14. Some of Your Expenses, Child - Lords of Serendipity

PART TWO

January in Sri Lanka. The weather was like the weight of a big dog’s dry tongue. Ammi was in the kitchen, grating coconut to Garth Brooks on Radio Ceylon. The fan was droning. Devi’s brothers had gone to the beach with friends, to play tennis-ball cricket and watch Russian women take selfies in the shallows. Achchi was flipping through her royals magazines on the cot, and Devi was doing the same with her admissions guides, sitting in the front room. Thathi was on the back stoop of the house, conducting interviews with neighbors interested in receiving his referral to the funeral home. Every now and then you heard wailing, then the low murmur of Thathi’s assessment.

Devi, Ammi called.

She put down the guide to Stanford and came to the kitchen.

Not looking up, Ammi said, Go and see Menaka Aunty.

Why, Ammi?

How should I know why? She asked you to go and see her. Probably she wants to tell you about her latest banquet with the premier of China. But go and see or else we’ll all catch hell. She’s the richest lady in the village, as she always reminds.

Devi shrugged.

Pardon?

Sorry, Ammi. I don’t want to go see Menaka Aunty.

Ammi stopped grating coconut, flicked the flakes and pulp from her fingers, and washed her hands.

What’s wrong with you these days, child? You look like you’re about to marry a fat widower. You’ve been dragging about the house like a ghost in chains, days on end. What is it?

Nothing, Ammi. It’s okay. I’m okay. I’ll go see Menaka Aunty.

Don’t tell lies, child! Something is amiss. Did you hear from your Ochpys? Bad results? Worried to tell us? Listen to me, Devi. Your thathi put this school madness in your head the first time you counted all of your fingers and toes. Not your fault that you—

No, Ammi. No results yet.

Then? Is it a boy?

No, Ammi. There’s no boy.

Ah. No boy. The way you said that just now. And your eyes. Big like a bloody loris. So that’s it then? All the other girls are being taken to Lions Club dances and no one is asking my beautiful Devi?

Devi flinched. This time, her mother didn’t demand a proper answer. Instead, she brushed Devi’s cheek with the back of her hand.

My beautiful Devi.

Devi looked down.

Want to put on good dresses and go to jewelry lane and sit like politicians’ wives and try on gold? I’ll just finish grating coconut and take a wash and we’ll go. Okay?

Devi smiled.

Thank you, Ammi, but I’ll do as you said. I’ll go see Menaka Aunty.

Are you sure? That old myna bird barely moves from the verandah all day. She’ll be there in two hours and two hundred years, still waiting for you to come and talk. Ochpys, boys, I don’t know, Devi. Something is on your mind and I just want to take it off for a little while, child.

Thank you, Ammi. There’s nothing on my mind.

Lying again, child. You have a very good mind, I know. A crowded mind. Don’t let all the crazy buggers in there trample you, okay?

Okay, Ammi.

Devi put the admissions brochures back under her cot and kissed Achchi, who was putting her royals magazines back under her own cot, beside her collection of Mr. Garandiya’s old clothes—the sloughed-off skins of the rat snake who lived in their side yard. Devi left her house. She passed through the front gate and walked down to a far larger place, its front yard filled with stone statues: elephants and monkeys and dancing girls and regal birds and leaping fish, all the same size, all missing limbs and other parts. Menaka Aunty’s family owned a lawn statue store on the main road. Lately, they had also become a distributor for stuffed animals. The verandah was full of large white teddy bears with black eyes and red lips and red hearts. The hearts looked like chest wounds, pressed in as they were behind the vacuum-sealed plastic wrapped around each teddy. A heavy chain went around them at the neck, so that they were all sitting off balance. Behind all of this, on a tan wicker settee, sat Menaka Aunty, fanning herself with a Holiday Inn Melbourne fan.

Approach, child, said the old woman.

Devi came to the foot of the verandah and waited. The old woman nodded and Devi ascended the steps, clasped her hands together, and bowed.

Greetings, Menaka Aunty. Ammi said you called to see me?

Correct, child.

Devi waited.

So . . . The old woman shifted, with some effort, in her seat. I have asked you here today, Devi, to learn your plans.

My plans, Menaka Aunty?

Even a deaf man on Mars has heard your father saying you are going to attend the best universities in the world. I heard that speech when he presented you with the funds.

Devi didn’t say anything.

So. Are you?

I am waiting for results, Menaka Aunty.

You know I have been watching you since you were a little girl. I always said to Milroy Uncle before he died, that Devi down the lane isn’t like other girls. She’s not playing the fool or chasing boys or stuffing chocolates. She is going somewhere greater than this.

Thank you, Menaka Aunty.

And the reason I have asked you here today is to say congratulations.

Congratulations, Menaka Aunty? Sorry, I don’t follow.

Devi’s heart was beating. Could the wealthiest and most powerful woman on her lane know anything from Oxford Cambridge and the rest before Devi did?

I would like to propose an arrangement, she said.

Devi’s heart fell into a slop of mud. Menaka Aunty’s grandsons. They were unmarried. They never let you forget they were the rich boys of the world. They played cricket in tuxedo pants and could already rub and slap their bellies like fat old merchants. The way they looked at her when she passed the house. They were pigs.

Devi, are you listening?

Menaka Aunty, shouldn’t my parents be here for this discussion?

Did I ask your parents to come?

No, Menaka Aunty.

Right.

But I can’t discuss arrangements myself, Menaka Aunty.

So you can go around the world to take a degree but you can’t discuss who’s going to pay for it?

Pay for it, Menaka Aunty?

Girl, do you have any idea the tuition fees to attend Harvard places? Never mind books, accommodation, living expenses? Hundreds of thousands, US!

First things first, Menaka Aunty. I have to be given a place. Then we’ll worry about that.

We?

Sorry. That’s what my tutor says. He told me he will help me with the applications for financial aid.

Why? So all those bloodsucker foreigner bankers can own you for the rest of your great-grandchildren’s lives? No. Not happening to a girl from my village. No. I shall take care of your expenses.

Really, Menaka Aunty?

Some of your expenses, child. We’re no Donald Trump Tower here. But some expenses, yes.

Thank you very much, Menaka Aunty, said Devi, bowing.

And in exchange . . .

Devi kept staring at the ground. Sweat dropped from her forehead. Which grandson’s belly would she have to rub with Tiger Balm until death did them part?

Are you listening, girl?

Yes, Menaka Aunty. Sorry. She stood up and faced her.

In exchange, should we need to migrate to one of these places where you are studying, you will take care of us.

Take care of who, Aunty?

What Devi! They say people who go to these places, they get the university degree and then the work visa and then? Green card! They can do anything they want. For anyone they want. This is including you and including me now.

I’m not sure, Menaka Aunty.

Don’t worry, Devi! I believe in you! You’re very smart girl. You’ll find a way, I know you will! And if your parents ask about our little chat, tell them whatever you want to tell them. You’re a very smart girl. Here. Take this as a small token of my thanks.

With a loud groan the old woman got off the settee, settled herself, and yelled for the servant, who came immediately and bent over, glancing away, as if waiting to be hit. Wince-faced, he listened to Menaka Aunty’s instructions and then dragged the padlocked portion of the chain holding the teddy bears toward her. The servant strained until he could hold the lock close enough and then she stooped, passing gas, and unlocked it using a key from the blackened set hanging from the string around her Jupiterian waist. With a dowsing rod of an index finger she chose a teddy bear, cursing the servant for repeatedly picking the wrong one. When he finally picked the right one, she locked the chain again and dismissed the servant, who scampered back into the house. Sitting up and squaring her shoulders, she wiped her brow with the handkerchief balled up in her bra and presented the teddy bear to Devi. Then she dismissed her and went back to fanning herself.

Devi walked home with her prize.

Her brothers, returning from the beach at the same time, saw her coming with the teddy bear and began singing Devi had a boyfriend, Devi had a boyfriend. Turning to make sure Menaka Aunty wasn’t watching, she gave them the stuffed animal. They went back to the beach with the bear, to woo the Russian sea bathers. Devi went inside. Ammi and Achchi had gone to the back stoop to watch Thathi conducting mourner auditions. When they asked what Menaka Aunty had wanted, Devi would say she wanted to hear Devi recite a poem from memory. They’d believe her, because to Devi’s parents, that was the kind of strange, useless luxury a very rich woman would ask for.

She went to her room and lay down on her cot. She tried to feel worried about the pressure of Menaka Aunty but it didn’t work. It felt like nothing, by comparison.

She didn’t have a boyfriend.

She didn’t have any boy in her life.

She didn’t care about having any boys in her life.

Just one.

And she didn’t have him in her life anymore.

Why had Johannes dropped her?

He had stopped their tuition sessions without warning that December. And he hadn’t replied to any of her messages even after she said she’d give him extra tuition for him to read her essays. She’d go meet Russian men on the beach at night. But nothing. She’d tried apologizing for whatever she’d done to offend him. Message after message. No reply. Not even read. She checked his website, in case he’d met with an accident, but it offered no updates. She even pretended to be a possible new client—Hasini, from Kandy, hoping to study geographic equity and data science at Imperial College London—through a dummy email address that she checked every day. Nothing.

And so she had to submit her applications as they were. After she did it, Devi felt suddenly so alone in the world. Something had been taken from her. Her dream. It was no longer hers. It would become someone else’s decision now. An admissions officer. Like an immigration officer. The whole future depended on whether they let you into their amazing country or not. And interest from people like Menaka Aunty only made it worse. There was nothing to do but wait. And as much as her family tried, it felt like she had no one to wait with, no one who actually understood what it was like to have made all of this effort to go to university, and then have to wait to find out what the world thought of her. The only one who understood was Johannes. He’d already done it. And she’d have been happy to pay him to wait with her, just to have someone to talk to about things, someone who truly understood. She could have asked him to comment on the relationship between wait times and chances of admission. She could tell him stories about Menaka Aunty and about the lazy rich girls at her school, boasting they were going to top business schools in Australia and Canada. Devi searched these up. The websites all looked like Oxford Cambridge and the rest of her universities. But the actual campuses? They looked like shop stalls in car parks and dead American malls. Whereas Devi’s universities were real. Devi’s dreams were real. Devi’s university dreams were real.