‘Maybe he has reached a turning point in his career?’ suggested Theo. ‘Come, Giulia, it’s what you’ve been waiting for. Don’t say you’re not excited!’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Giulia earnestly. ‘Perhaps meeting Nulani will make him tidy at last!’
‘That’s quite enough from both of you. Come, Nulani, ignore these philistines. Bring your work in.’
‘Well,’ sighed Giulia, ‘I shall make some milk tea, for Theo and myself. It’s clear we’re not wanted by these artists!’
‘And I shall get the paintings out of the boot,’ said Theo. ‘It’s all I’m capable of doing!’
With a flourish of his hand, he held the door open for the girl and they went outside.
‘You’re different today,’ the girl said, laughing up at him.
They walked along the side of the house keeping out of the sun. The air was hot and still.
‘It’s good,’ she said softly, standing close to him. ‘This is the first time you have looked really happy since I met you.’
Theo looked at her. He felt the air, delicate and white, like a gull’s egg, charged with unspoken thoughts. Still and unbearable. The heat balanced precariously on the edge of an unknown precipice, so that, hardly conscious of what he did, he reached out and touched her hair. Crossing some invisible boundary, suspending them both in the moment. And Giulia, glancing up through the curtain of creepers growing outside the window, thought, I have seen that look on his face once, long ago, just before Anna died. Looking at Anna, in just this way. Does he know?
Rohan loved the paintings.
‘Art school isn’t what you need,’ he said. ‘Art school will only spoil what you already have. You already paint from the inside out. No, what you need is simply to paint. All the time, every
thing
you want to paint, until you have a body of work.’
He paused, staring intensely at the paintings, lost in thought.
‘What you need is discussion about your work. You can have that with me. But most of all you must continue working in this way. And we should try to organise an exhibition for you. Here, and also in England, no? What do you think,
putha
? Tell me? Would you like that?’
Theo had left them alone to talk, and after he had looked at Nulani’s paintings, Rohan brought out his own work. They were large semi-abstracts in oils. Vast grey canvases. He talked to her of the daily practice of painting.
‘Some say art is our highest form of hope,’ he said absently. ‘Perhaps it’s our only hope. Living has always been a desperate business.’
He paused, thinking of Theo, remembering the time when his friend had been lost to him when Anna had died.
‘Life is full of pointlessness. Not just now there is a war, but always, before. It’s the nature of living. And the wounding of beauty, that’s all part of it, no? First you possess it and then you lose it. Art represents that aesthetically. To a certain extent your paintings are already doing this, you know, Nulani. But still, you must push your boundaries even further. On and on, don’t stop whatever you do; keep looking, always, for the happy accident, for the things that move you. And don’t just paint that bugger Theo, either!’
He smiled at her, for she was so lovely. And so pitifully young. The young, he felt, had little hope in this place. He wanted to give her something to take with her. He knew how hard it would
be for her to follow her chosen path. What will she paint in ten years’ time? he wondered. Or twenty? What
would
her life be like, in this backwater, married off, worn down by poverty and children? If the war doesn’t get to her first, of course. He felt only shame and bitterness for his country. Already he could see she had captured the fragility in Theo, the threads of what he had lost. Already she had achieved something soft and fluid and painterly. If colour
does
express something of our deepest emotions, then these painstakingly beautiful paintings have begun to touch that mysterious thing, he thought. What other things will age and experience bring to her work?
‘He is a good man,’ he said, suddenly, of his friend. ‘And he has suffered.’
He wondered how much she intuited. Probably she knew, possibly she understood more than Theo himself. Women were quicker, thought Rohan. Especially in this country, they were quicker.
‘So, now you have lifted that greyness from his life. That is all really, and still it’s also everything,’ he said, as though she had replied.
They were silent, preoccupied, while the afternoon moved the light slowly around the huge white room. The smell of thick paint and bitumen was everywhere. Rohan’s studio was cluttered with objects. Many of the things he chose to paint were those from his daily life. An empty carafe that had once held Tuscan wine, a cast-iron bird bath from their small Venetian garden, three shades of grey Fortuny silk, colours from a museum city. A blackened crucifix resting against the whitewashed wall.
‘I myself,’ said Rohan, seeing her look at his props, ‘I myself, love grey. You may say this is a little ridiculous of me. To come all this way back home to paint with grey? But, grey has no agenda. And that’s what really interests me. Its neutrality. Grey has the ability, that no other colour has, to make the invisible
visible. So I paint with grey. I need some spirituality to keep going in this place. For, you see, my heart is saddened by what’s happening to our beautiful country.’
He paused, appearing to forget she was in the room. He was thinking he understood what Theo had meant. The girl sat without moving, silently. She had the calmness of an injured bird, he saw. As if some instinct told her, there was no point in struggling. And then Rohan saw that no one had talked to her in this way about painting.
‘They are killing each other,’ he said softly. ‘Day after day. Over which language is more important. Can you credit these stupid bastards!’
Bitterness crossed his face like an ugly scar. The light was fading.
‘Where it gets interesting for us, as painters, is in the absence of language,’ he said a bit later on, getting excited again. ‘You are a good painter. But you know all that, I hardly need to tell you.’
Then he remembered something else.
‘Your notebooks,’ he warned. ‘They should never stop. No matter whatever happens in your life. Remember that. Always,
always
, no?’
The sun had almost gone, unnoticed by them. Deep shadows fell in through the window. In another part of the garden, Theo sat talking to Giulia. They had been drinking milk tea. Giulia had trained the plants to form a shady covering. She had placed some cane chairs and a small table underneath it. Orange blossom and jasmine tangled together overhead. A hosepipe trailed across the small immaculate lawn and somehow the garden had acquired an Italianate feel to it. Theo paused, looking at the terracotta pots of lilies, the cacti and the pink and white oleanders. It reminded him of the walled garden in Venice, where he and Anna had been such frequent visitors. How had
Giulia managed to bring her home here, into the untamed tropics? He began talking about the girl. Words poured out; he could not stop. It was as if a dam had burst in him.
‘She is very young and with such extraordinary talent. I wish I knew what the future held for her,’ he said.
I have seen this face in so many moods, thought Giulia, marvelling at the flexibility of the human heart. Marvelling that at last the torrent of grief over Anna seemed to have passed. Did he know? Had he any idea at all, of how he had changed?
‘So, my friend,’ Rohan said quietly, some time later, after they had put the paintings back in the car. ‘You look a little better than the last time I saw you. Thank God, no?’ And he placed his arm around Theo’s shoulder, for he had hated the unhappiness and the anger that he had seen for so many years.
It was time for them to leave. Darkness was descending and soon the heat would lessen. Rohan and Giulia leaned against the gate. They stood arm in arm, smiling at Theo, kissing the girl goodbye.
‘Bring her back to us very soon,’ said Rohan. ‘And, Nulani, remember what I said. I want to see some new paintings. But not just paintings of this fellow, you understand!’
They drove along the coast following the perfect disc of the moon. There were no remains from the day’s bloodshed, nothing stirred under the steady beam of the headlights of the car. Theo drove with all thoughts suspended, cocooned within a glow of contentment. Their talk was languid and desultory. In this short intermission between twilight and darkness, a mysterious transformation had occurred. An unusual cast of light made the girl seem both real and yet unbelievable. As they passed along the lonely stretch of road, the sea appeared to drift towards them, so that Theo could not easily distinguish the sound of the water from their voices. A gentle connection
seemed to exist between them, invisible until now, yet somehow already present. How this was he could not tell. He heard the girl’s voice rise and fall to the sound of the waves; he heard the rustle of the coconut palms and the rush of cool air as they passed. In that moment of neither night nor day it was as though all of it, the girl, the moon and Theo himself, moved together in some mysterious harmony of their own.
By the time they got to the lane that led to her house they were late. She wanted him to stop the car before they reached it. Pockets of fragrance exploded everywhere, jasmine opened into the night, carried on the breeze. The fifth sense, thought Theo, is a forgotten one. Yet for most of us, memory comes with smell.
‘My uncle will be at the house,’ the girl was saying. ‘I want to thank you here, for taking me to meet your friends, without my uncle listening. He does not like to hear talk about my painting. He is a fool.’
It was the first time he had heard this tone in her voice. He thought how far she had come since he had first met her and how much older she seemed in so short a time. How happy she sounds, he thought, filled with gladness. Helplessly, he looked at her and as she smiled, he saw that her eyes reflected the moonlight. Slowly, with unhurried tenderness, hardly aware of what he did, he bent down and kissed her. He felt her tremble as he touched her, and he felt, too, his own sweet shock of surprise. He had never thought to feel this way again. He had been running for so long and now it was as though at last his heart had stilled. Something invincible seemed to settle within him. And then he was driving on, towards the bright lights of the house, and her brother Jim’s
baila
music, and her uncle’s snaking dislike. And all around, the Milky Way appeared to unfold in an endless canopy above them, scattering its stars far and wide, like fireflies rising in the dark tropical sky.
I
T RAINED IN THE NIGHT BUT
towards dawn the mist began rolling in from the sea. When it finally cleared, the day would be hot and dry as an elephant’s hide. The news on the radio was not good. Two Cabinet ministers and their families, returning to Colombo after the weekend, had been machine-gunned down. All that was left of them were limbs, studded with bullet holes, crushed to the edge of bone, brittle, like coral. No one knew who might have committed such a crime. This part of the island had always been considered safe. So it was a mystery how this could have happened. The army began putting up roadblocks everywhere in the hope of catching the terrorists. But so far no one had been arrested. Rumours were, the railway line would be the next target. In the main part of the town, further along from where the Mendis family lived, small groups of men gathered to talk of this latest, unaccountable act of violence. The air of nervousness, even here in this backwater, was no longer possible to hide. A few fights had broken out in the streets and Mrs Mendis begged her son to stay away from the town. He was leaving at the end of August. The priest at
the boys’ school had organised his visa. Mrs Mendis did not want anything to ruin his future. She was torn between her desperation for Jim’s safety and her agony at the thought of his imminent departure. Fear and anxiety, and also irritation towards Nulani, mixed confusingly within her. There was so much to do for Jim and all the girl had wanted was to go to Colombo to talk about her paintings. Why was she such a selfish child? Why did she care so little for what was left of her family? Here was her mother, working night and day to make ends meet, and all Nulani could do was paint. Mrs Mendis complained loudly about her daughter to the servant. She complained about her to the clients who came with sewing. And she insisted Nulani stay in and help her.
‘You’ve had your day gallivanting with that poor gentleman,’ she told Nulani firmly. ‘He’s a good man to take such interest in you, but today you can finish the jersey for your brother to take to England. And then you can clean the house.’
Jim cycled off to his tutor’s house. He had some final preparations. And Nulani Mendis sat alone on the veranda step watching him go.
It was how Vikram saw her, spying through the branches of the mango tree. He had been preoccupied for the last week, busy doing important things, being seen by as many people as possible, taking the shopkeeper’s daughter to the back of the garage, drinking. Of late the shopkeeper’s daughter had begun to irritate him. She had, he realised, become too fond of him and had stopped fighting and started smiling instead. As a result Vikram was becoming bored. He knew he would have to wait a while before Gerard gave him his next task. Gerard was lying low for a few days, he guessed, waiting until the news had died down, until someone had been caught and hung. So with no other excitement ahead Vikram was at a loose end. On his way back from
the
kade
, he passed the Mendis house. Idly he decided to see who was in. Perhaps this was the moment to get to know the uncle.
But it was the girl he saw instead. She was knitting her brother a jersey to take to England. Knit one, purl one went her hands, binding the dark green wool together. They were painter’s hands, moving quickly, making work. Vikram paused. He had come to see her uncle and found himself staring at Nulani Mendis instead. He watched her cautiously from this safe distance. Something about her made him careful. As always, whenever he caught sight of her, he felt uneasy without quite knowing why. Perhaps it was the tranquillity of her manner; perhaps it was the mysterious certainty in her face. He knew she might suddenly look up and see him, so he held his breath, hiding behind the
ambarella
tree. Her smile gave him the oddest of feelings. It made him remember things best forgotten, things that were no longer his to remember. But the girl did not look up. She was absorbed in her knitting. Knit one, purl one went her hands. Vikram was shocked to see her knitting. His shock was mixed with confusion, for thus had his sister knitted in that other, abundant life that once belonged to him too. The garden was filled with the sound of small birds. An underripe fruit thudded to the ground but still the girl did not look up. She bent over the dark green wool and for a moment, a mere fraction of a second, it seemed to Vikram as though the day had stopped. Shadows crossed the ground. A child’s voice could be heard in the distance, repeating a question over and over again, high and clear. The rich hum of a passing mosquito vibrated in Vikram’s ear. There were mosquitoes everywhere since the rains had begun. But the girl did not see them; she did not see Vikram either. She had a soft look on her face, like the nearly ripe mango that had fallen too early. She looked beautiful and dark, and mysterious. When she had finished all
she meant to do, Nulani stood up and glanced swiftly across the lane. Then she sighed, and, folding up her knitting as though it were a precious thought, went inside.
Vikram watched her retreating back. He saw that even when she walked there was a peacefulness about her. His curiosity grew. What was it about this girl that drew him to her? He knew nothing more about her than the idle gossip surrounding Mr Mendis’s death. From where he was, he could see the cool, dark interior of the house quite clearly. He could see also that it was shabby and withered and, in a way, hopeless too. None of this surprised him. Someone had told him that the family had slowly disintegrated after Mr Mendis had died. He could not remember who had said it. Perhaps it had been a student at the school, knowing of his dislike for Jim Mendis. But anyway he sensed this house had seen better times. Vikram imagined Mr Mendis, before his outspoken poetry had killed him, walking the beach with his daughter, carrying his young son. And the young Mrs Mendis, what had she been like? People said in those days she was always smiling. He imagined the house would have had energy then. Now, from where he crouched, he could see the place was a mess. Cricket bats and shoes, he supposed they belonged to Jim, shed like a gecko’s skin, strewn everywhere. Vikram edged a little closer and he saw there were empty cotton reels and bits of thread and cloth lying on the floor. He could hear the sound of the sewing machine rattling on and, further back, through the closed doors, he heard raised voices. He watched as Nulani Mendis, ignoring everything, began to tidy up the room. There was something oddly dreamlike in the way she moved, he thought, puzzled. It was as though the girl was somewhere else entirely. She began folding her brother’s clothes. She gathered up his books and picked up his shoes. Vikram watched. She moved his cricket bat and his kneepads. And she knocked the mirror over.
The mirror, shattering the light, crashing against her brother’s shoes, his cricket bat, his kneepads. It fell to the ground, breaking into many pieces of silver, fragmenting the room, spewing dust, bringing Mrs Mendis in. Mrs Mendis let out a cry, a thin wail of despair, a long whine of sorrow. Broken-mirror dust was everywhere.
‘There is no escape,’ cried Mrs Mendis, ‘Aiyo! My brother was right.’
Misfortune lay across the room. The girl stood looking at her hands while her mother’s fears clogged the air. Vikram could feel her fears, even from where he stood, prickling against his own skin. He felt them, darkly unbending. Only Jim’s cricket bat remained unharmed. Only Jim, out at the time doing whatever came easiest to him, did not witness the broken glass. Lucky Jim.
Theo had not slept. Happiness stopped him from sleeping. It was no longer possible to hide from his thoughts. The truth washed bare, rising to the surface, clear and clean like the beach. Had it only been a matter of hours? he wondered in amazement. He felt as though he had been travelling for aeons. Sugi had been waiting for him when he finally got back. The lights in the veranda shone, the beginnings of rain dampened the air, and the sound of the waves seemed louder. Sugi had gone for his beer as soon as he heard the gate and Theo insisted he join him. So they had sat and smoked in companionable silence for a while.
‘I will set the table, Sir,’ said Sugi. ‘You must be hungry.’
But he had not wanted food. And Sugi seeing this, waited patiently.
‘Have I changed, Sugi?’ he asked. ‘Since I first arrived here, do you think I am different?’
‘Of course, Sir,’ said Sugi. ‘You have been changing for months now.’
‘How?’ asked Theo, wonderingly, smiling, wanting to be told.
‘You are happier, Sir, you know; really, so much happier. You were very sad when you arrived, but…’
‘What? Tell me.’
‘I…Sir…you must be careful. I understand and I’m glad to see you this way.’
He did not ask how the day had gone. He knew it had gone well. So he nodded gently instead. For Sir was being blessed by the gods in some way. What was there for him to say?
‘I’m no longer…a young man, you know, Sugi,’ Theo said hesitantly. ‘You know that…it isn’t…I’m worried about this. I will grow old long before her…’ He laughed.
Again Sugi hesitated. The effort of denial had been great, he knew. Now that barrier had been removed. Sir’s face was radiant. It made Sugi both sad and happy.
‘Some time has been lost, Sir, that’s true,’ he said at last. ‘You had to wait for her to be born, to grow. But she is here now. In your life. I think, for ever,’ he added.
‘Ah, Sugi,’ said Theo, looking up at the star-spangled sky.
He felt overcome, he felt happiness detach itself from him and float towards the trees. Filled with a sudden burst of energy, he wondered if perhaps he should do some work. And then, he thought, perhaps he would simply go to bed. Sugi smoked his cigarette. He was silent. Sir’s happiness was such that it should not be disturbed. The darkness enfolded them both.
‘Sugi!’ said Theo at last, looking at him. ‘If only you knew…how lucky I was that day to meet you! What would I have done had I not? It was as if you were waiting for the train I was on, waiting for the last passenger to walk up the hill.’
He shook his head, smiling broadly, wanting to say more, unable to express all he felt, his optimism for the future, and his affection for Sugi. But there was no need.
‘Perhaps I was,’ said Sugi. ‘Without realising!’ In the light his face looked tired.
‘You mustn’t worry about me, Sugi,’ said Theo, gently. Tonight, he felt his heart was overflowing with almost unbearable gladness. ‘Things are simpler than you think. You know I have to go back to England briefly, don’t you? For the film?’
Sugi nodded.
‘But I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
‘Everything will be fine here. Don’t worry, Sir. I will look after things here,’ he said, meaningfully.
There is no finer friend to be wished for, thought Theo. I hardly need to say anything, he knows already. And he smiled in the darkness.
‘I think I might go for a walk on the beach. I’m not sleepy. And the day was a success, you know. Rohan loved her. And her paintings!’
‘Be careful, Sir,’ said Sugi, out of habit. But he spoke softly, as though afraid of breaking some spell.
Twenty-eight years, thought Theo walking across the smooth sand, listening to the screams of the wide-mouthed gulls. All the madness and hell of this country seemed nothing beside the astonishment of what he felt. The last love of my life, he murmured, that’s what you are. There, he thought, I’ve faced it; that’s what you are. Beyond reason, beyond practicality, that is what you are. And then he remembered her hands and the ways in which they made sense of the material world. Where has this talent come from? Will you love in the same effortless way that you draw? How
will
you love? Dare I even ask the question? I am forty-five, an old man by your standards. And in spite of the implausibility of our two ages, even as I hear the warning bell, I know it is too late, I will never let you go. He saw that he had arrived at a point of no return and that the girl had left
her imprint on his imagination in ways he could never have foreseen. Throwing his head back, breathing in the fresh salty air, laughing out loud, he understood with the utmost certainty there were no more journeys for him to travel. Gazing up at the stars, dizzy with happiness, he cried: ‘This is where I shall stay, until I die. Here in this place, with you.’
And as he watched, the ships on the horizon seemed sharply defined, glittering like diamonds against the night sky. Yes, he loved her. And yet, he thought, wistful now, you who are only just beginning to close the gate on your childhood, how could you understand the wonder of loving so late?
Looking out across the water, into the distance, he imagined her father speaking to her. She had told him that her father used to say: ‘There’s nothing except Antarctica from here. Nothing, no land, nothing.’ Staring into the darkness, Theo tried to imagine her six-year-old incomprehension. And then his thoughts turned slowly towards Anna, seeing her with fresh understanding. Remembering too how once, many years ago, he had walked across another, wilder stretch of beach with her. They had been newly married. He had not known that after she died time would stop. But now, at last, he began to understand the indestructibility of things. Overnight almost, the memory of her had shifted and changed and miraculously, no longer cluttered by pain, become a peaceful thing. And it felt, in that moment, that Anna and their time together threaded like the strong ribbon on a kite, running through all he had just discovered, anchoring him. In this way, thought Theo, the dead return to bless us. In this way, through the new, will I remember the old.
He stayed out almost until dawn. And went back to sleep. When he woke Sugi had set the tea things outside on the table and he told Theo that the talk in the town was all about the murder of the two ministers and their families.
‘We saw it,’ Theo said quietly.
Not wanting to talk about it, not wanting the day to be spoiled, he told Sugi about Colombo and the lunch with his friends, and the girl. The day was hot. Sugi bought some fish. He cooked lunch and squeezed lime juice for the girl. But she did not appear.
‘I expect her mother has got some jobs for her,’ said Sugi, noticing Sir was not working. Noticing he had walked to the gate and was looking up the deserted dirt track for the fourth time.