By Ben Antao

The Sting of Peppercorns, By Antonio Gomes, Goa, 1556 and Broadway Book Centre, Rs.395 (paperback); 266 pp.

ARE FIRST novels set in Goa destined to be romantic? Let me see now. Sorrowing Lies My Land by Lambert Mascarenhas, 95, first published in 1955, carries a romantic aura of freedom from colonial rule. Tivolem by Victor Rangel-Ribeiro, 84, published in 1998, has a love story blossoming in a place called Tivolem, a fictitious place in Goa situated in Porvorim. SKIN by Margaret Mascarenhas, forty-something, published in 2001, exposes love and seduction amidst magic, realism and a quest for identity. And my own novel The Tailor’s Daughter (first written in 1997 although the third one to be published in 2007) focuses on caste, love and marriage, a story happening mostly in Margao, Goa in the early 50s.

And now comes The Sting of Peppercorns, a first novel by Antonio Gomes, 65, a Goan-born, New York-based cardiologist, which reads like a breathless love story that one imagines unfolding on the big screen, a melodrama filled with maudlin sentimentality for the loss of good times that loops in a property-rich, ‘Brahmin’ Catholic family of Loutolim in Goa.

The story of Peppercorns opens in May 1961 and journeys through till after the Opinion Poll of 1967, capturing both the pre-and-post-Liberation periods. The family comprises of the patriarch Afonso de Albuquerque, a namesake of the conqueror of Goa to whom the family is linked through legend, his wife Dona Isabella, their two sons Paulo and Roberto, their daughter Amanda, an aunt Rosita noted for her cooking skills, ayah Carmina, and several servants who live on the Albuquerque estate. The action unfolds in May with elaborate preparations to welcome Paulo who is returning home from Coimbra, Portugal, after finishing his Direito (law degree). On the same night of his arrival, after a sumptuous dinner and drinks, Paulo is attacked in his own mansion by a gang of guerrillas in the garb of making a statement about freedom from foreign rule, but in reality to rob the family of their expensive jewellery. Paulo escapes unharmed but the attack leaves him shaken, however with his glory intact. Of course, the Albuquerques’ connection to the local police helps.

The author then takes the reader into the backgrounds of Senhor Afonso and Dona Isabella who falls in love with a Portuguese Captain Borda de Mar, who would be the sting of the peppercorns. Before returning to Goa, Paulo — with his Casanova charm — had sowed his wild seeds in the bordellos of Coimbra, in drinking and sex orgies, even impregnating a Portuguese girl Ana Sofia, the daughter of his apartment building landlady. Roberto gets a taste of life his brother lived when he visited him.

“Paulo took Roberto out for dinner with friends where he flashed Portuguese escudos like he was a Goan maharaja, telling tall tales about the voluptuous temple dancing girls and his hunting escapades on elephant back in Dudhsagar. Undoubtedly, it struck Roberto that his brother had developed a large circle of friends who flocked to him for his money, his looks, his wit, his tales, his singing and his melodious guitar. He played flamenco like a Spanish gypsy, and the Fado, like a Portuguese virtuoso. It seemed to Paulo that the world was a fast track, capacious, sweet and promising, ready to be tamed, controlled, and toyed with.”

In Goa, Roberto pursues a medical education, while his sister Amanda becomes a teacher of English in a high school in Margao. As time goes by, Roberto is attracted to a beautiful Goan girl Maria and Amanda falls in love with Winnie, an over-educated teacher in the same school, but a lower caste fisherman.

After the attack, Paulo abandons his ambition to work in Panjim in the legal system and gravitates to the hippie commune of Baga and Anjuna, where he experiences vivid psychedelic highs. The author writes a beautifully imagined scene involving hippies in his meeting with an American, Uma, who renames him Krishna, followed by a rite of Shiva lingam worship by the stoned hippies. Here is a sample:

“Music played, the booze and chillum passed around, and the drug and sex orgy began. Paulo and Roberto had sips of the feni liquor and several droughts of the chillum. Paulo was sitting by Suzy, and Suzy was all over him. Roberto’s poor tolerance to alcohol quickly made him high and woozy. Afraid he would black out, Roberto laid down on the Rajasthani spread and, before he knew what was happening, they were all over each other. A blur of naked bodies moved like serpents in the psychedelic pit.”

Finally, what happens to Paulo, Roberto and their sister Amanda and parents is the sort of stuff that would make a fine romantic film. The novel also explores the divided political loyalties in the Albuquerque household, not uncommon in pre-Liberation Goa.

The novel is narrated in the third person, which holds an advantage for the author to be an omniscient observer of all that is going on. However, one disadvantage of this sort of narrative mode is that it can distance the reader from any emotional attachment to the characters, as it happens in several places in this novel. Antonio Gomes handles the narrative with confidence and style, the language ever fresh and often literary in tone. Still, the story would have been enriched if the author had used more frequently the technique of show, don’t tell. Here is an instance where dialogue would work better than indirect narration.
“Roberto was wandering on the beach like a zombie until Maria’s brother found him incoherent and took him to the Tourist Hostel. He told Roberto that Maria was distressed and hysterical when she arrived at the Tourist Hostel crying for help, and that friends had taken her home to Panjim. She hadn’t realised that Roberto had blacked out; there were no lights on the unspoiled virgin beach, and she couldn’t have seen him in the dark.”

Another suggestion I’d like to make is not to describe the dialogue with verbs and adverbs. A simple “he said or she said” after the spoken words is more effective than using phrases like he insisted or grumbled or implored or responded. The reader is usually smart and will know how the character responds in a given situation.

There are many places where the author indulges his sentiments for Goa’s landscape and seasons. Here Antonio writes about the arrival of the monsoon. “The mango and the jackfruit season ended; the monsoon was late, the land was parched and cracked, the eyes were sore and the brow had a crust of salt. The midday sun with its relentless ultraviolet rays had scorched and darkened the dark skin of the local Kundbi tribe who roamed idle with bodies exposed and loins covered by the kaxti that kept on getting lighter and muddier. The village waited in anticipation, raising its eyes to the sky, its palms turned upwards in supplication. Then, all of a sudden, it happened: a mass of dark clouds gathered and day became dusk. There was lightning and thunder, and street boys remarked, “It’s St Peter and St Paul playing football.”

As I enjoyed reading the novel, I kept wondering about the relevance of the title and it finally came in a separate chapter towards the end when the mystery was unmasked. The title is also a metaphor for the spices for which the Portuguese navigators came to Goa and India and is linked to the Albuquerque house because of the ample growth of the pepper creeper in the surrounding garden. For the ‘sting’ though, you have to read the novel.

Readers like me who lived in Goa in the 50s and 60s will appreciate the detailed settings (Panjim, Calangute and Baga); those of the newer generation will appreciate how life was lived at the cusp of Liberation in one wealthy family household and its struggle to assimilate or not in the new political reality. Antonio Gomes handles this situation with clear-eyed objectivity, sympathy and compassion. The Sting of the Peppercorns is a first novel of tremendous achievement.

If I am not mistaken, this is also the first work of fiction published by Goa, 1556, an alternative publishing venture started three years ago by journalist Frederick Noronha, 46, of Saligao.