Funny Boy

by Selvadurai, Shyam

  That morning, after rehearsal, Amma didn’t come to pick me up. I sat on the steps by the gate and watched the other cast members leave. Anil saw me waiting and he offered to keep me company until Amma arrived. After half an hour had gone by, however, I became uneasy. The sun was very hot now and I was beginning to feel hungry. Finally, Anil offered to leave me at my grandparents’ house on his way home. I wondered if he had offered to drop me at their house rather than my house because he hoped to get a glimpse of Radha Aunty.

  When we turned down Ramanaygam Road, I was surprised to see all the aunts’ and uncles’ cars parked outside the house and my parents’ as well. Anil saw me lean forward in my seat.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Diggy and some of the other cousins were seated on the wall. When they saw me, they jumped down and ran to the car.

  “You’ll never guess what!” Diggy cried. “Radha Aunty’s train was attacked.”

  I looked at them, shocked. Anil turned off the ignition.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “People attacked the Tamils on the train,” Diggy said. “Radha Aunty was hurt and everything.”

  “But why?” Anil asked.

  “Because there was trouble in Jaffna,” Diggy explained. “When the train got to Anuradhapura, Sinhalese people began throwing stones and bottles at the train. Next thing you know, there was a big hullabaloo.” He leaned forward into the car. “And now they say there’s going to be trouble in Colombo too. The government is going to declare a curfew.”

  Anil looked worried. He opened the door on his side, and I got out as well.

  As we walked up the driveway, I could hear the adults’ voices in the drawing room. Some cousins were in the garden and they stared at Anil. I went in to call Amma. When Amma saw me she cried out, “Oh, darling, I completely forgot about you.”

  “It’s okay,” I replied. “Anil drove me home.”

  “Who?” Amma asked.

  Before I could reply, Mala Aunty said, “The Sinhala man. You know, the one who Radha …” her voice trailed off and the adults glanced at each other significantly.

  “He’s here,” I said and pointed to the front porch.

  Mala Aunty covered her mouth and the other adults looked towards the porch.

  “I’ll deal with him,” Ammachi said and she stood up.

  “No, no,” Amma said, hastily, “I’ll talk to him. After all, he brought Arjie and everything.”

  She got up and followed me out onto the porch.

  “Thank you for driving my son here,” she said to Anil.

  He waved his hand as if to say it was nothing.

  “What’s happened?” he asked.

  “The train coming from Jaffna was attacked at the Anuradhapura station.”

  “And Radha … I mean your sister-in-law, how is she?”

  Amma shook her head. “We don’t know as yet. Mr. Rasiah, a family friend of ours, was on the train and he was able to get her out of the station quickly.”

  Anil exhaled slowly. “Where is she now?” he asked.

  “She’s with Mr. Rasiah. He is bringing her back to Colombo.”

  “May I see her when she comes back?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She smiled at Anil to indicate that the visit was over. He nodded and, after a moment, he left.

  When we went back into the drawing room, everyone looked at Amma expectantly.

  “He wanted to find out what had happened,” she said. “Poor man.”

  Kanthi Aunty made a derisive sound. “Don’t start that ‘poor man’ nonsense. Especially not after what has happened.”

  Amma sent me to the bathroom to wash before lunch. As I walked down the corridor, I was suddenly brought up short by the photograph of my great-grandfather on the wall. I stared at it for a moment, and then the gravity of the looming crisis sunk in. I shivered involuntarily as I recalled what my father had said about the fights between the Sinhalese and the Tamils in the fifties and how many Tamils had been killed. Was it happening all over again? Would we suffer a similar fate to that of my great-grandfather? I turned away from the photograph, not wanting to look at it any more, not wanting to be reminded of what might await us.

  The atmosphere at lunch was tense. The adults sat at the dining table and we children sat in the drawing room, our plates on our laps. No one spoke except to ask someone to pass a dish. The radio was on so we could listen for more news. Many places in Sri Lanka were already under curfew and this evening there would be one in Colombo.

  We were midway through the meal when we heard the sound of a car stopping outside our gate. We became silent. There was a banging on the gate and a man called out, asking if anyone was home. Radha Aunty had arrived. We all got up, left our plates, and hurried down the corridor to the front door. When we arrived on the porch, Radha Aunty and Mr. Rasiah were walking up the driveway. We stood still and watched them. Radha Aunty walked slowly, her hand resting on Mr. Rasiah’s arm. She was wearing a scarf and she kept her head bent. When she was close to us, she lifted her head and we all stared at her in horror. The right half of her face was dark and swollen. The scarf around her head covered a bloody bandage.

  Ammachi made a small noise that sounded like a whimper and went to Radha Aunty. She put her arms around her and hugged her tightly. Radha Aunty stood there without responding. She seemed oblivious to all of us. Ammachi tried to lead her towards the house, but she made a protesting sound and clung to Mr. Rasiah’s arm.

  “She’s still very shocked,” Mr. Rasiah said by way of explaining her behaviour. He gently disengaged her fingers from his arm so that Ammachi could lead Radha Aunty into the house. As she went past me I looked at her, unable to believe that she was the same Radha Aunty who had left for Jaffna a few weeks earlier. The uncles, my father, and Appachi invited Mr. Rasiah to sit down and have some lunch with them. The aunts, Amma, I, and all the cousins followed as Ammachi led Radha Aunty down the corridor to Radha Aunty’s room. We stood in the doorway and watched as Ammachi helped her to sit down on her bed.

  Now Mala Aunty, being the doctor, took charge. She removed the scarf and began to examine the wound. When she tried to take off the bandage, Radha Aunty drew in her breath sharply and put her hand up to stop her.

  “I have to take it off,” Mala Aunty said. “We must see if you need stitches or not.”

  She found a pair of scissors in a drawer and began to snip at the bandage. Radha Aunty gripped the edges of the bed, a grimace on her face. Finally the bandage came undone and we saw the gash on her forehead. Mala Aunty tilted Radha Aunty’s head back and examined the wound carefully. Then she nodded, indicating that stitches weren’t needed. She sent me to get a new bandage from Appachi.

  When I arrived in the dining room, Mr. Rasiah was in the middle of describing what had happened at the Anuradhapura station. I forgot about my errand for a moment and stood listening to him tell how Radha Aunty had been assaulted by two men, one carrying a stick and the other a belt, and how he had managed to save her because he spoke good Sinhalese and the men had believed he was Sinhalese.

  When I returned with the bandage, Radha Aunty was lying on her bed and someone had drawn the curtains. Mala Aunty took the bandage from me and began to dress the wound. When she was done, all the aunts left, leaving the door slightly ajar behind them. The other cousins went down the corridor, talking excitedly about the size and bloodiness of Radha Aunty’s wound. I waited till they had gone and then I entered Radha Aunty’s room. She opened her eyes as I came in and stared at me, then she closed them again. I sat on the edge of the bed. In the dining room I could hear Mr. Rasiah finishing his story. I thought how rapidly our lives had changed. Yesterday, it would have been impossible to imagine these events. In a few hours curfew would begin, the night would descend, and there would be the anxiety of waiting till morning, wondering what would happen to us. As I sat there on Radha Aunty’s bed, I thought of all Mr.
Rasiah had said and found myself wondering how people could be so cruel, so terrible. The scene he had described, the bottles being flung, the beatings, seemed unreal. And yet they were real, as I could see before my very eyes.

  My thoughts were disturbed by the sound of the doorbell ringing. I glanced towards the half-open door, wondering who was visiting us at this hour. Radha Aunty, too, was listening. Then we heard Anil asking for her. Radha Aunty sat up in bed.

  “Radha is not in,” we heard Kanthi Aunty say. “She had to go to the dispensary.”

  “When will she be back?” Anil asked.

  Radha Aunty lowered her feet over the side of the bed and stood up.

  “I don’t know.”

  “May I wait?”

  “No. It’s very insensitive of you to come around at a time like this.”

  “I was only concerned about Radha …”

  “There is no need for you to be concerned.”

  Radha Aunty stood in the middle of her room as if uncertain of what to do next. Now we heard Ammachi’s voice. “What do you want?” she cried at Anil. “Haven’t you people done enough?”

  “Please go,” Kanthi Aunty said. “You are not wanted here.” There was a long silence.

  Now Radha Aunty walked quickly to the bedroom door. But she was too late. Anil had left. Then I heard her breathe in deeply and realized that she was crying. She stood by the door for a moment, the tears running down her face. Then she went back towards the bed and slowly sat down on the edge of it, looking at her hands. From time to time, she breathed in loudly. I turned away from her, unable to bear the sound of her crying.

  By the time we left that afternoon, a few sporadic incidents had been reported not far from where my grandparents lived. It was decided that Ammachi, Appachi, and Radha Aunty would spend a few days with us. My grandparents would stay in the spare room, Radha Aunty would have Sonali’s room, and Sonali would sleep with me.

  In the middle of the night Sonali woke me up to say that she had heard a noise in the hall. We sat up in bed, listening carefully. I heard someone moving around in the drawing room. I got up quietly and crept to the door. I turned the handle slowly, making sure that it didn’t click as I opened the door, and I stepped out into the hall. In the dark I could make out a figure at the end of the hall, looking at the garden through the half-glass front door. Then the person moved slightly and the bandage caught the moonlight. Radha Aunty. She had heard me. She turned and gazed in my direction for a moment, then beckoned to me. I went to her.

  “What are you doing up?” she whispered sharply.

  I didn’t answer.

  She stood looking outside again. The moon seemed to have bewitched the garden. The grass and the bushes appeared to have melted into one another, as if the moonlight had spread a fine silver netting over them. As I stood watching her in the moonlight I realized that she had changed. There was a seriousness to her face that was new, a harshness that I had never seen before. After a while she turned and, without waiting for me, she went back down the hall to her room.

  Radha Aunty and Anil met each other the next Saturday at rehearsal. The week that had passed seemed to belong to another lifetime. The presence of the curfew and the sleepless nights in which every sound was a threat of danger seemed unreal. Towards the end of the week, however, the riots subsided in the rest of the country and it became clear that the trouble would never reach Colombo.

  When we walked in through the gates of St. Theresa’s, Anil was waiting for us. He stared at the bruises on Radha Aunty’s face with a mixture of anger and tenderness.

  “Does it still hurt?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  We began to walk towards the rehearsal hall.

  “I came to see you, but you weren’t there,” Anil said.

  Radha Aunty nodded, but she didn’t give an explanation.

  “Your sister seemed so angry at me that I thought it was best not to return.”

  Radha Aunty didn’t respond. Anil glanced at her and I wondered if he, too, had noticed that Radha Aunty had changed.

  The rehearsals started late that day because the moment Radha Aunty came in, the cast and Aunty Doris crowded around her with exclamations of sympathy and horror over her wound. As Radha Aunty told her story, I noticed that Aunty Doris looked from her to Anil, a worried expression on her face. When Radha Aunty had finished, everyone was silent. Then Aunty Doris clapped her hands to indicate that it was time for the rehearsal to begin. The girl who played Tuptim was sick and so Radha Aunty was asked to take her place for that day.

  They were rehearsing one of the last scenes in the play, where Tuptim, the king’s newest concubine, is captured while trying to run away with her lover. Anil played one of the guards who would bring in the slave girl. I was sitting on the steps by the stage, and from time to time I glanced at Anil and Radha Aunty in the wings. Anil was seated on a stool and he motioned to Radha Aunty to share the stool with him, but she shook her head. Anil looked at her a little puzzled. When it was time for the guards to bring in Tuptim, Anil and the other actor took Radha Aunty by the arms. At their cue, they brought Radha Aunty in and threw her to the ground. As she fell on the floor, Radha Aunty exclaimed out loud, then sat up, rubbing her elbow.

  “What’s wrong?” Aunty Doris called out.

  Radha Aunty glanced angrily at Anil and said to Aunty Doris, “I was thrown too hard against the floor.”

  The other cast members looked at the guards and especially at Anil. Somebody said, “For God’s sake be careful, the girl is bruised enough.”

  “Aday,” another one said, “this is not Jaffna, you know.”

  At this remark, everyone in the cast laughed.

  Anil crouched down next to Radha Aunty, concern on his face. She stood up and walked off. When they went into the wings to make their entrance again, Anil tried to touch her hand, but she moved it away.

  He looked at her for a long moment and then his expression changed.

  After the scene was over, we rehearsed the march of the Siamese children. I was concentrating so hard on my cue that only after I had made my entrance, bowed to the English governess, and gone to my position on the stage did I notice that Radha Aunty was no longer with the other Siamese wives. I glanced across the stage and saw that Anil had not left. He caught me watching him and he frowned slightly as if asking where Radha Aunty had gone. I shrugged to say I didn’t know.

  We rehearsed the scene three or four times and still Radha Aunty didn’t return. When we were finished, I ran down off the stage and out of the rehearsal hall. An actor was seated on a bench outside the hall. I asked him if he had seen Radha Aunty, and he nodded and pointed in the direction of the toilets. I went down a passage that led from the courtyard to the toilets. Radha Aunty was not there. Then I heard a sound from behind the wall of a classroom across the way. I crept around the corner and saw Radha Aunty sitting on the edge of the classroom verandah. She was crying. When she saw me she quickly brushed her hand across her face and said angrily, “What are you doing here?”

  “I was searching for you,” I said meekly.

  “Go away,” she said and turned her head away, I just stood there.

  “Are you deaf?” she cried at me.

  I turned and left. In the passageway I heard footsteps approaching. Then Anil appeared. When he saw me, he stopped. “Where is she?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  He regarded me carefully and then strode past. I turned and followed him.

  When Radha Aunty saw him, she rubbed her face against her sleeve and stared ahead. Anil stood in front of her for a moment. Then he sighed and rubbed his forehead. He noticed that I was looking at them and he said sternly, “Go back to the rehearsal hall.”

  The expression on his face was serious and I felt suddenly frightened. I turned away and went back towards the hall.

  When Radha Aunty returned later, rehearsals had already finished. Anil was no longer with her.

  Aunty Doris was walking sl
owly around the hall, closing windows and picking up scripts. Radha Aunty began to close the windows on her side of the hall. When Aunty Doris heard her shut the first window, she turned in surprise in our direction. Then a slight frown appeared on her face. She turned back to continue closing up the room. For a while all that could be heard was the slamming of the windows and the click of the latches, the sound echoing in the empty hall. Radha Aunty and Aunty Doris worked their way around the hall, until they met at the last window.

  “I want to be let out of the show,” Radha Aunty said, not looking at her.

  Aunty Doris nodded. “I’m sorry, child.”

  After a moment she closed the last window, clicking the bolts into place. It was then that the full implication of what had happened came to me. It was so clear now that I was surprised I had not seen it before, that I had not understood the moment I saw Radha Aunty with that bloody bandage around her head that her relationship with Anil was over.

  Radha Aunty walked towards the door. “Come,” she said to me, “it’s time to go.”

  She left the hall and started to walk ahead of me towards the gates. I trailed after her, feeling a terrible sadness grow in me. When I reached the gate she was already halfway up the road and I had to hurry to catch up with her. At the bus-stop I stood under the awning with the other passengers. Radha Aunty, however, stood at the edge of the pavement, glancing down Galle Road, her head tilted back slightly. She stood tall and straight, her hands behind her. A bus appeared and she held out her hand, commanding it to halt. It came to a stop and we got in and sat down. The bus began to move again, taking us in the direction of my grandparents’ house.

  Rajan Nagendra was engaged to Radha Aunty on Appachi’s birthday. There was great excitement in the air that evening. I sensed this from the way all the relatives in my grandparents’ garden turned to look at us expectantly when we came in, thinking we might be the Nagendras. Radha Aunty was in her room. All the aunts and other female relatives had crowded in and I went and stood with them. She was seated in front of her mirror while Kanthi Aunty arranged jasmines in her hair. Her hair had been pulled back and made into an elaborate coiffure on top of her head, and her face had been carefully made up so that she looked a few shades lighter. She wore a dark green Manipuri sari with a gold border. As I looked at her, I saw that she now resembled the Radha Aunty I had first imagined. But, as she glanced at me and then away, I saw that her eyes had lost their warmth.