Empire's Children

by Patricia Weerakoon

  ***

  The string hoppers were leathery and the hodhi lacked salt. Victor and Rajan sat at breakfast. Raaken stood by the dining table. His eyes were red and his face drawn and despondent.

  ‘Aiya, eat, Aiya,’ Raaken urged.

  Turning away, Rajan Rasiah picked up the phone. Maybe he should call his wife. Lilly would know what to do. He held the receiver to his forehead. Then replaced it in the cradle. No. He would handle this on his own.

  ‘Aiya, Aiya,’ Raaken kept repeating between sobs. Raaken had just learned from Victor that his master was leaving Watakälé.

  Victor helped his father pack his bag. Raaken sobbed as he loaded it into the boot of the Morris Minor. The furniture and all the other household goods would be sent later.

  Victor stood with his hand on the front door of the car. ‘Dad, please let me come with you when you speak to William Ashley-Cooper.’

  ‘No, son. He’ll think I don’t have the gumption to stand up to him. You go back to the office.’ He put his hand in his trouser pocket and touched the resignation letter. He was no longer bitter and angry. Instead, he felt a deep sense of calmness and peace.

  ‘I’m going directly to Colombo from the factory. I don’t know when I’ll be back.’

  ‘Aiyaaaa,’ Raaken howled.

  Rajan drove down to the factory. He did not look back at the house. He recalled events and one by one, severed the chains that bound him to the house and the plantation. Memories of the day he brought his young, beautiful and nervous bride there. The day he heard of his father’s death and knew he had to care for his mother and brothers. He shuddered as he remembered the day that Shiro tried to kill herself.

  It was all done and finished. Today he would start a new chapter.

  Wright, the assistant Tea-maker, was seated in the factory office when Rajan walked in. ‘Mr Ashley-Cooper said he would like to talk to you,’ he said, a smirk on his pockmarked face.

  Rajan looked at the man he had trained. He remembered what an ignorant buffoon Wright had been when he was first hired five years ago. Rajan had spent hours teaching him the basics of tea manufacture and tea tasting. Now this man had ganged up with William Ashley-Cooper to discredit him. Rajan stared clear-eyed at Wright. Wright looked away and walked out of the office. Rajan sat at the Tea-maker’s table for the last time.

  The roar of the motorcycle and a cloud of dust heralded William Ashley-Cooper’s arrival. Rajan remained seated as William strode into the office.

  ‘Well, Mr Rasiah?’

  Rajan sat back with his hands folded on the table. He stared into William’s vicious blue eyes. He would not give this bully the pleasure of seeing him cringe.

  William leant over the table. ‘I can destroy you, Mr Rasiah,’ he spluttered. ‘I have evidence of fraud in your ledgers. I also have people who will support me.’

  Rajan stood up and looked at William. ‘We both know that Wright cooked the books, Mr Ashley-Cooper. I don’t know exactly what you promised him. I suppose it is a promotion to head Tea-maker and a substantial pay rise.’

  Reaching into his pocket he drew out the resignation letter. ‘Here is my letter of resignation, effective today.’

  William looked taken aback. He gaped at Rajan. ‘You’re giving up?’

  ‘No, I am not giving up. As I say in the letter, I am resigning. There is no place for me here. You and your minions can ruin this place.’ Rajan held out the letter. His hand was steady, his expression proud and distant.

  William clenched his hands. His face contorted with fury. ‘Why you filthy little insubordinate –’ His mouth worked soundlessly for a few moments. Then he snatched the letter from Rajan’s hand. ‘I accept your resignation,’ he snarled, ‘with immediate effect. Get out!’

  Rajan Rasiah nodded once. He turned and began walking out of the office.

  ‘By the way, Mr Do-gooder Tea-maker. Do you want to know what brought on your daughter’s depression?’ William yelled out after him.

  Rajan stopped, but did not turn around.

  ‘That got to you, didn’t it?’ William laughed. ‘She was having an affair with my brother, Anthony. He broke it off with her. That’s why she got so ill.’

  Rajan stood frozen to the spot for a moment. With an effort of will, he continued walking to the car.

  He got in and started up the engine, drunken, demented laughter followed him. It sounded like a hyena dragged out of the darkest caverns of hell.

  ***

  Rajan drove down the road away from Watakälé, his mind awhirl. William was lying. Anthony wouldn’t have had an affair with Shiro. He was too honest, wasn’t he? And where would she have the chance to meet him?

  She was always near the house. Wasn’t she?

  But as the winding road unfolded before him, seemingly disconnected events began to fit together. He remembered Shiro’s long absences, her high spirits when she came back home. He remembered Anthony’s questions about Shiro and her health, the cheque towards her treatment in Colombo, the extra bonus in his provident fund account. Unconsciously, Rajan’s foot pressed heavier on the accelerator. The speedometer steadily crept up. He didn’t care.

  Anthony –the best superintendent he’d worked for. A man who treated the staff with dignity. He never played around with coolies. Well, he didn’t need to, did he? He had a much fairer prize. Rajan’s heart contracted at the thought. His beloved daughter in the arms of – no! It was too horrible to think about.

  Then he remembered Lilly’s words on the telephone from Colombo a couple of weeks ago. Watch out for William, she had said. He will do anything to make trouble. Did she know something? Was he the only one in the dark?

  He wrenched the steering wheel. The car careened around the corner, tyres screeching.

  Lilly should have told him. He would have killed them both. Anthony and William. Give them a short cut to hell where they belonged.

  The car swerved onto the grassy verge. A trio of coolies leapt out of the way, shouting.

  He didn’t care.

  Rajan seethed. Where Sir James led, the boys followed. It’s just that he had trusted Anthony. He had believed Anthony was a better man –

  A big, lumbering lorry, laden with boxes of groceries, appeared before him. It straddled three-quarters of the road as it laboured up the hairpin bends of Haputalé pass. Rajan rammed his foot on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel to the left. He saw the shocked face of the lorry driver. The car skidded, its back swinging widely. The rear bumper thudded against the front right of the lorry. Gyrating like a rotor, the car soared clean off the road. It somersaulted down thirty metres of cliff face, shedding bits of metal.

  His last thoughts were of Shiro.

  She had tried to kill herself when Anthony left her. What would she do now?

  Chapter 34

  June 1969 Colombo

  Shiro sat in a corner of the anatomy museum. It was the only place in the medical faculty she could be alone at this time. She knew she should be at a microbiology lecture, but she couldn’t face anyone. Not right now. And she didn’t want to be at home waiting for the hearse carrying her father’s coffin.

  She picked up a bottled pathology specimen off the shelf. She stared at the slice of cirrhotic liver. Her vision blurred and she saw her father’s face. She would never see him again. The coffin would be closed. His body was too badly broken to be seen by the family. Victor had said dad had resigned, was on his way to Colombo. Something had happened in the plantation; it involved William Ashley-Cooper and the assistant Tea-maker Wright and a false accusation.

  The tears she had held back at home streamed down her cheeks. Damn the Ashley-Coopers. Damn Anthony and William and the whole bloody colonial Empire. She put her forehead on the cold marble surface of the table top and sobbed.

  ‘I know that the replacement of hepatic lobules by the fibrous tissue of ci
rrhosis is a sorry sight, but I have never seen it bring a young lady to tears.’

  Shiro looked up at Dr Jega Jayaseelen.

  ‘What’s the matter Shiromi?’ He took out a white hanky from his trouser pocket. He held it for a moment and then handed it to her. She could read the look in his eyes. He had wanted to wipe the tears off her face himself.

  Shiro took the hanky from his hand. Their fingers touching as she did so. Just for a moment she had a flash of memory; a voice not too unlike Jega’s saying ‘tears princess?’ a white linen hanky, tender loving fingers on her cheeks. Damn, damn, damn.

  ‘Shiromi, you are missing a lecture, hiding in the anatomy museum. It’s not like you. Do you want to talk about whatever is upsetting you?’ Jega pulled a stool and perched on it.

  Shiro scrubbed the tears off her face, blew her nose and then looked at the white hanky, now rumpled and soiled. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Not a problem, my dear. Plenty more where that came from.’

  She sat staring at an obnoxious blood-filled cyst in the liver specimen in the bottle. Her fingers trembled and the bottle slipped.

  Jega reached out and took the bottle from her hands. Reaching over her, he placed it back on the shelf where it belonged.

  They sat in silence, Shiro threading the hanky between her fingers, tears coursing down her cheeks, and Dr Jega watching her, his grey eyes patient and caring.

  ‘Shiromi?’

  ‘Sir – Jega. Why are you here?’

  ‘I saw you come in. I know you should be at a Microbiology lecture. You looked upset.’

  ‘Why do you care?’

  ‘I am your lecturer, Shiromi. I can’t be anything other than that till after your examinations. But after that, I would like to get to know you better.’

  Shiro glanced up at him and then turned away. Damn, he reminded her of Anthony. She should go back to the psychiatry clinic. Tell them she was hallucinating.

  ‘Shiromi, you can trust me. You are obviously distressed.’

  ‘My father is dead.’

  Jega reached out and covered her hand with his. ‘Shiromi.’ His voice was soft, a lingering balm on the turmoil in her heart. ‘Why are you here and not with your family?’

  ‘I can’t be at home. The Ashley-Coopers killed my father and I am responsible.’

  ‘The Ashley-Coopers?’ Jega’s voice carried a note of stunned surprise.

  Shiro nodded on a sob. ‘I hate the Ashley-Coopers.’

  Jega’s fingers tightened over hers.

  ‘Who are these Ashley-Coopers, Shiromi? And why do you think you are responsible?’

  Shiro stared at a specimen on the shelf. A skull with a depressed fracture. The label said ‘hammer injury to parietal bone’. That’s what every one of the Ashley-Cooper family should have done to them. A shudder went through her body. Her father was dead and she was contemplating murder. She was a basket case. ‘You wouldn’t understand. The British kings of the tea plantation, the rape of the natives, coolies, taking what they want and getting rid of anyone who gets in their way.’

  Jega didn’t respond. The silent seconds stretched between them. Shiro’s eyes shifted to a specimen of a ruptured aortic aneurysm. Her blood pressure was probably high enough to cause that right now.

  ‘Shiromi,’ Jega said, ‘look at me. Really look at me.’

  She raised her eyes to his. Slate grey eyes, now filled with a deep sadness and empathy; olive skinned face framed by curly dark brown hair.

  ‘Shiromi, I am a Eurasian. My mother was an Indian labourer.’

  Shiro’s eyes widened. She gasped. ‘You mean you – ’

  ‘Yes,’ Jega nodded, ‘My father, for the want of a better term, was a British planter. His wife threw my mother out of the house when she was pregnant with me.’

  ‘Your mother – ’

  The bitterness in his voice cut through Shiro’s cloud of sorrow. ‘Yes, Shiromi, my mother was a ‘keep’ to the English superintendent. That’s what they called it at that time. Today we would say a sex slave.’

  Shiro looked at the hand covering hers, his fingers now threaded through hers. She glanced at the square faced gold signet ring on his middle finger, the crisp linen shirt with sleeves rolled halfway up muscular arms, the monogrammed silk tie knotted at the neck of the cream linen shirt. ‘But you’ve done okay?’

  The bitterness carried through to his laugh. ‘Sure. He paid for my education, set up my mother in a house. But there was no way he would recognise me as his son. He, in his own words, met his obligations. That was it.’

  Shiro turned her hand over and clasped her fingers through his. He had suffered too. ‘I am sorry. You must have had a horrible childhood.’

  He shook his head. ‘I didn’t know any better. He came every week till I went to boarding school. He supported me in London, visited regularly. Guys at Queens University Medical School thought he was a benevolent mentor.’ Jega’s fingers tightened around hers. ‘I have heard of the Ashley-Cooper family.’

  ‘You have?’

  Jega shrugged his shoulder. So like Anthony – damn.

  ‘Wealthy, own estates in Sri Lanka and Africa –’ he hesitated and then continued. ‘Two sons – heirs to the plantations.’

  ‘My father works –’ a sob broke through. ‘Worked for them as a Tea-maker.’

  ‘And?’

  This man would understand. He had suffered at the hands of the British. Maybe together they could make the Ashley-Coopers, William and Anthony and their father, pay for what they had done.

  ‘I’ve never told anyone. Not even Lalitha knows the truth.’

  Jega held her hand and waited.

  ‘Anthony, the younger brother. I thought he was a friend. He made me love him, and then when his father gave him an ultimatum, he chose his life as an Ashley-Cooper ahead of his so-called love for me. I tried to kill myself.’ Shiro shook her head. ‘It makes me angry to think I was stupid enough to do that.’

  ‘You were in love. You were rejected – it led to your depression.’

  Shiro continued, ‘Anthony paid my father – can you believe that? Fifty-thousand rupees for my treatment and then put more into my father’s savings fund. I didn’t know till later. He paid cash to appease his conscience, the bloody Judas.’

  ‘Your father told you about the money?’

  Shiro shook her head. ‘Anthony’s brother William sent a letter to my mother. Saying Anthony and I –’ she glanced up at Jega. ‘Sorry, the words he used were that we were screwing in the tea bushes.’ Shiro scrunched her eyes shut. ‘I have never felt so small, so worthless. And now my father –’ Shiro stopped and gulped.

  ‘William set up my father. Made it look like dad was stealing.’ Shiro felt the bile rise in her throat. She swallowed a sob.

  ‘Shiromi, you don’t have to –’ Jega got off the stool and put his other hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Yes, I do, I must talk. That’s what happened when Anthony left me. I didn’t talk.’

  He nodded and sat down, still holding her hand.

  ‘My father handed in his resignation rather than be sacked. He is – was scrupulously honest. He would never do it. Never. My brother told us Dad said the assistant Tea-maker, Wright was involved.’ She looked at Jega. Wishing again he didn’t remind her so much of Anthony.

  ‘Shiromi, you need to go home. I’ll drive you.’ He stood up and pulled her to her feet.

  ‘But won’t people talk?’

  ‘You, Shiromi, have your father’s integrity. Come on.’

  He let go of her hand.

  They walked out of the anatomy museum and climbed into his Holden sedan.

  Chapter 35

  Three months later ... September 1969 Diyatalāwa

  Every year, the medical students travelled out of Colombo for a week long conference. This year it was to the ca
mpsite at Diyatalawa. Jega had volunteered to be chaperone for the trip.

  They got into the Diyatalāwa campsite at six am and everyone decided to have a little nap before the first session. Shiro, having slept in the train, was wide awake. She slipped out of the room as soon as her roommates, Lalitha and the other two girls, were asleep. She scrambled up a little mud path above the campground to a rock ledge.

  Golden rays of sunshine sneaked through grey clouds to chase away the mist that clung to the rolling green hills. She could smell the tea leaves and the eucalyptus. Strings of women in their cheap cotton saris and cane baskets tied over kumbly headdresses wound their way along the brown mud path towards the tea fields for the day’s work. The bellowed commands of the kangani carried on the breeze that swirled up from the valley. She could hear the hum of the machinery in the tea factory across the valley.

  It was all so familiar and yet so different.

  Today she felt a stranger to this world. Was it only a few years ago that she had been part of the tea plantation life in Watakälé? The joy of life in the Tea-maker’s house with her parents and brothers and her times with Anthony by the waterfall seemed a lifetime away.

  It was a dream that had turned into a nightmare.

  She tried to make sense of the turmoil of emotions in her heart. Bitterness, anger and a hunger for retribution bubbled to the top. If not for the Ashley-Cooper family, her father would be alive and she wouldn’t feel this roiling volcano of resentment in her chest waiting to erupt. The psychiatrist advised her to let it go, to concentrate on the future. She couldn’t – she had to expose the lie. The story that the assistant Tea-maker Wright and the devil incarnate, William had concocted to discredit her father had driven him out of his mind and to his death.

  Then and only then, could she begin to heal.

  ‘Good Morning Shiromi. A beautiful day isn’t it? Makes you love the tea plantation.’

  Shiro was wrenched out of her thoughts by Jega’s voice. ‘Jega! What are you doing here?’

  He smiled and shrugged. ‘I too grew up here, Shiromi. This is my heritage as much as yours, my dear. I love this place too.’