Funny Boy

by Selvadurai, Shyam

  Ammachi came over to me, interrupting my reverie. I began to busily polish the lamp. Then she took it from me. “Chah!” she said. “This is terrible. Do it again.”

  Radha Aunty stopped playing the piano and regarded us with interest. Ammachi returned the lamp to me and I began to polish it vigorously. “Harder,” she commanded. “Rub harder.”

  I rubbed as intensely as I could, feeling my palm heat up against the brass.

  “More Brasso,” she said. “Put more Brasso.”

  I reached for the tin.

  “Quick, quick,” she cried. “Otherwise it will dry.”

  “Honestly, Amma,” Radha Aunty suddenly said, “you treat him like a servant boy.”

  I glanced at Ammachi, wondering how she would react to this criticism from her daughter.

  “No,” she said, “I’m just trying to teach him a skill.”

  Radha Aunty laughed. “What?!” she said. “Are you planning to set him up on Galle Road as a brass karaya?”

  Ammachi didn’t reply. She bent down to examine my work again, but this time she said nothing. After a few moments, she left.

  Radha Aunty swung around on her stool and watched me polishing the lamp. “Why aren’t you playing with the others?” she asked.

  “Because …” I said, and my voice trailed off. I did not want to tell her the truth for fear that she would laugh at me in the way the other adults had done. “Because I don’t want to,” I added quickly. She looked at me keenly and smiled as if she didn’t believe me.

  She turned back to the piano and began to play. I studied her again, but with a slight change of attitude. Yes, it was true that she was a disappointment, but she had come to my rescue. If she had not said anything, I would surely have received a blow across the side of my head. As I looked at her I began to realize that she was different from other adults. There was a cheerfulness about her that none of the other aunts and uncles had, not even the nice ones like Mala Aunty. Further, she had not pressed me to tell her why I was not playing with the others. She lacked that terrible curiosity other adults had which made them insist on knowing things you were uncomfortable telling, and she had not cared about my obvious fib.

  That afternoon there were no chores to do, so I sat in the open corridor with a love-comic. Radha Aunty passed by on her way to the kitchen and she looked at me, curious. When she came back out of the kitchen, she stopped and said, “What? All alone?”

  I nodded and smiled slightly.

  “Never mind,” Radha Aunty said. “Come to my bedroom and play.” I looked at her in surprise, feeling suddenly shy in her presence.

  “Come on,” she said, and I picked up my comic and followed her as she went into the main part of the house.

  Her room consisted of a single bed, an almariah, and a dressing table. I had been in this room before, but now it was transformed by her personal effects. The greatest change was the dressing table, for the surface was covered with her make-up. I gazed at the various shades of lipstick and nail polish. A glass jar contained a selection of shiny stars and circles. I leaned over to examine them more closely. “They’re pottus,” Radha Aunty said. She picked one up and stuck it in the middle of her forehead to demonstrate what it looked like. I gazed at her forehead, enchanted by the pottu, so different from the coloured pencils Amma used. I turned and looked covetously at the jar. “You want to try it?” Radha Aunty asked, sounding both surprised and amused.

  I nodded shyly.

  She picked up a star, smeared a little Vaseline on it, and then stuck it on my forehead. I gazed at my reflection. Radha Aunty sat on the dressing-table stool and looked at me with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Then she picked up a tube of lipstick. “Open your mouth,” she said.

  Through the corner of my eye, I watched Radha Aunty work. She painted my eyelids with blue shadow, put rouge on my cheeks, and even darkened a birthmark above my lip. When she was done, I grinned at my reflection in the mirror.

  She looked at me and laughed. “Gosh,” she said. “You would have made a beautiful girl.” Then she took me by the hand and led me out to the kitchen. “Look!” she cried to Janaki.

  Janaki smiled in spite of herself. “You better not let the parents see him like that,” she said.

  “Nonsense,” Radha Aunty replied. “It’s all in good fun.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, Radha Aunty allowed me to play with her make-up and jewellery while she lay on her bed reading. By now I had lost my earlier shyness. I donned several of her chains and bangles and studied the effect in the mirror. Then I decided to paint my nails. I opened the bottle of nail polish and paused for a moment to breathe in its heady smell before I drew the brush out. While I coloured my nails, I watched Radha Aunty’s reflection in the dressing-table mirror. She became aware that I was looking at her and lowered her book.

  “Radha Aunty,” I said, “when are you going to marry Rajan Nagendra?”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “You know,” I said, and smiled to show that I knew she was playing with me. I waved my hand and blew on it in the same way Amma did when she wanted her nails to dry.

  “Why are you asking?”

  “Because.”

  “Do you think I should?”

  She was still teasing me, but I decided to treat her question with seriousness. I nodded vigorously.

  “Why?”

  I looked at her, taken aback. I searched my mind for an answer and then, remembering what the adults had said, I replied, “Because he’s an engineer and he doesn’t have insanity in his family.” Radha Aunty looked at me in astonishment. Then she began to laugh.

  “Why are you laughing?” I cried, suddenly feeling shy again.

  She reached out and hugged me, still laughing. “Where did you hear that?” she asked.

  I told her, and this made her laugh all the more. Since she was in such good humour, I decided to go further. “You must get married, soon,” I said. “Please, please. You will be the bestest bride ever,” I added insincerely.

  “The bestest bride,” she said. “You think so?”

  I nodded. “And you must have a long, long veil.”

  “Oh, dear,” she said. “But won’t it be too heavy for my head?”

  “No,” I replied. “You must have many bridesmaids to carry it.”

  “How many?”

  “Ten.”

  Radha Aunty laughed and I laughed, too, with excitement.

  “And how many flower girls should I have?”

  “Seven.”

  “And page boys?”

  “Seven.”

  “Will you be one?”

  “Yes!”

  I reached out and hugged her. “Can Sonali, my sister, be a flower girl?”

  She nodded.

  “But not Tanuja,” I added, determined to keep Her Fatness out of the fun. “She’ll spoil everything.”

  “Okay,” Radha Aunty replied.

  Since she was amenable to suggestion, I recommended that the bridesmaids wear pink saris with shiny sequins; the flower girls, pink maxis and flowered hair bands; and the page boys, black waistcoats with gold buttons. Radha Aunty laughed at my suggestions, but I pleaded with her until she finally lifted her hands in surrender. I was ecstatic now, all my earlier disappointment forgotten. Things were working out better than I had anticipated. I never imagined that I would actually have a hand in deciding what the bridal party would look like. The most I had expected was to be allowed to view the wedding preparations without being chased away. Radha Aunty had turned out to be different from what I had expected, but better. She was definitely my favourite aunt.

  That afternoon Her Fatness came to tea dressed up as the bride. She talked loudly about what they planned to do at the bridal ceremony after tea. I glanced disdainfully at the bedsheet wrapped around her body and the curtain on her head. Except for the bedsheet, she was wearing exactly what I used to when I was the bride. Now I marvelled to think that I had actually found this costume beautiful. Ho
w pitiful that curtain, discoloured with age, looked attached to her head, its borders sticking out awkwardly. The garland of flowers pinned to it appeared ill-made and sparse. I glanced across at Radha Aunty and imagined what she would be like in her expensive Manipuri sari and long, long veil. I pictured her entourage in the garments I had chosen for them and I felt a glow of pride as if they stood before me. As Her Fatness spoke of the girls’ plans for the rest of the afternoon, she looked at me, searching for envy in my face. I looked at her with contempt. I had better things to worry about than her silly game. I kept my fingers prominently spread out on the table so that she would notice my nails. When she saw them, her face became clouded with jealousy.

  One day, not long after Radha Aunty had returned from America, Amma said to me, “How would you like to be in a play?” I looked at her in astonishment. She told me that Radha Aunty was in a play called The King and I and the director was looking for young people to play the children of the King of Siam. The rehearsals would be on Saturdays and Sundays and one evening during the week.

  “Well, do you want to?” Amma asked.

  I nodded, thrilled at the prospect of being in a play. Last year, Amma had taken us to see a production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Although the play was boring, I found myself envying the children who were in it, because they got to wear make-up and costumes and dance around the stage.

  I asked Amma if she knew The King and I. She said she had seen the film a long time ago. As far as she remembered, it was the story of an English governess who goes to the court of Siam to teach English and other Western subjects to the king’s children and wives.

  “Does she marry the king in the end?” I asked eagerly.

  “Marry the king?” Amma repeated. She laughed. “You must be mad.”

  “Why?” I cried, disappointed that the story didn’t end with a marriage.

  “Because at that time people didn’t marry outside their race.”

  “And now?” I asked, determined to get a happy ending out of the story. “If it was now, would they have married?”

  Amma looked at me, irritated by my persistence. “I don’t know,” she said. “Probably not.”

  “But why not?”

  “Because most people marry their own kind,” Amma said in a tone that warned me not to ask further questions.

  I found my enthusiasm for The King and I ebbing. I couldn’t see the point of a play where the hero and heroine didn’t get married at the end. Amma must have read my mind, because she said, “You’ll have a good time. The songs in The King and I are very catchy.”

  The next Saturday, I went for my first rehearsal. Amma drove me to my grandparents’ house, and from there I went by bus with Radha Aunty. When rehearsals were over, I was to come back to my grandparents’ house for dinner, and then Amma would pick me up.

  The rehearsals were held at St. Theresa’s Girls’ Convent. Sonali attended the school, but I had never been there myself. The high spiked gates were covered with sheets of takaran so no one could look in or out. Today, they were slightly ajar. We took a path that led to a netball court, crossed it, and then went down a corridor towards the rehearsal hall. Now I could hear the sound of a piano, and a lady singing. We entered the hall and stood at the back. The only people on the stage were a white lady and a white boy. Before they could finish their song, another lady rose from a chair in the middle of the hall and cried out, “Stop. Stop.” She began to walk towards the stage, calling out directions to the actors. Radha Aunty took this opportunity to introduce me. This lady, whom she called Aunty Doris, looked me over and smiled. “What a lovely boy,” she said. “Should have been a girl with those eyelashes.” Aunty Doris had fair skin like a foreigner, and yet she spoke English as we did, with a Sri Lankan accent. She wore big round glasses and there were deep dark circles under her eyes.

  Since we would not be needed for a while, Radha Aunty took me outside into the courtyard. Some children were playing a game in one corner, but I stayed with Radha Aunty. A group of men and women were seated on some steps, and when they saw Radha Aunty they called to her to come and join in an argument they were having. They were discussing a song in the play which said that man was like a bee and woman like a blossom. A man, whose name I learned was Anil, had started the discussion. He agreed with this sentiment and all the men supported him.

  They began to argue, each side yelling with joy when they scored a point. Radha Aunty was soon the leader of the girls and she and Anil exchanged comments back and forth until Radha Aunty said, “I would rather wither and drop off my stem than be pollinated by a bee like you.”

  At this retort even the boys cheered, and Anil bowed slightly to concede to her the victory.

  As we walked towards the hall a little later, one of the girls gestured towards Anil and said to Radha Aunty, “I think that bee is dying to pollinate your blossom.”

  The other girls who had heard this comment screamed with laughter. Radha Aunty was not amused. “You’re mad,” she said. “Utterly mad.”

  Although I didn’t altogether understand the joke, I knew that it was something bad, because Radha Aunty looked very annoyed.

  After rehearsal that day, we were walking to the bus-stop when Anil drove up in his car and stopped. He rolled down his window and said, “Do you want a lift?”

  “No,” Radha Aunty replied.

  “But I’m going in your direction, and the buses are very slow and it’s too late to be standing at the bus-stop alone.”

  Radha Aunty hesitated for a moment and then accepted. On the way, she was silent and he didn’t say much either. I began to wonder if that argument between them had been more serious than it appeared. He offered to drop us at my grandparents’ gate, but she insisted that he leave us at the top of the road.

  When we came into the drawing room, Ammachi looked up in surprise from her newspaper and said, “How did you get home so quickly?”

  “We got a bus right away,” Radha Aunty replied.

  I glanced at her, puzzled, and she gave me a warning look. When we went down the corridor to her room, I waited for her to give me an explanation for her lie, but she declined to say anything.

  After the next rehearsal, Anil offered us a lift and Radha Aunty accepted a little more graciously this time, though once again she insisted that he drop us off at the top of the road.

  When we came back to my grandparents’ house, Ammachi was waiting for us in the front garden. Radha Aunty greeted her, but in return Ammachi glared at us.

  “Who is this boy you’re taking lifts from?” Ammachi asked.

  Radha Aunty paused for a moment, then she lifted the latch of the gate and we went into the garden. “What boy?” she said.

  “Don’t lie to me. I know you’ve been taking lifts.”

  “So?” Radha Aunty shrugged as if she couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

  “Who is he?” Ammachi demanded.

  “A boy. From the play.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Why?”

  “What is his name?”

  “Anil.”

  “Anil who?”

  Radha Aunty was silent.

  “What is his last name.”

  “Jayasinghe,” she replied finally.

  Ammachi let out a small cry that was both triumphant and despairing. “A Sinhalese! I knew it!”

  Appachi came out onto the front porch, drawn by the sound of her voice. Ammachi turned to him. “What did I tell you? She was getting a lift from a Sinhalese. Only a Sinhalese would be impertinent enough to offer an unmarried girl a lift.”

  Appachi didn’t say anything, but his expression showed that he regretted having come out. Radha Aunty sensed his sympathy and appealed to him. “He lives in the next road, that’s why he offered us a lift. It was so much easier than taking the bus. What’s so wrong with getting a lift from a boy I know?”

  “What’s wrong?” Ammachi said. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong.” She paused for effect. �
��People will talk.”

  “So let them.”

  “And what if the Nagendras hear that you’re galavanting around with an unknown Sinhala boy?”

  Radha Aunty was silent. She looked at the ground in front of her, a sullen expression on her face.

  Ammachi came a little closer to Radha Aunty. “Is there something going on with this Sinhala boy?” she asked.

  “No!” Radha Aunty cried, her eyes wide with hurt.

  Ammachi studied her keenly and then her expression softened. “Anyway, don’t do it again.”

  She tried to touch Radha Aunty’s arm, but Radha Aunty gave her an angry look and went up the steps and in through the front door. I followed her. The intensity of Ammachi’s reaction had shaken me. I wondered why Anil’s being Sinhalese upset her so? I was in a Sinhala class at school and my friends were Sinhalese. My parents’ best friends were, too. Even our servant was Sinhalese, and, in fact, we spoke with her only in Sinhalese. So what did it matter whether Anil was Sinhalese or not?

  Janaki was waiting for us at the end of the corridor. She had been listening. “It’s that banana seller at the top of the road who told,” she said to Radha Aunty. “I have a mind to get my sister’s husband to give him a sound thrashing.”

  “She’s such a racist,” Radha Aunty said to me.

  I looked at Radha Aunty. I did not understand the meaning of the word “racist,” but I could tell that it was not a nice thing.

  “Radha, baba, you mustn’t forget what happened,” said Janaki.

  Radha Aunty clicked her tongue against her teeth impatiently. “Oh, I’m so tired of that,” she said. “Why can’t we just put it behind us.”

  Janaki sighed and said, “You were too young to remember when they brought the body home. You should have seen it. It was as if someone had taken the lid of a tin can and cut pieces out of him.”

  I stared at Janaki in shock.

  “I know, I know,” Radha Aunty said, brushing aside Janaki’s remarks. “But is that a reason to hate every Sinhalese?”

  Janaki glanced down the corridor, for Ammachi had come in through the front door. She turned and hurried away to the kitchen and Radha Aunty went into her room. I didn’t follow her. Instead I stood there, as Ammachi came towards me. Familiar as her face was – especially the disapproving expression with which she looked at me before asking why I had not gone to wash my face and hands before dinner – I somehow saw her differently now.