< Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >
Locket # 31:
Friends since secondary school, Rishi and me. He was good at passing exams.
He studied in England, and now he lives and works in Canal District. I won’t
mention his profession, and I won’t use his real name. He has enough problems
of his own; he doesn’t need people finding out more only to harass him.
Few people really understand the man.
Rishi likes fine living. He likes driving a car that purrs along on a smooth road
surface; and dressing for dinner in a fine restaurant. These tastes he might
have acquired in England.
I use to tell him, if that was what matters he shouldn’t have come home. That
style of life was impossible in the city, much less Canal District.
He came back and he married Kavita who must have been the loveliest girl in
Canal District at the time. Beauty Queen contestant lovely. About 5ft-6, a shy
homemaking person, you might think at first. It’s harder now to grasp what
else about her he appreciated.
On occasion, like for birthdays or anniversaries, they came to Georgetown,
and doubled up with me and my wife. We dined at a restaurant in town. It
It gave us a chance to observe Rishi (the man in charge, expert in the finer
things) and Kavi (her eyes and smile like diamond earrings) as a couple.
There’s not a wide choice of fine restaurants. I used to drive past this one
place never thinking I might want to dine there. It had a nice paved entrance.
I heard the prime minister dropped in sometimes and I told Rishi, thinking he
would be impressed.
First time we went, he found fault with everything. The spacing of tables,
how the lighting too bright; the waiters were efficient, but didn’t know to
respond to nods and signals. The other diners were mannerly at first, until the
first burst of loud laughing. We discouraged our wives from looking round and
asking, Who’s that?
We followed Rishi; we didn’t order large portions. My wife seemed to enjoy
spooning her dessert. Nearly embarrass me one time by declaring as we
stepped back outside, “We should do this every weekend.”
+
The last time, while our wives leaned heads and whispered, Rishi told me
about this roommate from Hong Kong he shared an apartment with when he
was in England. The man was a book beater. Monday to Friday, nothing
mattered but his books, the reading lamp, head bowed, scribbling notes.
But on Saturday night he ordered in two English prostitutes. Paid them for four
hours “work”. Had a friend come over with beer. They watched videos on the
television, and went off to the bedroom for intermissions of sex.
They asked Rishi if he wanted “a piece of the action”. He would have had to
chip in. At that time he couldn’t afford to chip in.
He arranged to be out on Saturday nights. He said when he returned the house
was spic and span quiet, as if nothing had happened the night before.
“I had to admire these fellows. The discipline. How they organize the 24 hr
day, the 7 day week. Knowing what's important for the long haul,” he said.
We returned to our wives who asked, What you all talking about? We offered
them the smiles of gentlemen, whose conversation, trailing off, was about
the likelihood of some bony face bandit sticking a gun in your face; the dog
and dog food raggedyness everywhere.
With friends like Rishi sometimes you never sure where you stand. They go
away, they come back; they seem to want friendship to pick up from where
they left it off.
I must admit, years of living here has left me a little envious of fellows like
Rishi. I know, I have to stop this comparing.
+
We were at the cricket stadium one day. Big Test match. In the main pavilion
alongside people with important day jobs, men with titles and impoverised
political beliefs. Even a visiting rock musician from England was expected to
show his face.
I am not a huge cricket fan, but I pulled strings to get tickets. Rishi was not
a huge cricket fan either, but this was an occasion he wouldn’t pass up.
People must have heard about his professional work in Canal District. He was
wondering how Georgetown respectables would greet a respectable member
of Canal District.
So we’re there in our seats, looking out on the grounds, Rishi not yet
recognized. He gets up, says he's off to get something to drink. Acting like he
knows his way around.
When he came back I sensed a problem.
What happened to the drinks? “They not serving anything I like.” He was grim
faced. He checked his watch often. He took little interest in the eruption of
cheers or groans around the ground.
He leaned to me; he said, “There’s a man in this pavilion who is fucking my
wife?” I asked him to repeat that. It sounded ridiculous, out of the blue
ridiculous.
He was standing at the bar, he said, when a fellow looked at him, looked
away; then started talking loud enough for Rishi to hear ‒ how he know this
woman from Canal District; how when she came to Georgetown they got
intimate; she would grip him and scream and cry.
How could he be sure it was Kavi? Because of certain things the man said.
Details only her husband would know. “Besides, in the bedroom Kavi doesn’t
scream. Muffled sounds, but she don’t scream.”
He was staring with sullen disinterest at the playing field.
I’d never seen him in this state. And so absolutely certain, that was the part
that worried me. So some International Test cricket fan had found access
‒ was given access? ‒ to Kavi’s lips, her breast, her cave for “grip and scream”.
Rishi didn’t know anything for a fact, but he was absolutely sure. I couldn't
risk asking even one harmless question. Like who was this fellow doing the
talking? what did he look like?
It was an awkward moment, and I began to feel partly responsible. All this
only happened because I had secured the tickets. I was only trying to impress
him I had “connections” in the city. The man was managing his life just fine,
and now look what happen.
We left the cricket ground before play stopped for the day. Suspicion and
anger, not there when we arrived, like terriers in his head.
+
Months went by. Not a word from him.
My wife got a phone call one Sunday morning, we were still in bed. She kept
breaking off to relay bits of the conversation, then continuing, O my God.
Kavi gone back to her mother. Took her child.
I sat up. I checked the hour. Sunday morning lust suspended; shock and sadness
taking over the mattress, the pillows, twisting the sheets under her legs.
Rishi beat Kavi real bad; face all puff up, real bad. Her parents threatening to
go to the police, but Kavi telling them she didn’t want to bring Canal District
police into their family business.
Did Rishi use his bare hands? I wondered. He wouldn’t risk injury to his hands.
My wife was leaning on her elbow, holding the sheet over her breasts, her eyes
enlarged and flashing disbelief. I was supposed to respond to her eyes. Like I
was an accomplice or something.
“But why he do that to her?” she asked. I shook my head. Sounds terrible.
“Wait, that’s all you have to say? Sounds terrible?”
I wanted to shout back, Don’t start with me now. And ask back if she knew
anything, like Kavi making private trips to Georgetown. Knew something but
but kept quiet all this time.
Some people here seize on situations like this to bring up their own problems.
I’m telling you. One thing lead to the next and before you know it, the room
burst into flames. You hear yourself accusing certain people of having no
conversation worth coming home for. No conversation. Just the same waist
fattening, house budgeting, family inviting over and over; sucking the blood
rush out of you. And at night, powder on the chest, “I told you I don’t like
doing that!”
Alright, I admit, Rishi beat up the wrong person. That didn’t mean she had to
turn on me.
I know what really going on. You see, this situation marked the end of our
restaurant dinner outings. She feeling more, I would say, deprived, ever
since. Keeps stalling and poking at the camoudie. That’s what I have to put
up with now, this steady stalling and poking.
J.Singh
Georgetown, Guyana
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 