The Two Krishnas (38 page)

“Ah, yes. You talk of generations but you forget, my friend, that your ancestors displaced people who had been on the same land for thousands of years.”

Apart from knowing that their ancestors had been brought to work on the railways, Ravi Kapoor knew little else about why they had settled in Mombasa; he assumed that unlike others who had ventured further inland, the Kapoors had just decided to remain on the coast because they had prospered satisfactorily.

Kisiwa ya Mvita, as Mombasa was called in Swahili, meaning the “Island of War,” had a recorded history that stretched back two thousand years. It was first mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a guide to the Indian Ocean written by Diogenes, a Greek in the first century A.D. and also by Ptolemy in the century after. The tropical paradise built on a coralline island had a history drenched in blood. Once, Mombasa had been the base of Arab trade in slaves and ivory and the place where the invading Portuguese had built the monumental Fort Jesus, which looked out at the Indian Ocean over which its conquerors had arrived. It was then taken over by the sultanate of Oman and again by the sultan of Zanzibar who presented it to the British, making it the principal seaport of British East Africa, until finally in 1963 it was ceded to the newly independent state of Kenya.

Some, including Ravi Kapoor, liked to think that the now idyllic island, swirling with Arabs, Indians and Europeans, in a country that was home to more than forty-three ethnic groups, had left its bloodstains on the psyche of its people so that even long after its turbulent history they continued to live under the psychic shadow of anticipated conflict.

* * *

As the perspiring African squatting under the towering baobab tree squeezed lemon juice on the freshly fried cassava crisps and then dusted them with cayenne pepper and salt, Rahul watched Pooja bite her lower lip with anticipation. At least a dozen other Asians—dressed in their Sunday best of colorful saris and tailored Kaunda suits and humming along to one of the many Indian melodies emanating from the stereos of more than two miles of parked cars—milled around them for the crisps, the roasted maize and cassava, and the water from the coconuts that had been hacked off from palm trees more than eighty feet high by the Africans now serving them.

Mama Ngina Road, or Lighthouse, as the scenic gateway into the port of Mombasa along the Indian Ocean was popularly known, was bustling with the music, chatter and laughter of nearly the entire Asian community of Mombasa. A Sunday ritual, at around three o’clock, cars freshly washed by the house servant would start filing up along the edge of the deep cliff fringed with benches, lush foliage, street vendors and age-old, graffiti-afflicted viewing towers to secure the best spots. People were known to get immensely territorial about their parking and one could depend on finding someone just by visiting a particular section along the stretch where they were known to park.

“Ai, Harshardbhai, kem chho?
Ai,
Yusuf! How are you,
bwana?”
Greetings could be heard from across the street as heads popped out of the windows of cars sailing along the stretch languorously.

But there was always one unpopular spot that most Asians avoided. Even if you came late in the evening before the sun went down, and Lighthouse was packed with a procession of cars driving up and down endlessly at barely ten miles an hour, you could still find at least some space around Florida nightclub, the hangout for local prostitutes frequented by young Asian boys under the cloak of night, long after the cars crammed with entire families had packed up and gone home.

Pooja held a newspaper cone full of spicy crisps in her hand, and Rahul held a cut coconut in his, as they walked away from the vendor and the shadow of the baobab tree, towards the edge of the ocean. The wind blew upon their faces as softly as silk, providing some relief from the heat of the sun, and Pooja leaned her head against Rahul’s shoulder as she stood by his side, the pandemonium of the families behind them. As they faced the Indian Ocean together, they held on to their thoughts, domed in a private silence.

She would have liked to think she knew precisely what he was thinking about but she would never truly know. Was he looking down at the
dhow
sailing past them? The two young African boys precariously descending the jagged edges of the cliff against a canvas of rushing waves? Of America? It was always this way between them, a space to be filled even when their bodies were spliced together. This must be the way it was between all men and women. She thought about her own parents, the respectable distance between them which made it awkward for Savita Patel to even speak her husband’s name in the presence of others. Pooja didn’t want it to be that way between Rahul and her. She felt that in time, when they were in America together, by the time she would give him a child, their marriage would be more intimate than those they knew.

It was a gulf she would invest the rest of her life trying to bridge.

Some friends who had gone to the same school at Aga Khan Ken-Sec ambled by. “
Eiy, eiy
, love birds! What you are doing there?
Khulam-khula pyar?
” a rambunctious Muslim named Riyaz called out. The other two hooted and launched spiritedly into the film song about love on public display. She glanced back and smiled at them coyly, enjoying the attention. Rahul looked over his shoulder, shouted, “
Khulam-khula
I’ll come over there and give you a few knocks, you rascals.”

“
Arre, bhabhi
,” Riyaz cried in mock-fear, calling Pooja his sister-in-law. “Look
na
, how this one is threatening us like Dara Singh!”

“Don’t provoke him,
bwana
, or he’ll come chasing after us with his cricket bat,
bwana!
” said another.

In the distance, Kiran and Prashant had joined up with the Jhaveris who, despite repeated warnings about appearing too opulent in public, were bedecked in gold as if walking billboards for their jewelry store. “Is this any kind of time to show people Laxmi’s blessings? You know how dangerous these people have become!” was the common admonition.

“
Arre!
As if we are going to live under such threats all our lives! Let them come, let them come,
subutu
, we’ll see what they dare to do!” the haughty Paryus Jhaveri always retorted.

Their freshly-washed white Peugeot parked under a fragrant frangipani tree, the family was helping themselves to some of the spicy appetizers—
kachodis
and pack-potatoes—that their well-trained African cook had prepared and which Prashant’s parents had laid out over the hood of the car as Hindi music blared out from it.

Every so often Kiran called out insistently to Pooja, beckon for her and Rahul to join her but Pooja would motion to give them a few more minutes, lingering with Rahul as they faced the ocean. By now, Pooja and Rahul’s courtship had evolved through the last two years of high school. Pooja would never forget the sight of Rahul, cutting a dashing figure in his ducks, striding to the crease, or fielding in a slip, his thick dark hair ruffled in the wind as he played for the local
gymkhana
. She felt she had known him all his life, long before they had spoken a word. As Kiran’s best friend, she had always heard about Rahul, through the typical sibling griping about how he was always the favorite, was given more freedom—and so what if he’s a boy?—but also about how protective and nurturing he was toward his little sister. The mere mention of him had made her heart beat faster.

She had seen him, at chai or dinner at the Kapoors’ house, and randomly at parties thrown by mutual friends, and although Rahul had always been friendly, there was a distance that, instead of quelling her passion for him, only fuelled it, as if because of that space, they shared a more intimate understanding. A private connection. She had known, even as other boys milled around her for attention, that she would one day marry the abstract though winsome Rahul Kapoor.

Then it happened, at a party thrown by the local
gymkhana
to celebrate the victory of Rahul’s cricket team over the visiting Nairobi team at the Ski Club, just blocks away from the Kapoor residence. Kiran, already tuned into Pooja’s feelings for Rahul despite her coquettish denials, had taken her there, making sure that they were both dressed fashionably. Pooja wore a custom-made parrot green dress and precariously clip-clopped away on Kiran’s stilettos all the way down the stairs hewn out of the rocks and to the outdoor dance floor facing the moonlit creek as American disco music buoyed everyone into dance, drink and smoke.

Rahul, surrounded by his raucous teammates and the girls vying for his attention, hardly seemed to notice her. It wasn’t until after Rahul threw down one too many whiskey-sodas and accidentally crashed into her as he was playfully tussling with his teammate, that he turned around to look at Pooja and saw her horror as the icy cocktail dribbled down her astonished face and onto the silk dress she had worn with just him in mind. “You
bewakaoof!
What have you done?” Kiran hollered at her brother as a tearful Pooja fled up the stairs as if the clock had struck midnight. “What are you just bloody standing here for? Go! Go after her!”

He soared up the precarious steps, his athletic legs carrying him speedily and reliably, and caught her before she had climbed up to street level. He grabbed her by the arm and said, “Please, Pooja, please, just stop. I’m sorry.
Ek
minute,
bas!
”

“I’m not going back down there!” she cried petulantly, still wet and refusing to look at him as he stood a step below her. But she didn’t pull her arm away from him either, aware that she had never felt more alive than in that moment when he was touching her and that she’d never had a stronger wish to die from embarrassment. He handed her a folded white handkerchief, inscribed with his initials
R.K.
and she blotted her face and neck with it, stealing glances at his handsome face.

“
Achha
then, if you don’t mind I’ll just go back myself,” he said in jest and turned around to leave.

“What!” she cried.

He turned back around, laughing. “Or I could just go up with you?”

“You do what you want!” she huffed, her tears threatening to spill over her rouged cheeks.

She continued the ascent up the carved stairs and he followed her, holding her by the wrist until they got to the street, dimly lit, and in contrast to the mirth and music that was fading into the distance. The street was jammed with parked cars yet deserted of people and he said, “Look, we can’t stay out here. It isn’t safe, you know. Should we go sit in the car maybe? I have the keys to Riyaz’s…”

“What? You’re scared?” she said.

He grinned at her, relishing the unexpected spark of defiance. His look traveled from her head to her toe and back up again, and it was so penetrating that it made her feel suddenly overwhelmed by desire, so that she could only look away. He took her by the wrist and wordlessly led her to his friend’s car.

After his apologies, they spent two hours together in his friend’s car talking about cricket and Rahul’s plans to go abroad and start his own business in America, and only rarely did Pooja share anything about herself. When he asked about her, she proffered details about how she wanted to teach, as her father did, because she enjoyed children, and the she brought their conversation right back to him, as if to establish that in loving him, she was willing to yield her plans to whatever his ambition dictated. It must have worked because it was at that moment, in a stranger’s yellow Datsun, that Rahul stopped mid-sentence, as if losing his train of thought to something more compelling, and leaned into her and kissed her.

Now, years later, the memory of that night imprinted in Pooja’s mind, they stood together, married, ready not just for a life together but also for a new world. Just before they had gotten married, Rahul had applied for the U.S. visa lottery, which welcomed residents from underrepresented countries like Kenya. Shortly after their honeymoon, which unlike most Asian Kenyans, Rahul and Pooja had spent not somewhere in London or Canada but on a safari in the Laikipia plains, they had received the news that Rahul had won. Everybody, especially their parents, had considered this the fortunate augury of their blessed union.

Ravi Kapoor’s gambling debts had landed the family in troubled times. Rahul felt that the future now lay in America where, like his predecessors who had sailed the oceans to reach Kenya, he would now chart his way to another world where new fortunes could be made.

* * *

Much later on, Suchitra and Ravi were alone again in their room. Suchitra was putting away the little gold jewelry that they hadn’t sold to a local jeweler who had been entreated into complete confidence so that the Jhaveris wouldn’t find out. Ravi was lying back in bed with his arms behind his head, watching her, when he said, “You really must be more careful, Suchitra. You know, we don’t live in the olden days anymore. This is a new Kenya and we just can’t go on talking to them this way.” He was referring to the incident with Mwangi.

Already crumbling under the humiliations of the financial strain brought about by her husband, of the usurpation of their secure futures at the gambling tables of the casino, she erupted as she rarely did. “Yes, yes, you know it all, don’t you? Why then don’t you go and gamble some more? Or better yet, why don’t you just run for president of Kenya? After all, you are African, aren’t you? But do you know what? You can think whatever you want but to them, you are always going to be a money-grubbing
Muhindi
,
bas,
you understand?”