Maravan told her of his training in Kerala and his career in a number of Ayurvedic wellness resorts. ‘One more year and I would have been the head chef,’ he sighed.
‘Why did you go back then?’ Andrea was holding a morsel of chapatti with coriander foam and could not wait to put it in her mouth. She had never realized how much more sensual it was to eat with your hands.
‘In 2001 the United National Party won the elections. Everybody thought there would be peace, the LTTE called a ceasefire and peace negotiations began in Oslo. It looked as if finally we would see the Sri Lanka I wanted to return to. And I had to be there at the start of that.’
He dipped his finger into the finger bowl, dried it with the napkin, piled the plates, and stood up, all in a single flowing movement, or so it appeared to Andrea.
She watched him disappear into the kitchen. When he came out again a few moments later he was carefully carrying a long, very narrow platter, in the centre of which there was nothing apart from a row of precisely positioned, shiny balls. Looking like mini versions of old ivory billiard balls, they had the consistency of candied fruits, were warm, sweet and spicy, and tasted of butter, cardamom and cinnamon.
‘And then?’
‘I got a job as a commis in a hotel on the west coast.’
‘As a commis?’ she interrupted him. ‘I thought you were almost a head chef.’
‘But I was a Tamil, too. That wasn’t a big deal in Kerala. But it was in the Singhalese part of Sri Lanka. I spent almost three years working as a commis.’
Andrea was already onto her second polished ball. ‘You’re an artist.’
‘My chance came in 2004. The hotel chain I was with had turned a tea factory in the Highlands into a boutique hotel and they made me chef de partie.’
‘So why didn’t you stay?’
‘Because of the tsunami.’
‘In the Highlands?’
‘It destroyed the hotel on the coast, and one of the Singhalese chefs who survived got my job. I had to go back to the north. And from there I watched how both the LTTE and government used all the world’s relief supplies to advance their own political aims. It was then that I knew this wasn’t the Sri Lanka I’d wanted to return to.’ He was nibbling one of the balls now too, and put it back on his plate. ‘And won’t be for a long time.’
‘But the tsunami was not that long ago.’
‘A little more than three years.’
‘So how come you speak such good German?’
Maravan shrugged. ‘We’ve learnt to adapt. This includes learning languages.’ After a brief pause he uttered the classic example of Swiss dialect: ‘Chuchichäschtli.’
Andrea laughed. ‘So why Switzerland?’
‘There were many Swiss people in the Ayurveda resorts in Kerala and in the hotels in Sri Lanka. I always found them friendly.’
‘Here too?’
Maravan thought about it. ‘Here Tamils are treated better than back home. There’s almost 45,000 of us over here. Tea?’
‘Why not?’
He removed the dirty crockery.
‘Do you mind me just sitting here and being waited on?’
‘It’s your day off,’ he replied, dashing into the kitchen.
A short while later he returned with a tray carrying a tea service. ‘White tea. Made with the silver tips of tea leaves from the Highlands near Dimbula,’ he explained, going back into the kitchen and bringing out a plate of sweetmeats for each of them. An ice lolly with sprinkles of green, surrounded by small asparagus with tips a toxic shade of green and dark-red, heart-shaped biscuits.
‘I don’t think I can eat any more.’
‘You can always eat sweetmeats.’
He was right. The lolly tasted of liquorice, pistachios and honey, like something you might find at a funfair. The asparagus could be eaten like jelly babies and had an intense flavour of – asparagus. The hearts were sweet and spicy, with the aroma of an Indian market, and tasted – she could find no better word to describe it – frivolous.
All of a sudden she was aware of the silence that had descended on the room. The wind had also stopped blowing sheets of rain against the window. Something made her say, ‘Would you show me some photos of your family?’
Without saying a word, Maravan stood up, helped her to her feet, and took her into his bedroom, to the wall with the photographs.
‘My brothers and sisters and some of their children. My parents – they died in 1983, their car was set on fire.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they were Tamils.’
Andrea put her hand on his shoulder and said nothing.
‘And the old lady is Na…’
‘Nangay.’
‘She looks like a wise woman.’
‘She is.’
Another silence. Andrea’s gaze wandered to the window. In the weak light that seeped out from the bedroom into the darkness, she could see snowflakes dancing. ‘It’s snowing.’
Maravan glanced at the window and then drew the curtains. He looked at her uncertainly as he stood there.
Andrea felt full and satisfied. And yet there was still a tiny hunger niggling away at her. Only now did she realize what it was she was after.
She went up to him, took his head between her hands and kissed him on the mouth.
April 2008
6
The following morning the news broke that the country’s largest bank had to write off a further 19 billion francs, and borrow 15 billion more. It cost the bank’s president his job. It was to be a bad day for Maravan too.
He had slipped out of the bedroom before six o’clock and made egg hoppers with sothi and coconut chutney. When he left the kitchen with the tray he almost crashed into Andrea. She was fully dressed.
He could think of nothing better to say than ‘Hoppers?’
‘Thanks, but I’m not really the breakfast type.’
‘Oh,’ was all he replied. The two of them looked at each other for a while without saying anything. It was Andrea who broke the silence.
‘I’ve got to go now.’
‘Yes.’
‘Thanks for the fantastic dinner.’
‘Thanks for coming. Are you on early today?’
‘No, late.’
‘See you this afternoon, then.’
Andrea hesitated, as if there was something else she wanted to get off her chest. ‘Maravan…’ she began. But she thought better of it, kissed him stiffly on both cheeks, and left.
From his window he watched her exit the building and trudge over to the tram stop, her hands buried deep in her coat pockets. A dismal day, but the street was dry.
Maravan went into the kitchen and did those same chores that were his responsibility at the Huwyler: scrubbing, washing and putting away the pots and pans.
It was the first time he had slept with a woman since fleeing Sri Lanka. And even the times before that he could count on one hand. Three times in southern India, twice in Sri Lanka; four of them were prostitutes, one a tourist. She was from England, around forty years old, and had told him her name was Caroline. But the tag on her suitcase had said Jennifer Hill.
This was also the first time he had felt good about it afterwards. No bad conscience. Without feeling the need to stand under the shower for hours. He was not surprised; it was the first time it had had anything to do with love.
Which is why Andrea’s behaviour hit him particularly hard. Had he just experienced what other single Tamil men had told him about? Had he been exploited for a little bit of exotic amusement?
The morning was so gloomy he had to turn on the light to clean the rotary evaporator. He packed away the equipment, well padded in fresh clothes and the clean Turkish towel in his gym bag.
When he left the house it was raining again. It was still early and he wanted to be the first one there, straight after Frau Keller. She ran the administrative side of the Huwyler and worked normal office hours. She unlocked the delivery entrance at 8.15 on the dot. That would give Maravan enough time to put the rotary evaporator back in its place.