Valmiki's Daughter (40 page)

The man, encouraged now, leaned into the wire fence
and called directly to her, “Vik, Aloo Pie! Smile, na. Why you so
serious?”

The two coaches and the volleyball referee convened and spoke briefly. The
opposing team's coach stepped away and ambled close to his side's end line.
The referee returned his attention to the game. Viveka's coach, arms still folded
high, walked toward the man by the fence. His pace was hesitant, his eyes soft yet fixed
on the man.

The man was undeterred and continued, “What a Indian girl like you
doing playing in the park? Your dad and your mom know you here?”

Viveka was close to shouting at him to mind his own business. She weighed
which was more prudent: standing up to him or ignoring him. Fortunately, the women on
both teams, hearing the name-calling as a slur, had their limits too — they sucked
their teeth loudly, over and over, in a show of heightened, united irritation, and in an
instant they switched their minds right back to their game, shutting the fellow out.
Viveka rejoined the competition, but less fervently. Her back tingled. It felt
naked.

The man bounced off the fence laughing and broke into play with his group
again.

It was they, those same basketball skylarkers, who eventually alerted
Viveka that there was a new presence in the stands. Suddenly and noticeably quiet, they
had stopped shooting hoops and were staring into the stands. There Anick was, seated and
looking straight out at the volleyball court. The men were talking quietly among
themselves. Viveka heard one of them say to another, “Boy, leave the woman alone,
na. You don't have wife and child enough to mind? You shooting with us or what? If
you leave, don't come back, and by that I mean don't even come back
tomorrow.”

A hot and thudding flush of mingled relief and
happiness coursed through Viveka. She felt invincible and grinned wide like a grouper to
realize that, even so, she felt like herself, not like Vince her imagined boy, and that
she hadn't felt like him in a good while now — and she suddenly charged,
heading harder and faster than was necessary for a play that was not hers to take. She
collided with her partner, to whom that ball ought to have belonged. Neither of them
made contact with the ball and both fell to the ground hard. Viveka jumped up and hugged
her mate in excited apology. They resumed play and Viveka thought how odd, how great, to
feel on the court like that boy she used to be, and who had slipped out of life so
quietly. What a wonderful thing the mind was. She was elated. Feigning deep
concentration now, it was several minutes before Viveka looked across to the stands,
casually, and when she did, she behaved as if she had only that very moment realized her
friend was there. She waved. Anick reservedly wagged in front of her a tightly rolled-up
magazine. One of the basketball players had spotted this exchange and waved back to
Anick, and then he, too, burst into a flurry of hard competitive play.

Viveka took on a slight limp, rubbing her right knee, and asked to be
substituted. To her embarrassment the coach made a greater fuss of her knee than was
necessary. Since it was near the end of the game, she asked to sit it out in the stands.
Carrying her water bottle and unnoticed by the basketball players she limped onward, her
gait that of a wounded but proud and decorated warrior. When she reached the bleachers
she did not turn to see if her coach was watching; she bounded up the four tiers like a
white-tail doe to Anick's row. Anick stood to greet her with their usual hug, but
Viveka, breathless and grinning, put her hand quickly on one of Anick's shoulders,
pressing her back
into her seat. Viveka leaned in and over the
drumming whispered, “Not here.”

She set the water bottle between her and Anick and sat down, aware that
Anick's presence had, as usual, caused a small excitement in the stands. She hoped
the novelty would wear off fast.

It was unusual for a white person, let alone a woman — foreign or
local — to come to the park, whether it was to play on a court or to sit in the
stands. And this particular white woman, wearing large European-style sun glasses
— there was not another person in the stands wearing sunglasses — drew
attention, as she always did. Just the way she walked, the authority with which she held
the ground beneath her feet, as if she had the idea that she could have almost any thing
she wanted simply by wanting it — just the way she casually ignored every eye on
her — from all this, onlookers knew she wasn't from this place. Viveka was
easily captivated by this look of Anick's, but was shy of it too. She didn't
want to be like all the other people Anick had told her about, liking her for her looks.
And while it was quite a thrill to be the one Anick had come to watch, Viveka was
uncomfortable sitting next to her. She felt exposed. Taking advantage of the loudness of
the drumming on the far side of the stands, she and Anick spoke frankly to one another,
Anick in her native French, Viveka in a version of it that would make sense only to
someone set on understanding.

Anick pouted. “What do you think I will do? Can't I give you a
hug? People hug in this country. I know this.”

“Yes, yes. I know. I'm really glad to see you — you
can't imagine.” Viveka's tone was pleading. “It's just odd
here.” Then she brightened, “Besides, I am disgusting. I am completely
drenched in sweat.”

“That doesn't matter to me, you know that.”

“But it has to matter, Anick. Just trust me. My
God, it's way too hot for humans, don't you think? Hey, I thought
you'd never arrive. Ca va?”

“The driver came for me late. Sorry. Is better than nothing,
no?”

Viveka leaned forward to glimpse Anick's feet. Anick wore open-toe
sandals with little heels on them, and her nails were painted a bright red shade. Viveka
looked back up and fixed her eyes on her team directly ahead, but out of the corner of
her eye she was concentrating on her own left foot and Anick's right. Centimetre
by centimetre she swung the tip of her sneaker toward Anick's sandal-clad right
foot. When the edge of her shoe met the hard leather of Anick's sandal she exerted
enough force to move Anick's foot a fraction. Anick stiffened her leg and slid her
foot closer, so that the area from her ankle down the edge of her foot pressed against
Viveka's. Viveka's eyes were riveted now on the court. The light in the sky
seemed to dim, the drumming was silenced by a louder reverberation throughout her body.
She stared ahead, grinning.

There came quickly, however, the familiar moment when each other's
company was not enough. What kind of conversation does one have, Viveka mused, what kind
of communication, when time is limited and the exact moment of its ending is unknown,
yet forever imminent? Viveka decided to bring that moment into focus. “Nayan,
sait-il ou tu est?”

“No. He thinks I went to the grocery, so I can't stay very
long.” With that, Viveka switched to English. “Christ. We're both
going to get into so much trouble.” She laughed nervously.

“Let's go away, Vik. Let's leave this place.”

Over the past couple of weeks, every conversation between them had
deteriorated faster than the last into recognition of
the
difficulty of this love between them and the need, growing ever more urgent daily, to do
something about it. Anick had spoken again and again of wanting to return, with Viveka,
to Canada — either to Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver — where there were
thriving communities of people like the two of them. There, she said, they could
disappear if they wanted to, and reinvent themselves. But it never seemed to Viveka as
easy to deal with as it did to Anick.

“How far is away, Anick? We'll never get far enough away. You
know Nayan will find you wherever you go, easily, and even if I leave this place my own
parents will still suffer publicly and privately because of what I am. Going away
won't solve a thing for us.”

“But you're not yourself in this place. You're so
jumpy.”

“You've never seen me anywhere else! Why do you think
I'm not myself here?”

“I know what you're like when you're alone with
me.”

The conversation was interrupted by someone higher up in the stands,
calling out Viveka's name. Anick and Viveka both turned, Viveka's heart
suddenly racing. Then relief flooded her. It was only Wayne's cousin, Trevor. She
wondered how long he had been up there.

“It's that guy. Trevor. Remember I told you about him?
Helen's boyfriend's cousin?”

Anick huffed. “The one you said is interested in you.”

Helen had told Viveka that Trevor was asking after her, and Viveka had
twisted this information into a white lie for Anick's benefit, a lie meant only to
provoke the delight of a little jealousy. She had said it to Anick in a moment when she
had felt a little ungainly, a moment when the boy who would usually rear up so
handsomely out of her felt weak and not forthcoming.

“Oh, come on. I don't think he is
really
interested. In any case, if that were so, he would be
so
barking up the wrong tree! I am already taken, aren't I?” Viveka was
grinning.

Anick was not. “He flatter you and you like it.”

“Shh, Anick. Don't make a scene. This is
uncomfortable.”

“Don't make a scene? So that's it, I guess. Our visit is
over, then?”

Viveka was as disappointed as Anick by this turn of events, but her
disappointment was eclipsed by the more dire realization that, unknown to them, Trevor
had likely been watching them for as long as they had been together. She quickly scanned
her memory of the past five minutes, which seemed now interminably long, wondering if
there had been any incriminating interaction between her and Anick. Anick arched her
back and pulled her bony shoulders in, as if folding herself in two lengthwise. She
clutched in both hands the tube she had made out of the magazine. Her knuckles protruded
hard and had lost colour.

Viveka stood up to distance herself from Anick, and waved Trevor down
toward them. Anick stood, too. She faced Viveka squarely, jabbed the magazine into
Viveka's chest and blurted, “Did you know he was going to be
here?”

Viveka took a small step backwards. It was in moments like these that she
wished she could speak French flawlessly. And it was in these moments, too, that she
wouldn't dare try. Her body ignited with the feeling that she had been sorely
misunderstood. Anick's accusation caused her to feel a physical, piercing
sensation of injustice. She managed to say calmly, honestly, that she had had no idea
Trevor would be here.

Anick lost her composure. “You are going to go out with him. You
will go for drinks with him soon. I just know it. Mais, pour-quoi pas? C'est
facile, ca, eh?”

“Stop, Anick, stop. Don't do this. I
spent the whole time on the court waiting, looking for you.”

“
You
are worried about how much trouble we are going to get
into. I don't care, Vik. Don't you understand? I don't give a shit
— I don't give a lonely little piece of shit. I just want . . .” She
stared into Viveka's eyes as if she were boring the end of that sentence into
Viveka's brain. Then her shoulders slumped and she looked utterly dejected.

Viveka felt as if her insides were collapsing.
A lonely little piece
of shit.
How like Anick to mix up her words when she was distraught. Yet in
mixing them up, she expressed so much. Viveka pulled her lower lip into her mouth and
locked it tight between her teeth. Her entire body, every place that Anick had ever
touched, was aching to hold Anick down, or tight, or just hold on to her. But
Viveka's mind steeled itself. There mustn't be a scene. Not ever, and
especially not now.

Just before Trevor reached them, Anick uttered in exasperation, “My
God, Viveka, you can be so fucking cold.”

Viveka had never heard Anick use this expletive before, and again she felt
a searing sensation deep inside. Anick sidestepped Viveka and quickly edged her way out
of the row of seats. She vaulted down the last few tiers of bleachers. Perhaps she heard
Trevor's voice rise over the competing noise of the drummers: “Well, yes.
Hello, there. I was looking forward to . . . oh, who am I kidding — I was praying,
I'll admit it, that I'd see you this evening. So, did I chase away your
friend?”

As she and Trevor chatted for some long minutes, Viveka tried not to show
her heartache. She noted, with only a little pleasure, that Trevor remained focused on
her and showed no interest in her beautiful friend.

THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY
MORNING, VIVEKA WOKE LATE. SHE WAS
alone at home. There was an oddly
amicable note on the table from her mother.

“We went to the Mall. There is roti and pumpkin in the oven. Heat it
up. We'll be back before lunch — about two-ish. Enjoy. Mum.”

Viveka frowned. Whatever had overcome her mother? Why would she tell
Viveka to heat up her food as if she were an imbecile?

She sat in front of the television with her plate of lukewarm roti and
pumpkin, wondering what Nayan was doing at that moment, and if Anick would be able to
telephone her. The phone rang, and having just had that thought, she knew in her heart
that the universe was on her side. She plopped her plate down and raced to answer
it.

But it was Trevor. He wasted no time. “I have a proposal. I was
hoping that you might give me a tour of the town this evening. How about dinner first,
and a drive later?”

When Viveka hesitated, Trevor added, “I called earlier for you. Your
father answered, and since you weren't able to come to the phone, I decided to ask
him if I might take you out.”