One afternoon, when Nilanthi’s brothers had usurped the television, Sunitha and Nilanthi volunteered to go into town to pick up groceries for Nilanthi’s mother. A family friend, Dinesh, had just returned from India and would be joining them for dinner. Nilanthi kept the shopping list crumpled in her fist, while Sunitha had the whole thing memorized. Pumpkin. Green beans. Eggs. Rice flour. Jackfruit. Curd. Jambu. She hoped she’d be invited to stay for dinner. Briefly, Sunitha thought of the emptiness of her own house, her grandmother sitting alone, her food barely visible under the light of the oil lantern on their table. The image made her both sad and angry. She was tired of feeling the weight of other people’s mistakes and guilt. She wanted to sit under electric lights, in front of large platters of dal curry and egg hoppers, the rice flour in crisp contrast to the half-cooked egg.
As the girls bought the vegetables at the produce stall, Sunitha felt the vendor’s eyes assessing her, the same way she did every time she went to the market. She had momentarily hoped that with Nilanthi alongside her, she might escape the usual attention, but Sunitha sensed that the old woman was already preparing gossip for her friend, the tea seller. Nilanthi didn’t seem to notice the vendor’s curious gaze as she handed over a twenty-rupee note, but as they walked away, Sunitha suddenly blurted out, “That old woman always whispers things to the tea seller just loud enough for me to hear.”
“Like what?” Nilanthi asked quietly.
“Well, some days she pities me. Poor girl, what bad luck she’s inherited.” Sunitha imitated the old woman, making her voice sound haggard. “Sometimes, though, she’s less sympathetic. After the spectacle her parents made, you’d think she’d walk with less pride.” Sunitha tried to meet Nilanthi’s eyes, but her friend was deliberately gazing forward, and she suddenly wished she could take her words back. She never talked about these things, not even with her grandmother. She hadn’t meant to burden her friend with the market gossip.
Nilanthi looked at Sunitha. “We don’t ever have to talk about these things if you don’t want.”
In this one gentle sentence, Sunitha understood that Nilanthi knew, just as everyone else in the village knew, her family’s story, but instead of feeling the usual rush of blood to her face, Sunitha felt calm and steady. And she realized there were things she wanted to tell Nilanthi, but she wasn’t quite sure where to start. She had been surrounded by so much gossip most of her life, she didn’t know where her own memories ended and the village fictions began.
She had one clear memory that often arrived unexpectedly. One afternoon when she was about seven years old, she had walked into the tea halt to give a message to her father. From the doorway she watched her father with his companions. “Kapila,” he said with a chuckle to his coworker. “The reason you never want to go home is because of that woman who waits for you there. Is she your mother or your wife? With that rice belly of hers, it’s hard to tell them apart these days.” Though her father had laughed loudly at his own joke, the other men grew quiet.
“We can’t all be as lucky as you,” Kapila muttered. Even at seven years old, Sunitha could see the envy and hurt in the man’s face.
As they approached the fruit vendor, Sunitha suddenly wanted to tell Nilanthi about how her father’s laugh had gotten him into trouble. “My father was often envied for his good luck,” she said, as if she were continuing a conversation already begun. “My grandmother tells me that men envied both his beautiful wife and his management position at the tea estate,” Sunitha explained, leaving out the part her grandmother always included—that it was a job far more powerful than one from their caste deserved. “He spoke perfect English, so the tea estate hired him for export correspondence. It was an easy job. He translated letters and printed faraway addresses onto labels. Now he is in India, I think.” Sunitha tried to sound nonchalant. “It’s been a while since his last letter. My grandmother says that he spoke too loudly of his good fortune and that is what changed his luck forever.” Sunitha was afraid to look at her friend; she worried she had said too much again.
But Nilanthi responded without even a pause. “It’s hard when people go away. My mother’s brother took his family to India last year and now my mother paces the kitchen until the postman arrives. Usually he doesn’t bring any letters from Kerala, but still my mother is hopeful every morning. Perhaps a lot of letters are lost on the ferry, both your father’s and my uncle’s.” Nilanthi smiled at Sunitha and whispered conspiratorially, “You know, we have some change left over.”
“Ribbons or ice cream?” Sunitha grinned slyly.
“How about both!” Nilanthi grabbed Sunitha’s hand. As they dashed along, Sunitha could almost ignore the trailing glances coming from the old vegetable vendor. But even though she held Nilanthi’s hand tightly in her own, her neck prickled from the woman’s stare.
WHEN THE GIRLS returned, they joined Nilanthi’s mother in the kitchen. After Sunitha was invited to stay for dinner, she asked if she could be in charge of two dishes; she was hoping to try out some new recipes. Nilanthi’s mother tied her apron around Sunitha’s waist. “Less work for me,” she said as she cleared a space for Sunitha to carry out her tasks.
Sunitha was busy grinding coconuts as Nilanthi watched over the rice, adding mustard and coriander when Sunitha advised it. As she scraped the excess coconut off her fingers, Sunitha watched Nilanthi’s mother rhythmically chopping onions and chilies on the cutting board. Both Nilanthi and her mother hummed while they cooked, and Sunitha settled into the comfort of the warm kitchen.
By now, Sunitha had grown accustomed to eating dinner with Nilanthi’s family. Her grandmother had stopped pestering her about being left alone, and Sunitha suspected she was secretly pleased that Sunitha had been welcomed into such a respectable home. At the end of each dinner, Nilanthi and her youngest brother, Lalith, would escort Sunitha to her door and wave good-bye, never setting foot inside Sunitha’s house. This was one of the imbalances in their friendship: Nilanthi had never been in her home. Sunitha had never invited her, thinking it might be better this way. Whenever she pictured Nilanthi coming inside, she heard her grandmother asking prying questions and making too much fuss, and she knew the house would appear dingy and dark. There was no way Nilanthi would feel comfortable there.
Suddenly, Nilanthi’s father interrupted the gentle motions of the kitchen. “When’s dinner?” he called out as he pushed his friend ahead of him. Dinesh was weighed down with a stack of wrapped gifts.
Dinesh placed a pot of curd on the counter. “For dessert.” He reached over to tousle Nilanthi’s hair and quickly glanced at Sunitha, his expression curious. Sunitha offered a small smile, then felt embarrassed and returned her gaze to the shredded coconut. When she looked up again, the men were making a big show of sniffing the air and rubbing their bellies before leaving the kitchen for the sitting room.
Nilanthi’s mother leaned toward Sunitha. “They’re still like schoolboys when they’re together,” she whispered.
Sunitha stepped back toward the sink. She filled a bowl with water and started to squeeze out the juice. She took charge of the lentil curry, adding extra cinnamon and cloves as she stirred. Alongside the simmering lentils, she inspected her green bean and chili dish.
“That smells delightful.” Nilanthi’s mother rested her hand on Sunitha’s shoulder. “You must teach me the recipe sometime soon.” Sunitha felt the warmth of Nilanthi’s mother’s hand travel over her neck. She wanted to lean into the heat and stay in this kitchen alongside Nilanthi and her mother for as long as she could.
But soon it was time to serve dinner. Lalith and his two older brothers delivered the trays to the table while Dinesh and Nilanthi’s father praised the smells drifting out of the serving bowls. As everyone ate, Sunitha sat quietly while her dishes were complimented, her eyes lowered toward her plate. All the attention left her feeling embarrassed and on display. She remembered Dinesh’s earlier curiosity, and she particularly avoided looking in his direction. If she met his ga
ze, she expected to see the usual pity or hostility directed at her, so instead she found Nilanthi’s eyes. But despite her friend’s smile, she wondered if she detected a flicker of irritation or perhaps jealousy in her expression.
AFTER DINNER, DINESH brought out the presents. He was a smiling, talkative man who waved his hands about as he spoke. Occasionally his gaze lingered on Sunitha, who suddenly recognized the look. It was different from the old market gossipers’ scrutiny of her. It was a gaze she had begun to associate with men and older boys, a gaze that took in the whole of her, assessing her with some pleasure. Sunitha bristled under these observations, but at the same time, she recognized a power growing in her. Bewitching, the Bollywood characters called this quality that she guessed she had. Perhaps her mother had had it, too.
As Dinesh handed out the treats he had brought from India, his voice grew serious. “I was lucky to have returned when I did. Yesterday they shut down the Jaffna ferry.”
“Really?” Nilanthi’s father asked. “I didn’t know things had gotten so bad.”
“Perhaps it’s just a precaution,” Nilanthi’s mother offered.
“Yes, perhaps,” Dinesh answered, but his tone was unconvinced. He handed Nilanthi’s father a handwoven sarong. Sunitha appreciated its quality. Unlike the batik sarongs available in Batticaloa, this one was laced with silky threads in rows of blue and yellow that increased in thickness from top to bottom. She let herself wonder, briefly, if the problems with the Jaffna-India ferry were the cause of her father’s recent silence. It had been five months now since she had last heard from him, and it occurred to her that she really had no way of knowing if he was safe or if she would ever hear from him again.
The boys’ rowdy enthusiasm interrupted Sunitha’s thoughts. Lalith proudly held up an autographed photograph of cricketer Sampath Mahinda. “Did you see him play?” Lalith shouted. “Did they pound Pakistan?”
“Your hero did his team proud, Lalith.” Dinesh laughed. “One hundred twenty-one runs, I think.”
“See? I told you,” Lalith taunted his oldest brother. “He is better than Jayasuriya.”
While the boys argued over cricket statistics, Dinesh handed Nilanthi a parcel holding two embroidered handkerchiefs with her initials sewn in pink. Sunitha thought her friend’s hands looked thick and clumsy against the delicate fabric as she handed them to Sunitha. “They’re lovely,” she whispered, trying to smother her jealousy. Sunitha lifted the gauzy cotton to her nose and breathed in smoky incense smells.
As Sunitha inhaled the foreign scent, she tried to picture her father, walking into shops that burned this incense. If he ever came across such pretty handkerchiefs, he certainly never bought them. Instead his gifts were always drab and practical. Even in the colors and textures of the fabrics he sent home to her and her grandmother, she could sense him choosing against his memories, as if he were picking out the very things Sunitha’s mother wouldn’t have liked.
Sunitha struggled out of her thoughts. The most beautiful gifts were being offered to Nilanthi’s mother—an emerald-green sari with gold flowers pressed into the fabric, and a pale lavender one with hand-painted yellow and blue leaves falling across its surface. “When will I wear these, Dinesh? They’re so grand,” Nilanthi’s mother said.
“To my daughter’s wedding the week after the Festival of Lights!” Dinesh said, beaming.
“May the goddess Lakshmi bring your daughter much good fortune. Why did you wait so long to tell us? No one should keep good news to themselves for so long,” Nilanthi’s mother gently scolded her guest. As she got up to congratulate Dinesh, Sunitha examined the saris left next to her. She let the silky fabric slip through her palms, and she admired the delicate stitching.
“If I had known there’d be another guest here tonight, I certainly wouldn’t have left her empty handed.” Dinesh smiled at Sunitha.
His comment had startled Sunitha and now she felt the eyes of the table fall on her. She quickly released the saris, one of which slid to the floor. She couldn’t read all their expressions: Pity? Concern? Discomfort? She suddenly wanted to leave the table, but she couldn’t move.
Sunitha felt the gentle weight of Nilanthi’s hand on her shoulder. “Amma?” Nilanthi asked. “Perhaps Sunitha and I could go to the bakery and bring back a cake to celebrate Dinesh’s good news.”
“What an excellent suggestion!” Nilanthi’s mother handed over a fifty-rupee note. “Buy a butter cake and some ice cream, too.”
NILANTHI AND SUNITHA walked in silence to the bakery. Nilanthi had asked Lalith to join them, and Sunitha realized that this was Nilanthi’s way of telling her that if she wanted, they could just walk her home. It was, in fact, what she wanted; she didn’t want to face Dinesh or the pile of presents again tonight. He had made her feel like a stranger there, not entirely unwelcome, but he seemed to point out her difference. She told Nilanthi that she was feeling a bit tired and maybe it was time to go home.
After Nilanthi and Lalith dropped Sunitha at the door, she went quickly to her room. There, she opened a box full of letters and discarded gifts from her father, smelling them for traces of where he might be. She tried hard to picture him in some sort of everyday task, sipping tea, buying vegetables. She wondered if he had any friends or if he felt that it was safer and easier to remain alone.
Sunitha tried to picture him in the markets of India, selecting the fabrics and sweets he sent home. Although his gifts were never as grand as Dinesh’s had been this evening, Sunitha looked forward to the packages and to her father’s thick signature at the bottom of his letters. He always signed his name in English, a graceful line of black ink below his name. He sent heavy cotton fabric that her grandmother sewed into housedresses and skirts for temple. Unfamiliar money was folded into the materials, damp and dirty looking and always seeming more substantial than it turned out to be. It took Sunitha’s grandmother a day to travel from Batticaloa to a money exchanger, so she would let the Indian rupees pile up in her jewelry box until it seemed worthwhile to make the journey. She always returned from these trips looking frayed. Sunitha offered on several occasions to go in her place, but her grandmother replied, “A young girl journeying on her own? People will think you a cadju girl and you will bring more shame to the family.”
This shame, always this shame, Sunitha thought now as she gathered her father’s old letters onto her bed. She had always worked hard to follow her grandmother’s advice. Even when the market vendors eyed her, she tried to replace an image of misfortune with an image of grace instead. She neither bowed her head nor met men’s eyes. She kept her clothes clean and pressed, her voice even and humbly polite, her feet barely making a sound on the sandy village road, as she aimed for a balance between gaining others’ approval and achieving invisibility.
But Dinesh’s words, his attention to her, had seemed to unmask her. She had suddenly felt exposed, as if her parents’ story had encircled her and all everyone could see was the image of her mother’s red sari, her painted face, and her father pushing her out the door. And although Nilanthi had come to her rescue, just as she always did, Sunitha wondered if Nilanthi was hoping she wouldn’t return with them tonight. If Nilanthi might prefer to stand alongside her mother in the kitchen, just the two of them, as they washed the dinner plates.
IT WAS TWO weeks before she and Nilanthi met again after school. Sunitha had been avoiding her friend but all the while missing her intensely. It was Nilanthi who broke this silence, cornering her after dance class and inviting her over for dinner that night. “There’s a cricket test match on, and I can’t bear to be around all those shouting boys by myself. Please?” she had asked. Sunitha happily accepted the invitation.
Now Sunitha and Nilanthi were in the kitchen, making tea for Nilanthi’s brothers, arranging cream crackers and chocolate biscuits on a large platter. Nilanthi nibbled on a biscuit. Her fingers were growing sticky with melted chocolate, and her smile had turned into a ghoulish fudge-stained mess. At moments like these, Sunitha a
lmost couldn’t believe she and Nilanthi were the same age. This clowning girl wasn’t at all like the Nilanthi who strained over her textbooks or practiced her oration with fierce concentration. Perhaps this was Nilanthi’s way of attempting to lighten the mood around them, to erase the discomfort from their last visit. They could both be so serious in their ways.
“What did you learn in dance class today?” Nilanthi asked.
“Kandyan dancing,” Sunitha answered. “You know what’s funny? At the beginning of the lesson, Miss Champa always inspects our hands. If we have any flour left over from home science, she makes us use nail scissors to dig out our fingernails, or she offers us lotion to rub away the coconut-husk scratches.”
“Really?” Nilanthi offered Sunitha a biscuit; she was already getting distracted. “Should we bring the platter out to the boys?”
“Oh, they can wait a bit longer.” Sunitha took the plate out of Nilanthi’s hands and set it on the counter. “Let me show you the steps we learned today.”
“All right,” Nilanthi said as she pulled up a chair. “Pretend I’m part of the crowd at the Kandy Perahera.”
As Sunitha cleared a space on the kitchen floor, she thought about her dance teacher and the Kandyan music she played on an old record player when the electricity was working. During power outages, she sang melodies instead, her plump torso rising and falling with each heavy breath. She taught the girls how to pinch their thumbs into their index fingers, making perfect circles, their other fingers spread out wide, elbows at right angles, as they extended their palms to an imagined audience. As she pictured her teacher, Sunitha started to mimic her movements. She took small, delicate steps, flexing her feet, her heels hitting the floor. She tilted her head coyly to the side, lowering her left shoulder, then her right.
“You look like a peacock!” Nilanthi laughed.
“I do not!” Sunitha felt insulted. Her voice strove for seriousness, but she heard a whine instead. She wanted Nilanthi to see the point of the dance—to entice, but to remain poised and respectful. She wanted her friend to understand this balance, that it was possible if you worked hard enough at it.
The Beach at Galle Road Page 17