Krishna excused himself and climbed the steps to Dutchie’s house. When he glanced down at the beach again, Dutchie and Tatiana were devouring each other, their bodies twisting, insatiable, in the sand.

  The Plan

  Wednesday August 21, 1974

  BACOLET BAY, TOBAGO

  They sat on Dutchie’s porch, watching the orange ember burn its way round a mosquito coil until there was nothing. “The thing cheap,” Dutchie said. He sat on the floor, his back pressed against his red front door. But the mosquito coil wasn’t cheap. And it was the same kind of coil they sat around every night to keep the mosquitoes away. It just seemed to fail them now because Krishna was leaving and in some strange way the withering mosquito coil was an indication of time passing too quickly.

  Auntie Kay curled herself up in the dark like a shrimp, her pink dress draped neatly over her legs. “You pack everything? You forget anything?”

  Krishna smiled, nodded, then shook his head. He glanced at the suitcase abandoned in the sand at the bottom of the steps. It bulged in all the wrong places like a woman in an ill-fitting dress. Even in the shadows they could make out the outline of scriptures and balled-up clothing stuffed across every square in
ch with equal neglect.

  The seashell wind chime jangled in the moonlight. The white bougainvillea stirred in its pot and settled again. Below, rowdy waves flung themselves on top of one another like noisy schoolchildren at play. Bacolet Bay was the same tonight as it always had been, except it wasn’t. Krishna was leaving.

  Dutchie hooked his arms around his knees and clasped his hands. “Man, you holding your head like you have worries,” he said.

  But Krishna sensed he wasn’t the only apprehensive one. Nervous energy crackled between them and it troubled him to think that he had drawn the two most light-hearted people he knew into his torment. Yet he was touched that they cared enough to be emotionally invested, and that they felt they needed to hide it from him. Krishna raised his head from the cradle of his palms and asked the question gnawing at his mind: “What if the plan ain’t work?”

  “How you mean? The plan go work, Pundit. Ain’t I help devise it?”

  Krishna nodded.

  Dutchie flashed a reassuring smile. “Right,” he said, as if his contribution to the plan guaranteed its success. And Krishna knew that in a very big way it did.

  Dutchie narrowed his gaze at Krishna. “Stick to the plan, you hear? Don’t improvise. Don’t add frills. Don’t complicate it. The plan is not carnival. The plan is the plan. And the plan is simple.”

  Krishna swallowed, nodded.

  “Right. By tomorrow afternoon, the message go done deliver to Vimla. Allyuh go meet in she father cane field. You know the place, right?”

  Of course Krishna knew the place. He could picture Vimla standing amid the tall stalks now, impatience and hope in her brown face.

  “And when you meet she, you go apologize for being a jackass and deserting she. Fall on your knees and beg if you have to.” Dutchie’s eyes twinkled as he said this and Krishna knew he hoped Krishna would have to do just that. “Then tell she the plan.”