Cereus Blooms At Night

“When Lavinia failed to notice him, his passion did not wane but was transformed. Embers of adoration and desire smoldered but what sprang up were flames of anger and self-loathing. He began to hate his looks, the colour of his skin, the texture of his hair, his accent, the barracks, his real parents and at times even the Reverend and his god. It began to matter to him that he and Lavinia were not in fact siblings.”

Chandin likens his desire for Lavinia to a fire, and after being told that they can never be together, he attempts to smother the flames. Instead, the fire of his affection transforms into a different kind of heat, one that is only internal. His love becomes resentment and self-hatred, compounded by the fact that his appearance—his race—means that Lavinia will always be unavailable to him. Chandin begins to hate himself, but he also grows to hate the structures that hinder his desires, including the structures of whiteness.

“Over the years I pondered the gender and sex roles that were available to people, and the rules that went with them. After much reflection I have come to discern that my desire to leave the shores of Lantanacamara had much to do with wanting to study abroad, but far more with wanting to be somewhere where my ‘perversion,’ which I tried diligently as I could to shake, might be either invisible or of no consequence to people to whom my foreignness was what would be strange.”

Tyler’s queer identity prompts him to think about the limitations and possibilities surrounding Gender and Sexual Identity. His realization that he does not fit the roles that are prescribed for him, nor does he want to, is a key part of his motivation to study abroad in the Shivering Northern Wetlands. He realizes that his race will be noteworthy in this land of whiteness, which means his queer identity may go unnoticed. He would rather stand out as a racial rather than sexual “other.”

“I wonder what Nana would think if she knew the positions I was in that enabled me to gain the full story. For there were two: one, a shared queerness with Miss Ramchandin, which gave rise to the other, my proximity to the very Ramchandin that Nana herself had known of.”

Tyler draws a line of connection between himself and Mala, a line that has seemingly been fated since his Cigarette Smoking Nana first told him the story of the Ramchandin family. A key part of this connection is that there is something “queer” about both of them—for Tyler, it is his Gender and Sexual Identity; for Mala, it is her overall orientation to the world around her. Tyler also reflects on the fact that his Nana would be surprised that his job would bring him into contact with the Ramchandin family. In thinking about his Nana, Tyler creates a point of comparison between her and Mala, both of whom he has great care and affection for.

“‘Killing snails amounts to courting bad luck, sweetheart,’ she said, narrowing her eyes and shaking her head. ‘But let me tell you a little secret. Protect a living snail and when it dies, it doesn’t forget. Snails, like most things in nature, have long memories.’”

Aunt Lavinia offers this explanation to young Mala to prevent her from harming snails simply to obtain their shells. This story, while not accurate or factual, instills in Mala a desire to protect snails—and small creatures in general. It also emphasizes the significance of secrets because Lavinia specifically frames her tale as a secret, something to be shared just between the two of them. This secret, special connection leads Mala to continue protecting snails and collecting their empty shells long after Lavinia is no longer a presence in her life. This story becomes central to Mala’s character development, especially regarding her identity as a protector.

“I watching you and I want to ask you so many questions but I don’t even know what it is I want to know. I want to know something but I don’t know what.”

The gardener at Paradise Alms House, Mr. John Hector, makes this statement to Tyler after explaining that he had a brother not unlike Tyler, whom his mother eventually sent away for his own safety. This moment is very vulnerable for Mr. Hector, as he has not only offered information about his personal life that he very likely kept secret but also expresses a desire for a kind of “forbidden knowledge.” He understands that there is a similarity between Tyler and his brother, and it motivates him to know more in an attempt to understand his brother’s identity. It is significant, though, that Mr. Hector isn’t sure what to ask Tyler, suggesting that the language and understanding surrounding sexuality for individuals like Mr. Hector are still quite limited.

“Just as I was hoping the tower would come crashing down and extinguish me forever, a revelation came. The reason Miss Ramchandin paid me no attention was that, to her mind, the outfit was not something to either congratulate or scorn—it simply was. She was not one to manacle nature, and I sensed that she was permitting mine its freedom.”

This realization from Tyler comes after Mala steals a nurse’s dress for him and encourages him to wear it. While initially excited to wear it, when he reveals himself to Mala, he feels embarrassed and awkward, especially when she only glances at him with little reaction. He comes to understand that for her, seeing Tyler in a dress is seeing things as they should be. He compares her appraisal of him to the way she views all things in nature—they must be allowed to flourish without obstruction or intervention. In this way, she is simply letting Tyler’s nature take its course.

“Today, she intended to prove to him that she and Asha were not stupid and dirty but were strong and could fend for themselves. But most of all she wanted Walter, not Boyie, to like her.”

Mala is describing her goal to arrive at the local park and command attention and respect from her peers. Although she is referring to Walter Bissey, her desire to be seen as strong and able to defend herself is analogous to the way she would like to be viewed by her father—and the town of Paradise in general. At the same time, she is hoping to be admired or even desired by Walter, who represents the dominant members of their society. This moment is the first and one of the very few in which Mala expresses, rather than rejects, a desire for acceptance and conformity.

“‘I hate Boyie. Why he didn’t stay with us? I hate Walter. I hate everybody.’ Wiping away tears from her eyes she jumped over the railing of the tomb and stomped off. ‘I wish Papa was dead,’ she mumbled softly. ‘I hate him. I hate him. I wish he was dead.’”

Mala has this outburst after Walter torments her and Asha during a game of Blindman’s Bluff. It expresses her very immediate feelings about her situation but also contains a great deal of foreshadowing, from wishing for her father’s death to being angry at Boyie for leaving her. The fact that she and her sister are hiding in a graveyard also foretells the death and loss that lies ahead in Mala’s life.

“She unlatched the high, latticed gate of her father’s house. She didn’t want to think about the smell of someone else’s saliva on her breast, or that scrubbing off such evidence meant preparing her body for him.”

Returning home from Boyie’s house after her first consensual intimate encounter, Mala feels complicated emotions, ranging from anxiety to anger. She is worried that her father will detect that she has been with someone else, even if they did not have intercourse. She is also upset at herself for anticipating her father’s reaction, as her intention is not to please the man who is abusing her. Her multilayered reaction in this moment demonstrates the depth of the impact that her father’s abuse has left on her psyche. At the same time, it shows that she is nonetheless attempting to express her own sexual agency.

“I must remind myself, however, that Mala Ramchandin’s story is my prime purpose here. Asha, if you are reading this, all I will say is that, thanks to your sister, my own life has finally—and not too late I might add—begun to bloom.”

In Tyler’s prologue that begins Part 2, he begins to reflect on his newfound relationship with Otoh but stops himself, emphasizing that Mala’s story is the most essential, the one that most deserves to be told. He does, however, mention as an aside to Asha—and therefore to the reader—that through his connection with Mala, he has been able to grow in his own personal way. It is telling that he uses the term “bloom,” which evokes the novel’s title and the cereus flowers that only blossom when the timing is finally right.

“The transformation was flawless. Hours of mind-dulling exercise streamlined Ambrosia into an angular, hard-bodied creature and tampered with the flow of whatever hormonal juices defined him. So flawless was the transformation that even the nurse and doctor who attended the birth, on seeing him later, marvelled [sic] at their carelessness at having declared him a girl.”

Otoh’s transformation from male to female is depicted as one that is so effortless as to be almost natural. He does exercise to more effectively achieve the male form, but in doing so, he somehow intervenes in the normal biological processes associated with sexual maturation. It is as if he was never meant to grow into a woman, and even medical professionals assume he must have been biologically male all along. This framing of Otoh’s gender transformation demonstrates the connection between gender as both innate and changeable; or rather, that the nature of gender is that it has the capacity to change.

“The old bird’s snail-planting rituals must be an extension of her childhood kindness, Otoh mused. One thought led to another. He wondered about the gentleness and compliance his father exhibited during the snail-protecting activities, and tried to think how his father manifested such traits in the present—besides delivering food to a helpless bird. His sleeping seemed to be a passive smouldering, a withdrawal from Otoh and Elsie, a rebellion.”

Ambrose tells Otoh of the times when he and Mala were children and would collect snails to prevent them from being smashed by their schoolmates. Having seen that Mala still collects snail shells and lines them up in her yard, Otoh concludes that Mala is still acting as a snail protector, even if his father is not. He considers that it must have taken great tenderness to take these actions in defense of such small creatures, and Otoh wonders if his father is still capable of this. In Otoh’s reflections, he also uses the metaphor of a bird to describe Mala, thinking that perhaps this is one way his father is still acting as a benevolent protector.

“In the mirror of his armoire he watched himself pull on the blue-and-white flowered garment, half-expecting to resemble his mother, but there was no resemblance. Without knowing why, he wanted to share his secret with Mala Ramchandin, even at the risk of being caught walking the streets dressed like a woman.”

In preparation for his visit to Mala and actually make contact with her, Otoh decides to wear one of his mother’s dresses. He assumes, due to inheritance and biology, that he will look like her when dressed as a woman, but there is no likeness between them at all. Although Otoh never dresses in women’s clothes, part of the reason for his visit is that he wants Mala to know that he, too, is keeping a secret about himself. It is noteworthy that in this moment, he describes the danger of dressing “like a woman,” not “as a woman,” highlighting the fact that Otoh is truly a man and not merely pretending.

“It’s as if I wanted to redeem my father’s name, to rescue her and be the Romeo he never was. It’s a funny thing, yes, but I was never so protective to my own mammy.”

Otoh relates to Tyler the reasons he has been drawn to Mala and how his own motivations are tied up with his father’s. He recognizes the ways his father tried and failed to protect Mala in the past and feels committed to protecting her now. By thinking of himself as a “Romeo,” he also codes his feelings toward her as romantic. Even if he does not actually desire her, his motivations toward her are chivalric in nature.

“Mala’s mouth remained open, her lower jaw dropped partly in exhaustion, partly to release heat and let in air. Her flesh had come undone. But every tingling blister and eruption in her mouth and lips was a welcome sign that she had survived. She was alive.”

Mala has just finished a strange act or ritual in which she places her mouth in a jar of fermenting hot pepper sauce, keeping herself grounded in a traumatic episode as she is transported back to the day her mother and Lavinia left her. Having all but collapsed on the porch, she is in great pain but also finds pleasure and solace in these physical sensations. They remind her where and when she is. Most importantly, they reinforce that she is resilient and still living, even after all she has been through.

“The moon lifted higher. Mala herself felt intoxicated and finally, deliriously tired. She must have dozed off because suddenly there was only a handful of moths lilting heavily and precariously in flight. She hadn’t noticed the swarm leaving. She slumped in her chair. The scent was indeed more pleasant than the stink that usually rose from behind the wall.”

On the night that the cereus flowers open, Mala sits in her backyard, taking in the sights and scents of this experience. Overwhelmed by her senses, she falls asleep but awakens to the sight of moths taking flight from the now-empty blooms. The moths signify a kind of freedom or new beginning as they take flight, but they also symbolize an ending; in this case, ending the night of new blooms. The rich, pleasant scent of the cereus flowers also contrasts with the normal stench of decay that rises from Mala’s house, which hints at the macabre revelation soon to come.

“Mala wished that she could go back in time and be a friend to this Pohpoh. She would storm into the house and, with one flick of her wrist, banish the father into a pit of pain and suffering from which there would be no escape.”

In this section of the novel, Mala refers to herself and Pohpoh as wholly different people. Pohpoh is depicted as a young girl still living in the traumatic events of the past. Mala sees herself as Pohpoh’s defender, considering how if she could visit Pohpoh as an adult, she would be able to protect her from her father’s violent abuse. The reader knows that Pohpoh and Mala are one and the same, but the rupture between the two in this moment addresses how Mala has compartmentalized her identity to cope and survive.

“Before Otoh turned to go his father whispered, ‘I remember now, son. You are indeed a reincarnation but not of a person, per se, merely of a forgotten memory. You are a perfect replica of me in my prime. I have never seen you look so stunningly like myself before.’”

Otoh has dressed in his father’s old clothes in preparation for another visit to Mala’s house. Ambrose notices how much Otoh resembles and tells him as much. However, it is significant that Ambrose tells Otoh that he looks like a “replica” or a “memory,” which shows that while Otoh may look like his father, they are not one and the same. He is not an exact copy and therefore his own actions—with Mala and more generally—will be different and have a different outcome.

“At the top of the hill Pohpoh bent her body forward and, as though doing a breast stroke, began to part the air with her arms. Each stroke took her higher and higher until she no longer touched the ground. She soon found herself above even the tallest of trees.”

After the police discover Chandin’s body, Mala calls Pohpoh to her side and urges her to fly away. Pohpoh runs and takes flight into the air. She moves as if she is swimming, flying higher and higher. The vivid description of Pohpoh’s flight demonstrates that Mala is helping Pohpoh finally escape. Since Pohpoh is Mala, it means that the little girl inside of Mala is finally able to fly far away from her house and the island of Lantanacamara.

“Without removing the gift from the box she looked at it, touching the fat brass arm. She clutched the records to her chest, imagining that Ambrose knew these musical pieces well, had especially chosen them just for her. She returned the disks and closed the box. With less difficulty than Ambrose, she lifted it and walked into her bedroom. She shoved the box under her bed, out of her father’s sight.”

When Ambrose gifts Mala the gramophone and records, she initially insists that she cannot accept it. However, it becomes immediately clear how much this present means to her. The items are evidence that Ambrose was thinking of her, even while he was in a foreign land. They also symbolize the affection and attention of a man other than her father, which must be kept secret from him. By hiding the gramophone under her bed, a very intimate location, Mala shows that it is deeply personal and belongs only to her.

“At the end of each visit, they would cart the gramophone out from under the bed to the verandah, where they were afforded privacy by the backyard trees. He would put on one of the two records and the black lord and the poor brown princess would delicately hold the tips of each other’s fingers and dance.”

The gramophone continues to serve a symbolic importance in Ambrose and Mala’s relationship, this time representing their growing physical intimacy. At the same time, in framing a “lord” and a “princess,” the narrative shows that their affection is wholesome and tender. This passage is also one of the few times that Ambrose and Mala’s races are directly mentioned. Significantly, they are a “[B]lack lord” and “[B]rown princess,” pushing whiteness far into the background as they tell their own fairytale.

“She looked not for Ambrose but for Boyie, for Asha, for her mother and for Aunt Lavinia. She picked up the broken gramophone and went down into the garden searching for them.”

After the altercation with her father and Ambrose’s departure, Mala becomes unmoored from the present reality. The trauma of being abandoned again casts her back into the past, and she scrambles to look for her mother, sister, and childhood friend. She carries the pieces of the broken gramophone as the only evidence of what has transpired in the current moment and quickly comes to understand that this time, she has truly been left all alone.

“‘You was simpler when you was sleeping.’ When Ambrose found the note, he shed a few tears, after which he took a red pen, made corrections to her grammar and saved the paper, just in case she were to return some day and he could explain the errors to her.”

The moment when Ambrose reads the note from his wife Elsie, who has left him, is both humorous and bittersweet. Her one line of explanation highlights that although his constant sleeping was a hindrance, it did allow Elsie to be her own person and not have to regularly think of Mala and Ambrose. Now that he is awake, he is constantly making life more difficult in the ways he insists on intervening. Although Ambrose is saddened by this turn of events, the fact that he takes the time to correct the errors on her note serves as proof of the difficulties he is causing. Teaching his wife and showcasing his knowledge is more important than preserving his relationship.