Free Nothing Like Love by Sabrina Ramnanan Page A

direction the ceaseless cry of the cicada, competing unsuccessfully with Chandani’s tirade. Vimla let go the ends of the hammock. She dropped a long leg over the side and pushed off on the concrete with a bare toe.She swung like that in the darkness for a while, surrounded by bush, suspended in thought until the last triangle of light vanished from the floor and Om and Chandani marched up the stairs to bed.

The News
    Thursday August 8, 1974

    CHANCE, TRINIDAD
    V imla led her father’s cow and bull into the field by two fraying ropes. This was the best part of Vimla’s day. It didn’t matter that the sun beat down mercilessly on her, or that her only company was two sad-eyed animals that grew increasingly moody in her presence. Vimla could escape her mother’s reproving looks in the field and that was all that mattered.
    Of course, that didn’t mean she was happy. She had lost her chance at happiness the moment she lost touch with Krishna. After that, life had become unbearable. Vimla knew she had disgraced her parents; that her name was on every gossip’s tongue in the village; that she would never teach at Saraswati Hindu School. But it was the absence of Krishna Govind from her world that shook her to the very core.
    She sighed, absent-mindedly shooing a fly from the cow’sear. The cow moaned deep in her chest as if to say she, too, was above the company of Vimla Narine.
    “Vimi!”
    Vimla heard Minty’s voice before she saw her hiding at the edge of the sugar cane.
    “Minty, what you doing here?” Vimla dropped the animals’ ropes and leaped through the savannah grass toward her friend, flinging her arms around Minty’s clammy neck.
    Minty hugged Vimla quickly then pulled her to the ground.
    “I sorry.” Minty rocked back and forth on her haunches, her meaty elbows resting on her knees. Her smooth, milky skin was pinched by adult-worry, and there were faint shadows beneath her black, almond-shaped eyes. She usually kept her sleek hair in a neat plait that wound down her back, but today her mane spread across her back like a veil.
    “What you sorry for, Mints?”
    The dimple in Minty’s chin quivered. “It was my mother who tell everybody about you and Krishna.” She wrung the hem of her dress.
    Vimla sucked her teeth. “Gyul, I done find that out already. I can’t keep a secret from Trinidad, and Trinidad can’t keep a secret from me.” She smiled at Minty to show there were no hard feelings.
    Minty’s shoulders sagged in relief, as if she’d been balancing the guilt across them for days, and her pinched expression slackened just enough to show the rosy glow of a young teenaged girl. Suddenly her eyes lit up. “So, how was it?”
    Vimla brushed the back of her hand across her perspiring forehead. “How was what?”
    “How was Mr. Pundit … in the bush?” Her lips twitched with mischief.
    Vimla giggled. “You so fast, Minty.” She looked away. “We ain’t do nothing except talk.”
    “Talk? What allyuh talk about?”
    Vimla shrugged. How could she tell Minty that she and Krishna had spent hours planning their lives together? She shivered despite the heat; their plans hadn’t even made it through the night.
    “Minty, suppose your mother catch you here? She go cut-cut your tail if she know you talking to me.”
    Minty stared at Vimla, her mouth drooping at the corners. “I come to tell you something.”
    Vimla caught the pity in her friend’s eyes. She swallowed hard. “So, he getting married.”
    Minty nodded. “Soon.”
    “To who?”
    “A girl called Chalisa Shankar from St. Joseph.”
    Vimla’s stomach lurched. She had known this would happen, but she hadn’t expected it so soon. She’d lain awake night after night wondering if Krishna would be picky about his bride, if he’d try resisting the marriage altogether, if he’d suddenly miss her and come for her in the night. But the fact that Krishna hadn’t put up a fight, had resigned himself to a loveless marriage, hurt