‘You’re a wonderful cook.’
‘Today was nothing. I’d like to go on from here. Keep on transforming what’s already been transformed. Take the thing that’s been turned from hard to soft and transform it into something crunchy. Or something foamy. Or something melting. Do you understand? I want…’ – he searched for the right words – ‘… I want to turn what’s familiar into something new. What’s expected into something surprising.’ He was astonished by his flow of words, and especially by what he was saying. He had never been able to express it so well before.
‘We’re going now,’ a voice said from behind them. Sandana’s father had approached their table unnoticed.
‘Father, this is Maravan. He did the cooking for all of us today. Maravan, this is my father, Mahit.’
Maravan stood up and made to shake the man’s hand. But the latter ignored the gesture, merely repeating, ‘We’re going now.’
‘Fine. I’ll come later.’
‘No, you’re going to come now, with us.’
‘I’m twenty-two, father.’
‘You’re coming with us.’
Maravan watched Sandana battling with herself. In the end she raised her shoulders, dropped them again and said, ‘Another time, then.’ And followed her father.
Maravan was practising making drinks. Not all Love Menu diners were content just to have champagne and wine. They asked for cocktails and aperitifs. Maravan’s ambition would not allow him to serve mere Camparis or Bloody Marys.
He was currently mixing thick coconut milk with crushed ice, arrack, ginger ale, white tea, xanthan and guar. He was going to freeze the pastel-yellow mass for twelve hours at minus twenty degrees, and then serve it on china spoons, together with some pop rocks, as an explosive arrack confection. As with all his alcoholic creations, Andrea would be the guinea pig.
The doorbell rang. Maravan glanced at his watch: almost half past ten at night. He looked through the spyhole – nobody. He picked up the antiquated intercom handset and called out, ‘Yes?’
He could detect a woman’s voice through the static hissing and crackling. But he could not understand what she was saying. ‘Louder, please!’ he shouted. Now he was able to make out a word which might have been ‘Andrea’. Andrea? At this time? Without having called him first?
He pressed the button to open the door and waited at the entrance to his flat. He could hear soft, rapid steps on the stairs. Then he saw his late guest: Sandana.
She was wearing western clothes: jeans, sweater and the quilted coat he recognized from their first meeting. He thought she looked better in traditional clothes.
He invited her to come in. It was only then that he noticed she was carrying a travel bag. She put it down and greeted him in the Swiss style, with three kisses. It was meant to be totally natural, but she did it rather awkwardly.
‘Can I stay the night here?’ was the first thing she asked.
He must have looked so surprised that she added, ‘On the sofa or the floor, I don’t care.’
Maravan knew Hindu Tamil families very well, and he could see an avalanche of consequences ready to descend on him. ‘Why aren’t you staying at home?’
‘I’ve moved out.’
‘I’ll give you some money for a hotel.’
‘I’ve got money.’
Maravan recalled her telling him that she worked in a railway travel centre.
Sandana looked at him beseechingly. ‘You don’t have to sleep with me.’
He smiled. ‘Thank God!’
Sandana remained serious. ‘But you have to say you did.’
He helped her out of her coat and showed her into the kitchen. ‘Just let me finish off what I’m doing here, then you can tell me everything.’ He turned the mixer on again, let it run for a few moments, and poured its contents into a flexible form.
‘Are you transforming?’
‘Yes, coconut schnapps into schnapps coconut.’
For the first time she gave a slight smile.
Maravan put the form into the deep freeze and took Sandana into his living room. When he opened the door, the draught caused the flame of the deepam to flicker. Maravan closed the window.
‘Sit down, sit down. Would you like some tea? I was just going to make one for myself.’
‘Then I’ll have one too.’ She put her hands together in front of her face, performed a quick bow before Lakshmi, and sat on one of the cushions.
When Maravan returned from the kitchen with the tea, Sandana was sitting exactly as he had left her. He sat down and listened to her story. He could have guessed it.
Some time back Sandana’s parents had agreed with the parents of a young man called Padmakar – like her, they were Vaishyas – that the two youngsters should marry. The caste was right, as were the personal histories and the horoscopes. But Sandana did not want to. Now that the wedding was approaching, the quarrel had escalated. The argument that Maravan had witnessed from a distance at Pongal had been about this very matter. And tonight had seen the climax of the drama. She had packed a few things and left. Her mother had cried and her father kept on saying, ‘If you go now, don’t ever bother coming back.’
‘So what now?’ Maravan asked when she had reached the end of her tale. She started crying. He watched Sandana for a while, then sat next to her and put his arm around her.
He would have loved to have kissed her, but after what she had just told him this would cause even more problems: she was a Vaishya, he a Shudra. Forget it.
She had stopped crying; she wiped the tears from her eyes and moaned, ‘You know I’ve never been to Sri Lanka.’
‘You should be happy about that.’
She gave him a look of astonishment.
‘It means you can’t be homesick.’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘Always. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But it never goes away completely.’
‘Is it really so beautiful there?’
‘If you go into the interior on the narrow roads, it’s like driving through a single huge village. The roads are lined with trees, and in their shade you can see the houses standing there very secretly, very secure. Sometimes there’s a paddy field, then trees and houses again. Sometimes a class of schoolchildren in white uniforms. And then more houses. Sometimes there’s more of them, sometimes fewer, but they never stop altogether. Just when you’ve thought you’ve seen the last one, the first of a new lot comes into view. One big, inhabited, fertile, tropical park.
‘Oh stop! I’m getting homesick.’
Sandana slept in Maravan’s bed, watched over by his little curry trees. He had made a bed for himself from the cushions where he ate. After giving each other a friendly kiss goodnight, both lay awake for hours, chastely and full of regret.
The following morning Maravan started out of a short, deep sleep. The door to his bedroom was open, the bed was made. On the duvet was a note: Thanks for everything – S. And a mobile number.
Her travel bag was still there.
Maravan turned on his computer and went on the internet. He was now checking the LTTE and Sri Lankan government web pages on a regular basis. Neither could be trusted, but if he combined these with reports from the western media and international organizations he could build up an approximate picture of the situation.
The Sri Lankan armed forces had taken Mullaitivu and were pushing further north. The Tamil Tigers would soon be surrounded, as would around 250,000 civilians, according to estimates by the aid organizations. Both sides were accusing each other of using civilians as human shields. In the Swiss media there was little or nothing about the looming humanitarian crisis.