Cinnamon Gardens (6 page)

“ ‘As one by one we give up, we get freer and freer of pain,’ ” he said, citing to himself that verse from the
Tirukkural
on renunciation. How often he had repeated it during that first year of his marriage, to comfort himself for the anguish he had felt, the suffocation, lying next to his wife, Sonia, at night, unable to
sleep. His suffering had been intensified by knowing that she despaired along with him, felt his alienation, almost hatred towards her, without knowing its cause. Yet no life is without its compensations. In the first year of their marriage, two things had happened to counteract their unhappiness with each other. The first, and most important, was the arrival of their son, Lukshman. How quickly that had altered their relations with each other, how easily they had learnt to love through their son. The second had been that his father, after the birth of his son, had finally grown cordial towards him. After a prolonged period of thirst, he had felt the assuaging waters of his father’s love, his restoration as the much beloved son.

For a moment, Balendran allowed himself to think of that terrible time when the Mudaliyar had come to his flat in London, somehow knowing of his relationship with Richard. Balendran immediately shuddered and turned away, not wishing to dwell on that memory. Instead, he made himself recall his father’s forgiveness. His father, as a gesture of his pardon, had bestowed on him the running of the family rubber estate and the temple, which he now managed and from which he drew his income. The granting of control and responsibility was the way the Mudaliyar expressed his affection.

Balendran stopped walking, a sudden significant idea before him that he had not thought of before. His father was
asking
him to renew contact with Richard! This request was not simply about the Donoughmore Commission. It went much deeper than that. His father was saying that he completely trusted him, that anything there was to forgive was forgiven. He recalled the pressure of his father’s hands on his shoulders. They were the clasps on the mantle of societal approbation that Balendran now drew around him. He saw himself as he was. Much adored
father of a handsome, intelligent son, their open, equal relationship the envy of all his son’s friends; gallant spouse to a wife who was constantly told by her friends how lucky she was to have such a gentle, humane husband; dutiful, ministering son who eased his parents’ burden in their old age. While other men might have taken these positions for granted, passed them off lightly, for Balendran they had an inestimable value. They were hard won, they had been laboured for, they were the sustenance from which he drew the strength for his daily life. Now the reminder of his charges gave him a mastery over his mind and emotions. Like someone emerging from a fever, he felt exhausted but also a clear-headed relief at being lucid again.

Balendran had reached the sea wall. He turned around and began to walk back towards the car. The meeting with Richard, which had seemed so earth-shattering a prospect a short while ago, now promised to be curiously banal. Apart from an initial moment of awkwardness, their meeting would be no different from the visit of any of his old London friends passing through Colombo.

T
he morning Annalukshmi rode her bicycle to school, Louisa was in the garden, supervising Ramu, her odd-job man and gardener. She wore a large straw hat with netting over it, making her look like she was bee-keeping. The hat was to guard her complexion, the netting to protect her from the mosquitoes. She was disturbed from her task by the postman, who stopped outside their gate and rang his bell in that maddeningly prolonged way he had. Louisa shaded her eyes against the sunlight and sent Ramu to fetch the letter the postman was waving at them. When Ramu passed it to her, she saw that the handwriting on the envelope was her husband’s, the address barely legible because of his impatient scrawl. She told Ramu to carry on with his work, then, pushing the netting over her hat, she went up the verandah steps and sat down in one of the wicker chairs.

“Wife,” the letter began, causing Louisa to frown at its peremptory tone. “Prepare Annalukshmi to get married. The young man in question is Muttiah, my nephew, Parvathy Akka’s
son.” Louisa leant forward and went over this sentence again, unable to believe what she had just read.

“Muttiah has just secured a job,” the letter continued. “He is at the Land Office in Kuala Lumpur on a steady salary and is able to support a wife and family. I have known him these last few years and find him serious and dependable. He fits all my expectations and I am sure will make Annalukshmi very happy. I will notify you of Parvathy Akka and Muttiah’s forthcoming visit to settle the matter.”

Louisa gasped. She reread the letter, shaking her head, unable to believe its contents. Ramu had stopped work and was watching her. She got up and, with as much calm as she could muster, went inside.

Once in her bedroom, Louisa removed her hat, sat on the edge of her bed, and stared at the letter again. A myriad of thoughts went through her mind at the same time, but, out of them, one took precedence. Her husband’s nephew was a Hindu.

It was Murugasu’s reversion to Hinduism that was the final blow to their already crumbling marriage. Louisa, a preacher’s daughter, had been biased against Hinduism anyway. The fact that her husband had forsaken Christianity and returned to Hinduism marked the demise of her own happiness. Now, by Murugasu’s command that Annalukshmi marry Muttiah, a Hindu, her husband was conveying to the world that their marriage held no meaning for him, that he was her husband in name only. “The mockery,” she said to herself. “This is a slap in my face. He might as well take me out into the street by my hair and spit on me, such is the insult.”

She now thought of Annalukshmi and a dread took hold of her. Louisa could not imagine her daughter, or indeed herself, in that house. Parvathy, her sister-in-law, kept a strict Hindu
household, and Annalukshmi would be forced to conform to the ideals of a Hindu wife, cloistered like a nun, her movements restricted, her thoughts and opinions suppressed in favour of her husband. Then there was the groom himself. His physical attributes were not wholly unpleasant, but whatever charm there was in them was completely negated by his clumsy, oafish manner. In fact, when she had first met him, Louisa had wondered if he was a simpleton. She resolved that, come what may, she would not allow her daughter to go through with this.

Louisa recalled the terrible quarrel between father and daughter that had led her to leave Malaya, fearing for Annalukshmi’s safety. Even now, she could hear Annalukshmi’s scream of pain when Murugasu pulled her by her hair and slapped her. All ostensibly because Annalukshmi had not swept the drawing room. Yet Louisa later found out that the real cause of violence was the severing of the bond between father and daughter ever since Annalukshmi had seen Murugasu coming out of a Hindu temple and known that her parents’ marriage was falling apart. Louisa looked at the letter on the bed and shook her head at the possible havoc this proposal brought with it. She decided to spare her daughter this news. She would handle it herself.

As well as sealing her daughter’s fate, by this proposal Louisa also saw that her husband was binding her hands, forcing her to support him. If she protested, it would only expose to the world the state of their marriage and bring shame and disgrace to her daughters. Instead, she would have no choice but to support him, to say to her amazed family that she did not see why her daughter should not marry a Hindu. Such marriages, though rare, had happened in the past, some of them very good marriages, all this religious intolerance was ultimately very un-Christian. Louisa lowered her legs over the side of the bed.
Somehow this train of events had to be stopped before it led to catastrophe. But who could she appeal to in her predicament?

Colombo being such a small place, Annalukshmi had, of course, been seen on her bicycle. By no worthier a figure than Louisa’s cousin, Mrs. Philomena Barnett, who was taking her morning constitutional – which in Mrs. Barnett’s case meant collaring some poor rickshaw man to trundle her around Victoria Park. She had seen Annalukshmi riding up Green Path and gasped in astonishment, raising her handkerchief to her mouth. What was Cousin Louisa thinking? Had she completely lost her mind? She signalled to her exhausted rickshaw man to take her home. Philomena had to go to Brighton later this morning to supervise the preparations for the Mudaliyar’s birthday dinner. She vowed to have a talk with Cousin Louisa on the way there.

Philomena Barnett (whom Annalukshmi referred to as the Devil Incarnate) believed in the notion that a person’s character was in their physiognomy. She herself was respectably stout and plain, the only note of frivolity seen in her garishly patterned saris of flowers, birds, and animals. In her opinion, Louisa’s curvaceous figure could have led to nothing but trouble. Elopement. Even now the word stuck in the back of her throat. How selfish and thoughtless Louisa had been to do that. It had nearly destroyed the impending marriage of Philomena’s sister. The groom’s family, thinking that all the Barnett girls were flighty, had withdrawn their proposal and only the inducement of a larger dowry had mollified them. Philomena thought of her last unmarried daughter, Dolly, and her recent attempts to find a husband for her. Annalukshmi riding the bicycle had to be
arrested immediately. She, a widow with scant resources, did not want any scandal spoiling her Dolly’s chances.

So it was that, later in the morning, Cousin Philomena descended from her rickshaw at Lotus Cottage with a great heaving and panting, climbed laboriously up the verandah steps, and found Louisa sitting on the verandah, gazing dejectedly out into the garden.

“Cousin,” she cried, “this time you have gone too far.”

Louisa had been lost in her thoughts and she stood up quickly, confused.

“Don’t give me that look. I have seen her today on the bicycle.”

“Annalukshmi? But how did she? I saw her off in the rickshaw.”

Philomena shook her head. She wiped her brow with her handkerchief and sat down in a chair. “So you didn’t know,” she said. “This is serious, very serious. We all warned you about giving that girl notions that were above her. I have no objection to a girl dabbling in a little teaching, but to go and get a professional certificate! What do you expect after that?”

“Well, I’ll give her a good scolding and confiscate the bicycle,” Louisa said, not wanting to hear a litany of her errors in the way she had brought up her daughters.

Philomena was not satisfied. It was clear to her that Cousin Louisa did not view this infraction with the seriousness it deserved. The time had come for her to take charge. And she knew just the solution for that Annalukshmi, the remedy that never failed.

“Listen, cousin,” Philomena said, sitting forward in her chair. “I’ll tell you what we will do. Let’s marry off Annalukshmi. Best thing. Nothing settles a girl like marriage. There are some nice Tamil boys in our congregation and I could easily arrange a match.”

Louisa was, at first, surprised by the suggestion. Then a sense of relief took hold of her.

“Do you actually have any one in mind?”

“Well, there’s that Worthington boy who’s just got a good position in the Postal Services. The Lights are looking for someone for their son and so are the Macintoshes.”

Louisa clasped her hands together. “How wonderful!”

Philomena frowned, disconcerted by her enthusiasm.

Louisa grasped Philomena’s hand tightly. “Now remember your promise, cousin. I wish to see these young men as soon as possible. I shall be very disappointed if I don’t.”

“I … I shall see what I can do about it.” Philomena stood up. She bid her cousin goodbye and went down the verandah steps to her waiting rickshaw, a little suspicious. Her plan had been too eagerly seized upon.

Once Philomena had left, Louisa felt tired. She sensed a terrible headache coming on and retired to her room to lie in bed with the blinds rolled down, a handkerchief soaked in eau de cologne on her forehead. Though she had every intention of reprimanding Annalukshmi, Louisa could not bring herself to be truly upset about her daughter riding that bicycle. Hadn’t she herself rebelled once, thought she was above societal regulations. Hadn’t she eloped and married Murugasu? Still, she knew that she had to protect her daughter’s reputation. Louisa, all the same, could not help smiling when she thought of the look of horror that must have crossed her cousin’s face when she saw Annalukshmi flying by on her bicycle.