by Roma Tearne
‘The neighbours came out of the houses then and pulled me away,’ she said.
They had been fearful she might throw herself on to the flames. By the time the ambulance came he was beyond help.
‘Luckily,’ said Mrs Mendis, lowering her voice, ‘my son Jim was somewhere else and did not see his father’s life as it left this world.’
Lucky Jim. ‘He had been so close to his father,’ she said. ‘The shock is still with him.’
Only the girl had been at home. Mrs Mendis wasn’t sure how much she had seen. Always quiet, she became mute after that.
‘She’s difficult,’ said Mrs Mendis, ‘obstinate and odd.’
Theo Samarajeeva, who had not meant to stay for long, looked around for escape. There was no sign of Nulani, but something about the stillness of the air made him certain she was listening.
Walking home he turned several times, convinced he was being followed. But the road was empty. The air was choked with the heavy scent of frangipani. As he entered his house he noticed Sugi had lit some oil lamps. Theo could see him fixing a few cheap Chinese lanterns to the trees. He poured himself a whisky, and was still listening to the ice crackling in the glass when he saw her. Standing in his doorway holding out a branch of blossom, the rich scent filling the room, her smile wide, her eyes as bright as the new moon.
She came almost daily after that, before school, after her evening meal, at odd unexpected hours, nearly every weekend. A notebook was filling up with small studies of him. Sometimes she showed him what she had done. She seemed to be trying to record every slight movement of his face, he thought, amused. Such was the minute detail of the drawings. He was astonished by her perception. Thin pencils, stubs of charcoal, delicate brushstrokes, whatever she used, all had the same fluid quality, the same effortless logic as they moved across the page. Each time she showed him what she had done, he was astonished all over again.
‘Nulani,’ he asked once, after looking at these drawings for a long time. ‘Why me? Why draw me? Why not someone younger, your brother’s friends perhaps?’
He was genuinely puzzled. But she had only laughed.
‘Wait till you see the painting!’ she promised.
Now he watched her as she drew him from the corner of the veranda.
‘Why don’t you sit somewhere better, child?’ he asked again. ‘You can’t possibly see me clearly from where you are!’
‘I don’t want to see you, Mr Samarajeeva. I’m learning to draw you from memory.’
‘Will you please stop calling me Mr Samarajeeva.’
‘OK, Mr Samarajeeva.’
He never knew if she was teasing him. He had a feeling she could read his mind, that she liked to make him feel older than he felt already, because it amused her, because in fact his age made no difference whatsoever to her.
‘I want to be able to draw you from memory, with my eyes closed,’ she said, ‘so I will never forget you.’
Startled, he stood up. Sugi came in to announce lunch was ready. Lunch was some fresh thora-malu, seer fish, from today’s catch.
‘When will you start painting?’ he asked while they ate. A small beam of sunlight fell on her face. Her skin glowed with a sheen of youthfulness. Through the curtain of thick hair her eyes were as bright as a pair of black cherries. He thought of all the years of living that lay between them, as heavy and as sweet as a piece of sugared coconut jaggery, irreplaceable, unexchangeable, for ever between them.
‘I have already started the painting, but I must draw more. Can I come here and paint?’
Theo laughed. ‘At this rate you will always be here. What will your mother say? She won’t be happy with that idea. She must want to see her daughter sometimes.’
‘I want to be here all the time,’ she said.
Theo looked at her. The beam of sunlight had moved and rested on the top of her head. Her hair was a sleek smoky black; it reminded him of the blue-black cat he and Anna had once had, in that other life. But all he said was: ‘I have to go to Colombo tomorrow, is there anything you need? Any paints I can try to get you?’
He did not tell her that he had done no work since she had been drawing him; he did not tell her that her presence in his house, like a beautiful injured bird, was distraction enough without the drawing. London seemed far away.
‘Has your mother seen the painting?’
‘No. Amma, my mother, worries too much all the time. She doesn’t have time to look.’ She seemed to hesitate. ‘Her worry is because she hopes.’
‘She hopes?’
‘She hopes things will not get worse than they already are. She hopes my brother does not leave, go to England. But she also hopes he does go because he will have a better life there. She hopes she will never see the things she saw once. So she does not look.’
It was the first time she had made reference to her father’s murder.
‘We are not like you,’ she said.
‘But you paint,’ said Theo, ‘you still look.’ And he thought how it was, that this beautiful place, with its idyllic landscape of sea and sky and glorious weather, had lost its way. Both through the lack of human intervention and, also, because of it. How many generations did it take before all the wondrous things of the island could be described again? Twenty years? Fifty years? Would a whole generation have to grow and be replaced before that could happen?
‘You must never stop looking,’ he said firmly. ‘Never. Even when it becomes hard you must never stop. Also, you are a woman. It is important for women to do something about what they see. Only then will there be change. My wife was like that, she would have loved your drawings.’
‘Your wife? Where is she?’
‘She’s dead,’ said Theo.
He kept his voice steady; surprisingly he did not feel the usual sharp stab of bitterness. The beam of sunlight had moved and now shone against the edge of the huge mirror that stood above the Dutch sideboard, reflecting the fine golden sea dust that foxed its surface. Sugi came in with some mangoes. The afternoon heat, dazzling and yellow, was at its worst. It stood in abeyance outside the open door.
‘What was her name?’ asked Nulani, after Sugi had gone.
‘She was called Anna.’
He noticed they had both slipped into their native Singhalese. Was pain easier to deal with in one’s mother tongue? Nulani was thinking too.
‘My brother has a long scar on his leg,’ she said.
When he cut it he had cried. She could remember how his leg had bled, she told Theo. The blood had poured out like rain.
‘There was no blood when Father died. After the ambulance took him away to the mortuary I went back to look at the road. I wanted to see the black dust. It was his dust, his body dust. That was all there was of him.’
She had rubbed the palm of her hand in it, she told Theo, until someone, some neighbour, had pulled her away. She still knew the exact spot where it was. There was a traffic island there now. It was her father’s headstone. It was her scar.
‘You have a scar, no?’ she said. ‘While I have been drawing you I have felt it. It is all over you, no?’ She traced the shape of his spine in the air. ‘It is under your skin, between the backbones,’ she said.
‘It was a long time ago now.’
‘Is that why you came back?’
‘No, yes…partly.’
‘It will get better here,’ said Nulani softly.
She was too young to give him firm comfort but her certainty, though fragile, comforted him anyway. He was twenty-eight years older than her. Mango juice ran down her arm as she ate. Her lips were moist. Anna would have loved a child, he thought. Her generosity would have rushed in like waves, enveloping Nulani. Why had they never come here when Anna was still with him? Fleetingly, he thought of his old home in London, with its books and rugs and old French mirrors that filled the apartment with the light that was always in short supply. How different it was now, where they shuttered out the light instead.
The sun had moved away
from the glass as they finished their meal and Theo lit a cigar. Nulani was fidgeting, wanting to get on. She remembered she had to go home. Her uncle, her mother’s brother, was coming to see how his niece and nephew were. He was all they had for a father these days.
‘Sugi will clear the space at the back for you to paint,’ said Theo finally. ‘You can come any time you like, but I shall be in Colombo tomorrow.’
He waved, watching her walk away, the dust from the garden washing brown against her open-toed sandals.
After he had cleared the room Sugi polished the floor with coconut scrapings. He rubbed as hard as he could, using first his left and then his right foot until the house smelt of it and the floor shone like marble. Then he went outside into the backyard and chopped open a thambili, an orange king coconut, and drank from it. After that he went back to work. There were several jobs he hoped to finish before Mr Samarajeeva returned from Colombo. He liked to surprise him with some small task or other well done. Last time it had been the fixing of the stone lions to the garden wall. The time before that he had painted the shutters.
Mr Samarajeeva was always weary when he returned from Colombo. He looked as he did when Sugi had first seen him, on the day he came to live here, walking from the station with his bags, a piece of paper in his hand, the address of the beach house on it. He had asked for directions and Sugi had brought him to the house, and stayed ever since. At the time he thought Mr Samarajeeva was a foreigner, in his fine tropical suit, with his leather suitcases and his hat. But then Theo had spoken to him in their mother tongue with such fluency that Sugi had grinned.
‘I have been away a long time,’ said Mr Samarajeeva. ‘But my Singhala isn’t bad, is it?’
He had wanted Sugi to work with him, help him set up his life here in the house. He would need some cooking, some domestic chores and some house maintenance. Could Sugi manage all that? Sugi could. As there was no one else to talk to, Mr Samarajeeva talked to Sugi. When his things arrived from London he unpacked them with Sugi and talked about his life there. He unpacked several framed photographs. They were of the same woman, blonde, curly-haired, smiling at the camera.
‘My wife Anna,’ he told Sugi.
Then he unpacked his books. There seemed to be hundreds of books. There were other things from his old life. Later Sugi found out more about his wife. He tried to imagine the type of woman who had collected all these things. The mirrors, the plates, the cutlery. She must have been a fine woman, thought Sugi. When he found out Mr Samarajeeva was famous, the books he had written, and soon the film, he felt it his duty to warn him. These were troubled times. Envy and poverty went hand in hand with the ravaged land, he said. Even though he was a Singhalese, Mr Samarajeeva should be careful. His sympathy for the Tamil children was too well known. The house should be made more secure. Locks were needed for the shutters and the doors. The garden wall needed to be repaired in order to keep intruders out. Sugi made a list. Theo smiled lazily. He did not stop Sugi but he did not care much either.
‘Sir,’ said Sugi genuinely puzzled, ‘you don’t understand. There can be sudden outbreaks of trouble here. When you least expect it. You must be careful. People know who you are and they talk too much in these parts. It’s not as you remember, no?’
All this was before the Mendis girl started visiting. Sugi knew the family.
‘The boy is the only son, Sir,’ he said. ‘He is arrogant, and clever. There is talk of him getting a British Council scholarship in spite of what happened to the father. The father was warned several times, you know. Before they killed him, they warned him. But he was a fearless man who spoke out against the injustice done to the Tamils long ago. So, even though he was warned, he ignored the warnings.’
He paused, remembering.
‘He was an educated man, too. He wasn’t a fool. But in the end it did him no good. He was very handsome, and he had strong principles. Always campaigning for the Tamil underdog. What they did to him was a terrible thing. But you know, Sir, he should have been more careful. Someone should have advised him. That silly wife of his, someone.’
‘And the girl?’ asked Theo.
‘Oh, the girl looks just like him,’ said Sugi, misunderstanding. ‘But you know the whole family is being watched now. They were never popular. And the boy is very selfish. He is only interested in himself.’
It was clear Mr Samarajeeva was not interested in the boy, thought Sugi, disapproving of the girl’s visits.
‘She comes here too often, Sir, now,’ he warned. ‘There are certain people in this town who are very interested in that family.’
She was friendly enough, thought Sugi, but still, she might bring trouble with her. Someone had once told him she had stopped talking after her father died, but from what he could hear she never stopped when she was with Theo. Her drawings, he reluctantly admitted, were another matter. They were good. Sir had them scattered all over the house and now, in this latest development, the girl was going to work on Mr Samarajeeva’s portrait in the house. Sugi shook his head. He could not understand how the mother could care so little that she let her daughter wander around in this way. How could a respectable Singhalese woman be so negligent? Rumour was that Mrs Mendis had become unhinged since the tragedy. But then, thought Sugi, going off on another track, everyone is strange nowadays. The things that had happened in this place were turning people mad. It was not possible to have normal lives any longer. It was not possible to walk without looking over your shoulder at all times. Without wondering who was a friend and who a new enemy. Fear and suspicion was the thing they lived off, it was the only diet they had had for years. Almost every family he knew was touched in some way by the troubles, living with the things they were too frightened to talk about. There was no point, no point to anything. One just waited, hoping. Dodging the curfew. Hoping not to put a foot wrong, thought Sugi, hoping not to tread the rusty barbed wire hidden in the sea sand.
A few nights previously Sugi had cautioned Theo again. Not that it was any use, but he had tried.
‘You must not walk on the beach when there is a curfew. The army is watching. Or if they are not, then there are thugs who will watch for them. Believe me, Sir. And another thing, you shouldn’t have given your talk about your book at the schools. They won’t like that.’
‘It is no way to live,’ said Theo Samarajeeva frowning. ‘No one owns the beach. Sugi, there are many countries all over the world that have trouble like this. We must not give in to the bullies.’
‘Ours is a very small country,’ Sugi said, shaking his head. ‘No one cares about us. Why should they? Only we care about the differences between the Singhalese and the Tamils. No one understands what this fight is about. We hardly understand ourselves any more.’
Theo nodded. He brought out his pipe and began tapping it.
‘When the British brought the Tamils here from India, some people thought they brought trouble to this island,’ Sugi said.
Theo was trying to light his pipe but the breeze kept whipping the flame so that he had to turn away. Sugi continued to stare into space. When he spoke at last he sounded agitated.
‘What is wrong with us that we behave in this way?’ He watched as Theo struggled to relight his pipe. ‘Isn’t it possible for us to solve this thing peacefully?’
‘It will take longer than we think,’ Theo said, He put his match into the ashtray Sugi handed him. ‘Why should the world care, Sugi?’ he asked gently. ‘We aren’t important enough for the British any more. And unlike the Middle East, we have no oil. So we can kill each other and no one will notice. That’s why things will take longer than we think.’
He knew from his life in England, people thought Sri Lanka was a place spiralling into madness; and yes, he thought, it was true, no one cared.
They had taken to having these conversations in the evening when the curfew was on. The girl never came after the curfew. Sugi was thankful that at least her mother had the sense to keep her in at night. So Theo had only Sugi t
o talk to. Sugi was always careful to keep a respectful distance from Mr Samarajeeva during these discussions. Occasionally he accepted a cigarette or a beer but never anything else. He stood a little away from the chairs; he would never accept a seat. Sometimes he squatted on the step, the end of his cigarette glowing in the dark.
‘I would like to see England,’ he said one night. ‘I think the people there are not like us.’
‘No, they’re not. But they have their own problems, Sugi, their own battles. Just as pointless in their different ways. And I never really felt I belonged there.’
‘Even after all that time, Sir?’
‘No,’ said Theo with certainty. ‘These are my people. This is where I belong.’
But Sugi was doubtful.
‘Don’t mistake our friendliness, Sir. We are Buddhists but these days we have forgotten this,’ said Sugi. ‘We are quite capable of killing. It isn’t like before. When you were last here. Things are complicated now. These days we don’t know who we are.’
Theo nodded in agreement. ‘They should have known it wouldn’t end simply,’ he murmured.
‘Who? The Tamils?’
‘No, Sugi,’ Theo said. He sounded sad. ‘I mean those who conquered us. I mean the British. Their presence casts its shadow on this island. Still.’
‘Cause and effect, Sir. Just as the Buddha said.’
But Theo was following his own thoughts.
‘Why are we surprised by this war, Sugi? Has there ever been a country that, once colonised, avoided civil war? Africa? India? Burma?’
Night flowers appeared everywhere in the garden, blooming in ghostly clusters, their branches pouring scent into the air. Frogs croaked, small bats moved silently in the trees, and here and there, in the dull light of the lamp, silvery insects darted about. On one occasion Sugi shone a torch into the undergrowth, convinced a nest of snakes lurked close by. He advanced with his axe but then the moon had gone behind a cloud and he could not find a single one. At other times, on certain nights, suddenly there were no sounds at all. No drums, no radios, no sirens. Nothing moved in the darkness and at such moments Sugi’s nervousness would increase. The silence, he complained, was worse than all the noise, the atmosphere created by it, terrifying in a different way. Suspense hung heavily in the air; at such moments anything could happen. For in Sugi’s experience, most murders were committed in the lull before the full moon. Whispers alighted as softly as mosquitoes on unsuspecting flesh; whispers of torture. And the smell of death brought the snakes out. Theo listened to Sugi’s fears without speaking. But then, sometimes, on these faceless nights, as they sat talking in the garden, they would catch the unmistakable sigh of the great ocean drifting towards them. They would hear it very clearly, rushing and tugging, to and fro and across, in an endless cycle as it washed and rewashed the bone-white shore. And as always, as they listened, the sound of it comforted them both.