NAKED, BUT NOT ASHAMED IN WASHINGTON

by ECB Wijeyesinghe

When the sun comes over the mountains, Washington DC in August can be as hot as – well, as Colombo in April.

For one thing, it is a good change from the misery of a London summer when it sizzles and drizzles alternately. In the capital of the US the moods of the weather, like the people, are more predictable. But that is of little help when you arrive in your hotel. hot and tired, in a heavy all-purpose tweed suit, drenched with perspiration, and without the means of getting into a change of clothing. For the fact of the matter is that my suitcase was missing when I reached Washington.

It had been over carried by the domestic airline which brought me from New York, and it was now probably resting placidly in some West coast airport waiting to be claimed by an owner who was not there. Though I surrendered myself to the thought that everything happens for the best in this best of all possible worlds, I could neither eat nor sleep. The lunch hour passed. It was time for the siesta, but I have still to meet the man who can have a siesta on an empty stomach.

The cup of tea brought nostalgic memories of home and the humidity etched the picture sharper in my mind. The dinner hour approached on leaden feet. I am glad there was no gong. It would have sounded like a death-knell. And so to bed. I, without anything on. I wished I could sleep and thereby end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks caused by a missing suitcase.

Hamlet must have been a happy man compared with Wijeyesinghe in Washington. My bedroom in the hotel was not air-conditioned. There was only a blower which pumped in hot air from outside It was one of those wheezy contraptions that the Lionel Wendt Theatre uses occasionally to keep VIP’s cool and to prevent them from leaving the hall after the first Act of a play. Finally, I had an idea. I thought that, as the witching hour of midnight was approaching, I might play my last card. I prayed:

De profundis ad to clamavi Domine,

Domine, exaudi orationem meam.

Having muttered this invocation which of course means : “Out of the depths have I cried to Thee, 0 Lord. Lord, hear my prayer.” I turned over on my side and tried to snatch some sleep. The clock struck twelve and almost immediately afterwards there was a loud knock on my bedroom door. For a moment I did not answer. I hesitated, because opening the door to investigate meant getting out of bed. And, I had nothing on.

So in the most stentorian voice that I could muster, I shouted, more in fear than in anger, “Who the devil is that?” “Porter sorr.” Said an equally stentorian voice from the other side of the door. “What do you want?” I said trying to cover my nakedness with a sheet that was not there. “Your suitcase is here,” said an unmistakable Negro voice. I asked him to come in and leave the bag somewhere, anywhere, and quit before he became aware of my predicament.

More than once I thanked him most profoundly, with an air of finality, for the service he had rendered at that time of the night; but the man did not budge. I had hoped that like Old Man River he would just roll along after leaving the suitcase in the room. But he soon revealed his intentions as he approached the foot of my bed.

“Tip, sorr.” He said in a slightly aggressive tone.

Here was a problem that could not be solved by being too puritanical. The night was dark and so was I. The porter was a male and so was I. There was nothing to hide. So, taking one consideration with another I leaped out of bed, rushed to my coat and with the alacrity of a conjuror removed fifty cents from my purse. Using the coat as a sort of shield I approached the porter and placed the coin in his outstretched palm.

With a sigh of relief I muttered another brief prayer of thanks as the door closed behind the porter. Before I got into my sarong and inspected my belongings, I switched the light on and had a good look at myself in the mirror. I thought I had acquired a couple of wrinkles which I had not noticed earlier. The next morning, clothed and in my right mind, I thought my first duty as a loyal citizen of Lanka was to pay my respects to our Ambassador, who happened to be Mr R.S.S.Gunawardene. (He was knighted later.)

MEETING RSS

R.S.S. is a genial man, full of savoir faire, and according to people who know something about these things, he is said to ooze with sex appeal. One or two ladies of my acquaintance have confirmed this. The Ambassador promptly invited me to lunch and over a simple rice and curry meal, which included a hot sambol a mellun and papadam, he held forth for two hours.

R.S.S. is a delightful talker, full of strange stories about people, especially politicians. Having been a schoolmate of S.W. R. D.Bandaranaike, Herbert Hulugalle, Arthur Ranasinha, R.S.de Saram, E.B.Wikramanayake and other celebrities, he talked incessantly about their strengths and their weaknesses, especially their weaknesses, which of course were much more interesting than their virtues.

At the end of this entertaining luncheon dialogue, I tried to recall my contribution to the conversation and found that I could write what I had said on a picture postcard. My other distinguished Ceylonese host was Mr. William Tennekoon, the bashful banker. He was quite a contrast to the ebullient R.S.S. In his own quiet way he could be pungent in his assessment of men and matters, and his charming wife sometimes broke into a smile of reproof whenever she thought he was exceeding the bounds of discretion.

SCOTCH AMERICAN

During the first few days I spent in Washington DC. I was introduced to an American couple who had spent many happy days in Ceylon. The husband had served in the Navy during the War and he had no doubt that Trincomalee had the finest harbour East of Suez. After the second cocktail, he told me that he had no doubt that the Ceylonese were the most lovable people in the East. After the third cocktail, he confessed that the women of Ceylon were the most beautiful in the world, a statement which brought a faint blush of jealousy to the cheeks of his good-looking wife who was sipping a sherry, and thought that the time had come to sit to dinner.

Nobody knows what confessions he would have made after the fourth cocktail. His name I believe, was MacMillan, and of Scottish extraction. Even his wife called him Mac. He had a big fund of yarns, mostly about Scotsmen. One of his best he said, was also the favourite of President Taft, whose ancestors came from England.

A Scotsman, he told me, went out one bitterly cold day on the golf links, did the whole 18 holes, tramped back and at the end of it all gave his caddy a miserable tip of three pence.

The caddy looked hard at the man and said:

“Do you know I can tell your fortune by these three pennies?”

The man shook his head, as if he entertained a doubt, and the caddy stared at the first penny.

“This first penny,” he said, “tells me that you are a Scotsman. Right?”

“Yes.”

“The second tells me that you are a bachelor.”

“Yes.”

“And the third tells me that your father was a bachelor too.”

With that Mac gulped down his final liqueur, roaring with laughter, and brought the curtain down on a most enjoyable evening.

(From The Good At Their Best first published in 1979)