by Roma Tearne
‘What a bitch she is,’ said the cousins.
‘She was always so stuck-up, too good to speak to any of us. And now she can’t even come to her mother’s funeral, aiyo!’
‘Let’s hope she is happy, no?’
‘I doubt it. Have you heard the rumour? They were saying in the convent that she’s gone off with that man, the one who lives in the beach house! You know, the writer fellow.’
‘Twice her age, it’s a terrible shame. I’m glad her mother didn’t live to feel the disgrace.’
‘Well, you know, girlie,’ said a distant relative, ‘her mother asked for it by marrying that Mendis man in the first place. What do you expect? She left her decent home and went after a pretty face. What d’you expect, huh?’
‘Now, now, let’s not talk ill of the dead!’
‘Aiyo! I’m not talking ill, I’m just telling you, men. We all make our own karma, I say.’
Nulani Mendis’s uncle listened to the women arguing. He did not put them right. Nulani Mendis was of no interest to him in any case. No doubt she was hiding somewhere, shame keeping her away. What did he care, his sister’s family were a dead loss. The monks placed a statue of the many-handed god beside the coffin. The statue watched over the monks as they chanted, their voices rising and falling in sweeping hypnotic drones, backwards and forwards. The air in the room curdled with the stench of over-scented flowers, stagnant water and coconut oil. The monks chanted in low cadences, their saffron robes arranged in bright folds. Their black umbrellas piled outside. Someone brought a silver tray with a jug of water and a silver goblet. A rustle of whispers crossed the room as a priest began to pour the water from the jug to the goblet. He poured the water slowly and the whispers increased. The elderly folk shook their heads in sorrow. The eldest child should have been holding the tray while the water filled and overflowed the goblet. Nulani Mendis should have been there while the waters of her mother’s life rose and spilled out on to the tray. What karma was so bad that a woman could not have her own daughter present at her funeral? Nobody deserved such neglect!
Then the brothers closed the lid of the coffin, nailing it down and Mrs Mendis was fully prepared to begin her journey into the afterlife. Mrs Mendis’s struggles were over, she had done what she had been meant to do, in so far as she was able. The monks picked up their many-handed god. They folded him up. They would take him back to the temple. There was no point in this statue being here, staring at the dead. This god was for the living. The coffin would travel on its journey alone, and the smell of incense rose and spread indifferently across the grieving house. There were some who smelt it as it passed and thought it was a blessing, but mostly no one noticed.
In certain parts of the jungle, there grows an insect-eating plant not found anywhere else on the island. If disturbed, its elegant leaves close down, like eyelashes. When this happenes, the butterflies or bees, flies or mosquitoes drawn to its scent, are trapped in its vice-like grip, killed in an instant. In this remote part of the rainforest, tucked away among the curious plant life, there appeared an incongruous building surrounded by a thick high concrete wall, covered in barbed-wire circles. It had been there for many decades. No other building was within sight of it. There were no sounds except the faint rush of a waterfall some distance away cascading into a deep ravine. The jungle, in these parts, was mostly impenetrable and dense, although on close observation it was possible to see the tracks of some large vehicle, a tank or a heavy truck of some kind. Such was the density of the vegetation that the afternoon sun could only filter in a diffused way through the branches of the trees. A few birds flew harshly about. That was all.
Perhaps it was the eeriness of the silence after all the noise, or perhaps the pain on his left shoulder had finally penetrated his consciousness, for slowly, Theo found himself awake. And lying in a pool of liquid. It was still light. Although he was blindfolded, the cloth was of a flimsy material, so that he could see faint glimmers, and the movement of shadows through it. His face was wet. When he licked his lips he felt the salty stickiness of it. He knew from this, his face was covered in blood. Because his hands were tied he could not stand. He heard a sound, half groan, half gasp, which seemed as though it came from near him. Nothing happened and he drifted back into unconsciousness. When he next awoke it felt much later. The sun had vanished and it was dark. The pain in his shoulder was much worse and as he struggled to take the weight away from it he felt his face, stiff and caked over, and again he felt the wetness, although most of it had hardened like mud. The blood was congealing. The rope tied to his wrists cut into him, and his chest, his back and his lips, everything in fact, ached. He wondered how long he had lain here. It was surprising how clear his thoughts were. He was without fear, merely curious. With difficulty he began to piece together the information he had. His legs seemed fine, even though he could not stand up. His back ached but that was probably because of the way he was lying, twisted, and slightly at an angle. His shoulder was the worst and as he ran his tongue across his mouth again, he wondered if his lip was split. Where were his glasses? He desperately needed a drink.
The door opened. He could not see it open of course, but there was a creaking and then something metal, a tray maybe, scraped the floor. Something, a boot probably, prodded him in the small of the back and he was yanked roughly to his feet. He screamed and passed out. The next time he surfaced he found himself pushed against the wall and his blindfold removed. His hands were free. Theo shielded his eyes for this sudden sight hurt them.
‘Your food,’ a voice said pleasantly in Singhalese.
He stared into the gloom and saw the butt of a gun as it pointed to the tray of food. Beyond the gun was the blurred outline of a face.
‘Where am I?’ asked Theo.
His voice sounded strained. As though he had been using it too much.
‘Eat!’
Again he saw the butt of the gun.
‘I want some water,’ he said. ‘Please, I’m thirsty.’
The man who came towards him out of the gloom was holding a chipped enamel cup and he took it with both hands and drank the cool water. It was so cold that he knew it had come from a well. The door closed and he was alone and in darkness once more. He did not have the faintest idea what he was doing here.
Suddenly, as though a light had been turned on in his head, Theo thought of the girl. It was the first time he thought of her. A single thought that, once it started, ran on through his head like an alarm bell. He could not turn it off. He felt his mind turn with slow and clumsy sickness. He was not yet afraid. Where was he? What had happened to him? Outside the door a rod of light flicked on and off. Was it night? He realised with something like relief that his hands were free. But where was the girl? He noticed there were bars up across the window and at last fear began to spread itself coldly, flatly over him. How long he had been here was unclear. In spite of the heat he began to shake. He touched his head, feeling where the skin had split open. He thought for a moment and remembered, as though from a long, hollow distance, that someone had hit him across his forehead. The memory came towards him jerkily, rushing up with the ground. When he steadied himself, he remembered a little more. He had walked out into the garden. But then, he could remember nothing else. He blacked out again.
The next time he came to he heard Sugi’s voice. Sugi was telling him something. The words were slurred and indistinct. Theo frowned. But although he concentrated as hard as he could, he could not make out the words.
‘What did you say?’ he asked.
But there was only silence. His head was throbbing and he wondered why his trousers were wet. The thought of Sugi had calmed him a little. If he could find Sugi, he felt, things might get better. He began to edge his way around the room banging against the wall but the sounds were feeble and no one answered. Panic overtook him again and he thought of the girl once more. Who the hell has done this to me? Who the hell do they think they are? I need the police, he thought. I need a lawyer, he de
cided, frantic. How dare they do this?
‘Let me out,’ he yelled, as loudly as he could. ‘Let me out. There’s been some mistake. Let me out! Sugi, Sugi, where are you?’
His voice echoed hoarsely around the room. His hands beating against the concrete walls were bleeding again. But no one came.
Gerard and Vikram watched the funeral procession as it wound its way across the town.
‘It’s the Mendis woman,’ said Gerard. ‘Killed by a mosquito,’ he giggled. ‘One less of them!’
Vikram looked at the guests as they walked behind the coffin. He could not see the girl.
‘Oh, you won’t find her!’ said Gerard, noticing the look. ‘If the rumours are anything to be believed, your girl has gone off with Theo Samarajeeva. No one knows where she is. Too busy to come to her mother’s funeral!’
In spite of himself, Vikram was shocked.
‘It can’t be true,’ he said slowly, shaking his head.
He could kill Gerard, he thought, surprised at the pleasure the thought gave him. Not now, but one day, he might do it. Gerard deserved to die, he decided. Lately, for some unspecified reason, he had begun to detest him. But all he said was, ‘She looked after her mother.’
‘Really? How d’you know?’
Gerard was laughing at him. Vikram said nothing.
‘You like her, don’t you? The Mendis girl, ah? No use denying it, it’s obvious!’ he laughed.
Still Vikram said nothing.
‘Well, in that case,’ said Gerard, seeing the expression on his face, making up his mind, ‘I’ve a job for you that you’ll like. I need to find Theo Samarajeeva. Between you and me, I’m not happy with the image the Chief is getting for us Tamils. We’re losing a huge amount of international sympathy these days.’ He glanced at Vikram. ‘Don’t get me wrong, the Chief makes a good soldier, you understand, but…’ He paused, wondering how much the boy understood. ‘It’s diplomats who move things along, get what’s wanted. Not soldiers. And at the moment, the Tamil image is being destroyed.’ He spoke with great friendliness. ‘I need to change all that,’ he said, more to himself now than to Vikram. ‘I’ve been meaning to do something about it but the time’s never been right. I might need your help, Vikram, in the future, huh? So what d’you say? People abroad are getting sick of this Tiger cub business. I have an alternative plan to the Chief’s grand scheme that involves our writer friend. I want you to go to his house, find out where he has gone. I need to get hold of Theo Samarajeeva. As you’re so friendly with the girl, I’m sure you’d like to know where she’s gone! You could go now, while the whole town is at the funeral, huh?’
Vikram hesitated. His face was completely blank. What the hell is he thinking? wondered Gerard uneasily.
‘OK,’ he said finally, and began to walk away.
Gerard watched him go. He hadn’t expected such a swift response. It was the first time Vikram had shown any interest in another person. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps the Mendis girl was the key. The boy’s inscrutability got on his nerves.
‘There’s a manservant living there,’ Gerard shouted after him. ‘I think his name is Sugi. He’ll know where they’ve gone.’
The house was empty. There was no music playing. In the past, on the few occasions Vikram had snooped around the garden, music was always playing. Now the silence of abandonment crossed the veranda to greet him. He walked around the back and forced open a window. The faintest smell of paints led him to a room full of paintings. Notebooks lay open, and images spilled out; supple limbs, eyes that creased in smiles, fragments of happiness discarded hither and thither, the careless accumulation of memories. Vikram turned, startled. What was this? He knew she drew, but this? Confused, he followed the trail. Tubes of paint, ultramarine and vermilion, fused together, for ever purple now, were discarded everywhere. In the bedroom a crumpled white sheet lay on the floor. There was a pair of shoes, straw sandals with the straps broken. And close by, a picture of the girl, eyes shaded from the sun, smiling. Vikram was taken aback. And for a split second, with shocking unexpectedness, he thought he was looking at his sister, as he remembered her, long ago, under a banyan tree, green-glazed light, against the sun. She had been learning to knit, he remembered. Knit one, purl one, she had chanted, making a scarf for Vikram, for when he was older, she had said, teasing him; for when he went to England to study. Now, with unnerving clarity, he saw her again, as he had not seen her for years. He saw her long beautiful fingers moving deftly. Vikram picked up the photograph. He saw that it was of the Mendis girl. His head spun dazzlingly, and sitting down abruptly, he slipped the photograph out from under its frame. Then he tucked it inside his pocket in one swift movement. The smell of oil and turpentine drifted around. In the dining room, beside a gilded mirror, was a vase of flower stalks, the crimson petals fallen away. Beside the typewriter were a sea urchin and some pale pink shells. The sea moved queasily behind him while seagulls on the telegraph pole outside split their cry into two sounds. Something moved and Vikram swung round sharply, but it was only the last petal in the vase, falling. He sat at the table and touched the typewriter keys. The heat shimmered. It was so great that the trees seemed to drip with it. He felt suddenly very tired. The tension of the airport, the lack of sleep, Gopal’s death, all of it had worn him out. Hastily he turned his thoughts away from Gopal. His head was throbbing badly. Vikram realised he was hungry and then, for the first time in many years, he thought of the vadi his mother used to make.
He shook his head trying to dislodge the thought. The girl, it was patently clear, was not here. Neither was Theo Samarajeeva. Vikram did not think they had been here for some time. He went back to the room with the paintings. One of them, a small canvas, was propped against a table leg. The paint was not quite dry. It was a perfect likeness of the manservant whose name escaped Vikram, but whom he had often seen in the town. Just then he heard the sound of the gate being closed and swiftly he crossed to the window. It was the servant woman Thercy. Hesitating, not sure he wanted to be seen by her, he looked around for escape. But Thercy was hurrying up the steps and it was too late.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, with a sharp intake of breath. ‘I didn’t know you were back.’
She didn’t ask where he’d been. He could do as he liked. Vikram saw she was trembling a little. It dawned on him that she was frightened of him, that she must have always been frightened, but that he had never noticed before. What was she scared of? he wondered, surprised. What does she think I will do to her?
‘I’m looking for the owner,’ he said.
‘You won’t find him,’ she said shortly, her breath coming out in gasps. ‘He’s gone, I don’t know where.’
‘And the girl?’ asked Vikram. He felt some unaccountable bitterness, mixed with something else. ‘She isn’t at the funeral, is she?’
‘Something must have happened to her,’ said Thercy quickly. ‘You mustn’t think ill of her. She would have been at her mother’s funeral if she could. Something must have stopped her. She was a loving child, you understand. Nothing would have kept her away. I knew the whole family. The boy was useless; the girl was the best of all, although not many people noticed.’ She pulled a face. ‘You should have seen how she cared for her mother at the end. I was there, I watched. She would have been here today, if she could. I am certain of it.’
The servant woman stood too close to Vikram.
‘Don’t listen to gossip,’ she said sharply.
Her voice rose in a thin harsh sound, complaining and frightened. Vikram frowned. The woman was like an insect, her voice got on his nerves.
‘Like what?’
Thercy hesitated.
‘Who knows what happens in this place?’ she said instead. ‘People disappear. That poor child was unprotected, uncared for. Who knows what has happened to her? Ask her uncle. He’ll know.’
‘Has she gone somewhere with the writer?’
Thercy glared at him. Then she laughed wearily, without humour.
/>
‘Who told you that? It isn’t true. Listen to me; Nulani Mendis was a lonely child. She never got over her father’s death. She was different from her brother. Mr Samarajeeva was a widower. He was much older than her. He became like a father to her. Can you understand that? You know what it’s like to be alone.’
She stopped. She hadn’t meant to say so much and she was uncertain of the boy. But still, she couldn’t bear him joining in with the vicious judgement on the Mendis girl that circulated the town today. Vikram was taken aback.
‘Why d’you think something has happened to her?’
‘Can’t you see? She would never have gone anywhere with Mr Samarajeeva and missed her mother’s funeral. And I can tell you, even if she had wanted to, he would not have let her. He was a good man.’
She stopped talking. The boy was looking at her as though he wanted to hit her. She was suddenly very scared.
‘Look…’ she said uneasily, but Vikram moved across the room and was barring her exit.
‘Who would want to hurt her?’ he asked.
His face was so close to hers that she broke out in a sweat. Vikram smelt like an animal, she thought. He smelt of rancid sweat. He’s been drinking, she thought in alarm.
‘Vikram,’ Thercy said quietly, even though her heart was pounding, ‘who knows why anything happens in this town? There were many people who hated her father. And so they hated her too. Ask her uncle.’
Vikram moved away abruptly. He had hardly exchanged more than a few words with this woman in all his years at Sumaner House. Mostly they ignored one another. But he felt an urgent desire to find the girl. He had the strangest feeling that if he found her again anything might be possible. The servant woman, seeing his distracted look, began speaking again. There had been too many deaths on the beach lately, she said. Too many people had gone missing. Mr Samarajeeva had disappeared too.