Authors: Sabrina Ramnanan
Vimla stepped back and assessed Gloria’s bulk, lingering on the hanging flesh at her forearms and the triple layer of fat at her chin. She screwed her face up at the woman. “That’s
Mr
. Om Narine, to you.” Vimla nodded to her father, whom she could see out of the corner of her eye making his way up the middle aisle. “And he’s right there … Auntie
Boobooloops
,” she muttered.
Gloria dropped an eddoe and placed her meaty hands on her wide waist, bending forward so that Vimla saw the endless line of her cleavage. “Boobooloops!”
Om arrived and wedged himself between the stalls. He dropped an armful of bags on the stand around his scale. “Morning, Glory.”
Gloria glared at Om. “Your daughter just called me ‘Boobooloops.’ ” She pointed a finger at Vimla.
Om stared at Gloria for a moment and then looked to Vimla for an explanation.
“Pa, she called you ‘Fatty-Om’!” Vimla folded her arms.
Om chortled. “That’s my name, Vims. Everybody does call me ‘Fatty-Om.’ ” He massaged his gut and hula-hooped his waist.
Gloria gloated. Vimla’s face darkened. “Well, I don’t think
she
should call you that, Pa. Look at she! She have no neck! And besides, she try and t’ief this stall from me.” Vimla narrowed her gaze at Gloria.
Gloria turned to the neighbouring merchant, who was eavesdropping as he prepackaged his hot peppers: two shrivelled peppers and three ripe peppers per bag. “Eh, Bulldog! You hearing this?” Gloria demanded.
Bulldog shrugged. “Glory, you t’ief the stand from the girl.”
Another woman behind Vimla spoke up. “You slam down your bag of eddoes on she table like if you own Chance Market when you know Fatty-Om was coming.”
Gloria puffed herself up even bigger. “Child, you hear that? That auntie call your father ‘Fatty-Om,’ too.” A smirk settled on her thin lips.
Vimla scowled. “That auntie only have one chin!”
Some people chuckled, but an older granny stood slowly from her perch and pointed a shaky finger at Vimla. “Mind your elders.” Her voice crackled when she spoke and the words came out slow. “Why you come here? You should be home learning to cook
paratha roti
for your husband.”
“I ain’t married.”
Granny smiled, showing the dark gaps of missing teeth. “Because you can’t cook paratha roti.”
Onlookers laughed again as they arranged their produce on their stalls. Om sighed. “Vimla, tell Auntie Glory you sorry and let we find a next stall fast before this place full up.” He glanced around the giant tent for a spot.
Vimla’s mouth fell open. “Pa! This is our stall, and she—”
Om gathered up his bags of long beans and headed for the
last vacant stand he could see, leaving Vimla and Gloria glowering at each other. Vimla lifted the produce scale into her arms.
“Take the damn stall, you fat water buffalo.”
By six o’clock, the tent was overflowing with vendors and shoppers. Om and Vimla had set up their stall in the far right corner close to the exit. The flap of the tent was peeled back, allowing warm yellow sunshine to pour onto Om’s long beans.
“Golden bodi! Get your golden bodi!” he hollered, as people ambled by with baskets slung on their arms.
When she wasn’t stuffing bags with long beans or making change for customers, Vimla scanned the bustling tent for Minty. She searched for a milky, moon-shaped face in a sea of tanned farmer families, or a black glossy ponytail of unusually needle-straight hair. Vimla peered around elbows and over shoulders from where she sat, peeked in between chatting friends and around obstructing heads.
Om tapped Vimla on the shoulder. “Go buy some garlic and some 7 Pot Pepper.” Vimla sprang to her feet as Om deposited a few crumpled bills into her open palm. “
Hot
pepper, Vimi.” He gazed across the tent, assessing the various pepper vendors. “Don’t go by she.” He pointed to a woman in polka dots. “She does sell sick, squingy-looking pepper. Don’t go by he.” He pointed to a man with a zigzag part in his hair. “He does t’ief peppers from Chaguanas Market and sell them here. Don’t go by Bulldog neither.”
“Okay, Pa.” Vimla squeezed her way past Om.
“Vimla!” he called after her. She turned back. “7 Pot Pepper.
Hot
pepper.”
Vimla rolled her eyes and sidestepped a cluster of shoppers. She weaved leisurely through the rows of fresh produce, past piles of shiny eggplant, green figs, yellow plantain and halved pumpkins with gold-orange flesh. The smell of ripe papaya, watermelon and sweet juicy Julie mangoes wafted through the air, tantalizing buzzing flies. Vimla swatted at one fly as it zipped past her and landed on the top of a tangelo pyramid. The tangelo vendor waved the fly away and it took off again, making circles in the air and then alighting on the bumpy skin of a green karela.
The tent was bursting with market prattle. Everywhere people haggled, gossiped and hollered to their neighbours at a distance.
“Eh, man, give me a good price for this coconut, nuh?”
It was Rajesh Gopalsingh, Minty’s father. Vimla drew nearer.
“That is the coconut price!” The bald coconut merchant gestured to his cardboard sign, shrugging, as if the price was etched in stone.
Rajesh sucked his teeth. “Come, nuh, man. This is robbery.”
The merchant shook his head, which shone with perspiration.
“This coconut have gold inside?” Rajesh held the young coconut to his ear and shook it so the water sloshed around inside. He turned it over in his hands, pretending to examine its shape, knocked it randomly with his giant knuckles, rubbed it with his callused fingertips. “Genie? You there?”
The merchant grabbed a bag from behind his stall. “Man, just take the damn coconut. I losing all my hair listening to your shit-talk.” He mopped his head with a handkerchief.
Rajesh beamed at the merchant and bought four green
coconuts. The merchant showed his teeth in what was meant to be a smile, stuffed the bills in an old cookie tin and slid it behind his stand with his foot.
Vimla followed Rajesh down the aisle. He cleared a path through the throng with his broad chest and broader status in the district. He nodded to important men and stopped to greet elders on his way to his wife’s alterations stand. Vimla darted past him and flung her arms around Minty, who sat on a chair with a book in her lap.
“Vimi!” Minty said.
Sangita, Minty’s mother, eyed the pair warily.
“Hi, Auntie Sangita.” Vimla brushed Minty’s mother with a careless kiss on the cheek and squished herself next to Minty on the chair. “You studying for your A Levels in the market?”
Minty gave Vimla a sheepish look. “Yeah,” she said, closing her book.
“Vimla Narine, don’t try and put style on we. You must be study whole day and night to pass all your exams so.” Sangita was measuring a piece of orange cloth. “The A Levels no joke.” She draped the tape measure around her neck and ripped the cloth in a perfect line down the middle.
Vimla shrugged. “Not really. I didn’t study plenty.”
Sangita fixed Vimla with a stern gaze. “Vimla, I find you getting real fresh these days.”
Sangita drew near the girls, giving Vimla an appraising once-over. “Come, Vimla.” She put the pieces of cloth down and reached for Vimla’s wavy ponytail. “You must oil your hair and plait it to keep it neat.” She began weaving a braid into Vimla’s thick unruly mane.
Vimla made to rise from the chair, but she was tugged backward by Sangita, who insisted on braiding her hair to the very ends.
“Look at Minty’s hair. Look how tidy and shiny she hair is!”
Vimla glanced sideways at her friend. Minty’s hair was straight and fine, unlike Vimla’s wavy, coarser tresses. It felt unfair to compare the two. “She hair different from my own.” Vimla craned her neck over Sangita’s stall to see the sari blouses she was stitching. “I like that blue one, Auntie. Who is that for?”
Sangita pursed her full, sensual lips. “Vimla, you too fast!”
Minty lowered her eyes, but Vimla grinned, unfazed. “Definitely not for Gloria-Boobooloops. She boobies too big for that blouse!”
Rajesh, who was counting the money Sangita had received, glanced up and grunted. “That is true.”
Sangita pursed her lips tighter, snatching the bills from Rajesh’s massive hands and handing some to Minty before stuffing the rest into her blouse. “You does encourage such nonsense, Rajesh.”
He grunted again and nodded over Sangita’s shoulder. “Look, Pudding selling crab.” He pointed to the entrance of the open tent, through which he could see his cousin with his crabs at the side of the road. “I gone.” Rajesh sauntered off.
“Minty, take this and go and buy a pound of currants and some paw-paw.”
Vimla hooked her arm in Minty’s and began tugging her in the direction of a papaya stand. “I go show she where it is!” Vimla said. She didn’t turn to see, but Vimla knew Sangita was frowning after her.
Minty allowed herself to be dragged away. “Vimla! You brave to talk to Mammy so.”
“Your mammy would call it ‘boldface.’ ”
The girls giggled as they manoeuvred around knots of hagglers and gossiping vendors. After they had purchased garlic, pepper, currants and papaya for their parents, Minty and Vimla joined Rajesh and Uncle Pudding.
“Get your fresh crab!” Pudding cried. “Everybody eating fresh crab tonight except you!”
Vimla and Minty peered into Uncle Pudding’s crab crate. The crabs scuttled over one another, snapping their claws and grasping at anything within reach. They snatched at legs, climbing and toppling over their neighbours in pursuit of freedom. Some landed on their backs, flailing hairy legs in the air; others landed on their bellies, only to try to escape again. But always the crabs fell back to the place they began, until Uncle Pudding yanked them out and flung them on his stall to be cleaned.
Minty placed a hand over her nose to block out the fishy smell as Uncle Pudding scraped the hair off a crab’s legs with meticulous strokes of his knife. “You see this crab, Minty? When I done scrape out the hair”—he flipped the crab over and pointed at the crab’s underbelly—“I go clean out the guts, and this crab go be ready to sell.”
Minty’s fair face paled further.
Uncle Pudding’s knife grazed over the crab’s legs swiftly as he spoke. “You ever see a crab man clean a crab like your Uncle Pudding, Minty?”
Minty shook her head.
“You want to try and chop it up?”
A man in a dirty vest and yellow shorts weaved up the walk. “Pudding, give me two crab for free, nuh?” He braced on the board that Pudding was cleaning his crab on and slapped Rajesh hard on the back. “Raj, when last I see you, boy?”
Rajesh remained rooted in his spot despite the slap. “Puncheon, how you could be drunk at six thirty in the morning?”
Puncheon laughed and draped an arm around Rajesh’s shoulders, exposing a sweaty armpit. “Who drunk? Me?” He sucked his teeth.
Vimla and Minty inched back. They made their way out of the tent and began to browse the stalls that lined the side of the road. Slippers, cast-iron pots, rolling pins and pot spoons lay in the sun on wooden stalls or on newspaper on the ground. Men and women sat beside their goods, fanning themselves in their best market wear and calling out to shoppers who swarmed the side of the road like bees.
Across the road, Vimla spotted a doubles stand. She watched hungrily as a woman heaped a spoonful of curried chickpeas and a dash of pepper sauce in between two pieces of flattened, fried dough and wrapped the sandwich in wax paper for a waiting customer. Her hand flew to Minty’s arm. “Is him!”
Minty squinted against the sun. “Him who?” There were dozens of people milling about the place.
“
Krishna
. Pundit Anand Govind’s son. He buying a doubles. Look.” Vimla glanced both ways and darted across the busy street, with Minty running after her. They positioned themselves behind a pair of men shucking corn.
Krishna, five foot ten, beamed down at the doubles lady. “Thank you, Auntie,” he said, handing her some money. His deep brown eyes crinkled at the sides when he smiled.
The doubles lady batted her sparse eyelashes at him. “That’s all right, son. Tell me, your father find a girl for you to marry yet?”
Krishna leaned forward some. “You available?”
The doubles lady giggled and waved her hand at him. “I too old for you, dahling,” she cooed.
He took a step backward, his hand flying to his heart. “Well, if I can’t have you, I go take two more of your doubles then.” He fished into his trouser pocket and pulled out some more bills. “Not too spicy this time.”
Delighted, the doubles lady whipped up two more packages, oozing with chickpeas. Krishna thanked her, turned on his heel and headed straight toward Vimla and Minty.
“Pretty gyul.” Krishna handed Vimla a package and winked. He turned to Minty. “How you going, Mints?”
The girls stared back at him, doubles in hand, speechless. He laughed. “What happened? I have
channa
on my face?” Krishna wiped his large hand over his smile, brushing the invisible chickpeas away.
“Sita-Ram,” Minty said.
“How you so formal today, Mints? Like you and me is strangers now?” Krishna made to pinch her arm playfully but then remembered where he was and shoved his hand in his pocket instead.
Minty shrugged. Then: “How you know we was here? And how come you buy this for
we
?” When she took a big bite of her treat, sauce drizzled over the side of her hand and down her wrist. “Mmm … thank you,” she said through a spicy mouthful.
“I been watching Vimla for the past hour,” Krishna said to Minty, nodding at Vimla with a roguish smile. “When she
finally notice me, she was giving me a hungry look, so I decide to buy my girl a snack—and one for she co-conspirator, too,” he added. “How I could let two sweet girls starve?”
Minty looked away, embarrassed, but Vimla stared up at Krishna as if he were the only other person in Chance market. Krishna took a step closer to her, so close the faint hairs on his arm grazed her skin. She inhaled the soapy scent of him, trying to extract it from the market smells and hold it in her lungs for as long as possible. Krishna inched nearer still and lowered his voice. “I left something for you with the fig man. Tell him I send you and then get back in the tent—Sangita looking for allyuh.” He gazed over her head while he talked, scanning the road and the produce tent across the street.