Nothing Like Love (20 page)

Dutchie and Auntie Kay were fast friends, too. He came by one morning to take Krishna to the wharf, a bushel of fresh dasheen bhajee in his arms. Auntie Kay was tickled by his thoughtfulness and couldn’t be more pleased that someone
like Dutchie—“a free spirit,” she called him—had taken Krishna under his wing while he was in Tobago. When the neighbour inquired about the “tall dark fella with the long dreadlocks to he backside” hanging around the place, Auntie Kay told him that was her nephew, Dutchie.

“I feeling to eat a caimite.” Auntie Kay squinted up at one of her trees laden with the purple fruit. “Allyuh mind?”

A boyish grin lit Krishna’s face. “Say no more.” In an instant he was out of the hammock and around the back of the house in search of something long enough to prize the ripe fruit from its branches. He returned with a piece of bamboo.

Dutchie nodded his approval. “That is the correct thing to chook a caimite.”

Without a word, Dutchie and Krishna positioned themselves under the great tree with all the seriousness of two professional cricketers. Krishna prodded the branches with the bamboo and Dutchie caught the falling fruit, somersaulting and diving in the grass when he didn’t need to.

Auntie Kay giggled. “Is like I have two young children for the first time,” she said.

Krishna waited while Dutchie deposited the fruit in his pocket. “You try, Auntie Kay!” he said.

She didn’t need to be asked twice. Auntie Kay kicked off her slippers and bounded onto the grass. Krishna skipped around the tree, shaking the branches with more force and with greater speed so that Dutchie and Auntie Kay had to dart this way and that to catch the raining caimites. Auntie Kay squealed with delight, whirling around with outstretched arms. Most of the caimites ended up on the ground, always a few inches shy of her grasp.

In the end the trio scored nine. They gathered below the house to cool off while Dutchie halved the fruit. The caimites yielded easily to the knife. They fell open, revealing soft purple flesh glistening with juice.

“When last you sit and eat a caimite like this?” Dutchie asked, propping his feet up on a footstool and sinking into his fruit. Droplets dribbled over his chin and sprinkled his tank top.

Krishna spat three slippery seeds into his palm and shrugged. Over the last couple years, he had done little in the way of relaxing in Trinidad. He spent most of his time shadowing his father during pujas. Every time a baby was born or a couple was married, Krishna was there. Every time someone fell sick or was plagued by bad luck, Krishna was there. He sat through puja after puja, muttering mantras in unison with his father, handing him flowers or incense or lit diyas, eating bag after bag of prasad. His days began early and ended late and he always came home miserable with soot in his nostrils. It was only recently, when he and Vimla began meeting in secret, that Krishna remembered what joy felt like, and strangely, all the wonderful things Trinidad had to offer.

A frown settled on his brow. He had only ever told this to Vimla. It seemed immoral for a pundit’s son—for a pundit-in-training—to loathe his work the way he did. His father said it was his
dharma
, his duty, to become a spiritual leader, but Krishna felt like a pretender. Worse, a pretender to God.

“What happened, Krish?” Auntie Kay smoothed his brow with her finger, sticky with caimite juice.

Dutchie slapped Krishna on the back. “I tell you the man have tabanca. He thinking of Miss Vimla Narine steady.” Dutchie’s smile was wicked.

Krishna dropped the skin of his caimite on the table, having cleaned the flesh right out. “I was just thinking how nice it is to have a day to do nothing. To just lime under the house with good people, with no one waiting on you and no particular place to be.”

Dutchie wiped his mouth with his hand. “But we
do
have a particular place to be tonight, my friend,” he said, winking.

Auntie Kay, always curious about their adventures, inclined her head in Dutchie’s direction. “What allyuh boys up to tonight?”

“We going to Sunday School in Buccoo Reef.” He got up and dropped a kiss on Auntie Kay’s head. “And you going, too, Auntie.”

Auntie Kay waved her hand. “Oh no. You boys have your fun. I too old for late-night liming.”

Dutchie produced an unconvincing sulk. “You ain’t want to go fishing. You ain’t want to go snorkelling.” He gestured in the air, feigning exasperation. “You does twist up your mouth every time I ask you to play cricket. Like you vexed with me or what?”

Auntie Kay swatted Dutchie’s arm. “You expect me to fish and snorkel? What wrong with you, boy?” She smoothed her polka dot dress over her knees, embarrassed by the thought of it.

Dutchie and Krishna chuckled. “Well, tonight we dancing, Auntie Kay, and I know you could do that.” He turned to Krishna and ruffled his hair. “I coming by at ten. Fix yourself up a little, nuh? You looking like a vagrant.”

Krishna glanced down at his old shorts and his rumpled T-shirt and decided not to argue.

Krishna knew Tobago’s Sunday School had nothing to do with Bible studies, but he wasn’t expecting an open street party. The Buccoo Beach he’d seen was quiet but for tourists getting on and off tour boats and the odd vendor who sold Tobago bottle openers and magnets, sunhats and sarongs.

Dutchie nudged Krishna. “You recognize this place?”

“Hardly.”

The quiet bars with the unhurried wait staff were draped in Christmas lights that twinkled white against the cobalt sky; patrons overflowed onto the street now. There were people everywhere, holding drinks or hands or waists. They moved in waves past each other, clinking their drinks against friends’ and strangers’ drinks, saying “Good night, good night” and smiling the breeziest smiles Krishna had ever seen.

The harmony of a steel pan band played in the background. Dutchie led Krishna and Auntie Kay through the crowd until they could see the panmen in their matching red shirts, managing two or three steelpans each and hitting every perfect note in time. The pannists danced as they played, like the rhythm of their song started in their feet instead of the other way around. There was an easiness about them that reminded Krishna of Dutchie.

The street was lined with food vendors and their Caribbean fare wafted in the night. Krishna saw enormous pots of corn soup and fish broth bubbling on firecrackers. An older woman sat beside her pot and cut chunks of sweet potato into the corn soup, tapping her foot to the music. There was barbecue, too. Chicken sizzled on the grill and drew crowds of people, who waited patiently in line for a fat thigh or a breast. Krishna’s stomach turned at the sight of the meat lying on the plate. On
the other side of the street there was a doubles stand. He smiled to himself, remembering Vimla and Minty in the market.

“You want a doubles?” Dutchie asked above the music.

“Nah. Let we get some roast corn.”

Dutchie wrapped an arm around Auntie Kay’s shoulders as she bobbed at his side to the music. “So how you going, Miss Auntie?” he said. “What you think about Sunday School?”

“Your Auntie Kay could get used to this kind of church!” she said, allowing Dutchie to guide her in the direction of a corn stand.

Dutchie hailed a man sitting with four coolers while Krishna purchased the roasted corn. “What you have tonight, Ernest?” Dutchie asked.

Ernest made a production of rolling his white linen sleeves to his elbows before lifting all four lids. “Rum. Rum. Beer. Sweet drink. What you want?”

Auntie Kay danced over with her corn in hand. “I go take a Carib, please, mister.” Krishna’s eyes bulged. “But put it in a cup for me, nuh? A lady doesn’t drink from beer bottle so.”

Dutchie laughed. “I go have the same.”

“And a cup for you, too, sweetheart?” Ernest asked Dutchie.

Dutchie grabbed the beer from Ernest’s outstretched hand. “Don’t play the ass, nuh, man.”

“And you.” Ernest nodded his chin at Krishna. “You go take one, Boss?

Krishna shoved his hands in his pocket. “Nothing for me, thanks.”

Ernest shrugged, unrolled his sleeves and dropped the lids of his coolers one by one. Krishna wondered how many times he would do that tonight.

Auntie Kay took a sip of her beer. Her hips rocked as she drank.

“Auntie Kay, since when you does drink? Does my father know?”

“Why he have to know? I’s a big woman. I living in my own house and paying my own bills.” She nibbled at her corn. “Your father doesn’t mind me—I does mind myself.”

“Lucky you,” Krishna said. He pictured Anand then, trembling in rage, blaming Auntie Kay for costing him a fortune, as he’d stuffed Krishna’s belongings into a bag. Krishna was about to ask Auntie Kay what his father had meant by that, when she flashed him a disarming smile and he decided he didn’t care. An impromptu dance floor was opening up in the middle of the street. Somewhere, a speaker was blaring The Mighty Sparrow’s latest hit, “We Pass That Stage.” Waists swivelled and bumped up against neighbours’. Krishna watched the revellers with interest. Some were youthful; some were bent and creased with age; there were even some pink-faced tourists with cameras around their necks, making merry with the locals.

“This is how Carnival in Trinidad does be?” Krishna asked.

Dutchie looked at Krishna, disbelieving. “This? You mad or what? Man, Tobago’s Sunday School is really like Sunday School compared to Trinidad’s Carnival. Where you from?”

“How you mean?” Krishna felt foolish not knowing, especially since he had lived his entire life in Trinidad. He almost explained that Chance was just a small town nestled in the southernmost tip of the island, far way from Port of Spain. He almost mentioned that he was Pundit Anand Govind’s only son and that there was no place for carnival in his life.

Dutchie inched closer to his friend. “You see that pretty girl watching you? The one in the corner with she two friends? Not that one!” Dutchie turned Krishna’s head to the right.
“She.”

Krishna swallowed and nodded.

“Now, imagine that sugar plum with sequins and feathers covering all she goodies and nothing else. Imagine she prancing in Port of Spain with a glittery headdress and face paint to match. That’s Carnival.”

“Oh.”

“Now, look over there. You see that young couple dancing with each other? Tasteful, ain’t?”

His father might not have thought so, but Krishna did. “Yeah.”

“Well, imagine that couple grinding up on each other, unbridled wickedness on display for everyone to see. That’s Carnival.”

Krishna blushed in the darkness.

Dutchie gestured to the panmen who were taking a break at a bar. “They good, right? Yeah, I think so, too. But them is only half the party. Carnival must have pan
and
a handful of good calypsonians to keep the fete alive. No calypsonians here tonight. Just the speaker box playing they hits.”

Krishna considered this.

Dutchie drained the last of his beer. “Sunday School in Buccoo Reef is a weekly fete with an easygoing vibe.” He gyrated his waist slow and seductive. “Not a wild bacchanal vibe.” He thrust his pelvis back and forth in quick, raunchy succession. A local woman pinched his cheek as she passed. A tourist tittered behind her hand, scandalized.

“Thanks for the demonstration.” Krishna crossed his arms over his chest. He was embarrassed by his own naïveté. He had never been to any kind of fete like this before, let alone Carnival. The closest he ever got to festivity was at the weddings his father dragged him to. But even then, he knew everyone contained the celebrating until the pundit and his family left. The real excitement erupted when Krishna was behind the Govind gates again, listening to his father sing bhajans in his scratchy voice. Nobody had ever done anything remotely similar to what Dutchie had just done in Krishna’s presence.

His resentment must have shown on his face, because Auntie Kay looped her arm through his and said, “Never mind him. Enjoy yourself, son. Is not every day you come to Tobago. And is not every day you get to fete with your Auntie Kay!” She leaned her head against his arm.

Dutchie was just about to tell Auntie Kay how grateful he was for her, when he thought he spotted a familiar face in the sea of dancing people. As she turned, the woman’s fiery hair blazed bright under the Christmas lights and Krishna knew for certain who she was. He made to nudge Dutchie, but Dutchie was two steps ahead of him, dancing his way into the crowd, an extra drink in his hand.

“Oh gosh! Who is that lady Dutchie sweet-talking?” Auntie Kay asked. She stood on her tiptoes for a better look.

They watched Dutchie brush the woman’s freckled face with his lips and hand her a drink.

“What colour she hair is, Krish? Copper?” Auntie Kay inched forward and Krishna pulled her back.

“Where you think Dutchie meet a white woman like that? She so pale. She make my Dutchie look blacker than he is.”
Auntie Kay squinted at the pair. “Oh gosh, Krish, he teaching she to dance! Watch! Watch!”

Krishna draped an arm around Auntie Kay and spun her. “Come on, let we get a drink.”

Auntie Kay went reluctantly, stealing glances over her shoulder. When she could no longer make Dutchie out in the crowd, she looked up at Krishna. “How about a sweet drink? You used to like red Solo when you was small.” She reached up and grabbed his chin in her hand.