But as the evening wore on, he was aware that he had some unanswered questions in his mind. When the two girls went off to the powder room, he had a chance to approach some of the questions. As a beginning he asked Gamini if he had seen much of them in London. Gamini looked surprised. “Never set eyes on either one of them until they turned up on the plane from Dubai and we got to talking.”
“Oh, I see,” Ranjit said, although he wasn’t sure he did. For clarification he asked, “What about your friend Madge?”
Gamini gave him a long and amused look. “You know what your problem is, Ranjit? You worry too much. Madge is in Barcelona, I guess with whoever it is that sends her texts every other hour. Have another drink.”
Ranjit did. In fact they both did, and so did the two girls when they returned. It wasn’t quite the same as before, however. Ranjit’s drink sat unfinished before him, and so did most of the others. And then Maggie whispered something in Gamini’s ear. “Oh, all right,” Gamini said to her; and then to Ranjit he said, “I’m afraid it’s about that time. It’s been good seeing you again, but my father and I have to take off for Grandma’s first thing in the morning. So we’re going to pack it in.” He stood up, smiling. “Give us a hug, will you?”
Ranjit obliged, and got one from Maggie as well. “By the way,” Gamini added as they turned to go, “don’t worry about the check. It all goes on my father’s tab. Come on, sweets.” And as he and Maggie threaded their way between tables to the door, Ranjit understood what the plural pronoun had implied.
And there Ranjit was, just him and the girl named Pru.
He lacked experience to tell him what was expected of him under these circumstances. He had, however, seen enough American films to get a clue. “Would you like another drink?” he said politely.
She shook her head, grinning. She nodded at the nearly full glass in front of her. “I’ve barely wounded the last one. Anyway, I think another drink would be pretty superfluous, don’t you?”
He did, but he was running out of ideas for the next step. In the films, at this point the man might ask the woman if she would care to dance. That wasn’t an option here; no dancing was going on in this hotel bar, and anyway Ranjit didn’t know how.
Pru saved him. “It’s been a very nice evening, Ranjit Subramanian,” she told him, “but I want to get up and do some sightseeing tomorrow. Do you think the waiter can get me a taxi?”
Ranjit was surprised. “You aren’t in this hotel?”
“Booked the accommodation before we left London, and we took what they gave us. It’s only about a five-minute ride away.”
At that point Ranjit knew what to do, and did. Pru was glad to be given a ride in the temple’s van—even if Ranjit was a little drunk behind the wheel—and she was interested to hear about Ranjit’s father’s position in the temple, along with a sketchy outline of the long and colorful history of Tiru Koneswaram. Enough so that she invited him in to sober up with a cup of coffee when they got to her hotel.
The travel agency in London had given the girls a young people’s hotel, with a lot of young people making the lobby a bit too noisy for a conversation, so Pru invited Ranjit up to her room. They talked, sitting companionably close, and propinquity worked its magic. Within an hour Ranjit had lost his virginity, or at least his cross-gender virginity. He enjoyed it very much. So did Pru, enough so that they did it twice more before they finally got to sleep.
The sun was high and hot when the sound of a key in the lock woke them. It was Maggie, and she did not seem surprised to find both Ranjit and Pru in one of the room’s twin beds. Gamini? Oh, he was long gone, had jumped out of the bed and into his clothes when reception called to say that his father was waiting for him in the lobby. “And anyway,” Maggie said, giving Pru an inquiring look, “we’re supposed to be taken to lunch by your life-drawing instructor’s cousin at the embassy, and it’s a quarter after ten.”
Ranjit, who was getting into his clothes as fast as he could, took that for an exit cue. What he wasn’t sure of was how to take leave of Pru, and this time she was not helpful. She did give him a hearty good-bye kiss. But when he tentatively suggested that if they wanted sightseeing he was available, she couldn’t see a way of fitting him into their other obligations that day, or any other day, for that matter.
Ranjit got the message. He kissed her again, with the intensity dimmed down much lower this time, waved a farewell to Maggie, and left.
Back in the van, he considered. He had the van and his own freedom for at least a week. But there was nothing to keep him in Colombo, and nothing to attract him to any other part of Sri Lanka. So he shrugged and started the engine and began the long drive back to Trinco.
An hour later he was outside of the Colombo city limits, and wondering what his father would say when he returned the van so early. Most of his wondering, though, was devoted to the subject of Ms. Pru Never-Did-Know-Her-Last-Name. Why had she behaved in the way—no, in the several contradictorily different ways—that she had in their short but, at least for Ranjit, highly significant relationship? He was nearly thirty kilometers down the road before he came to a satisfactory answer.
Well, “satisfactory” wasn’t the best word to use. He was fairly sure he had the explanation, but he didn’t like it at all. His conclusion was that Pru’s actions were a function of his skin color. Having sex with a short and dark-skinned Asian man—what was the name people in Pru’s social class used for that sort of person? Oh, yes. “Wog.” For wily Oriental gentleman. Having sex with such a man might be an enjoyable experiment when no one knew about it except another young woman engaged in doing the same thing. But it was not acceptable where one might be seen by people who might speak of it to people in London, or to people in Shaker Heights, whatever Shaker Heights might happen to be.
So for the next hour or so Ranjit’s thoughts were glum. They didn’t stay that way, though. Whatever thoughts might have been in Pru’s mind, the things her body had been doing while she was thinking them were quite pleasing for him to remember. It had been, Ranjit admitted to himself, one of the most intensely pleasurable experiences of his life. All right, it appeared that it was to be a one-time-only event with that particular partner, but there were other women in the world, were there not? Including some who were not concerned about the color of his skin?
Including, for instance, Myra de Soyza?
That was an interesting new thought for Ranjit. Experimentally he set his imagination a new task, which was to replay his memories of the night in bed with Pru Something, but replace Pru in the role of Female Partner with Myra herself.
Ranjit had not previously been thinking of Myra in that way, exactly, but he discovered that it wasn’t hard to do. It was pretty enjoyable, too, until, unfortunately, the thought of the Canadian hotel man, Brian Harrigan, began to come up in his mind. That part wasn’t pleasant at all.
Reluctantly Ranjit gave up that experiment and, doing his best not to think of anything at all, simply drove on.
The sun was nearly setting by the time he at last got to Trincomalee. Ranjit thought about going back to his lonely room, but what he wanted was someone to talk to about—well, not about Pru Last-Nameless, of course, but anyway just to talk. He took a chance on driving to the Kanakaratnam house, and won.
They were all inside. Though the door was closed, he could hear Dot Kanakaratnam’s voice, but no one else’s. When Tiffany answered his knock and let him in, he saw that her mother was sitting at the table and talking into a cell phone. (Ranjit hadn’t known she owned one.) When she saw him in the doorway, she said a few quick words into the phone and folded it shut. There was something in the look on her face that troubled Ranjit—anger? Sadness? He couldn’t tell. What she said was “You’re early, Ranjit. We thought you’d be spending more time with your friend.”
“So did I,” he said, a tad ruefully, “but it didn’t work out. I had a good time, though.” He had not been intending to tell them exactly how good, more about what an interestin
g place Colombo was, but the expressions on the faces of the children stopped him. “Is something wrong?” he asked.
Dot answered for the whole family. “It’s George. My husband. He’s escaped.”
That was news that trumped anything Ranjit might have said. He pressed for details. George Kanakaratnam, for some inscrutable police reason, had been in the process of being transferred from one prison to another. There had been a car crash. The guard and the driver had been killed. Kanakaratnam had not, and he had simply walked away.
“The Trinco police were here all day,” Harold volunteered when his mother paused to breathe. “They said Da might have got away on a boat. There was a bridge that went over a pretty big river right down the road.”
“But there wasn’t any blood there,” Rosie said triumphantly, puzzling Ranjit. It seemed to him that with two dead, there had to be some spilled blood somewhere around the scene.
Tiffany clarified the matter. “She means there wasn’t any blood inside the bus, except for right around the front seats. So our father probably didn’t get hurt.”
Dot met Ranjit’s look with a hostile look of her own. “You’re thinking of George as a jailbird, but to them he’s their father. Naturally they love him,” she informed Ranjit. Then, in a friendly tone, “Can I give you a cup of tea? And we’d like to hear all about your trip.”
Obeying her gesture, Ranjit sat at the table. He didn’t get a chance to tell them his story, though, because Tiffany was waving her hand. When the girl spoke, it wasn’t to Ranjit but to her mother. “Is this when we should tell him about the letter?” she asked.
Dot gave Ranjit a stricken look. “Oh, I’m sorry. There was so much going on here that I just forgot.” She scrabbled in the litter of papers on the table for a moment, then pulled out an envelope and handed it to Ranjit. “One of the monks brought it. It’s been sitting in the temple mail room for a week because nobody told them where you were staying.”
“And then this morning, when they figured it out, they tried to deliver it to your room, but you weren’t there,” Tiffany put in. “And our mother told them they could leave it here and we’d see that you got it.”
Dot looked embarrassed. “I did, yes. The police were here, and I just wanted everybody to go away….”
She stopped when she realized Ranjit was no longer listening to her. The envelope had the return address of the beach hotel nearest the construction site. So did the sheet of notepaper inside, and what it said was:
Dear Ranjit,
I’ll be here for a few days. Is there any chance we could get together for a cup of tea or something of the sort?
It was signed Myra de Soyza.
Ranjit didn’t wait for the tea with the Kanakaratnams. “I’ll see you later,” he said, already on his way out the door.
Driving to the hotel didn’t take longer than twenty minutes. The young woman at the desk was as helpful as she could be, but when it came down to it, all she could tell him was, “Oh, but they checked out yesterday, Ms. de Soyza and Mr. Harrigan. I think they may have gone back to Colombo.”
Back in the van Ranjit allowed himself to admit how much he regretted having missed her—and how much he disliked the fact that she and the Canadian were traveling together. His mood depressed, he drove slowly back. At the turn that would have taken him to the Kanakaratnam house he paused, then turned the other way. It was interesting, in a way, that Dot’s husband had managed to escape from a federal prison. Ranjit had looked forward to telling the children about his trip, too. Well, about parts of it.
But not right now. Right now he didn’t want to talk to anybody about anything.
The next day he went back to his job. The foreman’s brother-in-law was not at all happy to see him, but when Ranjit picked up the Kanakaratnam children, they were happy enough that it made up for it. When it became story time, they loved hearing about how the kings of Kandy had fought off the European invaders for so many years (as Ranjit had read off his computer first thing that morning) and did not seem to want to talk about their escapee father.
Neither did their mother, not for several days, at least, and then when he stopped off for the kids one morning, he didn’t get them.
Dot Kanakaratnam was seated at the table, putting clothes and household goods into sacks, and all four of the children were packing little bundles of their own. When she saw the question in Ranjit’s eyes, she gave him a great smile. “I have wonderful news, Ranjit! Some old friends have found me a job! It’s right here in Trinco, too, although down by the port. I’m not sure what the work is, exactly, but they say it will pay well and an apartment of our own comes with it!”
She gave Ranjit an expectant look. “That’s—wonderful,” he said, doing his best to supply what she wanted. He found himself wondering how she couldn’t know what job she was taking, but he realized she was desperate, so he didn’t pursue it. “When would you start?”
“Almost immediately. There is one thing, though, Ranjit. You still have your father’s van, don’t you? And taxis are so expensive. Could you give us a lift to the port?”
10
A NEW LIFE FOR THE KANAKARATNAMS
He did have the van, because his father had told him to keep it for commuting to work, so he could drive them. At least he could as soon as he had notified the foreman that his brother-in-law could have his payday a little longer. By the time he got back to Dot’s house, everything was ready. Twenty minutes later he had the children, squealing with excitement in the back of the van, while Dot sat beside him, studying the harbor as they approached.
The port was not a sight Ranjit had seen much of since Sri Lanka had attained peace. True, there were reminders of the unruly outside world. On the far side of the harbor he could make out the shark shapes of a couple of nuclear submarines, probably Indian, and so much else! There were fishing vessels, of course, and not of the four-or five-man kind that were pulled up on every beach around the island. These were the deepwater craft that would sail a hundred kilometers or more from land for the commercially valuable schools. There were freighters of all kinds and sizes, being relieved of their containers or bulk cargoes or having new ones loaded. And Ranjit saw with astonishment that there were several ships of a different kind entirely—painted brilliant white, festooned with lifeboats hanging in their davits, lined with rows of portholes. Why, the cruise ships were back! Ranjit couldn’t help pulling over to let the children get a look. He expected childish whoops of excitement and was puzzled when what he got instead was the children’s endless whispering in each other’s ears.
Dot, however, was having no delays. “Settle down,” she ordered the children. Then to Ranjit, “I’d like to get there as soon as I can. Do you see the souvenir shop next to where those white ships are docked? I think that’s the place.”
It was a fairly shabby little kiosk, not particularly busy, either. A few elderly tourists in bright-colored shorts and imitation Hawaiian shirts were desultorily studying its picture postcards and plastic elephant figurines. But it was where Dot Kanakaratnam insisted on going, children and all. She reassured him. “Yes, this is the place. Our friends will come for us, and now, Ranjit, you must go. And,” she added, suddenly flinging her arms around him, “the children will miss you, and so will I!” One after another the children gave him their own hugs. And, as Ranjit drove away, he could see that they were all crying.
Of course Ranjit didn’t cry. He was a grown man. Anyway, people were looking at him.
Ranjit was in no hurry to get back to his job on the beach, no longer with any small children there to amuse him. Four or five little restaurants and snack shops were nearby, ready for the custom of the cruise ship passengers. He parked near the least unattractive of them for a cup of tea and sat for a time musing over how rapidly little children could win over a heart.
It was odd, he thought, that Dot should know details such as, for instance, that she was going to get an apartment with the job but not seem to know what the job itself wa
s going to be. It almost made Ranjit wonder if Dot was being less than truthful with him.
But that was a thought easy to dismiss. What reason could the woman have to keep secrets from him? When he left the shop he cast a quick glance at where he had left them.
They were gone.
Ranjit wished them a silent good-bye and good luck, and drove unhurriedly along the bay front. He passed a sweet-smelling little freighter being loaded with cinnamon for export, next to a container ship from Singapore now unloading (it was safe to assume) cars, computers, and domestic appliances from the factories of China. Next was the cluster of cruise ships, a good deal more bedraggled at close range than they had at first seemed. A few passengers who apparently had had no interest in the ground tours to Swami Rock or his father’s temple lounged around the railings of the upper decks. One was a little girl who was waving joyously in his direction….
No! It wasn’t just any little girl. It was tiny Betsy Kanakaratnam! And running rapidly toward her, apparently with the intention to scold her, was her big sister, Tiffany, and a few meters away was the one boy in the family, holding the hand of a squat, dark man.
Could that be Kirthis Kanakaratnam? It could hardly be anyone else. Tiffany was already calling to the man, dragging her baby sister toward him.
The man nodded consideringly. Then he turned toward Ranjit, who was leaning out of the van window below. Grinning broadly, the man gestured to him.
What he was trying to say was not hard to understand: He was waving Ranjit to come aboard the ship, pointing to a parking space not far away, pointing to himself and then to the gangway that linked the ship to the dock. Ranjit didn’t hesitate. He turned toward the indicated parking space, shut off the engine, slammed the van door, and trotted up the gangway.