Mosquito (26 page)

‘I wish it could have happened in a different way, but…’

They had promised to meet in a few weeks, just as soon as Giulia could arrange some time off. When they had finished talking she offered Rohan something to eat. It was late but he showed no sign of tiredness.

‘I could hear someone, a man’s voice in the background, calling her,’ Giulia said. ‘But she ignored him.’

‘Yes,’ Rohan said, slowly. ‘And, you know, the feeling I had was that all the time we were talking about other things really we were talking about him. All the time.’ He wouldn’t say Theo’s name. Still. That hadn’t changed. ‘She hasn’t got over him. Why should she? She was never that kind of person. They were similar in that way.’

‘Yes.’

In the semi-darkness Rohan’s face was gentle.

‘It will never fade, Giulia. I can tell you, she will always love him. And the threads that bound them together will weave through her work for ever. Not in any physical presence, you understand. In fact, Alison Fielding was very interested when I told her of the earlier portraits. She would like to see them. I’m not sure Nulani will ever part with them, of course, but she might show them, she might be persuaded.’

‘Poor Nulani,’ said Giulia softly. ‘How old is she now? About twenty-eight?’

‘Twenty-seven.’

‘All those years in London, grieving. Alone. Did she talk about them?’

Rohan shook his head.

‘Not much. Her brother found her a place to live and then more or less abandoned her. She got a job in a café; she painted. She was cold.’ He shrugged. ‘What is there to say after all? When I asked her about that time, she just said she painted what she felt. Everywhere she looked, everything she caught sight of, she said, reminded her of how she felt. Staining the light, catching at the colours, moving her to mark it. She said she felt as though her whole body was branded by it.’

He smiled, suddenly, brilliantly.

‘An abstract painter, that’s what she is now. Who would have thought it!’

‘And us? Did she wonder why we never wrote?’

‘She didn’t say. I think she assumed the letters didn’t get through. She loves us, Giulia, in that trusting, straightforward way that was always hers. She knew we would get in touch if we could and the fact that we didn’t could only mean one thing. You know what she was like.’

‘Oh God!’ said Giulia. ‘Tomorrow I’ll book a flight to London.’

T
HEO’S AGENT LIKED WHAT HE READ.

‘At last!’ he said, jokingly.

Privately, Theo astonished him. Having read his letter, having known his past, he was amazed by what he read.
Tiger Lily
had been a bleak novel, successful perhaps because of its bleakness. The film had brought a short-lived fame for its author. But
this
manuscript was different. The agent had a hunch that this new book, when finished, would be a success in a different kind of way. Yes, thought the agent, confidently, a slow burner. Slow and steady. It was an elegiac book, filled with optimism and awash with tenderness.

‘The language is very beautiful,’ he said, when he finally got through to Theo on the telephone. ‘Your best work yet,’ he enthused. ‘I recognise the character of Irene, but Helena, where’s she come from? Honestly, Theo, you’re a marvel. I thought you’d disappeared and then up pops another book! You must never stop writing, d’you hear me? When you’re ready, I’m going to sell this book at the Frankfurt fair. So will you come back to Britain, now?’

‘You should go,’ was all Thercy said when he told her.

But Theo had no interest in travel, to Britain or anywhere. He continued rewriting sections of the book, honing it painstakingly. It would be ready by October. Every morning, before sitting at his desk and opening the manuscript, he tried to conjure up as true a picture of the girl as possible.

I want to see you objectively. In the way you appeared to others. You see how far I have moved since that day I lost you? How time has changed me? You, the last love of my life, would understand that. If you could see me now, what would you think? Would you remember how I worried over the difference in our ages! How I agonised. You were the child I never had, the wife I had lost, but most importantly of all, you were yourself. They said we were destined to find each other. What we didn’t know was that our time was wrong, the planets discordant or whatever they call it here. Karma, I suppose. Prison made me believe that. All the endless violence I witnessed has convinced me. And as I see you now, quietly sitting within the pages of what I write, distanced by words and time, detached and perfect, I know it was a gift; you were the gift.

He paused, staring out into the garden, overgrown and neglected. He wondered why, in spite of all his understanding, he was still weak with sadness? He told himself, had she returned to him both of them would have suffered. What had been taken from him was too great and because of this, he knew, he would have in turn taken too much from her. So much had changed; even his own soul had changed. He felt a stranger to himself.

‘Some day,’ he told Thercy, ‘perhaps I might bump into her, in Colombo, on a train, somewhere by chance.’

Months passed. The new novel continued to grow with a logic and a rhythm of its own. It took its time, following a path of its own. The atmosphere of brooding darkness in a jungle of noxious violence and superstitions had developed in a manner that had nothing to do with him. And always in the midst of it was the figure of the girl, steeped in sunlight. It was, he told himself again and again, a novel about love. Anna would have been proud of him. Finally, then, it was finished. He had settled it to his satisfaction. Life in this paradise, he felt, was exactly as the beautiful mosquito that lived here, composed in equal parts of loveliness and deadliness. And he felt, too, that at the heart of all he had written, remained the puzzle of humanity. Long ago Rohan had said that only art could change evil. It was art, he had said, that changed people’s perceptions. How they had disagreed in those light-hearted days, when a good argument was all there was to win. But perhaps Rohan had been right.

Later, when he had finished the last correction, replaced the last words with those he had wanted, Theo sent his manuscript reluctantly to England.

‘It’s over,’ he told Thercy.

The agent was right. It was the best he had ever written. Anna and Nulani, he thought. A novel about them both. Why couldn’t I see this before? And he thought, pouring himself a glass of arrack, I will dedicate this book to Nulani. The girl who painted the invisible.

That night, he slept dreamlessly, and without effort. And the bed where briefly love had once slept, and the room where a pair of straw sandals still remained, watched him sleep the gentle sleep of peace. The monsoons were almost over. Thercy was going to visit her sister-in-law for a while. She felt she could leave him, now. Soon it would be October and the weather
would be cooler. Then I will paint the front of the veranda, thought Theo, I will make that my next task. And he remembered Rohan and Giulia. And he remembered Sugi, whom he had loved, and the girl and Anna and all the things that had made up his other life. And he thought, I have lived, I have loved, what more can a man ask for?

In London, Alison Fielding, working on a hunch that their paintings would sell, was getting excited. The exhibition was called ‘Two Sri Lankan Painters’.

‘They’re very different,’ she said. ‘Similar experiences, I think. Pretty grim, actually, civil war is no joke. Things have calmed down a little, but they’ve suffered. Lost friends, relatives, become displaced.’ She was talking to someone from an art journal.

‘They’re haunting,’ the man from the magazine said. ‘Darkly atmospheric, grainy, overcast. Every gesture is eloquent.’ He thought for a moment. ‘They reflect the spirit rather than the outer world,’ he added, nodding, thinking of what he would write later.

‘I’ve decided to show some of their earlier work as well, by the way,’ said Alison. ‘It gives the current work more context. But none of the earlier pieces by Nulani are for sale.’

‘Pity,’ said the reviewer, looking at them closely. ‘They’re beautiful. They’d be snapped up.’

He paused, looking at the three small portraits, all of the same man, still and arrested against a dazzling tropical blur of light. Caught with the sun in his eyes. Smiling.

‘Who is it?’ asked the journalist, curiously. ‘He seems vaguely familiar.’

Alison Fielding shrugged. ‘Someone she knew, I think. Her father, an old friend, she won’t say, and I don’t like to pry too much. She’s a private person. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. With some portraits, that sort of information is important, but
with these, I somehow don’t think it matters. There is a quality, an essence, a…’ She tailed off.

In fact, she thought the portraits stunning. The man sat with his back to the mirror. His eyes were extraordinarily expressive and beautiful. On the table were some objects. Two sea urchins, a pink conch shell, a photograph of a blonde woman. Sunlight fell in long streaks against his arm and in the distance, shimmering like sapphires, was the sea.

‘They’re powerful,’ agreed the journalist. ‘I think we’ll include an image. My editor said only one illustration, but I think we need one of the portraits as well. Have you a slide we could use?’

‘Of course,’ said Alison, delighted. ‘Will you give me a double spread?’

Later Alison Fielding saw her intuition was right. The paintings of these two artists complemented each other. And nearly all of them sold during the private view of the show.

‘They’re beautiful,’ Giulia said, when she saw them. ‘I’m so proud of you both. Can anyone doubt the suffering that country has endured, after seeing this?’

‘And
I
always knew,’ said Rohan smiling at them both, ‘Nulani would triumph.’

Yes, she had lost Theo, he thought, yet miraculously here he was appearing again, just as Rohan himself had once predicted. Here in her paintings. Astonished by the maturity of this work, astonished by its breath and scope, its certainty, Rohan beamed at Giulia. So young, he thought. It’s only the young who can change things. And what would he say? thought Rohan. If he could see her now, how proud would
he
be? Feeling as though he was coasting along on a breeze, Rohan watched Giulia link arms with Nulani. The two of them were deep in conversation, unaware of him for the moment, talking as though they would
never stop. The girl has saved us, thought Rohan, for the hundredth time. She has pulled us back from the abyss. And it wasn’t over yet by any means. One day, he was certain, she would be a truly great painter.

After the private view Rohan and Giulia returned to Venice. But not before they had extracted a promise from Nulani to visit them before winter settled in. She would come, she promised. She did not want to lose them again. And so it was, as they boarded the plane bound for Italy, someone, a man who received regular invitations from the London Fields Gallery, but who had been away on holiday, opened his invitation and stared, puzzled at the portrait of Theo Samarajeeva. The man stared at the uncanny likeness; he had been reading Theo Samarajeeva’s manuscript only the night before. And here was his portrait. Just as it was described in the book. The man, Theo’s literary agent, went over to see Alison Fielding. To find out who had painted the writer with such power and conviction.

G
IULIA HURRIED ACROSS TO THE WAREHOUSE
space in Dorsoduro where Rohan had a small studio. Normally she never disturbed him when he was working, normally she would have been working on her translations, but the arrival of the postman was too much. Excitement swelled in her like the spring tides coming in from the sea. Sunlight sparkled under the bridges, church clocks chimed, lions flew and pigeons walked, as Giulia hurried on, head bowed, carrying her letter.

‘What d’you mean?’ asked Rohan in a whisper, staring at her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Read it, read it,’ said Giulia, thrusting it into his hand.

‘What are you talking about? It’s a hoax. Some idiot.’

‘Read it!’

Rohan continued to stare at her.

‘Read it,’ shouted Giulia. ‘Rohan, for God’s sake, read it.’ She was almost crying. ‘It’s from his agent. Look at it. I’m telling you, Theo’s
alive
. He’s at the beach house. He’s been there for years! Read what the agent says.’

But he had never thought of that. He had never thought of
an alternative. Even in his wildest dreams, he had not doubted what he had been told. Theo had been dead for years. Like Sugi. Hadn’t they
all
thought that? The girl, he thought, the girl had been certain. Sugi had seen it happen. The same people had killed Sugi, hadn’t they? So now what were they telling him? Theo alive, Theo tortured? What was the matter with Giulia?

‘How long was he a prisoner?’ demanded Rohan, angrily, disorientated. ‘Who is this person? How do we know he really is his agent?’

It was only when I saw the invitation for the exhibition that I knew who the painter could have been. She’s in his book, his latest book. I’d just finished reading the manuscript. So of course I spoke to Alison Fielding, who’s an old friend. I’ve known her for many years. I always support her exhibitions. So now, I’m contacting you. I think he might like to hear from you. I’ve read the book, you see. I know the story, or at least some of it. Here’s his address. Write to him. Try to persuade him to come back to Britain. Be less of a hermit! This last book is possibly his best yet.

‘Write to him?!’ said Rohan. ‘
Write to him?!
’ he asked, hysterically. ‘What the hell are you talking about? He must come
here! He must come here
!’ he shouted.

Rohan threw his head back and roared, and then he threw his brushes into the jar of white spirit and whirled Giulia around in an impromptu dance. But it was Giulia who suddenly became the cautious one. Theo had been hurt. He would be changed. If Anna’s death had scarred him what would torture have done? And the girl, what about his feelings for the girl? Why had he
not contacted them himself? All he had to do was write to their old address and word would have got to them somehow. Perhaps he did not
want
to contact them. Had Rohan thought of that?

‘No!’ bellowed Rohan. He was laughing, taking in great gulps of air, as though he could not breathe. ‘No, no,
no.
He is my friend! How can you
say
that! Maybe he wrote, maybe the letters went astray, maybe they were never forwarded, maybe they
were
forwarded but someone, some bastard, intercepted them. Who knows in that wretched, foul country of mine? Who knows?’

They argued all that evening and late into the night. The next day they were still discussing it endlessly.

‘Wait,’ said Giulia, who was frightened. ‘Wait, wait, let’s think of the best way to do this. And what do we say to Nulani? What will she say when she hears? She has to be told and then what might happen?’

‘I know what will happen. I’ll tell you. If we don’t strap her down she’ll be on the first plane back to Sri Lanka!’

So they talked and shouted through the night, opening another bottle of wine. For was this not a cause for a celebration? And then as they paused, as the first shock faded slightly, as they looked at each other with amazement, it was as though a terrible evil that had hung over them had begun to pass away. Theo, they cried. Theo! They had never thought to say his name again.