Caribbean (112 page)

Awkwardly, Ranjit mumbled: “I’m far from a Hindu prince.” Then he tried a clumsy joke: “And I’m far from India, too. A Portugee Shop in Trinidad.”

“I’m sure that’s a fine place,” she said, and when the bell rang, indicating that fries were accumulating, she excused herself: “You know, around here people get fired if they don’t do their job. Mr. Banarjee, I’d be honored.” Since nothing had been said about what she would be doing to be so honored, Ranjit was left in the dark, but as soon as Gunter and he were back on the street, Hudak began to bore in: “Now, Banarjee, I know damned well you have to do something by the end of June. You can’t switch majors again. And your thesis is finished. I know the girl who typed it. So this time you graduate, and it’s back to good old Trinidad. Unless you marry Molly and follow the route we’ve discussed. It’s foolproof, it’s quick, and Molly and I can do our part for twenty-five hundred. Make up your mind. Now!”

He snapped out the command so forcefully that Ranjit was left with the feeling that he had no alternative, and in a floundering confusion he accepted the proposal. As soon as he agreed, Hudak became a tough, clever manager, for he took Ranjit to the Hudak home, introduced him to his parents, and said they would wait for Molly to come home from work. As soon as she appeared, her brother launched a training program: “Every word I say is crucial. From this night on, you two are to look and act as if you are in love. People we can later use as witnesses must see you together. Banarjee, you’re to be in that Burger King five nights a week, mooning at her, walking her home. You are to stop under streetlights so that people can see
you. Three times a week you come here for lunch. You go to the movies on Dixie Highway. You are deeply, passionately in love, and you show it.”

He gave Ranjit additional instructions about laying a trail of paperwork at the university, meeting with his professors, a session with a religious counselor about the problems of a Hindu marrying a Catholic, two sessions with Molly’s priest, the purchase of a ring with Molly present. Keep the dated receipt. He had, in his management of several former such marriages, acquired a great deal of experience, and he knew how to fabricate the evidence that the Banarjee-Hudak wedding was an act of pure love, and he knew how to direct his actors in creating and maintaining that illusion.

So for six weeks Ranjit lived in a double dream world. He allowed his doctorate in philosophy to gallop toward a successful conclusion and at the same time he conducted his courtship of Molly Hudak. The latter operation involved bizarre elements. Four or five nights a week he sat in the Burger King staring at her as if he loved her, and by the end of the second week he did, for she was a delectable lass and sometimes he imagined what joy it was going to be when they were husband and wife, if only briefly; he walked her home faithfully, but she never allowed him to kiss her; and when he produced the two thousand dollars on which they finally agreed, it was Gunter who grabbed it, not Molly, for as he explained: “Not even the faintest taint of money must touch you, Molly. They’ll investigate every penny in your possession.”

“Investigate?” Ranjit gasped, and Hudak explained: “Like you won’t believe. They’ll look into everything, like bloodhounds, but we know how to cover our tracks. From now on, you do as I say.” He never said, as he must have been tempted to: “I know we can trust Molly. She’s been down this road before. But you, you stupid Hindu, I’m worried whether you can stand up to it.”

The awkward courtship ran its course, with Ranjit convincing spectators that he was not only in love, but gratified that a young woman so appealing should be interested in him; this required little acting, and the day came when the Hudaks, Ranjit Banarjee and Mehmed Muhammad as his scarecrow best man traipsed off to the courthouse in downtown Miami where a wedding was performed in a civil ceremony.

The rest of that day was a hell so awful that Ranjit in later years would try to believe it had never happened. The wedding couple
reached the Hudak home at 2119 San Diego with considerable noise so that the neighbors could testify, if needed, that the newlyweds were indeed living together, and when the front door was closed, Gunter, in a roaring voice unlike any Ranjit had heard before—an ugly, hissing voice—laid down the rules.

“Banarjee, you have to live in this house till Molly files for divorce, but you sleep down in the cellar. You use the laundry tub for your bathroom. You do not eat with us, never, and if you ever so much as touch my sister, by God, I’ll break both your legs above the knees. Do you understand?”

He had thrust his face so menacingly close to his terrified brother-in-law that Ranjit had to fall back a step, but Gunter pressed on: “Do you understand, you damned filthy Hindu? You touch my sister, I’ll kill you.”

Modern houses in Coral Gables have no cellars, for the land is so flat and near the ocean inlets that moisture would have filled their cellars with inches of brackish water. Since Hudak’s old house had been built on a slight rise, the builder had risked a cellar, which was now musty and fetid. In it Gunter had arranged a wooden slab on which his mother had thrown two blankets to form an inadequate mattress, with another blanket for cover. There, without adequate ventilation, Ranjit would sleep. A rusted, zinc laundry tub with a cold-water spigot was his bath, and he was given a big tin can for a urinal and instructions to go to the bathroom elsewhere when he got the chance, and never, under any circumstances, to use the Hudaks’.

To complete his agony, he must appear at the Burger King at least five nights a week to walk his wife home after closing, and in some ways this was the cruelest part of his treatment, for he would perch on one of the stools, watch Molly as she performed her tasks, then wait for her to join him, a beautiful young woman, really, one whom any man could love, and walk home with her in silence, for she refused to speak with him. Once, in despair, as they walked along Dixie, with the university looming across the highway, he cried: “Molly, how did you ever get caught up in such a dirty racket?” but she refused to answer him. She must have informed her brother that her husband was growing difficult, for that night Gunter grabbed his brother-in-law by the throat and started banging his head against the living-room wall: “I warned you not ever to touch my sister,” and Ranjit gasped: “I didn’t,” and Hudak stormed: “But you yelled at her. You ever do that again, I’ll kill you.”

Since this was the second time Gunter had made this threat, Ranjit had to take it seriously, and now when he went to sleep in the damp cellar he sprang awake at any unusual noise, for he feared, with reason, that the Hudaks might be coming down to murder him.

Ranjit was diverted from the horror in which he was living by the unexpected appearance in Miami of a trusted friend, who arrived, as friends often do, exactly when she was needed most, but also, as so often happens, at a decidedly embarrassing moment. It was the hospital administrator Norma Wellington, the clever woman from St. Vincent and U.W.I. She was now an American citizen, with her nursing degree from Boston and a responsible job in a medium-sized hospital in Chicago, and she had come to Miami as a member of a four-person committee to advise on the interrelationships among that city’s many hospitals. Knowing that her friend Ranjit Banarjee was in residence, she tracked him down through the university and learned that he had a permanent carrel at the library in which he kept the stack of books he was currently using in pursuit of one of his various interests.

The little room had no phone, so a librarian led Norma to the door, and when it opened, revealing Ranjit seated among his piles of books, she cried in unaffected delight: “Ranjit, how wonderful.” The passing years and the important position she occupied had matured her in ways he could not have anticipated, and when the librarian left and she sat alone with this man of about thirty, the differences between them became apparent. She was a mature adult who interacted each day with other adults as able as she, for she had accepted and absorbed the years as they came along, not fighting the inevitable, but not surrendering to it either. In Chicago her light-colored skin was neither a hindrance nor a help, but it had aided her to avoid slipping easily into romances with either her doctors or the male members of her staff. Norma Wellington was about as well adjusted as a young woman of twenty-nine from a tiny island like St. Vincent could be.

Ranjit, on the other hand, had always been a diffident fellow, withdrawn as a lad, shy when girls became important, and now totally disoriented because of his relationship with the horrible Hudaks. As he welcomed Norma he fumbled, and when he faced her he did not know how to begin to tell her about himself.

They talked casually for a while, and then, in subtle ways that neither of them could have explained, she dropped hints that her coming to Miami was not entirely for professional reasons. Her refreshing experiences in the free air of Chicago had eliminated most of the prejudices she had acquired on St. Vincent and Jamaica, and she no longer gave a whistle about the inherent differences between Hindus and Anglicans, between Indians and West Indians. At times, when she had been pressured by this man or that in Chicago, she had compared him with Ranjit Banarjee, always to Ranjit’s advantage, for she remembered him as a scholar who honestly sought the truth, wherever it led, and who had a heart expansive enough to embrace the entire human race. He was a man of merit, and the more she had thought of him in those years of establishing herself, the more attractive he had become and the more she wanted to renew their acquaintanceship.

When her purpose was almost overtly exposed, Ranjit drew back in trembling fear: My God! She came here to see me. And she thought: I’ve come so far and he’s still so shy, I really must say something. It was not clever what she said, but it was a statement from the heart of an extremely well-balanced young woman who had not endless years to waste: “I have so often wanted to see you, Ranjit. Those talks we had at U.W.I. … really, they were the best part of my education.” When he said nothing, she forged ahead: “In those days I think you and I both thought that Hindu and Anglican … they were irreconcilable, but after working in Chicago …”

“Norma,” he blurted out with his old ineptitude, “I’m married.”

She hesitated just a moment, then quietly and adroitly called back her exploratory cavalry: “How wonderful, Ranjit! Could I invite the two of you to lunch?”

He did not have the courage to tell her of the disaster in which he was trapped, but the pathetic way in which he mumbled “Sorry, she’s working” revealed so much that Norma thought: Poor Ranjit! Something terrible’s happened. But she did not try to find out what. Instead, she retracted into her own shell and began to evaluate rather more favorably than before a young gynecologist from Iowa, but both she and Ranjit knew that a proposal of marriage had been offered and rejected.

Her trip to the university was not a complete waste however, because Ranjit, to escape from his deep embarrassment, thought of his Pakistani friend Mehmed Muhammad: “Norma! There’s someone
you must meet,” and he sent a library assistant scurrying to the carrel which Mehmed had occupied for nineteen years. When the tall fellow came shuffling in wearing bedroom slippers, Ranjit cried: “Mehmed! A wonderful break for you. This is Dr. Norma Wellington, director of a major hospital in Chicago. Norma, this is my good and trusted friend Mehmed Muhammad, who is about to get his certification as a nurse … and he’s going to be a very good one.”

Norma and Mehmed hit it off, for within a few moments she had him catalogued: How often I’ve met you before. The perpetual scholar. Who knows how many years at the university? Unmarried, sympathetic, loving. Striving desperately to remain in America, and America needs you. To Mehmed she said: “How soon do you get your certification?” and he said: “June.”

Ranjit, who was watching his two friends carefully, could not fail to see the kindly scorn in which Norma, a no-nonsense working girl, held Muhammad, the ineffectual wandering scholar, and as they spoke together a horrible thought assailed him: Dear God! Do people look at me that way? A quiet Hindu off to one side, offending no one, just puttering around year after year? His flow of rhetorical questions was broken when he heard Norma saying brightly: “Mr. Muhammad, we’re always looking for reliable men like you,” and Ranjit, to assist a friend who had helped him, chimed in: “You know, Norma, Mehmed’s taken a lot of fine courses that don’t show in his record,” and she replied: “I’m sure.”

That night Ranjit, his mind in a turmoil from Norma’s visit, decided he simply could not go through the pretense of reporting to the Burger King to escort his wife home, but after starting twice to the Hudak house, he turned and went dutifully along Dixie Highway to his appointment, partly because he was afraid that Gunter might punch him in the head if he didn’t but mostly because he was truly in love with Molly and wanted to be near her, no matter how badly she treated him.

He was about to enter the restaurant when he was confronted by a man who pushed him into the shadows so they could not be seen from the restaurant. He was a Hispanic—a dark, handsome fellow with a small mustache and darting eyes—perhaps thirty-five and somewhat taller than Ranjit. His English was good but marked with the delightful singing lilt that made even a menacing statement light and airy.

“Are you the Hindu they told me about?” he asked ominously.

“I am Indian, yes.”

“So you’re the one married to her this time?”

Although aware that his response might mean fearful trouble, Ranjit said weakly: “Yes.”

“So you fell for it?” Ranjit was puzzled, and he recognized that this could be a trap. The man looked Cuban, but he could also be a paid informer for Immigration, so how to answer this question? He had no need to try to devise an adroit escape, for suddenly the man whipped out a long-bladed knife and held it to Ranjit’s throat: “I’m her real husband. You touch her, I’ll kill you for sure. Get your citizenship like the others. Get your divorce and get the hell out of Miami. Or …” and he pushed the knife closer.