18. That First Lesson in Grief - Lords of Serendipity

Instead of the bus, the family took two trishaws to the Mount Lavinia Hotel. Thathi made everyone wait outside, near the entrance. Achchi wrapped her shawl around her but still shivered and muttered every time the automatic doors opened and they were blasted with air-conditioning. Devi’s brothers loved it, and stayed right beside the doors and then stepped back, repeatedly, so that they could keep getting blasted. They were wearing matching black slacks and black shirts. White people arriving in silver vans mistook them for hotel employees and called them over to help with their luggage. The brothers went, only to be turned back by actual hotel employees who gave cut-eye, smiled at the guests, presented towels and water bottles, and received the dollar-bill tips Devi’s brothers had been cadging for. Devi and Ammi stood to the side, mother and daughter in matching anxious poses: arm across the chest, hand gripping the opposite arm at locked elbow.

Thathi came back outside.

Okay, follow me, he said.

They went into the hotel.

A hostess approached them with cool drinks on a tray, pink guava and yellow mango and cloudy lime.

The brothers went to take glasses but Ammi made a threatening noise so they turned back and followed Thathi.

Sha! said Achchi. It’s like we’re inside the Taj!

The family processed through the gleaming main hall, Thathi out in front as the proud parade marshal, nodding at anyone who noticed him. Devi’s brothers came next, looking up and down and all around and muttering and swearing in wonder, filming everything, then Achchi, hugging herself tightly, and finally Devi and Ammi. They looked straight ahead. They said nothing. They were indifferent to anything other than the results, the results, the results.

The family reached the long white reception desk, where three young women in burgundy saris stood at attention, smiling. White people wearing garlands of wilted coconut flowers kept asking the family if they were in line to check in or not, but because no one in the family had ever spoken so directly with a white person, none of them answered. Eventually, the women at the front desk motioned the others to come forward ahead of them. Finally, a man in a burgundy uniform approached, nodding at Thathi. The badge on his lapel read, Manfred, Guest Services. He gestured for the family to follow him down a side hallway, which was dark and smelled of mildew. There was a very young waiter standing beside a door, holding a glass of milk on a silver tray. The sign beside him read Business Center.

The assistant manager took a keycard from his pocket and tapped a display beside the door to unlock it. He opened the door and with a sweeping motion welcomed the family into the room. The waiter followed.

On its bright white walls were gold-framed posters of sights from around Sri Lanka: deserted beaches, ancient red-stone ruins, diaphanous-clothed tea-pluckers in fields of dark green, elephants bathing themselves in a mud pond, a staring leopard, a grinning boy monk. Four large computers were set up on a long rectangular table. The lone window looked out at a small courtyard where men in sweat-soaked shirts were cutting back bright green brush. The repeating dull cracks of their scythes carried over the air-conditioning and computer fans. Thathi blocked the window view and motioned for the waiter to come beside him. The waiter checked with the assistant manager, who nodded. Thathi took the glass of milk from the tray and approached Devi with the glass in front of him like a chalice. He held it to Devi’s lips. She sipped, and then Thathi did the same with the others. Going last, he finished the glass and returned it to the tray, carefully wiping his mouth with the handkerchief he kept in the back pocket of his black, shiny-kneed slacks.

The assistant manager pulled the chair back from the first computer. Devi went to sit down.

No! Listen to that computer! said Thathi. It sounds like a dying old man. Why drink good milk and then use a cursed machine? Devi, go to the next one.

The assistant manager nodded solemnly and pulled back the next chair. Devi looked to Thathi, who flinched at the scythe sounds but heard nothing from the computer. He nodded. She sat down. Thathi turned to the assistant manager.

Thank you, Thathi said. We no longer require your services.

Apologies, sir, but you are not registered guests at the hotel, and so I am required to wait here until you have completed your use of the Business Center, said the hotel man.

But I paid! said Thathi.

The man nodded solemnly but didn’t move.

Inform me, please, where is it that you attended university? asked Thathi.

I received my certification in hospitality services from the International Academy for Hotel Arts, Malaysia. First-class certification.

Thathi snorted. And what about you? he asked the waiter, who looked at the assistant manager. Who nodded for him to answer.

Sir, I received my certificate in food and beverage services from the Colombo College of Guest Services, sir. Second class. Additionally, I also spent one year in Dubai.

You idiots. You have no idea the history you are about to witness. Devi! Tell these men where your results are coming from, said Thathi.

Thathi, please. Can’t we just obtain the results and go?

Oxford, Thathi said. Cambridge. Harvard. Yale. Princeton. Samford. Understood?

Registered guests only. Now please use computer before I have to ask you to leave.

Just check, child, Ammi said, standing at Devi’s shoulder.

She put a hand on her shoulder.

Devi, listen to me, Ammi said quietly. Listen just to me. Child, you don’t have to do this. We can go home straightaway. Don’t worry about Thathi. I’ll take care of him. You can wait for your results from Sri Lankan universities. Maybe that would be better.

Devi shut her eyes, swallowed, then opened them again brightly. Then she turned and smiled at her mother. It was a smile of understanding, of gratitude, and above all, of love. She always knew but rarely felt it: her mother loved her. And her smile showed she felt it, her mother’s love. It would be Devi’s last smile for a very long time.

Devi was denied admission to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford.

The family walked back through the hotel, passing the photographer Thathi had hired and the maître d’ waiting to show them to the table Thathi had reserved. Seeing them, locals wondered if the sobbing young woman surrounded by grim family had just been denied a marriage match. Foreigners, seeing the same, remembered reading about sex trafficking in Sri Lanka.

The family walked past the hotel cars and around the fountain and out of the hotel property onto the main road. After working as professional mourners for months, they were now living that first lesson in grief. The worst thing had happened. And grief came to them like a small hard thing, like the kernel of the universe itself, just before it banged big. Thathi was stony. Devi was still sobbing. Ammi was holding Devi at the shoulders. Devi’s brothers were looking for Americans to fight. Achchi was trailing behind everyone else, walking slower and slower. Something had occurred to her.

She stopped walking. She began moaning, low and soft at first, then louder and louder. Everyone turned.

Mummy! Ammi said. What is it?

My fault! It’s all my fault! said Achchi.

Thathi believed his mother-in-law immediately and stalked toward her, his teeth clenched, curses piling up in his throat like hornets.

The old woman stayed where she was, opened her purse, and pulled out a small silver packet wrapped in white ribbon.

I saved a final piece of my rich cake for Devi’s special day and I was going to feed it to her before she faced the computer table. Before she checked the results. But, darling, I forgot. I forgot. This is all my fault! My fault!

Achchi, no, said Devi. Not your fault.

Do you want to make it up to your granddaughter? Thathi asked.

Why not? My only granddaughter!

Right. Devi, why did you want to go to United States? Evil place. They kill the rest of the world and eat all our food. Evil people. Fat people. Stupid people. They don’t know the proper ways. Who knows the proper ways? Who, Devi?

I don’t know, Thathi. Can we go, please? Home, please?

I am a poor village man and even I know the answer to my question, Devi. Who knows the proper ways? Only one person. Only one country. The queen.

The queen is dead, Thathi.

The king. England. Oxford. Cambridge. No results from them yet, isn’t it?

But, Thathi, if Harvard and Princeton and Yale and Stanford all said no?

Americans don’t know quality, darling. And we have Achchi’s rich cake. And no more hotel business. I’m going to make an appointment for you with the British high commissioner.

Aiyo, leave the girl alone, will you! said Ammi.

Shut your mouth! he said, glaring at his wife and at last becoming dangerous. If you’d let her have more tuition with the overseas tutor, what then? We’d be back in there—in there!—feasting and photographing for the newspapers!

Devi’s parents cursed each other. Achchi moaned. Devi sobbed. After watching long enough to make sure Thathi wasn’t going to hit Ammi, her brothers turned outward, calling for any American to come and fight them right here, right now. Hired drivers looked up from their phones and newspapers, grinning and elbowing each other. Eventually, pith-helmeted guards from the hotel approached and gestured for them to clear away.

Devi’s brothers started walking toward the guards, but Devi ran and pulled them back. They blew snot at the guards and turned around and the whole miserable family went to the trishaw stand. It began to rain. Soon, they were surrounded by pools of boiling brown water. And Thathi discovered he had no more money.