by Carl Muller
‘Just came to see baby here or not. Somehow came, no?’ and told a fat woman whose jacket could scarcely contain her breasts, ‘See, will you, from Kegalla hanging and coming. Kandy going. How the job?’
‘Arr-ney!’ the woman said, ‘haberta?6 From where coming? Kegalla?’
‘No, no, Colombo from coming. Kandy going telling.’
The urchins had crowded around to touch the bicycle, exclaim at the cable brakes, notice the gear lever on the bar. In the hubbub Carloboy heard the woman say. ‘From home jumped and come must be. To the police if catch and give good.’
The boy edged his machine back. ‘If staying, I’ll go. My Kandy uncle looking and waiting must be.’
‘No, no, now going,’ and to the woman, ‘There, heard? Like this lansi children jumping and going won’t.’
Which was an observation worth remarking on. Whatever. the social attitudes of the times, it was a common belief of the Sinhalese that the Burghers kept nice little homes (be they ever so humble) and dressed well enough and were comfortable enough. There was quite a bit of ‘colour envy’ too which can be noted to this day. Any Sinhalese mother in any Sinhalese village would be proud to call her baby sudhu or sudho,7 and every family had its sudhu nangi8 and sudhu akka9 and even a sudhu maama.10 It was necessary to stress the fact. It was a mixture of mild resentment, true, and tolerance as well. Burgher children too, most gregarious, invited friendship. There was a hardiness in them that invested that spirit of getting on, making the best of any situation, any social environment. Right now, Carloboy was a ‘stranger in a foreign land’ but even the ragged urchins who surrounded him had nothing but admiration for him, his bike and for the fact that he had clung grimly on, all the way from Kegalla, mind, all the way up the Kadugannawa incline . . . and in the dark too.
The woman, whose name was Jossie, asked him if he’d like some tea. ‘Come, come, tea a little drink and go. For what like this Kandy going?’
‘Uncle’s house I’m going. To come said. Father said if like on bicycle go if like.’
‘Arr-ney. Father is mad? So much distance? So baby came?’
Carloboy nodded.
‘Come, come. I’ll some tea make. Habai, just tea, right? Baby’s home milk and all putting, no? We are poor, no?’
‘That never mind,’ Carloboy assured.
‘Here, boys, the bicycle touching not! You all what doing here? Get out home!’
Eight o’clock. Sonnaboy was at the Wellawatte police station. Inspector Orr tapped his teeth with his pencil.
‘Any idea where the bugger might be? I phoned around and checked the hospital also. Nothing. Bugger must have gone somewhere. Outstation, must be.’
‘Outstation?’
‘Obviously, men. If anywhere around here you think will allow to stay so late? Anyway, still only eight, no? Don’t know if went to some schoolfriend’s house and putting dinner there.’
‘Yes, must be. But must inform no? I’ll give the bugger when he comes home!’
At home Beryl discovered the loss of her sewing money. She gasped, quivered and slapped Marie who rushed in to complain about what Diana was doing. ‘Who took the money from this draw?’ she demanded, and twisted Diana’s ears for good measure. Sonnaboy returned to the sound of two wailing daughters and a wife who stalked the house pantherishly.
It was almost nine when Carloboy gave up on the lorry, swung away and braked alongside the narrow kerb. He was in Kandy and the streets were peopled and the lights of hundreds of shops flared and winked in the crisp air. He looked about him. He had never been here before. He asked a man, ‘Where is Peradeniya Road?’
The man laughed. ‘Here, here. This is Peradeniya Road. Why?’
‘Number 528 is where?’
‘I don’t know. Who are the people?’
‘De Sella. In the railway he is.’
‘Better if you go to the railway station and ask.’
‘Where?’
‘That also you don’t know. Where you’re from?’
‘From Colombo. Have to find the house. Now late also.’
‘So then go back and see the numbers. Whereabout you don’t know?’
‘Near a school, said.’
‘No school anywhere here. Have that side. You go back and see.’
It took time, but suddenly there was a church and a school and Carloboy sucked in his breath sharply. Yes, there it was. Number 528 . . . Audrey . . .
At ten o’clock, a distraught Sonnaboy was searching his son’s cupboard in which he found a stack of letters. ‘Here! come and look at this! Who is this girl, men? Kandy address.’
Beryl stared. ‘My God, don’ know if went to Kandy. Last week also he said if can go to Kandy for holidays. Said he had some friends there.’
‘So postman comes, and gives like this and you won’t even go to see what?’
‘What to see? I’m in the back cooking, no? Now even have a servant. Going early to school also. Must be catching the postman top of the garden and taking.’
Sonnaboy thought a while. ‘Must have gone to Kandy. And where the till? No till to be seen. Took the money, must be.’
‘Never mind that, had some sewing money in my machine table draw. That’s also vanished. Don’t know where put the bike and went.’
‘Wait. I’ll teach him a bloody good lesson. God knows if went on the bike even. I’ll go to the police station and come.’
‘Again?’
‘Put a bloody complaint. Give this address and tell he stole the bicycle.’
‘My God, will catch and lock up, no?’
‘That’s what must do. Teach him a bloody lesson.’
‘Dinner also served and getting cold.’
‘Damn the dinner. You eat. I’ll go and come.’
Beryl sat, reading Audrey’s letters.
The de Sella’s gave the tired wanderer a riotous welcome. Mr de Sella looked the boy up and down through his reading glasses and accepted the tale that Carloboy had come with a group of his classmates. ‘We are on a cycle tour. Going to stay tomorrow in Kandy. Then we are going to Nawalapitiya.’
‘So where are the other boys?’
‘All went to one boy’s house. He is from Kandy. So I also kept my things and said I’ll come and see Maurius and Quinny. Uncle, I can stay here?’
Maurius insisted. Quinny whooped. Audrey, at the curtain smiled and smiled and Carloboy felt he was treading air. Why, she had grown! She was lissom and her hair shone and her gathered skirt pinched around her waist. Her soft blouse embraced her breasts and his hands ached to reach out, touch her.
‘Did you eat anything, child? Cycling all the way. Must be dead tired, no?’ Mrs de Sella said.
So Carloboy went in, washed, was given a change of clothes and Audrey said, ‘My, your shirt is filthy. Smelling of sweat,’ and Mrs de Sella took away his clothes to wash and he sat to a meal of rice and cold curry while the boys talked incessantly and Audrey sat across the table. He reached out with his leg and touched her shin and she ran her feet alongside his, her toes brushing his ankles, lower calves. Maureen and Carmen said, ‘From where did you appear? Came from Anuradhapura? You’re still saying dirty words?’ and everybody laughed.
There are those all-too-short days every boy remembers. They are days filled with a special magic. No, not ecstasy, just a special magic when one feels that one is very much loved, very much wanted and that every hour is suffused with its own special colour that starts as a pinpoint inside one’s head, then grows and breaks through in a starburst of red, silver, violet, magenta. This was such a day. While the morning sped by happily enough—they went to the Kandy lake, roamed the town, ate mangoes in the Kandy market—Audrey said she had to show Carloboy the wilderness of their own back garden which melted into the backyard of the untenanted house next day. At its boundary stood a long dormitory-like building, a part of the school’s complex, also empty and quite broody looking in the afternoon sun. They walked with the carelessness of the innocent, exclaiming at the fruit-lad
en jak trees, the big green lizard on a fence post. Maurius and Quinny knew, of course, and kept away. They took the bicycle instead, screeching along the road and the red gravel path beside the house.
Maureen asked, ‘Where are these fellows?’
Mrs de Sella looked up from the kitchen hearth, ‘There, playing in the back. Real tomboy that Audrey is also.’ Carloboy and Audrey were seated, close together in the rear veranda of the empty house. A wall, moss-grown at the base, hid them. Their own grotto, and there they kissed and clung to each other and feverishly discovered each other. Undying love was sworn, thirty times a minute and her mouth was minty sweet against his and he demanded urgently to come to her at night.
‘Can’t,’ she breathed, ‘I’m sleeping with Maureen and Carmen, no?’
‘So say you’re going to the bathroom. I’ll go and wait there.’
‘Can’t. Gosh, if we get caught.’
He ran his hand down her, touched her small breasts, hugged her. She held him fiercely. ‘I’m scared to allow,’ she said in a small thin voice.
He nuzzled her. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘I’m scared. I know, no, other girls also telling can get a baby also.’
His hand was under her dress, fingers digging under her knickers. ‘That is only when doing inside, no?’ He placed her hand on his cock. ‘It’s all wet again. You remember in Anuradhapura?’
She squirmed and said, ‘Wait, I’ll take out,’ and coloured richly when he asked to see.
It was very uncomfortable. His knees hurt on the cracked cement and they were cramped, sweating, and her dress was in the way and his trouser zip pressed rudely into the top of his penis, but he spent himself between her thighs and she rose, bent over carefully to keep the cover of the wall and said, ‘That’s all? I’ll put the knickers?’
Carloboy, breathing heavily, rose, ‘Wait, let me clean,’ and with the tail of his shirt wiped the inside of her thighs. He dropped to his knee to look at her, the soft down that curled, brown, the curving lips of her labia. His hand cupped her sex, squeezing it, then he ran a finger along the brown crevasse, upwards to touch the throbbing clitoris. Audrey made a soft cluck-like hiss. ‘Don’t,’ she said, ‘feel funny when you do that.’ He rose to embrace her, kiss her and his cock was hard again and he wouldn’t let her go. Her hand took hold of it, tucked it between her and they stood together, belonging, belonging and that was all that mattered.
In the Kandy Police Station, Sub Inspector Wijesinghe called a constable. ‘Here, there’s a report from Colombo. Boy stole a bicycle and came to Kandy. What nonsense is this? Can just come cycling to Kandy?’
The constable tittered. ‘Apoi sir, these days boys Jaffna even will go.’
‘All nonsense. What are you doing?’
‘Now must go to Suduhumpola, sir. I and P. C. Perera, Some gori11 there,’ he sniffed, ‘everyday gori there, no?’
‘Then on your way back just go to this address. Peradeniya road close by Number 528. Just ask if have a boy there with a bicycle. If have, ask the name. Here the name. Von Bloss. Burgher boy. If there, catch and bring here.
‘Bicycle also bring?’
‘Saying stole, no? So bring and come.’
The constables, P. C. Mendis and P. C. Perera made the necessary out entry and left the station.
‘What nonsense, no? Lansi boy from Colombo bicycle stealing to Kandy come,’ Mendis said.
‘Who knows? Now we are where going?’
‘Suduhumpola. Other thing afterwards will see.’
Which was just as well, for the Suduhumpola fracas was bigger that they had imagined and a particularly repulsive neighbourhood thug who fancied himself the King of Clubs had broken several heads before being set upon by screaming men and women who had quickly converted him into a pincushion of sorts. Lots of blood, hysterical women and knives and crowbars and the necessity to dispatch the immobile to hospital and chase those who suddenly remembered urgent business elsewhere. P. C. Mendis said, ‘Tomorrow we’ll go that other thing to see,’ and Perera nodded. So nothing, not even Perera and Mendis, spoilt that magic day. The gods must have known that, as far as Carloboy and Audrey were concerned, it was the last day they would know together.
Carloboy had to stick to his story. Accordingly he rose early, drank tea and informed the family that his friends would be waiting to proceed to Nawalapitiya. Audrey was sad, but cheered up when he announced that the boys would return to Kandy the next day and remain in Kandy for some time. The lies fell easily, so naturally that old de Sella, emerging in green-striped pyjamas and a banian that rolled up his belly, said, ‘Then come for lunch tomorrow, right? Who is in charge of you boys?’
‘Two prefects.’
‘Good, good.’
He gaped when, at ten, two constables came to his door.
Carloboy reached Nawalapitiya quickly enough. He bounced over the railway lines that sliced across the road, swung into the ill-kempt town with its dirty kerbs and toppled dustbins and said to himself, ‘Now what?’
He was hungry. He was also tired. He hadn’t reckoned on the slow, wearying climb. The pot-holed road through Gampola had been a nightmare. He could, of course, go to any of the railway bungalows. Why, even the Running Bungalow, but he quickly dismissed that idea. My God, Daddy might be there . . . and the sudden reflection that Daddy could be at Nawalapitiya spread the seeds of unease, even panic. How if Daddy had worked train to Nawalapitiya? He could be anywhere. In that railway bungalow, drinking with a friend, maybe. Or in town, coming to buy a pint from the liquor shop . . . in town? Carloboy looked around uneasily, then turned his machine, anxious to pedal away, and slammed a front wheel into a man carrying a large bunch of king coconuts on his gunny sack draped shoulders. The boy lost his balance and so did the man. They both fell as did the bicycle and the coconuts, and the man howled wrathfully and as is the custom, a perfectly unpeopled road suddenly bulged at the seams. Boys, men, urchins, dogs, women billowed in to make comments, judgements, shout advice or just stare. Cyclists rang bells and a carter stopped prodding his bull’s anus with his toes12 and declared that bicycles should not be allowed to attack pedestrians with nuts of any variety. Into this strode a policeman with a quick, eager air. Life had been pretty humdrum of late and he cheered up when the man groaned and said that the boy had, very vindictively, waited until he had approached and then swung his bicycle wheel which had done dire things to his testicles. ‘To me with the bicycle hit!’ he bellowed. ‘Just on the road I’m going. To go when tried he also fell!’
Another asked: ‘Who this boy?’
And a woman advised: ‘To the police take and go, ralahamy.13 This way with bicycle to hit can? To harmless men this way can do?’
The policeman seized Carloboy’s shoulder. ‘Where your house? Come go station.’
The man who had dropped his coconuts and insisted that other nuts which were his pride and joy had also been frontally attacked, suddenly forgot what had troubled him. He rose, looked around, found a gap in the crowd thicket and darted through, shifted gear and streaked away. His nuts lay where they fell. So did the gunny sack. This caused more confusion and the policeman, nonplussed, hung on to Carloboy. ‘Where he’s running?’ he demanded and old Babanis cackled and said, ‘Why ralahamy don’t know that Lokuvijay? From somewhere king coconut bunch cut and taking. His job that is. King coconut bunch anywhere have cut and take. King coconut rogue!’
The policeman was annoyed. Eventually Carloboy found himself in the Nawalapitiya police station, telling Inspector Mendis that he lived in Kandy and had just come for the ride. Mendis was a nice man. Too nice to be a police inspector, one would think. He chuckled. ‘Anyway, no harm done, no? That man must have stolen those king coconuts. So, young man, you’re going to Kandy? Just came riding, ah? What can you see here? At least today there’s some sun. Raining, raining otherwise, whole time its raining here. What about your bike? It’s all right?’
The right pedal had been dented and kept brushing the gearcase. ‘Th
at’s a small thing. There, take it to that place there, where all those tyres are piled up. You can see? Go and tell to straighten the pedal and give. You have money?’
Carloboy nodded.
‘Give fifty cents enough. But stay and tell to do. Don’t leave the bike. Will take out the saddle bag or the dynamo and lamp or something.’
When the phone rang and the Kandy police told Inspector Mendis that there was a boy on the loose, possibly on his turf, the man whistled, said, ‘hold the line’ and roared for a policeman. Sergeant Nonis came in, chewing a thumbnail.
‘That boy! There is the bicycle shop. Bring that bugger here, and stop biting your fingers!’
‘Sir, yes sir.’
‘So go!’
Nonis went.
It took time, naturally. Kandy demanded that Carloboy be sent there. Mendis asked how and was surprised to learn how choleric the range inspector could get at midday.
‘You still didn’t eat lunch?’ he asked.
‘What the hell is that to you?’
‘Then why you’re shouting? Boy is here. Whacked a thambili14 rogue on the balls also. How to send there? Haven’t policemen here to come on bicycle all the way.’
‘Don’t talk cock, men. Put on train and send.’
‘Bicycle also?’
‘Yes. That is stolen bicycle, no?’
‘Real damn nuisance. I caught here, can put charge and produce here if want. My lockup also empty.’
‘No, no. Father also came and waiting here. You send.’
So Mendis put down the phone, glared at it for ten seconds and spent the rest of the minute glaring at Carloboy. ‘Sit and wait!’ he shouted. ‘If you get up I’ll handcuff you to the chair! You heard?’
Carloboy nodded. He wasn’t Tom Sawyer or even Huckleberry Finn. He was just Carloboy von Bloss and his father was at Kandy and he was, as is said, in deep shit. And on the way up, at Ulapane, he had sat by the side of the road and actually written a letter to Bruno where he had given as address: Sitting on a rock, somewhere near Nawalapitiya, and informing his Literature master that he was having a wonderful time and was very much alive and well. He had posted it and had been very pleased with himself. The guard eyed him with deep suspicion.