Nothing Like Love

by Sabrina Ramnanan

  Rajesh grunted his annoyance. “Okay, so what your partner’s name, Puncheon? I never see he in the district before.”

  Lal’s teenaged son, pimple-faced and frantic, dragged Lal away to adjust the television antennas.

  Puncheon leaned against the bar. “Everything have a price,” he said. “The name of that fella go cost you a flash of rum.”

  Rajesh scowled. “Everything have a price, but I never see you pay for a damn thing, Puncheon.”

  Puncheon shrugged and hopped back onto his stool. He strummed his fingers on the bar and pretended to whistle along with the Teen Dance Party music, but he didn’t know the tune and it was obvious.

  “No matter. I go ask Lal,” Rajesh said, shrugging. He crushed his cigarette into the ashtray.

  Puncheon nodded to Lal, who was holding the antennas in place so his patrons could watch the rest of the program. “You go have to wait, then,” Puncheon said with a grin.

  Rajesh sucked his teeth. He motioned Lal’s son over. “Bring a nip of White Oak for this t’ief, Shiv.”

  Puncheon whooped. He wrapped his hands protectively around the bottle when it came and leaned in toward Om and Rajesh. “He name Ramdeo. He is a seer man from Jaipur Village.”

  Rajesh’s eyes bulged and his glass stopped midway to his lips. “What a seer man doing here?” He shifted on his seat and peeped around Om’s bulk at the man.

  Om clinked the cubes in his empty glass, trying to suppress his laughter. He remembered the night Rajesh’s terrible apparitions had pursued him down Kiskadee Trace. Rajesh had whimpered like a child all the way home and vowed never to touch bhang again. The only thing Rajesh feared was magic and the men and women who made it.

  Puncheon poured himself a generous drink, ignoring Om’s and Rajesh’s empty glasses. “Don’t worry, nuh, man!” he said. “Ramdeo is a good fella. A healer. He does give me hangover herbs once a month.”

  Rajesh reached, wary-eyed, for Puncheon’s flash of White Oak.

  “What the hell is ‘hangover herbs,’ man?” Om asked. He was enjoying watching Puncheon exasperate Rajesh this way.

  “If I knew, I would mix them myself.”

  Rajesh, Puncheon and Om finished a bottle and a half of White Oak among them and joined the crowd gathering around Lal’s television. Everything felt liquid to Om now. He braced himself on Rajesh’s shoulder and slid into a chair. “What you said is the name of this show?”

  Nobody answered. The screen crackled and went blank and there was a moment of quiet before the room erupted into groans. Lal swung the antennas to the right and the screen came alive again. The men rejoiced and leaned in a little closer, arms resting on neighbours’ shoulders, chins propped in hands. “Don’t move, Lall-y!” someone called out.

  “I love you, Lall-y,” Puncheon slurred. He was lying face down at a nearby table. When he hiccuped, his frame convulsed like a dying bird. Om reached to pat his back, but the table was too far and his hand fell to his side.

  “Anyone can take Punch home?” Lal asked.

  Silence. Everyone was watching with anticipation as the first contestant made his way onto the Mastana Bahar stage. He was a short man named Rasheed, with a moustache that curled at the ends. He sang “Aur Nahin Bas Aur Nahin,” but he arched his eyebrows and stood on his tiptoes every time he reached for a high note. It made his performance comical when it wasn’t meant to be. Lal’s patrons snickered through Rasheed’s performance and heckled him as he walked off the stage. Someone mimicked his singing with exaggerated eyebrow movements and the men exploded into laughter again. Om thought he sounded like Scratch and Blackie when they howled. When the next contestant walked onto the stage, someone had to stop Om’s mirth with a slap to the back.

  Om quieted down, but his thoughts drifted from the television to Vimla. She would like this Mastana Bahar show. He wondered if she knew of it. They had no radio at home, and when was the last time Vimla had left the house? Om hiccuped. Except to go to the cane field, a voice reminded him. He wondered not for the first time what Vimla had been doing in the cane when she was bitten by the snake. It dawned on him now that he had never asked. Om hiccuped again. Yes, he would just ask Vimla. She would tell him. And then he felt the hurt he’d buried surge to the surface. He remembered Krishna, and hiccuped. Or maybe she wouldn’t tell him after all.

  Rajesh was shaking his arm. “Om! Om!”

  Om turned his head slowly to face Rajesh; a blur of lights followed. A strange silence loomed in the rum shop. Om wondered if he’d said anything aloud. “What happened? Punch vomit?”

  Rajesh looked horrified. “Oh Lawd, Om, watch the television, nuh, man!”

  The television came slowly into focus. Om squinted at the screen and made out a young woman standing in the centre of the stage, regaling Trinidad in the sweetest voice. The camera zoomed in on her face and the men in the rum shop found themselves staring into a pair of sultry eyes, made up with thick sweeps of kajal. Her fanned eyelashes lowered like a veil and then lifted again slowly. Someone whistled. A smile crept across her full mouth as if in response. Dimples appeared then vanished. She rocked her waist and beat time on her thigh as she sang.

  Somebody in the room sighed longingly. Om hoped it wasn’t him.

  When the woman’s song came to an end, she half bowed, her eyes locked on the camera.

  “Thank you, Miss Chalisa Shankar!” the host said.

  The woman looked over her shoulder and winked.

  Rajesh’s eyes bulged in his square face.

  Lal released the antennas as if he’d been burned. The screen scrambled again. Nobody protested.

  Puncheon clapped. “She better than Rasheed,” he said.

  Rajesh stood up, wiping his hand over his face. “Allyuh fellas know who is that girl? Puncheon, you know who you clapping for?”

  Puncheon mumbled something and laid his head back down.

  “Chalisa Shankar,” someone said.

  Rajesh nodded. “Krishna’s bride.”

  Om stood, fell back in his chair and stood again. “You think Pundit Anand know he future daughter-in-law do that on Mastana Bahar?” He couldn’t help himself grinning.

  Rajesh shook his head. “Not a damn chance, Boss.”

  Carrying News

  Friday August 30, 1974

  CHANCE, TRINIDAD

  “Mother of mangoes!” Faizal yelped. He bounded down the stairs two at a time. He had to tell Sangita what he had seen. Adrenaline pumped through his veins and his heart hammered against his ribs. News did this to him, made him giddy with excitement, made him forget the danger.

  Sam screeched to be included in the fuss, but Faizal ignored him, leaving him to watch the rest of Mastana Bahar alone. He switched the lights on downstairs and peered over at the Gopalsinghs’ home. Darkness. That rum sucker Rajesh was definitely at Lal’s tonight. He touched the bruise on his cheek and cursed; it was still tender. Sangita was at Krishna’s maticoor, he realized. Faizal clasped his hands behind his back and paced back and forth next to the fence, thinking.

  He couldn’t show up at Pundit Anand’s home on Krishna’s maticoor night to speak to Sangita. So few men would be there as it was, and it would seem odd for Faizal Mohammed of all people to attend. Not only that, if Faizal sought Sangita out of the crowd of women and whispered in her ear what he’d seen, well, that would look suspicious. Speaking to Sangita had grown more challenging since his scuffle with Rajesh. People were always watching. Faizal sighed. He missed her sandalwood scent, but the last thing he needed was Rajesh Gopalsingh charging into his home wielding a cutlass in his face. Isn’t that what he had threatened to do if he ever found Faizal too close to Sangita again? Faizal winced. He was too handsome to be marred by a brute like Rajesh.

  Faizal heard muttering. He turned toward the Narine home and cocked his head like Sam. It was Chandani. He knew by the clipped words. Faizal crossed his courtyard in seven steps and climbed onto one of his empty Coca-Cola crates. He peered over the fence, the puff of his hair and
his eyes barely visible in the night.

  “How it taste, Roopy?” Chandani was saying, probing Headmaster Roop G. Kapil with her severe gaze.

  Faizal gasped and then ducked, covering his mouth with his hands. What was Headmaster doing at the Narines’ at this hour? He straightened again slowly when Headmaster responded.

  “Yes, yes. Good. Sweet.” Headmaster chewed, crossing and uncrossing his legs, averting his gaze from Chandani’s. “Coconut, right?”

  Chandani pursed her lips and tucked a strand of limp hair behind her ear. “Roopy, thank you for visiting Vimla.” She sat in a chair, her back erect, fingers knotted in her lap.

  Headmaster pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked around the place, wary of the dogs, which lay on their bellies, watching him. “Well, thanks for inviting me to come and see she.”

  Faizal nearly stumbled off the crate. Chandani invited Headmaster to her house when Om was out? At this hour? With pone? This was not the prudish Chandani he so detested. A smile sprang to his lips. What an eventful night this was turning out to be.

  Chandani wrung her hands. Once. Twice. Then she stopped and took a breath, plucking courage from somewhere deep. “Roopy, Vimla has had some bad luck.” She smoothed an invisible wrinkle on her skirt.

  Headmaster nodded.

  Bad luck? Faizal thought. Vimla was too slack. That was the problem.

  “I hear you ain’t fill the teaching position at Saraswati Hindu School as yet,” Chandani went on.

  A heavy silence hung between them. Headmaster looked unsure if he should continue eating or not. Chandani seemed to be waiting for him to say something. “Consider Vimla again, nuh, Roopy? You know she bright,” Chandani finally said.

  Faizal’s mouth fell open. He had never heard Chandani cajole anyone before.

  Headmaster put the piece of pone travelling to his mouth back on the plate. “Yes. Bright. My best student. Most promising. But, Chand, as you know, Pundit Anand busy these days.” He gestured to the darkness, where the tassa was rolling. “I cannot make that decision on my own.”

  Chandani tried to soften the line of her mouth into an understanding smile. The effect was unfortunate, ugly even.

  Faizal flinched behind the fence. “Well, Roop, I asking you as a old friend to consider Vimla again.”

  Old friend? Faizal wiggled his toes. He was near bursting with interest now.

  “We both know,” Chandani continued, the edge creeping back into her voice, “that Pundit Anand already forget Vimla’s … error. He done move on! Krishna done move on!” The tassa from the wedding house seemed to grow louder, emphasizing her point.

  Headmaster rose now and set the plate on the chair. He took Chandani’s hand clumsily, wetting his lips. Faizal thought he might kiss her hand, but then Headmaster said, “I go talk to Pundit Anand, Chand. I go try my best for you.” He cleared his throat. “Vimla.”

  Faizal watched, amazed, as the stiffness melted from Chandani’s shoulders and she almost smiled. “Thanks.” She withdrew her hand from his like she’d been burned. Headmaster stepped away, embarrassed, and hooked his fingers behind his back. The dogs sat up and took notice at the shift between them.

  “Okay, then,” he said, backing away. “Thanks for the pone. It was moist and nice.” He was trying to fill the silence between them as Chandani walked him to the gate. “You grate the coconut so fine I almost ain’t know it was there self. Delicious. Perfect.”

  Chandani opened the gate. “Good night, Headmaster Roop G. Kapil,” she said, formal and crisp all over again.

  Faizal shook his head from behind the fence. He would never understand that woman. She disappeared into the kitchen, and he stepped off the crate feeling giddy over the turn of events.

  Sam squawked from upstairs.

  Sangita. He needed to talk to Sangita. He wondered if she would be pleasantly scandalized by what he’d seen on television tonight, or if she would be outraged that the Govinds were giving their good name to a flirtatious songstress. Faizal laughed. Haughty, too, but she hadn’t shown that face to the camera.

  And what about Chandani, begging Headmaster for Vimla’s teaching position? What would Sangita think of that? He knew, deep down, Sangita wanted that job to fall into Minty’s hands. She hadn’t said as much, but nobody read her body language or the messages tucked behind her words the way Faizal Mohammed did.

  Faizal slipped out of his front gate and disappeared into the darkness. He didn’t know how he would speak to Sangita once he got there, but he knew he had to go to the Govinds’. He couldn’t sleep with his brain swimming with all he’d witnessed tonight and Sangita would be vexed with him if she knew he’d kept it all from her. He smiled, remembering the hungry way she’d eyed him in his rear-view mirror on the way home from San Fernando General. As he neared the Govind residence, Faizal played her possible reactions over in his mind like a film.

  Rajesh and Om stood outside the Govind gates, making small talk with the Hibiscus Tassa Group when Faizal arrived. “Hello. Good night.” Faizal was curt but not impolite. What were they doing here? He shuffled his feet, wondering if he should make some excuse and return home.

  “Hello. Good night, Faizal,” Om said. He grinned like a child.

  Rajesh regarded Faizal warily. He muttered a greeting that was lost in a half-grunt. “Where you coming from?”

  The question sounded more like an accusation. Mind your damn business, Faizal thought. He pushed his irritation aside and tried to look natural. “Home. Going for a stroll,” he said.

  One of the tassa men pulled his drum strap over his head and lowered the drum to the ground. “So late?” He threw Faizal a knowing smile. “Strolling home from some woman’s bed is more like it.” He fished a pack of Broadways from his pocket. “Any allyuh have a light?”

  Faizal gave the customary chuckle, all the while wondering how he would see Sangita now with her big lout of a husband lingering outside the gates. Rajesh tossed his matchbook to the man. The members of the Hibiscus Tassa Group each slid a cigarette from the pack and leaned one by one into the flame held by the leader. Faizal watched their faces illuminate and fall dark again.

  “Faizal, you miss a good show tonight, boy,” Om said, folding his arms across his chest and swaying.

  Rajesh sighed and rubbed his head, looking to the Govind home behind the gates with dismay. His body leaned toward the home, as if he would swing the gates open and walk through, but his feet stayed planted where they were.

  Faizal lowered his voice. “Mastana Bahar?” He saw the surprise on Rajesh’s face and was pleased. This was as good a time as any to let them know that Lal wasn’t the only man in the district with a television. “I was watching it home.” He made his face grim and shook his head, enjoying Rajesh’s irritation. “I wonder how Pundit Anand go react to the news.”

  “I ain’t know, but I go have to tell him,” Rajesh said flatly.

  The Hibiscus Tassa Group puffed silently by the ixora bush, the orange embers of their cigarettes the only indication that they were there.

  “Now?” Faizal heard the urgency in his voice.

  Rajesh shrugged. “When then? Next year? The wedding Sunday, Faizal.” Faizal resented the condescension in Rajesh’s tone. He was glad Rajesh felt burdened by the responsibility of telling Pundit Anand that he had been made a fool by the Shankars. He wished it would kill Rajesh dead.

  “So what? You think Pundit Anand go cancel the wedding?” Om asked, rocking on his heels now.

  A tassa player choked on his inhale. “The wedding cancel?” He coughed. “Then Pundit Anand better pay we tonight self.”

  “No. No.” Rajesh sucked his teeth. “The wedding ain’t cancel.” He glared at Om, who glared back just for the sake of it.

  Chatter circled from around the house and drifted to the front gates. A group of ladies filed toward them. “Everything wrap up now,” a tassa man said.

  Rajesh opened the gates for the women. He nodded and smiled something terse. “Hello. Good ni
ght.”

  “Sangita, look—your husband come to escort you home!” Leela announced to the trail of ladies. “Where Sangita gone now, Glory?”

  Sangita appeared at the gates, anklets and bangles tinkling. “Rajesh?” She took his arm. “What happened?”

  Faizal’s heart burned with envy. He craved that simple intimacy.

  Rajesh clenched his jaw. “Nothing, nothing. I have to talk to Pundit Anand.”

  The ladies paraded past them in twos and threes, waving goodbye. As they set out down the main road, Faizal heard someone say: “Glory, you don’t have shame? The pundit was watching how you roll your bamsee up to the tassa tonight.” Laughter ensued. Someone else said, “Allyuh notice how Krishna swell up he mouth whole night? Is like he ain’t want to marry.” And then: “Allyuh hush, nuh? You want Pundit Anand to hear we?”

  Their voices grew smaller and smaller until they were swallowed by the cicadas and were gone. That’s when Sangita noticed Faizal. “Liming in the rum shop with these boys tonight?” she asked, inclining her head toward Rajesh and Om. Her tone was indifferent, but he caught the fire in her eyes and could almost feel the heat of her curiosity emanating from her core.

  Rajesh didn’t wait for Faizal to answer. His voice was gruff. “Where Pundit Anand, Sangita? I need to talk to he.” He pushed past her, leaving Om, Sangita and Faizal staring after him.

  Sangita’s eyes widened. “Oh gosh! Raj look vexed.” She fidgeted with her braid. “What happened?” Her magnetic gaze flicked to Om. “Please, Om, go with Raj. Don’t let him embarrass me here tonight! How much he drink?” She touched Om’s arm with her fingertips and Faizal could almost see the jolt of energy crackle through him.

  Om stumbled through the gates after Rajesh, calling to his friend as he weaved a crooked path across the Govinds’ front yard.

  Faizal wanted to gather Sangita up in his arms. Clever and beautiful. She made his blood rush. There was no time for that, though, and the Hibiscus Tassa group was still lingering by the gates, pretending not to listen but listening all the same.