Nothing Like Love (34 page)

The door whined open. Vimla turned her head as Minty crept gingerly over the floorboards. “I waking, Mints,” Vimla said.

Minty looked up and brightened. She flung her arms around Vimla’s neck and squeezed too hard. “You bathe in Limacol today?” she asked, pulling away, her nose crinkling.

“My head hurting me steady, Mints. Limacol the only thing that works.” Vimla curled into a ball, watching her friend.

Minty frowned and flopped into Vimla’s desk chair. “Vims, my mother here, too. We go have to talk fast.”

Vimla rolled her eyes. Of course Sangita was here. How else would the status of Vimla’s snake bite reach the village? “Quickly, then,” she said.

Minty nodded. She didn’t need prompting. “He sorry, Vims.”

Vimla wasn’t sure how she had expected the conversation to begin, but it wasn’t like this. She had just finished stoking her ire. She wasn’t ready for Minty to douse it with news of Krishna’s regret. “He say so?” she asked, despite herself.

Minty nodded. “Up, Vimla. Let we exercise while we talk.”

Vimla groaned, but Minty threw off the coverlet and
draped Vimla’s arm over her shoulder. There was no sense arguing—there was no time anyway. “Yeah, he was upset at he maticoor. I think is guilt had him so, Vimi. He tell me he feel real bad he couldn’t reach you in the cane.”

Vimla dropped her good foot over the side of the bed and lowered the other with care until her toes just touched the floorboards. “So what happen? He know how long I wait for he? He hear about the snake?” Her voice rose with each question. She was riling herself up again and she was glad. Better anger than grief.

Minty wrapped her arm around Vimla’s waist, pinching her flesh through her shirt. “Shh! The window open, Vimla.” She hoisted Vimla to a standing position. “Shift your weight on me.” Vimla did as she was told, filled her lungs with air and took a cautious step forward. “Good,” Minty said. “It wasn’t he fault, really,” she continued. “My father and Puncheon see he walking along the river and they stop Krishna to catch crab with them. They wanted to hear about Tobago. You know none of we ever see Tobago before, Vimi.”

Vimla frowned. While she was flying from the macajuel, Krishna had been fishing for crab. Minty read the expression on her face. “Well, he couldn’t tell them he was coming to see
you
, Vims,” she said. She tightened her grip and pulled Vimla along. “Another step. Come on.”

Vimla hobbled forward, feeling blood rush into her legs. “So what he wanted to meet me for when everything done fix up for he to marry Chalisa Shankar?”

“To tell you he sorry—”

Vimla sucked her teeth long and hard. “How much things Krishna sorry for?” she said, resisting the thawing in her heart.

“I nearly dead in the cane for him to tell me he
sorry
?” She grunted with the effort of her next step, but she was building momentum now.

“You ain’t nearly dead, Vimla,” Minty said, although they both knew that if she’d encountered a venomous snake, they might not be having this conversation now. “Let me finish what I have to tell you, nuh?”

Vimla clamped her mouth shut. They reached the window and she leaned on the sill to rest. Downstairs Sangita was making small talk with Chandani and Chandani was eyeing Sangita’s flimsy white blouse with disapproval.

“He wanted to tell you is only you he was studying in Tobago. He cannot stand Chalisa Shankar. Not at all.”

“Why?” she murmured. The room tilted on an angle.

Minty giggled. “ ‘Too much style in she backside for me.’ ”

Vimla raised an eyebrow. A smile tugged at her lips. “Krishna say that?”

“And he love you, Vims.”

“He say that, too?”

Minty nodded. “And he ain’t marrieding Chalisa again. He go come for you tonight and allyuh go sail to Tobago to live. His partner, Dutchie, have a boat. He say his Auntie Kay cannot wait to meet you.”

Vimla’s knees went weak and Minty had to tighten her grip so she didn’t fall.

“Let we go back to the bed,” Minty said.

Vimla shook her head. “Let go. I want to try for myself.” Vimla uncurled her arm from around Minty’s neck and limped to the bed on her own. She fell across it and rolled onto her back. “Krishna really coming for me?” she asked Minty, breathless.

“Yes! What I go lie for, Vimi?” Minty smiled and collapsed on the bed beside Vimla. Together they stared at the silver galvanized roof. “Vimla.”

“Mmm?” Vimla’s mind was far away now. She was falling into Krishna’s arms, sailing on a boat, running along a beach, feeling freer than she ever had.

“It have more to the story.”

Vimla turned her head so she was staring at Minty’s milky face. What more could there be?

“Remember I tell you about
Mastana Bahar
? Chalisa Shankar sing on the show last night.”

Vimla raised her head. “You story.”

“Is true.”

“So?”

“So Pundit Anand vex like you wouldn’t believe. We hear him bawling in the mandir this morning.”

Vimla propped herself up on her elbows. “Why? Ain’t he happy to have a daughter-in-law who could sing in the mandir when he son saying prayers? Pundit Anand like nothing better than to put on a good show.” She giggled. He would be livid when he discovered Krishna gone on the morning of the wedding.

“But it was a film song, Vims, and Chalisa’s performance was … 
sexy
.” Minty’s fair complexion coloured.

“Who say?”

“My father.”

“Who know?”

“Nearly everybody.”

Vimla’s head fell against the bed again. She chewed her lip, trying to ignore the fluttering in her belly. Vimla knew what
Minty was thinking; she herself was thinking the same thing. But what were the chances that after all this preparation to marry Chalisa and Krishna, Pundit Anand would call off the wedding?

K
rishna retreated to the veranda to drink his morning Ovaltine in peace. He swung his feet onto the railing and crossed one ankle over the other, ignoring the angry incantations rising from the prayer room. His father’s madness swung like a pendulum, one minute petitioning God to curse the Shankars, the other cursing the Shankars and their money-making oranges of his own volition. It had gone on in this way through the night and Krishna couldn’t bear to listen any longer.

The plan had gone awry and he could think of nothing else. Dutchie had warned him not to deviate from their design in any way, but how could Krishna have known that Om and Puncheon would be liming by the river, that he would be intercepted, held back for an hour while Vimla waited for him in the cane field? Krishna sighed. A niggling voice told him
Dutchie would have known how to fend off their questions and carry on his way without arousing suspicion. Krishna cursed himself. He wondered if Vimla could ever forgive him.

Vimla flounced into his mind, fire in her eyes, and vehemently shook her head no.

Krishna stared into his Ovaltine. He wished he could talk to her now. She was a mere seven minutes away—three if he ran—but the distance made no difference: she was just as inaccessible now as she had been from Tobago. Still, it was worse here somehow. At least in Tobago, Dutchie and Auntie Kay had bolstered his black moods with their laughter and antics. Here, at home, he was subject to constant orders:
Read this. Study that. Sit here. Marry she. Smile—Bhagwan is watching. Pray
—
Bhagwan is listening
. Now his father was delirious, his mother weepy, and Vimla had probably tumbled so far out of love with him there was no point in even hoping anymore.

And yet he did. He hoped that Minty would deliver his regrets, his adoration, his proposal to Vimla in time. If she managed this, maybe they would end up together after all.

“Sita-Ram and good morning, Pundit!”

Krishna started.
Good morning?
Who would be so foolish as to bid his father good morning today of all days? He swung his legs from the railing and peered down at the road. Headmaster Roop G. Kapil stood before the house, admiring the profuse orange ixora stuffing themselves through the gates. He looked up and caught Krishna’s eye. “Sita-Ram, son.” His blazer lifted and winged to the side when he waved, exposing, nestled beneath his armpit, a sweat stain the shape of a hummingbird’s wing.

Krishna set his Ovaltine on the wicker table and trotted
down the stairs to unlatch the gates. “Sita-Ram, Headmaster.” He didn’t know how to tell the headmaster he had chosen the worst time to call, that his father was busy imploding in the prayer room. “Come in.”

Headmaster strolled in. He looked taller than Krishna remembered. And there was a spring in his step that was new. “Nice to have you back from Tobago, son. I hope your Auntie Kay is well.” He patted him on the back as they made their way to a table and four chairs below the house. Headmaster took a seat and rested his elbows on the table. “Where the old man this morning?” He glanced at his watch. “I wouldn’t keep he long. I know he have a little wrinkle to iron out.” Headmaster tried an apologetic look, but it was lost in his unusual cheerfulness.

Krishna hesitated. His father would have little patience for Headmaster Roop G. Kapil in this state of joy, especially when it was clear he’d already heard of Chalisa’s indiscretions. “You go take some coffee? Tea?”

Headmaster waved the offer away just as Anand yelled, “Chalisa Shankar gone on
Mastana Bahar
and make a ass out of we family! Does that old Nanny think I is a fool? Does she think she can dump she slack granddaughter on my family and we go open we arms like stupidies for she?”

“Anand, shh. Somebody downstairs,” Maya said.

“You think the neighbours ain’t already know?” Anand asked, but he lowered his voice anyway because even in crisis his reputation was to be swathed in piety. “It only have one television in Chance, but somehow every man, woman and child done hear about Chalisa Shankar’s”—there was a pause and Krishna imagined his father grasping at the air for the
right word—“spectacle! The people in this district does spend too much time talking to each other and not enough time talking to Bhagwan, Maya.”

Maya murmured for him to breathe deeply, to mind his heart, to attend to the visitor who was waiting.

“Krishna! Who come here so early?” Anand called. “I ain’t doing no pujas for a week!”

Headmaster’s smile faltered. Krishna looked away, embarrassed. “Is Headmaster Roop G. Kapil, Pa,” he said.

They heard him grumble something. The floorboards creaked. Maya coaxed. Then there was silence.

Krishna shrugged. “He coming, Headmaster.” Krishna would let his father make his own excuses for his rancid mood. After all—and Krishna felt smug here—his father had been smitten by the Shankar family up until last night. This was his predicament to solve. His disgrace to explain away.

They heard Anand’s heavy footfalls above. He appeared at the top of the stairs, dark puffs beneath his red-rimmed eyes. His cheeks sagged and pulled the corners of his mouth into a profound frown. For a moment, he loomed above Krishna and Headmaster as if he would snuff them out like diyas in the breeze.

Headmaster cleared his throat and looked uncertain, but Anand’s face softened with each step. He unforrowed his brow and forced humanity into his gaze. He turned his lips the other way and straightened his shoulders. By the time he reached the bottom step, his hands were joined together at his heart. “Sita-Ram. Sita-Ram. Nice to see you, Roop,” Annad said.

Krishna shook his head, amazed. This was the same man
who had marched to the mandir before sunrise and hurled his disappointment at Bhagwan before throwing himself onto the floor and howling. Krishnna and Maya had had to bring him home and put him to bed, but he only rose again and locked himself in his puja room.

Headmaster exhaled the breath he’d been holding.

Maya flew past them to the kitchen. “Three sugars, Headmaster?” she called from behind the beaded curtain.

Headmaster cleared his throat. “Nothing for me this morning, Maya. Thanks. I wouldn’t stay long.”

Anand held Headmaster’s shoulder. “Take some coffee, nuh? Every guest to my home is like the Lord himself come to visit.” His smile didn’t touch his eyes.

Krishna fell into the hammock, where he was close enough to listen but far enough away not to be dragged into conversation. He hoped his father would manage to keep himself together until Headmaster left.

Anand rubbed his tired eyes with the heel of one hand. “How you keeping, Roop?”

“Good. Fine. Yes.” Headmaster pushed his glasses up on his nose. He opened his mouth and closed it, tilted his head as if to examine Anand from a different angle. “And you, my friend? How you keeping?”

Anand rolled his shoulders back, grunted with satisfaction when something released and cracked. “Nice. Is a happy time for me, Roop. My only son getting married.” He adjusted the mala around his neck and then hastily dropped his hands into his lap as if it had burned him for his lie.

Anand noticed Krishna in the hammock then. “Go and bring the coffee, nuh, boy.”