Cinnamon Gardens (32 page)

Miss Lawton returned from Nanu Oya a few days later and suggested that Annalukshmi come for a visit. The headmistress’s
face lit up with pleasure when she saw her, yet Annalukshmi was barely able to look her in the eye as Miss Lawton pressed her hand warmly. She stayed for dinner that night, but, rather than it being a pleasure, she found it a strain. She had always valued Miss Lawton’s company for the freedom she had to discuss any dilemma with her, the assurance that she would find a sympathetic and discerning ear. In Miss Lawton’s presence, she was now conscious of the things she could not speak of, and found it difficult to talk about anything else.

A week after Philomena Barnett had told them about Kumudini, the family at Lotus Cottage received a letter. It was from Parvathy and was addressed to Louisa.

The letter Louisa had sent her daughter could not have arrived in Malaya yet, so this was not a response to it. Parvathy’s last sentence, her commitment to the baptism of the child, removed any suspicions they could have had on this point. In fact, it seemed deliberately mentioned to allay any doubts they might have. As they reread the letter and discussed it, they could not help but feel that the culprit in this delay was Kumudini herself. They wondered how she, so well known for her good sense, could have held up her return in this way.

“It’s love,” Manohari finally declared with mock sentimentality. “She cannot bear to be parted from the one who brings rays of sunshine into her life.”

It quickly came to dominate Louisa’s mind that she was going to be a grandmother. That very morning, despite the blistering heat, which made their leather slippers stick to the tar of the roads, Louisa went into Pettah to shop for cotton cloth that she would use to make shirts for the baby. She expected that Annalukshmi accompany her.

Pettah, being one of the oldest districts of Colombo, didn’t have any of the wide, tree-lined streets the rest of the city boasted. Instead, its narrow jumble of lanes were open mercilessly to the sun, and the mixed smells of bloody meat and putrefying fruit and vegetables were heightened by the heat. Annalukshmi, grimly carrying the parcels, watched her mother jostling with the crowds, hurrying from shop to shop, buying lace and ribbons
and buttons and cotton cloth, bargaining with enthusiasm and fierceness. It was clear to Annalukshmi that for the next five months, her mother would have one thing alone on her mind: the birth of her grandchild.

That afternoon, after they came home, Louisa told Annalukshmi that she wanted her to give up her tennis game with Nancy that evening and, indeed, for the rest of the week. She was to devote herself to smocking little shirts for Kumudini’s child.

“I’m not giving up anything,” Annalukshmi cried, now truly infuriated. “You’re acting as if the child is going to be born next week.”

“Don’t be selfish,” Louisa said. “You have enough time in the world to go and play tennis with Nancy.”

“So will Kumudini have time when she gets here. She’ll have nothing to do the whole day but sit and smock shirts for her child.”

“A fine aunt you’ll make,” Manohari said. “Just like that evil Mrs. Reed in
Jane Eyre
.”

“Kadavale,” Annalukshmi cried. “You’d think this was the second coming.”

Louisa looked at her as if she had committed a sacrilege.

The new school term was to begin in a few days and Annalukshmi volunteered to help Miss Lawton and Nancy tidy up the staff room. They met one morning to do so.

Annalukshmi was in the process of cleaning out the teachers’ cubicles when she said to the headmistress and Nancy, “We’ve had some good news this week. My sister, Kumudini, is pregnant.”

Miss Lawton was at the table going through old correspondence, sorting out what needed to be thrown away. Nancy was up on a chair taking down the curtains so they could be washed. They both stopped what they were doing. “Congratulations,” Miss Lawton exclaimed.

“You must be delighted at the prospect of being an aunt,” Nancy added.

Annalukshmi shrugged.

“But it is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? A grandchild for your mother, a niece or nephew for you.”

“Yes, indeed. But does it have to consume every conversation a person has, take up every waking moment of my life? After all, village women give birth in the fields and then continue their work, none of this fussing and running around.”

Annalukshmi went back to her cleaning, and thus did not see the headmistress looking at her intently. Nancy, however, observed her doing so.

“Well, do convey my congratulations to your family,” Miss Lawton said. She glanced at a few more letters and discarded them on the floor. “You know, I’ve been thinking, Anna,” she said. “The Ministry of Education has sent around a prospectus asking if there are any teachers who would be interested in taking an enhancement course. It would lead to further qualifications, allow you ultimately to become a senior teacher and instruct upper classes. Would you be interested?”

Annalukshmi turned around. “Yes, indeed I would be very interested.”

“Good,” Miss Lawton said. “I thought you would be. Remind me to get you a form from my office before you leave today.”

Later that day, when Nancy and Annalukshmi were walking across the quadrangle towards the headmistress’s bungalow, she said to her friend, “I’m pleased about this. It will give me something to really look forward to in the coming term. This may be a good opportunity to move up. Perhaps even to the top.”

Nancy looked at her, worried.

“What do you suppose my chances might be of becoming a headmistress some day?” She looked at her friend for support and now saw the reservation on her face.

They had reached a clump of araliya trees and Nancy stopped in the shade. She was silent, looking down at her hands. “I do applaud your ambition, Annalukshmi, and I think that you would make an excellent headmistress. But I think you are forgetting how things are. Being Ceylonese, neither you nor I will get a chance to be headmistress.”

“But surely the world is changing.”

“Is it? Look at the Buddhist and Hindu schools that were started up as a protest against the missionary schools. Even they have hired European headmasters and headmistresses, despite the nationalistic talk of their founders. Ceylonese parents want the prestige of sending their children to schools run by Europeans.”

Annalukshmi felt something beginning to come unravelled in her mind, like a spool of thread that had slipped off a table and was tumbling across the floor. “But things are bound to change,” she said. “And I am sure that Miss Lawton, for example, would support me. I’m sure she would take on the missionary board and Ceylonese parents if she needed to.”

Nancy placed her hand on Annalukshmi’s arm. “Are you so sure, knowing Miss Lawton’s attitudes? Last year, when Miss Blake left the school, she was unable to secure a replacement
from England. She could have promoted one of the teachers then. Instead, she hired Vijith as a clerk.”

Annalukshmi looked at her friend. The spool of thread was unravelling faster and faster. Now that Nancy mentioned it, when Miss Lawton had asked her to help with Miss Blake’s duties, there had been no intimation that she, Annalukshmi, might assume the role of assistant headmistress then or ever. She suddenly remembered Miss Lawton’s reply when she had said that she did not know very much about the assistant headmistress’s job. Miss Lawton had replied, “Well, of course I wouldn’t expect you to do all of it. That would be beyond you.”

“I’ve forgotten something in my classroom. Excuse me.” Annalukshmi began to walk away.

Nancy looked after her, troubled, then continued on in the direction of the headmistress’s bungalow.

Annalukshmi walked quickly towards the senior classroom block. Instead of going to her classroom, she found herself in the music room. She shut the door behind her, then walked to the open window from where she had an uninterrupted view of the sea. The rhythmic movement of the waves, crashing against the beach, then receding, the breeze that blew on her face, all had a calming effect on her.

Annalukshmi turned to look around the music room. She remembered an evening when the three of them had come here and played the pianos together, singing along. Her mind drifted to many other moments of pleasure with Miss Lawton and Nancy, the sea baths, the holidays in Nanu Oya, the nights at the headmistress’s bungalow. She could not deny that she had been happy here at the school, that Miss Lawton had been extremely kind to her. Still, she was aware now that those happy times had been lined with the hidden bars of her limitations.

O
n the five-day-long voyage from Colombo to Bombay, Balendran paced up and down the steamer deck or leant against the rails going over and over in his mind the appalling situation towards which he was heading, the terrible task he was to perform. He considered not conveying his father’s message. He would simply avoid mentioning the issue at all and tell his father that the family had refused. He pictured his father’s fury and, while he feared it, he felt it would be more tolerable than asking for his brother’s body. Then he recalled his father’s threat to cut off his brother’s allowance. Arul’s death was sure to make his family even more dependent on that allowance. Through no fault of their own, not understanding the reason, they would find themselves destitute. He could not extricate himself from the task. He would have to convey his father’s request, he would have to let them decide what they wished to do.

By the time the shoreline of Bombay was visible, Balendran was exhausted from his ruminations, his nerves on edge.