The Worlds Within Her (30 page)

OUR DEPARTURE FROM
England was rather precipitate. One day my husband called me with the news that we had to return home. Within a week we were gone. We had expected to be there for another year or two. There was so much we hadn't done or seen. But it couldn't be helped. His political enemies, you see, had found a way of getting at him even there, thousands of miles away from our island.

Perhaps it was my displeasure at being forced to leave a land to which I was finding myself more and more attached — precisely, I think, because of its strangeness, because of my lack of natural attachment to it. Nothing was expected of me, you see, and so I could make it all up as I went along. I suppose it was inevitable, wasn't it — that I would fall in love with a land that gave me such freedom. So you see, my dear, that it was England was immaterial. I might have developed a similar passion for France or Spain or Italy. But the passion was there, and it led to a displeasure which — at least at first — caused me to lay the blame squarely at my husband's door.

It all began with a cable — a simple, silly cable of greetings to his people back home. A political anniversary of some sort. But that cable, which was of course made public, reminded his political enemies about him. And it gave them an opening. Once they had that opening, that point of vulnerability — well, my husband in their position would have done the same. He too would have found a way to profit from the situation.

First came the accusations of betrayal. As a member of our delegation in London, he was expected to represent all our people and not just his people. This cable of fraternal greetings — Just what was his game? his enemies asked.

Then came the more serious allegations. I have never fully understood what happened. My husband, as I've said, did not share the details of his work with me — but there were accusations of bribery. Evil tongues wagged that he had received payoffs from certain British sugar interests — a way of ensuring continued special access to the plantations after independence. Now my dear, my husband was many things, not all of them laudable, but he was not a thief. I did not for a minute believe these accusations, but the truth was immaterial. He could never completely clear his name — all politicians were assumed to be corrupt, you see — but that would not be a hindrance. What mattered was that he return to the island and take up the cudgels. As my husband well knew, ours was a world in which courage was valued over probity.

He never found out who was the source of the accusations. It was always
They say
or
I hear
or
Apparently.
But my husband suspected someone on the British side of the independence negotiations. It's all rather Byzantine, but my husband believed that the British and his political enemies back home stood to gain by ensuring he had no political career to return to in the
island — so they had conspired to smear him. Nothing from his enemies back home could surprise him, but the British! He had expected better. And yet there was an entire history too, full of ugliness. So the abstract encountered the personal, and this was the beginning of his hatred for the British — a hatred, it must be said, he would cultivate. It was too politically useful to pass up, you see. An easy way to whip up the troops, if you see what I mean. But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?

I recall a particularly bitter tirade one evening, once he appreciated how well the net of rumours had been woven. England! he said. What a country! Their children roast cats alive for pleasure, you know — part of their brutish side. They've lived for so long pretending to be refined and mannered, but they can't prevent the primitive from breaking through the masquerade from time to time. That's when you see what they're really like. English reserve? Afternoon tea? Theatre, my dear! Masquerade! And he added in our island dialect, Ol' Mas! Not'ing more than Ol' Mas to muffle the anguish of the sizzling cat. But at times like this the agonized meows intrude upon the discreet clink of cups on saucers.

And when I pointed out, my dear Mrs. Livingston, that they were giving us our independence, he said, Independence? That's just their way of getting rid of us, don't you see?

Then he calmed down, sat alone in the darkness, and began to think.

He was a clever man, my husband, and had the luck to have enemies who constantly underestimated him. Within a day of our return to the island, he had turned things around …

My …

Is it me, my dear, or has it grown hot in here? I'm parched, and even a little light-headed. I think I should fetch myself a sip
of water. Perhaps take a little toodle around the block. Yes, a walk. Just the thing.

Never you fear, my dear. I shall return.

WHEN SHE FOUND
herself offended by others' condescension to her gender, her race, or her background, her mother would say, “It's the garlic soup incident all over again.” And she would tell the story that Yasmin had heard so often she could summon it only in her mother's voice.

“She asked me, you see, what my favourite food was — as people tend to do when you first meet. Where are you from? What do you do? What movies do you like? Oh, she was genuinely interested, as they usually are, wanting you to feel welcome and comfortable and all the rest. She had a big smile — American teeth: you know, large and white and shield-like, filling the mouth to overflowing. And she had that way people have of leaning toward you when they want to make sure you notice their interest — the kind of interest that seems to be begging for your blessing. It makes you uneasy and unforgiving.

“In any case, I explained that I was quite partial to garlic soup. Oh, the smile wavered slightly, this was a touch too exotic for the lady, but I explained — you know, a cold soup, with garlic and ground almonds, quite delicious. She thought about this for a moment, nodding, her eyes glazing distantly. Then a sparkle appeared in them, and she leaned in closer. ‘And is there,' she said, ‘curry in the soup?'

“I paused briefly, to deal with my surprise. Then I said, sharply, I'm afraid, ‘It's a
Spanish
soup.' Only with difficulty did I refrain from adding ‘you twit.' Sincerity is no excuse for stupidity, I'm afraid.

“It's a pressure they put on you, you see — to recognize how open and accepting they are. They mean well, of course, but what really matters to them is what you think of them, and they have no idea how blinded they are by their good intentions. They don't see they are melting you down into stereotype. She didn't know what to make of me, this lady, and she couldn't handle me on my own terms, so we managed to lose each other rather quickly after that.”

PHOTO: SHAKTI AND VERNON SIDE BY SIDE ON AN AIRPORT TARMAC, BEHIND THEM AN AIRCRAFT MARKED “BOAC.” THEY STAND TOGETHER, YET THERE IS NO CLOSENESS BETWEEN THEM. SHAKTI'S ARMS ARE FOLDED. VERNON'S LEFT HAND HOLDS HIS HAT BY THE BRIM, HIS RIGHT GRASPS THE HANDLE OF A BRIEFCASE. THEY HAVE BOTH LOST WEIGHT, LOOK FIT AND RELAXED. SHAKTI WEARS AN INDIAN VEIL — AN OHRNI, PENNY SAYS — AND A FORM-FITTING DRESS AND PUMPS: A BLEND OF TRADITIONAL MODESTY AND MODERN DARING. VERNON WEARS A LIGHTWEIGHT SUIT, THE JACKET UNBUTTONED, AND — A BRIEF AFFECTATION THIS, CYRIL SAYS — A BOW TIE. HIS SMILE IS GENUINE; IT PROCEEDS FROM THE EYES. TO HERS, THOUGH, THERE IS MORE OF A SQUINT; IT IS AT
LEAST PARTIALLY SUMMONED. HE APPEARS HAPPY, SHE, FATIGUED.

Penny clicks her tongue. “Shakti wasn' happy that day. The day they came back home. I can't say I was surprise. She never wrote. At leas' Vernon sent a little note now and then. They didn' live away all that long but, you know, by the time they got back Shakti was a'ready like a little Englishwoman.”

Yasmin asks what she means.

She considers for a moment. “Airs,” she says. “Full o' airs.” She sits back in satisfaction, as if the answer contains a self-evident explanation. Then she says, “As for Vernon, what you must never forget is that he was sincere. Politics wasn' a game for him. It wasn' a end in itself. His goals were high — and because they were high he didn't mind sacrificing himself.”

Had she heard this from a politician, Yasmin would have thought it self-serving. Hearing it from Penny, she does not know what to think, feels trapped between what she knows to be usually true and what she wishes to be true.

Cyril says, with a laugh, “You know, funny thing. He liked rhetorical questions. To make people think, nuh. And he'd get vicious if anybody tried to answer. At the end of every meeting he'd ask, ‘Any questions?' but before anybody could say anything he was up an' out. ‘Any questions?' for him, that was a rhetorical question, too. He jus' expected everybody to understan'.”

Yasmin constructs a smile. She knows this trait, knows it in Jim, knows it in herself — and she also knows there is nothing amusing about it.

When Penny says this was a sign of his magnanimity — that he held everyone to be his intellectual equal — Yasmin wonders how it is that she has managed through the years to retain such
a level of naïveté. Or is it, she wonders, of more recent vintage? Is she hearing from Penny the betrayal of the years, the gilding of memories that would make them precious — the past, then, turning brittle and untrustworthy.

YOU MUST FORGIVE
me, my dear. It must be the dryness of the air in here, I simply couldn't bring myself to return yesterday. They recirculate the air, don't they? They must, with windows that cannot open. The air feels too artificial. However, here I am. I slept well, and now feel refreshed and fit as a fiddle — an expression that makes sense only because of alliteration.

I have spent the morning thinking about my husband. Remembering. He towered beside me, you know, have I mentioned that? It was not so much that he was a tall man as that I was — am — the height that you see. Short enough, as Celia used to tease me, to seek shelter under a mushroom.

And he had this peculiarity — have I mentioned it? — of putting his hand on my shoulder. It was a small gesture, unremarkable, but it was his way of showing me affection, particularly when we were in public. He never hugged me or put his arm around my shoulders — he wasn't that kind of man — but when we were outside, on the way to a function perhaps, or during our walks in England — when he wasn't performing, you see — he liked to rest his right palm on my left shoulder. Always that palm, always that shoulder. As if I were a kind of support.

I loved that gesture, you know. It let me know he knew I
was there. And there are still moments today — unexpected moments — when I seem to feel the press and warmth of his hand, a kind of phantom touch …

What do you suppose that means, my dear?