Nothing Like Love (37 page)

They arrived at the edge of his lot where a mango tree slouched with unpicked fruit. Faizal twisted one from its branch. The leaves rustled as the branch bounced back like a slingshot. He handed the mango to Sangita. “Chandani? I can’t remember.”

She frowned. “But you looked excited, like it was something important. How you mean you can’t remember?”

Faizal lifted her chin and daringly lowered his face toward hers. “Because,” he murmured, “you does make me forget everything else.”

It was only a half-truth. Sangita would be livid if she knew Chandani had charmed Headmaster into appealing Anand’s decision. No doubt she would retaliate. Faizal didn’t like the idea of it. It was unfair to pit two friends—sisters, really—against one another for nothing more than a teaching post. He placed his hands on either side of Sangita’s face and wondered when he had become the witches’ advocate.

Sangita sighed, breathless with impatience. “Kiss me, nuh, Faizal. I have to go home!”

Faizal crushed his lips against hers and she melted into his arms.

V
imla sat cross-legged on her bed, staring at the globe her father had purchased in Port of Spain. She found Trinidad and Tobago, sisters who promised to always stay near, floating off the coast of Venezuela. She touched the islands and they disappeared beneath her finger.

Her ankle was better. The snake bite had healed nicely and Dr. Mohan assured her the scars would eventually fade. She spun the globe so that the land and great bodies of water blurred into one, then with a finger she stopped the globe at random. She smiled. North America. Canada. They wore boots in Canada. Nobody would see her scarred ankle if ever she moved there.

“Vim-
la
!”

Hurried footsteps filled the hallway outside her room. Heavy and laboured, light and frantic. Vimla’s door swung
open with a crash and she wondered how her mother expected her to get well with all the noise. Chandani panted in the doorway. Her face was more animated than Vimla had seen it in weeks—months even. Om hopped in behind her, pulling his best pants over a pair of shorts. He grinned.

Vimla twisted so that she was facing her parents. Something had happened.

“Vimla,” Chandani breathed, “get dressed.” She scurried into the room and began dragging open drawers. “Pundit Anand want to see we right away.”

The globe toppled sideways onto the bed. “Why?” Although it didn’t matter why: Vimla would stand before Pundit Anand to be chastised if it meant catching a glimpse, exchanging a glance, a quick word, with Krishna.

Chandani threw a few dresses at Vimla. “I ain’t know
why
. It ain’t matter
why
. He want to talk to we and we going!”

Of course Chandani had an inkling why. She wouldn’t be so enthusiastic if she didn’t. Chandani and Pundit Anand, once respected friends, had been at a standoff the past few weeks over Vimla and Krishna’s relationship. It was unlikely Chandani would anticipate any kind of interaction with him unless she was certain she would benefit from it. Even Om, who had never trusted Pundit Anand, seemed pleased. “Do fast, Vimi,” he said.

“Ma, my hair need to wash.” Vimla felt the residue left behind by the Limacol.

Chandani stopped sifting through Vimla’s clothes and straightened. For a moment she looked worried about keeping Pundit Anand waiting. Then she set her jaw, let her lips settle into their usual hard line and said, “Don’t sit there and watch
me like a manicoo in a headlights, Vimla. Get up! I go help you wash out your hair.”

Vimla sat in an old dress on a stool behind the house while her mother filled a bucket of water from the standpipe. “Vimla, how you feeling? You feeling good? You feeling like you go faint?” Chandani asked.

Chandani was anxious, and Vimla knew her mother was harbouring great expectations in her heart about this meeting with Pundit Anand. For the first time Vimla felt sorry for Chandani. This unease, this desperation was the result of her own carelessness. “I feeling okay, Ma,” Vimla answered, although her gut was twisting with similar emotions.

Chandani dumped half the bucket of water over Vimla’s head and Vimla squealed. “Humph! Just like when you was a child, Vimla. Sit still.”

Vimla did as she was told, feeling very much like a small child indeed. Chandani squirted shampoo into her palm and applied it to Vimla’s scalp. She lathered and scrubbed, creating a rope of bubbles down the length of Vimla’s back. “Vimla,” she said, “your hair feeling so fine-fine.”

Vimla bit her lip and said nothing. She felt the scrubbing soften to a gentle kneading, heard the squish of suds through her mother’s fingers. She closed her eyes and relished the extraordinary tenderness of this moment. She had missed this.

Without warning another
whoosh
came and water cascaded onto her head. Vimla yelped like a puppy. The soapy water swirled across the concrete. Rainbow bubbles shone in the sunlight before they disappeared down the drain. Vimla felt a
towel warmed by the sun fall across her head. She wondered if Chandani would comb out the tangles, too. And then she decided she didn’t want her mother to see just how much of her hair remained in the comb when the task was done.

They arrived at the Govinds’ residence an hour later. Chandani marched behind Om and in front of Vimla with her back straight and her chin tilted. The gates had been left open. They were expected.

Vimla’s palms sweated; her stomach roiled with nerves. Minty’s words danced through her brain:
He sorry, Vims. He love you, too. He go come for you tonight and allyuh go sail to Tobago to live
. They collided with her deepest insecurities: And what if he changed his mind? What if he didn’t come? She felt utterly lost.

Pundit Anand ushered them up to his veranda, where Maya was already sitting. Her smile was not cold, but it was false and that was worse. They all sat on the edge of their seats except Pundit Anand, who cozied into his cushioned chair as if he were a king, and Vimla realized that he was, in his own right. His silver moustache lifted and revealed a smile. “Water? Coffee? Cane juice? Mauby?” He listed the options quickly, setting the pace for the meeting.

Chandani wanted water, Om cane juice. Vimla’s stomach would pitch them all onto Pundit Anand’s lovely wicker table, so she declined as politely as she could. Chandani bristled at her side.

But Pundit Anand didn’t seem to mind. He called his drinks down to the help in the kitchen, rested his left ankle on his right knee and with two hands clasped the place where
they joined. “You know,” he began, his voice rising, “Bhagwan does see what we cannot. And everything that happen, does happen to teach we lessons. Ain’t so, Vimla?”

Vimla nodded mechanically. Usually she loathed Pundit Anand’s long, preachy discourses, but this time she found herself hanging on every word.

“I am a humble man,” he continued. “A man who can admit an error when an error is made. And I must, mustn’t I, Vimla?”

Vimla didn’t know, but she nodded again anyway.

“Because a pundit’s duty is to set examples for the people.” He sighed, as if the burden of his station fatigued him, as if his pockets did not bulge after every Hindu celebration. “And so today, Chandani, Om”—he nodded to them both—“Vimla”—he smiled at her—“I called you here to declare that I judged you wrong.”

Vimla’s breath caught in her chest. She wanted to look at Chandani, but she didn’t dare, not when Pundit Anand was gazing at her so intently.

“Vimla, you have made Chance proud with your scholarly achievements. I must congratulate you.”

“Thank you, Baba,” Vimla said. She wished she sounded shyer, more modest.

“So after much thought, I am hoping that once again you will accept the teaching post at Saraswati Hindu School,” Pundit Anand finished. Of course, this wasn’t a request; it was an indulgence, a privilege that the Narines would snatch from his hands like thieves. And he knew it.

“Baba, this is an honour,” Om said.

“What a surprise.” Chandani actually beamed, although she didn’t look surprised at all.

They all turned to Vimla. She pressed her hands together as she knew she should and smiled. “I go make you and Headmaster proud, Baba.” She felt a tingling at the bridge of her nose, a telltale sign that tears were near. The teaching post was more than just an esteemed position; it signified the renaissance of her reputation, the key to her freedom. She could travel beyond her home now with her head held high, knowing that she was in Pundit Anand’s good graces again. Vimla couldn’t wait to share her news with Minty. And then she wondered what could have changed Pundit Anand’s mind—especially now, the day before Krishna’s wedding, the day after Chalisa Shankar’s sultry performance on
Mastana Bahar
. He had more urgent affairs to attend to, did he not?

Vimla noted the shadowy pouches beneath Pundit Anand’s eyes, the extra crinkles when he smiled. She saw the way Maya avoided eye contact, the hunch in her shoulders like she’d suffered some great defeat. Vimla realized beneath this facade of hospitality and repentance lingered shame. These parents were not celebrating their son’s wedding to Chalisa any more than Vimla was.

The clink of glasses nudging each other interrupted her thoughts. Her throat felt parched now and she wished she had asked for some water after all.

“Oh!” Chandani exclaimed.

Vimla looked up and found herself gazing into Krishna’s smiling face. He was holding the tray of drinks with unsteady hands. The liquids splashed over the rims into the other glasses. “Sita-Ram, Auntie. Sita-Ram, Uncle.” He set the tray down then shook Om’s hand and kissed Chandani’s cheek.

Vimla’s heart thudded. She tangled her fingers in her lap and reminded herself to breathe. Krishna stole a glance at her before he sat next to his father. The bridge of Vimla’s nose tingled again and she glanced away. She hadn’t prepared herself for this.

“My son is back from studying in Tobago. A little wiser. A little darker.” Anand laughed, determined to dispel the tension that had stiffened Maya’s and Chandani’s spines. Nobody responded. What could they say when they all knew the truth: that Krishna had been sent away because of Vimla?

Anand looked like he might launch into another meandering homily. He sat up tall, lifted his hand to gesture, untucked his priestly smile from the bristles of his moustache and leaned forward. But Maya touched his knee—a discreet brush of her fingertips across his cotton dhoti—and he seemed to change his mind. There was urgency in that touch; whatever Anand had prepared to say next, Maya wanted said quickly.

Anand smiled, his eyes crinkled. “Last night, after the maticoor, Krishna tell me he in love with your daughter.”

Vimla gasped before she could stop herself, but only Maya appeared to notice. The others stared, stunned at Pundit Anand as if he’d just denounced his faith.

Pundit Anand put his hand to his heart. “I am not a cruel man,” he said. “I know my son go be miserable without Vimla in he life. He didn’t have to tell me so—I could read it in he face.” Everyone looked at Krishna’s face to see if they could read it, too. Krishna’s eyes were wide with disbelief.

Vimla’s chin trembled. Her eyes pooled with tears. She thought of their many secret encounters in the cane field, of the night they were discovered. She remembered the lonesome
days when Krishna was in Tobago, the moment she lost her teaching post. She recalled the first time she heard Chalisa Shankar’s name, the news of the wedding, Maracas Bay, the macajuel snake, her terrible nights of fever and heartache. Tears spilled over Vimla’s lashes and fell freely into her lap. She released the clenching in her stomach and allowed herself a luxurious sob.

Chandani did not pat Vimla’s back. For the first time in her life, she was tongue-tied.

“And so,” Pundit Anand continued, “Krishna is requesting Vimla’s hand in marriage.” He raised his voice so there was no mistaking his words. “Tomorrow. September first.”