How to Escape From a Leper Colony (17 page)

It was a full couch casket and the Virgin took up the entire lid. The length of the dead body that would rest in it. Corban didn’t think this design was for the deceased. This design was for the mourners, a beautiful thing for them to reflect on as they said their last goodbyes. He imagined waking up dead in that casket to the Virgin lying on top of him, her face on his face. He had always thought it was a woman’s casket but now he wondered.

He felt inside and squeezed the cushioning. It took some effort to heave himself in. It was made for someone slender. Someone younger perhaps. Anexus had been young and slim but that was so long ago. He was pressed tight in the casket, as if it was less of a bed and more of a cradle. He reached up his hand to make sure the lid was securely up. He crossed his arms over his chest. “So this is what it feels like to be dead,” he said out loud. Then Anexus closed his eyes and thought of Usha and Jean.

Usha Persaud and Jean Monroe had met on an island called Gasparee, off the coast of Trinidad. It was a small island. He had to jog five or so laps on the developed half just to get a workout. Rich white Trinidadians had vacation houses here that they visited during long weekends. He and his brothers had brought over the sailboat. They were there for the weekend because his brother was getting married and the bachelor party was that night at Gasparee in the Monroe family bungalow.

The party was wild and raucous. Jean saw his father wander off into a back room with one of the African strippers. The Indian one was sitting on his brother’s lap; his crotch was sticking up like a tent. Jean watched for a while as the other young men cheered her on, hooting over the little gyrations she made. But then Jean pulled her off because he knew his brother and he knew his brother would be ashamed if he cheated on his fiancée. The young men hooted at Jean and pumped their fists into the air before turning their attention to another female, a dougla who wore feathers in her hair.

The girl led him through the door that was his parents’ bedroom. Through the walls Jean could hear the small squeals of a woman. Jean sat on the bed. “This will be extra,” the girl said as she kneeled down. Her accent was thick with the South Trinidad village she must have come from. The Indians and Africans his father did business with had more British inflections. Even his family, which was white French on both sides, sounded more British than anything. She had a gold nose ring and a gold chain from her nose to her ear. Jean watched it glimmer against her dark skin as her cheeks tensed and released. Afterward, he handed her more money than she had asked for and said “Thank you” as his mother had trained him. She handed him her business card. “Anexa” it read and then two different numbers but no details on what the business was.

Nothing like this had ever happened to Jean. He touched the ends of the woman’s hair as she walked back out to the loud party. He wondered if what had happened was real. If that woman was real. He wondered if he should feel guilty. The throbbing in his groin told him that what had happened was real after all, but nothing else.

The next day Jean Monroe’s brother was sent on the motorboat to get ready for the evening wedding. Jean stayed behind to help clean up. He was taking a bag of trash down to the bay where a barge would take garbage and poor passengers to the main island. Jogging back, he saw the woman walking with a big flat package under one arm and a toolbox in the other hand. His first thought was to be surprised that she would be up this early after such a busy night at the party. He had decided that women like this Anexa could not possibly exist in the daytime. His next thought was that although he had paid her, he still owed her something. He ran to help her with the things she was carrying.

She turned her head and he realized that it wasn’t her at all. She looked at him with expectation. “Do you need help?” he asked, slowing down and wondering at his own disappointment. She smiled and handed him the toolbox. She was older than the woman from the night before. She was older than him even. She did not have a ring in her nose or a hole where a ring might have been.

“I’m Usha. Usha Persaud,” she said. And her accent was refined. And her smile was genuine. She looked at him. “And you?”

“Nice to meet you, Usha Persaud.” He repeated her name the way his father had taught him. To help him remember. “I’m Anexus,” he lied. “Anexus Corban.”

He was nineteen. She was twenty-six.

She had a key to a bungalow that belonged to friends of his father. She offered him a drink and went to the fridge and made him a mimosa. He knew she did not live here. But he accepted her pretense; after all, he had lied about his name. He would let her have her farce. They sat on a fluffy couch. “How long have you lived here?”

“I don’t live here,” she said.

He hadn’t expected her to give up so easily. “I knew that,” he said as though he had won a little prize. “I know the people who live here.” He sipped his mimosa and smiled. Ready now to give up his true identity.

“I’m the artist,” she said and pointed with her glass to the painting still wrapped in its protective brown paper. She leaned toward it and peeled the paper off without ceremony. He looked at the painting. The Indian woman in it was painfully familiar. She had a gold nose ring with a gold chain that ran from her nose to her earlobe. She was at a window and there was a palm tree and there was a shadow so real he looked around to see what might have cast it. But it was in the painting. Jean began to excuse himself.

“Why so soon, Anexus?” Usha asked as he backed out, never leaving her place on the couch.

He thought to himself, “I should kiss this woman. I should kiss her good and hard like in the movies.” But he thought too long. “I’ll see you around, Usha.” And then he ran.

At his brother’s wedding Jean wept as hard as the bride’s mother and drank more champagne than anyone. His own mother looked at him with worry. She had hoped he would follow his brother to New York University or his father to London University, but he’d been home for a year now and hadn’t even filled out the applications. She brought him to sit next to her at the reception and tousled his hair. “My baby,” she said and he rested onto her shoulder.

Anexus Corban woke up inside the dark coffin. The lid was closed and there was no light. He was in complete darkness. He could not see his mouth so close to the Virgin’s that he could kiss her. He panicked. He began scratching at the lid and jostling his heavy body around. His breathing became a shriek and finally the lid lifted and he sat up and he was there in his shop. And it was quiet. He was sweating. It had been hot inside the coffin.

He removed himself without ease or grace. He sat on the stool that was usually Simon’s and drank the last of Simon’s coffee which was cold but still sweet. He licked the sugar at the bottom. “Damn it, Usha,” he said as he carried the teacup and saucer to the back where there was a sink. He washed them and dried them and then returned them to their set. He had the whole set. The plates and the saucers and the little teapot. It was an early wedding present. They hadn’t picked out a china pattern but Usha’s friend made pottery and had made an entire set for them. There had been no other wedding gifts.

Corban got in his car and drove into the hills. Up to the humble condo complex where his apartment was. He owned his one-bedroom apartment and he paid nominal fees so it was called a condo. He watched a movie on HBO while eating a pint of ice cream. He changed into his pajamas, which resembled prisoner smocks and not hospital scrubs as he thought, and climbed into bed. He touched the picture of Usha and a version of his younger self together in a gallery. And he spoke to the painting of the brown woman at her window in her bright sari and gold chain across her cheek. She loomed on the wall across from him. “You’re beautiful,” he said to her and then drifted off to sleep.

Their first date was not their first date at all. Jean Monroe went looking for Usha in the galleries all over Port of Spain. There weren’t many galleries and most had Carnival-themed work. None of them carried work by Usha Persaud. He left his number and his name as Anexus Corban. He went back to Gasparee but the Thompsons weren’t there. He got the housekeeper to let him in, saying he’d forgotten something. When he went to the living room he stared at the blank wall where her painting was supposed to be. “Oh, Usha.”

He began to go a little crazy. He applied to New York University. For almost two months he followed his father around and talked art at all the business meetings. His father began to rest his hand on his shoulder when he introduced him. “My son,” he said now. “He knows a lot about art.” A lawyer colleague invited Mr. Monroe to an opening at his house for Trinbagonian artists and patrons, but his father pressed Jean to go in his stead. There on the wall was another window but this time a young African girl standing at it. She held up one finger to her lips as if to say “hush.” In the lower right-hand corner what looked like “Usha Persaud” was scrawled in gold. Jean could feel his body stiffen. He stood tall and scanned the room for her. He knew she was there. He knew it as if he was dreaming. It was as though he could smell her.

“Have you seen Usha Persaud?” he asked someone casually.

“I don’t think she’s here tonight.” And Jean was filled with the feeling that the people were lying to him on purpose. He felt desperate. He walked quickly around the room trying to seem calm. In every little group there was an artist. He smiled at the people he recognized. The artists were easy to pick out. They clutched their wineglasses like torches. They seemed smaller than everyone else. She was not among them.

Jean went outside to the lawn. And there she was. She was sitting in the grass looking out at the sunset. Her skirt was fanned around her as if she had arranged it just so. He walked up beside her and stood there. He looked down and she looked up. “Hello, Anexus.”

“I’ve been looking for you.”

“Oh, I’ve just arrived.”

They stared at each other and his chest was filled again with that desire to kiss her, like in the movies. “Sit down,” she said.

“My white pants. The grass.” He smiled and shook his head.

“Sit on my skirt. I have it spread out just for you.” His neck went hot. He gave her his wineglass and lowered himself carefully to sit on the cotton patches of her skirt. She sipped his wine as though it was hers. The sun was setting, and then she turned to him and kissed him soft and sweet with her mouth still trickling wine. He felt the heat all over his body.

He got into NYU, as was expected. “Come with me,” he said to her as they lay in bed. They were in the room that was his parents’ in the bungalow at Gasparee. This was the first time he had brought her there.

“Where? To college? I’ve already done that business, Anexus.”

“We could live in Manhattan and you’d be able to sell your work.”

“And you’d be a college boy. I don’t think so.”

“Marry me, Usha.”

She looked at him for a moment. Her face grew distant and wrinkled with concern. She looked as though she was about to cry. It looked as though he had ruined everything. “But I haven’t even met your parents.”

“I haven’t met your parents, either.”

She shook her head. “That’s different.”

“Who cares about parents?”

Usha and Anexus had been going to private art openings and making love in the patrons’ spacious bathrooms for just over a month. He had been introducing himself at all her parties as Anexus Corban. He wore different clothes as Anexus—nothing tailored. Shoes bought in the regular-people stores. He let his hair fall loosely over his forehead. He cultivated a more rootsie accent. If he saw an acquaintance he would look over Usha’s head and put his fingers to his lips, “hush,” and the other white man would understand at some conquest level and smile. Only once did someone ask “Aren’t you the younger Monroe boy?” but Anexus shook his head and offered his hand. “I’m Anexus.” He avoided the patrons and the patrons’ sons. He stood with the artists. On so many levels it was a side he had never been on before.

Usha did not know that he was Jean Monroe. That his father was a rich merchant who owned a lumber business. He told Usha that the bungalow was his parents’ house. He told her that his parents lived in England and rarely visited. He told her that he was an only child.

“I
care about parents,” she said.

“Usha, baby. Times have changed. We must be rebellious. This is the beginning of a new era. I want you to be my wife and all that. And we’re big people. We don’t need permission, right, my girl?”

“Anexus, we barely know each other. This isn’t real. This is pretend.” She had not smiled yet.

“Is this pretend, Usha?” He raised his arms to signal the room and their lovemaking. “I want to marry you. Forget NYU.”

“You can afford to live in Manhattan. You can just decide so easily to go or not to go to college,” she said. “You must be even more rich than I thought. Is that why I can’t meet your parents, Anexus? You know I don’t have to marry you to be your lover.”

“I want a lover and a wife and a mother of my children and all that. What do you say, Usha baby? Here, I have a ring.”

It was not his mother’s. It was not a family heirloom at all. He had bought it from a jeweler the Monroes went to often and it was so simple and plain that, despite the solitary diamond, the jeweler did not even suspect that it was an engagement ring.

Jean moved Usha into the bungalow on Gasparee. It was perfect for her because she liked the solitude of the island—it was not the season when the bungalows were in use and most of them were unoccupied. Sometimes she had the whole island to herself. She transformed what he told her was the guest room into her studio. She painted and she sold paintings. At parties on Trinidad or on Tobago for the next month they spoke about themselves as fiancé and fiancée. But no plans were made toward a wedding. Jean felt this was her responsibility. He waited with only a little anxiety for her to tell him when. He waited for her to tell him the date and the place and whether she would invite her parents. He slept at his parents’ house sometimes and told Usha that he slept at the office. He did not tell Usha that the office was his father’s. She did not question him and he did not find this peculiar. His parents did not question him, either. His mother thought her son was taking time to “find himself.” Perhaps his father knew. Perhaps he had a mistress of his own in a bungalow on Gasparee. Jean didn’t think on those things. Jean was waiting.