Nothing Like Love

by Sabrina Ramnanan

  “Is Pundit Anand who accept the estate deed, Chand. Is he to blame,” Om said. He sat hunched over with his head in his hands.

  Chandani paced. She kicked her empty glass over in the process and Om set it right. “That man greedy. Lawd Father, he greedy.” Chandani weaved back to Om and lowered her face to his. “Tell me, nuh? Tell me what the ass Anand go do with a field of orange?” She cackled. “You think Maya go pick orange in the hot sun? She backside lazy too bad!”

  Chandani was bordering on hysteria. Om wondered if he should take her upstairs, let her vent in their bedroom, where he could close the windows. But then, there was a part of him that thought the neighbours needed to hear the truth about Pundit Anand. When word began spreading, he wanted it to be Chandani’s. He let her rage on. She deserved this much at least.

  “And if Pundit Anand think I go put my daughter in he school to teach, he have a next thing coming!” The veins in Chandani’s skinny neck grew taut.

  Om watched the enmity on her face and pitied her. He knew when it sputtered out, the embarrassment of today would remain like a film on her heart. And yet he was powerless to help her. If only he could have made Pundit Anand a counter-offer—a better dowry. Then they wouldn’t have had to hang their heads and return home worse off than when they left.

  “Let he give the job to he new daughter-in-law. She could teach the children to dance and prance and wine up they waist all over Trinidad!” Chandani exclaimed.

  “And as for Krishna. It ain’t matter how much he pray, how much he read them scriptures—Bhagwan would never bless him with a happy marriage. Not after he dutty my daughter good name and throw she away like a mango seed. What a nasty man. He come out just like he miserly father!”

  Chandani bent to pick her glass up off the ground and nearly toppled forward. Om caught her around the waist and she steadied herself against his solid frame for a moment, her head resting on his. “Om.” Her voice was smaller now. “Pundit Anand real shit we up, boy,” she said.

  Om pulled her onto his lap like a rag doll and took the empty glass from her hands. “Yeah, but what we go do? Is no point railing up, Chand. Them corrupt too bad. I ain’t a pundit like Anand, and I ain’t have plenty land and estate like Nanny, but I am a honest fella.” Even as he said it, Om felt hollow inside, like being honest suddenly counted for nothing.

  Chandani looked like she might argue, but the effort was too much. Instead she draped an arm around Om’s thick neck and slurred, “Pour, nuh?”

  He did not have the heart to refuse her. Om wrapped his arm around Chandani, the bottle of Old Oak in his hand, and poured a splash into her glass.

  Chandani’s face crumpled and she began to cry.

  A Dream in a Cow Pen

  Saturday August 31, 1974

  CHANCE, TRINIDAD

  Vimla and Minty sat on two overturned buckets under the shed where the cow and the calf were tied and eavesdropped on Chandani’s tirade. Minty’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open at the mention of the deed. “She story!” Minty whispered.

  Vimla shook her head. She was ringing the hem of her skirt in her hands. “Is true.”

  The calf nosed its way under her mother’s belly and suckled. The cow stepped to the side as if she would free her teat from her baby’s tug and then resigned herself to her duty with a moan, swishing her tail against the flies.

  When Chandani fell quiet, Minty wrapped an arm around Vimla’s slight shoulders. “So what happen? Pundit Anand take back the wedding offer?”

  Vimla shrugged. “If you see how he face light up when he see that deed, Minty! All of a sudden, me and my mother and my father come like strangers. He act like he ain’t invite we to come by he self, like we was just passing by the gates and drop in unexpected.”

  Minty gasped.

  “After that ugly crapaud-mouth Nanny show up with she big handbag and she big deed, Pundit Anand pretend like he ain’t ask for me to marry Krishna! What we could do? If we did mention it again, it would have look like we begging. He already embarrass we, Mints, and by the way he get real friendly with Nanny we done know he wouldn’t keep he word.”

  “So what you do?”

  Vimla shrugged and then let her shoulders slump forward again. “We come away fast-fast. What else we could do?”

  The cow lowed and tried to nudge her calf away.

  Minty rose and flipped the bucket right side up. She gestured for Vimla to pass her the yellow bucket of molasses shoved into a corner. “And what about Mr. Man?” she asked dryly.

  Vimla pivoted on her bottom to face Minty. “Krishna? He just stand up there like a fool.” It pained her to say it, but it was the truth. She could forgive him his other negligence—Tobago, the meeting in the cane field—but this she could not forgive; this humiliation, this public rejection, was branded on her heart forever.

  “He ain’t say nothing?”

  “He almost say something. Almost. I could see he wanted to stop Pundit Anand and that nasty old Nanny, but when he watch he father’s face, he just freeze up, Mints.”

  Minty folded her arms. “You think is the money Krishna after?”

  Vimla dropped her chin into the palms of her hands and studied the scar on her ankle. “I really don’t know.”

  Minty disappeared around the side of the shed with the empty bucket. Vimla heard her dip it into the rain barrel. She returned lugging the bucket from its wire handle as water spilled onto her feet. Vimla could tell by the red splotches on her otherwise fair skin that Minty was biting back angry words. “Open the molasses, nuh?”

  Vimla peeled the cover off the molasses bucket. The cow lumbered near and lowered her great head so that her velvet nose brushed Vimla’s hand.

  “Get back, Swishy!” Minty scolded. Gently she pushed the cow’s head away and scooped molasses into the bucket of water. She regarded Vimla warily as she mixed the two. “I know that look, Vims,” she said. A sheen of sweat dotted her hairline. The cow stretched her tongue into the bucket and stole a lick. Minty nudged her away.

  Vimla stood up, her eyes steely. Now, when Krishna had finally slipped through her fingers, she could not cry. She did not want to. Instead she summoned her loss and humiliation and let it morph into anger and rise in her chest like a white-capped wave. She had let her fate fall prey to the whims of the Govinds and the Shankars for weeks now, and in the end, they gave her false hope then hurled her lower than she’d ever been. She gathered her pride and vowed to succeed at something new. Something grander than Mastana Bahar or the glorious line of Govind pundits.

  Minty slid the bucket of molasses in front of the cow. “Vimla, what going on in your head?”

  “Mints, I leaving.”

  “Home? Your mother tight—she ain’t looking for you. I sure you father putting she to bed now.” Minty smiled. “Stay, nuh? We does hardly see each other again.”

  “No, no. I leaving Chance, Mints.” Vimla’s eyes were huge with adventure. She took hold of Minty’s shoulders, gave them a little shake. “I going foreign.”

  “What?” Minty gawked at Vimla like she’d gone mad. “Foreign? Where?”

  “Canada.” It slipped from her lips the way Krishna’s name once had. Fluid. Dangerous. “I leaving this place.” She released Minty’s shoulders and stared across the dancing cane. “I leaving.” The words were a whisper this time.

  Minty put her hands on either side of Vimla’s head and turned it to face her. “You ain’t need to run, Vimla. Canada is a far place to run to.”

  “Run?” Vimla scowled. “I ain’t running from anybody, but what I staying here for, Mints?” She leaned on the wooden post the cow and calf were tied to. “It ain’t have nothing here for me again.”

  Minty brushed the perspiration from her hairline to hide her hurt. “What it have in Canada except ice and the Niagara Escarpment?”

  Vimla arched an eyebrow, impressed. Minty had been studying her geography over the summer. “I want to go to school there.”

  The cow upset the b
ucket of molasses, lifted her head and mooed.

  A silence fell between Vimla and Minty. They knew of two people from a neighbouring village who had gone abroad to study—one to England, the other to Canada—and neither of them had returned. Minty let her hands drop to her sides and looked away. “You can’t just pack your bags and leave. Your mother wouldn’t allow you to go over alone.”

  Vimla heard the challenge in Minty’s voice and softened her approach. “I ain’t think my mother go mind if I leave here to go over—especially after Anand embarrass she today, Minty. Think how much satisfaction she go get telling people in the market that she daughter gone Canada to study!”

  Minty averted her gaze from Vimla’s mischievous smile.

  The calf ducked under her mother’s sagging udders and stuck her entire face in the molasses bucket. She lapped greedily, pushing the bucket along the ground until the rope grew taut and she could go no farther. Minty picked up the bucket and held it for the calf, her back to Vimla. “What about Krishna? He make plans to take you Tobago to live. He promise to meet you tonight, remember?”

  Vimla threw her head back and laughed, madly and unin-hibitedly. The wind danced in the cane. “When last Krishna follow through on he word?”

  “How you go pay for the ticket?” Minty asked.

  Vimla could tell by the way she straightened her spine and stood with her feet planted firmly apart that Minty thought she had trumped her.

  “I know you go help me, Mints,” Vimla said.

  “Me? I can’t help you this time. I ain’t have no money. Not a red cent.”

  This wasn’t the first time Vimla had assuaged her hurt with the idea of leaving Trinidad and she had an idea. “Ain’t you still have Faizal Mohammed’s jewellery?”

  A flock of black birds volleyed out of the cane into the sky in a cacophony of twitters. They glided right and then swept into the opposite direction like a lost cloud chasing a storm.

  The Suitcase

  Saturday August 31, 1974

  CHANCE, TRINIDAD

  Chandani woke with a thudding in the back of her head. She propped herself up on her elbows. The thudding rolled to her temples and intensified. A sliver of late-afternoon sun cut through an opening in the curtains and pierced her eyes. Chandani moaned, lowered herself back onto her pillow and shielded her eyes with her hand. Her tongue felt pasty, sour. She peeled it from the roof of her mouth and croaked Om’s name.

  “He gone to play card.”

  She turned her head. Vimla was kneeling in the shadows, her palms pressed to the top of an old blue suitcase someone had given Om years ago.

  “Vimla?” She struggled to a seated position, winced as her stomach churned and then settled.

  Vimla pointed to the glass of water she’d left on Chandani’s bedside table. Chandani guzzled it noisily as if someone might take it from her. As the last drop rolled into her parched mouth, she vowed never to touch Om’s Old Oak again. “What you doing there?” she asked, setting the glass down.

  “Since when you does drink so, Ma?” Vimla asked, mirth in her eyes.

  For a moment Chandani saw a little girl at play again, a girl full of tricks and mischief, a girl who used to fall asleep in her arms smiling. She glanced at the framed pictures hung at an angle above Vimla’s head and saw that nothing in that face had changed, really, but everything had grown stronger: the tenacious lift of her chin, the brightness of her eyes, the unpredictability of her giggles and glowers. Chandani sucked her teeth. “Is your father fault. He hand heavy. He does throw big-big drink for me.” She smoothed her hair and twiddled her thumbs in her lap. The movement of her fingers helped take her mind from the queasiness in her belly.

  “That’s not what Pa tell me,” Vimla said. Something clicked and the latches on the suitcase flew open.

  Chandani pulled the coverlet over her legs and busied herself with creating a perfect fold. “Humph! Your father could well carry news!” This morning’s events trolled through the fog to the forefront of her brain. “And anyhow, I earn my drink after Pundit Anand …” Her outburst trailed off and disappeared. A lump formed in her throat. She traced the rose pattern on the coverlet again and again with her finger until the urge to cry subsided.

  Vimla walked around the suitcase and sat cross-legged on the bed at Chandani’s feet. She felt Chandani’s toes through the coverlet and gave them a wiggle. “Ma, forget he, nuh? He too money hungry for we and he does lie too bad for one pundit. I ain’t want to teach in he school and I ain’t want to marry he son neither.”

  For once Chandani let Vimla’s impertinence pass. “You mean to tell me you ain’t like that boy again?” She snorted. “Ain’t just the other day you meet Krishna in the cane field?”

  Vimla froze.

  Chandani smiled a mother’s knowing smile. “Ain’t that where your foot got bit-up?”

  “Today is the first time I see Krishna since Pundit Anand send he Tobago.”

  Chandani shrugged as if it didn’t matter. She watched relief soften the furrow on her daughter’s brow. “So how come you ain’t bawling down the place like I expect? Instead I gone and play the ass and drink till my head get bad.” She laughed, but it sounded more like she was clearing her throat.

  “Ma? You all right?”

  Chandani forced herself to sit up straighter. “What you think—is the first time I ever take a drink?” She longed for another glass of water and the luxury of uninterrupted sleep.

  Vimla laughed. “I think is the first time you ever drink the whole bottle.”

  Chandani scowled and lay down again. “I wish I could have rip that moustache out Pundit Anand’s mouth,” she said. “He make we lose everything.” She banged her tiny fist into the spring of the bed. “Imagine how shame your father feel now.”

  Vimla swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Ma, Saraswati Hindu School and Krishna Govind ain’t everything.” She knelt in front of the suitcase again and this time flung it open.

  Chandani knew she couldn’t really feel that way, but still, Vimla’s resilience was admirable. “Girl, what you doing with that old thing?”

  A musty smell filled the room. Chandani sneezed three times, coughed once and glared at Vimla.

  “I taking it with me when I go Canada.”

  The resolve in Vimla’s voice sent a jolt of dread through Chandani’s chest. “Canada?” She pulled the coverlet over her nose so only her eyes were visible. “Who say you going Canada? Put away that suitcase and go and boil some rice for dinner.”

  Vimla stared, unmoving, into the belly of the suitcase as if she were filling it with things in her mind.

  “Vimla! You hear me? Put it away. That thing smelling stink!”

  The curtains at the window fluttered and a wash of sunlight filled the suitcase. Chandani saw the way Vimla looked longingly at it, and wished she had thrown it out long ago. They had no use for a suitcase. They weren’t going anywhere.

  Vimla’s fingers whispered over the beige lining, still pristine. “I could leave Chance and go over to study. Then it wouldn’t matter to we who marry Krishna and who teach in the stupid school.”

  Chandani blinked at her daughter like she was speaking some unknown tongue.

  “I go study to become a teacher or a nurse. And when I done school, I go come back.”

  She looked up at Chandani and Chandani looked away. Vimla was right, of course. She would rise above her disgrace the moment she left for a place people in Chance only dreamed of. The elusiveness of life in Canada, where snow fell in the winter and apples blossomed in the spring, would garner their respect, their adoration and secret envy all over again.

  But she was only a girl. What did Vimla know about a place as vast and remote as Canada? What did Chandani and Om know? A thousand misfortunes could befall Vimla in Canada and Chandani and Om would be powerless to help. Chandani let her imagination conjure the worst of them: Vimla lost in a big city; Vimla frozen into an ice block; Vimla forced to dine on beef and pork; Vimla romanced an
d impregnated by a man of indistinct race and questionable intentions; Vimla deciding never to come home.

  “Ma! You hearing me?” Vimla asked.

  Chandani regarded her in silence. Suddenly Vimla was not a naughty girl or a prize pupil; she was a young woman who from the nadirs of her grief had found fresh optimism and greater ambition than Chandani had ever imagined for her.

  Chandani faked a cough and pulled the coverlet over her head to hide her grown daughter from her eyes. If she said yes, if she allowed Vimla to leap beyond this small village, she would lose her, send away the person she loved more than anyone else in the world.

  “Ma! What you think?”

  From beneath the coverlet she said, “I think you should put away that damn suitcase and air out the room before you kill me. And boil the rice like I ask you.”

  “And?”

  “And bring me a next glass of water. My throat get scratchy from all the dust that suitcase let go.” She sucked her teeth for good measure.

  “And what about Canada?”

  Chandani pressed her fingers to her temples. Her headache was worsening. “Vimla, is no wonder you does always end up in trouble—you does look for it steady! Krishna and Chalisa ain’t even marry yet, school ain’t even open back yet, and you already looking for some next shit to land up in.” She worked saliva into her mouth and let it sit for a second on her dry tongue before swallowing. “And how you could ask me so boldface to go and knock about in Canada after I see how wild you behave right here at home? Humph! You must be mad!” Chandani listened for an answer, and when there was none, she said, “Bring a tablet with the water when you coming.” She held her breath and waited. When the door slammed, it rattled the door frame and her aching head. Chandani buried her face in her pillow and cursed until she needed air.

  That night, Om and Chandani listened to the constant click and snap of the suitcase latches and the sporadic creak of floorboards as Vimla paced in her room across the hall. Chandani stretched like a pipe over the bed, inflexible and silvered by the moon. “I thought I tell you to bust up that suitcase and throw it away?” she said.