Swimming in the Monsoon Sea (28 page)

Later, once they had turned out the lights, they both lay with their hands behind their heads, talking. Niresh asked him all the things he wanted to know — what his grandparents had been like, why his father had hated his sister. As Amrith answered him, he was aware of a growing feeling of lightness within. He was aware, for the first time, of the heavy burden of silence he had carried around these past eight years.

At one point, Niresh asked him if he knew anything about his father — what he looked like, what kind of a man he had been. Amrith did not. He told Niresh that his father had also married against his family’s wishes and so, after he died, his family had wanted nothing to do with Amrith.

“But don’t you wonder about him?” Niresh asked.

Amrith was silent for a moment. “I … I guess it’s been too painful to think about him at all. And Uncle Lucky is my father now.” He turned to his cousin. “Perhaps, one day, I will be interested to know.”

That night, Amrith had a strange dream. He was at the very bottom of the sea, but perfectly able to breathe in water. He was involved in the task of pushing an object, many sizes larger than himself, up to the surface. It was his mother’s cane chair, grown enormous. The one she had always sat in and that he always found abandoned in his nightmare. He was far smaller than the chair and so it was hard work to move it. But he would not quit, and he swam around, pulling away weeds, dislodging a chair leg that was trapped between two rocks, pushing at the chair with his little shoulders and arms. And gradually it began to rise. Up … up … up. Towards light.

T
he next morning at breakfast, the air was heavy with leave-taking. Jane-Nona had made kiri bath for Niresh’s last meal with them, as his cousin was particularly fond of this Sri Lankan breakfast of milk rice and curries.

After they had finished eating, Aunty Bundle folded her serviette and stood up. “Niresh, dear, the girls and I will say our good-byes in a few minutes.” She glanced at her daughters significantly. They were leaving early on purpose, so Amrith could have the final few moments with his cousin.

Amrith and Niresh waited in the courtyard. Soon, Aunty Bundle and the girls came out to them.

“Well, dear, it’s been lovely having you,” Aunty Bundle said, touching his shoulder. “Our home is always open to you. Come back and visit.”

Niresh pressed his lips together. “Thank you, Aunty.”

She hugged him.

“Don’t forget how to say hello in Sinhalese,” Selvi said, as she hugged him, too. “Next time you come, I will test you on it.”

He did his best to smile. “Mama loku gembek.”

“Remember us when you are back in your marvelous Canada.” Mala held out her hand to him. Their mutual attraction made them slightly formal with each other, but Amrith could tell they were sorry to be parting. “Write occasionally, okay?”

He nodded as he shook her hand. “I promise I will.”

Once the women had got into the car, they waved to Niresh and he waved back. The car reversed out into the street. The girls were still waving, but now Aunty Bundle had pulled out a handkerchief and was dabbing her eyes.

The moment the car left, Niresh turned abruptly and hurried to their room. When Amrith came in, Niresh was sitting on the bed by his suitcase, facing away. His shoulders were shaking. Amrith went and sat by him. He rested his hand on his cousin’s back. Niresh rubbed the heel of his palm fiercely across his cheek, then gripped his fingers together until he calmed down. “Fucking hell,” he said, turning to Amrith with a lopsided grin, “I’m even out of smokes.”

After a moment, Niresh picked up his suitcase and they went towards the door.

“Wait,” Niresh said softly. “I want to remember this room.”

He stood for a moment looking around, taking in everything: the bed, the drawers, the almirah, the side chair, the French windows with their lace curtains blowing in the breeze. He closed his eyes, as if imprinting it all in his mind; as if storing it away as a future comfort. Then he nodded to Amrith.

Uncle Lucky was in the courtyard, waiting by the car. He was giving Niresh a lift to the hotel.

Niresh turned to Amrith with a brave smile. “Thank you. I’ll never forget the time I’ve spent with you.” He put down his suitcase and placed his hands on Amrith’s shoulders. “Now that we’ve found each other, let’s never lose touch,
eh
. You’ll write, won’t you?”

Amrith nodded.

Then Niresh held him tight and Amrith, too, put his arms around his cousin. They pulled apart, after a moment, both a little embarrassed.

Niresh held up his hand. “One last joke. What happens when you cross a centipede and a parrot?”

“I don’t know.”

“You get a walkie-talkie.”

Amrith smiled as best he could. His cousin had cracked that joke before.

Niresh got into the car and it reversed out into the road. All the while he was staring at Amrith, who stared back.

Then his cousin was gone.

Amrith stood in the courtyard, listening to the car go up the road, and soon he could hear it no more. A crow
called loudly from the bougainvillea and a squirrel scampered in the jak tree. Someone was burning leaves a few houses down, an acrid smell in the air. In the distance, a passing train whistled mournfully.

He did not know what to do with himself. He went to his room and sat on the edge of his bed, then lay with his hands behind his head. After a while, he got up and went out of the French windows, across the side garden, and up the terrace steps. He let himself into the aviary, but then did not have the spirit to attend to his birds. He just stood in there as the birds flew around him.

By the end of the morning, Amrith could not bear to be home anymore; could not bear the quiet and emptiness that reminded him of Niresh. He asked Aunty Bundle to drop him off at Aunt Wilhelmina’s for the afternoon. He was hoping that being in the old lady’s house, surrounded by all her beautiful things, would bring him some peace.

Aunt Wilhelmina was at her usual bridge game on the front veranda. She was delighted to see Amrith and, as he came up the front steps, she beckoned him towards her chair.
“Ah
, child, how nice to have you back. My ornaments are in a dreadful state.” She pressed his arm and looked at him, her head to one side. “Your cousin left today?”

He nodded.

“Yes, I hear your uncle finally concluded the sale of Sanasuma.” She glanced at the other dowagers, who looked back at her significantly, then she simpered, “And he was in such a mighty hurry to get his hands on some money,
that he let the property go for far less than it was worth.”

“Mervin was always too greedy for his own good,” Lady Rajapakse declared, as she dealt the cards.

“Greedy and foolish,” Mrs. Zarina Akbarally added, as she took up her cards.

“He is off to Canada with no idea how thoroughly he has been bamboozled,” Mrs. Jayalukshmi Coomaraswamy said, and all four old ladies tittered in delight.

Aunt Wilhelmina led Amrith through the drawing room and dining room, waiting for him to make his choice from her glass-fronted cabinets. He picked the one containing her porcelain ornaments. She rang for her retainer, Ramu, and told him to bring some rags and a feather duster. Amrith was left to his work with fish patties and a glass of mixed-fruit cordial.

As he took out the ornaments and began to carefully dust and clean them, the loss of his cousin sat heavy in his stomach.

That evening, when Uncle Lucky got back from the office, he summoned Amrith to the master bedroom.

He came in to find Uncle Lucky seated on the edge of a chair, peeling off his socks. He threw them into the dirty-clothes basket and began to undo his tie. “Amrith, your typing has been thoroughly neglected,
nah
. An important skill for your future. I don’t approve, as you know, of people passing their holidays doing nothing-nothing. So, now that
your cousin is gone, it is time to start spending the mornings in my office again.”

Amrith nodded. He was relieved to have something to occupy his time.

When Amrith was back in the office in front of the typewriter, he thought how incredible it was that, just a short time ago, when he had first begun his typing exercises, he had not known his cousin. It seemed as if years had passed since then. How odd it was — the way that life could gather in stillness and then burst its banks, flowing forward with such rapidity.

Amrith came home for lunch to find his room had been tidied up. The extra set of pillows was removed and Jane-Nona had redistributed his clothes to all the shelves of his almirah. In the bathroom, Niresh’s towels were gone. It was as if his cousin had never been here.

That night, after he got into bed and turned the lights off, he longed for Niresh’s presence next to him.

While Amrith grieved the loss of his cousin, however, the world around him carried on.

He kept attending rehearsals for
Othello
and putting up with playing Cassio, a role that would not bring him any accolades. Yet, losing Desdemona to Peries seemed less
painful now. Amrith’s mind was too taken up with missing Niresh to really care anymore. As he sat in the auditorium and watched his rival do the role, he conceded that Peries was better at it than he had ever been. Perhaps Madam was right all along — this part was just not meant for him.

There were now four days until Mala and Selvi’s party and the living room roof still had a gaping hole in it. The party might have to be canceled after all.

Yet, just when they had decided to inform all the guests that the party was called off, the family was at lunch one afternoon, when they heard a banging on the gate and a voice calling out, “Baby-Hamu, we have arrived.”

The dogs rushed out barking, and Aunty Bundle leapt to her feet, crying,
“Ah
, they’re here! They’re here!”

She hurried out, followed by Uncle Lucky, Amrith, and the girls.

Jane-Nona was opening the gate and the men trooped into the courtyard — Gineris and his “boys,” who were practically middle-aged men now. Gineris wore his gray hair in the traditional way, pulled into a topknot and held in place by a carved tortoiseshell comb. He came forward and tried to touch Aunty Bundle’s feet in a gesture of respect. She stopped him. He still referred to her as Baby-Hamu, as he had been coming to her family since she was a child.

Jane-Nona, who had gone back to the kitchen, returned bearing a tray with cups of steaming milky tea on it. While the men sipped their tea, she and Aunty Bundle inquired about their families, congratulated them on the birth of
grandchildren and marriages, commiserated with them over deaths and illnesses.

“I knew you would not let me down, Gineris,” Aunty Bundle said, patting the old man on the shoulder. “Others,” she said, glancing at her husband, “might have had their doubts, but I never did.”

“Ah
, Baby-Hamu,” he replied, giving her a toothless grin, “how could I fail you?”

When they had finished their tea, Aunty Bundle led the roofers into the living room to look at the damage. Gineris could tell right away that another roofer had attempted to lay down tiles and he grimaced and said, with a sidelong glance at Uncle Lucky, “These modern roof-baases, with all their machinery. Our ancient Sri Lankan ways are always the best.” He clapped his hands at his sons. “Now, let us get to work.”

The roof was soon repaired and arrangements for the party sped ahead.

The gardener arrived to work on the gardens and Meenukshi, the woman who cleaned for them, came to polish the floors of the living and dining rooms. The furniture had to be moved. Amrith and the gardener lifted the chairs, tables, bureaus, and antique chests into the library, master bedroom, and the girls’ room. Except for the dining table, the rest of the furniture would remain displaced, even after the floors were polished. The living room was going to be used for dancing. While Amrith was assisting the
gardener, Mala and Selvi helped Meenukshi take down the curtains so they could be sent to the laundry. The bare floors of the living room were suddenly flooded with light.

Since it was not crowded with furniture, the girls set themselves up in Amrith’s room to make the decorations for the party. They sat on a mat, cutting hearts out of red bristol board, making pink tissue-paper roses, bickering over some minor point about streamers and balloons.