The Hungry Ghosts

by Shyam Selvadurai

  My mother answered, and instead of returning my greeting, said, “Son, are you alright? Has something happened?”

  “No, Amma,” I replied impatiently. “Not at all.”

  I heard my sister’s voice in the background, and my mother said, “Yes, he’s calling from Sri Lanka.”

  “So, you’re sure everything is alright?” my mother repeated, and now I heard the receiver click as Renu picked up the extension.

  “Yes, Amma.”

  “Good,” she said doubtfully.

  “Why are you calling, then, Shivan?” Renu demanded. “It’s just barely seven thirty in the morning here.”

  “I’m having a wonderful time, Renu. I’m so happy, you know.”

  “You are?” my mother asked.

  “Yes, and guess what, Amma?” I feigned excitement. “I’m going to stay for the summer.”

  My mother was silent. “But you can’t, Shivan, the ticket …”

  “I can extend it for three months.”

  “But … but what about a job, you have to pay your loan.”

  “Aacho will pay it from her London account.”

  “No,” my mother said firmly, “no, I want you to come back. Shivan, you must return.”

  “What for?”

  “Your life is here.”

  “No it isn’t. I hate my life there. I don’t want to come back at all, really, but I will before my ticket expires. Then I … I’m seriously thinking of returning to live here.”

  “Shivan, are you mad?” Renu said after a moment of silence on the other end. “Are you blind to what is going on in that country? You are a Tamil, have you forgotten that?”

  “Only in name.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I speak Sinhalese, I eat Sinhalese food, I live in a Sinhalese house. If I change my name, I will be Sinhalese.”

  “Change your name to what?”

  “Ariyasinghe, what else?”

  I could hear one of them breathing fiercely on the phone. “Let me speak to your aachi,” my mother demanded.

  “She’s gone to the temple. There is no need for you to talk to her. And no, she has not influenced me. I am a grown man. I have come to this decision on my own.”

  “Shivan,” my mother cried, “you come back next week, you hear?”

  “No, Amma, I will not.”

  “You must, I insist.”

  “Amma, I’ll write soon.” And with that I put down the phone.

  I went to sit on the verandah, hands clasped as I leaned forward, gazing out at the garden. The thought of what awaited me in Canada—my basement, the scramble for money, my mother’s depression—sickened me. I should have felt gladness and relief for this extended reprieve from all that, but instead I felt threatened by my Canadian life, as if even at this remove it had the power to destroy my current happiness.

  How quickly things progressed from there. A few days later, I was awakened in the early hours by Rosalind, saying, “Baba, come, your aachi is not well.”

  I tied my sarong and followed her to my grandmother’s room.

  She was lying in bed, forearm over eyes.

  “Aacho?” I went and sat by her.

  “Ah, Puthey,” she said faintly. “I’m fine. Just a little weak today, it will pass.”

  “I’ll call the doctor.”

  “No, no.” She lowered her arm. “I am just coming down with a cold.”

  Rosalind and I had a whispered discussion in the saleya. I telephoned Dr. Navaratnam, our family physician, and also Sunil Maama for good measure.

  When I led them into my grandmother’s room, she looked cross. “Now, what is this?” she said to me. “For nothing you are wasting Dr. Navaratnam’s time.” She glared at her cousin. “You better not bill me for this visit, Sunil.”

  “Of course not, Daya.” Sunil Maama laughed nervously.

  “Let’s see, let’s see, Mrs. Ariyasinghe,” Dr. Navaratnam said with a little smile. She took out a blood-pressure meter from her black Gladstone bag and checked my grandmother’s pressure. “Hmm, seems normal.” She gave my grandmother a thorough examination, then declared, “Nothing really wrong. Might be the flu.”

  My grandmother glowered at me in triumph. “Ah, see, you have wasted everybody’s time.”

  “Now, come, Aacho, I did the right thing,” I scolded. “You really aren’t that careful with yourself. If you don’t watch out, you’ll end up having another stroke.”

  She rolled her eyes at the doctor. “My grandson is far too worried about my health.” Yet she was delighted at this public display of my concern. She lay back against her pillow with a moan. “Aiyo! Now what am I going to do about today? I have to visit a property and collect the rent.”

  Sunil Maama offered to go, but my grandmother shook her head and covered her eyes with her forearm again.

  The doctor packed her bag with an amused smile. I could feel the expectation swell in the room. “Of course, Aacho, I’ll do it,” I blurted out.

  She sighed and lowered her forearm. “See, Dr. Navaratnam, what a blessing my grandson is in my old age. Like rain soaking a parched land.”

  “You are very lucky, Mrs. Ariyasinghe,” the doctor replied dryly.

  I had to collect rent at the row house in Pettah from which my grandmother had ejected that woman Siriyawathy and her boy all those years ago. The roof was missing even more tiles and had rusting takaran patches all over it, like sores on a beggar’s back, the verandah pillars swollen and warped, the paint blistering. As I went up the front steps, they listed beneath my weight. Boards in the verandah floor had rotted away, the jagged gaps revealing muddy ground a few feet below.

  The tenant was two months in arrears. I knocked and, when no one came, went to the front window and peered through the chinks of the wooden shutters. Bloodshot eyes stared back at me.

  “What do you want?” a man demanded.

  “Hello, I’m here to collect the rent.”

  “You are who?”

  “Mrs. Ariyasinghe’s grandson.”

  He continued to scrutinize me, and I frowned proprietarily at the gaps in the verandah floor as if they were his fault.

  After some time, the tenant turned away from the window. Bolts grated back and he stepped out, shutting the door behind him. He wore only a pair of frayed shorts that looked grease-stained like he had been under a car, pot belly hanging over the waistband. His hands were enormous, tufts of hair on knuckles. An old wound on his forehead was shaped like a gecko. “What is it you want again?” he asked, as if he had not heard me correctly before, arms folded over broad chest.

  “The rent.” Then I added, “You’re in arrears, my grandmother says. Two months.”

  He was chewing a wad of bulath leaves, his mouth red from it. He spat out a stream of juice, which just missed my feet. “Tell your grandmother I don’t have the money. I can’t pay her.”

  He grinned at my stupefaction and stepped closer. “You’re a fine boy. From Cinnamon Gardens, aren’t you? Beautiful face like a girl’s, soft hands like a girl’s.”

  “Look, I just want to get the rent.” A heat throbbed in my head. “Why don’t you pay for one month.”

  “I don’t have the money for one month. I don’t have any money at all.”

  “Then … then you must leave. You must vacate the premises.”

  He whistled. “Big talk, nah? From a boy with such pretty hands and face.” He stepped even closer. I could smell his stale sweat and sour, leafy breath. “Get inside and I’ll fuck you for the rent.

  “Yes,” he said with an amused grunt at my gasp, “I’ll fuck you good for the rent.”

  “Look, are you … are you going to pay the rent or not? I don’t have all day for this.”

  “Ado, ponnaya, you got too much wax in your ears? I just told you I don’t have the money.”

  I shoved the receipt book in my bag, hands shaking. “Well, you must pay the rent. Or you must leave.” I turned away with chin tilted up. “I will tell my grandmother o
f all this.”

  When I reached the car, he yelled in a falsetto for the whole street to hear, “Aney, look, a ponnaya!”

  As we drove away, I longed to lean my head back against the seat and shut my eyes, but the driver was looking at me in the rear-view mirror and I pretended to stare nonchalantly out the window. “Ponnaya” was used frequently as an insult and I did not think the man thought I was actually gay. He had just wanted to emasculate me.

  In my bathroom, I splashed my face with cold water, then rinsed my mouth, spitting vigorously to expel the taint of that man, his sneer, his smell of sweat and bulath. “That thuppai pariah,” I whispered as I dried my face, looking at my image in the mirror. Yet I was impotent against him, and this only increased my anger.

  My grandmother was not in her bedroom. I found Rosalind in the kitchen, and she informed me that the Loku Nona had suddenly felt better, called a taxi and gone on an errand. The ayah’s eyes were wide with concern for me. Our driver was seated on a stool at the back of the kitchen, bent over a newspaper, frowning. Their worry about my encounter with the tenant only increased my humiliation.

  I went back to the saleya and roamed about, stopping to look out of various windows. My grandmother would be home soon; it was nearly lunch time. What would she do? The moment I posed the question, the answer was clear. “Soma,” I called to the driver as I strode towards the kitchen. “Soma!

  “Come, we have to do an errand,” I said urgently as I came back out onto the back verandah. I ignored the look of alarm that passed between him and Rosalind.

  In her letters, my grandmother had told me about the renovations to Chandralal’s home, but I was still taken aback when I saw it. There was a high boundary wall topped with rolls of barbed wire. A security guard, gun slung over his shoulder, opened the gate. He glared at me inquiringly but then, recognizing my grandmother’s car, he smiled with genuine friendliness and ushered me in. The old house had been replaced by a two-storey mansion, the properties on either side annexed to accommodate this expansion. The only part of the old home that remained was the marble fountain, plastic flamingos and penguins still around it, like petitioners gathered outside a seigniorial manor.

  The security guard escorted me up the front path and rang the doorbell. A flustered servant answered. The guard told her I was the Ariyasinghe Nona’s grandson and she beckoned me cordially into the living room, then went to get her master. I sat on a plush red velvet sofa which gave off a smell of mouldy animal fur in this tropical heat. The décor suggested simultaneously a colonial smoking room and a Victorian lady’s parlour. The ornate teak furniture had leopard-skin-pattern upholstery and there were antlers and even a stuffed sambar head mounted on the wall. An elephant-foot wastepaper basket sat in a corner. Yet all the armchairs and sofas had dainty antimacassars on them. Ruffled and frilled lace curtains hung in the windows and the china cabinets were crammed with porcelain bric-a-brac.

  Chandralal came out immediately from what must have been his study clutching papers and a pen, reading glasses perched on his nose. “Baba … your aachi?”

  I stood up. “No, no, Chandralal.” I patted his arm awkwardly, moved by his fear. “There is nothing wrong with her.”

  Bafflement twitched across his forehead. “Then, baba?” He removed his glasses and put his papers and pen on the coffee table.

  I could not speak for a moment and he gestured for me to be seated.

  “I am having a problem with a tenant, Chandralal, and I need your help.”

  “Of course, baba.” He gave me a keen look and sat down across from me.

  “It’s the Pettah property.”

  I told my story hesitantly, but then, seeing his surprise and anger at the tenant’s behaviour, my own anger returned. “Can you believe, Chandralal, that pariah dog actually spat at my feet? And he had the insolence to call me a ponnaya.”

  He shook his head in wonder at this insult and leaned back in his chair.

  “Yes, Chandralal, this man, who has crawled out of some sewer, had the gall to insult my manhood, yelling for the whole street to hear.”

  “The whole street, baba? What a disgrace. How can you ever return there again?”

  He held his glasses up to the light, examining the lenses. He was waiting for me. “So, Chandralal, I need you to—”

  He lifted his hand as if to stop me saying something I might regret. “It is done, baba.” He stood up. “My blood boils to think of that wild dog talking to our baba in such a way.” He gestured towards me with open palms. “Why, I have known you since you were a little boy, nah? I think of you like a son.” Then, perhaps feeling that was too much, he added, “Like a little cousin-brother. And to think that spawn of a sperm-eating whore—” He broke off and shook his head again in wonder. He patted my back. “Now, you go home. I will deal with this.”

  Chandralal escorted me to the car. As we walked down the front path, I complimented him on his renovations, saying they were even more elegant than my grandmother had described. He blushed and said he was grateful they met my approval. I was someone who had, no doubt, seen much fine architecture in Canada.

  When we parted, he shook my hand instead of bowing his head, as he usually did.

  On the drive back to my grandmother’s house, I began to question what I had set in motion, telling myself that I was now in Chandralal’s debt. Still I pushed this reasoning away, because a greater conviction was taking hold of me—by going to him I had set myself free. What, exactly, I meant by this I could not say, except it was like the time I had gone to the Canadian High Commission to get that immigration form.

  When I got home, my grandmother was having her afternoon nap. The events of the day had exhausted me. I fell asleep after lunch and woke up only when Rosalind nudged my shoulder. The Loku Nona wanted to speak with me. The ayah’s lips were thin with worry; she wanted to offer advice but was holding back. I went to quickly wash my face and comb my hair.

  When I entered my grandmother’s bedroom, I found Chandralal standing by the window, legs apart, hands behind his back, face lit with satisfaction, as if he had brought us a gift. My grandmother was beaming too. “Look at him, Chandralal, truly a man, truly a man.”

  “What pride you must have in him, madam!”

  I blushed, not out of delight but unease, pressing back against the doorpost.

  “Puthey, I am very proud of you.” My grandmother held out her hand. I went and took it. “Now, I hope you aren’t questioning if you did the right thing.” She pulled me down next to her. “I wanted to give that pariah dog one more chance and was hoping he might respond better to someone gentle and diplomatic like you. But it was a waste of time. Being kind to that man is like pouring honey into a pot that contains feces.”

  “I also hope you are not regretting your decision to see me, baba,” Chandralal added. “You did the only thing you could have. This is not Canada. Over there, people are civilized and understand the meaning of paying their debt and observing the law. Unfortunately, the majority of our people are just animals. In Sri Lanka, it’s always like two dogs fighting in the street. One must triumph. So better you than the other person, I always say.”

  “That is what I say too, Chandralal!” my grandmother exclaimed. “It is a lesson I have been trying to teach this boy, who unfortunately has a gentle spirit. But I see I underestimated him. He is really my grandson.” She squeezed my arm and I felt throttled by her gesture.

  Chandralal wanted me to look at the Pettah property. We drove through Colombo at a terrific speed, the driver blaring his horn to clear the road, forcing cars to the side. Chandralal kept up a steady patter about how Sri Lanka was going to be the next Singapore; how the government was opening up even more garment factories and free trade zones, building even more new roads; how the famous village reawakening scheme was going to bring prosperity to the outlying districts of Sri Lanka. I nodded and feigned interest, but all the time I felt giddy. Occasionally I added a comment to his monologue, and each time I did he
pronounced some compliment, like, “I would never have guessed you were so astute, baba! But it doesn’t surprise me. You are, after all, madam’s grandson.”

  When we got to the property, one of Chandralal’s golayas was standing guard by the broken door. Chandralal led me through the rooms, with which he seemed very familiar, pointing out what damage had been done and waiting patiently while I wrote it all down in an exercise book so I could tell my grandmother later. The inside of the house had deteriorated just as badly as the outside. Plaster had come down in places, exposing the red brick beneath, leaks from the roof had left a web of marks on one wall like inflamed varicose veins. Taps in the kitchen and bathroom were rusty and dripping, streaks of green fungus on the shower walls below the leaks. The tiny backyard was jammed with the detritus of previous tenants.

  All the furniture in the house had been removed and stacked on the verandah, to be sold in the next few days, as it was when Siriyawathy was evicted. Still, there were remnants of the man’s life in the empty rooms—a spilled canister of rose talcum powder, a bottle of women’s Kohinoor shampoo, a broken toy cricket bat, scattered crayons and a pink hair ribbon. The man had a wife and children. “He gave me no choice,” I said to myself, lips set grimly. “What choice did I have?” If he had offered to pay one month’s rent, even half a month’s rent, if he had not insulted me, none of this would have happened.

  When we finally left, Chandralal eyed the broken door. “What shall we do here, baba?”

  “Let’s get a new door, Chandralal. I am sick of this old one. Also, we must get this place fixed up. Then we can attract a better type of tenant.”

  “Very good, baba.” He smacked his hands together in admiration, giving me a keen look. I was taking a decision without consulting my grandmother. “This very evening, I will send a baas to look around and give you an estimate.” He patted me on the back and beamed. “See now, baba, you know what you are doing. Your aachi has taught you well. You mustn’t let a few pariah dogs put you off.”