The Flower Boy (7 page)

He was washed and scrubbed extra hard with Ammi's pol mudda for the occasion. His teeth gleamed whitely and his face was gray from too much Pond's powder. He hung a piece of tinsel he had found earlier around his neck, but Ammi pulled it off.

The Christmas tree glittered with fairy lights, throwing silver and gold reflections onto the faces of the family ranged around. The Sudu Mahattaya was in his wing chair, the Sudu Nona was arranged artistically on the sofa, her arm around Jonathan who was perched uncomfortably next to her, Anne was on the carpet in front of the sofa, and Rose-Lizzie was in the unrelenting grip of the ayah-jailer.

Appuhamy stood behind his master's chair like the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Clustered around the door, like an untidy bunch of unmatched grapes, stood Premawathi, Rangi, Leela, Chandi, Krishna and the three girls who helped around the house.

To Chandi, who had pushed himself as far into his mother's reddha as he could, the scene before him looked like something out of a storybook. The family, the tree, the roaring fire, the bay window. It was a perfect picture, marred only by the unmatched grapes hanging around the door.

He fixed his gaze on Rose-Lizzie, who seemed more interested in the shiny tree. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed her to look at him.

He opened his eyes and found her dark blue eyes fixed on him in an unblinking stare. He stared back, then blinked. She blinked back. He blew out his cheeks. She blew out her cheeks. He stuck his tongue out. She did the same.

He regarded her gravely and she regarded him gravely back. Then he smiled and her serious little face dissolved in a wide, white grin. Three teeth now. Three polished pieces of perfectly white coconut, without black worm holes in even one.

The child and the baby grinned across the four years, thirteen adults and infinite circumstances between them.

“Chandi, Chandi.” His mother's urgent stage whisper penetrated the grin and suddenly, the years, adults and circumstances were there again.

His mother was pushing him forward. Everyone was looking at him and the Sudu Nona was wearing her kind Christmas look and holding out a small, odd-shaped package. He went forward and took it.

“Merry Christmas, Chandi,” she said in her Christmas voice.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, and rushed back to the safety of his mother's reddha. She bent toward him.

“Did you say thank you?” she demanded softly. He shot her an angry look. Of course he'd said thank you. He wasn't that stupid.

He looked at Rose-Lizzie and surreptitiously waggled his fingers at her.

She waggled her fingers back at him.

LATER, THE LITTLE family sat opening their presents in their little room. His was a red plastic money box in the shape of a pig, its curly tail plastered against its fat bottom. It looked sleepy. He turned it around in his hands and wondered where he could hide it once he had transferred the England fund into it. It was too fat to go under the stone.

Ammi's present was a new reddha, a dark blue one, the color of Rose-Lizzie's eyes, with little white flowers on it, the color of Rose-Lizzie's skin. She also got five rupees, which she folded into a tiny square and tucked into her brassiere. Leela got two fake-tortoiseshell hair grips and Rangi got a cake of English Lavender soap, which she placed carefully in her small box of clothes, next to the identical one she had got last Christmas.

They talked softly about the lights on the tree, about how sweet the Sudu Baby had looked and about how Jonathan had kept shifting in his seat to avoid his mother's clutches.

Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden commotion outside the kitchen door and they all ran out to look.

Krishna was being chased by the Christmas turkey, which had somehow managed to escape and was grimly determined not to be Christmas dinner.

Sunlight glinted off the large Sheffield steel knife he was brandishing around as he hopped from foot to foot to avoid the beak of Glencairn's irate main course.

Chandi, Leela and Rangi laughed helplessly, but Ammi was not amused. She strode over to Krishna and snatched the knife away from him.

“Get into the house, you buffoon, and stop delaying dinner,” she ordered. Her voice had the same effect on the turkey as on Krishna, for it stopped dead and looked at her with inquiring eyes.

Chandi was about to entreat his mother to spare it when she grabbed it by its neck and, with a quick clean motion, chopped its head off. Its headless body ran around for a few seconds, jerked once and finally died properly.

Chandi just stood there, shocked not so much by the death of the turkey, as by his mother's ability to kill with such quick ease.

He turned and ran indoors, his stomach churning.

That night, he dreamt that his mother was being chased by a whole gaggle of huge turkeys with sharklike teeth, each brandishing a shining Sheffield steel knife, while he just stood there and laughed hysterically.

chapter 7

THE MONTHS PASSED WITH THE SWIFTNESS OF A RIVER IN SPATE.

The invisible cloak of childhood was shedding itself slowly but surely, and in its place grew another invisible cloak. This new one was more fragile than the last, needing more of the colorful threads of imagination to keep it intact.

The smell of rebellion was in the air. In the kitchen, Krishna rebelled against Premawathi's iron control, sarcastic tongue and ear-twisting by stealing food whenever he could and peeping more frequently when she took her baths.

Premawathi rebelled against her feelings of loneliness and need by rushing to and fro even more frantically than usual, and tiring herself out in the process.

In the main house, Jonathan, whenever he came to visit, rebelled against his mother's loving grip, which hardened every day like rapidly cooling caramel, by going off on long solitary walks or spending hours with Rose-Lizzie.

Anne rebelled against her enforced friendships with neighboring planters' children, most of whom she thought were empty and vacuous, by simply not speaking when she was taken to visit them.

And John Buckwater rebelled against his wife, whose voice seemed to be getting higher as her interest in their lives got lower, by simply ignoring her.

In the church school, Chandi rebelled against Teacher's postblackboard naps by throwing chalk-saturated dusters at him whenever his back was turned.

And in her plush, lace-trimmed pram, Rose-Lizzie rebelled against her ayah-jailer by sinking her perfectly white pieces-of-coconut-like teeth into Ayah's fleshy underarms whenever they were within range.

Rose-Lizzie was by now nearly three, and walking and talking. She was pampered by everyone except her mother, who found her three-month-old English magazines far more absorbing than her three-year-old daughter.

John had given up trying to change things.

He had talked, implored, threatened, but Elsie Buckwater's little bubble of discontent was prick-proof. Every day she withdrew a little more, got a little more distant, showing animation only when people from neighboring bungalows visited.

She treated her husband with icy formality, her children with absolute indifference and the servants with cold hauteur.

John now concentrated on being both father and mother to Rose-Lizzie, often taking her piggyback around the plantation when he went out on his inspections. She flashed her toothy grin at the pickers, who would wave and grin back at her.

He spent his evenings playing with her, reading to her and explaining the complicated business of tea to her, while his wife lounged in the Chesterfield by the bay window and flipped and sipped.

If Rose-Lizzie missed her mother's care, she didn't seem to show it.

Chandi occasionally saw her, but only from afar. He was content to wait, because he knew that it would be only a matter of time before their friendship blossomed. Besides, he had other things to concentrate on these days.

Keeping out of trouble was the hardest.

TEACHER WAS COMPLAINING to Father Ross again.

“That Chandi, always throwing dusters on me, sending chalk dust all over,” he said, his face gray with the said chalk dust. “I'm having lung problems also,” coughing violently for extra effect. “That boy will be the death of me, Father, I'm telling you.” He broke off coughing. When he finished, he spat out a large wad of phlegm which almost landed on Father Ross's shoe. “See?”

Father Ross saw. He moved his foot away and tried hard not to laugh.

The church was poor, and the church school poorer. Both depended on the largesse of the planters for their existence. Largesse was low these days, and therefore they could get only what they could afford.

Like Teacher, who was definitely at death's door, mostly because he was almost seventy and drank like a fish every evening. Like Mr. Aloysius, who despite his noble intentions of English-educating the masses, had a large family to feed and whose only qualification was his burning desire. Like Miss Ranawake with her long unhappy face like a well-sucked mango seed, who was approaching thirty and had taken up teaching only because she couldn't find a husband.

Father Ross knew the limitations of his teaching staff. And so, while he wore his sympathetic church-face for Teacher, he could, in a sort of un-Christian way, understand why a bright young boy like Chandi threw chalkfilled dusters at Teacher.

“Teacher, I shall speak to him this afternoon,” he promised.

“Don't talk, give good whacking then maybe behave,” Teacher said angrily.

“Teacher, you know the church does not condone violence,” Father Ross said mildly. “Boys will be boys, and all that.”

“Then what about the saints?” Teacher asked belligerently. “Put the buggers in boiling oil and whipped and flogged—suffered all that and became saints after, no? Mebbe some flogging make this one a saint.”

Father Ross felt the smile begin to escape. Not only that, he could feel it becoming a well-rounded laugh on its way out. He called up his sternest expression, the one he used in the confessional.

“Teacher,” he said firmly, “leave it with me. I shall take care of it.” And he beat a hasty retreat, allowing the laugh to come forth as soon as he was out of earshot, which was only a few feet away since Teacher was more than half deaf.

As soon as Teacher had walked away, muttering darkly about the new generation and the severity of punishments in his day, the subject of his complaints emerged from behind the tall clump of rhododendron bushes where he had been anxiously eavesdropping.

Unlike Teacher, he heard Father Ross's mirth emerge, and walked slowly home feeling safe for the time being at least. He fervently hoped Father Ross wouldn't decide to come home and have a talk with his mother once his amusement wore off.

Chandi was also in trouble at home.

Krishna had caught him sitting in the Sudu Mahattaya's chair while the family was away in Colombo, and vented his general anger and frustration simply by telling Premawathi.

Chandi's ear was still sore from the twisting it had earned him, and he had resolved to make Krishna's life as miserable as he possibly could.

He put sand in Krishna's mat. He put stones in Krishna's pillow. He put dead cockroaches in Krishna's food and a live centipede on Krishna's stomach as he lay sleeping early one morning. The ensuing screams had woken up the entire household.

Chandi had been caught every time and whipped soundly with the guava cane, but Krishna's hysteria made it all worthwhile.

Leela and Rangi were growing up too. Leela was now twelve and was becoming increasingly like Premawathi, both in appearance and demeanor. At school, she was an average student, not good, not bad.

It was as though she had already accepted that she, like her mother, would go into domestic service as soon as she was old enough. That was fate's scheme of things, and Leela was only a tiny dot in fate's vast people plan. To imagine that she could be anything better or even simply different was a waste of valuable sweeping, brushing and dusting time.

Rangi also swept and brushed and dusted, but differently. She moved through the months and years like a fragile fairy who'd come to earth just to visit and then got her wings entangled in its ugliness. Her gentleness only increased, her wisdom only grew. She was a nine-year-old woman with carefully concealed dreams.

In some ways, she was a lot like Chandi.

When Chandi was not in trouble, he concentrated on his business. Stealing flowers was becoming increasingly difficult, especially since he had declared war on Krishna. Every time he ventured out into the gardens, he found Krishna already there.

He put his prices up and it didn't affect business. He now had eight rupees stashed away in the fat belly of his red plastic pig, which was hidden in a deep hollow at the bottom of the vegetable garden.

At nearly seven, he was as determined to go to England as he had been at four. He still saw it as the easiest solution. Even the thought of Rosie-Lizzie couldn't shake his determination.

ON HIS SEVENTH birthday, he woke up with a feeling of excitement. He searched his memories for when he'd had a similar feeling, but he couldn't really remember.

He had to go to school, which was the only cloud on his otherwise cloudless horizon, and he couldn't be late, not with so much trouble already.

He went into the kitchen where his mother was busy frying sausages and eggs for the family. She came over to give him a quick hug.

“Seven today,” she said affectionately. “Big boy. Soon you'll be taking care of your old Ammi, no?”

“You're not old,” he declared loyally, and hugged her back, hard, a sudden shaft of love for her going through him like a sharp knife. She was his Ammi, this always busy woman with her dark brown eyes that danced only occasionally. Even when she whipped him until he had red stripes on the backs of his legs and he hated her, he still loved her.

His cheek was flattened against her smooth brown stomach and her arms hurt his head and neck but he wished he could die right then. Fiercely. Happily.

But people didn't die of love at seven, so he caught the moment before someone spoke too loud or moved too soon and it flew away like a startled butterfly.

He carefully filed it away to bring out at another, less happy, time.

School was the same as usual. Teacher droning and snoring. Mr. Aloysius raving and waving.

The day hadn't properly begun, and Chandi was already tired from it being his birthday, although only Sunil knew.

He hadn't told anyone else, not because he didn't want to, but because he had no birthday treat for the class.

Everybody who had a birthday on a school day brought something for the children. Sometimes it was bread pudding, sometimes milk toffee, sometimes kavum, sometimes halapa sandwiched between leaves.

Something, anything.

The birthday boy or girl would proudly carry his or her treat up to Teacher's table, place it there and wait expectantly. The whole class stood up and sang “Happy Birthday” off-key, after which the food would be unceremoniously wolfed down.

Chandi knew his mother was too busy to make him twenty-something somethings, so he hadn't even asked.

He didn't really mind not being able to take anything to school. He had already planned his post-England-trip birthday party when there would be bread pudding, milk toffee, kavum, halapa and even cake.

He could wait.

HE TRUDGED IN through the kitchen door and found chaos and food everywhere. He stood there and surveyed the scene with mounting interest. Every available surface in the kitchen was covered with plates and platters and wooden painted trays decorated with lacy white doilies.

His mother stood at the fireplace frying cutlets, lost in other cutlet-frying memories perhaps. The three servant girls were busy cutting milk toffee, cutting bread and cutting sausage rolls in half. Krishna was polishing glasses on a tray, looking sullen as usual. Leela was arranging patties on a large white and gold flowerlike platter, and Rangi was making cucumber and watercress sandwiches.

His heart beat faster. Could it be possible? he wondered. Could it be possible that he did
not
have to wait until he returned from England?

His mother turned around and saw him. She smiled vaguely. That was a good sign.

“Chandi, don't just stand there,” she said. “Go down to the well and have your bath quickly.”

He frowned. “Alone?”

“Yes, no, why? Can't you manage alone?” she asked distractedly.

“I suppose so,” he said doubtfully. “But what if the bucket falls in? Can't Rangi come with me, just in case?” he said.

But she was already back in her other cutlet world.

Rangi left the sandwiches and went to get the towel. He skipped after her. Bathing with Rangi was fun.

At the well, she hung the towel on the old mango tree which drooped its dusty leaves toward the water. She waited while he stripped.

“Aren't you going to bathe too?” he asked.

“No, Malli, I'll bathe later when the work's finished,” she answered.

“What's happening? Is there a party?” he asked casually.

“Yes,” she said. “For Lizzie Baby. It's her birthday, remember? And yours too.” She looked down at him.

“Oh,” he said, disappointed.

“Don't look like that,” she said, smiling. “You're going too.”

“Where?” he asked blankly.

“To the party. To Lizzie Baby's birthday party.”

“No I'm not,” he said dejectedly. “Why would they want me?”

“Well they do, because the Sudu Mahattaya himself told Ammi,” Rangi said.

He stood there until she pushed him down so she could pour the first bucket of water over him. He didn't gasp. He didn't feel it. There was a warm feeling in him. A numb, warm feeling.

He was going to Rose-Lizzie's birthday party.

He didn't want to know how this had come about. He just knew he was going. He had never been to a birthday party before, although he had seen a few from afar. Jonathan's, Anne's and even Rose-Lizzie's last one. He had watched the children and the games and the singing from behind the big gardenia bush near the passageway. Now he was actually going.