.

on something, or someone, off to the side, and he’s laughing.

      Absorbed in the two figures, wishing again that he had a brother to play with, Rudy doesn’t immediately notice his grandfather in the doorway of the study, and he jumps when Grandpa asks him what he’s doing. He glances at the crocodile then back up at the photograph.

      “Who are those two people, Grandpa?”

      His grandfather comes to stand beside him. Old-man smells of tobacco and shoe polish fill Rudy’s nostrils. Grandpa points his pipestem at the serious-looking fellow.

      “This chap is the best tea taster I’ve ever encountered.”

      “Does he still work here?” Rudy says, standing on tiptoe and craning his neck.

      “No, son. He left a long time ago. Long before I became P.D. This was back when I was Tea Maker, in charge of the factory.” Grandpa points again to the photograph. “Amitha Jayasuriya here was my best taster.”

      “What happened to him?” Rudy says.

      “I had to let him go. He might have gone to another plantation.” Grandpa emits a gravelly sound, like a sigh. “A terrible waste—but the planting life has lost the discipline it had under the British, Rudy. Mental and physical discipline. That’s what it takes to make things run.”

      Sounds of laughter—Susie’s and the girl cousins’—tumble through the shutters, beckoning, but for the moment Grandpa’s strange remarks have the stronger hold.

      “Who’s the other man?” Rudy says.

      “That’s Ernie. He would have been seventeen or eighteen at that time.”

      Rudy wants to ask who Ernie is, but Grandpa has turned to his desk, where he’s rummaging under papers, saying “I’ve got something here I want to read to you.” Edging toward the window, Rudy catches a glimpse of bails and stumps being set up on the lawn.

      “Are there mountains in the part of Canada you’re going to?” Grandpa asks. He’s leaning against his desk, flipping pages of a fat book with a black cover. His pipe lies on the green blotter, smouldering.

      Of Canada, Rudy knows only that it will be cold. He shrugs.

      “Well,” Grandpa continues, “if there are any mountains, I can assure you they won’t match up to this peak I’m going to tell you about.” His palm slaps the open book. “Here it is. Come, Rudy. Sit here in the chair. I’m going to read you what I wrote the day after that photograph was taken. It might be a very long time before you have the opportunity to climb Adam’s Peak for yourself, so listen closely. This is part of your history.”

      While his sister and cousins begin their cricket match, Rudy slips behind the desk and boosts himself into the padded leather seat. Grandpa stands next to the window, his oiled hair catching the sunlight. He runs the heel of his hand down the centre of the book then coughs into his fist.

      “Seventh of February, nineteen forty-four,” he begins. “Yesterday took Ernie on the annual pilgrimage to the summit of Adam’s Peak. Alec peeved, but still too young to withstand the ordeal, I feel.”

      Rudy giggles at the mention of his father’s name. Grandpa looks up, makes a sound close to a chuckle, then carries on reading.

      “Jayasuriya made it known in his way that he wanted to join us. The chap was certainly deserving of a brief holiday, so I consented. Left early in the day, to be at the base for midnight, the summit by sunrise. The usual mob of devotees made progress slow, but we reached the final ascent in good time. Expected complaints from Ernie, but the boy surprised me this year and proved up to the challenge. Up top he and Jayasuriya went off to look at the footprint, while I repaired to my customary spot to witness the appearance of what I maintain to be the most spectacular vista in this entire country, perhaps the entire world. And here I find myself inspired to quote the words of James Emerson Tennent, who climbed the peak in the last century, before the advent of decent roads and other amenities.”

      Rudy stifles a yawn while his grandfather reads on with even greater authority.

      “He writes: ‘The panorama from the summit of Adam’s Peak is, perhaps, the grandest in the world, as no other mountain, although surpassing it in altitude, presents the same unobstructed view over land and sea. Around it, to the north and east, the traveller looks down on the zone of lofty hills that encircle the Kandyan kingdom, whilst to the westward the eye is carried far over undulating plains, till in the purple distance the glitter of the sunbeams on the sea marks the line of the Indian Ocean.’”

      Grandpa pauses, presumably to let the reading sink in. It sounds like a foreign language, but Rudy nods seriously, if only to nudge himself closer to the cricket game on the lawn.

      “Moments before the sun lifted off of the horizon,” Grandpa continues, “I went to find Ernie. Wanted him to grasp that the true grandeur of Adam’s Peak has nothing to do with the bloody footprint of Buddha or Shiva or whatever the hell that slab of rock up there is said to be. The greatness of the peak lies in our ability to conquer it, and in so doing to conquer our own weaknesses. The view that Tennent describes is the reward we earn for attaining that goal. This is what I wanted Ernie to understand, but didn’t I find—” Grandpa stops reading and coughs into his fist. “Yes, well, you get the idea, son. To climb Adam’s Peak is to fight your own demons.”

      He closes the book. Rudy imagines a mountain overrun by armies of men doing battle with fearsome demons. Leading this battalion of the Good is his grandfather, silver hair shining in the rising sun. His eyes wander back to the photograph on the wall.

      “Do you ring the bell when you win the fight?” he asks.

      “What’s that?” Grandpa says, then he smiles vaguely. “Well I don’t know if the average Sinhalese chap would put it that way, but yes, that’s one way of looking at it.”

      “Mum is Sinhalese, isn’t she, Grandpa?”

      “Mmm? Oh, yes. Your mother is high-class Sinhalese. From Kandy. On her mother’s side.”

      The old man places his book on the desk and rests his fingers on the cover several seconds before reaching for his pipe.

      “Why is it called Adam’s Peak?” Rudy says. “Who’s Adam?”

      Grandpa taps the bowl of his pipe into his cupped palm, deposits the powdery mound into the ashtray. “The Adam from the Bible, of course. The British named the peak after him.”

      And with those words, the conversation ends. Grandpa waves Rudy off the chair and into the hallway. Following, he shuts the study door with a clunk.

      Back out on the lawn, the cricket game has dissolved into squabbles, but the adults are ignoring the ruckus. Dad has set his chair aside from the others and is gazing out at the hilly landscape that surrounds Grandpa’s property. He summons Rudy with a sideways tilt of his head. Rudy pulls a face but goes to his father, dragging the tops of his feet across the warm grass. He deposits himself next to the chair, where he silently proceeds to scavenge dirt from between his toes.

      After a dreary length of silence, Dad finally clears his throat. “You missed our big news earlier,” he says.

      “What news? About Canada?” Rudy says, risking the forbidden word. “I know everything about that already.”

      Dad smiles. “Well, it’s going to happen in Canada.”

      Rudy surrenders his toes to the grass. “What is it?”

      “You’re going to have a new little brother or sister. At the beginning of August.”

      Rudy looks up at his father, amazed. Never before has anything he’s wished for come to him as quickly as this. Thoughts racing, he imagines himself leading his little brother on expeditions through the Canadian snow, and his whole being sharpens: he is to be an Older Brother, a role no less important in his mind than that of Tea Maker or Plantation Manager.

      “We’ll