The Flower Boy (21 page)

chapter 19

BY THE TIME CHANDI CAME BACK TO GLENCAIRN, SCHOOL HAD ALREADY started.

In fact he had missed almost two weeks. That made him feel both pleased and irritated. He was happy because he had been spared two weeks of Teacher, and upset because he would now have to borrow Sunil's books and copy down all the schoolwork he had missed.

It wasn't fair. He had thought that once he got to a higher grade, he'd have Miss Ranawake, or anyone else for that matter, as his teacher. Instead, he seemed to be stuck with Teacher, whose teaching skills had deteriorated drastically through the years. Now he didn't even make a pretense of staying awake in class. He snored loudly and didn't bother to wake up when Father Ross came on his rounds.

Father Ross would shake his head sadly and tell the children to pray for Teacher. Chandi privately thought Teacher was well beyond any kind of help.

So as Teacher's interest in teaching grew lesser, so did Chandi's interest in school. He only brightened up during English class because he was Mr. Aloysius's star student.

They had progressed well beyond verbs and nouns and were now reading
Black Beauty.
It had taken them nearly four months to get through half the book, but that was mostly because there was only one book among the entire class and because only Chandi was capable of reading aloud.

However, Mr. Aloysius encouraged each one of them to have a shot at reading aloud. So one unlucky person would be chosen to stand up and read, while the entire class sniggered behind their hands when he stumbled over a word or pronounced it wrong. When Chandi was chosen, the class quickly lost interest because there was nothing to laugh at, so Chandi read to Mr. Aloysius, who beamed with the pride of accomplishment. Chandi didn't like to tell him that his reading skills had in fact improved because of Rose-Lizzie, who lent him her books and helped him with difficult words.

Father Ross was still his same kind and self-effacing Christian self. He visited Glencairn faithfully once a month, and had approached Premawathi to ask if Chandi could be trained as an altar boy, but was sent on his way with a firm no.

In Premawathi's mind, Father Ross and all priests did more damage than good with their sermons and advice. They made everything seem possible, when in fact hardly anything was. And anyway, she thought, how could someone who had renounced just about everything be qualified to advise normal people?

Premawathi was a God-fearing woman, but her fear did not extend to His ministers or messengers or whatever they called themselves.

ON THE MONDAY after he came back to Glencairn, Chandi trudged down the path to school, kicking a stone. He had kicked the same stone from just outside the back garden gate. He didn't notice the slight chill left over from the rains, or the two thalagoyas, the large lizards that frequented these hills, watching him from the side of the road.

He was busy thinking. He had a lot to think about. There was school. There was Rose-Lizzie. And there was his father.

He hadn't missed the gloomy, disapproving looks his father kept giving him these days. Chandi knew they were because of his friendship with Rose-Lizzie but he didn't understand why his father was so upset about it. It wasn't as if they were constantly getting into trouble or anything. Whenever he and Rose-Lizzie came running through the back garden and passed the kitchen steps, if his father was sitting there, his face would become long and he would shake his head slowly from side to side.

Even Rose-Lizzie had noticed and had asked Chandi about it. He had no answers for her.

He felt the renewed tension between his mother and father and wondered if he was the cause of it. He and Rose-Lizzie. But he didn't ask. He just worried. And he watched. He had seen the Sudu Nona go away. He was terrified that next it would be
his
mother.

He saw Rangi walking some yards ahead. Leela didn't go to school anymore. She had stayed on at the church school until she passed her grade eight test. Because the church school didn't have classes beyond that, and because Premawathi simply couldn't afford the daily bus fare to the school in Nuwara Eliya, she stayed home and helped in the house.

She didn't really mind, because she had never been an exceptional student. She was far better at cooking and cleaning than she was at history and arithmetic.

While many Ceylonese had abandoned their customs and traditions in favor of the more relaxed British style of living, many things hadn't changed, like the role of women. In British circles, women were expected to entertain and make witty conversation and generally act as complements to their gain-fully employed husbands. Many of them were like the Sudu Nona had been, although most of them actually enjoyed their roles as hostesses. Giving a successful party and having the most important people attend was considered the highest achievement for a British wife stationed in Ceylon.

For the Ceylonese, women were still the homemakers. There for the purposes of being good wives, bearing healthy children, keeping good homes and keeping their families well fed and happy. Education was a nice advantage but by no means an essential.

As such, Leela was considered to have more than her necessary share of accomplishments. She was a good cook, a good seamstress, a good housekeeper, and she had the added bonus of being able to read and write.

She would make some man a fine wife, but unfortunately not many suitable men were to be found in the vicinity of Glencairn. Not that Leela seemed to mind for, unlike most eighteen-year-olds, she didn't seem to be remotely interested in men or marriage.

She had matured into a beautiful woman, but there was no one to tell her so except Chandi, whom she didn't believe anyway.

RANGI HEARD CHANDI kicking his stone and waited. She knew he was worried and it worried her. He caught up and they walked in silence. Since his friendship with Rose-Lizzie had blossomed, he hardly spent any time with Rangi, which made him feel guilty because he truly loved her.

He knew she loved him too. He knew that she didn't feel bad or angry that he didn't show her his secret places anymore, or talk to her about his dreams and plans. Rangi was the only one who understood, perhaps even more than Rose-Lizzie.

She was fifteen now, and while she didn't have the earthy, sensual beauty of Premawathi and Leela, she was beautiful in an ethereal sort of way. She was lighter-skinned and dreamy-eyed and as slim as a reed. Premawathi often slipped her special treats like an egg or some butter or an occasional glass of milk in an attempt to fatten her up. Rangi accepted them meekly and then, once Premawathi had gone, she stole down to the garage and gave them to Buster, who seemed to appreciate them far more than she did.

John couldn't understand why Buster was suddenly getting fat, and took him on longer walks these days.

Rangi was a loner who didn't have any friends. Most girls of her age had already stopped going to school. At the workers' compound, fifteen-year-olds spent their days picking tea and their evenings cooking and keeping house.

No one had time for friendships.

Chandi was always with Rose-Lizzie and she didn't grudge him that; they were so full of life, she didn't think she could even keep up with them.

Leela was always busy. Occasionally, she stopped to look critically at Rangi and ask if she was feeling okay. Rangi always said yes. No one expected her to say anything else. She never complained. Even when she felt the weight of life pressing her down. Even when her vague, unnamed fears intruded on her dreams, and she woke up feeling depressed and sad. Anyway, what was there to say? Even she didn't know exactly what it was that seemed to worry her constantly.

Other than their mother, of course. Rangi watched her intently and saw the loneliness and the pain. She longed to enfold her mother in her thin young arms and comfort her, but how could she do that when Amma went to such lengths to disguise her sorrow? So Rangi could only empathize and silently try to absorb the pain.

That hurt so much, sometimes.

She thought of the previous day. Her mother had been cooking and reached for a dish, quite forgetting that it had just been taken out of the oven and was very hot. She cried out in pain as she burnt her fingers, and where she would ordinarily have held them under a cold tap and carried on, yesterday her eyes had filled with tears and her mouth trembled. Like a young girl.

Rangi's eyes clouded at the memory.

CHANDI SAW HER waiting and hurried to join her.

She looked like a young eucalyptus tree, he thought fancifully, pale and slim and graceful. And she was such a good person.

Sometimes, when his mother and Leela talked disparagingly about some woman on the estate, Rangi would quietly urge them not to judge people, ignoring their laughs and good-natured jibes about her saintliness.

Rangi looked at all people as good and kind and so people were mostly good and kind to her, even if they weren't to other people. But some were not, whispering to one another that she was strange and perhaps not quite right in the head. One unkind woman from the workers' compound had seen her walking alone in the moonlight and even suggested that Rangi might be a witch. Someone else said that if Rangi was a witch, then she was a good witch.

People liked her.

Premawathi worried about Rangi, that her gentleness and unswerving faith in life would get her into trouble. Sometimes she got impatient with her gentle daughter, and urged her to pay more attention to things, not knowing that Rangi took in everything. Much more than she was supposed to.

She had been through the big girl ceremony by this time, wandering through the proceedings in a daze, not quite sure what was happening since Premawathi assumed she already knew.

She never complained, even when the coins were poured over her head.

Now she was moving from one foot to the other since the ground was hot. Her reddha and blouse were handed down from Premawathi to Leela and then to her, and they looked their age. Her hair was tied back with a frayed piece of black ribbon whose ends flew about sadly in the breeze.

“Hurry up, Malli, we're already late,” she called out.

“Late for what?” he shouted back. “It's not like we'll ever actually
learn
anything. At least I won't, with Teacher for my teacher.” He caught up with her and she tweaked his nose gently.

“Where else would we go, child?” she asked. “To the British school?”

“Why not?” he said sulkily, although he knew why not.

She looked down at him seriously as they walked. “Malli,” she said, “you're not a child anymore. You're a young man. And this kind of talk can only get you into trouble. The school isn't much, but it's the only one there is. If you talk like this, Ammi and Thaaththi will be sad because they have no other choice.”

“Why not?” he asked curiously.

“Well,” she said, looking down at the path, “they don't have enough money to send us to the Maha Vidyalaya in Nuwara Eliya. Even though it's free, we'd still need bus fare there and back every day, and it's a lot of money. And there are no other schools around here.”

“Why can't we go to the British school?” he asked. “If we pass the entrance test and do very well, then maybe they'll take us.”

She laughed. “They won't let us take the entrance test. I don't think the white children even have one,” she said.

“Then how do they get into the school?” he asked in astonishment. “Everyone has to take an entrance test!”

“What are they going to do if someone fails? Tell them to go to another school?” she said.

He stared at her. He had never heard her speak in this way before.

“It makes you angry too,” he said slowly. “I didn't think you could get angry.”

She laughed, her anger already forgotten. “I get angry. Everyone does at some time.” She pulled at his arm. “Enough talk. Hurry up now, or we'll be really late and then Teacher will make you stand outside the classroom again.”

“I won't miss much,” he said wryly, and they both laughed.

Ten minutes later, he stood outside the classroom and thought about what she'd said about the British school. He wondered if they made their children stand outside the classroom when they were late. It probably didn't matter, he thought cynically. What were they going to do? Tell them to go to another school?

The more he thought about it, the better the British school sounded. It seemed as if anyone could do anything there and get away with it. Fail tests, go late, maybe even not go at all.

But then, he'd probably
want
to go to school if he went there, he thought gloomily. He was sure they didn't have teachers like Teacher who wrote on the blackboard and went to sleep. Their teachers would teach. And talk. And encourage questions and answer them. And delight in dialogue and discussion and debate.

Their teachers would be teachers, not Teacher.

The bell signaling the end of Teacher's class rang and he waited for Teacher to leave the classroom before going in. Mr. Aloysius came to stand next to him, also waiting for Teacher to leave.