All Fours
Sunday August 25, 1974
CHANCE, TRINIDAD
The old almond tree’s leaves stirred in the mid-morning air. A toucan sat in its uppermost branches, lording over the card players below. He scratched his rainbow throat with his claw and squawked.
Faizal pointed. “Watch a toucan,” he said to the others.
The men twisted in their chairs and craned their necks. Faizal slid a card from his hand into the deck and extracted another. Ace of hearts. Trump. He grinned. The toucan bobbed, showing off the yellow stripe down the centre of his beak.
“The bird watching my card!” Puncheon exclaimed, laying his hand flat on the table.
The toucan took flight. A leaf helicoptered from its branch and landed on the table. Everyone turned back to the game.
“Nobody ain’t watching your card, Puncheon. You ain’t have nothing to watch except that deuce.” Rajesh jiggled his eyebrows.
Puncheon glowered back at him. “Eh. Keep your eyes on your own hand when you playing with a champion,” he said. Puncheon took All Fours seriously. He was a shrewd player who could read the hands around the table better than anyone else. It amazed Faizal that the same man who rode Om’s ram goat for sport down Kiskadee Trace in the rain won one All Fours tournament after another across the country. Puncheon’s aptitude for the game was enough to redeem him from all his larks in the district. The people forgave him his midnight serenades and for upsetting their produce in the market because Puncheon gave his card-playing partners boasting rights wherever they went.
Puncheon and Faizal exchanged glances.
Puncheon leaned back in his chair and scratched a mosquito bite on his nose. “I ain’t have nothing, eh? You save that jack for me, Raj. I go take care of it real good for you!” he said. His watery eyes danced with merriment.
Faizal held his hand close. “Who to play?” he asked, although he knew it was Rajesh’s turn.
Rajesh studied his hand before choosing a card from the middle. Puncheon whistled a tune and followed suit with a casual indifference that made Om second-guess his own play and glance to Rajesh for reassurance. When it was Faizal’s turn, Puncheon signalled to him to play a low card and Faizal knew Puncheon wanted Rajesh to win the hand. The next two rounds passed in this way, until each player remained with one card in his possession. Rajesh looked around the table and smirked.
Faizal’s lips twitched. For once he anticipated the showy exhibition that would follow Rajesh’s jack.
Rajesh lifted his arm high, bent his elbow in the air and whipped the card onto the table. It spiralled in the centre, a whir of red and white. “Take that!” he cried. “Save your deuce, Puncheon! You feel you could hang my jack? I is not them children you does be playing with in those small people tournament, you know! I is a big man, with a big jack of hearts, running, like that!” They watched as the jack of hearts slowed to a stop and stared up at them.
Om slammed his hand on the table. “Whey, sir!” He grinned at Rajesh.
Puncheon shrugged and twirled his deuce onto the table. Om followed with a ten of spades.
“Like we go get Gamble, too,” Rajesh boasted. “Allyuh take a point for your lowness.”
“The game ain’t done yet, man,” Puncheon warned. He nodded at Faizal. “Play, Boss.”
Faizal cupped his card, a look of defeat on his gaunt face.
“What happen, Faizal? You tired get your ass bust?” Rajesh asked. He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. That is five games in a row for we.”
“Wait, nuh! A man could play he last card?” Faizal sprang to his feet, sending his chair tumbling back into the grass. He took his ace of hearts in his right hand and Rajesh’s jack of hearts in his left hand and slowly, purposefully, sliced the ace across the neck of the jack. “Take that!” he yelled, mocking Rajesh’s earlier taunting.
Puncheon whooped. “Whey, sir! Faizal hang your jack, boy!” He jumped up, swiped the jack off the table and stamped it to his forehead. “Allyuh take licks on all side! High, Low, Hang-Jack, Gamble; six days!” His hips jutted in a circle as he called out his points. “And that give we fourteen to go! Who taking cut-ass now?”
Rajesh stood up and knocked his chair over. “Allyuh cheat!”
Faizal gave Rajesh a taciturn look, noting how anger made him all the uglier. “Take the cut-ass like a man,” he said.
Om pried the winning hand from Puncheon, added it to the others and shuffled the deck. “Is okay. They get licks whole afternoon—let them have this one.”
“Nah!” Rajesh narrowed his gaze at Faizal and then Puncheon. “I ain’t wasting my time playing with cheaters.”
Puncheon stood up and hiked his shorts high. “What you think? The All Fours trophies in Lal’s Rum Shop walk there from all over Trinidad?” He grinned. “I win them with my own two hand and my one big brain,” he said, knocking his forehead with a knuckle. “I’s a man who don’t cheat.”
Nobody reminded Puncheon that he played with a partner and that his accolades, however respected, were shared. No one reminded him, because Puncheon could play with the most inexperienced partner and still finish victorious. Puncheon told people Lady Luck was his lover and rum was his best friend, and he took them both to each competition. And to bed.
“Eh. Haul your ass, nuh, man!” Rajesh said to Puncheon. “I ain’t talking to you—I talking to he.” Rajesh pointed a finger in Faizal Mohammed’s face.
Faizal was a full head taller than Rajesh, but he was spindly and Rajesh could snap him like a string of bodi if he wanted to. He locked eyes with Rajesh anyway and gritted his teeth for good measure. Eventually Sangita would hear about this. Faizal had to be brave no matter how much he wanted to spit in Rajesh’s eyes and take off down the road.
Om tapped the deck against the table so that the edges of the cards lined up. “Relax, Raj. Sit down.” He looked wary. He dovetailed the cards, his eyes trained on Rajesh.
Rajesh ignored him. “Where you get that ace, Faizal? You didn’t have that ace before, or you would have play it.”
Faizal shrugged. Better to say nothing, he told himself. Let Rajesh rile himself up. Let him behave like a jackass for everyone to see. All Faizal had to do was maintain his composure and enjoy the show.
“Check the hands, Om,” Rajesh said.
Om paused mid-shuffle. “The card done mix up.”
Rajesh sucked his teeth.
Faizal’s eyes twinkled at Puncheon, but his expression remained serious. He wondered why Rajesh was on edge today. It was true they had been neighbours for ten years and had never fostered any kind of friendship, but still, they were acquaintances and they always behaved civilly in each other’s company. Faizal told himself Rajesh was just a sore loser, that the dander in his gaze had nothing to do with Sangita and him.
Puncheon grasped a lower branch on the almond tree and swung himself, his knees tucked to his chest. “You know,” he said, “practice is what you need, Raj. And focus.”
Rajesh snorted. “Eh! Practise shutting your ass, nuh?” He surveyed Faizal from his toes to his black puff of hair. His voice was low, almost eerie, when he continued. “I know the game, and I know this man’s game, too.” He leaned in close to Faizal. An intimidation tactic. “He’s a trickster. A scamp. Always watching my card and watching my wife.”
Puncheon released his grasp on the branch and fell with a thud. “Humph! Is no wonder allyuh never win a competition yet. You too busy fighting like women to play card like men.”
Om’s chair creaked as he rose. “Raj, you gone too far. Come, let we pack up and go.” He began to fold the chairs, glancing over his shoulder to see if Rajesh followed.
Faizal’s heart fluttered against his rib cage like a hummingbird’s wings. He thought about turning to leave, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from Rajesh’s square face, his thick neck, the nasty twist of his mouth. He shuddered to think that this was the first thing Sangita’s eyes fell on in the morning. Faizal stood a
little taller, feeling superior somehow, with his clean-shaven face and his freshly laundered shirt. Rajesh was a bully, he told himself, but he was a man, dashing and stylish. And beyond all that, Sangita adored him. Sometimes.
“Who say I watching your wife, Raj?” Faizal asked.
Om shook his head as if to suggest Faizal should have run when he’d had the Chance. Faizal didn’t care. He had spent years flirting with Sangita from the other side of the fence; years stealing glances in the market, and more recently, forbidden embraces under the most bizarre circumstances. It was a game. Their game. But lately Faizal found himself frustrated, restless with longing. He could not play at romance with Sangita forever. Perhaps this would mark the end of all that. Faizal thought about telling Rajesh how Sangita had left his kitchen breathless only days ago, how he had held her in his arms on Krishna Janamashtami while Rajesh whimpered over soucouy-ants and other simi-dimi foolishness along the side of the road. But Sangita would be livid, and worse, she would deny it. Faizal bit his tongue, feeling trapped.
Rajesh’s laugh was bitter. “You like a fly, always buzzing around my wife.” He spat in the grass. “What a woman like she go do with a man like you? Eh, Mr. Disco Dancer?” Rajesh flipped the collar on Faizal’s orange shirt. “Go home and hug up your parrot!”
Faizal turned his collar back down and scowled. If there had been any fear, it was dissolved in his enmity now. “Rajesh, tell the boys you ain’t really vexed about the game, nuh?” His lips curled cruelly. “Tell them how you frighten your wife go run away with me.” Faizal could hear his heart thumping in his ears. This is how men must feel before they fight, he told himself. He clenched his hands and braced himself for the first blow.
Faizal felt a whoosh of air and it struck like thunder across his cheek. Then, the soft prickle of grass on his eyelids and in his nostrils. There was a moment of numbness, coppery blood on his tongue before the pain came. Faizal groaned, dragged breath back into his lungs as the pain ebbed to a persistent throb. He gathered himself and clambered back to his feet.
Om was yelling, but Faizal couldn’t make out his words through the ringing in his ears. Faizal staggered and then lunged at Rajesh, noting with satisfaction the surprise on Rajesh’s face before they both went down.
Chandani’s Pone
Thursday August 29, 1974
CHANCE, TRINIDAD
Chandani knelt at her humble altar with her hands clasped, mumbling a mantra she’d learned as a girl. The mantra came out hurried, so she started again from the beginning, trying to take breaths at the end of each line. She did this nine times before it felt right, nine times, until her hands stopped shaking and her heart fell into its regular rhythm.
Chandani sat back on her heels and dropped her hands into her lap. The floorboards beneath her knees creaked. Her gaze flitted from the blazing diya sitting at Lakshmi Devi’s feet to Vimla’s closed bedroom door. Chandani hoped she hadn’t woken Vimla. It was a silly fear, she knew. Vimla had slept through Om’s snoring and the cocks’ crowing for years. A creaky floorboard wouldn’t disturb her now, not when she was fighting a fever hotter than Om’s peppers. But Chandani worried about it anyway. She couldn’t help herself. Her daughter had been bitten by a snake; what else was a mother to do?
Before she began her prayers, Chandani had deliberated over which of Bhagwan’s incarnations she should appeal to. Lord Shiva had come to mind first. After all, unlike the other deities, who wore flowers around their necks, Lord Shiva’s garland was a snake. Chandani had lit the diya in front of her picture of Lord Shiva and begun to pray. The prayers went well until she snuck a glimpse of the snake coiled around his neck. It seemed to glare back at her, a hint of wicked mocking in its eyes. Startled, Chandani slid the diya with her finger across the floor in front of Lakshmi Devi’s picture, feeling safer under the soft gaze of the ever-smiling goddess. Now that she was finished, she hoped she had made the right decision.
Chandani rose from the altar, leaving the diya burning. She turned the handle to Vimla’s door and pushed it open just wide enough for her to slip through. A splotch of grey and mauve drifted on the horizon, casting the room in early-morning shadows. The air was stale; the place felt muggy and smelled of suffering. Chandani tied the ends of both drapes into knots to allow more air to circulate through the room then sank into the worn chair by Vimla’s bedside.
Vimla was lying on her back, the coverlet tangled in her limbs like she’d fought it through the night. Her bandaged ankle lay propped on a pillow, her other leg bent at a forty-five-degree angle. As always, Vimla’s hair was a mess of waves. It splayed across the pillow and clung to the sides of her face, damp from a night of sweating. She moaned. Chandani froze, held her breath. Vimla flung her arm to the side, just missing Chandani’s knee, and then settled into the mattress again. Exhaling, Chandani reached over to brush the hair from her daughter’s face, then stopped herself. She knew the next few days would be wretched for Vimla; better not to disturb her sleep, however fitful.
Chandani picked an old copybook off Vimla’s desk and fanned herself. As the air blew across her sticky skin, she let last night’s ruminations drag themselves to the forefront of her mind. After Vimla had fallen asleep, Chandani had spent the quiet hours considering the implications of the snake bite. Everyone would have a prediction after hearing of it, and nobody would be shy about sharing it. Chandani sighed, already wary of the expert analyses that would come her way. She only hoped the wedding would overshadow Vimla’s incident. Certainly Faizal Mohammed had made it clear he thought Vimla was cursed; he prayed Allah would protect him from any residual misfortune he might experience through proximity alone. Chandani had wanted to stand on a footstool and slap him, but then, that would have been ungrateful, considering he’d taken Vimla to the hospital. She knew Faizal wouldn’t be the only one in the district to think Vimla’s encounter with the macajuel was portentous. Hadn’t she lost her reputation and her teaching post in a day and a night? Vimla was like a star that kept falling. But Chandani clung—as any mother would—to the hope that Vimla’s snake bite was some deranged signal from Lord Shiva that she was under his care, a suggestion maybe of a turning of events. Chandani nodded, as if to congratulate herself on the theory. She settled into her chair and shut her eyes, chanting the name of Lord Shiva under her breath until eventually her fanning slowed, her recitation trailed off and she was pulled into a deep sleep.
Two hours later Chandani rattled around in her kitchen, trying to expend some of her nervous energy. Vimla was awake now, but she was still weak with fever.
“Chand.” Om lumbered through the door, setting a basket of bird peppers on the kitchen counter. “What you doing?”
Chandani hated being jerked from her thoughts. “Why I always have to be doing something?” she asked, removing the grater from the cupboard.
Om’s eyebrows flew skyward. “You don’t, but I can see that you doing something,” he said, sitting down. “I only asking what it is.” He shrugged and swatted at a fly buzzing around his head.
“Om, what I could possibly be doing in the kitchen?” She grasped the grater in one hand and a cassava in the other. “I partying!” she said, awkwardly twisting her narrow torso, a scowl on her lips.
Om made a face. “You need practice. You go can’t dance at the wedding like that.”
Chandani sucked her teeth. “It have any ripe pumpkin in the vine? Go and cut one for me, nuh? I making pone.”
Om brightened. “Anything for you, my sweet sapodilla.” He whistled as he lumbered out of the kitchen and around the back of the house. “Chand,” he called to her through the open window. “How you think Vimla get bite by that snake?”
Chandani froze mid-grate with the cassava in her hand. She pursed her lips tightly over her answer.
Om appeared in the window, holding a pumpkin in the palm of one hand and his cutlass in the other. “Is strange for a macajuel to come into the open savannah grass, ain’t?” He blinked at Chandani, waiting for her to agre
e.
Chandani grated faster, saying nothing.
Om shrugged. He spread a piece of newsprint on the ground and set the pumpkin down. Grunting as he squatted, Om raised the cutlass high. Chandani saw the blade flash in the sunlight and slice through the thick air. It struck the pumpkin with a crack and the gourd fell open and displayed its guts. “Chand, you want me grate this up outside?”
“Well, it wouldn’t grate itself, Om.” As soon as Chandani said it she was sorry; she didn’t want him to come back in the kitchen and talk to her of Vimla. Chandani handed Om her grater through the window and turned her back on him to search for another.
“A plate, too,” Om said.
“You think you marry a coolie labourer here? I busy. Come and get what you need.”
“If that’s the case, I could have just grate the pumpkin inside,” he said.
Chandani bit back the sharp remark ready on her tongue and handed him a plate. She resumed her grating—head down.
“So, Chand, Faizal said he find Vimla in the savannah grass. He said the snake bite she as she was bringing home the bull and the cow.”
Chandani ground the cassava, now small, against the grater until she nearly cut her finger. “But you know, I remember I bring the cow and the bull in before I leave yesterday,” Om said.
Chandani realized she was groaning. She cleared her throat and tried for impassivity.
“And the bull and the cow was tie up exactly how I leave them. The rope was not loose and in a halfway knot how Vimla does tie it.” Om looked up at Chandani now, having finished grating half the pumpkin. He passed the plate to her through the window, fanning it with his other hand to keep the flies off.
Chandani regarded him warily. “So what you saying, Om?” She turned her back, making ceremony out of placing the grated pumpkin on the countertop and covering it with a dishtowel. She knew what he was saying. It had taken him all this time to realize what she had gathered the moment she’d laid eyes on the scratches on Vimla’s arms and face, on her soiled clothes and muddy slippers.
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