The Hungry Ghosts

by Shyam Selvadurai

  This is how I think now of that long-ago moment when my mother held me tight and fed me cake, the weight of her own history pressing down on me, passing over.

  4

  A WEEK AFTER I BEGAN MY VIGIL IN HER ROOM, my grandmother waited until my mother had departed for work one morning, then kept me back from school and took me to the row of toyshops on Front Street in Pettah. The arcade running the length of the shops was crammed with large toys, such as tricycles, dolls houses and scooters, and the passageway reverberated with the cacophony of wound-up dolls, the hooting and chugging of trains, the looped repetition of the Woody Woodpecker Song. With a tip-tap on my skull, my grandmother murmured, “Go ahead, Puthey, choose one thing. Whatever you like.”

  In my excitement I couldn’t fix on what I wanted, something new always taking my fancy. Finally one of the store owners, who was a better salesman than the rest, convinced me to settle on his blue-and-green imported scooter. He had chosen one of the most expensive toys, but my grandmother paid for it with the snap of a hundred-rupee note. When I thanked her, I called her by the affectionate appellation for grandmother, “Aacho.”

  For the rest of the morning, I trundled my scooter up and down the driveway. Soon I had learnt how to give myself a good push and glide with both feet on the platform, not falling.

  Renu arrived home in the early afternoon, and when she saw the scooter her face tightened. She gobbled down her lunch and came out to assert her claim. Lifting the scooter out of my grasp, she set it behind her, rested back against the handlebar and declared, “You’re too young for a scooter. Let me show you how to use this. And, anyway, it’s a girl’s toy.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I cried, and tried to get around her. “Blue and green are boys’ colours not girls’.”

  “What do you know?” She struggled to pry my sweaty hands from the handlebar. “You are just a Grade One baby. I am in Grade Three and I am telling you that scooters are for girls.”

  But I would not let go, and after we had struggled for a while, Renu got impatient and gave me a shove. I staggered back and fell, shards of gravel scraping my elbow and forearms. I wailed as she set off down the driveway. Soon Rosalind and my grandmother came running.

  “What is it, Puthey?” my grandmother cried, as she and the ayah helped me to my feet and dusted me off.

  “Look, Aacho, look at that girl.” I flung my arm in the direction of the driveway. Renu had reached the gate. She turned around to come back but, seeing the two women, stood still.

  “You. Come over here,” my grandmother cried, using the insulting “vareng.” She gestured frantically to my sister.

  Renu stayed where she was. My grandmother hitched up the edge of her ankle-length housecoat and set off down the driveway. Renu still did not move, and when my grandmother reached her, she glared up at her elder without flinching.

  “Give that scooter to your brother. Who told you to use it? Did I buy this for you?” My grandmother referred to my sister as “oomba,” the “you” used for the lowest castes.

  Renu threw the scooter on the gravel, scratching its paint. She began to stalk away, but our grandmother grabbed her by the plait, drew her face close and said with bitter contempt, “Yes, I see where you will end up. Like mother, like daughter.” Then she shoved Renu away, wrinkling her nose.

  I am not sure what our mother heard from Renu that evening, but she came looking for me. I was around the side of the house, washing my scooter at the garden tap.

  My mother stood over me, breathing hard. “Your sister is all you have in the world, after I am gone. You had better learn now to share with her. I insist you let her take turns on the scooter.”

  “No,” I cried, “it is mine. Aacho gave it to me, not her. She can get her own scooter.”

  “The problem is you are being spoilt by that woman. You need some discipline. You are turning into a selfish, arrogant child. Yes-yes, this spoiling has to stop. You will share your scooter with your sister or not ride it at all.”

  “I don’t have to do anything you say. This is not your house. This is Aacho’s house, and she says this scooter is mine and I don’t have to share it.”

  My mother grabbed me by the front of my shirt and hauled me to her. “I am your mother. You will always listen to me first.”

  She shoved me away and ran her hand over the top of her head. Then, with no warning, she began to cry loudly in a helpless way. She hurried towards the verandah.

  I rushed after her. “I am sorry, Ammi. I will do as you want. I promise I will share my scooter with Renu, I promise I will.”

  When we reached the front steps, my mother turned to me, her face grim. “The reason that Renu cannot have her own scooter is because I cannot afford to get her one. Do you understand that, Shivan? I cannot afford it.”

  “I’m sorry, Ammi, I’m sorry.”

  She nodded to accept my apology, then entered the house.

  After that, I rode the scooter only when my mother was away. When she was home I loaned it to Renu so that my mother would see I was obedient.

  From then on, all my grandmother’s gifts felt to me like a betrayal of my mother, an affront to her poverty. I loved to read, and my grandmother, knowing this, took me once a month to the K.V.G. de silva Bookshop so that I could pick what I wanted from the latest arrivals. My choice always included a few new editions from my favourite writer, Enid Blyton. I made sure that my mother never saw me reading the books. When I was done with them, I stored them under my bed. Finally, however, Rosalind got worried that the piles would encourage cockroaches and spiders. She hauled out an old bookshelf from the garage, and I came home from school one day to find all my books on display. I stood in the curtained doorway, my neck prickling as if some secret vice of mine had been exposed. I wanted to return the books to their hiding place, but knew this would only raise questions.

  Later that day, my mother came searching for me and saw the shelf. Her face took on a look of pain.

  “What are you staring at?” I demanded. “Have you not seen books before?”

  My mother gave me a long stare, her head shaking slightly.

  After the episode with the bookshelf, my mother insisted I go with her once a week to the Thimbirigasyaya market. Every Saturday we trudged the fifteen minutes to the market, vehicles bellowing dust and diesel fumes as they sped by. My mother ignored my sullenness and chattered on about her work or asked about my studies, all the while holding an umbrella to protect us from the sun. I replied tersely, furious. When we were done, I had to carry our shopping bags home.

  “I cannot do it all,” she would explain. “You children are so pampered and cosseted. How you will last in the real world, I don’t know.”

  As time passed, I developed a seething anger towards my mother and sister. By my early teens, this anger had grown so powerful, I could barely bring myself to speak to them. Even the slightest reproof from my mother or jibe from my sister would send me into a rage. Their lives, despite drawbacks, were free of my grandmother; their lives were actually better for us being here. And this happiness, I saw, had been won at my cost.

  My mother loved her work. She enjoyed dealing with journalists, the excitement of deadlines, the commissioning of pieces, and she soon rose to run the newspaper’s women’s section. She made female friends at work who were single, divorced or widowed like her, and they often went to see films or plays at the Lionel Wendt Theatre. She also renewed ties with old school chums. All this compensated for the anguish of living with a mother who would not even speak to her unless absolutely necessary. When she had to discuss something with my grandmother, she would stand before her curtained doorway and ask humbly to enter. During their terse conversations, my grandmother kept her face averted.

  Renu complained she had to tolerate the snobbery of classmates, but I felt she greatly exaggerated her suffering. She was very popular with the teachers because of her intelligence, and being a charity student did not affect her status. She had also quickly learnt t
o draw the mantle of her poverty about her haughtily and stare down with martyred disdain at any classmate who dared speak of her charity status. Very early, Renu positioned herself as a champion of the downtrodden. By the force of her character, she attracted a circle of girls who shared her convictions about the oppressed and, even though they came from some of the wealthiest families, took up her attitude of denigrating wealth. My sister was often busy on weekends doing work in slums or visiting the elderly, anything to stay away from my grandmother’s home. She always had a crush on some teacher, whom she worshipped with lambent-eyed adoration, carrying the woman’s books and manoeuvring to sit near her on school trips.

  After that fateful thirteenth birthday, I no longer kept vigil in my grandmother’s room while she slept. Instead, I accompanied her on errands having to do with the properties, learning the trade of my patrimony. As part of my new duties I also had to sit in on Sunil Maama’s weekly visits to my grandmother, ostensibly so I would grow familiar with legal terms. My grandmother would often ask me if I had spotted anything irregular or needing improvement in one of the documents under discussion, one eye on Sunil Maama, who patted his bald spot to make sure the strands of hair were in place. I hated having to respond, and even though, in time, I was able to spot mistakes, I would always shake my head. She would then pounce on the problem and jab at the paper before flinging the deed or tenant agreement at poor Sunil Maama.

  One of my grandmother’s tenants was a Tamil couple, the Thurairajahs. They became her tenants soon after they lost their house and livelihood during civil riots between the Sinhalese and Tamils in 1977. They had been professors at a southern university, he in mathematics and she in English literature. The husband now taught science at an international school. When my grandmother and I came over to collect the rent or attend to a repair, Mrs. Thurairajah was often asleep, and she answered the door with her waist-length plait half unwound, sweaty wisps pasted to her forehead and cheeks. Despite this disregard for her appearance, Mrs. Thurairajah walked as if she effortlessly balanced a water pot on her head, and she spoke in a low, cultured tone. There was often a vacant look in her eyes, as if she were lost deep in herself. My grandmother, who was polite to her middle-class tenants, had no special like or dislike for this couple, and in fact respected their education and refined demeanour.

  A few months after they became our tenants, we visited the property, and I saw that in the living room—which had so far been sparsely furnished with Galle antiques, no doubt saved from the mob—there were shelves filled with books from boxes that had been stacked against a wall. While my grandmother took the rent from Mrs. Thurairajah and inquired about the condition of the house, I casually drifted towards the shelves, hands in pockets, not wanting to seem intrusive. What I gleaned right away was that most of the books, though in English, were translations of works by Spanish, French and Latin American writers, or novels by Indian, African, and Chinese writers. It had never crossed my mind that anyone but British and American people wrote novels. Mrs. Thurairajah had seen me gawking. After she had paid the rent to my grandmother, she came over with an indulgent smile.

  “I think you might like this book,” she murmured in her elegant contralto. Reaching into the shelf, she drew out R.K. Narayan’s The Guide and offered it to me.

  I blushed at having been caught peering at her things. “No, no,” I protested. But she pressed the book on me and finally I took it.

  I was so keen to read the front and back flaps, particularly the author’s biography, that I did not notice my grandmother’s reaction to this exchange. When we were in the car and I was bent over, gorging myself on the first chapter, she declared, “You know, I am not a Tamil-hater like a lot of our Sinhalese people, but I believe the Thurairajahs got what was coming to them.”

  I glanced sideways at her. She was angry and trying to hide it, fiddling with the catch of her purse.

  “Yes-yes,” she nodded at my surprise. “They must have been very bad and cruel teachers. After all, it was some of their own students who came looking to kill them, who burnt their house.” She pretended to look through her purse, frowning.

  I put The Guide down on the car seat between us. The giving of books was her right.

  The next time we visited Mrs. Thurairajah asked me what I had thought of her gift. I blushed and stammered that it was not for me, that I did not enjoy such novels.

  By the time we returned that afternoon from our errands, I was ripe for mischief and went looking for my sister to torment her.

  I crept into her room and found Renu looking out the window, giggling on the phone, which she had brought by its long cord from the saleya. “Don’t be silly, he is not interested in me at all,” she exclaimed, then added coyly, “Eee, what do I want with some fellow trying to cop a feel at the back of a cinema.”

  She saw me and hurriedly got off the phone. “What do you want?” she cried. “Have you never heard of knocking? I could have been naked.”

  “Help.” I made a gagging sound. “That would have ruined me forever.” I held out my hands, proclaiming a headline: “Brother Drops Dead at Sight of Sister’s Hideous Nakedness.” I went on, “Brother Levelled to Ground by View of Sister’s Grotesque Backside. Brother Has Fits, Froths at Mouth, Bites off His Tongue and Goes into Coma at Sight of Sister’s Monstrous Mammary Glands.”

  I had by now developed what I considered to be a scathing wit, more out of loneliness than anger—the need for a second voice that would help me build a barrier against the world.

  “Get out.” Renu flung a pillow at me.

  I ducked it. “So who is this local Lothario panting after you? Clearly some chap without a modicum of good taste.” I sauntered further into the bedroom, hands in pockets. “Must be a graduate from the Sisters of Charity Home for Mongoloids or the Rajagiriya Home for the Blind.

  “So, tell-tell,” I continued, as Renu picked up a book and pretended to read, “who is this deaf, blind mute who has developed a penchant for the abhorrent?”

  “It’s none of your business. Leave me alone.”

  “Ah, but I must be acquainted with this rare species of fellow who has a predilection for breasts the size of limes and a backside like the rear of a double-decker bus. Hmm, I wonder how he’ll ever find you in the dark, given you are blacker than the night?”

  “Get out, get out.” Renu flung her book down.

  I grinned lazily and then, holding her gaze, opened her top dresser drawer. “Heavens!” I gasped, hands to cheeks. “What is this?”

  I seized two Kotex pads, slung the loops around my ears and began to waltz about.

  “Shivan!” Renu rushed at me and snatched at the sanitary napkins, but I slipped out of her reach. She punched my arm, and the next thing I knew I had hit her in the face, the wet slap of my palm cracking the air. She cried out in shock and stumbled towards the bed, clutching her cheek. For a moment we were still, my sister regarding me as if I were a stranger. My hand tingled from the impact with her cheekbone.

  “That will teach you to never touch me again. Never touch me.” I left the room, chin high to hide my dismay at what I had done.

  By the time my mother got home that evening, there was a purple bruise on Renu’s face. My mother called me to her room. I strolled in, hands behind my back. My mother was standing on the far side of her bed as if she needed a protective barrier. She peered at me. “Shivan, how could you hit a girl? I am so ashamed of you.”

  “Shame is for the unwashed proletariat, so I don’t deign to—”

  “Don’t talk to me in that ridiculous way. You’re not on a stage.”

  “Ah, I see that Mother Dearest, Mother Fairest, is offended.”

  “Shivan, shut up.”

  “Or perhaps I should say Mother Unfairest.”

  “I know she hit you first, but you were annoying her. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, you can’t hit your sister back. A man must act in a chivalrous manner towards his women folk. No matter how much they provoke him, a man must nev
er touch his women folk. He can scold them or even berate them, but—”

  “Yes, yes,” I yelled, “take her side the way you always do against me. You always do.”

  “No, Shivan, that is not true.”

  “It is, it is, you love her more than you love me.”

  “Ah, Shivan, how could you even say that.” My mother stepped back.

  “How can I say that? You ask me? You dare to ask me that?”

  I ran to my room, flung myself on the bed and beat the pillow, letting out a muffled howl of rage.

  5

  WHEN THE MIND BURNS WITH ANGER, immediately cast aside those angry thoughts or they will spread like an unchecked fire travels from house to house. Those were words my mother repeated, from a book called Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, when she told me the story of her life many years later.

  For my mother, too, the pivotal moment of her childhood was her father’s death when she was eight years old. He was a distant but kindly presence, a man who was often away on circuit as a judge. He would sometimes bring her toys from his travels around the island. Depending where he had been, the gift would be brightly painted clay cooking chatties from the south, or a woven palmyra elephant from Jaffna. He seemed unaware that he often brought home the same gifts. My mother never pointed this out, shy around him because he, too, was shy. When he talked to her, he would periodically suck in his breath through gritted teeth, as if he had a toothache. At fifty-five, he was less like a husband to my grandmother than one of those self-effacing elderly bachelor uncles who live on a niece’s charity. He had married when he was forty-six and my grandmother just seventeen. They had separate bedrooms because my grandmother claimed he stayed up too late at night working and disturbed her when he came to bed. The room she assigned him was at one end of the front verandah, a room typically allotted to a relative living on charity.