He came to a reservoir. When he had been quite small, his mother had taken him back to the village where she had been born. There had been a reservoir there too. It was so large that Vikram had thought it was the sea. In those days Vikram had not yet seen the sea. There were trees all around the banks of this great stretch of water, frightening jungle vegetation, tangled
and ugly. Branches and creepers trailed succulently along the forest floor. Small emerald birds flew harshly about. Vikram was three years old and he had been frightened. His aunt or his sister, he could not remember which, held him up in the water, someone else bathed him. Vikram had cried out. They told him the water was pure and clean. Later, sitting on the steps of a now forgotten house, the same girl, whoever she was, taught him to knit. Knit one, purl one.
‘See,’ she had said, laughing. ‘Look, he has learned to knit. Baby is very clever.’
The sun had beaten down on his head as he sat on the step of the house.
‘I’m thirsty,’ he had said in Tamil and instantly they had brought him a green plastic cup of king coconut juice and held it while he drank thirstily.
They had called him Baby; it was the only word of English they knew and they were proud they too could speak English, even though they had not been to school. Vikram knew they had loved him. Their excited voices had encircled him, round and round, picking him up and kissing him until he laughed with pleasure. He supposed it was pleasure.
The reservoir near his mother’s house was smooth and clean, and aquamarine. A mirror reflecting the sky. The one he was passing now was brown and mostly clogged with weed. There had been no rain here for a long time.
After he had prayed for his sister’s family and for his mother’s health, Sugi took his leave of them. He needed to get back home. His mother, who was old and frailer since he saw her last, kissed him goodbye. She was glad her son was doing so well, working for Theo Samarajeeva. A decent man, she said, a man for the Sri Lankan people, the kind of man that was
desperately needed. They had heard all about his books and now there was to be a film too, about the terrible troubles in this place. It was good, she told her son, the world needed to hear about their suffering.
‘But you must be careful, no?’ Sugi’s brother-in-law asked him privately. ‘This man will make enemies too. You must advise him, he will have forgotten how it is here. He has lived in the UK. They are honourable there. And you must be careful. You too will be watched.’
Sugi knew all this. He left his red and silver offerings and his temple blossom for the many-handed god and just as he was about to leave a monk gave him a lighted lamp to carry back in. Perhaps, thought Sugi trustingly, this was a good omen.
Overhead, huge firework flowers and tropical stars filled the heavens as he rode home on his bicycle. Because it was so late, instead of taking the coast road he cut across the outskirts of the jungle. He kept close to the path; in the distance he could see the reservoir gleaming in the moonlight. He passed a largish village on his left. There were green and red lights threaded among the branches of the trees and a small
kade
was still open selling sherbet and plantains. Because of the festivities there was no curfew here, and people strolled along the street. A smell of gram and hot coconut oil drifted towards him. Children shouted, dogs barked, youths loitered. Had it not been for two army tanks and armed soldiers at either end of the village forming a makeshift checkpoint, it would have been impossible to know there was a war on. Soon Sugi was through the village and heading for home.
Night stretched across the road. The sky glowed like polished glass. He would have been back in less than twenty minutes but for the obstruction. The Coca-Cola lorry no longer frothed liquid; the corpses lay naked and silvery, bathed in moonlight.
Everything from the Morris Minor had been stripped bare. Seats, steering wheel, wing mirrors, even the windscreen wipers had gone. All that remained was the skeleton of a car. Suddenly a jeep roared round the bend of the road. Sugi, who had stopped, wheeled his bicycle quickly towards a clump of trees and hid. A soldier leapt down and took out a can. He began to pour petrol over the bodies. Another jeep skidded to a halt and then another. Camouflage soldiers spilled noisily out. Sugi froze. The soldiers poured petrol over the Morris Minor. Someone was shouting orders in Singhala. His face seemed familiar. For a moment Sugi puzzled over this. Then the smell of fuel drifted across the narrow deserted road. It was strong and metallic. In another minute there was an explosion as the Morris Minor blew up. Black smoke choked the edges of the trees. The whole jungle seemed on fire, awash with the sour smells of tamarind and eucalyptus, and something else, something rotten and deep and terrifying. Hiding behind the clump of trees, Sugi recognised the smell. It had never been far from his life since the war had worsened. He waited, knowing there was nothing he could do. He had wanted to see if anyone was, by some miracle, still alive, to raise the alarm if this was so, but he knew now it was an impossibility. The flames would burn for a long time. He felt the heat from where he stood, banking up against him, taut and terrible against his body. Sweat and fear poured down his face and mixed with his despair. There was nothing he could do now. The soldiers stood at a safe distance from the bonfire. For a while they strutted around their vehicles, laughing hollowly, slapping each other on the back. In the moonlight Sugi could see their Kalashnikovs glinting. Then, after what seemed an eternity, they piled into the jeeps and went with a screech of tyres, leaving skid marks on the road, their voices receding swiftly. All that was left were the outstretched arms of
the flames, the moon as witness, and an unmarked, communal grave. Far away in the distance he could hear a faint lonely trumpeting. Somewhere, in some impenetrable corner of the jungle, an elephant was preparing to charge. Turning his bicycle towards the road Sugi began to peddle furiously, chasing the moonlight. Carrying his distress with the slapping motion of his sarong, freewheeling down the hill. Silently. Riding his bicycle, accepting his pain. The witness to all that had passed.
The festival was over and the procession had dispersed. The two-toned chanting hung loosely in the air, floating above the white dagoba and away towards the primeval jungle. The monks packed up the many-handed god as though he were a puppet. His anklets made no sound, his paper arms were crushed by the many prayers thrust in them. The monks put away his silver sword. It was time for him to rest. As always after days of observing human nature and all its eternal struggle, the monks were exhausted. Collecting up the prayer papers they packed them into a satinwood box. Then they burned some cinnamon sticks for good luck. The smoke rose thin and beautiful like a mosquito net. Fragments of temple powders and yellow saffron-stained offerings remained on the ground. Somewhere in the forest the devil-bird screeched, but most of the sacred site collapsed like a concertinaed paper lantern, returning to normal. An ordinary village in the jungle; there were so many of them. Overhead, storm clouds walked the telegraph poles, electric blue as magpie wings. As yet nothing happened but the sea currents close by the shore had changed and the fishermen, wisely, did not put out to sea. They were waiting for the storm to arrive.
From his bedroom Theo Samarajeeva had an uninterrupted glimpse of the beach. The wind had begun to die down and although the coconut palms still beat themselves in a frenzy, the sky had changed colour. It was seven o’clock in the morning and a patch of blue had begun to spread across the horizon. While Sugi and the girl had been absent Theo had worked hard on his book. They had seemed to be away for an eternity. Because he had not liked the silence or their absence, he had worked furiously. The book would be finished on time. The girl would come this morning, Theo knew. She would be here soon. Then they would have the great unveiling of the paintings. There were three paintings now. He could hardly wait.
For days after Nulani had left for the festival, the smells of linseed oil and colours had hovered around the house but then it had grown fainter. Theo, remembering once more the loss of other smells, other memories, had buried himself in his work. But then Sugi came back; he had returned late last night. Theo had waited up for him, anxiously, listening out for the squeak of his bicycle brakes and the sound of the gate. He came in and they had shared a beer, although Sugi had seemed exhausted and had not wanted to talk.
‘There are many, many more thugs about now,’ was all he had said when Theo asked him about the festival. ‘Much more than last year. They are all men in the pay of the army. You must not drive out into the jungle.’
‘Did you see anyone you knew? Did you see Nulani?’
‘Yes,’ Sugi had said. He had been unusually silent. ‘I think I saw her uncle too.’
‘What? With her?’ Theo had asked, alarmed. Talk of the uncle always made him uneasy.
‘No, no. I saw him on my way back. He was with other people.’
Sugi had looked strained and unhappy in the light from the veranda. There had been something worn and nervous about him, something hopeless.
‘Are you all right?’ Theo had asked finally, wondering if there was trouble with his family. He had been lonely without him but perhaps Sugi needed some time to himself?
‘Yes. I am fine. A little tired. It was a long ride back. And I am tired with how this country has become.’
Theo had become alarmed, then. Sugi had sounded more than tired. He had sounded depressed. They finished their beer to the plaintive sounds of the geckos and the thin whine of swarming mosquitoes that inhabited the humid night. There was no doubt, a storm had been brewing and so, partly because of this and partly because Sugi clearly was not in a mood to talk, Theo had gone to bed.
Towards dawn it had begun to rain. Hot broken lines of water, clear blue shredded ribbons, curtains of rain. The view from the window was fragmented by it, changed and coloured by the water. Smells like newly opened blossoms rose up and lifted into the air. Here and there they flew, rough earth and mildew smells, caterpillar green and plantain savoury. The smells woke Theo, who dressed hurriedly, breathing in the scent of gravel and insects, of hot steam and rainy-morning breakfast. Now, sitting out on the veranda, he lit his pipe and the musty smell of pleasure joined the day. He could hear Sugi moving around making egg hoppers. The noise suggested that Sugi was happier this morning. Whatever had bothered him last night had passed. Relieved, Theo listened to the coconut oil sizzling as it rose in clouds above the blackened pan and it seemed to him as though it had been years and years since he had last seen Nulani Mendis. He knew she would not arrive until the rain had stopped.
S
HE CAME AS SOON AS SHE COULD.
It was later than she had meant it to be but the rain, and the news that her brother had won his scholarship, and her uncle’s sharp eyes following her suspiciously, had all contrived to make her late. But she came, with the last of the raindrops trailing the hem of her red dress and her long hair swinging loosely as she hurried. He was out on the veranda, waiting with barely concealed impatience, just as he had told her he would be, smoking his pipe. He watched her as she rushed in through the unlatched gate, caring nothing for the rain drumming the ground or the branches that shook and showered drops of water on her. Her dress was stained with dark patches of water. And she was smiling.
‘Well,’ he said, coming swiftly towards her, his worries all ironed out by the sight of her. ‘Are you going to stand there for ever?’
He made as if to touch her but then, changing his mind, smiled instead. The rain vanished and the previous day’s vague anxieties disappeared with it. The leaves shone as though they were studded with thousands of precious stones. And the whole day suddenly seemed extraordinarily iridescent and beautiful.
‘Well,’ he said again, and he felt, without quite understanding, the light touch of her gladness.
The girl was smiling at him with barely suppressed excitement. Taking his hand she led him back to the veranda, making him sit down, laughing, making him wait. She gave him her latest notebook to look through, while she went to fetch the paintings. But where was Sugi?
‘Wait,’ said Theo, but then Sugi appeared from nowhere and he too was smiling, for Sir’s face had suddenly become transformed.
Sugi came out with the tray on which was a beer for Theo and a jug of Nulani’s favourite lime juice. There was a small plate of
boraa
. Theo would not look at the paintings until Sugi had poured himself a beer. Sugi grinned. Sir was impossible of late. Sunlight danced across the canvases as she turned them round.
They were smaller than he expected. In one, Theo sat at his desk in front of a lacquered bowl of bright sea urchins and red coral. The mirror, scratched and marked with age, reflected a different interior. It was of his flat in London. There were peonies in the mirror-interior but none beside the bowl of sea urchins. A small mosquito with spindly legs rested on the edge of the polished wood. Theo sat working at his typewriter. The portrait he had glimpsed months earlier was the largest of them all. It too was finished. The girl had painted herself in one corner of it, as a splash of green and white and black hair. A thin glass jug, cracked and brittle, stood on a corner of the shelf beside Theo. Sunlight poured into it. His face was turned towards the light, looking out at the trees, caught in the moment between thinking and writing. And with an expression in his painted eyes that now confused him. It was the expression of a younger man, he felt; himself perhaps in another life. How had she caught it? How had she even known of it? Oh! Christ,
he thought. Oh! Christ. He felt a wave of something, some rush of clumsy tenderness wash over him. It left him suffused with certainty so that when finally he could speak again the day poured its endless light over him too.
‘You are a truly beautiful painter,’ he said at last, feeling the weightlessness of his words, the mysterious nature of the language as it floated dreamily, tumbling into the thick and languid air. ‘Others must see your work,’ he said, taking in her shining eyes, thinking, no, there were no words for what he felt. No language, however many civil wars were fought, was fine enough to describe his thoughts. Thinking too, certain also, that her paintings must go to England. It was the thing he could do. Somehow.
The rain was terrible. It filled the upturned coconut shells that littered the ground everywhere. Clear, round mirrors of water reflecting patches of the sky. The Buddhist monks, when they remembered, kicked them over, spilling water. But mostly they did not remember. The curfew was back and there were new things on their minds. Although they knew it was the time when the swarms of mosquitoes appeared, thick as smoke and deadly as flying needles, they were busy with other matters. Language was on their minds, the importance of Singhalese as opposed to Tamil. The army too, who in peacetime might have been employed to spray every house with DDT, now had more important preoccupations. So the rains fell largely unheeded, forming glassy ponds in the shade of the coconut palms, in ditches and in stagnant tanks. Reflecting the sky. It was a mosquito’s paradise. They floated their dark canoes on these ponds among the lotus flowers and the water lilies. Waiting for the night. But for humans this was no paradise, and those foolish enough to think this a place to toy with, did so at their peril.
Two British journalists were shot dead. A third man, a photographer, escaped with his life, having lost his left eye. Two Indian
students had limbs mutilated. Their stories eventually made news and the international press issued a worldwide warning. Stay away, for the unseen laws that governed this place were not to be tampered with. But the rains, unheeding in the midst of all that was terrible, fell indifferently, and many people thought this was a blessing.
Later, after they had hung the paintings and the girl had gone home, Theo went back to look at them. Paint and linseed oil gathered in the room where they were hung and her presence was everywhere. Again he felt the dull ache of it. He remembered her, in her red dress, with patches of rain falling on it, looking at him, alert as a bird that had evaded a storm. He thought of her silent concentration over the past months as she worked in the studio, and once again he was filled with wonder. At her youth, at her unwavering certainty, and her talent. Staring at the smudges of paint, the light and shade that transformed into the edges and corners of things, he felt privy to her thoughts. He noticed she had placed the framed photograph of Anna in the reflected mirror room. Petals from a vase of peonies fell beside it. She had painted not just a likeness; she had painted some other dimension, some invisible otherness of how he must once have been. And the look on his face, where was that from? Closing his eyes, Theo felt the heat and intimacy of the moment. Sugi, coming in just then, stood looking silently with him. He too saw the face of a much younger man. How had this happened, so quickly?
‘I must take her to Colombo,’ Theo said, ‘to meet a painter friend of mine. I must ask her mother if she will allow it. We could go up on the train.’ He nodded, his mind made up.
‘Sir,’ said Sugi, but then he hesitated.
What could he say? It was too late, what had not meant to be had already happened. He saw it clearly; Sir’s eyes were
shining like the girl’s. Trusting like a child’s, full of unspent love. So what was there to say? What was there to stop?
‘Be very careful, Sir,’ was all he said in the end. ‘I told you this girl’s family is watched. You do not yet fully understand this ruined place. The uncle does not know you yet but, now that the boy is going to the UK, he is there all the time of late.’
Sugi hesitated again, not knowing how to speak of those things lodged in his heart.
‘You do not see how we have changed,’ he said eventually. ‘We are so confused by this war. Sometimes I hear people arguing that it is the fault of the British. That even though they have gone, we still have an inferior feeling in us. Who can tell?’ He shrugged, helplessly. ‘Our needs are so many, Sir, and our attitudes have changed because of them.’
A paradise that has been lost, thought Theo, staring out to sea. Before he could speak, Sugi remembered the chicken.
‘Who knows where the enemy is, Sir?’ he told Theo. ‘There are many people who will envy you, who might put the evil eye on you.’
Sugi spoke earnestly, even though he knew his words fell on deaf ears. Sir, he saw, would take no notice. He knew it was not in Theo’s nature to be careful. He had been away for too long and too much living in alien places had affected him; it had made him fearless. And he had no time for these dark, pointless evil eyes that could decide what should and could not be. So he watched as Theo went to see Mrs Mendis.
It was as Sugi said: the uncle was there but there was no sign of the girl. The uncle listened without comment. Theo talked quickly, drinking only milk tea, refusing offers of beer, as he tried to impress on them the girl’s talent.
‘My friend teaches at the British School, he is a well-known painter. He has many contacts in the art world. He is an elderly
Singhalese,’ he added, speaking to the uncle directly, knowing the man’s politics, his prejudices. The uncle said nothing.
‘If she is taken on at the art school she’ll be funded by a scholarship,’ Theo continued, not knowing if this was really the case.
The uncle swirled his beer. His face was set. What is wrong with me? thought Theo. I am behaving as though he frightens me, when in fact he’s harmless, just a provincial man. Sugi’s anxiety has rubbed off on me, that’s all. The uncle looked at Theo. Then he squashed and tossed the empty can out into the darkening garden. Mrs Mendis began to scold him, calling the servant to pick it up. The uncle stood up, tightening the belt of his khaki trousers. He looked across at Theo; he was smaller than Theo but wider, fatter. His lips were soft mounds of flesh, well defined and full of blood. He laughed a strange high-pitched laugh, ironic and humourless.
‘Art!’ he said. His voice was falsetto with amusement. ‘We are a country at war, trying to survive in spite of the Tamils. What do we need art for, men?’ He looked briefly and threateningly towards the house. ‘It isn’t art she needs. At this rate, she will have a serious problem finding a husband. But it is not up to me, it’s up to her mother, no?’ And then he went, down the veranda steps, into the threatening rain and out to his waiting jeep, his headlights probing the silent road ahead like yellow sticks of dynamite.
Well, thought Theo, breathing a sigh, that wasn’t so bad after all. The man is harmless enough. They would go to Colombo the next morning. Because the paintings were still wet he decided they would go by car. He would pick the girl up early and, with luck, they would be at his friend’s studio by mid-morning. And because of the curfew they would be back by dark.
‘Tell her to bring her notebooks,’ he said to Mrs Mendis.
Sugi lit the paper lanterns. They cast a trelliswork of patterns on the walls of the house. Geckos moved between the shadows. He fastened a shutter against the breeze. Then he went into the girl’s studio to look at the paintings of Theo. He was alone; Sir was still over at the girl’s house. He seemed to have been gone for a long time. Sugi’s unease was increasing. He remembered the first time he met Sir, on that afternoon as he walked from the station, carrying his smart leather bags. Sugi had had a good feeling about Mr Samarajeeva. He had thought, ah, here is a real gentleman. He had not known what an important man he was then, of course. But he had seen in him the kind of person that no longer existed. Someone fine and just and clever, thought Sugi, staring at the paintings. Someone who had not been corrupted by the war. It had all been there, quite plainly in Sir’s face, even on that very first day. Which was why Sugi had agreed to work for him. When he had found out that Theo was a widower, he began to wonder what had driven him to come back to this place. And later, when he knew more, he had hoped the old home would heal him.
‘They are my people here, Sugi,’ Theo had told him many times in the following months, as they sat drinking their beer late into the night. ‘I have nothing more in Europe.’
‘Did your wife have family, Sir?’
‘Oh yes, but…well, she was not close to them, and after she died they had nothing more to say to me. Anna and I were too bound up in each other, you see. Perhaps it was a bad thing, I thought afterwards it probably was. I don’t really know.’
He had fallen silent, straining to remember her voice. Bullfrogs croaked in the undergrowth and in the distance the Colombo express hooted as it rushed past.
‘We never seemed to need other people much,’ he had continued, lighting his pipe. ‘That was part of the trouble. So
that even the absence of children did not matter in the end. Only our friends Rohan and Giulia understood.’
Sugi had made no comment. He would not pry. The shadows from the oil lamp had lain in a dark band across Theo’s eyes. It had the curious effect of making him look as though he wore a blindfold. His voice had been barely audible, suddenly without energy.
‘We had wanted children. But then she died. After that, what was there to want? I was glad we had none.’
He had spread his hands helplessly in front of him as the silence between them lengthened. The air had been soft with unspoken affection.
‘You know, Sir, you will meet her again,’ Sugi had said finally. ‘These things are not lost. Loving someone is never wasted. You will find her again some day, when you least expect. I have heard of such things happening.’
Theo had sighed. He was tired, he’d said. Tired of running.
‘I simply had to come back home, Sugi,’ he had said again. ‘It was the only place I could think of. After she died everything I did, every place I went to reminded me of all I had lost. I was like a man suffering from burns. Even breathing was difficult.’
He had shaken his head, unable to go on. In the distance the sea, too, had sighed. At last he had roused himself.
‘In the end, I knew, if I were to survive I would have to come back. I thought I might make sense of events once I was here.’
Sugi had nodded, moved. He understood. Underneath the mess they had created for themselves, the land still had powerful ancient roots. It was still capable of healing. One day it would go back to what it had been before.
‘I know. I can wait,’ Theo had said as they had sat surveying the garden. ‘I’m in no hurry.’
Sir is an idealist, thought Sugi, now, going over the
conversation in his mind, staring at the painting, astonished all over again at the Mendis girl’s talent. The child has seen into Sir’s heart. She knew. Because she felt it too. Sugi shivered; in spite of the heat, he shivered. They are both such children, he thought. The girl is too young, and he is too innocent. It is left to me to look after them. This is a fine state of affairs. And then Sugi went to fetch a glass of cold beer, thankful that the sound of the gate being opened meant, at least, that Sir had returned from Mrs Mendis’s house unscathed.