On the Far Side, There's a Boy

by Coston, Paula

  The woman said, ‘Very sorry. We have no records like that here. Please, however, take my card.’

  Thilangani, her name was, her card embossed with astrological symbols. European science dismissed astrology. As much as astronomy, it was a lunar domain. But it never occurred to Martine to look for Mohan through astrology, through Thilangani; instead, Thilangani transferred herself, an exclaiming female butterfly, to Martine’s nightly hallucinations featuring the Esala Perahera and the Queen’s Hotel.

  From the beginning, to Santha’s disapproval, Martine wouldn’t eat at tourist hotels, the Pizza Hut or KFC. Instead they used the eating houses of the Kandy alleys or pulled into roadside cool spots. The two sat opposite munching curries, glugging bottled drinks, sifting through the letters and her laptop notes.

  She couldn’t make Santha out. Whenever they discussed a possible avenue for the search his face brightened and he looked pumped up, his swollen lip jutting like a child’s; when they reached a sticking point, he got taciturn, the shadows darkening like bruises under his eyes. He took pills daily. His illness might be depression, she supposed. Once or twice, she thought he was going to cry.

  They were together from breakfast till late evening.

  Over a bitter gourd curry one day she said, ‘You’re a moody sod.’

  From out of his money belt he flung her a photo of himself drawing a woman towards the lens of the camera. Two people laughing by a fountain. Martine guessed that in some sense he’d lost her, but something about his manner stopped her from probing.

  Often at Hilda’s kitchen table, Martine found Vijitha the astronomer and his wife, the woman still stubbornly speaking Sinhala, Vijitha indulging her instructions to adjust her chair or polish her glasses or spoon more curds and treacle into her dish. He seemed to enjoy being tyrannised. Unwillingly, Martine rehearsed Charlie’s phrase again: the imperialism of need.

  ‘You’re most welcome to visit our home,’ he told Martine. ‘I’ve built an observatory. I can show you what I’ve been studying.’

  Hilda translated, tactfully, when his wife said, finger wagging, ‘It would be better if Vijitha taught you some Sinhala.’

  One evening of another frustrating day, Martine took up Vijitha’s offer. In the tuk-tuk, unusual in bright violet, she had her head in her laptop notes. The house was modern, picture-windowed, open plan. Lights sparkled from the lake and town below. The moon was almost full. She saw it over the black stencil of the hills. She was suddenly conscious of it again, after all those years, imagining it awaiting her through Vijitha’s telescope.

  The wife issued Vijitha with a command in clipped Sinhala, Martine making out ‘Jack Daniels.’

  They drank and made lopsided chit-chat, Martine and Vijitha in English, his wife in her chosen language, which he translated.

  Vijitha was eager to show off his observatory, but the wife delayed him and Martine. ‘These are for you.’

  Grandly, she flourished a collection of handwritten recipes and a book of folktales with a picture of some bearded sage on the cover – Mahadenamutta, a comic fool from Sri Lankan culture. The recipes were on a hundred different papers in many different hands, all in Sinhala. The gifts seemed more than generous: a wild imposition, almost.

  Martine said, ‘Bohoma stuthiyi,’ thanks so much, ‘but these must be precious to you. And I won’t be able to read them.’

  The wife snorted and said something, and Vijitha unashamedly translated, ‘More precious than your Shakespeare and your Dickens.’ He smiled indulgently as she continued. ‘These embody our history, our traditions. Passing things on. Oracy, storytelling. My wife says that for us, word of mouth is first and foremost.’

  Martine imagined some grandfather figure handing down the Mahadenamutta tales to the Liyanage children by firelight, not on paper but in words and gestures, Mohan restless and giggling. She pulled herself up, confused: But I hoped for a richer literacy for him.

  Vijitha wondered mildly, ‘Literature isn’t a competition, is it?’

  Martine observed silently, Even while making her point, the wife was handing me the spoken written down. But it wouldn’t be fair to argue the universal truths of great literature with someone who to her seemed rude and stupid.

  Down the garden, under the dome of his observatory, Vijitha showed her Saturn, the moon’s near neighbour, that night almost as close as it could be. He explained gravitational lenses, how a powerful galaxy could bend other light towards earth, out of its natural path. His obsession with deflection at once stepped into her dreams.

  She also saluted the moon, privately, through his telescope. Vijitha saw her interest.

  He said, ‘Out in the countryside on the island, away from light, the moon casts shadows.’

  Suddenly she wanted to see moon shadows. For so long now, she’d overlooked the moon.

  Martine wore Santha into conceding that, even in the holidays, some staff might be in schools. Mohan’s scholarship and other clues meant that he must have gone to a national school, they decided. They could try talking their way in. They could ask to see old registers; they could narrow down Mohan’s past school by demanding which took part, as Mohan’s letters had reported, in a cricket fixture called the Battle of the Brave.

  Martine came as far as the gates of the first school. From his shelter the old eyes of the caretaker, arms like twigs, scrutinised Santha as he disappeared towards the offices, then kept watch on Martine as she pressed her face to the fence on the drive. Buildings like lowrise flats with walkway balconies hugged the slopes. They had peeling paintwork, multi-coloured. A vast glazed Buddha dominated the playground. She imagined termtime, a dim seethe of activity behind the classroom grilles, and when a bell rang, boys in bright blue shorts or long white trousers spurting down the paths, idling by latrines and in the gardens.

  Santha emerged. ‘No old registers. And the deputy headmaster says that there is no Battle of the Brave, not anywhere in Kandy.’

  Martine couldn’t believe it. Was Mohan guilty of fantasy, even though he said he wasn’t?

  At the next few schools, staff became aware of her, and the dubious phrase ‘beach boys’ hung in the air, and Santha’s efforts didn’t go well. Visiting schools after that, he convinced her to wait out of sight, in a café or a cool spot. He dropped his account of Martine’s search in favour of fictions of estranged families, longlost friends or cousins, a quest for himself, not her. But the teachers stayed unhelpful and suspicious.

  He walked Martine through the subway to the market. She pretended interest in the blunt brown wood apples, the missile heads of plantain buds, offal-dark, and the heaped-up rice in many shades, while he plugged the traders for any farming contacts they might have, as he put it, ‘from beyond Raththota’. Some wouldn’t answer and some laughed, finding something funny that he couldn’t explain to Martine.

  While they were out, in a fever to achieve something, she bought a thovil mask and several carvings, some bolts of local fabric, two batik hangings and a bark bookmark that, the stall-holder claimed, had been crushed by the paw of a leopard.

  Back at Hilda’s, Martine plugged on. ‘The next lead is Victoria’s Secret. Upeksha works there.’

  ‘Used to work there, ne?’ Santha stressed.

  His discouraged mood was back, a glint of judgement in his eye.

  Martine had bought an ovoid fruit that she now knew instantly as a breadfruit. It would soon be Easter back in England. She still shuddered inwardly, All those eggs. The yellow-green, barnacled body oozed sap onto the waxed tablecloth.

  Hilda flitted about with cutlery and crockery, producing a chunk of the creaming fruit set on a sprigged Worcestershire plate.

  She apologised. ‘It’s very ripe.’

  The chunk smelled sickly-sweet, and Martine couldn’t eat it.

  ‘Victoria’s Secret,’ Martine probed. ‘You know something about it.’

  Hilda answered, ‘It’s on Pallekele Industrial Estate. The girls work hard.’ It was early evening. ‘They
will leave work around seven to eight o’clock.’

  More expansive than usual, she told her what she’d heard of the enticing wages, and the state-of-the-art machines used to sew the lingerie.

  Martine urged, ‘Let’s go,’ but Santha shook his head in his despondent way.

  ‘Wasting time. Email the VS in their office, America or London.’

  ‘I did that the other night,’ said Martine. ‘But there are e-forms to fill in. People will need to check them, and probably ask for more. It’ll all take too long.’

  He shook his head again. ‘You still haven’t been to the Temple. Or the Botanical Gardens. Or seen the dancing at the Cultural Centre.’

  Martine thought, I’m not interested in the travel-brochure interiors of Kandy.

  She said, ‘I might go to the Gardens,’ although she felt they were an unlikely route to Mohan. She still saw him somewhere in the wild, waiting and beckoning. She scolded, ‘Don’t treat me like a tourist.’

  Santha drove her to Victoria’s Secret. The industrial park certainly wasn’t for tourists: a child’s playmat of tarmac road and corrugated iron and concrete structures under orange lamps, like any trading estate. It said nothing to Martine of Mohan’s landscape. They found the particular unit, its sign flaring under a white security light.

  She imagined how Charlie would have scoffed, ‘Cultural imperialism!’, and she’d have said, ‘But if that’s what they want…’ and he’d have countered, ‘We overwhelm these people into wanting what we want…’ Us and them, the great divide, she thought. Despite her best intentions, she felt the gap herself. And she’d have had to agree with Charlie about the architectural sameness, the locals’ seduction by the technology, which would have been imported, the effect of global brands. A kind of levelling, but the ugly kind, the wrong kind. She thought, You’ve probably got to lose beauty to know it.

  Santha’s eyes glittered at the line of female silhouettes now filtering from the unit. Maybe reminding him of the woman he’s lost, she speculated. She mused, Beauty is there in what we see’s not there for us. Or is that love?

  She strode ahead of Santha to the light pooling the exit. Spotting them, a thickset man stepped in front of the women, cutting them off with a halting gesture. A belligerent-looking older woman grasped him. Both had bunches of keys.

  Martine set off in English, rambling slightly, about a worker, a girl from the countryside who…‘Upeksha Liyanage,’ she finally got out.

  She read the letter references from her laptop. ‘…her face is Fair’N’Beautiful. She has a ring with a golden stone.’…‘She has many sarees and jeans.’

  How little they are to go on, she thought, feeling ridiculous.

  The workers in skirts and jeans, sporting necklaces and earrings, were wandering away.

  Some headed for scooters where a cluster of men was waiting.

  One girl stayed, stumbling into English. ‘How is she? We miss her stories.’

  Santha’s eyes were suddenly flashing. ‘Stories?’

  Another seamstress laughed and bit her lip. All at once Martine was burning, sweating fountains.

  She contradicted the first girl, ‘No, I mean I’m looking for…’

  Their supervisor intervened. ‘Upeksha…Liyanage? …doesn’t work here, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But she used to?’

  ‘She never came back,’ said the first girl.

  ‘No girl with that name has ever worked here,’ the woman keyholder snapped.

  The man made a helpless gesture with his hands. ‘Could I take your details?’

  The woman stared at him meaningfully. ‘She isn’t here,’ she said firmly. She turned to Santha. ‘Kanatuii, sorry. Our ladies must get home.’

  As Santha walked Martine to the van, he said, ‘If Anupama could tell stories, who could not?’

  31 Falling from the bridge

  April 2012

  At the end of that week of failures it was Easter weekend back in England, another reason for Sandra Gearing not to answer Martine’s emails. Santha had been busy using an acquaintance at the Media Centre, but reported back to Martine that they refused to give contact details of Esala Perahera performers, to him or anyone else.

  Martine hadn’t given the Bakehouse on Dalada Street, as she thought some Kandyan imitation of a French patisserie, a second glance. But that Saturday Santha and her new astronomer friend Vijitha reminded her that things aren’t always what they seem. They led her past glass counters of pastries over the faux marble floor and upstairs, through a western-style bar. There was a crowded room at the back. Someone brought them chairs. They sat packed in, Martine trying to ease her suddenly aching spine. It was noisy with people shouting. There were more voices yattering through loudspeakers. Martine still felt especially hot. She mentally catalogued her dead ends, counting and discounting them, vowing new researches – tomorrow, if not today.

  She stopped and tried to tune in to the amplified soundtrack. ‘…the second and final Test between Sri Lanka and England at the P Sara Oval in Colombo…Sri Lanka took the first Test. In the first innings of the second…275, largely thanks to Jayawardene…England, with Pietersen in dangerous form, were 460 all out…. Sri Lanka are 218 for 6, 33 runs in the lead, but with only 4 wickets, a little perilous my friends…’

  The voice of Mohan joined her. ‘One side is the elephants, rabbits and rats and other hungry animals, the pests and the diseases. The other side is the govigayas like us…All must eat.’

  All ears took in the CSN TV commentary; hundreds of eyes followed two teams in white moving across a green sward on a screen high on the wall. The other walls were covered in cartoons, signatures, messages in biro and felt tip. Sports lovers’ graffiti. There was a kite of the Australian flag pinned high, with the legend ‘Wavey Navy’. A Barmy Army pinboard, thick with drinking and dancing photos.

  Vijitha brought them wine and beer. ‘This is your sport?’

  Martine said, ‘Spectating. Never played. But right now…’

  ‘We should be out there looking, ne?’ Santha finished for her. She gulped her wine. ‘He’s somewhere.’

  A flush engulfed her. I can’t be drunk already, she thought.

  ‘Pay me nothing for today.’ Santha studied her, shaking his leonine head. He asked with aggression, ‘Why are you really looking?’

  Martine suddenly felt too weary to excavate her reasons.

  ‘…and Mathews! …Oh! Dropped!’ boomed from the speakers, amid a roar from the room.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Santha. ‘You are dark red, ne?’

  Martine said, ‘At this rate, we won’t find him.’

  ‘Swann bowls to Jayawardene, there’s a most spiteful turn on that ball, it hits him on the gloves, to Cook! My friends. The captain is gone.’ …Martine tried to focus. ‘Now Prasanna must…It’s another sweeping right-hander from Swann…It’s around his legs, oh no…Another wicket down.’

  Out of nowhere, Santha was taking her elbow, making their apologies to Vijitha.

  He sounded angry. ‘Come.’

  They got to the van, and he bundled her in, and then he was taking her up and out of Kandy, into the hills. She pieced together that much, and was grateful. She had an impression of crossing a river and re-crossing. She heard Santha pointing out a blink of the Victoria Dam she remembered mention of in the letters and later, a vast waterfall that briefly made her feel better. The astonishing smoothness of the road. She felt drugged, unnaturally tired.

  The van took a near U-turn to the left. The surface of the narrow track jolted her back to full consciousness, grinding and twisting them upwards. Melon light crushed its way through broken leaf jigsaws at the windows. At last there were waterfalls gushing by. She ignored scraps of tea plantations, weedy and incongruous. They lurched over uncountable bridges, passing the gurgle of streams. Sometimes a shack or two, washing drying on the turf between them, interrupted Martine’s bleary illusion of an untouched world.

  She felt drunk, and more than usuall
y hot. She polished off a bottle of chilled water.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Santha grunted, ‘It’s as if the Portuguese went to Kotte.’

  A zigzag ride; a roundabout route. He’d used this locals’ grumble before. He seemed to resent the journey, as if he hadn’t thought of it himself.

  She repeated hazily, ‘Where are we going?’

  Santha grunted, ‘Where you want to be. Not there, ne?’ He shook a fist of dismissal at the so-called Deanstone Information Centre, a compact building advertising rooms for trekkers.

  A wizened woman plucking at her front hedge. Sun-dried others swimming out of forest with bundles of firewood. The ferns that Martine had somehow needed, at last, at last, sprouting among the boulders of the waterfalls. Shimmering lily ponds. Vegetables in rows. Cloths over picket fences. And even there, in the Shangri-la wilderness, the odd latrine.

  Hours seemed to pass.

  ‘The Knuckles side of the mountains,’ Santha muttered.

  Martine didn’t want the Knuckles side of the mountains, hanging onto the places they’d just been through.

  They reached a spot between the lush and forested slopes where the track looked like a bridge with buckling bends at either end, the land falling or rising sharply on all sides. Santha parked on a verge, and Martine toppled out. A black and white butterfly flipped past. The layered hiss of crickets, and water falling somewhere. The ranges around them vivid green.

  ‘Mohan Mohan Mohan,’ Santha said.

  He stretched out his arms and walked away from her, towards a ruined building, a sort of dead end at the abrupt track bend.

  There was sharp pain behind Martine’s eyes. ‘Where?’

  She followed, and he stopped, snapping, ‘Not with me. With you.’

  She didn’t understand. There was a species of pink orchid in the grass, and outgrowths of dishevelled orange daisies. She knew she should have known the Latin names, but couldn’t at once call them to mind. Around her flocked noiseless dragonflies with bodies of burnt orange. They came in swarms, sun metallising their amber wings. She thought, Mohan would know what kind they are; then the species name came back to her from some time during her fact-finding daydreams: Asian groundlings.