Nothing Like Love (11 page)

The pair exchanged pleasantries as if this moment were not the beginning of their lives together. Now and again Avinash marched between them, until his attention was taken away by an interesting bird or bug or butterfly. Chalisa grazed the leaves above her head with her fingertips as she walked, her pretty face entranced by her thoughts. “Nanny says you are a pundit. Is true?” she asked, tiptoeing to press her nose against a cluster of ripe oranges.

“Almost. I have a year or two again to study before I could start doing pujas on my own.”

She plucked one of the oranges and twirled it in her hands.
“Oh. Should I call you ‘Pundit Krishna,’ then? Or ‘Baba’?” She made a face. “It make you sound old.”

“Call me ‘Krishna.’ ”

Chalisa shrugged as if she had no real intention of calling him anything at all. She flipped the orange from one hand to the other. “Tell me if I wrong—didn’t Shri Krishna have many lovers?” Chalisa tilted her head to the side and pretended to think. “I believe he did. He liked to seduce the cowherds with his flute-playing. They would meet in the woods under the moon and dance and sing and make passionate love.” She tossed the orange to him and arched an eyebrow. “Ain’t that is right?”

Krishna would have agreed if not for the reproving undercurrent of her words. Instead he said, “In the Bhagavad Gita, Shri Krishna teaches us about our life purpose and
duty
in this world.” He emphasized the word to remind Chalisa his union to her was a burden set on his shoulders by his parents.

Chalisa ignored Krishna’s slight and continued with her train of thought. “You have many lovers, ain’t?” She started to walk again, but her eyes never left his face.

He regarded her warily. “No.”

Chalisa’s laugh rang like a distant bell in the sprawling orchard. “Then you must have one special lover. Shri Krishna had the beautiful Radha, and you have …?”

“Just you.” He said it to irritate her and he was successful. As she eyed him with disdain, he knew she longed to berate him for his relationship with Vimla and yet she couldn’t. To mention Vimla’s name would be to admit that she herself had not been his first choice, and from what Avinash had told him, Chalisa was the first choice of many admirers.

Avinash pushed his glasses up on his nose and wedged his way in between the pair. “Chalisa, why you don’t sing for Krishna.”

“Avi, go on and see if lunch ready.” Chalisa shooed her brother away with her hand.

“That is a good idea, Avinash. I would like to hear Chalisa sing,” Krishna said.

Avinash hopped up and down. “Sing one of Dream Girl’s songs, Chalisa.” He threw his arms around his sister’s narrow hips. “Chalisa go be a famous Indian film star one day!” he exclaimed.

Chalisa tapped Avinash on the head. “Shh!”

Krishna raised his eyebrows at her. “A film star?”

Chalisa flicked the hair off her shoulder so that it cascaded down her back. “Yes. I can sing and dance as good as any Indian film star—Hema Malini, Helen, Zeenat Aman …”

She sounded like Avinash naming off her suitors. “Them actresses does lip-synch. You know that?”

Chalisa sniffed. “Then I is even
better
than them.”

“Is that why we meeting in this orchard?” Krishna laughed. “To sing a duet? To play hide-and-seek behind the trees?” He lunged behind the orange tree to his right and peeked out the other side at her, laughing.

Chalisa fixed Krishna with a penetrating gaze that tore right into his soul. “I wouldn’t waste my talents on you,” she snapped.

Avinash looked up at them, his small face crumpled in worry.

“But you plan to marry me?” Krishna asked, and now he was serious. “Why Nanny want we together? We is two strangers. A pundit and a film star …” He looked mystified. “That ain’t really match.”

For a second Chalisa seemed about to answer, and then she changed her mind. She stood in her white platform shoes with her Cupid’s-bow lips pressed together and her tawny eyes shielded by a fringe of black lashes, like a doll.

Krishna shrugged, shoved his hands in his pockets and walked back to the house. He had no intention of marrying her, anyway.

K
rishna turned his back on the retreating shore as
The Reverie
glided out to sea. He wasn’t interested in waving goodbye to his father, whose sour expression had turned triumphant when they’d reached the port, or to his mother, whose left hand was permanently pressed to her lips, damming her objections to sending him to Tobago. He didn’t want to see Trinidad fade away in the distance, didn’t want to be reminded that he was putting thirty-six kilometres of sea between himself and Vimla. Krishna wouldn’t let resentment or heartache spoil this voyage. How could he when the day was so beautiful?

He reclined against the railing at the boat’s stern, hands in his pockets, and watched the early-day’s sun glitter off the expanding Caribbean-blue water. The sun warmed his body like a lingering embrace. A sprightly breeze played in his hair and billowed his shirt front. He became aware of how much
the steady lapping of waves against the sides of the small vessel was like his own pulse. A smile spread across Krishna’s face, slow and deliberate, like
The Reverie
’s voyage.

“Welcome aboard!” a voice called.

Krishna dragged his gaze from the ribbon of cerulean blue where the sky met the sea and scanned the boat for a face that fitted that rich, throaty voice. The tourists turned their pink faces to the bow, so that all he saw was the backs of wide-brimmed sun hats and a rainbow of foreign, blond, brown and rust hair. Abandoning his bags at the stern’s railing, he slipped in beside a slender woman with freckles on her arms. She turned to him, inclining her head in the captain’s direction. “How long does it take to grow dreadlocks like that?” she whispered in an unfamiliar accent.

Krishna shrugged and inched closer.

“My name is Captain Dutchie and this,” the captain said, letting go of the steering wheel and spreading his arms wide, “is
The Reverie
.” He flashed the carefree smile of a man who knew how to live. “We are heading to Tobago. If you are on the wrong boat, jump now.”

A ripple of mirth sounded over the waves. Krishna manoeuvred around a couple holding hands and made his way to the front of the group. Captain Dutchie’s dreadlocks, he noticed, were reddish brown from the sun and cascaded down his back like thick marine ropes. The strong notches on his dark arms glistened with the sheen of cocoa butter, and he smelled distinctively like the sea. Not a sharp fishy smell, but a fresh fusion of sea air and freedom.

“We will be stopping at Buccoo Reef to see the Coral Gardens, at which time I will ask you to have a seat around the
glass bottom of the boat,” Dutchie said, his eyes glistening like black onyx.

All heads swivelled to the deck’s centre, where the bottom of the boat had been fitted with an eight-by-ten-foot glass floor. Wooden benches were secured to the deck around the perimeter of the glass, allowing the tourists an opportunity to observe the tropical marine life beneath them.

“We will be stopping for an hour of snorkelling and then drop anchor at Store Bay in Crown Point, Tobago, for the afternoon. Anybody have questions?”

A man with red, peeling shoulders raised his hand. “George Moncton,” he said by way of introduction. “Is this thing safe?” He glanced at the dozens of fluorescent life jackets slung up in a net overhead.

Dutchie laughed. He steadied the wheel with his hip and gathered up a fistful of dreadlocks. “Is a little late to be asking that question, George,” he said, winding the locks around the rest of his hair to create a fat ponytail.

George smiled a strained and worried smile.

Dutchie took the wheel again. “
The Reverie
is a small tour boat, but she’s sturdy and reliable. I never had to use the life jackets in an emergency—those are for beginner snorkellers,” he said, nodding with his chin to the jackets.

George’s shoulders relaxed.

“Captain Dutchie!” A young woman behind George waved her hand in the air. “What’s in the cooler?” She squeezed her way to the front, giving the small group a good look at her bikini-clad body. Krishna wondered what purpose the sheer yellow sarong wrapped around her slender waist served.

Dutchie raised the cooler’s lid with his big toe, giving a
glimpse of a bottle and plastic cups wedged in a bed of ice. “Rum punch, my darling,” he said, winking. “For after the snorkelling.”

The young woman hopped with delight, showing off the buoyancy of her breasts. Krishna snickered to himself, thinking: in the case of an emergency, she probably wouldn’t need a life jacket.

“Can we go upstairs?” a child asked from beneath his oversized sun hat. He fidgeted with the plastic orange binoculars around his neck. His mother, a woman with deep-set green eyes and flowing auburn hair, placed a hand on his shoulder, ogling Dutchie like she was devouring him in her mind.

“Yes, of course. Please.” Dutchie gestured to the ladders on either side of the bow. He nodded to the mother as she sashayed past him. “There are sun chairs up top. Make yourselves comfortable. The view is pretty from there.” He flashed a sparkling smile. “I’ll check back in with you soon.”

The tourists were dismissed and moved cautiously over the swaying deck. Krishna watched them don sunglasses and apply suntan lotion. A group climbed to the upper level, while others found a spot at the wraparound railing and looked out at the sparkling sea. It felt strange discovering a part of his country for the first time with these foreigners and he wondered how many hundreds of overseas visitors had seen Tobago before him.

“Eh, what’s your name, Boss?” Dutchie held his hand out to Krishna, interrupting his thoughts.

“Krishna.” Dutchie’s grip closed around his, firm but friendly.

“But what you doing on my tour boat, Krishna?” Dutchie glanced at Krishna’s khakis and crisp, white button-up shirt.
His lips twitched, but there was nothing cruel in his amusement.

Krishna glanced down at himself, too. He grinned. “Going Tobago.”

Dutchie raised an eyebrow. “You look like you going to church, man.” He laughed. “When I tell the passengers to jump if they on the wrong boat, I was talking to you.”

Krishna noticed Dutchie had fallen into his colloquial tongue and it pleased him somehow, like a quiet understanding had passed between them.

The captain guided the steering wheel with an extended finger. “Don’t think I ain’t see them big bags you tote on my boat. I know them ain’t have no snorkelling gear, Boss.”

A sheepish expression crossed Krishna’s face. He ran his hands through his wavy hair, unsure how to explain that his father had been too cheap to buy a plane ticket, or to pay for passage on the real ferry. How could he tell Dutchie without offending him, or embarrassing himself, that this four-hour journey on
The Reverie
was part of Krishna’s punishment for shaming his father?

Dutchie gazed past Krishna. “Boss, take the wheel. It look like George sick.” He slapped Krishna on the back and walked away. Over his shoulder he said, “Don’t shit up your khakis, nuh, man. I ain’t care what you have in them bags as long as I ain’t going to jail for it. From the time I see you with that white-white shirt and luggage, I done know you was t’iefing passage to Tobago on my boat.” He chuckled, shaking his head of dreadlocks as he walked away.

Krisha took the wheel in his hands, surprised at how natural it felt. He enjoyed the rock of the vessel beneath him, the sporadic spray of the sea on his face, the fluidity of his whereabouts
in the world. But a whisper of guilt nagged at his conscience, and the more he ignored it, the more insistent it became.

Vimla
.

The waves lapped to the rhythm of her name.

Vimla
.

The wind carried her name to his ears.

Vimla
.

The last time he had seen her, they had lain on their bellies in the dark and dared to unfold the future blueprints of their lives. Vimla would teach at Saraswati Hindu School and perhaps attend a university in the city the following year. Krishna would continue his pundit work under his father’s tutelage and carry on the family legacy. In a year, when they were more established, they would marry and start a family. Vimla wanted a boy. Krishna wanted a girl. Vimla wanted a house on a hill. Krishna wanted a house by the water. He smiled now, remembering the heat of her elbow next to his, the brush of her hair on his cheek, the undercurrent of excitement in her quiet murmurs, the sweet sound of her muffled giggles. Krishna leaned his weight against the steering wheel and stared, unseeing, at the endless blue. They would have made it happen, he told himself, had Sangita Gopalsingh not played the hand of fate.

Bitterness boiled hot inside him and suddenly he was standing in his bedroom with his father again. “You mad if you think I marrying Chalisa Shankar!” he had exclaimed earlier that morning.

“Hush your mouth, you hear?” Anand rounded on him. “You go marry she. And while I fix up the wedding, I sending you to study in Tobago!” The veins beneath Anand’s eyes throbbed as he shoved a few articles of clothing into a bag.
“Straight to your Auntie Kay’s house. Away from
she
, away from Chance!”