Swimming in the Monsoon Sea

by Shyam Selvadurai

  In the courtyard, Eva, Zsa Zsa, and Magda had gathered around the jak tree, their snouts twitching upwards as they listened to a squirrel scampering through the branches. Recently, a squirrel had missed its footing and fallen. Eva had captured it in her jaws, but Zsa Zsa and Magda had fought her for it, tearing bits of the live squirrel from her mouth. They saw Amrith and came rushing over, their tails manic metronomes. He waved them off. “Shoo, get away, you disgusting old things.” They crept back to the tree, hurt.

  “Amrith?”

  The door to the master bedroom was ajar. Uncle Lucky was knotting his tie in front of the full-length mirror on the almirah door. Without turning around, he crooked his finger at Amrith, who went and stood by the almirah.

  Uncle Lucky was tall and lean and very dark-skinned. He had angular features that were set in a customarily severe expression — an effect heightened by the fact that his heavy-lidded eyes were magnified by his square, black, plastic-framed glasses. All his family and staff, however, were quite aware of the person behind this facade. Uncle Lucky, though he was always accusing his wife of being gullible to any hard-luck story, was far easier to touch up for money and favors than Aunty Bundle.

  “Amrith,” Uncle Lucky said, frowning down at him, “isn’t there any boy from your drama society you’d like to have come and spend the day?”

  Amrith felt the heat rising in his neck. There wasn’t. Though he was respected for his acting talent, at the same time, none of the boys had ever made overtures of friendship towards him.

  Uncle Lucky cocked his foot on a cane side chair and began to retie his shoelaces. “This won’t do, Amrith.” He lowered his foot with a snap and stood, legs apart. “The other day I was at the Inter-Continental Hotel, waiting to meet a client, when I got chatting with this foreigner from an American organization that is setting up skills-training centers in poor areas. I asked him, ‘Sir, what do you think is the most important skill a young man should have for his future life?’ Do you know what he answered? ‘Typing.’ Typing! Evidently, in ten years, computers will be running everything. Not knowing how to type will be like not knowing how to add. Can you imagine? And people here think typing is infra dig, just for clerks and steno-girls. So,” Uncle Lucky picked up a stack of files, “this holiday, I want you to come every morning and study typing at my office.”

  It was not a request, and Amrith felt relieved.

  Uncle Lucky held up his hand. “Five minutes. Run and put on something nice. I don’t want you coming like a beggar. No Bata slippers, please.”

  When he came out to the car, Uncle Lucky was already seated in the back. His driver, Soma, smiled companionably as Amrith got into the front seat beside him.

  Uncle Lucky’s aquarium was in the town of Negambo because it was close to the airport and also by the sea. Amrith and the girls had been there many times. The fish tanks were housed on four open corridors that formed a rectangle around a courtyard. This allowed for a maximum amount of sunlight, and the circulation of air.

  Uncle Lucky’s office, however, was in Colombo’s Fort, on historic Chatham Street, with its colonial buildings from the last century — whitewashed facades with pillars and arches and colonnaded arcades.

  When they went shopping in Fort, Aunty Bundle often brought them by the office. Uncle Lucky would take them to Pagoda for pastries or, if times were particularly good for him, to the Grand Oriental Hotel, for lunch in the Rainbow Room overlooking the harbor.

  Once Soma had dropped them and gone to park, Amrith looked up and down Chatham Street. Things were very much the same — still the crush of pedestrians jostling by, the street hawkers selling everything from mothballs and combs to cheap Chinese leather goods and windup toys; the cacophony of horns and cars backfiring, the hot oily smell of diesel fumes.

  The broad stairs, which led up to Uncle Lucky’s office on the second floor, were in need of polishing, the intricate Moorish tiling of the foyer cracked and chipped. After the street, there was a stately silence, a coolness. Their footsteps echoed as they went up the broad stairs.

  A panel fronted the landing of the second floor. Its bottom half was golden brown wood; the top half, frosted glass. A door in the panel led to Uncle Lucky’s office. A gold plate on the door carried the inscription, Ceylon Aquariums, in large curving letters, and below it the name of the proprietor, Lukshman Manuel-Pillai.

  They entered into the lively sound of typewriters and chatter, the clinking of teacups against saucers. Uncle Lucky’s presence did not bring silence, rather it was as if someone had turned down the volume on a radio. As Amrith followed Uncle Lucky towards his cubicle — the only one in the office — he looked around, nodding and smiling shyly to the familiar faces.

  There were four workers in all. The steno-girls, Mangalika and Susanthika, wore flowered frocks and had waist-length hair, which they wore in a plait. Mr. Balasunderam, the accountant, was rapidly losing his hair, but had chosen not to go gracefully into baldness. He grew out the sides and pasted the graying strands across his bald head. Amrith and the girls were fond of him — when they were younger, he always had Delta Toffees for them — but it made them giggle to watch those strands gradually slip off the top of his head and plop down onto his shoulders.

  Miss Rani was the office manager. She wore bright nylon saris that rustled like plastic sheeting when she moved about. Her hair was parted in the center and tied in a bun at the back. Being deeply devout, she always had a vermilion stain at the front of her parting and a dusting of white ash on her forehead, from having gone to the temple in the morning. Miss Rani carried a handkerchief tucked into the strap of her wristwatch, which she used to delicately wipe the sweat off her upper lip and temples. There was a burnt smell to her of synthetic fabric that had been ironed at a too-high temperature. She was from the Tamil capital of Jaffna, in the north of Sri Lanka.

  Uncle Lucky’s relationship with Miss Rani was different from that with any of his other workers. He had a certain reverence towards her, yet, at the same time, a brotherly interest in her welfare. He paid for any business courses she wanted to take and was always terribly proud of her achievements. If he needed advice, he talked to Miss Rani.

  Once Uncle Lucky was seated in his office, he called on Miss Rani to take over Amrith. She installed him at an old typewriter in the corner, put a book of typing exercises in front of him, and showed him how to keep his hands on the keys, his wrists curved upwards. As Miss Rani bent over him to demonstrate the first exercise — ff jj ff jj dd kk dd kk ss ll ss ll aa;; aa;; — he looked at her and wondered, as he often had, about the nature of her relationship with Uncle Lucky. Amrith was sure she was not his mistress because Uncle Lucky adored his wife and considered men who had mistresses to be cads. Also, Aunty Bundle heartily approved of his generosity towards Miss Rani. (And besides, Amrith could not imagine Miss Rani, with the ash on her forehead, being anyone’s mistress.) It was Uncle Lucky’s peculiar reverence for her, as if Miss Rani was a treasure that he had discovered by accident and looked after with great care, that puzzled Amrith.

  Miss Rani came by occasionally to offer words of encouragement and to correct his errors. The precision and effort it took to gain command over his fingers was so absorbing that Amrith was surprised when there was a stirring amongst the staff, the clang of tiffin carriers being opened up, the smell of rice and curry in the air. He had really enjoyed his time in this cool high-ceilinged office with its hum of activity; really enjoyed the challenge of mastering the typing exercises.

  When they were standing on Chatham Street, waiting for Soma to bring the car around, Amrith glanced at Uncle Lucky and felt a great love for this man, who had always looked out for his interests.

  During that terrible time of his mother’s funeral, Uncle Lucky had stood behind him like a rock, while Aunty Bundle, in her grief and guilt, had fallen to pieces. It was Uncle Lucky who had told him how his parents had died — the awful and mysterious circumstances surrounding their death. But, before Uncle Lucky had done
so, he had put his hands on Amrith’s shoulders, looked him keenly in the eyes, and said, “I want to make you a promise, son. You will never, ever, be a stranger in my house.”

  4

  The Barrier of the Past

  Amrith’s black mood returned with greater ferocity that afternoon, from having been held in abeyance for a few hours at Uncle Lucky’s office.

  Storm clouds had been gathering all through lunch and, finally, just when the family began their afternoon rest, there was a crash of thunder, a burst of lightning, and the rain poured down from the skies without any preliminary drizzle (as it often did during a monsoon). Amrith lay on his bed, his hands cupping the back of his neck, his room darkened by the torrent outside. He felt that familiar inner blackness come in and sweep him out, like a current. Once again, he was helpless against its power — like being held underwater in the salty murkiness of a churned-up sea.

  These black moods were quite recent and they frightened him. They had started about a year ago, around the time he turned thirteen. With his changing body, it seemed that a change had occurred within. When he thought of himself before he was thirteen, it was as a dashing-about child, with no thoughts distinct from the dictates and actions of his body. As he passed into his teenage years, his mind seemed to separate more and more from his body, causing him to see himself from a distance. And this detachment, paradoxically, had brought a great flooding of emotions. In the past, his sense of sadness over the loss of his mother had been confined, for the most part, to her death anniversary and, perhaps, a little at Christmas. But now he felt dejected quite often. Her absence made him aware that he had no real family. His relatives on both his father’s and mother’s sides wanted nothing to do with him. His parents had married against the wishes of their families and they had eloped to do so. The child of such a marriage was often rejected by his relatives.

  Amrith sat up in bed and drew his legs to his chest. As he rested his chin on his knees, a memory arose of a visit two women had paid Aunty Bundle a few months ago.

  They were old school friends. One of them lived in Colombo and kept in touch with Aunty Bundle occasionally. The other had just come back from Australia to settle in Sri Lanka. She had been living abroad for the past ten years with her daughters.

  Amrith had immediately disliked the woman from Australia and he could tell that Aunty Bundle was less than delighted to see her again. She was a hawkish-looking woman, with a beak of a nose and closely set eyes. Amrith was the only other family member home and, since he and the girls were expected to greet visitors, he had gone out to the courtyard where the women were seated with Aunty Bundle.

  The moment the woman from Australia saw him, she cried out, “But, Bundle, who is this boy? I didn’t know you had a son.”

  The other school friend looked disconcerted. She had clearly told this woman exactly who he was. Warned her, Amrith could not help feeling.

  Aunty Bundle had also seen through the woman’s charade and her voice was icy as she introduced Amrith — the son of her friend Asha, grandson of the late QC Fonseka, the famous lawyer.

  “Aah, he is just visiting you, then,” the woman from Australia said disingenuously.

  “No,” Aunty Bundle replied, with even greater coldness, “Amrith is our son now.”

  In all the years Amrith had lived here, there had never been a need to explain his presence. In Sri Lankan society, all such personal information was secretly passed between people to prevent socially awkward situations from arising.

  Amrith, having done his social duty, was free to leave, and he went across the courtyard to his bedroom. He did not know why but, once he was in his room, he left his door slightly ajar and stood by it, listening.

  After a while, Aunty Bundle went inside to answer a phone call. The moment she left, the other school friend said to the woman from Australia, “What on earth, Ratna? I already told you about the boy, nah.”

  “Yes-yes,” Ratna replied, “but I just wanted to make my point clear.”

  “Which is?”

  “That I have brought my teenage daughters back to this country to ensure they meet the right sorts of people, rather than those savage Australians. And I didn’t go through all the trouble of relocating to have them mix with the likes of that boy.”

  “But why? He is, after all, the grandson of QC Fonseka, a fine family.”

  “Yes, but his relatives have rejected him, so he has no social standing. And don’t forget the scandal surrounding his parents’ death. Would you want something like that trailing your daughter?”

  The other woman was silent.

  “No, I did not think so,” Ratna continued. “The father was an alcoholic. The boy has probably inherited it. Would you want a drunkard and wife-beater for a future son-in-law?”

  Again the other woman was silent.

  Amrith stumbled away to his bed and sat down shakily. A feverish heat took hold of him. He had not realized that the circumstances of his parents’ death and his father’s drunkenness were known in their social circle.

  Later, once the women had left, Aunty Bundle came to his room. She wandered around aimlessly, tidying up things on his bookshelf and chest of drawers, before she finally spoke. “Son, you should feel sorry for that woman. The reason she has come back is because her husband has abandoned her for an Australian woman.” She shook her head. “I never liked that Ratna, even as a girl. I hope she doesn’t visit again or try to thrust her daughters at us.”

  Aunty Bundle did not look at him while she spoke. She had been confronted, for the first time, by the problem of Amrith’s past and the consequences it might have for his future.

  After that, Amrith became conscious that people did look at him oddly, when they thought he was unaware of their gaze. And he also began to notice that mothers tended to be watchful when he was talking to their daughters, at the club or after church. He knew that part of this watchfulness was because he was growing into manhood, and so boundaries needed to be put between the sexes. But he also felt sure that another part of their vigilance had to do with his flawed past. Amrith had no interest in girls, and he had never really thought of marriage before. Yet, it frightened him that his past might prove a barrier, when he did want to get married.

  Without realizing it, Amrith had got off his bed and gone to his chest of drawers. Opening the top drawer, he took out a leather-bound photo album. A few years after he came to stay with the Manuel-Pillais, Aunty Bundle had given it to him. It contained all the photographs she had of his mother, in the time they had known each other as girls.

  The first page was titled Asha at 12. Holiday in Galle Fort, and had photographs of his mother about to bat in a cricket field with ramparts in the distance, his mother leaning on a balustrade with her hand against her cheek, his mother and Aunty Bundle on bicycles in a narrow street with houses on either side that had pillared porches. Another page was titled Asha at 15. Jaffna Holiday, and showed his mother and Aunty Bundle in identical sundresses with spaghetti straps and rows of embroidery and piping on their skirts. They stood with their arms around each other, against a stark sandy background with palmyra trees in the distance. On the same page, they were both in bathing suits having a well bath, flinging pails of water at each other. Another page, Asha at 10. Ballet, showed his mother in a ballet costume, striking various poses; in yet another — Asha in Great Expectations — his mother was dressed as a man with top hat and tails, the other girls in crinolines. The last picture in the album took up the whole page and it had probably been taken not long before his mother eloped with his father, for she looked like the woman he remembered. It was a studio portrait from the chest upwards. She looked vulnerable and beautiful, her chin lifted exposing her bare neck, her head turned slightly to the left, her frizzy hair pushed back behind an ear that had a pearl on it. She was wearing a checked sari and a blouse with short sleeves.

  He shut the album, an angry sound escaping from him. He was sick of the past, just sick of it. He drifted to the Fr
ench windows and stared out into the side garden. The monsoon shower had abruptly ceased, and there was a silence all around him, broken only by the drip-drip-dripping of water from the trees and gutters. In the quiet, he could hear the girls in their bedroom, across the side garden. Amrith put on his rubber slippers. He did not want to be alone with his thoughts anymore.

  The girls had seen him coming across the garden, for the moment he stepped in through their French windows, Selvi sprang out from behind the curtains and grabbed him from the rear in a headlock. “What is the password?” she cried, with the glee of an older sister dominating her younger sibling. “You cannot enter without giving the password.”

  He tried to struggle out of her grip, but Selvi, who remained a tomboy even though she was almost sixteen, held on with great expertise.

  Mala, as usual, leapt to Amrith’s defence. “Sin, men,” she cried at her sister, “leave Amrith alone.” She jumped off her bed and tried to rescue him from Selvi’s grip, which only mortified Amrith even further.

  When they were children, he and Selvi would scuffle frequently, rolling on the floor as they tried to get the best of each other, Amrith often losing. Mala hated their fighting and she would stand by, wringing her hands and weeping, begging her sister to stop hurting him.

  “Akka!” Mala tried to come between them. “Leave him alone!”

  A significant look passed between the sisters. Selvi immediately released her grip on him. “Sorry, Amrith.” She patted his arm. “I forgot that it was —”

  A frown from Mala silenced her.

  “Forgot what?” Amrith cried, with sudden recklessness. “What did you forget?”

  “Nothing,” Selvi mumbled, and went to sit at the foot of Mala’s bed.

  Amrith was furious at them for this delicacy around his mother’s death anniversary. He wanted to yell, “Stop pretending this is just another day!” But he could not bring himself to do so.