Cinnamon Gardens (5 page)

Again Balendran had to struggle to keep the disagreement from his face. The one thing that Balendran hoped for, even above self-rule, was the possibility of universal franchise and the
vast and beneficial change it would bring to Ceylonese society, with its feudal subservience and loyalties.

Balendran looked up from his thoughts to see that his father was examining him carefully. Then, strangely, he lowered his eyes and looked away, as if embarrassed to be caught staring at his son. Balendran sensed immediately a change in the air and glanced around, half expecting to see something different in the room. After a moment, the Mudaliyar continued, still not looking at Balendran. “I received a very important and interesting phone call yesterday from someone in the colonial secretary’s department. It seems Dr. Drummond Shiels may not be the problem we anticipate him to be. He has an adviser, a gentleman who evidently exerts great influence over him, a gentleman to whose opinions Dr. Shiels is known to listen.”

He paused again and toyed with the cap of his inkwell.

A strange suspicion began to form in Balendran’s mind. He felt the air close in around him.

“A gentleman you knew very well during your London days.”

A coldness rushed up the back of Balendran’s neck.

“I am talking of Mr. Richard Howland.”

Balendran felt light-headed, felt the need to put his head between his legs, to have the blood enter his head again. But, at the same time, he had an equally strong need to maintain his dignity, his calm, in order not to betray in his father’s presence the impact that name still had on him after all these years, the combination of regret and dismay that arose in him.

Balendran felt hands on his shoulders. He had been unaware that his father had come around the desk and was now standing behind him. His father squeezed his shoulders and their pressure was the steadfastness Balendran needed. He felt himself coming into his own again.

“Miss Adamson, you can call in the next petitioner,” the Mudaliyar said.

Balendran watched Miss Adamson walk towards the door that led out onto the front verandah. Her simple action gave him a further grip on himself.

The Mudaliyar sensed Balendran’s return to normality. He let go of his son’s shoulders and went back around the desk, where he picked up his papers and straightened them. “It might be a good idea to open communications again.”

“With Richard … Mr. Howland?”

“Mr. Howland struck me as a fine man, a sensible man. A man who would be sensitive to the differences between the Orient and Europe and not confuse one with the other. I have found out he is to arrive with the commission and stay at the Galle Face Hotel. You will speak with him?”

Miss Adamson entered with the next petitioner, and Balendran stood up.

“Yes, Appa,” he replied distractedly. One thought and one thought alone was in his mind. Richard Howland, his Richard, was going to be in Ceylon in two weeks! Staying at the Galle Face Hotel. Balendran knew he had to be alone, to try and work his mind around this stupendous notion. He began to walk towards the door that led to the vestibule.

The moment Balendran left his father’s study, his mother – a diminutive, plump woman – rose from the chair where she had been sitting in the hallway and held out her arms to him. Nalamma came to her son and he bent down towards her. She took his face between her hands and kissed him on both cheeks.

“You came to the front door, thambi-boy. What were you thinking?” she asked in Tamil, for she spoke no English.

She put her hand on Balendran’s. “Come with me. I want to talk to you about something.”

“I can’t, Amma,” Balendran said quickly. “I … I have things to do. I must go to the temple.”

“The temple business is more important than your own mother?” Her grip tightened on his arm. “I’ll only take a few minutes of your precious time.”

Balendran saw that he had no choice but to obey. He did not have the faculties at the moment to extricate himself.

From the landing at the top of the stairs, two sets of steps curved off in each direction only to meet again at the next floor. Here there was a wide foyer, with entrances to the bedrooms on either side of it. At the far end, a set of French doors opened onto the balcony above the front porch, with a fine view of the oval garden. Nalamma used this foyer as her drawing room and, unlike the Mudaliyar’s study, it was light and airy, a settee, carpets, and cushions being the only furniture in it.

When they were seated, Nalamma turned to Balendran and said, “I can’t stop thinking of your brother and all that happened.”

Balendran nodded. For the past twenty-eight years, this had been his mother’s refrain on the Mudaliyar’s birthday.

“Have you heard anything from him, thambi-boy?”

He looked at her, surprised. “Of course not, Amma.”

After his son had left, the Mudaliyar had made them swear in front of the Gods in the household shrine not to have anything to do with Arul.

She glanced down at her hands. “It was silly of me to ask. But I was hoping.”

“Why?” he said, trying to keep his mind on her need.

“Last night I dreamt we were at Keerimalai on the beach. It was one of our Jaffna holidays. He was still a child. I took his hand and went with him towards the sea. Then I lifted him in my arms and walked into the water.”

Inebriated, Balendran suddenly thought. This was what he felt. As if he were back in his college days, intoxicated far quicker than his companions and too proud to admit it. His college days, however, were inextricably bound with the memory of Richard. He hastily tried to recover what his mother had said and make an appropriate reply. “But that’s a pleasant dream, isn’t it? We loved those Jaffna holidays.”

She shook her head. “But you are forgetting, Keerimalai is the place where we scatter the ashes after the funeral. You walk into the water and release them to the sea.”

The seriousness with which she had spoken should have made him feel solicitous towards her, instead a silly college drinking song went through his mind. He drew himself together. He had to end this conversation quickly. He patted her knee and stood up. “It’s nothing, Amma. You wait and see.”

“I wish we had some news of him,” she said, rising too.

“He no longer exists for Appa,” he reminded her gently. “We have no choice but to obey.”

“And the boy … his son, Seelan. He must be almost twenty-seven now.”

“ ‘Laugh at misfortune – nothing so able to triumph over it,’ ” he quoted from the
Tirukkural
.

Nalamma sighed and said, “Men don’t understand. The cord may be cut at birth, but the attachment remains.”

Before Balendran left, his mother gave him some money to put in the offerings box at St. Anthony’s Church in Kochchikade.

Though a staunch and fervent Hindu, Nalamma, like many Ceylonese, deemed divine favour to exist in all faiths. Thus, she had no compunction about appealing to a Catholic saint or making an offering at a Buddhist shrine, along with her daily pooja to Ganesh.

Balendran’s car was a black 1910 Model T Ford. It had originally belonged to his father, who, when the “Tin Lizzie” became a common automobile, got tired of it and moved on to a more sleek and expensive car, something he would do every few years. He always offered his son his old cars before selling them off, but Balendran, despite the fact that the Ford had to be hand-started, had always stuck with his “Tin Lizzie.” There was a jauntiness to it that reminded him of nothing so much as an intelligent, alert terrier. He liked its shape, its angles, the brass radiator shell, the broad running boards, the large wheels with fenders raised well above them, which gave the car a buoyant look. The top folded back easily and this allowed Balendran, when he chose, to travel with the wind blowing through his hair. When Balendran was in his car again, he leant back against the seat.

“To the temple, Sin-Aiyah?” his driver, Joseph, asked.

“Yes … no …” Balendran tried to decide what he wanted. He needed a place where he could walk and think. “The Galle Face Green,” he finally said. “Take me there.”

Joseph was looking at him, puzzled. Not wanting his scrutiny, Balendran waved his hand impatiently for him to drive on.

Once the car started to move, Balendran shut his eyes. He had to think, he had to order his thoughts. Yet his mind had
developed a capricious determination of its own and, instead of thinking about Richard’s arrival in two weeks, he found himself fixated on that ridiculous drinking song and, with it, the remembrance of that pub in St. Martin’s Lane, the Salisbury, which he and Richard used to frequent. As the song filled his mind, it brought back the image of Richard standing by the piano, his face flushed with drink and the effort of singing, a lock of his blond hair fallen over his forehead, his hand around Balendran’s waist. As the evening progressed and their inhibitions fell away, Richard’s hand would invariably slip under Balendran’s shirt. He would gently run his fingers up and down Balendran’s spine until Balendran had to lean against the back of the piano so that the other patrons would not notice his arousal. At the thought of Richard’s caress, Balendran felt his blood thud against his temples.

The Galle Face Green was an open lawn about one mile in length and three hundred yards wide. It was flanked on one side by the sea and the other by Beira Lake. It was a public recreation ground and, of an evening, was always busy with cricketers, football players, kite flyers, horse riders, and strollers. Three roads passed through it: the Esplanade, a perfectly smooth carriage drive and promenade by the sea wall; a similar drive by the lake; and a central road for commercial traffic.

When the car reached the Galle Face Green, Balendran got out hurriedly, feeling as if he were escaping from some stifling room. He instructed Joseph to park on the side of the central road, then he set out across the nearly deserted green towards the sea wall. He breathed in deeply, the sting of the salty air in his nostrils, the breeze cooling his face. His thoughts felt like the jumble of different-coloured threads in his wife’s sewing box,
and he knew he had to unravel them one from the other. The Galle Face Hotel at the other end of the green, however, made him stop. The hotel was a long, rectangular block, three storeys high. End bays and a centre entrance bay had been brought forward to break up the monotony of the façade, an effect further accentuated by the bays being one storey higher and having individual pitched corner roofs. The front porch, at the base of the entrance bay, was a hive of activity as cars and carriages pulled up, deposited guests, and drove away. The very concreteness of the hotel gave a sudden solidity to the notion that Richard would be here in two weeks. There had been no communication between them in more than twenty years. Balendran felt an apprehensiveness rise in him, but he tried to reassure himself it was natural. After all, they had been in love. Like any two people who had been intimately connected in the past, there was bound to be awkwardness at first. After that, the meeting would go smoothly. They already had something to discuss. The Donoughmore Commission would regulate any gaps or bumps in their encounter.

He stared at the hotel again, imagining their meeting. Richard would step out of the lift and see him sitting on one of those lovely antique ebony sofas in the lounge. They would both raise their hands in greeting. He, Balendran, would stand and straighten his coat, waiting for his friend to come up. They would extend their arms to each other, their hands meeting in a firm clasp. “Bala,” Richard would say, “what a pleasure after so long.” “The pleasure is all mine, old chap,” Balendran would reply.

The sight of a kite whirling its way drunkenly into the sky momentarily distracted Balendran from his thoughts. Then his mind, the great swindler, summoned up a recollection of Richard. His friend’s freely flowing, instantaneous anger. The
way Richard would storm around their flat, slamming doors, banging plates, once even throwing a vase against the wall. Public places were not inviolate either, and Richard would think nothing about yelling the word “bastard” at him on Tottenham Court Road or in Russell Square. Now an alternate scenario of their first meeting presented itself: Richard storming out of the lift and, even before he got to him, letting fly a string of invectives, accusing him of desertion, of cowardliness, of not loving him. Balendran clicked his tongue against his teeth, dismissing his vivid fancy. He turned away from the hotel and began to walk towards the sea wall. “We are both twenty years older,” he told himself. “Much has happened since then.” In fact, Balendran assured himself, such meetings were often painful precisely because both parties found themselves irritated they had actually felt such an intensity of feelings for each other. Bad habits, annoyances would be recollected with a wonder that one had been foolish enough to tolerate them for love.

Love. He rolled the word around in his mind. He knew that his love for Richard was long dead. The passing of twenty years, a wife whom he loved in his own way, and a son, whom the very thought of filled him with happiness, ensured that. As for the type of love Richard and he had had, he accepted that it was part of his nature. His disposition, like a harsh word spoken, a cruel act done, was regrettably irreversible. Just something he had learnt to live with, a daily impediment, like a pair of spectacles or a badly set fracture.