Nothing Like Love (15 page)

At once the kirtan group resumed their music making, and the entire temple vibrated with a new, more vigorous, energy. One by one, people rose to their feet and then picked gingerly through the crowd to join the line, until devotees dressed in kaleidoscopic colour snaked from the altar to the back of the mandir like a rainbow’s arc.

Sangita fell into line behind Chandani. Her neighbour wore a stiff lilac skirt and blouse, stitched from a sari. The skirt draped like cardboard from her hips to her ankles. A plain white
dupatha
was pulled onto her head, just hiding the knot of stark black hair at the nape of her cane-stalk neck. She shuffled forward on wooden legs, her eyes fastened on the slobbering baby slung over the shoulder of the woman in front of her.

Sangita touched Chandani’s elbow softly. “Sita-Ram, Chand.”

Chandani turned and her piggy eyes squinted so small it was as if she were trying to squeeze the image of Sangita out of her sight. “Sita-Ram.” She cleared her throat. “And thanks for
sending the food last week.” But her gratitude sounded like an accusation. She strained the muscles in her face to produce a smile; the result was an unfortunate grimace.

Sangita swept Chandani’s thanks away with a flick of her wrist, sending a dozen gold and peacock-blue bangles tinkling. “I was happy to do it, Chand. So tell me, how is Vimla?”

The woman with the baby moved away then and Chandani arrived at the front of the line. She turned her tense back on Sangita as if she hadn’t heard the question, and found herself staring into the crinkly face of Pundit Anand Govind. Something akin to dread flashed through the old priest’s watery eyes as Chandani climbed the altar steps and stood opposite him on the other side of the palana. Sangita noticed the tremor of blue-green veins peeking from the white wisps of hair at Pundit Anand Govind’s temple, and the left side of his moustache droop in a faint, almost imperceptible frown. His gaze shifted to the congregation then back to Chandani, and in that millisecond respite, he recovered his pious smile. He handed Chandani a handful of flower petals to place in the cradle; as if his son hadn’t been caught with her daughter by the ravine; as if he weren’t marrying his son to another girl and abandoning her daughter’s reputation to the village gossips.

Chandani sprinkled the flowers over the picture of baby Krishna and, without instruction, took the brightly blazing diya from Pundit Anand’s open palm and waved the fire in three circles in front of the picture before setting it down again. She rocked the palana gently, lingering for a moment as if a live child were gurgling within. A wistful look crossed her face. When she was finished, Chandani clasped her small hands and bowed at the waist in front of the palana.

Sangita held her breath. She craned her neck to see if Chandani would touch Pundit Anand’s feet respectfully, slip him the customary rolled-up dollar bills as payment for his holy service. The moment seemed to stretch on forever, with Chandani hinged at the hips like a broken doll and Pundit Anand Govind staring down at her bowed head, a mixture of great expectation and worry writ in the lines and folds of his face. Sangita laced her fingers together to keep from poking Chandani from her daze and glanced back at the dozens of villagers winding to the rear of the mandir, waiting their turn. But as her keen eyes fell on the last three men in the line, her stomach pitched and she paled.

At once she whirled back and grasped Chandani’s sharp elbow in her soft hands. “Let we go, Chand,” she whispered, her back to the congregation.

Chandani tried to wrench free. “Sangita, wait your turn! I ain’t finish here yet.”

Sangita tightened her grip and brought her mouth close to Chandani’s ear. “Your husband is holding a kitten at the rear of the mandir.”

Chandani screwed her face up and her thick eyebrows joined at the centre of her forehead.

“He’s with Puncheon, Chandani.”

Chandani darkened. Squaring her shoulders, she turned and marched away from the altar without so much as a cursory glance at Pundit Anand Govind.

Sangita coaxed her pretty mouth into an innocent smile for the priest, bowed deeply to the palana and flew after Chandani. She kicked the pearl-encrusted pleats of her sari in staccato
steps as she swept by the line, conscious—even in her haste—of enchanting the world around her.

Chandani sneered at the men as she barrelled down the aisle. They watched her like frightened children, holding their wriggling kittens to their chests and bunching close. “Outside.” Her voice was so steady it sent shivers rippling up Sangita’s spine. The men shuffled around, bumping into one another, until finally Chandani and Sangita herded them like daft sheep into the darkness.

T
hunder rolled through the churning, nebulous clouds. Sea surf surged skyward and broke furiously on the bay as the coastline pitched itself farther and farther across the beach. On either side of the cove, the mountains loomed against the black sky like the shadows of beasts, and sheets of silver rain pelted downward, threatening to plunge the island into the sea.

Faizal gripped Minty and Vimla by the wrists and dragged them from the shore. They hurtled toward the headlights with their heads down. Faizal flung open the rear car door and Minty and Vimla clambered in. “Mangoes! This is a real paranormal rain,” he yelled, sliding into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut. He spun round to glare at Minty and Vimla. “Allyuh listen: when we get back to Chance, I ain’t want to have anything to do with you
little witches.” He pointed into the darkness, “Especially that one there!”

Vimla looked out her window. Through the rills of rain streaming down her glass, she saw Chalisa spinning with her arms outstretched; a whorl of white twisting across a menacing bay. Vimla felt dizzy watching her; she felt dizzy thinking about her, too. Just before the rain, Chalisa had said that she didn’t love Krishna. How could that be? Vimla ached for him; her spirit was withering away in his absence, and Chalisa Shankar couldn’t even bring herself to
like
him.
And how does he feel about you?
Vimla had wanted to ask. But her puffed-up pride had lodged itself in her throat, so that she could only stare dumbly at the gypsy who was to marry Krishna.
Her
Krishna.

Minty slithered across the back seat and leaned against Vimla, shivering. “What she doing?”

Chalisa breezed through the rain toward Faizal’s car and rapped the window with her knuckles. Faizal spun around in his seat. “Keep she out of my car. I have my hands full with allyuh as it is.”

Vimla felt for the handle in the dark and rolled the glass down a few inches, inviting the storm inside.

Faizal sucked his teeth. “These harden children go kill me.” He ran his hands through his wet hair and let his head fall against the headrest.

“I wouldn’t marry Krishna!” Chalisa shouted. She snaked a hand into the car and gripped Vimla’s shoulder. “We go have to work together, Vimla!”

Chalisa’s driver came up behind her and cupped her elbow in his hand. His face, Vimla noticed, was that of a young man who had only recently bidden his boyhood goodbye. There
was a devotion in his eyes that deepened the aching in Vimla’s heart, and yet, as he stood guarding Chalisa with the storm at his back, Vimla knew he was the type of man who hid his intensity in silence. “Gavin?” Chalisa said, as if surprised to find him there at all. Gavin said something that was lost in the wind and then gathered Chalisa under his arm and guided her to the car. They sickened Vimla for reasons she only partly understood, but still she couldn’t look away, no matter how she tried.

Faizal cranked the key in the ignition and the car purred to life. “You know why you does get into so much trouble, Vimla?” Vimla winced at his surly frown reflected in the rear-view mirror. “Is because you real stupid. Don’t you mix yourself up with she, you hear? If the two allyuh is trouble”—he looked from Minty to Vimla—“then Chalisa Shankar is the devil self.”

Vimla watched silently as the wipers lashed against the downpour and the car trundled onto the road, not because she was too drained to argue but because she thought Faizal might be right. The car coiled slowly down the precarious mountain and she gripped the door handle. They swung around sharp bends, just skimming the edge of plummeting cliffs, climbing uphill and sailing down slopes, constantly juddering against the backs of their seats. It went on like this for ten minutes, until the hail of rain tapered into a drizzle and grey mist settled in the rustling trees lining either side of the dark road. Vimla shivered in her damp clothes.

“I think Chalisa Shankar does do witchcrafts,” Faizal muttered.

Minty peeled her sodden skirt off her thighs, straightened it and let it fall back again. “Chalisa ain’t a witch, Faizal. She just …”

“Dotish? Wayward?”

“Free.”

“Ha!” Faizal slapped his steering wheel. “I never see a girl behave so wild in my life. Chance people think Vimla hot? Whey, sir! Wait till they see this one! Chalisa Shankar ain’t free—she slack too bad!” He laughed. “Is no wonder she Nanny coming quite Chance to find she a husband.” He swerved around a tight corner. “I want to know how she manage to come and frolic at the beach on Krishna Janamashtami. Ain’t she should be in the temple?”

Vimla let her head loll against Minty’s shoulder. She had wondered the same thing, but then, Minty and Vimla had found a way to escape. Minty had said she needed to review her calculus, and Vimla had said she was too embarrassed to go to the mandir and see Pundit Anand Govind. It had worked. Sangita and Rajesh wanted Minty to be the top student in Chance come September, and Om and Chandani were happy to leave Vimla hidden away from the entire village for the night. As long as their parents stayed in the mandir until at least midnight, Vimla and Minty were safe.

Faizal rolled his window down and a burst of crisp air rushed into the car. He was quiet for a moment and then a groan so mournful escaped his lips that Vimla sat up and leaned forward to see. “Oh mangoes!” he wailed, shaking his head. “We turning back.” He slowed the car; it swerved over a blanket of slick leaves.

“What you mean? You can’t stop here!” Vimla looked behind them; Gavin and Chalisa were twenty feet away, their headlights two unblinking eyes in the night.

Faizal pulled his car to the side of the road, alongside a mesh of dishevelled branches and dripping leaves. “I left my Qur’an on the beach … and my prayer mat!”

“But, Faizal, your Qur’an will be soaked and ruined. You go have to get a next one.”

“A next one?” His eyes bulged in horror. “You Hindus have 10,001 different scriptures. Allyuh don’t understand the significance or sacred-ity of the Qur’an.” He gripped the steering wheel. “And that mat is special!”

“But you does sell prayer mats in your store, Faizal. You have plenty to choose from!”

Faizal held the girls’ gazes in the rear-view mirror again. “Sangita embroidered that mat for me. I does say my best, most holiest, most religious prayers on that mat.”

The car fell silent. Vimla felt Minty tense at her side.

Gavin pulled up beside Faizal then. “Everything all right?”

“I going back to get my Qur’an and mat!” Faizal yelled.

The rear driver’s-side door flung open and Chalisa spilled out like a wave. She had swept her wet ringlets into a bun on top of her head. She looked neat and regal; Vimla felt like a bedraggled dog, watching her. Chalisa’s eyes flashed as she rounded Faizal’s car and banged her fist on the hood.

“What wrong with you, girl?” Faizal demanded.

“You want to dead?”

“What?” Faizal turned to Gavin for an explanation, but Gavin was already striding after Chalisa and laying a hand on her shoulder. His fingers could have been raindrops; she showed no indication of feeling them.

“Allyuh go dead driving on this road so,” Chalisa said. Vimla thought she saw terror in Chalisa’s face, but everything
was muted beneath layers of shadow, and she couldn’t be sure. “The weather bad. The road narrow. And that drop there—” she pointed to the cliff’s edge “—is a drop to allyuh death.”

Faizal Mohammed sucked his teeth. “Eh, Miss Lady. If it wasn’t for me, the three allyuh would still be playing fairymaid in the water.” He scowled deeply. “And allyuh would have drown, too! You wasn’t thinking about death then!” He twisted his neck out of the car and glared at her. “Ain’t it was you who wanted to come here in the night?”

Chalisa scowled.

“Now, move. I turning back.”

Gavin lowered to Faizal’s eye level. “If you turning back, I could drop the girls home.” Vimla heard his voice this time; it was husky, barely used.

She held her breath. She didn’t want to ride with Chalisa all the way home. She was uncomfortable enough sitting in wet clothes in the back of Faizal’s car, trying to decipher Chalisa’s intentions, and hoping she and Minty would be in bed before their parents. She didn’t need the additional anxiety of sitting next to Chalisa Shankar when she was busy wilting and worrying in the darkness.