Funny Boy (30 page)

These ideas about being powerful returned to me that evening as I was writing in my diary and also the next morning, when I went to school and saw Black Tie standing on his balcony.

Shehan was waiting for me at the top of the stairs that led to our classroom. I was surprised to see a happy glimmer in his eyes and the energetic way he ran halfway down the stairs to meet me. “Come and walk with me,” he said and grabbed my elbow. When we were out in the quadrangle, he said to me, “I’ve thought of a really wonderful plan. I’m going to England to be with my mother.” He grinned at me. “Good plan, no?”

I saw that behind his smile he was begging me not to
question his idea. Yet it was so illogical and impractical that I felt I had to say something. “Shehan,” I asked, “where will you get the money for the plane ticket?”

“I’ll take it from my father,” he said testily.

“So much money?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find it.”

“But will she let you come?”

“Of course she will,” he said, but he didn’t sound so sure. “Are you with me or not?” His face was beginning to darken.

“I’m with you,” I said, half-heartedly.

Yet my acquiescence only made the expression on his face more grim, for he could tell that I didn’t really believe he could pull it off. He was silent, staring across the quadrangle, his hands on his hips. As I watched him, I sensed the idea crumbling in his mind. The bell rang, and, without waiting for me, he hurried back inside. I followed slowly, hating myself for having let him down, hating the injustice of his predicament.

Black Tie sent for me in the second period. When I went into his office he was on the phone and he pointed for me to stand in front of his desk. I noticed that the cane was not on it. I turned my head and saw that Shehan was out on the balcony again. Our eyes met for a moment and then Shehan looked away. Black Tie put down the phone. “Okay, Chelvaratnam. Let’s hear those poems,” he said. Instead of reaching for his cane in the umbrella stand, he leaned back in his chair and waited. I began to recite the poems, and I was surprised how easily they came to me now that I was not under the threat of that cane.

When I was done, Black Tie put his fingers together and surveyed me. “Do you know the values these poems speak of?” he asked.

I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure.

“Good. Remember them, because the way the school is going, these values may soon disappear.” He glanced out at the balcony, a meditative expression on his face.

As I looked at him, I remembered what Mr. Sunderalingam had told me about the significance of the poems to Black Tie. On prize-giving day, next week, my reciting the poems was essential to Black Tie’s speech. That was why he had changed his behaviour towards me. It was not because he was fair that he had listened to Mr. Sunderalingam and removed the cane from his desk. Rather, it was because the poems were an indispensable part of his last hope of triumphing over Lokubandara. Without me his speech would fail and his efforts to save his position would come to nothing. A thought then presented itself to me, so simple I was surprised it hadn’t come to me before. Black Tie needed me, and because he needed me, power had moved into my hands.

I looked at Black Tie and realized that any fear of him had disappeared.

When I left Black Tie’s office, I walked down the corridor, thinking about my discovery. I considered the possibilities that lay before me. I couldn’t refuse to recite the poems. Mr. Sunderalingam and Black Tie would force me to. Further, while trying to save Shehan, it was necessary that I didn’t end up an
“ills and burdens” again. I thought about pleading sickness. School would finish early on prize-giving day, and when I went home for lunch I could pretend to be sick. Yet, even as I thought of this scheme, I knew that unless I could produce a raging fever or something equivalent to it, my parents would insist on taking me to the prize-giving. Then I remembered the first time I had gone to recite the poems and the way I had confused them. A diabolical plan occurred to me. It was such a wicked idea I was shocked that I had actually thought of it. The plan was simple. Instead of trying to get out of reciting the poems, I would do them. But I would do them wrong. Confuse them, jumble lines, take entire stanzas from one poem and place them in the other until the poems were rendered senseless. Black Tie, who Mr. Sunderlingham said would write a speech based on these poems, would be forced to make a speech that made no sense. His attempt to win the cabinet minister to his side would fail, he would lose the battle to Lokubandara, be forced to resign, and that would solve things for Shehan.

As I waited for Shehan after school, I pondered over my plan. Part of me was scared and wanted to be relieved of it, of even thinking about it. Yet a stronger, sterner part of myself called me back not only to a sense of commitment but also to the memory of what Shehan and I had suffered at Black Tie’s hands. It surprised me that I was thinking of doing something the bravest boy in my class would not dare. Where had the strength come from even to contemplate such an action? Then Shehan came in through the door, and as I looked at his face I realized I had made my decision. A feeling of numbness, of
inevitability, seemed to come over me, as if my destiny had now passed out of my hands.

On the day of the prize-giving a week later, school finished early. Even Shehan and the other “ills and burdens” were allowed to leave. I had not told Shehan what I was going to do. I was afraid to put it into words, for I felt that if I did speak of it I would lose my courage to carry it through. I had, however, asked him if he was going to attend. I wanted his physical presence there to remind me of my commitment in case I had any last-minute doubts. He said he would come, but he’d watch from the second-floor gallery.

When Amma, my father, and I arrived at the auditorium it was crowded with parents and students. The murmur of voices and the rustle of saris created an air of expectancy and excitement. I walked down the central aisle with my parents, glancing up to my right at a gallery that ran the entire length of the auditorium. This gallery also served as a corridor for classrooms that were on the second floor. Shehan was not there.

My parents had now found their seats. A chair had been reserved for me next to Mr. Sunderalingam. Amma kissed me on both cheeks and wished me luck. My father put his hand on my shoulder and beamed at me proudly. As I made my way to the front, I turned to look at the empty gallery again. Mr. Sunderalingam was seated in the second row, behind the school’s board of directors.

He patted the chair next to him and said, “Not nervous, are we, Chelvaratnam?”

“No, sir,” I replied.

The stage had been decorated with coconut leaves and tall brass lamps whose lights were almost indistinguishable in the bright daylight that came in through the auditorium windows. The school choir stood at centre stage, the choir teacher to one side of them. Mr. Sunderalingam opened his program and showed me the order of events. Once the chief guest arrived, the national anthem would be sung, followed by a presentation by the Sinhala Dramatic Society. Then it would be my turn to recite, and after that there would be the address by the principal. The program, with my name on it, made my recitation seem more real than it had been before. I felt a flutter of fear in my chest. Before it could turn to panic, I heard a hush sweep through the auditorium. I looked up the aisle. Black Tie and his wife were escorting the minister and his wife towards the front. Black Tie’s head was bent courteously towards the minister, with whom he talked in a quiet tone. When they had taken their place in the front row, the choir began the national anthem and we rose to our feet.

When we were all seated again, the choir filed off the stage. A tabla player began to beat a rhythm and a figure wearing a mask walked out onto the stage in time with the beat. Thus began the performance by the school’s Sinhala Drama Society of the tale of Vijaya, the father of the Sinhalese nation, and his arrival on the shores of Lanka and his conquest of Kuveni, the Yaksha princess. I watched the figures leap about the stage in
rhythm with the increasingly fast beat of the tabla, and I felt as if they were my heart personified, beating madly at the approaching moment when I would have to go up on that stage.

The tabla reached a deafening climax and the piece ended abruptly, like a life taken in mid-breath. There was silence for a moment, and then the audience began to clap enthusiastically. I alone remained quiet, hating that the performance had finished, wishing that it would continue. The actors started to leave the stage and Mr. Sunderalingam nudged me. I stood up unsteadily and started to go the wrong way. He took my arm and gently steered me in the right direction. As I passed, some of the teachers patted me on the back. I walked slowly down the side of the hall and then up the stairs to the stage. The curtains had been drawn following the actors’ exit so that I would not be lost against the vast expanse of the stage.

When I reached the middle of the stage, I noticed that a microphone had been placed there. I stood looking at it, for a moment not realizing its purpose. The technician, thinking that I had not begun my recitation because the microphone was too high or low, came out and adjusted it slightly for me. I stood behind it and surveyed the expectant faces below me. Right in front of me was Black Tie and the minister, to my left Mr. Sunderalingam, and I could see my parents, not far back in the auditorium, looking at me proudly. Then I lifted my gaze to the gallery and saw Shehan leaning against the rail, watching me. He smiled. I took a deep breath and began my recitation. I kept my eyes fixed on the back wall, not looking at anyone, my
ears attuned only to my voice as it mangled those poems, reducing them to disjointed nonsense.

Only when I was finished did I lower my eyes to the audience. Black Tie was looking down at his hands, his mouth slightly open. The minister had a bemused expression on his face. I didn’t dare look at Mr. Sunderalingam or my parents. As I began to walk off the stage, I glanced up at the balcony. Shehan was staring at me in dismay and bewilderment. I came down the steps and made my way to my chair, squeezing past the teachers seated in my row, who seemed to recoil from me as if I carried a contagious disease. When I was seated, Mr. Sunderalingam leaned towards me and whispered kindly, “Never mind, Chelvaratnam. You did your best.”

Black Tie had come to centre stage now. He was silent for a long time, then he took a deep breath and began.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “Ladies and gentlemen, this young man who has just spoken to you was given the honour of reciting the words of a great poet. But he has taken it upon himself to defile a thing of beauty, wreak havoc on fine sentiments.”

I could hear a rustle in the hall and people whispering behind me.

“He is a perfect example of what this school is producing,” Black Tie went on. “The kind of scoundrel who will bring nothing but shame to his family and be a burden to society.” His voice had reached a crescendo, but he had spoken too loud, for the microphone let out a sudden high-pitched squeal.

There was a titter of nervous laughter. The technician
stepped out of the wings, but Black Tie waved him away and continued. “This young man is a prime illustration of what this country is coming to, of the path down which this nation is being led, of –” Black Tie suddenly broke off.

In front of me, the minister straightened up in his chair.

Black Tie was silent for a moment, then wiped his brow with his handkerchief, put on his spectacles, and took out his speech. He seemed to have regained his composure. He placed the pieces of paper on the podium, took a deep breath and began to read.

“Honourable minister, ladies and gentlemen, those poems that you just heard so …” his voice faltered “… rendered by a student of this academy speak powerfully of the values this school stands for, values that are now in jeopardy.”

There was another titter of laughter. “In the poem, ‘The Best School of All,’ that we just heard, a few immortal lines ring even now in my ear, their message clear and succinct as only the words of a great poet can be.”

Black Tie lifted his hand and quoted from the poem. “ ‘For though the dust that’s part of us, to dust again be gone, yet here shall beat the heart of us – the School we handed on.’ ”

A few coughs could now be heard, the coughs of people trying to suppress their laughter.

Without looking up or acknowledging the disturbances, Black Tie continued his speech. “As I listened to those poems, I was reminded of my own youth as a student of the Victoria Academy. And I am wondering if those poems reminded you of your youth too.”

The sounds in the auditorium grew louder, and I turned
around and saw a few people leaving. I stared at Black Tie as the laughter and coughs buffeted his voice. He became silent now, staring at his speech. Gradually the auditorium became quiet. Everyone was looking at him, wondering what he would do next.

After a moment he picked up his pieces of paper and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I now invite our esteemed guest to speak to you.” With that, he introduced the minister, then turned and left the stage.