Chapter One

Barrackpore, Trinidad, 1958      It was one of those blistering hot days when the midday sun scorched the earth, sending the locals in the small villages into shady places. Clusters of white, magenta and yellow bougainvillea scrambled over the other plants hooking their thorns on the wire fencing. They tumbled over each other forming a colourful wall on one side of the house. This wall of vibrant colours marked the end of the tarmac yard from the rest of the land and the old house. On the other side, red and pink hibiscus formed a thick hedge separating the house from the narrow asphalt road which ran alongside it disappearing round a bend at the top of a hill.      The house was erected on ten foot pillars and the smell of new wood was fragrant. It had two stairways, one went up the front of the house and the other came down the back. It was the biggest house in the area and Rohan’s brothers never understood why he built such a large house. Originally it was square with six square rooms, three on either side separated by a large open living area with big cushions on a rug. This area started from the veranda at the front to the back stairs. A few months later he extended it and built an upstairs kitchen at the back. This house, home, nestling amongst the towering coconut, breadfruit, avocado and other fruit trees was loving and peaceful. Most of downstairs was open, except for three rooms that occupied a third of the space under the right side of the house.      A long mango wood table with two long benches on either side dominated the space under the house. As Gita was a Brahmin, the downstairs front room was used as her prayer room. In it on the floor in the top right corner, she had an altar made of cow dung and mud. It was festooned with flowers and coloured rice with designs made from white flour. On the walls, pictures from calendars of Lords Rama, Shiva, Vishnu, Hanuman and various other religious deities looked back at you. The dirt floor was covered from wall to wall with a large canvas sheet that Gita had sewn together from the sacks of imported Irish potatoes. This prevented the dry dirt turning to sand with constant use and affecting the Indian rugs she had placed upon the canvas. Vibrant bright cushions leaned against the walls for those who wished to pray.      The middle room had two large wooden bunkers for storing husked rice and corn. Also, there was the surplus of dried seasonal vegetables, sweet potatoes, yams, cassava and dried coconuts. These were the basis of their staple diet. After the harvest, the surplus was kept next door in the downstairs kitchen for immediate use, or to give to relatives in exchange for other foodstuffs.      The spacious kitchen was devoid of furniture except for one lonely cupboard fixed to the opposite wall next to the back door. In the centre were stools and a table with a floral Fablon tablecloth. It was the only area that had any colour. Rows of shelves covered the opposite wall and in the cupboard, Gita kept clean crockery and limited kitchen utensils. Against the middle wall were two chulhas, clay fireplaces specifically for cooking, they were moulded on a mud plinth resting on a metalwork top. The chulhas and the whole surface area under the house were swept and coated every week with a thick liquid mixture of water and mud, resulting in a clean smooth finish. Gita placed fresh fruit on the table with vegetables and herbs she gathered that day. The back door of the kitchen led to a small tarmac area with two barrels filled with rainwater. At one corner of this small side yard was a wooden stand with a bucket of water that was used for washing the dishes and cleaning fish. To one corner at the front of the house, two jandie flags on fifteen feet high bamboo poles were planted to mark its blessing. Two small coloured triangular cloths tied in the slits flapped from the top of the poles. At the bottom of the poles, the holy toolsie flower grew randomly, marking the sacred areas.Until that day, everyone was happy, except Rohan who had something on his mind. He was quiet. For days he’d look at Gita as if he had something to say but all he did was look at her, since touching wasn’t the done thing. With it being the height of summer, daylight came early. He was up and dressed before seven.

After breakfast he said to her, “I have something to do. I will come back later.”“You always have something to do... You too busy these days,” she affectionately tells him. She waved at him as he drove away in his sea green Mark I Ford Cortina. It was the end of the sugar cane harvest and the farmers were happy that the government paid a higher price for the cane that year. The workers were happy too, they had a bonus in their pay packet for cutting the cane and transporting it to the weighing in scale before closure of the cane factory. Rohan was in his early forties, a quiet slim man, about five feet ten inches tall. He was a much respected man in the community, not only because he provided work, but also because he was one of the few men who could read and write in English and Hindi. He had four brothers who lived locally and one sister about twenty miles away. His face and hands were well tanned from the constant Trinidadian sun otherwise he was very fair skinned, which was a rarity. If you had fair skin you were known as someone with high colour, and this gave you an advantage over other darker skinned people. He inherited his fair complexion from his grandfather who was born in the Himalayas and a Burmese grand mother. They were the first set of Indians who were taken to the Caribbean as indentured workers soon after the abolition of the slave trade. Gita in her late thirties and was a few shades darker than Rohan, about five and a half feet tall and also very slim, attractive, graceful. She was a descendant from a long line of Brahmins who also went to Trinidad as workers. Her father was a respected pundit who was held in high esteem in another community in the South of the country. Rohan was five years older than Gita. She married him when she was thirteen, as was customary then and went on to have five children. Sadly for Gita, by the time she was eighteen, she lost both parents from tuberculosis. Gita’s two oldest daughters, Rosie and Roslyn, and son Ramesh, were now in their twenties. Her daughters were married and had moved to other parts of the island with their husband’s families. Ramesh had moved into the old house with his wife, Indira. It was evident later, as time would tell, why there was a fourteen year gap between Ramesh and Veeda. With this age gap, it was like having two separate families with different values. After Rohan left that morning, Gita paid the workers and set about tidying up the place in preparation to celebrate the end of a profitable harvest. George was then five and Veeda was seven. His elasticated shorts were made from the same fabric as Veeda’s shift dress. The two of them sat halfway up the front stairs eating chow that Gita had lovingly prepared for them as a reward for helping her sweep the yard. In his white enamel bowl with a blue rim was cucumber with salt and red bird peppers and she had half ripe mango with salt and yellow Congo peppers. The heat of the chillies made their noses run, but they sat there and ate watching the hummingbirds darting their long beaks in and out of the hibiscus flowers, sucking up the nectar. A flock of noisy kiskadees descended on the barahar tree to peck at the soft ripening orange coloured fruit. From the kitchen, the aroma of caramelised chicken wafted in the gentle breeze telling them their lunch was nearly ready. George and Veeda liked to perch on that spot on the stairs as they could see over the hibiscus fence at any activity on the road and over the bougainvillea wall, into Ramesh’s garden. Gita sat on one of the wooden stools at the kitchen table happily preparing a salad when she heard a car turn into their yard. It was a sky blue Holden, brand new, with white and black striped leather bench seats, black top and shiny chrome bumpers and side strips. As it approached the house, George and Veeda stared at it in awe. They’d never seen anything like it. Their uncle Sankar was a taxi driver with lots of cars, but none like this. They’d had trucks, Massey Fergusson tractors, Ford Prefects, Ford Consuls, but nothing as nice and shiny as this. Next to Rohan was a woman, behind her, was a girl about ten years old. Seeing Rohan getting out of the car, George chucked his empty bowl on Veeda’s lap and ran into his father’s open arms. “Is this for us Papa? Is this for us?” he shouted. Veeda held back, watching the woman getting out slowly holding on to her belly. She was heavily pregnant, and about three times the size of their mother. Something was wrong. All Veeda thought was that this woman was fair skinned like her Papa, and walked oddly because she was pregnant. The hem of her dress at the front was above her knees and the back was halfway down her calf. Unlike Gita, who tied her hair with an orhani as a mark of respect, and had red saindur at the

start of her middle parting, this woman had her head uncovered and her brown crinkly hair tied with an elastic band at the nape of her neck. The girl got out as if she was doing something that wasn’t quite right. As they came under the house, Rohan said, “Veeda, this is your sister, Cyntra, and your stepmother, Marisa.” Cyntra was taller and fatter than Veeda. She wore a floral summer dress, pleated at the waist. It was new and it was the type of dress you’d wear on a special occasion, like going to a wedding or to church on Sundays.Veeda was about to run up the stairs when her mother shouted, “Veeda, George, come away from them.” Veeda ran off to her mother in tears, and George wriggled out of Rohan’s arms and followed her. Gita was stunned, the look of disappointment on her face said so and that her pain was unbearable. She didn’t know what hit her. For her that morning, Rohan left home as her husband, and came back as some one else’s. In the kitchen, George and Veeda half perched on one stool, clung to each other for comfort, as they watched their mother break off bite sized pieces of water cress and chuck it in the wooden salad bowl. Rohan came and stood behind them. They knew he was there, but were too scared to look round. “She’s going to live here now, “he said, “she’ll have the other half of the house.” Gita’s mind was a heaving melange of confusion, rage, disappointment, deception, betrayal and above all utter humiliation.  As his words faded, her head reeled, bile refluxed in her throat as she made a dash through the back door to the yard throwing up as she went. He followed her and was about to put his hand on her back when she turned round and pushed him hard saying something in Hindi, then went back to her throwing up. He watched her for a while until she stopped, then he replied in Hindi. Not sure what they said to each other, George and Veeda stared at them in disbelief. “Never, you have contaminated everything that is pure and sacred,” she said, as she went back into the kitchen, and he went back to his new family.