by Roma Tearne
The sound of his voice, quiet and incomprehensible, comforted Alice, so that closing her eyes, finally, she drifted into a dreamless sleep.
The funeral took place early on the following Thursday. May stayed with her sister in the hospital. Only Stanley and Bee were present. They paid the gravedigger and Stanley carried the tiny white coffin himself. The scent of orange blossom marked the moment, fixing it in Bee’s mind. Murderers, he thought, as the first fistful of soil hit wood. Then, when all that remained was a fresh mound of earth, they turned without a word and headed for Colombo. The sun was beginning its climb in the sky. The city was wide awake and filled already with the bustle of rickshaws and horns and the sounds of a thousand indifferent lives. Bee glanced at his son-in-law. He had never been close to Stanley; this was, he saw, their closest moment. Driving home along the coast road, in an afternoon of unbroken heat, his mind brimming with images of his daughter’s exhausted face, Bee felt the light, unbearable and savage, scythe across him. Then with its sour, stale smell of seaweed and other rotting vegetation, the day disintegrated slowly before his eyes.
While the funeral was taking place in Colombo, Kamala gave alms to the Buddhist monks. Dias had come to help, bringing her cook with her to the Fonsekas’ house. The priests were praying for the life that had passed briefly by, blowing out like a candle. All morning they had sat cross-legged, head bowed, their tonal chants filling the house as they blessed the white cotton thread. Their voices rose and fell, sometimes flatly, sometimes softly, always with a deep vibration. They were dressed in traditional saffron robes, so starkly bright that even the familiar sitting room with its ebony and satinwood furniture, its old sepia photographs and plants, took on a dreary air by comparison. The heat in the room, in spite of the doors and windows having been thrown wide open, was oppressive and unusually cloying. Janake, back from his aunt’s house, was present with his mother.
‘Let’s go outside,’ Esther whispered. ‘How much longer is this pirith chanting going to last?’
No one could eat until the monks had been fed. It was bad form and disrespectful to do so, but the savoury smells drifting out into the garden were tantalising.
‘I’m starving!’ Esther said flatly, and she sneaked off, leaving Janake and Alice on the verandah.
‘Where’s she going?’ frowned Janake. ‘She can’t eat yet.’
‘She’s gone to steal some rice to make chewing gum with,’ Alice told him.
‘What?’ Janake laughed. ‘She’s off her head!’
Alice said nothing and Janake looked at her sharply. He was four years older than her and had known her all her life. Yesterday when he had returned from Peradeniya his mother had told him about Sita. His mother had also told him that Alice was probably going to England because of what had happened. Janake had been shocked.
‘But, Amma, Alice loves it here,’ he had cried. ‘And it would break Mr Fonseka’s heart if she went.’
Janake had been present on the first day Alice had been shown the sea as a tiny baby. He had been with her when she took her first faltering footsteps across the sands. It had been Janake who had held her hand, watched over by an anxious Bee. As she grew, it was always Janake who played with her whenever she visited her grandparents. A few weeks ago he had gone with Bee to buy a bicycle for her. The idea of Alice going to England, of her never being here, was incomprehensible to him. He glanced at her. His mother had told him not to mention the subject to Alice in case she didn’t know, so he couldn’t question her. Alice was staring straight ahead with an unusually serious look on her face. Janake scuffed the ground with his feet and then he picked up a stick and began whittling it.
‘Esther’s a fool,’ he said angrily. He felt both helpless and full of an unaccountable rage.
Esther returned with a handful of hot rice. She squeezed it into two balls, offering one to Janake.
‘Here, have some home-made chewing gum,’ she grinned.
‘No thank you,’ Janake said, scowling. ‘That isn’t real chewing gum,’ he scoffed.
‘Fine!’ Esther cried, tossing her ponytail and offering it to Alice instead.
Alice became aware of a certain shift in the order of things between the three of them.
‘You’re supposed to keep moving it in your mouth like gum,’ Esther laughed, not unkindly. And don’t swallow it!’
‘But it isn’t real gum, and I’m hungry.’
‘Why do you want to be so American?’ Janake asked curiously.
He was watching them with narrowed eyes and Alice had the distinct feeling he wanted to pick a fight with Esther.
‘You should stop trying to be like other people and just be Ceylonese. We are a great country!’
‘This is a boring place,’ Esther said shortly. ‘And in any case, I’m not one of you Singhalese types, men. I’m a Burgher, remember. See?’
She held out her arm, which was several shades lighter than Janake’s.
‘Huh!’ Janake snorted. Alice is fairer than you. Put your arm out, Alice.’
‘That’s because she’s half-caste, idiot. Her father is a Tamil.’
‘So? So are you! Idiot yourself.’
Esther shrugged, losing interest. She stared out to sea. Later on, when she got home Anton, the boy from the fair, was coming to call.
She chewed her mouthful of rice more slowly. Anton had a distant Tamil relative and this made Dias nervous.
‘Just look what happened to Sita,’ Dias had warned. ‘I don’t want that to be your fate. We’re Burghers. Who knows when it will be our turn to be kicked? We should be careful.’
But Esther didn’t care. She would be fifteen soon. She hated this country. She hated the way things were changing, and she did not want to study in Singhalese.
‘But soft, a light shines from the east,’ she murmured.
‘What?’ asked Alice.
Janake began to laugh. Esther was silent. She was thinking of Anton, wishing he had kissed her at the fair. In reality he had grinned and offered her some real American gum. America, that was where Esther wanted to go. Not England.
‘“Gallop apace, you fiery horses,’“ she said loudly, forgetting where she was.
Until the new law had stopped them learning in English, they had been studying Romeo and Juliet in school. No one would ever translate it into Singhalese.
‘What are you saying?’ Janake asked.
‘Nothing you’d understand.’
And she turned to Alice instead, for Janake was annoying her.
‘I was just thinking, you know, men, your sister will have been buried by now.’
Alice too was thinking. She wanted to write a letter to Jennifer. My dear Jennifer, she wanted to say. My sister died yesterday. I will be coming back to school soon. Calling the baby ‘sister’ made a difference to how she felt about it. How odd it all was. A mottled brown, dusty rattlesnake writhed in the dust. Alice imagined her mother in her hospital bed, writhing as if she too was shedding a skin. It occurred to her that, had her sister lived, there might have come a time when the two of them would have sat on the verandah just as she was doing with Esther. Alice would have been the eldest. It was the hottest moment of the day. Her grandfather had still not returned from the funeral. How long did it take to bury someone? Inside the house, the sounds of pirith had stopped and the food was being brought in. Esther moved restlessly.
‘Dust to dust,’ she intoned. ‘But life must go on, and I’m ravenous!’
‘Alice,’ someone called.
‘They want to tie the thread on you. Go, quickly,’ Janake said. ‘Go, Alice. Tomorrow you can show me how you can ride your bicycle on the beach.’
Esther gave her a small shove.
‘The sooner that’s done, the sooner we can eat, child!’
The monks were having their food at last. Strangely, now that they had stopped chanting, Alice could hear the melodious echoes everywhere. She could hear it within the hum of the cicadas, rising and falling, and the imperceptible rustle
of the leaves on the murunga tree, and in the waves that spread like ice cream on the beach. She wondered what her school friend was doing now. My dear Jennifer, my sister was buried today and now I’m going to have the pirith string tied around my wrist to help her into the next life. The leaves on the mango tree were covered in fine sea dust. A thin black cat limped in from next door’s garden; she stretched out on the parched flowerbed and licked her wounds. Two thoughts like brightly coloured rubber balls juggled in Alice’s head. One concerned her mother and the other her sister. There wasn’t a single cloud floating in the sky. Eternity was up there, but she was starving. She went hurriedly in to have the thread tied to her wrist.
After they had finished eating, the monks washed their hands in the jasmine-scented finger bowls. They wiped them on the white cotton towels, blessed the house again, bowed and left. Everyone bowed back with their hands together. Aybowon. The house seemed to sigh. It remained a house in mourning, but at least it had been blessed.
‘Nothing more will happen here,’ the servant told Alice confidently. Everyone helped themselves to food in a quiet, subdued manner. Murunga curry with coconut milk, kiri-bath, milk rice, or plain boiled rice cooked in plantain leaves, whichever you preferred. There was jak-fruit curry, and dhal and coconut sambal. Dias gave Alice such a big hug that she squeezed the food all the way up to her throat and Alice thought she might vomit. Then Dias kissed her hard and she lost the two Indian rubber balls of thought she had been juggling. They dropped on the floor and rolled away to be retrieved at some later date. For the moment, Alice concentrated on getting away from Esther’s amma. Janake had disappeared again.
‘Your mummy will be coming home soon, child,’ Dias said, her lipstick-kissed-away-lips looking sad.
I’m fine, Alice wanted to shout, with the defiance for which she was renowned. She wanted everyone to look somewhere else because, more than anything, she wanted to forget about her mother and the baby. She did not want to be reminded about them. She wished her aunt May would come home; she wished her grandmother wasn’t so busy supervising the food. She wanted Janake to come back from whatever he had been sent to do. But most of all she wished her grandfather would return. Dear Jennifer, it wasn’t really a proper baby, but everyone is making such a fuss. She rubbed the letter out of her thoughts.
The afternoon dragged on. There was still no sign of Bee or May.
‘You know, the child is grieving too,’ Dias whispered to an aunt. ‘They must keep an eye on her, cha, make sure she doesn’t get withdrawn or anything.’
Alice could hear her from across the room. Her grandfather had always said her hearing was very good.
‘Where’s Janake gone?’ she asked.
Esther shrugged.
‘I’m going home,’ she yawned.
She had had enough drama for the moment and she wanted to curl her hair before Anton came.
‘Cheerio,’ she cried, waving good-bye.
Alice heard her whistling ‘True Love Ways’ as she left. Dias heard it too and hurried after her daughter, annoyed with her behaviour in this place of mourning. It was a signal that the afternoon had ended. Kamala told Alice that it was time for her to get out of her alms-giving clothes, have a wash and then a nap. So by the time Bee drove his car in through the gate, the house was quiet. The servant boy closed the gate after him and stood waiting.
‘Shall I wash it, sir?’ he asked.
Bee nodded and gave him the keys. Then he went up the steps into the house. One of the monks’ black umbrellas rested against the door. Kamala and the cook had cleared the food away. There was a covered dish and a place set for Bee at the table.
‘Do you want something to eat?’
He nodded and went to wash his hands. When he came back she was standing by his chair.
‘How was she?’
He sat down.
‘As you would expect,’ he said shortly. ‘She wanted to go to the funeral. The doctor managed to persuade her she was not strong enough.’
He ate a mouthful of food in silence.
‘I think the doctor was wrong,’ Kamala said slowly. ‘They should have let her see the body.’
Bee grunted. He had no desire to eat, but he let her serve him.
‘Did Janake come?’ he asked instead.
Kamala nodded.
‘Did he leave a note for me?’
‘Yes. It’s in your studio.’
‘Good!’
They were silent. Kamala waited until he finished what he was eating. Then she served him another ladleful of rice.
‘Did you tell her?’ she asked softly. ‘Her second child looked like her first?’
Bee shook his head.
‘I don’t suppose that husband of hers had much to say?’
‘He was crying most of the time,’ Bee told her. ‘He wants her to write something for the papers. He wants the world to know about the murder of his child.’
Kamala opened her mouth to say something, but, changing her mind, closed it. There was no point in talking about Stanley.
‘She should have seen the child,’ she insisted instead.
‘Where’s Alice?’ Bee asked, pushing aside his plate.
The taste of the food made him feel sick.
‘Sleeping. Dias thought she was unusually quiet. She thought we should talk to her because she noticed she was eavesdropping all the time.’
‘So what?’ Bee asked sharply. ‘What’s wrong with that? It’s perfectly normal for a child of her age. Why doesn’t Dias mind her own business?’
He took out his pipe and began to fill it with tobacco.
‘Alice will be fine,’ he said irritably. And tell Dias that Sita will be coming back with May in a few days’ time. They’ll be fine, too. That woman should look after her own daughter instead of interfering with other people’s affairs.’
Kamala sighed and Bee pushed his chair back and stood up. He would be in his studio, should anyone want him.
‘Tell Alice to come and find me when she wakes,’ was all he said.
Kamala watched his receding back. A small rush of cooler air made her shiver. There was something he was not telling her, but she knew Bee was stubborn and would speak only in his own time.
They had been together for thirty years. When they had first married, she had been a girl of only eighteen. Bee had been the new teacher in the boys’ school. Kamala’s father had decided Bee was a suitable match for his daughter. Both sides approved and Kamala was introduced to him. They had both been young; the British had still been in power. After they were married, every time Bee had seen the British flag flying he would swear. At first Kamala had been amazed by his fury, but later on it had delighted her. Until that moment she had no real idea of his true character. Politics had never crossed her mind. In this backwater she had not met anyone as forthright as Bee. Her father and brothers were very conservative, diplomatic, quiet. Bee was different and Kamala liked his hot-headedness, his passion. Later, as she got to know him better, she felt the weight of this passion turn itself towards her with astonishing force. She fell in love. They had been married for three months when she fell both pregnant and in love almost simultaneously. Not for her this English notion of romantic love before marriage. Kamala’s love had come slowly like a small stream, appearing first as a trickle, then gathering pace until it grew into the great river that it was today, flowing steadily down to a larger sea. For this reason Kamala had puzzled over Sita and she had found Stanley an even greater mystery. Her daughter had hardly known the man. Given their different backgrounds, how could Sita be sure she loved him? But when Kamala had tried to discuss these things with Bee he had refused to be drawn. Not for the first time in their marriage she came up against his stubbornness. From this she had known how deep his hurt had gone, and because of this she had kept her own counsel. It had not been easy. Then Alice had arrived. The child had switched on the light they so desperately needed. Although, Kamala reflected sadly, she had also brought them a whole differe
nt set of anxieties.
Preparing to go to bed at last, Kamala thought back to the day Alice had been born. How happy they had been on that day. Moonlight fell across the garden sending great shadows from the lone coconut tree on to the gravel.
‘I’ll just have another look at her,’ Bee said, coming in, glancing at her, ‘check she’s asleep.’
Kamala nodded and waited. She was praying silently to the Buddha for peace to return to the house. Incense drifted through the open window. The night was cooler as they lay, side by side, in their old antique bed in a room steeped in bluish moonlight and scented as always by the sea. This was the bed where first Sita and then May had been born. Life and death, thought Kamala sadly, here in this house.
‘We might need to prepare for another visitor,’ Bee said quietly.
‘When?’
‘Not sure. After the demonstration, is my guess.’
Outside a solitary owl hooted and the moon moved slowly across the sea.
‘So at least you can still help someone,’ she murmured.
She felt infinitely old. Turning, she faced Bee, moving closer to him as she had done every night, without fail, all these years. He smelled faintly of tobacco and of linseed oil; he had been smoking too much in the last few days. It wasn’t only this news she was waiting for. She was certain there was something else. A train rushed past.
‘What is it?’ she asked at last, fearfully, in Singhalese.
Bee said nothing. He lay motionless for so long that she wondered if he had heard her. She hesitated, a cold fear in her mouth, willing him to speak. Finally he moved restlessly, his face unreadable.
‘Stanley leaves in a month,’ he said. ‘He’s got a passage to England. He decided to leave first and get a job, then send for them. I’ve told him that I will pay their fare. That way they won’t be parted from him. It will be better that way. Alice needs both her parents and the family must not be split up. They’ll be gone in four months at the most.’
