Caribbean: a novel Part 51

Pleased by such recognition from a fellow scholar, Ranjit broke free from the reticence that usually imprisoned him, and with the boyish enthusiasm that Indian men of all ages can occasionally display, he cried: 'Mr. Carmody! Dr. Vaval! We shall mount a small celebration of this propitious day,' and he hustled about, bringing them a pitcher of limeade and a deep saucer filled with pistachios. Carmody would take none: 'I promised I'd spend the day at my college. Paperwork. You must excuse me.'

'You will be coming back to the s.h.i.+p?' Therese asked, for she had grown to like this sensible man.

'Of course! I'm responsible for two more lectures, and reporting the student's grades.' As he departed he added: 'I leave you in good hands.'

When they were alone, Banarjee said: 'Now, tell me, please, how did you ever get from Haiti to Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts. To begin with, how did you escape the Tontons Macoutes?'

The words of her reply reverberated in the hot Trinidad air like the echoing of crystal bells, summarizing three centuries of Caribbean history: 'We escaped perilously, in a small boat with insufficient food. We were picked up, far north, by a Canadian s.h.i.+pping vessel and deposited in Quebec City. I was nine.'

'Could your father have been Hyacinthe Vaval?'

'With scars.'

Ranjit rose and saluted, then asked: 'So you were a nine-year-old black Haitian girl in Quebec City. How did you get to Cambridge?'

'Well, of course I already spoke French. And the Canadians, they have hearts of molten gold beneath those cold exteriors. They adopted me. My teachers ...' She paused. 'Each one should get a medal.'

'I've had teachers like that,' Banarjee said, and then he wanted to know about her advanced schooling, and she gave the answer that bright young people so often give: 'My teachers wanted me to succeed. I was the only black girl they'd ever had with any promise. They wrote to Radcliffe.'

Banarjee snapped his fingers: 'With me, the same. At the little college here in Trinidad. At the islands' university in Jamaica.'

With that beginning, the two scholars launched into a swift, impa.s.sioned exchange of ideas, concepts, guesses about the future of their islands, and the chances for Third World countries even to survive, let alone prosper Each had command of the general knowledge that formed the groundwork of the other's understandings, and each respected the peculiar expertise in certain subjects that he or she did not have. Therese peppered him with questions about Trinidad and he sought specific details about the debacle on Haiti.

Without being asked, she told him of her remarkable experience with Lalique Hebert, the zombie, and he expressed no surprise. ' "There are more things than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio." '

They slipped easily into a discussion of the recent political switches in both Jamaica and Trinidad, and Ranjit asked: 'Will Haiti ever mend itself?' and Therese said frankly: 'Father wants to return to try to salvage something ...'

'And you?' She replied: 'After two weeks on the island just now, I warned him not to go. You can survive only so many escapes in small boats with no shelter or food.'

'Are the Macoutes still active?'

'They emerge in all nations, in varying forms. If good people don't stand guard ...'

'Tell me, Dr. Vaval, how do you feel spiritually about turning your back on Haiti and taking refuge in the United States?'

She rose and walked about the veranda of this very pleasing house, then confessed: 'I've had a testing time on this cruise ... my islands ... my culture ... my people trapped in their tragic dead ends. I flew out of Miami a totally a.s.similated American, with a great job, unlimited future and ...' She stopped in midsentence, for she did not care to tell this stranger: '... and a delightful man to marry.' But she did finish with part of the truth: 'However, two weeks in Haiti, seeing my people again and the terrible poverty ...' She stopped abruptly and asked for a tissue, after which she asked: 'Professor Banarjee, you know the Caribbean. How did the slaves in your Trinidad and my Haiti have the courage to remain alive? Or the ancient Indians?'

He said very quietly: 'The Arawaks refused. They handled the Spaniard very simply. They died. Just died.'

'I see no evidence that either your people or mine will be satisfied to do that. My G.o.d! To be a Haitian and to be alive, merely alive. That's an act of unbelievable courage.' He had no comment, for her words cut like red-hot swords s.n.a.t.c.hed from the forge; there had been days in America when he had not wanted to stay alive, but he had. Nor was it easy to accept the years when he had to swallow his pride and go out on the streets of Port of Spain, nodding to people who he knew had read accounts of his failures.

In that pregnant moment of silence, of perfect unspoken communication, each person knew that the time had come for someone to say: 'Why don't we have dinner and view the great nonsense of Carnaval?' but she was restrained because not even now did women in the islands make such suggestions and certainly not in a strange country and within a society as alien as Banarjee's. And he could not for a most painful reason: he had no money, and the precious instant of recognition might have pa.s.sed had he not confessed: 'Dr. Vaval, I would be most honored if I could invite you to dinner on this festive night, but I have ...' and she said far too quickly: 'Doctor, that's not a problem. We'll go Dutch,' and he had to confess: 'The allowance my family ...' He came so close to breaking down that he could not complete his sentence and explain that his meager allowance came at stated intervals and that ...

With the graciousness that marked Haitians when dealing with people they respected, she said with no embarra.s.sment: 'Doctor, your writings have brought light to certain dark pools of my life. I would be deeply honored if you would show me the glories of what our guide said was "one of the major celebrations in the world." '

He nodded, and they left the house, went out into the streets and mingled with the riotous crowd, then found themselves seats at a moderately priced restaurant where they ate and drank and gawked at the pa.s.sing throngs in their wildly expensive costumes and masks. When steel bands went by, he explained how the soft musical quality of the gasoline drums had been discovered only lately, during World War II.

She was delighted when a band came by as accompanists to a famous calypso singer, Lord of all Creation, who had merciless rhymes about Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev and several local figures she did not recognize. But the highlight of the protracted evening came when they heard a familiar voice shouting above the babel: 'Ranjit! Therese! I hoped I'd find you out enjoying the scene.' It was Michael Carmody, back from his day's work at his college.

Ranjit desperately wanted to invite him to join them for a drink, but even as he hesitated, Therese quickly perceived what ought to be done, and said graciously: 'Won't you honor us?' and she summoned a boy peddling drinks. A night of revelry had been launched.

Therese found that Carmody's predictions about Carnaval had not been exaggerated, for the brightly costumed marchers came by in thousands, the noise was deafening, the calypsos daring and funny, the steel bands throbbing with invitation to join the dancing, the food spicy and the rum drinks endless. Even Ranjit, usually abstemious, allowed his friends to buy him two tall punches made with fruit juices, soda water and a dollop of Trevelyan dark.

At four in the morning, when the strolling bands seemed to burst with refreshed energy, Carmody suggested above the noise: 'Let's go aboard s.h.i.+p and put the celebration to bed with a sunrise breakfast on the top deck,' and this they did, eating their eggs Benedict as they gazed down upon the revelers and listened to the wild music.

At nine in the morning the party broke up, and it was time for Banarjee to make his departure, but when Therese accompanied him to the gangway she said: 'Let's sleep till one or two, then I'll stop by and we'll watch another night.'

'I'd like that,' Ranjit said, and they spent that afternoon on his veranda with limeades and intense, far-ranging discussions: the differences between the behaviors of the various occupying nations, the current role of Cuba and its Marxism, the unwillingness of the United States to provide area leaders.h.i.+p, and the residual effect of slavery on today's blacks.

When Therese asked: 'How did you happen to take two doctorates? I saw it in the biographical material for one of your essays,' he avoided answering, for he felt she might disapprove of his and Muhammad's antics to escape getting their degrees too soon. Then the conversation focused on topic one in any serious Caribbean discussion. Therese posed it this way: 'What can our magnificent islands do to earn a living?'

She pointed out that Jamaica had lost its bauxite industry and its farmers no longer had a market in Europe for their bananas. He touched on a more pressing situation: 'The one crop we can produce better than any other, sugar, we are no longer allowed to grow. It's infuriating. The United States won't buy it, thereby driving the islands into bankruptcy, and we're right on her doorstep.'

These two bright people, among the best informed in the Caribbean that afternoon, could envisage no solution to this basic problem, and Therese suggested: 'Tourism will be able to keep a limited population afloat. The surplus will have to emigrate to England or the United States,' and he said: 'That won't be allowed for long,' and they ended their discussion in a gray despair.

As night fell she invited him to join her for supper, and now Carnaval had a special significance, for their intense ventilation of problems had brought them closer together. She tried to avoid any fellow pa.s.sengers from the Galante and was relieved when Carmody did not reappear. During one spell they became members of a noisy group of outrageously dressed blacks, and Therese allowed the men to swing her high in the air and kiss her when they put her down. At one corner a group of students dressed like Spanish conquistadors grabbed her arms and ran off with her, and as Ranjit watched her flying through the crowd, her light Haitian face radiant, he thought: Who could have predicted that on this night I would be out on the town with the most beautiful woman in Carnaval? And when the students brought her back he was pleased when she gripped his hands as if she had come home.

It was Carnaval, a mix of ancient African rites, the pre-Easter mysteries of the Catholic church, and the stately processions of old England. It was fiery music and soft singing, the throb of the steel band and the whine of Bob Marley's 'Four Hundred Years,' the food, the dancing, the drunkenness, the priests garbed in black looking on benevolently and the crews from three cruise s.h.i.+ps raising h.e.l.l and kissing the compliant girls. Carnaval in Trinidad! One sailor shouted: 'It makes Mardi Gras in New Orleans look like a Sunday-school picnic,' and Ranjit told him: 'That goes for Calle Ocho in Miami, too.'

The Galante was scheduled to sail at eight in the morning, and as the whistle began to sound its warning Therese said: 'I must go,' and then she betrayed the cry of her heart: 'Dear G.o.d, I do not want to leave this island.'

Ranjit, awakened as he had not been since the murder of Molly Hudak, tried to prolong the parting. He was no longer slouching, no longer apologetic. Standing very erect, he listened as she told him at the gangway: 'Oh, Ranjit, it's been a magical two days. A seminar on the meaning of our sea,' and with a boldness that surprised him he added: 'And of our lives.' Then the s.h.i.+p's deep-throated whistle sounded for the last time, and they parted.

The Swedish Lines, in planning this unusual seminar cruise, had made provisions for a leisurely run to the west following Trinidad, in order for the teachers to provide intensive instruction prior to the featured stop at Cartagena, which was intended not only to be the final stop of the cruise but also the historical highlight. The plan was a good one, and during the first day at sea a lot of work was done in lectures and discussions. One of Therese's students voiced the general opinion: 'Whoever had the idea for this cruise came up with a winner.'

On the evening before the Galante arrived at the historic harbor of Cartagena, Professor Ledesma gave the master lecture of the cruise. Using a set of evocative slides, he explained how his natal city had once been the queen of the Caribbean and how s.h.i.+ps heavy with silver and gold had gathered in its s.p.a.cious harbor preparing for the dangerous run to Havana and Sevilla. He spoke of the great men who had frequented this harbor in their s.h.i.+ps of war: Drake, Morgan, Vernon, the fierce French pirates, Sir John Hawkins, maybe the best seaman of them all, and then he said: 'But I want you especially to appreciate a tough little Spaniard who helped one of my ancestors defend Cartagena against a ma.s.sive English armada.'

First he used drawings of the 1741 period to show the awesome weight of the English invading force, then said: 'Now you must imagine the two Spaniards who opposed this mighty fleet and army. My ancestor, Governor Ledesma, must have looked a good deal like me, so we can forget him. But he was a.s.sisted by a man no one should ever forget, Marine General Blas de Lezo, old in service ... and what a service! Fought in twenty-three major naval engagements, always in the midst of the shooting. In a running fight off Gibraltar he lost his left leg. Off Toulon he was blinded in his left eye, and in a major battle defending Barcelona he gave up his right arm!' As the professor listed these dismemberments he used his left arm like a meat cleaver, and he was so dramatic, he himself became this crippled old man fighting to defend his city.

'Did he win?' a student asked, and Ledesma said: 'You won't believe it, but with only a handful of men he held off the entire British armada. Kept the s.h.i.+ps at anchor and wouldn't allow the English soldiers inside his city. Like they boast in boxing: "They never laid a hand on him," but that's not quite right. In the fighting he received two more major wounds, and our victory bells had scarcely stopped ringing when they resumed to toll his death.'

When the lecture ended, students gathered about him for further interrogation and the conversations lasted till well past midnight, but in the morning Ledesma was down for an early breakfast, since he was to supervise what everyone hoped would be a gala day. The government of Colombia, damaged by reports of uncontrolled cocaine traffic in its inland cities, had made an extra effort to provide the Galante pa.s.sengers, especially the students, with a memorable experience in Cartagena: small boats were made available for tours of the incomparable harbor; military helicopters stood by to enable geographers or historians to see the area as a whole, and Ledesma himself led walking tours of the ancient battlements upon which an earlier Ledesma had once accompanied Sir Francis Drake on midnight strolls.

Therese, who had no responsibilities this day, was among the first to take the helicopter ride, and the young naval officer serving as pilot invited her to occupy the seat beside him, from where she gained an incomparable appreciation of how this city had survived the many a.s.saults made upon it. There below her was the glistening harbor with its two entrances, Boca Grande and Boca Chica, the former now marked by a roadway built upon the skeletons of the innumerable wrecks which had been sunk there in times past to prevent enemy s.h.i.+ps from sneaking in. But what impressed her most was the view when the helicopter flew to the north, for then she saw that Cartagena really did sit upon an island, protected by swamp-ridden lands north and east, the Caribbean west and south, so that no enemy could easily a.s.sault it from any direction. It stood by itself, a walled city with a unique personality which had been neither destroyed nor altered by the floods of gold and silver that reached it from Porto Bello or by the heavy gunfire that came from British fleets. It was a free-standing city within a wall.

When the flight ended she wandered alone along the narrow streets of the old city, and as she threaded her way through what was little more than an alley, with the fronts of houses almost touching one another, she suddenly burst into the heart of a plaza so lovely that she exclaimed: 'Oh, what a treasure!'

Two broad paths intersecting in the middle divided the plaza into four equal quarters, each with its own bubbling fountain, and in the center, where the paths met, rose a fine statue of Bolvar. The square was embraced on all sides by handsome buildings, each a different color, so that the effect was more of a fine painting than a work of architecture. Her first thought on finding herself at the heart of this walled-in excellence was: So formal compared to that great free square in Point--Pitre, this one so Spanish, that one so French, but each memorable.

Then at the shadowy end of the plaza she saw a majestic building that seemed to have been hiding like a master actor who wished to make an impressive entrance; tall and imposing like a church, its faade decorated with stately ornament and statuary, it breathed an air of mystery and power. When she crossed the plaza to inspect it, she found it to be the office from which officials of the Holy Inquisition had policed the religious orthodoxy and private morals of the city through the long years from 1610 to 1811, and she s.h.i.+vered to think of what anguish this building had witnessed.

But when she entered its forbidding doorway she learned that it was now a museum, and from its well-arranged and labeled displays she learned that in Cartagena the Inquisition had not run wild, for in the course of its long dictators.h.i.+p, it had given death sentences to only five, which in those years would have been miraculously humane in an English or American county, and it burned alive only two of them, both renegade clerics.

Relieved to learn this, she was nevertheless saddened to read a detailed account of the first great auto-da-fe held in 1611 at which, during a vast celebration held in the plaza she had just left, nineteen men and women received notice of their punishments. With ominous frequency came the dreaded phrase 'a los remos de galera por vida sin sueldo'-to the oars of a galley for life without pay. Often there was an order that the accused's distinctive prison garb, his sambenito, be labeled with his name and displayed in perpetuity in the local cathedral so that all might be reminded of that family's disgrace.

The nationality of the victims and the harsh nature of their sentences bespoke the religious hatreds which scarred all Spanish colonies: 'Juan Mercader, a French peddler who was heard ridiculing a Papal Bull calling for a crusade; Marco Pacio, an Italian who claimed that breaking the sixth commandment is not a sin; Juan Albert, a German who also made fun of a Papal Bull.' In Cartagena they had been suspicious of anyone who wasn't Spanish.

The crimes of native-born sinners were indicative of what the church had feared: for not believing in purgatory, for having entered a sixteen-year pact with a devil named Buciraco, for having told fortunes with beans, for conjuring evil spirits, and for raising the dead from their graves.

To read these mournful records made Therese wonder if there had ever been a chance for the elysium of which Senator Lanzerac had dreamed, 'a Caribbean with one nation, one language, one religion.' Would not resolute souls, she asked herself, have emerged to cry: 'I'll tolerate this domination no longer!' with riots and revolutions resulting? So after a while we'd be right where we are today: many nations, many rules.

When she arrived back on the Galante she went directly to her cabin, propped on her knees the writing portfolio provided there and started a long-overdue letter to Dennis Krey in Concord. Actually, she started two, but her mind was so agitated by this day's experiences that she could not concentrate. Crumpling the would-be letters, she went on deck to seek out Professor Ledesma, and when she found him she said: 'Could we take a walk before dinner? Weighty decisions.'

'I've been waiting for an invitation like this since we boarded,' and they were soon walking along the ramparts and down narrow alleyways toward the center of town, where she guided him to the central plaza which had impressed her so favorably. There, sitting on benches facing the majestic Inquisition building, Ledesma spoke of the imperishable values that nurture a society and keep it vital, and he told her that Spanishness was one of the world's permanent systems, like Islam and Christianity and Judaism, but when Therese asked: 'Then why is Spanish culture in the Americas unable to produce stable civil governments?' he parried: 'Stability is overrated. Vitality, movement, the enjoyment of each day, that's what really counts.'

Unwilling to allow what she considered a misguided judgment to pa.s.s, Therese cried: 'Professor Ledesma! This week gunmen from the Medelln cocaine cartel murdered two more judges in that city and three political leaders in Bogota. Is that what you call the flowering of Spanish culture?'

Ledesma mumbled: 'One of the judges was my cousin. I admit that these are terrible times, but isn't your America having its own problems?'

Eager to give this crucial discussion some substantial footing, she took from her handbag a small book that dealt philosophically with these matters: 'Since this was written by an outstanding French scholar who was predisposed to neither the Spanish nor the English cause, we can expect impartiality.' Translating from the French, she read: ' "If either Sir Francis Drake in 1586 or Admiral Vernon in 1741 had pressed his advantage and not only captured Cartagena but taken permanent possession of it, the history of the Caribbean, Central America, South America and perhaps the entire world might have been radically altered. With the great harbor of Cartagena in English hands, the Spanish silver fleet from Peru would not have dared to transport its wealth to Porto Bello, and with that umbilical cord severed, the one between Mexico and Havana would have become untenable. No more galleons freighted with gold and silver would have made their way across the Atlantic to Sevilla, and Spain's loosely bound and chaotic empire in the New World would have crumbled. In its place would have risen an orderly English colonization, so that great land areas like Argentina, Chile and Brazil would have evolved into stable nations like Canada, Australia and New Zealand, perhaps to the betterment of the world." '

Closing the book with precise movements, as if she were conducting one of her seminars, she asked Ledesma: 'Now, what do you and I, as good Catholics, say to that?' and he replied with considerable vigor: 'English-style order in government is not the world's greatest boon,' and he continued in words that the first Ledesma in Cartagena might have used: 'To see your family prosper, all members of it. To know a religion which gives you solace. To feel your spirit free to soar. To burst with poetic idealism, those are the abiding virtues.' He paused, stared at Therese, and asked: 'Do people in Gary, Indiana, have it as good as we do here in Cartagena?'

'You make a persuasive case for the elegance of Spanish custom,' Therese said, 'but not for Spanish government,' and he bristled: 'You young scholars infected by English interpretations of history should remember one basic fact. We Spaniards held the New World from 1492 through 1898, when you stole Cuba and Puerto Rico from us. Four glorious centuries of achievement. England held her empire only from the 1630s to the 1950s, pitifully short in comparison. And you cowardly Americans have been afraid to a.s.sume the burdens we laid down, so you have no right to lecture me. We were the great successes. And we'll be so again one of these days. You can rely on that.'

Reluctant to proffer any further observations which might distress this elderly gentleman, she gazed about her at the handsome plaza, and the sadness which comes with the pa.s.sing of old values a.s.sailed her, so that she dropped her head, a gesture which Ledesma noticed immediately: 'What is it, Dr. Vaval? What's happened to disarm you?' and she said: 'This cruise. This intimate view of the sea in which my people slaved and triumphed and knew despair. It's made a violent impression on me.'

'Disorientating?'

'Very.'

'That's why we go on voyages. You'll sort it out.' He stared at the lovely patterns made by the late-afternoon sun on the faade of the Inquisition building, then asked: 'It's a personal problem-your fiance, I suppose?'

'Yes. I'm on the verge of marrying a lifelong New Englander. But I feel a growing sense of doubt ... I find it impossible even to write to him.'

He bent way over and picked up some pebbles from the plaza, bouncing them up and down in his right hand. 'My family has been on this spot for four and a half centuries, and it's an act of faith with us that never in that time were any of us charged with heresy or united in marriage with an Indian or a black. It's the way I was brought up, and believe me, if I had a son of marriageable age and you came around, I'd hustle him off to Salamanca for a graduate degree and a Spanish wife. That's the way we are.'

'My family says the same about being African, but this light skin testifies they wavered somewhere.' When she laughed at the preposterousness of her situation, he said: 'Let's walk to the far end where the lookouts stood,' and when they had climbed to that eminence he said: 'Here we served in darkness, Miss Vaval, staring at the Caribbean, watching for the enemy or the pirates or the hurricane, and never for three years in a row were we able to relax in a.s.sumed safety. That's still the honorable task of a good man or woman. Man the watchtower, look for the enemy, and flash the signal. Not a bad a.s.signment for a professor, either.'

It was exciting, that time she spent with Professor Ledesma, and as he said farewell that evening, for the s.h.i.+p would leave the harbor early in the morning, she took his right hand in her two and brought it to her lips: 'I'm so glad that it was this cruise that you elected to take,' and in farewell he said: 'Our first great Ledesma claimed that the Caribbean was a Spanish Lake. You've proved that a lot of good blacks have come in since then, but the color of the sea itself hasn't changed. It's still golden.'

He was about to leave with those appropriate words hanging in the air, when she suddenly cried: 'Professor, stay one moment. I want you to mail a letter for me,' and she dashed to her cabin, grabbed paper, and scrawled: 'Dear Dennis, It would be most improper for you to marry me, and entirely wrong for me to marry you. I've just discovered the world of which I'm a part, so goodbye, with love and regret. Therese.'

During the swift pa.s.sage back to Miami, Therese was so nervous and confused that she stayed by herself, avoiding even her students and sometimes standing at the rail for long spells, staring at her newly discovered Caribbean as if she were never again to see its glorious waves. Remembering the suspicions she'd had that night prior to her arrival at Trinidad, she thought: This amazing cruise really has been a turning point in my life. It introduced me to contemporary Haiti as it actually is, and gave me the courage to write the letter terminating my engagement to Dennis Krey. And now I'm on the eve of starting a new life at Wellesley. All were part of the watershed: I did the right things in the right way, so let them stand. But then her c.o.c.kiness left her, for the real reason for her anxiety emerged as an image in the pa.s.sing waves. It was Ranjit Banarjee's grave face surrounded by the vibrant scenes of Carnaval, and she whispered: 'Finding him was like finding a cove of calm water after thras.h.i.+ng around in turbulent waves,' and suddenly, exultant, she flung her arms wide as if to embrace the entire Caribbean: 'You are my sea! Your people are my people!'

Then she heard a man's voice: 'Talking to yourself?' It was Michael Carmody, and when she made no reply, he said: 'Let's take these chairs, because we should talk. You're in trouble, Dr. Vaval. It's been obvious to anyone who watched you from the start of our trip.'

'Who are you to presume ...?' she snapped. But she knew immediately that this was the wrong tack: 'I'm sorry. For you this voyage has been a working vacation; for me, a leap into a maelstrom.'

'No need to explain. From what I saw of Haiti, this trip must have started with a shock.'

'It did,' and he said quickly: 'You're right. I was presumptuous, but you'll learn that teachers are that way when they fear time's running out.'

'What does that mean?'

'I came to Trinidad when I was about your age, as penniless as you were when you landed in Canada. I've always spent my life, my dreams in Trinidad, always hoping I would come upon that one brilliant lad who would justify my sacrifices ...'

'Teaching's never a sacrifice.'

'Professor Vaval, you know that people like you and me could earn vastly superior sums if we applied our energy to business or law.'

'Ah, but we're not interested solely in sums.'

'You're so right, and it's good of you to voice it, because it makes what I have to say much easier.' He brought his forefingers to his lips, hesitated, and said: 'We search endlessly to uncover that one resplendent intellect, and you'll find that years will be wasted, and then you begin to despair ...' He found it difficult to continue, but then words came in a rush: 'For me, Ranjit Banarjee was that boy. Heavenly sonnets, essays of great brilliance, he had the world before him.'

'If he was on the fast track like you say, how was he derailed?'

'In the development of that fantastically able brain, nothing went wrong. He grows better year by year. In his private life, everything.'

'Do you care to tell me?'

He considered for some moments, then said: 'No. But I will tell you this. The moment I heard you speak aboard the Galante, and learned that you were not married, I almost shouted: "There's the one! She's the one that could do it!" '

Therese laughed, then explained: 'Oh, Mr. Carmody, at college the girls used to sit around and tell gruesome case histories that always ended: "So, girls, there it is. Never marry a moral cripple. Spend that little extra effort and find yourself a real man." '

'Dr. Vaval, believe me, this man is no cripple. He needs to have his soul set free. Someone to help him become the man he could be.'

Soberly she said: 'I suppose you could say that of many men.'

'He's different. He's worth it.' While she was pondering this, he said rather boldly: 'On the second night of Carnaval, when I saw you and Ranjit sitting together, you looked as if you, too, for the moment had been set free.'

'You should have joined us.'

'It was clear you wished to be alone. Now it's clear that you wish you were back in Trinidad.'

Therese, biting her knuckles, stared at the Caribbean and its white wave tips dancing by in pirouetting joy, but she felt only sadness in leaving this sea of her choice. She would miss its golden grandeur and its varied people, especially the man in Trinidad who knew it even better than she. Then came the quiet voice of the college counselor, as if he were talking to a student having trouble with algebra, except that in this instance the trouble was with the student's heart: 'Dr. Vaval, since you're from Haiti, I must a.s.sume you're Catholic, and he's certainly a Hindu. As a Catholic myself, and immersed in Trinidad, I must in all decency warn you that such radical differences are almost irreconcilable. But yet, it seems to me, with you and Ranjit the similarities are much greater than the differences, are they not?' And she whispered: 'Yes.'

Carmody, sixty and aware that his years as a teacher were ending with the job undone-he had not got his one brilliant student properly started-took Therese's hands in his and said: 'You too are growing older, my dear. Twenty-five doesn't last forever, and thirty-five brings panic in all of us, especially women. I've seen it. So two lives are at stake, his and yours ... and I have the feeling that the peril is almost equally shared.'

When she said nothing, but did leave her hands in his, he continued: 'A college guidance teacher deals with two kinds of students, those who need to discover the fundamental truths for themselves, nudged by his quiet prodding, and those who need to be told in the simplest and sometimes most brutal terms: "Francis Xavier, change your ways or I will throw you out of this college." '

'And you think I'm the latter?'

'I know it. So I'm giving an order. When the Galante docks in Miami tomorrow, you and I will grab a taxi, rush right out to the airport, and catch the next plane back to Trinidad. You're needed there.'

Alarmed by the impetuousness of the step she was about to take, she asked in a burst of anxiety: 'Would I be insane if I did fly back ... I've known him only two days?' and the older voice said quietly: 'Love is the self-revelation of two souls. Sometimes it comes in a blinding moment in only one day, sometimes after a slow awakening of eleven years. G.o.d takes no cognizance of the timetable.'

So next morning when the s.h.i.+p was safely moored, the two popular instructors bade their students farewell, caught a cab, and sped to Miami International.

When Therese Vaval walked up the steps of the Sirdar's House and knocked on the door, her first words were abrupt and intense: 'I was drawn back by a thousand magnets, Ranjit. Your ideas, your potential, and above all, by the fact that you need me to unlock the frozen doors.'

When he did not respond, she spoke of her own frozen doors, of her engagement to Dennis Krey and of her confusion in Haiti. By his quiet smile she knew that he guessed these to be peripheral reasons, so she told of her conversation with Carmody and his insistence that she fly back immediately, since the rest of her life was in jeopardy. Only then did he realize that she had been as wounded by life as he. There was silence for a moment. Then, clearing her throat, she said: 'Now, Ranjit, tell me how it was with you.'

Mustering his courage and licking his dry lips, he said: 'When you sailed away at the end of Carnaval, I learned what torment was. I lingered at the dock till your s.h.i.+p was out of sight, mumbling to myself: "There she goes. The one light in this world." And when I thought that I would never see you again, I was disconsolate ... books were tedious. It was then I discovered what love was.'

'As the s.h.i.+p sailed I was feeling the same, Ranjit. But the questions remain: Who are you? Why are you here and alone?'

Fear almost paralyzed him as he wondered how much he should tell her, how much he dared tell without frightening her and driving her away again. Seeing no escape, he blurted out: 'I had an overpowering desire to be a scholar in the States, but my permit to stay was running out. I had to do something. So I went to a man who made a business of arranging marriages for foreign students so they could get American citizens.h.i.+p ... and I married his sister. But it turned out that she had a real husband, a Nicaraguan, and three earlier fake marriages ... no divorces. It was shameful and I was part of it.'