Adam's Peak

by Heather Burt

  ADAM'S PEAK

  ADAM’S PEAK

  A Novel

  Heather Burt

  Copyright ©Heather Burt, 2006

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  Editor: Barry Jowett

  Copy-editor: Andrea Waters

  Design: Alison Carr

  Printer: Webcom

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Burt, Heather, 1965-

  Adam's peak / Heather Burt.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-55002-646-7

  ISBN-10: 1-55002-646-1

  I. Title.

  PS8603.U785A64 2007 C813'.6 C2006-905755-9

  1 2 3 4 5 10 09 08 07 06

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Printed on recycled paper

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  For Paul

  DECEMBER 1970

  The whole family, it seems, is out of sorts. Mum now cries at the slightest thing—the mention of a holiday for which she’ll be absent, the sight of tea pluckers in the hills—or sometimes for no reason at all. Aunty Mary follows Mum’s cues, bursting out in supportive tears promptly and heartily. Susie creeps about, staying out of everyone’s way, doing as she’s told. Even Grandpa, proud host of the tea plantation, seems small and uncertain. Dad is behaving strangest of all—one minute playful and boisterous, rounding up the troops for a game of cricket; the next, wandering silently into the hills, not answering when Mum calls. At the moment, he and all the other grown-ups are out on the lawn, gloomily drinking their afternoon tea. From the cool shelter of Grandpa’s verandah, Rudy watches them.

  It’s the usual group sitting around the low cane table, and yet nothing at all seems usual. Over the course of the weekend, the once ordinary events of a visit to Grandpa’s tea plantation have been given special titles, each of them beginning with “The Last”: The Last Tour of the Factory, The Last Milk Rice Breakfast, The Last Trip to the Nuwara Eliya Market. And now, a cloud of stifling sadness hangs over The Last Afternoon Tea on the Lawn. Next week, there will be a last Christmas at Aunty Mary and Uncle Eugene’s house, and by New Year’s Day the Van Twest family will be carving a new life from the ice and snow of Canada (though Dad will be taking his tea expertise to an important job with the Red Rose Company). For a long time it seemed to Rudy that this new life was all anyone could talk about. But in these final days, the bubbling anticipation has gone flat and the word Canada has taken on a new, taboo meaning, like Uncle Eugene’s illness. Something that shouldn’t be talked about.

  In contrast to the gloomy gathering on the lawn, the day is bright and airy, a welcome change from Colombo’s heat. Mum is wearing her fancy turquoise sari, one last time, its gold embroidery gleaming in the afternoon sun. When she came outside for afternoon tea, Dad said she looked like she was off to a bloody Kandyan wedding, but Rudy noticed that he smiled proudly when he said it.

  Scratching a new mosquito bite, Rudy turns his attention to an army of small red ants transporting the corpse of a cockroach across the polished cement floor. For a time, the collective strength and cooperation of the insects fascinates him, but as they disappear into a crevice, he heaves a sigh of boredom and squints out at his cousins, all older and all girls, talking endlessly in a far corner of the lawn. For the first time ever, he finds himself wishing for a brother his own age to play with, or even a younger one he could boss around. His mother has told him there’ll be plenty of children on their street in Montreal, which makes him wish he were there already.

  For a change of scenery, he goes into the bungalow. It’s quiet and dark inside, and it takes a while for his eyes to adjust. Dragging his fingers along the wall, he goes to the sitting room in search of Susie, last seen giving the elephant figurines a ride on the turntable of the old gramophone. He’s disappointed not to find her, as he hoped she would take him to look at the crocodile lamp in Grandpa’s study. But on further consideration, he decides that a six-year-old who’ll soon be going to school in Canada shouldn’t need his sister’s protection to look at a dead crocodile. He continues down the hallway, his bare feet making sticking sounds on the wooden floor, and pushes the study door open. The room is dusty and old-fashioned, but bright, its white walls ribbed with slats of sunlight from the louvred shutters. As his eyes readjust, Rudy scans his grandfather’s things—the tall shelves crammed with leather-bound books, the framed certificates and photographs, the brass ashtray stand, and the mounds of documents on the massive desk. Finally, he zeroes in on the lamp.

  The crocodile lamp is Grandpa’s prize possession. It stands next to the fireplace, seemingly balanced on the curve of its tail, though a pair of metal supports drilled into the hind legs provides the real stability. When the lamp is on, the animal’s ivory belly reflects the soft glow of the electric light bulb that has somehow been rigged to its head under a small khaki shade. Stunted forearms and chipped claws are frozen in a perpetual snatch, while the mouth is fixed in a toothy grimace. The eyes are glass and disappointingly artificial; still, the overall impression is one of terrific fierceness.

  Facing the creature now, though, Rudy feels his family’s cloud of sadness descend on him. It is The Last Meeting with the Crocodile. He isn’t even particularly afraid, which only heightens the sadness. He touches the creature’s shoulder and watches it teeter back and forth from one support to the other, more lamp than crocodile. He steps back, tries to be afraid. But it’s useless. Somehow the fierce beast has been tamed.

  He’s about to leave the study when he notices, above the lamp, a framed black and white photograph. In it, two young men are standing against a low stone wall on either side of a bell, which hangs like a third head above them. Behind them, in the distance, are rolling hills. One of the men—too dark to be a Burgher—looks as stiff and lifeless as the crocodile lamp. He’s dressed in black trousers and a long-sleeved white shirt. The other fellow, in light trousers and a polo shirt, is leaning away from the serious boy, not even looking at the camera. His eyes are fixed on something, or someone, off to the side, and he’s laughing.

  Absorbed in the two figures, wishing again that he had a brother to play with, Rudy doesn’t immediately notice his grandfather in the doorway of the study, and he jumps when Grandpa asks him what he’s doing. He glances at the crocodile then back up at the photograph.

  “Who are those two people, Grandpa?”

  His grandfather comes to stand beside him. Old-man smells of tobacco and shoe
polish fill Rudy’s nostrils. Grandpa points his pipestem at the serious-looking fellow.

  “This chap is the best tea taster I’ve ever encountered.”

  “Does he still work here?” Rudy says, standing on tiptoe and craning his neck.

  “No, son. He left a long time ago. Long before I became P.D. This was back when I was Tea Maker, in charge of the factory.” Grandpa points again to the photograph. “Amitha Jayasuriya here was my best taster.”

  “What happened to him?” Rudy says.

  “I had to let him go. He might have gone to another plantation.” Grandpa emits a gravelly sound, like a sigh. “A terrible waste—but the planting life has lost the discipline it had under the British, Rudy. Mental and physical discipline. That’s what it takes to make things run.”

  Sounds of laughter—Susie’s and the girl cousins’—tumble through the shutters, beckoning, but for the moment Grandpa’s strange remarks have the stronger hold.

  “Who’s the other man?” Rudy says.

  “That’s Ernie. He would have been seventeen or eighteen at that time.”

  Rudy wants to ask who Ernie is, but Grandpa has turned to his desk, where he’s rummaging under papers, saying “I’ve got something here I want to read to you.” Edging toward the window, Rudy catches a glimpse of bails and stumps being set up on the lawn.

  “Are there mountains in the part of Canada you’re going to?” Grandpa asks. He’s leaning against his desk, flipping pages of a fat book with a black cover. His pipe lies on the green blotter, smouldering.

  Of Canada, Rudy knows only that it will be cold. He shrugs.

  “Well,” Grandpa continues, “if there are any mountains, I can assure you they won’t match up to this peak I’m going to tell you about.” His palm slaps the open book. “Here it is. Come, Rudy. Sit here in the chair. I’m going to read you what I wrote the day after that photograph was taken. It might be a very long time before you have the opportunity to climb Adam’s Peak for yourself, so listen closely. This is part of your history.”

  While his sister and cousins begin their cricket match, Rudy slips behind the desk and boosts himself into the padded leather seat. Grandpa stands next to the window, his oiled hair catching the sunlight. He runs the heel of his hand down the centre of the book then coughs into his fist.

  “Seventh of February, nineteen forty-four,” he begins. “Yesterday took Ernie on the annual pilgrimage to the summit of Adam’s Peak. Alec peeved, but still too young to withstand the ordeal, I feel.”

  Rudy giggles at the mention of his father’s name. Grandpa looks up, makes a sound close to a chuckle, then carries on reading.

  “Jayasuriya made it known in his way that he wanted to join us. The chap was certainly deserving of a brief holiday, so I consented. Left early in the day, to be at the base for midnight, the summit by sunrise. The usual mob of devotees made progress slow, but we reached the final ascent in good time. Expected complaints from Ernie, but the boy surprised me this year and proved up to the challenge. Up top he and Jayasuriya went off to look at the footprint, while I repaired to my customary spot to witness the appearance of what I maintain to be the most spectacular vista in this entire country, perhaps the entire world. And here I find myself inspired to quote the words of James Emerson Tennent, who climbed the peak in the last century, before the advent of decent roads and other amenities.”

  Rudy stifles a yawn while his grandfather reads on with even greater authority.

  “He writes: ‘The panorama from the summit of Adam’s Peak is, perhaps, the grandest in the world, as no other mountain, although surpassing it in altitude, presents the same unobstructed view over land and sea. Around it, to the north and east, the traveller looks down on the zone of lofty hills that encircle the Kandyan kingdom, whilst to the westward the eye is carried far over undulating plains, till in the purple distance the glitter of the sunbeams on the sea marks the line of the Indian Ocean.’”

  Grandpa pauses, presumably to let the reading sink in. It sounds like a foreign language, but Rudy nods seriously, if only to nudge himself closer to the cricket game on the lawn.

  “Moments before the sun lifted off of the horizon,” Grandpa continues, “I went to find Ernie. Wanted him to grasp that the true grandeur of Adam’s Peak has nothing to do with the bloody footprint of Buddha or Shiva or whatever the hell that slab of rock up there is said to be. The greatness of the peak lies in our ability to conquer it, and in so doing to conquer our own weaknesses. The view that Tennent describes is the reward we earn for attaining that goal. This is what I wanted Ernie to understand, but didn’t I find—” Grandpa stops reading and coughs into his fist. “Yes, well, you get the idea, son. To climb Adam’s Peak is to fight your own demons.”

  He closes the book. Rudy imagines a mountain overrun by armies of men doing battle with fearsome demons. Leading this battalion of the Good is his grandfather, silver hair shining in the rising sun. His eyes wander back to the photograph on the wall.

  “Do you ring the bell when you win the fight?” he asks.

  “What’s that?” Grandpa says, then he smiles vaguely. “Well I don’t know if the average Sinhalese chap would put it that way, but yes, that’s one way of looking at it.”

  “Mum is Sinhalese, isn’t she, Grandpa?”

  “Mmm? Oh, yes. Your mother is high-class Sinhalese. From Kandy. On her mother’s side.”

  The old man places his book on the desk and rests his fingers on the cover several seconds before reaching for his pipe.

  “Why is it called Adam’s Peak?” Rudy says. “Who’s Adam?”

  Grandpa taps the bowl of his pipe into his cupped palm, deposits the powdery mound into the ashtray. “The Adam from the Bible, of course. The British named the peak after him.”

  And with those words, the conversation ends. Grandpa waves Rudy off the chair and into the hallway. Following, he shuts the study door with a clunk.

  Back out on the lawn, the cricket game has dissolved into squabbles, but the adults are ignoring the ruckus. Dad has set his chair aside from the others and is gazing out at the hilly landscape that surrounds Grandpa’s property. He summons Rudy with a sideways tilt of his head. Rudy pulls a face but goes to his father, dragging the tops of his feet across the warm grass. He deposits himself next to the chair, where he silently proceeds to scavenge dirt from between his toes.

  After a dreary length of silence, Dad finally clears his throat. “You missed our big news earlier,” he says.

  “What news? About Canada?” Rudy says, risking the forbidden word. “I know everything about that already.”

  Dad smiles. “Well, it’s going to happen in Canada.”

  Rudy surrenders his toes to the grass. “What is it?”

  “You’re going to have a new little brother or sister. At the beginning of August.”

  Rudy looks up at his father, amazed. Never before has anything he’s wished for come to him as quickly as this. Thoughts racing, he imagines himself leading his little brother on expeditions through the Canadian snow, and his whole being sharpens: he is to be an Older Brother, a role no less important in his mind than that of Tea Maker or Plantation Manager.

  “We’ll be getting him in Canada?” he says.

  Dad, elbows resting on the arms of his chair, fingertips pressed together, frowns. “The baby is growing inside your mother’s stomach. The doctor will take it out in August. And don’t forget, it might be a girl. Susie has her heart set on a little sister.”

  This, Rudy knows, will not happen.

  “Can I choose his name?” he says.

  Dad rises slowly from the chair and presses his palms to his lower back, like an old man.

  “And what name would you choose, Rudyard Alexander Van Twest?”

  “Adam.”

  A telling smile curls one corner of Dad’s mouth. “Adam,” he repeats. “The first man ... the first of our family to be born in the new country.” He takes Rudy’s head in his hands and tousles his hair. “That’s not a
bad idea, son. We’ll see what your mother thinks of it.”

  Over by the murunga tree, Aunty Sheryl is gathering everyone together for one Last Family Photograph. Rudy ducks away from his father’s grasp and bounds across the lawn, arms flapping, to join the others.

  AUGUST 1971

  It’s a stifling day. They’ve been running through the sprinkler on the front lawn, Clare and Emma and two of Emma’s brothers, and now they’re sitting on the wet grass in their bathing suits, watching waves of hot air ripple over Morgan Hill Road. Clare’s new one-piece is light blue and has a skirt like a ballerina’s. She and Emma are sharing a package of Kool-Aid—dipping their fingers in the orange powder and licking it off. A special treat. Only nothing feels special. It’s the kind of day when everything goes in slow motion and nothing ever happens.

  But then, miraculously, as if God or someone has taken pity on them, something does happen.

  From the direction of the Boulevard, the Vantwests’ car comes speeding, really speeding, down Morgan Hill Road and into the driveway across the street with a squeal that slices the stale air. Excited, in an uncertain kind of way, Clare sucks her finger while Emma and her brothers shout.

  “Whoa! He should get a speeding ticket for sure!”

  “Whaddya think’s goin’ on? D’ya think he’s drunk?”

  Mr. Vantwest, the driver of the car, gets out and runs to the house.

  “Hey, he left the car door open! Someone could steal it!”

  “Who’s gonna steal it? That’s so dumb.”

  “He left the front door open too!”

  “Maybe there’s a burglar in the house, or a murderer, and his wife called him for help.”

  “She wouldn’t call him, you retard. She’d call the police.”

  Determined not to say anything that might give Emma’s brother reason to call her a retard, Clare sits in silence, staring at the house across the street, while the Skinner children keep talking.