Adam's Peak (12 page)

Adam

P.S. Write to Susie if you get a chance. She's pretty down in the dumps.

P.P.S. I love you.

He wished, in a twisted sort of way, that the letter had been what he'd expected. A resentful clearing of the air would have been easier. He would have understood his part and played it out dutifully. But this letter complicated everything. In a way it was more accusing than the one he'd anticipated.
I hold no grudges,
he imagined his brother thinking.
What's
your
problem?

He wished he knew.

With another determined breath, he took a sheet of paper from the desk drawer and wrote quickly.

Dear Adam,

Thanks for your letter. I appreciate it. I know you're busy with the thesis and all, but what would you say to coming to S.L. for a visit? You must have research to do in this part of the world, no? It'll be my treat. Don't worry, my expenses here have been ridiculously low. (Although I've decided, just now actually, to find a place of my own over the Easter holiday.) We'll talk, okay?

Say hi to everyone for me.

Rudy

P.S. If you come soon, we can climb your peak before the season ends.

It seemed the right thing to do. He folded both letters, eyed the pile of unmarked essays wearily, then went to his room for his diary.

March 28, Saturday
. Hey, Clare. So what are
you
getting up to this weekend? I like to imagine you reading, curled up in one of
those window benches with a bunch of ruffly cushions and a cup of tea. I know, I'm sorry. You're probably out socializing with your friends, or painting Easter eggs with your kids. Me? Slouching around as usual. Listen, Clare, you wouldn't happen to know what went wrong between my brother and me, would you? Anything you noticed from over there on your side of the street? I keep trying to remember a certain summer day when I tried to be a decent big brother and fucked up completely. Adam and I built something out of stones, and I think I got pissed off or impatient or something and destroyed whatever it was we made (maybe even worse). I don't think that day was the cause of our lousy relationship, but it seems characteristic somehow. Anyway, I've invited Adam out here for a visit. Don't worry; I have no delusions that I'm going to make up for all the past problems and suddenly have a cozy, brotherly thing going with him. I really can't imagine what being with him would be like at all. We're almost strangers. I have an easier time imagining you coming out here to visit. But we'll see. God, Clare, what the hell happened to that feeling I had when I found out Mum was pregnant? I don't know. I may chicken out of inviting him. I
will
start looking for my own place and setting up my own life, though. It's about time, don't you think?

He closed the book and drummed its black cover with his fingers. He wondered what had become of his grandfather's diary, the one Grandpa had read from on the day of the big news. It had to be around somewhere still; Aunty had held on to junk of a much less sentimental nature than that. But then again, if Dad had gotten his hands on it when he came back to settle Grandpa's affairs ...

Rudy went out to the front garden, where his aunt was hanging clothes on the line. He spotted a pair of his boxer shorts in the laundry basket and reached down to pluck them out.

“Hey, Aunty?” he said, pinning the shorts to the line. “Do you remember that diary Grandpa used to keep?”

Aunty Mary frowned, then nodded. “Yes, yes. He used to write in it about the plantation goings-on and whatnot, isn't it.”

“That's the one.” He took a T-shirt from the basket. “Any idea where it is?”

Again Aunty Mary paused. He thought she was trying to remember where the diary might be, but her answer suggested something else.

“Why do you ask, son?”

It was a fair enough question, though an odd one, coming from Aunty.

“I was just thinking about an entry he read out to me when I was little, and I thought I'd try to find it. About Adam's Peak.”

“You want to read the diary?”

“Well ... yeah. If you have it. If it's okay.” He suspected he'd intruded in some way—asked for a privilege he hadn't earned. But the idea that his grandfather might have written things that Aunty wanted to hide made him all the more curious.

Aunty nudged the laundry basket along with her foot then ran the back of her wrist across her forehead. “Let me finish this,” she said, “then I'll find it.”

Of the four books she found—for Grandpa had filled up that many volumes—the one Rudy remembered was a lot like his own. A little thicker and heavier—nevertheless, he half expected to open it up and see his own handwriting. At the same time, the book was secret and unsettling. The last time he'd seen it he'd been six years old. It had been with him in Grandpa's study, and it no doubt remembered the day perfectly.
I know who you are better than you do
, the diary seemed to say.

Perched on the edge of his aunt's bed, he opened the book somewhere near the middle. The writing looked to be done with a fountain pen, and in the script there was a preponderance of straight, almost vertical lines. Most of the entries were short—a telegraphic date, followed by three or four sentences of what Aunty had called plantation goings-on: yields, shipments, weather conditions, meetings with the assistant manager or the factory manager. Flipping the pages, however, Rudy noticed that a few of the entries went on a bit longer.

“It's what you were looking for?” Aunty said.

“This is it. Do you mind if I hang on to it for a few days?”

His aunt's manner had given the impression she was reluctant to hand over the diary at all, but to Rudy's surprise she said, “You keep it, son. Keep all of them. You seem to have an interest in this journal writing, isn't it. Best that they go to you.”Then she shut the drawer the books had come from and dusted her palms, as if, having gone this far, she now wanted nothing more to do with the matter.

Rudy thanked her, then he took the diaries outside, to the bench under the jack fruit tree, which the sun hadn't yet reached. Selecting the black-covered diary that most interested him, he sat down and began his search. He found the entry quickly enough, and for a moment he simply stared at the fact of the date.

“Nineteen-forty-four,” he whispered. “Shit. The war was still on.”

And yet, it wasn't so much the date that moved him as the sudden jolt of connection to the six-year-old Rudy who'd first listened to the entry. With the strength of a long-lost smell, his grandfather's words yanked him back to the padded wooden chair in the study, the under-sides of his thighs sticking to the cracked leather. He hadn't remembered anything very specific that his grandfather had said that day—just vague notions of the glory of the peak—but as he read, the words were magically familiar. So familiar that he imagined he would have noticed if any of them had been missing, or altered.

He read slowly, for the old man's writing wasn't easily legible, and when he got to the part that quoted James Emerson Tennent, he heard his grandfather's smoke-clawed voice reciting the audacious words of the colonial adventurer. Grandpa's own follow-up was just as audacious. Rudy read aloud, in concert with the voice in his head: “The greatness of the peak lies in our ability to conquer it, and in so doing, to conquer our own weaknesses. The view that Tennent describes is the reward we earn for attaining that goal. This is what I wanted Ernie to understand, but didn't I find the—” Here he stopped, just as his grandfather had. He backed up then read on silently.

This is what I wanted Ernie to understand, but didn't I find the bugger cavorting with a pair of village louts, the lot of them giggling and prattling away in Sinhalese like a mob of
women at the market. I had a mind to swat some dignity into the boy but couldn't bear to draw any more attention to his behaviour. Can only be thankful the peak was overrun with ignorant villagers. Took a photo of Ernie and Jayasuriya under the bell, then made haste back down. In retrospect, Alec might have been the better companion after all.

Rudy's impulse to laugh at the silliness of the passage was tempered only by the fact that this old conflict was still simmering between his own father and brother. He liked to think Dad was a little less obnoxious than Grandpa, a little more tolerant—the Christmas of Zoë's accident had, after all, been the worst of it—but then Dad was from a slightly more tolerant generation. Rudy reread the passage. Unwittingly, his grandfather had given him the most interesting account of Uncle Ernie he'd ever had. He left the Adam's Peak entry to flip through the rest of the book, scanning its pages for other references to his uncle. He found nothing, however—scarcely a mention of Ernie's name. With the exception of brief, uninspired descriptions of holiday lunches, visitors from Colombo, occasional excursions to Kandy, the rest of the book was devoted to the daily business of the tea factory. It was a diary as removed from desires and opinions as Rudy's was steeped in them.

The next book, dated later than the first, contained more of the same. Rudy skimmed then stopped reading altogether. His shade was gone, and he was sweating. As a final gesture of interest, he flipped open the covers of the other diaries to check the dates. Tucked inside the front of one of these was a small envelope bearing Aunty Mary's name and address. Rudy glanced around the garden then lifted the envelope's flap and removed the sheet of notepaper inside.

Dear Mary,

Thank you for the opportunity to look at these. I'm sending them back with Simon and Louise. They're good chaps. You'll give them lunch, or tea, won't you?

Kind regards, Ernie.

Rudy slapped a mosquito that had been gorging itself, unnoticed, on his forearm.

The letter wasn't dated. But even if Uncle Ernie had borrowed the diaries right after Grandpa's death, it would mean the note was no more than ten years old. It would mean that Aunty Mary had been in contact with her brother long after he was said to have abandoned the family. And she'd kept it a secret—from Rudy anyway. He smiled at this secrecy. It gave him a thrill much like the one he'd gotten as a kid from the dual identities of Clark Kent and Peter Parker. And then there was Uncle Ernie—a real person. Someone with the quirk of calling a woman a “chap,” with the cockiness to give his sister orders.

Rudy sat on the bench, contemplating how to ask his aunt about Uncle Ernie—wondering whether or not, and if so, how, to confess that he'd read the note—when it occurred to him, quite plainly, that Aunty had left Ernie's note in the diary on purpose. Recalling their conversation at the laundry line, he was sure of it. The note had been the source of her hesitation. She'd considered taking it out, he guessed, but by the time she promised to find the diaries, she'd decided to reveal all. Before he could convince himself otherwise, he went to the kitchen and leaned across the counter, where his aunt was chopping.

“Aunty, what ever happened to your brother Ernie?”

He braced himself for a repetition of the timeworn answer—Uncle Ernie left home as a young man, and we hardly heard from him again—but the moment his aunt looked up, he could tell she'd prepared something different. She set down her knife, pressed her lips together, and patted her hair.

“He is living near Kandy,” she said.

Less than a day's drive away. He straightened up.

“Are you in contact with him?”

“We speak occasionally. He was in England for many years, but he retired and came home. He's an old man now.” She spoke matter-of-factly, like a witness giving testimony.

“What was he doing in England?”

“He lived near London. He was a teacher.”

Rudy frowned. “Uncle Ernie was a teacher? Why didn't you ever tell me?”

This, he knew, was an unfair question. Aunty hadn't told him anything at all about her brother; she'd obviously had her reasons. But the secrecy surrounding this now-real uncle was beginning to lose its appeal. Aunty said nothing, so he carried on.

“Does he ever come to Colombo? Why don't we see him?”

His aunt's expression left no doubt that the answers to such questions were difficult. Finally, she replied: “Ernie keeps to himself. He prefers it that way.”

A new image, of Uncle Ernie as a bitter old man, wilfully estranged from his family, began to take shape. And, with it, Rudy's interest grew. “What would he think of me calling him up?” he said. His question surprised even himself. He'd never entertained more than a shred of interest in Uncle Ernie. Now, suddenly, he was thinking of calling the man, maybe even visiting him. The possibility that the visit might be resisted made the idea strangely more compelling.

Aunty wiped her hands on her apron. “I don't know what he would think, son. He believes that after so much time it's better to keep things the way they are. I don't agree with him, but those are his wishes.”

Rudy raised one eyebrow in a manner he knew to be challenging. “Why are you telling me about him then?”

“Ah, well. I'm not young anymore. Someone needs to know about Ernie. Where he is living, who his neighbours are. I've written some of this information in the address book. Just in case.” She resumed her chopping. “I've asked him many times to visit since you've been here, but Ernie is very shy. He likes to hear about the family from me.” She shrugged. “What to do?”

Rudy recalled his grandfather's words.
Cavorting with village louts, giggling, prattling ...
If Uncle Ernie had become shy in his old age, he certainly hadn't been that way as a young man. More likely, Aunty Mary was guilty of couching the prickly truth about her brother in comfortable language. Risking awkwardness, he pressed on.

“Why exactly did Ernie leave home, Aunty?”

This, clearly, was the most difficult question yet.

“Ah, son, it was a long time ago. I don't remember—”