Funny Boy

by Selvadurai, Shyam

  The radio news is beginning again. We have listened to the broadcasts at 6:00, 7:30, and 8:45, but there is still no mention of the trouble. If not for the phone call and Sena Uncle and Chithra Aunty’s visit, we would think that nothing was going on in Colombo. After the last broadcast, Appa looked at Amma significantly and said, “No curfew.” From the way he said it, I assume that this has something to do with what Sena Uncle told him.

  11:00 A.M. I have learned what Sena Uncle and Chithra Aunty told my parents. But I wish I had not found out.

  I was in the garden trying to read when I heard the sound of Amma’s and Appa’s voices. Although I couldn’t make out the words, just from the tone of Amma’s voice I could tell that it was important. So I went and stood under the study window. “How can the government be doing this?” Amma was saying bitterly. “After all, we Tamils helped vote them in.”

  “We’re not one hundred per cent sure that they are behind the rioting,” my father said.

  “Of course they are. If not, why aren’t they declaring curfew, and why aren’t the police and army stopping the mobs?”

  My father didn’t respond.

  “It has been planned in advance. Otherwise, how could the mobs get electoral lists so quickly?”

  After that, both my parents were silent.

  At first I didn’t comprehend the reason for the electoral lists, but now I have thought about it and I understand. Since the mobs have electoral lists, they know which houses are Tamil and which houses aren’t. This means that we have no chance of escaping if the mob comes down our road. And if they do, there will be no police to stop them.

  12:30 P.M. The phones are dead, and for the first time I’m really frightened. Where is Sena Uncle? The van should have been here an hour ago. Has something happened to him?

  1:00 P.M. The government has now declared curfew. Anyone caught on the road without a curfew pass will be shot on sight. I am so relieved because this must mean that the government is not behind the rioting and that Sena Uncle and Chithra Aunty’s story was wrong. After the announcement I could see the relief on my parents’ faces too.

  Of course this means that Sena Uncle won’t be able to pick us up. Appa says that it is all right. He didn’t really want to leave the house in the first place, and, since the government has declared curfew, the situation will soon be under control. Amma didn’t agree. She said she would prefer to go to Chithra Aunty’s house for the night.

  3:00 P.M. The announcement of the curfew has not stopped the riots, and in fact the fighting has got worse. We have finally learned why Sena Uncle did not come for us.

  About an hour ago we heard a bicycle bell outside. Then someone banged on our gate. The sound was so loud in the stillness that all the neighbourhood dogs began to bark. Appa cautioned us to stay in the dining room. He went quietly down the hall and looked out through the drawing-room window. Then he signalled to us that it was all right. When we came to the gate, Appa was already outside talking to a man on a bicycle. He was a clerk from Appa’s office. When he saw us, he stopped talking and looked at Appa, as if uncertain whether he should continue. Appa waved his hand and said, “They might as well know.” I noticed that some of the other neighbours were watching from behind their gates. Appa turned to us and said, “Sena sent him. He had to abandon the van on Galle Road because some thugs stole all the petrol from it.” Amma asked what they would want the petrol for, and Appa told the clerk to tell his story again.

  Now Perera Aunty and Uncle, our next-door neighbours, came out of their gate and joined us. The clerk began to repeat his story. He told us that once he’d heard about the riots, he’d left the office. As he cycled towards Galle Road he saw that all the Tamil shops had been set on fire and the mobs were looting everything. The police and army just stood by, watching, and some of them even cheered the mobs and joined in the looting and burning. When he had finally made it to Galle Road, it was crowded with traffic going in all directions. Some motorists had abandoned their cars in the middle of the road and started to make the rest of the journey on foot. The pavements were no better, he said. They were packed with people hurrying home from work. Then, not far in the distance, he had heard a sound like a gunshot. Now the pedestrians began to scatter. When the pavement had cleared he had seen a terrible sight. There was a car in the middle of the road with a family inside it. The car was surrounded by thugs, and near it he saw Sena Uncle’s van. The thugs were syphoning petrol out of it and pouring the petrol on the car. Sena Uncle stood by, watching helplessly. The clerk called out to him, and he saw him and came to the pavement. That was when Sena Uncle had asked him to take the message to us. Before he left, the clerk had taken one last look at the car. Even from where he stood, he could smell petrol. The family in the car were simply staring out at the thugs as if they didn’t realize what was going on. Now one of the thugs began to ask around for a match. At this point the clerk had left. He had got on his bicycle and ridden away as fast as he could.

  Ever since I heard this story, I have not been able to stop thinking about that family in the car. I thought I would go into the garden and sit on the swing for a little, but when I got there I didn’t feel like it. Amma, Neliya Aunty, and Sonali were in the garden, tending to the rose bushes and anthuriums. I could tell that they, too, were trying not to think about what the clerk had said. Neliya Aunty says that there is nothing to do now but to trust in God and pray that we will be saved. Amma says that the best thing is to keep busy and hope for the best. But how can we hope for the best after hearing such a story?

  Appa is in his study, reading the newspaper and waiting for the next news bulletin. Diggy is doing his exercises, and I can hear the sound of the dumbbells every time he puts them down on the ground.

  6:45 P.M. A little while ago, Amma and Appa asked us children to come into the dining room. Appa looked stern and serious, Amma was very gentle. She explained to us that we have to be prepared if the mob comes. She and Appa have worked out an escape plan. She asked us to follow her onto the back verandah.

  In the back garden, I saw that our ladder has been placed against the side wall. If the mob comes, we are to climb up the ladder and jump over the wall into the Pereras’ back garden. Perera Aunty and Perera Uncle will hide us in their storeroom. Even though Appa didn’t think it was necessary, Amma made each of us go up the ladder so that we could get a feel for it. When I reached the top of the ladder, I saw that Perera Aunty and Uncle were watching us from the other side. Throughout the whole exercise, Amma kept saying that we were only doing this in case the mob came and that it was all a big “if.” Yet I know that this is not so. I noticed that Amma has removed her thali and gold bangles. She must have sent them next door with her jewellery box. Appa also sent our birth certificates and bankbooks. They know that there is going to be trouble. Like me, they are certain that the mob will come. It’s only a question of when.

  11:30 P.M. This waiting is terrible. I wish the mob would come so that this dreadful waiting would end. No, I don’t wish that. It is the last thing I want. Yet I know it’s going to happen. There is no doubt in my mind. So wouldn’t it be better if it happened sooner rather than later? Then we would be put out of this misery.

  I am using my torch to write this. Everyone is supposed to be asleep, but I don’t think anyone is. Appa is doing the watch right now, and I can hear him clear his throat from time to time. We have gone to bed completely dressed, even with our shoes on. Amma told us to wear jeans or something that was easy to move around in. Neliya Aunty, who always wears a sari, has borrowed a pair of Amma’s pants. All the adults, too, have torches. In case of any trouble, one of them will wake us up. Without turning on any of the lights in the house, we must go into the dining room with our bags.

  July 26

  12:30 P.M. I have just read my last entry and it seems unbelievable that only thirteen hours ago I was sitting on my bed writing in this journal. A year seems to have passed since that time. Our lives have completely changed. I try and t
ry to make sense of it, but it just won’t work.

  How quickly everything happened. I was lying on my bed, reading, and then I must have fallen asleep. Scared as I was, my body finally gave out. The next thing I knew, Neliya Aunty was shaking my shoulder. I opened my eyes and her torch was shining in my face. “Darling,” she said, “it’s time.” She said it so gently that for a moment I thought it was time to get up for school. Then I heard the chants of the mob. I sat up in bed, and I must have got up too fast, because I fell off it. “Sssh,” Neliya Aunty said.

  I stared at her, unable to move. I tried to push myself up, but my legs seemed to have lost all their feeling. It was like a horrible dream. Neliya Aunty bent down and helped me up. I must have been crying, because I remember her saying to me, “Don’t cry, child.” Then we went into the dining room. The others were already there.

  The chants of the mob were getting louder. Appa motioned to us and we followed him onto the back verandah. It was so dark outside that we could barely see ahead of us. The back garden looked menacing, and the trees and bushes seemed strange and unfamiliar. Even the verandah seemed alien. Amma shone her torch on the steps so we would not fall as we were going down into the garden. Appa was standing by the ladder. He indicated for Sonali to go up first, and he shone his light along the ladder. She began to climb to the top. By now the sounds of the mob had got even closer. “Faster,” my father hissed at Sonali. She seemed to be climbing very slowly. Finally she reached the top and sat on the wall. After a slight pause, she jumped.

  Now it was my turn. I was in such a hurry to get to the top that I missed a rung and nearly fell down the ladder. “Be careful,” Amma whispered up at me. I had reached the top of the ladder now. I could see Perera Aunty and Uncle waiting for us on the other side. She had a kerosene lamp in her hand. From the top of the ladder I could see the glow of the mob’s flares as they drew near. Perera Aunty beckoned to me urgently. I sat on the wall and, after looking fearfully at the distance between myself and the ground, I closed my eyes and jumped. Neliya Aunty was the next to come up the ladder, and then Amma. When Diggy came to the top, he sat on the wall and waited for Appa. Between the two of them, they pulled the ladder up the wall and threw it into the Pereras’ back garden. Then they jumped down. We followed Perera Aunty into the house, going down a dark corridor to the kitchen. The servant was waiting in there, and Perera Aunty told her to hold open the door that led into the storeroom. We all crowded inside. It was a small room, and it smelled of raw rice and Maldive fish and other dry provisions. “I’m going to shut the door now,” Perera Aunty said apologetically. My father nodded. She left the lamp on a shelf and went out of the storeroom, closing the door behind her. Now we were all alone.

  There was a high window in the storeroom and we all looked up at it, as if through it we hoped to see what was happening. For some strange reason we could no longer hear the chants of the mob. Sonali crept close to me, and I put my arm around her. The first noise we heard was a crash and the shattering of glass. “Front door,” Amma whispered. Then other sounds started. Cracking and banging and the dragging of heavy objects across the floor. I tried to place them, but it was impossible to tell where they were coming from. Then, through the storeroom window, we saw a spiral of smoke. “Fire,” Neliya Aunty said in a panicked voice. “Oh God, they are setting the house on fire.”

  Soon the darkness of the night was broken by a golden light, as if the sun were rising. The light even came into the storeroom, illuminating our upturned faces. Then, gradually, the light subsided and the darkness returned. The mob had left by now, and there was a terrible silence, broken only by the sound of wooden beams giving way with a groan and crashing to the ground.

  After a while we heard the storeroom door open. Perera Aunty and Perera Uncle came in. They just stood there looking at us, not knowing what to say. “They’ve gone,” Perera Uncle finally said. My father nodded and stood up. “What’s the damage?” he asked.

  Perera Uncle shook his head. “I couldn’t see.”

  “I should take a look,” Appa said.

  “No,” Amma said, alarmed. “It’s not safe. Wait till morning.”

  Perera Uncle and Aunty nodded in agreement. “You never know whether they’ll come back or not,” Perera Uncle said.

  We heard the rattling of teacups in the dining room. “Come and have some tea,” Perera Aunty said.

  The sheer normality of her offer took us aback, yet when we were seated at the table with the hot teacups in our hands, the familiar taste of tea was comforting.

  Once the sky had got lighter, we went to look at our house. The fire had completely died down by now. I stood at the gate, staring at the devastation in front of me. If not for the gate, which was still intact, I would never have been able to say that this had been our house. Many thoughts went through my mind as I stood there. The first thing that struck me was how much smaller the house seemed, now that most of the roof had caved in.

  It was dangerous to go into the house, but we couldn’t stop ourselves. I was struck by how uniform and characterless the rooms looked, with their debris of furniture and charred walls. They, too, seemed to have shrunk in size. I went to my room and looked around. As I examined the charred things on the floor, I was suddenly aware that records were not music but plastic, which had now melted into black puddles; that my books were mere paper that had browned and now came apart between my fingers. Legs, posts, and arms of well-known furniture, once polished smooth and rich brown in hue, now that they had cracked open revealed the whiteness of common wood. I observed all this with not a trace of remorse, not a touch of sorrow for the loss and destruction around me. Even now I feel no sorrow. I try to remind myself that the house is destroyed, that we will never live in it again, but my heart refuses to understand this.

  While we were searching through the house, we heard a van stop. It was Sena Uncle and Chithra Aunty. They had finally been able to get some petrol and secure a curfew pass. We went to meet them. They stared at the house for a long time. Then Chithra Aunty began to cry. Amma went to her and tried to comfort her. There was something ironic about that. Amma comforting Chithra Aunty. Yet I understood it. Chithra Aunty was free to cry. We couldn’t, for if we started we would never stop.

  By then, the other neighbours had come to see the devastation. They were saddened by it, and a few of them said that when they looked at the house they were ashamed to say they were Sinhalese.

  Before leaving, Amma, Neliya Aunty, and Sonali collected whatever had not been destroyed. In my room, I had thought to do the same but then left everything as it was. My father and Diggy, too, took nothing with them.

  When we were leaving in the van, Mrs. Bandara from next door brought us some raw provisions. The other neighbours saw her doing this and they started bringing things too. Amma refused to take anything, because they have families to feed as well, but they were insistent. It was odd to see them standing at their gates and waving at us as we drove away.

  3:00 P.M. We have just heard the news about Ammachi’s and Appachi’s house. It, too, has been destroyed. Ammachi and Appachi are all right, however, and they are going to drive to Kanthi Aunty’s house. She lives in Colombo Seven and, so far, that area has not been affected at all. Sena Uncle said that Ramanaygam Road looks like someone has dropped a bomb on it. So many houses have been destroyed that, from the top of the road, you can see clear to the railway lines and the sea. When I heard this I thought about childhood spend-the-days and all the good times we had there. These thoughts made me cry. I couldn’t cry for my own house, but it was easy to grieve for my grandparents’ house.

  6:00 P.M. Something awful has happened. Amma and Appa called us into the drawing room a few minutes ago. Everyone there was looking very serious. Sena Uncle has received an anonymous phone call. The caller knows that we are here. He called Sena Uncle a traitor for sheltering Tamils and said that he and other “patriots” were coming tonight to kill us and burn down Sena Uncle’s house. Sena Uncle tried
to dismiss the call, saying that it was probably some crank, yet, all the same, he looked very worried. My parents want him to take us to one of the refugee camps that have been set up for victims of the riots, but he and Chithra Aunty will not hear of it. So once again we have an escape plan. Sena Uncle’s mother lives next door and there is a door in the side-garden wall between the two houses. You can’t really spot this door because it is hidden behind the dog kennel. If there is any trouble, we are to go over to his mother’s house and she will hide us in the library, a room that is easy to miss unless you know the house well. Tonight we must sleep in our shoes again. I am tired of these escape plans. I’m tired of everything. I just want it all to end.

  11:00 P.M. My hand shakes even though it’s two hours since we had the scare.

  We had just finished dinner when the doorbell rang. We looked at each other, not knowing what to do. Then Chithra Aunty signalled to Sena Uncle to go and see who was at the door. Appa told us to get our knapsacks. Sena Uncle came back and said that there was a group of men outside. The doorbell rang again. Chithra Aunty beckoned to us to follow her and we went out into the side garden. Bindi, the dog, started to whine when he saw Chithra Aunty. She held out her hand so that he could lick it. While she was doing this, we went through the door into Sena Uncle’s mother’s garden. As we closed the door, I heard Chithra Aunty and their son, Sanath, dragging the dog kennel in front of the door.

  We had been in the library an hour when Sena Uncle came to fetch us. The men had gone away, he told us. He had spoken to them through the window. They said that they were collecting funds for a sports meet, and he gave them a hundred rupees.

  It is obvious that something odd is going on, but what it is we don’t know. Sena Uncle thinks that the phone call was made by the same men and that they have no intention of burning the house, it’s simply a way of extorting money. Even though this is awful, I hope he is right. Appa and Amma are adamant that we must go to a refugee camp tomorrow, but Sena Uncle and Chithra Aunty refuse to even consider it.