“Dunno,” said Feroza. “I never see him before.”
“Me neither.”
They watched the man run around the corner and disappear behind the rippling cane stalks. The sun was glaring but low, and the evening darkness would come suddenly. Hemrajie took a sip from her glass of iced tea. Feroza resumed reading the newspaper. She had already finished the second of the three cigarettes she allowed herself. A half-filled cup of coffee sat on the iron-fretted center table next to a clay pot with African violets. Feroza drank so slowly that her coffee always got cold before she finished, and she would never let Hemrajie reheat it in the microwave. The two women looked very different. Hemrajie was fat and dark-skinned, Feroza fair and very thin. Hemrajie had round features — round eyes, round nose, a pursed mouth. Feroza had small sharp eyes, a hooked nose, and prominent front teeth. She had married at twenty-one and divorced at twenty-five. Her husband had been an alcoholic. Hemrajie had never married, had never even had a boyfriend. And when Feroza told her stories about her married life, Hemrajie was glad to have avoided the beatings and the bad sex.
Feroza said, “A next woman get kidnap. From Couva.”
“They getting closer,” Hemrajie said. Couva was a town seven miles from the village.
Feroza continued reading the article. “She thirty-four. Has a restaurant. Husband is a pilot.”
“Indian?”
“You have to ask?”
“I hear the last one leave the country already.”
“I don’t blame she. Look at what she went through.”
“Was four men, ent?”
“Yes. And two was Rastas.”
“Poor woman.”
“I hope they find this one quick.”
Hemrajie shook her head. “They will find she after the ransom pay. It always have police behind these things. Most of them in the police force black too.”
“True,” said Feroza. She took up her third and last cigarette, flicked her lighter, and turned to the letters page.
Hemrajie looked down from the porch at the village. She could see as far as the corner, where the village’s main rum shop stood. On most evenings, the men would gather there to drink and play pool. The concrete area in front of the bar had wooden stools and three round wooden tables, each with a thick center leg and thatched umbrella over it. Hemrajie could see the usual set of men at the rum shop. There were some who only went to drink on a Friday, and on weekends there would be unfamiliar faces, especially if Feroza’s family was having a special promotion. And there were those men who were at the bar most days. Hemrajie knew all of them, although she spoke to none of them save to say hello and knew some of the younger ones only by face. Jit was a truck driver who came to the bar mainly to escape his nagging wife. They had three children, and it was said that the third wasn’t Jit’s. Ricky, who was twenty-seven years old, had an irregular income cutting people’s lawns and spent most of it in the bar. He lived with his parents in a household of grandmother, two uncles and their wives, and eleven other children in a structure which had been extended so often that it looked like a Lego-block building. Sonny was fifty-three, a primary school teacher, and had been accused some months ago of molesting a seven-year-old girl. Saleem, who was thirty and single and a clerk in a hardware store, was there for two weeks out of every month. For the other two weeks, he would be at Patricia’s house in Teemal Trace, since her husband worked offshore on an oil rig every fortnight. And Sam, Tally, Vishnu, and George just liked drinking beer and talking.
Hemrajie knew all this even though she had lived in the house by herself for the past three years, ever since her mother had died. Some information she got from Feroza, some from the village women who would pass every so often to check on her. Even though she did not socialize in the village and had no husband, Hemrajie was respected because she was respectable. She was educated, went to temple twice a week, and had enough money so she didn’t need to work for a living. But she had only one true friend.
“That man coming back,” Hemrajie said to Feroza.
Feroza closed the newspaper and looked up. The sun was an orange ball on the horizon now, and the air had become cool. The man was running on the other side of the road, so he faced the few cars speeding along the smooth black tarmac. His pace had slowed, and as he came closer Feroza could see the sweat on his forehead and upper arms. His legs, Hemrajie noticed, were well-muscled. He did not look up at the two women as he passed the house.
“Like he training for the marathon,” Hemrajie giggled.
“Nah,” replied Feroza. “He breathing too hard.” They watched as he reached the bar. He did not look at the men there or nod to anyone. He rounded the curve of the road and they could no longer see him.
“He must be from Bombay Number Two,” Hemrajie said, settling back in her iron chair. She had replaced the bamboo furniture after her mother died. The metal was painted white and had removable lilac-and-blue striped cushions.
“Maybe,” Feroza said. “I don’t feel he coming from far.” Bombay Number Two was the next village two miles up the road.
“Because he breathing hard?”
“He didn’t look like a marathon runner.”
“Maybe he in training.”
Feroza shrugged, looking down at her newspaper. Hemrajie took up her glass of tea. The ice had melted, and she opened the ice bucket and put some more cubes into her tall glass.
When Feroza finished her cigarette, she got up and folded her newspaper under her arm. “I gone.”
“See you,” Hemrajie said.
Feroza usually left around 6, before it got dark. She lived in the house above the bar. The bar was owned and run by her family. She had come back there to live after she left her husband. But Feroza had nothing to do with the business. She was a nurse in the public hospital, and she always had a story about how demanding patients were and how most of their ailments were their own fault. Whenever Feroza had the 8-to-4 day shift, she would walk up to Hemrajie’s house in the evening. Hemrajie would make iced tea for herself, and Feroza would read the newspaper and smoke her cigarettes. On Fridays, Feroza would also have a glass of white wine. She always kept a bottle in Hemrajie’s refrigerator. Hemrajie didn’t mind, although she herself drank no alcohol. It was only at Christmas time that she would have one glass.
After Feroza left, Hemrajie went inside and turned on the TV to wait for The Bold and the Beautiful which started at 6:30. This gave her time to clear the center table and wash the dishes. Apart from the soap operas, Hemrajie passed the time reading best sellers and mystery novels. Even though her mother had died three years ago, Hemrajie was still not accustomed to having so much time on her hands. After the stroke, her mother had been unable to exert herself, and Hemrajie had taken care of her for fifteen years. This was the primary reason she was not married, with children, like her three sisters. Since their mother died, her sisters had stopped visiting and called only occasionally. They were vexed that Hemrajie got all the Lotto money that their father had won two decades ago which had allowed him to quit his job as a taxi driver and drink himself to death within five years. And Hemrajie had never limed with boys. Even when she went to university, she had done her work and come home. She could have gotten a boyfriend — other girls on campus who were even fatter and darker than she had done so. But Hemrajie had always been a good girl, and if her father had not died, he could have arranged for her to meet someone. But he had, so she spent fifteen years caring for her mother and her retarded younger brother who was now in a government hospital because none of the sisters wanted him and because a private nursing home cost too much money. Hemrajie always thought the beatings her father had given her mother were why her younger brother had come out so.