On Sal Mal Lane

by Ru Freeman

  The sand and gravel driveway had been swept clean in patterns and she didn’t want to disturb it, but she couldn’t linger there or else Old Mrs. Joseph would summon her to the main house and she would never be able to tell Raju about her report card. She decided to make a run for it, but did so along the zigzag path made by the broom, so she would make the least possible disruption before arriving at the garage, where, she hoped, Raju could be found. She was elated to hear his grunts and the thud of bar bells. Raju’s weight lifting generated a sound that the Herath children had, as all the children of Sal Mal Lane had before them, grown to find comforting. Behind his mother’s gray painted gate, at the end of the sand and pebbled driveway, inside the garage that had never sheltered a car, Raju grunted and heaved and dropped weights so reliably that it had become the music of their last games of cricket, their last run down the lane with their kites, or their last whispered conversations with their new friends, before they had to go back into their respective houses. For Devi, so full of need at this particular moment, the familiar sounds were like a favorite bit of music.

  The front of the former garage was a wall with a door that was set into one corner. She knocked on the door and waited, clapping her hands together several times very softly as she listened for a response.

  “Coming! Coming!” Raju yelled from inside before he opened the door.

  Devi considered the possibility that this was one of those moments when her mother would have said that she, Devi, had lost her common sense. For there stood Raju not merely in the same exercise trunks in which he had first greeted her and Nihil when they moved in, but, additionally, glistening with what appeared to be oil and sweat, rivulets dripping down from his hairline and his belly. The trunks were soaked. She arched her body back slightly at the pungent odor that permeated the space, but before she could think of an excuse to leave, Raju spoke.

  “Devi! Come come come! Come inside and sit!” he said, looking past her and then seeming to accept the fact that she was, indeed, alone. He cleared a space for her on a rattan chair that hung from a rafter at one corner of the garage, moving ceaselessly as though fearful that she might leave if he stood in one place. “My goodness. Didn’t expect a visitor. Normally don’t come, no, normally only I come to visit your place. Mummy’s home?”

  Raju always referred to her mother as mummy whenever he spoke of her to them. Even though Rashmi had told him several times that they did not call their mother mummy but, rather, Amma, like good Sinhalese children should.

  “Don’t know,” Devi said, realizing that she had been gone for a while between the visit to the Bolling girls and the one to Lucas, and that it was quite possible that her mother had come home already from her after-school classes. She regarded Raju, who had sat down on the top of two steps leading down into the garage from the backyard of the house. He wiped himself with a towel, mopping his face and chest and under arms that were thick with hair.

  “I came to tell you that I got six A’s and three B’s,” she blurted out because, though some bit of good sense and intuition was telling her that her presence here alone was entirely inappropriate, she couldn’t help but deliver her news. “That’s the first time that I got such good marks. They all taught me, that’s how. Otherwise, I usually only get an A for English and an A for social studies because those are the only ones I like.”

  Raju’s eyebrows arched in wonder. “Ah? Really? Now you get such good marks? From a school like that, with all those good teachers, such good marks are a big thing, you know.” His mouth turned down even farther than usual to express the degree of awe that he clearly felt. “You must be very proud. Mummy also must be proud. And Daddy must have got you chocolates and everything? Ah? Got chocolates?” Raju smiled.

  Raju’s smile, despite the grotesque nature of its separate parts, conveyed genuine gladness, and Devi concentrated on that. She could no longer smell the stench that had repulsed her before, and now that Raju’s towel was draped across his knees and covered the lower half of his body, he looked as though he was halfway dressed. She relaxed into her chair and answered him.

  “I didn’t get chocolates, but Nihil said that later after homework, he would give me two of his Marie biscuits when we have tea. And I am sure if he gives me two, then Rashmi and Suren will give me two also. Then I’ll have six. Plus I’ll have my five and that way I will have eleven Marie biscuits!” She grinned at the prospect.

  Raju shook his head from side to side, obviously as delighted as she was about the bounty that awaited her. “Now what can Uncle Raju give you? I must also give you something. I’m also proud of you. Such a small girl and you have done such a big thing!”

  Devi’s fears evaporated and her grin widened. This was exactly the kind of reception she had hoped for and been unable to secure from Rose or Dolly or Lucas. Here was a person who understood the magnitude of her achievement. She drew her legs up and tucked them under her, then reached out and pushed herself off the solid punching bar that had been mounted on the side of the post next to her. She swung back and forth, content.

  Raju Refuses to Be Demoted

  If in the wake of Devi’s newfound status as a sibling worthy of her older brothers and, especially, older sister, all that happened was that Rashmi no longer had to murmur in commiseration on those occasions when she had to go to the staff room to deliver a message and when Sister Helen Marie drew her aside to share some misdeed traced back to Devi, or when Miss Atukoralé beckoned her over to show her the ugly script that Devi had produced, Rashmi would have been satisfied. But no, Devi’s good work at school had resulted in her turning into a peregrinating menace at home. The tale of her crossing the road without permission and all that had followed had been relayed to them by Sonna, who came right up to them as they played French cricket to share the details:

  —One of his friends had told him that Devi had almost got hit by a bus when she ran across the main road to see Lucas. The fact that the bus was a 109 had seemed particularly relevant, as if the gods themselves had sent the rarely seen bus as warning.

  —Lucas had served her drinks.

  —She had spent half an hour visiting Raju, who, they all must know by now, was not to be trusted.

  Whether Sonna shared all this out of real concern for Devi’s wellbeing, or whether he shared it because he knew, everybody down the lane knew, how closely the older Herath children, but particularly Nihil, guarded their younger sister, or whether he wished to get Raju and Lucas into trouble, the Heraths could not decide. Nihil believed fervently that it was the second of those reasons. Rashmi believed just as ardently that it was the last of those reasons. Nobody imagined that it was the first reason, that Sonna was genuinely concerned for Devi, that having already saved one Herath child from an accident, he felt responsible for the safety of another as well, particularly this one who had sat and shared her important news with him. Nobody thought that Sonna had, himself, been just as terrified as Nihil might have been to see Devi cross the road with the frail old Lucas, and to realize that she had, indeed, gone across that road by herself. To believe that would require the sort of generosity that Sonna had not had enough opportunities to earn and, in any case, everybody was more concerned with Devi’s safety than with the bearer of the news, and so Sonna went back to his house without so much as a thank-you, all the Heraths turning away, intent on demanding an explanation from Devi. Even Devi, Devi on whose behalf he had quarreled with Sunil after having been caught stealing the bottle of strawberry milk for her and on whose behalf he had then earned a beating from his father when the incident was reported to him, even she did not look at him once.

  “I told you to stay,” he said, making one last effort, this time to place himself alongside the older Heraths, to speak as an older brother might.

  And in response, instead of an explanation as to why she had left, her eyes welled up at his having betrayed her to her siblings. This confused Sonna so deeply that he took to his bed for the rest of the day, refusing food until hi
s mother suggested a doctor, at which point he sat up in bed and yelled at her and everything went back to the way it had been before.

  Even the Silva boys who had gathered, along with Rose and Dolly, as Sonna spoke, were shocked.

  “Even I don’t cross the main road without Mohan,” Jith said, as he bounced their ball on the ground.

  “It’s hard even for me. Even I’m scared when I cross that road,” Mohan conceded, and when all the children seemed taken aback by this statement, he added, “Even for you, right, Suren? You’re scared too, aren’t you?” All three of the older Heraths nodded in agreement. Yes, yes, yes.

  “Did you really go to all those places?” Dolly asked. She caught the ball when it bounced out of Jith’s reach and smiled at him as she returned it.

  “Mad Raju’s house, that’s the worst,” Mohan said. He would have said more but he saw Mrs. Herath walking up the road and so he only said, in warning, “Your mother’s coming,” and the children dispersed and resumed their game, for no more could be said in her hearing.

  The kind of end that might have awaited their youngest sibling from the wheels of the buses and cars that traveled at such speed around the blind bend to the right of their lane, or the ingestion of water not sufficiently boiled, for they assumed that it had been tea that had been served to her by Lucas, and Devi would share no details, were as dire as what they feared might have happened to Devi should their mother discover that she had visited any of these places without a chaperone.

  “Why would you do such a thing?” Suren asked as they took up the issue again the next day. He looked particularly serious with his hands tucked into the pockets of the khaki longs he was wearing, having just returned from a dress rehearsal for a school production of The Sound of Music in which he was playing Friedrich.

  “You know none of us is supposed to cross the road!” Nihil said, his voice close to tears. He was so glad that she had returned to them intact and safe that he stroked her head, but roughly, his anxiety about her obvious disregard for what might have happened getting the better of him and making him want to pull her hair instead.

  “You are not to leave my sight,” Rashmi added sharply, wondering simultaneously how this was going to be arranged and whether she should have said “our,” not “my.”

  Suren joined the older Herath children. They were united in their disapproval as they sat in a row on his bed, which had been freshly made with sheets that the dhobi had brought just that afternoon in a crisp stack of starched laundry, all of it tied up in newspaper and twine. Devi glared at them from Nihil’s bed, where she, defiant though she was, could not help caressing the yellow-and-white-striped bedding; it was so smooth and clean and she needed its tactile comfort. Rashmi, observing, knew that this lack of repentance was not to be taken lightly. She turned to her brothers.

  “We have to make sure that she is never away from us,” she said. “Never. When she’s in school, I will watch her, when we are home, we will all watch her.”

  “You can watch all you want. I’m big. I can also walk up and down the lane. Just like you,” Devi said, crossing her arms in front of her chest and scowling.

  Devi was the picture of impenitence as she sat before them, her eyes set, but Nihil could tell that tears were being held back though she would never let them fall, not in the face of this kind of berating by her siblings. He wanted very much to help her out of the corner into which she had painted herself, to say something kind, maybe take her hand and say it’s okay, so she could cry and promise not to disobey their rules, but he held firm.

  “No,” Nihil said, thinking only of her safety, “you are not allowed to go anywhere without us.”

  “You can’t stop me,” Devi said. “I can go right now!” And she stood up. Nihil stood too, and pushed her back down onto the bed, his palm on her belly.

  “No, you can’t,” he said. “If you do we will tell Amma and Tha what you did and then you will be in real trouble. Do you want to be in real trouble? Because even I won’t help you if that happens after this.”

  Rashmi looked approvingly at Nihil, whose contributions to these kinds of discussions usually led to his taking Devi’s side so she ended up feeling championed rather than punished. “Yes, that’s exactly what we’ll do,” she said. “None of us will help you.”

  Suren laced his fingers together in his lap as though in meditation. He said, “We are proud of you and your report card, but you are still small. You cannot run all over the place without telling us, okay? Okay?”

  “Okay,” Devi said, still pouting.

  “And you can’t go and visit that half-naked Raju,” Rashmi added. “Okay?”

  Devi did not agree, no matter how many times Rashmi said “Okay?” and this, too, was troubling to her. If Devi hadn’t agreed to this specific demand, she clearly did not feel bound to obey, and if that was the case, what was the point in the larger promise of curtailing her activities?

  Despite their initial reaction, with Suren increasingly wrapped up in his rehearsals, maths tutoring, and music lessons after school, and Nihil satisfied, it seemed, to gain a confessional relief from sitting with Mr. Niles and unburdening all his worries and tales about Devi’s bad behavior to him, Rashmi felt decidedly alone in her crusade against the relationship between Devi and Raju. Over the next months, she had many chances to be reminded of her failure to elicit the right response from Devi—yes, she would not visit Uncle Raju—as Devi was located and hauled back home, the last time by her ear as she yelled Uncle Raju is my friend! as she was dragged away from Raju’s garage, as soon as he had shut the door, and toward their own front gate. Which is why Rashmi felt that the matter had to be taken to the source of their troubles.

  Visiting Raju was not something Rashmi would willingly have undertaken unless every other avenue had been explored. While all of them either knew or suspected that Raju was that curious mix of kind but mentally disabled and, therefore, untrustworthy adult, it was Rashmi who was comfortable with the idea of rejecting Raju wholesale. Something about his unaesthetic physicality and sense of coming undone irked her orderly mind. She was only willing to concede good so long as its human form stayed far away from herself and her siblings. After Raju had come to hang over their decorative white gate, bordered on each side by a high-growing hedge, and talk to their mother while she watered her plants in the evening, Rashmi had to fight the urge to send Kamala out to wipe down the gate. When he was served tea, she made sure that it was poured into a special cup that she had marked on the bottom with a smear of red nail polish she borrowed from Rose. When he stood just inside his gate and watched them play French cricket, she tried as often as she could to hit the ball hard and fast toward his gate until he backed away and went inside his garage to lift weights. To realize then that Devi was so pleased to disobey her older siblings just so she could spend time with Raju was more than Rashmi could bear.

  “Uncle Raju gave me sugar sticks from Koralé’s shop,” Devi boasted. “I sat in the swinging chair and ate them.”

  “Why did he buy you those things? You aren’t a beggar. You don’t need things like that from people like him,” Rashmi said.

  “Rashmi, you are jealous because he likes me best and won’t bring sugar sticks for you. Next time I’ll save one for you. Uncle Raju is a good person.” And Devi skipped away up the road, her rope snap-snapping in time as she relived the sensation of the chalk-shaped sweet in her mouth, the way it dissolved in sections as she sucked on it, the taste of sugar lasting until the very end.

  Well, there was not going to be a next time, Rashmi decided, as she sat Devi down between her brothers, whom she had summoned from their respective preoccupations for this occasion, and left to go and speak to Raju herself.

  The thuds from inside the garage were now muffled by a thick length of foam that Raju had secured from somewhere to line his floor. The foam was yellow with brown stains and gave off an impression of damp that nauseated Rashmi as she stood at the door, staring at Raju’s surpri
sed face.

  “My goodness! New visitor today! Come come come. I will have to make a nice place in this corner now for all you children,” Raju said, backing away from Rashmi and pointing to the corner where the swinging chair hung motionless and expectant. Rashmi pictured Devi curled up into that seat. Underneath the chair there was a fine dusting of powdered sugar and, already, a row of ants were marching toward it from a crack in the floor by the door to the garage. One wall was dedicated to posters of Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali, a particularly large one of the latter with the phrase flies like a butterfly and stings like a bee written in a white flourish over his black body. They, like Raju, were bare-bodied. Unlike Raju’s, their lower garments were decorous.

  Rashmi put out her hand, palm up. “Raju . . . Uncle Raju, I have come to discuss something important.”

  Raju’s face recreased to depict both alarm and concern. “Why why? What has happened? Tamil people coming? Mama said they are going to start a big war in the North! She said they’ll come here too. But how to come? We’re already here, no? But your daddy, he must be knowing something else, no? Government and all? Tell tell, Uncle Raju will put on a shirt and come.” He took a few steps and then came back and smiled at her, a little sheepishly. “Now that I am friends with your family, I don’t go anywhere without khakis and short-sleeved shirt, you must have noticed, no? Only inside I dress like this. For the body building.” He laughed and disappeared again, calling out over his shoulder, “Wait here, wait here.”

  Rashmi imagined him wagging his head as he went. She smoothed the back of her skirt before she sank into the hanging chair; it was one of her best skirts, a maroon velvet one, and she had put it on with the hope that it would make her seem even more stern than she planned to be. Carefully avoiding the ants, she left her feet, safe in their black ballet flats, on the ground, so the chair did not make its rocking motion. She also did not lean against its back. She fiddled with the white silk collar of her blouse.