Thercy had said, beating the palm of her hand against her forehead as she talked.
‘Then they took them away,’ she had said. ‘The army never thought to look under the bed. Vikram was hiding there. His father was away at the time. Someone went to find the poor man, bring him the news. They told him, his whole family had been wiped out.’ Thercy had sliced the air with her hand. ‘Just like that,’ she had said. ‘Gone! What could the man do? His grief must have been a terrible thing. He found some poison and, God forgive him, he swallowed it. It was only afterwards, when it was too late, that the people in the village thought of looking under the bed.’
She shook her head recalling the story. Sugi had heard it many times. Each time he was shocked. So much for our wonderful army, he thought each time.
‘So much for our wonderful army,’ he said again today, when they talked. ‘What d’you expect?’
‘We’d better go,’ Thercy said, noticing how long they had been standing together and suddenly becoming nervous. ‘There he is, over there. I don’t want him to see us talking together.’
‘Who’s that man he’s with?’ asked Sugi, looking at Vikram, stealthily.
The boy was standing with an older man at the kade, the roadside shop. They were both drinking. Sugi had heard other rumours about Vikram. After his parents had died the Tigers were supposed to have got hold of him. But then, as luck would have it, the Singhalese army rounded up some of the Tiger cubs and handed them over to the orphanages a few months later. Vikram was one of them. He was only seven. He had already been carrying equipment for the guerrillas. Sugi could hardly believe that. A boy of seven, being a runner for the Tigers.
‘And what would all that have done to him?’ asked Sugi, watching Vikram now.
How could his past be changed? How could he be given new thoughts simply by being adopted? Thercy agreed.
‘Aiyo!’ she said, remembering. ‘You should have seen him when he first came here. Mr Gunadeen wasn’t around of course. He just went off and left me with the boy. I had to deal with everything all alone. Vikram used to run riot in the house. He’s calmed down a lot now. In fact …’ She paused.
‘What?’ asked Sugi.
‘Well …’
Thercy hesitated. The truth was, there was a kind of emptiness to the boy. He seemed such a strange, mysterious creature, silent and friendless. Well, almost. Today she had some new information for Sugi.
‘You know he’s made friends with the Mendis girl?’
‘What?’ cried Sugi in alarm.
Thercy shook her head quickly. She hadn’t wanted to alarm Sugi.
‘No, no, I didn’t mean to worry you. I know what you’re thinking. He’s not likely to visit you. And anyway the girl doesn’t speak to many people either, and I only saw her talking to him once. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
Sugi relaxed slightly, although he still looked distracted.
‘It isn’t good,’ was all he said, not knowing how to express his disquiet. How much would Nulani Mendis tell Vikram about her visits? About Theo?
‘His Singhalese is faultless, you know,’ continued Thercy. ‘Not many people around here realise he’s a Tamil. Mr Gunadeen didn’t want that to be common knowledge. For his own safety.’
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ said Sugi, uneasily. ‘He could be working for the Tigers, couldn’t he, for all we know?’
‘Who, Vikram?’ Thercy laughed. ‘Is that what you’re worrying about? No, no, Sugi, he’s harmless really, I promise you. In that way, anyway. He’s just a little strange, that’s all. I can’t explain it …’ Again she hesitated. ‘And he has a temper. To tell you the truth, of late I feel sorry for him. What chance is there for him to ever have a normal life?’ she said, adding, ‘He’s so disturbed.’
Vikram had no idea that people were talking about him. Even had he known he would not have cared much, for Vikram lived in a world without people. The space inside his head was so empty that it almost echoed. Long ago, when he was at Waterlily House, he had begun to cultivate indifference. Nobody knew of course, but indifference had become a way of life for him. By the time he was twelve, before his guardian had arrived on the scene, he had learned not to make a fuss. What was the point? He could manage his life with ease without noise or fuss. He did whatever random thing he wanted, took what he liked the look of, unrestrained by anyone, neglected and unloved. By the time he reached the age of sixteen, he had grown enormously, was not bad-looking and was more or less friendless.
Sumaner House stood on the crest of a rise away from the immediate town; there were no other houses nearby. The view of the sea was uninterrupted. Vikram had his own room in the house. For nearly four years he had lived like this. He went to school and worked hard. For four years, while his guardian dipped in and out of his life, he studied. He soaked up knowledge like a sponge. The head was pleased. He wrote to Mr Gunadeen.
‘It’s been a success,’ he wrote. ‘And, it proves these children can be rehabilitated,’ he added triumphantly.
So Vikram was a success story. He was good at English and his Singhalese was brilliant.
‘He writes beautifully too,’ his teachers said.
In this way they continued to encourage Vikram. For, as everyone knew, whichever way you looked at it, the boy had had a bad start to life.
Every morning Vikram walked to school. It was the same school that Jim Mendis attended. It was generally expected that Lucky Jim, in spite of having no father, would one day go to the UK because he was so clever. And so, because of his luck, and quite possibly also his loss, the boys all wanted to be Jim Mendis’s friend. All except Vikram, that is. Vikram watched the Mendis boy quietly. Nobody noticed, because he was so quiet, but Vikram watched him idly, wondering if there was a chink in Jim’s luck. But it seemed Lucky Jim was luck-tight. Soon after this, Vikram began to notice Jim Mendis’s sister. She too walked to school and now Vikram noticed with some surprise that she was sweetly pretty. Something about her puzzled him. Then one day, as they stood at the crossroads, she turned and smiled absent-mindedly at him. Startled, he stared at her, his uneasiness growing. And then, because he couldn’t think of anything to say, he looked quickly away. His heart was pounding as though he had been running. The Mendis girl reminded him vaguely of someone else. He could not think who it might be. After that he began to hear little things about her, little bits of gossip.
People said she did not talk. And she had no friends. All she did was draw, draw, draw. Vikram began to watch her secretly and with new interest. One day he saw her go over to the road island on the Old Tissa Road. He saw her touch the ground, rubbing her hand slowly in the dust. And then she looked up and down the road. Vikram hid behind a tree. What on earth was she doing? he wondered curiously. Again the girl reminded him of someone but he could not be sure whom. He felt an unaccountable fear bubble up in him. He did not see her again for a long while after that. He was busy doing other things. Having discovered furtive sex with the daughter of a local shopkeeper, he was often occupied. The shopkeeper’s daughter had not wanted his advances, but Vikram had told her calmly, he would kill her if she told anyone. He had only meant it as a joke but she took him at his word. Pleased with his success, he took her to the back of the garages, close by the railway line. After a while she stopped struggling and accepted the inevitable, crying silently and
