Ayomi looks at the grandfather clock on the wall, and then outside the window, at the driveway.
They’re late.
It has now been a week since her husband invited the de Zoysas for dinner, which was already a week after they returned from Italy. It isn’t indicative of the twenty-five-year long friendship Mr. de Zoysa has with Ayomi’s husband, ever since their schooling days.
Ayomi has always highly regarded Jehan de Zoysa and his family, but not nearly as much as her husband does. He has always seen Jehan as the success he never was, but aspired to be; Jehan who managed to move out of Sri Lanka, and settle elsewhere, whilst he was stuck in a country he loved dearly, but one that failed him constantly. He manages to earn for himself and his family a more-than-modest living, Sahan Kothalawala, the prodigious financier who rose through the ranks far younger than most, a living that affords him far more luxuries than most Sri Lankans. But he has lived here all his life, which, to him, is a failure.
Now, Ayomi waits with her husband, to meet his greater friend, seven years after they last did. They, along with their son and daughter, are eager, albeit growing in frustration at the lateness.
Jehan de Zoysa is at the wheel of his hire car, with his wife next to him, and with his two sons in the back seat.
He drives slowly and vigilantly, as he is entirely unfamiliar with driving on the left side of the road, having done the opposite all his life. In fact, he never intended to hire a car in the first place; he wanted to spend as little as he could, and hoped that public transport would do well enough. His mind changed though, after realizing that nothing was as expensive as he thought.
“How much further?” he asks Asha, his wife, who is on her phone for directions. They have visited the Kothalawalas several times before, but had forgotten their way every time. Today was no exception.
“Not too far, a few minutes maybe,” Asha replies.
“Angelo, get everything ready, then,” Jehan says to his older son.
Angelo, seventeen, has been quite enthusiastic for the visit, primarily because of Amaya, the daughter of the Kothalawalas. The two are of the same age, and were all but ten, the last time they’d met. They have been nothing more than mere acquaintances since they were little, with little to no conversation ever having taken place. Angelo, however, hopes for different circumstances this time.
He gathers three large bags around him, all of which are for their hosts.
Amaya watches from the balcony, as a family hatchback pulls onto the driveway, and parks behind her father’s Mercedes. She knows better than to make judgement of this, owing to his father’s tales of his childhood friend’s successes.
Other than the chocolates and the toys, there is very little she remembers of the last time she met the de Zoysas. She knows, not from memory, but from her mother’s word, that the family has two sons.
As the headlamps of the car turn off, she rushes down, to join her family by the door.
Jehan and Sahan lock in embrace, no different to how they would have back at school.
The wives follow suit, and Asha says, as she hugs Ayomi, “We would have gotten here earlier, if only Sri Lanka moved on with the rest of the world, and started driving on the right.”
“It’s lucky how y’all got to drive anywhere in the first place,” says Ayomi.
“Doesn’t matter, Jehan won’t be any good, left or right,” Sahan brings up a laugh, as they call the guests inside.
As they enter, all the de Zoysas leave their shoes on.
The living room of the house is quite large, but not to modern taste. There seems to be a sense of grandiose, more than one of refinement; more brown than white.
As Angelo sets the gift bags on the coffee table next to one of the three sofas in the room, he can’t help but ponder over what a contrast this is to their own living room back home.
As he sits down, he notices that Amaya is sitting right across him. He remembers Amaya from seven years ago, as being very short and very fair, with long, straight hair. She is now incomparable to that, with shoulder-length hair and a darker-than-before complexion, not to mention her significant height. She also wears glasses now, which compliments her hair well, Angelo thinks.
Seeing her now, he curses at himself for not befriending her back then. He wonders what she thinks of him.
The parents are in their expected topics of conversation; “How was the journey back?” “My god, how the kids have grown!” “Everything’s so different here, you know.”
Amaya looks at Angelo, and wonders however she forgot of such a person.
He is tall, and very well built, with dark brown hair flowing down, almost down to his eyes. In his face, she sees a touch of shyness, which takes away from him the usual notions associated with tall, well-built, thick-haired boys.
Amaya has never been the type to have a second thought about boys, as many of her friends do. She doesn’t despise them by any means, but neither does she obsess over them.
The only reason she allows her mind the thought of Angelo, is because she knows they won’t be seeing each other for years to come.
“I’ll go keep these somewhere. I don’t know why y’all bring so much every time,” Sahan says for the sake of politeness, as he takes the bags on the coffee table to the kitchen, knowing deep down how he would take offense if they came in empty-handed.
As he sets them down, he hears glass clanking inside. He opens one of the bags to see a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red, and two bottles of wine, bought at the airport, no doubt.
“Surely this wasn’t the best he could get,” thinks Sahan, who half-expected a bottle or two of Italian brandy, or some more presentable looking wine. Surely Jehan’s life in Italy can afford a tad bit more quality than this.
Disappointed, but more so irritated at his friend’s apparent stinginess, he walks back into the living room, wearing a smile.
Jehan, as Sahan walks in, sees the pretense in his smile. He knows of how Sahan feels about the gifts. He tries to pay no heed to this; he knows it was the best he could do, and far more than most would.
He understands, though. As unfortunate as it is, he knows how anyone back home would assume what his life was like in Italy. It is only him and Asha that know of the actuality.
As Sahan takes his seat again, Ayomi says, “Everything’s so hard here now. I don’t know how these kids are going to do if they stay here. We’ll have to move for them to have any sort of future.”
“Italy must be so much better than it is here, no?” Sahan adds.
Jehan lets out an involuntary chuckle. He knows of the situation in Sri Lanka; how this more-than-livable country is rapidly turning into the contrary. But, all the same, he knows he would swap lives with Sahan in a heartbeat, if he could.
It has been a constant struggle for him and his family in Italy. He left his home twenty-one years ago, to study engineering. In the process, he fell in love, got married, and had his two boys. Moreover, he did have a decent job for a while since his graduation. But his layoff at the end, for reasons that were beyond him, was a massive blow for the de Zoysas. They were forced to live primarily off of Asha’s less-than-modest paycheck of a nurse, and off of Jehan’s temporary gigs, all while he strains himself even more in search of a proper job. They were exceptionally lucky to have found a decent house to raise their family, but even with the luck, this came at a massive cost. Having to dump most of their earnings into mortgage, there still are constant struggles to put food on the table consistently, not to mention the cost of raising and teaching two children. But, more importantly, there is the issue of the country itself.
Jehan and Asha, having lived there for as long as they have, are familiar with and immune to the occasional rudeness from certain strangers, thanks to the brown in their skin. But, despite that, they had hoped to find a sense of home, as time went on. They haven’t in Italy, even with more than twenty years having passed. Their every visit back home only leaves him yearning for his sense of place back; a sense he has missed dearly since his schooling days.
If only things were so simple, so that he could pack everything up and come back home to Sri Lanka, he wouldn’t hesitate.
He looks around where he is now, and envies Sahan. He has everything he needs, and a lot more besides. He doesn’t live paycheck-to-paycheck. He has a dream of a house for himself, and has little-to-no financial concerns with raising his children. More than that, he lives amongst people of his own, and in the land of his own. He lives a life here that Jehan would consider farcically improbable for him in Italy.
To hear him ask if it is better in Italy that it is here, is miserable. He wishes none of what he and Asha go through, on anyone, and certainly not on the family of his closest friend. For that reason, Jehan opts to speak his mind in response to Sahan and Ayomi.
Ayomi listens, as Jehan rants on about how terrible it all is in Italy.
“It’s so expensive to live there, if you don’t have a decent job, you’re done for.”
“It’s not like it is here, there’s a lot of costs there that we don’t even have to think about here.”
“We have to work ourselves off just to pay for the house.”
“The people there aren’t that nice either.”
“For us, there’s nowhere better than Sri Lanka to live in.”
Asha sits beside him, nodding her head constantly, in approval.
Ayomi tries to hide in her expressions, her growing disgust for the two of them.
What is it about people finding fortune abroad that makes them immune to help others back home to do the same? Perhaps their time elsewhere has erased from their minds the struggles of Sri Lanka.
Such tales of pseudo-failure, however, aren’t a novelty to Ayomi and Sahan. It seems to be a recurring theme amongst returnees from overseas, to imply hardship in their descriptions.
“Must be hard, to share the successes they found.” Ayomi thinks, as Jehan starts on how the Italian economy is heading downhill.
She watches her husband nod in agreement with Jehan, almost as if nothing is wrong with Sri Lanka’s economy.
She sees the irony in everything the de Zoysas have been saying. If there is no place to live in like Sri Lanka, why then, does Jehan watch every football game in Europe, but misses every cricket match Sri Lanka plays? Why then, did they name their children Mario and Angelo, both Italian names, when generations of their family have been Sinhalese? Why then, did they complain about the fact that people here drive on the left? They are Italians through and through, even though they wouldn’t admit it.
Why then, do they now throw shade at the country they embraced so deeply?
Ayomi knows better than to trust anyone outside the constraints of home, but the least the de Zoysas could do to get their closest friends out of the misery of where they were, is to show positivity about them trying to leave. The fact that they did the very opposite, Ayomi thinks, speaks volume, not just on the actual closeness of the friendship they all shared, but also on the stupidity of her husband for still holding Jehan in such high regard.
Ayomi looks over at her daughter, and wonders if she understands. This, after all, will affect her a lot more than it will her mother.
Subtlety is, at this point, thrown out the window, as Amaya has been staring at Angelo for quite some time.
She has never seen eyes like his before; such a light shade of brown is very unfamiliar to her. His shyness stands out again. It, to her, hints at a gentle personality, which she finds more enticing than his not-too-shabby physique.
She wonders what her friends would think of him. She wouldn’t disagree with them on their obvious comments of flattery on his looks. She, however, would keep to herself on this.
Every time Angelo looks back at her, she looks away, almost as if his shyness is contagious. She hopes he didn’t notice too much of her gawking.
“Amaya, can you show Mario and Angelo the upstairs? Maybe y’all can find something to watch together,” her mother says at this point, not meaning to waffle.
She knows what this means; the bottles of whisky and the cans of beer open downstairs.
She has always failed to grasp why her parents want children out of sight when they drink. It’s not as if kids would be grabbing bottles of alcohol and chugging them. It is also not as if it was a secret, that her parents drank, which has known since she was ten. Perhaps it is because of how conversation changes under the influence. As ever, though, she knows not to complain. She is more concerned about how she socializes with Angelo in the next hour or so.
As the four children stand up to leave the adults to it, Amaya’s eyes meet Angelo’s. They smile.
Jehan watches his friend go over to the dining room, and take out a large brown paper bag from one of the higher cupboards above the countertop. He is come over by a strange sense of nostalgia, as he is taken back decades, to when Sahan would bring a scruffier looking brown paper bag to their tiny apartment in Colombo, and take out a half-bottle of arrack or a few cans of beer, just before dinner. He hopes today will be a bit of an improvement since then. He is eager to let a few of his brain cells turn off, just as Sahan is, he is sure.
From the bag, Sahan takes out a bottle of Double Black.
Jehan feels a lump building in his throat.
Everything he’d bought for the Kothalawalas is worth less than half what that single bottle is worth.
Now, as his friend pours him the first shot of the bottle, he feels, more than embarrassed, envious; envious about how Sahan drives a top-of-the-line Mercedes when he drives a VW hatchback; envious about how the living room he’s sat in is probably bigger than his entire house; envious about how Sahan casually opens bottles of Double Black, when all he was able to gift was a cheap whisky.
More than anything, though, what troubles him is that he knows how highly Sahan thinks of him.
Since young, Jehan had assumed himself to be the successful one of the two. Even though it wasn’t mutually understood, Sahan assumed this too, as he still does.
The deeper Jehan is driven into Sahan’s current life of excess, the deeper he is sent into his insecurities of failure.
This ‘holiday’ to Sri Lanka isn’t one he can realistically afford. The sole reason for this trip was to look into Asha’s parents, both of whom are now physically helpless. The couple had been financially and logistically held back from properly taking care of her parents, up until now, when the realities of life are at play. Jehan has now spent money he does not have on countless medical bills, ever since arriving.
He chooses not to make all this aware to his friend, upon fear of judgement for them having neglected two dying parents. He has already had more than his fair share of embarrassment.
He wishes he could say he would have gifted a better bottle if not for the circumstances, but he doubts this too, deep down.
He downs his first shot of whisky, neat.
About five hundred milliliters in, the ice is entirely broken. The four voices get louder, and the laughter becomes more frequent. The conversations shift to accounts of childhood mischief by the two boys, reminiscences of schoolteachers and their stories, and the reliving of juvenile love.
The latter is one that Asha particularly enjoys discussing, not merely because of how ideal her romance was with Jehan, but also in this particular case, because a love marriage is one luxury that Ayomi and Sahan were not afforded.
“Jehan, do you remember the first day we met? You were sitting next to Sahan in Physics Class…”
“Sahan would always third-wheel us whenever we went out, do you remember, Jehan?”
“We knew the moment we landed in Italy together that we were going to marry. Remember those days, Jehan?” Asha declares, always with a laugh, but also with a touch of egotistical pride. She will show off whatever she can, she decides.
Despite the arranged marriage, Sahan and Ayomi have always respected each other and learnt to love each other with time. Asha still chooses to feel superior, despite knowing this.
Asha notices, a while later, that both the men are beyond simply tipsy. It is only then that she remembers the actual reason they visited the Kothalawalas.
Ayomi is the Principal of the leading Girls’ School in Colombo, and therefore, the Principal of the leading Girls’ School in Sri Lanka. Asha, having lived away for as long as she has, can’t fathom the viability of a Girls’ School, despite learning from one herself. However, she couldn’t say no when a friend of hers asked her to make an arrangement for her daughter to be admitted to the school, upon finding out that the Principal is close with Asha.
Her friend also wanted it to be made excessively clear that large ‘donations’ can be made in return.
Now, with the husbands unlikely to pay attention, she sees the best time to bring this up.
Ayomi listens, as her husband’s best friend’s wife make claims and requests she isn’t unfamiliar with.
She is one of the most powerful women in Sri Lankan education, even though she tells this to herself far too seldom. She has, several times in her career, been offered sums of money that make Asha’s proposal look trivial.
She also holds her former bribers at a slightly higher regard than she holds Asha, looking back at the day’s happenings. Ideally, she would not be able to help herself in sympathizing with parents that come offering half of their life savings, to provide their daughter with the best education there is. With Asha, however, justifying her decision seems much easier.
In her decade-long tenure in her field, the thought of accepting a bribe has not remotely crossed her mind. She could possibly have been the breadwinner in the family, if she did. What stops her is the fact that education is wholly different to politics. In education, neither child knows their future is determined by illegal means; the child born into rich that gets bribed in, and the unfortunate child that gets bribed out.
Ayomi, quite tipsy herself, has to tell this to herself now, when commonsense would remind her ordinarily.
Beyond this, though, her anger towards Asha and Jehan only grows. The urge grows for her to call them out on everything she has seen of them, in one uncontrolled fit of alcohol-fueled madness.
That is when her husband glances at her in a way she’s accustomed to. “Hold yourself in”.
Sahan is still within sanity after all, and fortunately, so is she.
“I’ll look into it, Asha. I’ll get back to you,” Ayomi hears herself say.
She wishes she were a politician, and not a Principal.
Angelo finds himself watching a barely funny sitcom, with his brother and the Kothalawala children. They are sat around a massive screen, on sofas that are exceedingly comfortable. The two other boys couldn’t care less about the show, and are deep in conversation.
Angelo looks over at Amaya, who seems to be enjoying it far more than he is. He tries not to noticeably stare at Amaya, and the way she’s smiling. Her smile is as radiant as it is wide. The way her eyes almost disappear as her smile makes her squint, only adds to the allure of her expression.
Angelo tries to pay attention to what’s on the screen, purely for decency’s sake.
During his preoccupation, he fails to spot his brother and his new friend run off elsewhere.
Now alone with Amaya, Angelo finds himself in an awkward position where conversation is inevitable. He constantly shares glances back and forth between his phone and the television. The palpable uneasiness he is in, denies him the slightest of glances in Amaya’s direction.
It is only when Amaya says, “Let’s turn this off, no? You don’t seem to be interested,” does Angelo look over at Amaya. She does not seem disappointed or annoyed, but has a faint smile on her face.
“No no, it’s alright. I like this, says Angelo, trying to tuck away his lack of interest as much as he can.
“Come on Angelo, you clearly don’t,” Amaya replies, following a chuckle.
Conceding to the cat out of the bag, Angelo shyly admits, “Yeah, well, these aren’t really my type. I just didn’t want to tell you.”
“Why?”
“You seemed to be enjoying it, and I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“How do you know I was enjoying it?”
Angelo and Amaya look over at each other, as Angelo notices that her smile has faded. He is suddenly overcome with a strong sense of humiliation. Embarrassing himself is the very last thing he wanted to do in front of her. He looks down instantly, the potential thoughts of Amaya rushing through his head.
“She must think I’m a creep. Why the hell can’t I keep my mouth shut?”
“I should say sorry.’’
As he is about to look up, to blurt out an apology, he hears Amaya’s faint giggle. He looks over at her, and sees her looking down as well, her face slightly yet visibly blushed.
Angelo cannot help but smile, because of Amaya, but also because of his own naïve rationale.
He looks down again, his embarrassment now traded for butterflies.
Amaya stands up, and takes a seat closer to Angelo.
“Tell me about Italy.”
Sahan is disappointed, by the fact that he is the only one still thinking straight out of the four, but more so at the fact that dinner seems more and more unlikely now.
It is already half-past-midnight, the children have already helped themselves to plenty of food, and he fails to see how anyone around the table of empty bottles of alcohol would be enthusiastic about dinner.
He imagines how disappointed his wife would be the next morning, after her hangover.
That, however, is the least of his concerns now, as he sees Jehan chatting with the two ladies, missing syllables left, right and center.
Trying to sound nonchalant, Sahan asks, “How will y’all get back home now?”
Jehan looks at his watch, and exclaims, “Gosh, its 12.30! We’ll have to leave now.”
“How, though?”
“By car. That’s how we got here,” Jehan says as he tries his best to stand up, as if Sahan hadn’t seen them get there by car.
“Don’t you dare try and drive out of here like that. I’ll call my driver.”
Jehan seems taken aback by this. Sahan is unsure whether this is because he has a driver standby, which is far from conventional, or whether it is because Jehan took offense at him being called out for his lack of sense.
“I’m alright Sahan, I can drive,” Jehan says, still showing no signs of being able to.
Sahan ignores him and makes the call regardless. He is within enough of his senses to realize that the lives of four people, two children included, cannot be held responsible by someone who can barely stand up, let alone drive. Asha cannot drive, and even if she could, she would not have been a lot better than her husband, as she is.
Sahan sympathizes with the poor driver from whom he probably robbed a good night’s sleep.
He takes the empty bottles and cans to the kitchen. When he returns, he sees Jehan slumped on the couch. He looks upset, with an undertone of annoyance.
Sahan wonders how he has wronged the de Zoysas, for Jehan to seem so displeased. Then, for an instant, he doubts everything he ever thought of his dearest friend. He has done nothing do deserve such ingratitude.
He dismisses this thought as instantly as it came. The Jehan he admires in such high regard, would never. Perhaps he is merely drunk, and there is nothing more to it.
Off the corner of his eye, Sahan sees Asha lean into Jehan, and whisper something into his ear. Her expression is stern.
Jehan then gets up, and walks towards him the best he can, a smile plastered on his face.
“We’d better get going, Sahan.”
Amaya can scarcely believe herself. She has been talking with Angelo for almost two hours.
As outgoing as she is, she doesn’t recall the last time she talked so vividly with a single person. What surprises her even more is how Angelo’s introversion seemed to cease entirely.
She also recalls, amidst their long and varying conversations, a significant exchange of compliments, which she attributes to being slightly flirtatious. She is entirely unfamiliar with the concept, but is not opposed to it. This is partly because of how the occurrence of this was much more respectful and comforting than she expected. However, it is also partly because of Angelo’s undeniable charm.
Mid-conversation, Angelo’s father, visibly under-the-influence, stumbles upstairs. “Angelo, we’ll have to leave now. Go and get your brother. Uncle Sahan has called us a driver, it seems.”
As he goes back down, an unforeseen sense of heavy-heartedness fills Amaya. She would have kept going for hours if she could. She is sure Angelo feels the same.
She is also puzzled as to whether or not Jehan seems slightly irritated, under his intoxicated face.
“This was really fun, Amaya. You’re a great person to hang around with, if I haven’t made that clear already,” Angelo says before his textbook shy smile.
“I could say the same.”
“If you come back, will you remember to drop by?”
“I’m sure I won’t forget,” Angelo says, with a smile so sweet that Amaya finds herself reddening, not for the first time.
She walks off into her room, in as natural of a way as she can, as Angelo goes off to find his brother.
In her room, Amaya contemplates where to go from here. Doubts of all sorts cloud her mind, disheartening her further.
Whether she will ever see Angelo again or not, she doesn’t know, but she highly doubts she will. In any case, she doubts that Angelo ever meant to sound flirtatious with her. There is no conceivable way that a person such as Angelo can be single. In the impossibly slim chance that he is, she tells herself that a short-haired Sri Lankan girl wearing glasses will be out of the question.
“He’ll wake up tomorrow, and he’ll have forgotten most of this,” Amaya thinks to herself.
She convinces herself to do the same.
She hears a knock on the door. “Amaya, they’re leaving. Come and say goodbye,” she hears her mother say. She can hear the alcohol.
“I’m not feeling well. I think I’ll go to sleep.”
She hates lying to her mother, but her mother would understand if she knew.
As she walks over to her bed to put her grieves to sleep, Amaya sees herself in the massive mahogany mirror in her room. The blush on her face continues to be apparent.
She takes three deep breaths.
She curses at herself for whatever is about to happen, and rushes out her room, to give Angelo her number.
As she steps out, she sees Angelo rushing up the stairs.
