Short story

by Ruki Attygalle

“But it’s not the usual sort of coffee morning” my friend protested at my refusal to accept an invitation she was trying to force on me to a coffee morning organized by one her very up-market socialite friends. “It is actually a sale of hand printed batiks with coffee and cakes thrown in. That is all! The artists will be there as well.”

My ears pricked up at the mention of the word ‘batik’, as I was, at the time, going through a ‘batik phase’, and was intensely interested in anything to do with this particular craft. In the early 1960s, batik had not yet reached its zenith of popularity and was practiced only by a few artists.

“But I don’t really know these fashionable friends of yours!,” I protested, “and I will probably feel like a fish out of water.”

My protest however was feeble and fast becoming rhetoric, as had already decided that seeing the batiks and being able to meet the artists, was worth putting up with the boredom of making small talk with a bevy of fashionably dressed women, with their expensive hair-dos.

“You don’t need to know everyone there. I don’t. Anyway, I’ll there too so you won’t be alone,” consoled Shirani.

Having persuaded me to go with her, Shirani appeared to have another hurdle to overcome. From the way she kept humming and hawing on the phone I guessed what her problem was. As a tactful person she was trying to find the most sensitive way to ask me to be suitably dressed for the occasion.

“Okay! ” I said wanting to put her out of her misery. “A matching sari blouse, ah?”

Shirani laughed with relief. “Yes! Definitely! Not a black one please unless it matches the sari. You know, I can never understand you. It is not as if you don’t have the matching blouses! You simply can’t find them! That really is not good enough!”

Shirani had a point. I did have a tendency to wear black with almost any sari on the basis that black did not clash with other colours. Black was the easiest to pick out from the tangled mass of sari blouses of varying colours squashed into my drawer.

That morning I took trouble over my appearance. I carefully picked out a sari and found the matching blouse. And not just that; while rummaging for the jacket, I came across a matching handbag too! A fashionable and slender clutch. “Well,” I thought, “Shirani will be impressed!”

Powdered, lipsticked and perfumed, I was now almost ready to be picked up. Shirani would be here in a few minutes. I took my purse out from my usual handbag, referred to by my friends as my malla, a crudely woven rush bag for carrying groceries, and tried to push my purse into my slim and elegant clutch. It wouldn’t fit.

“Well,” I thought, “I don’t really need cash, do I? If I wanted to buy any batiks, I could pay by cheque. And the cheque book would comfortably fit in.”

I was startled when the telephone rang. “I am awfully sorry,” Shirani panted. “Lucyhamy has dropped a pan of boiling water on her foot and burnt herself. I’m rushing her to hospital. I can’t pick you up. You will have to go on ahead. I’ll meet you there.” She cut off before I could respond. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to ring back immediately to find out the address of the place where the party was being held.

As I didn’t have a car at my disposal, I had to ring for a taxi. I didn’t feel too comfortable going to a party and entering the place by myself, where even the hostess’ face was only a vague impression in my mind, gathered from the fashion page of a newspaper. However, I got into the taxi and sat down carefully arranging the pleats of my sari on to one side to avoid getting them crushed. Preoccupied with planning my strategy as to how best to introduce myself to the hostess and other unknown quantities, I sat waiting for the taxi to start moving.

“We had better get moving,” I said politely, leaning forward. “I’m already late.”

“Where to?” The driver demanded grumpily.

I fumbled in my handbag for the address I had scribbled down in a hurry. I couldn’t find it. It must still be on the telephone table.

“Wait a minute, please,” I said to the taxi driver “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I rushed into the house. The paper with the scrawled address was not on the telephone table. I looked on the floor and searched around the room but couldn’t find it. What on earth could have happened to it? I went to my bedroom and looked on the bed, the dressing table, the window ledge; but no sign of it.

The taxi driver started demonstrating his impatience by tooting his horn. I was getting more and more flustered and as a last resort I pulled open my `malla’ and there it was. Through force If habit I had pushed it into my old handbag.

Feeling rather foolish and apologizing, I got back in the taxi. I could guess from the driver’s stiff posture and sullen profile that he was not amused.

“No. 136, Flower Road, please,” I said more humbly than I had intended. Humility was not really required. After all, I was paying for this ride and would be giving him a tip too! If he was ,impatient that was his problem.

There was some muttering under his breath about people getting into taxis without knowing where they wanted to go. But I simply ignored him.

As he started, he revved up the engine so much that the taxi leaped forward like a horse. He turned into the main road like a maniac.

“Look,” I said sternly, “not so fast. Please slow down.” “I thought you were in a hurry,” he groused.

“Yes,” I said, ignoring his audacity, “But not in that much of hurry.”

He was rather intimidating, but I was determined to be in control.

As we drove at a reasonable speed along Galle Road towards Colpetty I suddenly realized to my absolute horror that I did not have any cash with me to pay the driver. I couldn’t possibly go to the party, introduce myself, and then borrow money to pay the taxi!

Come on. I said to myself. There must be a way out. Think! I commanded myself Think! For heaven’s sake!

I thought. An idea dawned. I would ask the driver to stop at the Colpetty junction where there were a few shops, alleging the need to buy something urgently. I could then run into Marikar Brothers Ltd a shop that had had my family’s custom for generations and always obliged with cashing cheques and I would be back in the taxi with cash in hand within a couple of minutes! Problem solved!

No, it wasn’t. Not by a long shot The driver flatly refused to stop at the junction saying he could not park there. He suggested that he dropped me off at the junction and after I finished my shopping, I could take another taxi to my final destination. Now we were nearing the junction and I had to come out with the bitter truth that I did not have the fare irrespective of where he was going to drop me. I wa searching for the accurate words to indicate my predicament when he pulled up by the curb.

“Four fifty,” he said, prideful turning back his head. (Incredible, but that was the fare from Bambalapitiya to Colpetty in the early sixties).

“The thing is,” I said quite overcome with embarrassment, have not brought my purse. So, I haven’t got the money to pay you. So, you will have to wait a few minutes till I go into t shop here,” I said pointing to Marikar Brothers, “and cash cheque.” I just didn’t have the courage to look him in the face but I could well imagine his expression.

As I opened the door and stepped out, a tirade of foul language flowed from his mouth. I was shocked, for usually taxi drivers are polite and very obliging. This one was a bad-tempered scoundrel all right! But perhaps I had pushed him too far as well! He ranted and raved about grandly dressed women getting into taxis not knowing where they wanted to go and not having money to pay their fare etc.

Just as I closed the car door and stepped on to the payment, a beggar came up to me stretching out his hand and pleaded for money. Sometimes when I am under stress my mind becomes clear, practical and resourceful. With the taxi driver’s voice drumming in my ears, I turned to the beggar and asked him to please lend me some money, and that I would return it with interest. He looked at me uncomprehending.

“Please,” I said, “Have you got four rupees and fifty cents to lend me ?”

There was an abrupt silence from the driver. I looked askance and noticed he was gaping with his mouth half-open, unbelieving. Perhaps seeing me begging from a beggar was not something he would normally have envisaged. Anyhow, I thought, that was his problem and not mine, and carried on my transaction with the beggar. By this time, the beggar had got over his initial amazement and come to grips with the situation. So, when I repeated my question a second time, he responded with what appeared to be, elation.

“Yes, yes, Lady, I can give four rupees and fifty cents.”

However, when I peered into his tin of coins, I realized he did not have the required amount.

“You don’t have enough, do you?” I said feeling sorry for both the beggar and for myself.

“Yes, of course I do,” he said, excitedly undoing a pouch he had made by rolling part of the upper edge of his sarong and tucking it in at his waist. My request perhaps its strangeness had caught him off guard and momentarily he had forgotten his plea of poverty. He unrolled from his pouch a thick wad of currency notes. It was now my turn to be surprised. I am sure there must have been over a thousand rupees in that wad of notes! And a thousand rupees at that time, certainly, was something to write home about!

His thin bony hands shook with excitement as his knotty fingers carefully extracted a five-rupee note from this wad; and handed it direct to the taxi driver. The driver looked even more flabbergasted. He obviously had not yet got over the shock.

The impatient tooting of horns by other cars on the road followed by a loud shout “What the hell are you doing, Yakko, blocking the road like this?” brought the driver to his senses. He quickly grabbed the note and handed the change to the beggar. I felt awfully guilty and, thoroughly embarrassed at the commotion I was causing. I am sure the taxi driver sighed with relief to be rid of me as he veered the vehicle away from the curb on to the road. I too reciprocated by wishing I would never see him again the rude and grumpy, so and so!

Having got rid of my tormentor, I turned to the beggar to explain to him that I needed to go into the shop in order to repay him. I was quite taken aback by his gait and the expression on his face. I had seen this particular beggar many times as he always hung around the Colpetty market where I normally did my shopping. He always looked miserable and had a guarded and cunning expression in his eyes. He usually grovelled, ready to demonstrate his humility by bending in two and three. But now he stood straight, his head held high. I could have sworn that he had grown taller! His face beamed; his eyes glowed with happiness. He looked at me with what appeared to be yes, affection!

I returned the money, together with a sizable ‘reward’ for ‘having come to my aid at a time when I desperately needed help. He took it with a smile; and with dignity; and a simple “Thank you” no grovelling, no bowing and scraping. He did not even look to see how much I had given him. He was not interested in its monetary value.

What I had given him was much more, very much more than what money could buy. To him, the entire transaction between us was like an exchange of gifts between two friends. Momentarily, he had been the benefactor and I the beggar. And I? I was so glad. Grateful too.