The Doctor and the Diva (65 page)

A huge trunk lay like a fallen bridge across the water. As the canoe neared it, Munga took the paddle from Ravell and pushed against the great log for leverage, and they got past.

Erika turned completely around to look backward, wondering if they had overlooked any human shapes in the dark depths behind them.

Noises. The screams of birds. Erika rose unsteadily to her feet, the better to survey the islands and bends. The water seeped endlessly between trees, overtaking the land. Erika called to her son, and to Uma’s four-year-old boy:

“QUENTIN! AJEET!”

Ravell lifted the oars from the water and they all listened in vain for a small voice to respond. They heard nothing, only the soft splashes as Ravell resumed rowing. In long, searching syllables, Erika wailed to the children again:

“QUENNNNTIN! AAAAAJEEEET!”

Only her sorrowful voice echoed back. The men let her emit the mournful syllables. She cried out the boys’ names until her voice broke like a snapped string. The dugout swayed, and the men warned her to sit. As she collapsed back down, her hip bones fell hard on the plank seat.

When their canoe rounded the next bend, the lagoon widened and spread like a lake before them. They saw an empty rowboat surrounded by blooms of color, banners of saffron, celadon, magenta, royal purples, and blues.

“Saris—!” Erika said in disbelief.

Uma had flung her saris from the boat—every one of them, it would appear. Erika suspected that Ravell had bought the poor girl many of these saris as gifts. Some dangled from trees. Most drifted in the water, the fabrics crisscrossed in places, stripes of red over gold.

They wanted to gasp—it was almost beautiful, until they noticed Uma floating facedown, her garments swelling to the surface like a balloon. Uma’s hair was undone, trailing as dark as the depths of the lagoon.

The laborers carried two more old rowboats that had been stored in a shed down to the lagoon. They searched all afternoon, but located no more bodies.

The two children had hidden. It was growing dark and they were lost in the forest. Earlier, just after Quentin had fallen into the water, he’d risen to the surface and clung to the side of the capsized dugout. “Hold on to my shirt!” he’d yelled to Ajeet. “Hold on!”

While Quentin kicked and pushed the canoe toward the muddy bank, Ajeet had clutched his shirt so tightly that Quentin’s vision dimmed and he felt his face reddening, because the younger boy was nearly choking him.

When the boat finally rubbed against the shallow bottom of the lagoon, Quentin struggled to his feet, carrying the terrible weight of Ajeet piggyback. They wobbled, lunging in the muck. With every step, Quentin’s soaked shoes sucked mud. The moment they reached land, he let the younger boy slide from his shoulders, relieved to drop Ajeet on the ground. The younger boy sat in the dirt, sobbing.
He’s crying, but he’s alive,
Quentin thought.

At first he believed that they were safe. Then he heard a woman’s strange, raging sounds not far away, and great splashing as things were being hurled into water. Finally, from an unseen place in the lagoon, a great swash echoed, as if a huge fish, or a manatee maybe, had fallen into the depths.

It was Uma he heard, and he knew they must hide from her. Ajeet sprang up, muddy-kneed, and raced through the trees with him. For a long time they knew she could be close. Twigs crackled and broke behind them—it sounded like footsteps. From behind every creeper-laden tree, it was possible that Uma, swaddled in her sari, would appear.

By late afternoon they were completely lost. At the edge of the forest, they wandered into a clearing. A worker saw them and dragged them homeward, pulling them by the wrists. Both boys were crying. The man spoke Hindi, and Quentin felt helpless, trying to explain why Ajeet must not go back to his mother’s house in the village.

Only when they saw Erika hurrying and stumbling in their direction did the boys cease resisting. They reached out their arms, and ran toward her.

The boys were given supper and baths, and Erika and Ravell helped them into their pajamas. That night Ajeet would sleep in the attic room, in the big bed with Quentin.

In the tub Quentin recounted every detail of his bravery. How he’d fallen into the lagoon . . . how he’d grabbed on to the overturned canoe, how he’d ordered Ajeet to hang on to his shirt . . .

Erika took Quentin to her room while Ravell spent time alone with Ajeet. She rubbed Quentin’s damp hair with a thick towel; she brought a dish of peppermints for him to eat.

When she told him what had happened to Uma, Quentin asked worriedly: “Who will raise Ajeet? Who will look after him now?”

“Doctor Ravell is Ajeet’s father,” Erika told Quentin quietly. “Doctor Ravell will take very good care of him.”

“A
doctor takes an oath to do everything in his power not to do harm,” Ravell said. “Now a woman has ended her life because of me.”

Seated on the bed, he took hold of his head, with shreds of his dark hair caught between his fingers. Against his white shirt, his black vest looked as if it were binding him.

Erika’s mouth filled with liquid. More than her eyes, it was her mouth that was running with grief. She swallowed, and wiped her nose with the end of the bedsheet.

“I should have sent Uma away on the day you arrived,” Ravell said.

“She wouldn’t have survived being banished.”

“At least I might have protected the children from her.” He got up from the bed and pushed aside the long drapes, letting moonlight burn through. “I’ve fathered four children,” he said suddenly.

Erika realized he was including their stillborn daughter in the count.

“Four children,” he said. “And I haven’t been a true father to any of them.”

Ravell tiptoed to the attic to check again on the boys. When he returned, he beckoned Erika upstairs to look at them. Side by side, the boys were asleep. Quentin had fitted his arm under Ajeet’s neck, and their foreheads were nearly touching, as if they were accustomed to lying there as brothers.

But later, a cry of distress tore into everyone’s sleep. Ravell ran up the attic stairs, and Erika rushed after him, clutching the sides of her nightgown.

Quentin stood on the mattress, doing a short mad dance in his pajamas. “Help me!” he cried out in terror. “Somebody help me!”

Erika caught Quentin by the arms and tried to calm him, but she was unable at first to rouse her son from his nightmare. In his blind dance, he batted the air with his arms and turned in a circle. Slowly she eased him down onto the mattress and rubbed his back with long, soothing strokes. Ajeet was also whimpering in the dark, and Ravell knelt to quiet the younger boy.

Later, in their own bed, Ravell said to Erika: “I can’t stop thinking of Peter, and what he must be going through. Tomorrow I’ll write to him. We must give Quentin back to Peter.”

Ravell liked to give others what they wanted; he tried to say yes as often as he could. In Trinidad, cremation had been declared unlawful, but here at the Cocal, miles from anywhere, Ravell decided to let the villagers do what they considered holy.

Surely this was what Uma would have wanted. A Hindu priest had explained to him how Uma’s soul and the baby’s soul had flown away, suggesting that the most sacred thing to do would be to destroy their bodies. The blessed thing, the Hindus felt, was to make bodies disappear.

So one morning Ravell dressed in white like all the rest, and went to join them at the place where they’d stacked the wood. The villagers stood ready to pour sugar and ghee—a type of liquefied butter—under the bodies to help them burn.

On the day they cremated Uma and her baby, Erika walked for miles along the beach. Though Ravell attended the ceremony, she stayed away. If she appeared, the villagers might close their eyes in prayer, but in their hearts, she knew they blamed her.

Her nostrils caught the smell of what was happening. No matter how far she walked, the wind brought the odor her way. She wondered if they had dried out Uma’s saris and thrown them on the pyre, too. By noon, the sky and air held fingerprints of hazy smoke that drifted over the sun. In the air she detected ash and burning colors—vermilion, marigold.