Colpetty People , livre ebook

Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd. - Ashok Ferry

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75 pages

English

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In this extraordinary debut, Ashok Ferry chronicles, in a gently probing voice, the journeys of characters seeking something beyond the barriers of nations and generations. His tales of social-climbing Sri Lankans, of the pathos of immigration, of rich people with poor taste, of icecream karma, of innocent love, eternity, and more take us to Colombo's nouveau riche, hoity-toity returnees, ladies with buttery skin and square fingernails, old-fashioned aristocrats, and the poor mortals trapped between them. Ferry's stories comprise characters that are 'serious and fine and upstanding, and infinitely dull', but also others like young John-John, who loses his childhood somewhere 'high up in the air between Asmara and Rome'; the maid, Agnes of God whose mango-sucking teeth 'fly out at you like bats out of the mouth of a cave'; Ashoka, the immigrant who embodies his Sri Lankan identity only on the bus-ride between home and work; and Professor Jayaweera who finds sterile freedoms caged in the 'unbending, straight lines of Western Justice'. Absurd, sad, scathing and generous, but mostly wickedly funny, Colpetty People presents modern Sri Lankans as they navigate worlds between Ceylon and the West.

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Publié par	Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
Date de parution	30 novembre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184003659
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0480€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Published by Random House India in 2012
Copyright Ashok Ferrey 2009
Random House Publishers India Private Limited Windsor IT Park, 7th Floor, Tower-B A-1, Sector-125, Noida-201301, U.P.
Random House Group Limited 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road London SW1V 2SA United Kingdom
All characters and situations in this publication are fictitious. There is no intended resemblance to anyone, living or dead.
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author s and publisher s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
EPUB ISBN 9788184003659
Contents
The Perfect House
O Signore Non Sono Degno
The Night Bus to Clapham
Jiggy
Oudenarde and Malplaquet, Ramillies and Blenheim
Feng Shui
A Few Days After Eleven
Ice Cream Karma
Agnes of God
The Only Shortcoming
The Knights of Saint Gregory
Colpetty People
Tuscany
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
The Window Seat
Love
Pack Up the Moon
Eternity
The Perfect House
I had always wanted to build the perfect house. For years I had looked at other people s, surreptitiously, because as you know, houses don t like to be stared at, whatever their owners might think. It had to be small, it had to be in the city-not for me those dreaming palaces tucked away in the golden countryside-that too was a beautiful dream-but it was not my dream. I only knew that my house had to have a window on either side of the entrance, widely spaced like the eyes of a beautiful woman, so that you would be able to look straight through from the front to the back. That was all. I need hardly add that I had never built a house before.
Well, it all happened, and it took longer and was more painful than childbirth. (I can hear the wife snorting in the kitchen.) Of course once I had built it, I couldn t afford to live in it, the interest payments on the loan being so high. So I tried to give it out on rent, and then nobody wanted to rent it either. Trouble was, you see, it didn t look like a house. Some people said it looked like a church; other people said it looked like a casino. It had three floors.
How do you manage to get to the bedrooms? they asked.
With the agility of a mountain goat, I replied.
A famously budding restaurateur wanted it, to start a swine-dining establishment. I must have it, he said, just bear with me till I give notice at my present place. That was eleven years ago, and I am still waiting, Henry.
Then along came Ulla, the answer to all my prayers. She arrived in an ancient silver Bentley, tall and blonde and very beautiful (Ulla, not the Bentley). I wondered idly how the house would take to her. Ulla was a big girl-you looked at her and you thought Wagner, the Ring Cycle , and all those flaxen maidens rushing back and forth across the stage wearing golden horns, shrieking and bellowing.
Why is it, she asked, that every house in Colombo has its garage opening into the sitting room?
I laughed loudly because mine didn t, the garage being tucked away in the basement.
I like it, she bellowed, I ll take it.

Now the house is built in a cunning way, to look much larger than it actually is. You have to be very clever about what you put in it. Once Ulla entered the sitting room there was room for little else, so my heart sank when all this curly-wurly repro furniture started to arrive.
Mine not to reason why, I thought sadly. It s as if you ve just given away your beautiful daughter at the altar to a man whom you discover too late wears gold chains round his neck and lets the nail on his little finger grow long.
I left her to it and, really, the first year was fine because Ulla had paid the year s rent in advance on signing the lease. How little I knew then about the gentle art of landlordism in Sri Lanka: Ulla had two teenage daughters, Helga and Hannah-not half as lovely as the mother-and two servants, an old boy called Odiris, and a halfwit called Thomas, who had fallen from a coconut tree when he was young and was a bit desiccated as a result.
When the second year s rent was due, I gave it a week out of tact, and another out of delicacy. Then I went round.
Odiris was standing at the basement entrance, smoking a vile local cheroot. Thomas was with him, looking, well, vacant.
Hamu ne, said Thomas. My lady isn t in. Odiris said nothing, but pointed upwards silently with the smoking cheroot-for this little gesture I have loved him like a brother ever since. Hamu was obviously in, but not at home to the likes of me.
I went in and sat down on a satinwood repro, directly under what I knew was Ulla s bedroom. Now I built this house from the odds and sods they were throwing out when they demolished the old U.N.P. headquarters at Sri Kotha. The recycled teak floors I had installed upstairs were a dead giveaway. A creak here, a creak there-I could imagine Ulla gliding about up there, noiselessly as she fondly imagined. I dug myself in and read the Island paper from cover to cover, all three pages of it. Then I had a brainwave.
Tell Hamu I ll be back another day, I shouted from the veranda to the two domestics. I slammed the door shut, and silently sat down again. Five minutes passed. Then an almighty bellow:
Thomas! Has he gone yet? Ulla was halfway down the double-return staircase before she noticed me, sitting there quietly, like a mouse among its droppings.
Ashok, she said, switching on a smile like a long-life bulb, you ve caught me at a bad time, you naughty boy! Why didn t you call before you came? (Because you would definitely have made sure you were out then.)
I don t have anything for you at the moment, but why don t you try me next week? (Yes dear, that too, but what about my rent?)
I ll come on Tuesday, I replied.
On Tuesday she came downstairs with a box.
No rent, I m afraid, but this is a present from me to you. It was a puppy, and we named him Pooch. Life is such a bitch.
Another week went by and nothing happened. You may ask why I didn t send round a thundering letter of demand through a lawyer. The simple answer is that Sri Lankan lawyers are not what they are meant to be and, in a second, Ulla would have had the demanding lawyer eating out of her hand, or on her lap, or both, and my case would have been out the window.
Let s invite her to the little fellow s birthday party, suggested the wife. (She can be quite clever at times, the little homemaker.)
Now these Sri Lankan parties are not your Western style crisp-and-twiglet affairs. There are jugglers and magic shows and pony rides. And that s just for the adults.
Ulla made a big entrance in a small skirt, and immediately gathered together a following of young fathers. They trailed her round and round the garden hoping she would reveal a little of her German magic. Really, I needn t have bothered with the ponies.
A couple of hours later, when the young fathers were beginning to thin out, I tracked Ulla down to a stone bench in the garden.
These are very good, she said, knocking back an arrack and passion fruit cocktail. This is my fourth.
Ulla, I began.
I know what you re going to say, she interrupted, fishing about absently in a large tapestry bag. She pulled out a brown envelope. I didn t get your boy a birthday present because I knew you d prefer this.
There was ten thousand in the envelope, a long way short of the rent.
Ashok, Ashok, if only you knew how difficult life is for me She crossed and recrossed her legs to show just how difficult. I have to find dowries for Hanna and Helga
Dowries! I thought to myself, these amazing white women, they come out to live in Sri Lanka and become more Sri Lankan than us natives. They treat us like shit, and god how we love it! It s a sort of new age colonialism, but with very willing subjects. I took the money humbly, gratefully, thankfully. I would have doffed my cap if I d had one.

In the course of the year I must have gone to the house at least twenty times, coming away each time with two thousand here, three thousand there. Once when I arrived she was defrosting her fridge, passing out stuff to Helga and Hanna.
You have no idea how hard it is for us business people, she said sternly. A selection of hams and salamis was beginning to emerge from the fridge.
Things are so depressed. Smoked pork knuckles from Keells.
I don t know how I m going to manage if things get any worse. Bottles and bottles of chilled Liebfraumilch.
You should have got her to pay you in knuckles, said the wife wistfully when I came home empty-handed.
Worst of all, the house, my beloved house, was beginning to show the strain. Two beautiful women can never really coexist satisfactorily under one roof without one or the other giving way-there was damp in the basement and white ants in the walls. Thomas and Odiris were never allowed upstairs unless Ulla was present-did she have money stashed under the mattress?-and she hardly ever was. As a result, the cleaning and tidying hardly ever got done, the doors and windows were never opened. Any clothes to be washed were thrown casually over the balustrade from upstairs to the sitting room below. I know, because I was at the receiving end once. (Don t ask.)
Another time when I went to the house I was greeted by the words, Hamu ispiritale . My lady s in hospital.
Ulla was ensconced in a double-aspect corner room at the New World Hospital, suffering from an allergy. You have to be an expert string-puller to get one of those rooms, which are usually booked months in advance and cost as much per day as a labourer gets in a month. She was attended by a coterie of minions-Miss Balthazar who operate