Funny Boy

by Selvadurai, Shyam

  After a while, I walked back to the house. Diggy and Sonali were still on the verandah. They looked at me carefully as if hoping I could tell them more about Daryl Uncle’s death. I avoided their gaze and went inside.

  When Amma and Neliya Aunty came back from the morgue some time later, the fact of Daryl Uncle’s death finally began to seep into my consciousness. Neliya Aunty’s eyes were swollen and she was crying into her handkerchief. Amma was not crying. Her head was tilted at an angle and there was almost a look of defiance on her face. She kissed each of us on the cheek, greeting us by name. She informed us that Daryl Uncle’s body was to be cremated and the ashes sent back to Australia, where they would be buried with his parents’. She spoke in a neutral tone, as if she was relaying a piece of unimportant information. Then she went into her room to change her clothes. Neliya Aunty and I followed her. Amma was taking off her sari when we came in, and she looked up. “I still can’t believe he’s dead,” she said after a moment. “I’m sure it’ll hit me later.”

  Neliya Aunty nodded.

  “He didn’t die by drowning. You know that. He was killed, then thrown into the sea.”

  I winced at the directness of her words. Neliya Aunty looked uncomfortable too.

  “Of course they have witnesses who saw him go swimming,” she said sarcastically. “They have witnesses for everything these days.” Her sari lay on the floor around her feet. She stepped over it and picked up one end. Then she looked at both of us. “We have to do something. We can’t let this go by.”

  “Nalini,” Neliya Aunty said.

  “What?” Amma demanded. “You think we shouldn’t do anything?”

  Neliya Aunty looked down at the floor. “There’s no point now,” she said. “Nothing you do will bring him back.”

  “But something must be done,” Amma cried angrily. She began to fold her sari. “People can’t get away with these things. This is a democracy, for God’s sake.”

  Neliya Aunty didn’t reply.

  That evening Amma developed such a severe headache that it made her dizzy and she had to lie down. I went into her room to see how she was. The curtains were drawn and she was lying in bed, her arm over her forehead. Her eyes followed me as I came in. I sat down by her side and we were silent for a moment. Then she said suddenly, “It was horrible. I could hardly recognize him. If they had not found his wallet on him, I would have sworn it was someone else.” She turned towards me. “You don’t think he drowned, do you, son?”

  I shook my head.

  “I should have done something. I should have found a way to stop him from going. I am to blame.”

  “Oh, no, Amma,” I said in protest. “You did what you could.”

  “No, no. I should have stopped him somehow.’ ”

  She propped herself up on her elbows. “Why didn’t I believe him about what was going on there? How could I have thought this government was any better than the last?”

  She lay back again. “Things were going so well, I didn’t want to know what was really happening.”

  I looked at her. The excited tone of her voice and the bright look in her eyes bothered me. I wished that she had cried. It would have seemed more natural.

  “We must do something,” she said, breaking the silence. “We can’t just sit by and act as if nothing happened.” She looked at me. “But where does one turn when the police and the government are the offenders?”

  I didn’t answer.

  For most of the night I lay awake, thinking about all that had happened. Finally, I fell asleep and dreamt of Little Women. This time I was Jo and I was nursing Amma, who was Beth. Then Beth died and I awoke to find myself crying as, for the first time, the understanding that Daryl Uncle was dead came to me.

  The next day, when Amma picked me up from school she had come up with a plan.

  “Do you remember Q.C. Appadurai?” she asked, as I got into the car.

  I nodded. Q.C. Appadurai, or Q.C. Uncle, as we called him, was a friend of Amma’s late father. He visited our house for our birthdays and we visited him on his birthday and at Christmas. All I knew about Q.C. Uncle was that there was a hint of scandal surrounding him and the servant boy who, since Q.C. Uncle had become feeble, supported him by the arm when he came to our parties.

  Amma started up the car. “I made an appointment to see him today.”

  As we drove to his house, she explained to me that Q.C. Uncle was a civil rights lawyer and what this meant. Amma felt sure that he would be able to help us find Daryl Uncle’s killers.

  Q.C. Uncle lived in a big house near Kynsey Road. When we rang the bell, the servant boy opened the door and ushered us into the drawing room. After a short while, Q.C. Uncle came out of his room, the servant boy helping him. He was a small, dark-skinned man, and he wore a sarong and shirt. On his face was a pair of large, square, black-framed glasses. Amma stood up as he came in. He peered at us but didn’t offer any greeting until he was seated and had stopped panting. Then he smiled at Amma and said, his voice a little hoarse and wheezy, “Nalini. How wonderful to see you.”

  “It’s wonderful to see you, too, Uncle,” Amma replied.

  Q.C. Uncle nodded his head and smiled. All his movements were extremely slow and his jaw moved in a chewing motion, despite the fact that he was not eating anything.

  “My dear,” he said to Amma, “what can I do for you?”

  “I need some advice, Uncle,” Amma said. “It’s about a friend of mine. He went to Jaffna a few weeks ago and …”

  “Jaffna,” he exclaimed. Then he indicated for her to continue.

  Amma started to tell him what had happened, but when she mentioned Daryl Uncle’s name, Q.C. Uncle interrupted her, saying, “Daryl? Wasn’t that the boy you wanted to marry at one time?”

  Amma looked at him and frowned. He didn’t seem to have noticed her look, because he continued with a chuckle of remembrance. “I recall that well. Your parents sent you to holiday with me on my old Kerala estate. Three months you were there.”

  “Uncle,” Amma said warningly and looked towards me.

  “Yes, yes,” he said, realizing his indiscretion. He waved his hand for Amma to continue. She proceeded with her story, leaving out the details of her relationship with Daryl Uncle. I noticed that Q.C. Uncle watched her with a strange expression.

  When Amma finished her story, Q.C. Uncle nodded slowly, his jaws making their usual chewing motion. His eyes were half-closed, and I wondered if he was beginning to fall asleep.

  Finally, he opened his eyes fully, looked at her, and said, “I’m sorry for you, child.”

  From the way he said it, I knew that he had discerned all the things Amma had omitted to tell him. Amma’s hands were clenched into tight fists. “You were a famous civil rights lawyer,” she said. “What would you do if you were still practising?”

  He heaved a great sigh. “If I was still practising,” he said, “I wouldn’t be doing civil rights.”

  Amma looked at him in surprise.

  “Too dangerous, my dear,” he said. “In my day, politicians were rascals, but never like these ones.”

  “So what must we do?”

  “Nothing, my dear,” he said sadly.

  Amma looked at him, shocked. “Nothing?” she said.

  “These days one must be like the three wise monkeys. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

  Amma was angry now. She put her fingertips together and contemplated them for a moment. “So,” she said, “a close and dear friend dies and I must do nothing about it?”

  “Exactly, my dear,” he replied.

  “But how can one live with oneself, knowing one has done nothing?”

  “You must remind yourself that you have a family and they could be at risk.”

  When we stood up to leave, the servant boy helped Q.C. Uncle to his feet. Amma had an obstinate expression on her face. Q.C. Uncle placed his hand on her arm and said, “Let it rest, child.”

  “I can’t,” Amma said.

&nb
sp; He nodded and bowed his head, as if to fate.

  Just before we left him, he said to us, “When you go home, call somebody. If you hear a click when that person answers, your phone is being tapped.”

  We stared at him in astonishment.

  On the way home, Amma drove fast, honking at any pedestrian who contemplated crossing the street in front of our car. “What has this country come to, where a man can be murdered and nothing must be done?” she cried. “The problem is that no one cares any more. People only look out for themselves.”

  When we turned onto Dharmapala Mawatha, Amma had to slow down because of the increase in traffic. I glanced at her. She was chewing on her lower lip, lost in thought. We had almost reached Galle Road when she straightened up slightly and made a noise as if she had just realized something. She turned to me. “You know, there is the servant boy. I’m sure he saw something.” I looked at her carefully. Q.C. Uncle’s proverb about the three wise monkeys had stayed with me. He was an important lawyer, and we would be foolish not to listen to him.

  Amma hadn’t noticed my disquiet. “Let’s go and see if the police have sent him back to the house.”

  I looked at the set expression on her face and I knew that it was useless to argue.

  We knocked on the gate and waited. The dog started to bark. It came running down the front path and threw itself at the gate, forcing us to step back. Presently, we heard the sound of footsteps.

  “Who is it?” a woman asked suspiciously in Sinhalese.

  Amma and I looked at each other, surprised to hear a strange voice.

  “Is your missie in?” Amma asked.

  “No. She’s gone to England for her daughter’s confinement.”

  “Really?” Amma said in feigned delight. “Suriya baba is going to have a baby?”

  I looked at Amma, wondering how she knew the name of the owner’s daughter.

  The peep-hole in the gate slid back and the woman stared at us, then opened the gate. The dog ran out, wagging its tail. The woman called to the dog, but it ignored her and went sniffing down the road.

  “Are you new here?” Amma asked.

  The woman nodded and then said, “But I used to work here until five years ago.”

  “What happened to the servant boy?” Amma asked.

  She regarded us for a moment. “Somaratne went back to his village,” she said.

  “I wonder how his mother is,” Amma said. “She was quite sick. Had a heart problem.”

  The woman looked at Amma in surprise. She became less suspicious.

  “I used to give him money from time to time for her medicine. I wonder how he’ll manage now.”

  The woman nodded in commiseration with Somaratne and his mother’s plight.

  “He lives in Belihul Oya, doesn’t he?”

  The woman shook her head. Somaratne lived near Belihul Oya, she corrected Amma. In doing so, she mentioned the name of the village.

  Before we left, Amma slipped a ten-rupee note into the woman’s hand. She held her palms together and bowed. As we got into the car, I turned and saw that the woman was watching us carefully.

  When we got home, Amma phoned Mala Aunty and, as Q.C. Uncle had predicted, she heard the click. I phoned a classmate just to make doubly sure that we were being tapped. It was strange and frightening to hear that click. I was reminded of the time a family of large rats lived in our house and we were never sure where they were hiding, from which cupboard or drawer they would jump out at us, behind which door or toilet commode we would find them. In addition to fear of those rats, I remembered feeling helpless because, for a long time, nothing we did made them go away.

  That evening, I was doing my homework on the back verandah when Amma came out and sat down next to me.

  “I’ve made up my mind,” she said. “I’m going to Somaratne’s village. The day after tomorrow is Meena’s birthday. All of you will be at her house for the day, and Neliya Aunty will be visiting a friend.”

  I looked at her and felt afraid. “Amma, should you? Q.C. Uncle’s told you that this whole thing is too dangerous.”

  “Rubbish,” Amma said, and I could tell by the look in her eyes that there was no stopping her. She would not accept that going to look for the servant boy might not be safe.

  Suddenly the thought of Amma being alone and in danger was too much, and I said quickly, “Amma, I am coming with you.”

  She looked at me for a minute and then shook her head.

  “We’re only going to visit him,” I said, my own words not calming my fear.

  Amma looked doubtful.

  “His family and he will be happy that a lady came all the way from Colombo to see them,” I persisted.

  “But everyone will wonder why you didn’t go to Meena’s birthday,” Amma said, yet I could tell she was softening.

  “I can pretend not to feel well and stay back.”

  “I don’t know,” Amma said. “I don’t like it.”

  “Please, Amma. It will be so good for me to be out there in the mountain air again.”

  Amma smiled at the lameness of my reasoning. She sighed and got up. “Let me think about it,” she said, but I could tell that she had already decided to take me.

  Our plans went well, and we set off for Belihul Oya by mid-morning. As we began the gradual climb into the hill country, the road became winding. The tropical vegetation gave way to an increasing number of fir and eucalyptus trees, and eventually these gave way to tea bushes. I rolled down the window and let the crisp air play on my face. The road had been cut into the side of the mountain, so that on Amma’s side there was the red earth of the mountain and on my side a sharp drop. I looked down into the valley below, most of which was covered with jungle.

  After a while, I noticed a blue car was at our rear. I could see it in the side-view mirror. From time to time we lost the car as another one cut in front of it, but inevitably it would turn up again. Finally, I drew Amma’s attention to it. She nodded and I saw that she, too, had noticed the car. “Let’s stop and see if it continues,” she said.

  She pulled over to the side of the road. We watched as the car drew closer, and much to our relief it went right past us. Amma glanced at me and we both laughed at how suspicious we had become.

  After being misdirected a few times, we finally arrived at Somaratne’s village. It was set among green terraced paddy fields. A crowd of village children heard the sound of our car and came running down the slopes and across the path that led through the paddy fields. They approached us with smiling faces.

  “We are looking for Mahagodagé Somaratne,” Amma said.

  The children now became nervous. One of them, an older girl, shoved at a little boy and he ran back up the hill. Then she gestured to us to follow her. Amma and I looked at each other uneasily.

  The girl led us up some steps cut into the side of the hill to Somaratne’s hut. A woman was sitting in front of it. Between her knees she held a cleaver, against which she deftly sliced vegetables. The child who had gone ahead of us sat near her and some women had come out of the neighbouring huts and they stood watching us. As I looked at their faces, my uneasiness increased. When we reached her, the woman glanced up at us quickly and then continued slicing her vegetables.

  “We are looking for Somaratne,” Amma said to her.

  “I am Somaratne’s mother,” she replied.

  “We would like to speak to Somaratne.”

  “He is not here.”

  “Where can we find him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Amma looked at me. The woman was lying.

  “Listen,” Amma finally said, “a friend of ours lived where Somaratne used to work. He died and we are concerned …”

  “And what about my son?” the woman said. “Are you not concerned about him?” She had raised her voice slightly. The other women began to come towards her hut. “What do you care?” she continued bitterly. “You rich folk from Colombo, what do you know about our suffering?”


  The women had now gathered around us and they nodded and looked at us with anger in their faces.

  “Come,” I said softly to Amma. “It’s dangerous.”

  She ignored me.

  “Look,” Amma said, “I think our friend was murdered and Somaratne knows who did it.”

  The woman laughed harshly. “So you want Somaratne to identify the murderer?” she said. “And what will happen to Somaratne then? Have you thought of that?”

  Amma was silent.

  “No,” she said, “why should you? To people like you, we are not even human beings.”

  The other women murmured in agreement.

  “You Colombo people lead such a protected life,” one of the women said. “You don’t know what goes on in the rest of the country.”

  “Yes,” another woman cried, “why don’t you go back to Colombo and leave us alone.”

  “I had two sons,” Somaratne’s mother said. “The first was killed by the army during the 1971 insurrection. Now my second son comes home with his right arm paralyzed. Do you want to paralyze his other arm, too, or make him lose an eye?”

  I looked around at the women and saw that they were becoming increasingly hostile. I touched Amma’s arm and said, trying to keep my voice steady, “Come, Amma, before anything happens.”

  She looked at me for a long moment, then nodded her head.

  As we walked down the hill, a stone came hurtling past us. Without looking back, we hurried. Then more stones were thrown and we began to run. We had just reached the bottom of the hill when I felt a sharp pain in my back as a stone hit me. I cried out and stumbled, nearly falling over.

  “Arjie,” Amma called out and came to me. She put her hand on my back but I broke away from her and continued to run towards the car.

  By the time we got into the car I was crying out of fright.

  “Son,” Amma said. She put her hand on my shoulder.