Cinnamon Gardens (45 page)

“I cannot bear the thought that Miss Annalukshmi might feel I meant her harm,” Seelan continued, once he had regained his composure. “I want her to know that I had intended to tell her who I was.” He looked down at his hands. “The time I spent with her this afternoon has made me all the more sure of my feelings towards her. I would like a chance to explain myself. Then, if she can find it in her heart to forgive me this awful deception, I would like to pursue the possibility of an attachment growing between us … of her ultimately becoming my wife.”

Balendran and Sonia glanced at each other.

Sonia was the first to speak. “Seelan, don’t you think it is a bit soon to be thinking of future possibilities between you and Annalukshmi? After all –”

“I understand that many difficulties exist. Yet I am willing to wait, to be patient.” He looked from one to the other beseechingly.

“I think it’s best if I speak to my niece on your behalf,” Balendran said finally.

Seelan’s face brightened a little. “Yes, I would like that very much.”

“But you must understand, Seelan, that things are very heated at the moment.” Balendran paused. “If you really want something to grow between you and my niece, my sincere advice is that you go back home for a while. Let everyone regain their senses. Then return at a later date, if that is what you want to do.”

After a moment, Seelan said, “Yes. I will see if I can change the date of my return passage to Bombay, leave Ceylon as soon as possible. To try to see her again at this time would be awkward for everyone. I will have a letter sent to her tomorrow.”

Balendran telephoned for a taxi. He wished to speak with his father about what had happened that afternoon.

As Balendran walked down the hallway that led to his father’s dining room, he could hear the clink of cutlery and the low murmur of voices. He paused outside, straightened his coat, and went in.

His father, mother, and Miss Adamson were at the table, Pillai waiting on them. When they saw him, they stopped eating. His mother and Miss Adamson looked surprised, but he saw that his father had been expecting him.

Balendran had envisioned that his father would be triumphant with righteous indignation. Instead, he saw a look of uncertainty in his father’s face, present only fleetingly before his countenance regained its usual sternness.

“I want to talk to you,” Balendran said.

“As you can see, I am at dinner,” the Mudaliyar replied. “You will have to wait until I have finished.”

The imperiousness of his tone enraged Balendran. “Your dinner can wait,” he snapped back. Pillai was about to offer his father some fish in a white sauce and Balendran signalled him to refrain from doing so.

Pillai looked from father to son, not sure what to do.

The Mudaliyar glared at his retainer and pointed insistently at his plate.

As Pillai bent down to serve the Mudaliyar, Balendran stepped forward on impulse and pushed the plate. It fell out of Pillai’s hands and onto the floor with a clatter. Nalamma and Miss Adamson gasped, and the Mudaliyar’s face became red. “Get out,” he shouted, his voice cracking. “Get out of my house.”

Balendran, though shaken by his own action, stood his ground. He walked over to where his mother sat and placed his arm around her, leaning over. “Amma, I am sorry for this, but please allow me to speak to my father alone.” She looked as if
she were about to say something, but then got up and went towards the door. “And you as well,” Balendran said to Miss Adamson. “This is a family matter.”

She, too, rose hurriedly and left, with Pillai behind her.

Balendran crossed to the door and shut it.

The Mudaliyar sat where he was, his hands trembling beneath the table.

Since the moment he walked away from Lotus Cottage that afternoon, he had been unable to dispel the image of his grandson’s face, the anger and contempt with which Seelan had looked at him before leaving. Now, confronted by his son, he felt disturbingly vulnerable.

Balendran turned to his father. “The boy came to me and told me what happened this afternoon. The way you spoke to him. How could I tell him that when you look at him you see your own crimes reflected in his face.”

The Mudaliyar started.

“You are reminded of what you did to Arul, to Pakkiam and her mother. And for those things, you hate your grandson.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Balendran smiled disdainfully. “Arul told me, and his wife confirmed it.”

The Mudaliyar tried to conceal his distress.

“How could you have brought Pakkiam here? She was just a girl when you brought her to Brighton to take her mother’s place.”

Smashing his fist down on the table, the Mudaliyar cried, “You deceived me by bringing that boy here. You had no right.”

Balendran waved his hand to dismiss his father’s ploy to steer the conversation away from Seelan’s mother.

“Why do you try to destroy everything you touch?” he asked
bitterly. “Look what you’ve done to Seelan. To Arul. Even in his death you tried to master him, demanding that his body be returned to you.”

“I did it out of love for my son, out of –”

“The same love that drove you to London to destroy my life?” Balendran had spoken without thinking and he glanced quickly at his father. To his astonishment, the Mudaliyar recoiled from his words.

Balendran was silent, taking this in. When he next spoke, he felt as if he were testing something unknown, prodding at it. “Why didn’t you leave me alone in London? I was content then.”

“I saved you from that … degradation. Look at what you have now. What would you have been in London? Nothing.”

“Yes, Appa,” Balendran said with gathering strength, “but I might have been truly happy.” He took a deep breath. “I loved Richard. That would have been enough.”

“Stop,” the Mudaliyar cried, raising his hand as if to shield off his son’s words. “I forbid you to speak such filth in my house. Apologize immediately.”

“No, Appa. I cannot, for this is how things are with me. And there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t live with the pain of knowing this and not being able to do anything about it.”

The Mudaliyar stared at him, his mouth agape. He ran his hand over his forehead. Balendran could see he was trembling.

His father tried to rise from his seat, then sank back into it, making a pained sound through his gritted teeth. “How dare you,” he said, his voice breaking. “How dare you speak like this in my presence. It is not true. I will not accept it.”

Balendran did not respond; he simply watched his father. He saw that by confronting his father with his true nature, unashamed, assured, he had taken something away from him. How
strange, how unexpected this was. It was like a tale of enchantment where the quester, by accidently pronouncing the magic words, causes the spell that binds him to fall away. He had come looking for his nephew’s freedom and, unwittingly, he had achieved his own.

As Balendran walked towards his waiting taxi, he glanced towards the lights of Lotus Cottage and he knew that there was something else he must do. He sent a gardener to tell Annalukshmi that he wanted to speak to her alone, to meet him just outside the gates of Brighton. In his current frame of mind, Balendran could not bear to deal with Louisa, with her recriminations, her questions, her outrage.

Earlier that afternoon when Annalukshmi had run into the house in tears, she had locked herself in her bedroom and wept at her humiliation and embarrassment, her shock at the terrible cruelty of what had been said and done. When she calmed down, she had lain on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, ignoring her mother’s insistent demands that she open the door. She had pondered with some wonder that Dr. Govind was Seelan. The son of Arulanandan. How strange it was to have met someone who, in her mind all these years, she had pictured as a mysterious and doomed figure.

For the rest of the afternoon, she had been turning over and over in her mind her meetings with Seelan. His attention towards her had seemed so sincere. Were his feelings as well not to be trusted? How could she have allowed herself to be taken in like this? The man she thought she knew, however vaguely, she found now that she did not know at all. Was he even a doctor?
Was that story about his studying in London a lie? What were his real thoughts, hopes, and aspirations?

When the gardener came to tell her that her uncle wished to speak with her at Brighton, Annalukshmi felt relieved. Here was someone who would answer some of the numerous questions that had come to dominate her mind.

Annalukshmi emerged from the clump of trees that separated the grounds of Brighton from the garden of Lotus Cottage. She saw her uncle standing by the taxi near the gate and she made her way quickly towards him.

They stood for a moment, regarding each other.

“Are you all right, thangachi?”

She nodded.

He opened the door of the taxi for her. “Come,” he said. “I want to talk to you. Let’s go for a drive around Victoria Park, then I will bring you back home.”

At first, as the taxi left Brighton, they were silent. Then Balendran said, “It’s unfortunate that such vicious and unnecessary things were said this afternoon.”

“For people who claim to be refined and respectable, their behaviour this afternoon was ill-bred and vulgar,” Annalukshmi said.

“Yes, it was indeed.”

The taxi began to circle Victoria Park. Except for intermittent streetlamps besides the railings, the park was in darkness. The air was fragrant with the sweet smell of Queen of the Night.

“You know you must not judge my nephew too harshly,” Balendran said. “He would have told you but … well, it is not easy to speak of certain things. I have good reason to believe that
he was afraid. I think he was convinced that if you knew who he really was, you would want nothing at all to do with him. He wanted you to come to like him first.”

“I wondered if it was something like that,” she said.

“It is very important to him that you understand that he meant you no harm.”

“I think I do, now.”

“In light of what has happened, Seelan feels that it would be best to leave for Bombay as soon as possible. Give things a chance to settle down. He told me that he will have a letter delivered to you tomorrow.”

“I look forward to reading it.”

“There is something else … something that I feel you should know,” Balendran continued after a moment. “Seelan has told us that his feelings for you go beyond mere friendship. He has even talked of marriage.”

Annalukshmi turned to him, stunned. Then she remembered the appeal in Seelan’s eyes as he had told her that he meant no harm. So, his feelings had not been a lie after all. “I don’t know what to say. I hardly know him,” she said to her uncle.

Balendran looked out of the window at the swaying trees. A wind had picked up. “Seelan is a very accomplished young man. He won the University Scholarship to London, where he trained as a doctor. He has been practising in Bombay and some day might wish to set up a practice here. I am going to give him a piece of the land connected to Sevena, on which he could build a house. He was brought up in a home where, despite terrible difficulties and poverty, there seems to have been love. Seelan was dutiful and loving towards his mother during Arul’s illness and after his death. Much as he desired to come to Ceylon to visit, he held back until he was sure his mother would
be well taken care of in his absence. He is a man who, in many senses, is honourable.”

“I’m glad you’ve told me all this about him, Bala Maama. It increases my regard for him.”

“Merlay, you know how these things are. One must be very careful. Please do not enter into anything lightly. You must be very, very sure.”

The next day was uncharacteristically sunny for July. Yet the mood inside Lotus Cottage was dark and gloomy. The tensions of the previous afternoon had not altogether abated. Nothing at all was said about the incident.

The letter from Seelan had not arrived with the morning post. After lunch, Annalukshmi, wanting to be alone, took a chair from the verandah to the shade of the flamboyant tree, where she sat moodily turning the pages of the newspaper. Something on the last page caught her eye. It was a small item announcing the exhibition of paintings by Chandran Macintosh. It was to take place this evening. Though Nancy had reminded her about it last week, she had forgotten all about it.