Independent Goa Observer

THE LANDLORD’S SON

Marriages are made in heaven but they have to be lived on the good earth. Mundane matters like property and money often derail the fairy wheel of romance. Find out what happens when a landlord’s son gets involved with a woman of lesser means in this story by BEN ANTAO.

I FIRST MET him in Margao in the mid-fifties below the Instituto Andrade, a business school for young adults. It was a mild February morning with mellow sunlight that awakened the languorous spirits of the young. He was dressed in a pale blue sharkskin suit and tie. When I paused at the door before ascending the much-used wooden staircase, he flaunted a smile: innocent, it seemed as smiles go, but evocative of a baby’s I had seen in the photo studio across the road.
“Hullo,” he said, “Are you going up?” His soft voice reflected a pampered upbringing. “Yes, I have a class at nine.”
Then he put out his hand. “My name is Xavier Almeida. I am from Velim.”
“Oh,” I said. “I am from Velim too, but we’ve been living in Margao for the past ten years.”

Still smiling, he said, “I feel I know you already. I saw you a couple of times going out with the teacher for tea.” His closely shaven face was as smooth as his jacket and his dark hair combed back in undulating waves glistened with Brylcreme. He smelled of jasmine buds like the woman selling vegetables in the market. “I need your help. I couldn’t complete the bookkeeping assignment. Do you mind?”

“How do you know I can help you?”
His brown eyes searched mine in the manner of the beggar woman who used to come to our house precisely at noon and whom I could never deny a fistful of rice.
“I just know,” he said. “You’ve taken the course.”

He was right. I had completed book-keeping and accounting during the first term. When I helped him with the profit and loss exercise, he thanked me profusely and promised to treat me for a snack at the Bombay Café whenever I was free. We checked our timetables. All his classes were held in the afternoon, but mine were in the morning. I helped him with his homework a few more times after that when he would arrive early by the Betul-Margao carreira. As it turned out, he never did ask me to tea, which I didn’t mind at all for I was more than indulged by my instructor who would take me out regularly to the popular café across from the Camara, prior to giving me dictation in Pitman’s shorthand. There we would each have spicy dal of chickpeas with puris and filtered coffee.

Two things had struck me about Xavier: he was always dressed in a suit and tie and he always came to town in the decrepit carreira. He was twenty-three, he had told me, and I at nineteen was only just beginning to be aware of class status in society. As a student I had observed many Goan men returning from East Africa for a holiday invariably clothed in suits even in the scorching heat of May. I’d put this habit down to their inherent show-off trait. They needed to feel important and prosperous. But Xavier was a native. Why would he behave like the foreign-returned? Dumb as I was at first, it finally occurred to me why. Xavier was a landlord’s son whose family had money he couldn’t possibly keep account of, even if his livelihood depended on it. It also propped up his ego.

The next time I happened to see Xavier was four years later when I came down to Goa for a holiday after my university studies in Bombay. It was shortly after six in late May. The sun was losing its burn when I boarded the Betul carreira to come home to my village. Riding the half-empty vehicle and watching the passing arid fields, some fallow, some tilled, I recalled the times as a ten-year-old when I had walked this route of red earth rutted by bullock carts. I felt a vague nostalgia for the innocent past. The bus passed the Zaino vaddo and entered the long palm-fringed stretch, a half-mile causeway across the fields when the driver said, “A wedding party! Wonder who’s married!

“Pull up by the side. Let’s stop and let the bride and groom pass,” his ticket collector told him. The Hindu driver acquiesced graciously.
Hearing their talk made me curious and my eyes dwelled on the couple walking slowly in a promenading style. I recognized the groom: he was Xavier attired in a black tuxedo, white shirt and black bow tie. He was ambling along with this left arm raised and his fingers fondling the top button of this two-button jacket. His hair, though thinned perceptively, glistened in the glow of the setting sun. He looked straight ahead as though bewildered, like a man who couldn’t quite understand what was happening to him.

The bride was stunningly beautiful. She wore a pale pink satin dress sewn to accent her curving hips and she walked sinuously in her white high-heeled pumps. A white lace mantilla dropped from the crown of her head of lush black hair. She carried a bouquet of yellow primroses in her white-gloved left hand and her right arm clutched Xavier’s as she too stared straight ahead with a half smile lighting up her face. They were accompanied by two flower girls and three adults, two of whom were men, all bedecked in their wedding best.

I couldn’t get over the bride’s beauty. She was so fair and well formed and stylish that I had a strong hunch she couldn’t possibly be from the AVC villages or even from the Salcete district of south Goa. She must be from Bardez, I thought, for somehow I had clung to this notion that Bardez women were more beautiful who made themselves appear more desirable than their Salcete cousins. As the carreira resumed its run, I looked back and wondered about Xavier. I had noticed beads of perspiration on his smooth fleshy face and resented his good fortune. I knew he came from a property-rich family and therefore wouldn’t care for dowry. But he could have been enticed by social status and caste and beauty of the fairest sort. I wondered if he would have invited me to his wedding if he had known I was in the village.

Today, another four years later, again in May, I had come home from Margao to visit my aunt Luiza. She wasn’t home. To be fair, she couldn’t have known I was coming because there was no telephone service in the village. You just visited your relatives unannounced and hoped for the best. This was two years after the liberation of Goa from the Portuguese rule. The neighbors told me she had gone to her brother’s place in Zaino. Her brother lived in Nairobi with his family and she looked after his house and property. I didn’t have a proper breakfast that morning—just a cup of tea—and I was hungry for lunch after an hour’s trip from the city. Upon entering my house by the back kitchen door where she usually kept the long iron latchkey underneath a low stool, I fortified myself with two quick shots of feni. Then I locked the house and walked towards Zaino.

From a clear expansive blue sky the merciless sun had gripped the village in a cruel heat wave. Not a soul was out on the road at this hour of two and for good reason—it was siesta time. At the grocery store where the bus normally stopped, I waited for a while in vain. Then, feeling hungrier with the liquor I had consumed, I decided to walk the distance of a mile. On the causeway the palm fronds hung limp from the oppressive heat. I quickened by pace in my white trousers and a striped maroon bush shirt. As I was nearing Zaino, I noticed the figure of a man beckoning me. He was standing in the veranda of his house, about hundred metres to my right, and waving his arms as if he needed help. I paused to concentrate who it might be, and soon realized it was Xavier. I had never been to his house before, but softened by the sun and liquor, my wearied legs turned in his direction. When I waved back, his face assumed a foolish smile that he kept on until I reached the steps of his big house.
“Come up, Jose, come up,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”
The urgency in his voice carried an echo of the first time I had heard him in Margao. Raising my hand to shield my eyes from the sun, I said, “I can’t talk to you now. I am hungry. I haven’t had lunch. I am going to my aunt’s place.” I pointed to my left towards the white stone cross on the roadside. But he didn’t look. “I’ll come later in the evening.”

“No, no, Jose. I’ll give you lunch. Come up. Please.”
I gave in to his pleading voice and climbed the smooth red ceramic steps.
“How are you?” he asked extending his hand and smiling.
“I’m fine. Nice to hear your voice after a long time.”
“Yes, it’s been ages,” he said and led me inside a vestibule, then turned left into a large drawing room. He was wearing white striped pajamas beneath a short-sleeved sky blue silk robe. “Please have a seat. What would you like to drink? Scotch? Gin and tonic? Cold beer?”

When I hesitated he said, “Come on, you must have a drink. What will it be?”
“Cold beer sounds good.”
“I’ll be right back. Make yourself at home.”
His friendliness took my breath away. I sat on the sofa upholstered in burgundy plush across from a long and low teak coffee table. The walls of the room were painted white and a number of framed family photos were hung on it. The dry room smelled lived in and a light breeze wafted in through the tall open French windows. I lit up a cigarette and, seeing no ashtray around, stuck the blown match head inside the flap of the matches.

Xavier came in presently with a tray bearing a tall glass, a large bedewed Pilsner bottle and a plate of cheese slices and crackers.
“Help yourself,” he said and sat across on the other sofa, also red plush. He crossed his legs and said, “Did you know I was married?”
I took a sip and relished its bitter bite. “I’ll get you an ashtray,” he said and left.
As I chewed on the snack, I wondered why he had said married in the past perfect tense. He returned promptly wearing that perpetual smile, which seemed silly to me. Then he took a whole hour to tell me the story of his marriage. I listened without interrupting him and finished the bottle and the cheese. He didn’t ask if I wanted another beer. After he had unburdened himself, he said, “Thanks a lot for coming over. You’re a good friend.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said and thanked him for the beer.
I stepped out and began to walk towards my aunt’s house. When I turned and saw him still standing in the veranda, he waved.
As always, my aunt was delighted to see me and today was no different. While she scurried about to put together a mackerel curry and boiled rice for me, I opened the musty liquor cupboard but couldn’t find any foreign liquor except the local feni. I knew I shouldn’t mix drinks but at this point, feeling that a shot of feni would add spice to my late lunch, I quickly downed a couple while she was in the kitchen.
My aunt watched me as I ate in silence. “I am late because I stopped at Xavier’s house,” I said after a while.
“Xavier Almeida?”

I nodded. Her onyx eyes suddenly shone with interest. “I’ll tell you after my nap.”
Four years ago, Xavier was invited by an acquaintance to a carnival dance in Calangute. Xavier had never been to Calangute before and he was excited, as young men of his age would be, to visit that Bardez village in the north by the sea. He was shy and alone, but soon a bevy of local girls beguiled him to a foxtrot and waltz. One young woman named Joyce Sequeira, about his age, plied him with champagne and suggested a walk on the beach.
“How far is it?” asked Xavier trembling with lust.

“Just a few minutes,” said Joyce. “Let’s get some fresh air. Too much smoke here.” She took his hand and guided him out of the house where the dance was held. Then she took off her shoes and left them at the foot of the steps. “Do you wish to leave your tuxedo jacket behind?”
He was not expecting this. “I don’t know. Should I?”
“Up to you,” she said.
“I’ll keep it on.”

She knew he was tipsy and ripe. It was after midnight with a half moon overhead. They walked along the sandy path, she clutching at his sleeve lest he stumble. In five minutes they reached the crest of the strand shaded by arching palm fronds. The shore extended in both directions, north and south, as far as they could see. A soft breeze rising from the breakers floated as they stood hand in hand, in silence, in the pale light of the moon. Suddenly she turned and kissed him. He glued on to her mouth as if stuck by her suction and raised his arms, like a crucified Christ, as she eased his jacket and let it drop.
“I love you, Joyce, will you marry me?” His lustful voice carried an urgent resonance.
“Later,” she said, overpowered by her libido.
In the next moment, with a heave and a whoosh echoing the tumbling waves, he exploded. Joyce was stunned. Without further ado, Xavier dressed up silently, feeling abashed.
“Want to walk along the shore?” she asked.
Xavier shook his head.
“Want to go back?”
He nodded.

“Wait a minute,” she said and skipped down to the edge of the water. To Xavier she was a nude goddess with creamy skin. The rolling waves washed over her feet whose vermilion toes twinkled intermittently like the lighthouse at the distant Fort Aguada. Soon the vision of Joyce walking up towards him in sinuous poise transported him to ineffable desire.

Three months later he married her. It turned out to be a marriage of convenience for Joyce who had been involved with a couple of younger men before. What attracted her to Xavier was his money—and his family had plenty. She was pretty, born into a Brahmin family and caste still carried a cachet for nubile women in Goa. When she discovered Xavier’s desire to climb up to her status, she put two and two together—the other two being her lack of dowry. She said yes to his proposal forty days later on Good Friday.

Four months after the marriage when the monsoon ceased its deluge of destruction, they broke up amicably, Xavier told me. They agreed to live apart and separated, but not to annul their marriage for various sundry reasons such as shame, humiliation, scandal, greed, and face-saving. He would support her for life.
“This is the strangest story I’ve ever heard.” I put the glass down and lit up another cigarette. “What do you think was the reason for the breakup? There must be one.”
“Her brother,” he said without hesitation. “She listened to him and did whatever he asked. I think she loved him more than me.”
“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
Xavier shook his head.
“How was your sex life?”

He looked away, then down obviously embarrassed. I could see it was difficult for him. So I let him be. “Thanks for the beer,” I said and took his leave.
My aunt listened with such engrossed attention that I felt she probably knew more than I did. She held my eyes for a long second before saying, “It was not her brother.”
“What do you mean?”
She sighed. “It was her lover.”
“What?”
“The whole village knows it. He’s called yenddo for nothing.”
“Yenddo! A simpleton?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, didn’t you know? No amount of money can change or cure that.”
“I thought it might have been sex.”
She smiled sweetly, her eyes turning limpid. “I’ve heard rumors to that effect also. Who knows?”
“What a waste of life!” I said and rose from the dining table. I went to the window and looked out. Xavier’s house was not visible from this angle for the mango trees and coconut palms blocked the view. I glanced at my wristwatch. Six o’clock. “I’m going for a walk.”
My aunt watched me from the kitchen door

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