Mosquito Page 3

  By the time Theo Samarajeeva returned from Colombo the back room of his house had been cleared, the walls lime-washed, and Nulani Mendis was installed with her canvases, her paints and her cheap thinners. The house smelt of coconuts and linseed oil. He knew she was there even as he approached, even as the bougainvillea cascaded into view over the new garden wall. The light from the mirrors in this hastily devised studio flickered in a dazzling way, casting intermittent reflections on everything in the room. Theo watched through the open window as Nulani crouched on the ground working on the painting. She used rags to mix the paint, and rags to layer it smoothly on to the canvas. All around were her pencil drawings of him. He could not see her face. Slivers of light danced on her hair. He did not know how long he stood watching her. Time stood still.

  After a while she moved, placing the painting against the wall beside a chair where the reflections continued to tremble, uninterrupted. There was an old jug made of thin dusty glass nearby on a shelf. Shadows poured endlessly into it where once it must have held liquid. The heat was impossible. Before he could say anything she turned suddenly and saw him. Her instantaneous smile caught them both unawares. It must have been a trick of the light, thought Theo surprised, but the day seemed exceptionally pierced by the sun.

  ‘So you are back,’ she said. ‘Sugi said you wouldn’t be back till later.’

  How to tell her that Colombo seemed unbearably hot and crowded? That what he thought he had needed to look up in the university library had in fact been irrelevant? That he knew, if he hurried, he would be able to catch an earlier train and be back before she went home, thereby seeing her a day sooner? How to tell her all this when he was unable to understand these thoughts himself?

  ‘I have brought you a present,’ he said instead, handing her a paper bag. Inside were all the colours she wanted but did not have. Cobalt blue, crimson lake, Venetian red. A bottle of pure turpentine, refined linseed oil. The paints were good-quality pigments, made in England, of the sort she had seen long ago in the English neighbour’s house when she had stolen the pencils. The tubes were clean and uncrushed by use. She opened them and watched as traces of oil oozed slowly out; the colour was not far behind. They looked good enough to eat. Her bright red dress was new.

  ‘It’s my birthday today,’ she said delighted, seeing him look at her dress. ‘I was hoping you would come back today.’

  ‘I know!’ he said. ‘Happy seventeenth birthday!’

  Again the day seemed suffused by an inexplicable green lightness, of the kind he remembered in other times, in other places. Maybe there will be rain later, thought Theo, confused.

  She had begun to paint him against a curtain of foliage. There were creases in his white shirt, purple shadows along one arm. She had given his eyes a reflective quality that hinted at other colours beyond the darkness of the pupils. Was this him, really? Was this what she saw? In the painting he paused as he wrote, looking into the distance. Aspects of him emerged from the canvas, making certain things crystal clear.

  ‘You were looking at me,’ she said laughing, pointing to one of the drawings.

  He did not know what to say. Her directness left him helpless. Perhaps it was this simplicity that he needed in his new book. Once he had been able to deal with all kinds of issues swiftly, cut to the heart of the matter. Now for some reason it seemed impossible for him to think in this way. Had fear and hurt and self-pity done all this to him? Or was this the uncertainty of middle age? Suddenly he felt small and ashamed. He stood looking at the painting and at the girl framed by the curtain of green light, aware vaguely that she was still smiling at him. He stood staring at her until Sugi called out that lunch was ready.

  ‘Tell me about Anna,’ she demanded, over lunch. ‘I have been looking at all the pictures of her. They are very beautiful.’

  So he told her something about Anna.

  ‘I used to see her every morning in a little café where I went for breakfast.’

  ‘In London?’

  ‘No, in Venice. She was Italian. We used to glance at each other without speaking. It was bitterly cold that winter. The apartment I was renting was so cold that I would go to this little dark café for breakfast. And I would drink a grappa,’ he said smiling, remembering.

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘One day she came in with some other people. Two women and a man. The man was clearly interested in her.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  Theo smiled, shaking his head. ‘Nothing. What could I do? My Italian was not very good in those days. But then she turned and waved at me. Asked me if I would like to join them. I was astonished, astonished that she should notice me.’

  ‘But you said you used to look at each other every morning.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Theo. ‘I suppose I mean I was surprised she noticed me enough to want to talk to me.’

  He was silent again, thinking of the fluidity of their lives afterwards, the passion that never seemed to diminish as they travelled through Europe. Then he described the high tall house in London with the mirrors and the blousy crimson peonies she loved to buy. He spoke of the books they had both written, so different yet one feeding off the other.

  ‘She was very beautiful,’ he said, unaware of the change in his voice. ‘Now she was someone you should have drawn.’

  Nulani was listening intensely. He became aware of her curious dark eyes fixed on him. He did not know how much she understood. What could Europe mean to her?

  ‘My brother Jim wants to go to Europe,’ she said at last. ‘He says, when he is in England studying it will be easy to travel.’

  ‘And you? What about you?’

  But he knew the answer even before she told him. Who would take her? What would she make of Paris. And Venice?

  ‘I will go one day,’ she said as though reading his mind. ‘Maybe we will go together.’

  He felt his chest tighten unaccountably, and he wondered what her father had been like. What would he have made of this beautiful daughter of his, had he lived? Nulani had told him he had been a poet. She remembered him, she told Theo, but only as a dreamer. Always making her mother angry as she, Nulani, did now. What fragile balance in their family had been upset by his death? The afternoon had moved on but the heat showed no sign of letting up. The sun had moved to another place.

  ‘You should go home,’ he said, suddenly anxious, not wishing to keep her out too late. ‘I’ll get Sugi to walk you home.’

  But she would have none of it; standing close to him holding her paints, so close he could smell the faint perfume that was her skin, mixing with the oils.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said and she went, a splash of red against the sea-faded blue gate, and then through the trees, and then taking in glimpses of road and bougainvillea before she disappeared from view around the bend of the hot empty road. Taking with her all the myriad, unresolved hues of the day, shimmering into the distance.

  2

  THEO HAD NOT SEEN THE GIRL for five days. He waited, watching the geckos climbing haltingly across the lime-washed walls. He walked on the beach most evenings, much to Sugi’s alarm, ignoring the curfews, hoping she might be doing the same. He sat on the veranda smoking; he wandered into the room strewn with her paints. The smell of turpentine and oil remained as strong as ever. It was the way of smells, he knew. It had been this way when Anna had died. All the smells of beeswax and red peonies, of lavender-washed cotton and typewriter ribbon had gathered together, bringing her back to him in small concentrated fragments. So he knew about smells, the way they tumbled into the air, falling softly again, here and there, like confetti without the bride. The sunlight seemed suddenly to have lost its brilliance. His old anger returned. He had thought he was over it, but bitterness attacked him in waves. Ugliness remembered. Sugi watched him surreptitiously, serving his meals, bringing a tray of morning tea, cooking a redfish curry in the way he liked it. The fans had stopped working again and the lights often failed at night. Sugi watched him i
n the light of the coconut-oil lamps. There did not seem to be much evidence of Sir working. Across the garden Theo felt the silence stretch into eternity. The leaves on the pawpaw tree looked large and malevolent.

  ‘Sir,’ said Sugi finally, ‘Sir, why are you not writing?’

  Beyond the light from the veranda the undergrowth rustled vaguely. Two mosquito coils burned into insubstantial columns. A black-spotted moth circled the lamps, mesmerised. Sugi looked at Theo. This is a fine state of affairs, he thought. It was as well he was here.

  ‘Maybe there is trouble at her house, no?’ he ventured tentatively. ‘Shall I go and find out?’

  ‘No,’ said Theo quickly.

  Such an intrusion was unbearable and he could not allow it. Sugi fell silent again. Maybe he should talk about something else instead. Sir was a grown man after all. He had lived all over the world. Given the things he had been through, his innocence was surprising.

  ‘There is a shortage of food in the market this week,’ Sugi said. ‘I don’t know why. I could only get river cress, a coconut and a bunch of shrivelled radishes.’

  It was true. The rice was appalling too, and there were no fresh vegetables to be had.

  ‘Of all the places on this island,’ he continued, complaining loudly, hoping to distract Theo, ‘this should be the place for fresh fish. But the day’s catch had vanished by the time I got into the town. There’s been some kind of trouble further along the coast; maybe that’s got something to do with it. Someone told me the army drove their jeeps on to the sands, chasing a group of men. And then they shot them. They were all young, Sir. Nobody knows what they had done.’

  He spread his hands helplessly in front of him.

  ‘The army left the bodies on the beach, and the local people cleared up the mess. There is always someone prepared to clean up after them. Either a Buddhist or a Christian. They will always find someone to do the dirty work.’

  Theo shifted uneasily in his chair. Sugi’s anxiety was different from his.

  On the fifth evening of Nulani’s absence, in spite of Sugi’s entreaties, Theo decided to walk along the beach again.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘nothing can happen to me. It’s not people like me that interest them. I’m too well known. I’m safe.’

  And he went out. A full moon spilled a continuous stream of silver on to the water. An express train hooted its way along the coast, rushing towards Colombo. But there was no sign of the girl on the empty beach. What is the matter with me, he thought, exasperated. Am I going mad? She’s probably busy, helping her mother, sewing, being seventeen. And she never said when she would be back, he reasoned silently. He was puzzled by this disturbance to his equilibrium. Time was passing, in a few months it would be winter in England. His agent would not wait for ever. He had not written much. As he watched, the moon spread its phosphorescent glow into the sea.

  ‘Look,’ Sugi said when he returned.

  He held out a piece of paper. Thick heady blossoms glowed white under the lamplight while Theo unfolded it quickly. It was from the girl. She had drawn a picture of a man. The man was sitting on one of the cane chairs on her veranda. There was a cup of tea on the table beside him; it was placed on a heavily embroidered cloth. The man’s face was in profile, but still, it was possible to see the fine lines of dissatisfaction and anger and suppressed cruelty. It was possible to see all this on the small piece of paper, clearly marked by the stub of a pencil.

  ‘It’s her uncle, Sir,’ said Sugi when Theo showed him. ‘I know this man. He is a bad man. The talk is he betrayed Mr Mendis. That it was because of him, the thugs came. He never liked his sister’s choice of husband. There are seven brothers in that family, you know, and they like their women to do as they are told.’

  Theo felt anger tighten its belt around him. His anxiety for the girl intensified.

  ‘I think I’ll take a walk over to Mrs Mendis’s house,’ he said.

  But Sugi was alarmed. He would not let Theo be so foolish.

  ‘Are you crazy, Sir? Leave that family alone, for God’s sake. I’m telling you, you don’t understand the people here. You must not meddle with things in this place. Please, Mr Samarajeeva, this isn’t England. The girl will be OK. It’s her family, and she is no fool. She will come here, tomorrow or the next day, you’ll see.’

  He sounded like a parent, quietening a restless child. In spite of his anger another part of Theo saw this and felt glad. He was amazed at the easy affection between them. They had slipped into a friendship, Sugi and he, in spite of the rising tide of anxiety around them, perhaps because of it.

  ‘Sugi,’ he said softly into the darkness, feeling a sudden sharp sense of belonging. ‘You are my good friend, you know. I feel as if I have known you for ever.’

  He hesitated. He would have liked to say something more. Moved by their growing affection for each other, he would have liked to speak of it. But he could not think of the right way to express himself. Sugi, too, seemed to hesitate, as though he understood. So Theo said nothing and instead poured them both a beer. But the warmth between them would not go away, settling down quietly, curling up like a contented animal. He looked at the note again. Underneath the drawing Nulani had captioned it with two exclamation marks. What did that mean?

  ‘I told you, Sir, the girl understands her family better than you. She is probably laughing at her uncle right now. You must not worry so much. She’ll be able to take care of herself. And tomorrow she will be back, you’ll see,’ he added, cheerfully, for he could see that Theo was less worried now. ‘I’ll squeeze some limes and make a redfish curry. Tomorrow.’

  ‘I would have liked children, Sugi,’ Theo said later on, calmer now than he had been for days.

  Sugi nodded, serious. ‘Children are a blessing, Sir, but they are endless trouble as well. In this country we seem to have children only to carry on our suffering. In this country it’s only one endless cycle of pain for us. Some terrible curse has fallen on us since we became greedy.’

  Startled, Theo looked sharply at him. He had forgotten the slow and inevitable philosophy of his countrymen. But before he could speak, Sugi put his hand out to silence him. The moon had retreated behind a cloud and a slight breeze moved the leaves. It reminded Theo of other balmy nights long ago with Anna, spent in the fishing ports along the South of France. Something rustled in the undergrowth; Sugi disappeared silently along the side of the house. Thinking he heard the gate creak Theo stood up. A moment later there was a muffled grunt, the sound of a scuffle and Sugi reappeared, emerging through the bushes, pushing a boy of about fourteen in front of him. He had twisted the boy’s arm behind his back and was gripping him hard. In the light of the returning moon a knife glinted in his hand.

  ‘He was trying to break in, Sir, from the back. With this,’ he added grimly.

  And he held up the knife. He pushed the boy roughly towards Theo, speaking to him in Singhalese.

  ‘He says he was only doing what he was told.’

  ‘What were you trying to steal?’ Theo asked him, also in Singhalese.

  But the boy would not reply. In another moment, with a swift jerk of his elbow he broke free and vaulted over the garden wall, vanishing into the night. And although they ran out into the darkened road there was no sign of him anywhere. Sugi began bolting the windows and checking the side of the house, shining a torch on the dense mass of vegetation.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, shaking his head, looking worried, ‘I will cut some of it back.’

  Tomorrow he would rig up a garden light to surprise any further intruders. The boy was probably just a petty thief, stealing things to sell in order to buy drugs. But still, one could not be too careful. Tomorrow he would make some enquiries in the town. Meanwhile, Sir should go to bed.

  After he had lit another mosquito coil and closed the net around himself, just at the point of sleep, Theo realised he had forgotten to ask Sugi who had delivered the drawing from the girl. And he thought with certainty, Sugi was probably righ
t; the girl would reappear in the morning.

  She was waiting for him the next morning in her usual spot on the veranda, drawing his lounge-backed cane chair.

  ‘So,’ he said sitting down, filling her view, smiling, ‘so, welcome back!’

  And he seemed to hear the faintest flutter of wings. Small banana-green parrots hopped restlessly in the trees, music floated out from the house, and the air was filled with beginnings and murmurings. Last night seemed not to have happened at all. Her uncle had just left, she said. It was Saturday; there was no school so she had escaped from home. She wanted to work on the painting. Too much time had been wasted by her uncle’s visit. He had come to discuss Jim’s future. The days had been filled with squabbling and the thin raised voice of her mother. Her uncle had not cared about his sister’s distress. He merely wanted Jim to join the organisation he ran.

  ‘It’s something to do with the military,’ Nulani said scornfully. ‘I think they spy on people, for the army. My uncle said Jim is old enough and it was time for him to give up his studies. He said there’s no time for studying right now, when Sri Lanka needs him.’