The Beach at Galle Road Read online

  THE POSTMAN’S BICYCLE ring startles the old woman. She hears Janaki meet him in the driveway. Lately, most of the letters that come are for the foreign girl. Looking down, the old woman notices that her housedress is unbuttoned. She is embarrassed for a moment, fumbling the buttons closed, but she soon realizes that no one has seen her exposed breast.

  Now she will wait for the foreign girl’s return. Home at noon. A quick lunch before she heads to her afternoon classes. Then the granddaughters arrive at two, back from school. They will walk around her. They will bring her watery tea with a plain cracker. They will bring the old woman these offerings without really noticing her—a lump on the couch that eats and sleeps, smells sour and wasted, and scares them. They do not know how to talk with her, so they don’t. The older girl, Achala, is fiercely loyal to her mother. She punishes the old woman with her indifference. Rohini follows her sister’s lead, but with less assurance, plagued with a child’s guilt. She offers brief smiles and sometimes a pillow for the old woman’s back. The foreign girl will sit with her because she is separated from this family’s past. Her gestures are amiable because she is a kind girl, but they don’t mean anything. They aren’t a substitute for real affection.

  When the girl returns, the grandmother will ask her, “How was school?”

  “It was good,” she’ll answer. “But the boys behaved badly.”

  “You must discipline them. Haven’t the others given you a caning stick?”

  And then there will be a look of confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  Janaki’s English is good and she will translate for the girl. The boarder will nod her head. “Yes. But I’d rather not use it.” Janaki will then take the girl into the kitchen with her to shave coconut and boil rice. Their muffled words will travel toward the old woman, incoherent, distant, and unfamiliar. And slowly the evening will come, its darkness bringing comfort, an end to the day.

  At night, as she waits for sleep, the old woman counts the things she once had but has lost. She gathers her memories around her like her useless bedsheet, which never completely wards off the chill. She starts with people, those lost or almost forgotten. Her husband, the shopkeeper, the drinker, the joker. Her daughter, married and moved away, too busy or lazy to visit. Her school staff, some dead, some just old and doing their own counting. Her son, slowly slipping away from her, right in her own home under her blurry gaze. More and more impatient, his large body leaning over his wife’s garden. Then the old woman counts her things, her former possessions. Her house, the Ford, the store, her sight, her right toe, her independence, her cleverness. The old woman counts until she is tired of counting, until the sounds of radio flood her ears. And then she is asleep.

  GALLE ROAD

  When Janaki read Lakshmi’s letter, she tried to ignore her disappointment that Lakshmi would be staying a week longer in Colombo, visiting school friends before making her journey to Baddegama. Instead she focused on getting the house ready, dusting and sweeping and packing away clutter. She marveled at the small house’s ability to swell and adjust, making room for her sister, who would make their household five. Lakshmi would stay in her mother-in-law’s old room, which Janaki had quickly converted into a sewing room since the old woman’s death. Janaki and Mohan had decided they wouldn’t take on any new borders for the time being, at least until after Lakshmi had settled into the rhythms of their home. It had been almost six years since Lakshmi left, and Janaki feared she wouldn’t know her older and only sister. But the moment Lakshmi stepped off the bus in Baddegama, Janaki recognized the wide grin and gentle laughter shaking her sister’s narrow shoulders. Lakshmi’s heels made a clicking sound on the dusty pavement of the bus stand before softening into muted thumps as they reached the dirt road that extended one mile from the village center to Janaki and her husband’s home.

  Janaki carried Lakshmi’s heavier bag while Lakshmi tucked her purse beneath her arm as if she expected someone to snatch it from her. In her other hand, she clutched a small, worn suitcase. Every few steps, Lakshmi lost her balance but then regained her stride with the grace and nonchalance Janaki remembered in her sister. There was little else that coincided with her memories, though. Her sister’s hair was cropped short, without any curls. She had painted her lips a dark pink, and her shoes with their pointed stems made her feet look even smaller. She had also grown thinner, her shoulders curving in, giving her the appearance of someone short and timid. Janaki realized that six years could make a person doubt her own memories.

  “Mohan and the girls are so excited to see you.” Janaki attempted to fill the silence. Over the past week, her daughters had been hard at work making drawings to decorate their aunt’s new room. Though many years ago Mohan had expressed disappointment at the bad luck of having two girls with no son to carry the family name, Janaki had been quietly relieved that Achala and Rohini would have one another to share stories and make-believe the way she and Lakshmi used to do. She was eager now to hear Lakshmi’s newest stories and anxious to break her sister’s silence.

  “Yes, it will be good to see them.” Lakshmi smiled and looked down at her muddied shoes. “I forgot how the monsoons make everything so green and wet. In the Middle East, everything was a dusty yellow, except for the lawns. You know, the rich pumped water from underground to feed these little patches of grass. It reminded me how the British kept their estates here, up in the hill country. Of course the patches in Saudi were small, whereas here the land seems to go on forever. At least that’s how I remember it.”

  Janaki smiled. When Lakshmi was a girl, her silences would often be interrupted by this kind of rambling logic. While other people worked out what they meant to say silently, Lakshmi always made the process a public event. For her sister’s sake, Janaki was glad that the monsoons had retreated and the climate had stilled. Even the rumblings and aftershocks of distant bombs remained muted, hidden in the greenery her sister remembered so well.

  Already Janaki knew that their neighbors would be talking about the strange foreign-looking woman who was accompanying her from the bus stand.

  It can’t possibly be her sister.

  You know they always come back changed.

  And with two young girls in the house, too.

  Yes, the youngest is only nine.

  Janaki readied herself. She would insist that Lakshmi was just the same, that only her clothes were different. The haircut was really quite the modern fashion among the high society in Colombo, and she had brought back such beautiful clothes and perfumes. Janaki would brag and exaggerate and silence the gossip and secure her sister a place in the village.

  “YOU’LL HAVE TO get used to bare feet again,” Janaki teased as her sister unpacked her belongings. “Otherwise we’ll need three men to pull you from the mud during the next monsoon.”

  Her sister frowned. “I’ll never give up my shoes. My feet aren’t strong anymore. No calluses. I’ve turned into quite a pampered creature during my time away.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll soon get back into the old rhythms.” Janaki tried to keep her voice light. She sensed she was trying to reassure herself just as much as her sister.

  “Perhaps.” Lakshmi gazed into the suddenly empty expanse of her suitcase, then closed it with a bang, punctuating the end to the conversation. “Isn’t it time for tea?”

  MOHAN CAME HOME wearing a big grin. “Where is our favorite foreigner?” His belly overpowered Lakshmi’s tiny frame as he gathered her up in an elephant-size hug. “You made quite an entrance today, Lucky. All the boys were talking about your clicking shoes and Western haircut. They were speaking of you as if you were a legend, saying your eyes and crimson nail varnish could shine as far as Galle Road.”

  Janaki marveled at how her husband’s voice could fill a room, how his eyes sparkled like the eyes of a boy receiving his first cricket bat. She hadn’t expected her sister’s return to have such an impact. Mohan switched on his radio, sending Hindi pop songs crackling into the kitchen.

&n
bsp; Lakshmi scowled slightly as she poured Mohan’s tea. “I hate when you call me Lucky.”

  “Well, Lakshmi equals luck. Shall I get the English dictionary?” Mohan pretended to leave the room.

  “Yes, well, it never says whether the luck is meant to be good or bad. Do parents ever consider that when they name their children?” Lakshmi busied her hands as she spoke, sweeping biscuit crumbs off the table. She raised her eyes and smiled. “You know, Mohan, that’s still the only thing those boys are good for. Talking about how everyone else is a bigger spectacle than their arrack-filled bellies, filling the air with their gossip and idle chatting. Such nuisances.”

  Janaki noticed the old singsong quality of Lakshmi’s voice returning. Despite some wrinkles and an occasional silver strand of hair, Lakshmi still carried much of the lightness of girlhood. But to Janaki, much of her sister’s easy charm seemed forced, a disguise needed to cover past disappointments. As she watched her husband hastily tune in to the hourly newscast, announcing President Chandrika’s renewed negotiations with the rebel Tigers, Janaki wondered if Mohan, too, had sensed the difference.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, Janaki found Achala and Rohini perched on Lakshmi’s bed. Lakshmi had dabbed drops of pink nail polish onto Rohini’s barely present nails. “Look, Amma!” Rohini squealed at her mother. “See how pretty Auntie is making my fingers!”

  “Oh, yes, how lovely.” Janaki smiled, putting down a tray of sugar biscuits. “But how will you eat your biscuits now?” In the back of her mind, Janaki was already wondering if Lakshmi had brought polish remover with her. Rohini couldn’t go to school like that.

  “Achala can feed me. Her nails are still dry.”

  Achala’s eyes met her mother’s in the mirror. She had been turning her head this way and that, examining the scarf she had draped over her head. “Auntie was telling us stories about when you and she were little,” she said.

  “Really?” Janaki placed a biscuit into Rohini’s mouth. “And what has she told you?”

  Lakshmi paused from her polishing duties to drape the scarf loosely around Achala’s neck. “Like this. Now that’s perfect.”

  Achala stepped into Lakshmi’s high heels. “Auntie said the two of you used to make up stories about princes who arrived on creaky boats, disguised as fishermen. They would anchor their boats along the Galle Road coast and walk to your village. There, only you and Lakshmi knew their true identities and welcomed them, and for your loyalty you were rewarded with riches and travels to distant palaces, grander even than the old Kandyan kings’!”

  “Yes.” Janaki smiled at the memory. “Sometimes when we were supposed to be doing grandmother’s errands, we would sneak off to the shore and try to guess which fishermen were the princes. Even after Lakshmi left for university, she would send me teasing letters asking if any princes had arrived in her absence.”

  Achala’s eyes lit up at the mention of university. “Tell us about your studies, Auntie!”

  “No! Tell us more about the magic princes!” Rohini shouted.

  Lakshmi suddenly looked exhausted. She gazed up at Janaki for help.

  “All right, girls. Let’s let Auntie be for tonight. She’s still tired from her trip.” Janaki ushered her daughters out of the room with promises of more biscuits. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked her sister.

  “Just a bit sleepy,” Lakshmi assured her as she gathered her shoes and picked up her scarves from the disheveled bed.

  JANAKI AND LAKSHMI had grown up outside the village of Moratuwa off a meandering street lined with tea halts and bakeries that smelled of freshly browned bread and sugared buns. They lived only a short walk from Galle Road and used to watch the overflowing buses, the buzzing motorbikes, and the sleek private cars beeping their way between Galle and Colombo. Next to the quiet pace of their village, the girls were amazed by this blur of activity on the busiest road in Sri Lanka, filled with businessmen traveling between coastal cities, southern brides-to-be journeying to the capital to choose their wedding saris, callused men seeking work as drivers, servants, and sweepers for wealthy Colombo families to the north or heading back south to try their luck on the sea. Some wore the look of expectation; others, of fatigue; still others the weathered look of life on the road.

  Walking hand in hand, the girls often pictured themselves on their own journey, always on their way to or from an important occasion, a story ready to be shared with family or classmates.

  Which way are you headed on Galle Road, Lakshmi?

  I’m traveling north to Colombo to attend university.

  I’m heading south to Galle, where I’ll enjoy a sea bath in Hikkaduwa.

  My husband is waiting at the Colombo airport. He is returning from Australia, and he has brought me many gifts.

  What a beautiful wedding sari! Are the pearls real?

  Why, yes. It’s imported from Bombay, handwoven with silk and lace.

  Only a few years later, Janaki and Lakshmi would find themselves embarking on a journey along this road—Janaki headed south to the village where her husband’s family lived, Lakshmi north to Colombo, where her husband, Sunil, would accept his promotion to the Kollupitiya post office. While Galle Road would remain the largest and busiest road for Janaki, there would be many other roads for Lakshmi, and eventually she would follow one out onto a plane to join her brother-in-law in Saudi, where he had promised her a job and a home less lonely than Colombo had become without Sunil.

  THE HOUSE REMAINED quiet for most of the day, until the girls brought their voices from school in the afternoon and Mohan turned on his radio in the evening. In the quiet hours, Janaki took her sister for a well bath. As girls, the sisters had loved their baths, but now, as Janaki watched her sister crouched next to the well, sighing over her muddied shoes and ankles, she was baffled by Lakshmi’s preoccupations and clumsiness. Janaki reminded herself that her sister had not taken a well bath in over six years, but Lakshmi had also lost her immunity to mosquito bites and did not seem to be taking to the idea of walking around barefoot. But of course she’ll manage, Janaki repeated to herself firmly. I can help her through it.

  Lakshmi glanced up from her shoes. “They’re my favorites. How will I replace them?” Her voice was defensive, as if she had been reading Janaki’s thoughts.

  “We do have shoes here, too, you might remember, even though you don’t see them much in this house,” Janaki teased, remembering several boutiques in Colombo that sold Western-style shoes. But the point was that such shoes weren’t needed in Baddegama. They, along with the nail polish and short skirts, brought only gossip. She was about to remind her sister of this, but fearing an argument, she crouched behind her and began picking through Lakshmi’s hair for lice.

  “You haven’t done that since we were kids.” Lakshmi leaned back into her sister’s hands.

  “You’ve been gone so long.”

  “And it’s been a tiring six years.” Lakshmi sighed. “Look at my hands. So old looking. Scrubbing other people’s floors and children for too many months.”

  “Mine are no better and I’m younger than you.”

  “But at least your cracks can remind you of your own children or your garden or your own polished floor.”

  “True,” Janaki had to agree. She had always been impressed by her sister’s seamless ability to shift from the giggling and playful charmer to the serious thinker with the wrinkled forehead and deliberate speech. Sunil once confessed that he had initially become enchanted with Lakshmi because of her laugh but fell in love with her only after their first argument. Lately, Lakshmi was almost always serious, so much so that when her charming self had emerged with Mohan earlier, it had taken Janaki by surprise.

  Janaki breathed in the foreign smells still lingering in her sister’s hair. “Well, I’m glad you’re home.”

  Lakshmi pulled away. “Yes, well, I’m in your home, of course.”

  Janaki stared at her thin sister gazing at her oils in the water. “No, Lakshmi, it’s our home,” she answered
in a voice so small that she was unsure whether Lakshmi had heard her.

  TO JANAKI, LAKSHMI’S courtship and marriage had seemed like a fairy tale. Sunil was an unusually tall man whose hair hung over his forehead. He was quick limbed but spoke softly like a monk. When Lakshmi was nineteen and just out of her A-level exams, he had come to the Moratuwa post office as a secondary clerk. He was twenty-three and not spoken for, and both Lakshmi and Janaki had heard gossip about the new postal clerk—that he was slightly shy and came from a respectable family who lived in Mount Lavinia, though he was the youngest son of four, low on the ladder of inheritance. Still, working at the post office was a coveted government position with a life pension and it was certainly a suitable occupation for a fourth son.

  Lakshmi began to visit the post office. She brought neatly sealed envelopes proudly announcing the addresses of various universities and teachers colleges, all printed in thick black marker. At home, Janaki questioned her sister: “But you didn’t study science. What are you doing with an application to the Peradeniya University? Do you want him to think you’re going to be a doctor or perhaps an engineer?” Lakshmi’s behavior puzzled her. Her calm and measured older sister had suddenly become frazzled and clumsy. She had even burned her favorite yellow blouse with an iron set too high.

  But it turned out that Lakshmi didn’t have to worry. After her first visit to the post office, when Sunil had sneaked a glance at her applications, he had gone home to his uncle’s house and asked about the Thrimavithana family, particularly about their university-age daughter with the long braids.