Vanity

A Story by Evelyn

Life and its vain giving and taking

The old sport bicycle strolled down the by lanes of the housing scheme, yet looking too good for the owner. The heat of the sun was unusual for a 7 am morn. But the heat hidden within the heart of this elder flickered through, increasing the temperature of the atmosphere around him.

Dogs lazily lay here and there; children walked past, clad as white as snow; adults drove past towards the busy streets dressed in their best for their office duties; the pensioned folks swarmed at odd spots, trying to snatch a fresh topic for their routine chats. The aroma of baked stuff alongside the accustomed tunes of horns conveyed the arrival of the ‘Bread Man’.

“Paan raathalak dhenna putha” said some; [Give me a loaf of bread]

“Aiye mata banis gediyak dhenna, mata iskolata parakkuwenawa” screeched a few youngsters; [Brother five me a bun, I need to run to school]

“Maaru nedha mahathayo” huffed [snorted or snateched] the ‘Paankaaraya’. [Don’t you have small money, I don’t have change to give back] said the baker]

This was the routine life in this housing scheme.

The wheels of the old tandem made a quick brake. His brown wrinkled hands felt his pockets for the remaining coins that could afford a pound of roast bread just sufficient enough for two. Roast bread and ‘pol sambol’ [coconut mix to be eaten with bread]was their everyday meal at mornings. ‘Sudu kekulu’ rice [white rice] with two vegetables served as lunch except for the Sunday specials �" special was the name given for a mere fish or meat curry that was simply a regular dish in some other homes in the scheme.

The bread man was always happy to visit the scheme. His purse gets filled with the selling of bread and other sweet meats to the residents. Mostly everyone bought bread �" some in the mornings, some in the evenings. They bought for them; they bought for their children; they bought for the old ones seated idling at home, and who felt hungry whenever they heard the sound of music from the ‘tuk tuk’ [a three wheeled vehicle]; some bought because they were lazy to cook; and some others bought for their dogs. Yes dogs. The dogs in the scheme loved ‘roast bread’. They thought that it was the most delicious food on earth. They thought it tasted better than meat and bones. So they cried for bread. They cried when they heard the sound. How smart they were. Their cry became a signal to those who still couldn’t properly hear and differentiate the sound of the bread man.

The pedals of the old bicycle began to roll. Mr. Speldewin pedalled towards his house. But he had to stop again at the third lane. Third lane had more houses than rest of the lanes. But the smallest of those was the one owned by ‘Butter fruit’. Oh, no, no. Now don’t thing that a real butter fruit was living in the small house. Of course not. She was Mrs. Dias �" a dark fat woman who was reaching her seventies. She wore a long skirt which made her look even fatter. Her sly smile was often unnoticed. She thought she was the ‘Queen of Hearts’. But here the scene was not the same as in ‘Alice in Wonderland’. No Alice was living in this scheme. Alice. The name is a very common one given to servants �" Alice Nona; sorry domestic helpers they are called nowadays. In the ‘wonderland’ scene the knave stole the tarts of the ‘queen of hearts’. Do you remember? And here, in this scheme, our ‘queen of hearts’ stole butter fruits from the other gardens. So she inherited that name. And the simple truth is that it suited her well �" as she too looked like one in shape.

Mr. Speldewin didn’t mind her stealing fruits, as he too got his share. Anyway the fruits would fall and rot, if not for her, he used to say. So he called her Mrs. Dias and not ‘Butter fruit’. He greeted her and agreed to help her out with the ‘vesak dansala’. She was good at that �" collecting funds from the scheme folks and arranging ‘dansalas’ inside the scheme. May be that was a way to maintain her status of being the ‘queen of hearts’.

All hated her. But all pretended to like her, except for the Georges, Sivams, Ekanayakes, Karagalas and Kulasuriyas �" because she had a son. These five families stood miles away when they saw ‘butter fruit’, or when there was a small notice pasted on a big tree about a ‘dansala’. But that doesn’t mean that these families had their own ‘dansala’. They maintained their ‘neighbourhood �" ship’ with a smile and a hello, which made life easier for them.

It was unfair not to name butter fruit’s son. So he was named, ‘Two-by-two’. Does this make you laugh? Sure you could laugh. But Mr. Two-by-two will never laugh at you in return. He is a grumpy fellow with a square face like his mother’s and a long nose which makes him resemble Pinocchio. But his colour was not Pinocchio’s. His gloomy looking wife always sat near him in that slate grey KIA peeping out through the shutters at every one in the scheme. Some thought she had been a CIA in her previous birth. Worst were her kids, who thrilled themselves by irritating the next door dog, who would never spare them if they were caught.

‘Two-by-two’ is building a house next to the Speldewin’s. They would soon be neighbours. They had started to build the house even before the Karagala’s bought the land on the others side of Speldewin. Karagala was quicker than ‘two-by-two’. They have completed more than a year living in the new house. And it was the construction of this house that gifted the name to ‘two-by-two’. Can you imagine how? ‘Two-by-two’ accused Karagala’s mason for stealing a two-by-two wooden pole. Karagala being a man of rules and law, made an entry at the police, stating the false accusation. So ‘two-by-two’ decided to stay away from Karagalas and withdrew his accusation. But the mason didn’t withdraw from naming him ‘two-by-two’. The mother steals butter fruits and son accuses others of stealing wooden poles. How vain it is.

Mr. Speldewin and ‘Butter fruit’ were joined by Mr. Robin. Mr. Robin was not old as it sounds to you. He was a young man who always wore a long pair of shorts with a sleeveless tee �" shirt, bald headed to keep up with the latest fashion, and who copied Mr. Speldewin in riding a bicycle. They were friends too �" the Speldewins and Robins.

The ‘dansala’ [Buddhist meal offerin] matter was agreed upon, and both the men rode down the first lane. Mrs. Speldewin was anxiously waiting at the door together with her gastritis. They never parted each other. Her worried face showed that she had been waiting for too long in hunger. The Karagalas had told her to swallow a teaspoon of ‘komarika’ juice [aloe vera juice] in the mornings. They said it was a cure for gastritis. But she refused. She refused because she didn’t like the taste of it. Karagalas wondered if it had a taste after all. May be Mrs. Speldewin imagined her own taste. She was a person of imagination. She loved imagining about others and narrating stories. Anyone who wanted to get a pinch of news from the vicinity, made sure to meet her. She worked for the water board, electricity board and the post office. That’s what all assumed. The Grama Niladhari [local government agent] consulted her for news and messages. The surveyor visited her to talk about land matters. Some thought she was a news correspondent, and so she was called ‘Reuters’. Reuters was easier than Speldewin, they must have thought.

“Where did you go men all this time? For how long I have been waiting. My stomach also hurts.”

Old Mr. Speldewin quietly entered the house while responding to her. But what he said was not heard. And that was not unusual either. Mr. Speldewin spoke very softly and hardly ever did he open his mouth when he spoke. It was Mr. Karagala who found it difficult than anyone else to understand what Mr. Speldewin said. And yet it was those two who conversed more. And the wives thought that the words spoken were in vain.

The loud noise startled everyone.

“Oh my god, the big one has loosened herself...............careful, careful”, Mrs. Speldewin cried.

“Which big one aunty?” - that was Mrs. Karagala referring to Mrs. Speldewin as aunty.

“The big meeharaka. It has gone towards Robin’s house. Uncle has gone to tell Kulasuriyas.”

The two meeharakas belonged to Mr. Kulasuriya. He too was like a meeharaka [cow] in colour and size, but very kind in heart. The Speldewins and Karagalas liked him much; but ‘butter fruit’ [avocado] and ‘two-by-two’ didn’t like him.

The balcony door of the opposite house opened. The ladies made their presence to view the meeharak scene in the scheme. “What’s happening?” That was ‘nawaloka hospital’, and standing behind her was her daughter ‘fever’.

Now don’t think they are working in the health ministry to have such names. No. They live in Australia half of their lives and visit this country to snatch a look at their big bungalow. The Karagalas had given these names to the two ladies. Nobody knew why. It was a secret. They were angry with the Karaigalas - not because of these names. They didn’t know they had such names. They were angry because Mr. Karagala refused to be ‘nawaloka’s stand-by son-in-law’ and ‘fever’s substitute husband’, until her real husband arrived from Sydney to take her to Nawaloka hospital. What a thing to get angry for �" wasn’t it in vain they became enemies.

Mrs. Speldewin turned on her ‘reporting’ while Mr. Speldewin started a chit-chat with Mr. Karagala about cleaning the adjoining lands of Mrs. Bamunusinghe. No one knew the colour of Mrs. Bamunusinghe. But all knew that she existed and the lands belonged to her. So no one bothered to get to know her colour, as much as Mrs. Bamunusinghe didn’t bother to get to know the colour of her lands.

Soon ‘nawaloka’ and ‘fever’ disappeared. Mrs Karagala was left alone with Mrs. Speldewin who continued to talk about her good friend ‘gastritis’. But the conversation didn’t last long. The sound of the bread man dispersed the residents of the scheme to their normal routines.

Life continued the same in the scheme.

Vanity.......vanity.........vanity. Everything was vanity.