The Jam Fruit Tree

by Carl Muller

  Old van Dort put a head over the wall. ‘Oi, Sonnaboy, who that fellow you clouting?’

  ‘Damn bugger, saying he won’t marry Anna.’

  ‘Never said that,’Anna screeched, ‘I jumping in well now.’

  ‘If you don’t shut up I’ll put you in the bloody well.’

  ‘Hooooooo!’

  Van Dort liked to get things straight. ‘But that other fellow you clouting last month . . . .’

  ‘Who? Ah, that George? Saying he will marry Leah.’

  Van Dort frowned and bobbed out of sight. ‘Bella,’ he told his wife, ‘funny business going on. If say will marry get a hammering. If say won’t marry get a hammering also.’

  ‘You keep quiet,’ Bella advised, ‘Let hammer anybody. Not your business, no?’

  ‘Real one that Sonnaboy. Now want to put Anna in the well.’

  Bella considered this for a moment. ‘Not so easy, I think. She too big for well. Will get stuck halfway.’

  Elsie told Anna, ‘Good thing told Eric not to come. If saw this he put the bolt and won’t come back.’

  ‘Hoooooo! Hoooooooo!’

  Cecilprins said: ‘One more hoo from you and I give you hoo. See to that fellow and tell to stay and eat dinner,’ he looked at Colontota, ‘If he can, that is.’

  Colontota couldn’t, of course, but he stayed; and employing the golden rule that discretion is the better part of getting ground to powder and being ignobly buried under the jam fruit tree, made a painful declaration of marriage and agreed before the picture of the Sacred Heart to give Anna licence to pray and follow her road to the many palaces of the Father’s kingdom and have an altar at home and say the family rosary and that even if they were to have a ‘registry wedding’, he will go with Anna to the church to get Father Romiel’s blessing. Furthermore all the children must be baptized and be Catholics and have godfathers and godmothers and Sonnaboy said he would be godfather for the firstborn and everybody drank to that and did justice to Maudiegirl’s chicken curry which was excellent.

  Thanks to Maudiegirl’s ministrations (an application of lard and essence of lemon) the various swellings and the lip deflated considerably, so that as the evening progressed it was easier to understand what Colontota was saying. Anna held his hand and kept on saying ‘Poor man, poor man’ until told severely to shut up and Colontota, eager to please, said, ‘Yech, shubbub,’ and Anna burst into tears and wiped her nose on the end of the tablecloth.

  Father Romiel was as mad as a hornet. When Cecilprins told him that Anna was to marry a Buddhist and that there would, naturally, be no church wedding, he shook his breviary under Cecilprins’ nose and said that he, Cecilprins, was sending his daughter to hell. ‘The imps of hell will torture her for all eternity,’ he thundered, ‘and you will also be there, burning forever, and the imps of hell will pour boiling oil in your eyes and tear your burning flesh with fiery whips and you will suffer forever and ever and what fires of torment will burn inside you when you see your poor Anna coming to that everlasting pit of pain!’

  Cecilprins listened entranced. ‘But how to see her if coming or going, Father.’

  ‘How to see? You will be there! Hell will be your prison forever! The imps—’

  ‘That’s what. Those imps things. They pouring boiling oil in my eyes. So how to see after that?’

  ‘You are joking, ah!’ the priest roared. ‘You are breaking the laws of God and Holy Mother the Church and coming to joke? At this age, with grown-up children. You must pray. I will pray for your damned soul. Marriages are made in heaven, in the sight of God and the angels and saints and the blessed Mother of God. Are you trying to make your daughter’s marriage in hell? If there is no blessing of the church and the marriage is not sanctified before the altar of God on high, you and your daughter will burn forever!’

  ‘With those imps. Father, what are these imps? Haven’t anything about imps in prayer book.’

  ‘Never mind the imps!’ the priest roared again, ‘You must not allow Anna to marry a Buddhist.’

  ‘But already given my word, no? One year he coming round her and Sonnaboy hammer him also and lip like a bicycle tube. Now, anyway, everything fixed.’

  Father Romiel’s eyes were frozen. ‘Then why you coming to me? You think I will give absolution when you commit this sin with your eyes wide open? You are the father. You can stop this.’

  Cecilprins shook his head. ‘Only came to ask if you will bless our Anna and her husband after the wedding. Will bring them to church and you just put some holy water and say something. That way she happy to know she have blessing and she go to church and everything like normal, no? And all the children she baptize and take to church and be Catholic. We fix everything, Father. Actually came to tell you not to worry. Only to ask this small favour that you bless them.’

  ‘And you really believe this man will keep his word? How can you tell. Once they marry he is the master. If he does not allow Anna to go to church?’

  Cecilprins chuckled. ‘Then Sonnaboy hammer him again.’

  The priest inclined his head. ‘Yes, I see . . . hmmm . . . . But that does not absolve you from blame,’ Father Romiel said severely. ‘You are denying your daughter a church wedding. She is not marrying in the presence of the Lord.’

  ‘But you teaching that God is everywhere, no?’

  The good Father glared. ‘Don’t you tell me where God is and God isn’t! That’s for me to say. But for what you are doing you will be denied the sight of God forever. And Anna should know better. Are you sure she will continue to practice her religion?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure, Father.’

  ‘And all her children will be baptized and practice their religion and go to Catholic schools.’

  Cecilprins nodded.

  ‘Oh very well. You bring the couple to the mission house and I will bless them. Who knows, if Anna is a good and devout wife and a good Catholic and he see her go to Mass and take the children to church and saying the family rosary every day he may also become a Catholic.’

  Cecilprins pounced on this. ‘That’s what I also thinking, Father. And he not bad fellow. Well off also, and in the radio. Two houses also. Only thing, Father, see and put extra holy water on him. No harm if emptying the bottle on the bugger.’

  ‘And where will the couple live?’

  ‘Wellawatte.’

  ‘Ah, then I must send a note to Father Grero at Saint Lawrence Church and tell him to visit and make sure that Anna comes to church. You bring me address.’

  Cecilprins promised.

  ‘And you tell Anna to come and see me. Must give her some instructions on being good Catholic wife.’

  Cecilprins promised. He was relieved. He had dreaded the encounter but it had turned out well. The only thing that worried him were those damned imps. Hell, he mused, must be a hell of a place.

  At home he made it a point to tell Anna: ‘You see what your poor papa has to go through for you? Because I let you marry that Colon I will have to go to hell. Already writing the ticket, I think. And have things called imps to put fire on my head and boiling my eyes in oil.’

  Anna paled and Maudiegirl gasped painfully.

  ‘And not for little while, no? Father said for ever and ever. Non-stop boiling my eyes. And all because of my children. What to do?’ and the brave martyr reached for the altar and took his cupboard key. A small drink would help. Imps! Hah!

  A burgher wedding can only be described as a BURGHER wedding. The very thought of all that had to be done gave Maudiegirl a new lease of life. Invitations to be printed at Cave and Company; Leah’s florists to provide the flowers and little posies to be pinned on to the tablecloth; Grosvenor Caterers to provide those little porcelain blue boxes to hold cake; crackers and fireworks to be bought and stored safely in boxes of sawdust; Anna to be fitted out with shoes, underlinen and a visit to Whiteway Laidlaw’s first floor salon where bolts of cloth were purchased and carried away—tulle, silk, organza, muslin, flannel, chintz, lace to trim aprons, satin
, assorted linens and something called broadcloth which was apparently an all-purpose textile for a multitude of uses. Haberdashery was a must, and then there was bargain hunting in the Pettah where Parsee merchants and fat Babus behind counters sprang to attention as the von Blosses descended on them like the Assyrians of the poem. Moolchands was singled out for ribbons and bows and buttons and corset laces; F.X. Pereiras for stockings and garters and Carwallios for Sunday bonnets and a smart ‘picture hat’ with the necessary hatpins and hair pins and small squiggly things which Maudiegirl insisted were ‘hair-holding combs’ and nobody contested the declaration. Then to Pearlrich for shoes and slippers and warnings to Anna to walk like a lady and not like Colontota’s buffaloes and ‘waste the heels in no time’.

  It would take several pages to record the frenzied preparations in the clothing department only. The menfolk had to be decked in sharkskin and they insisted on Arrow shirts. From collarstuds upwards everything had to be spanking new with shoes from Cargills and ties from Motwanis (and handkerchiefs also), and Maudiegirl went to Keyzer Street where a tiny shop she knew gave her heaping quantities of press studs, dress tape, thread, gauze and whalesbone, stiffener, perilaster, a length of gingham, pearl buttons, clips, edging and fancy bordering.

  Maudiegirl decided that Anna should be outfitted to launch married life in the manner born. This made Cecilprins cringe. By the end of the first week he was shuffling around moaning, ‘Pauperised, pauperised, that’s what I will be.’ And it looked as though he was right. Outfitting Anna meant not just her wardrobe, wedding gown, veil, shoes and headdress. The most amazing collection of utilities was assembled: housemaid’s brushes and dusting brush; a chamber pail, scrubbing brushes and long hair brush; toilet covers, dusting sheets, special silk squares for polishing, a china bedroom ewer and basin, a clothes-horse, bed clothes, a counterpane, two feather pillows, butter dish, egg cups, salt cellar, butter knives, bread knife and bin, a hot-water urn, crumb brush, knife tray, hearth brush and even that necessity of the age—the dress stand. It is nigh impossible to record the full inventory, not with the way Cecilprins kept moaning and saying, ‘You’re mad, woman, all our savings gone, no?’ Maudiegirl would quiver. ‘You think I live to see others getting married? This only wedding I see, so this is all I have to do for my eldest, no. You go on this way and I go and lie down and die. Must be you want that.’ And with that threat wafting in the air she went out and added a sandwich tray and candlestands and an altar statue of the Virgin and all manner of whatchmacallits and gew-gaws.

  Yes, Maudiegirl did her daughter proud. The wedding, in the Colombo Registry was a dull affair. A special car was hired and bedecked with ribbons and bits of coloured crepe and many went in buggy-carts and a lot of assorted sisters and cousins and uncles in tussore and tweed and some with umbrellas and some with coats and sarongs and hair scraped back into topknots. Totoboy had begun his personal revels earlier than warranted and stank of gin and kept stumbling into everybody. The ceremony was a soulless affair. The registrar, a Burgher named Jonklaas, was not entirely in approval and kept bumbling over Colontota’s name. Eventually they all signed and were duly witnessed and Viva lit crackers outside and startled the skittish bulls who nearly took off with the buggies. While all this history was being made, while Maudiegirl cried and hugged Anna and declared to the world that her ‘big ukkum baba (baby that is nursed at the breast) was gone and now felt like all her ribs taking’, while Colontota’s people clucked their sympathy and Maudiegirl embraced each of them in turn and went around weeping on every shoulder that presented itself, a team of neighbours and shanghaied ‘lane women’ were busy in the Boteju Lane home cutting, chopping, basting, baking, roasting, boiling, frying, mixing, mangling, dicing, slicing, grinding, pounding, frying, flouring, garnishing, tossing, icing, salting, stirring, whipping, turning, pouring and making several rear rooms, the rear veranda, store-room plus kitchen into a vast theatre of the culinary arts. Others from ‘down the road and cross the lane’ were sweeping, dusting, polishing, scouring, cleaning, mopping, rubbing and scrubbing. Even the gate had been scraped and washed and old van Dort had to be forcibly prevented from painting it for, as Sonnaboy pointed out, ‘If paint don’t dry people coming will rub and clothes go to hell, no?’

  Maudiegirl and her brood—that is those who did not accompany Anna and Colontota to the Times Studio for the photograph—rushed home to organize that monumental business of the wedding lunch. Cecilprins checked the liquor. People dashed in and out until his head swam. He didn’t even dare to ascertain who they were. They just bustled and jostled around doing all manner of things and, he had to admit, the old home had never looked so good. It was almost eleven when the newly-weds rolled up with Leah in tow and a sister of Colontota’s and a sweet-faced flower girl who was Colontota’s sister’s daughter. In the kitchen, Maudiegirl determined that there was time enough to give the lunch of the century—as everyone declared it was—and she outdid herself in fullest measure.

  It hadn’t been easy. Cecilprins who trotted along with a look of acute agony had sworn that ‘all the other buggers can elope for all I care’ and had sincerely prayed for such relief. The visit to Elephant House for the food, was worse than an eternity with those imps. He couldn’t understand. ‘Married so long and now you getting completely mad. You trying to bury me in mat when no money left to buy coffin.’

  Maudiegirl took scant heed. If pressed to explain she just said, ‘That’s the way,’ and Cecilprins would open his mouth and trot behind her, quite forgetting to close it. When Maudiegirl ordered a whole side of beef he nearly had a stroke. ‘From hock to shin,’ he groaned, ‘half a bloody bull!’

  He got no sympathy from Sonnaboy. ‘Half only? Can eat a whole bull.’

  Only Elsie pointed out that even a regiment of invitees couldn’t possibly consume it all. ‘Will have food for a month afterwards, wait and see.’

  ‘My godfather! Half will spoil and have to throw, no? Mad, mad, completely mad.’

  Maudiegirl added a shoulder of veal, a haunch of lamb and a leg of pork. ‘Can get sucking pig,’ she said, ‘but never mind this time,’ and promptly bought a turkey which seemed, to Cecilprins, had started off being an ostrich and changed its mind halfway.

  The arrival of the newly-weds did not go unmarked or unsung. The whole population of Boteju Lane, even Mrs Bennett with the big leg stood in the road to see the old Austin pull up followed by divers conveyances which included bicycles, buggy carts and the Colontota clan in a rattletrap Ford that broke wind apologetically every fifteen yards. Waves of applause, whistles and cheers rolled up and down wind. Totoboy, as merry as a sandboy, lurched out of a cart trailing long strings of red and green Chinese crackers which he lit and did a jig with, while all the pi-dogs from the tenement garden dashed into the crowd and old Simmons climbed the nearest wall and cheered, ‘Damn good. Fire some more. Bloody animals everywhere. Chase the buggers off. I hate dogs. Coming behind and biting.’

  Maudiegirl shot out to embrace Anna, and Elsie and Leah bundled up her train and they all tottered through the gate with Colontota picking up arum lillies which Anna was shedding from her bouquet. Urchins whooped and Totoboy burned his fingers and howled, and Sonnaboy shepherded the Colontotas inside while Cecilprins stood, arms outstretched, spectacles gleaming. Every adjoining home had been stripped of its chairs and tables for the occasion. Dunnyboy had also dressed for the occasion, but in togging-up and finding no belt had, instead, knotted one of Viva’s ties around his waist. He liked the effect and was much commented on by the Colontota menfolk who considered this a masterful way to hold up a sarong.

  The order of the day demanded a claret cup and cheese biscuits with assorted carbonated fizzes and Maudiegirl’s famous home-made ginger beer. All through the previous night the gingerbeer had kept popping corks with little pistol-shot bangs as the bottles lay in their tubs of water. The plums had grown fat and sleek in the effervescent mixture and they now floated in each glass like round, smooth dog-ticks, read
y to burst tangily between the teeth. After everyone held a glass of the decoction of his or her choice it was noted that none of the Colontotas accepted the wine.

  ‘Hell of a hat, no?’ Cecilprins said, ‘These not drinking people.’

  ‘Then what about meat?’ Sonnaboy asked casually, ‘Buddhist fellows in railway not eating meat.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Cecilprins exploded, ‘Call that Colon and ask if true.’

  Colontota nodded gravely. ‘Why? Anna not tell you? She knows we don’t eat meat. Only fish.’

  Sonnaboy shrugged. ‘What about your people. All fish-eating only?’

  Colontota nodded again. ‘And won’t drink. Only my father. But he won’t drink for anybody to see. You can call him quietly to the back and give a drink if you like.’

  Cecilprins was not impressed by Colontota senior’s drinking habit. He was thinking of the side of beef, the turkey, the haunch of lamb, the leg of pork, the shoulder of veal. He smacked his forehead and rushed to the kitchen that was looking like a base camp in the Crimean war. ‘Want fish,’ he panted, ‘all those buggers won’t eat meat.’

  ‘What buggers?’

  ‘Bridegroom buggers.’

  Maudiegirl stared. ‘Call Sonnaboy and Viva,’ she said crisply.

  When Sonnaboy sped to the Dehiwela fish market he had explicit instructions. ‘Buy, child, big seer head and shoulders only and one red mullet.’ Viva was despatched to the Elephant House outlet in Wellawatte in the bridal car, ribbons, crepe and all and caused quite a sensation when he pulled up at the Wellawatte main junction where he was seen carrying a large salmon and a clutch of smoked herring. Maudiegirl tucked up her sleeves. ‘Now lunch get little late. Anyhow can manage. Must send Anna and Colon to church, no? Call that Anna here.’