Hannah Tennant-Moore - Wreck and Order

I lift up the covers from the foot of the bed where Rajith is burrowed and — peekaboo! He laughs. Suriya turns on the shower. I feel agreeably new to myself — motherly, accommodating — as the minutes pass and Suriya remains alone in a room with a closed door, naked, a continuous stream of hot water raining down on her, steam to draw out her private thoughts, enough time and space for the thoughts to exist without scrutiny. A few Sinhala words interrupt the white noise of falling water — soft words caressing and dissolving. Or so I want them to be. Words like rose petals melting on Suriya’s eyelids. I feel so good.

—

Rajith chatters away on the walk to the hotel restaurant but grows shy once we step inside the enormous room. Plastic gargoyles menace the diners from its four high corners. Rajith reaches his arms up to Suriya, but she refuses to carry him, takes his hand instead. I lead us to a table near the buffet. Suriya stands behind her chair, staring at the place settings, stricken. One large plate surrounded by cutlery: two knives, two forks, two spoons. “El,” she whispers. “I cannot eat with a fork.”

“Why would you? We’re in your country.” But as we fill our plates at the buffet, I notice that even the Sri Lankan families — men in ties, children in bejeweled salwar kameez and kurtas — are eating with utensils. So what. Who cares what people think? We are here to have fun, to be free. I speak these words aloud as we settle back at our table, my voice sharp and clear, as if I’m addressing the whole room, making a statement. About what? For whose benefit?

Rajith digs in first, loudly crumbling his papadum over his goat curry, mashing it into balls and shoveling the balls down. Suriya pours us water from the pitcher at the table with absurd care, back erect, forehead clenched. The water falls in a frustrated trickle. I must eat with my hands to put her at ease. But my fingers remain poised over my plate, refusing to dirty themselves in this room of Western eaters. I can’t help myself, I’m hungry, this meal will probably cost me more than all of my previous Sri Lankan meals combined. I pick up my fork and mix the aubergine and fried bitter gourd with moist, spicy sambhol. Yum. Suriya takes the large spoon, wipes it across her plate until it’s full, opens her mouth so wide I can see her tonsils, ducks her chin down to her plate, closes her mouth around the spoon, swallows with the utensil still in her mouth. Pitying, embarrassed, made thoughtless by discomfort, I take the forkful of food I’m about to consume and dump it into my other hand, then pop the handful into my mouth. Suriya watches my hands and mouth in astonishment. With a small sigh, she picks up her own fork and also begins using it as a miniature shovel. My movements grow mechanical and frenzied. Fork, hand, mouth, repeat, fork, hand, mouth, repeat. Suriya’s forehead is dotted with sweat as she tries to keep up with me. I had wanted so much to give her a decadent, relaxing meal. Now I just want this awkwardness to end as quickly as possible.

Rajith watches us and laughs. He begins using all three pieces of cutlery at once, dumping food from his spoon onto his knife and catapulting the knife toward his open mouth, spraying coconut milk and goat bits. A waiter approaches to ask if we’d like anything to drink. I have a fork in one hand and a palmful of curry in the other. Food coats my chin. “I would love a Coca-Cola, thank you.” I hate soda and have never ordered a Coke in my life. “Suriya? Rajith?” I ask brightly. “Yes, please,” Suriya says, rice kernels coating her large, purple lips, green sauce dripping from her chin.

“Coca-Colas for everyone,” I say.

“Yes, madam.” The waiter — teenaged, pimpled, self-consciously tall — hurries away. When he returns with our Cokes on a plastic tray covered in flaking gold paint, Suriya sits up straighter and enacts my ridiculous amalgam of eating techniques with painstaking care.

A long, unabashed laugh enlivens the dining room. Several waiters are crowded in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at our table. One is doubled over with loud guffaws. Another shushes him, just as loudly, staring and grinning. Rajith is beside himself with delight, plowing his food into a mound at the center of his plate, mashing it down with a thwack of his spoon, giggling, shoving handfuls into his mouth, destroying and rebuilding his mountain of fancy curries. The waiter stands erect over us. Would madam care for anything more?

I would not, thank you, please just charge the meal to my room. Suriya’s face is tight and red, as if she’s not breathing. She commands Rajith harshly and wipes her face with her napkin. “Why are we eating in this manner, El?” she asks.

“Because I got confused.” I’m not used to being the madam, to charging meals to my room. I wouldn’t know how to behave even if I were alone. “I’m so sorry.”

We don’t speak on the walk back to our room. Suriya scrubs Rajith’s face with a washcloth, his eyes falling shut then snapping open. She carries him to bed and curls up next to him, not even brushing her hair. I want her to sleep with me, her purple pajama pants and loud, slow breaths reassurance that she is okay, still herself in this strange place. “You can sleep alone if you like,” I say. “I’m happy to share with Rajith.”

“No, no, El,” she murmurs. “The bed is good. Comfortable fun for my body.”

I apologize again for the mess I made of dinner.

“Do not worry for that, Akki.” Her voice sinks into the short, sweet pause of sleep.

—

Room service for breakfast the next morning: a large basket whose contents — jam and bread — seem to disappoint Rajith. No matter. The swimming pool will fix that. I offer to lend Suriya a bathing suit but she looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. She does ask shyly if she can wear my running shorts on the bottom, instead of the knee-length pleated skirt she normally swims in. “Wow,” she says to her mostly bare legs in the mirror. “I dress like this in my room sometime but never outside before.” She cups her knees and swings them side to side, examining her thighs from all angles. Legs of such a beautiful shape and color that I have a pang of absurd envy: No one will ever see her legs except her husband.

I have to keep myself from breaking into a run as we approach the pool, whose far end spills over the edge of a cliff overlooking endless hills of tea leaves, lapping at each other, folding in on themselves, bursting out in exuberant summits. The sky is barely blue, barely there at all — emptiness, space. “Oh,” I say. “Wow,” Suriya says. She remembers Rajith and grabs for his hand, lest he propel himself into the rectangle of cool water, made teal by the porcelain tiles. Long, oiled white limbs are sprawled on lounge chairs. A Sri Lankan girl in a ruffled one-piece and goggles is in the pool with her large-bellied father, who is trying to teach her the breath pattern for the crawl stroke. I ask the pool attendant — leaning back in a plastic chair, surveying the sky — for three towels.

Partly to cover my nudity, which feels grotesque beside Suriya’s suggestive modesty, I walk straight to the deep end and dive in, pump my legs and arms through velvety water until I run out of breath. I beckon to Suriya and Rajith. Suriya pulls off Rajith’s T-shirt, speaking excitedly. He hops from foot to foot, belly protruding, eyes big. In a rush that seems like a surge of courage, Suriya pulls off her drawstring pants, exposing the small running shorts beneath. She takes Rajith’s hand and leads him to the pool stairs, pauses on the second step, smiles at the water lapping her calves. The pool attendant marches up on long, fast strides. “You must not swim with a shirt,” he says. “Proper attire, please.”