Valmiki's Daughter by Shani Mootoo Page B

questions. The bonus, he thought, would be that Devika might be placated, at least for a short while, and Viveka, through some heaven-sent generosity, might settle down and behave herself.
    Viveka wasn’t home when he returned. He handed Devika and Vashti the presents. They were surprised, speechless, and made a gaggle of sounds that were lost on him. His mind was on something else: his relief that he hadn’t had time to pull the trigger.

Viveka
    EARLIER THAT SAME DAY, VIVEKA WALKED DOWN THE HILL FROM Luminada Heights and from there took a local taxi to the stand just outside of the San Fernando General Hospital. The umbrella she sheltered under did nothing to keep her feet dry. The legs of her jeans were damp and clung to her thighs, and her feet were wet and splotched with debris from the street. She stood in a huddle with several other people under the ample awning of the taxi stand. A doctor who knew her as Valmiki’s daughter drove through the gates of the hospital, spotted her, and pulled up his car. He drew down the window and greeted her. She knew he was bound to be wondering what she was doing waiting in the rain, outside of the gates of the hospital, for a taxi, but wouldn’t come right out and ask. She saved him the trouble with a harmless lie: “I am doing a project that involves public transportation.” The look on the doctor’s face brightened. After that she positioned herself a little behind another waiting passenger and made sure to duck down whenever a face she knew from her family’s world of friends passed by.
    The wall behind her stank of urine, the odour like a vapour leached by the rain. The woman at Viveka’s side held a handkerchief to her nose. There didn’t seem to be any judgment inthis; she just held the kerchief there as if it were the most natural thing to do. Viveka thought of doing the same, but felt that if she did she would certainly appear to be aloof and disdainful. The woman turned to her and said, “I don’t know why they don’t do something about the beggars sleeping under here, na. Is like every wall in this place is a public toilet.” Viveka smiled but remained quiet. From the way other passengers and passersby looked at her, some of them taking in her entire frame in a slow examination, she knew she seemed out of place at the taxi stand. She wondered which was easier — enduring all of this or just mustering up enough courage to sit behind the wheel herself and drive. Since getting her licence more than a year before, she had driven only a handful of times, and never unaccompanied by her mother or her father. Given the way people drove their cars —“as if they owned the streets,” people would say, and regardless of rules — and given the number of accidents and deaths caused by careless driving, she had no desire and even less courage to drive.
    The waiting people chatted easily among themselves, even the ones who were clearly strangers at the stand, about the environment, the rain, the heat, the price of tomatoes, the morning’s newspaper headlines. Viveka felt unable to engage with them, and while the others watched her, no one but that woman had addressed her directly. Viveka looked across at the promenade to see if she might catch a glimpse of Merle Bedi. Cars passed between where she stood and the promenade, and she willed her vision to leap over the traffic, to zip through the rainfall all the way across the road, into and under bushes. She saw no one resembling her old high school friend and happily entertained the thought that Merle Bedi might have been taken back into her parents’ home.
    The combination of rain and heat intensified the pollution caused by exhaust from the jam of cars. The hospital’s incinerators spewed their noxious gases into the sodden air. The nearer smells of urine, unwashed bodies, and too highly perfumed ones produced a dizzying cocktail that finally got the