Cinnamon Gardens (9 page)

Sonia and Balendran arrived early. The Mudaliyar liked to have Sonia receive the guests with him as his wife did not speak English and was usually too busy with the preparations in the kitchen.

Torches on high poles had been placed at regular intervals along the driveway, giving Brighton a festive air. When Balendran’s car stopped under the porch, Pillai came down the steps to open the door. In keeping with the occasion, he was wearing his gold-buttoned white coat. The proudly displayed gold watch-chain denoted his position as head servant. Later, before he supervised the serving of dinner, he would put on his white gloves.

Pillai smiled in pride and admiration at how fine the Sinn-Aiyah and Sin-Amma looked, the former in his black dinner jacket and white bow tie, the latter in a dull-gold French-lame sari with a chilli-red border. The colour of Sonia’s sari brought out her milk-tea complexion and dark, glossy hair. Her black-lace sari blouse was of the latest fashion, with a mere frill for a sleeve. She had on gold jewellery.

“Peri-Aiyah is still dressing,” Pillai said, “but the rest of the family is in the ballroom.”

Balendran and Sonia went up the stairs to join them, accompanied by Pillai.

Brighton’s ballroom was one of the loveliest rooms in the house. Along the back wall was a series of glass doors that opened out onto a balcony with a black-and-white checkered floor. A stuccoed pattern of grape vines ran along the top edges of the wall, and the design was picked up in a circular grouping at three points on the ceiling. From the centres of these circles, two-bladed wooden electric fans hung down. Tonight practically the entire ballroom was spanned by the dining table. It sat sixty people. A single white damask tablecloth ran the length of the table and, at regular intervals, there were flower arrangements. Menu and place cards in sterling-silver holders were in front of each place setting.

Balendran and Sonia entered to find the family gathered there, dressed in their very best.

The short, form-fitting Indian choli that exposed a good deal of midriff had not yet come into fashion. It was considered peasant attire. Sari blouses resembled their modest English counterpart. They were fairly loose and waist-length, the sleeves to the elbows or wrists. Rather than matching the hue of the sari, they came in standard colours of white, cream, grey, black, or brown. Some of them had ruffles along the neckline and on the sleeves, some were embroidered or had lacework on them. For formal occasions, a sari was always worn with a “set” – matching earrings, necklace, bracelet, and a brooch to hold the sari in place on the shoulder.

Louisa, wearing a black charmeuse sari with tiny pale-pink rosebuds scattered over it and a Matara diamond set, was checking the place settings to make sure nothing had been forgotten. Philomena Barnett was fussing around her, picking up the various place cards and commenting on the genealogy of the guest and any gossip she could think of about them. For the grand occasion, she was wearing one of her flashiest saris, which featured Japanese maidens in kimonos daintily crossing butterfly bridges. She had on a set of brightly coloured Ceylon stones. Her unmarried daughter, Dolly, a jittery girl who had spent her whole life being cowed by her mother, sat on one of the chairs along the wall, nodding and blinking rapidly any time Philomena addressed a comment to her. Manohari sat by her. She was too young to be invited and, when the guests started to arrive, she would make herself scarce. Nalamma, wearing a bottle-green Benares sari with an intricate silver border and a silver set, was in conversation with one of the houseboys, giving
him last-minute instructions. Kumudini, in a printed floral French chiffon, was at a side table making some final adjustments to the table plan. Her jewellery set was one very popular at the time for young women, pearls arranged in a design of grape clusters. It had been a gift from Balendran and Sonia on her twenty-first birthday.

Balendran noticed that his favourite niece, Annalukshmi, was not present. (He thought of the girls at Lotus Cottage as his nieces, even though their paternal grandfather and the Mudaliyar were only cousins.)

At that moment, there was an exclamation from Philomena. She had come upon the place card with Nancy’s name on it.

“That girl has been invited too.”

Philomena always referred to Nancy as “that girl,” because of Nancy’s low, village origins. She thoroughly disapproved of her friendship with Annalukshmi and this extending of the invitation was the limit.

“My husband and I felt it would be a slight to Miss Lawton not to include the girl,” Nalamma replied. “Besides, I feel sorry for her. Twenty-five years old and hardly any chance of getting married.”

“These Europeans and their big ideas,” Philomena said. “Miss Lawton might have thought she was doing a charitable thing adopting her, but, at the end of the day, look where it’s brought that girl. Neither fish nor fowl. She has all the upbringing of one of our girls, but no decent boy would touch her for all the gold in Christendom. Better to have left her in the village.”

Manohari, who loved nothing better than to add fuel to Philomena’s fire, said, “Nancy has gone and bobbed her hair.”

Philomena stood still, her hand on the side of her cheek, to convey just how appalled she was.

Sonia walked over, picked up a menu card, and read it aloud, “Hors-d’oeuvres: prawn cocktail; soup: dhall consomme” – she lifted her eyebrows slightly at the pretentiousness of the appellation – “fish: grilled seer in a white sauce; entrée: chicken vol-au-vent; main course: roast duck; dessert: charlotte russe followed by petit fours.” She looked at Philomena admiringly, “You have really outdone yourself this time, akka.”

Philomena pursed her lips modestly, very pleased.

Nalamma was not proficient when it came to European cooking. The task of planning and supervising the dinner thus always fell on Philomena, who had turned up this morning with her culinary bible,
Mrs. Beeton’s Cookery Book
, tucked under her arm.

At that moment, the ballroom door opened and Annalukshmi entered. Balendran called to her and she went towards him with a smile.

“You look very nice,” he said, glancing at her turquoise Kanjivaram silk with its purple border and her white laceworked blouse. Her jewellery was in a pattern of delicate turquoise and gold flowers. Also a gift from her aunt and uncle on her twenty-first birthday.

She nodded her thanks.

Nalamma had by now crossed the room to her son.

She took his arm. “My dream was prophetic,” she said in a low tone. “Your brother is in trouble.”

Balendran stared at her in surprise and dismay.

“We heard through the bank manager, Mr. Govind, who gives him that monthly allowance your Appa sends. He was climbing the stairs at work, became breathless, and fainted.”

“But is he all right now?”

She nodded.

Balendran sighed with relief. “It’s probably nothing, Amma. Just tiredness.”

“Nothing? How can you say nothing? He should go and get an examination. But I know how your brother is. So stubborn. As a mother, I feel helpless. If he were here, I would have forced him to see a doctor.”

Balendran could tell that she was suggesting again that he renew contact, but he chose to ignore the hint.

Nalamma sighed, “And his son, Seelan.” She waved her hand to encompass the ballroom, “I can’t help thinking of what he has been denied.”

The Mudaliyar, resplendent in a black dinner jacket and white bow tie, entered at this moment, putting an end to Nalamma and Balendran’s conversation. They went forward to greet him.

Annalukshmi, even though she knew it was rude, had listened keenly to their conversation. The girls at Lotus Cottage were of course familiar with the story of their uncle’s expulsion from Brighton and his marriage to a woman who had worked in Brighton’s kitchen.

Annalukshmi had quickly become intrigued by the romance of the story. An avid reader at that time of Gothic and romance novels, she had seen that her uncle’s story was a strange instance of real life imitating the world of fiction. Later, as a girl of fifteen, her romantic feelings about the story had come to fix themselves on her cousin, Seelan. The fact that he was a mysterious, doomed young man, in exile from his family heritage, raised him to the level of a hero of Gothic fiction or medieval romance. Annalukshmi smiled now to think that she had actually read those books and had thought of her cousin in that way. Like most revealed secrets, the novelty of it had worn off over the years.

The first cars could be heard coming up the driveway, and everyone began to leave the ballroom. Annalukshmi, as she came down the stairs, saw that among the first guests were Nancy and Miss Lawton. With a smile of pleasure, she went to greet them. Before she could reach them, however, Miss Lawton was cornered by one of the other guests, an old pupil who was now married to a member of the Legislative Council. The woman, a well-known doyenne of Cinnamon Gardens society, shyly introduced herself to Miss Lawton. When the headmistress immediately remembered her, she blushed with pleasure.

Nancy and Annalukshmi exchanged looks and smiled. This would likely be the pattern for the rest of Miss Lawton’s evening.

The Wijewardena family were regular guests at the Mudaliyar’s birthday dinner. The son, F. C. Wijewardena, was Balendran’s best friend. Their friendship went all the way back to when they had studied at the Colombo Academy. They had left together for England, as well.

It was a ritual at the Mudaliyar’s annual dinner for F. C., his wife, Sriyani, Balendran, and Sonia to gather for a chat on the side verandah, outside the drawing room where the party was in progress. Since most of the guests were of the Mudaliyar’s generation, they had very little in common with them.

F. C. was a prominent member of the Ceylon National Congress, and they had no sooner sat down in the verandah chairs when he brought up the subject of the Donoughmore Commission and the new constitution.

“Well, the gold rush will be on in two weeks.”

“Gold rush?” Sonia asked.

“Yes,” F. C. replied. “All this hullabaloo reminds me of a gold rush. Everyone running to stake their claim, to carve out their piece of the land.”

He brought out a tortoiseshell cigarette case from the pocket of his coat. “Divisions are appearing where I didn’t even know there were any.” He lit himself a cigarette. “Up-country Sinhalese versus low-country Sinhalese, Karava caste versus Goyigama caste, Moors, Malays, Christian Tamils, Hindu Tamils, Buddhists, and so on and so on. And not a bloody bugger is thinking nationally, except us in the Congress.”

“Perhaps the Congress needs to redefine what ‘national’ is,” Balendran said.

Sriyani and Sonia exchanged glances. These discussions between their husbands were always lively.

“What do you mean?” Sriyani asked Balendran.

“I’m not the first one to refer to it. Two of your former Congress presidents, C. E. Corea and Arunachalam, talked about it. Before foreign rule, we had a constitution and a system of government that was suited to our needs.”

F. C. groaned. “Not that damn village and district council theory again.”

“Why not?” Balendran said. “Village councils that send elected members to a district council, which in turn sends members to a council of the ministers of state. That way all the various groups get to feel that they have a hand in governing this country. In other words, more or less a federal state. One of your own men, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike himself, suggested it, but now that he is Congress secretary he has conveniently forgotten.”

“It would be an administrative nightmare,” F. C. said. “No, no. The only system is the parliamentary one, modelled on Whitehall. These bloody people have to learn to look past their
feudal loyalties and to think of themselves as Ceylonese first.”

“Two hundred years of foreign rule hasn’t changed those loyalties.”

F. C. drew on his cigarette and exhaled. “So, you are becoming a Ceylon Tamil Association man,” he said teasingly, with a nod in the direction of the drawing room, where he had noticed the presence of the new guests. “Slowly, slowly moving in that direction. Between you lot and the damn Kandyans wanting their separate state, you will split this country into a thousand pieces.”

“It already is in a thousand pieces,” Balendran said. “You Congress chaps just refuse to see it. Like an Arabian mosaic. Take one tile out and you might ruin the entire design.”

“We forgot to tell you a piece of delightful news,” Sonia began. When she saw the expression on Balendran’s face, she stopped.

“What news?” Sriyani asked.

They looked at her expectantly.

“It seems,” Sonia said reluctantly, “that a good friend of Bala might be coming with the commission.”

F. C. and Sriyani turned to stare at him.

“Who is this?” F. C. asked. “Someone I know?”

“Oh, I’m not sure if you remember him,” Balendran said. “One Richard Howland.”

“What are you talking about, Bala?” F. C. said. “Of course I know him. You shared a flat together.”

Before anyone could comment further, they heard the sound of raised voices from the drawing room. Balendran stood up quickly.

A hush had fallen over the party. Two men were arguing. One of them was a member of the Ceylon National Congress, the other of the Ceylon Tamil Association.

“Why should we support your Congress on self-rule when you are going to ask the commission to abolish communal representation?” the man from the Ceylon Tamil Association cried.

“Communal representation simply forces people to think in terms of their race and not as a nation,” the Congress man replied. “We are proud to take a stance for territorial representation.”

“And that is why we will never support your claim for self-government.”

“You may be content to live in a servile fashion under the British, howling and bowing like coolies, but some of us are more manly than that.”

“Give us a British Raj any day to a Sinhala Raj.”

He had gone too far. As long as the discussion had been about the Congress versus the Tamil Association, the obvious undertones of Sinhalese against Tamil had not surfaced. It was necessary for someone to step in, and the Mudaliyar did so with great suavity.