The Flower Boy

by Karen Roberts

  At Glencairn, Rose-Lizzie wondered why Chandi didn’t write to her. In Deniyaya, Chandi wondered why Rose-Lizzie didn’t reply.

  PREMAWATHI STAYED IN Deniyaya for just over a month. During that time she cooked and cleaned and washed and nursed her mother back to health. Gradually, the paper-white transparency of the old woman’s skin disappeared and she started to look healthy. The nourishing mung bean porridge and precious chicken-bone soups put the flesh back on her bones, and with the herbal drinks Premawathi prepared, her cough would soon become a bad memory.

  The thirty rupees had dwindled down to less than ten. No matter how affectionate Kalu Mahattaya was toward Premawathi, he still expected her to settle not just her own bills, but also the money owed by her father. And they needed money for their return trip.

  When she was down at the well washing clothes or bathing, she had time to wonder how Disneris and the girls were. To wonder how the Sudu Mahattaya and his girls were. She was surprised at how little she missed them all.

  It was as if Glencairn had been temporarily cauterized from her memory, and she welcomed the respite.

  Chandi bore his isolation stoically. He spent his days helping his mother clean the house, helping his grandfather clean up the garden, and helping his grandmother clean her hair of the lice that had come to live in it during her unwashed days of illness.

  Every morning, he carried water from the well to the house for the day’s cooking and washing up. He swept under the bed and emptied the large tin his grandmother urinated in during the night. He peeled garlic and onions for his mother and picked her curry leaves from the garden outside.

  He tended the rough beds where cabbages, cauliflower, green chilies and tomatoes struggled to grow among the weeds that choked them. His grandfather pretended to help him, but actually sat beside him and told him what to do.

  And when his mother finished bathing his grandmother and she was ensconced in her chair under the shady jambu tree, Chandi spent at least an hour a day looking through her hair.

  He didn’t quite understand what he was doing, but did it so his mother wouldn’t have to do it all herself. Other than his flower business, he had never had to work before, because with Appuhamy, his sisters and the three girls who came in from the village, there wasn’t anything for him to do anyway.

  In the evenings, he sat and gazed into the distance and wondered what Rose-Lizzie was doing and why she didn’t write to him. He wondered if she had found another best friend. The thought made his heart clench with fear.

  chapter 18

  EXACTLY THIRTY-NINE DAYS AFTER THEY HAD BOARDED THE DENIYAYA bus from Badulla, they boarded the Badulla bus from Deniyaya.

  The reason for their leaving was simple enough. The money had finally run out, spent on good health in the shape of food and medicines. And while there was enough food left in the house to feed two people for quite some time, it wouldn’t last as long if it had to stretch to four.

  There had been a long and tearful farewell, but Premawathi went in the knowledge that her mother was quite well now and would regain her strength completely in the next few weeks.

  Chandi stood quietly and let them feel his hands and smooth his hair and commit his expressionless face to their memories. After they had finished, he knelt down before them for their blessings. Then he picked up their bag and began walking down the hill. His mother turned to wave, but he didn’t look back.

  The bus, when it came almost an hour late, had the same driver and the same overfriendly ticket conductor. They were both half asleep, but the ticket conductor brightened up perceptibly when he saw Premawathi. His eyes slid downward as she hitched up her reddha to climb the steep steps into the bus. She caught his furtive look and pretended not to see, but her eyes chilled and her words were brief and frosty.

  They hardly spoke during those long bumpy five hours. Not even to each other. When the conductor came and leaned his hip against the back of the empty seat opposite them, his legs spread for balance, and tried to start up a conversation, Premawathi deliberately closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.

  After waiting so long to return home, Chandi didn’t know what to feel now that the day was upon him. There was vague fear, but he didn’t know of what. After about an hour of wrestling with it, his head dropped onto his mother’s shoulder and he slept.

  He woke when the bus stopped in Badulla. They got off walking stiffly, teasing cramped muscles into working order and manipulating stiff necks. He looked around the town curiously, half expecting it to have changed beyond recognition in these last thirty-nine days. Everything was exactly the same, down to the sherbet man making inviting noises with his spoon and bottles.

  At the railway station, Premawathi spent what was left of the thirty rupees on tickets, third-class this time, and they boarded the train for Nuwara Eliya.

  Although he sat by the window and looked out, he still saw nothing. Just an endless green haze that rushed past his window and through his hair with the wind. He didn’t look for other children hanging out of other windows when the track curved sharply. He didn’t wave at people, but they, paradoxically, waved at him.

  His stomach heaved from hunger and anxiety and he was afraid that he would be sick. Briefly, he allowed himself to think of what happened to vomit in the wind, but that made his stomach heave some more, so he made his mind go blank.

  At Nuwara Eliya, they had to wait almost three-quarters of an hour before the Glencairn bus came along. By now, Chandi didn’t have to do anything to make his mind go blank. It had done that all on its own. The bus was empty but neither of them wanted to sit. His bottom felt numb and not there. His legs ached. And behind his eyes his head ached fiercely. It felt as if the wheels of the bus were directly connected to the ache in his head, for every pothole that they fell into resounded in his head like the clash of cymbals. Only worse.

  At the Glencairn halt, they got off and trudged wearily up the path, but even through the all-enveloping tiredness, his eyes eagerly sought the shapes of the mountains and trees, familiar even as looming shadows and vague silhouettes. His nostrils twitched in recognition as the smell of night-blooming jasmine stole past them on a whisper of breeze. And far away, he could hear the sound of laughing.

  The back gate creaked joyously, and even Buster’s loud barking had never seemed so much like a welcome.

  Neither of them spoke much, but nobody noticed, so excited were they at this unexpected arrival. Disneris hovered, Leela fussed and Rangi just smiled mistily. Appuhamy heard the noise and came into the kitchen, adding his own quavering voice to the babel that threatened to swamp Chandi.

  Finally Premawathi came to his rescue, promising news and stories the next day because now they were tired and needed to sleep.

  He slept.

  HE WOKE WITH a start and looked around him uncomprehendingly. He felt disoriented, and his body felt strangely heavy and disinclined to follow the commands of his brain. His eyes were blinded by the bright sunlight streaming in through the windows. When he blinked and they cleared, they wandered around the room past the crooked carnation, the cracked mirror, the reddha curtain, and came to rest on a small figure sitting quietly in a corner watching him.

  All of a sudden, he was engulfed by shyness. She saw he was awake and came to sit beside him.

  “Where were you?” she asked accusingly.

  “Deniyaya,” he replied huskily. He cleared his throat. “Deniyaya,” he said again.

  “You just went,” she said. “You didn’t even say good-bye.”

  “I couldn’t,” he said. “Even I didn’t know I was going until they told me I had to.”

  “You didn’t have to go,” she said.

  “I had to. Ammi needed me,” he said simply.

  She was silent and he was sad. She was angry. She didn’t want to be his best friend anymore. Perhaps she had already stopped.

  “I didn’t want to go. I looked for you, but you were at school. I didn’t tell anybody to tell you because they w
ouldn’t have told you anyway. I even wrote you a letter.” The words fell over themselves.

  “I looked for you and even Rangi didn’t tell me why you’d gone. I thought you were never coming back.” Her eyes filled with tears and they rolled down her cheeks. Slowly, like a leaky tap.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  He scrambled over to her. “Don’t cry, Rose-Lizzie,” he said earnestly. “I came back, didn’t I? And I didn’t like it anyway. I won’t go away again, even if they tell me to.”

  The thought of his impending trip to England crept unbidden into his mind, but he told himself that was later. This promise only included the immediate future. Still, he felt slightly guilty.

  He pulled her to her feet. “Come. I’m going to the well to wash and you can watch me,” he said. She brightened up and scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.

  They ran outdoors hand in hand. Premawathi, who was cooking breakfast, saw them go and shook her head wryly. She briefly remembered the letter and wondered what had happened to it.

  “You didn’t even write.”

  “I did. You didn’t write back.”

  “You didn’t because if you had I would have.”

  “I wrote about Deniyaya and my aachchi and seeya and about nelli and everything.”

  “Aachchi and seeya? What’s that?”

  “My grandmother and grandfather.”

  “Well, I never got a letter. Did you post it?”

  “No, Ammi did.”

  “Did you put a stamp on it?”

  “No. Ammi did.”

  “Maybe she didn’t.”

  “But I told her to.”

  “She probably threw it away or forgot.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. People are like that sometimes.”

  “But I wrote it. On a paper with a pen and all.”

  “If she posted it, I would have got it. I didn’t, so she probably didn’t post it.”

  “I’m never going to speak to her again!”

  “You can’t do that. She’s your mother.”

  “Oh yes. I forgot.”

  The conversation came to a thoughtful halt while they both digested it. It was warm and sunny by the well and Chandi hadn’t actually got round to washing yet.

  He wondered why his mother hadn’t posted the letter. He wasn’t angry at her anymore. Now he just felt sad at her. Not just sad because she hadn’t posted it, but also sad because she hadn’t known how important it was to him. She was his mother. She should have known, even if he hadn’t actually told her.

  The whole of that first day home, Rose-Lizzie followed him around like a devoted puppy, afraid to let him out of her sight in case he disappeared again. Chandi was relieved that their best friend status hadn’t changed.

  Premawathi watched them with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. Disneris watched with barely concealed disapproval.

  In the afternoon, when the sun was high in the sky, they wandered down to the oya and sat on its banks exchanging news. When they were finally exhausted from talking, they watched the water.

  In the evening, when the shadows lengthened and the sky turned purple, they walked around the garden so Rose-Lizzie could show Chandi the new flowers and plants that had arrived in his absence.

  John watched them through the open living room window. He was glad Chandi was back. Rose-Lizzie had wandered around like a little lost soul, wearing her puzzlement and sadness like a painful halo. He had missed her laughter and the sound of her voice echoing through the house and through the gardens.

  He had missed Premawathi too. Missed hearing her quick light footsteps down the corridor, even missed the furtive looks she shot him from under her lowered lids that usually exasperated him.

  He stood at the window and let his ears fill once again with his daughter’s laughter.

  Behind him, Premawathi entered the room quietly and stood there, not wanting to disturb him. Then she heard them laughing, and heard him laughing softly at something they were doing outside.

  She almost spoke, but then bit her words back and left as silently as she had arrived.

  IN THE KITCHEN, Disneris washed the dishes and wondered how best to broach the subject of Chandi and Rose-Lizzie to Premawathi. He had hoped that the brief separation would have made the two of them less friendly, but it seemed to have done just the opposite.

  Today, he had watched her follow Chandi around like a tail.

  Shamelessly, he thought privately.

  Disneris had been brought up to believe that everything had a place.

  His parents’ home had been orderly and Christian. Things were never put where they didn’t belong. Clothes were folded neatly and placed on rails or in cupboards or over the backs of chairs. Furniture was arranged tidily and sensibly. Food was never exciting but adequate and nourishing, and was served on a little dining table where everyone ate neatly and properly.

  The same applied for people. Everyone had his place. The rich had theirs, the poor had theirs. The Sinhalese had theirs and the Tamils had theirs. The Buddhists had theirs and the Christians had theirs. The Ceylonese had theirs and the British had theirs. Some were better, some were lesser.

  But they all had their places.

  In Disneris’s mind, so long as everyone stayed in their own places, everything worked well. The way it was supposed to. That was the way it was meant to be. The way it always had been.

  Disneris never wondered why some people had more money than others. Why some people owned other people. Why some people ate at claw-footed dining tables and some people ate on kitchen steps. He never wondered at the inescapable circle of poverty, never seethed in impotent anger at the sight of his daughters doing heavy work, never felt even a flicker of jealousy at the sight of the Sudu Mahattaya driving off in his big car while he himself walked to catch a bus that probably wouldn’t come.

  Disneris accepted his life. He saw nothing desperately wrong with it, saw no reason to try and rectify something that, in his opinion, didn’t need rectifying.

  He was content with his lot and his only wish for his children was that they be content with theirs. Live and work uncomplainingly and maybe even happily.

  He had thought this was the way things were, until he had come to live at Glencairn and seen the already developed and thoroughly unsuitable friendship between Chandi and Rose-Lizzie.

  It upset his sense of neatness.

  It offended his sense of place.

  He felt that Premawathi had changed.

  He had married her because she was a good Christian, educated, pretty and therefore suitable. She had a serene, uncomplicated disposition which he liked. Even when things were tough during the first years of their marriage, she hadn’t complained or nagged, but quietly bore the hardship and the hunger. When the job at Glencairn had come up, she had taken it gratefully and had, he was forced to admit, supported them all. It was too bad that they had had to live apart for so long, but at least the children were being fed and educated properly. That was the important thing.

  He could understand her sudden impatience and shortness with him. She worked hard and was almost always tired.

  But this recent bad temper and defense of Chandi’s and Rose-Lizzie’s friendship were worrying. He felt she was too sensible to have her head turned by the white people and their trappings, but he was afraid.

  He didn’t want anything to change.

  He sighed deeply and went back to rinsing the soapy plates.

  chapter 19

  BY THE TIME CHANDI CAME BACK TO GLENCAIRN, SCHOOL HAD ALREADY started.

  In fact he had missed almost two weeks. That made him feel both pleased and irritated. He was happy because he had been spared two weeks of Teacher, and upset because he would now have to borrow Sunil’s books and copy down all the schoolwork he had missed.

  It wasn’t fair. He had thought that once he got to a higher grade, he’d have Miss Ranawake, or anyone else for that matter
, as his teacher. Instead, he seemed to be stuck with Teacher, whose teaching skills had deteriorated drastically through the years. Now he didn’t even make a pretense of staying awake in class. He snored loudly and didn’t bother to wake up when Father Ross came on his rounds.

  Father Ross would shake his head sadly and tell the children to pray for Teacher. Chandi privately thought Teacher was well beyond any kind of help.

  So as Teacher’s interest in teaching grew lesser, so did Chandi’s interest in school. He only brightened up during English class because he was Mr. Aloysius’s star student.

  They had progressed well beyond verbs and nouns and were now reading Black Beauty. It had taken them nearly four months to get through half the book, but that was mostly because there was only one book among the entire class and because only Chandi was capable of reading aloud.

  However, Mr. Aloysius encouraged each one of them to have a shot at reading aloud. So one unlucky person would be chosen to stand up and read, while the entire class sniggered behind their hands when he stumbled over a word or pronounced it wrong. When Chandi was chosen, the class quickly lost interest because there was nothing to laugh at, so Chandi read to Mr. Aloysius, who beamed with the pride of accomplishment. Chandi didn’t like to tell him that his reading skills had in fact improved because of Rose-Lizzie, who lent him her books and helped him with difficult words.

  Father Ross was still his same kind and self-effacing Christian self. He visited Glencairn faithfully once a month, and had approached Premawathi to ask if Chandi could be trained as an altar boy, but was sent on his way with a firm no.

  In Premawathi’s mind, Father Ross and all priests did more damage than good with their sermons and advice. They made everything seem possible, when in fact hardly anything was. And anyway, she thought, how could someone who had renounced just about everything be qualified to advise normal people?

  Premawathi was a God-fearing woman, but her fear did not extend to His ministers or messengers or whatever they called themselves.

  ON THE MONDAY after he came back to Glencairn, Chandi trudged down the path to school, kicking a stone. He had kicked the same stone from just outside the back garden gate. He didn’t notice the slight chill left over from the rains, or the two thalagoyas, the large lizards that frequented these hills, watching him from the side of the road.