by Roma Tearne
Meanwhile the Tamils were fleeing for their lives. Slowly they were being pushed back into the north and the east of the island; the nationalist Singhalese concentrated on campaigning against them, while unnoticed by all of them a different violence, simmering quietly in the background until now, began to boil over. It was clear to those who cared: the point of no return was fast approaching.
One morning, soon after the New Year, Bee awoke and went out to his studio. Dawn had just broken. It had been his practice to wake at this hour whenever he could. The best light, he used to tell Alice, was the early light. He remembered how the child used to follow him out, her eyes full of sleep, refusing to go back to bed. She always wanted to help mix the colour. Both of them, young and old, needed so little sleep. Today the dawn was violet and pink over the sea. Two days ago he had begun some paintings based on the etching Janake had seen. They were part of a series he had called Alice in Wonderland. The dealer from Colombo had visited him to see the new work, wanting to know what he would sell. In one painting a small child stood in the doorway of a room watching a man having his leg sawn off. Behind her was the sea, tropical and very blue. The man from Colombo had raised his eyebrows when he saw it. The painting was beautifully executed, the sea shimmered and the whole canvas glowed under the slowly applied glazes. With no hesitation, the man from Colombo had bought the painting outright, even though it wasn’t dry. He had paid Bee cash, telling him to finish the one of the fairground he was working on.
‘I’ll be back,’ he told Bee, nodding, disappearing as swiftly as he had come.
‘I wish you hadn’t called it “Alice in Wonderland”,’ Kamala grumbled. ‘Couldn’t you use some other name?’
‘Why not?’ Bee asked. ‘I’ve nothing to hide.’
‘Thatha,’ May said worriedly when she heard, ‘I admire what you are doing, but is it wise? Given the type of people who are around these days?’
May had finished work for the moment. The baby was due in February and the new house that Namil had been building further up the coast near Galle was ready. They no longer went to Colombo. Colombo had become a dangerous place and as May’s confinement drew closer, they had become more cautious. The curfew was in place again. Someone had attacked a train going up-country and two villages in Trincomelee had been razed to the ground.
‘Don’t talk to me about wisdom,’ Bee said angrily. ‘What can any of the local thugs do to me? I am a painter. A Singhalese painter. I can do what I like.’
When he had finished two more paintings, in spite of Kamala’s protests, he decided to take them up to Colombo. Because of the shortage of petrol he would go by train.
‘I won’t be late,’ he promised Kamala, seeing the look on her face. ‘Just a quick trip and then I’ll come back straight away.’
Kamala said no more. In the mood he was in she had no hope of stopping him, anyway, but she went to the temple after he left for the station. Bee was hoping to avoid the rush hour. It was the crowded trains that were dangerous, he told Kamala. The suicide bombers wanted maximum damage for their efforts.
The road was empty. The flower-laden bungalows that perched along the hillside were silent, their shutters closed. Bee could hear the soft sounds of water sprinklers behind closed gates. Pink and white oleander blossoms lined the walls. He passed Dias Harris’s house. It too was shut, for Dias and Esther were now in Colombo. They still owned the house but visited only occasionally. It’s a dead town, thought Bee, brushing past a branch of orange blossom that overhung the road from the Harrises’ garden. Perfume filled the air. When Alice had been here it had been a fine garden. Now all of it was overgrown. Seagulls floated lazily across the sky, calling to each other, swooping down on the catamarans as they were dragged on to the beach below. Gihan the station master, watering his bitter gourd, raised his head when he saw Bee approaching.
‘Ah! Bee,’ he greeted him, smiling. An early bird. Come, come!’ He shook his head from side to side, looking pleased. ‘Haven’t seen you for ages, men. There’s half an hour before the train arrives. Come and take some tea with me.’
He could not refuse without seeming churlish, so Bee followed the man into his office where the peon was making tea. Gihan eyed Bee openly.
‘Still missing the child, eh?’
He raised a hand before Bee could speak.
‘No, no, don’t say anything. I told you not to let them go, men.’
‘What was the alternative?’ Bee asked quietly. ‘Watch my granddaughter be beaten in school because she has a Tamil father?’
It was the only reference he made to Sita’s marriage. If Gihan was surprised by Bee’s bluntness, he did not show it. Instead he turned his oleaginous smile on his old friend and continued sipping his tea, considering his friend over the rim of his cup. Clearly, Bee had no idea that some months ago the rumours around him had started up again. One such rumour was that the Fonsekas were in the habit of hiding Tamil refugees trying to flee to the north. It was common knowledge that, in spite of the army’s presence in the town, several Tamils had escaped being caught.
Bee was talking to the peon in Singhalese. His Singhalese was elegant and old-fashioned. The sort of correct, grammatical Singhalese that wasn’t often heard any more in these parts. Gihan didn’t know what to think. In his opinion, Bee was capable of almost anything. It had been what he had told the plain-clothes man from the army who had visited him.
‘Yes, sir,’ he had said, ‘I have known him for a very long time. Yes, his daughter married a Tamil. No, no, they are in the UK now.’
The plain-clothes man had been very interested.
‘So they send money to arm the Tigers, do they?’
Gihan had been dubious. He didn’t think Bee and Kamala had that kind of money.
‘But your friend, Mr Fonseka,’ the man had insisted, ‘would you say he was pro Tamil policies? A threat to the government, perhaps?’
It was all a game, Gihan thought, uneasily. Boys playing a match on the cricket field; nothing more than that. But he agreed to keep an eye on Mr Fonseka all the same. For his own sake.
‘Have you heard from your daughter recently?’ he asked, now.
He wondered if Bee had any idea that he was being followed. Bee smiled. A light hovered faintly across his face.
Alice has started school. She’s learning French, imagine that!’
His voice was full of wonder. French had not been a language that had occurred to him.
And the school is taking the children to France for a daytrip.’
He shook his head, amazed.
‘Well, England is a civilised country, why am I so surprised?’
Don’t, thought Gihan. Don’t say things like that.
At least she’s getting a fine education, men. Look at it that way.’
‘Yes,’ Bee said faintly.
He stood up and walked to the door, facing out to sea, his face remote and withdrawn. He must be coming up to sixty, thought Gihan, his unease growing. What harm can he really do? He was thinking about the comments of the army official.
‘Men like him are what stop this country from progressing,’ the man had said.
‘Where are you going in Colombo?’ Gihan asked.
‘Just to see Suriesingher. Take him two new prints. Do you know what time the curfew is today?’
‘Six o’clock from Maradana to here. Can I see?’
He pointed to the small portfolio Bee was carrying.
The etchings were called Dangerous Games, 1 and 2. And both figures bore a strong resemblance to Sita. In one of the images she appeared to be balancing the skull of a buffalo with one hand, while in the other hand she carried a bowl of curd. Gihan stared. Buffalo skulls were not something found in the south of the island. Buffalo skulls and curd were a speciality of Jaffna and symbolic to those parts. In the second image Sita juggled six bags of money while screaming in terror. In the background was the Sri Lankan flag, ripped and partially obscured. The station master was genuinely shocked. Th
e likeness to the real Sita was staggering. It was as though Bee had taken a photograph, he thought, momentarily awed by his friend’s talent. The train was approaching. Bee packed away his portfolio and tied the ribbon.
‘Come and see us, men,’ Gihan called, without conviction.
Both of them knew he would not.
‘And don’t forget the curfew. The four o’clock train will be crowded. Try to get an earlier one.’
Bee nodded. He stepped into the compartment and was lost in the grime and dust of the dirty windows. Gihan waited for a moment. He waved his hand and blew the whistle. With a heavy puff of smoke the train began to pull out. He went back in to his office and picked up the telephone. Then he dialled the number on the visiting card the man from the army had given him.
When he had found a seat facing the sea, Bee opened the filthy window, using his handkerchief to do so. The carriage was almost empty. Below him was the beach, fringed by cacti and coconut trees. Most of the fishing boats were still out with the night’s catch and the sky was made transparent by a subdued sun, not quite up yet. Once again the air felt fresh with the strong smell of seaweed and ozone. A hiss and spit of waves flowed towards him, bringing with them a strong current of memory. The sense of bereavement cut deep into his flesh, its wound would never heal. Like a lost limb, he felt their absence constantly. Looking out of the window, he saw the view and the place, unmarked by his loss, unchanged by his pain, and he marvelled at the indifference of the land. The long, wide stretch of beach was completely empty. Only the waves moved, rising and falling regardless, while seagulls sailed against the rising sun. Closing his eyes, Bee began composing a letter to Alice. Across the aisle a man in a sarong picked his teeth systemically. When he had finished he stood up and spat out of the window. Then he began combing his hair with a thin broken comb. Bee opened his eyes and watched him for a moment. There was dandruff in the spaces between the greasy strands of hair. The man put the comb away and began wiping his nose. Humanity grooming itself, thought Bee, wanting to draw him but resisting the urge. The man shifted his feet. Underneath his sarong Bee caught a glimpse of army boots. The train rattled on, winding its way across the coast, rushing towards Colombo central station. Carrying Bee and his sorrow along with it.
9
SO THIS WAS SPRING, THOUGHT SITA. Soft and acquiescent, with its sudden squalls of rain, its nearly warm breezes. Birdsong pierced the air. Like love. And with their repeated call she realised she was not going back. They were here to stay. For Sita, April was indeed the cruellest month. Looking at the young green leaves sprouting everywhere, she remembered last year. In Colombo they would be celebrating Vesak. Alice was now ten years old. Silence issued from abroad. Sita had not answered her father’s first letter in the manner in which she knew he had wanted, and she had not mentioned Kunal. It was impossible for her to think of his name, let alone write it down on paper. She had no idea if her father understood, and she no longer cared what he or anyone thought. Dangling by a thread, existing by invisible means, Sita ignored May’s last letter, too. The longer she left it, the harder it became to express how she felt about her sister’s pregnancy and the birth of her baby, a boy they had called Sarath. What did she feel about her nephew? She had no idea. Working at her new occupation, sewing, endlessly altering grey trousers, turning up hems (she had begun to get some white customers, much to Stanley’s relief), Sita thought only of the next row of stitching. She seldom went out. Alice, returning after school, found her exactly as she had left her. Silent, her sewing machine whirring.
‘Is there anything to eat?’ Alice would ask, eyeing her mother, watchful.
And more often than not there was nothing. Eventually Sita would put her bright red Petticoat Lane-coat on and hurry around to the local shops, only to meet Alice on her way back from the same shop, eating chocolate.
Stanley worked late most days. He had begun to hate the house. All his plans to decorate it, to remove the dark wallpaper and paint the rooms white, had fizzled out through lack of interest. What can you do with a pokey house like this? he thought. The windows were too high to be cleaned properly, the carpets were so brown that they always looked dirty, and he had become disheartened by Sita’s lack of interest. Even the garden, if it could be called that, with its filthy dustbin and broken outhouse, was a mess. Sita refused to do anything with it, complaining it was too cold to go out there, and he had no time for it. Days passed with Sita glued to her sewing machine, leaving the house only to shop for food.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Stanley asked, fuming at her stubbornness. ‘Why don’t you go out? Why are you behaving as if you are a coolie who can’t speak the language?’
Sita shook her head.
‘It’s too cold,’ was all she would say.
‘For God’s sake,’ Stanley said, losing the temper that was always close to the surface. ‘Have you no interest in the country you’re living in?’
‘Not much,’ Sita said, refusing to be drawn.
‘I can’t cope, Rajah,’ Stanley told his brother privately, holding his head in his hands. ‘She’s going round the bend, men.’
‘Well, get her to see a doctor, then. Or leave. One or the other.’
Stanley did not know what he should do. Increasingly, the sense of alienation within his own house was becoming unbearable. Spring was beautiful but cold. In May, he would have been away from his homeland for a year, but the strange new and impenetrable atmosphere that surrounded him only drove him mad. When she wasn’t sewing, Sita spent her time washing and ironing. What the hell was there to wash so much? thought Stanley. He was being driven insane by her. Then, when he thought he would explode with pent-up rage, one Sunday morning, without any warning, she went out. One of her customers had told her about the Sunday street markets and this had interested her. She bought an A to Z of London and, armed with an umbrella against the threatening rain, she went first to Petticoat Lane and then to Brick Lane. Stanley was speechless with astonishment. Elated, desperate to find some common ground, he decided they should all go as a family. The following Sunday they took the tube and walked in the rain amongst the noisy crowds shuffling between the stalls. But the markets with their endless rows of shoes, their cheesecloth shirts, their stalls of love-beads bored Stanley. He would have liked to nip into the local pub for a pint of bitter, but Alice’s presence made it impossible. A few more Sunday trips went by and Alice began to find them repetitive. She was no longer a rebellious child but even she had grown bored with the markets.
‘Do I have to come, Mama?’ she asked Sita.
‘Isn’t it better than staying at home?’
Alice shook her head. She did not want to hurt her mother, but she preferred staying in her room, drawing. Sita shrugged. It made no difference to her. She enjoyed wandering through the rubbish-strewn streets listening to the voices of the stallholders, smelling the frying onions and beef burgers, while picking up a bargain. No one knew her, no one even noticed her, but in a strange and uncomplicated way, in spite of the dull soot-ridden rain and the lack of sun, the place reminded her of home. She could not explain why this was so. London in itself had no significance for her except as a constant contrast to her home. She walked with her sights turned inward. Occasionally, as the months went by and a stallholder, recognising her, smiled a casual greeting she raised herself as though from a dream to acknowledge this strange place that she had landed in, under the railway bridge with its roosting pigeons. Soon it became accepted that she would be out every Sunday from seven in the morning until midday. Stanley and Alice stayed in bed. By the time they woke, Sita was back and with a rare show of energy was cooking lunch.
The house now began to fill up with random objects. This new obsession had clearly replaced the one of waiting for the post, Stanley decided, not knowing whether things had got better or worse. A set of pillowcases with bright pink flowers and a pair of turquoise towels made for the beach.
‘What do we need with more towels?’ Alice asked, s
taring at them, puzzled. ‘There isn’t any beach.’
Sita unpacked some sheets.
‘But they don’t match the pillowcases,’ Alice observed.
Sita ignored her. She bought framed maps of Britain, which she put up around the house. She bought soap, boxes and boxes of the stuff. Bargain plastic containers, small Chinese lanterns, ornaments. As the weather began to improve and the Whitsun school break arrived, the house continued to fill with all kinds of junk.
Stanley was struggling. He felt he was drowning under an excess of rubbish. He could no longer have a proper conversation with his brother about the sorry state of his marriage. The only person who seemed to understand his dilemma was Manika.
‘I can’t just abandon Alice,’ he told her. ‘She is my daughter, when everything is said and done.’
Manika raised an eyebrow. Then she put holy ash on his tongue and pressed a peacock feather on his heart and slowly, in this way, summer returned.
Alice noticed how the evenings stayed light for longer. Coming home from school on these early summer days the earth had a smell that she liked and would always remember. Although now there was a small group of girls who tolerated her and allowed her to hang around them at break times, she had made no real friends. No one questioned her; no one took her into their confidence. When she heard about the new school she was going to in September, she was driven by a strong impulse to write to Bee.