Cinnamon Gardens (26 page)

Sonia was in the drawing room and she looked up at him in surprise as he walked towards the front door. “I am going to see Appa,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows questioningly, but he felt he owed her no explanation.

When Balendran arrived at Brighton, there was a flurry of activity going on around his father’s car. As he came through the front door, his mother was walking up the stairs, Pillai’s wife,
Rajini, following her with a pile of laundered sheets. She saw her son and came quickly downstairs again. She took his face between her hands, kissed him on both cheeks, and said, “We are preparing your old room. Just the way it used to be.”

He looked at her, not comprehending, and she frowned, puzzled. “Don’t you know?” she asked. “Appa has asked you to come and keep me company during his absence.”

Balendran stared at her in shock.

“I told him it was unnecessary. But, you know, I have been a little sick recently and he was concerned about leaving me alone.”

Even before he saw his father, Balendran had the answer he sought. He felt light-headed.

The study door opened. His father came out, followed by Miss Adamson.

When the Mudaliyar saw Balendran, he stopped in surprise. Balendran glanced quickly at his father and then away, afraid to meet his gaze.

“What is this?” Nalamma demanded of the Mudaliyar. “Thambi-boy doesn’t know he is to stay with me?”

“Come,” the Mudaliyar said to Balendran and went back into his study.

Balendran followed. As soon as he was in front of his father’s desk, he sat down in a chair, afraid his legs would give way under him. He put his walking-stick and hat on the chair next to him.

“I’m glad I was able to see you,” the Mudaliyar said. Then he busied himself at his table, searching through his documents.

The Mudaliyar took a long time, and Balendran, after a moment, glanced up at his father, perplexed. Then he saw that his father was finding it difficult to look at him.

“I made up this list of things I need you to do.” The Mudaliyar held out a sheet of paper to Balendran.

Balendran took it, his hand trembling.

“Also, I would like you and Sonia to come and stay with your mother. She has not been too well of late and I am worried about leaving her alone at night. How does this suit you?”

Balendran looked up and their eyes met for the first time. Then an expression flickered across the Mudaliyar’s face, an anxious, almost pleading look. His father was begging for confirmation that his fears were unfounded.

“Yes, Appa,” Balendran said, trying to keep his voice steady. “You don’t have to worry. All will be fine in your absence.”

The relief flooded his father’s face.

“I knew I could count on you,” the Mudaliyar said.

At that moment, Miss Adamson came in to announce that everything was ready. As the Mudaliyar came around the side of his desk, he placed his hand on Balendran’s shoulder and squeezed it, then he went out. This gesture of affection, so rare from the Mudaliyar, filled Balendran with love for his father. Yet, simultaneous with this love, he felt a burning shame. There was a photograph of his son, Lukshman, prominently displayed on his father’s desk. Balendran picked it up. The photograph had been taken in Nuwara Eliya during the racing season. Lukshman stood with the Mudaliyar’s favourite horse, Nellie. It was a lovely photograph, Lukshman leaning his head against the horse’s neck, a contented smile on his face, the sun in his hair. As Balendran stared at the photograph, he had a sudden vision of that smile leaving his son’s face replaced by horror and revulsion at his father’s crime. He thought of his wife. Sonia was so dependent for her happiness, her existence, on the life they had created together. Their house, Sevena, was all the world she had. How such a revelation would shatter her he could not even allow himself to imagine. Just then he heard his father’s car starting up.
He went to the window and stood watching as it began to inch forward, past the study window and along the driveway. As he gazed at its disappearing lights, he felt his illusions leaving him. Balendran picked up his hat and walking-stick and went to find his own car.

At the Galle Face Hotel, the receptionist was busy with visitors. Rather than waiting for a message to be sent, Balendran went quickly to the lift and had the attendant take him to Richard’s floor.

As the lift started to rise, Balendran felt fear in the pit of his stomach. Yet he reminded himself of his son, his father, his wife, his life here in Ceylon, and this steadied him for the encounter with Richard.

He knocked on the door, and, after a moment, Richard opened it. He was in his dressing gown and was drying his hair with a towel. “Well, what a pleasant surprise.” He opened his arms and Balendran started to move past him. Richard held his wrist and looked at his friend’s face searchingly. “What have we here?”

Balendran did not reply. Then he said, “My father knows … at least suspects what’s happened between us.”

Richard swallowed hard and sat down on the bed. “How?” he asked softly.

Balendran waved his hand to say that it was not important. “Anyway, I allayed his suspicions.” He crossed to the window.

Richard waited, watching him.

“At a price, however.” Balendran paused. “My father is going to Jaffna for the hearings. I am to stay at Brighton with my mother. Attend to my father’s business.”

“Well, that’s not too bad, is it?” Richard said with relief. “I’ll just stay behind. Being together is more important than the wretched hearings.”

The relief on Richard’s face pained Balendran. He found it difficult to go on. He knew when he next spoke he would shatter his friend. Yet he had to get this done with for the sake of his son, his family. Then, gazing out the window, he took a deep breath and said, “I think you should go.”

He heard Richard exhale and he turned to him. Richard was staring at him in astonishment. Then Balendran saw the apprehension enter his friend’s eyes. “What … what are you saying to me, Bala?” Richard asked, his voice shaking.

Balendran felt an aching sorrow, an overwhelming urge to take Richard in his arms. Instead, he looked away at the sea, gripping the windowsill until this urge passed and he recovered his resolve.

Richard got up and came to him. He took him by the shoulders and forced him to turn around. Balendran kept his head down, but Richard grabbed his face in his hands. “Do you love me?” he demanded.

Balendran did not reply.

“Well?”

“No … I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Richard shouted. “That’s not good enough. Not good enough at all.”

Balendran moved his head, trying to break away from Richard’s hands, but his friend tightened his grip. Richard then bent over and kissed him roughly, biting down hard on his lower lip. Balendran cried out in pain and broke from his hold. He touched his lip and saw that it was bleeding. He took his
handkerchief out and dabbed at his wound. Then he glared at Richard. “What did you expect?” he cried. “Where did you think all this would go? Did you actually expect me to leave my life here for … for what?”

“I would willingly leave my life with Alli for you.”

“I am married with a child. How can you compare what I have with what you have.”

Richard drew himself together. “Get out,” he said. “Just get out of my room.”

Balendran started towards the door, but, as he passed him, Richard grabbed his arm and tried to twist it behind his back. Balendran broke away from him. “Stop it, Richard,” he said, “just stop it.”

Richard hit out, but Balendran grabbed his hand and pulled Richard to him. “Just stop it,” he said softly as he held him. “It’s over, don’t you see? It’s all over.”

After a moment, he pushed Richard away gently and hurried to the door.

“Bala,” Richard called out. “Please wait.”

Balendran opened the door and went out into the corridor. He began to walk quickly towards the lift, finally breaking into a run when he heard Richard call out to him again. Rather than wait for the lift, he went down the stairs. On the first landing, he leant against the wall and breathed in deeply, trying to gain control of himself. Then he walked down the last few steps to the Galle Face Hotel foyer.

As Balendran’s car began to pull away, he looked back at the hotel and felt a terrible emptiness. He wanted to put his head in his hands and rub at his face in an attempt to erase that last image of Richard, the entreaty in his eyes as he had begged
him to wait. He wanted to weep. Yet he was the Mudaliyar Navaratnam’s son and such things were not permitted in the presence of the driver. Decorum compelled him to sit up straight like a gentleman, his hands clasped uselessly in his lap.

That very night, Balendran and Sonia went to stay with his mother at Brighton. As the car took them through the darkened streets of Colombo, they were both silent, lost in their own worlds, looking out at the looming, great trees on either side of the road, the occasional streetlamp that cast a pool of light on the deserted pavements. After a while, Balendran became aware that his wife was looking at him, and he turned to her.

“I’ve been thinking about something,” Sonia said. “It’s been a shamefully long time since I’ve seen Aunt Ethel and she is getting old. I’d like to go to England for a little while. Spend some time with her and Lukshman.”

Balendran felt a foreboding in the pit of his stomach. He tried to see the expression on Sonia’s face, but she was half hidden in the darkness of the car. “When … when you say a little while, what do you mean?”

“Oh, I was thinking that perhaps I would go right after Christmas and return by April.”

“Well,” he said, “of course. If that’s what you want.”

“I had even thought of going for Christmas,” Sonia said. “To spend it with Lukshman, but I would not feel good about leaving you alone.”

They were silent again.

When the car turned into Brighton, Balendran felt along the
seat for his wife’s hand, took it, and squeezed it. Sonia did not return his pressure.

In the days that followed, Balendran silently thanked his father for having asked him to stay at Brighton. In his childhood home, in the very room in which he had grown up, with its pictures on the walls, the creaking of the old fan that lulled him to sleep at night, Balendran found a constant reminder of the life he had in Ceylon, the life that, he told himself, ultimately mattered. His mother, so happy to have her child back in her home, re-created the food of his childhood: uppuma in the morning, ravva ladu spiced with cardamom in the way he liked them. He took comfort in these foods, as if he were an invalid slowly recovering from a long illness.

Yet Balendran was far from free of the pain of Richard. During the day, his father’s duties kept him from thinking too much of his friend. In the evenings, however, when he would sit on the front verandah of Brighton and read in the newspapers about the hearings of the commission in various cities, a searing ache would build in his chest. Still, even as he felt the pain of Richard, Balendran would look out at Sonia cutting flowers in the garden alongside his mother, their heads companionably side by side. The look of contentment and serenity on her face made more horrible the thought of discovery.

His dismay was comforting to him. It questioned the depth of his love for Richard and made him aware that he did love his wife, that she was, in many ways, his dear friend. This understanding made him hopeful that somewhere in the future his love for Richard would diminish or become simply a familiar impediment.

When the shadows grew long across the lawns of Brighton, Balendran would put down his paper and go out to join his wife. Taking Sonia’s hand in his, they walked around the grounds, reviewing the happenings of the day and examining any changes that had come to the garden.

T
he Sisler estate bungalow in Nanu Oya was perched along a ridge. There was a semicircular terrace at the back of the bungalow and, from here, the estate sloped sharply down to the valley below, the green of the tea bushes spotted with the brightly clad tea pluckers at work. There was a bench at the edge of the terrace, shaded by a cypress tree. It was here that Annalukshmi spent most of her days, gazing out at the hills, lost in thought. The book she had brought with her lay face down on the bench next to her. Every time she tried to read, she felt vaguely nauseated, in the same way she would if she tried reading with a fever. Her thoughts constantly drifted to what her mother must have felt when she received her letter. She wondered if Louisa had suspected Miss Lawton was involved, if she had confronted the headmistress and demanded the truth from her. Would she, Annalukshmi, look up from her deliberations one day to find her mother standing at the back door of the bungalow, her arms folded in anger? That image made her apprehensive, but it was the thought of her father that truly made her feel terror. Every
time she thought of his wrath, she shivered, pacing the terrace to try to dismiss him from her mind. The constant worry soured her stomach, making it difficult for her to eat.