Malini

by Robert Hillman

  ‘I have some dresses for you,’ she said, holding one of them up for Malini and Banni to see, an expensive-looking garment of pink and green chiffon that might be worn to a party. ‘I have some slacks for you, too. Three pairs. They will be the right size for you, Malini – they’re too small for me now. And some shoes. Also two jackets, in case you go somewhere nice.’

  She didn’t mention the lacy undergarments in a variety of colours, but they were in clear view. ‘And this beret,’ she said, handing Malini a stylish red felt cap, ‘for when you’re just walking along.’

  Banni looked at Malini and made a face, a comical grimace, without Randevee noticing. It was the sort of face people put on when they mean, ‘Totally nuts!’

  ‘Randevee,’ said Malini, holding the red beret, ‘what is all this?’

  ‘For you to keep. For your journey.’

  ‘Randevee, it is very kind of you, but—’

  ‘No – you must take all this, Malini! Please.’

  ‘The most valuable thing to us was the opportunity to charge our mobile phone, Randevee. For that we cannot thank you enough. And for saving our lives. But I’m afraid I will have no opportunity to wear your lovely dresses.’

  Randevee slumped onto the sofa. When she finally spoke, her voice was a squeak. ‘I am so bored in Colombo. And I’m bored here. You have adventures every day, and I have nothing but silly parties and shopping with my mother. I want my life to be real, like yours.’

  Malini sighed. Only a short time ago, Randevee had made her feel so unsophisticated, and now she felt about a hundred years older than her, and a great deal wiser.

  Randevee looked at Malini. ‘My heart is full of sympathy for your Tamil people,’ she said. ‘I am not a bigot – please don’t believe that, Malini! See how I have placed a statue of Krishna here? When my father says, Crush the rebels, I become sick in my stomach. I wish I could come with you. That’s what I wish.’

  Malini was moved, but not past reason.

  ‘Randevee,’ she said, ‘this is not an adventure. This is life and death to us. We have been travelling for five days. I feel tired and dirty and all I do is worry. If I could trade my life for a boring one with my father and mother close by again, I would do it in an instant. Your kindness to Banni and to me has been a great gift. But you should not wish to be with us. We may all be dead in an hour or a day or a week.’

  Randevee sat with her head bowed. Banni stood beside her with one hand resting on her back. She whispered into Randevee’s ear, in the best English she could muster, ‘She is a big bossy. But she is right.’

  Nanda and the boys were patient, but when they heard the distant sound of gunfire, Gayan became frantic. Nanda folded him in her arms. ‘Be calm,’ she said. His heart was beating as rapidly as a cat’s. Since the destruction of the orphanage, something as small as the sudden snapping of a twig in a forest could send him into a frenzy. On that day of fire and murder he’d seen shocking things, and he couldn’t ever forget them.

  Nanda whispered prayers into Gayan’s ear, and urged him to join in, but when the prayer was finished, he said, ‘They will kill Malini. They will kill Banni.’

  ‘No, Gayan,’ said Nanda. ‘They will not.’ That’s what she said, but it was not what she believed. She thought that they would never see Malini and Banni again.

  Amal said, ‘If those devils kill Malini and Banni, I will kill them.’

  ‘Amal!’ Nanda was horrified.

  ‘Am I a coward?’ said Amal. ‘No. I will find a gun and go to the town and kill them all! I hate the soldiers. I hate the red hats. I hate the tiger stripes.’

  Nanda thrust Gayan aside, seized Amal and slapped his face, hard. ‘Listen to me! None of that! None of it!’

  Amal felt his cheek. He thrust his chin defiantly at Nanda. ‘I am not a coward!’ he said. Then he relented. ‘Sorry.’

  A new volley of gunfire rang out from the town. Gayan shrieked and jumped to his feet. He covered his ears with his hands. Nanda reached for him, but he avoided her and ran headlong across the cleared area towards the highway. Nanda called to him but he didn’t stop. She hissed at Amal, ‘Stay here!’ and followed.

  Gayan had chosen a bad time to give way to panic. An open truck with a half-dozen soldiers in the back was heading down the highway, and Gayan froze in its path. The driver braked hard; the soldiers in the back were flung forward. Gayan stood in the glare of the headlights, his mouth wide open in a silent scream. The driver stuck his head out the window, hurling abuse at the child. Nanda, forgetting her fear of guns, rushed up to Gayan and flung her arms around him. Three soldiers jumped down from the back of the truck. One strode up to Nanda and struck her on the side of the head. Another seized Gayan by his hair and threw him full length along the surface of the road.

  ‘Idiot!’ he shouted at the boy.

  ‘What are they?’ the driver called to the soldiers. ‘Human or devils?’

  One Sri Lankan can usually tell if another Sri Lankan is Sinhalese or Tamil at a glance, but Nanda in her oversized Bon Jovi T-shirt and Gayan in his pyjamas mystified the soldiers. One of the soldiers leaned over Nanda and thrust his fist under her nose.

  ‘If you understand me, insect, speak up,’ he said in Sinhala.

  Nanda, in her terror, babbled something that could have been Sinhala or Swahili or any language on earth.

  The soldier grasped her throat and lifted her off the ground. ‘She’s having trouble speaking,’ he said, to the amusement of all the soldiers, those standing with him and those still in the truck. ‘Say something, insect!’

  Then, ‘What ho! What ho, I say!’ Out of the darkness of the night, a figure emerged – maybe a boy, maybe a man – dancing on the highway in a weird, jerky manner, like a puppet. The figure made a blubbering sound with his lips, leaping about and waving his arms. The soldier holding Nanda dropped her and swung his automatic rifle down from his shoulder. Before he could fire, the figure was gone. But the voice still called out shrilly, in English, ‘What ho! Pardon me!’

  More soldiers leapt down from the truck, everybody shouting at the one time. In the confusion, Nanda gestured to Gayan and both crept under the truck, out the other side, and into the darkness. Nanda crouched low, her arm around Gayan’s shoulders. She could hear the soldiers shouting and, every so often, the mysterious chirrup of the voice calling, ‘What ho! Pardon me!’

  Shots were fired. It took some time for the shouting of the soldiers to die down and a few more minutes before the truck engine roared to life. Nanda raised her head to watch the tail-lights of the vehicle grow dimmer and dimmer.

  They made their way back to Amal and the carry bags at the fringe of the forest. Once they were all together again, Nanda said what soothing words she could find to Amal, who was trembling after hearing the guns, then she excused herself, crawled a short distance away from the boys, and threw up. She began to shake uncontrollably, a fit brought on by dread. She saw in her mind’s eye the broad face of the soldier who had held her by the throat, the hatred in his eyes. When the shaking died down, she lifted the fringe of her Bon Jovi T-shirt and bit down hard on the fabric to stop herself from screaming.

  A voice whispered, ‘Nanda!’ and she dropped the hem of the T-shirt and glanced around in a renewed bout of panic.

  In the moonlight she could make out the huge white smile on the face of Kandan.

  She stared at him without properly understanding anything, except that he was no longer wearing the sling on his arm.

  ‘Nanda, it’s me,’ whispered Kandan, in Sinhala. Then in English, ‘What ho! What ho! Pardon me!’

  Nanda threw her arms around his neck. She was still holding tight when Kandan first sank to his knees, then toppled onto his back.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she said.

  Gayan and Amal had now joined them.

  Kandan said, ‘Nothing.’ Then, on his back in the moonlight, he opened his shirt. ‘Only this.’

  Blood glittered. A wound in his side below his heart had tu
rned his shirt black. Nanda raised her hands to her face in horror. Life was ebbing from his body. And yet his smile remained.

  ‘What ho,’ he murmured. ‘What ho…’

  Randevee, crestfallen, left Malini and Banni alone in the bungalow while the phone battery finished charging, but returned later in pyjamas and dressing gown. She asked Malini to accept three American twenty-dollar notes and a bag of food from the kitchen, which included many leftover cakes, sandwiches and vol-au-vents from the party. A second bag included some of the clothing from the suitcase she’d offered Malini earlier. She said, ‘May you prosper on your journey.’

  She led Malini and Banni to a gate at the back of the garden and unlocked it with a long-barrelled key. ‘To the left, then to the left again,’ she said. ‘You will find the highway. Then you turn right.’

  Malini was about to say farewell, but Randevee shook her head. The light of a lantern above the gate showed the glitter of tears in her eyes.

  She accepted Malini’s kiss on the cheek. ‘Write me a letter or call me,’ she said. ‘Both would be better.’ She had entered her address in Colombo and her phone number in the contacts file on Malini’s phone.

  The gate closed.

  Malini and Banni hurried down a lane, turned left into a broader street, and as Randevee had promised, came to the big highway. They kept to the verge, ducking down into the grass whenever a vehicle approached.

  They had to find the right place to turn from the highway and cut across the tall grass to where Nanda and the boys were waiting. Malini hadn’t thought to leave a marker on the roadside. She stopped and glanced back the way she had come, then ahead, then back again.

  ‘I don’t know where they are,’ she confessed to her sister.

  Banni closed her eyes and lifted her head. ‘Keep going,’ she said. Every hundred paces, Banni stopped and listened in her strange way, as if she were an animal, searching for a scent on the night breeze. After a number of these stops, she said, ‘Wait!’ She turned her head around and about, then her lips curled upward in a smile, for she had heard a young boy’s voice.

  Nanda, Amal and Gayan rushed out of their hiding place to meet Banni and Malini. The boys threw themselves at Malini. Nanda kissed Malini again and again. Then came a scream.

  It was Banni. She was standing a few metres away. Malini pushed the boys aside.

  ‘Banni, what is it?’

  Banni had fallen to her knees, her head thrown back, a long howl rising towards the moon and stars.

  Nanda and the boys said nothing.

  Malini took two steps and found herself gazing down at Kandan, his body straight and still, his arms at his side. His eyes were closed.

  Nanda told the story. Malini didn’t speak a word, didn’t ask any questions. When Nanda had finished, Malini said, ‘He is to be buried.’

  With the short-bladed knife, with sticks and bare hands, Malini, Banni, Nanda, Amal and Gayan dug a grave at a place where the soil was free of tree roots; they dug steadily, almost without talking, for two hours. Then Malini spoke Tamil prayers and threw the first handfuls of earth onto Kandan’s body, his face covered with Nanda’s bloodstained shirt. Nanda, Banni and the two boys pushed more earth over the edge of the grave, and more earth and more, until it was full and the soil began to form a small mound. Amal sang a sutra of farewell. Banni wept without ceasing for the whole of the burial. Such a short time any of them had known Kandan, and yet his death reached deep into each of them. Gayan, at the graveside, weaved his head from side to side in grief and tapped his chest above his heart with his hand in a constant motion.

  Malini’s own grief took the form of silence. She should have allowed Kandan to come with them. It was wrong to make him stay behind, even if she had her reasons. And she thought, too, that the boy was not meant for war, with his silly jokes and his ceaseless chatter and his smile and laughter. He had escaped the war and found a home with this family of refugees, and now that family was burying him.

  It was important that they cross the highway under cover of darkness. Malini distributed cakes and sandwiches, allowed everyone a tiny sip of Pepsi, then led the way, Malini herself in her worn sari; Nanda in a rainbow blouse of Randevee’s; Banni in her green blouse; the boys in their Bart Simpson pyjamas.

  The cleared area on the far side of the highway was not broad. Malini and her family slipped into the forest safely and found shelter beneath the boughs of a fallen tree. Only two hours or so remained before dawn. Malini said, ‘Sleep, if you can. If you can’t sleep, at least rest your hearts.’ The two boys settled together; Malini, Banni and Nanda found a grassy spot of their own. But before long, Gayan and Amal came and snuggled down with the girls. Malini knew that allowing the boys to sleep next to them would be breaking the strict rules of both their faiths, but they had recently buried their friend, and Malini was happy to give what comfort she could.

  As soon as the boys were asleep, Malini roused Banni, told Nanda they would be back shortly, and crept with her sister to the fringe of the forest.

  The phone played ‘Greensleeves’ when Malini turned it on. A red logo appeared on the screen, depicting the head of an eagle, and the three letters from the English alphabet that identified the service provider. So far, so good.

  Then the screen image changed – a picture of Malini herself as a child of five with a mouthful of white teeth seated on her father’s shoulders – Appa’s favourite photo of her. Tears rushed into Malini’s eyes.

  The gauge showed that the phone was receiving a weak signal. Malini crept closer to the highway, Banni following, and the signal strengthened. A message jumped onto the screen: twenty-seven missed calls, two messages. Malini squealed.

  Banni said, ‘Show me! Show me!’

  But a password was required before Malini could access the messages.

  ‘Banni, do you remember the password?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten.’

  Malini ransacked her memory, searching for the word. It was an English word, she remembered, not Tamil, not Sinhalese.

  ‘It’s to do with food,’ said Malini, pressing her fingers against her forehead.

  ‘I remember!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Banana.’

  ‘It’s not banana.’

  Something came to Malini. ‘It’s what Appa called me when I was little and chubby.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with food?’

  ‘Pudding! He called me pudding.’

  The missed calls dated back three days. The two messages were identical and very brief. ‘Call us back on this number when you can. Our love.’

  Malini dialled with her heart in her mouth. There was no answer. She dialled again, and again – no answer. She waited for five minutes in a fever of longing, then dialled again. No answer.

  She left a message: ‘Call me!’

  They waited.

  Banni yawned. Despite her yearning to talk to her mother and father, her eyelids were growing heavy. ‘Wake me when Appa and Amma answer,’ she said. She was asleep in seconds, her head in Malini’s lap. Malini, herself aching with fatigue, sat with the phone in one hand, the other hand resting on her sister’s head. The first, faint light of dawn was turning the eastern sky a pale grey.

  In her trance of weariness, memories drifted back to Malini like boats appearing on the horizon, one after another. She saw her father tying mango and margosa leaves around the door of the house to celebrate her results in a national maths competition – equal first in the whole of Sri Lanka. The custom of ornamenting the door with leaves on special days did not usually include coming first in maths competitions, but her father couldn’t contain his delight. ‘My little pudding has a brain as big as the moon!’ he’d said, which was a bit embarrassing, because she was no longer a ‘pudding’. Another golden memory was of bathing in the river with her mother and other girls and women of the town at the end of fasting, just six months ago. She had bathed with her mother many times before, but this time all the mothers fussed over h
er. They spoke to her as if she were no longer a child but a young woman, and came close to whisper to her. ‘Such beautiful hair I have never seen!’ And, ‘The soft skin of a queen!’ Malini had known that these were ritual words of praise that would be bestowed on any girl who had turned fourteen, but they still gave her pleasure.

  She remembered, too, the long hours she’d spent with her mother in the kitchen, learning the thousand rules of food preparation in a Tamil household: what was to be served on certain days; what foods must never be served on the one plate; the ritual and ceremonial properties of every herb and spice in the round world; who was to be allowed to fill his dish first at big gatherings (it was always a ‘he’); who came second, third, fourth, all the way down to one hundredth, and beyond. Oh, and that day – actually many days! – when her father and mother argued over what their daughters should hold sacred when it came to caste. Malini’s father did not honour caste as well as he might, and refused to speak of his own caste, Vellalar, as more important than any other caste. Malini’s mother always returned to the one point: ‘Face reality, Kanavar!’ And Malini saw a filmy image of her father calmly making the point he always returned to: ‘Malini’s caste is Genius. Banni’s caste is Precious Princess. There, I am done with it.’

  Malini’s head was drooping low over the sleeping form of her sister when the phone rang, playing the tune of ‘Beat It’, chosen by Banni some months earlier. Malini was wide awake in an instant, sitting upright so abruptly that Banni was flung from her lap.

  ‘Hello! Appa, is it you?’

  ‘It is me, my love. Such joy, to hear your voice!’

  ‘Appa! Oh, Appa! Is Amma with you?’

  ‘She is here. And Banni?’

  ‘Banni is safe here with me, Appa.’

  ‘Let your mother hear your voices.’