both on the same day—though the coincidence didn’t particularly surprise him. He reached down and unzipped his bag. He would start with the essay; the letter could wait.
Skimming Kanda’s introduction, he put a check mark next to the thesis statement. (The boy had a thesis; two-thirds of the class would-n’t.) He made a few more check marks throughout the paper, circled some errors, then, turning to the back page, considered what comments to make. A further response had entered his mind, joining those he’d come up with earlier: What if your sister got in the way of a Tiger attack, Kanda? What then? But he couldn’t write that—or anything else he’d come up with, for that matter.
He leaned back, and his gaze drifted up to the framed oil painting hanging above the desk. The painting, an awkward, immature work, apparently done by Uncle Ernie, had been in Aunty’s house for as long as Rudy could remember. Its subject was Adam’s Peak, the mountain his brother was named after, rendered as a dappled green oblong under a yellow sun. Despite the clumsiness of the brush strokes, the light on the peak showed a certain sensitivity to nature, while the surrounding hills cast convincing shadows on the landscape. At the summit of the oblong was a red pavilion. The lopsided building was too large for the scale of the painting, and it seemed to Rudy that the picture would be more effective without it.
As he sat pondering this, Aunty Mary emerged from the kitchen with a cup of tea.
“I thought you might like this since you are working.”
He turned and sighed. His aunt’s attentions embarrassed him—the cooking, the laundry, the cups of tea. He planned to move out, of course. Buy a house closer to the city, ship his belongings from Canada. But for now, for Aunty Mary, he was still a child. He took the cup and thanked her.
“How are your pupils doing?” she said.
“Oh, most of them are fine.” He paused. “I just finished reading the new kid’s essay. Seems he supports the Tigers.”
“Aiyo.” Aunty shook her head. “These Tigers only care about making trouble. You must explain to him.”
Rudy looked down at the half-page on which his comments would be written. “There’s nothing I can explain to him that he does-n’t already know, Aunty. He believes that violence is the only option left for his cause.”
Aunty frowned. “And why is a young man so worried about a cause like this? He has more important things to think about, no?”
Feeling oddly compelled to defend his student, Rudy shrugged and sipped his tea. “Kanda identifies himself mainly as a Tamil. He thinks his language and culture will be best served in an independent country.”
“He is full of strange ideas then,” Aunty said. “What’s most important is our family, no? We should worry about those people, whether they are healthy and living a good life. Language and culture will look after themselves, isn’t it.”
Rudy opened his mouth then shrugged again. “You may be right.”
“Do you think this Kanda is involved with the Tigers?”
“I doubt it. But who knows? The Tigers employ kids a hell of a lot younger than him.”
“Ah, yes.” Aunty shook her head. “They give machine guns to children. It’s a sin.”
Rudy gulped down most of his tea and stared at the back page of Kanda’s essay. In the brief silence, the ticking of Grandpa’s old clock and the thrum of the electric fan were strangely loud.
Then Aunty sighed. “I think our government is putting itself out on the murunga branch.”
Rudy looked up, surprised. His aunt never discussed politics. “What do you mean?”
“Ah, it’s an old expression. When someone is feeling very proud of himself, we say he is sitting on the murunga branch.” She pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and shook it out. “As you know, the murunga is a very tall tree. It also has very brittle branches. You can climb high up in this tree, but then the branch breaks ...” Her voice trailed off.
“And how does that relate to the government?”
Aunty wiped her forehead and cheekbones. “The government is feeling very proud these days. They believe that capturing Jaffna will put an end to all this fighting. But I think these Tigers will make sure the army’s murunga branch comes crashing back to the ground.”
“You and Kanda agree on that much,” he said with a wry smile. “And Dad. What does he say? ‘The Tamil man and the Sinhalese man will never get along. It’s not in their nature.’ Or some rubbish like that?”
His aunt stuffed the handkerchief back in her pocket. “Ah, no. You’re right. We must be positive, isn’t it. It’s Easter.” And on that, she turned and went back to the kitchen.
Rudy picked up his pen and composed his comments.
Kanda: Your essay is quite well organized and the prose is clear and engaging. There are some problems with grammar and punctuation, as marked, but they don’t seriously detract from the success of your paper. The essay has a strong, attention-grabbing thesis, and you offer plenty of good evidence in support of it. The major way in which the paper could be improved would be to give some consideration to the best arguments in support of the other side. The most convincing arguments are often those that show they understand their opponents’ position and can reasonably refute it. You have the potential to be an excellent writer. Keep up the good work.
It was a long way off what he wanted to write, but it would have to do. At the bottom of the page he wrote “B+” then reached for the rest of the essays in his knapsack. As he shifted position, Adam’s letter crinkled in his pocket. He decided to save it till Aunty Mary had gone to bed.
LATE THAT EVENING, after chicken dinner and more marking, Rudy slouched at the desk, tapping his pen against the cover of his diary. Mosquitoes hovered around him, but he was too tired to bother lighting a coil. Too tired to write, really, but it was something of a ritual, his nightly communication with Clare Fraser—begun on a cold Christmas day back home and carried out ever since. He told her about his afternoon, about reading Kanda’s essay and missing his bus stop, then he left his diary in his bedroom and went to the shower shed in the backyard. The green plastic enclosure was dimly lit by a pair of bulbs fixed to the back wall of the house. Overhead the black sky was pierced with stars. Rudy hung his sarong over the door and turned on the water. It fell from the broad metal shower head, straight and heavy and warm, like a monsoon downpour. He backed into it, watching a rupee-sized spider scurry across the concrete floor, reached for the soap, and lathered his hands. Eyes closed, he masturbated with dull frustration, a desire for release of some kind. He thought of his ex-girlfriend Renée’s muscular thighs and prodigious breasts, of the girl in Kanda’s essay, walking by herself early in the morning, of Clare. He came easily. Relieved, if only temporarily, he rinsed off then stood still under the spray in the shower’s green light. At the faint sound of the dining room clock striking eleven, he turned off the water and hurried to dry himself before the mosquitoes moved in.
In the bedroom he put on a T-shirt, an ancient souvenir from the Toronto Jazz Festival, with gaudy splashes of turquoise and pink. His sarong was covered in red and gold elephants.
“A real fashion plate you’ve become, machan,” he heckled his reflection in the wardrobe mirror. Turning sideways, he sucked in his belly and straightened his shoulders, ran his fingers through his damp hair and cursed at the amount that came out. He considered doing some sit-ups while the air was cool, then he remembered Adam’s letter.
He imagined what it would say.
I think we need to talk about our relationship, Rudy. I’ve tried to connect with you, but it hasn’t really worked, has it. What have you got against me? I don’t think I’ve deserved your coldness ...
The more Rudy imagined, the more real the words became, until