Adam's Peak (4 page)

He got off at the junction of the rail line and Vaththe Mawatha—Garden Street, as some of the old Burgher residents persisted in calling it. There was still a winding half-kilometre to backtrack, but he went first to the shady front doorway of his aunt's church, across from the train station, to mop his face and breathe in the cool emptiness of the massive white sanctuary. In a few days the place would be chock full for Easter Mass, but for now it was starkly, marvellously vacant.
He considered resting awhile under one of the whirling ceiling fans, clearing his head of Kanda and everything else, but he was already late. He pulled off his tie, undid several buttons, and crossed the street.

Passing the station, he quickened his pace to get away from the mob of taxi drivers hovering around their Bajaj three-wheelers, but one fat-bellied driver stepped into his path immediately.

“Sixty rupees only, sir.”

Rudy deked to the right. “No, thanks. I'll walk.”

The driver kept pace with him. “Okay, okay. Fifty rupees. Good price.”

“No.”

“Okay, how much you want to pay?”

“Normal price.”

“Fifty rupees is very good price for you, sir, but I'll give you forty-five. Last price.”

Rudy stopped and sighed. “Look—I'm not a tourist. Give me the same price you'd give my aunt and I'll go with you. Otherwise forget it.”

The driver held his stare a moment longer then shrugged and ambled back to his three-wheeler, refastening his plaid sarong in a neat fold and tuck. Rudy waved away a few more offers and finally slowed to a stroll. He was glad the taxi ride hadn't tempted him. There were other people out in the road—people who paid him no particular attention as they went about their business—and in that random, fleeting community, amid the tangled yards and airy bungalows of Vaththe Mawatha, he could believe that he really wasn't a tourist—that this uncomplicated world, the one he'd shared with his parents and Susie for six years, was still his.

Up the road, he stopped to buy a comb of bananas from the fruit stand. Apart from his own “Ayubowan,” the transaction was conducted in silence, for the old fruit vendor spoke no English, and Rudy's Sinhala was still awful. He nodded his thanks and carried on to the top of Aunty Mary's lane, where he lifted a few flyers and envelopes from the mailbox then swung open the wooden gate. As he made his way down the narrow, overgrown path that led to his aunt's bungalow, he experienced a familiar flash of empathy for those outsiders who ardently insisted that his birthplace was so
exotic
. The short walk took
him past feathery ferns, wide, waxy leaves, and whiffs of jasmine that made his head spin. Overhead, the pawpaw and mango trees were loaded, while underfoot, sticky brown fruit oozed from fallen tamarind pods. It
was
exotic, he had to admit, though he preferred to believe that his own attraction came from a sense that this tangle of tropical growth was part of him.

Outside the yellow bungalow he peered through the latticed cement wall into the sitting room, where the exoticism of the lane lost its integrity. The rattan and teak settee had cotton throw pillows from Ikea; the painted Sinhalese devil mask with bulging eyes and a hanging tongue looked down on plastic figurines of Jesus and Mary; the old gramophone sat next to the television from Singapore. The floor was polished red cement; the white walls were decorated with school photos and souvenir tea towels.

Faintly Rudy heard his aunt in the kitchen. He let himself in and sorted through the mail. There were two advertisements, a telephone bill, something from the bank, and a single letter, from his brother. He turned it over, looking for Aunty's name. Adam's letters were always to the two of them. “To Aunty Mary and Rudy,” the envelopes always said, and inside would be short, chatty updates on his job at the campus bookstore, his swimming, his motorcycle, family goings-on, and other things of that sort. But this letter was addressed simply to “Rudy Vantwest.” Frowning, Rudy folded the envelope in half and stuffed it in his trouser pocket.

In the kitchen, Aunty Mary was dusting Easter cookies with sugar. A kitten with matted orange fur had stationed itself at her feet, while a mob of tiny flies hovered over a jack fruit on the counter. Rudy deposited the bananas next to the jack fruit and kissed his aunt's cheek. She smoothed her cotton dress and patted the thick twist of silver-black hair at the back of her head.

“You're home late, son.”

“Yeah. The bus was slow.” He reached above her head for a glass.

“Want tea?”

“No, thanks. Water is fine.”

“Ah, yes. My doctor is telling me I should drink more water. Very good for the health, isn't it. You'd like chicken for dinner?”

“Sure.”

“I'll just finish this. It shouldn't be long.”

“No hurry,” he said distractedly. “I'll get started on my marking.”

He filled his glass from a pitcher in the fridge, drained it, then went out back to wash at the well. Bathing at the stone well in the pink-gold light of late afternoon was one of those entitlements, like eating rice with his fingers or shitting in the outdoor toilet under a leafy canopy, that Rudy indulged in simply because it was not—could never be—part of his Canadian life. With renewed determination to distance himself from that life, he drew a pail of cool water dotted with dead leaves, emptied it into the plastic washtub, and rolled up his sleeves. A pair of mosquitoes—enormous brutes with long, dangling legs and abdomens—danced threateningly over the tub. He clapped them both dead, pried a bar of soap from the rim of the well, and scrubbed his hands and face. Completing the ritual, he emptied the tub over the dirt and shook his hands.

Adam's letter weighed heavily in his pocket as he returned to the sitting room and installed himself at his grandfather's desk. His knapsack was on the floor, Kanda's essay inside. It was a queer twist of fate, being confronted with both on the same day—though the coincidence didn't particularly surprise him. He reached down and unzipped his bag. He would start with the essay; the letter could wait.

Skimming Kanda's introduction, he put a check mark next to the thesis statement. (The boy had a thesis; two-thirds of the class would-n't.) He made a few more check marks throughout the paper, circled some errors, then, turning to the back page, considered what comments to make. A further response had entered his mind, joining those he'd come up with earlier:
What if your sister got in the way of a Tiger attack, Kanda? What then?
But he couldn't write that—or anything else he'd come up with, for that matter.

He leaned back, and his gaze drifted up to the framed oil painting hanging above the desk. The painting, an awkward, immature work, apparently done by Uncle Ernie, had been in Aunty's house for as long as Rudy could remember. Its subject was Adam's Peak, the mountain his brother was named after, rendered as a dappled green oblong under a yellow sun. Despite the clumsiness of the brush
strokes, the light on the peak showed a certain sensitivity to nature, while the surrounding hills cast convincing shadows on the landscape. At the summit of the oblong was a red pavilion. The lopsided building was too large for the scale of the painting, and it seemed to Rudy that the picture would be more effective without it.

As he sat pondering this, Aunty Mary emerged from the kitchen with a cup of tea.

“I thought you might like this since you are working.”

He turned and sighed. His aunt's attentions embarrassed him—the cooking, the laundry, the cups of tea. He planned to move out, of course. Buy a house closer to the city, ship his belongings from Canada. But for now, for Aunty Mary, he was still a child. He took the cup and thanked her.

“How are your pupils doing?” she said.

“Oh, most of them are fine.” He paused. “I just finished reading the new kid's essay. Seems he supports the Tigers.”

“Aiyo.” Aunty shook her head. “These Tigers only care about making trouble. You must explain to him.”

Rudy looked down at the half-page on which his comments would be written. “There's nothing I can explain to him that he does-n't already know, Aunty. He believes that violence is the only option left for his cause.”

Aunty frowned. “And why is a young man so worried about a cause like this? He has more important things to think about, no?”

Feeling oddly compelled to defend his student, Rudy shrugged and sipped his tea. “Kanda identifies himself mainly as a Tamil. He thinks his language and culture will be best served in an independent country.”

“He is full of strange ideas then,” Aunty said. “What's most important is our family, no? We should worry about those people, whether they are healthy and living a good life. Language and culture will look after themselves, isn't it.”

Rudy opened his mouth then shrugged again. “You may be right.”

“Do you think this Kanda is involved with the Tigers?”

“I doubt it. But who knows? The Tigers employ kids a hell of a lot younger than him.”

“Ah, yes.” Aunty shook her head. “They give machine guns to children. It's a sin.”

Rudy gulped down most of his tea and stared at the back page of Kanda's essay. In the brief silence, the ticking of Grandpa's old clock and the thrum of the electric fan were strangely loud.

Then Aunty sighed. “I think our government is putting itself out on the murunga branch.”

Rudy looked up, surprised. His aunt never discussed politics. “What do you mean?”

“Ah, it's an old expression. When someone is feeling very proud of himself, we say he is sitting on the murunga branch.” She pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and shook it out. “As you know, the murunga is a very tall tree. It also has very brittle branches. You can climb high up in this tree, but then the branch breaks ...” Her voice trailed off.

“And how does that relate to the government?”

Aunty wiped her forehead and cheekbones. “The government is feeling very proud these days. They believe that capturing Jaffna will put an end to all this fighting. But I think these Tigers will make sure the army's murunga branch comes crashing back to the ground.”

“You and Kanda agree on that much,” he said with a wry smile. “And Dad. What does he say? ‘The Tamil man and the Sinhalese man will never get along. It's not in their nature.' Or some rubbish like that?”

His aunt stuffed the handkerchief back in her pocket. “Ah, no. You're right. We must be positive, isn't it. It's Easter.” And on that, she turned and went back to the kitchen.

Rudy picked up his pen and composed his comments.

Kanda: Your essay is quite well organized and the prose is clear and engaging. There are some problems with grammar and punctuation, as marked, but they don't seriously detract from the success of your paper. The essay has a strong, attention-grabbing thesis, and you offer plenty of good evidence in support of it. The major way in which the paper could be improved would be to give some consideration to the best
arguments in support of the other side. The most convincing arguments are often those that show they understand their opponents' position and can reasonably refute it. You have the potential to be an excellent writer. Keep up the good work.

It was a long way off what he wanted to write, but it would have to do. At the bottom of the page he wrote “B+” then reached for the rest of the essays in his knapsack. As he shifted position, Adam's letter crinkled in his pocket. He decided to save it till Aunty Mary had gone to bed.

LATE THAT EVENING
, after chicken dinner and more marking, Rudy slouched at the desk, tapping his pen against the cover of his diary. Mosquitoes hovered around him, but he was too tired to bother lighting a coil. Too tired to write, really, but it was something of a ritual, his nightly communication with Clare Fraser—begun on a cold Christmas day back home and carried out ever since. He told her about his afternoon, about reading Kanda's essay and missing his bus stop, then he left his diary in his bedroom and went to the shower shed in the backyard. The green plastic enclosure was dimly lit by a pair of bulbs fixed to the back wall of the house. Overhead the black sky was pierced with stars. Rudy hung his sarong over the door and turned on the water. It fell from the broad metal shower head, straight and heavy and warm, like a monsoon downpour. He backed into it, watching a rupee-sized spider scurry across the concrete floor, reached for the soap, and lathered his hands. Eyes closed, he masturbated with dull frustration, a desire for release of some kind. He thought of his ex-girlfriend Renée's muscular thighs and prodigious breasts, of the girl in Kanda's essay, walking by herself early in the morning, of Clare. He came easily. Relieved, if only temporarily, he rinsed off then stood still under the spray in the shower's green light. At the faint sound of the dining room clock striking eleven, he turned off the water and hurried to dry himself before the mosquitoes moved in.