by Roma Tearne
For the moment, though, with the absence of her family, something, some unspecified tension seemed to ease up. She would stay late and the mornings were fresh and unhampered by the heat. The days stretched deliciously before them, slipping into an invisible rhythm of its own. By now Theo had become used to her presence, and he worked steadily on his manuscript, distracted only occasionally. Perhaps, he thought, Anna had been right. She had always insisted they needed a child to give purpose to their lives. A child was an anchor. It brought with it the kind of love that settles one, she used to say. When she had died Theo had remembered this, thinking, too, how useless a child would have been when all he wanted had been her. Now he wondered if Anna, wise, lovely Anna, had been right after all.
3
THERE WERE FLEETS OF ENORMOUS ORANGE MOTHS in Sumaner House where Vikram lived. Moths and antique dust that piled up in small hills behind the coloured-glass doors. The beetles had drilled holes in the fretwork of the frames and sawdust had gathered in small mounds on the ground. It was a useless house really, everything was broken or badly mended, everything was covered in fine sea sand, caked in old sweat and unhappiness. Objectively, it might have made a better relic than a house, but relics were plentiful and houses of this size not easily found. The fact was Sumaner House was huge. Once it must have been splendid. Once, rich Dutch people would have lived in it and crossed the Indian Ocean in big sailing ships, carrying spices and ivory and gold back to their home. Once, too, the filigree shutters, and the newly built verandas, and the black-and-white-tiled floors must have looked splendid. The green glass skylight would have filtered the sun down into the dark interior. But what was the use? Time had passed with steady inevitability, washing away the details of all that had gone before, leaving only small traces of glory. Now the furniture was scratched and full of decay. These days only Vikram and his guardian and the servant woman lived here. Most of the time it was only Vikram and the servant woman who were in the house. She stayed in her quarters, cooking or cleaning, and Vikram came and went as he pleased. There was no one to stop him. No one to ask him questions or argue with him, for Mr Gunadeen, his guardian, was hardly ever present. He was in Malaysia. Why he had ever wanted to be Vikram’s guardian was a mystery. Perhaps he had wanted to protest against the exploitation of child soldiers. Perhaps, he had hoped, that by adopting a Waterlily House orphan he would build up good karma. No one knew, because after that one act of enigmatic charity, Vikram’s guardian went off to work, first in the Middle East and then in Malaysia. Supervising telecommunications systems in other developing countries. Perhaps the war had made him restless, the people in the town said. At least by adopting Vikram he had done something to counteract the work of those murderous Tamil bastards. For, it was said, he was a good Singhala man.
Having picked Vikram more or less randomly from the Waterlily orphanage, Mr Gunadeen put him in the local boys’ school.
‘He needs a good education,’ he told the headmaster privately, without noticing the irony of his words.
The headmaster knew, but chose to forget, that in the wake of independence the Singhalese had slowly denied the Tamils any chance of a decent education. Well, things had changed and these were desperate times. The headmaster knew nothing about child soldiers or their psychological scars. He thought Vikram was an orphan without complications. He knew nothing of his soldiering past.
‘I shall be gone for a few months,’ Vikram’s guardian had said.
‘Don’t worry,’ said the head. ‘He’ll be fine. You’ll notice a change in him when you return, I promise.’
Vikram’s guardian paid him handsomely. Next, Mr Gunadeen instructed the servant woman, Thercy.
‘You know what to do,’ he said. ‘The boy’s a little restless, but just feed him well and make sure he goes to school. I’ll be back in a few months or so.’
And then he went, giving Vikram a contact address and a phone number. He did not think things needed to be any more complicated than that. So Vikram had a home now, a new school and plenty of food. What more could an orphan boy expect? He was far away from the brutal place where they recruited underage children into the military. What more could be done? The people in the town shook their heads in disbelief. What a good man Mr Gunadeen was, they said again, hoping Vikram would be worth the effort put into him. That had been four years ago.
But Vikram seemed not to realise the significance of his good fortune. Right from the very beginning he did not appear to care about anything. At first, when he came to live in Sumaner House, he used to kick the walls, treating the house as though it were a person, scuffing the furniture slyly, gouging holes in the doors when no one was looking, and cracking the fine-coloured glass into as many lines as he could, without breaking it completely. Torturing the house. Only the servant woman knew what he was up to. Thercy the servant woman saw everything that went on.
Then later, as he grew into adolescence, Vikram quietened down. The servant woman noticed this too. Almost overnight Vikram became monosyllabic and secretive. Whenever Thercy looked at him she noticed how expressionless his face was. In the last four years, since the random killings here in the south, the troubles had worsened. Nothing was certain any more but Thercy had learned to keep silent. Privately, she thought Vikram was disturbed. His disturbance, she was certain, lurked, waiting to pounce.
The only person the servant woman trusted in the whole town was Sugi. She knew Sugi was a good man. Often when they met at the market they would walk a little way together (not so far or so often as to attract attention) and exchange news. Thercy often talked to Sugi about the orphan from Waterlily House.
‘He has everything he needs and nothing he wants,’ she liked to say. ‘It’s his karma. To be saved from his fate in the orphanage, and given another sort of fate! But it won’t work,’ she added gloomily.
Sugi would listen, nodding his head worriedly. He had heard all this before. Vikram hadn’t been a child soldier for long but Sugi knew: once a child soldier always a soldier. Why had Vikram’s guardian tampered with the unwritten laws of the universe? What had happened to him was unimaginable and because of this he should have been left alone, in Sugi’s opinion. Thercy had told Sugi the whole sorry story many times and each time Sugi had been convinced, Vikram should not have been brought here. The army entered Vikram’s home in Batticaloa and raped his mother and his sister. They raped them many, many times, Thercy had said, beating the palm of her hand against her forehead as she talked.
‘Then they took them away,’ she had said. ‘The army never thought to look under the bed. Vikram was hiding there. His father was away at the time. Someone went to find the poor man, bring him the news. They told him, his whole family had been wiped out.’ Thercy had sliced the air with her hand. ‘Just like that,’ she had said. ‘Gone! What could the man do? His grief must have been a terrible thing. He found some poison and, God forgive him, he swallowed it. It was only afterwards, when it was too late, that the people in the village thought of looking under the bed.’
She shook her head recalling the story. Sugi had heard it many times. Each time he was shocked. So much for our wonderful army, he thought each time.
‘So much for our wonderful army,’ he said again today, when they talked. ‘What d’you expect?’
‘We’d better go,’ Thercy said, noticing how long they had been standing together and suddenly becoming nervous. ‘There he is, over there. I don’t want him to see us talking together.’
‘Who’s that man he’s with?’ asked Sugi, looking at Vikram, stealthily.
The boy was standing with an older man at the kade, the roadside shop. They were both drinking. Sugi had heard other rumours about Vikram. After his parents had died the Tigers were supposed to have got hold of him. But then, as luck would have it, the Singhalese army rounded up some of the Tiger cubs and handed them over to the orphanages a few months later. Vikram was one of them. He was only seven. He had already been carrying equipment for the guerrillas. Sugi could
hardly believe that. A boy of seven, being a runner for the Tigers.
‘And what would all that have done to him?’ asked Sugi, watching Vikram now.
How could his past be changed? How could he be given new thoughts simply by being adopted? Thercy agreed.
‘Aiyo!’ she said, remembering. ‘You should have seen him when he first came here. Mr Gunadeen wasn’t around of course. He just went off and left me with the boy. I had to deal with everything all alone. Vikram used to run riot in the house. He’s calmed down a lot now. In fact…’ She paused.
‘What?’ asked Sugi.
‘Well…’
Thercy hesitated. The truth was, there was a kind of emptiness to the boy. He seemed such a strange, mysterious creature, silent and friendless. Well, almost. Today she had some new information for Sugi.
‘You know he’s made friends with the Mendis girl?’
‘What?’ cried Sugi in alarm.
Thercy shook her head quickly. She hadn’t wanted to alarm Sugi.
‘No, no, I didn’t mean to worry you. I know what you’re thinking. He’s not likely to visit you. And anyway the girl doesn’t speak to many people either, and I only saw her talking to him once. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
Sugi relaxed slightly, although he still looked distracted.
‘It isn’t good,’ was all he said, not knowing how to express his disquiet. How much would Nulani Mendis tell Vikram about her visits? About Theo?
‘His Singhalese is faultless, you know,’ continued Thercy. ‘Not many people around here realise he’s a Tamil. Mr Gunadeen didn’t want that to be common knowledge. For his own safety.’
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ said Sugi, uneasily. ‘He could be working for the Tigers, couldn’t he, for all we know?’
‘Who, Vikram?’ Thercy laughed. ‘Is that what you’re worrying about? No, no, Sugi, he’s harmless really, I promise you. In that way, anyway. He’s just a little strange, that’s all. I can’t explain it…’ Again she hesitated. ‘And he has a temper. To tell you the truth, of late I feel sorry for him. What chance is there for him to ever have a normal life?’ she said, adding, ‘He’s so disturbed.’
Vikram had no idea that people were talking about him. Even had he known he would not have cared much, for Vikram lived in a world without people. The space inside his head was so empty that it almost echoed. Long ago, when he was at Waterlily House, he had begun to cultivate indifference. Nobody knew of course, but indifference had become a way of life for him. By the time he was twelve, before his guardian had arrived on the scene, he had learned not to make a fuss. What was the point? He could manage his life with ease without noise or fuss. He did whatever random thing he wanted, took what he liked the look of, unrestrained by anyone, neglected and unloved. By the time he reached the age of sixteen, he had grown enormously, was not bad-looking and was more or less friendless.
Sumaner House stood on the crest of a rise away from the immediate town; there were no other houses nearby. The view of the sea was uninterrupted. Vikram had his own room in the house. For nearly four years he had lived like this. He went to school and worked hard. For four years, while his guardian dipped in and out of his life, he studied. He soaked up knowledge like a sponge. The head was pleased. He wrote to Mr Gunadeen.
‘It’s been a success,’ he wrote. ‘And, it proves these children can be rehabilitated’, he added triumphantly.
So Vikram was a success story. He was good at English and his Singhalese was brilliant.
‘He writes beautifully too,’ his teachers said.
In this way they continued to encourage Vikram. For, as everyone knew, whichever way you looked at it, the boy had had a bad start to life.
Every morning Vikram walked to school. It was the same school that Jim Mendis attended. It was generally expected that Lucky Jim, in spite of having no father, would one day go to the UK because he was so clever. And so, because of his luck, and quite possibly also his loss, the boys all wanted to be Jim Mendis’s friend. All except Vikram, that is. Vikram watched the Mendis boy quietly. Nobody noticed, because he was so quiet, but Vikram watched him idly, wondering if there was a chink in Jim’s luck. But it seemed Lucky Jim was luck-tight. Soon after this, Vikram began to notice Jim Mendis’s sister. She too walked to school and now Vikram noticed with some surprise that she was sweetly pretty. Something about her puzzled him. Then one day, as they stood at the crossroads, she turned and smiled absent-mindedly at him. Startled, he stared at her, his uneasiness growing. And then, because he couldn’t think of anything to say, he looked quickly away. His heart was pounding as though he had been running. The Mendis girl reminded him vaguely of someone else. He could not think who it might be. After that he began to hear little things about her, little bits of gossip.
People said she did not talk. And she had no friends. All she did was draw, draw, draw. Vikram began to watch her secretly and with new interest. One day he saw her go over to the road island on the Old Tissa Road. He saw her touch the ground, rubbing her hand slowly in the dust. And then she looked up and down the road. Vikram hid behind a tree. What on earth was she doing? he wondered curiously. Again the girl reminded him of someone but he could not be sure whom. He felt an unaccountable fear bubble up in him. He did not see her again for a long while after that. He was busy doing other things. Having discovered furtive sex with the daughter of a local shopkeeper, he was often occupied. The shopkeeper’s daughter had not wanted his advances, but Vikram had told her calmly, he would kill her if she told anyone. He had only meant it as a joke but she took him at his word. Pleased with his success, he took her to the back of the garages, close by the railway line. After a while she stopped struggling and accepted the inevitable, crying silently and allowing him to do whatever he wanted. Once, he brought her to Sumaner House, but the servant woman had stared meaningfully at him and although he behaved as though he did not care, the woman’s look had put him off. He took the girl back to the garages after that.
Then, as Vikram approached his sixteenth birthday, he met Gerard.
Gerard was not his real name, he was really Rajah Buka, but no one knew this. He owned a gem store in the high street, and although there was an intermittent war on, he did good business with the foreigners who occasionally passed through. Gerard had seen Vikram on several occasions, loitering at the junction buying cheap alcohol. He had struck up a conversation with the boy. He appeared interested in everything Vikram had to say. How well he was doing at school, whether he had any friends. He found out that Vikram talked to no one, and so he invited Vikram to his rooms above the shop and he gave him some vadi, a special Tamil sweetmeat. Vikram was pleasantly surprised.
‘Where did you get this from?’ he asked.
Gerard laughed and gave him a Jaffna mango by way of answer. Vikram was amazed.
‘How did you get to Jaffna?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t it impossible to cross Elephant Pass because of the army blocks?’
‘Nothing is impossible,’ said Gerard meaningfully.
He paused and lit a cigarette.
‘How do you feel about being adopted by a Singhala?’ he asked casually. ‘They killed your family, I heard. And they hate the Tamils, don’t they?’
Gerard flicked ash on the floor and waited.
‘How d’you feel about that?’
Vikram said nothing. He had been told by his guardian never to mention the fact he was Tamil. So how did Gerard know? Gerard watched the boy’s face and he laughed, finding it hugely funny.
‘Don’t you want to avenge your family, then?’ he asked softly, easily.
Still Vikram said nothing. He felt as though a large cloven-hoofed animal had clambered on his back. The feeling sent a small shiver running up and down his spine. He felt as though his back might break under the strain. The palms of his hands became moist. An image of a young girl pounding spices flashed past him. Gerard smoked his cigarette and continued watching the boy with interest. There was the faintest hint of a smile on
his face. When he had finished his cigarette, he went over to a desk and took out a key.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘I want to show you something. Don’t worry,’ he added, seeing Vikram’s wary look. ‘We’re on the same side.’
Gerard knew he had been right all along. He had told them many times at headquarters, the advantage of boys like Vikram were that they were halfway to being recruited already. Lupus, of course, had been sceptical. He was sceptical of everything Gerard proposed. Naturally he saw Gerard as a threat. Naturally anyone with independent thoughts worried Lupus. Which was precisely why Gerard did not want to operate from the north. There were terrorists and terrorists, Gerard knew. Not all of them were bright. Not all of them had had the kind of university education that Gerard had, or his never-ending passion and capacity for rhetoric. Not everyone had his vision, he decided regretfully. Having declared war on the Singhalese government, Lupus and his guerrilla organisation wanted a separate Tamil state. But they have no plan, thought Gerard, inclined to laugh, no strategy. Except to blow up as many people, and make as many enemies as possible in the international community. No diplomatic skills, sneered Gerard, whose own plans were far more ambitious. His plan was about unity. Of course he wanted a different government, what Tamil didn’t. But the difference was that Gerard wanted the new government to be central, not separate. And he wanted the Singhalese out! He wanted a single, powerful Tamil government for the entire island. He wanted majority rule for the minority. Actually, what he really wanted was to be Prime Minister! But first things first, thought Gerard. He was a patient man and he was prepared to wait. There was a little groundwork to be completed, a government to be destabilised. It was work that needed a certain amount of brute force. Which was where the likes of Lupus came in, Gerard believed.
Long ago, when he had been on one of his recruiting visits to Waterlily House, Gerard had noticed Vikram. The boy had been small then, traumatised, but bright. On his next visit to the orphanage he had seen Vikram’s guardian-to-be. And that was when he had laid his plan. For as he had noticed instantly, most of the spadework had already been done for Gerard on that memorable afternoon when the Palmyra toddy was on the kitchen table and the red dhal was in the clay pot. Later he heard about the day that Vikram had played hide-and-survive while the sunlight mingled with the screams of his mother and his big sister. The day the sky had boiled and the light had fallen, harsh and green and terrible, down through the rattan roof, and Vikram’s sister prepared an offering of pawpaw and king coconut washed with saffron water. On the fateful day when his sister had never made it to the temple, what had to happen, happened. So now, guessing correctly, fully understanding, Gerard earmarked Vikram for greater things. He knew he had picked a winner. Backed by Gerard, Vikram would go far.