December 1957 Watakälé
Lakshmi opened her eyes to the chirping of parakeets in the mango tree outside Shiro’s bedroom. The first rays of morning sunshine slanted through the curtains. It was Christmas Eve. And she was spending the holiday at the Tea-maker’s house, getting the house ready for the festivities.
Shiro was huddled under the blanket, still asleep. Lakshmi rolled up the reed mat she slept on and placed it with the folded sheets in the corner of the room. She tiptoed out the back door to the servant’s toilet at the bottom of the garden. The water gushed out of the tap. It was bitterly cold. She shivered and then smiled. Early morning ablutions at an indoor tap and a squatting toilet were pure luxury for a coolie girl. Other days she, like all the other coolies, would relieve herself in the tea bushes and wash in the stream.
Washed and dressed in her work clothes, Lakshmi picked up the bucket and mop and started scrubbing the floor in the sitting room. Raaken, the Indian coolie cook was busy in the kitchen making coffee, and Tea-maker Aiya and Periamma were talking in their bedroom. The daily sounds of the Tea-maker’s house – echoes of heaven to Lakshmi.
***
All that day, Lakshmi swept and cleaned, washed and polished.
When Tea-maker Aiya returned from the tea factory at noon, the house sparkled clean and neat. Shiro and Lakshmi sat amid a pile of paper streamers and silver stars – decorations for the Christmas tree. Seeing the Tea-maker enter the house, Lakshmi got up and started clearing up the inevitable mess Shiro had created.
‘I see all is calm with Shiro. I thought she would have been crazily excited with Victor and Edward due.’ Tea-maker Aiya touched his wife on her cheek.
‘Oh, we had our tantrum this morning when I would not let Lakshmi play with her. She is getting too stubborn and spoilt. She needs to learn proper manners. We have to send her away to school. I have the application forms to Bambalawatte Methodist Girls’ School in Colombo. We can send it in after Christmas.’
A shadow crossed Tea-maker Aiya’s face. ‘I don’t know why you want to send her to boarding school in Colombo. What can they teach her that you can’t? It’s not like she has to go to university or anything like the boys.’
Periamma lowered her voice. Lakshmi strained to listen. ‘You can’t protect her and keep her here all her life. It’s unhealthy. She lives in a fantasy world of imaginary people and events. She needs better company. Do you realise she considers Lakshmi her closest friend? A coolie girl. You know that isn’t right. She needs to meet children of her own social class, to behave like a lady.’
At that moment, Shiro looked up from scrunching another tinsel star. She scrambled to her feet and flew into her father’s arms. ‘Daddy, I’ve been working so hard!’
‘So you have, my princess, so you have. Let’s go get ready for Victor and Edward and Uncles George and Paul, shall we?’ He turned to his wife. ‘You tried to give her better friends with the Irvine girls. A lot of good that did. She’s still sad that they don’t reply to her letters.’ He kissed Shiro on the cheek. ‘Let her be. Don’t try to make her into some parody of a British madam.’
Periamma rolled her eyes and followed father and daughter from the room.
Lakshmi cleared up the streamers and stars from the playroom floor, putting them in boxes. Her heart was heavy. Her mother had said just yesterday that Tea-maker Aiya only wanted her as a servant. Maybe she was right. They didn’t want their precious daughter to get any closer to her – a coolie girl. They were sending Shiro Chinnamma away to separate them. Her mother said that she was cursed from birth. Maybe she was.
Lakshmi took a deep breath and blinked away her tears. She carried the decorations to the sitting room and placed them in the corner where the Christmas tree would be put up later that day, then went to the kitchen to join Raaken in the cooking.
***
Dusk descended like a soft blanket on the hills. Shiro and Lakshmi stood on the back porch of the house. Lakshmi rubbed her hands on her jumper. Periamma had knitted it for her from leftover bits of wool. It was big for her and a mix of colours and textures, but Lakshmi loved it because Periamma had made it just for her.
Soon the mountains lay shrouded, dark and quiet. The trees came to life, glowing with the twinkling of dozens upon dozens of fireflies. Cicadas began their night chorus. Shiro slipped her hand into Lakshmi’s. Hand in hand, they stepped off the porch and stood in the garden. Darkness surrounded them like a gentle coat and dew drops settled on their hair and eyebrows.
Lights cut through the dark and could be seen meandering down the mountain across the valley. Excited, the girls ran to join Shiro’s parents at the front of the house. The blue Ford Consul wound its way up the gravel road, its headlights cutting through the thick mist. Large moths, drawn to the light, danced in their brightness before being squashed on the fender.
The car stopped right by the steps. All four doors opened and the Rasiah family tumbled out. Tea-maker Aiya’s brother, George, got out of the driver’s side and shook his hand. Another brother, Paul, leapt out of the passenger-side front door. Shiro threw herself into his arms. Shiro’s two brothers, Victor and Edward, emerged from the back doors. Victor hurried up the steps to his mother, while Edward tickled Shiro, who was still clinging to Paul. She laughed and released her grip. Edward promptly scooped her up and hugged her. Tea-maker Aiya helped his mother, a frail old lady of seventy years, out of the car.
Paul went around and opened the boot of the car. Lakshmi reached in and hauled a suitcase out. She felt a hand brush her neck. She shivered and turned to find Paul’s face inches away from hers.
‘Why, hello, Lakshmi,’ he said, ‘I hardly recognised you. You look all grown up and pretty. Not like a coolie at all.’ The smirk on his face frightened her. She looked down and dragged the suitcase into the house.
Lakshmi jerked her head up at Shiro’s shriek. Edward was chasing Shiro with a water pistol. Edward let fly a squirt of water, but he missed and hit Raaken on the backside. Raaken exclaimed and stepped back. The suitcase he was carrying into the house slipped out of his hands and bounced down the steps into the garden.
Periamma smiled and shook her head. ‘Mahal,’ she called out to Shiro, ‘control yourself.’
***
The boxes and suitcases had been stored and the car parked under the mango tree. Everyone was seated around the dinner table. Lakshmi brought in the pittu and beef curry. She and Raaken would eat later in the kitchen.
‘God bless our family, and bless this food to our bodies,’ Tea-maker Aiya said. ‘May we have many more Christmases together.’
‘Amen,’ the family chorused.
Lakshmi looked around the table at the crazy, joyous chaos that constituted the Rasiah family dinner. Victor, George and Tea-maker Aiya were discussing the exams Victor had taken a few weeks ago and his prospects for university placement. Edward gestured as he narrated how he and his friends regularly stole out of boarding school in the middle of the night for a snack. ‘We go to the kade for a thosai feed,’ he boasted. ‘Nearly got caught once, when the headmaster had the same idea.’
While still talking, Edward tickled Shiro, making her squeal, choke and spray pittu all over the table. Everyone erupted in laughter. Periamma shook her head, and gestured to Edward to settle down. Turning to Shiro she said, ‘Mahal, control yourself.’
Paul gobbled his food, ignoring all conversation. He looked up at Lakshmi when she placed his glass of water on the table. The look in his eyes made her shiver.
After dinner they all sat around the Christmas tree in the sitting room. The smell of fresh pine filled the air. The room glittered with coloured tinsel streamers and silver and gold balloons. Everyone ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ at the stars and baubles Shiro and Lakshmi had hung on the tree.
Lakshmi brought in mugs of Ovaltine for the family. After she had served them, she made one for herself in her tin cup.
The family sang carols late into the night. Shiro cuddled up on her Uncle Paul’s lap, and Lakshmi sat on the floor by Periamma’s seat. At one point they sang what Lakshmi knew to be Shiro’s favourite song.
‘Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world;
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.’
Shiro had once told Lakshmi that she was a black child and the Irvine girls were white. Shiro had decided that as God’s princess, she did not need a colour. The two of them had puzzled over what a red or yellow child would look like. Finally, Shiro decided that the boy Anthony who came last year was a red child since he seemed to go red easily. They never worked out what a yellow child was.
The grandfather clock whirred and chimed eleven times. Everyone was droopy-eyed and yawning. Tea-maker Aiya’s mother was asleep and snoring on the sofa. Shiro had transferred herself from Paul’s lap to her father’s. She was more than half asleep, but keeping herself awake because she didn’t want to miss a moment of the fun. Lakshmi was still at her spot by Periamma’s seat. She leaned her head against its cool polished oak arm, longing for some sign of affection from Periamma, but there was none.
‘I think that’s enough for now,’ Tea-maker Aiya announced. ‘We have to leave early for church tomorrow.’ Weary nods and grunts came from everyone else. Well, nearly everyone.
Paul threw up his arms. ‘The night is still young. Let’s sing something different. Anyone for a baila? Everyone ignored him and filed out of the room. Soft good nights and God-bless-you’s were exchanged.
The room emptied. Tea-maker Aiya led a sleepy Shiro into her bedroom. Lakshmi walked around picking up the dirty mugs.
‘You can clean them in the morning, Lakshmi.’ Periamma smothered a yawn.
‘They might attract cockroaches, Periamma,’ Lakshmi replied, continuing to pile the mugs on the tray. ‘It will only take me a few minutes to wash them.’
Periamma put her hand on Lakshmi’s shoulder. ‘You are so hardworking, dear girl. Good night.’
Lakshmi carried the tray of mugs out of the room. She passed Paul, asleep and snoring in the armchair. Lakshmi walked down the corridor and into the pantry. She set the tray by the side of the sink, opened the tap and started rinsing the mugs one by one. Lights were switched off across the house. The house was now completely dark except for the single bulb in the pantry.
‘You are certainly grown up now, Lakshmi.’ She heard a gruff voice behind her. Before she could turn around she felt arms reach out from behind her and pull her away from the sink. She could smell alcohol and stale beef curry on his breath.
Although she could not see him, she knew the man’s voice. ‘Paul Aiya, what are you doing?’ she gasped. ‘Let me go!’
‘Why sleep on the ground in Shiro’s room, Lakshmi?’ She heard his heavy breathing and felt the roughness of his unshaven cheek against her own. ‘Come sleep on my bed tonight.’ She felt a sharp sting as his teeth closed on her earlobe.
‘Let me go!’ Lakshmi cried out and struggled. He grunted and held her tighter. His hand reached under her blouse and squeezed her breast. Lakshmi gasped in pain. His mouth was wet on the back of her neck. He groaned and pressed his body against hers. Holding her tight with one hand, he pulled her skirt up with the other. His hand was rough on her thighs. Squeezing, pinching and sliding upwards. ‘Please please let me go,’ she begged and wriggled. He growled and dragged her around to face him.
The door to the pantry flung open. ‘Let go of the girl, you idiot!’ Periamma’s voice was low and angry, almost a hiss.
Paul released his grip. Lakshmi staggered and then sprang away from him. She pulled her skirt down and clutched her arms around her body. Shivering, she sank to her haunches by the door.
Periamma stood in the doorway of the pantry. Her hands were folded in front of her. ‘You fool! Keep your philandering to the whorehouses in Colombo. In my house you will behave like a gentleman!’
Paul put his hands on his hips and laughed. ‘Come on acca, she’s only a coolie.’ His laugh grew louder. ‘Pretty and fairer than most I accept, but a coolie nevertheless.’
Periamma turned briefly to the sobbing Lakshmi, crouched by the door. ‘Go to bed, Lakshmi.’
Lakshmi ran out of the room. She heard the sharp sound of an open palm strike a cheek. ‘Your brother slaved and sacrificed to give you an education and this is what you end up as?’ The anger was gone and in its place was sadness and tears. ‘How dare you do this? She’s only a few years older than our Shiro. How can I trust you with Shiro when she goes to Colombo? Wait till I tell annai about this.’
‘No. no, please don’t tell annai!’ Lakshmi peeped back into the pantry. Paul was on his knees in front of Rasiah Periamma. ‘Acca, acca, please. I’ll never harm Shiro. She’s my angel, my princess.’
Lakshmi turned and ran into Shiro’s room, flung herself onto the mat and covered her head with her arms, cutting off the voices from the pantry. She squeezed her eyes shut, curled up like a ball and lay there, choking her sobs so as to not disturb Shiro.
Her eyes were still shut, her arms still over her head, when she felt another presence in the room. Had Paul returned, to finish what he had started? Trembling, she opened her eyes to see the shadowy figure of Periamma standing over her.
Periamma frowned. Her eyes in the dim moonlight filtering into the room were sad and seemed to have aged ten years.
‘It’s all right Lakshmi,’ she whispered. ‘Go to sleep, he won’t come near you.’
She stood there for a few seconds, walked out and then did something Lakshmi had never seen her do before. She shut Shiro’s bedroom door.
Lakshmi lay in the darkness, curled up tight. Her mind filled with fear, misery and memories of Paul’s rough hands on her body. So this was the life of a coolie girl, was it? Clean up other people’s dirty dishes and then be used by men for their pleasure? Maybe that was what her mother meant when she said no good would come of her?
No. She wouldn’t live like that, she couldn’t. Surely Periamma would look after her. Wouldn’t she?
But what choice did a coolie girl have? Maybe she could be a servant in someone’s house, but there was no safety there either. She thought of the girl who had gone to Colombo to be a cook. She had returned a year later, pregnant. She wouldn’t talk about what happened. She lost the baby. A few months after that, she killed herself by drinking kerosene.
Lakshmi could hear Shiro’s steady breathing and the occasional rattle and rustle of insects in the garden outside. The moon slipped behind a cloud, leaving the room almost pitch black. She wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked back and forth. Fresh tears trickled down her cheeks.
She was cursed.
She heard the grandfather clock in the corridor chime. Midnight – Christmas day.