The Flower Boy

by Karen Roberts

  He smelled of urine.

  “Leela! Leela! Where is that girl!”

  It was their mother. Leela jumped up and ran into the kitchen, Chandi at her heels. Ammi was standing there impatiently with another bundle of bedsheets in her arms, checking the kettle, which was boiling once again.

  Had it been that long? he wondered.

  “Put these with the others to soak and give that child something to eat,” Ammi said, thrusting the sheets into Leela’s arms at the same time. She picked up the kettle and started back down the corridor. Leela rushed to the door.

  “Amma?” she said questioningly.

  She suddenly smiled and nodded. “A girl,” she said.

  Leela had long gone. Chandi still stood there, his thoughts in a whirl. A girl! Was that what all the noises had been about? A girl born to the screams of her mother. A new baby, not yet taken by anybody. He would show her all his secret places. Show her all his secret things. A best friend. His very own best friend.

  A grin split his face.

  “Babygirlbabygirlbabygirlbabygirlbabygirlbabygirlbabygirl,” he sang, doing a wild jig in the middle of the empty kitchen.

  Exhausted by his dance and the events of the day, he sank to the floor. He wondered when he would be permitted to visit his new friend. He looked outside.

  He wondered when the rain had stopped.

  He trotted off to change out of his urine-smelling shorts. Three pairs in one morning. He would have a lot of explaining to do.

  SIX HOURS LATER, Chandi was more than a little discouraged.

  Ammi seemed to have disappeared. So had Leela. Rangi knew nothing. The other three servant girls didn’t even know a baby had been born, and had giggled behind their hands when Chandi had asked them. Krishna didn’t even bother to answer. And Appuhamy also seemed to have vanished, not that he would have said anything to Chandi anyway.

  It was nine o’clock. No one seemed interested in dinner, although the alarm in Chandi’s stomach had sounded over an hour ago.

  He had gone out while it was still light to examine the garden after the rain.

  The leaves wore a well-washed but slightly bruised look, like Chandi after a pol mudda scrubbing. His England fund was safe, the flat stone still in place although the coins were streaked with mud. He carefully rubbed each one, face side and writing side, on his shorts and replaced them under the stone.

  Satisfied that England was still a distinct possibility, he had returned to the kitchen to await his summons.

  None had come.

  Outside, the generator hummed steadily. Rangi looked up from the book she was reading.

  “Are you hungry, Malli?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I suppose so,” he said gloomily.

  She looked up at him. “Are you okay? Did you get into trouble?”

  “No,” he muttered sulkily.

  She stood up and dusted the back of her dress. “Well, let’s find something to eat. You have to go to sleep soon, or you’ll never wake in time for school tomorrow morning.”

  He looked at her in alarm. “I’m not going to school tomorrow.”

  “Why? Are you not feeling well?” she asked in concern.

  “I’m staying home so I can meet the new Sudu Baby and help to look after her,” Chandi said loftily.

  She laughed softly. “Chandi,” she said gently, “Amma will look after the baby until the new ayah comes. I’m sure you’ll see her soon, but you’ve got to go to school tomorrow.”

  He didn’t bother to reply. They didn’t know anything.

  Rangi brought him a plate of fish gravy and bread. They both ate in silence, she thinking about school and he trying not to think about it.

  Half an hour later, he lay on his mat in the darkness and wondered what he was going to name the baby. It had to be a meaningful name, he thought, with a beautiful sound to it. Not like Chandi.

  Rose, he thought dreamily. That was an appropriate name for the best friend of someone in the flower business.

  chapter 4

  ROSE AND HE WERE RUNNING THROUGH THE TEA BUSHES, PLAYING hide-and-seek. It was her turn to hide. He closed his eyes: “onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten.”

  He took his hands away from his eyes and yelled, “I’m coming!”

  He could see her yellow dress peeping out from behind the large eucalyptus tree. Even if he hadn’t seen her, he would have known she was there because he’d peeked while he was counting. He didn’t feel bad about peeking because she did it too. It was okay to peek when you were best friends.

  He started walking around, deliberately avoiding the old eucalyptus. He pretended to look behind every tea bush. He heard a giggle.

  “I hear something,” he sang out.

  The giggle was quickly muffled.

  He walked past the tree and suddenly swung around.

  “Caught you!” he shouted, grabbing a fistful of yellow cotton.

  She squealed, pulled free and ran. He followed her, laughing and out of breath. He felt he had never been so happy in all his life.

  His foot caught in the twisted root of a tea bush that snaked into the path and he fell heavily. He got up and looked around. Where was she?

  “Rose? Where are you?” he called out.

  He heard a faint giggle and he followed it. He heard it again, and sudden dread clutched at his heart.

  “Rose!” he called urgently. “Rose, come out, I won’t catch you, I promise.”

  Then he saw her. She was hiding behind The Tree.

  It was a gnarled old tea bush that the Sudu Mahattaya had wanted cut down ages ago. The Kankanipillai had not cut it down for the simple reason that he was too scared. So was everyone else in the area.

  The tree had a yakka in it, a demon. And everyone knew that it was pure foolishness to bring the wrath of the yakkas down on themselves by cutting down trees in which they dwelt.

  Only old Asilin who lived in the workers’ compound had actually seen the yakka. She had been walking home through the estate one night and had been accosted by a huge, hairy man with the head of a bull, who had foamed at the mouth and made bloodcurdling growling noises. That had people so scared they took the other path at night. There were rumors that the yakka came out to forage for humans when it was hungry.

  There had even been suggestions that human sacrifices be made to the yakka to appease its anger, but when John Buckwater heard this he had sternly forbidden any such pagan nonsense, promising dire consequences for anyone who even discussed it.

  So people gave the tree a wide berth, muttering mantras of protection if they were Buddhists, calling on a plethora of different gods if they were Hindus and crossing themselves hurriedly if they were Christians.

  And now Rose was right there.

  “Rose!” he screamed. “Rose, come here!”

  She didn’t answer.

  He started running as fast as he could toward her, his heart pounding with terrible fear. He had just found her, this small new best friend of his, and he couldn’t bear to think of her becoming an unwilling and Sudu Mahattaya–forbidden sacrifice to the man-eating half-person, half-bull yakka.

  He could vaguely hear her voice.

  “Chandi, it’s time to wake up!”

  He came awake with a start and stared in confusion at his mother bending over him. His heart still beat wildly.

  “Putha, son, it’s time to wake up or you’ll be late for school,” she said.

  He sat up. A dream, he thought in relief. Rose was safe. Then reality came like the first bucketful of cold well water. A dream, he thought in disgust.

  Of course it was only a dream. The baby was six months old and she couldn’t walk, let alone run. Her name wasn’t Rose, either. It was Elizabeth, although they called her Lizzie; she had been named after the King of England’s daughter, his mother had told him. He hadn’t seen her properly, just glimpses through open windows.

  Lizzie, he thought indignantly. What a stupid name. If they had asked him, he would have told
them Rose was a far better name. Only they hadn’t asked him.

  Six months had passed since the day it rained. Less than a week after the baby had arrived, her ayah had arrived. She guarded the baby as effectively as Buster guarded the Sudu Mahattaya’s car.

  A day or two after the ayah had come, Chandi had seen her with the baby on the veranda. He walked over casually, hoping to establish friendly relations for later visits, but she’d given him a look worse than any his mother had ever given him, and he had retreated quickly.

  He’d given up asking to visit; it only made his mother angry with him. It seemed so unfair that everyone else in the house got to see her except her best friend. And only Rangi ever told him anything.

  “Is she white, like the Sudu Nona?”

  “No, sort of pale pink.”

  Perfect for a baby called Rose. If only they’d asked him.

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Beautiful.”

  “What color are her eyes?”

  “Blue.”

  “Like the Sudu Nona’s?”

  “No, darker. Like the evening sky.”

  “Her hair?”

  “Light brown.”

  “Silvery brown like the bark of the eucalyptus tree?”

  “No, darker.”

  “Is it straight like yours and Leela’s and Ammi’s?”

  “No, it’s curly. Like passion fruit tendrils.”

  They had this conversation at least once a week. Rangi didn’t seem to mind him asking over and over again. He tried to draw a picture of her in his head, but it never came out quite right. Sometimes he felt sad that he couldn’t see her, but mostly he felt angry.

  Sometimes he talked to Rangi about it.

  “Rangi, why won’t they let me see her? All those people have been coming to visit and they’ve seen her.”

  “I don’t know, Chandi. We’re only servants, not important people like them.”

  “Do you think I should ask Ammi again tomorrow if I can go and see her?”

  She looked at him curiously and a little sympathetically. “Malli, why do you want to see the baby so much?”

  “I don’t know, because I haven’t I suppose,” he muttered.

  “Wait awhile,” she said. “Perhaps one day they’ll let you.”

  “When?” he asked hopelessly.

  “Soon.” But there was always doubt in her voice.

  “CHANDI! GET UP now or you’ll be late for school and you’ll have to walk alone, because Rangi and Leela are almost ready.”

  Chandi looked guiltily at his mother. Being such a busy person herself, she hated to see anyone daydreaming or wasting time. He jumped to his feet and rushed out to wash.

  Ten minutes later, he was ready. He had done a haphazard job of washing his face and arms and legs, but the water from the well had been freezing and he was late. He had also skipped brushing his teeth, so he grabbed his old cloth schoolbag and ran out without letting his mother ruffle his hair as she usually did each morning.

  She stood there watching him running down the hill, calling out to Rangi and Leela to wait for him. She felt a little hurt by his abrupt departure, and wondered if she’d been too harsh with him this morning.

  He was still so little, not yet five. She wished she had more time to spend with him, to listen to his childish chatter, but there was always work to be done. This job had been a blessing. No one else would have taken her three children in, no matter how efficient she was. In fact, it had only been because her uncle worked with Appuhamy’s brother in a big house in Colombo that she had this job at all.

  chapter 5

  SHE HAD BEEN BORN IN A SMALL VILLAGE IN DENIYAYA, WHAT SEEMED to be a couple of lifetimes ago. Her father did odd jobs for people, picking tea, plucking coconuts, helping to harvest vegetables or rice. Sometimes he got paid and sometimes he didn’t. Often he’d come home with a couple of coconuts, some vegetables or a small bag of rice as payment for the work he’d done.

  Her mother would sigh and raise her eyes heavenward in despair.

  Her mother made cutlets.

  She woke at three-thirty every morning, lit the fire and set the old tin kettle to boil before she began.

  Flake the fish boiled the previous night, throwing the bones out the door, where the cats would be waiting, their eyes like glowing green embers in the predawn darkness. Mash the boiled potatoes and knead them. Mix the two together, wishing she could put in more potatoes because fish was so expensive, but not daring to, in case people complained. Put in the onions, green chilies, karapincha, salt, pepper. Shape the mixture into flat little cakes which she laid carefully on a clean newspaper.

  She would pause to make herself a cup of plain tea and find a piece of jaggery to drink it with; sugar was scarce.

  Once the cutlets were coated with egg and then with bread crumbs powdered painstakingly in the huge stone mortar outside, she fried them carefully. Kalu Mahattaya didn’t accept damaged goods. By five o’clock, she would be finished.

  The cutlets would sit in a fragrant golden pile on an old wooden tray, ready to be taken to Kalu Mahattaya’s small tea shop down in the valley. By six, workingmen would start to arrive for their usual breakfast of cutlets, fresh bread and tea before catching the bus or cycling on to their various jobs.

  The smell of cutlets reminded Premawathi even now of waking up in the half light and watching her mother cooking to survive, while her four young brothers and sisters and their father slept, huddled in an assortment of old sheets, blankets and sweaters. Sometimes, she crawled over to the fire, careful to stay out of range of the popping, spluttering oil, and sat there in companionable, half-asleep silence with her mother. Occasionally, she would be given a cutlet that had burst and could not be sent to the tea shop. She would take tiny bites, blowing at it so she wouldn’t burn her tongue, wishing she could have another.

  Her mother wore a look of permanent weariness and hardship. Even the money she earned from making cutlets was never enough, and during the day she wove coconut leaves into sheets of roofing for the mud-walled, thatched houses in the area. Sometimes her fingers bled from the sharp spines of the coconut leaves and although she never complained, her mouth was twisted with bitterness and her eyes had lost their life long ago.

  But even that was not enough to feed five fast-growing, permanently hungry children. Whatever small valuables they had possessed had been sold or pawned, along with the few saris she had been keeping for Premawathi.

  The white missionaries were heaven-sent in more ways than one.

  When they came to the little Deniyaya church, talked about Jesus and urged the poverty-stricken people to send their children to the free convent schools where they would be housed, fed and taught the ways of the Christian God, they needed no second bidding. The white missionaries were a little dazed at the response they got.

  Premawathi was sent to a convent in Colombo, her brothers and sisters to another one in Galle, farther down the coast. Although she had missed her family and her thatched-roof home and the smell of early morning cutlets, she soon adjusted and spent the next ten years learning Christianity and English in the mornings, and sweeping and cleaning the convent in the afternoons and evenings.

  She was allowed to go home once a year for two weeks, and always came back depressed.

  On Sunday mornings, they were taken to worship at St. Michael’s Church, and it was there that she first met Disneris.

  He was the gardener at the church, a handsome, gentle man with a sense of humor. When he began to court Premawathi and she showed interest, the nuns were disappointed. They liked her and had thought she was excellent nun material. But Disneris was a fine upstanding young man and a good Christian, and if she was going to choose man above God, he was at least a good choice.

  They got married and moved into a small room in a boardinghouse in Polwatte.

  When Premawathi became pregnant with their first child, it was obvious that some changes had to be made. Disneris’s meager allowance from th
e church was hardly enough to feed the two of them. He reluctantly gave up his church job and got another one as a gardener at a British house in Colombo.

  Premawathi was hired as kitchen help and they lived there quite happily for the next seven months. When she was in her eight month of pregnancy, Disneris was told there was no room for a child in the servants’ quarters.

  Although he looked hard, no one wanted to hire a man with a very pregnant wife, no matter how hardworking he appeared to be, so they packed their one battered suitcase and went back to her village in Deniyaya.

  He did odd jobs. She made cutlets.

  Her now old and half-blind mother would wake up in the faint light of dawn and sit by the fire while Premawathi kneaded and mixed and fried.

  The circle was complete.

  When the other two children were born, Disneris left for Colombo to find work and finally got a job. On the fifth day of every month, a money order would arrive for Premawathi—Disneris’s tiny salary minus his own living expenses. Even with the cutlet money, it wasn’t enough. There were times when Premawathi wept herself to sleep, hungry and angry.

  When Chandi was a year old, her well-connected uncle had come to Deniyaya to visit, and told her about the vacancy at Glencairn. Two months later, she left Deniyaya with her children, promising to visit and send money every month, neither of which she had been able to do so far.

  While she desperately missed Disneris’s gentle affection and good humor, she had come to realize that love and laughter could not feed her children. Still, she lived with the hope that one day their fortunes would change and they would be able to live together as a family once more.

  Her masters at Glencairn were good to her. They looked after her and put up with her children and paid her salary on time. At least the children were well fed and educated.

  She had learned from experience to put aside feelings of bitterness and unfairness at their lot, because they only interfered with her work and made her ill-tempered toward her children.