Funny Boy (16 page)

When Amma finished her story, Q.C. Uncle nodded slowly, his jaws making their usual chewing motion. His eyes were half-closed, and I wondered if he was beginning to fall asleep.

Finally, he opened his eyes fully, looked at her, and said, “I’m sorry for you, child.”

From the way he said it, I knew that he had discerned all the things Amma had omitted to tell him. Amma’s hands were clenched into tight fists. “You were a famous civil rights lawyer,” she said. “What would you do if you were still practising?”

He heaved a great sigh. “If I was still practising,” he said, “I wouldn’t be doing civil rights.”

Amma looked at him in surprise.

“Too dangerous, my dear,” he said. “In my day, politicians were rascals, but never like these ones.”

“So what must we do?”

“Nothing, my dear,” he said sadly.

Amma looked at him, shocked. “Nothing?” she said.

“These days one must be like the three wise monkeys. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

Amma was angry now. She put her fingertips together and contemplated them for a moment. “So,” she said, “a close and dear friend dies and I must do nothing about it?”

“Exactly, my dear,” he replied.

“But how can one live with oneself, knowing one has done nothing?”

“You must remind yourself that you have a family and they could be at risk.”

When we stood up to leave, the servant boy helped Q.C. Uncle to his feet. Amma had an obstinate expression on her face. Q.C. Uncle placed his hand on her arm and said, “Let it rest, child.”

“I can’t,” Amma said.

He nodded and bowed his head, as if to fate.

Just before we left him, he said to us, “When you go home, call somebody. If you hear a click when that person answers, your phone is being tapped.”

We stared at him in astonishment.

On the way home, Amma drove fast, honking at any pedestrian who contemplated crossing the street in front of our car. “What has this country come to, where a man can be murdered and nothing must be done?” she cried. “The problem is that no one cares any more. People only look out for themselves.”

When we turned onto Dharmapala Mawatha, Amma had to slow down because of the increase in traffic. I glanced at her. She was chewing on her lower lip, lost in thought. We had almost reached Galle Road when she straightened up slightly and made a noise as if she had just realized something. She turned to me. “You know, there is the servant boy. I’m sure he saw something.” I looked at her carefully. Q.C. Uncle’s proverb about the three wise monkeys had stayed with me. He was an important lawyer, and we would be foolish not to listen to him.

Amma hadn’t noticed my disquiet. “Let’s go and see if the police have sent him back to the house.”

I looked at the set expression on her face and I knew that it was useless to argue.

We knocked on the gate and waited. The dog started to bark. It came running down the front path and threw itself at the gate, forcing us to step back. Presently, we heard the sound of footsteps.

“Who is it?” a woman asked suspiciously in Sinhalese.

Amma and I looked at each other, surprised to hear a strange voice.

“Is your missie in?” Amma asked.

“No. She’s gone to England for her daughter’s confinement.”

“Really?” Amma said in feigned delight. “Suriya baba is going to have a baby?”

I looked at Amma, wondering how she knew the name of the owner’s daughter.

The peep-hole in the gate slid back and the woman stared at us, then opened the gate. The dog ran out, wagging its tail. The woman called to the dog, but it ignored her and went sniffing down the road.

“Are you new here?” Amma asked.

The woman nodded and then said, “But I used to work here until five years ago.”

“What happened to the servant boy?” Amma asked.

She regarded us for a moment. “Somaratne went back to his village,” she said.

“I wonder how his mother is,” Amma said. “She was quite sick. Had a heart problem.”

The woman looked at Amma in surprise. She became less suspicious.

“I used to give him money from time to time for her medicine. I wonder how he’ll manage now.”

The woman nodded in commiseration with Somaratne and his mother’s plight.

“He lives in Belihul Oya, doesn’t he?”

The woman shook her head. Somaratne lived near Belihul Oya, she corrected Amma. In doing so, she mentioned the name of the village.

Before we left, Amma slipped a ten-rupee note into the woman’s hand. She held her palms together and bowed. As we got into the car, I turned and saw that the woman was watching us carefully.

When we got home, Amma phoned Mala Aunty and, as Q.C. Uncle had predicted, she heard the click. I phoned a classmate just to make doubly sure that we were being tapped. It was strange and frightening to hear that click. I was reminded of the time a family of large rats lived in our house and we were never sure where they were hiding, from which cupboard or drawer they would jump out at us, behind which door or toilet commode we would find them. In addition to fear of those rats, I remembered feeling helpless because, for a long time, nothing we did made them go away.

That evening, I was doing my homework on the back verandah when Amma came out and sat down next to me.

“I’ve made up my mind,” she said. “I’m going to Somaratne’s village. The day after tomorrow is Meena’s birthday. All of you will be at her house for the day, and Neliya Aunty will be visiting a friend.”

I looked at her and felt afraid. “Amma, should you? Q.C. Uncle’s told you that this whole thing is too dangerous.”

“Rubbish,” Amma said, and I could tell by the look in her
eyes that there was no stopping her. She would not accept that going to look for the servant boy might not be safe.

Suddenly the thought of Amma being alone and in danger was too much, and I said quickly, “Amma, I am coming with you.”

She looked at me for a minute and then shook her head.

“We’re only going to visit him,” I said, my own words not calming my fear.

Amma looked doubtful.

“His family and he will be happy that a lady came all the way from Colombo to see them,” I persisted.

“But everyone will wonder why you didn’t go to Meena’s birthday,” Amma said, yet I could tell she was softening.

“I can pretend not to feel well and stay back.”

“I don’t know,” Amma said. “I don’t like it.”

“Please, Amma. It will be so good for me to be out there in the mountain air again.”

Amma smiled at the lameness of my reasoning. She sighed and got up. “Let me think about it,” she said, but I could tell that she had already decided to take me.

Our plans went well, and we set off for Belihul Oya by mid-morning. As we began the gradual climb into the hill country, the road became winding. The tropical vegetation gave way to an increasing number of fir and eucalyptus trees, and eventually these gave way to tea bushes. I rolled down the window and let the crisp air play on my face. The road had been cut into the
side of the mountain, so that on Amma’s side there was the red earth of the mountain and on my side a sharp drop. I looked down into the valley below, most of which was covered with jungle.

After a while, I noticed a blue car was at our rear. I could see it in the side-view mirror. From time to time we lost the car as another one cut in front of it, but inevitably it would turn up again. Finally, I drew Amma’s attention to it. She nodded and I saw that she, too, had noticed the car. “Let’s stop and see if it continues,” she said.

She pulled over to the side of the road. We watched as the car drew closer, and much to our relief it went right past us. Amma glanced at me and we both laughed at how suspicious we had become.

After being misdirected a few times, we finally arrived at Somaratne’s village. It was set among green terraced paddy fields. A crowd of village children heard the sound of our car and came running down the slopes and across the path that led through the paddy fields. They approached us with smiling faces.

“We are looking for Mahagodagé Somaratne,” Amma said.

The children now became nervous. One of them, an older girl, shoved at a little boy and he ran back up the hill. Then she gestured to us to follow her. Amma and I looked at each other uneasily.

The girl led us up some steps cut into the side of the hill to Somaratne’s hut. A woman was sitting in front of it. Between
her knees she held a cleaver, against which she deftly sliced vegetables. The child who had gone ahead of us sat near her and some women had come out of the neighbouring huts and they stood watching us. As I looked at their faces, my uneasiness increased. When we reached her, the woman glanced up at us quickly and then continued slicing her vegetables.

“We are looking for Somaratne,” Amma said to her.

“I am Somaratne’s mother,” she replied.

“We would like to speak to Somaratne.”

“He is not here.”

“Where can we find him?”

“I don’t know.”

Amma looked at me. The woman was lying.

“Listen,” Amma finally said, “a friend of ours lived where Somaratne used to work. He died and we are concerned …”

“And what about my son?” the woman said. “Are you not concerned about him?” She had raised her voice slightly. The other women began to come towards her hut. “What do you care?” she continued bitterly. “You rich folk from Colombo, what do you know about our suffering?”

The women had now gathered around us and they nodded and looked at us with anger in their faces.

“Come,” I said softly to Amma. “It’s dangerous.”

She ignored me.

“Look,” Amma said, “I think our friend was murdered and Somaratne knows who did it.”

The woman laughed harshly. “So you want Somaratne to identify the murderer?” she said. “And what will happen to Somaratne then? Have you thought of that?”

Amma was silent.

“No,” she said, “why should you? To people like you, we are not even human beings.”

The other women murmured in agreement.

“You Colombo people lead such a protected life,” one of the women said. “You don’t know what goes on in the rest of the country.”

“Yes,” another woman cried, “why don’t you go back to Colombo and leave us alone.”

“I had two sons,” Somaratne’s mother said. “The first was killed by the army during the 1971 insurrection. Now my second son comes home with his right arm paralyzed. Do you want to paralyze his other arm, too, or make him lose an eye?”

I looked around at the women and saw that they were becoming increasingly hostile. I touched Amma’s arm and said, trying to keep my voice steady, “Come, Amma, before anything happens.”

She looked at me for a long moment, then nodded her head.

As we walked down the hill, a stone came hurtling past us. Without looking back, we hurried. Then more stones were thrown and we began to run. We had just reached the bottom of the hill when I felt a sharp pain in my back as a stone hit me. I cried out and stumbled, nearly falling over.

“Arjie,” Amma called out and came to me. She put her hand on my back but I broke away from her and continued to run towards the car.

By the time we got into the car I was crying out of fright.

“Son,” Amma said. She put her hand on my shoulder.

I tried to shake it off. “It’s so stupid! We should never have come on this trip,” I shouted at her. “You’re so selfish. All you think about is yourself. Thanks to you, we nearly got killed.”

She looked at me as if I had hit her. Her hand fell from my shoulder.

“You were told this whole thing was too dangerous, but you never listen.”

She sat motionless, frowning slightly.

She started up the car and we began to drive away from the village. I felt terrible now that I had yelled at her so. She was staring straight ahead of her. She reached up and quickly rubbed her hand across her cheek.

“Amma –” I started to say, but she waved impatiently for me to be quiet.

After a while she pulled the car up by the side of the road, then she got out and slammed the door. I watched her stand there, her back to me, and even though I was sorry to see her cry I was also glad of it. I hoped with all my heart it meant that she finally realized that things had gone too far. I leaned back in my seat and looked at the view in front of me, the clear blue sky, the mist-capped mountains, and thought how out of place their beauty and serenity seemed with all that had happened to us.

When Amma got back into the car, we continued our journey in silence.

By the time we arrived home, it was starting to get dark. Neliya Aunty, Sonali, and Diggy were waiting for us on the front
verandah. Our trip had taken much longer than we had anticipated, and they had all returned from their day out.

“Where on earth …” Neliya Aunty started to say, but before she could finish her question, we went quickly into the house. She followed us. When we were far enough from Diggy and Sonali, she said to Amma in a low voice, “A man came to see you today.”

We stared at her.

She gave Amma a card. “He said he was with the
Sydney Morning Star
.”

Amma took the card and looked at it.

“Isn’t that the paper Daryl worked for?” Neliya Aunty asked.

Amma didn’t respond for a moment. Then she shrugged and put the card in her bag.

“What does he want?” Neliya Aunty asked anxiously.

Amma started to walk towards her room. Neliya Aunty followed her. “Nalini, I’m warning you. Don’t get involved. It’s too dangerous.”

Amma went into her room without answering. Neliya Aunty looked at me helplessly and shook her head. “She’s going too far,” she said. “Where will all this end?”

I looked at her and, for once, I was on her side.

That night, after finally falling asleep, I dreamed that we were on the beach in front of my father’s hotel. The sea receded for miles, building into enormous waves that then rushed towards the shore. Amma was on the beach and she beckoned to me. I took her hand and we ran after the sea. A wave now towered in the distance. It reached its full height and
began to come towards us. Instead of turning back, Amma insisted that we sit on the sand and wait for the wave to break around us. Before the wave could reach us, however, I woke up. Through my window I could see the first streaks of pink in the sky. I lay in bed, looking out and wondering what this day would bring.