Funny Boy

by Selvadurai, Shyam

  “Son,” she called to me, in a low, urgent voice, “come quick.”

  I went inside and found her standing in the doorway to a room. It was Daryl Uncle’s bedroom and, as I looked in, I understood why she had cried out. The room was a mess. The dresser drawers lay on the bed and the floor, their contents strewn all over. A glass had been knocked over, and there was a water mark on the night table.

  “What’s happened?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, and continued to look around the room. After a moment she said, “Come. Let’s go.”

  As we passed the front door of the main house, she paused as if she was going to knock on the door and speak to the servant boy. Then she changed her mind and hurried down the driveway to the gate.

  When we were inside the car, Amma said, “Don’t tell anyone about this, you hear?”

  I nodded.

  She thought about what she had said for a moment and then added, “But we should tell Neliya Aunty, I guess.”

  We looked at each other. I was dreading it as much as she was.

  When Amma had finished telling her, Neliya Aunty picked up her sewing and worked on it for a few moments. Her brows were furrowed in thought and her hands shook slightly. Finally, she put her sewing down and said to Amma, “Why don’t you wait a few more days and see.”

  We stared at her in amazement.

  “There’s no proof that anything has happened,” she said.

  “But what about the state of the room?” Amma asked.

  “You realize the consequences if you do go to the police,” Neliya Aunty said. “Awkward questions might be asked.”

  Amma looked down at her hands.

  “After all, it’s possible that he stayed in Jaffna a few extra days,” Neliya Aunty continued.

  “Why wouldn’t he have contacted me, then?”

  Neliya Aunty broke off the thread and tied the end. “Be careful, Nalini,” she said. “Society is not as forgiving as a sister is. You have a husband and three children to think about.”

  She picked up her sewing basket and went inside. In spite of her saying that nothing had happened, I could tell that she, too, was worried. I glanced at Amma inquiringly, but she was staring at her hands as if thinking over what Neliya Aunty had said. Finally, she got up and, without looking at me, she went to her room.

  That evening I found it difficult to concentrate on my homework. All I could think about was Daryl Uncle and the state in which we had found his bedroom. I recalled the conversation I had overheard the second time he visited us. I shivered slightly when I thought of the way he had described torture, how the victims were hung upside down and made to breathe chilli fumes, how honey was spread over their bodies and red ants allowed to eat at them.

  After school the next day, Amma was waiting for me as usual.

  “I’ve made a decision,” she said as she started up the car. “We’re going to the police station.”

  I looked at her sceptically, thinking about the behaviour of the policemen in Jaffna.

  “I know,” she said. “But what choice do we have? I don’t know where else to go.”

  The police station was busier than I thought it would be. After being misdirected a few times we finally arrived at a counter. The policeman behind the counter studied us for a few moments, looking at our clothes and general demeanour to decide what treatment to give us. Fortunately, Amma’s Sinhalese was good.

  “I am here about a friend who’s been missing for a few days,” she said.

  “Where does he live?” the policeman asked brusquely. He had decided to give us the more courteous treatment.

  “Bambalapitiya.”

  “Then you must go to the Bambalapitiya station,” he replied.

  Amma was silent. Then she said, “Well, he doesn’t really live there. He’s a white man.”

  At the words “white man” the policeman’s attitude immediately changed and he became more helpful. He took out a form and began to ask Amma questions. Amma had to re-spell Daryl Uncle’s name several times before he got it right. While she was doing this, I noticed that another policeman, who was seated at a desk behind the counter, was listening. After a few moments, he got up, came to the counter, and asked the other policeman what was going on. The behaviour of the policeman at the counter showed that the other policeman was his superior. The superior officer picked up the paper, looked at it, and then asked Amma, in English, if he could help her. With the relief of a traveller who discovers a fellow countryman in a strange land, Amma told him rapidly how we had been to Daryl Uncle’s house and about the state in which we had found it. She told him Daryl Uncle was in Jaffna, but acted ignorant as to what he was doing there. He asked her to wait. Then he took the form and went into an office that was behind the counter. He bent down and said something in an urgent manner to the policeman in the office. The policeman looked at him sharply and then out at us. He saw that we were watching him and signalled to the other policeman to shut the door.

  “What’s happening?” Amma said to me in a frightened voice. “I don’t like it at all.”

  Finally, the policeman who had spoken in English came out and motioned for us to come around the counter.

  The policeman in the office rose to his feet when Amma came in and introduced himself as A.S.P. Weerasinghe. The A.S.P. was impeccably dressed, his hair well-oiled, his moustache trim, and his khaki uniform well-pressed. He was slightly overweight and his uniform curved over his rounded stomach. His manner was casual and friendly. “So, so,” he said and smiled. “What’s all this?” He indicated for Amma to be seated.

  Amma repeated the story she had told the other policeman. He asked her what her relationship was to Daryl Uncle. Amma said that she had known him since they were children. He then asked her for Daryl Uncle’s address. Once she had given it to him, he nodded to the other policeman, who left the room.

  “I’m arranging for us to go and look at the place right now,” he said.

  Amma nodded gratefully.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Chelvaratnam. I’m sure it’s much less serious than you think.”

  The A.S.P. looked the form over carefully. “I’ll call some of our chaps in Jaffna and tell them to make inquiries about your friend.

  Amma thanked him profusely for this.

  The A.S.P. offered us a drive in the squadron car but Amma declined, saying that she would follow in our car.

  By the time we arrived at Daryl Uncle’s house, the police cars were already parked outside. The servant boy opened the gate for us. He seemed frightened, and once he had shut the gate, he hurried into the house and closed the front door.

  When the A.S.P. saw us, he waved cheerfully. “Where are the occupants of the main house?” he asked.

  Amma told him that they were away in England for their daughter’s confinement. Amma looked around the room. Then she turned to the A.S.P. and asked, “What do you think happened, Mr. Weerasinghe?”

  “It’s simply a case of break and enter, Mrs. Chelvaratnam,” he replied.

  “And what about my friend?”

  “I suspect that your friend’s absence and the state of the room are unrelated events.”

  Amma looked sceptical.

  “What else could it be?” he asked.

  “Well … you know, he is in Jaffna and everything,” she said.

  “But what would that have to do with the house being robbed?”

  Amma said nothing.

  He looked at her keenly. “Mrs. Chelvaratnam, if you are holding something back it will only impede us in finding both your friend and the culprit of this robbery.”

  Again she said nothing. Then she came to a decision. “I haven’t told you everything,” she said. “The reason he went to Jaffna was to look for evidence of torture and disappearances by … the police.” She added quickly, “He’s a journalist from Australia.”

  The A.S.P. smiled and lifted his eyebrows. “And you think he was killed by the police,” he said, completing A
mma’s story.

  Amma didn’t answer but looked unhappy as if she realized how ridiculous her suspicions sounded.

  “Mrs. Chelvaratnam,” he said, “there is admittedly some misuse of power by the police, but never to the extent of torture.”

  Before Amma could reply, we heard the sound of a scuffle outside, followed by a shout. The dog began to bark hysterically inside the house. We turned quickly towards the door. I could hear voices raised excitedly. The A.S.P. held up a hand as if warning us to stay where we were.

  A policeman appeared in the doorway, looking dishevelled.

  “Sir,” he said. “Sir, we caught the servant boy trying to run away. He had a suitcase with him, sir.”

  The A.S.P. looked nonplussed. Finally he said to the policeman, “Were there any valuables in the suitcase?”

  The man shook his head.

  The A.S.P. told him to bring the servant boy to him. When the policeman had gone, the A.S.P. turned to Amma and said, “I think we have the culprit.”

  The policemen brought the boy inside. They had his hands pinned behind him in such a way that he was bent over. He moved from side to side, struggling to escape their grip. The A.S.P. signalled for them to release him. When the boy straightened up and saw Amma, he threw himself down at her feet. “Missie, missie,” he cried, his voice fractured by fear. “Help me, please! You know that I haven’t done anything!”

  He tried to kiss Amma’s feet, but she moved back quickly. The A.S.P. signalled to the policemen and they dragged the boy away from Amma. They tried to bring him to his feet, but he refused to stand. They left him kneeling on the ground, his head bent, a lock of hair falling over his eyebrow. I glanced at Amma to see if she was all right. She was staring at the boy in distress.

  “Boy,” the A.S.P. said, “did you take anything from in here?”

  “No, sir,” he replied. “I did nothing.”

  “Then why were you running away?”

  The boy did not answer.

  “I’m sure he’s innocent,” Amma said, pleading his case. “My friend always spoke highly of his honesty.”

  The A.S.P. smiled and said, “Now don’t you fret yourself about him, Mrs. Chelvaratnam.” He looked ruefully at the boy. “Unfortunately, dishonesty is instinctive for this class.”

  “He is different,” Amma said. “In fact my friend told me that he would often leave money and valuables lying around and the boy never touched them.”

  “Then why was he trying to run away, madam?” he asked.

  The boy was looking from Amma to the A.S.P., trying to understand their conversation from the expression on their faces. Now the A.S.P. waved his hand in the direction of the door. “Take him to the station,” he said to the policemen. “We’ll carry on our inquiry there.”

  The policemen gripped the boy’s arms. He cried out and dug his heels into the ground. He called to Amma, begging her to save him. She took a step towards him but the A.S.P. put out his hand to stop her. He signalled angrily to the policemen to remove the boy. They tried to make him stand up. In the process his sarong came undone and fell to the floor, entangling his feet. The policemen lifted him above the sarong and dragged him, naked, around the side of the house.

  Amma covered her face with her hands and shuddered. I felt my legs become weak and sat down quickly on the side of the bed. “Madam,” the A.S.P. started to say, gently, but she turned away from him. He bowed slightly and left. Amma went to the window and stood there looking out at the sea. We could hear the dog crying forlornly inside the house. After a while she turned to me and said, “I feel that boy is innocent.” I looked at her, surprised by how sure she seemed about this.

  “I don’t know how I know, but I just do.” She waved her hand to encompass all that had just happened. “This whole thing seems wrong.”

  In the silence we could hear the sound of the police cars starting up outside. I thought about the A.S.P. and how I had immediately trusted him. He seemed like someone with whom we would associate, like the kind of man with whom my father would be friends. Now I wondered if Amma’s instinct was right and we had been mistaken to trust him.

  That evening, my father called us from Europe. I was the one who picked up the phone. The sound of his voice asking how I was brought back all the dread I had felt on the night I had heard Amma and Daryl Uncle arguing. At first I was tongue-tied, too troubled to be able to answer his questions. When I finally forced myself to speak, my voiced sounded stilted, and I was glad to pass the receiver to Amma. I watched her as she spoke to my father. Her face was impassive and her voice normal, as if nothing unusual had happened in our lives.

  The next day, when I got into the car after school, Amma told me the A.S.P. had called her that morning. He wanted to see us.

  When we arrived at the police station, we were ushered into his office immediately. He rose courteously and smiled, gesturing at some chairs in front of his desk. He rang the bell on his table and the tea-boy arrived with two cups of tea.

  The A.S.P. waved his hand and the tea-boy served us.

  “You know, madam,” the A.S.P. said, still smiling, “I have discovered a happy coincidence. I actually play squash with your husband from time to time.”

  Amma’s teacup rattled slightly.

  “I have always known him as Chelva, but never though to connect him with your name. Then I saw your address on the form.”

  He looked at us merrily. “Small world, no?”

  Amma gave him a faint smile. She put her cup down on the edge of his desk. “What about our friend?” she asked. “Have you been able to locate him?”

  The A.S.P. sighed. “Unfortunately not. But we are working on it.”

  “Surely it can’t take that long to trace a man who looks like a foreigner.”

  The A.S.P. wiped his forehead as if he was tired. “You know how it is, Mrs. Chelvaratnam. What with the terrorist bombings and bank robberies, our forces in Jaffna have their hands full.” He leaned towards us. “They’re trying their best. I have personally asked them to hurry it up a little.”

  Amma sighed and her lips became thin with impatience.

  The A.S.P. picked up a file from his desk and opened it. “We have questioned the servant boy and I’m afraid to say he did take certain things from your friend’s room.”

  “What!” Amma said.

  “Evidently,” he continued, “he was right in the middle of ransacking the room when you arrived two days ago. That is why you found it in disarray.”

  “What exactly did he steal?” she asked.

  “Let’s see,” he said, and rummaged through the file until he found a piece of paper. He began to read from it. “A clock-radio, a watch, a camera, some Australian money, a Parker pen.”

  Amma shook her head, as if she could hardly believe what he was saying.

  When we got up to leave, the A.S.P. walked us to the door. “By the way,” he said, “that servant boy was a real jobless character. He knew all the comings and goings of your friend.”

  Amma straightened up slightly.

  He looked at her and smiled. “I will look into your friend’s absence and get back to you.” He opened the door gallantly. “My regards to your husband,” he said. “I’m sure he’ll be fascinated by all that’s happened in his absence.”

  When we left the building, Amma was furious.

  “The bloody cheek of the man,” she cried. “The bloody cheek!”

  She pushed the strap of her handbag over her shoulder. “Who does he think I am? Some schoolgirl?”

  I looked at Amma, worried about what would happen if the A.S.P. did indeed tell my father.

  That evening, both Amma and I were very quiet. We joined Neliya Aunty, Sonali, and Diggy in the garden. A monsoon sultriness had settled inside our house, and not even the fans could dispel it. So we sat in the garden, hoping for a slight breeze to cool us down. But there was none. Everything around us, the trees, the bushes, were immobile. The whole world seemed to be braced for some oncoming cat
aclysm.

  When I went to bed, I tried to read Little Men, but the book reminded me of the time Daryl Uncle had sat by my bed reading to me. Finally, I put the book down. Only ten days had passed since I’d last seen him, yet my memory of Daryl Uncle had already blurred.

  Then, in the early hours of the morning, the telephone rang. Its shrill sound entered my dream and only after a few moments did I realize its clamour was real. I sat up in bed. In the room next to mine, I could hear Neliya Aunty stirring. Amma went down the hall to the phone. She picked up the receiver and I heard the murmur of her voice. I got out of bed, retied my sarong, and went to my door. Sonali, Diggy, and Neliya Aunty had also come out into the hall. Amma stood by the phone in the darkness, the receiver hanging uselessly in her hand. “Neliya,” she said softly. “Neliya.”

  “I’m here,” Neliya Aunty said.

  “Oh God, Neliya. They’ve found Daryl’s body.”

  In the first light of morning, we waited on the front verandah for the police. Amma and Neliya Aunty had to go and identify the body. I looked around me, at the coffee cups in the tray on the floor, at the sky, a dull silver awning in which streaks of pink and orange were beginning to appear, and was reminded of the times we went on holidays and would awaken before dawn so we could leave before the sun became too fierce. As I drank my coffee, tasting its bittersweet flavour, I tried to tell myself that I was awake this early because Daryl Uncle was dead. I thought of what Amma had told us, how some fishermen had found his body, how it had been washed ashore on the beach of a fishing village. Yet, even while I thought about these realities my heart skipped madly as if joyful at the prospect of a holiday.

  The police finally came and took Amma and Neliya Aunty to the morgue. I stood at the front gate and watched the car disappear down the road. The routines of everyday life were beginning to take place around me. Neighbours came onto their verandahs and picked up their papers, servants opened gates and waited for the bread man and the milkman to arrive; in the distance there was the sound of cars on the main road.

  As I looked around me, I felt an odd sensation. Our daily routine had been cast away, while the rest of the world was going on as usual. A man I had known, a man who was my mother’s lover, was now dead. I was aware that it was a significant thing, a momentous event in my life even, but, like a newspaper report on an earthquake or a volcanic eruption, it seemed something that happened outside my reality, my world.