Nothing Like Love (27 page)

“Next time? I ready to leave, man.”

“Raj, I can’t make a pot of callaloo with one crab, who look half sick at that. I need at least three crab.” He sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “I already pick the dasheen bhaji from Headmaster’s yard, and t’ief three coconut from Bulldog. Is only the crab I missing! This is your fault. If only you ask your greedy cousin Pudding to lend me two crab, you wouldn’t have to wait with me.”

Rajesh didn’t respond. His gaze was fixed on Krishna Govind, marching up the riverbank, trailing a bulging suitcase through the bush. “But wait, what the ass is this?” he muttered.

K
rishna was on his way.

Vimla squared her shoulders, fixed her gaze forward and ducked between two rows of sugar cane. She parted a path through the leaves and vowed she would not allow her guilty conscience to drag her back home. She would not go all this way to be heartbroken. And this time, she would not be discovered by a ragtag search party. Vimla wanted a victory as much as she wanted Krishna and she would come home with both.

The leaves grazed the light cotton of her sleeves and brushed the top of her head as she went, welcoming her back and then closing in again behind her, possessive. Vimla was no stranger to this last acre of sugar cane.

She picked through the field and touched the ribbons of coloured cloth tied in a bow around every tenth cane stalk.
Pink, orange, yellow, burgundy. This was the rainbow that marked her way. It had been Minty’s idea to use scraps from her mother’s sewing basket as markers, and she’d filched them herself, choosing the brightest and prettiest fabric available.

Vimla listened to the steady breath of the sugar cane. It inhaled and exhaled in the wind, as much alive as the creatures hiding in its green skirts. She heard the flap and rustle of wings against underbrush. The whir of birds landing and taking flight. The crunch of her footsteps, quick and light with anticipation, measured with deliberateness.

Vimla pumped her arms and strode with more vigour than she needed to. A trick to occupy her mind. Fifteen minutes into her walk and already her cotton blouse clung to her back with perspiration and her hair had gone rogue in the humidity. She lifted the locks off her neck and dropped them over her shoulder knowing it was useless to try to comb through the damp tangles now. She ignored the fine strands that remained twined in her fingers. Droplets pooled on her upper lip and glistened on her nose. Even her knees were wet. Still she pushed against the solid walls of heat so they didn’t close in around her.

Vimla reached into her pocket and retrieved Krishna’s folded note again. The message had blurred with her constant handling, Krishna’s confident pen strokes trailing off into indistinct smudges. But she knew the message as well as she knew his laugh. The paper, damp and wrinkled, was merely proof she wasn’t dreaming:

The red marker was twenty stalks away. Vimla knew it well. It was organza with two matching red sequins that hung precariously from loose threads of gold. Her heart quickened and she laboured on.

White. Green. Gold. She touched the markers as she passed, recalling the stories Minty had told her about each one. The white cotton came from a widow’s sari blouse. The green silk, from a Muslim bride’s
lengha
. The gold, from the false flowers in a
bharatnatyam
dancer’s hair. Vimla imagined the spirits of these women cheering her on her course. She fancied them women of passion and courage, women like her and Minty.

Minty. A smile loosened the hard line of Vimla’s mouth. At one time their mischief had been as harmless as stealing oranges from Headmaster Roop G. Kapil’s tree or playing tricks on Puncheon in the market; now they were plotting against the district, undoing a wedding, deceiving a pundit. Vimla knew she had entwined Minty in her mess. As she swatted away a blade reaching for her face, she wondered how far Minty would follow her before it became too much.

Vimla peeled her blouse off her chest and let air filter over the rivers of perspiration. She told herself that it didn’t matter anymore; this dangerous game they were planning was nearly over. After all, Krishna was trudging his way through the cane field from the opposite end and at five o’clock he would meet her at the red marker. Vimla imagined what Krishna would say: Chalisa Shankar might be beautiful, with her dimples and her grace and her spotless reputation, but that wasn’t enough for him. The farther she walked the surer she became of this. Why else would Krishna initiate a risky meeting with her
when his wedding to Chalisa was less than two weeks away? Why else would he sign his note “with love”?

With love
.

Buoyed by her reasoning, Vimla reached into her pocket and exchanged Krishna’s note for Faizal Mohammed’s gold watch. She laughed out loud, startling a family of roosting doves, startling herself. How he must have cursed when Minty blackmailed him for this! Vimla turned the heavy timepiece over in her hand so that the round face stared back at her. Four fifty-seven. Her stomach pitched like a tidal wave. Teal. Turquoise. Silver.

Twenty minutes later Vimla sat on the ground beneath the red marker, having discarded her misgivings about soiling her skirt. For a while she had watched the second hand tick around the clock, but that only made her cross-eyed and crazy. Now she huddled like a wounded animal in a state of numbed shock, hugging her knees to her chest and sniffling into the wrinkles in her skirt.

Krishna was not coming.

She forced air into her lungs.

Krishna was not coming.

How embarrassed her mother would be if she could see her now. Chandani, severe face, haunting eyes, would be furious at Vimla for sneaking away, for being the fool again. Vimla groaned and traded her mother’s face for her father’s in her mind’s eye. If this failed attempt at snagging Krishna became news—as most things in the district did—Om would not say much. He would endure Chandani’s tirades and fill his glass
more frequently at Lal’s. He would have no harsh words for Vimla, only sad eyes that stung more than licks or a berating ever could.

Vimla gathered the ends of her skirt and wiped her face, leaving smears of dirt and sweat behind.

She wondered why Krishna had changed his mind about seeing her. The thought opened the floodgates for a dozen suppositions, each one more distressing than the one before. They darted like a school of smelt. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hands against her temples until the whirl slowed to a steady current of truths: Krishna Govind had sullied her reputation, deserted her for Tobago, detached himself from their disgrace by choosing Chalisa Shankar for a bride. Krishna Govind was a crook.

Vimla pressed her hands more firmly into the sides of her head as if she would squash the blasphemy within. A crook? No. She shook her head. Those were Chandani’s charges, not hers. But the more Vimla thought about it, the less she was sure what she believed of Krishna and what she didn’t.

Suddenly the heat was unbearable. Vimla dragged the back of her hand across her forehead. She needed water or she would faint. Already delirium skirted the edge of her mind, coaxing her to lay her head in the dirt and die. She had lost Krishna. She had lost her teaching post. She had lost her reputation. Failure licked her insides like flames on a funeral pyre.

And then it happened.

Vimla felt fangs sink into her left ankle and at once her lethargy was overpowered by raw terror. She cried out, tripping over herself as she scrambled to her feet. Pain exploded up her right leg, but she forced herself to leap from the rustling
bush. When she dared to look over her shoulder, she found herself held in the opaque stare of a macajuel snake, its brown body stretching on forever across the earth. Vimla’s heart pounded. Panic sent her flying. She grit her teeth and clawed wildly at the leaves. They swung back at her, slashing her arms with their razor edges, marring her skin with crimson stripes. The heat grew thicker and she had to double her efforts to move, to breathe, to stay vertical. Sweat and tears stung her eyes and blurred her vision, but the snake’s cold stare remained tattooed to her mind.

Vimla ran for what seemed like an eternity, chasing her breath until her heart nearly burst. Finally, when she thought she could go no farther, the cane opened up into a field of savannah grass. Relief shuddered through her as she slowed to a stagger. She sapped the last of her energy in a heart-wrenching cry and collapsed in a heap, letting the wind rush over her.

Vimla didn’t hear the shuffle of slippers in the grass or see the shadow fall across her crumpled body, but as she lay panting, she knew instinctively that someone was there.

F
aizal Mohammed took one look at Vimla crying in his field and cursed. Every time he thought he was finally through with Minty and Vimla, one of them showed up to spoil his day. It wasn’t enough that they had his gold chain, initial pendant and his watch; they wanted his sanity, too, it seemed. His lips twisted in disgust. Minty and Vimla couldn’t control him if Sangita would leave Rajesh and marry him once and for all. Then the blackmailing would stop. Then they would see who was the boss of who. Witches!

Vimla sniffled. Faizal took a step backward. He thought about turning around and heading home. She was not his responsibility. Not this time. Faizal was almost certain Vimla’s unsightly display of grief had something to do with that Krishna Govind. He folded his arms over his chest, staring down at her with as much pity as he’d shown Puncheon when
Puncheon had capsized into the drain on Christmas. What mischief had Vimla got herself into this time? He looked over his shoulder then scanned the open field. And where the hell was Minty?

The crying was subsiding. Good. Faizal felt relief creep through him. The thought of comforting Vimla made him edgy. He took another retreating step, as stealthy as Flambeaux, willing Vimla to peel herself off his property and go home. Faizal thought of the cup of cocoa tea he planned to make, of
Bonanza
, which would begin in just minutes. He licked his lips and wiggled his toes in anticipation.

She uncurled from the knot she’d balled herself into, stretching her arms first, then her legs from beneath her skirt. That’s when Faizal saw the scrapes on Vimla’s arms and the bloody mess that was her ankle. “Mangoes!” he yelled, leaping back yet another foot.

His outburst startled Vimla. She scrambled to sit up, and when her eyes found his face, Faizal saw hope dissolve into disappointment.

She groaned. “What you doing here, Faizal?”

“What
I
doing here? This is my land! What
you
doing here?” He pointed a long, accusing finger at Vimla, annoyed by her cheek. “And what the hell happened to your foot?”

Vimla peered down at her ankle, wincing as she tried to move it. “A snake” was all she could manage.

Faizal ran his hands through his hair and left them there, holding his head. He glanced at the Narine residence, only a hundred metres away, and felt his heart drop into his belly: they weren’t home. He knew they weren’t home because he had been spying out the window at them when they bustled onto Kiskadee
Trace an hour and a half ago. Om had lumbered off to Bulldog’s house with a jar of pepper sauce under his arm and Chandani had gone in the direction of the mandir—probably to pray for Vimla’s soul. Faizal cursed them both beneath his breath.

“Get up, get up!” He crouched low and draped her arm around his shoulder. “We going to the hospital.”

Vimla moaned. “No hospital.” Her breath was ragged. She looked like she’d torn through a war zone.

Faizal lifted her into his arms. “No hospital? You mad or what?” He headed toward his home. “If I ain’t take you to the hospital, that crazy mother of yours go cuss me upside down. No, sir! We going San Fernando General now for now!”