Read Online Island of a Thousand Mirrors by Nayomi Munaweera - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Nayomi Munaweera
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demons enters a person, a child like you,” she whispers and makes
us jump, thrilled, “the village has to summon the devil dancers. All night long, they
dance and drum, and spin and leap and flip in the air. They wear masks with bulging
eyes and huge headdresses of human and raffia hair. They are six foot tall and the
next morning the sick child, the child who was almost dead, is better, is laughing
and walking. I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” she says.
We are mesmerized. “But Alice,” Lanka says, “can’t you take us there? Can’t we go
and see?”
The onions she is chopping seem to break through her defenses. She flicks moisture
from her eyes into a dark corner of the kitchen with a deft movement of the wrist.
Her voice is suddenly gruff. “Too dangerous. There are worse things than the Kalu
Kumara in those places now.” She will not elaborate. Her knife moves through vegetable
matter with purpose and fury.
Later, she boils water in her great earthen pot and Dilshan, called forth by the fragrance
of heated milk and cinnamon, comes to squat on the back steps. She pours tea, steaming
and frothy, into delicate teacups, takes them into the house on a silver tray for
our parents, then comes back to reach for the metal beakers set aside for her and
Dilshan. We have been warned away from these by Sylvia Sunethra. “Otherwise,” she
has whispered in our ears, “you will grow a hump as big as Alice’s.”
Alice pours long falls of milky tea. She takes the two beakers outside to her son.
They squat on the back steps as the twilight falls and the reign of insects begins,
talk in low, muted voices. And we, running inside after games, even in childhood,
are always taken by the ocean of tenderness between them.
* * *
On Sundays, our father drives us all across the city to Mount Lavinia to visit his
twin sister and her husband, our Mala Aunty and Anuradha Uncle. My father’s parents,
too, have left Hikkaduwa and come here to the house of their daughter. There are now
two camps. In one our mother, in the other Mala and Beatrice Muriel, and between these
two camps the sort of subtle rivalry that exists between women who lay claim to the
same man. No harshness is ever uttered, but we sense animosity in the sugar-dripping
words that pass with the teacups, the overly polite conversation so different from
the familiar, bantering way our mother talks with her childhood friends, the laughing
girls she was a schoolgirl with.
Eager to leave this unacknowledged battlefield, we press Mala to take us into her
garden, where green things shoot out of the ground, thick flowers explode into fruit,
ferns unfurl themselves like plumage. Even on this island, where foliage spills effortlessly
from every crevice, her garden is exceptional. In later years, on a different continent,
the sentence “On the island of her youth, one could spit and a tree would grow” makes
me smile and remember Mala Aunty’s garden.
Here, Colombo does not exist. It is the chattering of the mynas, the conversations
of toads, squirrels, and snakes that hold court. We play hide-and-seek, wade into
her ponds to fill jam jars with writhing tadpoles, and cavort with her pack of dogs,
named Brandy, Whiskey, Lager, so that just calling the pack makes one feel light-headed
and drunk. Showing us around the garden with such joy that her face almost splits
from smiling is our aunt’s Tamil servant girl, Poornam. She is small and sprite, a
few years older than me, but so much tinier
We all know the story, how years ago a Tamil woman came to my aunt’s gate with the
child. Rang and rang until Mala, annoyed, came to the gate and the woman thrust this
little girl at her saying, “Please take,” and our aunt saying, “No, I don’t need any
servant girl now,” but then looking closely to see the bruises on the edges of the
child’s face, on her legs under the too tight
us jump, thrilled, “the village has to summon the devil dancers. All night long, they
dance and drum, and spin and leap and flip in the air. They wear masks with bulging
eyes and huge headdresses of human and raffia hair. They are six foot tall and the
next morning the sick child, the child who was almost dead, is better, is laughing
and walking. I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” she says.
We are mesmerized. “But Alice,” Lanka says, “can’t you take us there? Can’t we go
and see?”
The onions she is chopping seem to break through her defenses. She flicks moisture
from her eyes into a dark corner of the kitchen with a deft movement of the wrist.
Her voice is suddenly gruff. “Too dangerous. There are worse things than the Kalu
Kumara in those places now.” She will not elaborate. Her knife moves through vegetable
matter with purpose and fury.
Later, she boils water in her great earthen pot and Dilshan, called forth by the fragrance
of heated milk and cinnamon, comes to squat on the back steps. She pours tea, steaming
and frothy, into delicate teacups, takes them into the house on a silver tray for
our parents, then comes back to reach for the metal beakers set aside for her and
Dilshan. We have been warned away from these by Sylvia Sunethra. “Otherwise,” she
has whispered in our ears, “you will grow a hump as big as Alice’s.”
Alice pours long falls of milky tea. She takes the two beakers outside to her son.
They squat on the back steps as the twilight falls and the reign of insects begins,
talk in low, muted voices. And we, running inside after games, even in childhood,
are always taken by the ocean of tenderness between them.
* * *
On Sundays, our father drives us all across the city to Mount Lavinia to visit his
twin sister and her husband, our Mala Aunty and Anuradha Uncle. My father’s parents,
too, have left Hikkaduwa and come here to the house of their daughter. There are now
two camps. In one our mother, in the other Mala and Beatrice Muriel, and between these
two camps the sort of subtle rivalry that exists between women who lay claim to the
same man. No harshness is ever uttered, but we sense animosity in the sugar-dripping
words that pass with the teacups, the overly polite conversation so different from
the familiar, bantering way our mother talks with her childhood friends, the laughing
girls she was a schoolgirl with.
Eager to leave this unacknowledged battlefield, we press Mala to take us into her
garden, where green things shoot out of the ground, thick flowers explode into fruit,
ferns unfurl themselves like plumage. Even on this island, where foliage spills effortlessly
from every crevice, her garden is exceptional. In later years, on a different continent,
the sentence “On the island of her youth, one could spit and a tree would grow” makes
me smile and remember Mala Aunty’s garden.
Here, Colombo does not exist. It is the chattering of the mynas, the conversations
of toads, squirrels, and snakes that hold court. We play hide-and-seek, wade into
her ponds to fill jam jars with writhing tadpoles, and cavort with her pack of dogs,
named Brandy, Whiskey, Lager, so that just calling the pack makes one feel light-headed
and drunk. Showing us around the garden with such joy that her face almost splits
from smiling is our aunt’s Tamil servant girl, Poornam. She is small and sprite, a
few years older than me, but so much tinier
We all know the story, how years ago a Tamil woman came to my aunt’s gate with the
child. Rang and rang until Mala, annoyed, came to the gate and the woman thrust this
little girl at her saying, “Please take,” and our aunt saying, “No, I don’t need any
servant girl now,” but then looking closely to see the bruises on the edges of the
child’s face, on her legs under the too tight
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