Valmiki's Daughter (6 page)

She also had her by-the-way reminders of his illicit acts and her indispensability. “Did you call back Mrs. Alexander? That was close yesterday, eh! She and Mrs. Krishnu almost met. But I got Mrs. Alexander out as soon as Mrs. Krishnu pull up in her car.”

Valmiki sometimes complained about her to his wife, Devika. Only certain things he told her, of course, but usually it was
enough to make her take Zoraida's insolences personally: “Who does she think she is? She is too familiar with you. She is behaving like your wife. Why do you let her get away with this behaviour? Let me have a chat with her, I will straighten her out so fast!”

Of course, he would allow no such thing. How he sometimes wished, though, that stories of his philandering would leak — no, rather explode — throughout the town, and cause such a scandal that his family would toss him out like a piece of used tissue or flush him from their lives, and he would be forced to leave the country. He would be freed. He revised his thought: perhaps he, forever concerned about appearances and doing the praiseworthy thing, would never really be free.

If philandering had been for him a sword, it was the double-edged kind. On the one hand, it was a suggestion of his more-than-okay status with the ladies (not one, but many) and so worked against suspicions of who and what he was at heart. A man was certainly admired by men and by women for a show of his virility, even by the ones he hurt. On the other hand, since philandering had never been a shame in Trinidad — a badge it was, rather — for a man who wanted to be caught, broken, and expelled, it was a problem.

These days, Saul was the object of Valmiki's most powerful and basest desires, yet Saul could have come to Valmiki's office every day and not even Zoraida would have had the tiniest somersault in her brain regarding that. But still, he wouldn't let Saul visit him here. Saul and his friends — they had became Valmiki's friends eventually — would get together on the occasional weekend. Saul and Valmiki usually started their visit on the Friday night. They would drive all the way up to Saul's cousin's house, a two-room wooden structure in the Maraval Hills. The cousin
would leave, and Valmiki and Saul would spend the night there. In the early hours of Saturday morning Saul's accepting male friends would come up and meet them, and they would all head deep into the northern range to hunt. Hardly anyone minded or wondered about that. In fact, the hunting itself, as unusual as it was for a man of Valmiki's background, was seen as his little quirk and a recommendation of his widely admired viritilty. Even though the group hunted less frequently these days, there remained the perception in his social world that Valmiki was still quite a regular hunter. Valmiki and Saul now met at The Golden Dragon, and even at The Victory, once in a while.

“
DOCTOR? HELLO, DOCTOR? BUT, EHEH, WHAT HAPPEN TO THE PHONE?
Doctor, you there?”

Valmiki had been quiet for what must have seemed on the other end an unusual while. Then he spoke. “I heard you, Zoraida. I heard you. Give me a minute. I will call you when I am ready.”

But Zoraida was insistent. “No, Doctor, I didn't see you let Mr. Deosaran out and now Mrs. . . .”

But Valmiki instinctively did not want to hear. He cut her short. “No. Look. Not now, I said. I don't know what I am doing.” He spoke more sharply than usual.

“What do you mean you don't . . .”

He snapped at her, “I said wait. Just wait.” He slammed down the receiver.

Had he listened, he would have found out that a woman he had met some days before, Tilda Holden, and had paid a great deal of attention to — an inordinate amount, he later admonished himself, at a doctors' dinner, on an evening when Devika was not feeling well and so had not accompanied him — was in the waiting room. She had arrived without an appointment,
complaining to Zoraida first of headaches, and then, kept waiting too long, of a pain in her chest. Had it been any other day, Valmiki would likely have seen the woman right away, and the rest of his scheduled patients in the waiting room might have been left a good half hour, fanning themselves, or steupsing with frustration over the long, long, long wait in that hot, airless, germ-filled room.

But today was different.

The night before, when Valmiki and his family had sat down to eat supper together, his eldest daughter, Viveka, had announced she planned to stay at home the following day to study in the library at the back of the house. The library had been built especially for the children when Viveka was eight and Vashti four, and although the intention was for Valmiki and Devika to remain in that house for the rest of their lives, and also to have the two girls attend university, this room they called the library — to instill in the children a sense of serious study — was built for a small child's needs, with low shelves, not too many, and desks too light for spreading out university-weight texts. It was less than three years ago, when Viveka had entered the University of the West Indies, that they had replaced the two pint-sized desks with ones more sensible for the needs of young women, but this had reduced the already small space by half. Still, this more than any other place was where Viveka preferred to hole up. It was where she had learned to think beyond the words of a book, and where she sometimes leaned back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling in almost the exact manner that was her father's unconscious habit.

Last evening, just before supper and not long after Valmiki and Devika had had another of their regular tiffs — tension still between them, and Valmiki worn out by now — Viveka had barged into the house in a flurry of excited huffs and puffs as if
she had had a most noble and terribly long day at the university. As they sat down to eat, she had announced, as if it were a present she was giving the family, that she would not make the trip up to the university the following day. The family library, she glowed, was perfect, still perfect, even though one would have thought she and Vashti had by now outgrown it. Valmiki and Devika, in spite of the chill between them, had discreetly exchanged nervous glances at this touch of congeniality, but when nothing untoward immediately followed, they relaxed. The main part of the meal was eaten in an atmosphere of hesitant amicability.

Then, just as Devika finished serving out the cherry cheese-cake and placed on the table a saucer of Rimpty's chocolates that their chocolate-making neighbours, the Prakashs, had sent over, the dreaded subject of extracurricular activities came up. And not just any extracurricular activity, but volleyball. That damned volleyball subject yet again! thought Valmiki, even as he tried to appear unfazed. But the subject hadn't simply come up, of course. Viveka had introduced it in a contrived way. Throughout the meal Vashti had been talking to Viveka, and Valmiki, perhaps because he had been anticipating some unpleasantness, had noticed that Viveka seemed unduly irritated by Vashti's chatter and appeared to be listening to the conversation going on between him and Devika. Valmiki had been telling Devika that the Medical Association was having their annual dinner and dance soon, and was wondering if he should secure tickets. Devika had responded that there was a clique of wives who were social climbers, using their husbands' professions — professions that the husbands only had because education and scholarships were available to any and everybody in the country — to give them all kinds of licence they wouldn't otherwise have, and that those women liked to gossip
too much. Those women were smiling and paying you compliments one minute, and the moment you had your back to them they were prying into your life and crying you down, all to build themselves up. She really hated those dinners.

Just then, Viveka piped up. “There seems to be a general human need to form cliques and join clubs, doesn't there?” Valmiki knew instantly where she wanted to go with that statement. Both he and Devika bristled. There was a local women-only sports club, not connected to the university but a local community club that met on Tuesdays and Thursdays for practice at the public park at the far end of the Harris Promenade, and a few weeks ago Viveka had expressed an interest in joining it. Devika had asked her if she was crazy, wanting to go and play a game in a club that was open to anybody and, of all places, in that part of the city. Whereupon Viveka had reminded them that Helen, daughter of their financial adviser, was on a team that played there. Devika had responded, “I don't care if the Queen's children play on that court, my children are not playing there. You should know better than asking.”

And now Viveka had burst into their dinnertime conversation, bringing up the subject again. “You know, the interesting thing about a community sports club is that it does allow for the intermingling of the different social classes and the many cultures our county is blessed with, don't you agree, Dad?” Although Valmiki knew the question was rhetorical, he was about to grab the rein with some clever and diverting response, but Viveka didn't wait for an answer. “I mean, after all, we are a small island, and rather than form cliques we should indeed be learning from and about one another, helping one another upward, you know what I am saying?” She looked from her father to Vashti and carried right on again. “As you yourself have said, Dad, strong
individuals make for a strong nation, a strong country within and without.” If Viveka's little sermon prevented her from hearing her mother's sudden heavy breathing, Valmiki was aware of it, and this panicked him even more than whatever Viveka had up her sleeve. Devika bit her lower lip. She pushed her plate up the table. Valmiki couldn't help himself. He had to smile. His daughter was bold. Bolder than he was. Vashti put down her fork, scrunched up her mouth and forehead, and looked at her sister in confusion.

But Devika was not about to play this game with her daughter. “Look, get to the point, Viveka. You are talking about joining that club again, aren't you?”

“Well, Mom, Helen . . .”

Viveka's tone immediately went from the pulpit one she had managed so calmly to a high-pitched one, but she got no further than the mention of her friend Helen's name. Her mother lashed out, “Look, I don't want to hear about Helen. Helen is not even Indian. At least, not
properly
Indian. Her father is white — which, let me remind you, not just you, but you
and
your father, does not mean that he is one bit better than us. Most of those foreign whites who leave their countries and come here are not from our class. They come here because they can't do better for themselves in their own countries. They come behaving as if they are superior, lording it over us. They have no social graces whatsoever, and people like you and your father fall for all of their nonsense.”

Valmiki was irked. He gasped at the manner in which he was so suddenly insulted, but knowing better than to get trapped by either his wife or Viveka, he simply threw his hands up in mock defeat and shook his head.

“On top of that, Helen's mother is a brassy Port of Spain Indian. Those Indians from the north like to think they are too
different. They do whatever they please without thinking of what others might say. Mix that sort of attitude with a little whiteness and they have their children joining swim clubs and tennis clubs, prancing about like horses, and you hear about their children attending all kinds of parties they have no right being at, you hear things about them, things that I would be ashamed to repeat to your father. Those town Indians have no respect for their origins, they forget their place, they ooh and they aaah over curry as if they never had curry before, and they give their children names like Helen. You are not joining that club.”

Viveka opened her mouth but was cut off again.

“You tell me, are there any other Indian girls on that team? Go on. Tell me.” Devika asked this with a confidence in the answer that both annoyed her husband and inspired awe in him.

“Women,” Viveka corrected, albeit in a less confident tone now.

“As long as you're living in my house I will call you what I like.”

Valmiki slid one of the Rimpty's chocolates off the plate and his hand hovered in front of his mouth. He could smell the sugar in the candy. In a softer manner he tried to employ a different tactic: he and her mother didn't think Viveka joining the team was a good idea because it might affect her studies, he said. Devika inhaled loud and long to let them both know that she thought this was pandering, and she did not approve of it.

Viveka sulked back that playing a sport did not mean her grades would suffer or that she would not qualify with a degree. Valmiki asked how long each evening's session would last. Before Viveka could answer, her mother snapped: Time didn't matter, what mattered was that club days were during the week. When neither Valmiki nor Viveka said anything, Devika added in her inimitable tone that weekdays were impossible.

The topic had first come up several weeks previously. At the time, Devika had expressed her worry to Valmiki that since Viveka already lacked a certain finesse one wanted in a girl, engaging in team sports and competition might only make her that much more ungainly, and whatever polish she, Devika, had tried so hard to impart would certainly be erased. But other things were on Valmiki's mind, then and now. He could not imagine either of his daughters being at that park late into the evenings. Young men idled there, men of African origin in particular. But he knew better than to say this out loud, as Viveka would then have asked about his friendship with Saul, who was of African origin, and that would have derailed everything. She would certainly have jumped, too, on the racism and sexism implied. If she had used the word
hypocritical
he would have understood, but Devika would likely, in a single action, have stood up and flung her hand across Viveka's face. In short, provoking Viveka further would only leave room for a litany of examples of how old-fashioned and everything-phobic he and Devika were (none of which Valmiki minded being), with the result that Viveka would end up looking like the noble, victimized member of the family.