Caribbean (111 page)

As he brushed Ranjit with the whisk broom he said warmly: “But I will concede this. Fine-looking fellow like you, it would be nice if, when you stepped out there, a rich girl from the university came by in her Cadillac convertible, pulled over to the curb, and asked you to hop in. Because if you married her, you wouldn’t have to go back to Trinidad when you finished your education here.” Two of the listeners applauded as he concluded his monologue and he added: “Cubans in general, yes, yes! Cuban men in my chair, no, no!”

As Ranjit left the barbershop, heartened by the owner’s jovial banter, the unknown man who had entered during his haircut rose and followed him out. The barber, unhappy at losing a customer, called: “Only two ahead of you,” and as the door started to slam shut the man called in a husky, rasping voice far deeper than most: “I’ll be back.” And that was how Ranjit first encountered Gunter Hudak.

He was not a man to be taken lightly. About forty, with a hunched-up muscular torso, powerful-looking arms and a jowly dark face framed in very black hair that covered much of his forehead, he appeared to Ranjit to be a man accustomed to getting his own way.

Then came the rasping, ominous voice: “Could I speak with you a minute?”

In that first moment Ranjit knew that he ought to have nothing to do with this man, but he felt that he might be in greater danger if he rebuffed him, so in a weak voice he said: “Yes.”

“Name’s Gunter Hudak. Yours I know. Ranjit Banarjee, Jamaica and Trinidad.”

“How could you know that?”

“It’s my business. Whenever an alien graduate student working
on a Ph.D. switches majors, people notice and they call me.” He spoke in a conspiratorial tone, his accent indicating that he too might have been an alien.

“Mind if I walk with you, Ranjit?” Banarjee did mind, but he was afraid to admit it, so leechlike had the man become. “My business is to remind you how right that barber was when he told that story.”

“I have nothing against Cubans.”

“I mean the part where you would be saved from going back to Trinidad if some American girl fell in love with you and married you.” Before Ranjit could protest, he rushed on: “She marries you. Perfectly legal. You acquire legal status as her immigrant husband. Now nobody can force you to leave the country. Six months she divorces you, and there you are, on your way to American citizenship.” Maintaining hold of Ranjit’s arm, he whispered: “All for a lousy five thousand dollars. American citizenship for life.”

Ranjit brushed his hand away: “I’m not a fool,” and in his rasping voice Hudak replied: “You are if you don’t listen. Ask around the dorm. Ask how many young fellows like you have gained citizenship through marriage and divorce. The way I do it, foolproof.” Before he left he thrust into Ranjit’s pocket a slip of paper, then disappeared in the traffic along Dixie Highway. In the privacy of his room, Ranjit read the message: Gunter Hudak, 2119 San Diego, Coral Gables. It could be done for $4,000.

In the months that followed, Ranjit ran into Hudak about once every other week. On the occasions that Hudak spoke to him, always with the same low, rasping voice, he would say something ominous, like: “Good evening, Mr. Banarjee. I’m sure you heard about the three graduate students that were flown back to Iran last week. I-94 forms expired.”

At the beginning of the semester in September 1981, his eighth year in Miami, Ranjit’s attention was diverted from his own problems by a surprising announcement from his Pakistani fellow scholar, Mehmed Muhammad: “Wonderful news! The American government has just added mathematics teachers to the list of preferred occupations.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, the rule’s been on the books for years. If you want to immigrate to the United States, no chance at all. Waiting list miles long.
But if you’re a tailor and want to immigrate, the government says: ‘Hooray! We need tailors,’ and they embrace you. Actually seek you out, because in this country we don’t produce enough tailors.” Ranjit noticed that he was speaking of the United States as
we
, and that week Mehmed transferred his graduate credits to Georgia Tech, where he would start on a doctor of science degree. He told Ranjit: “With my credits from India, I’ll apply for an accelerated course. Maybe one year I’ll be admitted as a math teacher.” And off he went.

When he was gone, Ranjit made cautious inquiries about the supposed exempt categories and learned that Mehmed was right. Tailors were needed, glassblowers for the making of scientific instruments and a whole mix of curious occupations, for none of which was he remotely qualified. That avenue to freedom was barred.

Refusing to think about Gunter Hudak’s proposition, despite the fact that the man had lowered his price to three thousand, Ranjit spent the fall term in a kind of numbed euphoria. His work toward his history Ph.D. leaped ahead, and one of his essays on the Dutch experience with her Caribbean colonies had been accepted for publication in a learned journal in Amsterdam, causing an envious but generous young professor with his doctorate from Yale to say: “Banarjee, we ought to initiate a Doctor-of-Everything. You’d be the first to get one. How’s the thesis coming?” and Ranjit was tempted to say: “It’s safely slowed down, thank you.”

Before Halloween, Mehmet was back on campus exhibiting the same excitement he had shown when leaving for Georgia Tech: “The most wonderful news, Ranjit. Mathematics was more difficult than I thought. Could have done it, of course, but not in one year. What do you think’s happened?”

When Ranjit said: “Something promising, I’m sure,” Mehmet rhapsodized: “More than promising. Salvation at hand, on a silver platter!”

“Tell me.”

“The government has added a new category to its preferred occupations. Male nurses! Yes, a critical shortage. I’ve enrolled in the advanced program here on campus, and with my various credits … I’ve taken a lot of science in my day. They tell me I should get my certificate by June. And once I get that … bedpans, here I come!”

When Ranjit looked into the new ruling he found that male nurses really were in demand, but since he had no aptitude for such work, and he was getting periously close to his Ph.D. in history, he switched
his field of concentration to philosophy, and just in time. Of course, this had been his major interest all the time, the study of mankind’s permanent values and the ways in which people organize their thinking.

Relieved by the last-minute reprieve, he spent much of that year, 1981–1982, exploring the value systems of Miami, and as he came to understand the intricacies of the city, he gained added appreciation each day for the heroic adjustments it had made. A flood of Cubans had been digested with relative ease. They were now about to take over political control of the city and the state, too, no doubt, and some Anglos did not like this, but they were free to move to the expensive oceanfront communities to the north, like Palm Beach.

The crime rate disturbed him, and at one point as he was coming home from downtown Miami he laughed at himself: In Trinidad it irritated me when white people found it repugnant that Indians slashed people with knives, especially their wives, and here I am in Miami, finding it deplorable that Hispanic men so often kill their wives and their best friends with knives.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
. But he could never joke about the drug menace that threatened most aspects of life in southern Florida; he could not imagine willfully introducing into his body any destructive substance: nicotine, alcohol, addictive medicines, and certainly not drugs injected into the bloodstream.

So Miami had its dark side, but on balance it was a magical city, with its miles of alluring waterfront, its increasingly beautiful new high-rise buildings, and the permanent charm of Calle Ocho, as Eighth Street was now known, for here the full flavor of Caribbean life manifested itself in carnivals and celebrations and the daily expression of Hispanic life. “Not as good as the real carnival in Trinidad,” he told friends, “but it will suffice.”

But then the self-delusion had to stop. He was not at carnival in Miami; he was engaged in the hard-nosed task of getting a Ph.D. at the university, and there was talk in the school that graduate students who had been in residence beyond a reasonable number of years were going to be handed an ultimatum: “Finish your thesis and accept your degree, or get out,” and he knew that the last two words really meant
get out of the country
. Since he had been on campus since 1973 and this was now 1984, he knew his days were numbered. Indeed, the university had already cracked down on Mehmed Muhammad, who had been in and out since 1967, a gaudy seventeen years, but he had
once more evaded expulsion by enrolling in yet another exempted specialty, this time nursing. Mehmed was an enterprising fellow, for after having ingratiated himself with one of the staff doctors at the hospital where he had volunteered for preliminary nursing experience, he talked the man into lending him his car while the doctor was on duty, and invited Ranjit to share in one of the most civilized adventures Miami provided—watching ships head out to sea. The two men, with Mehmed at the wheel, started to drive the doctor’s car smack into the turbulent traffic of Dixie Highway, one of the wildest city thoroughfares in America where young vacationers, irresponsible university students and anarchistic Cubans who thought a red light meant “Hurry up, and bang on through” drove at seventy miles per hour in the heart of populated districts.

“Do you know how to drive?” Ranjit asked, and Mehmed said: “I’ve watched others. I’m sure it’s not too difficult.”

“Have you a driver’s license?”

“No, but who’s going to stop us?” and with an aplomb that amazed Ranjit, the emaciated Pakistani headed right into the midst of Miami traffic, screamed Urdu curses at anyone who refused to get out of his way, and came miraculously to that magical spot where knowing spectators in parked cars assembled each Saturday afternoon at five to watch the great cruise ships of the various lines head out to sea on their way to visit the Caribbean islands.

There was no place in America that equaled this, for the channel was so unbelievably narrow that watchers on land could see clearly the faces lining the railings of the huge white ships as they steamed past, one after another in majestic line. Deep-throated ships’ sirens blew, bands played, passengers cheered, spectators in the cars sounded their horns, and for the better part of an hour this unique parade continued. It enchanted Mehmed: “I could reach out and touch this next one,” and Ranjit agreed that the illusion was startling.

“Ah, there they go!” Mehmed cried. “After I get my nursing certificate, I’ll study to become a doctor, and then I’ll apply for ship’s doctor on this one coming along. ‘Madame, I’m afraid your appendix has burst. Matter of life and death. I must operate immediately.’ And the ship plunges this way and that, and maybe even the lights go out. Snip, snip. There goes the fatal appendix! Another life saved!”

Ranjit, despite his desire to remain in the United States, suffered a momentary pang of homesickness: “How I’d like to be aboard one of those ships. Jamaica, St. Vincent, Trinidad.”

“Are the islands so lovely?”

“They are.”

Impulsively, Mehmed leaped from the car, ran to the edge of the channel, and shouted to the last ship, only a few yards away in the channel: “Great ship! Stop! Stop! Take my friend Ranjit with you.” And from the railing overhead passengers looked down and cheered the frantically waving Pakistani.

What Mehmed called remorseless destiny could no longer be avoided, so the mournful evening came, the time when Ranjit had to bite the bullet. Walking slowly along the streets east of Dixie Highway, he came at last to the address on the slip of paper he had kept in his wallet. Approaching 2119 San Diego from the opposite side of the street, he studied the ordinary two-storied house, imagined all sorts of ugly things happening inside, and was about to slink away when a firm hand grasped his right arm from behind: “Good evening, Mr. Banarjee. I’ve been waiting for you. Let’s talk.” It was Gunter Hudak.

He did not take Ranjit into his home, but maneuvered him down back streets to a Burger King restaurant on Maynada Street near the University of Miami. Without explaining his purpose in bringing Ranjit to this place, Hudak edged him into the line and trailed along as Ranjit approached the ordering counter, where a kindly woman in her late forties asked: “Yes? What will it be?” When Ranjit hesitated, Hudak said: “Whopper, fries and vanilla shake.” For himself he ordered a smaller hamburger and a strawberry shake.

When they were perched on revolving stools bolted to the floor, Hudak said in his insinuating rasp: “My sister works here. Which one do you think she is?” and while Ranjit studied the group of girls putting out the prepared orders, one of them, perhaps at a signal from her brother, moved into a position from which she could clearly be seen by the customers.

As she stood in the clean, bright light she was a memorable young woman. Her age? No one could say. She was about the same height as Ranjit, had the slim figure of a nineteen-year-old, and an attractive face with regular features set in a frame of neat brown hair. But her face was disturbing as well as inviting, for it had an acquired hardness which could have belonged to a woman of forty; nevertheless, she was a young woman that any man would look at twice, and Ranjit did.

“I think that one,” he said, and Hudak pressed his hand in congratulations: “You’re right. She’s the girl who wants to marry you,” and now he flashed an open signal, whereupon his sister left her job of supervising the delivery of French fries to the pickup counter and walked primly and with purpose to where her brother sat with his new client. “Hello,” she said as she approached Ranjit’s stool, “I’m Molly,” and she looked down at him with eyes that almost shouted: “My God! You’re a sexy man!”

Ranjit, who had never before received such a glance, was too befuddled to speak, but she continued. “My brother tells me interesting things about you, Mr. Banarjee. It would not only be a pleasure, it would be very exciting. A Hindu prince. Elephants. Tigers. The Taj Mahal. It would be wonderful.”