Caribbean Beat — September/October 2018 (#153)

was a second marriage. And while their family were atypical
in being urban Indo-Trinidadians, many were surprised at her
in-depth knowledge of the life of Indians in the countryside. Few
also knew of the Naipauls’ precarious finances, never seeing
beyond the smart dresses they sewed themselves or the polished
wooden floors of their home.
What I also discovered from The Naipauls of Nepaul Street
was that the self-effacing woman in front of me had sacrificed
her own education and intellectual fulfilment several times for
what she saw as the greater good of her family. Akal possesses
a deep sense of duty and loyalty to her family — a loyalty that
meant she always kept Ma close, nursed her dying sister, and
loves her youngest sibling fiercely, even if that baby sister, Nalini,
is now herself a grandmother. Even as Akal exposes the chaos
and uncertainty of their upbringing, it is clear it comes from a
place of love.
The quiet of the house is interrupted by her eldest son Rai
dropping by for an unexpected visit. Her charming husband
appears, and announces teatime is over. Would I try one of his
famous martinis?
And, just like that, I am welcomed into their daily routine of a
dry martini, as we watch the sun set fire to the sky. n
In Nepaul Street
An excerpt from chapter three of The Naipauls of Nepaul Street, by Savi Naipaul Akal
My father had bought the
house in Nepaul Street
from a young man and his
mother, named Nieves. Of Portuguese
descent, Mr Nieves worked as a
solicitor’s clerk. He had supervised
the building of the house, where sills
and frames were often crooked (I
know, because I made the draperies).
Apparently his aged mother was no
longer able to climb the steep and
uneven steps to the upper floor.
Our home, which seems so small
today, was bright and beautiful and
inviting. A two-storey building, the
bedrooms and the bathroom were
on the upper floor, while the livingroom,
dining-room, and kitchen
were on the ground floor. Upstairs,
between the two bedrooms and
facing the street was an open-sided
gallery on the southwestern corner
which was immediately turned into a
half-bedroom for Vidia. The wooden
partitions between the rooms had
open woodwork grilles at the tops. The
windows remained open except during
rain, and the winds skipped through
both bedrooms. The openness of
the ground floor, with its lattice
panels on which a bleeding-heart
vine grew, mitigated the smallness of
the house and allowed plenty of light
and good ventilation. No part of that
small, compact house was dark or
claustrophobic.
Our parents’ bedroom had its
SlumberKing bed, with the hat-rack
pinned on the back of one of its doors.
A tiny desk was in the corner and later
they would add a cypre wardrobe with
a full-length mirror. The girls’ bedroom
had a tall iron four-poster with a smaller
bed in which Kamla and Shiva slept.
There was room for a decent corridor
between the beds. We also had a
bureau with four drawers to hold our
belongings and a draped makeshift
cupboard behind one of the doors that
held our dresses, with shoe-boxes
on the top. The two-tiered cotton
curtains, graduating from cretonne to
broderie anglaise over the years, allowed
privacy and easy laundering. All laundry
was done by hand over a washtub by
our mother.
With Pa’s gardening skills, through
each bedroom we could view greenery:
the hills and acacia tree to the north,
our neighbours the Sudans’ breadfruit
tree to the south, and our struggling
plum tree to the east, which finally
grew into view bearing few fruit but
shiny leaves. That the property faced
west into the afternoon sun was a
definite drawback. But with everyone
out of the house except on weekends
and during the school holidays,
we managed the heat of the early
afternoons. We had a very small yard
with a curved driveway to the garage. In
retrospect, the size of the plot made
it easier to manage, with a tiny garden
on three sides and a back area for the
laundry lines.
Our arrival at 26 Nepaul Street was
unforgettable. There was a hubbub
of activity involving only our family. Pa
and Vido had to mount the beds while
Ma and Kamla were putting up the
salmon-pink draperies and encasing
the cushions of the Morris chairs with
matching flowered cretonne. The
Morris chairs had come as part of the
deal with the house.
With polished floors and matching
rugs, a small table and a shining brass
pot with three legs and the heads of
lions, and the smell of new linoleum on
the kitchen floor, we were buzzing with
joy and experiencing a lightness that
would carry on for days. Mira, Shiva, and
I had nothing to do but keep out of the
way. Sati must have been doing some
kind of pleasurable chore like hanging
our teacups on the cup-hooks left by
the previous owners. The Rediffusion
box on the wall in the gallery upstairs
provided news and music, and our
world seemed complete. (These
boxes, or closed-circuit transmitters,
rented by the month and operated
by Radio Trinidad, were everywhere in
homes before radios became cheap
and the government granted licences
for other stations to operate.) With
time, the old kitchen table that held
our pots and pans would be replaced
and Ma would enjoy working on her
two-burner kerosene stove. We as
children were happy and carefree,
but we had no idea what this, our
new home, would have meant to our
parents, who had struggled over the
years to get to home base.
The Naipauls of Nepaul Street (ISBN
97818452323648) is published by
Peepal Tree Press
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