Ruins

by Rajith Savanadasa

Genres: General Fiction; Cultural Heritage; Family Life

Synopsis

In the pent-up heat of Colombo, piece by piece, a family comes apart. A stunning debut novel from a fresh voice in Australian fiction, for fans of Zadie Smith and Rohinton Mistry. 'RUINS is a stirring and skilfully crafted debut, and Savanadasa's characters are so vividly drawn they feel like family. With his sharp and masterful observations of race, class and gender in the "new" Sri Lanka, Savanadasa takes his seat beside Omar Musa, Alice Pung and Michael Mohammed Ahmad to usher in the brave and stunning new dawn of diverse Australian fiction.' Maxine Beneba Clarke, award-winning author of FOREIGN SOIL A country picking up the pieces, a family among the ruins. In the restless streets, crowded waiting rooms and glittering nightclubs of Colombo, five family members find their bonds stretched to breaking point in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war. Latha wants a home. Anoushka wants an iPod. Mano hopes to win his wife back. Lakshmi dreams of rescuing a lost boy. And Niranjan needs big money so he can leave them all behind. '[Savanadasa's] writing recalls Christos Tsiolkas' recent work ... distinct and convincing, RUINS heralds the arrival of a gifted new talent in Australian fiction.' BOOKS+PUBLISHING 'An absolute must-read' WOMAN'S DAY 'An outstanding debut novel' WEST AUSTRALIAN 'RUINS is an impressive debut. Savanadasa joins other important contemporary Australian-Sri Lankan novelists . . . in enriching the globalised phenomenon that is Australian literature.' THE SATURDAY PAPER 'RUINS stands out from other Australian debuts for its ambitious structure, its vibrant setting, and the depth and complexity of the Sri Lankan family at the centre of the story.' READINGS 'an intelligent, engaging novel' DARK MATTER ZINE 'A rich and colourful story of family and country, its complexity revealed in layers . . . Only through the eyes of others can we begin to see a place.' Inga Simpson, author of the critically acclaimed WHERE THE TREES WERE

Release date: June 28, 2016

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Print pages: 352

Sample

THIS FAMILY IS GOOD. THAT’S WHY I WORK FOR THEM. AIYA doesn’t know because Aiya hasn’t seen. When he came, he came when no one was home. Today was the third time. He came on his shiny motorcycle, parked in front and rang the bell. I opened the gate wide and he bent his neck to pass the low branch of the araliya tree. My brother’s tall. He’s not like me. He’s handsome. He wears clean shirts and trousers made of good material. The slippers on his feet were the only difference between him and a mahattaya – that and the motorcycle.

‘Why don’t you come in your car?’ I asked.

He smiled and said, ‘No need to bring the car, no? It takes more petrol.’

‘One day you can bring it for me to see.’

‘Okay,’ he said.

He stood at the front for a little while, looking at our garden, at the flowering anthuriums with their bright red petals, at the fish tank on the veranda where he tapped on the glass to try to get the goldfish to see him. But the goldfish was a fool. He only ate, swam through plants, made bubbles next to the oxygen tube and sometimes went into his little house to sleep. That’s all the goldfish knew to do.

‘This is nice,’ said Aiya.

‘The motor keeps the water clean,’ I said.

Aiya walked into the saalay – the living room I had just swept. He looked at photos on the wall, photos of Lakshmi Nona and Mano Mahattaya getting married, the old picture of Niranjan Baby wearing a cardboard on his head and getting a rolled-up paper in Australia, the whole family standing on top of a rock next to the sea, another one in front of a waterfall. Aiya asked me if the person in the big picture with Mano Mahattaya was really the president. I said, ‘Yes. Mano Mahattaya talked to the president one day.’

‘He’s good, this president,’ said Aiya. ‘Did you hear the army captured Kilinocchi? We’ll win the war very soon.’

‘They always say that.’

Aiya moved away and looked at some of the things on the shelf, the books, all of them Ingrisi, the vases with small Cheena people drawn on them, Niranjan Baby’s music discs stacked high. While he looked I removed covers from the furniture. I didn’t ask him to sit on the plastic stools we give servants. He wasn’t a servant, so I thought it was all right. But he didn’t sit. He kept going round, through the big door and into the dining room, looking down the corridor that led past the rooms and into the kitchen. He even put his head into the garage where Nona’s shrine full of Buddha statues and god paintings were, before he came back to the armchair.

‘Do you want a tea?’ I asked.

‘Okay. Just one spoon of sugar,’ he said.

‘Milk?’

‘No.’

Because he’s a guest I took one of the nice cups, the one with flowers, out of the cupboard. When I put it on the saucer, poured the tea and brought it out to him on the tray, he was wearing glasses and reading the newspaper. When I saw him like this, sitting back with his feet crossed, face covered by the paper, I wrongly said, ‘Mahattaya, here’s your tea.’

‘I’m not your mahattaya,’ he said without a smile.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Normally it’s a mahattaya sitting here.’

He folded away the paper, took the cup in one hand, the saucer in the other, poured tea on the saucer and blew away steam. When he did this the little finger on the cup hand was straight like a soldier. It was like my akka. My sister drinks tea the same way.

—

He was my aiya, my older brother, but I didn’t like it when he asked too many questions. He came again a week later, sat on the chair like some important person and started drinking tea the same way as my sister. Smiling, he asked me to sit. I brought a stool out, one that servants sat on.

‘Latha, what do you want to do?’ he asked, resting his chin on his hand.

‘Today, I’m going to buy some lotterai,’ I said. ‘Last week a woman from Horana won a lot of money – five lakhs.’

‘What will you do with the money? If you win?’

‘I’ll give some to Nona, some to Mahattaya and Niranjan Baby. I’ll buy something for Anoushka Baby, maybe a small compitu. She likes to play them.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’ll buy a small TV. I don’t want a big one. Now there are very small televisions – have you seen? The nearby shop has one in the window. This size.’ I showed him the size with my hands.

‘And us?’ Aiya smiled like he was telling a joke – but inside, he wasn’t smiling, I could tell.

‘You?’

‘Me and my wife?’

‘I’ll give you some too. Five lakhs is a lot. Sometimes you can win more.’

‘Your sister?’

I didn’t say anything. I looked at my feet and saw that the nail that I dropped a coconut on had started growing a hard lump in the corner.

‘I was joking,’ he said, handing back the empty cup and saucer to me. ‘You don’t have to give us anything. I just wanted to know what you might do – with your life. You can’t do this forever.’

‘Anicche dhukké,’ I said.

He turned my Pali prayer into Sinhala: ‘Everything ends and so we suffer.’ He smiled. ‘You listen to pirith? You’re a good Buddhist?’

‘Sometimes. The monk on the TV said that.’

‘Yes, yes. But have you thought about what to do after this?’

‘No.’ I got up to put the cup and saucer in the sink.

When I came back, Aiya sat up and scratched his head. He had been thinking. ‘You like your nona and mahattaya, don’t you?’

I nodded.

‘Are they good to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does Mano Mahattaya pay well?’

‘Yes.’

‘He gets enough money writing newspapers?’

‘Yes.’

‘And Lakshmi Nona … she’s Tamil?’

‘Yes. But she’s just like a Sinhala person.’ I was already tired of Aiya. I hoped he would leave soon.

He didn’t stop. He kept asking things. ‘What does Niranjan Mahattaya do?’

‘He plays the compitu.’

‘For a big company?’

‘His own company.’

‘Really? But he’s still young.’

‘Twenty-four. He has a very good brain. Studied in Australia.’

‘Anoushka Baby – is she doing the O-Level this year?’

‘Yes. School just started after the holidays.’

‘You’re like a mother to her, no? She was born after you came to work here?’

I nodded. ‘Even Niranjan Baby was born after me.’

‘You’re part of the family.’

‘Yes,’ I said, looking around for a way to get Aiya out. ‘What’s the time?’

Aiya looked at his watch. ‘Appey! It’s almost one. I have to go. Roads will be busy soon.’ He got to his feet.

A few dark clouds hung in the sky. After watching the motorbike disappear, I picked up an umbrella, locked the house and went out, down the lane and to the main road. I crossed on the yellow lines and went to the bus stop. There was a beggar with a bandaged arm asking for money. I ignored him. Mano Mahattaya said all those fellows were thieves; they put food colouring on their bandages and tied up their arms to look like they were wounded. A CTB bus slowed and I got on. It was half empty so I sat and looked out the window. School hadn’t ended and traffic was still moving quickly. A motorcycle went along right next to me, so close I could touch the three people on it – the woman with her sari blowing in the wind sat on the back, one hand holding on to the man who was steering, the other on the small child between them. The boy had a little helmet of his own. He saw me watching and smiled. I wanted to wave – but what if I upset the driver and they had an accident? I slowly lifted my hand. The boy waved.

They turned at the Thunmulla junction, away from us, and went towards Galle Road, towards Majestic City, the big building with the expensive shops inside. I watched them go, hoping the little boy would get home safely. I thought of Aiya. Does he take his family around on the motorcycle, his wife holding on to him, his son and daughter holding their mother from both sides? I hoped they had helmets.

Dreaming of Aiya’s life, I almost missed my stop. I stepped off the bus and walked towards the school. There were many cars and vans – some parked properly and others parked in funny places, like on the pavement, in front of gates or blocking lanes, three-wheelers on footpaths. These were all fights waiting to happen, so I hoped the children would come out quickly. The drivers of private vans ate bulath and spat red against a tree or smoked on the other side of the road. I went right up near the gate and stood with nonas wearing trousers and so much flower scent it smelled like a funeral home, beside mahattayas in their ties who always looked at their watches in a hurry to get back to work. I smiled at everyone. Very few smiled back. The nonas, even the ones who knew me, like Natalie Baby’s mother or the nona with the short hair and red lips, pretended not to see.

When the final bell rang and the gates opened the girls came flying out, noisy like flocks of white birds. The little ones got hugs and kisses from fathers and mothers, had their cheeks wiped with clean handkerchiefs or heads patted as they were led away to waiting cars. Older girls in groups of two or three, all laughing, got into vans, happy that school was over. Anoushka Baby’s messy hair was right at the back of the crowd. Her face didn’t change when she saw me and she didn’t stop when I said, ‘Hullo, Anoushka Baby.’ She kept walking, right past as if I wasn’t even there. What could I do but follow? I was almost running because she was going fast, losing breath as I asked if I could carry her bag or water bottle. It was only after we were a good distance from school that she finally spoke to me. She spoke Sinhala, not her normal Ingrisi.

‘What’s for lunch?’

‘You won’t like it today, Anoushka Baby. I made kohila.’ The stringy vegetable was one of the things she swallowed without chewing. ‘Your thatthi asked me to make it. It’s good for you.’

‘Can you fry some chicken when we get home?’

‘I don’t know, Baby. Thatthi won’t be happy. He says you eat too much meat.’

‘Just tell him I told you.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said again, taking the bag from her. ‘So heavy. What do you have in here? Rocks?’

Anoushka Baby said nothing. She crossed her hands and turned her back to the road, away from the smoke and the sound of car horns trying to blow a hole through the traffic. I knew she didn’t want to be seen with me. She worried her friends would think I was her mother. Sometimes I wanted to tell her, ‘When you’re standing next to me, anybody can tell I’m just a servant, and you’re my baby nona. Nobody will mistake it.’ But I kept quiet.

I saw an empty three-wheeler and waved it over. Anoushka Baby got in and sat back, finally letting out her breath. I told the driver what Mano Mahattaya had told me to say: ‘We’ll only pay if you go very carefully.’

As usual the driver started slowly, moving through the busy part of Colombo 7, the rich parts where the lokkas lived and the big schools and offices were, carefully avoiding the private buses and their daily race, but as we moved out to smaller districts, past Colombo 5 and Kirulapone towards where we lived, vehicles went in different directions and more space appeared in the road. The driver forgot my message and began to play tricks. He went broooom!, increased speed, cut in front of a car and went over a pavement, nearly dropping us all through the open sides of the carriage.

‘I won’t pay if you drive like this,’ I shouted.

‘It’s not me,’ said the driver. ‘It’s that bus fellow!’

‘Hold on tight, Anoushka Baby.’

She didn’t listen. She pushed out her legs against the driver’s seat to stop her from falling forward and looked straight ahead – didn’t hold on to anything.

When we got home she ate all the food I put on the plate and didn’t say a word. Then, without even changing her school clothes, she went into Mahattaya’s room and closed the door. I knew from the peep-peep and tak-tak sounds she was playing with his compitu.

Sometimes I wish she was still little. She was my good friend. She used to skip out of school and call me ‘Latha katha!’ and hold my hand all the way home. I used to feed her rice and hodi squeezed into little balls; even when she was as old as ten, I’d give her a kiss on top of her head when she finished eating. She always wanted to play badminton in the burning sun. It was fine for her because she wore her straw hat and tennis shoes, but my bare feet were cut open by rocks on the street. We always stopped in time for cartoons, watching Tom and Jerry or Scooby-Doo as she ate a whole bowl of ice-cream … she’s changed. My Anoushka Baby isn’t my Anoushka Baby anymore.

—

They are good people. Even if my brother didn’t think so. He didn’t know. Aiya wanted me to leave. He wanted me to go back to the village, calling on the telephone, saying, ‘Nangi, come and stay with me. There’s a room with a bed, even a bathroom, just for you.’

I knew there was nothing in the village but paddy fields, and that you had to walk miles along the bund of the river to get to a kadé that doesn’t even have tinned fish. That was what I wanted to buy for Akka when I visited, but it wasn’t there.

Sometimes he said, ‘You can help my wife look after the children.’ He said this without thinking and then, when his own words went into his ears, changed them as if they were written in sand: ‘But only if you want. You don’t have to work.’

While he talked, the telephone made a kara-kara sound. I kept quiet, thinking it must be windy in Sinhagama. I kept looking at the spot on the wall where Lakshmi Nona’s habit of leaning had left a circle of black hair dye. I didn’t know what to say to Aiya.

How could I leave? Who would do the cooking here? Who would look after Anoushka Baby? Who would bring her back from school? Who would wash Niranjan Baby’s shirts when the sweat under the armpits dries and becomes yellow? Who would pack Mano Mahattaya’s lunch and cut the apple the way he likes and put it all in the siri-siri bag on the table before he goes to work? Who would take morning tea to Lakshmi Nona and tell her not to worry and say something to make her smile? Who? I thought of all this too late – after I’d put the phone down and wiped the speaking piece with Dettol.

—

It must have been a week after his last visit when Anoushka Baby answered the telephone and shouted at me from the corridor, ‘Latha, call.’

I was in the kitchen where a pot of kiri hodi was about to boil. It needed less than a minute but Anoushka Baby called out again, louder. ‘Latha! Call!’

I turned off the cooker, wiped my hands on my skirt and rushed out. Anoushka Baby had left the speaking piece of the telephone lying on the small table. I picked it up.

‘Hullo?’

‘Latha?’

I recognised the voice. ‘Aiya?’

‘How are you?’

‘Okay …’ I spoke slowly. I knew why he was calling and I didn’t have an answer. He had told me to think about all the good things that would happen if I went back to the village. But that was what I didn’t want to do – I didn’t want to think about it. It was too much for my head to hold.

‘How much did you win from your lotterai?’

‘Is that why you called?’ I said, surprised. ‘I didn’t win anything.’

‘No, no!’ He laughed that deep laugh that comes from somewhere in his stomach. ‘Can’t your brother call to see how you’re doing?’ He waited for an answer, and when nothing came he continued, ‘I’m calling to ask what you’ve decided. I’m going away for a few months. To Dubai for a job. You know my work is in Dubai, no?’

‘You told me.’

‘I’ll be working in one of the big buildings. Did you know they have one of the tallest buildings in the world?’

‘No.’

‘That’s where I’ll be working. In the tallest building. I have a contract for three months. The money’s very good, so I can’t say no. The problem is my wife and the children will be all by themselves.’

It was just as I had thought. He wanted me to say, ‘Yes, I’ll come.’ If I went I wouldn’t have to worry about what to cook every day. I wouldn’t have to wash everyone’s underwear and clean the toilets. I wouldn’t have to go to the kadé at night and run away from kuddas who put drugs in their blood and dirty men who lick their lips and look at me funny. I wouldn’t have to chop meat and clean gutters and walk to the post office in the heat. Maybe Aiya would make me do the same things but at least I’d be doing it for my own family. I wanted to say yes but the words that came out of my mouth were different: ‘What can I do?’

Aiya breathed into the phone and then the kara-kara sound happened. It happened for a while and I wondered if the call had been cut. I was thinking of putting the speaking piece down when his voice came like a slap in the dark. ‘All right. You don’t have to come and help us. But think of this – do you think those people will look after you? Do you think they’ll let you stay forever?’

That was when I got angry. Aiya had no right to say these things. He didn’t know my mahattayas and nonas. ‘They look after me better than you village people.’

‘So Colombo is now bigger than us, then?’

‘I don’t know what’s bigger or smaller,’ I said, my voice becoming too loud for a servant, ‘but they don’t leave me alone and only call when they need help.’

I cut the call quickly, putting the speaking piece down hard. My heart was going dag-dag in my chest and my breath was getting stuck in my throat.

‘You’ll break the phone if you hammer it like that,’ said Niranjan Baby. I hadn’t noticed him standing behind me, his long shadow darkening the corridor.

‘Sorry, Niranjan Baby.’

‘Niranjan Mahattaya,’ he corrected me.

‘Sorry, Niranjan Mahattaya,’ I said, turning to leave.

‘Wait,’ he said. I turned back to see him pointing at the piece of cloth next to the phone.

‘Sorry.’ I picked up the bottle, poured some Dettol onto the cloth and quickly cleaned the speaking piece so my germs wouldn’t go to him.

‘Who was that?’ he asked.

‘My brother.’

‘What did he want?’

‘Nothing, Niranjan Mahattaya,’ I said. ‘He just wants me to come to the village.’

‘Are you going?’

‘No.’

I went back to the kitchen.

—

The last time I’d polished the floor was to make sure the house was nice before the new year. Not even a month had gone and it was already dirty. Now there were guests coming from Emarica. They were Mano Mahattaya’s relatives and very important, so I had to polish again, but I knew they’d bring in dust and trample it into the floor and it would look dirty again. What was the use in polishing? I didn’t understand. ‘Don’t walk everywhere, stay in one place,’ I said to Anoushka Baby. ‘I’ll bring you everything you need.’ She glared at me.

Polishing the floor was not nice work. I had to mix the maroon polish with smelly kerosene oil, rub the paste into the floor in little circles and run the polishing machine over it. I did the same with wax and watched the floor shine like a mirror. I only liked the last part. I didn’t like when the maroon colour got in my nails and it didn’t wash off. It was worse when it got on my clothes.

I finished putting the polish on, then carefully turned on the polisher and held it steady, sweeping side to side the way Lakshmi Nona had taught me. Polishing closer to the door I thought I heard the sound of a motorcycle. I quickly turned the polisher off and opened the door but it was nothing – there was nobody outside the gate.

This happened again a few days later. I was making the garden look neat, moving the flowerpots, when a motorcycle stopped. I left the pots where they were and ran to the gate. But it was only the fishmonger. He opened the ice box on the back of his bike, showing me crabs, prawns and thilapiya, saying: ‘Fresh from Meegamuwa.’ That was when I remembered Nona had asked me to buy some prawns. I had forgotten all about it. I had been thinking too much.

‘Don’t worry,’ the man said, reading my face. ‘These are good prawns.’

The next few days more motorcycles went up and down the lane. Our doorbell rang a few times, but I knew Aiya was in Dubai. He wouldn’t be back so soon. Would he come and see me? Would he call me again? Was he angry because I didn’t do what he told? Why did he really want me to come to the village? I had so many questions.

—

On the weekend Mano Mahattaya and Anoushka Baby took the guests from Emarica all over Colombo. Lakshmi Nona stayed home, walking back and forth, thinking about faraway places, worrying and sometimes sleeping. I didn’t want to bother her, but this was my chance, so, very quietly, I asked if she could help me talk to my sister.

‘Now?’ asked Nona.

‘Yes, Nona. Is that all right?’

She walked to the telephone and I followed her.

‘Your akka still doesn’t have a phone?’

‘I don’t think so, Nona. You have the neighbour’s number, no?’

Lakshmi Nona opened the blue book where all the telephone numbers were written. She found the number, picked up the telephone and pressed the buttons. She listened for a while and said, ‘Hullo. There’s someone who wants to talk to you,’ and gave me the telephone.

‘Hullo?’ I said. ‘I’m calling from Colombo. Can you hear? Can I talk to Seelawathie? Is she home?’

I heard Akka’s neighbour put the phone down to go find her. I listened to the sounds coming from the telephone, thinking which sound is Akka, which sounds are her neighbours, which sounds are things happening to the telephone wires going from here to the village. While I waited, Lakshmi Nona walked into her room and closed the door. I was glad.

‘Who is it?’ said a shaky voice. Akka’s voice.

‘It’s Latha,’ I said.

‘Who?’

‘Latha. From Colombo.’

‘Ah.’

‘How … how are you?’ I asked.

‘Who?’

‘You and your husband.’

‘We’re living.’

‘How is your daughter?’

‘She’s there. In her house. She’s having a baby soon.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Good? She’s struggling. She’s not feeling good. Then there’s my husband. His liver is bad. My son, Kumara, is in the jungle fighting those Tamils. The north is a real hell. The Vanni forest is swallowing all our boys. Our boys and the boys from the south – they’re the ones getting killed. All the Sinhala boys from poor villages. We’re the ones keeping the country from being cut into pieces.’

I looked towards Lakshmi Nona’s room. She couldn’t have heard. The sound was only inside the telephone. ‘When did Kumara join the …’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Akka was never happy. I should have known. I just had to ask her what I had to ask and finish the call before the bill was too much for Nona and Mahattaya.

‘Aiya came to see me.’

‘Who?’

‘My aiya. Your malli.’

‘I don’t know what you’re—’

‘Our brother,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know I had a brother. You didn’t tell me.’

Akka’s breath was going in and out of the telephone. ‘There was no reason.’

‘But … he’s my brother.’

‘So?’

It was useless talking to Akka.

‘Is that why you called?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have to go,’ she said and put down the phone.

—

April was already half gone and the Aluth Avurudda was almost here. Like every Sinhala and Hindu new year celebration, Lakshmi Nona wanted to do it properly. This time the new year came at 5.05 in the morning and I had to cook everything the night before. There was no time to sleep. Nona listened to the saasthara men on TV. They weren’t talking about horoscopes, only saying how the sun had gone from one place in the sky to another, then come back to the first place. Nona, Mano Mahattaya, Anoushka Baby and Niranjan Baby gathered in the kitchen to watch the kalaya full of milk froth and overflow at the lucky time, just as the new year came. After that, I placed all the food – the milk rice, fish curry, seeni sambola and dhal that I had just made, and the sweetmeats like kevum, kokis and athirasa that I prepared the week before – on the dinner table. Just before six, as the television told them it was the next lucky time, Nona and Mahattaya fed Anoushka Baby and Niranjan Baby the first meal of the new year. Everyone got new clothes for presents. Even I was given a new blouse by Nona. Niranjan Baby tried to play a traditional game, a pillow fight, with Anoushka Baby but she was not interested, so he got dressed in his new clothes and said he had to go to work, even though it was a holiday. Nona and Mahattaya were surprised but they couldn’t stop him. The rest of the day was just as busy.

That night I had a dream. I dreamed of a family on a motorcycle. The man was sitting in front wearing a clean white shirt and a red helmet. He had shiny shoes on his feet. The boy was in a blue suit. He had his little blue helmet the same colour as his suit. And the woman – the woman was … she was me. I wasn’t wearing a sari, no – I was wearing a nice long skirt and a pink blouse. I was holding on to the boy and the man and we were going so fast. I don’t know where we were going but I knew it was a good place. I was so happy. The wind was making my hair go everywhere – I had forgotten to bring my. . .