Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

‘Exactly. Exactly that. We don’t understand the natives and they don’t understand us. We only get on because we become fond of each other and make a great many allowances. And the Sinhalese are quite different from the Tamils. You’d be absolutely amazed at the things they believe in.’

‘I’m very often amazed at the things we believe in,’ replied Daniel. ‘But here comes Rosie. Is Shompi all right, darling?’

‘The room’s a bit steamy,’ said Rosie, settling herself down in her seat.

‘It’s the price you pay for the view,’ said Hugh.

‘The harbour’s twinkling with lights,’ she said.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING at seven, seen off by a lachrymose Ali Bey who waved forlornly after them, they departed for Kandy along the road originally built by the British for the purpose of conquering that inaccessible kingdom, at the request of the Kandians themselves, it appeared. Rosie sat in the front of Hugh’s car, with Esther on the back seat. She spent most of the time waving to her father, who was trailing behind on his Henley, trying to avoid the cloud of road dust being thrown up by the vehicle in front.

They stopped in Belummahara to buy pineapples, and in Kajugama, where they bought cashews to snack on during the journey. Near the beginning of the hill country Esther suddenly started shrieking with delight, and when Rosie turned round, she saw that her daughter was pointing to a troupe of monkeys that was hurtling through the roadside trees. She alerted Hugh, and Hugh slowed down to look, whereupon the monkeys slowed too.

‘They’re racing us,’ said Hugh. ‘You often see that. I like to slow down to make it more sporting. Give them more of a chance. Of course, the moment there’s a break in the trees, they have to give up.’

‘Are there lots of monkeys here?’

‘Millions. Sometimes you get a big male setting up house in your garden. They’re extremely aggressive. You have to hire a monkey man with an even bigger male, and it lives in your garden for a few days until it’s driven off the other one, and then the monkey man comes and fetches the giant one away again. You’ll notice in all the hotel rooms there’s a sign saying “Please don’t feed the monkeys”.’

‘Gracious,’ said Rosie. ‘It makes a change from “Don’t feed the seagulls”, doesn’t it?’

‘Look,’ said Esther, ‘there’s a black cow asleep with a bird on it.’

‘It’s an egret,’ said Hugh over his shoulder. ‘The birdlife here is a wonder.’

‘I like all the smart little dogs,’ said Rosie.

‘Chipper little fellows, aren’t they? We’ll stop by a paddy field later and see if we can spot some water buffalo. And there’s a place where the elephants go down to bathe at the same times every day.’

In Kandy they strolled around the lake, looking at the waterfowl, and then they entered the Temple of the Tooth, and got as near to the Buddha’s tooth as they could. Hugh said, ‘You really must try to see the Perahera. It’s something like sixty elephants, all gorgeously got up. It starts here at the Dalada Maligawa. There’s a great ding-donging as the elephants come in from the villages. Anyway, the biggest elephant of all carries the tooth in a golden dome. He’s well worth seeing, a real giant, and they’ve silver-plated his tusks. They put swathes of white cloth in front of him wherever he goes, so that he doesn’t have to be demeaned by touching the earth. You see all the Kandian chiefs in their costumes, and there are dancers and whip-crackers and gong-bashers and God knows what else, for two weeks solid. I’m always amazed by the elephants. They know exactly what to do, somehow. You get tens of thousands of pilgrims and hawkers, and then on the last day they have a huge fancy-dress party at the Queen’s Hotel. You have to book a room months ahead. By the way, all the jaded old sceptics who have seen the tooth think it isn’t human. The original one disappeared because of a conquest, or something, and reappeared miraculously, so they say. Anyway, what does it matter, really? As long as everyone has fun.’

Hugh took them round the botanical gardens at Peradeniya, with its avenues of wondrously tall trees. Daniel was impressed by the thundering, cascading river that surrounded it. He wondered whether the fish in such a furious torrent had a chance of not being swept out to sea. They settled on a bench, and Hugh told them, ‘These gardens were originally built by a Kandian king in the eighteenth century, and I don’t suppose you’ll find nicer ones anywhere in the world. I’ve certainly never found a nicer place to have a picnic. I like to come here and remind myself that civilisations other than ours have achieved things just as great.’

‘That’s something we all know,’ observed Daniel, ‘but somehow we never seem to digest it.’

‘There’s never been an empire as big as ours,’ said Rosie. ‘I think we’re a good thing. Don’t you?’

‘Well, I would say so,’ said Hugh. ‘I’d rather be under the British than the Belgians, that’s certain, but of course I’m biased. It seems to me that in the end all empires just die of fatigue. I’m not sure that we’re tired yet, but I do think that one day we will be, and we’ll be gone, and all the tea plantations will revert to jungle. We’ll be just be a memory, like the pharaohs, or the Aztecs or the Romans.’

‘Gracious me, do you think so?’ said Rosie.

‘Well, I’ve never heard of a civilisation that’s lasted forever. Have you?’

‘No, I haven’t but … all the same.’

‘There used to be an extraordinary civilisation here,’ said Hugh, ‘and the population must have been hugely bigger. They irrigated an entire region. A lot of the lakes and channels are still there and still working. For some reason we call the lakes “tanks”. Anyway, it’s worth coming here just to see the giant bamboos and rubber trees. And these cabbage palms. Let’s go to the golf club at Nuwara Eliya. Do you play golf?’

‘My Squadron Leader forced me to learn,’ said Daniel. ‘I quite enjoy it, actually. Rosie plays, but I wouldn’t say that she finds it all-consuming.’

‘My father’s a fanatic,’ said Rosie, ‘and my mother’s very good too, without even practising. It’s become our family game, all because Daddy’s Scottish. I like golf, but it does seem to cause a sort of madness in some people, doesn’t it? My father’s a hopeless case. He even practises indoors.’

‘Well, I’ll introduce you to the secretary. And tonight we’ll stay in the Grand Hotel. You’ll think it’s straight out of Sussex, apart from the staff, who are all natives, and all frightful snobs. Very quaint and amusing, really.’

‘It’s starting to rain,’ said Rosie.

‘Rains all the time round here,’ said Hugh cheerfully. ‘It’s like Ireland. And when you’re at your bungalow and it rains, you’ll think you’re in the Highlands of Scotland.’

The next day, towards the end of the afternoon, after three hours travel from Nuwara Eliya, Rosie, Daniel and Esther found themselves at their bungalow at last. Daniel was exhausted by all the motorcycling on difficult switchbacked roads, full of intricate curves and sudden inclines, but was both amazed and grateful that he had suffered no punctures, or major breakdowns, other than having to remove and clean the magneto. Rosie and Esther were still surprised by all the sights they had seen in the villages and little towns through which they had passed. People seemed to live their lives with complete openness, in buildings that had no frontage. They had looked into those impassive dark faces with their darker eyes, and the locals had looked back at their red faces and blue eyes, neither understanding what they were seeing, until Esther waved to them from the back of the car, and they waved shyly back. The little settlements were teeming with hommos sellers, pingo bearers, and roadside vendors sitting with heaps of enormous fruit of which Rosie did not even know the names. Tiny brown children frolicked everywhere.