The Flower Boy

by Karen Roberts

  After about twenty minutes, they veered off the road and onto a rough track. They were still climbing, and tiredness and the high altitude made Chandi’s breath come in ragged vaporous gusts. Premawathi paused and looked intently into the blackness.

  “There it is!” she said triumphantly. Chandi looked but saw nothing. His legs were wobbling so hard that he feared they might give way any minute now. Then he saw the dim light.

  She walked quickly now and soon they were at the house. Chandi stared. It was small, smaller than any other house he had seen. The kitchen at the bungalow was bigger.

  There was an old bent man standing outside, at whose feet his mother had fallen, weeping softly. He was holding a rough lamp made from a narrow-necked bottle filled with kerosene, with a hole in its stopper through which the lighted wick was inserted. The man lifted his mother to her feet and stroked her face.

  “Is she—” Premawathi asked, too frightened to continue.

  The man shook his head reassuringly. “No, but she’s very ill,” he said gravely.

  Chandi shifted from foot to foot and they suddenly became aware of him. The old man hobbled up to him. “Chandi,” he said.

  “Yes,” Chandi answered baldly, not knowing what else to say.

  “Come here, putha, come and let your seeya see you,” he said, smiling gummily. There was not a single tooth in his whole mouth. In the flickering light of the bottle lamp, Chandi saw he was almost as old as Appuhamy.

  Maybe even older. His face was deeply lined and leathery, but his eyes were still young. He was wearing a ragged sarong and a green pullover that looked as old as he was.

  Maybe even older.

  They were standing in a clearing fringed with trees, which swayed gently in the chill wind. Chandi shivered.

  “Let’s go inside,” Premawathi said. “You’ll get a cold if you stand out here, both of you.”

  Chandi followed bemusedly. Eight hours ago, he had had a father, a mother and two sisters. Now he had a grandmother and a grandfather. An aachchi and a seeya.

  He had known they existed because Ammi told him stories about them and her childhood here in Deniyaya, but they had always seemed so far away, like someone else’s parents and grandparents.

  Now they were here and so was he. He didn’t know if he wanted to be.

  It was even smaller inside. There was only one long room with a bed at the far end, two straight-backed chairs with wooden seats and a small cupboard in the middle, and a kitchen, where he stood. There were two windows on either side, somewhere halfway.

  Although Chandi’s room off the kitchen was technically smaller than this one, he considered the whole of Glencairn’s kitchen area to be his home. Sometimes even the whole of Glencairn. He had been down to Sunil’s house, but even that was huge in comparison to this.

  He gingerly stepped in, over the raised ridge by the door, built to prevent water and insects from getting in and ineffective against both. The little hearth was no more than three stones laid on the floor with sticks for kindling. By the look of it, it hadn’t been lit in quite a while. Near it, four soot-blackened clay pots and an iron frying pan were neatly turned over next to an assortment of spices and condiments in an assortment of jam jars and tins. Salt crystals covered with cloudy salt water sat in a large coconut shell smoothed by years of handling.

  He followed his mother and grandfather to the narrow bed, which had no mattress, but only a mat covering the planks of wood at its base. There was a pile of blankets on it, and underneath something stirred.

  Ammi ran to kneel by the bed, murmuring broken words Chandi couldn’t hear. A thin hand, like an ancient claw, emerged from the bedclothes and Ammi pressed it to her cheek, crying softly.

  After an eternity, Ammi began pulling off the blankets one by one.

  Like a cunning plot, his grandmother was revealed.

  She was tiny. And transparent. But she was not very old. Her hair still had black in it, but was lank and stringy like Appuhamy’s. Oil had made it clump together in thick strands, and it hung like a sad old bead curtain around her shoulders.

  Her face was thin but there was more than a memory of Ammi’s beauty in it. Her eyes were clouded with illness. She patted the bed next to her.

  Ammi gave him a small push and he sat down although he didn’t really want to. His grandmother started to speak but a paroxysm of coughing stopped her. By the time it was over, and she had regained her breath, she had forgotten what she was going to say and looked around vaguely.

  Ammi left the bedside to put the kettle on to boil.

  “Chandi, go outside and bring me some firewood,” she said. “There must be some somewhere.”

  Chandi thankfully rose and went outside and the darkness immediately swallowed him up. It was frightening because the garden was not his garden, the mountains beyond not his mountains.

  His chest felt tight and in vain he searched the darkness for the tiny pinpricks of light that meant they were not the only people in this whole world. This new world of old people and old mountains and old death-darkness.

  He ran back inside, almost tripping over the insect-and-water ridge. He picked up the bottle lamp and went back outside. Now he could make out shapes that could be anything. He determinedly pushed the fear to the back of his mind and searched until he found the stack of firewood just outside the door.

  He picked up as much as he could carry with one hand and hurried back inside.

  After his mother had spooned hot tea into his grandmother’s reluctant mouth and settled her to sleep, she began to cook. Rice and dry fish curry, which was all she could find. He sat silently near the fire for warmth and also for comfort, unaware of how many generations of children had sat at this very hearth and watched their mothers cook at this very fire.

  They ate by the fire too and afterward, he went outside with her and watched as she washed the old tin plates with water from the kalé, the huge rounded water pot with its small pouting mouth. The water was freezing and her hands, when she finished, were white and wrinkled with cold.

  They lay down on a threadbare mat and tried to sleep. It wasn’t easy because Premawathi’s thin reddha was no match for the cold that seeped through the uneven floor and into their bones. Chandi’s grandfather was curled on the bed next to his grandmother, their thin bodies offering little warmth to each other.

  chapter 17

  WHEN CHANDI WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, IT WAS TO BRIGHT SUNSHINE peeping in nosily through the open door. His mother and grandfather were nowhere to be seen. A series of racking, hacking coughs told him his grandmother was still under her blanket mountain.

  He rose and went to look at her in the daylight. Only her face was visible. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be asleep. He leaned closer to have a better look and suddenly her eyes opened. He drew back in surprise because the clouds had gone from them and he could see they were dark, dark brown. Just like Ammi’s.

  She reached out and held his hand. “Putha,” she said in a harsh whisper. “Come closer. I want to see you.” He hung back, afraid. She gently pulled his hand and smiled. “Don’t be afraid. I am your aachchi,” she whispered.

  He leaned forward. She tried to raise herself to look and began to cough again. Her body shook with the force of those coughs, which sounded more like Buster barking than a grandmother. He recoiled and watched, horrified. Finally, she fell back on the pillow with her eyes closed.

  He raced outside. “Ammi!” he shouted in panic. “Ammi!”

  She was walking up the path carrying a pot of water, which she set down and ran when she heard him. He wordlessly pointed inside. When he followed fearfully, she was bending over the bed, talking softly, soothingly.

  She turned to smile at him. “She’s fine. Just tired from coughing. We’ll look after her and make her well soon,” she said.

  Later, she boiled many kettles of water and filled an old bucket. Then she shooed Chandi and his grandfather out of the house so she could wash her mother.

>   They wandered outside. In the sunshine, it was beautiful. Now he saw that the shadows of the previous night were shadows of jambu and lovi and jak and king coconut trees. There were damson bushes with waxy leaves and blushing pink fruit, and wild gardenias that grew along the walls of the hut, making the crisp air heavy with their cloying perfume.

  To Chandi, the house itself looked like a giant house-shaped anthill. It was made from mud and coconut leaves that slipped over the walls like a too-long fringe of hair. Beyond the garden were mountains. As big, if not bigger than the Glencairn mountains. As beautiful, some more beautiful. The tea was as green and the birds sang wild inharmonious arias like a conductorless choir.

  This house had two paths too. One led to the main road. This was the one they had walked up in the dark last night. The other led from the back of the house to the well and outhouse. Chandi went to investigate the latter and found it to be like the bathroom behind the tea shop where they had broken their journey yesterday.

  When he arrived back at the garden his grandmother, now washed and wearing a fresh reddha with a thick pullover of his mother’s, was sitting on a chair in the sun. Her hair had been washed too and no longer looked old and oily and lank. She had her eyes closed, because it had been many days since she had been outdoors and even this gentle sunlight hurt her eyes behind their blue-veined lids. His grandfather was sitting under the jambu tree and chewing on a blade of grass while Ammi cooked mung bean porridge inside the house.

  Normally Chandi hated it, but now its hot, milky thickness warmed his stomach. He watched as his mother fed her mother with a spoon. This time, Aachchi’s mouth opened more readily and she smacked her gums together in enjoyment.

  Chandi’s stomach heaved slightly.

  Later, they went down to the tiny village. There was nothing to eat in the house.

  Walking down the hill in the daylight was far nicer than walking up in the pitch dark. Chandi was wearing his burgundy woollen sweater, for despite the sunshine it was decidedly chilly. Premawathi had an old cardigan on over her reddha and blouse. One of Elsie’s giveaways which she was secretly loath to wear, but she didn’t have anything else.

  They arrived at the village. It had one tiny temple, eight houses, Kalu Mahattaya’s tea shop, which was still doing good business even without Premawathi’s cutlets, and a small general store that sold everything from rice and flour to needles and stamps. They walked slowly because Chandi was busy looking around and Premawathi was busy remembering.

  “Ah! Is this Premawathi? Nanda’s girl?” The voice belonged to a short, dark-skinned man behind the counter at the tea shop. He hurried over, smiling widely.

  “Kalu Mahattaya!” Premawathi exclaimed with genuine pleasure. “Kohomada? You must be getting younger every year!”

  He beamed with pleasure and preened. “You think so? Must be all the hard work. Keeps me feeling younger than my age,” he said, running his fingers through his curly gray chest hair.

  Chandi stared curiously. He was fat and his enormous stomach hung over his sarong. The upper part of his body was bare and Chandi wondered if he didn’t feel cold. He had a round nose, a round pink mouth and round dancing eyes in a round jowly face. The man in the moon.

  “This must be Chandi,” he said, lifting Chandi’s chin and peering at him with his round dancing eyes. “Now big boy, huh! Small baby you were when I saw you last.” He looked affectionately at Premawathi. “You’re looking well too. Must be that nice man of yours. What’s his name? Disnoris? Disneris? And living in the white people’s house! Sha! Very lucky.” He beamed.

  Luck again. Premawathi fought to keep her smile firmly in place. “Well, we must be going,” she said. “There’s nothing in the house and lunch to cook soon.”

  He looked disappointed. “Well, if you must. But come again and have a cup of tea. Bring the small gentleman with you.” He stood there and watched them go, still smiling widely.

  Chandi wondered if his face didn’t hurt.

  They trudged back up the hill in silence. The two bags were heavy with rice, dry fish, onions, dhal, green chilies, curry leaves, herbs, two bottles of milk and goodness knew what else. Almost five rupees had been spent. A small fortune.

  Chandi tried to read his mother’s thoughts. He had felt her withdraw when Kalu Mahattaya had been talking to her. He tried to remember at what point exactly, but couldn’t.

  The sun was quite hot now, and the air was fragrant with wildflowers and loud with buzzing bees and other insects. They saw a few people on the way but they didn’t speak to Chandi or his mother, only stared with open curiosity, even turning to look back at them as they passed.

  When they got back, he helped move his grandmother’s chair to the shade of the jambu tree. His grandfather seemed to have disappeared.

  Ammi went inside to clean and cook lunch. Chandi stayed outside watching his grandmother, who watched the sun through closed eyes.

  Premawathi threw open the windows and swept the floor. She scooped up the blankets from the bed to wash later. They smelled of old age and illness.

  Her mother wasn’t as bad as she had thought. Premawathi had examined the phlegm she had coughed up and it was thankfully free of blood. Tuberculosis was not only incurable: death came slowly and painfully.

  This was a bad chest congestion, probably brought on by years of blowing at the little wood fire and inhaling smoke. There was no chimney in the house, and even with the door open, smoke filled the interior every time the fire was lit.

  In the old days, they used to cook outdoors occasionally, but obviously that hadn’t been done in a while.

  She swept and coughed as clouds of dust and soot billowed happily in the air, and alternated between feeling resignation and anger at her father’s incapability to do simple things like keep the house clean.

  They came from another generation, where the responsibilities of man and woman were clear. Women cooked and cleaned, had babies and brought them up. Men went to work to bring home food. Her father obviously took her mother’s duties more seriously than he did his own, she thought grimly.

  CHANDI WAS WRITING a letter to Rose-Lizzie. He wrote carefully and laboriously with his tongue peeping out of the corner of his mouth, occasionally staring at the mountains that weren’t his own as he gathered his thoughts together.

  Premawathi was exasperated and amused at the same time. He looked like a studious old man, sitting there outside the door squinting at his paper and into the distance. Other children would be running and playing in these wide open spaces, but not him.

  For two weeks, he had slouched around the house and compound, looking for all the world like some philosopher trying to discover the meaning of life. Actually, that was exactly what he had been doing.

  Coming here had made him think. Other than Appuhamy, who looked like he would live forever, he knew no old people, and he had never seen poverty like this before. It made him long for the comfort of Glencairn and made him ashamed that he did. It made him look at his mother with new eyes, for this was what she had lived like before Glencairn, and now he understood why she was so afraid about losing her job. It made him think of Leela and Rangi, and hope fervently that they would never have to live like this. And it made him hope, even more fervently, that he never had to get old.

  He finished the letter and folded it carefully. He knew the address but he had no envelope, no stamp and no money.

  He walked in casually. “Ammi, when are you going to the village?” he asked.

  Premawathi wasn’t fooled for a minute. “Why?” she asked as casually.

  “I need some things,” he said.

  “What things?” she said, without looking up from the onions she was chopping.

  “An envelope and a stamp,” he said.

  “What for?” she said, wiping away onion tears with the back of her hand.

  “A letter,” he replied, getting impatient.

  “To whom?” she said, sweeping the onions off the small chopping board and into
the large pot that sat on the fire.

  “Rose-Lizzie,” he said, not meeting her eyes.

  She looked up. He was looking down, shuffling his feet. She turned away to hide a smile. “Give it to me,” she said, “I’ll post it when I go to the village tomorrow.”

  He handed it to her reluctantly.

  Dear Rose-Lizzie

  How are you? I am okay. Are you okay? What are you doing? Do you have holidays? Did you go to the oya? Did you see Krishna? Are you lonly? I am lonly. Did you see Leela and Rangi? Did Appuhamy die? How is Buster? Does he bark very much still? How is your father? I went in his car. It is a big car. Did you eat nelli? I eat jambu. It is like nelli but not green. It is red. My grandmother is not so sick. But she is very old. But not like Appuhamy. My grandfather is also old. But he is not sick. I play in the garden. It is a big garden. And the mountains. In the night it is very dark here. Not like Glencan. I will come home when my grandmother is not sick. I saw Kalu Mahattaya. He is fat and round like the moon. He talks loud and laffs alot. Dont eat all the nelli. Keep some for me. My address is Chandi, c/o Kalu Mahattaya, Pallegama, Deniyaya.

  With love from Chandi

  Premawathi sat reading by the light of the bottle lamp. She wished she had brought Leela with her and not Chandi. Leela would have been more help and was mature enough not to get upset by all this.

  But on the other hand, Chandi would have got into trouble had she left him at Glencairn without her. She was sure of this much. Disneris wasn’t capable of keeping an eye on him, at least not like she did.

  She tucked the letter into her blouse, made a mental note to post it the next day and promptly forgot all about it.

  The next day, she changed by the well into her diya reddha. The letter fell unnoticed out of her blouse and blew into the thick undergrowth. A few days later it rained, and it grew pulpy and soft. Its words ran into one another. The dark blue ink became light blue smears. Presently, it disintegrated and became one with the soil of the unfamiliar hills of Deniyaya.