Short Story:

A cold, cold night

By Shireen SENADHIRA

The monsoon nights in Nuwara Eliya are usually cold and wet. A cold gust was blowing again this evening and then, without any warning, the rain fell pitter-pattering onto the pavements. The alleys around the town were under more than an inch of water. Retired teacher Peries made his way to the entrance of the alley and looked around. His shoes were wet and soggy. He held a torn old* fashioned umbrella. He was wrapped in his customary padded long coat which acted as a rain coat too. But even this was little protection against the bone-chilling cold of the night. He hunched his shoulders and shivered.

Peries left the alley and walked towards the shops. At one little shop that was the only one open so late in the night, he *ought some hoppers with sambol, and then bought a couple more for the morning too. As he came out of the shop's narrow entrance he saw a shabbily dressed young man with some files and a bag under his arm standing in a sheltered corner of the pavement.

'What a lousy night it is,' Peries said, and would have passed him by, but the young man got into conversation.

'I came here to meet a relative, and now I find that he and his family have left the town and gone.'

Peries asked: 'So what are you going to do?'

'I'll wait here till morning, then take a bus back to Colombo and then to Galle,' replied the other.

'How is it that you came all the way here without enquiring about those people?'

'Well, Sir, when the tsunami came my whole family was washed away with their house. I escaped because I had gone into the interior to help with some exam marking. I stayed in a camp for about a month, and then I thought I would come over here to see my uncle. I am a teacher by profession.'

'So was I, till I retired,' Peries told him. 'But that's all a long time ago. Why don't you come with me and spend the night at my place? We can see to the rest in the morning.'

The young man's name was Simon. He was happy to agree. Huddling beneath the one umbrella, they got to the alley where Peries lived. It was shrouded in a hazy mist. Not a shadow nor any creature was to be seen any where. The heavy silence was broken only by the sound of the rain, which fell with the force of a shower of sand on the tiled roofs of the houses round about. Peries's house looked very much like the other houses in that quarter. It was an old building and bore all the scars of neglect. The eaves, door and windows were mouldy from decay and disrepair.

After some shuffling about, Peries took his key out and opened the door. They went in and he turned the electric light on. Simon looked around him. The floor of the main lobby, which served as a sitting room as well, was covered with large reed mats in which the designs had faded with the years. They were heavy with damp. The sitting room itself was simply furnished: a desk, a tea table with four chairs, a pair of tattered armchairs worn with age. And a glass-fronted cupboard, the shelves of which were filled with books.

Peries placed the food he had bought on the table. Then he disappeared through a doorway, reappearing almost immediately with two plates.

From a room on the side he brought an old, clean towel and gave it to Simon.

'The bathroom's over here,' he told Simon. 'Please make yourself comfortable.'

Then he went back to the kitchen, lit the gas cooker and put the kettle on to boil. He got some teacups out of a cupboard, and the other necessities to prepare tea. When Simon came back into the room, washed and refreshed, Peries was ready for him and brought two steaming cups of tea to the table. He waved away Simon's protests that he was not feeling hungry, and gave him half the contents of the food packet.

Having washed the food down with good, sweetened tea, the two men talked for some time. Peries gave Simon a pillow and a blanket.

'You could lie down in one of the arm chairs,' he suggested.

Bidding Simon good night, Peries went into the room and closed the door. Lying in his arm chair, Simon heard the old man shuffling about in his bedroom, but after a while all was quiet. Simon saw a light under Peries's door for a long time. Maybe the old man was reading? He fell asleep thinking about the events of the day.

It was nearly nine in the morning when the old man came out of his room. He hurried, remembering that he had a visitor who would appreciate fresh tea. He found the pillow he had given Simon the previous night placed tidily on the arm chair, with the blanket folded on top of it. Peries was upset.

'It's too bad of me - I should have got up earlier,' he told himself. When he looked in the kitchen and the bathroom, there was no trace of Simon. Maybe he's gone to a tea shop, Peries thought. Maybe he'll come back later. He set about making a fresh pot of tea, and got some bread and jaggery out of the cupboard to eat with it. When he returned to the room, having had a wash, he was wearing a sarong and a vest, with a towel around his shoulders. Sitting down at the table, he began to eat his sparse breakfast.

Peries enjoyed his morning cup of tea. As he sipped it, he glanced around the room. Everything seemed the same. Ah! The book case didn't seem quite right, though. He got up as quickly as he could, leaving his half-drunk cup of tea on the table, went to the book case, and looked at the books and their titles. Although he rarely took them off the shelves to read them, Peries knew each of his books, and he knew exactly where he had placed them. It did not take him more than a couple of minutes to discover that his two volumes of Cave's Picturesque Ceylon were missing. They usually rested, one above the other, in one corner of a rack. They were first editions, and very valuable.

A dreadful thought entered his mind. Could Simon have stolen the books and left? If so, he must be knowledgeable about the value of some first editions of old Ceylon books. Peries thought about the tsunami, and the havoc it had created. Was Simon's tsunami story bogus? How had he known the books were in that particular place? Had this been planned, or was it just one of those things that happen by unfortunate chance? Was Simon a name the young man had assumed? How could he have done this to him after partaking of his hospitality? How had Simon known that he possessed valuable books?

Peries became angry. What a rotten scoundrel Simon was! If I were younger, he thought, I'd search for him, find him, thrash him within an inch of his life, and then get back my books.

But I can't do that now. What's happened to our people, he asked himself. They've become fraudulent, despicable. Our whole teaching system must be wrong, he decided. Certainly, Simon was no teacher. He must be a confidence trickster.

Peries waited in a reflective mood till it was almost midday. It's time I went out and got some lunch, he told himself.

An old lady usually came in daily to cook for him, but she was on holiday at the moment. Could she have taken the books? No, that was out of the question, she had been cooking for him for many years and helped him keep the place clean, too. She knew nothing about books - why, she couldn't even read!

Looking about his shabby home, Peries wondered whether a thief would even think of visiting such a place. It wouldn't be worth the effort. Except for a few books of his, there was nothing in it of any value. In that case, how on earth could such a thing have happened?

Peries thought: How long I've been keeping those books! I've thought of selling them or giving them away, but I never did because I loved them and wanted to keep them with me for a long time. Well, they have been safe enough with me, all these many years. But now, what has happened? A calamity, indeed! Peries dressed himself and went out. As he locked his front door, he thought:

'What's there inside to steal now?'

He ambled along to the shop at which he had bought hoppers the previous night.

'Other people have lost everything with the tsunami,' he told himself. 'Why should I take this loss so hard?'

What had he lost? Only two books. Maybe it would help Simon (if that was his name)* to have them. In some way.

Peries noticed that the rain had stopped and a watery sun had come out. He pulled his coat more tightly around him, forgot about the theft, forgot about the books, and thought of his lunch and the cronies he would be meeting soon at the tea shop.