Valmiki's Daughter (16 page)

Perhaps Saul was different, and was able to do it with his wife as well as with her husband. She didn't even know for certain what her husband and Saul did, and she didn't want to be sure of any of it. The harassment of not knowing was better than certainty. There had always been talk of some wife or the other fooling around with her husband, but she felt disdain for that sort of rumour. She was the plug in the hole of their marriage and family life. If she were to pull out, everything would come tumbling down. And her reputation (she couldn't bear the thought that anyone would know that she had married a man who, although he was known for his affairs with women, actually
preferred the company of other men) would fall with it. No one knew how strong she was, and that aloneness was her burden to bear. Valmiki, sitting just some feet away from her, had no idea that such thoughts filled her head.

Devika had once met Saul's wife in the Mucurapo Street Market when, in an unusual move to tour the local farmer's market, she had accompanied the cook there. The cook had gone off to make a purchase of ground provisions and seasonings and had left Devika in a clean wide thoroughfare, watching the commotion of the market, which was very different from the quiet supermarket shopping she knew. The chauffeur stood like a sentry, a decent distance from her. Saul's wife came up behind her and said, “Mrs. Krishnu?”

Devika hadn't known who this person was.

“I am Saul Joseph's wife,” the woman explained. “Saul is Doctor's good friend.”

Devika's instinct was to be gruff, to ask this woman what she wanted and tell her to keep her husband away. But the softness of Saul's wife's voice, her manner and warm smile, stopped her. She said only, “Yes. I know of him.” Surely this woman didn't encourage or approve of the kind of man her husband was, and so, naturally, Devika would try to be civil. After all, the two of them were in a quandary together.

But Saul's wife blurted, as if they were in the middle of a longer conversation, “Well, what to do? Just look at our crosses, na. You and me, we in this thing together. You know what I am talking about, eh?”

Devika did not mean to answer, but, in an attempt to discourage any lengthy explanation she nodded, albeit tersely.

Mrs. Joseph leapt at the opening. “The consolation is that the good Lord gives us no more than what we are capable of handling,
not so? Take a look at me, Mrs. Krishnu. I am managing, you know. I know women living right on my street — my short street have two of them — who don't come out they house for days because they don't want nobody to see how they eye black or they lip bust. Me? I don't have a mark on my body. I am not starving and I have a roof over my head. I have plenty to be ashamed of and to hide but I also have much to be grateful for. Life is a blessing itself. How you managing?”

Devika's skin burned with embarrassment but there were no words to hurl. This woman had a point. She was, however, incensed by the woman preaching and commiserating in such a familiar way, as if the two of them — she had used the words
you and me
and
us
— had to stand arm in arm, as comrades, and bear the whole nonsense. Perhaps — but it wasn't for this woman to make a side out of them. Condone it, is what Saul's wife seemed to suggest. How dare she ask how I am managing? Devika had thought. She was livid. Imagine talking like that about women being beaten. Of course, she herself knew of one woman in Luminada Heights whose husband, one of the more well-known businessman in San Fernando, beat her so much and so regularly that she, too, hardly left her house. That woman wasn't the only one from their social world rumoured to suffer such abuses. But this sort of thing was not something people chatted about so unabashedly, and especially in a public place such as the Mucurapo Street Market. What people did behind their closed doors was their own business. Not hers. Devika was nervous about how much the chauffeur had heard, and what he would have made of it. She said, “Look, Mrs. Joseph, I have no trouble bearing my own burdens, thank you. In fact, I welcome them. I can't stop to talk now, I have to see what my cook is buying.” And she marched off in the direction of the cook.

But the words came back to her now:
I don't have a mark on my body. I am not starving and I have a roof over my head . . . I have much to be grateful for
. And to those words she added,
Even Valmiki. And my troublesome daughter
. Yes, she would show her gratitude with a party, by doing what she did best.

Organizing the details was the easiest part of all. She would have to hire extra help — servers, bartenders, one person dedicated entirely to washing up. But managing people, getting them to do exactly what you wanted them to do, required stamina. No matter how many times she might tell and show them how a particular task was to be done, she knew that unless she stood there watching their every move, they would do it how they liked.

And there was, of course, Viveka's attitude to be dealt with. While Vashti liked to dress and to preen, to come out and mix with guests — sometimes a little too long into the evening for Devika's liking — it was difficult to get Viveka to wear a dress, to put a little makeup on her face, even just some lipstick, much less make a polite token appearance. Viveka would bury herself in some novel or other book in the study and remain there for most of the evening, going to bed early without saying goodnight to anyone. She didn't seem to be shy, and in general she wasn't unsociable. She was simply, to Devika's mind, difficult. There were moments, Devika admitted — to herself only — when she was relieved that Viveka didn't show herself. She made hardly any effort to make herself attractive, and after what had happened with that Bedi girl, living like a street person on the promenade, Devika worried about her own daughter. She would not form a sentence even in the recesses of her mind to say what it was, exactly, that worried her or why. The only words that come to her mind were,
Wives know what their husbands won't
tell them, and there isn't a thing that a mother does not already know about her child
.

THE SUN WAS JUST GOING DOWN AND THE PATIO WAS AGLOW IN AN
orange light. The electric patio light was switched on in anticipation of the usual speedy nightfall. Valmiki reclined in the wicker chaise-longe, his feet aimed directly at Devika. If he hadn't turned the pages of the paper once in a while she would have thought he had fallen asleep. He raised his lower body, the left side, a couple of inches or so off the chaise, and there it hovered for a good few seconds. He would have looked up at her with a lame and apologetic smile if there had been an accompanying sound or a foul scent. But since neither emanated, he lowered his body and continued his reading. Animals had better scent perception than humans, Devika reckoned, for the birds in the four cages that hung from the patio roof, one sporting a Mohawk-like arrangement of feathers on its head and bearing a name she couldn't pronounce suddenly became ruffled and hopped about in agitation. The newest addition scuttled defiantly on the cage's metal tray, nervous and distressed. Valmiki shifted his body again, this time into a more comfortable position, raising one leg at the knee, and tucking the foot of that leg under the thigh of the other, as if to warm it there.

Devika watched him, wanting to remind him of her achievements as a hostess, as his wife. Wanting him to put down the paper and come to her, take her hand, and lead her to their bedroom, or better yet, to their bathroom. She loved it when he or the children remembered one of her parties and went on and on about what a terrific hostess she was. But that rarely happened. It's different for him, she thought. If he needs a little boosting he will talk about an occasion when he rewired a lamp
or did something else that was particularly remarkable, such as repairing a spindle that had come undone from the back of a dining-room chair. These were not skills he had honed by making a practice of doing repairs around the house, but one-off things he would impetuously jump to when the mood caught him. They were able to afford the cost of handymen and trades-persons to do repairs and make additions or alterations, but saving money was not in Valmiki's mind at these moments. If Devika were asked, she would say that God alone knew what his motivation was. But she had her suspicion: he wanted to be the man about the house for his daughters. She wished that he would stick to prescribing medicine for them when they had the flu or a gastrointestinal problem. Then he was not man alone, but a god to his daughters. On the other hand, more than once his repairs had to be redone by a professional tradesperson called by Devika — without Valmiki's knowledge. Still, when he wanted a boost, he would make a casual reference to one of these tasks, and Devika and Vashti — seldom Viveka — never failed to rise to his bait, and in no time at all he would be the centre of their conversation, both of them affectionately extolling his cleverness and teasing him about his “unusually innovative” techniques.

This had happened just the day before, here on the patio as they sat exactly as they did right now. Valmiki had begun with, “Phil Bishop has been on my mind lately. I don't know why. I wonder how he is doing. The last time I saw him was at the Medical Association convention three months ago. He was there with his wife.” And he had no cause to say anything more, for Devika recognized the pattern and was hooked by habit. “Yes, he was there,” she piped up. His shoulders relaxed in gratitude. Devika continued, “I didn't speak with them, but his wife waved at me. I haven't seen them since. That was the night you gave that speech
about the necessity for a health insurance plan for the elderly. People are still talking about how well you spoke. I met Millie Morgan in the grocery yesterday and she said her husband Phillip says all the time that you're one of the few doctors in the country who is a true visionary, and that it was too bad that you were such a good doctor, otherwise he would tell you to form your own party and enter politics.”

Devika said all this with a certain quiet pride in how well she knew Valmliki, how well she knew how to handle him. But in an instant, as if a coin had been flipped and its other face revealed, her delight soured when he retorted, “So, do you think I might make a good politician? Can you imagine being the wife of the Minister of Health? Or Her Excellency Lady Devika Krishnu, wife of the President?”

The words that pooled in her head were: “Wife of the homosexual Minister of Health, you mean.” The words she let fly were: “What? You're not serious? Don't let Phillip put any nonsense into your head, please! I am not interested in any sort of public life where people would know my business even before I knew it. I don't want myself and my children subjected to any sort of scrutiny, thank you. People here are too damn fast, and gossip much too much. Not a family doesn't have a skeleton in a closet, but in this place people like to clean out other people's closets before their own. Your affairs are one thing, you might not mind people talking about those, but there are other things I will not be able to tolerate in public. I don't give a damn what people say but I do not want my children embarrassed, thank you. I have no aspirations to be the wife of a politician. Not one bit, but thank you for asking.”

Valmiki had sighed. His eyes had hardened, and he clenched his jaws. Seeing this, and with her tirade ringing in her own ears,
she had added a more positive spin, “Politicians don't even make the kind of money you do, Valmiki, unless they're doing something they shouldn't be doing. You make enough money and do enough good from where you are. You don't need anything else, and I and the girls don't want more than we already have.”

He had swallowed, and she took that as reconciliation. But she could not leave well enough alone. In a voice low and weary, she had asked, “I don't know why you have to be so ambitious. What is wrong with where you are now? What more do you want? We have it good here, Val. You have provided us with more than most men can give their families. Everything is not ideal, but no one is complaining. No one has a perfect life. Some people have it damn hard. I know you would have liked a different life, but you would have had to stay abroad, given up this place. Given up your past, your history.” She knew she was talking to herself as much as to him, but she couldn't stop. She needed to hear the words even if they came from her own mouth. “Look, just leave well enough alone and let us try to be as happy as possible in spite of everything. It's from you that Viveka gets all her ideas about being more than she needs to be. Let's just be happy as we are. Can't we do that?”

He had grunted, “I wasn't even serious. There is just no joking with you these days.”

“Well, I thought you were serious.”

“And what does Viveka have to do with all of this? What good is it to drag her into this?”

Devika didn't answer. Seconds, and then a minute passed, and still she answered his last two questions only in her imagination. He closed his eyes. When he did this her blood boiled. She hated being shut out. She simply couldn't let him have the
last word, but she made sure that hers were as caring as she could manage: “You know, Valmiki, you don't complain about things as they are but you always seem so remote, as if you're living in another world.”

Now, Devika wondered how much of last evening's acrimony had stayed with him. She would steal into his quiet and make an offer of some pleasantness. She would tell him she wanted to have a party. Perhaps the pendant Valmiki had given her this evening was not an indicator that he had done something wrong today but an acceptance of her words from last night. An apology, an admission. She would accept these without mention of any of it. Even he must agree that a party would do them all good.

“I want to have a party of my own. We haven't thrown one in a good while now. What do you think?”

“What do you have in mind?” Valmiki muttered behind the paper. He had not really been reading it, contemplating still how close he had come that afternoon to shooting a dog.