by Roma Tearne
‘Will you come back?’ she asked anxiously, reading his mind a little. ‘No one will stop you from coming back, will they?’ Thinking with dread of his trip to London, for the premiere of his film. ‘You will be allowed back in, no?’
They were sitting side by side on a broken catamaran. Half of it had sunk in the sand, brown-whiskered coconut husks filled its broken base, weather-beaten planks were all that were left of its seats. Her bare legs were close to his. One worn straw sandal had burrowed into the sand and come undone. He bent and fastened the strap, his hands fumbling and unfamiliar in their new task, brushing the traces of fine grains that clung to her leg. He felt her tremble and he knew she was thinking that he had never touched her in this way before. And all the things he had held in check, all the happiness of the past few days, gathered with great sweetness in that touch, of his hand on her skin.
‘I will always come back,’ he said fiercely, placing his hand against her face. ‘You must never doubt that. If anything happens, if my visa is delayed, or the trouble worsens here, or the flights are cancelled, you must not worry. You must remember that I have told you I will come back. No matter how long it will take I will come back. I can’t live away from you now. You must take no notice of the news,’ he added, with the new urgency he had begun to feel. ‘And promise me you will paint while I am away.’ And he had kissed her again, for he could not bear the look on her face.
She had gone back then, to listen to her mother’s complaints, with the caress of his hand on her legs, her red dress fluttering like a flag in the breeze, trailing the mist coming in from the sea, leaving the night to descend. Leaving the beach to him.
Walking back, Theo heard the sound of police sirens in the distance, rising and falling in time to the rhythmic gnawing of the sea.
On the edge of Aida Grove, on a slight incline not far from Sumaner House was an area where coconut trees would not grow. The earth was bare and wasted, without grass, without bushes, without life. There was nothing there except a lone straggling tamarind tree. Once this patch of land had been part of a larger grove of coconuts. It had belonged to the owners of Sumaner House, but with time, neglect and some erosion it had become common land, useless and uncultivated. Superstition abounded. Local legend had it that long ago a servant girl was ravished by a wandering shaman, here in this spot, and then left for dead. Eventually, according to the story, after many days of searching, the girl’s distraught father found her body. His grief was so terrible that the gods, pitying the girl, turned this once fertile grove into barren land. Later on the place was used for human sacrifice. One evil deed precipitated others, and this became a spot avoided by most people. Cattle would not graze, children would not fly their kites and no one walked here after dark. Occasionally, in the hope of changing the atmosphere, the locals would offer pujas, prayers to the gods. But to no avail, Aida Grove would never become popular. In recent times the army had tried to make it their own, parking their trucks and using it as a lookout post, staring at the ships through their binoculars, but Aida Grove defeated even them, and after a while they too stopped coming. Only Vikram frequented the place, idly observing the votive offerings, the stray soldiers, the local carrion. Sometimes he would go to Aida Grove in the hottest hours of the afternoon simply to sit under the tamarind tree and watch the dappled light as it flickered on the ground. He was drawn to the place without knowing why. At seventeen he was the size of a fully-grown man. In spite of everything that had happened to him, he thrived. Such was the virulence of youth; such was the ability of unhappiness to grow. These days he kept busy in unexplained ways. He was still waiting for Gerard to give him his next task. But although he had returned to the town, and although someone else was helping the army with their murder inquiries, Gerard told him things were held up for the moment.
‘Patience, patience,’ Gerard had said. ‘I’ll let you know in a few weeks’ time. When the Chief sends his orders. Now stop pestering me and circulate around the town, will you.’
One evening, as he walked home full of arrack, Vikram heard the usual sound of temple chants filling the air. The sounds floated across Aida Grove and the sky, he noticed, was filled with hundreds of small insects. There was hardly a breeze, the heat lay heavy and close to the ground. In some parts of the island, as Vikram was aware, in places where there was no curfew, Deepavali, the festival of light, was being celebrated once more. When they had been alive Vikram’s family had always celebrated Deepavali. Vikram staggered on. Huge, blue magpies chattered a warning in the tamarind tree. The darkness grew stronger. Inside Sumaner House the servant woman Thercy had switched off the naked electric bulb in the kitchen. There had been no news from Vikram’s guardian for months now. Thercy had given up wondering if he would ever return. He still paid her wages and he still sent money to Vikram. Everyone was content with the arrangement, so what did she care? All evening police sirens had been screaming. Fighting had broken out further up the coast. Tomorrow, thought Thercy, she would go into the town and meet her friend Sugi. He would know the latest news. Vikram was nowhere in sight. She imagined he was somewhere in the town getting drunk as usual. Thercy had no control over him. It was late, so, turning off the lights, all but the one on the veranda, she retired to bed.
Meanwhile, Vikram paused at the edge of Aida Grove. Something was different about it tonight. At first he couldn’t think what it was. The light from the veranda shone faintly on the tamarind tree. Something was swinging from its highest branch. The movement caught Vikram’s eye. He looked across the length of the tree trunk and saw the thing hung awkwardly, like a broken doll, swinging in the slight breeze. Slowly, making no sound, Vikram walked towards the tree. What appeared to be a giant pendulum moved backwards and forwards, swinging to an invisible beat. In the darkness, rocking gently, it appeared like an image from a painting.
In the dead of night, before the carrion came, when the air had cooled slightly and the dawn was still some way off, someone took the body down. It was dead-weighted and black-booted, hooded and bound. There were electrodes fixed to the palms of its hands. The hands were still young. A palmist might have identified the dark lines that crossed and recrossed it. A palmist would have seen the history in its fingers. The life and love that had lodged there once. But no such palmist was present. There was no one to display a single gesture of pity. And in the morning, when the light returned to the tamarind tree, the body had gone. Resurrected perhaps, moved to another place maybe. Blood had been spilt, thought Sugi when he heard, and the earth was soaked with it. Behind the tamarind tree and far away through the coconut grove were broken glimpses of the sea. It was blue like the sky, and the horizon was dotted with ships.
Nothing changed. The sea still scrolled restlessly up the beach. The catamarans remained half buried under the sand. When they could, after the curfew was lifted again, Theo and the girl walked on the beach. For Nulani there were two departures ahead.
‘My brother goes to England in three weeks,’ she told Theo.
He saw she could hardly bear what lay ahead. When would she see her brother again? Theo at least would be back. He tried to comfort himself with this thought, saddened by all that lay ahead for her. Remnants of her superstition had worked on him by some process of osmosis, he now realised. Am I going mad? he wondered uneasily. All this nonsense about broken mirrors; it’s crazy. But he could see very clearly how her life rested on shifting sand. Why had he not seen this before?
Sugi watched his struggle. Sugi was his rock.
‘Don’t worry, Sir,’ he said again, and again as they smoked together.
The generator had broken down again. Bullfrogs croaked but otherwise all was quiet.
‘I will look after her for you. Always.’
They shared the silence.
‘Do you remember when you first walked up the road, Sir, looking for this house?’
He still calls me Sir. That will not change either, thought Theo, his affection lengthening like the shadows.
‘She will be fine, Sir. I will make sure of that, not to worry.’
There was money and a forged passport for the girl, hidden in a secret place.
‘If there is any trouble, with the uncle, with anything, take her to Rohan,’ said Theo in an agony of worry.
Time was passing relentlessly.
‘Sir,’ said Sugi, ‘you must trust me. I will take care of her with my life. She will be fine. You and she are precious to me.’
Theo looked at him; Sugi had never expressed his feelings in quite this way before. His trip was still a month away.
Because of her brother’s imminent departure the girl had stopped painting for the moment. These days she was often needed at home, sewing on buttons, and packing, or labelling the jars of lime pickles. How many jars of pickle could the boy take in his suitcase? wondered Sugi. But he refrained from comment. Since the trip to Colombo, Mrs Mendis kept her daughter occupied most of the time, adding to the girl’s distress. When she could Nulani would escape to walk with Theo along the beach, and Sugi as always watching with his anxious eyes could see: they were getting closer daily. Sugi looked out across the horizon. The sea is full of fish, he thought. And the fruit is ripening in the trees, but still that isn’t enough. Still we fight.
‘Will they have egg hoppers for breakfast in England?’ the girl asked Theo.
‘You will see him again,’ Theo told her, understanding in a new and mysterious way what she was thinking.
He had begun to feel the leave-taking of her brother almost as keenly as she did. Her pain had become a terrible thing for him to watch.
‘Will you take me to England then?’ she asked, and her eyes were very large and dark and full of light in the way children’s eyes are. However much she aged in years to come, he thought, she still would remain beautiful because of them. They were the eyes of someone from another age, deep and wise and very lovely. Oh Christ, how he wanted to take her to England, and to Paris and to Venice. He could not bear to leave. When I return, he decided, determined, I will never leave her again. And one day, I will even take her to see that wretched brother of hers and, when the war is over, I will bring her back home again. For I know her heart will always remain here, in this place, her home. So thought Theo as he watched her tenderly, as she drank the lime juice Sugi still served in the tall glass. So thought Theo watching her anxiously and waiting for the rains to come, marvelling at how only last year she had turned seventeen – so young, yet already it felt as though he had known her for a lifetime.
By Christmas there was to be a general election. From all he could glean, in the brief talks with his agent in London, this war no longer interested the foreign newspapers. Sri Lanka was no longer news these days. It was a shipwrecked land. A forgotten place. Lately, Theo noticed, since the curfew had been lifted, a car headlight crossed the top of the sea road each night. It happened always at nine o’clock, every night, sweeping its beam across the road. But it never came any further and their peace, such as it was, remained for the moment undisturbed.
7
‘HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE,’ she asked him, ‘to get to London?’
Her brother had gone a few weeks earlier, leaving for the airport in the schoolteacher’s car, with his unwavering belief in the new life ahead.
‘Gone to the UK,’ her mother had told everyone proudly, through her tears.
The house had shrunk. And now, another departure hung over Nulani.
‘About a day. From door to door,’ said Theo. ‘Tomorrow, by this time, I will be in the hotel.’
‘And you would have travelled halfway around the world,’ she said in a small voice, picking up his passport and reading the names stamped in it.
‘Frankfurt, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris, Venice. You have been everywhere,’ she said. ‘And I have only been to Colombo, once!’
Theo, who had been gathering his notes for his tour, his money and his documents, stopped and looked at her. He took her hands in his. They were cold. He had been trying to keep busy but he saw now that it was useless.
‘I’m so much older than you,’ he said finally. ‘It’s hardly surprising. And you will go to all of these places one day, I promise you. I will take you, you’ll see.’
She was silent, not looking at him, staring at the patch of sea through the open window. Impassively, accepting. He felt a moment of sickness at the thought of abandoning her. Seagulls circled the sky outside. He thought of how her father left her, not meaning to, but doing so anyway. Then, because he could not bear it, he looked at his watch. In less than an hour he would be gone, sitting on the fast train to Colombo. And he needed to talk to her. He could hear Sugi moving in the kitchen.
‘Let’s go to the catamarans,’ he said quickly.
It was still so early that mist lay in thin patches on the beach. There would be no one about. First her father, then her brother Jim, he thought, and now me. But I shall come back, he reminded himself firmly.
‘Listen to me,’ he said, his hands gentle on her face. ‘You must not worry. I’m coming back. I’ve promised you. I will keep my word. Just look after yourself, for me. Will you? And when I get back…’
He hesitated, not knowing how to go on. Her face looked drawn in the faint dawn light. She looked terrified.
‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘Nulani, listen. You know I don’t want to go but…You must not be afraid. The six weeks will go quickly, I promise you.’
Again he hesitated.
‘When I get back…I want to talk to you about something. I want to ask you…’
He didn’t have much time. He couldn’t miss his train. There would not be another one today. But he needed to ask her something.
‘Please, Nulani,’ he said, ‘look at me. Are you listening? I want us to get married. Would you like that too? Will you be prepared to do this crazy thing? With me?’
He went on smiling at her, hiding his desperation, holding on to her, knowing she was nearly crying, knowing too he could not bear to let her. For he knew that if she did, he would not be able to leave.
When she spoke at last, her voice was carried by the wind and caught up in the roar of a train rushing past. The sun was moving slowly through the mist; a few fishermen were coming in from the night. The air smelt sweetly of sea and sand and old fishing nets and tobacco as he kissed her.
‘Yes,’ she said, faintly. ‘I want it too.’
Sugi squeezed some limes. Then he strained the juice into the tall glass jug and took it out onto the veranda where Nulani was drawing. Almost four days had gone since Theo had left and his absence was like a chasm between them. They had had a brief talk to him on the telephone but the line was bad and most of the time they only heard an echo of their own voices.
‘Don’t worry if you haven’t heard from me,’ Theo had said. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to get a connection.’
They had told him that everything was fine, that there was no trouble.
‘Miss Nulani is here all the time, Sir,’ Sugi had grinned. ‘She’s looking after me in exchange for lime juice! So don’t worry. Just look after yourself
.’ ‘And come back soon,’ the girl had said. ‘I have been drawing you from memory. Please come back.’
Afterwards she had been very upset. Sugi had not known what to do. He could see the signs of strain stretch taut against her. She was becoming silent, as she had once been. He told her she should do what she had always done. Each morning, until Theo returned, she should go into her studio and paint. In this way she could surprise Sir when he returned. Six weeks was not too long, looked at in this way, said Sugi firmly, talking to her as though she was a child.
Thus began a routine. Every morning as soon as she had helped her mother, she went over to the beach house and worked. Her mother no longer complained about her absence. Mrs Mendis too had grown quiet. Life had defeated her. She did not know when she would have word from her son. They did not have a telephone and although Nulani had written a letter there had been no reply as yet. Jim Mendis
had vanished, swallowed up by the sky, as far as she could see. There was no longer any purpose to her life. The future held no interest for Mrs Mendis. By now Nulani had stopped going to the convent school. Most of the girls of her age were preparing for marriage, or leaving the country if they could. Those who were serious about their studies had moved to Colombo to a larger school. There was nothing to do except paint. The days crawled on. Soon a whole week had passed and there were only five weeks left.
One afternoon she arrived at the beach house later than usual. Her mother had gone to visit someone in a neighbouring village so she had found she was free. But she was restless. The light was wrong, she said, it was not possible to paint. Seadamp had curled her notebook, she told Sugi, showing him the pages. Her drawings were ruined, she said sadly. Perhaps she could not paint after all. Sugi looked at her. She looked as though she had been crying and there were dark circles around her eyes. He brought out a plate of sweetmeats and some curd and jaggery. Then he sat down on the step and, in order to distract her, he told her a story.
Once long ago, when he was a young man, Sugi told her, he had wanted to go to America. The idea of a neon life, Pepsi cola and cars seduced him. Once.
‘When I was young I worked for a while in the Mount Lavinia Hotel in Colombo, carrying the bags that had just arrived off the passenger boats. America seemed glamorous in those days, and the women were tall and confident. So healthy-looking,’ he said. ‘Their teeth were large and white, their smiles spelt happiness.’
He had fallen in love with such a one, a woman called Sandy. He thought she might have been older than him. She had had a fiancé in Germany. Sandy had stayed in the hotel for nearly three months waiting for a passage to Europe.
‘During that time we had only four conversations,’ said Sugi. And he smiled at the memory.
