Cinnamon Gardens (13 page)

Nancy became serious. “Well so far no one has come around asking. But if it did happen and I loved him, I might consider it.” She turned to her friend. “All I am saying is that Miss Lawton’s way is not the only option.”

On Monday morning when Annalukshmi arrived at school, she found the teachers in the staff room in excited conversation. “Miss Lawton is talking to Miss Blake’s replacement in her office,” one of the teachers informed Annalukshmi. “No one knows who it is.”

Annalukshmi glanced at Nancy, who betrayed nothing.

Just then, the headmistress’s door opened and Miss Lawton came out. “Ladies, ladies,” she said, “I have an announcement to make.”

The teachers waited expectantly.

“I would like to introduce you to the newest member of our staff.” Miss Lawton turned and signalled to someone in her office. After a moment, a man appeared in the doorway.

A rustle went through the staff room.

“With the departure of our beloved Miss Blake,” Miss Lawton continued, “I have decided to fill in her position not with another teacher from England, but with Mr. Jayaweera here, who will take over most of the clerical and accounting aspects of my work, thus leaving me free to do what I love most. To teach.”

Annalukshmi studied Mr. Jayaweera. He was tall and well built and she judged him to be about thirty-five years old. His skin was dark, his jawline sharp. It was a face that she found too angular to be called handsome. There was a reserved, dignified air to him, and Annalukshmi noted that his white drill suit,
though neatly pressed, was threadbare. She wondered what misfortune had befallen his family and had caused him to have to work as a clerk.

The school bell rang to announce that chapel was about to start. Miss Lawton glanced quickly at her watch. “Oh dear, I didn’t realize it was so late.” She looked around at the teachers. “Anna,” she said, “aren’t you free the first period this morning?”

Annalukshmi nodded.

“Good. Could you show Mr. Jayaweera to my bungalow? He will be living with us until such time as he finds suitable accommodation in Colombo.”

Having stayed over so often at the headmistress’s bungalow, Annalukshmi knew that Miss Lawton reserved a special room for gentlemen visitors, travelling preachers, male missionaries who had come into Colombo from outstation on some business, a few English tea-planter friends. The room was outside the bungalow, at the far end of the back verandah, which meant that the male guest did not actually share the house with Miss Lawton and Nancy, thus ensuring propriety on all levels.

Once Mr. Jayaweera had retrieved his suitcase from Miss Lawton’s office, Annalukshmi led him across the school quadrangle, off which there was a doorway that opened directly into Miss Lawton’s back garden. At first they walked in silence, but the quiet soon became awkward and, to relieve it, Annalukshmi began to point out the various school buildings and tell him what they were. He nodded politely and asked interested questions. Although his English was, for the most part, correct, he spoke with the accent of a Sinhalese person for whom English was not their first language, mispronouncing his “w” as “v,”
elongating short vowels, substituting “p” for “f.” And, from time to time, he dropped his “the’s” and “a’s” Annalukshmi, again taking in his shabby suit, felt now that he must be from a poor, rural background and she wondered where he had learnt to speak English. Once she had shown him his room, he bowed slightly and said, “Thank you very much for your kindness.”

Annalukshmi inclined her head in reply. She left him and returned to the school, as chapel was ending.

Annalukshmi took the morning roll call in her class, and then returned to the staff room. The door in the back of the room led into Miss Lawton’s office. It was open and Annalukshmi could hear the headmistress reprimanding a student for being habitually late.

When the student left, Annalukshmi went to stand in the doorway of the office, curious to ask Miss Lawton more about Mr. Jayaweera.

“All is well, my dear?”

She nodded.

“And what do you think of our Mr. Jayaweera?”

“He seems very pleasant.”

“I had some reservations about hiring him, but Mr. Wesley, the headmaster of the boys’ mission school in Galle, highly recommended him. He’s an old pupil of his.”

Annalukshmi now understood why he spoke English fluently.

“Mr. Jayaweera was working on a tea estate as a clerk,” Miss Lawton continued. “He was fired through no fault of his own.” She grimaced. “Poor man is saddled with a very bad egg, an older brother who is a notorious troublemaker. A member of the
Labour Union. The brother, it seems, was paying secret visits to the estate workers, informing them of their so-called rights, urging them to unionize. The workers finally staged a strike, which the head tea planter and the police soon put a stop to. They caught the brother, put him in jail for a month, then packed him off to India. Mr. Jayaweera lost his job as a result. Mr. Wesley assures me that Mr. Jayaweera is not at all interested in the union. A very decent man, really. Supports his widowed mother and two unmarried sisters at great sacrifice to himself.”

Before Miss Lawton could proceed further, Mr. Jayaweera entered the staff room. “Do come into my office,” Miss Lawton called out. “Let me show you what needs doing before I begin my rounds of the school.”

Annalukshmi moved away from the doorway and went to sit at the table. She had before her a stack of exercise books that needed correcting and she picked one up and opened it. After a few moments, she found herself studying Mr. Jayaweera with curiosity as he stood talking to Miss Lawton. She had often read accounts in the newspapers maligning the Labour Union and its supporters. Yet she had always found herself admiring those who were outspoken about something they believed passionately, their willingness to make sacrifices for those less fortunate than themselves. Miss Lawton was clearly disapproving of what his brother had done. But, try as she might, Annalukshmi could not bring herself to believe it was wrong. She thought instead what a fine person he would have to be to make such an effort on behalf of the poor estate workers.

Just then Miss Lawton came into the staff room. “I have given Mr. Jayaweera some work to do, Anna,” she said. “Since you have been helping me with the office work these last few weeks, perhaps you can assist him if he needs anything.”

Annalukshmi nodded and Miss Lawton left the room.

Mr. Jayaweera was seated at the desk in Miss Lawton’s office that had been Miss Blake’s. He was reading through the letters that had come in that morning. After a while, he stood up and looked around him uncertainly. Annalukshmi got up and went into the office.

“Do you have everything you need, Mr. Jayaweera?”

He had not heard her enter and he started slightly.

“I have been helping Miss Lawton in her office, so if you need anything please feel free to ask.”

He held out the letters to her, “Where would I put these, miss?”

She looked through the correspondence and showed him which ones to file and which ones to put on Miss Lawton’s desk. “Thank you very much,” he said and smiled.

His smile was open and friendly, inviting conversation.

“Not at all, Mr. Jayaweera.”

“Miss is from Jaffna?” he asked, indicating the potu on her forehead and the way she wore her sari, in the Tamil style with the palu wrapped around her waist.

“No,” Annalukshmi said. “I’m from Colombo. Actually, I’m from Malaya.”

He looked at her, puzzled, and she explained to him that her father worked in Malaya in the civil service.

“And you, Mr. Jayaweera?” she asked. “You are from Galle?”

“No, miss. I went to school in Galle, but I am from small village called Weeragama.”

Annalukshmi shook her head to say she had not heard of it.

“It is in south. A very poor area, very dry. Sometimes we have to walk two miles to get water. Through the jungle. It is very dangerous because there are lots of snakes, some of them
very poisonous. Even the not-so poisonous ones, when they bite, the pain is something I have never felt before.”

“Are you telling me that you have been bitten by a snake?”

“In poor villages it is very common. Fortunately my brother was with me when it happened. It is not good to be alone because it is hard to tie your leg and make the cut.” He smiled at her aghast expression. “First, you have to tie the leg very, very tight above wound. Then you must take a knife and cut V shape with the point of the V on wound and facing towards the heart. That way, the poison will flow out with the blood and not into the rest of your body. Then, you put snake stone on wound.”

“A
snake
stone?”

He nodded, amused by her sceptical yet captivated tone. “Yes. It’s a healing stone. When it is held against the wound, it sticks on and sucks out the poison. Then you boil stone in milk, which becomes black immediately. After that, you can use stone again.”

“But what makes the stone able to cure a person?”

“Nobody knows. The stone we have has been in our family many generations.” He smiled. “Some people say that a snake itself vomits it out. But that is just fable.”

Annalukshmi raised her eyebrows.

At that moment, Miss Lawton walked in, putting an end to their conversation. Mr. Jayaweera returned to his work, and Annalukshmi went back to the table. As she took her seat, she glanced at Mr. Jayaweera, even more intrigued by him than she had been before.

T
he gold rush, as F. C. Wijewardena predicted, was in full swing. Two weeks had passed since the Mudaliyar’s birthday. The Donoughmore commissioners had arrived in Ceylon and were happily ensconced at Queen’s House.

Richard Howland, in Colombo two days, had already received a briefing from the colonial secretary that left him confused and bewildered by the numerous claims and counterclaims of the various groups in Ceylon. He sat at a desk in his room at the Galle Face Hotel, hand on forehead as he went through the notes he had quickly made while talking to the colonial secretary. Though not a large room, it was extremely pleasant, with burma teak flooring and Persian carpets. At one end stood a big four-poster bed with a lace canopy and mosquito netting on all sides. Next to it was an intricately carved antique almirah of tamarind wood against the wall. At the other end of the room was a desk and chair, also of tamarind wood, and, adjacent to it, two wing-back chairs. Despite the fact that his desk was advantageously placed with a wonderful view of the
sea, Richard was not cognizant of his surroundings. His mind was on the notes in front of him.

“What a mess, what a mess,” he murmured.

He turned to his companion, James Alliston, who stood by the window, looking down at the hotel gardens.

“This is a nightmare, Alli,” he said. “I didn’t realize just how bloody labyrinthine the whole thing was.”

“Have you noticed,” Alli replied, “that when the waiters stand in a certain light all is visible through their white sarongs.”

“For heaven’s sake, Alli,” Richard said. “Don’t you ever listen when I talk?”

Alli smiled and glanced at his watch. “The love of your life has probably arrived. In fact, he must be down in the foyer as we speak.”

“Don’t be silly. You know he’s not the love of my life,” Richard tried to sound casually dismissive. Yet, at the thought of Balendran already in the foyer, a feeling of panic took hold of him. He had not seen Balendran for more than twenty years. Not since that day their relationship suddenly ended.

He tried to speak to himself sensibly. He knew from the moment he decided to travel to Ceylon that he might meet Balendran. He had been prepared for the possibility, that chance meeting on the street or at one of those receptions that were bound to be thrown for the commission. He had imagined such a meeting in his mind. In the best of possible scenarios it was he who spotted Balendran, which would have prepared him, ready with a smile when his friend finally did see him. In the worst scenario, someone would tap his shoulder from behind, taking him by surprise, and there he would be, Balendran. What he had never expected was, that on his arrival at the hotel, hot and tired from the hassles of disembarking, from the formalities of
customs, and the haggling with the taxi driver, to find a note waiting for him. “Richard, I heard you were arriving in Colombo. I would very much like to see you. If you were willing. Bala.” Then the telephone number.