The Flower Boy

by Karen Roberts

  He heard the gate creak open and saw her running down the path with the precious food bag in her hand. She was wearing a pale blue dress with a white fleecy sweater draped around her shoulders.

  He thought she looked like an angel.

  “What happened? Why so late?” he asked.

  “Ayah made me eat so much, I vomited,” she said breathlessly. “Then just as I was leaving, she made me go back inside and get my sweater. Then I remembered the food and had to run back again,” she finished.

  “Okay,” said Chandi. “Let’s go. Otherwise train go without us.”

  She slipped her hand into his and they started down the path. She suddenly stopped. “Chandi, I forgot Betty,” she said in dismay.

  He looked at her in confusion. “Betty?” he said.

  “My baby doll. She’ll be so upset if I don’t take her with us,” she said, her blue eyes pleading.

  “Rose-Lizzie,” he said. “No time now. Take Betty next time.” He started walking again. She pulled at his hand. Her blue eyes were filled with tears.

  He sighed. “Okay. We go back and bring Betty,” he said. “But if miss train, then your fault.” He carefully placed the food bag in a small hollow on the side of the road and they started back hurriedly.

  Fifteen minutes later, they stood at the same spot, Betty firmly clutched in Rose-Lizzie’s hand. Where the bag of food had been were a few scraps of torn brown paper. Only the ginger beer bottle remained.

  “Must be monkeys,” Chandi said dully. “What to do now?”

  “Don’t worry, Chandi. We’ll go back and get some more,” said Rose-Lizzie, unconcerned.

  “No time,” said Chandi hopelessly. “Maybe go tomorrow.”

  “No,” she said fiercely. “We’ll go today. Never mind food. We’ll do something. Maybe buy some along the way until we get to your father’s house.”

  Mention of his father made Chandi feel a little better.

  It was true, his father would look after them when they reached him. It was only until then. They had five rupees for train tickets and expenses. Enough to buy food with.

  “Come on then,” he said, and started running down the path before his two old friends could make a reappearance. She followed him.

  They reached the fork in the path.

  “This way,” Chandi said confidently.

  He knew the way to the bus stop because it was on the way to school. They walked steadily until they reached the old three-sided cement shelter that served as the Glencairn bus stop. They took a while to find a spot that was free from red betel nut spit stains and fossilized vomit, and finally sat.

  Chandi surveyed the road. Apart from a lone cow that belonged to old Jamis, who lived in the hut up on the hill behind the bus stop, the road was empty.

  “Shall we open the ginger beer?” Rose-Lizzie asked.

  “Better keep for later,” Chandi said, although he too was thirsty.

  He was aware that he was the older of the two of them and that it was up to him to look after Rose-Lizzie.

  “Do we have far to go?” she asked.

  “Very far,” he said. “But we okay. Not too hot and have ginger beer. Come on. Better go.”

  About twenty minutes later, they passed the school and the workers’ compound. Chandi hurried Rose-Lizzie along. People knew him and he knew people. He didn’t want to answer any awkward questions. They passed the school and the compound without incident and were just beginning to slow down when they heard a shout behind them.

  “Chandi! Chandi, wait!”

  They froze, not daring to turn around. Sunil came running up, sweating and panting, and smiling widely.

  “I was playing in the garden and saw you walking past,” he said in Sinhalese. “Where are you going with her? Can I come?”

  “No,” Chandi said firmly. “The Sudu Baby and I are just going for a walk down the road and then we’re going back to the house.”

  He gave Rose-Lizzie’s hand a tug and continued walking. Sunil came running after them. If he’d had a tail, he would have been wagging it.

  “Please, Chandi,” he said. “I’ll just walk with you. I won’t be any trouble.”

  Chandi stopped and looked at him. “Sunil,” he said patiently, “the Sudu Baby and I are speaking English. You don’t speak English well enough, and anyway she is very shy and doesn’t want you to come with us.”

  “How do you know? Did you ask her?” Sunil asked stubbornly. It was the first time he had been this close to her and he was already thinking about how impressed the other children in the compound would be when he told them he had gone for a walk with the Sudu Baby.

  Meanwhile Rose-Lizzie stood and listened to the exchange. She couldn’t understand Sinhalese so she didn’t know what was being said, but judging from Sunil’s pleading looks and Chandi’s impatience, she could guess.

  “Chandi,” she said. “Let him come with us as far as the bottom of the road. Otherwise he’ll keep following us and we’ll get late.”

  “Late?” Sunil said in English. He continued speaking in Sinhalese. “What will you get late for?”

  “Nothing,” Chandi snapped impatiently. He thought for a moment. Rose-Lizzie was right. Usually Sunil did as Chandi said, but obviously not this time. He pulled Sunil to one side out of Rose-Lizzie’s hearing.

  “Listen,” he said sternly. “We’re going for a walk, but it’s a secret. You can come with us as far as the end of this road, but you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

  Sunil’s eyes grew large. A secret! This was getting better and better. He spat solemnly into the sand by the side of the road. “If I tell, may my tongue fall out and the gara yakka eat my heart,” he intoned like the kapurala in the Devala.

  Chandi too spat in the same spot and then kicked some sand over the two shiny spit blobs. “Remember you have promised,” he said.

  Rose-Lizzie watched the ritual and was enchanted by it, especially the spitting part. Chandi always did things so differently. When she and her friends made promises to each other in school, they only shook hands.

  They started off again, hurrying a little because they had lost so much time already. Sunil hurried behind them.

  “Chandi,” he called breathlessly. “Slow down. What’s the hurry? Going to catch a train?”

  “If you can’t keep up, then go home,” Chandi said without slowing down. The reference to the train had made his heart stop for an instant before he realized Sunil was just joking.

  But Rose-Lizzie too was getting tired. She was not used to walking long distances like Chandi was. Her round, usually pale pink face was red and sweaty and she looked like a tomato that had just come out of a refrigerator.

  Her legs ached and her feet, in their white ankle socks and dusty black shoes, felt sore and swollen. Although she didn’t say anything, her steps had slowed so she now lagged behind Chandi.

  This wasn’t the slow, pleasant, conversation-filled stroll Sunil had envisaged. This was like a retreat from a rapidly approaching enemy.

  Time was the enemy, but he wasn’t to know that.

  Finally, they reached the end of the Glencairn road. Here it joined the main road, which was tarred and had more traffic on it than Jamis’s old cow.

  They stood at the little junction under the signpost that had only two arms—Glencairn and Nuwara Eliya pointing in opposite directions. There was a huge shady Bo tree and a small altar for the brightly painted Buddha sitting underneath. Rose-Lizzie thought of burning Buddhist corpses and shivered.

  She sat down on the side of the road, not caring about the dust and leaves that clung to her dress. She took off her shoes and socks and surveyed her feet dismally. There were angry blisters behind her ankles. Chandi was only wearing rubber slippers and although his feet were coated in a thick film of dust, they were okay.

  Chandi, trying to persuade Sunil that this was the end of the road, glanced over and saw her rubbing her feet. He felt a pang of pity, but it couldn’t be helped. They had to go on.


  After a ten-minute rest they started walking again, this time without Sunil and without Rose-Lizzie’s socks, which had been left at the feet of the Buddha.

  It was nearly noon and the sun was hot. They walked slowly.

  The road was flanked by big trees and dense vegetation and occasionally they heard the sound of running water, a small waterfall or an ala perhaps.

  There were no houses or roadside shops. The only houses in the area were estate bungalows and those were set deep into the mountains to avoid traffic sounds. A bullock cart trundled past, but it was going in the opposite direction. A lorry went by but it was a Colombo lorry. Colombo lorries didn’t stop to ask people walking along the road if they wanted a lift. Only hill country lorries did that.

  They came to a milestone that said NUWARA ELIYA 20 MILES. It was a considerable distance, but neither of them knew how far a mile was and twenty didn’t seem very far, so they took heart and walked faster.

  AN HOUR LATER, the pace had slowed considerably, due to intense thirst and tiredness. They heard the sound of water once more and went off the road to investigate. It was a small waterfall which trickled into a small pool, which trickled into a small stream which trickled into the culvert on the side of the road.

  They ran down to it, whooping with joy, and the icy-cold water felt wonderful on their sweaty faces and necks. They carefully placed the warm bottle of ginger beer in a shallow part of the pool to chill, then dipped their bare feet in the water, sighing with pleasure.

  Chandi looked around and spotted a mango tree heavy with ripe fruit.

  It was so secluded here that unless you actually left the road and walked down you couldn’t see the tree. If it had been visible, it would have been stripped of fruit by passersby.

  He ran over to it and shook it hard. Nothing happened. Ripe but reluctant. He found a few sticks and threw them at the fruit. The first stick came down on his head. The second one found its mark and a small yellow mango landed ripely on the bed of leaves beneath. Four sticks later, they had three mangoes, slightly squashed from their landing but extremely edible nonetheless.

  They washed them and ate contentedly, yellow sour-sweet juice running down their chins and hands and staining their clothes. They ate everything, even the thick, slightly sour skin, and then drank the cool ginger beer.

  Replete, they lay down on the cool shady sand around the pool.

  “Chandi?”

  “Mmmmn?”

  “Are you asleep?”

  “No, can’t sleep. Must go soon.”

  “Let’s stay here awhile. Just a little while and then we’ll go.”

  “Little while.”

  “Chandi?”

  “Mmmmmmn?”

  “See the butterfly? It’s so beautiful.”

  “Mmmmmmn.”

  “I’ve never seen a butterfly with those colors before.”

  ”Mmmmmmn.”

  Their eyelids, heavy with tiredness, sunshine, shade, mangoes and ginger beer, drooped and closed. The butterfly fluttered down to take a closer look. A shiny brown earthworm emerged from its holey home and regarded them curiously.

  Next to them, her blond hair dirty with dust and sand, slept blue-eyed Betty.

  Deer Daddy,

  We hav gone to Columbo see the war and Chandi’s father. We will com hom soon.

  Love, Lizzie.

  John stared at the note that he’d found neatly pinned to Lizzie’s pillow with one of her old nappy pins. He tried to arrange his thoughts but only panic prevailed.

  He had noticed Lizzie’s absence at lunch but had thought nothing of it because she sometimes ate with Chandi in the kitchen. After lunch, he had gone looking for her, and when he didn’t find her outdoors, he went into her room to see if she had fallen asleep.

  He saw the note right away.

  Dear Ammi,

  We have gone to Colombo to see Thaaththi. Please don’t worry. We are okay and we will come back soon.

  Your son, Chandi.

  Only this one was written in neat Sinhalese script. Premawathi’s initial reaction was anger, because she was sure that this time she would lose her job. Then the anger turned to concern, and finally to numb worry because he was just ten and hardly knew a world outside Glencairn.

  Oh, they had been to Nuwara Eliya town a few times—to the doctor, and shopping once a year before the New Year—but that was all. And he had the Sudu Baby with him. She was just six. Premawathi shuddered at the thought of the consequences if anything happened to her.

  She stood there clutching the grubby note and wondered what to do next. Common sense told her she should go straight to the Sudu Mahattaya. She steeled herself and walked down the corridor, still clutching the note.

  THE HOURS WALKED sedately by like the line of ants making their way toward one of the discarded mango seeds, but the children slept on.

  The day cooled down to early afternoon and the ants triumphantly carried away a bit of mango. The kohas came out to warn that evening was approaching. The shadows of the mango tree deepened and closed up, throwing soft purple light onto the faces of the two sleeping children.

  She dreamt of the Japanese army sailing up the oya in leaf boats. He dreamt of England.

  PREMAWATHI STOOD JUST inside the Sudu Mahattaya’s bedroom, twisting her hands. He sat unmoving in the blue-and-white-striped armchair, his feet on the matching footstool.

  She had already given him the note and translated it for him and he had handed her his own note and translated it for her.

  “I’m so sorry, Sudu Mahattaya,” she said, handing the note back to him. “What can I say? I’ll take off his skin with the cane when they come back.”

  “If they come back,” Sudu Mahattaya said dully.

  Premawathi was shocked. “What is this talk?” she demanded roundly, forgetting herself momentarily. “Of course they’ll come back. We’ll organize a search party from the workers’ compound and find them. They couldn’t have got far, two children with no money,” this last on a pleading note.

  He just sat and gazed unseeing into the distance. She went to him and put her hand on his arm. “Sudu Mahattaya,” she said gently. “Why don’t you sit here and I’ll send Leela in with a cup of tea. Don’t worry. I’ll see to everything. We’ll find them.”

  “I’ve always loved her slightly more than the other two,” he said quietly, so quietly she had to strain to hear him. “I could never understand how Elsie was so indifferent to her.” He stood up and started pacing around the room.

  Premawathi was silent.

  He came to stand in front of her. “Am I responsible for this? Maybe I should have persuaded Elsie to stay. Little girls need their mothers even if their mothers don’t need them,” he said bitterly.

  Still she said nothing.

  “Premawathi, what if something happens to them? What will we do?”

  Premawathi was overcome. The ever-present tiredness, the shock of finding Chandi gone, and now this uncensored display of emotion and fear from one she had imagined to be without either, was too much for her.

  She sank to the floor and began to weep silently, her body shaking with huge silent sobs and the exhaustion of thirty-four years of living.

  He knelt beside her, his own fear suddenly forgotten.

  “Don’t,” he said softly. “Don’t cry. We’ll find them. I promise you we’ll find them.” Now he was the comforter, although he sensed her tears were because of more.

  Silent secrets he knew nothing about, endless disappointments from a different life, or was it this one?

  He looked down at her bent head and her trembling form and he saw her.

  “Please,” he said. He touched her shoulder tentatively, then he gripped it fiercely, as if to transfer some of his strength to her.

  She looked up at him in shock. He stared into her eyes, wide from weeping and then from something else. He just wanted to hold her and comfort her and murmur reassurances as he did with his Lizzie.

  Only she wasn’
t Lizzie.

  Why what happened next happened at all would remain a mystery to both of them for the rest of their lives, and it was better that way. To unravel or to try and understand was too frightening, because both their worlds had the potential to turn ugly.

  It was enough to say that it was not an act of lust, but more of comfort. Not born of mutual love, but of mutual fear.

  Premawathi felt curiously detached from the entire scene, as though she were only an onlooker, and the blue and white bedroom a stage. And yet, she was aware of the passion and the tenderness, of the surprise and the pleasure.

  He lay on the bed watching her pulling on her short blouse and draping her reddha, her eyes fixed on him. There was no hurry, and there was no shame. Still looking at him, she raised her brown arms, which lifted babies and buckets, and deftly coiled her hair into its usual knot at the nape of her neck.

  She stood there for a few moments and regarded him unsmilingly but not accusingly. He held his hand out to her, but she turned and left, closing the door noiselessly behind her.

  It had been thirty-five minutes since she had discovered the note.

  IT DIDN’T TAKE long to find the children.

  At the workers’ compound, the first person Premawathi met was Sunil, standing by the road, looking into the distance. In less than ten minutes, she was back at the bungalow.

  She ran into the veranda and told the Sudu Mahattaya what she’d learned. Without a word, he ran to get the car. As he drove toward the gates, he saw her standing outside the veranda and stopped.

  “I’ll bring them back soon,” he said.

  She nodded.

  The rest of the household knew by now what had happened and reactions ranged from smirks and outrage to anxiety. Premawathi maintained her silent vigil by the front gate and, presently, Rangi came to stand with her.

  She wished Rangi had stayed in the kitchen with Leela. Her thoughts were chaotic and silently noisy like a treeful of bats suddenly disturbed from their slumber, and she wanted to be alone with them.

  John, driving silently along the deserted Colombo–Nuwara Eliya road, deliberately erased all thoughts of her from his mind, but still had trouble concentrating on the road.

  He almost missed the little waterfall and had to reverse a few yards before he saw it again through the trees. He got out his flashlight, for it was quite dark by now.