On Sal Mal Lane

by Ru Freeman

  “Can’t tell if they are good or not till we talk to them,” his uncle said at last, hitching up his loose trousers as he went inside.

  Sonna continued to watch. The boys were not muscular, they were lanky and long-fingered, their mouths full and at ease, which augured well for classifying them as victims. Yet there had been a steadfastness to their gaze when they had first seen him that confused Sonna. They had nodded, their arms full of bags and boxes filled with books, but had not smiled, which he took to mean that they, too, were able to judge character and had him pegged as a neighbor but not one they were likely to befriend. He spat into the ground. They were adversaries, those boys, though the source of their strength was not one that he could identify. The girls, too, had resisted the title of victim that he yearned to pin on them, they with their matching dresses and their laughter. They resisted it by not noticing him at all, though how was that possible? He was tall, good-looking, and strong—and standing right across the street from them! He had been standing there for hours. How could they not have noticed?

  “Fuckin’ snobs,” he said to his uncle, who had come back out to ask him if he wanted some tea. “Think they’re too good for us. Probably only wan’ to talk to the Silva boys. Probably jus’ like them. We’ll see about that. We’ll see how they manage to live here without talkin’ to us Bollings. Think they can jus’ talk to themselves?”

  “Maybe they are busy today, moving and all,” Raju told his nephew. To be proximate to Sonna when he was not happy was not something that Raju ever enjoyed; in the end he always wound up being clobbered for nothing he had said or done. “Youngest looks sweet,” he added, watching the little girl, who had abandoned her siblings and was skipping in the veranda, the rope smacking rhythmically both on the floor and on the ceiling above her. After a while she called out to someone they could not see, dropped the rope, and ran inside. Raju craned his neck toward the front doors of the house through which the children had disappeared, one by one. From inside came the strains of a piano being played.

  “Din’ even smile once,” Sonna muttered.

  Raju lowered his head, anticipating trouble. He tried to think of something soothing to say, knowing, as he had known on every other such occasion, that words would fail him.

  Sonna had accumulated a list of unhappy accomplishments: bullying his twin sisters, riding the buses without paying his fare, cutting the clotheslines in his neighbors’ backyards and rejoicing in the way everything clean turned instantly muddy, things he did without a second thought. But what he enjoyed the most was tormenting his uncle. In truth Raju, who hid the ropey muscles of a bodybuilder underneath layers of flesh, could have felled Sonna to the ground with a single swipe, but he lacked two things. He lacked what Sonna had, the idea that he deserved to be top dog, and, though this would change, to Raju’s dismay and shame, he lacked, for now, a good enough reason to fight Sonna.

  “Don’ go an’ try to suck up,” Sonna said, as Raju hung his head and listened. Sonna smacked him on the side of his head. “You’re fuckin’ retarded anyway. They won’ wan’ to talk to you, an’ I don’ wan’ to see you runnin’ after them, you hear me?” He shoved his uncle with a fist and Raju staggered back. “You hear me? If I catch you . . .”

  “No, no, what to talk, I won’t talk. Too much for me to be doing,” Raju said, unbuttoning the top of his shirt and trying to get some air down the front of his body. “I have too much to do.”

  “Too much to do,” Sonna scoffed. “You got nothin’ to do, you fool. Thirty-five years old an’ still livin’ with Mummy. Don’ even have a job.”

  It was at that moment that the Herath household erupted into “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” which proved too much for Sonna, who shoved Raju once more, spat again for good measure, and strode down the street, his hands in his pockets as he contemplated his next move. He stumbled over a stone as he went, turned back to make sure that nobody had seen, then kicked the stone into the bushes, wincing as a sharp edge caught the end of his toe.

  Raju listened absentmindedly to the music from the house across the street as he watched Sonna walk away. The voices and the piano were equally balanced and the singing was different from anything he had heard before. His immediate neighbors, the Niles family, owned a piano, and their daughter, Kala Niles, was a piano teacher, but there had never been any singing next door, just the strains of scales in quick tempo and difficult pieces of music. He wondered if the children took lessons and, if they did not, whether they would go to Kala Niles to learn. He hoped that if they did, they would not end up simply playing the same pieces over but would continue to sing as they were doing now. He turned his face toward the Nileses’ house, wondering if they, too, were listening to the new children. He shaded his eyes and took stock of Kala Niles’s rose bushes, which had just begun to show over the top of the wall that separated the two houses. At this time of day, the flowers scented the afternoon air; he tipped his head back and flared his nostrils, inhaling deeply as he listened a while longer to the voices from across the street. He felt his spirits lift. Whatever Sonna had to say about these new people, they could hardly be ignored when they sang so beautifully.

  Listening to the hymn, the Heraths’ immediate next-door neighbors, the Silvas, exchanged looks. The Herath house had been abandoned due to the joint suicide of its previous owner and Raju’s father, the tragic culmination of a found-out affair. That, and the resulting insanity of the left-behind spouse, was a hair-raising tale meant to dissuade hasty purchase and one that the Silvas themselves had told Mrs. Herath the day she came house-hunting. It was a tale that Mrs. Herath had, to their consternation, taken in her stride. Now Mr. Silva sighed audibly as he pulsed his knees together in agitation, irritated by the fervorful notes flowing out through the Heraths’ open veranda and in through theirs; the determination and flamboyance of his neighbor threatened, even on this first day, a life buttressed by a few good prejudices and much keeping-to-ourselves.

  The Silvas’ sons came into the veranda where the couple were seated. Mohan, the older of the two boys, frowned as he peered through the climbing jasmine plant that shaded one side. A bunch of flowers caught in his hair as he did so, and he pushed the vine away aggressively. A few crushed flowers fell to the floor and the veranda was filled with the sudden sweet smell of jasmine, a fragrance that instantly made all four of them think of Poya days at temple, of mounds of flowers and incense and oil lamps flickering in the dark.

  “Catholics?” he asked.

  “No, not Catholics, Buddhists,” Jith, the younger one, said. “The older boy, Suren, is in my class at school.” Jith picked up the broken flowers and arranged them in a row on the low ledge that circled the veranda; they were already beginning to turn brown. He flopped down in a chair and tapped the sides of his armrests. He and his brother had been on their way to buy some marbles, but he sensed that this, this singing, was going to delay that trip.

  “Then why are they singing hymns?” Mohan made a face that signaled that he was disturbed not merely by the fact that a Buddhist family was singing Christian hymns but that the hymns existed in the first place. He glanced at his father as he said this, searching for his approval.

  “Anyway, nice voices,” Mrs. Silva said, though she couldn’t keep the begrudging note out of her own. She could be excused, having two sons like these, neither of whom had yet revealed much artistic talent and, this being their twelfth and thirteenth years, a revelation of genius in that regard was hardly to be expected. “If there is going to be singing, then it is best that the singing is good,” she added and chuckled a little, stretching out a section of the white tablecloth that she was embroidering with pale yellow and lilac blooms that bore no resemblance to any flower grown in soil, tropical or otherwise; she cocked her head this way and that in approval of her own considerable imagination and skill.

  Mrs. Silva liked to encourage charity in her sons, though, since the encouragement was limited to words rather than actions, her efforts were not as
successful as they could otherwise have been. She felt pleased with her comment and beamed good-naturedly at her family as she returned to her sewing. So long as the Catholics and the Hindus and the Tamils and the Burghers and the poor, or any combination thereof, kept away from her family, she had always felt there was ample room to engage in largesse. Indeed, Mrs. Silva was a respected patron of the temple across the bridge and often collected old clothing to be distributed to the people in the slums. But that was the trouble with such people, she thought, the glow fading a little: they always found a way to creep into her life. The hymn seemed to rise with renewed vigor into the air and Mrs. Silva shuddered in its wake.

  Have we trials and temptations

  Is there trouble anywhere?

  We should never be discouraged

  Take it to the Lord in prayer

  “Good to have some new children in the neighborhood,” Mr. Silva said quickly, noticing her discomfort and trying, as his wife had done, to find the positive note. He prided himself on being an opinionated yet nurturing father, a fine example of a man on whom his sons could model their own behavior.

  Mrs. Silva brightened. “Yes, I suppose, at least they are our kind. Far too many Tamils already down this lane. Before long they’ll be trying to rename it.”

  “Instead of Sal Mal Lane, we’ll be living down some road with a vem at the end of its name!”

  This was said by Mohan, for he had recently begun to understand that disliking the mostly Hindu Tamil boys in school, even those Tamil boys who studied with him in the Sinhala medium of instruction, had earned him an influential clique of wealthy, cosmopolitan friends who had shunned him before. Little differences had now become his secret arsenal. Things like the smell of the gingelly oil they used on their hair, which he had deemed disgusting and unlike the dill-fragranced coconut oil he used on his own head. And, even better than his new friends at school was his sense that somehow he had earned the approval of his father, who had always seemed inaccessible, locked as he was in his firm opinions morning and night and his constant gardening in between. Lately, it seemed, Mr. Silva looked to Mohan to make the appropriately disparaging observation about the Tamils. Mohan was getting better at this by the week, his latest contribution being along the lines that the Tamils were always studying and getting the best results at school and that everything they did was for themselves and their own race, nothing at all for the school, a statement that was greeted with many a nod and numerous sighs at the dining table, as well as an extra serving of marrow bones, as if in compensation.

  Mrs. Silva named the Tamil people down the lane, unfurling a finger for each one. “Mr. and Mrs. Nadesan, who hardly say a word, those piano people, Mr. and Mrs. Niles and Kala Niles, Old Mrs. Joseph, Tamil by marriage, and her son, Raju, even Jimmy Bolling, grandmother was Tamil, after all, so in that family Jimmy and Francie Bolling, the twins, and that dreadful boy, Sonna, and then the Bin Ahmeds, they are Muslims so they might as well be counted with the Tamils. That makes a total of fifteen Tamils down this one lane!” She said this as if it were new information, not a count that she took on a weekly basis. She rubbed her fingers together as if shaking off all the Tamil people she had mentioned, and began the next count. “And Sinhalese? Until now Mr. and Mrs. Tissera and their son, Ranil, and us. Just seven! Now with the Heraths at least we’ll be thirteen.”

  “What about the Sansonis? You usually count them with us,” Jith said. He had been turning his rubber slippers inside out repeatedly with his feet, and the strap that went between the toes of his right foot popped out. He picked it up quickly and pressed the thong back in with his fingers before his mother could notice. He need not have worried.

  “Oh yes, I forgot. The pure Burghers like them are on our side,” Mrs. Silva said. “With them we will be sixteen altogether.” She smiled at Jith and settled back in her chair, satisfied with her quorum.

  Mr. Silva scratched the front of his chest through the white undershirt he was wearing in deference to the heat, and sighed again in agreement. His legs pumped a little more fiercely in his shorts. “Yes, we have certainly had a narrow escape,” he said. “I heard the Nadesans up the road had been eyeing the property for one of their brothers from India. If they had got the house we would have been outnumbered.”

  This we that was mentioned was not a group that Mr. Silva’s fellow Sinhalese neighbors, the Heraths and the Tisseras, would have liked to join had they known of its existence. It was a we that the Silvas liked to imagine existed, if things came to that, though it could be argued that the very existence of the idea was proof that such a division into a we and a them was not far from becoming fact.

  Mr. Silva sat for a while, contemplating this near miss. Each morning at work he and his friends gathered to talk about what The Tamils were demanding. A full one-third of the island for just 12 percent of the population, they said, from Mannar in the west and Pottuvil in the east all the way to Kankesanturai! And they all sipped their morning tea in amazement, shaking their heads at The Tamils. The best beaches they want for themselves, said others, though the best beaches were not owned by any person or group or institution, and there were enough best beaches for everybody in the country, which was, after all, an island.

  “Also,” Mr. Silva said brightly, leaving one concern behind to take up another, less troubling one, “it will raise the ratio of good to bad among the children at least.” The bad to which he referred were the Bolling children, with whom the Heraths were soon to be acquainted, though not in a way that Sonna Bolling could have predicted.

  They all grew quiet as they thought about the other children down Sal Mal Lane, the three older Silvas unaware that the youngest, Jith, did not share their opinion about at least one of those children, namely, Dolly Bolling. The strains of a new hymn, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” washed over the silent listeners, who grew surprisingly rapt with attention.

  “Have you gone over with anything?” Mr. Silva asked his wife suddenly, raising his voice a little to cut through the spell that seemed to have descended upon them all. “We should make sure that they are on the right side from the start.”

  Mrs. Silva clucked her tongue, pth, and put down her sewing. “Didn’t you notice that those children were here all morning while the movers were coming and going? I looked after them. I even offered to teach the girls to embroider. The older one is talented but the small one had never touched a needle. Can you imagine? A girl? Goodness knows what sort of people they are going to be. Only thing going for them is their race.”

  “Anyway, better take some plantains or something, don’t you think?”

  Mrs. Silva pressed her lips together with deep disapproval, but half an hour later she was hovering by the steps leading to the Heraths’ veranda, a tray of tea and biscuits in hand.

  “Savi? Savi?” she called, using Mrs. Herath’s first name and trying to be heard above the piano, which was now being played by one of the boys. The other children were singing yet another hymn, and so was Mrs. Herath, who, Mrs. Silva swore, had seen her standing there and still continued to warble shamelessly. “Savi!” she shouted finally, and this time felt satisfied as the music stopped, singing, piano, and all, and Mrs. Herath came out onto the veranda.

  “Ah, didn’t mean to disturb you. Lovely singing. Lovely singing.”

  Mrs. Herath smiled. “I try to get the children to sing at least once a day. It’s good for them, after all, don’t you think? The girls of course have music regularly at the convent, but the boys, you know how it is with them, the boys’ schools never do enough in the arts. We have to make sure to civilize them at home.”

  At this early stage of their acquaintance, it was not possible for Mrs. Herath to tell if Mrs. Silva might share her idea of what constituted civilized behavior. Soon enough, she would discover that just about anything her own children got up to was clearly uncivilized, that making music was just as bad as having a husband who sided with the Communists, and that much more besides would be found severely repro
achable by Mrs. Silva. Battles would be fought over boundary lines, walls would go up, words would be said, but that was still to come. For now, they were both blessedly ignorant and, therefore, naturally hoped for friendship.

  Mrs. Silva put her tray down and sat in one of the round, high-backed cane chairs that were arranged in the veranda and tried to take in as much as she could see of the interior from where she sat. The quality of furnishings, solid teak, the upholstery hand-loomed and bright, the polish on the floors, the arrangement of several lush potted plants, all of this seemed normal and appealing. Mrs. Silva frowned inwardly. Such impeccable taste in furniture and drapes did not go with hymns. Hymns went with synthetic upholstery and lace, and there wasn’t a bit of either in evidence.

  Finally Mrs. Silva spoke, setting her conundrums aside to be revisited later in the company of her husband, who could always figure these things out. “I thought you and the children might like some tea. Must not have got your cooker and everything set up yet, no?”

  Mrs. Herath reached behind her for the fall of her sari and tucked it into the pleats at her waist before sitting in the chair next to her neighbor. “Yes, my woman, Kamala, is trying to get it started but something is not working,” she said. “The wick is not picking up the kerosene. You know how it is with new things, they take time to settle down.”