Valmiki's Daughter (19 page)

Later, the four of them walked to Helen's car, Wayne and Helen with an arm around each other's waist, and Elliot clutching Viveka's limp hand. Wayne and Helen were doing their long-goodbye thing, some feet away from the car. Viveka led Elliot directly to the passenger-side door. She opened it and turned to give Elliot what she intended to be a warm and friendly hug. Their conversation in the library earlier that day rang in her ears. She had enjoyed hearing all that he had been doing during their little hiatus. He had been working with an art gallery, helping them to locate the works of James Boodoo, Hing Wan, Kenneth Critchlow, Ralph and Vera Bainey, and Samuel Walrond that were in private collections; a public exhibition of these works was planned. He clearly wanted her to know that he was busy and doing big things with himself. She was impressed. She missed his conversations about painting and art, missed talking with him about the books she was reading. She really did want a close friendship with him, she decided, but nothing more — something like what she had with Helen.

Beside the car, Elliot held Viveka's face in his hands. She became confused, then annoyed. She weighed what she should say and how she should act. She didn't want to lose him again, but she didn't want this either. He was too insistent. When he put his mouth to hers, she extricated herself by asking what his plans were for the following day. Elliot bit his lower lip, breathed in hard, and then said sharply, “I already told you. You know very well what I am doing.” He put his lips to hers again. Despite the discomfort of his tongue inside of her mouth, she garbled,
“Yes, but I can't keep your schedule in my head. Tell me again.” He withdrew long enough to say, “Just kiss me, Vik,” and so she did. Or rather, she let him kiss her. He had his hands on her back, and now he moved them in slow circles, each time dropping his hands a little lower. She stiffened her back. Just as she feared he would, he slipped his fingers under her shirt. Fatigued by the same old feeling of not wanting to seem rude or unfriendly to him and wondering if there was something wrong with her, she jerked her face away and put her hand to Elliot's face, the gesture on his cheek a cross between a gentle slap and a stroke. There was a heavy silence between them, which Viveka broke by asking him if he had finished reading
Mr. Biswas
. Elliot sighed. Resignation in his voice, he breathed out the words, “No, Viveka. I have not finished it.”

Noting his tone, she carried on. “He is like a painter, Elliot, but with words. He uses landscape as metaphor.” She intended to continue with, “For the oppression of communal family living. The Indian, the Hindu family style of living, covertly incestuous. I know you'd find it interesting.” But she stopped herself, for she knew it sounded hollow.

Elliot continued to hold her, but she felt as if she were a folded-up shirt he was barely pressing against his chest. “God, Vik, nothing has changed, has it? I was hoping the time apart would have made things different between us. Art and literature are not all there is in life, you know. I like to talk with you about these things, to go to shows with you and that kind of thing, and I want to read all your favourite books, all one thousand and one of them, but I want to do other things with you, too.”

“I know, I know, but it's not what I want. I want other things, different things.” She was pleading, apologizing, and sympathizing with him all at the same time.

Elliot let go of her suddenly. Viveka imagined herself, the folded-up shirt, slide down his chest and fall, crumpled, to the floor. She hadn't expected to feel so dropped by him. She reached out a hand, intending to lay it against his cheek in a decidedly softer gesture, but he caught her wrist in mid-air, held it there and stared at her hard. She pulled her hand free and clutched that wrist with her other hand to suggest that he had hurt her. Perturbed, she got into the car and shut the door. The window was rolled up. Elliot stood where he was. Slowly, she rolled the window down. He walked away, looking back only to signal to Wayne that he would catch up with him later.

This morning, though, Viveka had an excuse to phone him to see how he was feeling — to see if the doubles had upset his stomach. Still, she hesitated. She slapped at mosquitoes that lived in the relative dark beneath the table, and scratched at old and new bites. Her mother got off the phone and greeted her with, “Is that all you're having? There is coconut bake in the oven.” She was obviously not over her terseness with Viveka. Viveka reached to scratch a bite on her ankle. She muttered, “This is enough for now,” and in an even lower voice added, “Thanks.” Then she tapped the guest list with her forefinger. “What's this?”

“We're having a party.”

Viveka picked up the list and rolled it into a loose tube shape. She pressed it to her lips and blew into it.

He mother snapped, “Don't do that. I need that list. Put it down.”

The admonishment was at least an engagement, and Viveka felt relief.

“You'd never guess who came to visit last night.” Devika had suddenly brightened.

Viveka wasn't in the mood for guessing. “Who?”

Her mother adopted a playful tune. “Well, don't you want to guess?”

“I don't know. Who?”

“Nayan. We were sitting on the patio and he just came in. He brought his wife.”

Viveka pushed her chair back, ready to get up. “Yeah? Did he come with his hands swinging or did he bring chocolates?”

“Why do you have to be like that? But you're right: he didn't bring any chocolates. They had gone for a walk, and he saw us on the patio, and took the opportunity to drop in.”

“Gone for a walk! Nobody walks around here. Was he showing off his wife to the neighbours or the other way around?”

Devika chuckled. If only Viveka could be more like this more often.

“Well, is she all they say she is? Does she speak English?” Viveka persisted.

“Not one word is a lie, when I tell you! She is gorgeous. White, but you can tell she is not a local white. You should have seen how she was dressed, and all they were going for was a walk. Minty and Ram said she doesn't come from money herself, but it doesn't show. Not with that kind of beauty. She has a lot of class, the way she carries herself. I don't know where she would have got that from. But you know French people. All of them have that flair.”

“Flair is the same as class?” asked Viveka, in a tone that suggested her question was not to be answered but was supposed to be instructional.

Her mother was not interested in being educated.

“Well, she has landed herself a good catch. I am sure a lot of families here are disappointed.”

“Does she speak English?”

“A little. And Nayan doesn't speak a word of French.”

“Oh, I bet he knows a word or two by now.”

“I only hope there is enough love between them. He better behave himself, and not become like men here. It will be very difficult for her here. I am willing to bet she won't put up with any nonsense whatsoever.”

“Where are they living?”

“Right here. Not in their own home, but with Minty and Ram, I mean.”

“Oh my God. In the same house with Uncle Ram!”

Devika pursed her lips and nodded. “Minty and Ram don't like her at all. They are not pleased one bit! Yet, if you see the gold chain she was wearing around her neck. That was no eighteen-karat chain. It was one heavy twenty-two-karat thing. I could tell by just watching it. A rope design. They must have given it to her as the wedding present. He is their only son. She is the only daughter-in-law they will ever have. It doesn't matter if they don't like her. She will still get everything.”

Viveka knew better than to voice her thought that these days marriage wasn't a guarantee, that modern women didn't necessarily put up with all the things that women of her mother's generation did. “What's her name?” she said instead.

“It's a different name. Anki, or something like that.”

“Are they coming to your party?”

“Yes, they're on the list. Aunty Minty and Uncle Ram, and the two of them. I hope you will make an appearance and not hide yourself away as usual.”

“What are we having for lunch?” Viveka asked while contemplating an image of Nayan. Or, not an image of him so much as the feeling of his tongue in her mouth a few years ago. She must
have been about fifteen and he nineteen. Several of the young people in the neighbourhood had gathered at a house to while away a long August day. They decided to play spin the bottle. On one of Nayan's spins the bottle pointed to Viveka, and his task was to arm wrestle the person if that person were male, or to go behind the wall for one minute and kiss if the person were female. Viveka and Nayan had both rolled their eyes, and Viveka had never thought for a moment that this longtime friend, family friend, would execute the task. But he had, and she was shy to push him away, felt it would have been childish to have done so, and at the same time she was confused by his initiation. Afterwards, she learned that every girl in the neighbourhood had at one time or another been kissed by Nayan in that manner. She had never been able to look at him squarely after that. And now she had little interest in seeing him or his new wife. It was beginning to irk her, in fact, that this woman's beauty seemed to be the only attribute people talked about.

Viveka told her mother about her stomach gripes.

“When did they start?” The question was like an accusation.

Viveka defensively answered, “Just minutes ago. I was fine when I woke up.”

“Do you realize, Viveka”— and there was that terseness again — “that every time we even suggest having a party here, you get sick? If it's not one thing it's another. Your head. Your eyes. Your stomach. Look, don't start with this now. I am asking Helen's parents. Why don't you ask her? And I want to ask Anne and Pat Samlal to bring their son, the older one, Steve. He is such a nice young man. It is time for you to be meeting some nice men. Don't roll your eyes like that. I am not asking him here for anything in particular. It is just time you learned to chat about things other than books and ideas. What do you think?”

“Helen is going away that weekend. She is going to Matura to see the leatherbacks. They're laying their eggs now. She asked me to go with her.”

“Who is she going with?”

Viveka hesitated to say that Wayne was going, but the alertness in her mother's tone, the question itself, suggested that Devika had guessed. Viveka's response was to curl her lips while looking at her mother as if to say,
You very well know, so why are you asking
?

“Well, I can tell you right now. Don't even bother to ask your father. I mean, you don't really expect your father to let you go, do you?”

“Oh, Mom, why do you have to leap so far ahead? Did I even ask? I just told you that she invited me. I don't
want
to go.”

Helen had asked Viveka to come and bring Elliot. Viveka had never seen the turtles coming ashore en masse to lay their eggs and would have liked to, but she didn't want to — couldn't — ask Elliot to go away with her for a weekend, and she had no desire to be a third wheel. Trudging through damp sand, buffeted on all sides by the east coast's cold night breezes at two in the morning, or three, or however late it was that the turtles ambled out of the sea, did seem somewhat adventurous, but in effect she would be alone. No doubt Wayne and Helen would be locked together, fording the wind in unison while she trudged along hugging only herself, conversation futile because the wind would whip their voices in various directions. Never mind that she knew her parents wouldn't consent to her going — she had no desire to be the one to make a crowd.

She picked up the thread of the original conversation. “I know Steve. He is nice enough. Sure, whatever. Go ahead, ask him if you want. It's just that I don't feel comfortable with so many people here, Mom.”

“When are you going to stop this? Listen, Viveka. I know you still carry in your head what happened so many years ago. None of us have ever forgotten. That entire year was a nightmare.”

Viveka could have imploded with shock at these words. Hardly a day went by without her wishing that someone in the family would bring up what had happened in the past and get it all out in the open, once and for all. And now, suddenly, she didn't know how to react.

“But why is it that you have to act as if you are the only one who it affected?” continued Devika, oblivious. “We don't talk about it, not because we don't care but because we have to move on. I am going to try to explain some things to you. I don't even know where to begin. I'll start with your brother. Anand was sick from the time he was a baby.”

Viveka looked down into the cup of orange juice in front of her. Anand. Her mother had said his name aloud. In doing so she had pulled Anand from Viveka's grip. To steady herself she concentrated on a partial ring of bright white light reflected on the surface of the juice. She was grateful, and yet she wanted to run away or to begin a fight with her mother again. That would be so much more comfortable for them both.

“Your father and I knew he wouldn't survive. But you and Vashti, you were too small to understand that he was not going to make it.”

Viveka wanted to ask her mother when, exactly, the party had happened — the party she could never erase from her memory. It always seemed strange — no, not strange but horrible — that her parents had held a party in the same month as Anand's death. Now, suddenly, it dawned on her that the party might have been held just before he died, or even long after. She was about to ask her mother but she hesitated, unsure of what it would mean to
have everything on which she had based her understanding of her family turned inside out.

Her mother opened the oven and pulled out the covered dish. She set the dish on the table and peeled back the cloth. From a drawer she extracted the cloth placemat and spread it before Viveka. Viveka sat back and let her mother set before her a plate, a knife, and a fork taken from the draining board by the sink. As she reached in the fridge for butter and a slab of cheese, Devika said, “His death changed things between us all.”