Cinnamon Gardens

by Shyam Selvadurai

  The Kandiah family lived in Cinnamon Gardens, a suburb of Colombo. A century ago, the entire area had been a protected cinnamon estate cultivated by the colonial masters for gain, the cinnamon peelers almost bonded slaves, the price of cutting down a tree, death.

  Cinnamon Gardens was laid out around Victoria Park, a pleasure ground with meandering walkways, shaded by fig trees and palms, with benches under clumps of graceful bamboo and araliya trees. Along the numerous archways that provided entrance into the park crept the purple bell-shaped flowers of the thunbergia and within the park were passionflowers, orchids, bright-leaved caladiums, and a multitude of other tropical plants.

  To the north of the park was the Town Hall. To the south, Green Path led all the way up through the suburb of Colpetty to Colombo’s main thoroughfare, the Galle Road. To the east of the park was Albert Crescent, from which branched off the main residential streets of Cinnamon Gardens: Ward Place, Rosmead Place, Barnes Place, and Horton Place, most of them named after former British governors of the Crown colony of Ceylon.

  These streets contained within them many grand mansions, situated well away from the road, some barely visible for the greenery that surrounded them. They were the homes of the best of Ceylonese society, whose members had thrived under the British Empire and colonial economy. This gentry had attained an affluence they never could have foreseen, through trade in rubber, coconut, plumbago, and – this a well-covered fact – the distilling of arrack. The drawing rooms of these homes were appointed with the very best that Europe had to offer, the finest chandeliers, Waterford crystal, curtains from Paris, damask tablecloths, grand pianos. Everything that made the occupants faithful servants of the British Empire or, if not the Empire – as this was the age of agitation for self-rule – at least loyal to the principles of the colonial economy that had placed them where they were. The fine residences bore names such as Ascot, Elscourt, The Priory, The Grange, Chateau Jubilee, Rosebank, Fincastle, The Firs; and the names of the occupants – Reginald, Felix, Solomon, Florence, Henrietta, Aloysius, Venetia, Tudor, Edwin.

  Perhaps one of the grandest houses of Cinnamon Gardens was that of the Mudaliyar Navaratnam. He was kin to Annalukshmi and her sisters, their paternal grandfather and the Mudaliyar being first cousins. His property on Horton Place was named “Brighton” after the Brighton Pavilion, which the Mudaliyar had visited as a young man. A large, three-storeyed, Georgian-style house sat at the end of a long driveway that curved both ways around an oval garden and met under the front porch. The roof of the front porch was flat and served as a balcony, a balustrade running around it. French doors led into the second floor. The façade of this floor consisted of a series of arched windows, in comparison to which the windows of the third floor were but slits. Along the edge of the roof there was another balustrade, which hid the low-pitched, red-tiled roof, An arched, colonnaded verandah ran around the house. The verandah had elaborate flowered-tile flooring and large reclining chairs of teak and caning.

  Brighton’s oval front garden was extensive, with stone benches at each end for viewing the vista. A carefully tended lawn was broken by flowerbeds of cannas and roses. Royal palms had been planted at regular intervals around the edges of the driveway, their feathery, soaring leaves giving a sense of lightness and whimsy to the entire garden. To the left of the garden, beyond the driveway, was a thick clump of trees. This vegetation separated the grounds of Brighton from the property belonging to Annalukshmi and her family.

  The Kandiah bungalow – Lotus Cottage – was a simple two-bedroom bungalow with whitewashed walls and a red-tiled roof. It might have been spartan but for carved verandah pillars whose design of lotus flowers and vines was picked up on the fretwork mal lallis above the doors and windows and on the carved valance boards that ran along the bottom edges of the roof. The house was small and would have been unbearably cramped for a family of four if not for the deep front and back verandahs. Like most inhabitants of Ceylon, or indeed any tropical country, the Kandiahs conducted a large part of their living – the entertaining of guests, tea, sewing, reading, some cooking – on these verandahs.

  A set of front doors opened directly onto the drawing room, to the right of which were the entrances to the two bedrooms. One was occupied by Louisa, the other by the three girls. They were neat, cheerful rooms. Though the furniture was inexpensive and the three beds a bit of a squeeze, the brightly coloured floral coverlets and curtains adequately compensated for these shortcomings. Beyond the drawing room, and separated only by an archway, was the dining room, with a carved ebony table and matching chairs. From the dining room, a pair of doors led onto a U-shaped back verandah. Along the left arm of the verandah was the bathroom and store rooms; along the right, the kitchen and the servants’ quarters. The back garden was extensive and contained a variety of fruit trees – jak, banana, papaw, breadfruit, mango; beds of vegetables – brinjal, murunga, okra, pumpkin; and herbs – curry leaves, rampe, lemon grass. At a fair distance from the verandah was the toilet. Lotus Cottage still used the bucket system, a latrine coolie coming by every morning to collect the night soil in his cart.

  The front garden of Lotus Cottage was carefully landscaped by Louisa, who was an avid gardener. A tamarind tree, two king coconut trees, and a flamboyant tree spread their shade across the lawn. Carefully tended beds of red crotons, pink and yellow ixoras, balsam and ferns surrounded each tree. The hedge that ran the length of the property was bright with red hibiscus and, on this November day, under the cooling breeze brought by the northeast monsoon, the flowers nodded in a friendly fashion to any visitors coming up the small lane that led from Horton Place to the wicket gate of Lotus Cottage.

  That afternoon, a visitor would have found the Kandiah family at tiffin on the front verandah, their white wicker chairs pulled around the matching table, Louisa presiding with the teapot. A lively conversation was in progress between Louisa and Kumudini about the pattern for a tablecloth Kumudini was completing for her sewing class at the Van Der Hoot School for Ladies she attended. Louisa had been a great beauty in her time. None of her daughters had inherited her charm, though they were by no means unattractive. Kumudini had that much-valued fair complexion. Her front teeth stuck out slightly, but she had a way of drawing her upper lip over them that gave her a prim and timid look that a young man would find charming. Manohari was almost as tall as a man and gangly. Her classmates had nicknamed her Giraffe, which was, unfortunately, an apt description. Yet she had a pert nose and nicely shaped lips. Annalukshmi was dark-skinned. She had a long face with a high brow, large ears, and no chin to speak of. Her body was thin and angular. These disadvantages were offset, to some extent, by her eyes, which were large and fringed with long lashes. They sparkled with intelligence and vivacity. Her hair was thick and had an attractive kink to it. She usually wove it into a plait, which she then knotted at the back of her neck. When released from the knot, it spread out like a veil down to her waist, giving her a sudden and startling beauty. At present, Annalukshmi sat with her teacup in her hand, trying to be attentive to the conversation about the tablecloth. Yet her mind was far away, contemplating the plan she had come up with that would allow her to ride her bicycle to school the following day.

  The next morning, as Annalukshmi got dressed, she tried to appear serene, to act as if nothing out of the ordinary was about to happen. Yet her mouth felt dry and she had to concentrate while she draped her sari, nervousness making her fingers stiff.

  At breakfast, Louisa noticed her oldest daughter did not bicker and quarrel with her sisters like she usually did but, instead, asked them to pass the thosai and sambar with a politeness that made her eyes narrow in suspicion.

  “Merlay,” she said, leaning forward, “are you all right?”

  “Of course,” Annalukshmi replied. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

  Before Louisa could question her further, the rickshaw men banged on the gate.

  “Ah, the coolies are here,” Louisa said, still not satisfied that all was
well with her daughter. She stood up and tied her kimono around her ankle-length nightdress.

  The girls rose from the table and washed their hands at the sink. Their bags were on the settee in the drawing room, Annalukshmi’s and Manohari’s small hard suitcases, one in brown, the other in navy blue, Kumudini’s a straw sewing basket with a lid. They picked up their bags and went onto the verandah.

  The rickshaw men, bare-bodied with turbans and knee-length sarongs, were out on the lane, crouched between the shafts of their rickshaws, chewing betel. They stood up when the girls and Louisa came through the gate. Louisa watched as each daughter stepped in between the shafts and climbed into their respective rickshaws.

  Louisa gave the signal and the rickshaw men began to move forward. When they were almost at the bottom of the lane, Louisa cried out, as she always did, “Girls, girls, open your umbrellas, for heaven’s sake. You don’t want to turn black, do you?”

  They waved in reply.

  Each girl had been given a gift by their father of a flower-patterned, paper Chinese umbrella from Malaya. Once they were on Horton Place, Manohari and Kumudini dutifully opened their umbrellas. Annalukshmi, however, pulled out an old, battered cloth hat from her bag, put it on her head, and slipped the elastic under her chin.

  “Stop!” Annalukshmi called to her rickshaw man. He halted and she got down quickly.

  “Akka?” Kumudini signalled to her man to stop.

  Ignoring her, Annalukshmi hurried towards the hedge that formed the border of Brighton. She stepped through a gap and, after a moment, returned with the bicycle. The edges of her sari were wet with dew and a twig had caught in her hat.

  “Brilliant plan, don’t you think?” she said with attempted cheerfulness to ward off the aghast looks on her sisters’ faces and the growing heaviness in her stomach at what she was about to do.

  Kumudini snapped her umbrella shut and stepped down from her rickshaw. “Are you mad or something, akka? You are sure to be spotted and Amma is going to hear about it.”

  “By then it will be too late,” Annalukshmi said, yet her voice caught.

  “You think you are wondrously adventurous, akka,” Manohari said, “but the truth is you look an absolute fright on that bicycle.”

  Annalukshmi put her bag in the wicker basket attached to the handlebar. “Goodbye,” she said, afraid her resolve might give way if she listened to her sisters any longer. She began to ride away.

  “Akka, wait, stop!” Kumudini cried out after her, but Annalukshmi pretended she had not heard.

  Once Annalukshmi had gone past Horton Place and was on Green Path, heading towards Colpetty, she began to be filled with elation. She looked up at the canopy of leaves created by the huge trees on either side of Green Path and she smiled. Her plan had succeeded. Here she was riding her bicycle to school. The deliciously cool wind flapped against her sari and crept underneath it. She pulled off her hat, threw it into the wicker basket, and rose in her seat. She began to pedal faster, blissfully unaware of the looks she was getting from pedestrians and motorists.

  Galle Road ran parallel to the coast, about two hundred yards inland. The residents of Colombo thus identified buildings and other landmarks on Galle Road as being either on the “sea side” or the “land side” of Galle Road.

  The Colpetty Mission School, where Annalukshmi taught, was on the “sea side” of Galle Road, in the suburb of Colpetty. A wrought-iron front gate opened onto a courtyard, from which two paths forked off in opposite directions, one leading to the Colpetty Mission Church, the other to the buildings of the school. The church, heavy and sombre, was made out of stone and looked like it belonged in Scotland rather than Ceylon. The inside of the church was bare and functional, its only redeeming feature the stained-glass window of Christ as the Good Shepherd above the pulpit. In contrast, the school buildings had a cheerful, light feeling to them. They were made of brick and had been whitewashed. The proximity of the school to the sea meant that the sunlight against the buildings had a muted, golden quality. Flowering creepers – bougainvillaea, morning glories – grew up the walls, providing splashes of colour.

  A netball court and a drill ground formed a quadrangle around which the school buildings were situated. To the “sea side” of the quadrangle, bordering the railway line and the beach, was the senior classroom block. To the “land side” was the headmistress’s office and the staff room. The other two sides had the boarding and the junior classroom block, respectively.

  Any girl who had been through the Colpetty Mission School knew that the students divided their teachers into two groups – the confirmed hags and the potential hags. The confirmed hags were women who were well past the marriageable age and to whom life offered only a bleak spinsterhood on a meagre teacher’s salary. The potential hags were former students whom Miss Lawton invited back to teach in the junior classes until such time as they found husbands. The more of a confirmed hag a teacher became, the more ridiculed and despised she was. The distinction between the two groups was, thus, strictly and rancorously maintained.

  Margery De Soysa, the leader of the potential hags, was standing at the window of the staff room when Annalukshmi came sailing in through the gate on her bicycle into the midst of the students who were gathered in the courtyard.

  “My heavens!” she said, raising her eyebrows in astonishment.

  The other teachers were chatting with each other around the long staff table in the centre of the room. They looked up at her.

  “You absolutely must come and see this,” she said.

  They all came to the window.

  Annalukshmi had now got off her bicycle and was surrounded by the students, most of whom were expressing their admiration, a few pleading to be allowed to do a turn on the bicycle.

  “What utter lunacy,” Ursula Gooneratne, the leader of the confirmed hags, said. “That Kandiah girl, sometimes I think her brains must be in her backside.”

  The confirmed hags nodded in agreement.

  “But where did she get that bicycle, is what I want to know.” Margery De Soysa said.

  “Miss Blake gave it to her. A farewell gift.”

  Miss Lawton’s adopted daughter, Nancy, stood in the doorway, trying to conceal her amusement at their disapproval. Unlike the other teachers, who wore saris, Nancy had on a daringly high knee-length dress and her hair was bobbed. Though she was extremely pretty and had a shapely figure, there was none of the jauntiness to her one might have associated with such a fashionably turned-out young woman. Rather, her manner was sedate, and, when she spoke, there was a flowing elongation to her vowels that showed that, while her English was perfect, she had learnt the language later in life.

  “Slavishly imitating,” Ursula Gooneratne said. “I suppose she thinks she looks like a European now. More like a peon to me.”

  Margery De Soysa had, until this moment, been as critical about the whole thing as Ursula Gooneratne. Yet, hearing her arch-rival’s disapproval, she decided to take the opposite track just to provoke her. “Nonsense,” she said, tossing her head, her earrings clinking as she did so. “I think it’s absolutely delightful. I have a good mind to go out and get one myself.”

  “Why don’t you?” Ursula Gooneratne retorted. “That way your car will no longer have to bring you the hundred yards from your house to school.”

  This comment about Margery De Soysa’s notorious indolence was not received well. A flutter of anticipation went through the staff room at the possibility of an argument.

  “At least I have a car,” Margery De Soysa declared.

  Before the argument between them could go any further, Annalukshmi walked in.

  “Shhhh-shhhh,” somebody cried and the staff room became silent.

  Annalukshmi paused for a moment, bag in one hand, hat in the other, realizing that they had been discussing her and the bicycle. She was grateful to see Nancy standing by the cubicles at the back of the room, her eyebrows raised in sympathy.

  “Annalukshmi,” Margery De
Soysa cried, stepping towards her, “how tremendous you looked on that bicycle. I was telling everybody that I have a mind to go out and get one myself.”

  “That’s good,” Annalukshmi answered. She moved past her and walked over to where Nancy was standing.

  Annalukshmi always felt awkward around girls like Margery De Soysa, with their delicate French-chiffon saris and high, tinkly laughs. She dressed for school in simple Japanese Georgettes and, next to the likes of Margery, she knew she was plain.

  Nancy touched Annalukshmi’s arm. “Congratulations,” she whispered. “I thought you looked splendid as you sailed in through the gate.”

  “How is our European miss today?” Ursula Gooneratne said to Annalukshmi.

  The other teachers snickered.

  “Next thing you know, our European miss will be talking with an English accent.”

  Annalukshmi was about to retort, but Nancy, who still had her hand on her friend’s arm, tightened her grip, advising her to ignore Miss Gooneratne’s taunt.

  Though emancipated and modern, Nancy, who was twenty-five, asserted her will and bore any criticism with quiet equanimity. She was often a check on her younger friend’s excesses.

  The headmistress’s door opened and Miss Lawton came out. She looked around. “Hasn’t the bell rung yet? Nancy dear, could you please go and tell that groundskeeper to ring it now.”

  Nancy nodded and left.

  “Ah, Anna, there you are,” Miss Lawton said to Annalukshmi. “Come in, I want to talk with you.”

  She followed Miss Lawton into her office.

  Though Miss Lawton ran the school with clockwork efficiency, her office was always a mess. Her desk was covered with papers and books through which Miss Lawton seemed to somehow know her way. The rest of the office was similarly cluttered. Against one wall, a dusty, glass-fronted cupboard was crammed with old cups and shields that the school had won over the years, the excess trophies on top of the cupboard, on the floor, and on the windowsills. A sofa seemed to have caught the spillover from Miss Lawton’s desk and was in danger of being submerged by papers too. One corner of the room, however, was neat, the surface of the desk bare. This had been Miss Blake’s area, and she had maintained it in her orderly fashion.