The Flower Boy

by Karen Roberts

  The Burghers dressed, spoke and acted more like the British than the Sinhalese or Tamils did. They mixed freely and married freely and were regarded by the other two ethnic groups with suspicion and jealousy.

  On the other hand, while the British had brought relative peace and stability to Ceylon, they had done nothing to improve the situation of the hundreds of peasant farmers. In the north-central dry zone, people starved because of crippling droughts.

  Constitutional reforms adopted in 1931 opened up the possibility of at least partial self-government and introduced universal suffrage, which made Ceylon the first British colony in the world where men and women over twenty-one could vote. Irrigation projects were finally under way to help dry-zone cultivations.

  But the damage had already been done, and the tiny seeds of discontent had now flowered into full-blown resentment.

  For a while, both the Sinhalese and the Tamils had been content to take a backseat. But now they had begun to voice their discontent rather loudly, egged on by the influential Buddhist clergy.

  Naturally, the British were being accused of playing favorites.

  The rosy future they had envisaged for themselves was looking a bit faded at the edges although they made a valiant effort to carry on regardless.

  Many Englishmen were of the opinion that Ceylon had to be handed over to its rightful owners.

  Others professed doubts that the Ceylonese had the capability to rule themselves without ethnic problems arising, an opinion that proved insightful many times over in later years.

  Still others insisted that it was rather bad form for the Ceylonese to avail themselves of all the perks of civilized life, and then try to throw out the civilizers.

  However, they all knew it would have to come to an end, sooner rather than later.

  It was rather a grim prospect.

  This, then, was the topic of conversation at the Glencairn dinner table that night. Anne, Lizzie and William had eaten early and were sound asleep, which left the three adults free to chat leisurely over brandy and coffee.

  Elsie had not made even a late appearance, and was presumably still sulking in her room.

  John’s annoyance at her absence had long since turned to enjoyment.

  chapter 10

  AFTER THE EPISODE WITH THE MORTIMERS, LIFE WENT ON UNEASILY. The world was at war although Ceylon was, so far, out of it. It certainly hadn’t affected Glencairn, which was dealing with its own battles.

  If domestic bliss had been in short supply before, it was practically nonexistent now, with John and Elsie taking great pains to avoid each other. They circled around like prizefighters summing up each other before a knockout, with the same barely contained hostility and tension.

  John worked even longer hours and Elsie found solace in more old English magazines. They met at mealtimes, but only to eat.

  Anne was too wrapped up in her thoughts and books to notice the animosity between her mother and father. Or perhaps she chose not to notice.

  Jonathan was away at school and Rose-Lizzie noticed nothing. She was too busy continuing her education. The one that had begun in the back garden of the bungalow, and the other more formal one.

  She now went to the little British School her sister Anne went to, and was bright enough to get bored quite easily by the teachers, the children and the curriculum. She paid scant attention to her lessons and spent her school day gazing out the window, just as a prisoner gazes at freedom through the high barred window of his cell.

  She dreamed of laughing water and worm villages and other back-garden things, while the other children struggled with their lessons.

  The teachers had given up trying to get her attention, and now tolerated her dreamy manner and just made sure she got good report cards. Glencairn was, after all, one of the largest and most important estates in the hill country.

  They whispered to one another that it was a shame that John Buckwater’s youngest was, well, a little slow.

  When the bell rang at the end of the school day, Rose-Lizzie was the first out of the door.

  Ayah was still at Glencairn, much to Elsie’s frustration. John had insisted. He said she was good for Rose-Lizzie and that Rose-Lizzie was accustomed to her. He had also heard some rumors in town about Ayah’s abusive husband. Elsie had protested, but for once John had remained adamant.

  Rose-Lizzie had been expressly forbidden to play with or even speak to Chandi. But since her mother was too busy with her magazines and grievances to check, she still managed to sneak away in the afternoons.

  But it was different now. They didn’t dare play and romp through the gardens and get dirty like they had before. Now they played quiet games, sitting on the clean cement edge of the drain so Rose-Lizzie’s dresses wouldn’t get dirty and give her away. Rose-Lizzie wasn’t so worried, because after the incident with the Mortimers, she knew she could count on her father to back her up. Chandi, however, was apprehensive of her mother’s wrath. Elsie all but wrinkled her nose and shooed him away if she happened to spot him, which wasn’t often since he took great pains to avoid her.

  Even Ayah couldn’t be counted on to help these days. She was too afraid of losing her job.

  But she still remembered Chandi’s discretion during her indiscretions. So while she didn’t actually bring Rose-Lizzie to the back garden anymore, she took her into the front garden and pretended not to notice when Rose-Lizzie wandered off down the passageway.

  Chandi and Rose-Lizzie had discovered a new pastime. Talking. They talked incessantly about everything. Although they lived in the same house and slept and ate a few yards apart, their lives were as different as they would have been had Rose-Lizzie been living in England and Chandi here at Glencairn. They found each other’s lives fascinating and funny and sad.

  They had four years of separate experiences to catch up on, and they set about it with great enthusiasm.

  “YOU REMEMBER BORNING?” Chandi asked.

  “Borning? Oh, you mean being born?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean the exact time?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. How could I?”

  “I remember.”

  “When you were born?”

  “No, you.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Pour.” Like most Sinhalese-speaking children, Chandi had a problem with his p’s and f’s.

  “Ffffour. Say ffffour. Not pour.”

  “Fffffpour,” he said, spraying her face with saliva. She wiped it on her sleeve.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. But Sudu Nona, she shouted very much. Must have been big hurt,” he said.

  “Maybe she was shouting because of something else.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe that’s why she doesn’t like me.”

  “She’s your mother. She have to like you.”

  “Does your mother like you? I mean, all the time?”

  “I think so.”

  “CHANDI.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Appuhamy is so old. Do you think he’ll die soon, like Sarah’s grandmother?”

  “Sarah?”

  “She’s a girl in my class.”

  “Nice girl?”

  “I think so. I don’t talk to her much.”

  “So not nice.”

  “I don’t know. Will Appuhamy die soon?”

  “My mother say only thing sure in this life is die.”

  “So he will die soon?”

  “Yes, I think so. My mother don’t tell lies.”

  “Will they bury him like we buried the magpie that the crows attacked and killed?”

  “No, Appuhamy Buddhist. They burn him.”

  “Burn? That’s awful!”

  “So what? Already dead, no?”

  “What’s it like to die?”

  “I don’t know. Must be like sleep. When go sleep don’t know anything until morning, no?”

  “Yes, but you’d wake up if someone burn
ed you.”

  “Only burn Buddhist and dead people.”

  “ROSE-LIZZIE, WHY EYES are red?”

  “I cried in school.”

  “Why? You fight?”

  “No. We’re not allowed to fight.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s the rules.”

  “Someone hit you, then what?”

  “They don’t.”

  “But if?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I’d tell my teacher.”

  “That kelang! Telling tales!”

  “Well, what else am I to do? They hit me.”

  “Hit back.”

  “But what about the rules?”

  “Stupid rules. Stupid school.”

  “I think so too. Do you think they’d let me go to your school? Then if someone hit me, you could hit them back.”

  “Why? I teach you to hit.”

  “But I’m a girl.”

  “Still have hands, no? Still can hit.”

  “CHANDI, WHY IS my mother so angry with you?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “I heard her talking to Mrs. Dabrera and she said you were an ill-mannered urchin.”

  “What is urchin?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s anything good.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Yes you do. Your face is sad and you’re throwing stones.”

  “Why I be sad? Don’t know urchin.”

  “DADDY?”

  “Yes, Lizzie?”

  “What’s an urchin?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I just do.”

  “An urchin is a street child. Someone who usually has no one to look after him and is dirty and maybe mischievous.”

  “Am I an urchin?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “CHANDI, CHANDI!”

  “What? Very late. Sudu Nona find you here, be very angry.”

  “It’s okay. I just want to tell you something and then I’ll go.”

  “What?”

  “I’m an urchin too.”

  “Who said?”

  “My father.”

  “You told him what your mother tell?”

  “No I didn’t! I don’t tell kelang.”

  “CHANDI, WHAT’S THAT noise?”

  “What noise?”

  “That creak creak noise.”

  “Those are palangatiyo, crickets. Come out at nighttime to sing.”

  “Why not in the daytime?”

  “They say palangatiya doesn’t have nice voice like birds, so sing only after birds go sleep.”

  “Well, I think their voices are pretty. Much nicer than the birds’.”

  “Me also.”

  “YESTERDAY WHAT HAPPENED? I wait long time but you not come.”

  “I went to Windsor with Mama and Daddy.”

  “Nice?”

  “I don’t know. I like Glencairn better.”

  “Glencairn your home, that’s why.”

  “It’s your home too.”

  “No. My mother work here.”

  “Well, we just live here because my father works here.”

  “Yes, but not same.”

  “How?”

  “Your father Englishman.”

  “But he still works here.”

  “You not understand, Rose-Lizzie. Your mother tell my mother to go, we all go.”

  “But this is your home.”

  “No, your home. Or maybe not. Your home England.”

  “No, this is my real home.”

  “But your family, everyone in England. Even Jonathan go school there.”

  “I don’t care. This is my real home.”

  “ROSE-LIZZIE.”

  “What?”

  “You teach me English?”

  “But you already know English. You speak so well.”

  “Not like you.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “So you teach Chandi?”

  “All right.”

  “I teach you Sinhalese.”

  “You think I could learn?”

  “Anyone learn. Sinhalese easy, not like English.”

  “LOOK, I BROUGHT my school English book.”

  “Nice pictures. Nice colors.”

  “Yes, look.”

  “Oh, trouser. Like Sudu Mahattaya trouser.”

  “A pair of trousers.”

  “What is fair?”

  “Pair, not fair. A pair means two things.”

  “But only one trouser.”

  “Yes, but they call it a pair of trousers.”

  “Why? Only one trouser.”

  “Look, it’s got two legs.”

  “Yes, but only one trouser.”

  “Yes, so it has. I wonder why they call it that. . . .”

  “Don’t know English like Chandi?”

  “SAY ‘OYA MAGÉ yaluwa.’ ”

  “What does it mean?”

  “You are my friend.”

  “Oya magé yaluwa.”

  “OYAAA, not oya. Oya is water, like that water.”

  “Stream?”

  “Yes, istream.”

  “It’s not istream, Chandi. Say stream.”

  “That’s what I say—istream. What is ruppian, Rose-Lizzie?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask Daddy.”

  “DADDY, WHAT’S A ruppian?”

  “A what?”

  “A ruppian.”

  “You mean a ruffian?”

  “Yes, maybe.”

  “It’s sort of like an urchin.”

  “Oh. Must have been Mrs. Dabrera.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I DON’T LIKE Krishna.”

  “Me too.”

  “He’s always scratching. Like Buster.”

  “Yes. Not bathe.”

  “And he scratches in his knickers too.”

  “Knickers?”

  “Yes, here. Inside.”

  “Oh, maybe meeyya dirty.”

  “What’s meeyya?”

  “Like small rat.”

  “Does he really keep a rat in his knickers?”

  “Yes, me also.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Here, look.”

  “That’s not a rat!”

  “Ammi say rat. Ammi not tell lies.”

  “I haven’t got one.”

  “Only boys have meeyya. Not girls.”

  “Well, I think that’s very unfair.”

  “YESTERDAY NIGHT, MY Ammi is crying.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Must be sad.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe headache.”

  “Maybe stomachache.”

  “Maybe backache.”

  “Maybe leg ache.”

  “Maybe neck ache.”

  “Maybe finger ache.”

  “Maybe sad.”

  “Maybe.”

  WHILE CHANDI AND Rose-Lizzie talked, things were deteriorating in the main house. The situation between her father and mother had worsened, and even the servants were aware that there was tension between the Sudu Nona and the Sudu Mahattaya.

  Appuhamy was more privy than anyone else to the coldness and the hostility between them, but was too well trained to show it. He went about his duties with his usual impassivity and refused to discuss anything with the rest of the help.

  Premawathi was worried, and it showed in the shortness of her temper and her accelerated trips down the corridor. She was worried because changes in the domestic situation might mean changes for her.

  She was aware of the Sudu Nona’s anger toward Chandi, and went to great pains to keep him out of her way. So far she had been successful, but she knew that another episode like the back-garden one could result in instant dismissal. The strain of keeping house and keeping track of Chandi was wearing her down.

  In Colombo, Disneris’s situation hadn’t improved at all, and that too was beginning to anger her. While part of her loved him for his toleranc
e and gentleness, another part of her, the tired, angry, frustrated part, hated him for not making more of an effort to improve their situation.

  He came to Glencairn only once in two months now, because the price of train tickets had gone up. And even then, Premawathi hardly had any time for him, because she was always busy. So other than a pause to ask him how he was, and plopping a plate of something in front of him, she largely left it to the children to entertain him.

  Leela and Rangi went about their business quietly, trying to help as much as possible, without getting in their mother’s way.

  Chandi’s eighth birthday and Rose-Lizzie’s fourth had come and gone without another celebration or incident. Elsie Buckwater had decided she was having one of her funny turns and spent the entire day in bed, probably trying to forget last year’s party.

  John had gone into town the previous day and bought Rose-Lizzie a pretty baby doll with golden curls and blue eyes that opened and closed, and Premawathi had baked her a pink and white birthday cake to take to school.

  Rose-Lizzie brought home a piece for Chandi, which she gave him that afternoon.

  He sneaked into the kitchen and found a candle stump and a box of matches. They stuck the candle in the piece of cake, lit it and sang “Happy Birthday” to each other, while the golden-haired baby doll sat in the drain and looked on with wide blue eyes.

  Later in the evening, when Chandi was out walking near the garage, the Sudu Mahattaya drove in. He saw Chandi, wished him a happy birthday and gave him a little painted wooden top which spun long and beautifully. Chandi thanked him shyly and the Sudu Mahattaya said happy birthday to him once more and ruffled his hair.

  Naturally, Elsie knew nothing about the top.

  chapter 11

  IN AUGUST THAT YEAR, WHEN THE SUN SHONE DOWN HOTLY AND THE rivers and streams ran low and slow, the Sudu Nona went home.

  It wasn’t a grand exit or a bitter parting of ways. It was the natural end to a gradual decline in the marriage. It was understood that she wouldn’t be coming back, for she took all her belongings with her, including her magazines and a lot of tea.

  Anne and Rose-Lizzie were to stay on at Glencairn with their father, simply because their mother didn’t want them. Jonathan was already in England, and that was all she cared about.

  Friends were told she was ailing and needed the English climate to nurse her back to health. No one really believed that story, because England was at war and it was a strange time for anyone to go home. The climate, according to reports from London, was anything but salubrious.