by Carl Muller
That stymied the man. ‘Must have grandchild. Everyone here expecting, no. But that Anna still not expecting. See how here even the buffaloes having young.’
Mrs Colontota would have none of it. ‘What people here are you talking about? All because you going all over the place boasting, that’s what. Just keep quiet. Son is happy. How do we know? Maybe he don’t want child now itself. If the buffaloes putting young you go and be grand-buffalo.’
In Boteju Lane, also, other crises had to be met. Viva brought home Papa Ludwick and Opel and the hullaballoo of that visit was talked about for months. To her everlasting credit Opel took no part in the gory proceedings and embraced Maudiegirl and cried and said, ‘This my life, no? Anney, my mama die and then papa bringing people home with bibles and things with bells and whole night shouting hallellooiya and going doh-doh-doh-doh-doh and praise the lord and rolling on the floor and saying the angels holdings lamps for them to see and pointing to the roof and shouting Manuel, em-manuel like mad peoples. And now poor Vivi also caught by Papa to do this.’
Maudiegirl said, ‘Don’t worry, child, that Sonnaboy will settle,’ which Sonnaboy did, to be sure, in the best way he knew. He was, some minutes before this exchange, making mincemeat of Viva who was embracing the jam fruit tree and yelling blue murder while Cecilprins danced around shouting ‘Your older brother, no? Hitting your older brother, no?’ and then rushing to the kitchen for a firewood stick and being pounced on by Maudiegirl and Totoboy and dragged to the store-room shouting, ‘Let go! I break his bloody back!’
This was a crackling family row. And all because of Papa Ludwick who came in like a lamb, got all worked up, made a blithering ass of himself, ravaged the home, and, when Sonnaboy went for him, took off like a rocket, racing up the road in open-mouthed panic.
It all began in a most civilized fashion. Viva let the light of his life indoors and said grandly, ‘This is Opel, who I going to marry.’ In the hubbub Papa Ludwick strode to the altar and was eyeing the holy pictures, the statue of the Virgin and all the other trappings with a jaundiced eye. This, he decided, needed immediate rectification. His Pentecostal gorge rose. Swinging round he roared: ‘Exodus twenty-four and five!’
‘What, what,’ Cecilprins said, ‘Who this fellow you bringing, Viva? Asking riddles or what?’
‘Exodus twenty-four and five,’ Ludwick roared even louder, ‘No making these graven images of anything that have in Heaven or on the earth or even in the water and no bowing and serving these things because God say he getting jealous and put curse on your children and children’s children and children’s children to fourth generation.’
Cecilprins blinked. Totoboy blinked. Sonnaboy stared.
‘Who—who—what this fellow saying?’ Cecilprins said, ‘Who is this?’
Viva leaped forward. ‘This is Opel’s papa. He is Pentecost . . . like me.’
‘Like you? Who? You?’
‘I! Me! I now Pentecost. I finding way to Heaven and can lie down in still waters and all and giving my soul to God straight, and what he saying is right. Graven images. Putting altars and pictures and saying that is picture of God. All this abom—abomy—something. Kneeling and saying useless things everyday. See me. Now I biding in the Tabernacle. Yes! Tabernacle of the Lord . . . .’
‘Praise the lord!’ Ludwick thundered.
‘. . . and all are brothers and sisters and we are not deaf adders. Deaf adders! That’s what. Have in the psalms about these deaf adders who saying Hail Mary, Hail Mary and not hearing when God trying to tell to stop all these rubbish prayers.’
The family listened open-mouthed. Viva was decidedly mad. Sonnaboy was the first to rise and glare. ‘What do you mean rubbish prayers. Our Father and Hail Mary you’re calling rubbish. You learning all this from this sonovabitch?’
Papa Ludwick rushed to the hat-rack where Cecilprins’ walking stick hung from a peg, seized it and, before he could be intercepted, struck out at the picture of the Sacred Heart. ‘Praise the Lord,’ he roared, while Leah and Elsie screamed and an altar lamp toppled, splashing and dripping oil. Somehow Sonnaboy was not quick enough. He did manage to land a hefty punch into the small of Ludwick’s back and the latter-day prophet yelped, dropped the walking stick and dived for safety behind the settee. Sonnaboy lunged and Ludwick leaped aside with a yell of terror, tripped over a stool and shot into the garden. Sonnaboy charged after him and at his heels trotted Viva shouting Halleluia.
That, for Viva was most unfortunate, for Ludwick, with an incredible display of agility, doubtless born of desperation, actually vaulted the gate, fell heavily on the road, picked himself up and took off like a bolt of lightning. Viva, alas, was in line for the dispensing of summary punishment which he received in fullest measure.
The upshot was that Viva left home with a pale-faced Opel while an equally pale Cecilprins shakily helped pick up splinters of glass and take down the picture that had received a nasty crease across the heart, obliterating many of those points of flame as though the Saviour was trying to tell all and sundry that Maudiegirl’s thirteen fires were ready for a diaspora. That good woman’s face was a study of tragedy and she just sat and trembled as Sonnaboy rampaged through the house, tossing everything of Viva’s—his clothes, ties, shoes, suits, his pads and stockbooks—into the garden. ‘Take everything and get out,’ he snarled at the fallen Viva who was wheezing painfully and whose knees trembled so that he could hardly pick himself up and first clung to the jam fruit tree, then to a plaintively sobbing Opel. Sonnaboy, still seething like an ill-tempered volcano strode to the firewood shed at the bottom of the lane and hauled out a bewildered firewood man who was told to bring along his handcart. Into this Viva’s belongings were unceremoniously dumped and the man was told to go to wherever the chosen son of Heaven wished him to go.
To Opel’s of course, to a storming malevolent Ludwick, who, with hand upraised and open Bible, relegated the von Blosses to the lowest pit of hell. ‘Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen,’ he bawled, ‘Help us O God of our salvation . . . thought my heart will burst after running like that. Saw the eyes? Like devil’s . . . keep not thou silence O God for lo, thine enemies make a tumult and they that hate thee have lifted up the head . . . my God, don’t know how I jumped that gate. But the Lord put out the hand and saved me, brother . . . O my God, make them like a wheel, as the stubble before the wind . . . God preserved me, brother Vivi, saw the hand of God scooping me up. Sent an angel to lift me over that gate. Praise the Lord, brother, say Amen, men . . . persecute them with thy tempest and make them afraid with thy storm . . . dogs on road also chasing when I ran. And people saying rogue, rogue, also. God saved me, brother. Put wings on my legs for sure. Alleluia! What’s that fellow with that cart. Why he waiting outside?’
Opel was able to explain and Ludwick frowned and scratched his head and looked at Viva’s puffy face and shuddered. Truly God had had an eye for him. There, he thought, but for some amazing grace, go I. So Viva was helped in, walking like a stork with arthritis and his worldly possessions carried in and old Pantis Perera watched from his gate and told his wife: ‘See what happening now. Looks like fellow coming to stay. Cart of things also. Damn shame, no? Not even married and living with that Opel now. How if our Kukku got caught?’
‘That’s what telling,’ his wife said, squeezing past, ‘Move a little, will you, to see. Chee, don’t know what he is thinking to do like this. That fellow living Dehiwela, no?’
‘What Dehiwela? Now living here, I think. You should have seen how Opel embracing and taking inside.’
‘And cart also came?’
‘Yes. Full of things.’
‘Anney, don’t know if got married even. These Pentecosts not like others, no. Everything doing in hurry and praying also fifty miles an hour.’
Pantis Perera considered this darkly. ‘Yes, you’re right maybe. But this time in evening? Tell you what? Later I go and say hullo and see.’
Old Ludwick, despite his deep involvement with things ethereal
which, after all, gave him some clout among the other half-wits in his group, was earthbound enough to know why his neighbour came calling. He also knew the sort of bush telegraph that operated in the neighbourhood. Viva lay in the spare room, laid up with the shivers which Ludwick diagnosed as the immediate aftermath of being in direct line of a cataclysm of seven-point magnitude. But he wished the fellow would not keep emitting long groans every so often. He had stiffened up in all sorts of places but the mouth was still in business.
‘So how men, when saw cart I thought you shifting or something.’
Ludwick smiled. ‘No men, brought that Viva home. Have to pray over him, no, all tonight.’
Pantis Perera’s eyes widened. ‘Why, got sick or something?’
‘No, no. That is usual thing in our mission. If getting married tomorrow, have to bring boy home and pray over him. How to know otherwise if he is ready? This marriage business sacred thing, no? Now he in room in touch with holy spirit and telling all his sins and asking for Lamb of Salvation to wash his dirty soul and make all clean. Can hear him crying sometime and in very bad state, I tell you. How to tell what these young fellows nowadays up to, no? Opel also praying in her room and asking to wash him clean and take all his sins.’
Pantis couldn’t understand this rigmarole. Heaven, it seemed to him, was operating some sort of a laundering service. But he admitted to the niceties of the situation which only Ludwick’s God, in his mysterious way, could condone. Funny things Pentecosts do.
‘So why you not tell that they getting married tomorrow. And us next door and all.’
‘But that not the way with us God’s children, no? First to wash and clean and all night praying, then take to Tabernacle for vowing to live in light of spirit as husband-wife, then union with God and telling Holy Spirit to give grace for making word flesh and then coming home.’
‘And then you put party?’
‘What party? We no drinking and giving cake and all, no? Party will have in Heaven, men, when angels all rejoicing about marriage of God’s children. This world have nothing for us, men. Only Kingdom of Heaven waiting and place kept for us. Right hand of God we will be.’
Pantis mumbled and left. ‘All these fellows God-mad,’ he told his wife, ‘Lucky escape for our Kukku boy. That Viva making noises as if someone smashing his toes with rice-pounder. Getting salvation, it seems. Lamb is washing his soul. Must be paining like hell.’
Papa Ludwick decided that, like Washington, he could not tell a lie. Having cleverly put off that evil-minded Pantis, he had to now make the fiction fact. He swept into the spare room grabbed Viva by the shoulder, got a howl of pained protest and took scant heed of the man’s obvious sensitivity to a laying of hands. ‘You listen,’ he said, ‘First thing tomorrow you dress up and come with Opel to Tabernacle. You two get married. Opel! Opel! Where’s that bloody woman, ah, tomorrow you get married, you hear?’
Opel would have liked, of course, to have a wedding gown and the trimmings. Girls are born to marry, true, but she seemed to be having marriage thrust upon her. And at the Pentecostal mission of all places; with a pip-squeak registrar hauled out of Dickman’s Lane to make it legal and a couple of loonies banging their heads on the wall and shouting ‘Praise the Lord’. She presented objections.
‘But Viva going to work, no? And have to see doctor also, I think. Look, will you, his state. Like run over by train.’
‘Never mind that. If can’t marry you tomorrow, out he go! That Pantis fellow came to see just now and you think he keep quiet? Wife will tell the Bakelman’s and they will tell the Mullers and the Landsbergers and the Silvas and the whole damn area know he stay the night here. Fine how do you do, no? You’re the one who will get it, wait and see, everyone casting remarks. If put the face out will laugh behind the back and say you keeping man in the house. You know, no? how they put together talks!’
‘But, Papa . . . .’
‘What to buts? You want to marry him, no?’
Opel nodded.
‘So then you marry. I’ll go to registrar’s house now and tell to come to Tabernacle in the morning. Can send rickshaw for him. And you sit in veranda and wait. If anybody looking they know you sitting alone. Otherwise make another story that I go out and leaving you alone with him. And don’t get up until I come, do you hear? Put the lamp and read the Bible. I’ll go and come soon.’
And so were Viva and Opel married and the couple lived with Ludwick for two months after which the milkfood company asked Viva to handle distribution and sales of its products upcountry and he took Opel to Bandarawela, a mountain resort about 4000 feet up in the central tea district. He informed the family of his fortunes and of his Pentecostalist marriage and that he was now a senior sales agent and also a prayer leader and an important member of the Pentecostalist congregation upcountry. Heaven, he declared, was surely his, and he would pray for them that they may see the error of their ways and come with suitable humility to the throne of the Almighty without recourse to all the idolatry and meaningless ritual of priests and bishops and some Roman pope who hadn’t the foggiest who the von Blosses were anyway. Denouncing the faith of his fathers was as nothing to Viva who had long outstripped Ludwick in quoting chapter and verse and spinning Heaven like a roulette wheel to suit his purpose. He saw great potential in being a tub-thumper for the Lord. He dismissed Sonnaboy as an agent of the devil, Totoboy as a creature of unrighteousness and a drunkard to boot; called his father rude names and his mother a glutton for the things of the flesh. Sin, he wrote, had a stranglehold on them and all the wiles of Satan crepitated in Dunnyboy who was a depraved lout. On Judgement Day, he was certain, God would strike them down and send an angel with a fiery sword to drive them down, down, into the pit and there would be a gnashing of teeth and he would watch their agony with a beatific smile on his face and only then would they know the truth of God’s word. He added lashings from the Bible—all about brimstone and fire and how the sea will become blood and how the demons will take the von Blosses, poor sinners, and torment them for all eternity.
Elsie, who was making preparations for her own wedding, took the letter from the postman, recognized the handwriting and ran to Maudiegirl. ‘From Viva a letter,’ she announced, ‘Open to see.’
Maudiegirl said no. ‘If for Papa then he must open, no? Not for you to poke the nose.’
A white-faced Cecilprins read it.
‘So what saying?’ Maudiegirl asked.
‘Nothing. Living in Bandarawela, it seems.’
‘Nothing? All those pages. Then why your hand shaking and face like bedsheet? Give to see.’
‘No, no. He Pentecost, no? All Bible stuff. And such small writing. Hard to read even.’
‘Never mind, let see, will you. Think I don’t know that Viva? Must be scolding for what happened.’ And the old lady seized the letter and read it all and lay back on her lounger with a little moan. She refused to budge. Just lay there, the letter on her lap. Sonnaboy came in full of glad tidings. He had been raised in rank to apprentice driver. Ninety rupees a month. A fortune. Now to get that da Brea woman to say yes. Noting his mother’s distressed face he raised an eyebrow at Cecilprins.
Sonnaboy read the letter. ‘I’ll go to Bandarawela and bury the bastard,’ he exclaimed.
Maudiegirl opened her eyes. ‘Mouth! mouth!’ She cried, ‘Who you telling bastard? Your brother, no?’
‘If he real son will write like this? Cursing us. Cursing the religion. All these years went to church and first communion and everything. He’s a bloody bastard!’
All the venom of Viva’s letter seemed to take form and perch, like some evil black bird on Maudiegirl’s shoulder. She saw nothing of the days to come. No tonight, no tomorrow. Her heart thudded painfully and her legs felt numb and it hurt to breathe in and out. Her son. Her flesh. Such hatred and spite in his words. And how could this be? Could one who professed to love God so much hate so much?
Cecilprins told Sonnaboy: ‘You go and tell Doctor Loos to come. She bei
ng like this not good.’
Sonnaboy went. At the gate he said, ‘All the doctors won’t do any good when I catch that Viva,’ and he cycled slowly, thinking that somewhere a switch had been thrown. The family was coming apart. ‘This won’t do,’ he gritted. ‘I’ll keep them together, even if I have to hammer them everyday.’
Maudiegirl took to her bed that evening after the doctor came and went, and never got out of it again. Anna and Colontota were summoned the next morning. Eric and George came too, and even Iris Holdenbottle. A telegram was despatched to Terry in Singapore and Viva was telegraphed in Bandarawela. All the morning, with her daughters around her and Dr Loos fussing around and shaking his head and Father Romiel gliding about in his cassock and also shaking his head, Maudiegirl seemed the least concerned. ‘Know I’m going to die, no?’ she said, ‘So you girls listen and don’t interrupt. You get married and see to your poor papa. If he living here then come to see in the evenings. If Sonnaboy marry can live here with that Beryl but I think that Beryl not marry now itself. And that Iris must not live here. Sure to fight with Papa.’
Cecilprins stood, looking bleakly at his wife and not caring what he would do for he could not imagine what it would be like with her gone. But he did assure her that he would live on in Boteju Lane with the boys until they married and that Elsie would marry and take in Dunnyboy and Leah would marry next and then Totoboy could set up home with Iris if he wished but why Iris of all women no one could understand. When Sonnaboy was ready to marry, Cecilprins could give up the house and live with any of the children and Anna said that Papa was always welcome and Leah said the same while George made some rapid calculations and said, ‘Yes, but that is later, no?’
‘Like to eat some rice conjee (thin rice porridge),’ Maudiegirl murmured, ‘With small piece of jaggery. Have in top shelf tin in kitchen cupboard,’ and Leah rushed off to make the porridge while Father Romiel told the rest to kneel and led prayers and gave Maudiegirl his crucifix to kiss and asked if she would like to confess. Then he shooed everyone out and sat beside her, listening to the faint voice as Maudiegirl tried to remember if she had lately transgressed the laws of God. After the blessing she actually tried to raise herself up as Leah brought her the conjee and the room filled again. Friends, neighbours, relatives filed in just to stand around her and press her hands. Nobody spoke. Even old Simmons, garrulous at the worst of times, was silent. Maudiegirl swallowed two spoons of the conjee and lay back. ‘That’s nice,’ she whispered and closed her eyes, opened them again to seek out Cecilprins and raise a hand to him. He held on to it as the children closed around and Father Romiel told all to kneel as he anointed her and made the sign of the cross on her eyes, mouth and on her breasts and then, with hands under the covers anointed the other openings in her body, sanctifying it, lest evil invade her in these dying moments. Gently, Cecilprins, his hands trembling, placed Maudiegirl’s rosary between her fingers and her eyes flicked from him to her children, one by one. They drew closer, touching her, willing her to stay, and she smiled, a large tear trickling down her check, shuddered and gripped her husband’s hand.
